Just Desserts

by Barbara Bretton

  “Thanks,” Hayley said with a smile. “You think you know what the things look like but except for the basics, I didn’t have a clue. I had to Google gold records. The images weren’t all that clear so I made a few lucky guesses.”

  “I Google prospective boyfriends,” Topaz said with a self-deprecating laugh. “Then I go out with them anyway.”

  “I Googled my ex-husband last year,” Hayley said. “My judgment was even worse than I thought.”

  “Oh, don’t get me started. The last guy I—”

  Finn looked at Hayley. “If we don’t leave now, she’ll tell you about every guy she ever dated and, believe me, there have been a lot of them. The trail of broken hearts goes from coast to coast.”

  Topaz pretended to punch him in the arm. “Hey, my father is standing right there, you fool.”

  “I’m not listening,” Tommy said. “There are some things a father doesn’t need to know.”

  Now they were really entering dangerous territory.

  “This has been great,” Hayley said to Tommy. “Thanks for giving me the opportunity.”

  He saw Tommy wrestle with what he wanted to say and what he knew he should say. “I think it’s safe to assume there will be more work for you in the future.”

  “That’s great!” Hayley beamed. “Call me. You have my card. Wait! That sounds terrible. I don’t mean it like that. What I’m trying to say is Finn has my number—actually you have my number too, right on the contract.” She started to laugh. “I really do have to learn when to shut up.”

  And then Tommy did the unexpected. He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “Don’t change,” he said, his blue-green eyes suspiciously damp. “Don’t change anything.”

  Finn looked across the room. Tommy’s fiancée stood inside the entrance, looking like an Amazon warrior in search of a battle.

  “Come on,” he said, grabbing Hayley’s hand. “We’re out of here.”

  “What’s wrong?” Topaz touched Tommy’s arm with a gentle hand. “You look strange, Dad. Is everything okay?”

  “I’m fine,” he managed, fighting down the huge wave of emotion washing over him. “Just tired.”

  Hayley was everything Finn had said she was and more. She was his daughter. Any lingering doubts he might have harbored had vanished the second he looked into her eyes. His heart opened instantly to let her in.

  He had another daughter. Another grandchild. He might have lived the rest of his life without that knowledge if Willow’s lawyer hadn’t stumbled onto the truth. He wanted to send the man a magnum of Cristal.

  “You’re probably starving,” Topaz was saying. “Mom said you never eat enough before a performance. Why don’t I make you a plate while you talk to Willow.”

  “Willow’s not here.”

  “Oh yes, she is,” Topaz said. “She’s standing in the doorway and she doesn’t seem too happy.”

  Willow looked like every man’s dream. Long blond hair. Short black dress. Stiletto heels with straps that snaked up her ankles. Flawless face. Flawless body. Sometimes he thought he was the only one who could see through all of that perfection to her vulnerable heart.

  “You know what?” Topaz said as Willow joined them. “I think I’d better go see what’s happening at our table.” She smiled at Willow, blew a kiss at Tommy, then ran for her life.

  He reached for Willow but she slapped his hand away. “Who is she?” she demanded.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The chick in the white coat Finn dragged away like she was on fire. The one you were falling all over. Who is she?”

  Willow attracted attention simply by breathing. All she had to do was enter a room and every eye in the place focused in on her. Right now the entire ballroom was their audience.

  “Her name is Hayley Goldstein,” he said. “She made the cakes.”

  “Who is she really?”

  “A baker from South Jersey.” And my daughter, but I can’t tell you that here, Willow. “Why don’t we go someplace and talk?”

  “No!” She stepped away from him. “She’s the reason you haven’t signed the prenup, isn’t she?”

  “Willow—”

  “I’m not stupid, Thomas. I see what’s been going on. You sent Finn and Anton down here last week to make sure she got the job, didn’t you?”

  He had lived most of his adult life in the public eye. He knew how to create a zone of privacy around the things that truly mattered. Willow, for all her fame, was still new to this.

  “Yes,” he said, “but it’s not what you think.”

  “Brilliant. Really brilliant.” Her face was red with anger. “You get to screw around and call it business. How could I have been so stupid?”

  “I’ve never cheated on you, Willow.” He was an anomaly in this world, in his profession. He had never cheated on any of the women he loved.

  “I can’t believe you’d do this to me.” She gasped for air. “I mean, my God, Tommy, she’s almost forty!”

  She swayed slightly. He reached out to steady her. “You need to sit down, get some food into you.”

  She pulled away from him again. “Don’t patronize me, Tommy. You’ve been giving me the runaround for weeks about the prenup. Even Sloan thinks something weird’s going on.”

  “It’s a family issue,” he said, trying to inch her toward the door.

  “Are you screwing her?”

  The entire ballroom fell silent. They were the only show in town.

  “Willow, let’s step outside and talk in private.”

  “I don’t have anything to hide,” she said, even louder than before. “I’m not the one fucking the bakery girl.”

  “You need to calm down.”

  “Don’t tell me to calm down! Tell me why you’re fucking the bakery girl.”

  “It’s not what you think. Her name is Hayley. She owns the bakery.”

  Willow pushed past the reporters, the photographers, the crowd of old friends who were hanging on every word.

  “Like I care what the hell her name is. She’s not even that pretty. Her boobs are too small. She seriously needs highlights. I can’t believe you’re cheating on me with that old—”

  Sorry, Finn. When you have your own kids you’ll understand.

  “Shut up, Willow!” he roared. “You’re talking about my daughter!”

  21

  “You’re talking about my daughter!”

  The man’s voice rang out above the noise as the crowd from the ballroom spilled out into the hallway near where Finn and Hayley were waiting for the elevator to reach the fifth floor.

  Bits and pieces of chatter exploded all around them like grenades.

  Who is he talking about…Did you hear what Willow said…He’s got another daughter?

  The atmosphere seemed charged with some kind of crazed energy that made her instinctively wrap her arms across her chest and take a step back.

  “Was that Tommy Stiles talking about his daughters?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Finn said. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “It sounded like he was fighting with somebody.”

  She threw the ring at him…hit him in the eye…He’s screwing some cook…

  “They’re all looking at you,” Hayley said as the crowd grew. “They must recognize you from the band.”

  He ignored her comment. “These elevators aren’t moving. Let’s take the stairs.”

  “I’ve been up for two days straight. I’m not doing five flights of stairs.”

  That’s her…over there…that’s who they’re fighting about…

  Wait a minute. They weren’t looking at Finn at all. They were looking in her direction. She turned around to see who was standing behind her as an orange-haired photographer slid to a stop in front of her.

  “The woman of the hour!” he bellowed. “So how does it feel?”

  Finn stepped between them. “Ten feet back,” he warned the guy. “Hotel rules.”

  “Fuck off,�
�� the photographer said. “This is between me and Daddy’s little girl.”

  Daddy’s little girl?

  “I think you have the wrong woman,” she said as evenly as possible.

  The orange-haired guy was joined by a local TV reporter with crew in tow. “That’s some secret you’ve been keeping,” she said with cameras running. “We talked for ten minutes and you couldn’t give me an exclusive?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Come on. It’s over. You can—”

  Finn stepped in.

  “No interviews,” Finn said as the crowd around Hayley grew. “Ms. Goldstein has nothing to say.”

  “That’s because Ms. Goldstein doesn’t know what’s going on.” Hayley turned to Finn. “Help me out here.”

  She could barely hear over the wall of noise surrounding them. Photographers jostled other photographers. Reporters shoved microphones under her nose. People who had fawned over her cakes just a few minutes ago were looking at her with a mixture of pity and curiosity.

  But the look in Finn’s eyes scared her more than the chaos breaking out around them. He leaned down until his mouth brushed her ear.

  “I’m so sorry, Hayley,” Finn said. “I thought we’d have more time.”

  “Time for what? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m starting to feel like everyone in this hotel knows something I don’t and—”

  A hand grabbed her shoulder. She spun around and found herself eye to eye with Willow the supermodel.

  Fury shot from every pore as she fixed Hayley with a deadly look. “Stay away from him.” Willow made sure she had everyone’s attention. “I’m only going to tell you once.”

  Hayley blinked in shock and looked toward Finn. “Are you sleeping with her?”

  “No!” He looked genuinely shocked. “You’ve got to be kidding. She’s Tommy’s fiancée.”

  She turned back toward Willow. “You’d better tell me what you’re talking about because I’m at a loss here.”

  Even red-faced and trembling with rage, the woman was still drop-dead gorgeous. “You know what I’m talking about. Stay away from Tommy!”

  “Tommy Stiles? I just met him tonight for the first time.”

  “Don’t lie to me. I know the whole story. I know how you got this job.”

  “I got this job because I’m good at what I do.”

  “I’ll bet you are.”

  Hayley bristled with anger. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “What do you think it means?”

  “I think it means you’ve got the wrong idea about something.”

  Tommy, his right eye squeezed shut and beginning to turn shades of purple, broke free from the crowd and put his arms around the angry young woman. “This isn’t the time or place, Willow. Let it go.”

  “Let it go? I can’t let it go. I saw you drooling all over her back there, then you give me that bullshit excuse that she’s some long-lost relative. I want to know what’s going on. I have the right to know.”

  “Long-lost relative?” Hayley repeated. “I’m with Willow. I want to know what’s going on too.”

  Finn looked over at Tommy.

  Tommy looked from Finn to Willow to Hayley, where his gaze lingered.

  Those eyes, she thought as she stared back at him. Lizzie has the same eyes.

  Why did that suddenly seem so important?

  Willow shook Tommy’s arm off her shoulder and faced Hayley. “He said you were his daughter.”

  “You said that?” Hayley asked Tommy. “Why would you say something like that?”

  Lizzie’s eyes…my eyes…

  She turned to Finn, expecting to see a look of total disbelief on his face. What she saw instead was compassion and her stomach slid sideways.

  “Tommy’s name was on your original birth certificate.”

  Funny how you could think absolutely nothing at all. She had never really understood the expression her mind went blank because hers never really did. Her mind was always buzzing with snippets of conversation, myriad half-formed worries, and ideas for new cake designs. But this time her mind went totally empty. All she heard was the sound of her own heart beating frantically in fight-or-flight mode deep inside her chest.

  Finn was speaking to her from a great distance. So was Tommy. She couldn’t make sense out of either one of them. She couldn’t make sense out of anything. Not the endless clicking of cameras. Not the shouted questions from the reporters. Not the soft chime from the elevator as the doors slid open.

  “Excuse me.” A hotel exec complete with clipboard and BlackBerry stepped out. “Don’t block the doors, people.”

  A pair of young women in short, tight dresses the color of tequila sunrises breezed past them. A late-fiftyish woman with an all-access pass strung around her neck and a Best of Tommy and the After Life vinyl album clutched to her chest joined the parade, not realizing her idol was standing an arm’s length away from her.

  People saw what they wanted to see. They heard what they wanted to hear.

  Sometimes reality was the most unreal thing of all.

  Like the fact that the man they were all rushing to see was her father.

  Tommy Stiles—the same guy whose music had formed the sound track to the lives of almost every American her age—was her father. She thought her brain was going to implode from the sheer ridiculousness of it all. The only thing more unbelievable than the thought of calling Tommy Stiles Daddy was the thought that the rocker and her mother had had sex.

  No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t link the two of them together in her mind, not even if she had a bottle of champagne to help her.

  “This is crazy,” she said as the elevator emptied. “Somebody somewhere got it all very wrong. Trust me, there is no way that—”

  And then she saw her.

  Jane was leaning against the side railing. A tall, distinguished white-haired man had a proprietary arm about her shoulders. Jane’s eyes were closed and in that instant Hayley saw her mother for the very first time.

  She wasn’t the Amazon warrior who faced down sharks and tsunamis with equal aplomb. She wasn’t the professor with the sharp intellect and keen understanding or the fiercely independent woman who had made her way through the world following only her own star. She wasn’t the woman who had battled cancer into submission twice.

  The woman in the elevator was old and frail and tired. She leaned into the man standing with her as if she gained strength from his nearness. The thought of her mother gaining strength from any man was inconceivable. It rocked Hayley to the core.

  “Jane.” Her companion’s voice was rich and mellow. “Your daughter is here.”

  Jane opened her eyes, straightened her shoulders, and exited the car with her companion by her side. She looked anxious and vulnerable and very human, and in that instant Hayley knew there was only one reason why her mother would set foot in a hotel in Atlantic City.

  Her mother and Tommy Stiles…Tommy Stiles and her mother…

  “Oh my God,” Hayley said. “It’s true!”

  Willow looked from Hayley to Tommy then back again. “Holy shit,” the model said as the family resemblance clicked into place. “It is true!”

  The woman’s face went dead white.

  “Grab her!” Hayley shouted. “She’s going to pass out.”

  Tommy caught her just before she hit the ground. “Call nine-one-one. She’s pregnant.”

  Anton was already on it.

  “Hayley.” Jane stepped forward. “I didn’t want you to find out this way.”

  “You had thirty-eight years to tell me, Mom. What in hell were you waiting for?”

  Tommy’s mother CeCe peered down at poor Willow, who was struggling back to consciousness. “She doesn’t eat, that’s her problem. They eat a raisin, then go into the bathroom to throw up. God knows what she’s doing to my grandbaby.”

  “Shut up, Ma,” Tommy said. “Don’t make things worse.”

&nb
sp; “Worse? You want worse? I’ll give you worse. I bring my friends up from Naples and you can’t even throw a decent after-party. An hour? How long is an hour? Sixty minutes! A baby’s birthday party lasts longer than sixty minutes. I expected better, Tommy.”

  That’s my grandmother, Hayley thought. This tiny, brassy woman, who was probably the same age as Jane, was her blood. Those beautiful girls named after gemstones, the two teenage boys with charm and attitude, that adorable curly-haired child were her siblings—they were all part of her family line. In a heartbeat she had gone from an only child to one of many.

  CeCe’s eagle-sharp eyes landed on Jane. “Who are you?” she asked, pointing a bejeweled forefinger in her direction.

  “Jane Maitland. Who are you?”

  “I’m Tom’s mother.”

  Jane nodded a greeting. “I’m Hayley’s mother.”

  CeCe tried to frown but her obvious Botox dependency made it hard. “Who is Hayley?”

  “I am.” Hayley stepped forward.

  “But you’re the caterer.” CeCe clearly didn’t think caterers should mingle with civilians.

  Finn opened his mouth to say something but Tommy got there first.

  “She’s not the caterer, Ma, she’s a baker. And yes, she’s my daughter.”

  Hayley actually felt sorry for the woman as she sorted through the tangle of information. She looked at Tommy, then over at Jane, then at Hayley, then back at Jane.

  “You’re Harley’s mother?”

  Jane nodded. “I’m Hayley’s mother.”

  CeCe turned to Tommy. “You can’t be her father. She’s almost forty.”

  He actually looked proud, which made Hayley’s heart do a funny little flip inside her chest. “I’m her father.”

  “That means you two—”

  Poor CeCe. It was too much for the woman and she started to fall over like a sapling in a storm. Hayley dashed to her side and gathered the tiny woman into her arms.