Capture Me: Alpha Billionaire Romance (Hollywood Dreams) (25 page)

“Everyone drinks. You had your first drink two years before I did.”

“That doesn’t count. I was fourteen and thought Dad’s Captain and Coke was just Coke.”

She shrugged and stopped just before opening the passenger side door. “Wait, I thought I left the car at the bakery.”

“Another reason it’s good I know a few of the officers around here.” I sighed as we got in. “Look, we need to get you some help before—”

“No way. I’m not going to any meetings and I’m not talking to some doctor who thinks he knows what I’m ‘feeling.’” The word came out in her snootiest impression. “It was just a few muffins and that flask couldn’t be more than a shot or two.” She flipped down the vanity mirror and teased her bangs as I pulled out. “Come on, I barely had a buzz going.”

“That’s not the point,” I said, knowing that wasn’t true. Her blood alcohol content begged to differ. I tried to think of something before this downward spiral of hers went so far that no one could dig her out. “What if you’d been driving and got pulled over? They probably wouldn’t have let you off so easily with that. What if you’d hit someone?”

“Why are you giving me so much hell? You’ve probably driven buzzed before.” She flipped the mirror back up. “I was fine.”

“First of all, no. Second, you were in jail, Dani. That’s not ‘fine.’” As much as I wanted to get this ride over with, I took the long way home, hoping I’d somehow get through to her. “What would Mom say if she saw you there today? Would you have called her instead of me?”

I waited for some response from Dani, but she looked out the side window and I couldn’t see her face from this angle. She just didn’t give a damn.

“Thank god she isn’t alive to see this.” The words shocked me even as I said them. They weren’t something I ever pictured myself saying, but I needed to get Dani’s attention. “You probably think Mom would have yelled at you. But you’d be wrong.” I checked my rearview mirror, saw the police station, and hoped that would be the last time I’d have to pick Dani up from there.

Silence filled the car except for the sounds of the tires hitting the road.

“Remember that time we were playing kitchen and set her grandmother’s rug on fire?” I kept going since she clearly wasn’t planning to participate in this conversation. “We waited for Mom to get all mad and yell and ground us or something. Instead, she got really quiet. We didn’t understand it at the time, but she was disappointed in us.”

Dani continued to stare out at nothing.

“That doesn’t come close to this. Do you have any idea how hurt she would be about this? How it would make her feel if she was still alive?” I looked over to see Dani’s shoulder shake.

I gritted my teeth, beyond frustrated that she’d laugh at this, when I suddenly realized she didn’t think all this was funny.

Dani was crying.

I slowed down to pull over into the first parking lot I saw, until I noticed that it was a funeral home. The local coffee shop would have to do and I drove to one of the far parking spots.

Neither of us had ever been very emotional girls when it came to crying. Dani always had her own bizarre ways of getting through things, but face-in-her-hands, shoulder-shaking sobs was not her MO.

I held out a hand to put on her shoulder, unsure exactly how to comfort her.

“Bly whust mid dem so much.”

I wanted to ask her to repeat herself, but I let it go and reached into the glove compartment for a tissue. A handful of stiff, brown napkins popped onto the floor. Unbuckling my belt, I reached beside Dani’s tennis shoe and grabbed one that didn’t hit the floor.

She blew her nose, then huffed as she sat back in her seat. “It’s so hard without them. You don’t get it. You haven’t lived at home for years.” Her sniffles returned in full force. “I saw them every day, and now . . . they’re just . . . gone.”

I took a deep breath and gripped the steering wheel. Reminding her that I’d seen Dad every day at the firm wasn’t going to help anything.

“I don’t know how to live without them.” She dabbed her nose, then reached for another napkin from the floorboards. “I’m a freaking mess without them. I’m always hungry.”

“Calories don’t count when something bad happens.”

“Yes they do. I’ve gained three pounds in the last few weeks.”

With as much fast food as she’d downed, she was lucky she hadn’t gained thirty. Her metabolism must be off the charts.

“It’s hard to be in the house without them, but at the same time, I don’t want to leave.”

“I meet with Edward on Monday. I don’t know what will happen with the estate. What I do know is, I’ll always be here for you. Even if we’re in different area codes, you can call me anytime. Day or night.”

Dani blew her nose. “I know. That’s the thing.”

I frowned. “What is?”

“You are the only stable thing I know, and look at you. You’ve dropped your corporate job for modeling. Which is really awesome by the way, but everything keeps changing.”

That’s life,
I wanted to say, but didn’t. Instead, I handed her another napkin. She sure went through them. “I could say something like ‘nothing is ever constant’ but I think you know that. When things do change or get hard, how about you reach for your cell instead of a muffin—especially one that isn’t yours. Deal?”

She twisted her mouth as though thinking about it. “If they’re chocolate chip, I’m going for them.” She raised up her hands when she saw my look. “I promise I’ll pay for them.”

CHAPTER 41

Liam

It’d been a few months since I had last jogged on my usual running trail.

Last night I called up my old running partner to meet me out here. Originally I’d hoped to get a workout in, but Bryan only had an hour for lunch. The path was close enough to the courthouse that he could swing by.

Sitting on a bench instead of hitting the pavement wasn’t easy. Each person who passed me by gave me the urge to pop up and knock down a few miles. Anything to take my mind away from my reality.

“You’ve watched too many spy shows.” Bryan’s voice was deeper and gruffer than normal. He leaned back and draped an arm across the park bench. Though the weather was heating up, he still wore his typical suit. It wasn’t like he needed to wear the jacket to meet me, but that was Bryan.

“Why do you say that?” I asked. It was nice having a friend as a lawyer, especially when he was willing to meet after coming off a nasty cold.

“No one actually meets at parks like this. Sitting on back-to-back benches, pretending they’re not talking to each other when they actually are.” He chuckled.

“She took pictures of Tessa and me.” I rested my elbows on my knees, suddenly feeling a little nauseous and glad not to be jogging. “We were on a rooftop, in a car. Nothing major, but it still invaded our privacy.” Rubbing my hands together in an effort to soothe myself, I said, “Don’t suppose that’s illegal, is it?”

“If it was, every private eye in the biz would be out of a job.”

I scuffed my foot against the sidewalk, really wishing I’d picked the view of the city. Instead, I tracked my eyes back and forth along the trail. Every now and then someone jogged down the path, but watching overweight middle aged men cram themselves into spandex wasn’t really my thing.

“Don’t be butt hurt just because you like taking pictures of others and get a little shy when it’s your turn.”

“That’s not the point and you know it. I don’t know what’s safe anymore. I’m trying to deal with all this.”

“So Paisley is the alleged baby-mama?”

“Yes.” I had begun to tell Bryan what the deal was over the phone until I realized Paisley could have bugged my phone. At this point, I wouldn’t put it past her. “I need to know what rights I have. I don’t even know if the baby is mine.”

Bryan cleared his throat, which turned into more of a hacking cough.

“Do you need some water or something?” I looked around but didn’t see a vendor on the block. So much for my idea of meeting on a jogging trail.

He held up a hand as he worked to clear his throat again. “I’m fine. My wife has me drink about five gallons a day.”

“Pretty sure you’d drown drinking that much.”

He shrugged. “Trust me, it feels like it. Look, you’ve got two major things going on right now. Baby and deportation.”

“There’s also Tessa.”

“You’ve already named the baby?”

“No, Tessa is the girl I’m dating. The real reason I need to stay in the country, after being around for my supposed child, of course.”

“Okay, hold up. One girl at a time.” As the wind picked up, he ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Paisley can’t do anything until she proves the baby is yours. The timing on this is everything. From what you’ve told me, she has to be at least seven weeks pregnant. She just found out so that puts her maybe six or seven weeks into the pregnancy. She could get a paternity test as soon as eight weeks that is 99.9% accurate, but there is some risk involved.”

“How can I ask her to do something that could hurt her or the baby?” I wiped my palms against my jeans. Just talking about all this made me sweat. “I have to leave for Switzerland in—”
Dammit
, I hadn’t let myself think of how little time I really had left. “I’ve got just over a week left in the US.”

“Exactly. Which is why you have to push for the paternity test. If she wants to force these things on you, it’s the only choice. And it may grant you an extension. Have her get one as soon as she medically can.”

I pressed my lips together.

“Paisley doesn’t know you’re leaving?”

“No.”

He nodded but the stiffness in his shoulders told me I was in for a world of hurt. Tessa didn’t know either, and keeping her in the dark hadn’t been one of my finer decisions.

“I can’t just use the possibility of a baby to stay in the States, can I?”

“Considering that the combination of you, your connections, and your money didn’t keep you here, do you really think the government would put everything on hold because some woman
claims
she’s pregnant with your baby?”

“If she refuses, or if a baby isn’t enough, what can I do to stay here?”

Bryan turned all the way toward me and looked me in the eyes. “Get married. As in, this week.”

“We just started dating. How the hell can I ask her to spend the rest of her life with me?”

“She’s carrying your baby.”

Even under the heat of the midday sun, I shivered with the thought. “Not Paisley. Baby or not, I could never be with her. The only one I could ever consider marrying is Tessa.”

“Who the hell’s Tessa?” He held up his hands. Clearly he wasn’t able to keep up with my life. Hell, I could barely keep up. “If this Tessa even considers staying with your ugly mug after all this, you hold onto that girl.”

“Don’t worry, I definitely plan to.”

CHAPTER 42

Tessa

Part of me wished I’d brought Dani along to Edward’s office this time. She should be here for these discussions. I knew I shouldn’t let her off the hook just because she was my little sister. Even though she swore off making any decisions herself and promised me she’d go along with whatever, it didn’t change the fact that this affected her as well.

Affected her whole life.

It had only been three days since I’d bailed her out of jail and she already seemed to have turned a corner. In no way had she ever been a bad person, just in a bad place.

And I got that. Without Liam, I didn’t know where my head would be.

Maybe I should have gone to Greenwich more over the past few weeks to see her, but that was all done now. Besides, with Dani, getting too close meant she’d lash out even more. Dani liked her space but that didn’t mean that she didn’t need me.

At least the last two days had been good with her. Raiding Dad’s vending machine for bags of popcorn and binge watching the last few seasons of
Friends
was exactly what we both needed.

At first, it was a little awkward thinking how I’d straddled Liam on that couch just a few days before. Feeling him slide inside me as I leaned over and kissed him deeply. Him grabbing my ass, guiding me to pump harder.

Thinking about that again now made my panties wet, which made me snap myself back to where I was. Getting flushed in a midday fantasy right before a major meeting with a semi-creepy older guy in the next room wasn’t ideal.

Leaving Dani back in Greenwich today also wasn’t ideal, but talking to Edward had to happen. He’d called me early this morning to let me know that all the numbers had been run and a decision needed to be made about the estate. His voice had remained neutral without any indication one way or the other. I would think that if things looked positive, he would have sounded a little upbeat.

But then, if Edward hadn’t gone into law, he could have made a decent poker player. He had that kind of stone-face. Although, he wasn’t exactly a betting man. Edward only liked to win—a trait I supposed any good lawyer had.

Over the last few weeks, every time I sat in this waiting room, the place seemed more torn up than before. It was as though he’d been going for more of a deconstruction than a remodeling.