The light was already beginning to fade with afternoon about to become evening as Paul pulled his car out of the lot near to the coffee bar. He made a right turn to head back towards his condo which was now his residence again due to his now permanent separation from Trish but as he drove he found himself thinking that as he had handled the encounter with Stephanie and her brother so well he might as well continue. With that in mind he decided to head back to the office and speak to Laura. She was due an apology and a good one for the incredibly rude and insensitive remark he had made earlier which had caused her to ask him to leave the building. He turned at the next intersection and just over ten minutes later he was riding the elevator up to the top floor of WWE headquarters, hoping that Laura had not headed home as yet. As he entered her outer office he approached the secretaries desk and asked, "Is Laura still in?"

"Yes sir." The secretary picked up her phone, "I'll call through for you."

Paul gave her a dismissive hand gesture, "Don't bother. I'll just go in." The secretary did not respond but replaced the phone as Paul headed for the door to Laura's office. It was likely that the hot tempered woman inside was going to explode at him and immediately order him back out of the building but if she did at least he could say that he had made the effort to come back and apologise. He pushed the door open and walked in but when the boss looked up and saw him the reaction was not what he had anticipated. Rather than an explosion of anger her voice was closer to a sigh of resignation as she ran a hand through her black hair and the words she spoke as he closed the door took him even more by surprise.

"You're still here after I told you to leave? Fine, if this is what you want to hear so badly you can hear it. I give up. I admit it, I can't manage you. I've tried everything with you, anger, gamesmanship, giving you what you want, hell I even tried being kind and trying to help you earlier and nothing works so there you are, you win. I don't know where to go from here with you but this working relationship is unsustainable. I need to consider replacing you as..."

Clearly Laura had gotten the wrong end of the stick about his reason for being here so Paul held up a hand to stop her mid sentence. Previously he would have found these admissions that he was hearing satisfying and amusing and probably would have used them to gain an advantage of some kind over the woman sitting in front of him but now that he was determined to stop acting like such a prick to everyone and start to turn his life around he instead to chose to go down a different path as he sat down in one of the comfortable leather chairs in front of the desk. "I didn't come here for an argument or to give you any more grief. I came to apologise for earlier. What I said to you was way out of line, especially as you were trying to give me advice at the time. I'm sorry, that's what I came in here to say, so calm down."

Several seconds passed in silence as Laura looked at him blankly, obviously trying to decide if he was for real or still playing some kind of game that she was not understanding. "You came to apologise?" She asked doubtfully.

"I did. I was out of line. You tried to help me and I spoke to you like shit for no reason. Why did you try to give me advice anyway? Why would you care?"

Again there was silence. Maybe Laura was trying to figure out how to phrase her answer? Eventually it came and again Paul was surprised by what he heard. "Honestly? I think you've got problems Paul. It would be easy to assume that you're just an asshole but I really don't think anyone could be as much of an asshole as consistently as you have been recently. I think you need help or at the very least someone to talk to. I may not be, hell I know I'm not, the best person to comment on someone's emotional stability but you're something else. Look at the way you've ruined your marriage and gotten Stephanie pregnant in the space of a few weeks. Look at how upset Stephanie is with all of this. You even talked me into sleeping with you and I've been feeling like crap ever since. Despite all of that and almost despite myself I find myself wanting to help you because ending this craziness would be best for both of us but of course you're going to call me a stupid bitch, tell me to keep my nose out of your business and storm out, right? Go ahead."

Paul was stunned to say the least. Not only stunned that far from exploding at him or hating him Laura was offering help but also stunned at the realisation that help, or at least to talk to someone, might be what he needed. Part of him wanted to tell Laura that he was a man, a man's man at that, and therefore did not need help to run his own life, least of all from a woman but another, larger part of him considered that to be exactly the kind of response and attitude was what had gotten him to this point. The reality of it was that without doubt Laura was partially correct, he was ruining his own life very quickly with the way he was treating those around him and he had already been trying and failing to stop himself from doing so for some time. His marriage was already over because of it. It was too late to fix that now but maybe if he talked to someone he could get his head straight? Even if this was the case he was still not convinced that Laura was the one to talk to, why would she be interested in taking on his problems? "Let's just say that if, and I do mean if, I decided to talk to someone why would it be you?"

"Who else have you got?"

It was a simple but poignant response. Aside from his parents who did he have? No one that was who. He had drifted away from his friends during his marriage with Trish and now she was out of his life too. There was always the option of his parents but no, he did want to turn to them. Maybe he could have done earlier but now it was too much of a mess to try to explain to them. At least if he spoke to Laura he would not have to explain to her what had happened because she already knew most of it. Even so he still needed to know why she was interested in helping him. "Good point. I'm not going to my parents that's for sure. This is crazy. I'm not the kind of guy to do something like this. Anyway why would you care? You didn't answer that properly just now when I asked."

He watched as Laura looked down at her desk, one finger of her right hand nervously tapping on the surface of it as she seemed once more to struggle in putting together a response. Paul prepared to be surprised again and he was not disappointed. "You're like no one else I've ever managed, ever worked with. You'll think I'm crazy and so do I as frankly I never considered the possibility of saying this to an employee as I insist on keeping my distance from my staff but I like you. Not in the sense that you would prefer judging by that night in the hotel but I enjoy the way we go at each other for reactions, the banter, even the way we piss each other off to the extreme at times. I even told you about Angel, not that I don't regret it now. What I'm trying to say is that you're someone that I could call a friend Paul. My goodness that sounded so lame. Put my in charge of a board meeting and I can talk all afternoon but give me a situation like this and I can't explain myself properly at all."

What she had said did sound lame but even so the words struck a cord with Paul. Laura had something there, if she was a guy she would be exactly the kind of person he would be friends with. She had exactly the kind of personality that he gelled with. This was totally crazy and the very last thing that he would have imagined as he came in here intending to deliver and apology and then leave but it was happening and it was his turn to say something, but what? Should he politely reject Laura's offer of a friendly ear, of friendship, leave and attempt to fix his wreck of a life in his own way or should he spill everything to the woman sitting opposite him?

Laura spoke before he could, "Ignore me Paul. It's just these last few days, I've been thinking about Angel and feeling guilty about what we did. My head is a mess and I'm not thinking clearly or making sense. Just go home and forget what I said. I'll see you tomorrow huh?" Clearly she figured that the reason he had not responded was due to him thinking that what she had said was ridiculous but that was not the case and he reached a decision. "No. What you say does make sense, in a way at least. I don't know if we can be what you could call friends but I do need to talk to someone. Honestly I'm struggling to stop myself wrecking my life. I don't want to be doing half of the shit that I'm doing and yet I do it anyway. For a start you wouldn't believe how many times I told myself not to keep thinking about cheating on Trish with you but when I saw you in that bar..."

"Don't Paul," Laura cut in, "I don't want to talk about that please."

"Sorry. I didn't mean it like that anyway. What I'm trying to say is that I try to convince myself not to do stuff because I know it's wrong and it will end up causing shit or upsetting people but I just, I do it anyway. Now I'm divorced, or soon to be, and a woman who hates me is carrying my child, a child that I don't want. Everything is a mess Laura."

Paul wondered what Laura was doing as instead of responding to him she reached down and started doing something with her desk. The answer was revealed a moment later as she placed a bottle of Jack Daniels on the top of the desk and then a bottle of coke and two glasses. "What are you, an alcoholic?" He quipped with a smile.

A hint of a smile was returned. "I've taken to having one of these before I head home most nights. This job is a lot of damn stress sometimes, especially with people like you." Paul laughed as she began to pour coke into her glass. He would usually only drink beer but decided on this occasion to accept the drink that was about to be prepared for him partly because he could use the alcohol but also so as not to be rude. A few moments later Laura reached over the desk and handed his drink to him. "Thank you."

After making a start with her own drink and clearly savouring it Laura returned to the conversation with a little laugh, "This was a bad idea. I have no idea what to advise you about doing things that you tell yourself not to do. If anything I'm the last person you should ask about that, you know how I go off at people. I'm totally unable to control my temper, always have been. God only knows how that poor woman out there hasn't quit before now. I wouldn't do her job no matter what the salary was."

It was plain that Laura was referring to her secretary and Paul laughed once more, "Neither would I. I'd kill you the first day, or you'd kill me. Either way someone would end up dead."

The hint of a smile returned again, "You. You would end up dead." Then Laura's voice grew more serious, "Paul?"

"What?" Paul drank some of his drink, not particularly liking the taste.

"The baby. Why are you so against it?"

He had known that this was coming. Everything was starting to be about this damn baby. How could he explain to a woman who had lost a child of her own and was obviously and understandably still hurting because of it that he wanted nothing to do with his child? It felt strange to even think of it as his child. He was not the kind of person to be a father and never would be. Not only that he and Stephanie hated each other. He had to answer the question with something and the truth was the only logical choice. What would be the point in agreeing to talk things through with Laura and then bullshitting her? "I'm just not the kind of person to be a father. I've never wanted kids, I don't like kids and I don't want one now. I don't want the hassle, I don't want the responsibility and I don't want to have to deal with Stephanie. I don't like her and she hates me, that much is obvious."

His expectation had been to receive a look of disapproval from Laura but he did not get one. Instead she looked like she was attempting to see things his way, failing, but attempting nonetheless. "Does Stephanie not want you in the child's life? You must have spoken to her, surely?"

"I have, not half an hour ago. She showed up in the parking lot with her brother when I was leaving earlier. We went for a coffee and talked briefly. I made it clear to her where I stand."

Once more Laura seemed to require time to finalise what she wanted to say. "Stephanie is scared Paul. She's what, twenty two? She's about to become a single mother and the impression that I got from our brief conversation is that she's not counting on much help from her family. This is your child Paul, your son or your daughter. Do you really want him or her struggling as they grow up? Do you not want the best for your child?"

This was frustrating. Even though she was trying to help Laura was not getting it, not seeing it from his point of view. It was not a question of what he wanted for the child, he did not want the child at all. He did not want to be a father. If Stephanie and the child needed help they needed to find it elsewhere. "Look, you don't understand. I get that it sounds strange to you but I simply don't want a kid. I don't want it."

Now Laura seemed to be getting upset and when she spoke this was confirmed. "I hate the idea of that child, any child, struggling and that is what will happen if Stephanie has to bring it up alone. She might be a great mother or she might not but either way she's going to need help."

"So help her then," Paul blurted out without thinking. Laura looked at him quizzically as she drank from her glass then as she set it back down she asked, "What?" It was a good question. Why the hell had he just said what he had said? He decided that he might as well finish putting the thought out there at least. "It's stupid. I just, I don't know, you're obviously keen to have a child and Stephanie needs help with hers, ours, so why don't you like, help her?"

There was no pause this time before the response came, "Are you insane? I don't even know Stephanie, why on Earth would she have any interest in that even if I made the offer?"

"I don't know her any better than you do. I slept with her a handful of times and she spent a couple of weeks on and off at my condo, that's it. Anyway I said it was stupid, forget it." Silence descended as Laura stared down into the small amount of liquid that remained in her glass. It was apparent to Paul that she was thinking about her daughter again and he felt the need to say something. "Laura, about Angel. I really am sorry. It must have been, well there isn't a word to use."

Laura looked up at him and those beautiful green eyes glistening with tears, "It was heart breaking. I live the moment that I was told that she had died every day and it never gets easier. I can never carry a baby again, I'll never be a mother Paul." He was not sure if she meant that she was unable to have a baby again due to a physical or mental reason and he certainly was not going to ask. He finished his drink and gently set the glass down on Laura's desk. "I didn't mean to upset you again and it's getting late. I'm going to head home. Where's your husband? Don't you usually leave before now?"

"Dan's out of town until tomorrow so I've only got an empty house to go back to." Suddenly she attempted to snap out of it, "Listen to me. I offered to listen to your problems and instead I'm lumbering you with mine." With that she picked up the phone on her desk and was apparently connected to her secretary. "Michelle have my car ready, I'm leaving in a moment. Thank you." She replaced the phone, stood and began to put on the black suit jacket that had been hanging over the back of her chair.

Paul was not sure if this conversation had actually helped either of them but the chance to talk to someone at least felt like it had lifted a weight of some kind from him. His life was still a disaster but at least now he felt confident in his ability not to make it any worse as he decided to wait for Laura and walk her to her car. A couple of minutes later after tidying her desk and closing down her computer Laura was ready to leave and they made their way to the elevator. Once inside Paul smiled, "Thanks for tonight. I don't know if we actually achieved anything but..." He left the sentence unfinished as there really was no ending.

"Yeah, it's just good to talk sometimes huh?"

The elevator reached the lobby and as they walked out of the entrance Laura's immaculately polished black car, whatever it was, gleamed as it reflected the lights from the building. The driver was waiting and he opened the rear door and held it as Paul said, "Goodnight then."

Laura gave him a small nod and a smile, "Goodnight amico." This time the word was meant literally and with that she disappeared into the car and the door was closed behind her. Seconds later it drove away leaving Paul standing in the cold and now almost empty lot. As he walked towards his car a smile came to him. Today was the day, at long last, that his life had turned a corner. He had spoken to Stephanie and Shane like an adult instead of like an idiot and then of all things had formed some strange kind of friendship, if that was what it could be called right now, with Laura Molinaro. His divorce would soon be finalised and his knee would be healed soon also. The only real problem he had now was the baby.