He rolled his eyes. “Then book an appointment through his secretary.” As the car reached the ground floor, his hand latched around my arm again.
I huffed but didn’t resist as he led me from the elevator to the front door. The man behind the desk was back, and he looked at me, his face scrunched up in confusion. He was probably trying to place my face, so I threw him a pleasant smile. Maybe I’d need him later.
The doorman opened the double doors, and the gorilla pulled me through. A town car pulled up in that moment, and the dude swore softly under his breath. “Great.”
A confused looking Reese slid from the backseat, his eyes going first to the muscle-bound guy. I pushed my cap up with my free hand, and watched his face morph. Apparently, he hadn’t learned a poker face in the last few months.
“Celeste?”
The gorilla dropped my arm like I was on fire. “This is Celeste?”
Well, it was probably good that my reputation proceeded me, but I wondered how much this guy knew. “Jesus, I thought you were dead. I looked…” Reese trailed off, and was in front of me in two long strides, wrapping his arms around my shoulders and pulling me into a hug.
I realized the moment when things changed. His whole body froze.
“We need to talk. Probably best to do it in your apartment,” I whispered.
When Reese pulled away, he was so pale. “I think you’re right.”
The doorman opened the door again, his eyes trying to be uninterested but failing miserably. The gorilla guy was staring daggers into my skull as we walked back toward the elevator, Reese’s hand on my spine. I saw the moment as the desk attendant connected the dots in his mind.
“Good to see you again, Miss.” His eyes were slightly too wide, and I could sense his surprise. I saluted him, but didn’t slow my steps.
The big guy's eyes were burning into my face, and I couldn’t help the smug grin I threw him. “Told you I just needed to talk to him.”
Reese looked between us. “You’ve met?” Neither of us answered him. “Lincoln?” he directed to the gorilla ass.
Lincoln. It suited him. Pompous. Strong. Jerkish.
The man in question glared at me. “Yeah, we bumped into each other while I was taking out the trash.”
Well, shots goddamn fired. But being called trash was almost a compliment in my world. He was going to have to try harder to insult me. “You should be congratulated, Reese. I always wanted to train a dog to do menial chores too.”
Lincoln’s jaw tensed, and fortunately the doors slid open and we were back in Reese’s apartment.
As soon as we all stepped into the foyer area, Reese was in front of me again.
“Celeste? Are you…”
I lifted my shirt and every set of eyes in the room dropped down. “Pregnant? Yeah, I am. Surprise?”
“Son of a goat bitching cock sucker,” Lincoln swore.
I laughed, but it was a sad, miserable sound. “Amen to that. Guess I wasn’t chunky after all?”
Chapter Five
Lincoln
I looked at the rounded stomach of the chick in front of me, and knew this was going to be a problem. I loved Reese like a brother. Hell, I loved him more than my brother. Where my brother was a cruel motherfucker, Reese was soft. So damn soft with a heart so big he was asking for someone to crush it in their tiny fist.
And I had a feeling I knew who’s tiny fist that would be.
Reese reached out and touched the pale globe of her stomach, and I could see his heart getting attached already. Fuck. “Is it mine?”
She nodded, her eyes haunted and sad. “Yes.”
I scoffed. “We aren’t going to just take your word for it.” Reese looked like he wanted to protest on her behalf, so I raised a hand to stop him. “No way. Come on man. She fucked you and then fled in the middle of the night. Those are hardly the actions of a wilting virgin.”
I expected her to screech or cry, but instead she flipped me off and then ignored me. “You told him?”
Reese looked a little sheepish. “I had to tell someone, just in case you were really a figment of a deteriorating brain disease, or tumor, or something. I told him I met a girl, we had unbelievable sex, and then she just disappeared like she’d never been.”
She frowned. “That's all you told him?”
Reese nodded, his eyes flicking to me. That was his tell. He could never keep secrets. He was the world's worst poker player. How he survived in business was beyond me.
I looked between them and the heavy weight of the words left unsaid made the room tense. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad secret keeper after all. He’d obviously been keeping a secret for months. For her.
I think I might hate her just out of principle.
She sighed and slumped down in the chair we used to put on our shoes. The interior designer called it an occasional chair. Stupid fucking name. “I can’t give you a DNA test. I swear it though, Reese. I swear it’s yours. I haven’t even so much as gone on another date since you.”
I rolled my eyes and pulled out my phone. I texted Vincent. I needed him back here ASAP.
911. I need you home NOW!
Within seconds, my phone buzzed.
OMW.
Vincent loved Reese just as much as I did. Hell, maybe more. Vincent would jump in front of a speeding car for Reese. Who was I kidding, we both would. In this case, we were going to leap in front of some little viper who was trying to wrap herself around the soft heart of my best friend. And I would not let it happen.
Even now, he was putting his hand on her shoulder and telling her he believed her. He wasn’t lying either. He did believe her.
He was a sucker and I was here to make sure that people didn’t take advantage of him. Because I knew more than most that the world was filled with shitty people who would stomp on you on their way to the top.
Problem was, there wasn’t a conniving look on the girl’s face. She looked tired. Defeated. But this was New York City, and it was filled with budding actresses.
Reese bundled her up into his arms, and I didn’t miss the small kiss he dropped on her head. He’d been torn up when she just disappeared like a bad dream. Or a really, really good dream, as it happened. He searched for her for months, tracking her through his surveillance software until she just disappeared without a trace. I wanted to know where she’d been and why she was back now.
She’d been gone five months, and you didn’t suddenly realize you were pregnant in your fifth month.
Something wasn’t right, and I was going to work out what it was. Reese ushered her to the living room, and he looked over his shoulder at me. “We’ll order in Chinese or something tonight.”
I clenched my jaw and he sighed. He sat the girl on the couch, whispering something to her as he handed her the remote like she was fragile. She wasn’t even a little fragile. When I’d had my hand around her throat earlier, she hadn’t even flinched. If anything, there was heat in her eyes. Yeah, not exactly the damsel in distress she was painting herself to be.
Reese came back over and stared at me. “Don’t start, Linc.”
“Come on, Reese. Even you have to admit that there's something fishy about this.”
Reese was shaking his head, denying my words even though they were true. “It's not out of the realms of possibility, man. Five months ago, I had unprotected sex with a woman. Now, I know my Catholic school education is a little light on the sex ed, but I’m pretty sure that’s how babies are made.”
I threw my hands in the air. Sometimes, I just wanted to shake him. “So what? You’re just going to take her word for it?”
Reese swallowed hard, and shook his head. “You don’t understand. I believe her, but more than that, I don’t think it matters.”
The record scratch that sounded in my head was nearly deafening. “What do you mean it doesn’t matter? Reese, this girl is going to milk you dry and you are just going to let her?”
He was still shaking his head and he lowered his voice u
ntil it was almost a whisper. Unnecessarily low. “I want her. Fuck, Linc, I haven’t been able to get her out of my head and it’s been months. I’ve slept with every girl Vince has thrown at me, trying to erase her from my brain and I just can’t. She’s back now and I intend to keep her forever. If she comes with a baby, all the better. I’ll love it too, whether it’s mine or not. Because they’ll be mine, Linc.”
Well fuck. Now we really had problems.
“Reese…”
He held up a hand. “Leave it. You can badger me about it later, okay? Let me just, I don’t know, fuss or something for a little while before you tell me how she is just here to steal all my money. I get it. But I just want to believe for a moment that she could possibly be interested in me, the man, and not me, the billionaire. Okay?”
I gritted my teeth and forced myself to nod. Fine. Let him play White Knight for the day, but I was watching her.
I sat across the room for the next thirty minutes as they talked softly to each other and ground my molars. When the elevator doors slid open, I breathed a sigh of relief. Thank fuck another voice of reason was here. Vincent strolled in with several bags of Chinese food. “Got this from the doorman on the way up, said I’d play sexy delivery boy,” he said, winking at me lasciviously.
He dumped the Chinese food on the table and frowned. “What’s crawled up your ass and missed the prostate completely?”
I lift my chin, indicating Reese and Celeste across the room. Vincent looked over his shoulder and his eyebrows hit his hairline. “Who’s the chick?” he asked, and already his eyes were running over her body like she was a potential conquest. Vince was a manwhore. A stereotypical fuckboy. No, that was a lie. He loved women, maybe a little too much. What gave him hives was commitment. Given his childhood, I didn’t blame him. His parents would put me off marriage too. “She’s hot. Doesn’t seem like Reese’s usual type though. Not beige enough.”
I snorted. “That’s Celeste.”
Now his mouth dropped open. “The Celeste? Like fuck ‘em and forget ‘em Celeste? Fuck me, she’s nothing like I imagined.”
Yeah, she wasn’t like I imagined either. I had pictured this small, timid little thing that Reese had rescued off the streets and then boned between his thousand thread count sheets. The woman in front of me wasn’t exactly timid, though she was tiny. But those eyes. They pierced your soul. They were eyes that would haunt the darkest of nights.
I cleared my throat. “Yeah, but we have bigger problems. She’s knocked up and convinced Reese he’s the father,” I hissed and Vincent leapt back like accidental paternity was contagious.
“Fuck off,” he gasped in disbelief. “Surely he doesn’t believe her, right? He's going to get the test?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose because I could feel my frustration rising. “Nope. Says he doesn’t care. Says he’s going to keep her, baby and all. Doesn’t matter if it's his or not.”
Vincent’s eyes went blank like the words did not compute. He blinked repeatedly until he finally shook his head. “He can’t be serious, can he?”
I nodded, but eyed my best friend. There was a terror in his eyes that came from a well and truly fucked up childhood. Reese, Vincent, and I were as close as three people could be. All because of Reese. Reese was our linchpin, the warm safety net that kept us all okay. But Reese was so damn good, so ready to believe the best in everyone, that he needed someone to be cynical for him. That was me. Combination bullshit detector and bodyguard. Vincent was his wild side. Reese wasn’t one of the youngest tech billionaires by luck. He was brilliant. But without Vince to drag him out, to make him live, he’d be stuck in his lab for days on end, completely engrossed in one project or another.
This girl? She was going to fuck up the balance. I could see it now.
Still, I rested my hand on Vincent’s shoulder and he leaned into the touch. “It’ll be okay, Vince. She obviously has commitment issues to match your own. She’ll be gone before you know it.”
She looked up, her grey eyes meeting mine like she could read my mind. I held her stare, my jaw set. Yeah. I saw her alright.
Chapter Six
Reese
Logically, I recognized that I was in shock. Celeste’s return would have been crazy enough, but when you threw in a bulging baby bump, my brain was whirling as much as my hands were shaking. I could feel the heat of Lincoln’s gaze, but Celeste seemed impervious to it. She’d come up against deadlier people than Lincoln, but when it came to me and Vince, Lincoln was a savage. He protected us with the ferocity of, well, a snow leopard.
“Your boy over there doesn’t seem to like me much,” Celeste laughed softly, completely unfazed.
I shrugged. “Lincoln is just protective of me. I’ve, uh, been burned before.”
That was an understatement. I loved women. Unlike the guys, I’d grown up in a beautiful, loving home. My adoptive parents had been older and so damn enamoured by their quirky ass son that they’d doted on me. They believed in giving everyone a chance, offering a helping hand. They’d died in my first year of college. First my mother in a car accident, and then my father soon after of what I assumed was a broken heart, but science had said was a brain aneurysm.. I’d been so damn lost, but then I’d met Vincent passed out in a bush in front of my dorm.
I’d cleaned him up, made sure he didn’t die by choking on his own vomit, and then he’d never really left. If it had even occurred to me, I would have been worried he was after my money, but Vincent was richer than God himself. Rich and completely, soul shatteringly sad. So there we were, two entirely different people brought together by our loneliness.
It wasn’t until Linc came along, gave us something we both needed, that we’d found happiness. I owed him everything, not just because he was my bodyguard and best friend, or the fact he’d saved Vincent from dying at the bottom of a bottle. He protected me from everything, even myself.
I looked at Celeste.
But I didn’t want or need saving from her.
Celeste wiggled on the couch. “You didn’t get a more comfortable couch in the last few months. Jesus, how does your ass not go numb on this thing?” She squirmed, her face screwed up, and it was goddamn adorable.
I hadn’t been able to shake her memory. Even when I’d woken up and convinced myself it was a dream, it was like my body still pined for her. I’d searched for her, of course, but I didn’t know her last name. What was I meant to search for? Celeste Don’t-Know-Her-Last-Name? Add that she sometimes shifts into a snow leopard.
Shifters.
I hadn’t told the guys her secret, mostly because I promised not to, but also because it sounded freaking insane. But I’d quietly started researching. Message boards and the dark web. I’d stumbled across the sale of Shifters, everything from women, to children, to cage fighters. I’d nearly thrown up. Everything she’d said had been true, confirmation she wasn’t a delusion. I’d seen those men with my own two eyes.
I looked down at her stomach. Now she was carrying my baby, er cub? I swore softly under my breath.
“It’s just hitting you, huh?” she asked softly. I nodded and ran my fingers gently over the globe of her stomach. That was mine in there. I knew it as surely as I knew my own name. She tensed, and then let out a sigh that was so world weary, I wanted to pull her into my arms. “I’d prove it’s yours if I could, you know that, right? But if the hospitals got hold of shifter blood, or if the bounty hunters tagged the files, decided to chase it up…”
I held a finger to her lips. I didn’t want to think about what could happen to either of them. They were with me now, and I didn’t intend on letting either of them out of my sight again. But instead of saying all that, I just nodded softly. “I know. I believe you, Celeste. You don’t have to prove anything to me.”
She shook her head and got an expression on her face that mirrored one that Lincoln often got when he was dealing with me. Bemused exasperation. “You shouldn’t just take people’s word for things, Buttercup.”
I smile softly at the nickname. “I like giving people the benefit of the doubt. It’s a happier way to live, rather than waiting for the next person to screw me over. Besides, that’s what I have Lincoln for.”
Lincoln was glaring, and when the elevator doors slid open, I wasn’t surprised when Vincent stepped out. I was surprised it took him this long to get here though. He wandered over to Lincoln first, and they were talking in low voices. Something they said brought a smile to Celeste’s lips. I frowned at her. “You can hear them?”
She lifted a shoulder and nodded. “Shifter hearing. It's a definite boon.”
I winced a little. She probably heard what I said to Lincoln before. About keeping her. “What do you need, Celeste? Just tell me. I’ll give you anything.”
She shook her head at me again. “That’s a big statement, Reese,” she said, her mouth turning down in a sad expression. “There's so, so many things you can’t give me. But I only need one thing and that’s it.”
I leaned forward and grabbed her hands, wrapping them in mine. “Anything.” Honestly, I meant it. Money, houses, diamonds. Material shit I had in abundance. My heart? It was pretty much hers already. Or at least the idea of her.
“When the baby is born, I need you to take care of it.”
I frowned. That couldn’t be it. I’d already promised her that. “Where will you be?”
She let out a shuddering breath. “As far from here as possible.” She stood up. “Excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom.”
She all but sprinted out of the room, Lincoln and Vincent tracking her with their eyes. What the hell did she mean by that?
I ran my fingers through my hair, the sandy blond locks falling in my face. It was probably time for another haircut. I kept forgetting.
I rubbed a hand down my face. If I couldn’t remember to get myself a haircut, how was I going to care for a kid?
Lincoln was putting out all the Chinese food on the dining table and Vincent wandered over to me. “Damn, Reese. You don’t do shit in halves, do you? Finally have a one night stand, then you knock the girl up.”
Wicked Souls: A Limited Edition Reverse Harem Romance Collection Page 154
