Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig accessepaystub.com. NS
Answer
accessepaystub.com. 5 NS ns2.accessepaystub.com.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
ns2.accessepaystub.com. 5 A 170.135.176.55
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0