Last night after she’d forgone a yoga workout to feed Toya’s son and rock him to sleep, she’d put the boy in the crib his mother had bought the day after they’d moved in. Then she’d gone to bed with a baby monitor beside her where a man should be.
When sunshine and Holden’s angry wails had awakened her early this morning, she’d stumbled from her bedroom to find the sofa vacant and no sign of Toya.
With no car seat, Izzie had been grounded the entire day. Feedings and diaper changes and reassuring babbles to the baby had interrupted her pacing and redialing of Toya’s cell phone number.
She hadn’t wanted to drag authorities into the situation prematurely or reach out to Asher Messa. If Toya was fine and police caught a scent of child abandonment, her ex-husband would only have more ammo to annihilate her in their already nasty divorce.
So she’d made a decision that she hoped wouldn’t end up a ginormous mistake.
Izzie peeked over the edge of the crib. Holden rested peacefully. Yeah, he should be peaceful now—fifteen minutes ago he’d regurgitated on her shirt. Since the first thing she’d grabbed to throw on was a designer high-low top, she hoped his tummy was settled. For the seventh or eighth time since she’d texted Milo, she looked at their conversation on the screen.
I need a favor.
In under a minute he’d responded.
Name it.
A car seat. Something that’ll fit a 6 mo. old.
Then,
Okay.
Milo hadn’t asked for her address, and she’d figured he wouldn’t have to, since even Toya had been able to find her in the public directory. There was only one Izzie Phillips on East Dune.
Refusing to start pacing again, Izzie sat on the sofa but sprang up again at the grating sound of the buzzer.
“I’ve got that favor you asked for,” Milo said through the intercom, and Izzie sagged against the wall.
He came through for me!
They weren’t friends, were bound by an alliance to find his father, were absolute trouble together, but he’d come through for her.
Izzie opened the door at his knock and caught her breath at the sight of him standing in the hall wearing a suit and holding a new-in-box infant car seat. When he set the box down just inside the door, she was so fucking glad. Because now his arms were free to hold her.
She knew he would.
She knew, as she rushed forward and kissed him with heat and hunger, that he’d stand right there and hold her.
***
“Are we going to talk about that kiss?”
Stretching across the rear passenger bench in her used Jeep Grand Cherokee, adjusting Holden Messa’s cap while Milo leaned in from the opposite side to secure the rear-facing car seat’s harness, Izzie thought it’d be easier to avoid his question if he weren’t close enough to maul again.
“Your hands are in my way,” she said when their fingers brushed and she quickly reached to straighten the soft cap on the baby’s head. He was snug and safe in the cushioned seat and watching her so calmly that she felt a little bit elated and a whole lot nervous that he trusted his young life to her. It was too easy to form an attachment to a baby, but what was her excuse for the weird undefined bond materializing between her and a man who’d brought a car seat to her door? “They’re huge. You could palm basketballs with those.”
“Yeah, actually, you’re right,” Milo said, and when she shot a glance at him, he was watching her steadily. “I can put them someplace else, if that’s what you want.” With a click, he fastened the five-point harness’s buckle and settled that hand on her shoulder. “Is that what you want? Me to touch you here?”
The touch was a hybrid of gentle and bold—just enough to give her a whiff of sensual possibilities and a hint of promise. Instantly lulled, she let her eyes start to drift then felt his fingers move to her lips. She kissed him, one knuckle then the next, then she added the lightest of bites to the inside of his wrist before she got herself together. “Stop it.”
Withdrawing, he said, “If we’re not going to talk about that kiss in your apartment, I’ve got other questions. For instance, whose baby is this?”
You mean all your sophisticated tracking didn’t let you know that Toya Messa and her infant are my new roommates?
In the apartment, when she’d finally stepped back from their kiss and immediately started buzzing around to collect her friend’s son and the diaper bag and the checklist she’d printed from the “shopping for baby” page of So You’re A Mommy.com, she’d assumed he wouldn’t make an issue of her action. It was more of a reflex anyway. It wasn’t as though she’d drummed her fingers together and meditated jumping him at the door.
When he hadn’t demanded any explanation, just cradled the baby so expertly that she’d been ashamed to silently worry that he might hold the infant as he had held a football for some fourteen years, she’d thought he wasn’t interested in the details of any mishaps she’d found her way into.
But he was only biding his time.
“What I know for certain is that you weren’t pregnant when you lived in Henderson. Surrogate? Adoption?”
“Or a more logical explanation,” she said, easing out of the car to shut the door. “He’s not mine.”
Late in the afternoon, the parking lot of her building was its busiest, as most of the tenants worked night shifts in nightclubs, casinos, and various restaurants throughout the city. Some women toted out garment bags and makeup cases; others urged young backpack-carrying kids to hurry along and watch for traffic.
Her phone dinged, signaling a text message. She clutched her phone. Toya!
I’m okay.
Izzie quickly punched a response.
Where are you?
A reply came quickly.
Somewhere.
No. Somewhere didn’t apply for a woman not coming home to her child.
Izzie repeated her previous question, but the phone didn’t ding.
“Get in,” she said to Milo when he shut his door. “If you want answers, you’ll have to come along for the ride. The truck will be fine and we won’t be gone long.”
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere very, very ordinary. Although to a high-roller it might seem beyond your realm. We’re off to Target. The baby needs things.”
“I’ve been to Target,” he said, settling in the passenger’s seat beside her. “Tabitha had a personal shopper buy everything from shoes to soap, but I figured it was less of a hassle to get my own stuff. When I want a bag of chips, I get a bag of chips. It never made sense to have someone else do it.”
“And you braved a mob of football fans every time?”
“Sometimes. It’s part of sports and entertainment though.”
Izzie activated the child lock system, turned the key, glanced through the rearview mirror at another woman’s baby and suddenly felt different. Responsible? Part of a family? She couldn’t really pin it just right. “Well, Milo, the baby who drooled on your suit is Holden Messa. His father owns Messa Technologies, and last week his mom popped up at my apartment looking for a place to stay. So, while Toya and her ex-husband get their shit worked out, she and I are bringing up baby. She’s been gone for a while and I want to track her down, but the baby’s running low on some things.”
“Toya. She was one of the girls you ran with last year. Kind of surprising.”
“What?”
“That she’d get married without insurance.”
Izzie tried to block the sting of offense, but it got to her anyway. The truth had venom. She and the others had been all about self-protection, warding off prenups and searching for almost fatherly security in marriages to rich, powerful, older men. “She thought she had insurance, but there was a loophole which revealed her hubby to be an asshole and—” Bristling, she took a breath and took a right at the intersection. “Listen, they both made awful decisions and now their only child is so stuck in the middle
that he’s counting on me and he doesn’t even know how scary that is.”
Milo cast a look toward the backseat. “He seems to be okay with you.”
“And you. Thanks for not holding him like a football. I thought you would and I was prepared to snatch him away.”
The man’s laughter made her feel as gooey as an oven-warmed chocolate chip. “I’ve got family and friends who think procreating is a nice hobby. Might not be long before I have a nephew. Or a niece.”
Izzie’s eyes bugged and her tabloid fodder sensors went wild. The bloggers loved baby bump stories almost as much as sex scandals. “Is Waverly Greer pregnant?”
“No, but Jeremiah’s marrying her. He told me today.”
“Why did you tell me?” she asked. She was damn skilled at hiding her freelance activities, but he couldn’t deny he didn’t trust her.
“I want to see what you’ll do with the information.”
“I won’t tell anyone,” she said, and was taken aback by her own decision. “Waverly and Jeremiah aren’t people I want to hurt, so betraying them wouldn’t be worth it, now would it?”
Milo was silent for a beat. “Okay. Point is, I know how to handle a baby.”
“Oh, then it makes total sense why you didn’t freak when Holden gurgled spit bubbles on your Armani jacket.”
“It’s not the end of the world. It’s just the beginning of his.” Milo touched her thigh, and more than a sexual move, it was an encouraging gesture. “You’re doing all right with the kid.”
“For a woman who’s not fit to care for plants?”
“You’re okay, Izzie.”
At the store, they opted for efficiency and ripped the shopping list in half and took separate carts. Izzie was in the laundry-care aisle, debating between two brands of safe-for-baby detergent with Holden preoccupied with slobbering on his plump fingers, when Milo’s cart parked beside hers.
“You’re going to block the aisle,” she warned, going all gooey chocolate chip again. The guy had on an expensive suit and was pushing around a cart containing diapers and wipes and bottles. And the thing about his hands was, they were large but dexterous and multitalented and she really wanted them on her again. “Did you find everything?”
“Yeah. Check the list.” He gave her the list and she compared it to the contents in the cart.
“Well done.” She lifted a fist for a bump. “Boom.”
“What about you?”
“Almost,” she said, choosing a jug of detergent to put at the bottom of the cart. Cooing to the baby, “Izzie needs something now,” she nudged her cart forward and reached for a box of dryer sheets.
“That—” Milo took the box, sniffed it, and looked her up and down. His mouth inched up at the corner. “You smell like dryer sheets.”
“I like to put them in my dresser and closet.”
Milo edged closer, said into her ear, “That’s so motherfucking hot. I don’t know why, but it is.”
“So add it to the list of things you like about me.”
“Why’d you kiss me at your apartment?”
“Can’t let that go, can you?”
“Uh-uh. We can talk about the stripper pole another time.”
“I kissed you because I wanted to. Reason enough?”
You’re cute-flirting with a man who had you tailed to the Seychelles. Get over it. Remember you’re just a pawn to him.
“I can take it from here,” she said, drawing back and clearing her throat. “Let me drive you back for your truck.”
“I can take care of it. But what’s your problem?”
“My problem is we’re enemies yet I still want you to bend me over this shopping cart and fuck me until I scream.”
He moved right in, gripping her ass and kneading possessively. “Say ‘fuck me,’ and I will. Right fucking here.”
“Milo, we’re crazy. Shopping together like this—a daddy and mommy with a baby. The baby isn’t mine and you’re not mine and I can’t get attached to either of you.” Wigging out in a store wasn’t the most pleasant way to “get over it,” but it gave her the oomph to transfer the items from his cart to hers and start making her way toward the checkout lanes. “I’ll pay you back for the car seat,” she called over her shoulder.
“With dinner.”
Uh…huh? “What?”
“Dinner. Food. Good food, hopefully. I’m asking you out to dinner.”
Izzie looked at the baby, but he only stared back at her curiously. “B-but I can’t commit to that. The baby.”
“Someday. Dinner, with me, someday.”
“If she doesn’t say yes, I’ll have dinner with you,” a woman volunteered eagerly, and Izzie finally noticed the smattering of shoppers who’d stopped to stare at them.
“She’s going to say yes,” Milo said arrogantly, as though he knew Izzie’s mind as intimately as he knew her body.
Narrowing her eyes, because she didn’t want to imagine him having dinner with that woman or any other, unreasonable as it was, she shouted, “Yes, okay?”
People laughed and murmured and gawked, and when the shopper said to him, “Hmm, well, can I get an autograph?” Izzie left him occupied with his superstar life and she returned to her ordinary one.
Chapter Eight
Paris.
Izzie studied her smartphone, examining the one-word response from her friend. She turned it sideways, then upside down, then tossed the device into her Grand Cherokee’s cup-holder.
Darkness was starting to hover over the palm trees lining the streets. The baby was fussy—no doubt bored to be spending so much time in a car seat, no matter how state-of-the-art it was. Izzie had forgotten to rescue her impulse-buy chocolate bar from the cheery red-and-white shopping bags she’d loaded into the back of her vehicle.
Now she was pissed.
Paris? As in France? Not likely, even if Toya had gotten control of the Messa company jet. So, as in on her way to Paris? No. That didn’t sound right. She’d seen the love on Toya’s face when she bathed her son in the sink and when she stood so still next to the crib, watching him sleep. She wouldn’t skip the country and leave behind the child she loved.
Except, it wasn’t unheard of. Child abandonment happened for a multitude of reasons. People left the ones they loved all the time. This very second, someone was giving up a future with someone they cared about.
Izzie swallowed—she was thirsty and her palms were getting uncomfortably clammy on the steering wheel. “Paris? Le Paris.”
Then, like a rolling shade been snapped open to reveal the clarity of a bright open window, it made sense. Paris Las Vegas.
“Hang on, honey,” she said aloud, redirecting her course. “We’re going to find Mommy.”
When Izzie at last confronted the glorious hotel casino, with its Eiffel Tower roof and nothing but temptation in the air, she gingerly switched the car seat’s handle from one hand to the other. Carrying fifteen-pound infant bundled inside a heavy-duty carrier was all the workout her arms needed today.
Where to begin in this place, she wondered, considering all the places Toya could be. The woman attended London Fashion Week last year, had no shame in modeling trends and advertising top designers’ handiwork, so she wouldn’t be hiding in Paris Las Vegas. She’d be visible, with attention on her.
Izzie only hoped Toya wasn’t gambling—she wouldn’t attempt to venture into a gambling room with the baby.
She considered the restaurants, scrolling through her brain for memories of her experiences dining in these places. She’d lived in Las Vegas for years, and it seemed every moment had been filled with seeking all the luxury the city had to offer a twenty-something living off the endless supply of wealthy men’s money.
She chose Gordon Ramsay Steak because the restaurant was said to be upscale and, if she was recalling her old circle’s outing to a famous restaurant in Los Angeles, where the chef had come to their table and requested that he personally prepare
their menu, Toya could really put away a steak.
Inside the restaurant, the high technology and glimmering luxury had her mouth watering. Or it was the delicious aromas of everything she wouldn’t mind sitting down and sampling.
Focusing on locating her friend, she feigned ignorance when people casually glanced up from their digital menus to frown at her and leaned forward in their high-backed chairs to murmur to each other as she shuffled past with the carrier’s handle in both hands.
Izzie’s hair had by now slipped free of the bobby pins she’d stuck all over her head this morning, her top was wrinkled and she had a burp cloth draped over one shoulder.
Give it up, she considered snapping to the downstairs dining room at large. Have you never had an unattractive day?
She’d almost let herself be seated and set up with a table, but she noticed a mane of curly dark hair on the dining room’s second story. Taking the stairs cautiously, she carted little Holden. “Where have you been, Toya?”
Toya, in a white one-shouldered wrap dress, sat alone at a table with a single goblet of wine in front of her…and a scatter of balled-up tissues. She looked up at Izzie through tear-filled eyes. “I’m sorry!”
“Shh. Silent ugly-cry is okay,” she said, setting down the car seat and taking the seat next to her friend, “but start bawling and you might get us ushered out.”
Toya scooted her chair and dropped against her shoulder, hiccupping.
“Wait a second,” Izzie said, dislodging herself to flip over the burp cloth. “There. Cry.”
Wait staff attentively gravitated to their table, but Izzie politely fielded their inquiries and offers for assistance. One woman all gussied up with runny mascara and in the throes of a bawl-fest and the other wilted and wrinkled accessorized with a burp cloth and a transportable car seat could draw a crowd.
The Hook: The End Game Series (Book 4) Page 13