Tell Me You Love Me: A Novel

by S. Ann Cole

  Opening her bag, she takes out an envelope with a big, red CLASSIFIED stamped across it.

  “Never mind that,” she says of the word. “A classified stamp is the only way I can leave the office with any kind of document without it being checked.”

  I take the envelope and am about to open it, but she stops me. “Let me give you an abridged version of what’s inside there to save time.”

  “Okay,” I say quietly, unsure. It’s a stop and a go.

  “First off, does this Serena girl mean anything to you?”

  When I hesitate to answer, she nods. “Figures.”

  I’m defensive. “What does that mean?”

  She lifts a brow at me. “You asked me to go arse deep on a client, Khol. You wouldn’t have done that if you didn’t care about this wench, yeah?”

  I don’t answer.

  “You should know,” she goes on, “that she had you followed for the better part of three months.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I reply with a nod. “Her father.”

  “No.” She shakes her head. “Not her father. Her.”

  I frown. “Are you sure?”

  She gives me a worried look. “See? You care so much you don’t want to believe she stalked you.” Shaking her head, she continues, “Anyway, that’s not important. I just thought you should know. What is important is that your client Virginia Gallagher is her birth mother. And the person behind her abduction is her father.”

  I’m positive there’s a trench between my eyebrows right now. She could be speaking Yiddish for all the sense her words are making. “What?”

  “Not Aaron Bentley.”

  I stare her down as if she’s offending me. “You lost me, Ted.”

  Sighing, she takes off her glasses and rubs her eyes before putting them on again. “Aaron is not Serena’s real father. His name is on her birth certificate and there’s nothing stating she’s adopted, but he’s not her biological father.” She nods at the envelope. “Her biological father is in there. Angus Gallagher. An Irish grifter. He ordered the kidnapping.”

  A grifter? What in the hell is she going on?

  “Angus and Virginia are married,” she informs. “I found nothing linking her to the kidnapping, but they are in some serious debt right now and hard-pressed for cash. Twenty-five years ago, she was pregnant and engaged to Aaron Bentley. Three months after giving birth to Serena, she vanished. Ran off to the Virgin Islands with Angus. They totally disappeared until two years ago when they resurfaced.”

  Well, shit. Does Serena know Aaron’s not her biological father? Does Aaron know? “A ransom is quicker.”

  “What?”

  “A ransom is quicker,” I repeat. “Virginia’s idea was the brooch. It’s safer, smarter. But, of course, a heist like that takes time. I told her the job would be completed anywhere between three to eight months. Angus, I’m guessing, couldn’t wait that long, so he chose a quicker solution. Kidnap and ransom.”

  Teddy nods thoughtfully. “Well, I don’t know for sure, but that’s quite possibly how it went.”

  That’s exactly how it went. I’m betting Virginia doesn’t even know about the attempted kidnapping either.

  I ask the one question that’s really important here. “Is the brooch really Virginia’s?”

  “See, now that’s where things get complicated.” She wrinkles her little button nose and her blond brows knit together. “The brooch originally belonged to Virginia’s grandmother, Marva—great-grand to Serena. In Marva’s will, the brooch was to be passed on to Virginia’s mother, Nancy. However, Nancy died before Marva. Died giving birth to Virginia.

  “But see, Marva didn’t revise the will before she died, so the will still states that the brooch belongs to Nancy. After Virginia gave birth to Serena and disappeared, Marva gave the brooch to Serena on her eighth birthday—yep, that woman lived to one-hundred-and-two. Therefore, there is no formal document to state that the brooch belongs either to Serena or Virginia, because the will was never revised.”

  That explains how she passed the screening and validation test. Damn, she wasn’t kidding when she said this was sensitive and complicated. “Serena has more claim over the brooch than Virginia,” I say.

  “Which is why she hired a con man, yeah?” Teddy replies. “She could have tried it in court, but with nothing in writing, the rule would go in Serena’s favor, as there’s no guarantee that Nancy would have left it to Virginia. I guess she also didn’t want to risk making her presence known. After all, Serena Bentley’s mother is supposed to be dead.”

  I snort. “Yeah. During child birth.”

  “Way to tell a lie with a truth, huh?” Her phone sings from her bag but she doesn’t answer. She stands instead. “I have to go. That’s Francis’s ring-tone. He’s on to me. If he finds out I’m here with you, he’ll know something is up and then I won’t be able to help you anymore.”

  I get up and pull her into another hug and kiss the top of her head. “Thanks for this, babe. I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too, my playboy.” Her phone starts ringing again. “Bloody hell, he’s not going to stop ringing. I’m off.”

  She starts to leave, but then she comes back and reaches her hand up to my cheek. “If you’re serious about this girl and want to have a future with her, you need to come clean with her before it’s too late, yeah? The lies and the secrets, they have a way of blowing up in our faces in the most disastrous way.”

  Twenty - Nine - Serena

  “Asshole.”

  I’m in a mood.

  Kholton has been ignoring my calls, texts, and emails. Yeah, I get it, the intimate side of things with us is over, but he’s still my tutor. He can’t just ignore me.

  Granted, studies are scheduled to resume one week from now, and my emails, texts, and voicemails are not of a scholastic nature, but still, he can’t ignore me! He’s still mine. Doesn’t he know that?

  I returned from my travels a few days ago and I’ve been to his house twice so far. No one was there both times. His Instagram is being updated so at least I know he’s not dead.

  Two days ago, he posted a photo of himself and two girls wearing Drexel University T-shirts, one of them pressed a little too close to him for my liking. No caption.

  Yesterday he posted a pic of himself eating a Doubles, sauce dripping down his fingers. Caption:

  My favorite mess.

  #cheatday #nobodydoesitlikeReba.

  The day is almost over and there’s no new post from him to keep me sane. So, yeah, I’m grumpy as hell right now.

  This is what being un-exclusive is. He’s allowed to ignore me all he wants and I’m not allowed to lay into him about it, because he owes me nothing.

  It stinks. I’m miserable. I want to go back to L.A. and relive that time with him over and over and over again. Feel him thrusting into me, feel his mouth on me, his touch on my skin. Workout in the sand with him, laugh and fight with him, ride Ferris wheels and take oodles of selfies with him…

  Dammit, I want him.

  I dial his number again. Predictably, he sends me to voicemail.

  “Asshole,” I say after the beep. Then I hang up and text him.

  Serena: I miss you.

  I watch as the single gray tick turns to double gray ticks, then the double gray ticks turns to a single green tick. I wait with baited breath to see the three dots that indicate he’s typing a response, but it doesn’t come.

  The sonuvabitch is leaving me on read.

  Thirty - Serena

  “You’re my miracle.”

  Long Island, New York

  The Ford Mustang stands out like a sore thumb at the front of our house when I get home from work.

  Unauthorized vehicles are not allowed on our property, and this black classic belongs to none of us. I know my father is home. He caught the flu during our travels and hasn’t been in the office since we got back. If this person is in our residence, then it has to be someone he trusts.

  Beau circles our water
fountain round-a-bout and parks behind the Mustang. It’s not until I am out of the car that I notice the man sitting on the steps, and Dan, one of our securities, guarding the door.

  The man grins at me around a toothpick sticking from one corner of his mouth. His greasy, tousled hair is mostly red, with strong patches of blond in some places. But his beard—and there’s a lot of it—is all red. His smirking eyes are like jewels, a sparkling green. He seems…familiar. But I can’t place him.

  “Look who’s home,” he drawls in a fading but identifiable Irish accent, eyeing me up and down. “The princess of the castle.”

  Keeping my eyes on him, I ask the security at the door, “Dan, who is this man?”

  “A guest of your father, Miss Bentley.”

  “Except he can’t very well be a guest if he’s sitting outside on the steps, can he?”

  The man gives me an unctuous grin as he shifts the toothpick to the other corner of his mouth with his tongue. Something is off about his spirit. He looks at me through those spiky red lashes like he knows me. Penetrative, intrusive, cocksure.

  “Actually, he accompanied the visitor who is already inside,” Dan replies. “But Mr. Bentley instructed he wait outside.”

  What the heck is going on? If Aaron doesn’t trust someone inside his house, he would never allow them through the front gates to begin with.

  Struck with sudden concern for my father, I begin hustling up the steps as fast as my six-inch heels and tight skirt will allow me. But before I can get to the door, it bursts open and a gorgeous woman storms out.

  With blown-out blonde hair, big breasts, bright blue eyes, and legs for days, she looks to be in her early forties. She’s well-dressed, too, in a classy below-the-knee black dress, a camel duster, and tall, tan boots.

  She hits an abrupt halt when she sees me. And as if in wonder, she just stares.

  Aaron comes rushing out behind her. When he spots me, his face goes ghostly pale.

  The woman’s lips part as if to speak, but then she sucks in a breath and shifts her gaze to the Irish man who is now standing to his full height. Damn, he’s tall.

  The two appear to have some sort of silent conversation before she closes her eyes and sighs. When she opens them again, she whirls around to face my father. “This doesn’t need to get ugly, Aaron. Just give me what I need, I’ll keep my mouth shut, and you can go on with your life.”

  With that, she turns and starts down the steps. As she’s about to pass me, she pauses and looks at me with this wistful expression. She reaches up as if to touch my hair, but I jerk back.

  Her hand falls to her side, and in a quasi-inaudible whisper, she tells me, “You’re beautiful.” She then hurries down the steps, the tall Irish man following behind her.

  Ducking into the car, she keeps her head down the entire time as the man dips into the driver’s side, fires up the engine, and peels off.

  “Daddy…” I turn to my father, con-freaking-fused. “What on earth was that about? Who are those people?”

  He looks sick, and not flu sick like he’s been for the past week, but white-as-a-ghost, blood-turn-to-ice sick. “Sweetheart…I think it’s time we talked.”

  “Anytime today, Daddy.”

  Perched in the middle of my father’s office couch, I watch him pace the length of the room, back and forth, forehead wrinkled.

  He stops and looks at me. The trepidation in his usually kind eyes scares me.

  “Daddy.” I’m getting more anxious by the minute. “What is it? What happened?”

  With a robust sigh, he plods over to one of the chairs in front of his desk and swivels it around to face me, before throwing his weight down in it. “You have always asked me why I’m so paranoid, so suspicious of people and their motives. Well, sweetheart, I was not always this way. I used to be open, welcoming, trusting…”

  “Until you got screwed over,” I guess.

  He nods as he confirms, “Until I got screwed over.”

  Leaning forward, I lace my fingers around one knee. “What happened, Daddy?”

  His gaze roams over my face, as though taking memorizing snapshots. “Twenty-six years ago, I met your mother in a coffee shop. She was beautiful, like you. Young—eleven years my junior—and full of life. My wife had just divorced me and—”

  “You had a wife before my mother?”

  “Yes.” He sucks in a breath. “Sweetheart, what I’m about to divulge right now will contradict everything I’ve ever told you about yourself. So, please, just let me get it all out. It’s hard enough as it is, because I know I’ll probably lose you after this.”

  He’ll lose me? What does that even mean? “O-okay.”

  “I was messed up after my divorce. Broken and vulnerable,” he continues. “And your mother, who was only twenty-years-old at the time, brought me back to life. She very quickly became my universe. I fell hard and I fell fast. Within eight months, we were engaged to be married. Three months later, she told me she was pregnant.”

  On an extended pause, he drops his head and rubs his palms up and down his khaki-covered thighs. “See, the reason my wife had divorced me was because she wanted kids and I couldn’t give her any. Not because I didn’t want to, but because”— He lifts his head and meet my gaze— “I was shooting blanks.”

  No. No. No. This cannot be going where I think it’s going. This cannot be going where I think it’s going!

  My father—because he is my father—holds up his hand before I can say anything. “Please, just…let me get it out.”

  To keep from falling apart, I unclasp my hands and sit on them as I fold my lips to stop them from trembling.

  “Of course, your mother didn’t know that,” he goes on. “And I didn’t bother to tell her or confront her. I was too in love with her. I told myself she was still young and explorative. So what if she went out and got knocked up by some college kid too young to be a father and probably wanted no part of it anyway? She was going to be my wife, and I was going to take care of her and the kid.”

  He scoffs at himself, no doubt realizing how dumb his rationalization had been. “She wanted to get married right away. But despite my decision to stay with her regardless, I chose to wait a while before marrying her.”

  He shakes his head. “I will never forget the look on her face when she woke up after the C-section and saw your full head of red hair. She had an immediate panic attack. But I still didn’t confront her or even speak of it. I wanted her to know that I forgave her, that I was there to stay.”

  A bitter laugh crawls from his throat. “Unfortunately, she wasn’t. Not from the very beginning. See, your mother was a con artist and I was her mark.”

  I’m so cold right now that if someone poked me, I would shatter. My veins are ice, my tongue parched. “That—that man…who was outside,” I manage to croak out. “H-He’s my real father, isn’t he?”

  “Yes.” He exhales a shuddering breath. “It turns out your mother was engaged to us both. His name is Angus Gallagher. They were working together. I don’t know what their initial plan was. Maybe it was marriage without a pre-nup and then divorce me for all I’m worth. I don’t know. But whatever it was, it got screwed when she saw you and your flaming head of red hair.”

  I don’t ask because I think it’s obvious. The woman is also my mother. And that man—Angus Gallagher… I had thought he looked familiar. Little did I know I was looking at my own face.

  “She waited until I was attached to you before she made her demands.” His broken voice pulls me from my thoughts. “Ten million dollars, or she was leaving with you. It was her only play. She knew I knew you weren’t biologically mine. But maybe if I fell in love with you, I’d pay to keep you.”

  “And it worked,” I comment. Not a question, but a statement. “I’m purchased. Traded. A fraud.”

  “Sweetheart.” His voice is quiet. Apologetic. Sad. “I didn’t give her ten million. I gave her twenty. Twenty million dollars plus a mansion in the Caribbean with the agreement tha
t they would never come near us ever again or attempt to take you from me, legally or otherwise.”

  “THEN WHY THE HELL WERE THEY HERE? WHY?!” The words explode out of me like a dragon’s roar. I’m so overwhelmed by this revelation that I want to scream the roof down.

  I take a deep, calming breath. “Twenty million is a lot of money, Daddy. Even if it was over two decades ago. So what more do they want?”

  It takes him a long time to answer me, but when he finally does, I understand why. “Your brooch.”

  I don’t have to ask which brooch. I have three brooches and only one has any significant value. “Grams gave me that brooch…” I trail off and give out a humorless cackle when realization dawns. “Grams is her grandmother, isn’t she?”

  He nods in affirmation. “After Virginia left, she showed up apologizing on her daughter’s behalf and begged me to let her help with you. She became a part of your life. Your mother wasn’t exactly suffering or hurting for money, she had a decent middle-class life. She just happened to fall in love with a bad man.”

  “Virginia?” I let the name roll around in my head. “That’s her name? My mother?”

  He nods again.

  When I was six, he told me my mother’s name was Violet and that she was as beautiful as her name. Now I know that woman was make believe.

  “Does she have any legal claim to it?” I ask. “The brooch, that is.”

  “No. But she’s threatening to make the story public—with her own twist on things, of course—if she doesn’t get it.” He sighs for maybe the hundredth time. “People will know your mother isn’t really dead and that I’m not your father.”

  None of that would be good for business, especially for me. People already have issues with me—being a female for one—taking over the company in the future. Things would only get more difficult for me if it gets out that I am not even blood. Still, this is bullshit blackmailing.