Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (158 page)

“Good.”
Kallie
sat up.
 
“I guess I should call my
folks and ask them to book me a flight home, but I’ve been delaying the
inevitable.
 
Sorry.
 
It’s just so nice and cozy here.”

“Actually,
I
wanted to talk to you about that,” Nicole said.
 
“I’d like to offer you this room to stay
in for a bit, while you figure things out.”

Kallie’s
eyes widened.
 
“Really?
 
Stay here?”

“Red
and
I talked and we thought that it would be unfair for you to have to give up your
dreams and plans just because you got unlucky with one job.
 
So I’d like to help you get back on your
feet again, by providing you with a place to stay and some time to make your
calls and figure out if you can keep living in New York.”

“Wow,
I
don’t know what to say.”
 
Kallie
shook her head.
 
“That’s, like, one
of the nicest things anyone’s ever done for me.”

Nicole
smiled.
 
“I know what it’s like to feel as if
your back’s against the wall in

New
York City.
 
It
happened to me once, not long ago.”

“All
of
my stuff is still at the Danvers’s house,” Kallie said, “and I’ve been too
afraid to call my agency to tell them what happened.
 
I know that Trina and Brad will be busy
smearing my name to anyone who’ll listen, and nobody’s going to believe me over
them.”

“Red
and I can help with that,” Nicole said.
“On another note, a good friend of mine is having a casual party tonight at her
home.
 
We’d like you to come with
us—it could be fun to meet some people and forget your troubles for a
night.”

Kallie
grinned.
 
“Why not?”
 
Then she looked down at her
clothes.
 
“Only thing is, I don’t
have anything to wear.”

“We
can
remedy that,” Nicole told her.
 
“So
it’s settled then?”

Kallie nodded.
 
“It’s settled.”

“Good.”
Nicole
turned and started leave the room.
 
Just as she was exiting the bedroom, she was hit by a pounding headache
that came out of nowhere.
 
It
actually stopped her, once again, in her tracks.

“Nicole?”
Kallie called out.

Nicole
stood
and gathered herself.
 
The pounding
grew to the point where she thought she might cry out from the pain.
 
And then it slowly receded to a dull
throbbing in her temples and she took a shaky inhalation.
 
“I just had a moment,” she said.
 
“It happens sometimes.”

“You
sure
you’re okay?”
 
Kallie got off the
bed.

“I’m sure.”
 
Nicole turned and smiled.

“You
look pale.”

“Thanks.”
She grinned wanly.

“Sorry,
it’s just—you don’t look well.”

“Sometimes
I
get a little dizzy or achy but it always passes,” Nicole told her.
 
The other woman nodded uncertainly, and
then Nicole continued on her path.
 
“I’ll swing by your room with a change of clothes later on!” she called
back.

And
then
she went to her own bedroom and lay down on the bed, her chest rising and
falling rapidly.
She was, in truth, a
little bit scared by how she was feeling.
 
But Nicole told herself it wasn’t anything—just a spell.
 
The doctor had even said that strange sensations
might come and go, and as someone who’d experienced a miscarriage, she would
likely overreact to these minor incidents.

Just
a
minor incident, she told herself, hand sliding to her belly and waiting to feel
the baby stir inside her stomach.
 
She didn’t feel any kicks, but she did feel a low ache

that
made her simultaneously nauseous and
frightened.
 
After a few minutes,
the ache faded.

When
Red
came up to the room a few minutes later, she was still lying there. “Why are
you laying down?” he said.

“I
just
got really tired all of a sudden.”
 
She decided that was a good encapsulation of what had happened, if not
entirely accurate.

“You
okay?”
 
He came and sat down next to her and
stroked her hair.

She
smiled
at him.
 
She was feeling better now
that he was with her.
 
“Yeah,” she
nodded.
 
“I think I’m just kind of
worn out from everything.
 
Meeting
with your mother—“

“Oh,
god,” he said, shaking his head.

“Did
I
tell you that she figured out a way to go shopping for baby clothes and then
made me pay for them at the end?”

“No,
you didn’t.”

With
the
dark look in his eyes, Nicole decided she wouldn’t say anything else about the
odd meeting—especially not the comments his mother had made about Red’s
proclivities for young, beautiful women.

“It’s
been a hectic day.”

Red
looked
down at her, concern written all over his face.
 
“I think we should cancel this party,”
he said.

“No,”
she shook her
head.
 
“I mean, I think I should
stay home and rest, but I

want
you to go with Kallie.”

“What?
That’s so not happening.”

“Please,
Red.
 
Danielle and Kane will be so
disappointed if you don’t show up at all, and Kallie needs some fun in her life
right now.”

He
looked
exasperated.
 
“Why are you so caught
up in what Kallie needs?
 
She’s an
adult, Nicole.”

“I’m
aware of that.”

“She’s
not
your little sister—in fact, she’s almost the same age as you.”

“I know, Red.”

“Then
what’s going on?
 
Why do you care so much?”

Nicole
just
shook her head.
 
“I don’t
know—maybe it’s my maternal instinct kicking in.
 
Please, just bring her to the party.
 
For me.”

“Sounds
like a blast,” he muttered.
 
Then he sighed, as if accepting her
request and allowing for the possibility that it might not be so bad.
 
But when he looked at her again, the
worry came back to his eyes.
 
“I
don’t think I should leave you here alone if you’re feeling badly.”

“I’m
not feeling badly,” she laughed, telling
herself that it was true—she’d had a

moment
, but
overall she felt just fine.

“You’re sure.”

“I’m
one hundred percent sure.”

***

The
drive over to the
party was a little bit awkward for Kallie.

She
was
in a car alone with Nicole’s husband, and Kallie felt like he hated her.
“Thanks for giving me these clothes to wear,” she said.

He
glanced
at her, and she saw a flash of annoyance in his expression, as if he’d thought
his wife had been sitting beside him and then someone had switched in an
imposter.
 
“It’s no problem.
 
Nicole’s very generous.”

Nicole’s
generous
.
 
That little statement seemed to imply a lot about how Red felt, having a
strange girl in his home.

Kallie
had
been given a beautiful black cocktail dress that fit her almost perfectly, and
it turned out that she and Nicole wore the exact same shoe size.
 
So Nicole offered

her
an array of shoe choices, and Kallie had
picked a pair of black pumps that probably were worth more than everything she
owned put together.

“We’ll
probably
only stay for an hour or two,” Red told her now.

“Sure.
 
I’m fine if we leave after five minutes—whatever you want.”

He
nodded.
 
Then he seemed to relax a little, his shoulders
came down about an inch.
 
“I
apologize if I’m being rude, but I’m a little worried about Nicole at the
moment.”

“Oh,
I understand.”

He
glanced at her.
 
“Do you?”

The
way
he said it made Kallie think that she didn’t understand anything.
 
“I just figured, you know—first
time parents and all.
 
It can be
nerve wracking.”

“Yeah.”
He nodded again.
 
“Yeah, it can be.”

They
were
silent again and he elected to put on some music, rather than talk to her,
which Kallie thought was just fine.
 
She was starting to think that she liked Red Jameson about as much as he
liked her.
 
Which apparently, wasn’t
very much.

A
few
minutes later, they arrived at their destination, and Nicole actually let out a
gasp.

Red
chuckled.
“Nice, isn’t it?”

First
there
was a huge expanse of lawn, and then rising up at them as if they were
approaching one of the Seven Wonders of the World, was the biggest house she’d
ever seen.

“It
feels
like we’re going to the White House for a party.”
 
She clutched the little purse that
Nicole had lent her.
 
Inside, she
had nothing but her cell phone and some cash Nicole had given her, for
emergencies.
 
She’d tried to say no
but Nicole had insisted, and truth be told, it did ease her mind a little to
know she had some money if she needed it.

They
were
stopped at a large wrought iron gate by a big, black man in a suit. “Name,
please?” he demanded.

“Red
Jameson and…guest.”

The
large
man peered inside the car at her and then checked his clipboard. “Welcome to
Kane and Danielle Wright’s house, Mister Jameson.
 
Feel free to park out front and go right
inside.”
 
The large man hauled
himself over and opened the gate, slowly swinging it open.

“Huh,”
Red smiled.
 
“Kane can’t even afford an electric
gate.”

Kallie
glanced
at him to see if he was joking, and Red laughed.
 
Still, she had to admit, he was a bit of
a snob.

They
continued
on and parked near about two-dozen other vehicles in the enormous lot to the
side of the mansion.
 
Other people
were also entering the house at the same time, and Red seemed to know a few of
them.

He
made
small talk, introducing Kallie to one or two people whose names she promptly
forgot, as they seemed totally disinterested in her.
 
Mostly, they asked him about Nicole and
her pregnancy.

Once
they
entered the mansion, Kallie almost had the breath knocked out of her by the
sheer size and beauty of the place.
 
It was like a palace or something, opening up onto an expansive hall
with a double staircase leading up to the second floor, and a domed ceiling
covered by stained glass at the top.
 
An enormous chandelier hung down from the center of the dome.

Kallie
gawked up at it like a child at an
amusement park.

“You
get
used to it,” Red quipped, and she promptly closed her mouth and tried to look
more composed.

They
followed
the throng down the hall and past room after opulent room, which she only
glimpsed as she passed by.

Finally,
they
reached a door that took them out to a huge back deck with pillars that felt
like something out of Roman times.
 
Just off the deck was an enormous pool lit by dozens of floodlights, and
plenty of people were in it, swimming.

There
were
trays of hot food and salad and veggies along the outside edge of the deck, and
servers carrying around smaller trays of hors d'oeuvres to the guests.

There
was
a full bar on the left, staffed by two bartenders—and Kallie noticed that
all the booze appeared to be free.