by Megyn Ward
Now, he douses his cereal with milk before scaring up a clean spoon. “You should probably go,” he says digging into what I can only assume will be his dinner. “You’re gonna be late for your date.”
“Logan—”
“No,” he says, shoveling a spoonful into his mouth. “I get it.” He nods and chews. “You want to pass judgment from your mountain of money on the way I live my life and what I do, but when it comes to getting what you want, here you are, knocking on my door.”
“I met with her as a favor to you in the first place.” I don’t tell him that I already know her. That I pulled a fuck and run on her on my birthday, five years ago, because it also happened to be the anniversary of my mom’s death and I went a little crazy for a few hours.
“Please,” he says around a mouthful of cereal. “I did you the favor, and you know it. You wouldn’t be having dinner with this chick, otherwise.”
Because I don’t have an argument for that one, I give up. “You want me to pay you?” I say, reaching for my wallet. “Is that it?” I jerk it free from my suit jacket and open it to pull out a stack of bills—has to be at least a couple grand. More than he’ll see in the next month tending bar and whatever else he does that I don’t want to know about—and toss it onto the futon. “There.” I jam my wallet back into my pocket. “Can we stop fighting now?”
Logan chews his cereal, ping-ponging a glare between me and the money I just tossed at him like it was nothing. And to me, it is. Whatever it costs, it is nothing if it’ll fix what’s broken between the two of us.
Finally, he sets his bowl down and takes the few steps between the kitchen and his futon. Picking up the stack of money, he leans over to open the window. Retaining a single bill, he throws the rest of it into the street.
“Hey, Angus,” he shouts and waves out the window while I watch money flutter and fall on the evening breeze. Outside, I hear shouts—neighborhood kids dropping their bikes and jumping off their front stoops. Whoops and excited shouts.
It’s raining money.
Logan watches the chaos with a wide, satisfied grin. “Now we can stop fighting,” he says straightening himself from his stoop before flashing me the single bill he kept. “For my breakfast burrito.”
21
Silver
Jane and Lilah sit cross-legged on the foot of my bed, staring at me while I tell them everything. We’re in my room with the door shut so I can get ready, because whether I want him to or not, Tobias Bright is taking me to dinner.
On the baby monitor I have stashed in Noah’s room, I can hear him. He’s supposed to be asleep but he’s talking to himself, although if I asked him who he was talking to, he’d tell me something different. He’d tell me he’s talking to his friend, Bixby.
“Are you sure it’s him?” Jane finally says, flashing me a nervous smile when I cut her a withering glare from across the room. “I mean, it was five years ago and you even said he doesn’t seem to remember you. Maybe you just heard the name Tobias and—”
“He’s Noah’s father,” I hiss at her over my shoulder. “Of course, I’m sure.”
I’m sure because when he touched my hand, I felt it everywhere.
“Okay.” Jane holds up her hands in surrender. “… so now what? I mean, you’re going to tell him, right?”
“You heard the part where I woke up alone, to a pile of money on the nightstand, right?” I shake my head, while rifling through my closet. “Besides, he doesn’t even remember me.”
I have nothing to wear.
Nothing.
I have work clothes and mom clothes. That’s it. I’m twenty-five years old and aside from a few awkward, on-line hook-ups, I’ve haven’t been on a date since Tobias.
That wasn’t a date. That was a one-night stand. Yeah, a one-night stand, that despite its disastrous and devastating end, became the measuring stick to which you compare every man you meet.
“Yes…” Jane nods her head. “But you’re pretending not to recognize him either. Maybe he does recognize you and doesn’t know how to approach the fact that he—”
“Treated me like a whore.” I pull a simple A-line cotton dress off the rod and show it to Delilah.
She scrunches up her face like I just shoved a day-old crate of Hank’s crawfish under her nose.
“Obviously, after meeting you and your father, he knows he was mistaken,” Jane says in that logical tone of hers that makes me want to pull out my hair. “Maybe if you admit that you remember him, you guys can move past it.”
“The guy tried to pay me for sex. There’s not going to be a happily ever after here, Jane.” I pull a button down and slacks combo off the rack and give it a flash.
Delilah looks at me like she’s wondering if we’re really related.
“Maybe not,” Jane says, still the undisputed queen of logic. “But at the very least, now that you know who he is, you can tell him about Noah. Try to build some sort of relationship for his sake.”
I don’t tell her that even though I didn’t know who Tobias was, I’ve always known where to find him. I told myself it was better to do it alone. That I didn’t really know or need Tobias. That he didn’t deserve to be a part of Noah’s life. After how he treated me, there was no indication that he would treat our son any different.
“Noah and I are doing just fine without him.” I dig up a long-sleeved, high-necked dress I wore as a bridesmaid for a cousin’s wedding. I bet I could re-wear—
“Stop,” Delilah shouts, jumping up from the bed. “For the love of all that is holy, stop.” She points at my closet. “Get away from there, right now.”
I know that look.
That’s the look that got me into that infernal contraption of a dress five years ago and into that VIP lounge in the first place. “If you think I’m going to let you dress me, you’re insane.”
“Relax,” she shoves me out of the way to commandeer my closet. “I know how to dress for a dinner date with a billionaire and it’s vastly different from the way you dress when you want to pick one up in a club.” She flips through dresses and slacks until she comes to an abrupt halt. “Here.” She thrusts it at me, a simple black wrap dress. “Put this on. We’ll dress it up with shoes and jewelry.” She makes shooing motions at me.
“And you,” she says to Jane while I get dressed. “Silver is right. She can’t just say, hey, so I know you don’t remember me but here, have a kid. This is Tobias Bright we’re talking about. The man is worth roughly two-hundred billion dollars. I can assure you this is not his first paternity claim. The minute she even whispers the word son, an army of lawyers are going to close ranks around him and start filing injunctions.” She shakes her head, before turning to look at me and nodding her approval. She thrusts a pair of strappy black satin heels I don’t remember buying at me, motioning for me to put them on. “It’s best if she just keeps Noah to herself for now,” she says, while digging through my jewelry box.
“You don’t know that for sure.” Jane scowls up at her. “Maybe this Tobias guy will—”
Someone rings the doorbell and I hear Noah’s excited scramble. He was supposed to be asleep.
Before I can let out a squeak, Jane bolts for the door, attempting to cut Noah off at the pass while Lilah ransacks my jewelry box. I can hear Jane in the hallway—you know you’re not supposed to answer the door by yourself, followed by a protesting wail. A second later, Jane carries Noah through my bedroom door like a sack of potatoes. Jane flips him onto the bed and he cackles wildly.
“Here. Cash. Cell phone. Condoms.” Delilah shoves my purse at me.
My mouth falls open. “Cond—”
“Seriously? You really want to protest about it after what you just told me?” When my mouth snaps shut she nods. “That’s what I thought. Put these on. I’ll go answer the door and stall him.” She’s gone before I can thank her. A few seconds later, I hear the door open, followed by the low murmur of voices.
“Hi, mom,” Noah says, looking up at me, his face b
right red from being turned upside down.
“You’re supposed to be asleep,” I remind him while, hooking earrings into my ears before working the clasp of a necklace open to loop it around my neck. The large, black South Sea pearl suspended on a diamond chain my father bought me when I graduated from college.
“I know.” He watches me as I shove a bracelet onto my arm and swipe on some mascara. “Where are you going?”
“To dinner, with a friend.” I smile, cross the room to the bed before bending down to give him a kiss. “You’re staying here with Jane and Aunt Lilah.”
He scowls up at me. He’s not used to me leaving once I’m home. “Can I sleep in here?”
“Of course.” I smile and blow a raspberry on his cheek, so I can hear him giggle again. “You stay here and go to sleep and when you wake up, I’ll be right beside you.”
22
Tobias
The blonde is familiar. Not in an I think I slept with her kind of way but a I think I know her family kind of way.
Before I can put my finger on it she says, “Probably one of your clubs.”
“Excuse me?” I watch as she leans against the back of an armchair. We’re standing in Silver’s living room, just inside the front door and she hasn’t offered me a seat. She’s either rude or she doesn’t like me.
My guess is a bit of both.
“You’re trying to figure out where you know me from,” she says, shrugging a shoulder. “I’ve been a regular at most of your clubs for years now.”
Years? This girl looks barely old enough to drink now. Years ago, she would’ve practically been in diapers.
“How old are you?” I ask, eyes narrowed on her face. Long blonde hair. Sky blue eyes with the sort of dusky complexion that makes her look like she has a year-round tan. Her clothes are couture trash—skintight designer jeans and a t-shirt, both strategically ripped and faded to look like they were found in a dumpster. Both probably cost more than a family of six spends on groceries in a month.
“Old enough to hire someone to lop off your balls and toss ‘em in the Harbor if you hurt my sister again.” She smiles at me. “And rich enough to get away with it.”
Again.
She knows who I am.
What happened.
Which means, that for all her posturing to the contrary, Silver remembers me.
I open my mouth, not sure what’s going to come out, when a door opens down the hallway. Looking up and over, I watch as Silver comes toward me, her back stiff. Gaze straight ahead. Steps slow and measured, like someone’s marching her to the electric chair.
Jesus, this would be easier if she didn’t look so damn good. The dress is simple black jersey knit but I can tell from the cut its high-end and well-constructed, meant to hug and skim every curve. Compared to the last dress I saw her in, this one is practically a nun’s habit, but my cock doesn’t seem to recognize the difference.
Probably because it knows what’s underneath.
From the corner of my eye, I see the blonde round the chair to throw herself onto the sofa, leg over the arm of it like she’s been there the whole time and not threatening me with castration.
“Hello, Mr. Bright.” Silver’s gaze barely skims over me before she focuses on the blonde. “I’ll call if I’m going to be late,” she says, shrugging into a Navy pea coat. “Will you be here when I get back?”
I watch as she picks up the remote and turns on the television. The blonde shrugs. “Dunno. I might hit a few spots with Jordy and Liz, later on.”
Jordy and Liz. Jordan and Elizabeth Cramer. Twin trust fund babies and the scourge of the New York club scene. I’ve banned them from half my clubs for everything from dealing drugs to arson. Bad news doesn’t even begin to describe those two.
“They’re in Boston?” Silver frowns, looking around the room like she expects them to jump out from behind her curtains. She looks worried and I don’t blame her.
“Yeah.” She channel surfs, flipping through them fast enough to induce a seizure. “There’s this thing tonight in Seaport. Some warehouse, I guess. Anyway, it’s supposed to be lit.”
Silver has a million questions, I can see them on her face. Instead of asking them she says,
“Lilah, maybe you should just stay—”
I mentally flip through the dossier Logan build for me. Lilah—Delilah Fiorella. Silver’s half-sister and if TMZ and Celebrities Gone Crazy is any sort of judge, the Fiorella family wild child.
Settling on a channel, she tossed the remote on the coffee table in front of her. “Have fun you crazy kids,” she says, aiming her gaze at what looks like some sort of celebrity reality show—rich people screaming and flipping over tables. Probably friends of hers. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
23
Silver
I’m on a date with Noah’s father.
No, not a date.
This is a business dinner—and that’s all it is. Business.
It doesn’t matter how good he looks or how great he smells and it definitely doesn’t matter that my knees tried to give out on me when he pressed a hand to the small of my back while he helped me into the car.
Business.
That’s it.
Right.
We’ve been driving for a while now. Long enough for me to start to wonder where he’s taking me and what’s going to happen when we get there. I turn to ask him where we’re going but he beats me to it. “Your sister is… interesting,” he says, cutting me a quick look across the dark interior of the car. When he picked me up, I expected the same chauffeured Mercedes he showed up to Davino’s in this afternoon. Instead he led me to a Bugatti Chiron and climbed behind the wheel after seeing me safely inside the car. No Angus in sight.
I had a feeling that it was on purpose. That he intentionally drove himself to pick me up, so we would be alone together.
“Delilah? She means well.” I turn, angling my knees away from him like I did at the restaurant this afternoon. Hearing his voice is dangerous to my resolve to keep things strictly centered on business as it is. If I have to listen and look at him at the same time, I’ll be rendered powerless. “She’s had a hard life.”
“She’s set to tap into a seven hundred and fifty-million-dollar trust fund when she turns twenty-five,” he says with a chuckle. “We have different definitions of hard life.”
I don’t ask him how he knows about her trust fund. He’s a part of the New York elite, same as Lilah. I’m sure they all know each other’s business. “Our father has a proclivity for wealthy beautiful women, Mr. Bright. Not one of them over the age of twenty-five when he married them. Not one of them with the desire to be a mother when a camera wasn’t pointed in their direction.” I have no idea why I’m telling him this. I don’t mean to. Don’t want to but his snide remark about my sister broke something inside me and now the words won’t stop. “His current girlfriend is four years younger than me, so don’t assume you know anything about me or my sister.” I feel tears, hot and unexpected, prickling at the back of my eyelids. Sudden memories of being picked up in a private car and driven to my mother’s apartment. Of waiting for hours just to see her for a few minutes before she disappeared again. Of her taking me to Central Park for ice cream so paparazzi could follow us and snap our picture. Don’t look at the cameras, Argenta. Pretend they aren’t there. Pretend you’re having a good time. I didn’t understand at the time. I didn’t have to pretend. I was having a good time. I was with my beautiful mother and she was smiling at me. Holding my hand. Not handing me off to a nanny to have my face and hands scrubbed clean. “Her life may not be your definition of hard, but you have no idea what it means to be raised by someone who doesn’t want you.”
“I’m sorry.”
That’s all he says. No backpedaling or justification for his remark. No arguing his position or defensive excuses.
Just I’m sorry.
The way he says it tells me I’m wrong. Tobias knows exactly what it means to be raised w
ithout love. Not so much an apology as an admission of commiseration.
It makes me remember the pictures I found in his drawer. Of him and the woman who had her arms around him. The woman with dark hair and blue eyes, just like his.
My mother died on my birthday.
I turn my head to look at him. His hands grip the steering wheel tight, his mouth a grim slash across his face. “I’m sorry too.”
As soon as I say it, his face softens. His hands relax. I don’t say another word until I see a sign attached to a chain-link fence topped with razor wire that drops my stomach to my feet.
The Bright Group
Private Airfield
Through my window I see a streamline Lear on the tarmac, The Bright Group logo splashed across its tail, its staircase unfurled, waiting to be boarded.
Fighting a rising tide of panic, I shift in my seat until I’m facing him completely. “You said we were going to dinner.”
“I did say that,” he says, offering me a quick flash of teeth as he pulls the Bugatti to a complete stop. “I just didn’t say where.” As soon as he shifts into park, my door opens and a hand appears in front of my face to help me from my seat while Tobias opens his own door.
I push the hand out of my face, any tender feelings I might have had for him moments ago, evaporating under the heat of my irritation. “And where is that, Mr. Bright?”
He steps a foot out of the car before turning back to grin at me. “My place.”
24