“No.” She finished off another hors d’oeuvre. “Candace had a baby.”
Julian gave her a blank stare. “Who is Candace?”
“My half-sister. That Candace.”
His look of repulsion didn’t surprise Lia. “I’m surprised she’s not in jail somewhere.”
“She’s dead.” Lia explained what had happened to Candace and how her friend had shown up with her remains. “I went to Lafayette Falls to see about her baby. I wanted to make sure he got a good home.”
“Lia, that kid is not your responsibility. You and Candace were never family. Maybe you and she had a few of the same genes, but you have never owed her anything. Nor your mother for that matter.”
She flashed her dad a scowl. “That’s why I didn’t tell you where I was or what I was doing. I knew what you would say.”
“It’s the truth, Lia. You know it is.”
Sheila reappeared and handed Julian a highball glass. Then she said she was going for a walk. She had never interfered in her lover’s relationship with his daughter.
The ice cubes rattled as Julian took a much-needed drink. “I hope that’s the last of your surprises.”
“It’s not,” Lia replied. “I guess you could say I saved the best for last.”
Her father’s brows shot up. “What?”
She drew up her shoulders. “Like I said, I met a man. Dr. Aaron Kendall.” When she said Aaron’s name, her heart drooped like a wilting flower. “I’ve been staying with him.” She waited a second. “You should take a drink.”
Julian’s green eyes, which were the same color as hers, widened. “Are you pregnant?”
“No,” she answered quickly, and her father took a drink. After he swallowed, she began rattling off details, explaining she hadn’t thought anyone would connect her with Dallas, but she was driving the red Jag and had been followed by paparazzi. “They took some pictures of me and Aaron. Conner called Dallas and told him he’d heard rumors about a photo spread that Raymond Wilkes is planning to publish this coming week in TruCelebrity.”
“Wilkes?” Julian whispered the name of one of his most despised enemies. “These pictures of you and the doctor. How explicit are they?”
“I have no idea.” She picked at the hem of her shirt. “But they could be rather explicit.”
Julian turned up his drink. After he had finished it, he muttered, “Wilkes. Shit.”
“Whatever Dallas and I need to do, we’ll do,” she said. “At least, this way I’m the villain and not Dallas. If the fans hate anyone, it will be me. I was thinking about that on the flight over here. A breakup would be logical after this. That would be something all his fans would accept.”
“To hell with his fans.” Julian squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. She could see the defiance rising in him. “You are my daughter. You’re a Montgomery, and you’re not throwing yourself under the bus for anyone. I don’t care who it is. Are we straight on that?”
Shocked, she said, “Yes sir,” as if she were a soldier facing a superior officer.
Julian finished his drink and looked out the window for a few moments, but he wasn’t looking at the view. Lia knew he was planning—hundreds of little circuits firing up in his mind as he considered what actions to take.
“First, we need to know what we’re up against.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “We need to see those pictures.”
Lia gulped. “Is that necessary?” Humiliation roasted her cheeks. There were just some things you didn’t want your father to see.
“Next week everyone will see them.” He walked over to the desk where he brought his laptop to life. The logo for Coldwater Hills Music glowed on the hi-def screen.
Lia reached for another hors d’oeuvre. As she popped it in her mouth, a knock came on the door. She rose. “I’ll get it,” she said. “It’s probably Gilda.”
Julian glanced her way. “You brought Yoda with you?”
“Good karma.” She opened the door, and Gilda walked in, carrying a shopping bag.
“Hello, Darth,” Gilda said to Julian. The two of them tended to exchange a lot of barbs, but beneath the great differences was mutual respect and love. Gilda had been a good friend to Julian’s mother and had helped him raise his daughter. “How are you?”
“I’ve had better days,” he retorted as he pulled his phone out of his pocket.
Gilda looked at Lia and shrugged. She turned to the windows. “Great view.” In a quiet voice, she asked Lia, “How’s it going?”
“Better than I thought,” Lia whispered back. “Do you want some hors d’oeuvres?”
“I stopped by a coffee shop. The coffee in Paris is heavenly. Look what I found.” She opened the shopping bag and withdrew a colorful silk shawl with large golden wings printed on it. “They are archangel wings.” Gilda draped the shawl over Lia’s shoulders. “For divine protection.”
Julian shook his head as he tapped his phone.
“I saw that,” Gilda said.
Julian ignored her. “Conner,” he spoke to the publicist. “I need to know everything you know about the photos Wilkes has.”
Lia pulled the shawl tight around her shoulders while her father paced, listening to Conner. She smoothed her hands over the feathers imprinted on the silk. Wings to fly. Wings to take me high. Wings to take me home to him.
“I need to see those pictures,” Julian told Conner. “We can’t head this thing off until we know what we’re dealing with and what kind of angle that asshole is planning.” Julian listened for a moment. “It’s gonna be the worst-case scenario because Wilkes hates me and he’s been looking for an opportunity to screw me. That’s what this is about.”
Gilda rubbed Lia’s arm as Julian continued. “What about a disgruntled employee? Someone with access to Wilkes’s computer system who can get copies of the pictures. And I need to find out who the photographer was. I bet all that’s in Wilkes’s email.”
“Russian hackers,” Gilda suggested, and Julian glanced her way.
“Conner, see what you can find out, and I’ll call you back.” He spoke to Gilda. “Hackers. That’s brilliant, Yoda.”
“It’s just a matter of finding one. I don’t know any.”
“I know who will.” Julian smiled as he began to scroll through the contacts on his phone.
“Dad, that’s illegal,” Lia pointed out.
He looked up. “I’m not the one wearing angel wings.” That had been true of Julian Montgomery all his life.
Lia turned to Gilda, who smiled and said, “I love it when he does the Darth thing.”
Julian was on the phone again, this time speaking in French as he seated himself at the desk. “Langlais, ça va? Oui. Bien.”
“These hors d’oeuvres are delicious.” Gilda sat on the sofa.
Still wrapped in the archangel shawl, Lia sat beside Gilda. “This has to be the worst time in my life.” She heard her phone buzz in her purse, and she dug it out. She had a slight hope it might be Aaron. She had heard nothing from him since she had walked out of his house, and she knew she would not hear from him.
The message was the tenth one from Dallas, who was having an anxiety attack.
Are you there? Have you talked to Julian? What did he say?
Yes, I’m here, and everything is fine. I’ve had a long talk with Dad, and I’ve told him everything. He’s okay with us splitting up. That’s not going to be a problem.
Are you sure? What about Wilkes?
If anyone knows damage control, it’s Dad. He’s working on it.
Thank God. Let me know what happens. Tell Julian he’s The Man.
Her father already knew he was The Man. What worried her was how The Man would react when he saw his naked daughter on top of a guy in a tree house. She slumped against the arm of the sofa. She wanted to shrivel up into nothingness. Instead, her weary eyelids closed, and sleep came to take her from reality.
“Lia.” Her father tapped her shoulder a few hours later. She awoke with a start. “I have a copy of th
e pictures.”
She sat up and blinked, trying to orient herself. Gilda was on the other end of the sofa, sleeping. Sheila was in the kitchen area, making a pot of coffee. Now the view of Paris from the window was a blanket of glittering lights sparkling in the night.
“I haven’t opened the file yet,” he said as if he didn’t have the heart to do it.
“I’d like to see them first,” she said.
“Sure.” He motioned toward the laptop and headed toward the kitchen area. “I’m going to get some coffee.”
Lia dragged over to the dark, glossy desk where her father’s top-of-the-line laptop waited for her. She stood there for a moment, staring at an unopened email. Her memories of that moment in the tree house were of cute fairies painted on the wall, summer rain sliding from the roof, and a deep passion connecting her and her lover. Like the taste of his kiss and the feel of his skin against hers, it was a memory she treasured.
Now that memory would be forever marred when one of the most private moments a woman could share with a man was going to be available for everyone to see. Get this over with.
Standing in front of the laptop, she reached for the small portable mouse and clicked it. The email opened. There was no sender’s name, only a string of unintelligible letters. She scrolled down to the attached file and clicked it. Instantly, eight images appeared on the screen. She let out a shriek.
“Oh, my God!” She spread her arms, and the angel wings floated on either side of her. “Oh, my God.” She grabbed the desk chair as she gasped.
Julian and Sheila rushed out of the kitchen. Gilda stumbled off the couch. “What’s happened?”
Julian stood behind Lia, looking at the screen. “Lia.” He frowned as if he couldn’t figure out what to say. “What the hell is this? A joke?”
Chapter 17
“No,” she cried with joy. “It’s not a joke. It’s Stevie!”
The photographs were of her and Stevie sitting together at the table on the deck. Her memory rewound to that day when she, Stevie, and Aaron had eaten a pancake breakfast out on the deck. Stevie had pulled his chair over beside her and proceeded to show Aaron how to woo a woman. She had played along for fun.
In the photographs, she and Stevie did appear to be a couple. He had his arm draped around her shoulders, and they were hugged up together, being silly. In one shot, she had her head on his shoulder. In another, she was planting a kiss on his cheek. She would say the most romantic one was where she was trying to feed him a bite of pancakes that were soaked with syrup. It looked like a bad wedding shot of the bride feeding the groom a piece of cake.
Julian continued to frown. “That’s the guy you’ve been seeing? He looks like a college kid.”
“He is. That’s Stevie. He’s Aaron’s younger brother,” she explained. “We were just goofing off one morning. I can’t believe it!” She had expected something else. The floodgates of relief opened inside her.
“I think he’s a cute boy.” Sheila cradled a white coffee cup.
“He’s very personable,” Gilda added.
Julian shook his head as he looked at the photos. “For starters, I’m glad you two are dressed. But what is it with the stupid expressions?”
“Dad, we were just being silly. Aaron was sitting on the other side of the table, watching us.” She recalled his deep laughter. She liked hearing Aaron laugh. Sighing, she glanced at the photos of her and Stevie. She was so thankful the intimate moments she had shared with Aaron would belong to no one but her and him.
“Would either of you like some coffee?” Sheila looked from Lia to Gilda.
“I would love some.” Lia needed the caffeine, and Gilda decided to have some, too.
Lia turned to her father. “What do you think? The photos aren’t explicit at all. There’s no reason to worry now. Right?” She smiled.
“Maybe you know that you and what’s-his-name are just goofing off, but no one else does,” Julian replied. “You’re hanging onto him. Leaning against him. Kissing his cheek. Feeding him. Plus both of you look high.”
“We weren’t high. We were acting.”
“That’s some of the worst acting I’ve ever seen.”
Well, Dad, we could’ve been naked in a tree house. She accepted a cup of coffee from Sheila. “Thank you.” She wondered how Sheila had put up with her father for so long.
Julian studied the screen. “We’ve got to come up with a way to defuse this. Discredit Wilkes. Ruin the story. In some ways, that might not be too hard because nobody’s gonna believe you would choose that guy over Dallas.”
“Shallow,” Gilda said as she sat in the armchair and sipped her coffee.
“Reality,” Julian threw back. He turned to Lia. “I’ll need all the info you can give me on this guy. There’s a notepad in the drawer. Then I’ll call Conner,” he thought aloud.
She sat at the desk and took the pen and pad from the drawer. How much did she know about Stevie? He’s fun to be around. Rarely serious. A scoundrel. He loves to take selfies. At that last thought, she looked up at the photos on the screen, and she saw Stevie’s phone in his hand.
He had taken selfies of them that morning.
Dots began to connect in her mind. “Stevie,” she whispered. Then she whirled around in the desk chair. “What if we publish the photos first?”
“Sweetie.” Julian spoke to her as if she were a little girl. “Wilkes would know immediately where they came from and who hired the hackers.”
“Stevie took selfies. He always takes selfies, and he took a bunch of them that morning. They’ll be different from these, but it’s still me and him at the same time and same place.” Her heart pounded. “What if we posted them all over social media this weekend? Before Wilkes publishes his article. Maybe we could come up with an angle, and Conner could get it published on the news media sites.”
Julian gave her words consideration. “It just might work.”
“I’ll call Stevie.” She hopped out of the chair and retrieved her phone. When she had decided to let Stevie drive the Jag, she had put his phone number in her contacts just in case she needed to track him down.
“Stevie. It’s Lia,” she said when he answered. “Have you got a minute?”
“Just call me the Love Doctor.”
Lia ignored that remark as she had learned that off-the-wall was Stevie’s style. Sitting at the desk again, she tapped her phone on speaker. “Here’s the deal. I’ve found out the paparazzi took pictures of you and me together. Not me and Aaron like I thought.”
“Me and you? Whoa.”
“It was when we were having breakfast on the deck—eating pancakes and acting like a couple.” She jogged his memory. “You took a lot of selfies that morning. Do you still have them?”
“Oh, yeah, I’ve got them.”
Lia smiled at her father. “Stevie, would you like to have that red Jag?”
Julian shrugged and stuck his hands in his pockets.
“You want me to kill Aaron for you?” Stevie said.
She chuckled and explained the tabloid was going to use the photos to show she was cheating on Dallas. “I want to counteract that with the selfies you took. Have you posted any of them online? Like on Facebook?”
“No way. I wouldn’t post pictures of me with my brother’s girlfriend. I got standards.”
“Okay.” She tapped the pen against the pad as she looked at the computer screen. “We need to post them, but first we’ve got to come up with a plausible explanation.”
“I’m a super-fan.” Stevie rolled out the most plausible of explanations. “I’ve got selfies of Dallas and me, too. I haven’t posted any of those yet. Didn’t figure Aaron would be too happy about that.”
“Yeah,” she said softly. She couldn’t think about Aaron right now.
Julian stepped up to the desk. “He has pictures of himself and Dallas as well as you?”
“That’s what he said,” Lia answered. “Stevie, my father’s here.”
“Music mog
ul. Cool.”
Julian pinched the bridge of his nose. “The fan angle might work.”
“I got this,” Stevie said suddenly. “A super-fan’s last wish comes true. Eating breakfast with Lia Montgomery and meeting Dallas Peyton. How cool is that? I can make it happen.”
Lia disagreed. “Stevie, not the ‘last wish’ thing. That’s a little overboard.” She feared Stevie might go way overboard.
Julian spoke in a decisive voice. “Hey, Stevie, this is Julian Montgomery. Make something happen and that red Jaguar is yours.”
“What?” Stevie gasped. “For real?”
“For real,” Julian answered.
“I can make it happen. I am your go-to guy for making it happen, dude.”
Still worried, Lia picked up her phone. “It has to be believable. Remember that, and before you post anything, you send me a copy. We need to look at it first.” She definitely thought that was the wise thing to do. “We’re planning to share your posts with our media outlets.”
“Fame, baby. I was born for shit like this,” he said. “You’re gonna love it. Everybody’s gonna love it. I got this. I promise.”
Two hours later, Stevie had made good on his promise. Lia sat at the desk and read the post that would accompany more than a dozen photographs of her and Stevie and Stevie and Dallas.
To all my friends,
I know a lot of you have wondered why I’ve been staying at my brother’s house and why you haven’t seen much of me on campus or at our hangouts this summer. You know how I believe in letting the good times roll. I hate being a downer, but I’ve been dealing with personal issues this summer. Plus I met this really cute girl, and then she got killed in a wreck. Don’t text and drive.
Sometimes life can be tough, and you feel like you’re all alone in the world. Then someone steps up and makes things better. My big brother arranged a big surprise for me to cheer me up.
I got to meet Dallas Peyton and Lia Montgomery! Country Sweethearts 4 Ever! I am like a super-fan of theirs. They are so special to me. Lia was our guest, and when she showed up at the house, I knew my life would never be the same.
I’m like OMG! I would love to have a girl like her. Of course, her heart is already taken, but I asked her if she’d be my fantasy date for a day. She was all for it. We hung out and she fed me pancakes and she let me drive her Jag. That car! What a sweet ride!
Not Through Loving You Page 21