Deception : Secret Baby Romance, Second Chance

by C. A. Harms

  “Can we go somewhere and talk?”

  “No, we can’t.” She doesn’t even attempt to think it over. “I have a job to do and you have company waiting for you. But just so we are clear, she is not to be anywhere near my daughter.”

  “Our daughter,” I correct her.

  “Fight me on this.” She steps closer, her eyes locking with mine. “It’s good to know where your loyalty lies.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “What’s not fair is that she has now managed to wiggle her way into the bed of not one but two men from my past.” Her insinuation pisses me off. “He supplied her drugs and I guess you supply a roof over her head.”

  “I told you before and I’ll tell you again, she and I are just friends.”

  We stand face to face, glaring at each other as we each refuse to back down.

  “She doesn’t come anywhere near Isabelle.”

  “But you can bring Shawn around her.”

  “The only times he has ever met her was when she was with Will. He and I went out once, that was it. I’m not interested in him.”

  “I believe you.” She narrows her eyes. “Imagine that.” I don’t wait for her to respond because I need some space of my own at this point. If not, I’m going to end up doing something real fucking stupid, like dragging her ass out of here and locking her in a room until she has no other choice but to face our demons.

  All of them.

  Chapter Eleven

  Blair

  Every time I exit the kitchen I refuse to look in Jake and Sadie’s direction. How can he bring her here? How can he think that after everything she did I would be okay with this? Like I could just forget the lies she told, the way she screwed Nate, most likely while I was in the next room, as if it was nothing.

  I busy myself with my section. Thank god they aren’t in it. I think had that been the case I would have faked an illness or worse, quit.

  “Break time,” Carol holds out her hand to me, “give me your orders and take an extra five.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “It’s a good thing I’m not gullible. Now go.”

  I hand her my pad, turn around and walk right back through the door I just exited. I should have moved to some foreign country and changed my name, I swear. My past and all the things I want to forget are showing up here to haunt me. I’m being crazy, I know, because I wouldn’t take back the fact that now Izzy has her daddy, but for one damn day I want a drama free life.

  I push open the back door and step out into the alley, breathing in the warm air. There is a small grassy area where Wilber had a picnic table placed just beneath a small awning for his employees to escape to when we felt the need to get out on our breaks. I find my way over to it, sit down and rest my head onto my arms folded before me. Closing my eyes tightly, I try to see the good in what is happening. Only the harder I analyze it the more irritated I become. He had so many chances to tell me it was Sadie in the hotel room next to his, only he left those details out.

  “Blair.” My body freezes as I keep my head down in attempt to hide my reaction. I can hear her feet shuffling against the gravel of the alley. “I didn’t come here to cause you any trouble.”

  “Then why did you come?” I spin around to face her and instantly notice how different she looks. I think before I was blinded by my anger and all I could see was the strung-out girl who had betrayed me. Her hair is shorter now, bobbed in a cute style that frames her face and her cheeks look fuller, healthier even.

  “I didn’t want to at first. I told Jake it would be a mistake and that you’ve already been through enough.” I can’t be fooled this time by her sincerity. It was all lies before, and I’ll give her this, she is a great actress. “He showed up at the clinic to pick me up with my things already packed for the trip.”

  “The clinic?”

  “Rehab. I spent an extensive amount of time in and out of one treatment facility after another once you and Whitney left.” She looks down and shame fills her features. I’ve known her long enough to recognize her need to settle herself. “Then Jake and Lark found me—”

  “Who’s Lark?”

  “The guy inside with Jake. He calls him Farris, Detective Farris maybe, but they’re all the same person.”

  I nod, giving her the go ahead to continue. I’m not sure anything she says will make me hate her less, but I feel so defeated at this point that I wonder if letting her get it all out will just make it all go away somehow.

  “They found me in my apartment, hiding in a corner, paranoid and strung out on whatever it was the guy I’d just met in a bar had fed me. It was my lowest point and honestly, in that moment I just wished for it to end. I wanted to close my eyes and never open them again.” I look down at the ground before us as I will the tears I feel pooling in my eyes to go away. “I don’t want your pity and I don’t expect your forgiveness.”

  “Then what do you want, Sadie?”

  “I just want you to know I was so far gone during the time that I hurt you, that I don’t think I could comprehend right from wrong. All I could see was my chance for the next high and it didn’t matter who gave it to me, or what I had to do to get it. But I am sorry it was you that I hurt in the process, because you never deserved that. You were always so good to me, you and Whitney both.”

  She takes in a deep shuddering breath as she looks to her side.

  “I guess I just came out here to tell you that Jake and I have never been more than friends. He is the person that forced me to see that I needed help and then him and Lark made sure I got it. I don’t want the things I did to you to come between what the two of you could have.”

  “He’s Isabelle’s father.” Her gaze finds mine once more. “There is nothing else between us.”

  “I think you know that’s not true, without me or anyone else telling you so.”

  “What I do know is that you willingly led me to him, you helped him get me to that bar. Then you played along while he pretended to have feelings for me, while he led me to believe that I was safe with him.” She tries to speak but I cut her off. “Then I was assaulted outside of Miller’s by his brother, while you were off getting high somewhere and he was—”

  “Getting the crap knocked out of him by his father’s men as he tried to get to you.” Her abrupt interruption surprises me. “He sat in a dark room, staring into the eyes of men with guns, wondering to himself if he could survive a gunshot long enough to get to you and hide you someplace safe. Even from the beginning all he ever wanted was to make sure that they didn’t get to you. It was why he took the job in the first place, so that he could be with you and try to find the answers they needed.”

  “And in the end, they still got to me.”

  Sadie stares at me, my words hitting a place deep inside her as she shifts the weight of her body from one foot to the next.

  “He’s not like them. I knew from the beginning that he had the best intentions when it came to you. It’s why I helped him. I was trapped in Gabe’s world, I knew how he was. Their father wanted Gabe to go to you and not give in until he got what they wanted.” Just the idea of that makes my stomach turn. “Believe me, Gabe doesn’t play nice.”

  I watch her as she rubs at a space on her arm and I can’t help but wonder how she knew those words to be true.

  “Why didn’t you just tell me, Sadie?” She could have warned me. “All you had to do was warn me of who they were, of what they were after.”

  “Because if I did, neither of us would have walked away.” The depth of her words hits me hard. “I’ve witnessed the ramifications of crossing the Gunthers. I may not have wanted to know, but they made sure I understood what they could do if I didn’t cooperate. As hard as it was to hide the truth, it was even harder to imagine them hurting you.”

  I shiver at the thought.

  “I won’t ask for your forgiveness, but I will ask that you not punish Jake for the wrongs of his family. He’s thought of the day he’d find you again since you
left him on the street that afternoon. No matter how much he pushed, I never told him where you’d gone. He found that out on his own.” Friends in high places…I remember Warren telling me that very thing. “All he wanted then was you, and all he wants now is you and Isabelle. He wants his family, Blair, because the two of you are the only real one he’s ever had.”

  Sadie doesn’t wait for me to argue or agree. She doesn’t wait for me to tell her all the reasons why I can’t give him what she’s asked. Instead she turns and walks away, leaving me alone with my thoughts, alone with my doubts and even my regrets.

  “Is she asleep?” I step into the living room and look out the front window as I nod in response. “Wanna talk about it?”

  “What’s there to talk about?”

  “Jake.” Just the sound of his name manages to tie the knots I have in my stomach even tighter. “And the reasons why you keep insisting that you don’t feel for him what he feels for you. Or how about why you keep telling yourself that all he is to you is the father of your child, a piece of your past you left behind when we moved out of the city? Or we could talk about the fact that you are lying to yourself and it pisses me off.”

  I turn around to face Whitney as she stares back at me with the determination I only see when she has reached her limits.

  “For days, weeks even I have watched you battle this thing in your mind. I’ve watched you bury yourself with worry, fight what you truly want, and I used to say that when we were in Chicago I’d seen you at you saddest, but I can’t say that anymore.” I sit on the chair and hang my head, taking in one deep breath after another. “You’re lost, Blair, because you are denying yourself something I know in your heart you want.”

  “I can’t forget—”

  “Don’t forget,” she interrupts me, “but forgive. He loves you and he loves Isabelle. I’m not saying jump in head first without caution, but I am telling you to stop holding onto the past. He is here, and his entire family is in prison because he stopped at nothing to ensure they ended up there. My god, Blair, he became a cop in the end. He is a good guy. You have to stop punishing him and yourself for what took place. He is here for you and for Iz. Give the guy a chance to prove to you that he isn’t the man we both imagined him to be.”

  “I’m scared.” The confession makes my throat burn with emotions I keep fighting.

  “I know.” Whitney stands and moves toward me as she kneels on the floor in front of my chair. “I just think you’ve lost enough already. Why lose this chance at happiness too?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Jake

  “It doesn’t seem to matter what angle I go at, she finds just one more excuse as to why it won’t work.” I can feel my mind grow hazy, my body experiencing alcohol-induced tingles. “I tell her I love her, she says I remind her of those dark times in Chicago. I tell her I need her, both her and Isabelle in my life, she tells me she can’t give me what I need.”

  “Sadie told me I was too good for her,” Farris interjects, pulling me out of my self-pity filled cloud. “So I showed her all the ways I could be bad.”

  “I don’t need a recap, man.” I lift my beer to take another swig and hear him chuckle. “The walls are thin, you bastard. I don’t need you adding any visuals to what I’ve already heard.”

  I hear a car door closing and lie my head back against the lounger. We probably shouldn’t be sitting outside near the outdoor pool, downing one beer after another, but at this point I need it. I want to wash away the ache I feel inside me, if even only for a few hours.

  “That woman looks familiar.”

  I lift my head and the area around me does a little waving motion as it tries to catch up.

  “Fuck, I think I drank one too many.” I laugh at myself as I grip the arm of the chair and try to focus.

  “Isn’t that your girl’s friend?” I am finally able to see Farris clearly, and he is looking off toward the parking lot.

  “What?” I try to lean forward, and fall a little too far as I place my hand on the ground before me to keep from face planting against the concrete pad that surrounds the pool. It most definitely was not a smart idea to get blitzed near a swimming pool.

  By this time Farris is out of his chair and walking toward the front entrance of the hotel. I think about following him, but decide to stay put. Going for a midnight dunk doesn’t sound good.

  “Hey.” Farris’ voice echoes across the open space. He waves his arms in the air and it’s then I see what he was talking about. Whitney rushes toward the fenced area that surrounds the pool. Her face is still a blur as I try to blink past the haze. Still wearing her pajamas, she leans against the fence, taking in a deep, calming breath.

  “Don’t you believe in answering your phone?” Instantly I reach for my back pocket and find it empty. “I’ve been calling you. Blair’s been blowing up your phone too.”

  “What’s wrong?” I stand and wobble on my feet, kicking the chair and practically tripping over the leg.

  “Great, you’re drunk.” She throws her hands up in the air and I’m thrown back to the time in Chicago when she went off on me in the hallway outside her apartment. “Just forget it.”

  When she spins on her heels and starts walking back toward the parking lot, I force my legs to move. “What’s wrong, Whit?”

  “Call in the morning when you’re sober enough to comprehend and I’ll fill you in.”

  “No.” I reach the fence and try my damnedest to open the gate, cursing the latch that I’m sure had I been sober I wouldn’t be having so much trouble opening. “Will you wait a damn minute?” I look over at Farris who is watching me with a puzzled look on his face. “Open this fucking thing, will ya?” He chuckles before reaching out and lifting the lever, causing the gate to swing open.

  “Fucking smartass,” I mumble as I jog, okay, it is more like a stumble, toward Whitney with Farris hot on my heels.

  “You came here for a purpose, so tell me.”

  Whitney lets out a huff of breath, placing her hands on her hips. “Your daughter is running a hundred and three temp.” An alarmed feeling hits me. “Blair took her to the emergency room and she thought maybe you would want to be there too. Actually, I think more than anything, she needs you to be there.”

  Well, kick me in the fucking nuts, why don’t ya.

  “Let’s go.” I take a step toward her car and she places her hand against my chest.

  “You are not going anywhere near the hospital like this,” she waves her hand over the vicinity of my chest. “You need to drink some coffee, water, hell I don’t know. But when you can actually walk a straight line without assistance, then you come and be with Blair and your daughter.”

  A huge part of me wants to argue with her, but I know she is right.

  “Come on.” I feel a tug on my arm and the action makes me stumble once more. “Let’s get you sobered up.” I allow Farris to drag me toward the front of the hotel, but just before we step inside I holler out for Whitney.

  “Hey!” She is standing near her car, and it appears she is texting someone. She looks up and simply stares at me. “Can you tell her that I’ll be there soon?”

  “Yeah.” She waves her hand in the air in the dramatic fashion that only Whitney herself has mastered. “I got this, now get your ass straightened up because your girls need you.”

  My girls. I love the sound of that.

  “I need them too.” That is an understatement. I want them so badly that I can’t seem to focus on anything other than that need.

  Two hours later and a whole helluva lot of coffee, I stand outside the door that leads to the room my daughter is in. It’s quiet, the halls scarce of movement. It is after three in the morning and though I wanted to be here sooner, Whit was right. I couldn’t show up in the condition she’d found me in.

  I lean in a little closer to the door, listening for any indication they are awake. When I’m met with nothing but silence I slowly push open the door and peek inside. In a crib that looks mor
e like a cage, Isabelle is curled up, snuggled in a blanket. Call it a protective nature, or whatever, but I don’t like that she was pinned inside the fucked up looking contraption. I fight the urge inside me to walk over and figure out how to get her out of there. I’d spend all day and night holding her if it meant she wasn’t stuck in there.

  “Hi.” A soft whisper breaks through my irritated state, and the second I see Blair curled up on a leather recliner I move toward her without a second to reconsider. Her eyes widen just a fraction when I kneel next to her and reach out to hug her close.

  “Is she okay?”

  “Viral infection.” I release my tight hold on her, but keep my hands on her legs that are tucked up in front of her. “She’s dehydrated because I can’t get her to drink anything. Her fever didn’t help either.”

  I look over toward Izzy when I hear the rustling sounds of her movements.

  “They just want to keep her overnight, get some fluids in her.” I nod, still watching my daughter closely. “If her fever stays down then she may get to go home tomorrow.”

  “Sorry I wasn’t here.” Add my absence to the long list of fuckups I’ve managed to accomplish with Blair and now Isabelle.

  “It’s okay.”

  “No.” I look away from Isabelle and find Blair watching me closely. “It’s not. I picked the wrong night to take a trip down pity lane.” She tilts her head to the side but says nothing. “Wanting something so fucking bad, but being unable to take it, its killer.”

  She looks like she wants to say something, but I don’t give her a chance to.

  “Do you mind if I stay?”

  “Depends,” a smile tugs at the corner of her mouth as she looks down at the chair she’s in, “do you think we can both fit in this chair?” I do my best not to convey the excitement I feel inside from the idea of being close to her. But damn, I feel that shit down deep.