Bet on Me

by Alisha Rai

  “I printed it. It’s in my briefcase.”

  “Oh.”

  A grunt came from his lips. “I should look at it.”

  “We don’t have to. Or, you can do it alone.”

  He raised his head. “Who are you?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “The Tatiana I know would be peppering me with questions and dying of curiosity. Who is this meek, accommodating female in my bed?”

  “Um.” She raised one finger. “First, I am always accommodating in bed. I think I proved that tonight.” Another finger. “Second, how dare you. Meek? Call me bland, too, why don’t you, and really insult me.” A third finger. “And lastly…yes. I am dying of curiosity, and I want to know everything and see everything and then have a discussion about all the things I know and see.” She pressed her hand to his face. “It’s weird, how I can put aside my own feelings and consider yours. It’s like I’m in love with you or something.”

  Ah. There. The corner of his mouth lifted the tiniest amount. “Are you tired?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Yeah. Okay. Let’s get this over with, then.” With that unenthusiastic decision, he rolled off of her and padded out of the room. She took the time to grab the robe off the chair near the bed and wrap it around her.

  The light next to the bed gave off a dim glow. Wyatt came back in, carrying a thin file. He sat next to her and placed it on his lap. He stared at the top of the manila folder for a long moment. Inching closer, Tatiana placed her hand on his chest, right over his heart. “Okay?”

  “Yes.”

  He didn’t move. Slowly, giving him time to protest, she opened the folder. Her heart caught at the sight of the 8x10 photo. “Oh my God, Wyatt. She looks just like you.”

  “I thought so.”

  If this was some scam, Tatiana would be very surprised. The eyes, the coloring, the shape of her face. She knew those features.

  Abruptly, she recalled something Wyatt had said to her when she’d questioned how he could have known Ron was her brother. Do you really think I would confuse your eyes with any other human being on the planet?

  She lightly touched the school photo. “What’s her name?”

  “Ellie.”

  “Nine, huh?”

  “That’s what she said.” Wyatt picked up the photo and placed it between them. “Nine years, four months…twelve days, to be exact.” He fingered the birth certificate. “Elizabeth Anne Caine. Parents are Carol and Samuel Caine.”

  She flipped to the next page to reveal two Arizona driver’s licenses. Samuel Caine had Wyatt’s eyes and coloring, which made sense, given the appearance of the little girl. Tatiana had seen the man from afar when they were kids. Wyatt had never introduced them. For the majority of their relationship he’d been on his own.

  “She showed me a picture of him, too. Holding her as a baby.” The twitch of Wyatt’s jaw was the only sign of emotion. She pressed tighter against his side, as if her body heat could warm him.

  He turned the page, and she leaned farther over his shoulder to read the short bio Jared had scraped together on the small family.

  Samuel Caine had moved to Arizona—she did the math quickly—two years after Wyatt had left him. Worked for the same construction company for the past six years. No arrest record.

  He’d married Carol not long before Ellie’s birth. The wife was a nurse, over a dozen years younger. No criminal record on her either. They lived in the suburbs, in a three-bedroom ranch home they owned.

  A few other pages followed, detailing other parts of their life, like where Ellie went to school and what kind of cars they drove. Wyatt flipped through the papers and then simply stared at the painfully brief data for so long Tatiana felt it necessary to speak. “I guess there isn’t much to go off of here. Once Jared calls—”

  “That’s my father. It’s legitimate.”

  “Maybe—”

  “No. It’s really him.”

  “We can get a DNA test. On him, or Ellie.”

  “No need.” His fingers tightened on the paper a split second before he ripped it clean in two. “No fucking need.” He ripped it again, and again, before dumping the mess on the carpet.

  He grabbed Ellie’s photo. She tensed, prepared for him to tear into it, but he stilled. “Doesn’t matter if she’s his biological kid or not. She’s living with him. I counted the days I could leave him, and now he’s putting some other kid through eighteen years of misery?”

  Speaking past the lump in her throat was difficult. “It was always miserable?”

  “No.” Wyatt bit off the word. “It wasn’t awful before my mom died. They were decent parents, if inattentive. They were so disgustingly in love, they didn’t have much room for me. I don’t know if I was unplanned or what, but I was an afterthought. After she died…” Wyatt shook his head. “He might as well have crawled inside that casket with her.”

  Tatiana’s parents were in love, but she’d never been left in doubt that they desired her. Sure, she’d experienced pangs of self-doubt as a kid about her biological parents, and she’d had to struggle through some angst when her biological mother had made it clear she wanted nothing to do with her as an adult, but how bad would it have been to grow up with people who considered you unworthy of attention?

  “I used to wish he had buried himself, too. On the day of my mother's funeral, when everyone had left, my dad got drunk. He smashed every photo frame in the house, every glass, every casserole some well-meaning neighbor had brought over. I hid in a closet. He screamed it should have been me. That he would have missed me less. He screamed until he passed out.”

  Her breath caught, thinking of a ten-year-old Wyatt hiding in a closet while his remaining parent yelled words at him no child should ever hear from their father. Her arms tightened around him. The pressure of tears stung her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. How dare anyone treat him that way?

  Wyatt stared at the girl’s face, oblivious of her enraged horror. “She’s smart.”

  Attempting to focus, Tatiana shoved aside her anger. “Is she?”

  “Insanely smart. The way she was talking…” He cracked a smile. “She got annoyed I called her precocious. Is it normal for a nine-year-old to know what that word means?”

  “I don’t know. Ask me when Pete turns nine,” she said dryly, referring to her baby nephew.

  “Guess neither of us has much experience with kids.”

  “The curse of only children.” She rested her hand on his bare belly, making small circles with her fingers, a motion designed to soothe rather than arouse.

  “You know…there was a brief moment, when I first saw her…” He paused.

  “What?”

  “I thought maybe I was her father.” He lifted his arm and wrapped it around her. “I thought about every woman I was with. Between my time with you now and then. That first time I slept with someone other than you, I felt…like it wasn’t right. Like I was cheating on you. The second girl, too. And the third.”

  She rested her head on his shoulder. “I felt like that, too. For a long time.”

  “I didn’t want her to be mine.” The words fell between them. “I’m an adult. This kid has the courage to come into a stranger’s space, and I was racing ahead, thinking of damage control. DNA, who the mother might be, what I would tell you, how you would react, whether you would leave me. What kind of a man does that make me?”

  They were into some heavy shit here. Tatiana carefully considered her words. “A normal one, I’d say. A surprise child would throw anyone off-guard.” They had discussed their views on children sort of obliquely in the past year. Though the world told her that her womb was slowly crumbling under the weight of her thirties, she was in no hurry. She’d be as alarmed if a kid showed up claiming to be hers.

  Well, because of basic biology, probably more alarmed than a man.

  “I don’t know if that’s normal.” He scrubbed his hand over his eyes, and then kept it there, con
cealing his gaze. “I want you to love me. I want you to live with me. I want you enmeshed in my life. At the same time…I’m certain that eventually you’re going to split. And I don’t know if I can deal with that.”

  Struck, Tatiana swallowed. Last year, when they’d reunited, she’d asked him why he hadn’t come looking for her over the intervening years. I barely survived losing you once, and our parting was mutual then. I have people who depend on me now, who rely on me. You’re a distraction I can’t afford.

  Deep down, was Wyatt always bracing for her to leave him?

  Well, why not? His mother had left. His father’s love for her had turned him into an ugly, broken man, and he’d checked out on Wyatt. Those were the relationships that he’d had for reference.

  “Wyatt…you’re wrong.”

  His words were halting. “Sometimes when I'm with you, I feel like a fraud. Like you don't know how crazy my life was, and you don't know...” He grimaced. “I don't think I'm normal. And I don't want you to know I'm not normal.”

  “Not normal? Of course you're normal.”

  “You don’t know me. I’ve never even told you about my childhood, and I’ve known you for a collective total of how many years?” He dropped his hand and smiled a hard, angry smile. “I wasn’t going to tell you, either. Because I’m a manipulative asshole, and I was hoping you would eventually be in too deep for it to matter that I’m a shaky prospect, in terms of building a family and having a future.

  “Your Akira said something to me tonight, about how if I couldn’t give you everything you need, I need to cut you loose now, and I realized how dumb my plan was. I have to be enough for you. You should know everything. Before you tell me you love me again.”

  Whoa. “I don’t think there’s a person in this world I know better than I know you.” She placed her finger on his lips when he would have spoken. “No. Fine. I don’t know about your childhood, or your parents. But I know who you are. Nothing I learn about you will change that.”

  “I don’t know what kind of father I’ll be. You want kids.”

  This was not a talk she had been planning on having, but she was down with it. “I’m in this for you, not your sperm. You decide you don’t want kids? Fine. Nothing wrong or evil in that, and when we get to that point in our relationship, we can mutually decide yea or nay. But don’t think you’ll be a crappy dad because your father was one. Look at how you are with Pete. You’ll never convince me you’re not a protective and loving man.” Wyatt had warmed up to her nephew, especially once he had discovered the toddler loved Lego. The two of them had spent an entire Sunday afternoon building skyscrapers, Wyatt’s looking rather suspiciously like Quest.

  “He’s easier to interact with now that he talks,” Wyatt admitted.

  “And as for my leaving you…” She shook her head, baffled. “I wouldn’t, but even if I did? You’d be fine.”

  “No, I—”

  “Oh, you’d be hurt. You’d suffer.” She smoothed her hand over her hair. “I mean, really. Losing all this? It would be awful. But you’re forgetting that I’ve already left you once. I survived. You survived. Eventually, we both thrived.” Brushing her thumb over his lip, she gave a small smile. “If I died and left you with a kid? There is no way you would crawl into that grave with me. Partially because I would come back and kick your ass, but also because you’re not that kind of man. You’re not your father. You can love someone deeply, irrevocably, and still love yourself and others enough to live without them. You stay with people you love because life is better with them, not because you’ll die otherwise. I know this for certain.”

  She expected him to fight her, but he clasped his hand over hers and pulled her close, until they were a hairsbreadth away. “I want to argue with you,” he whispered.

  “Don’t bother. You’ll lose.” She leaned in and kissed him, slow, drugging. He followed her lead, letting her set the pace.

  They were both breathing hard when she pulled away reluctantly. While forgetting all of reality in each other’s arms was tempting, Ellie was between them.

  Literally. Tatiana touched her wrinkled photo. “Wyatt?”

  He followed her gaze. “Yeah?”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I want to see her again.”

  She nodded immediately. “Okay.”

  His words were halting. “No, I don’t really want to. I want this to go away. But it won’t, and I feel like…I should make sure she’s okay.”

  And the man thought he didn’t know how to be a part of a family. He was protective of everyone weaker than him.

  Wyatt continued. “She said she was curious. Maybe it was more. She seems to be well cared for, but sometimes things happen to kids, and they don’t leave any marks on their bodies.”

  The words were emotionless, falling in the room with the weight of a thousand confessions. She bit the inside of her cheek to distract herself from the pain in her heart. God, he was killing her tonight. “Yes,” she managed. “Did Jared find out how long she’s in town for?”

  “The weekend. Ellie said it was her mother’s friend’s wedding.” He shifted. “It’s the two of them. Her father is in Tucson.”

  Good, she thought fiercely. She might punch the man if she saw him. “You know where they’re staying?”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded. “Okay. We could go in the morning.”

  “We were going to go look at studios for you.”

  That’s right. They’d discussed that…Tatiana blinked. Dear Lord, had that only been this morning? “I’ll call the realtor. We can go on Sunday afternoon.”

  “I don’t want to—”

  “Wyatt. It’s fine. The studio can wait a day.” She kissed his cheek. “I was thinking of buying instead of leasing, anyway. So I don’t want to rush into a space, you know?”

  “Buying.”

  She shrugged, trying for an air of casualness, though she knew now how much the concept of permanency meant to him. “Makes more fiscal sense.”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Yes. I agree.” He placed his finger under her chin and lifted it, searching her gaze. “Thanks.”

  She kissed him firmly. “My pleasure.”

  “I’m sorry I ruined the big night you planned.”

  “Nothing about this night was bad.” Her words were honest. She felt as though she’d been through the emotional wringer, but every step they’d taken tonight had been about making them stronger.

  They would never be invincible, but they could damn well be close.

  “Still…”

  “Wyatt. Remember how you helped me at the gallery when I was nervous? Let me be as good of a girlfriend as you are a boyfriend.”

  “I fucked you in the bathroom.”

  “Yeah, you got something out of that. I get something out of this. I don’t want to hear anything more about it.”

  His chuckle was rusty. “Fine.” He stirred. “I don’t know if I’ll be sleeping. I’ll go out to the living room so you can rest.”

  “I won’t be either. I kinda feel like sketching.” She sat up. “Why don’t you pop in a movie, and I’ll see what we have for snacks.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  She shushed him and slid off the bed, grabbing her sketchbook off the nightstand. Her fingers itched for a creative outlet for the swirling mess of feelings inside her. “I want to. I’m wired and a little hungry. You got a burger on the way home, and you didn’t feed me at all.”

  Wyatt’s laugh was hoarse. “Look, I could feed you or dump all of my baggage on you. I’m not superman.”

  Chapter Ten

  When he’d been young and trouncing pros double and triple his age on the poker circuit, commentators had wondered if Wyatt had a pulse, he was so calm and emotionless under pressure. Today, his palms were slick as he drove to the hotel where Ellie and Carol were staying, despite the distraction of Tatiana’s light patter.

  Poor woman. No way had she been prepared for the emotional sh
itstorm he’d rained down upon her last night. In the wee hours of the morning, she’d finally dozed off in his arms while they sat in front of the television. He’d spent the time until she woke watching infomercials and stroking her hair.

  His eyes were gritty and bloodshot from lack of sleep, his body vibrating with the kind of energy that came from caffeine and nerves. He’d chosen his clothes at random, and would have walked out the door with mismatched shoes if Tatiana hadn’t stopped him and gently pointed it out.

  He stole a glance at her pensive profile. The morning sun formed a halo around her, turning her into a golden angel. He knew what she’d growl in response to that observation, if he dared to voice it. I’m no more an angel than I am a whore.

  Correct. There was nothing ephemeral about her. She was too earthy and ribald to be an angel, and he wouldn’t make the mistake of putting wings on her and slapping her on a pedestal. Didn’t mean he couldn’t consider her his personal savior.

  Part of him was alarmed at the needy, insecure mess that had come spewing out of his mouth last night. Another part of him was so relieved the cat was out of the bag and that she was still by his side, he didn’t have much room for shame.

  The rest of him was too preoccupied with this upcoming meeting to worry about his relationship.

  His stomach tightened as he edged his sedan into a spot between minivans and SUVs.

  His sister was inside this family-friendly hotel. Jared had called an hour ago, while he and Tatiana had been pretending to eat breakfast. The private investigator had sent over more information supporting the blood tie between him and Ellie. Not that he needed more proof. As he’d told Tatiana, the fact that the kid lived with his father was enough for him to dig deeper.

  That didn’t mean he was a great family man, as Tatiana seemed to think. It meant he was the only one in the world who had an idea of all the ways the kid could be suffering. A child was a child, at the end of the day. Helpless.

  A rush of protectiveness infused him. She hadn’t asked to be Sam’s daughter, or his sister, but it looked like she was both. And he could do for her what no one had ever done for him.