“Mom?” I changed the channel and went into the kitchen.
“What’s up, sweetie?” Tanya was already seated at the table, waiting for breakfast; Mom was making scrambled eggs and biscuits and bacon. There was a strong part of me that wanted to wait until after I’d eaten and gotten some coffee to do what I knew I needed to do, but if I waited I might lose the edge of my anger. I might not get it done at all. I took a deep breath and put some steel into my spine.
“I need to run into the hospital for a bit--is my coffee cup clean?” I definitely wanted coffee before I took care of business.
“They called you in?” I shook my head in response to Mom’s question and found my coffee tumbler. I filled it and gave Tanya a quick kiss.
“I just have to take care of something,” I told Mom. “I’ll be back by the time breakfast is done.” Mom gave me a questioning look but didn’t say anything, and I went back out to my car and hoped against hope that it wouldn’t break down on the way to the hospital. If I timed things just right, I would be able to take care of what I needed to do without having to deal with anyone other than the person on my mind: Anton.
I pulled into guest parking and looked around. I’d realized on the drive over that there was a good chance that the press would be staked out, waiting for me to show up so that they could accost me again and badger me with questions, especially with the story about Tanya being Bobby’s daughter was out. I was seething with anger at that fact, clenching and unclenching my hands around the steering wheel. It wasn’t fair that my daughter was going to be subjected to that, not fair at all.
I decided that it was probably unlikely for them to be camped out waiting for me, since I wasn’t even scheduled to work, but I checked to make sure I didn’t look terrible anyway, just in case there was a photographer somewhere. I got out of the car and walked as quickly and determinedly as I could into the hospital, straight past the waiting area where TVs were showing the same news channel; they’d fortunately moved on from the story by then, but I couldn’t guess how many of my coworkers had seen it, much less the patients waiting to be seen. I kept my head down and made a beeline for the break room, where Anton would probably be soon; he’d been scheduled for that morning, and it was about the time for his break based on his shift and how he normally operated.
I sat down and waited for him, still seething, getting angrier and angrier by the moment as the depth of how hard I’d been betrayed hit me again and again. Anton had to have known better, hadn’t he? Even if I hadn’t sworn him to secrecy on it, that was the kind of thing that any decent friend would--should--know to keep to themselves. I tried to keep my anger at least a little bit under control since it wouldn’t do to make a giant scene, and I felt like screaming and crying before I’d even set eyes on Anton.
Finally he came into the break room and I got to my feet. “We need to have a talk right now,” I said, staring him down. A few other members of the staff--nurses, a doctor--had come in with him, and I gestured to Anton for him to follow me out of the public area. Anton looked confused, which only infuriated me more; especially since one of the nurses seemed to have figured out what the situation was, to judge by the expression on her face. I dragged Anton to the locker room and crossed my arms over my chest as he sat down, looking up at me with that same confused, bewildered expression.
“What’s up, Si-baby?” I clenched my teeth and took a slow breath through my nose to keep myself from screaming at him.
“Do not call me that,” I said slowly. “And what is up is the fact that this morning on the news I saw them talking about me, about how I have a ‘billionaire’s love child’ and I’m Bobby Clawson’s ‘baby mama’.” I had to stop talking again for a second to keep my voice from rising outside of my control.
“What?” Anton looked genuinely surprised, and that somehow stopped my anger and then started it up all over again.
“You’re the only person I told about Bobby and me,” I said. “How else am I supposed to think they found out about it?” Anton shook his head frantically.
“No, no, Sienna. I swear to god I never said anything to anyone,” he insisted. “I would never!”
“You know, I would have believed that too, but I can’t think of anyone else who could possibly know,” I pointed out. “My mother sure as hell wouldn’t have told.”
“All I can tell you is that I know it wasn’t me,” Anton said. “I promise you I haven’t breathed a word of anything to anyone.” I sighed.
“I wish I could believe you,” I told him.
“I wish you would believe me,” Anton said. I shook my head and sighed again. My anger was starting to ebb and I just felt tired.
“If I find out you’re lying to me, I am going to find a way to make you pay for it--both for telling on me to the press and for lying to me about it,” I promised him. “But I’m not about to let this ruin my day off.” I turned away from him and left the locker room, hurrying my way out of the hospital and not paying any attention to anyone calling my name out. It was my day off and it had already gone a little sour on me; I wasn’t about to let anyone making comments about my “billionaire baby daddy” make it worse.
I got to my car and looked around to make sure I couldn’t see anyone with cameras hanging around waiting for me. I was going to have to talk to Bobby. Even if I didn’t fully believe Anton’s insistence that he hadn’t told anyone--and especially not the press--I couldn’t completely throw away the possibility that someone on Bobby’s side of things had leaked the information. Whatever the case, I decided that I might be better off cutting things off with him altogether; it was only a matter of time before Tanya got pulled into the ridiculous circus, and that was the last thing I wanted for my daughter. I just had to hope that the parents at her school either didn’t watch the news or didn’t see fit to comment on the story in front of their kids.
Chapter 19
I turned away from the laptop screen in front of me, scrubbing at my face. I was not having a good few days, that was for sure. I’d woken up the morning after Tanya and Sienna had slept over without any real cares; the night had gone well, even if I had ended it alone, and I’d had every reason to think that things would keep going in that direction for the foreseeable future. But then I’d gotten the text messages from friends about the news. Someone, somewhere, had told the local news about the fact that Tanya was my daughter and Sienna was the mother of my child, and it was blowing up.
“This is not shaping up to be a great day for you, Bobby,” Kara remarked from the opposite side of the desk. I looked at her and scowled, feeling more irritated at her than I had in a long time, possibly ever since I’d known her.
“Considering that Sienna hasn’t taken my calls or returned my texts for the last two days, yeah, it’s a pretty shit day,” I said.
“I wanted to talk to you about that,” Kara said, sitting down. She had her phone out, ready to do her work, but she set it aside and looked at me steadily for a few moments. “Of course I’ve seen the news with the rumors about Sienna Ross, and that made me think that some of the arrangements you’ve made recently would make a lot of sense if those rumors were true. Are they?”
“Yes,” I said, nodding. There was no point in keeping Kara out of the loop about the situation anymore, anyway. It was an open secret.
“Are you certain? Has the child been DNA tested?” I shook my head.
“She hasn’t been, but I trust Sienna on this. If she’d been interested in scamming me it would have come up at the very beginning.”
“Don’t be so sure about that,” Kara said. “She could be playing a long con. If I was in her position I’d be smart enough not to bring it up right away--it looks desperate and greedy. And Sienna Ross strikes me as a very intelligent woman.” She paused and I saw a gleam in her eyes. “I’d almost say you’re playing out of your league.
“We had sex five years ago,” I pointed out. “Or just over five years ago. The time frame fits. And at the time she had no ide
a who I was; I didn’t even know I was going to inherit my uncle’s estate.”
“Just because it was around that time doesn’t mean it was you, and it doesn’t mean she didn’t just come up with a scheme for it in the past weeks--once she saw you and the interest you had in her daughter,” Kara countered.
“Can you save the Devil’s Advocate routine for something else? I’m not really into it today,” I complained.
“I’m only pointing this out because it’s important to make sure anyone that has a claim to be your child is verified,” Kara said firmly. “The stipulation in the will is that any child that is supposed to fulfill the requirement your uncle set you be proven to be your child.”
“Well I’m not exactly in the best position for that right now,” I pointed out. “Sienna wants nothing to do with me. Which if she was scamming me, would be totally the opposite.”
“I’m not saying I think she’s scamming you,” Kara said. “I’m saying that, given what I’ve found out about a few things recently, I want you to be careful before publicly embracing the kid as your own.”
“Well we haven’t even told Tanya yet,” I admitted. “And Sienna doesn’t want any money from me, so that’s another piece of evidence that she’s not scamming.”
“If you really believe that the child is yours, you should get her tested as soon as humanly possible,” Kara said. “Because if you can get the estate requirements taken care of sooner rather than later, you can deal with the rest at your leisure.” I shrugged.
“I’ll figure something out,” I said dismissively. Truthfully I didn’t care as much about the estate requirements my uncle had set me as I did about the fact that Sienna apparently didn’t want anything to do with me; not that I could blame her, given how much the press had hounded her. But I would have hoped that at least she could have spared some thought to letting me know she wasn’t going to see me anymore, instead of ghosting me.
“Now that we have that out of the way, I came to talk to you about the investigation you had me undertake,” Kara said.
“Investigation?” I frowned, confused.
“The woman who accosted you and then attacked Sienna at your dinner-date,” Kara said. “Zairah I think her name was?” It took me a moment but the relevance finally popped up in my mind.
“Shit! Yes, what were you able to find out?”
“So, our private investigator has managed to discover a few things about the situation,” Kara explained, taking her tablet out of her briefcase and pulling something up on it to show me. “Apparently, he was able to speak to Zairah herself, out on bail helpfully provided by a shell company.”
“That sounds upfront and wholesome,” I said sarcastically. Kara smiled wryly.
“Very typical,” she agreed. “In any case, Zairah was convinced that the best idea would be to talk to our guy and give him the facts on the matter. She was hired by your cousin, Matt Clarke.” I groaned. Matt Clarke was the person next in line after me to get the inheritance if I wasn’t able to fulfill all the requirements my uncle had set. My father had had two brothers: my uncle, and Matt’s father. Matt’s dad had done better for himself than my father had in finance, but he’d managed it by getting into illegal stock trading; so he’d gone to jail, and Matt was restricted to a trust fund that paid out far less than he thought he should get. He didn’t want to have to really work for a living, which I’d known for a while. I really should have figured that it was something to do with my cousin.
“Why on earth did he send a hooker after me?” Kara shrugged.
“Apparently his goal was to try and distract you from settling down, or at least throw some kind of wrench into the works for it,” Kara said, as if the motivation didn’t much matter. “He paid her off for her help, but apparently not enough to keep her mouth shut--bad business.” I snickered at Kara’s dispassionate analysis.
“So I’m guessing that sort of thing is potentially illegal?” Kara shrugged.
“I’ve got the lawyers working on it,” she said. “He could be charged with accessory to extortion or attempted extortion, depending. But it’s not a super-solid case as it stands right now.”
“He almost succeeded, except for the fact that Zairah talked about a mole that Sienna knew I didn’t have,” I mused. “She might not have agreed to come home with me otherwise.”
“That sounds an awful lot like you’ve got more invested in Sienna Ross than the hope that her child is yours,” Kara pointed out.
“I like her as a person,” I said. “If...if things had gone a little differently, I might have known about Tanya from the very beginning, and this whole ‘Bobby has to settle down by the time he hits thirty-two’ situation might never have been an issue.” Kara’s eyes widened a bit and I was happy to have at least managed to surprise her, even if it was just for a moment.
“Well, well,” Kara said. “If we can get Tanya Ross tested to make sure she’s your daughter, and things work out between you and Sienna, we’ll pretty much be able to put whatever machinations Matt has in mind in the dust.”
“I’d like to put him in the dust, too,” I muttered. “I mean, I get that he’s a greedy bastard, but there’s a point where you’d hope he’d at least have some common decency.”
“He wouldn’t have had quite so easy a time of it if you’d taken the requirements seriously from the beginning,” Kara said, looking me up and down in an appraising way. “Just thought I would point that out.”
“I get it. Too much partying, too much sleeping around, and it only makes sense that I’d be led astray by a hooker,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Doesn’t mean I can’t be annoyed at him for it.”
“True enough,” Kara conceded, and I grinned. I hoped that it was a sign of things being on an upswing for me that day. I turned back to my computer screen and thought about how the hell I was going to take care of the situation with Sienna. I needed to get in touch with her again, but I didn’t want to harass her. I got the feeling that any grand gestures to try and romance her would just set her off even more. “That reminds me: you should consider not being such close friends with your pal Paul,” Kara added.
“Why not?” I frowned.
“I managed to track down the source of all these rumors about Sienna Ross being your--how did they call her on the news? Billionaire Baby Mama?” I groaned and closed my eyes.
“And it was Paul?” I’d had to talk to someone about finding out the situation with Sienna, and I hadn’t been ready to tell Kara yet. I’d given him only the bare bones of the details, but apparently he’d run with it.
“According to the first news station he spoke to, yes,” Kara said. I raised an eyebrow.
“PI find that out or you?” Kara grinned.
“I wanted him focused, so I just chatted to some people who know some people.” I had to chuckle at that.
“You’re not all that bad at PI work yourself,” I pointed out. Kara shrugged.
“The pay isn’t good enough until you really get a reputation, and dealing with criminals means having to do the laundry more often,” she said blandly.
“If those are your only reasons…” Kara shrugged again, and I let the question drop.
“So you’re really interested in this woman and her child?” I nodded.
“I think the kid is great--and I thought that before I had any clue she was my kid,” I pointed out. “And Sienna Ross is a smart, beautiful, strong woman. I could do a hell of a lot worse.”
“You definitely could, and I was pretty strongly convinced that you were determined to,” Kara said blandly. Before I could say anything in response to that, though, her phone buzzed, and she frowned at the screen. “That’s Derrick--our PI,” Kara said.
“Well, pick it up,” I told her. “It might be something to do with my cousin.” Kara put the phone on speaker as she set it to accept the call.
“Derrick, I have you on speaker,” Kara informed the guy. “I’m with Mr. Clawson right now.”
“That’s good,
because he’s going to want to haul ass to make sure that woman he’s involved with is okay,” Derrick said, his voice gruff on the other end of the line. I pictured him in my head as a kind of Bruce Willis type, though I’d never seen him before.
“What’s going on?” The question was out of me before I could even fully think it; I’d just heard that there was something going on and that Sienna might not be okay.
“Just heard from some connections that that Matt Clarke character was looking for some heavies,” Derrick said. “Nasty types. Wanted them to go after a woman and her kid, convince the mother not to get involved with a guy she’s seeing.” He paused and I figured it was to let it occur to Kara and me what he was talking about.
“So he’s sending people after Sienna Ross to keep her from getting involved with Bobby,” Kara said. “Do you know where they’re going?”
“The guys they hired apparently have been tailing her for a day or so, and I’d figure they’re probably wherever she’d be right now. They’d want to get her out of a public place, but they’re not going to try and kidnap her or anything--maybe rough her up a bit, threaten the kid if she keeps seeing Bobby. I just left their friends who didn’t take the job. Apparently they have scruples about going after women and kids.” I heard a bit of approval in Derrick’s voice at that fact. “I might hire ‘em, at that.”
“Thanks, Derrick,” I said, trying to think of where Sienna might be. It was a school day; it was afternoon. I would have to make a couple of phone calls, not just to the police but to the district attorney’s office. This was definitely something that Matt could be charged with--but the guys he’d hired would have to get caught. “We’ve got it under control.”
Reunited: A Billionaire Secret Baby Romance (Lost Love Book 2) Page 13