All He Wants For Christmas

by Lizzie Shane

Andi’s eyes narrowed dangerously. He knew that death glare. “Worked things out?”

  “Figured out where she goes,” he explained, gesturing toward the girl. “Who drops off a kid without a return address?”

  “Ty,” Andi said in a tight voice. “Can I have a word with you in the living room?”

  “Sure,” he agreed, flashing a smile at the girl. “We’ll be right back.” Andi looked about a millimeter away from dragging him out by his ear, his PA at her disapproving, uptight best.

  As soon as they were out of earshot he began to smooth things over, “Okay, yes, I shouldn’t have said that in front of the kid. It’s not her fault some jerk is trying to use her to get money out of me.”

  Andi eyed him with something that was almost pity. “Ty, that isn’t what’s happening here.”

  “It obviously a fake paternity claim—”

  “She’s eleven years old. Almost twelve,” Andi cut him off. “Her mother’s name was Laura Garcia. Sound familiar?”

  Laura. Shit.

  Twelve and a half years ago he’d been in college. A ladies’ man even then, he’d been with lots of girls whose names he’d have been hard pressed to recall, but he remembered Laura. She’d been too good for him. Too smart. Too together. Puerto Rican. Sexy as hell. Pre-med. Everything going for her. They’d hooked up at a party. Her idea. He’d felt like he’d freaking won the lottery. She didn’t want a relationship—and neither had he. It had been perfect. She wanted to focus on her studies, on becoming the woman she was meant to be, and he’d wanted the attachment-free sex she’d offered for a couple months before cutting him off and falling off the grid.

  Only maybe it hadn’t been so attachment-free after all.

  Laura Garcia.

  UCLA was a huge school. Easy to avoid someone if you wanted to, so he’d always assumed that was why he stopped seeing her around. But had she dropped out to have his kid? Given up her future because he hadn’t known enough to take responsibility for his child?

  He’d dropped out at the end of that year to take a job on a soap and never looked back, but she’d had his number. She could have called him. Could have told him.

  Shock burned off as anger seared through him and Ty latched onto the feeling, grateful for the heat.

  How could she not tell him? How could she make him into someone just like the asshole sperm donor he owed his own existence to?

  How could she not tell him he had a daughter?

  Chapter Three

  Andi watched the emotions playing across Ty’s expressive face. He owed his success as an actor in part to the fact that everything he felt showed. The shock. The dawning realization. The anger.

  “I take it you remember her.”

  Her voice pulled him out of whatever memory he’d fallen into and he nodded, meeting her eyes. “We dated in college. I never knew.”

  “She’s your kid, isn’t she?” Andi asked the question she already knew the answer to, instinct telling her he needed to hear someone say the words out loud.

  He nodded, staring toward the kitchen door, as if he could look through it and see the girl who looked like a smaller, feminine version of himself. “Her mom was incredible. Far too good for me.” He swallowed thickly, still staring through the door like he had X-ray vision. “What happened to her?”

  “Drunk driver. Four months ago.” Andi had gotten more details from Jade once she relaxed again thanks to the discovery that she was an avid reader and total Harry Potter junkie. “Jade went to live with her mother’s sister, but apparently there wasn’t much money and having an extra mouth to feed was causing problems with Aunt Izzy’s husband. It bothered the uncle that you didn’t pay your share—and I get the impression he wasn’t shy about talking about it in front of her. Then they saw the interview you gave on Kimmel last week, saying how you wanted to be a father and he decided it was time you got the chance. He drove her down here and left her with the note because he needed to get back in time for dinner.”

  At least that was the story Jade was sticking to. Some of the details had felt overly elaborate, stretching credibility, but Andi couldn’t figure out what she was lying about—though she had gotten the definite sense that Jade was more dismissive of the uncle than frightened of him, so that seemed like a good sign.

  “Jesus,” Ty whispered, rubbing a hand over his face.

  “I’m not even sure the aunt knows she’s gone,” Andi admitted. “It sounds like the uncle showed up at her school with a suitcase in the trunk and took off with her.”

  “So he practically abducted her. The aunt could want her back. Maybe she even called the cops.”

  Andi glared, tempted to punch him for the hopeful note in his voice. “She could, but Jade doesn’t know her aunt’s married name. Just that she’s Aunt Izzy. And they just moved to a new house in a new town and she doesn’t know the new address.” She wasn’t about to tell him that Jade’s selective amnesia felt incredibly fishy to her. She didn’t want to give him any more reasons to doubt the girl.

  “But we can find her,” Ty insisted. “That’s easy. I bet a PI can track Laura Garcia’s sister Isabel Whoever in a matter of hours.”

  Having a PI look into the story was a solid idea, keeping the cops—and the press—out of it as long as possible, but Andi was still annoyed by how eager Ty seemed to get rid of his daughter. “Not everything moves at the speed of television,” she said, familiar with the insta-research that his cop show employed as a frequent device. “Until we can find her aunt, she’s your responsibility.”

  “I don’t have custody. We could be accomplices in a child abduction case for all we know.”

  “Ty.”

  “How sure are we she’s even mine?”

  And there it was again, that urge to deck him. “Did her mother date a lot of men who looked exactly like you twelve years ago? Because you might have missed it, but that girl is your spitting image.”

  “We should still arrange a paternity test.”

  He was right, but part of her still hated him for saying it. Andi glared at him. “You’re a real asshole sometimes, you know that?”

  He raised his hands placatingly. “Okay, suppose she is mine, I still don’t know what to do with her.”

  “Go ask Jimmy Kimmel. You just told the entire country you want to be a father.”

  “Not like this!”

  She shook her head, disgusted. “I knew you were full of shit when you said you wanted a family—”

  “I wasn’t lying!” he protested. “I really do want to settle down and have kids, but this wasn’t what I meant. I was supposed to start from the beginning so I would have had nine months minimum to prepare—and then the baby years to practice before I had to figure out how to talk to her. I never wanted to pick up in the middle with a kid who already hates me.”

  “You haven’t exactly made the best first impression, but she doesn’t hate you. She doesn’t know you.” Though Andi had a feeling she wanted to. As soon as Jade had started opening up in the kitchen, she’d peppered Andi with subtle questions about Ty—and Andi hadn’t known how to answer any of them. Jade wanted to know him, but Andi wasn’t surprised Ty was balking. Being a parent to a tween with a complicated past was hard and Ty didn’t do hard, but Andi didn’t care. “Right now, your daughter needs you to step up. I know you’re a giant man-baby, but it’s time for you to grow up. That girl in there needs you to act like a man.”

  “I have a premiere tonight.”

  “So?” she snapped. “You realize lots of celebrities have children and go to red carpets. The two things are not mutually exclusive.”

  He was shaking his head. The picture of denial. This asshole who had no idea how lucky he was to have a daughter. “We need to focus on finding her aunt. How hard can that be? I bet Reg has someone who can find her today.”

  Andi glared. Ty’s business manager Reg could occasionally work miracles, but was Ty really suggesting sending Jade back to live with h
er aunt and the uncle who had just left her alone on a strange man’s doorstep? “And until we find the aunt?” she bit out.

  Ty rubbed his chin. “In the meantime, I guess she can stay here, but you have to stay too.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re my assistant and I need your assistance. Besides, she likes you. And you’re a woman. It’ll be better for her if you’re here.”

  You’re a woman made her want to throw things at his too-pretty face, but that last argument did her in. Ty was a flake. Underneath it all, she didn’t think he was a bad guy, but he hadn’t proven to be very good at taking care of himself, let alone another human. Abandoning Jade with this clueless idiot, after the day she’d already had, made every instinct she had rebel, but…

  “I’m flying home for Christmas tomorrow.”

  “We’ll have this sorted out before then,” Ty said with blithe confidence. “Just help me out tonight. For the premiere.”

  Andi had some serious doubts about how quickly this situation was going to be resolved, but even she couldn’t get a babysitter vetted and out here on no notice. She ought to call the cops, get them looking into Jade’s situation—but the thought of involving child protective services, of Jade possibly spending Christmas in foster care because Ty was too much of a child to man up and provide for her…it was unacceptable.

  “I’ll stay tonight, but I’m staying for her sake, not yours.”

  “Thank you.” Ty’s relieved smile would have made a lesser woman’s knees wobble, but Andi kept hers firmly locked.

  Thank God she wasn’t susceptible to this man, because it looked like she was spending the night.

  * * * * *

  The girl liked pepperoni and pineapple. Ty’s mother had loved pepperoni and pineapple. Especially the thin crust when the crust was almost burnt.

  Ty stood in the doorway of the kitchen in his couture suit, trying not to stare at the girl like she was an alien, but losing the battle. It was just so surreal, this little person with a feminine version of his face. Laura had been beautiful and Jade had obviously inherited some of her bone structure, but the eyes, the jaw, the full lower lip—those were all his.

  I have a daughter.

  No matter how many times he thought those words, they continued to sound distorted, echoing around in his mind.

  They’d get a paternity test. They’d make sure. But his confidence that this was a false claim was wavering.

  He didn’t know what to say to her. Thank God for Andi, chattering away about nothing and filling the silence. He’d never heard her speak so much. She had a tendency to say only what was necessary—with the occasionally snarky dig at him thrown in for good measure—and then vanish with the efficient invisibility of an expert assistant. But thank God she was talking now.

  The two females had stayed in the kitchen, eating pizza and talking while Ty’s stylist had worked her magic on him, getting him red carpet ready.

  The girl watched Andi with a little whisper of a smile playing around her mouth, but that smile vanished when she spotted him in the doorway, the concentration on her face when she looked at him making his chest ache. Andi had said she didn’t hate him because she didn’t know him, but Ty had hated his father for decades without ever learning the man’s name.

  He’d never wanted to be that guy. The absentee asshole. And now here he was.

  He was going to screw this up. How could he not? He knew jack shit about kids.

  As an only child, it had always just been him and his mom. He’d never been around younger kids. Never dated anyone with kids. Hell, he’d never even worked with kids until this last film.

  Yeah, he’d wanted a family, but he’d wanted it like it was in the movies—all perfect and easy. He’d marry a woman who doted on him and would love it when he changed a diaper or two, but there would be someone else there to help him figure out all the hard stuff, because yes, he was a spoiled man child just like Andi accused him of being, but he liked it that way. He wasn’t capable of more.

  Some men were the head of the household and some let their wives do all the heavy lifting when it came to parenting. He’d had no qualms about being one of the latter. But what if there was no wife? No mother? What if it was just him and he didn’t know the first thing about little girls?

  She was eleven. Almost twelve. Small, but already holding herself like a teenager.

  Puberty. Periods. Boys. He was so fucking out of his depth.

  At least her aunt had kept her alive for the last few months. He wasn’t even sure he knew how to do that.

  When Andi paused for breath, Ty leapt into the fray—he only had a few minutes before the limo arrived to take him to the premiere. No time to waste.

  “So, Jade, how did you like living with your aunt?”

  The girl eyed him from the depths of the coat she still hadn’t taken off. “Okay, I guess.”

  Andi shot him another death glare. Okay. Maybe not the best topic for tonight. “Do you like movies?”

  A sideways glance flicked at him beneath thick lashes. “I guess.”

  “I’m going to a fancy movie premiere tonight, but Andi’s going to stay here with you. Did she show you to the guest room yet? You could put your jacket there.”

  The girl scrunched down, clutching the coat while Andi shook her head frantically. Ooookay. Apparently attempts to remove the jacket had already failed.

  “That’s a nice jacket,” he tried again, cheerful and nonthreatening. “Where did you get it?”

  “Banff,” she mumbled, fingering the lapel.

  “You’ve been to Canada?” Ty asked, surprised in spite of himself. He didn’t know why it should surprise him that the daughter he’d never known about had left the country without his knowledge, but it did.

  “We lived there,” she volunteered.

  “You and your mom?” Andi asked gently, while Ty was still trying to process the idea that Jade could have been anywhere in the world—Paris, Indonesia, Johannesburg—and he wouldn’t have known.

  Jade nodded. And Andi probed subtly about where else they’d travelled and he listened in until his car arrived. He’d had an image in his head, of kissing his imaginary children on the head and telling them to be good for the babysitter while he and his supermodel wife went off to another premiere, but this was a horse of a different color. He called out awkward goodbyes from the door as his child studied him like he was an exhibit at the zoo and his assistant frowned at him like he’d disappointed her. Again.

  The picture of domestic bliss.

  He climbed into the limo, his thoughts still on Jade and her travels. His daughter had a passport. She liked crepes. No Johannesburg or Indonesia, but her mother had taken her to France. And he’d never known.

  Funny. Ignorance didn’t feel like bliss.

  Chapter Four

  As soon as Andi got Jade settled for the night, she retreated to the second guest room and shot her roommate a text, explaining to Bree that she wouldn’t be home that night and telling her not to worry. The two of them had looked out for one another ever since Andi had fled Clement’s all-too-perfect small town charm for the chaos of LA.

  Bree might have a tendency to lose herself in her work, but when she emerged from her darkroom, she’d worry if Andi wasn’t home.

  Andi wasn’t sure what it said about her social life that the first time she hadn’t been home on time in the last two years was when she had a hot date with an eleven-year-old. Ty would probably think she was pathetic, but she hadn’t moved to LA for the social scene. She’d wanted an escape, to run far away from the dreams she could no longer have, and LA had been perfect for that.

  What was Jade running away from?

  Andi contemplated the question as she toed off her heels, relief flowing through her arches as her bare feet sank into the plush carpet. Thanks to her always-be-prepared motto, she had a toothbrush and a cell charger in her attaché case, but nothing to sleep in. Her s
ilk blouse would be ruined, but she’d bill Ty for a replacement before she slept naked in his house. Especially with a child down the hall who might come looking for her if she got scared in the night. Though Jade hadn’t seemed worried about nightmares.

  She was so independent. So self-contained. “Must’ve gotten that from her mother,” Andi murmured to herself as she tugged free the pins holding her French twist in place, feeling her scalp almost sigh in relief as the pressure of the snug hairstyle eased.

  All night, Jade had snuck questions about Ty into the conversation—questions Andi still felt utterly unprepared to answer. At first Jade had seemed reluctant to talk about herself, but as the evening had progressed, she’d relaxed. Andi had discovered Jade had a passion for books that was matched only by her obsession for downhill skiing, that both her aunt and her mother were nurses and Jade wanted to either be a nurse or a writer when she grew up, and that she and her mom had been a team. All either one needed was the other, until her mom was gone.

  Andi sank down to sit on the edge of the mattress, rubbing at her breastbone as she recalled the sight that had greeted her when she’d tapped on Jade’s door to see if she needed anything. The door had been open halfway, giving Andi a view of a slice of the room—including Jade kneeling at the edge of the mattress with her hands folded, speaking softly to her mother. “Don’t worry. I wasn’t scared. I knew you were watching over me and everything is going to be okay.”

  Andi hadn’t been sure if she was reassuring herself or her mother’s spirit, but her heart had ached.

  She closed her eyes, folding her hands and sending up a prayer of her own. Please don’t let Ty screw this up.

  Her cell phone rang and Andi opened her eyes, plucking it from where it rested against her hip on the mattress. The caller-ID showed her roommate’s name, along with a picture of Bree in a hot pink wig, mugging for the camera. Her lips curved up in a smile, as they always did when the pic flashed on her screen. “Hey. I hope I didn’t interrupt you while you were working. I just wanted to let you know I’m staying over here tonight.”