Madeline

9. The real Marc Paxton

9. The real Marc Paxton

Marc
"What do you mean the fax never reached? She said she would have sent it. Why isn't it here?"

"I don't know sir."

"Well find out!"

Jake walked briskly from my office. He knew better than to show up in here without the information. If Kaitlyn was playing with me there would be hell to pay. After half day of no news I decided to call and find out directly from the source. The source wasn't the one that answered my call though. Something was definitely wrong.

"I assume you're calling to find out why the shares weren't transferred."

"I called to talk to my sister."

"Kaitlyn's sleeping. She's near her due date so she needs all the rest she can get."

"I'd rather not deal with you."

"Well like it or not I'm what you've got. Don't expect those shares ever. There's a clause that says De Luca International cannot land in the hands of a Paxton ever again. Give up, Marc. You'll have to find some other way to best me."

I hung up feeling furious. Kaitlyn promised me those shares. I'll get them one way or the other. My office phone rang again and I grabbed it up with malice. "What?"

"You're as welcoming as ever, Jax."

"What do you want, Safiare?"

"There are plenty things I want, but for now I'll settle with some more time with my son."

"You get him for one week every month. How much more time do you want?"

"I want to move back to New York."

"That's definitely not happening after what you did."

"He's my son, too. You can't keep me from him."

"I'm not keeping him from you. We agreed on a system. You need to stick to it."

"You and your family agreed on a system. I didn't."

"It doesn't matter. You're getting the time agreed upon. There will be no moving back to New York."

"I want to be there for my child's firsts. It's not fair to me."

"You should have thought about that before you did what you did."

"So this is punishment?"

"If that's what you want to think go right ahead."

"If you keep being like this I'll never divorce you."

"Whether we divorce or not it changes nothing for me. I'll have my son either way, but you'll still be stuck in Australia. What do you think will happen when he starts school? You'll be limited to holidays and maybe some birthdays if you're lucky. Let's not pretend like we don't know who has the advantage here. We both know that I do."

I disconnected the call feeling more annoyed than when I answered it. Safiare could do that to a person. It's not that I want to keep her away from her son; it's that I don't want to see her. The further she is away from me, the better. I can't forgive her for what she tried to do to my family, but I couldn't hate her either. She's the mother of my son. That alone gives her leverage over every other woman.

I put Safiare out of my mind for the rest of the day and focused on work. Paxton Corp. was doing okay considering the mess Safiare put us in, but it's nowhere near what it used to be.

The intercom on my desk buzzed. "Mr. Paxton, you have a visitor."

"Who is it?"

"He says his name is Eric Ryan."