“Once he finds out it isn’t his kid, he’ll divorce you, don’t you think?”
“He already knows,” Kaylee said, her voice steady. “He’s known from the beginning.”
“And he married you anyway?” Fake Gil laughed and shook his head. And said something that sounded like, “sucker,” under his breath. Either that, or “pussy whipped.”
“He’s not,” Kaylee said hotly. “He’s a nice guy. He was trying to do me a favor.”
“Sure.” He grinned. “And he’s probably getting lots of sex for his trouble, isn’t he? You weren’t too bad at it, as I recall.”
Kaylee flushed. He was the one who’d been bad at it, and the one who’d cared zip for her needs, but saying so wouldn’t actually help right now, and would probably hurt. “I’m not going to divorce Owen. And I’m certainly not going to marry you.”
He shrugged. “That’s your funeral. As long as you’re having my kid, though, I ain’t going nowhere.”
“Because you care so much?”
He grinned. “Course not. Because my kid’s daddy’ll be Owen fucking Taylor. And I figure some of that Norris money’ll trickle down to me.”
Great. He’d hang around for the next eighteen years, sticking to her like a leech, slowly bleeding her dry, not to mention destroying her child, and all because she’d been stupid enough to sleep with him and Owen had been nice enough to marry her.
Owen would be stuck with this miserable excuse for a human being, too, and it was all her fault.
Fake Gil took a step closer. “So what are we having here, anyway?”
He reached out to put a hand on her stomach, and Kaylee stepped back, her voice shaking with a mixture of fury and revulsion. “Don’t you dare touch me. You lost that right when you never called again.”
“Awww, don’t be like that.” He kept grinning inanely. “You liked it when I touched you before.”
No, she hadn’t. She’d allowed it because she thought he was Gil Norris. God, she’d been stupid!
“I don’t like it anymore. And if you try, I’ll have you arrested.”
“I don’t think anyone’d believe you,” Fake Gil said, although he didn’t come any closer. “That’s my baby you got there. And I have rights.”
“What will it take?” The words rasped in her throat, and she didn’t recognize her own voice. But she had to find a way to keep him away from this baby—her baby. Not his; never his—and if paying him would do it, then she’d pay him.
“Excuse me?” Fake Gil said.
“How much will it take? For you to leave and never come back? A thousand dollars?”
He just stared at her.
“Five thousand?” Kaylee said. “Ten?”
Fake Gil looked terribly sincere putting a hand on his heart. “How can you think I’d give up my rights for a measly ten grand?”
“Twenty.”
He hesitated.
“Twenty-five,” Kaylee said. “That as much as I can get without Owen getting suspicious.” That was the limit on the credit card he’d shared with her. She could turn the entire cash advance into a cashier’s check and give it to Fake Gil. “You don’t want him to find out about this, do you?”
Fake Gil shook his head. No, of course not.
“I’m going to need your name. Your real name. I know it isn’t Gil Norris.”
He grinned as if it were a big joke. “Sorry about that. I was just playing with you.”
Like she hadn’t already figured that out. “You can show me how sorry you are by telling me your name.”
He hesitated, and she added, “I can’t get that kind of money in cash. The bank will notify Owen if I try. And I’ll have to put something on the check. And if you want to cash it, you’d better make sure it matches whatever’s on your driver’s license.”
There was a pause. “It’s Matthew,” Fake Gil said eventually. “Matthew Vogel.”
“Can you prove it?”
He grinned, with lots of teeth. “Sure.” He reached for his back pocket. Kaylee’s body tensed, but all he brought out was a black wallet. It had seen better days. From it, he extracted a dog-eared drivers license and handed it to her.
It looked legitimate, and the picture was definitely of Fake Gil. Or Matthew or whoever he was. Same dark hair, same big grin. He probably thought it was charming, when in fact, it reminded her of a big predator in a cartoon: all those teeth the last thing you saw before the shark ate you. It was beyond her knowledge how she could have ever found him attractive, no matter who she thought he was.
The license said his name was Matthew Joseph Vogel. Kaylee made a mental note of the address, just in case, and handed the license back. “Thank you.”
Fake Gil AKA Matthew pocketed it. “When do I get my money?”
“I have to get to the bank first. Come back in a few hours.”
“Why don’t we go right now?” Fake Gil—Matthew—suggested. “I have my car right outside.”
And it probably wasn’t a Mercedes. Part of her was tempted to go with him just to see what kind of car he drove, to go with that Mercedes keychain in his pocket, but she resisted the temptation. “Owen’s coming home for lunch soon.”
He wasn’t, not as far as she knew, but it would serve as an excuse to get rid of Fake Gil. “You have to get out of here before he sees you. And I can’t go to the bank until he’s gone back to work.”
Fake Gil hesitated. “How do I know you’re not pulling my leg?”
“You don’t,” Kaylee said. “You’ll just have to take my word for it. I want you to stay away from me and my baby just as much as you want that money. But twenty-five thousand dollars isn’t something I keep in my purse. Just come back later.”
He hesitated again. But eventually he must have decided he didn’t have a choice but to trust her, because he nodded. “I’ll be back at four o’clock. Remember, if you fuck with me, I’ll make sure you regret it.”
“I won’t,” Kaylee said, but he didn’t listen. He just turned to the door and opened it, and then he turned back in the doorway, to blow her a kiss.
“See you later, sugar.”
The door closed behind him with a soft click, and Kaylee ran the few steps over to it and slammed the deadbolt home. Her hands shook so violently that it was hard to get the security chain fastened, but she managed on the third try. And then she leaned her back against it and sank down until she sat on the floor with her legs stretched out in front of her, while her hands cradled her belly and her eyes filled with tears.
OWEN HAD BEEN thinking about Kaylee all morning, worrying about what might be wrong with her. If it was just the smoke at Peckers that had bothered her, that should have abated once she got out of there. Certainly by the time she got home. And not wanting to eat... that just wasn’t like her. She was eating for two. She was eating so much he had a hard time figuring out where she put it all. Not that she was getting fat or anything. It was all baby. But she ate. A lot. All the time.
Except for yesterday.
And she’d gone to sleep before him. When he came upstairs after watching an inane movie—because he knew she needed to rest—she’d already been asleep with her back to him. She hadn’t stirred when he kissed her shoulder. She had to be either sick or exhausted to do that. Usually something like that would make her turn and open her arms, ready to love him and be loved in return. But yesterday she’d kept her back turned.
She’d still been asleep when he left this morning, facing him now, her eyelashes lying like fans against her cheeks and her lips slightly puckered. When he bent to drop a kiss on them before getting out of bed and into the shower, she twitched and smiled, but didn’t wake. So he just left her there and got ready, and put a note beside the bed telling her he’d call. But when he did, the call went straight to voicemail. And the second time he called, the same thing happened. So when it came time for lunch, he got up from his desk, got in the car, and drove home, to figure out, once and for all, what was going on with his wife. Something had
happened last night at Peckers, but it wasn’t the cigarette smoke, he knew that much.
When he pulled the nose of the car up to the gate, he was determined to go in there and make her tell him the truth, whatever it was. He’d reason with her, argue with her, kiss her, make love to her, whatever it took to get her to be honest with him. And then he’d fix the problem. He’d do whatever it took to get his happy, peaceful, loving wife back.
And that’s when he saw the door to the townhouse open, and a man come out. Tall, dark, in a leather jacket and faded jeans.
He turned in the doorway to blow Kaylee a kiss, and then he skipped down the steps and across the lot to the gate, grinning. Behind him, Kaylee shut the door. And Owen decided that his wife could wait while he followed the guy—the guy he now recognized as the thieving bastard who’d pretended to be Damian Cooper to gain access to the accounts of Norris Industries—to figure out who he really was and where he belonged, and what the hell he’d been doing with Owen’s wife.
HE TRAILED THE imposter to a bar—not Peckers—where the bastard stayed for an hour or so. Having lunch or playing pool or getting drunk. Owen had no idea which—he stayed outside in his car watching the door—and he didn’t care.
The guy drove a ten year old Pontiac with a few rust spots and a dinged bumper, nothing fancy, and Owen had made note of the license plate. Now, while he waited, he called his grandfather’s personal assistant and asked the woman to do her best to put a name and address to it.
She called back within fifteen minutes.
“According to the DMV, it belongs to a woman named Shelley Vogel.” She rattled off the address.
Whoever Owen was following, it wasn’t Shelley Vogel. But the neighborhood fit the man. The address was in a part of town that wasn’t as nice as the area down by the river, or even the area around Peckers. The river was fairly upscale, Peckers was solidly working class, but the area where Shelley Vogel lived was borderline criminal. When Owen was a kid visiting his grandfather in the summers, he’d been given strict instructions to stay away from there. It was where people went to buy drugs or prostitutes, where you could find cheap motels that rented by the week or the hour, and where you ran the risk of getting caught by stray bullet from a turf war between rival gangs. Shelley Vogel’s address was right on the border, so not as bad as some of the other parts of the neighborhood, but he wasn’t surprised to discover where the man and the car belonged.
“Can you find out anything more about Shelley?”
“Already done,” Carolyn Baker said smugly. “She’s fifty six, divorced, and has one child, a son named Matthew, who lives with her.”
Matthew Vogel. I’ve got you now, you bastard.
Unless this was someone else, although that wasn’t likely. Still, he should probably make sure before he called the police. “Any idea what Matthew Vogel looks like?”
“I asked the DMV,” Carolyn said, “and when I explained the situation, they sent me a copy of his driver’s license photo. His picture is just as bad as everyone else’s, and the fact that it’s a computer image doesn’t help, but I believe it’s the man we know as Damian Cooper from accounting.”
Excellent.
“Do you want me to call the police now?” Carolyn asked.
Owen hesitated. “I’ll do that. There’s something I need to figure out first.”
“Of course.” She didn’t sound surprised, or skeptical, or anything else. Rank hath its privileges. “Is there anything else I can do for you right now, Mr. Taylor?”
“Not at the moment,” Owen said. “Thanks for your help, Carolyn.” It was strange, calling a woman who was old enough to be his mother by her first name, especially when she called him Mr. Taylor and refused to do otherwise, but he was getting used to it.
“My pleasure, Mr. Taylor. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”
She hung up. Owen went back to watching the bar and thinking.
He was pretty sure he knew who the fake Damian Cooper really was now. He was pretty sure he had the man’s address. He knew where to find him. If Vogel didn’t live there, his mother would know where to get hold of him. What Owen didn’t know, was what the bastard had been doing with Kaylee. Did she know him, or had he been looking for Owen? And if so, why?
Maybe he should just let Matthew Vogel enjoy his last few hours of freedom in the way he saw fit, and not bother keeping watch over the man. He probably wasn’t going anywhere. Maybe what Owen should do instead, was go home and have a talk with his wife.
He put the car in gear and rolled away from the curb.
Chapter Eighteen
AT FIRST, HE thought the townhouse was empty.
There was no sign of Kaylee when he walked through the door, and the sight of a white rectangle on the console table had his heart skipping a beat.
He walked over to it without bothering to take his coat off.
It was an envelope, blank but with something inside it.
A note? Was she telling him she was leaving?
He ripped the envelope open, with his heart thudding against his ribs, and pulled out the single piece of paper inside it. His hand was actually shaking.
It wasn’t a note. For a second, the relief was overwhelming. But only for a second. What was inside the envelope was almost as bad, if in a different way.
A check in the amount of twenty-five thousand dollars, made out to Matthew Vogel.
What the hell?
A sound on the stairs drew his attention, and he looked up. His heart dropped like a stone.
Kaylee stood there, with a bag in each hand. Full bags, probably stuffed with all her clothes.
“What...?” His voice broke and he couldn’t finish the question.
She looked stunned. Probably hadn’t expected to see him here in the middle of the afternoon. She must have figured she’d be well on her way by the time he got home from work later. Without a trace, just up and gone. With twenty-five thousand of his dollars that she was giving to Matthew Vogel.
Matthew and Kaylee? How? Why?
In a rush, all the pieces aligned themselves in his head, like a cascade of dominoes falling one after the other, with a clatter and a crash.
Owen had discovered Matthew Vogel’s deception in June, and Vogel had lost his chance to embezzle from the Norris Corporation. In July, Kaylee had gotten pregnant by a man she told him had told her he was Gil Norris, Junior.
What if Matthew Vogel had figured out where Owen lived? It wouldn’t have been hard to do. The Panorama townhouse was listed as Owen’s address in his employment file, and until he left Norris Industries, Matthew had had access to that information. It would only have taken a few minutes to look it up before he made his escape. Or Matthew could have followed him home. It wasn’t like Owen would have been on the lookout for a tail.
What if Matthew had come here to do a bit of scouting, to see how he could get back at Owen for fouling up the embezzling plan, and had noticed Kaylee next door? Maybe he’d even noticed the way Owen looked at her. And then he had set out to seduce Kaylee. To take revenge on Owen by screwing the woman Owen liked.
Maybe she’d told the truth and she had really believed he was Gil Norris, Junior. Maybe she hadn’t. That whole story about the condom slipping off could have been just that: a story. One designed to make Owen feel sorry for her. Maybe they’d planned the whole thing together. Get Kaylee pregnant, get Owen to marry her, and then take him for half of everything he owned in a divorce. Because he—fool that he was—hadn’t made her sign a prenuptial agreement. Because he’d wanted a chance to make her fall in love with him for him, not because he was Gil Norris’s grandson, and heir to the millions.
Idiot.
Matthew Vogel had his revenge now, and not in the form of a twenty-five thousand dollar cashier’s check. It wasn’t pocket change, but Owen would gladly see it leave his bank account if it would keep Kaylee safe and with him.
Kaylee walking out, that was the real loss.
“Where are
you going?” Not that he couldn’t guess. Matthew Vogel probably had an apartment somewhere else, not with his mother, and Kaylee would be moving in there.
His voice shook, he noticed abstractedly—noticed it as if he were someone else, someone uninvolved, just observing the train wreck from a distance.
Her eyes flickered, and she began moving again. She was front-heavy these days, and had to lean back a bit to keep her balance. With the bags in her hands, it made for a precarious descent, and Owen had to restrain himself from leaping to the rescue. Take the bags, take her arm, support her down the stairs so she doesn’t fall and hurt herself. Or the baby.
It took digging his nails into his palms hard enough to hurt to keep him in place.
He waited until she was down on level ground in the hallway before lifting the check. And because all he wanted to do was fall on his knees in front of her and beg her not to go, he forced himself to confront her. “Want to tell me about this?”
She flushed, but shook her head.
“It’s a lot of money.”
“Not to you,” Kaylee said, which took care of any lingering question he’d had about whether or not she knew who he really was.
“So because I have a lot of money, you think it’s OK to steal from me?”
“No...”
“Sure looks like it. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t call the cops and have you hauled off to jail.”
“You gave me the credit card,” Kaylee said. “You told me to use it.”
“Not to rob me blind, for God’s sake!”
Her lip trembled and she sank her teeth into it, but she didn’t speak, just looked at him with those enormous blue eyes, overflowing with tears. Even under the circumstances, he felt the tug on his heart, and he steeled himself against it. She’d played him, damn her. All along she’d been what his mother had worried about: a gold-digger. She’d married him for his money. And while he’d been OK with that, back when they made their deal for room, board, and health benefits, he wasn’t OK with her leaving him for someone else and taking his money with her.
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