by C. J. Thomas
I didn’t want to see anyone going through something that knocked them on their ass—not even Paisley—but really, I just wanted to get this shoot over with so I could get back to thinking about Tessa. After Paisley’s incessant phone calls, I’d hoped to let her know today that her services—all of her services—would not be needed anymore.
But she seemed way too over the edge to take any of that news today. I didn’t think Paisley even did drugs, so I wasn’t sure what this was all about. She was probably in the middle of one of those cleansing programs.
I went through my office and knocked on my bathroom door. “Paisley? I’m hanging what you’ll be wearing today on the outside of the door.”
Before I could turn to leave, she swung it open. The only thing the girl wore was her lacy g-string. Didn’t matter how often I shot nudes, it felt off when a girl was naked in front of me and it wasn’t for pictures or for pleasure.
“Do you think I look fat?”
Her question nearly glossed past me. “Fat?” There was no way I wanted to muddy the situation with something sweet, nor could I say that anyone with ribs showing didn’t have a chance of looking fat. “You look fine.” I handed her the clothes and kept walking. “See you in ten.”
Half an hour later, Paisley yawned her way into the studio, duffel bag in hand, and I nearly tipped off my stool. Instead of the fishnet hose worn on her legs, she’d ripped out the crotch and stuck her head through and slipped both her arms where the legs were supposed to be. She’d stretched the top over her breasts, tucking what would be the waist under her corset. Her dark nipples poked through for a surprisingly edgy and sexy look—if it wasn’t for her bloodshot eyes, we’d have something to work with. In any other setting, I might have run with it.
“You sure you don’t want to reschedule?” My words pained me, but just the way she swayed on her feet made it clear she wasn’t up for a shoot.
“I’m a professional. I’m here.”
I wanted to tell her that professionals didn’t blow up their employer’s phone with constant calls and messages, but I kept my thoughts to myself. She placed her hand on her stomach and I noticed she hadn’t cinched the corset up all the way.
I blew out a breath. She had to be looking for me to tie it for her. “We’ll get started as soon as you tighten your corset.”
A tear streamed down her cheek. I really didn’t have the patience for her image issues or compliment-fishing expeditions, so I stood and busied myself with one of the lights to give her time to compose herself.
“I can’t believe you can just stand there like that.” She spat the words at me, yet still managed to look hurt. “Saying those things to me, with me in this condition.”
I spread my hands, hopefully as a sign of peace. The last thing I wanted to do was stir the pot of Paisley. I’d already dipped my spoon in there for the last time to know that I never wanted to do it again. “We can reschedule, or I can just call you when I need you to come in again.” Which would be never.
She rubbed her face.
“Come on, I’ll walk you out.” I picked up her bag and placed my hand against the row of pinstripes lining the back of the corset.
“No. I—I think I’m pregnant.”
Her bag slipped from my shoulder. It seemed to take forever to travel to the ground. It finally landed with an echoing thud.
The math.
It was like my mind had been programmed to speed calculate the days that had passed since that wild night—the night that it never crossed my mind to slip a condom on before sliding into Paisley.
Fuck. Me.
She was pregnant with my kid.
CHAPTER 25
Tessa
The white van in my parents’ driveway sent a chill down my back.
As I pulled up to the house, I looked for some markings, anything that might indicate who this random vehicle belonged to.
I’d tried to reach Dani since yesterday morning. Nothing. I didn’t blame her for needing some time. Our parents’ funeral had been a week ago and we were both still trying to wrap our heads around our new reality without them.
God, had it only been a week?
Sometimes it felt like a lifetime had already passed, and then there were moments that hit me so hard it took all my willpower not to curl into a ball and cry.
Dani and I handled stress differently. I focused on other things, like work—though that wasn’t much of an option right now, but Liam had been a nice distraction that I hoped to keep going. There was something there, and I liked it.
Dani, on the other hand, folded. I still remembered the first time she couldn’t handle a situation.
Dani was three when Mom brought home a sixty-pound dog that was so fluffy we could barely see his eyes. Dani hid behind the couch at first. Bigger than her, the dog wouldn’t stop barking. When Dani finally got the voice to ask what it was, Mom told her it was labradoodle. Dani gave her a confused look, started laughing, then went over and hugged the dog. Apparently, anything with a name so fun couldn’t be mean. Dani called her Fuffy—since she still couldn’t say the letter L very well. The name stuck.
Dad had to put Fuffy down when Dani was fourteen. She’d been so connected to that dog that she locked herself in her room for five days straight. Mom kept trying to feed her but Dani refused to take anything. Finally, Dad had enough and he forced the door open. Piles of wrappers and food cartons covered Dani’s bed. She’d ripped her sheets off and appeared to have been sleeping on the floor. We finally figured out that she’d raided the guest house kitchen in the middle of the night when she got hungry, then spent the days binging while looking at Fuffy’s empty doghouse.
Our dog’s death had devastated her. I’d never forget it, and after everything that had happened in the past two weeks—from making sure we’d both be set financially to spending time with Liam—I’d completely forgotten about what Dani must have been going through emotionally.
If I knew how much my own heart was hurting, I could easily expect hers to be twice as bad.
What kind of big sister did that? To just forget about her little sister. It didn’t matter that I’d been going through the same things. It was no excuse. She needed me.
I looked into the driver’s side window of the van, hoping to find some indication of what had been going on with my sister. “Useless,” I muttered to myself. Finding the front door unlocked, I continued my verbal spat of frustration. “Perfect.”
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary as I walked through the foyer. “Dani?” I called through the house. The further I got, the more the orderly and untouched house began to feel bizarre.
Had Dani even been living here? If not, would she have been staying at Jason’s all this time?
But even more pressing right now was who the hell owned that van and what was it doing at the house?
I knocked on Dani’s door and paused, afraid of what I might find within. After a deep breath, I pushed it open.
“The hell?” I asked the empty room. It looked exactly as it had the day I last saw Dani. Not exactly the cleanest space, but livable, except I wasn’t sure she’d actually been living here. I couldn’t point out a single thing that’d been touched in the last week.
I walked over to her bed, forever unmade so that didn’t really tell me anything, when movement outside caught my eye. “Dani!” I took off through the house, trying to wrap my brain around what I’d seen, then stopped when I got to the back porch.
The vertical columns that wrapped around the patio framed my sister and her . . . collection. It looked like half a grocery store had made its way around—and into—our pool.
For every gallon of ice cream, there was a pizza box or takeout container. It was hard to tell how much had been consumed because most of the ice cream had melted hours—maybe days—ago. One full pepperoni pie only had a single bite taken from it.
I wasn’t sure what I thought I’d see here, but I really wasn’t expecting thirty-one flavors of crazy.
> Dani was lying out in a bikini across one of the pool’s lounge chairs, talking to some boy—who I could only assume owned the mysterious van.
She waved me over. “Hi, sis. Benny here was just telling me about his dad’s store in Florida.”
The boy shifted in his chair to face me. Given that he looked no more than thirteen, he probably had just gotten his license and was new to the job. He gave a “please help” look, then said, “I told her about my dad’s franchise in Florida. This was the second largest delivery I’ve ever made. I thought with all these gallons, you were throwing some sort of party.”
“Do you know how hard it is to find a decent ice cream store that delivers?” Dani asked. “I called, like, twenty places. Then I kept getting hungry for something else.”
I covered my mouth with my hand. It looked like the party of a lifetime had been thrown back here. A couple ice cream containers had toppled over and pools of melted cream swirled together. It would have made for an interesting looking piece of art if that’d been the point.
Part of me wanted to ask where the hell did she think we had the money for all this; I also wanted to give her a hug; and yet another part of me wanted to grab a spoon and dig in myself.
I wouldn’t dare admit it, but I was feeling just as lost and confused as she clearly was.
Resisting all sides of me at war for the moment, I turned to the poor boy sitting in the middle of the whirlwind that was my sister. “Has she paid you?”
Benny glanced over at Dani and I wondered just how long she’d already kept him hostage. I paid him the balance and an extra fifty for his time and exhaled.
There went a good chunk of what I made with Liam.
Then I sighed in a very pleasurable way. Funny how the right guy could do that sort of thing to you no matter what was happening at the time—including standing in the eye of a half-eaten food hurricane.
I walked to the side of the house and began pulling the garbage bins to the back. Thankfully, with all of Dad’s projects, we probably had more bins than most blocks had in all.
After watching me toss the third pizza box in the trash, Dani said, “Thanks. I kept talking to the guy because I didn’t have enough to pay him. I guess I figured he’d leave sooner or later.”
I dumped out half a dozen takeout boxes, then grabbed the pool net to fish out whatever I could without having to wade with the floating fries.
“You’re my sister. I get it. You like things to have order.”
I turned to her, pizza box tucked under my arm as she sat there, content, under the sun. “There’s a lot I need, Dani.”
“Any idea if we get to keep the house yet? I mean, I don’t have to leave, yet, right?”
I sighed. Every bit of my being told me to take her with me, to give her my bed and a shoulder to cry on. But I knew Dani, and taking her from here, right now, would probably send her completely over the edge. While she didn’t need to be swimming in food, she needed time to herself.
“Don’t know yet,” I said, shorter with her than I’d intended. “Edward is still working through the logistics.” She nodded but I didn’t think she saw the bigger picture. “Even if we somehow manage to keep it, a house this large takes a lot of upkeep.”
“But it’s home. Even though you don’t live here anymore, you still have a place to come back to.”
The weight of her words hit me in the chest. She was right. It didn’t matter that I’d moved away a few years back, I had always thought of this house as my real home.
“We’ll figure it out. Now come on and help me.” When she stood, I asked, “Is there anything around here to eat that isn’t melted or floating in the pool?”
The crinkles around her eyes smiled and we both laughed. We could move beyond this.
CHAPTER 26
Tessa
Only hours ago I’d been talking to Dani beside our pool, and here I was with Liam lounging beside his gorgeous infinity pool, just outside the giant floor-to-ceiling windows of his loft.
Though his pool didn’t offer floating fries and take-out wrappers, it did offer an incredible view of the New York City skyline. The building his loft was housed in was surrounded by old warehouses to match, leaving an unobstructed view toward downtown. Even the view from my father’s office couldn’t compare.
“How do you not spend every day out here?” I sighed, ready for the wine to do its relaxation magic that I so desperately needed.
He grinned at me. “It gets a little chilly in winter.”
I leaned back and crossed my legs, letting the gentle breeze cool my warm skin. Liam had called me to join him this evening just as I was about to leave Greenwich. Per his request, the evening called for nothing more than a bathing suit. I’d double-checked with Dani that I could borrow one of hers—rather than just taking one, as she would have done to me—and she made sure I left with one of the skimpiest.
You’d think I’d asked Sadie and not my little sister with how little fabric covered me.
When Liam gave me his room to change in, I didn’t want to sit around without some cover-up, so I snagged one of his white button-up shirts. The edge hit me lower than Sadie’s dresses and it was enough to get me to the pool without feeling like I was showing my goods to the world. Though I wasn’t sure if that said more about how tall I was compared to my friend or how broad Liam’s shoulders measured, thanks to his athleticism.
Now we lounged as the setting sun filled the sky with the rich shades of evening. I pushed my sunglasses up to see the reds and pinks blend together like a perfectly completed balance sheet.
Just beautiful.
“I suppose when it’s winter, being inside and getting all cozy near that double-sided fireplace would be the way to go.”
“Maybe you’ll find out,” Liam said, then a shadow crossed his face, like he realized something important. Before I could ask if everything was okay, he stood and walked to the railing.
As I got up to follow, I released the button across my chest and made sure that my nipples weren’t peeking out of the tiny triangles this bikini had to offer. Dani probably paid more for a square inch of this suit than I would think to ever drop on a whole outfit, but it was definitely the right choice for tonight. I wanted him to see me the same way he did when he dipped between my legs and tasted me.
Liam’s cotton shirt fluttered in the wind as he looked out to the city. The haunted look put a crease between his eyebrows and I wanted to do something to get his mind off whatever bothered him. Because clearly, something was eating at his thoughts.
“Beautiful view.” Though not as high up as my father’s office, the architecture of this block was more than stunning.
Liam nodded and I sighed. That wouldn’t do it. I could always lose the shirt to get his mind off things, but I’d never been one to resolve issues by disrobing.
I turned around and pressed my back to the rail so I could get a better look at Liam. Though most businessmen wouldn’t consider having shoulder length hair, it fit him in every way. I wondered if he ever pulled it back into a man-bun, but something told me that wasn’t his style.
Liam’s eyes followed my hand as I pulled up the strap on Dani’s bikini. Oh yeah, I could definitely drain his brain of all thoughts, but then something hit me and I thought he might be the perfect person to talk about it with.
“So, I need your advice.”
True. There were tons of things I could ask him right about now, but only one thing came to mind. Liam turned to me and I knew I had his complete focus.
“It’s about my sister. She’s . . . having a rough go of this.” I went on to tell him about the floating food, leaving out the part about spending nearly half my cash for a bunch of ice cream that did little more than melt on my patio. “I know you dealt with a similar situation—besides having a little sister—but how did you get by? I mean, is there anything that you did that you wish you had or hadn’t done?” I finally stopped myself from spitting questions at him. I’d hoped to make him
feel better, and instead, I threw out what was probably a harder subject than whatever had just been on his mind.
Liam pushed his hair back from his face and gave me a small smile. “You are something special, Tessa, you know that? Come here.” He reached out and folded me in his arms. I was pretty sure I would have felt warm standing up here with him even on the coldest of New York nights. After a time, he held me at arm’s length. “Let me guess, you helped her clean it all up?”
“Of course. I couldn’t just let her live with that mess.”
“And did you have her help you at all?”
I sighed. “Not really.”
“She’s what? Nineteen?”
“Eighteen.”
“Even so. You’ve worked to fill in that gap—that enormous space that your parents filled—after such a short amount of time.” He tucked my stray hair behind my ear. “You will never take their place, nor should you.”
I sighed, not realizing that was what I was trying to do until he gave voice to it. “You’re right. It’s so hard when I see her doing stupid stuff to not want to just fix it.” I smoothed out the left cuff of his shirt. “She’s not ready to be out on her own, even though she’s eighteen.” I blew out another breath. “Am I doing too much for her?”
“When you’ve relied on certain people to always be there and then they suddenly aren’t, it’s like a piece of you is missing with them. That takes time to heal. We all have our own way. You just need to help her with hers—when she’s ready.”
“Sometimes I forget they’re even gone.” The words spilled from my mouth before I thought about it. Not something I wanted to admit, especially not to Liam, but he just had a way of making me feel comfortable to say what I really needed to get out.
“There are days when you wonder why you haven’t received a phone call from them.” Liam’s voice softened.
I nodded, relived he understood. “Exactly. Then it hits me harder than before.”
Liam took my hand and brought it to his lips. “You’ve been so strong in this. I know we haven’t known each other for long, but I read you well enough to see the pain you’re carrying. You’re not alone.”
