“Anyway, I just wanted to let you know. We’ll handle it on our end, but it will tie up the distribution of the estate for a little while, until we can disprove paternity.”
“What’s her name?” The question juts out of me, and I can hear the fear in it. I shouldn’t be afraid. I’m about to be king of this city, lord of one of the biggest names in fashion. There is no place for fear on the throne.
“Uh…” I grow a year older in the time it takes him to place the name. “Avery McKenna,” he finally announces. “From Detroit.”
Avery McKenna. From Detroit.
Holy fuck.
I pinch my eyes shut and, if there is a worse woman I could have chosen to fuck last night, I can’t imagine her.
* * *
I drive. I haven’t driven in ages, but I get behind the wheel of the Rolls, wave off Edward’s protests, and head for the city. On the way, I scan the streets, looking among groups of tourists and kids for a giant backpack and scuffed up combat boots. I think I see her a half-dozen times, but don’t. She’s been swallowed up by this beach town. Maybe she caught a taxi, is already back in Manhattan, and screwing up my life from there.
I flick my eyes away from the crowds and focus on the road. Finding her, right now, might not be the best course of action. What would I say to her? I can’t think of anything; my thoughts taken by the giant vacuum my stupidity has created.
I’ve been played. She seduced me with those fucking doe eyes and her feminine scent, that nervous vulnerability and those shots of vodka. Did she suggest those? Maybe I had. I can’t remember, can’t remember much from last night other than the taste of her mouth, the way she had melted against my kiss, her hands tugging on my hair, scraping across my skin. God, I’d spent hours on her body.
A body that had been behind our house. Hit by our car. The number of coincidences in this situation are suspiciously high. I think of her pretending to faint, the cagey way she had avoided my questions, the hesitation before giving her name. I’d known Avery Hartsfield hadn’t been right, had smelled the lie in that cautious announcement. But I’d still kept her in my car. I’d still taken her to my house, stripped her naked, and let her fucking see me. The real me. The man I’ve hidden from everyone for a decade.
And she might be Vince’s daughter. Talk about fucking things up in a hundred different ways.
I see the exit for the bridge, cut across four lanes of traffic and almost clip the front bumper of a truck.
I have no one. No one to talk to, no one to ask for help, no one to confide in. Millions of dollars in my bank account, and I can’t fucking buy advice right now. Maybe I should tell John. He knows about Vince, prepared our contract, knows I’m not really gay. He could give me, at least on the legal front, some sort of awareness of my actions and their consequences.
I watch the flow of traffic ahead of me, roads splitting off and converging, and realize I have no fucking idea how to get around in this town.
Chapter 24
AVERY
“I have giant salami in my hand, so make this quick.” Marcia’s voice rolls through the receiver with all of the dignity of a junkyard squirrel.
“I need the tracking number of the package.” I hop out of the taxi and huff across the Manhattan street, narrowly missing death by a Volvo semi. The driver blares the horn, and I show him my middle finger.
“Good morning, Avery.” She intones the words, and this is not the time nor place for an etiquette class. “I’m finnnne. Thank you for asking. How are you?”
“I’m in need of a fucking tracking number.”
She lets out a long groan. “Good God. I’m cooking right now.”
Oh good. I was worried the salami reference was a sexual one, and that’s a visual of Andrei that I may never, ever, get out of my head. “Please,” I beg. “I’ll babysit for a week. Just text me the number.”
There is silence, the clatter of a pan, then the agonized grunt of Marcia doing a favor. I stand at the curb, watching traffic blow by, and eye the skyscraper a half block down. I look around for a USPS truck, but don’t see one. Maybe I’m not too late.
“Okay, I got it.” She rattles off the number, then pauses. “But…”
I hate the sound of that word, the regret that coats the syllables. “But what?”
“But… it’s been delivered. Was signed for at 9:14 by someone named Waters.”
“Shit.” I step back from the street and bump into someone.
“It’s okay,” she offers up. “This is good. Now you will know for sure.”
“Yeah.” But she doesn’t know that seven hours ago, Marco Lent was deep inside of me, his mouth on mine, his hands on my breasts, hips thrusting against mine.
“So, you coming back home?” She speaks through a mouthful of food, and I turn away from the street, squeezing through the crowd and fighting for a clear spot of the sidewalk.
“I don’t know.” I get through and move north, trying to think through the situation.
“Oh, Andrei wants to talk to you.” She says something to him, then he’s on the line.
“Avery.”
“Hey.” I stop and lean back against the wall. “Give me some good news.”
“They’re running a background check on you.”
I curse. “Why?”
“They don’t know anything about you. They’re wary. Worried about lawsuits and frauds. It’s not ridiculous, especially if they grant you access to a paternity test.”
Do I even want him to be my father? I think of Marco, his eyes skating along my body, his hips thrusting… he was Vince’s lover. For ten years they were practically married. And Vince may be my father? The possibility sours on my tongue.
Maybe I should tell Andrei. It wouldn’t take much. He knows who Marco is, understands his role in all of this. I could get it out in one quick sentence. I slept with Marco last night. He’ll sputter. Ask me to repeat myself. Won’t believe me. Probably laugh. And then he can give me advice, let me know how this affects everything, in terms of my possible heredity and stake in Horace’s estate.
“You there?” Andrei speaks, and I think again of Marco, of him finding out about the letter. Guilt settles like a weight in my stomach.
I bite my lip, watching a girl with blue hair and a nose ring pass, and swallow the events of last night. “I’m here.”
“If they authorize it, you’ll need to provide a DNA sample. Mouth swab, or hair, something like that. The head guy…” I hear papers rustle and picture Andrei, his head resting on the tips of his fingers. “Mr. Montreal. He wants to meet with you. I told him you were already in New York.”
“What?” I twist a loose piece of hair around my finger. “Why did you tell him that?” Not that it matters. Me and my overly friendly vagina haven’t exactly been discreet since stepping out of LaGuardia.
“I assumed you would want to knock this out quickly. We don’t have a lot of time before steps are taken in the distribution of the estate. If you want a piece of it, we have to move quickly.”
If you want a piece of it. It sounds so cold, as if that is the reason for all of this. As if my search for my father is secondary to determining who gets to have all of his money.
I push off the wall and look to the left and right, trying to find my bearings. When my eyes move over the skyline, I see a giant image of Vince Horace, one that takes up the entire side of a building, the man on a catwalk, flanked by models. Across the front of the image, two words that take up six floors of space. BE BOLD.
It’s a sign. I mean, obviously. It’s literally a giant sign. But it’s also a sign. BE BOLD. I can hear the man speak it from the grave.
I don’t know what Be Bold means, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t involve me running back to Detroit with my tail between my legs.
I interrupt Andrei, who’s babbling about guardians and due diligence. “I’ll meet with the attorney. What was his name?”
“Montreal. John Montreal.”
“Great. Is it the sam
e address we sent the package to?”
“It is. But Avery, I should come there. I don’t like you meeting them without—”
“Just text me a time. I’m not waiting for you to get here, Dre.” He starts to say something, and I hold up a hand he can’t see. “Just do it.”
I end the call, head right, and spot a hotel’s sign, sticking out from the next block.
Be Bold.
I was going to boldly take a shower and a nap. Buy myself something decent to wear, and give myself one hell of a pep talk.
Chapter 25
MARCO
I don’t need to be here. I have people for this. Six of them, each billing me hundreds per hour, perched around this table. The suit to my left is my asshole. John Montreal. Previously Vince’s and my asshole, in the strictly heterosexual way. He can handle this. Interview the girl, strip her down to nothing and send her off feeling like an idiotic fraud.
The other suits are estate specialists. They’ve looked over Vince’s will, analyzed Avery’s letter to the T, and have all but told me that I’m fucked if she is his daughter. Not middle-class-in-Gap-jeans-fucked, but fucked all the same. Goodbye, eight hundred and fifty million dollars. Goodbye full control over the Vince Horace line. If she’s his daughter, I’m going to be practically married to the bitch for the rest of my life. Listening to her. Working with her. Pretending that her opinion matters and yielding to it.
If she’s his daughter. Talk about a giant IF in a sea of Not Fucking Possible.
“I told him this.” John leans forward and growls out the words, stabbing his finger on the desk. “Were you there? I think you were there. I told him this was a risk, and that we needed to put applicable language in it.”
Except that Vince had put applicable language in. That was the kicker that lubed up my ass and shoved a Budweiser-sized cock inside. Two stupid sentences, buried on page 42.
If an heir, proven by paternity, ever comes forward, any distribution of my assets will be determined and handled by Marco Lent. At minimum, the heir should have a permanent seat on the Board of Directors for Vince Horace, Inc.
He reads my mind. “That paragraph is a legal minefield. Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.”
Of course, he will. At eight hundred dollars an hour, he’ll do whatever it takes. “She’s not his daughter.”
“Of course, she isn’t.” The door at the end of the room opens, and he stands, fastening the button on his suit jacket. “From Vince? Please.”
A secretary steps in, holding the door open, and one by one, all of the men around the table stand. I don’t. I stay in the heavy leather chair, in my place at the head of the table. My foot jiggles against the floor, a tap-tap-tap of weakness, and I still it. I shouldn’t be nervous. I should be in control. I have nothing to be ashamed of. “Touch your clit. Rub it.” I clamp out the memory and watch as the door swings wider, and the bane of my existence steps into view.
She’s changed. Her mess of hair, dark and full, gripped in my fist, is now flat against her head, contained in a low bun. Her combat boots and ripped jeans are gone. She is in low heels, a pencil skirt, and a button-up that screams department store Calvin Klein. It’s a costume, one that shouts a little more good girl and a lot less crazy slut. Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe last night’s outfit was the costume, and this is the original. A dreary conservative with my balls in her pocket. She steps forward, and the introductions begin, hands stuck out, names exchanged.
She makes it around the table, and if she’s seen me, she hasn’t reacted yet. The bald guy to my right moves and she is there, smiling at him, shaking his hand. I want to reach over and break their connection. Grab her shoulders and ask her what the fuck her game is.
“And … this is Marco Lent.” John gestures to me, his voice strained, the introductions of each suit taking entirely too long. I don’t rise, don’t offer my hand, and when her gaze swings to me, there is a long moment where we only look at each other.
“Mr. Lent.” Her eyes drift over me, and when she glances down, I know she is thinking of my cock. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
I’m sure it was. I’d made damn sure of that.
“Miss… McKenna?” I raise my eyebrows. “Funny. Last name doesn’t quite suit you.” It’s a stab at her earlier lie, the fake name she had supplied in the backseat of my car. The stab falls short, and I don’t even see the opening I’m giving her until she smiles.
“Maybe that’s because it should have been Horace.” It is a clean point, one that I set her up for, and I glower in response, watching as the bald guy pulls back his chair for her as if she’s the fucking queen of England. She sits, crosses her legs at the ankle, and meets my glare head-on.
“It shouldn’t.” A weak response from me, and I should be better than this. Prior to her walking in that door, I was certain I would be better than this.
I don’t like this. I don’t like the fact that she doesn’t seem afraid. I don’t like that, at this angle, her profile reminds me a little bit of Vince’s. I don’t like any of this. Two days ago, I sat in this same room, bored out of my skull, and listened to a long and lengthy recitation of all that I will be inheriting. Now, thanks to a fucking LiveAid concert and Vince’s wandering dick … the last decade could have been for nothing.
All of it. Ten years of watching a parade of naked men move through our house. Ten years of being practically celibate, focusing on the Vince Horace brand, and being a beard for him. Ten years, and she … this smirking bitch of a woman … she might destroy it all.
She leans forward, her elbows resting on the polished wood surface, and clasps her hands. “Soooo,” she says slowly, as if we have all of the time in the world. “You wanted to meet with me?”
“We received your letter, Miss McKenna.” John pushes forward her letter, which I’ve read a dozen times in the last fifteen minutes. It’s short and sweet. She thinks Vince is her father and has nothing but a flimsy story and photo as proof.
“I’d like to see the photo,” I speak right as she begins to. The interruption irritates her, and I watch as her hands make small fists under the table. That’s what I want. I want to see the tiger beneath that conservative costume. I know she’s there. A few sharp pokes, and she’ll snarl.
She ignores me. Wets her lips and … I lose the first sentence out of her mouth. I’m too distracted by the thought of my dick between those soft lips, the slide of them against my shaft, the way her throat had flexed around my cock—she turns her head and I try to refocus.
“… as interested as you are in the truth.” She spreads her hands, and whatever she just said was bullshit. She’s here for the money.
“I’d like to see the photo,” I speak louder, my voice booming in the room, and when she undoes the top of her bag and reaches inside—her shirt gapes and I can see her bra. Red lace. I know that bra. It is from our current line, the hidden seams holding the piece together, those seams hugging her breasts, pushing them up and in easy access to my mouth. She lifts her head and catches me looking.
She doesn’t say anything, but I feel the loss of a small battle, the shift of pawns as my position weakens and hers grows. She’s wearing my design, the bra part of my lingerie line, though no outsider would know that. My lines are against her skin, holding up those beautiful breasts, and I can’t wipe that image from my mind. Is she wearing the panties too? I think of the lace and satin, and wonder if the cotton lining is damp between her legs.
She straightens, pulling a photo from the bag, and holds it out toward me. It’s well worn, the edges weak, the color faded, and I take it, grateful for something to look at, something that isn’t flesh and blood, sexuality and lust, temptation packed on cheap two-inch heels. I look down, and lose another battle in just the first glance at it.
It’s Vince. He’s sitting on a blanket, an elbow resting on one knee. He’s smiling, his beard a few days too long, and wearing fucking jeans. Everything about the image isn’t him. Dirt on his clothes. Product-free hair.
A casual smile. I would have told you that he’d die before wearing pants with that cheap cut. I’d have bet my left nut that Vince Horace never had this level of grime on his hands, or a canteen hanging off a loop on his belt.
And I’d have lost that nut because it’s him. I know it the moment I look at his hand, the one dead center in the photo. On that dirty hand, one that grips a cowboy hat as if he plans on wearing it, is a ring. A ring I’ve seen a hundred times. A ring I know.
I set down the photo down and slide it back to her. “Nice picture. Could be anyone.”
“I don’t think so.” She doesn’t glance down at it, her eyes tight to mine. “I think it’s him.”
I snort, leaning back in the chair and smoothing down the front of my suit, reassured by the weight of the expensive fabric, the fall of perfectly cut and tailored lines. “You’ve got a grimy old photo and you expect us to just… what?” I raise my hands and lock them behind my head. “What are you wanting? Money? I can stroke you a check right now, and you can be on your way. You aren’t worth the time in my day that you’re wasting.”
“Marco,” John cautions, and I ignore him, pinning her with an expectant stare. “What do you want from me?” I clearly enunciated each vowel and watch as her hands uncoil beneath the table, her eyes flashing. Her chair jerks back as she stands.
There. Tiger unveiled. Ready for battle.
“I don’t want anything from you,” she seethes. “I want to know who my father is.”
I laugh. “So, that’s it? Just a girl looking for her daddy. And you think your daddy was Vince Fucking Horace. Of all people in the world.” I wave my hand in the air and she glares at me with a look that could cut wool.
“Not to state the obvious,” John interrupts. “But you do realize that Mr. Horace was a homosexual man, a lifestyle he carried on for his entire life. The likelihood of him having a sexual relationship with a woman…” He parts his hands in the air. “It’s very unlikely.”
Hidden Seams Page 12
