by Kayla Myles
“You’re calling me that too?” Chase asked, and I shrugged.
“Rebecca’s kind of contagious,” I said.
“Well, anyways. The reason I called you here is because there’s going to be a slight change of plans from here on out, as well as we found a rather troubling development on the case.” I furrowed my brows at this.
“What do you mean?” I asked him.
“First, Rebecca will now be assigned to guard Tanner full-time. She’s going to be posing as his girlfriend--,”
“His what?” I cut in angrily.
“Will you let me finish?” he cried, looking at me partly with irritation and curiosity. “As I was saying, the manager requested for Rebecca to pose as his girlfriend to boost his image, all the while making it easier for us to provide protection for him.”
“But why does it have to be Rebecca?” I cried. “Why can’t I do that, and she’ll protect Beth?” I asked.
Chase looked at me in shock and disbelief, almost like he was seeing me in a new light.
“Holy crap. Is this why you and Rebecca don’t get along?” he said, and I blinked at him, not following.
“Jesus, it all makes sense now! You wanted to be in charge of Tanner by yourself, but Rebecca being there complicates matters because he’ll shift his attention on a woman, am I right?”
“What?”
“I’m sorry to tell you, man, but the guy is straight as an arrow. He’s never gonna go for you”
“What the fuck, man?! I’m not gay!” I yelled. Where the hell did he get that idea?
“You’re not?” he asked, still checking.
“Fuck no!”
“Okay, okay! No need to yell,” he said, raising his hands up in surrender. “Then why the big fuss over it?”
“I don’t want Rebecca to be in a relationship with that guy!” I said. It’s Chase’s turn to blink at my admission.
“Wait a sec,” he said. “So you’re…,” he trailed off and I nodded with a sigh, the look in his eyes already clueing me in he’d figured it out. “Well, shit.”
He got that right.
“What else were you going to say?” I asked, desperate for a change of subject.
“Oh, right. We managed to locate Tanner’s neighbor who left his daughter at the parking lot.” Chase replied.
“What did he say? Does he know anything about the attackers?” I asked him. Chase looked at me with a stern expression on his face.
“He didn’t say anything,” he said gravely. “He’s dead.”
***
“I can’t believe this,” Tanner mumbled. “I’ve known the guy for quite a while, but I never would’ve thought anyone would want to kill him.”
“Seems you didn’t know him as well as you thought,” Rebecca chided. “According to Elliot’s reports, he’s accumulated over $300,000 in debt, but all of which were paid off in cash about two months ago.”
“Which means he either took out a loan to pay it off, stole it, or got it from a shady place.” I added.
“He could’ve asked me for the money,” Tanner cried, fisting his hair in frustration. “The stupid idiot could’ve asked me for help! I would’ve…I would’ve…,” he punched the wall in anger before slumping down on his seat, head between his hands.
Rebecca walked over to him and patted his shoulder comfortingly.
“It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known about this,” she said, consoling him.
“Well, at least we figured out one thing now,” I said, and the both of them looked at me questioningly. “The guys that attacked your daughter aren’t connected to you. The fact that she’s your daughter was a secret, so those guys couldn’t have known.”
“Then why did they chase after Beth?” Tanner asked.
“Because they thought she was your neighbor’s daughter,” Rebecca said, realizing the same thing I was. Her face went white as she looked down at Tanner’s face. “They were never after you. They’re after Beth.”
Chapter 16
Tanner
After I learned the bad guys were after my daughter because of my ex-neighbor, I couldn’t function for a week. I just locked myself up in the studio without doing anything, and then at night, I would go into Beth’s room and hold her in my arms as she slept. I was just so fucking terrified someone was going to come in the middle of the night and take her away from me.
My manager was losing his shit. He kept screaming at me through the phone that I needed to get my act together and make appearances, but I just couldn’t bring myself to work.
I heard a loud bang as the door to my studio opened, and Rebecca waltzed in. She stopped in front of me, and placed her hands on her hips as she glared at me.
“Get up,” she ordered.
“Don’t want to,” I grumbled.
“For fuck’s sake, Tanner!” she cried. “Get a grip on yourself!”
“How can I?” I yelled at her. “Do you even know what it feels that you single-handedly got your kid in danger? Do you even know what that’s like?!”
“I do know, okay?!” she screamed. “I know what it feels like, so help me fix it!”
My eyes widened in surprise as I stared at her, the both of us breathing heavily.
“I know, okay?” she whispered, her voice filled with regret. “I’ve been there before.”
“What,” I started. “What happened?” she sighed and looked up at the ceiling, blinking her eyes rapidly so she wouldn’t cry.
“I was four months pregnant when I was pushed off the stairs by a drunkard,” she said. “By the time I woke up, the doctors said I lost her.”
Fuck. I didn’t know what to say to her after that. I would’ve never guessed Rebecca was a person who could relate to me about such a matter, but I guess all of us had skeletons in our closet.
“I may not be able to save my kid,” she said, sniffing a bit as she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket. “But we can still find a way to save Beth.”
“How are we going to do that?” I asked.
“I’ve got a plan,” she said, her eyes lighting up with determination. “But I have to tell you it’s going to involve a lot of baiting to do it.”
***
“Will you quit doing that?” I said in annoyance as I watched Rebecca pull on the edge of her dress for the umpteenth time. “You look fine.”
“I feel naked,” she whined, glaring at me. “I feel like I’m a millimeter away from showing my crotch to national television.”
I rolled my eyes at her dramatics.
“I’m serious!” she shrieked, before turning around a little so I could see her backside. “Don’t you think my ass is showing?”
“Unfortunately, your fine ass isn’t going in that direction,” I told her, my eyes focusing on her plump behind. She narrowed her eyes at me. “What? You’re the one who told me to look at your ass.”
“Forget it,” she sighed, rolling her eyes and pulling at her dress again. I growled harshly at her in response.
“If you keep pulling it down, then your boobs are going to spill out next,” I told her. She gasped and covered her chest with her arms, and I pulled her up against me, my hands settling themselves on her curves. She stiffened and I held her harder.
“Just relax,” I whispered in her ear. “I won’t let anyone see things they shouldn’t.”
“Thank you,” she stammered, quivering against me.
“Besides,” I added, slowly sliding my hands down to her rump and giving it a squeeze. “I’d be damned if I let them see what’s mine first.”
I licked the soft cartilage of her ear before letting her go, and my heart filled with pride as I looked at the redness of her face.
“Now, come on,” I said, fixing my collar one last time. “We have people to deceive.”
Chapter 17
Rebecca
The plan was simple: First, we were going to bait the media into tuning in to Tanner and mine’s “relationship”. We’d go out, ignore the press, g
o out some more, and then casually include Beth into the limelight.
Tanner was against that last part at first, but Chase was able to convince him it was a necessary danger to lure in the bad guys. Of course, Michael and I had to assure Tanner we were going to keep Beth safe no matter what, so it helped him calm down and agree.
As the weeks progressed, Chase was suddenly contacted by an old friend of his back in Paradise, Louisiana named Daniel Turner, who as luck would have it, was also tracking down Tanner’s neighbor. The information he shared completed the puzzle, and instead of pursuing after the guys I had beaten up before, we now knew the leader who ordered them.
Apparently, this Daniel had rescued his wife from a man named Alfred, who, other than running a shady night club, also had dirty business dealings under the table. Daniel had killed the guy, and thought the worst was over, but recently, he had been getting threatening messages about avenging Alfred’s death. Daniel immediately worked to investigate the case, and after months of research, he found out the man who was after him was Alfonso David, Alfred’s brother, and a much bigger fiend compared to his younger sibling.
Alfonso, it turned out, was also Tanner’s neighbor’s former boss, whom he had stolen the money to pay off his debts from.
It was one big convoluted mess, but at least it gave us something to work on rather than just waiting for them to come to us.
On the other hand, my fake relationship with Tanner was getting realer with every fake date we had. After I told him about the baby I never got to have, telling each other about ourselves became so much easier. I learned he had Beth when he barely graduated from college, and how he didn’t have a clue how to raise a little girl all by himself. I told him how I got pregnant at seventeen, and that I joined the Army in the hopes of being reunited with my boyfriend, who was also the father of my baby.
He didn’t ask me about whom the father was, or if I ever got to meet him again. I wasn’t sure if he had already figured it out, though. Whichever it is, I decided not to ask him about Beth’s mom, either. Mostly because I didn’t want to pry into his business when he so graciously didn’t pry into mine. But the rest was because I didn’t want to know if deep down, he still cared about her.
I guess that was the moment I realized I was starting to have feelings for Tanner. The words he said to me on the lake that one night kept playing in my head over and over sometimes, I had a hard time sleeping at night.
And then there was Michael. Michael who said he still cared about me and wanted to start over. Michael who would do anything to get me to forgive him and come back to him.
Michael who still didn’t know I had a baby with him.
If I was being honest, this was the reason why I couldn’t let myself fall completely for Tanner. My heart was still conflicted between these two guys, and a secret I don’t know how long I was going to keep.
“Rebecca, can I talk to you for a minute?”
I was broken out of my thoughts by the man himself, and I nodded, half-wondering if I should take this chance and just tell him what happened. It would be so unfair to him if I delayed it any longer.
“Sure,” I said, nodding my head. “Actually, I have something to tell you, as well.”
“I’ll go first, then,” he said, before taking a deep breath and shaking his arms to try and loosen up. “I know you’re starting to fall for him.”
“What?” I said, scoffing. Was I really that obvious? “That is not true.” I lied. He narrowed his eyes at me and shook his head.
“We grew up together, Rebecca. I can tell when you’re lying to me,” he said. I sighed heavily.
“Where are you going with this, Michael?” I said softly. He looked at me seriously and placed his hands on my shoulders, squeezing it gently.
“Please don’t choose him yet,” he begged. “I know what I did was wrong, but I’m trying to fix it. Please just give me a chance to prove how much I loved you, how much I still love you. Don’t give up on us, please.”
“Michael, I have to tell you something,” I said. “I wasn’t hurt just because you left me.”
“Then what is it?” he asked, his eyes leaking with desperation. “Tell me, I can fix it! I’ll do anything!”
“You can’t fix this,” I muttered, and he wrinkled his eyebrows. “Michael…the last night we had, I got pregnant.”
His eyes widened as my secret finally spilled from my mouth, and his hold on my shoulders slackened. I continued.
“My parents disowned me, and I had to work to support myself. Then one night a drunk guy who lived in my building tried to force himself on me when I got home from work, and when I wouldn’t let him, and he pushed me down a flight of stairs.”
“Rebecca, no…,” he gasped.
“I lost her, Michael. I’m so sorry. I lost our baby.”
***
I felt so exhausted after telling Michael everything, but I still couldn’t fall asleep. I kept seeing how broken Michael looked after my revelations, and it hurt me inside.
I told him how after I lost our baby, I was so consumed with rage that I joined the Army hoping to see him again, and blame him for the downward spiral my life had taken. I told him how after two years of not hearing anything from him, I eventually gave up and tried to forget what happened.
He just stood there taking everything I gave him, and when I was done, and all the tears from my cheeks had dried up, he swallowed and sluggishly walked back to his room, not saying a word.
I tossed and turned in my bed until I was finally fed up by my restlessness, and decided to go out for some fresh air. I spotted the light in the studio was on, and I couldn’t resist walking toward it and then opening the door.
Tanner looked up from his notes and smiled as I entered.
“I was wondering when you were going to come,” he said, looking back to his composition and scribbling a couple of notes. “Couldn’t sleep?” he asked, and I shook my head.
“Not a wink. Did you get everything set up for the party?” I asked back.
“Technically, it’s my manager who did everything, but yes. Everything is all set for the trap tomorrow.”
“Excellent.”
“Now why don’t you tell me what’s with the long face?”
“Distract me,” I told him, and he turned around, looking at me in confusion. “I told him. I told him about my baby.”
He leaned his back against the table and folded his arms.
“Oh.” He said.
“So you knew.”
“I had a hunch.” He admitted. “And you want me to distract you because…?”
“Because I keep seeing his face in my head and it’s keeping me up tonight,” I told him truthfully.
“Now that won’t do,” he said, tucking the pencil he was holding in his pocket. “That won’t do at all.”
He took slow, deliberate steps toward me until we were only a few inches apart, our chests almost brushing against each other with every breath of air we took. He placed both of his arms on the wall on either side of my face, caging me in and I had to swallow hard.
“I don’t want you to think about another guy,” he murmured, leaning closer to my face.
“You don’t?” I whispered, my eyelids falling a little bit as I felt his breath against my cheeks. He shook his head.
“Nope,” he said. “But I don’t want to be used just so you could forget him, neither.”
“When I take you…,” he brushed his knuckle against my cheek before tilting my head up by my chin. “I want to be the only one you think about. Can you do that?” he asked.
I could feel his erection through his pants, through the thin fabric of my shirt and I moaned.
“Yes,” I panted.
“Are you sure about that?” he asked. I glared at him and took his face between my hands and kissed him senseless.
Tanner groaned before taking control of the kiss, ravaging my mouth with his tongue. I hitched up my leg around his waist to pull him closer against me
, and he lifted me up so I could wrap my legs and arms around him like I was a koala hanging from a tree.
He carried me over to his desk, sweeping his stuff off so he could perch me on top of it. He helped me pull my shirt off over my head, and his hands immediately went up to caress my breasts, pulling and twisting at the nipples until they became two stiff peaks.
His mouth blazed a path from my jaw, to my neck, then to the valley between my breasts where he bared his teeth and left his mark on me. I’d probably be so mad at him later once I see the bruise, but for now, I was so drunk with need, I didn’t even care.
I buried my fingers in his scalp, and pulled him towards my left breast, subtly telling him where I wanted his attention to go and he followed, circling my nipple with his tongue before rolling it between his teeth. He suckled me like a babe while kneading my other breast like it was dough, and I couldn’t help but gyrate my hips at the edge of his desk, trying to get even the tiniest of friction it provided. I whined softly as he took his mouth off my breast with a pop until he gave the same treatment to my other breast making me sigh.
