“Sure. Follow me.”
I allowed my eyes to flicker over the other diners as I walked. I liked to check out the people who ate at these posh restaurants for leisure, and I always tried to imagine their lives and make up backstories for them, because I loved creating characters in my mind. As I tried it this time, I was stunned to find myself looking at a face I recognized well—one that I could’ve done without seeing.
Serra Silver.
“Here’s your table, madam.” The host indicated towards a seat which faced the exclusive booth table where Serra was sitting, allowing me to spy on her if I chose to do so. I wasn’t sure why I was so curious what she was up to; all I knew was that I still didn’t trust her at all. Sure, she’d proven that she’d been telling the truth about her pregnancy, but that didn’t make her an honest person, and we’d only find out if the baby was definitely Kaiden’s once DNA tests were done. There was something incredibly suspicious about her, and I couldn’t shake off the uneasy feeling she gave me.
I hid my face behind my menu, peering over it every minute or so to see what she was doing. There was a man sitting next to her, but I couldn’t see his face. The whole setup looked suspiciously like a date, which was odd, because she had made it out like she desperately wanted to make a real family with Kaiden. A part of me had assumed that was what they were going to do, and the idea made my insides twitch with irrational jealousy.
I watched Serra closely as she leaned towards the man. She began to passionately kiss him as if there was no one else in the room, and my eyes widened with surprise. They were making out like horny teenagers, to the point where it was embarrassing to watch, and I finally turned my head away as my mind whirled. What the hell was she up to? Why was she acting like she wanted to be with Kaiden when she was clearly dating someone else? The whole thing was just so weird.
And then they pulled apart, and I realized just why it was so damn weird. The person she was kissing was Dr. Banks, the man who had performed her ultrasound the other day…and this time, he didn’t look so shy. What the hell?
I dropped the menu in stunned shock, my eyes widening even more, and luckily, Serra was too busy cramming her tongue down the doctor’s throat to even notice me sitting there. I narrowed my eyes and surreptitiously pulled out my cell phone before snapping a quick picture to show to Kaiden later, if necessary. Something seedy was definitely going on, and we needed to find out what.
“Hello, Miss Solis.”
Mr. Halk’s friendly voice broke through my shocked reverie a few seconds later, forcing me to return to the present moment.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Halk,” I said, gulping all my emotions down and throwing on my professional mask.
One thing at a time…
***
It wasn’t until I got back to the office much later that afternoon that I was given the chance to dig around. I’d played my part well in the meeting and ensured that the deal was secured, but my mind had been elsewhere the entire time, trying to figure that conniving bitch out.
Serra and Dr. Banks hadn’t stayed in the restaurant for very long, and luckily they hadn’t spotted me as they left, but from what I’d seen of their apparent relationship, there was definitely something very strange happening.
I had no qualms with doing this research on my work computer, because it affected Kaiden—my biggest client. Helping out with his public image was a massive part of my job, after all, so whatever Serra was up to, I wasn’t going to let it get past me…and I’d be damned if I let her hurt Kaiden either.
Dr. Greg Banks, I typed into the search engine. Of course, thousands of results came back; it wasn’t like he had a particularly uncommon name. I remembered that he’d had some kind of British accent, so I tried Dr. Greg Banks, Britain next, but there were still too many results. I sighed and thought for a moment before typing in something else. If he was a dodgy guy, then surely there’d be some evidence of that online. Dr. Greg Banks, Britain, fraud cases, legal issues.
Fortunately this gave me everything I needed, and I found the man I was looking for right away. There wasn’t too much about him online, but I did find a selection of articles that told me all that I needed to know.
“Oh my god,” I muttered to myself, shocked by what I was reading.
I picked up my phone and dialed my friend Alexa’s number.
“Hello?” she said.
“Alexa, hey! Are you back from Italy?”
Alexa had become one of my closest friends in recent years. She’d started off working at the same firm as me before realizing that PR just wasn’t for her, upon which she’d made the snap decision to become an air hostess, and she hadn’t looked back since. It was amazing that she’d decided on her dream and just made it happen, and I wished I could do the same with my own dreams.
She loved jetting all over the world and regaling me with her tales on her return; tales which included her hooking up with a different man in each country. Even though one night stands weren’t my kind of thing, it was all very exciting for her, and I was happy for her…and also a little envious, to be honest.
Despite the fact that I barely got a chance to see her these days because she was jet-setting all over the place, we’d maintained a solid friendship. We hadn’t worked together for long, but something had just clicked between us, and we kept our friendship going through emails, calls, and Facebook.
“Yep. Oh, Riles, it was amazing,” she replied in a dreamy voice.
“You’ll have to come and tell me all about it over a bottle of wine on the weekend,” I said, jumping in quickly before she started on her stories. I loved hearing them, but right now I needed her for something else.
“Okay, but only if you tell me all about the sexy Kaiden Cross,” she said with a giggle.
I’d just managed to slip my new client into a conversation before she’d left on her last work trip, and it seemed that she’d already spotted that there was more to it than met the eye.
“Yeah, sure,” I said in the most casual tone I could muster up. “But before I tell you about him, I was wondering—where exactly do they film Meadowlands?”
I knew she’d know, because it was the one TV show she always kept up with, so if anyone knew how to find Serra at work, it would be Alexa.
“The studio’s on the Lansbury Business Estate, why?”
She was genuinely curious now, knowing I had no interest in soap operas.
“It’s a long story,” I said. “So why don’t you come over tonight and I’ll tell you everything then?”
“Ooh, sounds juicy! Okay, I will. Eight-ish? And you’ll also have to tell me all about Kaiden.”
“Sure. Sounds great, see you then!”
I hung up the phone and gathered up my things, including the article that I’d just printed off, and then I put on my game face and stopped by Eric’s office on my way out.
“Eric, I’ve got to go out on a job, but I have my cell phone with me.”
“Sure,” he replied, looking as if he was in the middle of tearing his hair out. Clearly the shareholder meeting hadn’t gone exactly as he’d planned.
I drove much quicker than I normally would, but I had a score to settle and I couldn’t rest until it was done. Adrenaline was bursting around my body, my heart was thumping away crazily, and my brain was entirely focused on what was about to come.
I wasn’t a confrontational person, but I was about to make an exception for Serra Silver.
I arrived at the studio half an hour later, before I’d even planned what I was going to say. I wasn’t normally the sort of person to wing a conversation as important as this, but it seemed like I was determined to break all of my rules today.
I stalked inside, surprised at the lack of security on the set. Maybe people didn’t normally sneak onto the sets of TV soaps? Although, you’d think that would be happening quite often, considering the amount of obsessive fans that surely existed. I was also stunned at how unglamorous it all was. I wasn’t sure what I’d b
een expecting, but it was certainly more than this. The place was small and a little grimy.
I found myself standing outside what seemed to be the main part of the set, and I could see Serra filming a scene. A part of me wanted to burst in and start screaming and yelling, but I hadn’t quite changed that much. No, I needed to do this in a more dignified manner.
I managed to blend in with the crew for a while, just waiting for her to finish. My professionalism prevented me from making a scene, but the lengthy wait gave my emotions more time to stew, and the more I thought about things, the angrier I became. I still wasn’t one-hundred percent certain of what she’d done, but I was sure she’d done something dodgy with Dr. Banks; sure enough to come all the way down here.
Then, as if by magic, she was in front of me, the filming already done for the day.
“Hey, you,” she snapped, as if she didn’t even recognize me. “Where’s my kale juice? And where the hell is my pink Chanel nail polish?”
Jeez, she was so stuck up that even the bags under her eyes were probably designed by Balenciaga.
“Serra, I’m not an assistant here. I work with Kaiden. We met the other day,” I replied, trying to keep as calm as possible. My blood was boiling, my veins bursting with rage.
She shrugged dismissively, as if I were speaking another language to her. “Huh? So what?”
“Can we speak in private?” I asked. I wanted to keep this between just us, at least for now.
“Um, no? Why would I want to go anywhere with you? Do you even know who I am?” she replied in her lilting valley-girl accent, sneering and looking me up and down as if I were nothing more than a piece of gum she’d found on the bottom of her shoe.
“I really think you’ll want to talk about this away from everyone else,” I said in a warning tone. She took absolutely no notice, turning to look at herself in a nearby mirror instead.
As she inspected her eyelashes, I rolled my eyes. “Okay, I’ll just show you this instead,” I added.
With that, I presented the printed article I’d found online, showing her exactly what I’d discovered about Dr. Banks. He’d been a doctor in London until 2011, but he’d had his English medical license revoked because of fraud, in a very similar case to what we were dealing with here—a conniving woman, a fake pregnancy and a man she’d wanted to extract large amounts of money from.
Dr. Banks had faked the relevant test results paperwork and played a pre-recorded ultrasound video while pretending to perform an ultrasound on the patient, so that the alleged father had believed she was really pregnant. Once the man had married the woman out of a sense of duty—with no prenuptial agreement, seeing as he’d thought they were having a child together and would be linked forever—the woman had faked a miscarriage and then tried to take off with half his fortune. The ruse had been discovered eventually, and Dr. Banks had been tried in court, sued for damages, and had his license taken away. He’d been lucky he wasn’t jailed.
I watched Serra’s face in the mirror as it went from cocky and confident to pale and fearful.
“So, do you want to speak to me alone now?” I said, knowing that I had her exactly where I wanted her.
She grabbed my hand and yanked me violently towards a small dressing room. When we were safely inside, she started her tirade. “What the fuck is this?” she said, throwing the article back at me. “Where the fuck did you get it?”
“It’s online. Anyone could find it. I guess you didn’t know your boyfriend has done this trick before, huh?”
She narrowed her eyes and took a step closer to me.
She wanted to intimidate me, but I wasn’t going to let that happen. I was in control and she damn well knew it. I stepped closer to her too, wanting to get into her personal space a bit, and for a second, I thought I smelled alcohol on her breath, but she turned her head so quickly that I couldn’t be sure.
I needed to get her to admit that she’d lied. I already knew she’d been lying, but I needed to hear it out loud.
“Someone else will find this eventually,” I said. “I’m just the first person who went digging.”
“Fuck you,” she spat out. “No one else knows that he’s my doctor, or that I’m seeing him. In fact, after what you’ve just showed me, I guess I won’t be seeing him anymore. So to everyone else, there’s nothing to dig into.”
“Sure,” I said. I’d known she was going to say that. “But people are going to notice when there’s no baby. How do you plan to deal with that? Fake a miscarriage like the other woman did, right after you’ve gotten your claws firmly back in Kaiden?”
She took another step closer. “Why the fuck are you doing this?” she asked, hands balling into fists by her side. “Because you’re pathetically in love with Kaiden? It’s so fucking obvious, you know. Do you think if I’m not having his baby, he’ll turn to you? He could have any girl he wants. I mean, he had me. So why would he pick a dumpy, short-ass, ugly bitch like you?”
“It’s not like that,” I said. I tried to keep my tone firm, but the wobble was obvious to both of us. “I just want to do a good job for Kaiden, seeing as he’s my client. That’s all. I just need you to be honest. It’s for your own good as well. If you admit this now, it won’t be anywhere near as bad as it will be if it’s discovered by the media instead.”
“Yeah, right. Whatever,” she said, practically hissing in my face at this point. Up this close, I could see a teeny-tiny smattering of fine white powder just under one of her nostrils. Jeez, no wonder she was acting so crazily, and no wonder she’d thought she would actually get away with her godawful fake pregnancy plan. She’d probably been near-constantly high for the last several weeks, or even longer.
“Well?” I said.
“Okay then, fine. I’m not pregnant. Now let’s see if Kaiden falls into bed with you…”
She stomped from the room, cackling loudly and leaving me with my shattered self-esteem. Her words had cut deep, and even though I knew she’d just been trying to hurt me, she’d brought up all kinds of insecurities within me that I’d been worrying about since Kaiden had kissed me the other night. Why had he kissed me? I still didn’t know. It wasn’t like I was some gorgeous supermodel with perfect skin and hair, which was what a guy like Kaiden could easily get.
Frustrated tears pricked at my eyes, and I brushed them away before making my move to leave. I had nothing left to stay for; nothing else to say to Serra.
“Riley?”
A familiar voice sounded as I stepped out of the dressing room, and a shadow appeared before me.
Kaiden.
Chapter 12
Kaiden
“What are you doing here?” I asked Riley, confused as to what she would be doing anywhere near Serra. As far as I knew, she went out of her way to avoid her. “And are you okay?” I added.
This question was pointless. It was obvious that she wasn’t; she was damn near crying.
“What’s going on?” I asked when she didn’t reply. A thousand possibilities flew through my mind, all of them involving Serra…and none of them were good.
Riley finally began to sob, and she fell into my arms. I embraced her wholly, glad that I could finally offer her some semblance of support. I felt her body shake and rattle against me as she cried into my chest, and I gently rubbed her back, letting her get it all out.
“Come on,” I finally said, gently peeling her away from me. It would do her no good to be here—she needed to be away from the toxicity that had obviously hurt her, and besides, I couldn’t really do anything while we were stuck inside a soap opera studio with eager eyes peeping out at us from every angle. “Let’s get out of here.”
All of my good intentions to see Serra—to try and sort stuff out with her—flew out the window as I tried to comfort Riley.
She shuffled alongside me, a shell of her usual self. I saw her company car outside and got into the driver’s seat to take her home. I’d caught a cab here, so I wasn’t going to be leaving any vehicle of my own be
hind. I half-expected Riley to argue this decision, but she slid quietly into the front passenger seat and handed me the keys without a single word. This wasn’t right; I couldn’t stand to see her like this. I knew she had a lot on her shoulders, and I just wished I could do something to help her with some of it. I kept shooting her glances, hoping the answer would pop into my mind, but as usual when it came to her, my mind was uselessly blank.
I quickly pulled out of the parking lot, knowing that she was more likely to open up if we were far away from all that had caused her pain.
“She’s not pregnant,” she said flatly, before I even had a chance to ask her about whatever went down at the studio.
“Huh?”
The statement just seemed so random and out of the blue, and it took a few seconds to cotton on to what she was talking about. Wait…she couldn’t mean Serra, could she?
Apparently the answer to that was yes.
“It’s Serra,” she said, voice cracking slightly at this. “She faked the whole thing. I’m so sorry, Kaiden. I wish it wasn’t true. I know how excited you were to be a father.”
Inside, I broke into a million different pieces as her words registered with me. Serra wasn’t pregnant. I wasn’t going to be a father anytime soon.
Fuck…how the hell was that possible? I’d seen the sonogram myself! And if this was true, and she really wasn’t pregnant, why had she led me to believe that she was? Some twisted attempt to get me back into her life? Or worse, some sort of publicity attempt?
The discovery weighed heavily on my heart, but I tried to hide this as much as I could. Riley was clearly hurting over her own medical situation and possible future troubles with conceiving, so I tried to be strong, just for her. Later, I would have all the time in the world to fall apart at the loss of my child…well, the child that had never really existed, anyway.
“How do you know?” I asked quietly.
Bad Boy Brit (A British Bad Boy Romance) Page 33