“His wife is nine months pregnant. What a stupid bastard.” It didn’t surprise Jon. It just frustrated him.
“I didn’t mean to get pregnant. I was on antibiotics the week before. I didn’t think they would mess up my birth control for the entire month. I guess I shouldn’t have given you so much crap about wearing a condom. You were right; the pill can fail.”
“Why him? He’s the only one of the guys that’s married,” Jon asked, though he knew it was because he was married.
“We were both pretty trashed. I didn’t rape him. He was very willing.”
“You knew he was married.” Jon stopped himself—he wasn’t going to judge. “You know what? I don’t want to know the details.”
“He’s hot, in a trailer trash sort of way. Besides, I hadn’t spoken to you in months and you barely acknowledged I was there. I was just looking for some validation. Chris has always been my favorite next to you. His bod is smokin’, and he’s got those tribal tattoos.”
“I thought my friends were beneath you.”
“Oh, you remember how I like to be on top.” She smiled her sucrose smile and continued, “My friend, Kiera, slums it all the time. I should be allowed once in my life.”
The server interrupted, “Mr. Williams, would you like me to box the third meal to take home, or would you like to cancel it all together?”
“I’ll bring it home. Thank you.”
She nodded and left.
“So…what are your plans after the baby comes?”
“I’ll hire a nanny. I’ve got until August to find one, right? I don’t really need Chris to man-up. I don’t want him as a partner. I’d rather have you, if you’re willing.”
The server delivered their meals—planked salmon with coconut-mango risotto and BBQ ribs with baby potatoes and summer squash. “I’ll bring the boxed meal out when you are ready to leave.” She smiled sympathetically at Jon.
“That will be fine. Thanks,” he said. He wished he could just leave. He broke a potato in half with his fork and pushed it around his plate. Why would Sarah think he fathered the baby? It didn’t make sense. He took out his phone again and, as Mia rolled her eyes at him, sent a text to Sarah. She wouldn’t check the text until she got home, but at least it would be waiting for her.
Jon: It’s not my baby. Mia was just messing with you. Don’t be mad.
“What kind of pathetic, groveling note are you sending now? I’m starting to think they should revoke your man card.” She took a bite of her salmon and looked down at her plate without a hint of humor.
“Can you drop me at the house?”
“It would make it a lot easier if you would say the baby is yours. We could write up a contract. You wouldn’t have to pay anything. I don’t need your money.”
“Easier on who, Mia? Not me. And definitely not Sarah. The press’ll slaughter me. And Sarah doesn’t deserve any of this attention.”
She closed her eyes fighting back tears, or maybe she was conjuring them—he wasn’t sure. “It’s different for men. Even in Hollywood. They say we’re equal. They even stopped calling us actresses, right? Everyone is an actor now. But we’re not equal. Men can be with as many women as they can manage and everyone high-fives them for their conquests. But women, once they’ve had more than three public relationships, they’re a slut or they can’t hold a man. Look at Ashley Taylor—the sweetest girl in the world, right? No guy wants to date her, though.” A tear dripped down her face. “The fans would accept you. We have a past together. They won’t accept me having a baby with a man that I have never dated or even been seen with. Besides, I don’t want to ruin Chris’s life. His wife is pregnant.”
He stared at her not really knowing what to say. He swallowed the first words that came to his tongue. “Honestly, if I hadn’t met Sarah, I would consider taking responsibility for the baby, but I’m trying to build a life with her.” He paused and looked into Mia’s blue eyes. “Being a father isn’t just taking credit for conception; it’s a lifetime commitment. If I were to put my name on the birth certificate, then the baby would have to be raised as if it were mine. I’d have a say in where it lived, what schools it went to and who spent time with it. Do you really want me to have so much control over your life?”
“Better you than some guy that I don’t even know.”
“You knew him well enough to sleep with him.” Jon tried to make her laugh.
“Are you mad about that? I didn’t think you would ever find out.”
“I’m not mad. It’s your life.” He paused. He needed to be direct and tell her what was on his mind. “I know you well enough to realize that if I let you put my name on your baby’s birth certificate that someday, maybe ten years from now, we would disagree on something, and then somehow it would leak to the press that the kid wasn’t mine. I would lose all rights and access to a kid I had invested years of my life raising because a paternity test would prove that I’m not the real father.”
“I’d never do that.”
“Yes, you would. I will help you any way I can, Mia, but I can’t be the baby’s father.”
More tears streamed down her cheeks. As she tried to recompose, Jon glanced around the restaurant, wondering how this spectacle called lunch looked to everyone who would be tweeting about it.
“I can’t tell the press about Chris yet. I still have too much to figure out.” Mia dabbed her napkin under her eyes.
“I’ll talk to him and see where his head is. It will all work out.”
She met his eyes and the corner of her lips turned up just a little.
“If you’re done, can we go?” he asked. She nodded, and he waved the server over, handing her his credit card when she reached the table.
As they left the restaurant, Jon was careful not to wrap his arm around Mia like he normally would. He held the takeout bag between them to keep a distance. He knew what the tabloids would say, and he knew how that simple act would irritate Sarah if someone snapped a picture.
The ride was long, and they spoke about Mia’s next project and how she had gotten the studio to push back the filming a couple of weeks to give her more time to get back into shape after the baby was born. “I’ve already gained seven pounds. I’m going to be a total cow by the time I get this thing out of me.”
Jon laughed at her comment. He told her that he would like to start a family with Sarah and confessed that he tried to convince her to get married on the Mediterranean. When they neared the house, Mia asked, “Do you need me to come in and tell Sarah the baby isn’t yours?” Her tone insinuated that Sarah didn’t trust him and would only believe the words coming from Mia’s mouth.
“No. She’ll be fine.” He knew having Mia in the house would only aggravate Sarah. That’s why they went out to lunch in the first place.
The paparazzi outside the gate frenzied when they recognized Mia and Jon in the car together. The guy in the white van that usually blocked the security camera actually got out of his vehicle to clack his lens against the windshield for a shot. Mia punched in the code and Jon tried to look nonchalant as the gate seemed to take forever to open. When the car came to a stop outside the guesthouse, Jon thanked Mia for the ride and told her he would call her after he spoke to Chris.
He pulled the door to the house closed behind him, expecting to see Sarah standing there with a scowl on her face. He shouldn’t have forced her to have lunch with Mia. He sincerely thought it would go better, and she was probably pissed about the whole situation. At least she would have seen the text by now and would know that she had overreacted. He would wrap his arms around her and kiss the top of her head, and all her bitterness would melt away. She wasn’t standing by the door, though.
Jon checked the kitchen as he stashed the food bag in the refrigerator, and then the courtyard before calling out to her, “Sarah. Where are you, beautiful?” He headed upstairs—maybe she was napping. He wasn’t that far behind her, an hour at the most. She wasn’t in the bedroom either, so he checked the bath. She liked baths. The tu
b was bone-dry. “Sarah?” he called again as he spotted her phone on the bed. If her phone was here, she was here, he thought. Maybe she had her headphones on and didn’t hear him come in. She had to be somewhere. He continued to look without success. He opened the door to the garage, not really knowing why she would be hiding in the garage, and his heart hit the cement.
Her car was gone. Her phone was on the bed, but her car was gone! Where would she go? She always had her phone with her. The visual Sarah had planted in his brain flashed into his head—her being stuffed into the trunk of her own car with her phone nowhere near her. How was he going to find her? He called Sam. “Sarah’s gone. Her phone is here, but she and her car are gone.”
“I’ll be there in thirty minutes. She probably just ran out for groceries. Don’t freak out.”
Don’t freak out? There was some psychotic person sending death threats, Sarah was missing, and he wasn’t supposed to freak out. He couldn’t call her, he couldn’t track her phone, and he had no way to find her. He paced back and forth across the kitchen, stopping as his eyes brushed past the courtyard. The picture of Sarah’s face as she sat under the pergola and looked up at the camera popped into his head. The cameras. He could see what happened. He’d have record of how she was taken, maybe even glimpse the face of her abductor.
Jon didn’t know how he got to the security office. All of a sudden he was sitting in front of the computer, looking up at the large monitor on the wall as his fingers clicked frantically on the keyboard. He scrolled back through the gate footage until he saw Sarah’s car coming in. He didn’t see anyone in the car with her. He concentrated on the screen, waiting for movement—nothing out of the ordinary. He scanned and waited. With his eyes fixated on the monitor, he watched as Sarah’s car drove back out the gate. It had only been twenty minutes, and she appeared to be alone. She must have left on an errand, he thought, as he rose to return to the guesthouse. Why wouldn’t she take her phone?
Fifteen minutes later when Sam arrived, Jon explained what he had seen on the security tapes, and they laughed about how they had overreacted.
“Does she have her Pilates class today?” asked Sam.
“No. That’s tomorrow.”
“She probably just needed girl supplies or something.”
Jon chuckled. “No, that’s next week.”
Sam passed him the “seriously, why would you know that” look.
“What? A man needs to know these things. You can’t tell me you don’t know when Cassandra’s cycle starts.”
“Not a clue,” said Sam.
“Then you, my man, are not getting enough sex.”
“True. That’s the drawback of having children.”
Jon hadn’t thought about that. “Maybe Sarah and I should wait on having kids.”
“They will definitely change your perception of life.”
“As it is even without children involved, it kills me every time Sarah leaves the house. I don’t think I can take it much longer. We need to find that stalker.”
“We’ll get some leads soon.”
“What did the FBI say?”
“Pretty much what I told you already. We meet with a specialist who will help pinpoint suspects tomorrow.”
“I hope it’s not too late.” Jon settled on the couch waiting for Sarah to walk through the door so he could apologize in person for pushing her into meeting with Mia. He shouldn’t have pushed so hard for it. He just hoped they would learn to get along with each other, because Mia didn’t have many female friends and with this pregnancy, he thought she needed someone she could confide in.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sarah
SARAH HANDED THE hotel clerk her credit card—the one she had in college, not one of Jon’s. She refused to use his money. Hoping no one would recognize her, she tossed her hair with her fingers until it hung in her eyes, veiling her face. The man standing on the other side of the counter smiled at her as he handed her the receipt to sign. With one phone call, he could tip off the paparazzi and everyone in the world, including Jon, would know where she was.
She nervously repositioned her computer bag on her shoulder and the man asked, “Can I call someone to help you with your luggage?”
“No, thank you. I have it.” Sarah didn’t need anyone else notifying the vultures either. She scooped up her key card as she grabbed the handle of her suitcase. She prayed she could make it to the room before the tears started again, but by the time she crossed the threshold, they were streaming down her face. What was she going to do? He had lied to her—something she thought he would never do. She dropped her bags to the floor. Collapsing on the king-sized bed, she couldn’t hold her sobs back any longer. She pulled the pillow out from under the covers and buried her face in it.
She had believed him when he told her the baby wasn’t his. On the boat he had looked her straight in the eyes and said it. He was such a good actor. She thought about the picture of Jon with his arm around Mia at the sushi bar and Mia’s smug smile today when she revealed she had gotten pregnant that night. Sarah could have forgiven him for cheating, she knew that, if he had told her on the boat instead of denying it. If he had admitted the baby was his, then she was pretty sure she would have been able to get past it. But he lied, and that was the one thing she couldn’t forgive.
She had to leave him. There was no other way. If she couldn’t trust him, they had nothing. If he could lie to her so convincingly that she felt guilty she asked in the first place, how could she trust anything he said? She would have to find a way to move on, but she just didn’t know how she would do it. In the year she’d known Jon, he’d become the most important person in her life. He was like air or food—impossible to give up. Her heart was his. How would she ever get it back?
She rolled over and looked blankly at the ceiling as she took in a shaky breath. If she cut all ties and never saw him again, it would be easier. It would kill her to look into his clear-blue eyes knowing that he lied. And if he found her, she didn’t know if she would have the strength to leave. In two days Jon would be heading back to Europe for two weeks of promoting Third Rung. It was part of the deal he had worked out with Isaac.
After skipping the festival awards ceremony and disappearing for a week on the Mediterranean, he needed to make up for his lack of professionalism and had agreed to the promotional tour. He couldn’t get out of it. If she stayed hidden until he left for the tour, she could get the rest of her things from the house and drive home. Her family and friends would help her endure this. They would make it almost bearable. She closed her lids and the haze that was covering her eyes spilled down her cheeks.
She stared up at the popcorn ceiling for hours until the tears no longer came. With her body too numb to move, her eyes finally wisped closed.
Jonathan
The sky was taking on the pink-orange haze as the sun began to drop beyond the horizon, and Jon was starting to panic again. Why hasn’t Sarah come home yet? Where is she? Could the stalker have grabbed her after she left? Her phone. Why did she leave her phone? Maybe her phone would give him a clue as to where she went. It would have her calendar at the very least. Jon hustled up stairs and the phone bounced on the bed when he landed next to it. He slid his finger across the screen using the password he had help set up. He rolled onto his back as he looked at her pending messages. He read back through about twelve texts, all from her friends, until he found a name he didn’t recognize.
Cami: I wish I had been wrong about Jon. He’s such an ass. I heard about what happened at the restaurant with Mia on Entertainment News. Call me if you want to talk.
Who the hell was Cami? And why was she calling him an ass? He scrolled down the messages to the first ones pending. Nothing so far indicated anything about Sarah’s whereabouts.
Alli: We’re all here if you need us.
Megan: Men are dicks! Call me.
Jessica: Hey. Are you OK?
Apparently lunch with Mia had made the tabloids. Wait a minute
. His message was still pending. She hadn’t read it. She still thought he had fathered Mia’s baby. Shit. He looked around the room and realized the suitcase she was unpacking from the trip was gone. Her computer bag was gone. She left on her own. She thought he had lied to her and she left.
His head sunk into the pillow. Sarah had to know that he would never cheat. Why would she believe Mia’s innuendos? It was just talk. He had already told her the truth. She shouldn’t have even questioned what his ex said. Mia was right—Sarah wasn’t resilient. She must still have doubts—enough that she didn’t trust him. He stared at Sarah’s phone, not knowing what would happen. How would they survive if she didn’t trust him? Taking a deep breath, Jon rubbed his hands over his face. There was still a stalker out there. The words from the last note burned in his mind. She will learn to hate you, as I have. He had to find Sarah, even if she didn’t want to be found. Jon headed downstairs to see what ideas Sam would have to track her down.
Sarah
The dark room smelled of bleached fabric and lemon furniture polish. Sarah’s head felt like a boulder that had been dropkicked off a cliff. She slowly sat up, negotiating the best position for her pounding head. She hadn’t really thought through leaving her phone at the house. Abandoning it cut her off from all her contacts. She didn’t even know her friends’ numbers. She didn’t need to memorize them because they were always on her phone. At the time, ditching her phone seemed like the right thing to do. All she knew was that she didn’t want Jon tracking her. She couldn’t face him. And she knew he would come for her if he could find her.
She reached over the edge of the bed and dragged her purse and computer bag onto her lap. She prayed the bottle of Advil in her purse wasn’t empty. She shook it. There was something in it. She looked around the room, no minibar. Had she really gotten that spoiled? The plastic-wrapped cups sat stacked on the desk in the corner. She would have to drink from the tap or find a vending machine in order to take the pills. With her keycard, the Advil, and a few dollars in her hand, she headed out the door to find a bottle of water. Her day of crying tolled on her face and she figured no one would recognize her.
Between the Lies (Between the Raindrops #2) Page 25
