How To Have Surprise Quadruplets (How To... Book 2)

by Layla Valentine

  My back arched at the thought, and I could feel the hazy grin stretching my lips up.

  Then, I opened my eyes and considered myself again. I was ten weeks pregnant, now. Had it changed the way I looked? I frowned, wondering. I’d never had friends who were pregnant, so I didn’t know whether you started showing this early or…

  I turned to the side and pulled my shirt up, considering my silhouette. I didn’t think I saw a bump there, yet. I ran my hands over my belly, though, feeling for it. Was there something there? Something slight? It was early, yeah, but if there were truly four babies in there—

  “Oh my God, what are you doing?” a voice shot out from behind me.

  I whirled around, horrified, to see something that made it even worse. Haley. Again. Standing there with her mouth hanging open.

  I had no idea how long she’d been there. Or how much she’d seen of what I was doing.

  “Nothing,” I told her quickly. “Just checking out these fantastic mirrors. I could really use these in my house. They’re great for the old self-confidence.”

  But she obviously wasn’t buying my tone. Her eyes flew from my face to my belly and back up again. And I could see that she was drawing some very quick conclusions.

  “You’re the girl who was asking for Rian,” she said slowly. “The one who said you were old friends. Said you had something important to talk to him about, didn’t you?”

  “No, I didn’t say that at all,” I replied quickly. “I’m an old friend of his, yes. But I don’t have anything important to talk to him about. I just wanted to see him. It’s…been a while.”

  No, nothing like it. I wasn’t here to tell him that I was pregnant. With multiple babies. And that they were his. Not at all.

  And even if I was, I didn’t want his fake or not-so-fake girlfriend to know about it. She didn’t look like the kind of girl who could keep a secret.

  “You did,” she replied. “You said you and he had to have a conversation.” Her eyes dropped to my belly again, and her face went stark still. Then, her eyes returned to my face, and I could see her doing some quick mental calculations. See her turning the situation over in her mind.

  I could see the exact moment when she figured out who I was. Her entire face changed. I hadn’t thought it was possible, but she started to look even more hostile.

  “Oh my God, Alexis Taylor. He was stuck with you in China for an entire week, and no one was there to see what you two got up to. You slept with him, didn’t you? You’re pregnant with his baby! That’s what you’re here to tell him! Isn’t it?”

  Right, well, this was going really well. How did she even know we’d been stuck together? I didn’t think anyone had covered that yet. “No, I—”

  “Isn’t it?” she asked again, more loudly this time.

  Okay, well between her knowing, and her knowing and shouting at me about it, I was going to choose the former. I didn’t need her in here raising her voice. This was already going badly enough.

  I put my hands up in a conciliatory gesture. “Look, please don’t say anything to anyone. He and I just need to work out how we’re going to handle this. I don’t want anything from him. But I do want him to know. If you care about him at all, you’ll keep quiet about it and let us sort it out without getting the public involved. You of all people know how important it is to put a specific face on for the public.”

  I expected that to get to her, at least a little bit, but to my shock, she sneered at me as if she found the whole thing completely funny—which was really disturbing, honestly. Wasn’t she supposed to at least be his coworker? Surely, she should have at least cared what happened with him, for the band’s sake. Right?

  “You think I care enough about him to keep quiet about something like this? Think again,” she said. “I’ve been looking for something big enough to get me out of this rut. And this is exactly what I needed. Oh yeah, I knew you guys had started something in China. But I hadn’t expected it to be so easy to prove.” She started to turn, then paused for long enough to cast me another look, her eyes full of triumph. “Good luck, Alexis.”

  Then, she turned and was gone, leaving me gaping after her, my plans completely ruined.

  The door slammed loudly, jerking me out of my shock, and I started moving. That girl was trouble, and I didn’t know whether she was going to go to Rian or the paparazzi outside, but I did know one thing: I couldn’t be there when her story broke.

  If the press was about to have a field day with me, then I wanted to be at home, where I at least had some privacy. I’d learned a long time ago that the best place to field a scandal was out of the country. If you couldn’t do that, then home was your best option. And I had plenty of food in my kitchen, so I could hide out there for quite a while, if I needed to.

  I’d have to find Rian and have it out with him on a day when his fake girlfriend wasn’t out for blood.

  Rian

  I threw the newspaper at the wall in my apartment, furious, betrayed, and absolutely horrified.

  I had no idea if it was true or not. But the fact that it was in the paper—the fact that it might be true, and that so many other people would have known about it before me—was so awful that for a moment, I couldn’t even think.

  Then, I realized that this was the stupidest possible reaction, partially because I hadn’t even finished the article, and moved to retrieve the paper. It might not be the whole story, and it might not even be true, but I needed to at least know how much information was out there. What she’d said, and what proof she had.

  A headline of Alexis Taylor Pregnant with Rian Cassady’s Baby wasn’t exactly enough to give me the detail I needed.

  I moved toward the paper, which was now spread out over the floor, and rifled through it, looking for the part that contained the article about Haley. That’s right, my bandmate—and my fake girlfriend. That Haley.

  Of course it was on the front page. Why wouldn’t it be? We were in town on tour and one of the biggest bands in the city right then. And it had Alexis’ name attached—the biggest model in the freaking industry. It wouldn’t have made sense for the paper to bury it. They would have wanted to put it where it could do the most damage.

  So, front page it was. There was a big picture of Haley and me together on stage, facing each other. Her with her bass and me with my guitar as we sang together, looking like we were singing to each other. All a setup by the label. All part of our publicity agreement.

  All completely fake.

  But no one else knew that. Well, a few people did, but not the people that mattered. Not the fans—who would read this story, read what Haley had told the reporter. Read the things she said that were going to tear my career apart. Tear Alexis’s world into shreds.

  I read quickly through the rest of the article, my heart hammering in my ears with each word. She said she’d been in love with me for years before she even joined the band. She’d told someone about it, and that someone had told someone else, and before long, it had made its way to my manager and he had arranged a tryout, and the rest was history.

  Right, yes, fair enough. That was all part of the story we’d been told to use. That part was well-established, nothing new or damaging to see there. It was the part that came next that was the real blow.

  “And now I find out he’s been sleeping with other girls, and has actually got one of them pregnant,” I whispered, reading from the page.

  The interviewer had asked her point-blank how she’d known that this was true, and she said that she’d heard from another reporter that I’d been trapped with some model in China, and that we’d been alone for that entire time. And that she’d started wondering what we might have been doing while we were together. Then, she’d recounted a rather amazing story about seeing a girl backstage at the show last night, and that girl asking for me by name. Her recognizing that girl.

  “Well, right, but that doesn’t mean anything, Haley,” I murmured.

  There were always a lot of girls bac
kstage, and they were almost always asking for the band or me by name. It didn’t mean I knew them. Certainly didn’t mean I’d slept with them. So where did she get off making a claim like this?

  Then again, considering what she’d just heard about China, and that I’d just had a fight with her about that very thing, I guessed it made sense that she’d been suspicious. Or at least looking for the rest of the story.

  “Then, I walked into the bathroom and there the girl was, checking out her baby bump in the mirror. And I knew right then why she was looking for Rian. Knew what they’d done in China. Knew what it was she wanted to talk to him about. What the whole thing was about. And I could feel my heart breaking—I could hear it, I think—and I knew that was the universe telling me what had happened. Telling me that he had slept with her and gotten her pregnant. And I never would have even known if she didn’t show up for that gig last night.”

  I could imagine her wailing that last line, and then putting her face into her hands and sobbing, like she always did. She knew the effect it had on people. She knew that people bought it, hook, line, and sinker, like it was their very own daughter crying like that. She had that air about her. That thing that made people want to protect her, like she was a little bird they’d found and needed to save.

  Very few people knew that it was an act. But I’d found out early on, when she’d pulled it on me and I’d felt so guilty that I gave her what she wanted. The triumphant smile she’d given me afterward had told me exactly who and what she was—and I hadn’t trusted her ever since.

  But the reporter who wrote this piece hadn’t known that was one of her tricks. Certainly hadn’t known not to believe her when she pulled it out. Hell—I checked the byline for the writer’s name—the man had probably taken her into his arms, held her, comforted her, told her that I wasn’t worth her time, and all that jazz.

  Hell, maybe he even slept with her. The irony in this article was sharp, as she was the one who had boyfriends on the side. I had no idea how she kept them secret, how she didn’t get caught, but I’d known that she was sleeping with other people for some time. I hadn’t cared, because I didn’t care about her. We didn’t have a real relationship, and as much as she annoyed me, I’d thought she deserved to be happy.

  But for her to now be accusing me of sleeping with other people…well, that was rich.

  It was true. But she didn’t know the first thing about it.

  Then, I got to the end of the article, where she named names.

  “Question: Do you know the girl? Answer: I know her. You all know her. Her name and face are splashed everywhere, all the time. Alexis Taylor. And I’m so stupid. He was trapped in that hotel in China for days a few months ago, when that airline went on strike, and I knew that other people had been there. Then, the moment he gets home, he has to figure out where her next appearance is, and when. He actually dragged me to one of her shows! I didn’t want to go, but he made me. Of course they slept together. It’s the only answer that makes sense, the only reason he’d suddenly be so obsessed with a girl he didn’t even know before. I was just too much in love with him to have thought of it.”

  More wailing, I was sure. More fake crying. More comforting on behalf of the reporter.

  And all the time, her giving absolutely no thought to how completely she had just sunk my career…and Alexis’ too.

  My heart wrenched at the name, my gut churning. I’d sworn I’d get over her. Sworn I’d forget her. But my body had proven me wrong time and again, feeding me a steady diet of dreams about her lips on my abs, trailing down even lower to take me in her mouth, her fingertips on my cheek as she smiled at me, her body rising up over me as she rode me.

  Even now, I could feel my breathing getting shallow and my body starting to remember her.

  Damn the girl. Damn the girl. What had she been doing at my show, anyhow? Why hadn’t she just called and told me that she wanted to see me? How had she let herself get caught up in this thing with Haley?

  And was she really pregnant?

  I paused on one thought. She’d been at my show. She’d come to see me. Come to find me. I couldn’t ignore the glow that built in my heart and the quickening of my blood at the thought. Yeah, I’d sworn to get over her. Sworn not to think about her again. But my body and my brain were at odds on that point, and my heart…

  Well, it turned out my heart was siding with my body. My brain was the odd man out. Alexis had come to find me, and that was all I really needed to know.

  I turned around, found my phone, and pressed redial to get the last number I’d called.

  “John,” I said when he answered. “I need Alexis Taylor’s phone number. Yes, I’ve seen the paper. Find out who her agent is. Get that number for me. As quickly as possible.”

  I hung up, eyes closed to the world, with only one thought in my mind. I had to talk to Alexis again—no matter how much I’d promised myself that I never would—and find out what the hell was going on.

  Find out whether something had made her change her mind about me.

  Alexis

  Three Days Later

  I stared at Rian, who was sitting across from me, wearing an expression that looked as shocked as I felt. When he’d first called me, I’d been both horrified and overjoyed. I’d seen the article already, but I’d had the good luck of having been warned ahead of time. I’d known what Haley was going to do. I’d hoped she wouldn’t, and I’d prayed that I’d be able to get in touch with him before she did, but as it turned out, both of those things had been pipe dreams.

  I hadn’t had his number to reach him. And Haley must have run right to the first reporter she could find in the scrum outside of their show, to get it in the paper that fast. I hadn’t been able to do a damn thing about it.

  So, instead of hearing the news from me, he’d read it in the paper, just like the rest of the world. And our secret had suddenly been out there for everyone to see. Regardless of whether we wanted it to be. Regardless of the fact that he didn’t even know the entire story yet.

  That didn’t explain how we’d come to be on a private plane together, bound for who knew where. All I knew was that I’d been trying to figure out what I was going to do, and I got a call from my new agent telling me that she and my publicist had “arranged” for a vacation.

  A trip to some Caribbean island I’d never even heard of.

  That had been yesterday. Today, I found myself on a plane with Rian, who I hadn’t spoken to since I’d left him behind at a hotel in Manhattan.

  “Tell me again what’s going on?” I asked, glancing around at the private jet. It was all white carpets and beige upholstery, obviously very expensive and extremely well cared for. Although I made a lot of money, this was way beyond my means.

  “Do we know who’s paying for this?” I added, giving him a hopeful look.

  He got out of his seat, moved toward me, and dropped to his knees in front of my seat. This was a plane where there was actually room for that, each seat facing one other, with room for a table between them.

  “Okay,” Rian said as he looked up at me, his voice rushed. “It was…well, it was my idea, and once I told my publicist about it, she sort of ran with it. She called your publicist and they both thought it was great and before I knew it, they were making the arrangements and—”

  “Rian,” I said, putting a hand up and trying not to laugh at him. “I think we have plenty of time to speak in normal sentences. Like, with punctuation.”

  He gave me a half-grin at that, and something in his shoulders seemed to relax.

  “Right, you’re right,” he said. “I think the flight is going to be seven hours long or something. Do you want to get out of your seat? We can move around as much as we like.” He gestured to the floor next to him, where the white carpet stretched out, warm and fluffy, sans the narrow aisle most airplanes had.

  I cocked my head, considering it. Finally, I nodded and undid my seatbelt, dropping to the floor next to him a moment later.

/>   It was definitely more comfortable down there. And I liked being on the same level as him. Besides, I owed this to him. Owed him the time and effort it was going to take to make this right. I hated the way he’d learned the news about my current state of motherhood.

  “Thanks,” he said, once I was settled.

  I shrugged. “I owe you at least a hundred favors,” I said shyly. “I’ve got a lot of explaining to do. I know. But you first. This trip was your idea?”

  “Oh, yeah. Well, I figured…we’ve got this thing to take care of, right? This situation. And I’m guessing neither of us wants to be in New York while it plays out. So, I thought, wouldn’t it be a great idea if we just got out of the city? Got away from all the paparazzi, from the reporters, from the rumors. Got away from the real world. What if we…” He paused and looked at me, his face hesitant. “What if we got a chance to get to know each other again? Especially if we’re going to…”

  He faded off, and I knew exactly what he was talking about. Especially if we were going to be parents together. But I wasn’t ready to tell my story. Wasn’t ready to get into that. Not yet. I needed to fix things between him and me before I involved four other lives.

  “So, you had this idea, and the publicists grabbed onto it,” I guessed. “Let me see, they think that it’s great for us to be seen going off together. Now that Haley is out of the picture—”

  “She sure is,” he interrupted, shaking his head. “Used this as an excuse to leave the band, if you can believe it. Turns out, she’s been wanting to leave and do her own thing for ages now, and this gave her exactly the right opportunity to do it.”

  I shook my head as well. “Honestly, that’s a pretty nifty move,” I said, somewhat impressed. “And I gave her exactly the story she’d been waiting for.” He opened his mouth to respond, but I cut him off, still not ready. “So, the publicists think we can get away, can finally express our love for one another…”