Dazzle: The Billionaire's Secret Surrogate (Contemporary BWWM Romance) (16 page)

The following day when Kady went to see Archer she found Mia just stepping out of the visiting room. Fury and dislike surged through her at the odd coincidence. Since she had been told that the woman would never be allowed to come to the facility at the same time she was there, this was very disconcerting. She stepped over to one of the guards and told him they had a restraining order between them and this was her day, but the unhelpful guard said that if she didn’t like it she could leave herself.

“I’m not going to miss visiting Archer just because somebody let that woman in here on my day with him,” Kady complained. “I’d like to speak to your supervisor right now.”

“He’s on vacation.”

“Yes, I can tell,” said Kady with a frown. “You would never treat me this way if he was standing right here watching you.”

“Well he’s not,” said the guard. “And this young woman has been telling me quite the earful about you. You shouldn’t even be here at all.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Kady growled, tired of everyone falling for Mia’s blatant lies. ‘Whatever she told you it’s an outright lie. If you don’t believe me you can ask Archer yourself.”

“Archer can’t have visits back to back, you know,” the guard said then. “Mia is already signed up, so you’ll have to wait an hour if you hope to see him at all.”

“Why is Mia signed up to visit Archer?” Kady gasped. “He doesn’t want to see her.”

“If he doesn’t want to see her, he could always refuse,” said the guard.

“Are you new around here?” Kady asked. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you here before.”

“Fairly new,” he said with a smirk.

“Excuse me,” said Kady as she stepped towards the desk.

“Where are you going?” he said, grabbing her arm. “I told you already, Miss Chong has already signed up to see Archer. You have no business up there.”

“You’d better let go of my arm, sir,” Kady told him. “You have no idea why I’m approaching that desk, so back off.”

His face turning red, the guard released her arm. Kady stepped to the window and said, “I’m here to see Parker Chou, please.”

Both Mia and the guard’s jaws dropped.

“Why you trying to see Parker?” Mia demanded hotly.

“You’ve deprived me of my visit with Archer, I may as well find something to do to pass the time,” Kady replied as she signed the slip of paper the woman behind the window gave her. She slipped her identification card back into her wallet and found herself a place to sit and wait.

“You got nothing to say to Parker,” Mia insisted, a sudden nervousness shining in her bitter gaze at Kady’s unexpected move.

“No more than you have to say to Archer, at any rate,” Kady smirked. “Unless of course you’d like to go back up there and tell the woman we’ve made a mistake.”

“Only you made a mistake, lady,” Mia smirked. “I never signed up to see Archer at all.”

“Then what’s up with that guy?”

“He was just supposed to get you to leave,” she said sullenly.

Kady returned to the window. “Could you cancel the visit with Parker and make it with Archer instead, by any chance?” she asked hopefully.

“Sorry, if you want to see Archer you’ll have to wait an hour to sign back in,” said the woman. “The computer updates every two minutes and the batch already went through.”

“Well, you could still cancel the visit with Parker though, right?”

“Yes, I’ll do that,” she said. “And before you ask, you’ll have to wait an hour before he can be seen despite her cancelling. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Thanks, ma’am,” Kady smirked. “I’ll be back in about an hour then.”

“You bitch!” Mia screamed angrily. The thin veneer of civility and sanity lost completely as her face twisted in expression of utter hatred.

“Careful, Mia, you’re not even supposed to come within five hundred feet of me,” Kady reminded her. “If I were you, I’d leave before the report I’m about to make gets filed. And don’t be too surprised if they come pick you up sometime in the near future for violation. Have a great day.”

Both Mia and her phony security guard turned and tried to head for the door, but found it blocked by the guy who was actually supposed to be there. Kady nodded to her old friend Ben, who had gotten a job there about two months ago, and he smiled back at her before turning very serious expressions on the two would-be visitors and guard. “What’s going on in here?”

“That woman there isn’t supposed to be anywhere near me, that’s what,” said Kady as she pointed Mia out. “She was trying to get that guard to say she made an appointment with Archer and keep me out, but I knew better and stopped them. Thanks to her, I have to wait an hour before I can even see him. She’s violating a restraining order being anywhere near me. I’m about to go next door and report her.”

“Oh, don’t bother with that,” he said. “If you have the order, I can just have a couple officers come here and take her and her friend directly to jail.”

Smirking even more, Kady took the order out of her purse and showed it to him. Ben stepped over to one of the phones and presses a button. “I need a couple officers over here please.”

“Hey, what’s going on?” Mia demanded shrilly. “Why are you blocking the door?”

“Looks like it’s my turn today,” Kady told her, and she couldn’t help the surge of glee at finally getting the upper hand. She knew it was only a matter of time before Mia messed up, and tripped herself in her own tangled web of lies and deceit.

“Miss Ross, I’ll need you to wait till they get here to show them the order and let them know what just happened,” said Ben in official tones. “You probably could just have a seat. I’ll keep these two right here. It should only be a couple minutes.”

“Thank you, Ben,” Kady said, doing as he said.

Soon after, a pair of cops stepped in, cuffed the two, and took them away. Ben came and gave the order paperwork back to Kady. “They said there was no need to trouble you any further. You’ll be expected to appear at court at the time listed on this slip. You enjoy your visit now, okay?”

“I will,” Kady answered with a smile. Finally, she thought. Finally, a bit of payback of my own!

Athena sent Archer’s lawyer and Robert with Kady to court two days later. She was dressed up importantly and she walked confidently into the room. All eyes and a few cameras were on her as she went. A murmur erupted throughout the courtroom as she stood before the judge until he said she could be seated.

“Thank you, Your Honor,” she replied as she did so.

“On the surface, this case seems pretty cut and dried,” the judge said. “Miss Chong has been harassing Miss Ross, and there is an order of protection in place barring Miss Chong from approaching Miss Ross. However, Miss Chong’s witnesses have seen Miss Ross punch her in the face on more than one occasion, and that brings up a troubling matter. I understand you’d like to file charges for assault, Miss Chong?”

“It was self-defense both times!” Kady protested hotly.

“Let me handle this, Miss Ross, please,” said the lawyer as he stood up. “Your Honor, if it pleases the court, I believe Miss Ross is correct. I am aware of both incidents. The first was the event which prompted the need for the order, while the second was clearly instigated by actions taken by Miss Chong which were in clear violation of that order.”

“The court hereby mandates that the restraining order shall now work both ways,” said the judge. “Each woman is hereby ordered to stay away from the other.”

“Sir, Miss Ross always visits Archer Devonshire on Wednesdays, and she would like that to continue,” said the lawyer. “Could it be put into the document somehow that Miss Chong refrain from visiting on that day, and Miss Ross will agree to attend only on a Wednesday so there’s no danger of violating the order? She has no desire whatsoever to seek out Miss Chong for any reason.”

“I can’t enter it as such,” the judge said. “It will be incumbent upon Miss Chong to willingly refrain from attending that day.”

“My brother got work detail the other days,” she replied with a slight smirk. “Look like we both want the same day.”

“Your Honor, as I understand it Miss Chong has been flooding the media with propaganda about herself and Miss Ross’ boyfriend,” the lawyer continued. “I would request that she discontinue this behavior since it’s just another form of harassment. I was given to understand the protection order was clearly explained to her, but so far she seems disinclined to desist.”

“Is that right, Miss Chong?” asked the judge sternly, flipping through more documents that attested to Mia’s behavior.

“Your Honor, I know for a fact that Miss Ross came to Archer’s house intending to become his surrogate mother,” Mia said flatly. “It’s not illegal to tell the truth when some reporter jams a microphone in your face…”

“Your Honor? May I approach the bench?” Athena demanded as she strode forward from the back of the room.

“Who’s this?” he asked the bailiff.

“Athena Caldwell, sir,” he said. “Archer’s mother.”

“By all means,” he said. “If you can shed some light on things, it would be very helpful.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said. “For the record, I am the mother of Archer Devonshire, who is currently in the prison and is indeed the father of Kady Ross’ unborn child. As Archer’s mother, it would seem I’d know which of these young ladies he calls his own, and I can assure you that although I heard the tale of the surrogate mother story straight from both Archer’s and Kady’s mouths, he and Kady are most definitely a couple. More to the point, Mia Chong isn’t even Archer’s friend, let alone his lover, and although Mr. Blank here has advised us against it, my son Archer had a statement prepared in which he asks for relief from Miss Chong and her behavior. A formal document has already been filed restraining her from any further slander where he is concerned.”

“Pull up the new document, will you?” the judge said to the woman at the computer, and she quickly did so.

“Sir, it should be on screen now,” she said.

The judge read the file. “Miss Chong, it would seem that your behavior over the past months despite the restraining order far exceeds its limitations. I’m going to have to remand you back into custody and have you undergo a psychiatric evaluation. Miss Ross, you’re free to go.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Kady as she hid her triumphant smile. She and Robert walked out again side by side, and a flurry of reporters pounced.

“Miss Ross? Are you satisfied with the outcome of today’s hearing?” asked one of them, and she couldn’t help but stop and answer the question.

“Yes, sir, I am,” she said. “Miss Chong has been acting in a very erratic manner and spreading lies throughout the media, and it’s about time somebody took notice of it. I believe recently she even tried to tell everyone that she’s having Archer’s child, but he and I were never apart long enough for that sort of thing to have happened. Clearly it’s part of her delusional state. I wish there was more that I could tell you about all of this, but—“

“Miss Ross?” said a female reporter with a smirk. “Are you aware that Mia Chong and Archer Devonshire were lovers in college?”

“I don’t really care if they were,” she replied, sighing, suddenly glad to have spent the other night digging through information on the Internet and coming to that conclusion on her own instead of being startled by it in front of a bunch of cameras and gossip hungry reporters. “Archer fully admitted to me that his behavior in college was less than exemplary. Next question, please.”

The same woman pushed forward as she said, “Miss Ross, are you aware that Parker Chou sold the services of his sister Mia and two of her friends to Archer Devonshire on more than one occasion during that time? Perhaps that’s why Miss Chong thinks of herself as belonging to him. A man like that deserves to be in prison.”

“Do you have any proof of what you are saying, ma’am?” Kady wanted to know, the temper in her voice growing as she began to lose patience with the woman.

“Robert, really,” Athena said as she came out, interrupting any answer Kady would have given. “Take Kady to the car. You know better than to subject her to these hounds.”

“Yes, Miss Caldwell,” he replied, grasping Kady by the arm.

The woman slid a card into Kady’s pocket and their eyes locked. Kady nodded slightly, and then she was gone.

Kady was finally alone for the evening. Nervously, she slid the reporter’s card from her pocket and stared at it. Did she really want to hear what this woman had to say? What it if shattered her reality? What if it ruined all of the dreams she’d begun to hope would become a reality? What if Archer was not what he seemed?

Her fingers were already dialing the cell phone before she even realized what she was doing. The voice of the woman greeted her ear as she held it to her ear.

“I knew that you’d call me, Miss Ross,” she said, slightly condescending on the other end of the line. “I think maybe you and I have both been trying to piece together the same puzzle from different ends. Would it be possible to meet somewhere and maybe fit them together at last?”

“I’m not at liberty to do something like that openly,” Kady said softly. “You need to understand where I’m coming from here, Miss Cooper. I love Archer, and whatever he may have done ten years ago, and whatever involvement he’s had with anything more recently, I can only go by what I see. He was tired of what he had become—a jaded wreck of a man—and now he has a chance at something better. He is no longer the playboy party animal the media once knew him to be. We sit home watching sitcoms all night, for goodness sakes.”

“You also need to understand something, Kady,” she said. “I’m not trying to get Archer into trouble here, I’m just trying to determine what is true, and what is false. People are begging to know the whole story, and I just want to give it to them.”

“And you’ve spoken to Archer about all of this?” Kady scoffed. “You had him confirm that what you’re trying to push off on the public is the real truth?”

“Admittedly it was Mia who said it,” she laughed. “I just wanted to see if you’d tell me the truth if I shocked you.”

“Considering I don’t know the whole truth, I doubt it,” Kady said. “But I do know that those two women Mia is always with are involved in all of this somehow. And Parker as well. I just haven’t worked out how.”

“I know that Mia, her brother, and those other two were all there on a scholarship,” she said. “They all lived in a two bedroom apartment, and they were having real trouble making ends meet. Parker convinced Archer to help them out, and that’s when he met Mia. It seemed to be love at first sight, but only for Mia.”

“You know, at first I thought Parker ruined Archer because he was jealous, then I had wondered if he simply wanted revenge for some reason,” said Kady. “But the more I look at all this, the more I believe that it’s Mia who is directing the entire thing. Mia convinced Parker to ruin Archer in the hope that she could swoop in and offer comfort. The only thing I don’t get is why she would have been at a meeting instigated by Archer applying to be his surrogate mother. If it’s true that they knew each other in college, why would they seem so—unacquainted—at that meeting?”

“So you don’t think he knew her?” asked Miss Cooper.

“He didn’t appear to know her very well if at all, and also, I could see that he didn’t particularly like her either,” Kady said. “She kept trying to hang all over him and he was barely polite in his tolerance of it. That hardly seems like the behavior you’d see between lovers.”

“Have you ever asked Archer about college?” she asked.

“No, but I will,” she said. “He’s supposed to call me any time now. I’ll make a point of it and tell you what he says. Will that suffice?”

“Yes, I suppose it will have to do,” she agreed. “Thank you, Miss Ross. I look forward to your call.”

#

When the phone rang, Kady pressed the speaker button and laid back on the bed again. “Hi, hon,” said Archer. “How did things go at court? I did my best to sway things in your direction.”

“Court went fine,” Kady grumbled. “It’s after court I’m more worried about. Some reporter thinks that you and Mia used to be lovers in college. Did you used to know her at all, Archer?”

“I knew of her,” he explained. “But she and I only met once, at her brother’s house about three weeks before he got arrested. She was all over me that time, too.”

“Well, the reporter tried to say that Parker was selling you his sister’s and her friends favor’s during college, if you know what I mean.” Kady scoffed. “Mia must have told her that.”

“No, sweetheart, I didn’t need to buy women from Parker,” Archer scoffed. “It would be more likely I’d have paid some of them to leave me alone if anything. I mean, I know that Parker and those three lived together during our school years, but the first time I saw Mia was about a year ago, and then not again until she caught wind of me wanting a surrogate. I remember that she told me she would be more than willing to be much more than the mother of my kid if I’d rather do things that way.”

“Why do you suppose she would say you got her pregnant?” Kady wanted to know. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Well, not unless—“ Archer began, but stopped short, as if he might be blushing.

“Go on,” Kady prompted.

“Parker convinced me one time to go donate sperm,” he finally admitted. “You don’t suppose he told her about that?”

“You’re kidding!’ Kady groaned.

“Well, no, but I mean, if she got it from that place they’d have it on record, right?”

“Sounds like I may have a bit more footwork to do,” she sighed. “I don’t mind telling you, this is starting to get really weird.”

“I’m sorry, Kady,” he laughed. “But I did tell you I used to be young, dumb, and full of come. I just did it for the experience.”

“It’s all right, Archer,” Kady sighed. “But I sure hope Mia’s baby and mine aren’t going to be siblings. I refuse to tolerate that woman for the next eighteen or more years.”