Her expression turned surly. “Try harder.”
Zach lowered his gaze to the table and ran a hand through his hair. His mind tumbled over the last year, his memory touched on four, maybe six women. Corinne wasn’t exactly an ordinary name. Zach shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t remember a Corinne.”
Her disbelief turned her expression as dark as she’d turned his mood. “Do you sleep with so many women that you don’t remember their names?”
His patience snapped. “I don’t keep a fuckin’ diary, okay? How long ago was it?”
“Four years.”
He huffed a laugh. “Four years? Do you seriously expect me to remember a hookup from four years ago? Do you remember the name of every man you’ve ever slept with?”
“Yes.” She answered immediately, confidently, and with just enough censure to light his temper.
“Then tell me this—how will you be putting me into that memory bank? As Zach or Ian?”
That took an edge off her self-righteousness. “You wouldn’t just know her from sleeping with her once. You also heard from her a year later, at which time you paid her twenty-five thousand dollars to go away. In my opinion, that gives you twenty-five thousand and one reasons to remember her name.”
He laughed, a caustic, ugly laugh. “No. You’ve still got me mixed up with Ian. If I want someone to leave me alone, I tell them to leave me alone. I’d never pay someone to go away—to say nothing of the fact that I don’t have that kind of money to throw around.”
Tessa’s lips compressed in a look of determination. She reached for the envelope, and another chill washed over Zach.
“I don’t know where you got this idea,” he said, “or what stories people are telling you, but you’ve got the wrong—”
She slapped a piece of paper in front of him.
“What’s that?”
“The payment you’re denying.”
Jesus Christ. He sighed, dropped to the edge of the bench across from her and rested his head in his hand as he scanned the image. It was a cashier’s check made out to Corinne Westerly in the amount of twenty-five thousand dollars. He opened his mouth to tell her this didn’t have anything to do with him, when his gaze scanned across the bottom left-hand corner of the check—and all his words dried up. Zach was named as the remitter. And it had come from a bank where Zach had accounts. His gaze darted to the last four digits on the account number: Nine-one-zero-seven. Those corresponded to one of his accounts.
For the first time, the inkling of personal involvement in whatever Tessa was talking about peeked through. But he shook his head, trying to make sense of it. “This is an account I set up for my agent so he could deposit paychecks that came through while I was traveling. He takes his cut and deposits the balance in this account. I’ve never written checks out of it, and I didn’t get this cashier’s check. I don’t even leave more than a hundred bucks in it.”
“Yet this,” she pointed to the memo line, “is a payment.”
It read: Payment in full.
Zach had a sudden, rabid need to get ahold of Marshall. He sure as shit had some explaining to do.
“I did not pull this check from my account.” He shook his head, utterly baffled. “I don’t know what to tell you. What does this have to do with you, anyway?”
Her annoyed, knowing expression had faded. Now she looked suspicious and a little baffled. “Like I said, she was my best friend. We were friends since we were kids.”
He shook his head, shrugged. “And?”
“You really don’t remember, do you?” She huffed a disgusted sound and sat back in the booth, crossing her arms. “Here’s the short, memory-jolting version. You slept with Corinne. Corinne got pregnant. When she reached out to tell you, you didn’t want to have anything to do with her or the baby and offered her money to get lost.”
The word “pregnant” spun Zach like a top, and his body temperature plummeted. “No.” His denial was immediate and adamant. “No, no, no. You’re wrong.” He shoved the copy at her. “I don’t know what you’re trying to pull or what you think you know, but you’re wrong.” His voice rose, and his vehemence doubled. “I don’t tap it unless I wrap it. I didn’t get anyone pregnant.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What…did you just say?”
“I just said you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” He knew he was losing his shit when the people from the neighboring booth looked over. Zach grasped at threads of control. He waved a hand at the photocopy. “I’ll talk to Marshall about this, but whatever it is, it’s not what you’re saying it is.”
Tessa slapped another piece of paper in front of him.
Zach slid out of the booth and swiveled to face her, his hands flat on the table. He looked her in the eye. “I’m not listening to any more of this bull—”
“Your name is on the birth certificate.”