“I’ll check with you in the future, but for now why don’t we go in and have a good time?” Sienna took a quick breath, and I couldn’t help noticing that her breasts rose, pressing a bit against the neckline of her blouse, when she did. Focus on the kid. Keep things G-rated, man, I told myself.
“We’re going to have a great time, right baby girl?” Sienna took Tanya’s hand and the little girl began prancing in place once again, regaining all of her excitement. I didn’t make any move to take Tanya’s other hand, but instead stepped in front of the two of them to open the door. We went inside, and went right past the ticket counter to the permanent exhibits first.
“Do they have dinosaurs here?” Tanya looked from her mother to me, her eyes wide as we entered the first of the exhibits.
“They do, actually,” I replied. “And lots of other kinds of animals, and bugs, and cool rocks!” Tanya’s eyes got wider.
“Wow! And we get to see everything?” She looked at her mother hopefully.
“As long as you’ve got the energy, we’ll look at everything we can,” Sienna said. She glanced at me. “I think Mr. Clawson has made it so we can take as long as we want, but we do have to get home in time for dinner.”
“We could get dinner here,” I pointed out. “If Tanya wants more time to look at stuff.”
“We’ll see,” Sienna said. “I know Grandma is working hard on a tasty dinner for us though.”
As we browsed the exhibits, Sienna started to relax a bit, and then more, and the awkwardness between us dissolved as Tanya’s excitement for rocks and bugs and animals and dinosaurs became more and more infectious. By the time the little girl started to get tired, I thought we were actually on a pretty good track, with Sienna lightening up a little. But I made a mental note that she was actually serious about the money thing: I’d have to be more careful about that, make it a little less obvious.
“We should go home for dinner, and Tanya also needs to take a bath before bed,” Sienna explained at the end of it, when we’d been there almost four hours.
“You and Tanya should come over to my place for dinner sometime soon,” I suggested, not wanting the date to be over but knowing I couldn’t really press my luck just yet.
“That sounds good,” Sienna said, surprising me with how genuine she sounded. “Maybe if I can get a weekend afternoon or evening off, we can come over and swim and then have dinner.”
“You have a pool?” Tanya looked at me with those big, excited eyes and I grinned.
“I have a really awesome pool,” I confirmed. “I would love to have you and your Mama over to come swimming sometime.”
“We can, right Mama?”
“If I can find a day when I’m off work early enough, we will do it,” Sienna promised her daughter. “And we’ll have dinner with Mr. Clawson.” She looked at me and smiled.
“I look forward to it,” I told them both. “Can I walk you to your car? The parking garage might be a bit scary, all quiet and empty and dark.”
“Sure,” Sienna said, and I started planning, in my head, for the dinner to come. I realized when we were halfway out to Sienna’s car that I didn’t even know what little kids eat; I’d have to ask around. But it was good: I was proving myself to Sienna, proving I deserved a part in Tanya’s life.
Chapter 16
I looked over the pile of patient files in front of me on the break room table and sighed. I had agreed to cover part of someone’s shift early in the morning in order to have them come in to cover the tail end of my shift so I could go to dinner at Bobby’s house with Tanya. I scrubbed at my face and went over what I still had to do before I could clock out: I had three more patient files to update, and then I needed to check medications on my assigned patients, and then I had some administrative paperwork to do. After all that, I could clock out, go home, take a shower, and get myself and Tanya ready to go over to Bobby’s house.
“You look like you need some coffee, girl,” Anton said, sitting down across from me and handing me a cup from the cafeteria.
“Oooh you went fancy,” I said, taking it from him. “What’s the occasion?”
“I wanted to pick your brain a bit, so this is actually a bribe,” Anton replied, and I snickered.
“Okay, I guess if you went to all the trouble to get me decent coffee, I can deal with some brain-probing,” I said, taking a sip.
“So what’s going on with you and the billionaire?” I rolled my eyes.
“We had the date and that’s it,” I said, not wanting to tell even Anton all that much about the situation.
“Well you told me about dinner, but surely he called you after to schedule a follow-up or something,” Anton said. I met his gaze as steadily as I could and thought again about whether or not to tell him about the situation. I couldn’t really talk to Mom about it the way I wanted to, and no one else I knew--my tiny circle of friends who’d stuck around after I had Tanya--had even the slightest clue about it. The rest of the nursing staff had just started to let the whole fuss about Bobby paying for a spa day and dinner out with me settle.
“You know I’m not in any position to have a social life right now, not really,” I said, temporizing a bit. It would be nice to have someone your own age to talk to about this, I told myself mentally. And Lord knows Anton is probably the only person here you can actually trust. I looked around the break room. Since I was close to being off-shift, and Anton had finished up about thirty minutes earlier according to the schedule, we were the only people in there; everyone else had either gone home or they were hard at work doing stuff with patients directly.
“Sienna, baby girl,” Anton said, shaking his head in disappointment at me. “If a billionaire wants a piece of you, I think you can make the time.” I snickered.
“Well I choose not to make time for him, exactly,” I said. I took another sip of the coffee, and noticed that Anton had paid for a flavored blend--not expensive, but pricier than just a standard coffee and two sugars. He was really interested in getting the details from me. I pressed my lips together and thought about it again.
“So he does want to see you again,” Anton surmised.
“Me and Tanya both,” I confirmed. “And...actually, he has good reasons.”
“Well, just you being a total hottie and Tanya being a cute kid are reasons enough,” Anton pointed out. I rolled my eyes.
“What I’m going to tell you right now is top secret, okay? Like...more secret than STD test results on a patient file.” Anton’s eyes widened.
“So don’t even tell my friends who don’t know you, got it,” Anton said. I set my coffee down.
“Bobby is Tanya’s father,” I told him quickly. I held up my hand to keep him from interrupting me. “I met him way back in college at a mutual friend’s wedding, we hooked up and I never heard from him again.” I gave Anton a quick description of everything that had happened since then, including telling Bobby about Tanya’s paternity and the visit to the Houston Museum of Natural History.
“Oh my god! So this is just flat-out destiny,” Anton said. “Can I be in your bridal party? Or at least can you make sure there are a few not-poor guys invited who might swing my way?” I rolled my eyes.
“The way things stand now the only situation is that Bobby wants to get to know Tanya, and if they get along we might eventually tell her about him being her father,” I explained. “That’s it. No talk of dating, much less getting married. I’m just a baby mama, he’s just the baby daddy.” Anton shook his head.
“You’re going to have dinner with him tonight at his place,” Anton pointed out. “You, him, and baby makes three...she goes to bed, you two sit around in the living room, drinking wine, watching TV…”
“Nothing like that is going to happen,” I insisted. “This is just to give Bobby and Tanya a chance to get to know each other. If he wants to be in her life then he has a right to, but there is no romantic interest there at all.” Anton raised an eyebrow but didn’t argue with me anymore.
“Okay, so at least Tanya has the benefit of a rich daddy,” Anton said. “And maybe you won’t take as many extra shifts.” I shrugged.
“I’m kind of iffy on him paying for anything,” I admitted. “It feels like charity.”
“It isn’t charity, it’s his responsibility,” Anton insisted. I opened up the files and got to work on them while we continued talking.
“I just don’t like the idea of relying on someone,” I said, scribbling a few updates. “It feels...vulnerable.”
“Well I mean a court order would take care of that,” Anton pointed out. “If Tanya’s his kid, he doesn’t technically have a choice in whether or not he pays for her.”
“But he could get custody the same way,” I countered. “Or at the least, visitation. And if he’s willing to drag Tanya through the courts like that...better just to avoid it altogether. If he doesn’t really want to be in her life, he’ll show his true colors soon enough, and not getting any money involved means there won’t be any struggle--or any more struggle than usual--when he does decide to wander off.”
“And if he doesn’t?” I shrugged.
“If he doesn’t, then maybe eventually I’ll let him pay for stuff,” I said. Anton nodded his approval. I finished up the files, finally, and dropped them off where the duty nurses could check on the patients. I clocked out and went to my locker, checking the time to make sure I’d have a chance to get a shower and change into street clothes before Tanya and I went to Bobby’s house. I made sure I had everything from my locker, and hurried to get out before someone could ask me to emergency-cover.
Almost as soon as I stepped out of the hospital doors, I heard shouts. “Ms. Ross! Sienna Ross!” I stopped short and that was exactly what it took for about a half dozen cameras and reporters to converge on me.
“Please let me get to my car,” I said, trying to look polite instead of irritable.
“Ms. Ross, what comment do you have to rumors that you’re the new lady-love of billionaire Bobby Clawson?” My heart started pounding in my chest at the unexpected question.
“I don’t really have a comment,” I said, keeping a slight smile on my face with an effort.
“Do you have plans to continue seeing Bobby Clawson?” I started walking in the direction of my car, thinking that if I could just get into it, I could get away from the questions and cameras.
“I don’t really have set plans on that,” I said, figuring it would sound at least a little better than a blank ‘no comment.
“Would you want Bobby to adopt your daughter?”
“Ms. Ross, is it true you stayed the night at Bobby Clawson’s home when you had dinner with him?”
“Ms. Ross, do you consider yourself a real-life Cinderella story?”
“I don’t have any interest in anyone raising my daughter apart from me,” I said. “Certainly I wouldn’t want someone who barely knows her raising her. I had dinner with Bobby Clawson at his invitation because it was a nice gesture for a working mother and that’s all,” I said, trying to walk a little faster. “And no, I don’t consider myself being anything like Cinderella; she wasn’t a single mom and she had a prince after her.” I decided to stop answering questions after that and high-tailed it to my car as quickly as I could without looking like I was actively running away.
I knew that the reporters were probably going to have something to say about my old jalopy but I would just avoid the news for a day or so, I promised myself as I got the car started and took it out of park. When they realized that I wasn’t going to get out of the car, the reporters and camera-people started to disperse, and I closed my eyes for a moment to try and get a grip on myself. I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
“Well this sucks,” I murmured to myself. I opened my eyes and looked out through the windshield. Clearly someone had tipped off the press to the date I’d had with Bobby, which was only going to make the situation with him, me, and Tanya more complicated. I couldn’t have my daughter embroiled in a bunch of crazy press attacks every time she left the house; I couldn’t imagine dealing with it myself, not really. I also knew that I couldn’t just cut Bobby off and tell him to stop seeing her. I’d agreed to let him get to know his daughter, and Mom was right that he deserved to have access to his daughter as long as he didn’t harm her.
I pulled out of my parking spot and hoped against hope that the reporters and camera people would already be gone. “I’ll just tell Bobby that we need to keep things low-key from now on,” I decided, taking another deep breath. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world that I could imagine happening, being accosted by nosy reporters, but I definitely was not in a mood to have to deal with it again if I could avoid it. Bobby so far had been completely reasonable; I didn’t think he would have any problem agreeing to making sure things were as quiet as possible. At least, I hoped he would get why I wanted things that way, and I hoped he’d follow through.
Chapter 17
“We need to figure some things out, Kara,” I said, glancing at the clock. I had about thirty minutes before Tanya and Sienna would be coming over to do some late-afternoon swimming in my pool and then have dinner.
Kara sat down on my couch and took out her phone, setting it to record and putting the program in the background to make notes at the same time. As always she looked utterly flawless, dressed in designer clothes with sensible heels on, beautiful but with the kind of atmosphere to her like she might have worked at the CIA. Or that she might still be. I realized that there was a lot of time that Kara was ostensibly working on my behalf when I had no idea where she was or what she was specifically doing. “I’m assuming you’re talking about one of the various completely unhinged plans you’ve made in the past couple of weeks?”
“No,” I said, rolling my eyes. “And none of those plans have been ‘completely unhinged’. Some have been a bit eccentric, but I can afford that.” Kara glanced at me dubiously and settled in to hear what I had to say.
“By the way, the trip to the water park is scheduled, and we have the permission slips to the school, along with all the legal waivers,” Kara said.
“Good, I’m glad you’re making progress on that,” I told her.
“It’s certainly been a good thing to point the press at instead of the woman you’ve latched onto,” Kara pointed out dryly. I groaned.
“About that,” I said. “When Sienna and I went to dinner the other night, someone came up to us and pretended to know me. And proceeded to attack Sienna.” Kara’s eyes widened slightly.
“I didn’t know the second part,” Kara admitted. “What about the bitch?” I blinked; Kara only rarely cursed.
“The police picked her up for assault, drug possession, and so on,” I said. I pressed my lips together. “But I don’t think she was just some hooker desperate to blackmail me or whatever on her own.” Kara set her phone down and looked at me.
“Someone put her up to it,” she surmised. I nodded.
“No one other than you and maybe a couple of other people even knew I would be there,” I pointed out. “Hard to believe she could have hunted me down by chance.”
“Yeah, that would be a decent point,” Kara agreed. “And there wasn’t anything indicating she just happened to be working the area that night and decided on you?” I shrugged.
“She was pretty insistent on getting me away from Sienna,” I pointed out.
“Could just be that she was desperate for some money ASAP,” Kara countered.
“Yeah, but why pretend she knew me in that case? Why insist on that ridiculous story?” Kara raised an eyebrow, looking at me steadily for a moment.
“If she was working on her own, she probably thought you’re exactly the kind of guy who would make promises to ‘take care of’ some prostitute and then forget their name,” Kara said. “I mean, you’re not, but women like her size up their marks pretty well. Kind of part of the deal.” I frowned.
“And you know so much about prostitution because…”
“I
have a curious and agile mind,” Kara replied. “In any case, there is the possibility that she was put up to it, that someone offered her cash. I mean, it doesn’t make sense for her to run a gamble like that on her own and get herself arrested with no money.”
“That was my thinking,” I said. Kara gave me an approving look.
“We might turn you into a decent billionaire who can keep his money after all,” she said, a little fake-sweet note in her voice.
“Thanks for that,” I said sarcastically. “In any case, I want you to put someone on the task of tracking down whoever sicced her on me, and find out how it all went down and what their goal is.” Kara nodded and picked up her phone, adding a few notes.
“We’ve got someone I can put on it, a private investigator,” Kara said.
“We have a private investigator? Just...hanging out?” Kara nodded.
“We have him on retainer, because billionaires get lots of people coming around them that don’t need to be there,” she explained. “Your uncle had one too, but he retired just before you inherited the estate; he recommended our current guy.”
“How much are we paying him?” Kara gave me a quick grin.
“Enough. He had all the credentials we need for what we should be using him for.” I frowned.
“Just how often are we using him?” Kara shrugged.
“Occasional background checks, looking into company stuff. Standard operating procedure.” I shook my head, realizing that there was a lot more to Kara’s job that I just didn’t know about.
Reunited: A Billionaire Secret Baby Romance (Lost Love Book 2) Page 11