“Come here.” He took her hand and walked with her to the bed. “Sit down.”
She slumped down to the mattress, her energy completely gone.
He pulled her against him, settling her head on his shoulder. “You could have told me.”
“I found out a couple weeks ago.” She grabbed a tissue and wiped her nose. “Even though I’ve known his diagnosis, I think today is the first day I’ve really let myself accept that he doesn’t have much time.” She sucked in a breath. “I just found him again and I’m going to lose him.”
He frowned. “What do you mean, you just found him?”
She stared at him as more tears fell, understanding that there was no turning back. Reed wanted all the answers.
“Tell me, Bella.” He took her hand, giving her fingers a squeeze as compassion and frustration warred in his eyes. “I need to know who you are. All of you. No matter what. So I can help.”
She thought of last night, of how he’d treated her, and pulled away.
“Bella—”
She stood as her insecurities came rushing back—her fears that he wouldn’t understand. “Do you really care who I am?”
“Of course I do.” He gained his feet. “You know I do.”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t. Yesterday—”
“I was a prick.”
She turned away, walking over to the dresser, fiddling with a leaf on her favorite ivy plant. “You hurt me.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t date jerks.”
“Good.” He walked up behind her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders, and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “You deserve so much better than the bullshit I dished out.”
She turned in his embrace, studying him cautiously.
“I’m sorry I hurt you—that I made you cry. It kills me that you’re trying to decide if you can trust me.”
She stared into his eyes, seeing the regret, hearing it in his voice, knowing he meant what he said. “I don’t know what to do anymore. About anything. I thought we were building something—”
“We are.” He cupped her face in his hands. “We are,” he said with more determination.
Her body sagged against him in defeat.
He brought her closer. “Please trust me. Please tell me about your family. Tell me about your dad.”
His gentleness was her undoing. She cocooned herself in his warmth, taking the comfort he offered. “He’s all I have left. I lost my mom last year. I finally have him back...”
“Did you two have a disagreement?”
She shook her head. “He left us when I was four—a couple days before my fifth birthday.”
He eased her away. “He left?”
“Yes.” She looked down at the floor, hating the familiar sense of shame, even when she knew it wasn’t her fault. “He walked into my bedroom one night while I was decorating invitations for my party and told me he had to go away. The next morning I woke up and he was gone.”
“Your dad left you and your mom?”
She nodded.
“He didn’t call or—”
“I never saw him again until a few weeks ago. Jed found him for me—”
“Ethan’s PI? Jed Hoffman.”
She nodded her confirmation. “It took Jed a few months to track him down.”
“Here. Come sit with me.” They walked over to the bed. Reed surprised her when he eased her onto the edge of the mattress as he stood on his knees on the floor in front of her, sandwiching his body between her thighs so she sat eye-level with him. He settled his hands on her hips, giving her his full attention. “How’s this?”
“Nice.” She sent him a small smile. “Warm and safe.”
“Good.” He tucked her hair behind her ear and kissed her. “When did Jed find your dad?”
“The same day you and I met. I was standing in your living room, talking to Wren, when I got the text to call him.”
He sighed. “I remember that.”
“I’m glad I asked him to help me.” She toyed with the arm of his T-shirt as she spoke. “I hate to think of Dad going through all of this alone.”
“When he left, where did he go?”
“I don’t know. He’s never said.” She shrugged, her gesture casual even as her eyes welled with the pain of remembering. “Mom said he gave her some money when he told her he was leaving. I remember them fighting that night. They never spoke again.”
He wiped her tears. “What happened to you and your mom?”
“We moved around a lot. She tried waitressing and telemarketing but it didn’t pay the bills. Mom didn’t have much of an education—just her high school diploma. She had just started cosmetology classes when she met my dad. She got pregnant right away. She was barely twenty.”
“So she did some telemarketing?”
“Um, for a little while.” She focused on the sleeve of his shirt again, knowing she wasn’t going to be able to avoid the rest much longer. “Then she tended bar.”
He nodded.
She flicked him a glance, then stared back at the white cotton. “And danced.”
“Danced? Like an instructor?”
“Uh, like a stripper.” She blew out a long, shaky breath as she closed her eyes, waiting for Reed to say something, to judge her.
“Hey.”
She opened her eyes, refusing to meet his.
“Hey.” He lifted her chin. “Nothing you tell me is going to change anything between us—the way I feel about you.”
Her bottom lip trembled. “I’m not so sure.”
“I am.”
She nodded, needing to believe him. “She was beautiful. The manager at the bar she worked at convinced her that she would make more money taking off her clothes than pouring drinks. I guess he was right.”
“How old were you?”
“Six—maybe seven. I would go with her and sleep in the dressing room in a sleeping bag. The other women would keep an eye on me when she was on stage. They liked to put makeup on me and do my hair. It wasn’t too bad.”
“Sounds like your mom was doing the best she could.”
Bella shrugged away Reed’s excuses for her mother. Dancing might have started out as a way to pay the rent, but there was no excuse for the rest. “Mom liked to move—Indiana, Louisville, Nashville, where we stayed for three years, until I was eleven. We lived pretty well. I had nice clothes, went to good schools.”
“Exotic dancers can make some pretty great coin.”
He was being so kind—a good listener. “It wasn’t enough for her. Nothing was ever good enough. She always wanted more.”
“What do you mean?”
“We moved to Las Vegas and she changed.”
“How?”
She traced his ears the way she often did, finding it impossible to keep her hands still. “Sometimes I think she did the stuff she did because she wanted to pay my dad back for leaving us.”
“What did she do?”
“She started drinking a lot and pretty much checked out in the motherhood department.”
“She left you?”
“No. Or not technically, anyway. Sometimes I wish she would have.” She rolled her eyes at herself because she’d had more than most. “I had everything any teenager could ever dream of—credit cards, braces, more clothes than I could ever need, endless freedom. I hated all of it.”
“Why?”
“Because it always felt tainted.”
“How come?”
She gripped his shoulders as her heart beat faster and her stomach grew queasy. “God, I hate this.”
He pulled her closer. “You can tell me.”
More tears fell as her composure crumbled. “I don’t want to.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he reassured her quietly. “Why did you hate it?”
She swallowed, staring into his eyes, wanting to see the exact moment everything changed between them. “Because she was a prostitute.”
He pre
ssed a gentle kiss to her lips. “Okay.”
She started crying when he let it be as simple as that. “No, it’s not. She called herself an escort, but it’s still the same thing.”
“Your mom was an escort.”
“Why are you being so good about this? My mother was a prostitute.”
“Bella, I was a cop. I saw that stuff all the time.”
“You didn’t see it with me. You didn’t live my life.”
“No, I didn’t.”
She pushed away from him and stood, needing some space. “I made good grades, went to a private school, lived in a luxury apartment because my mother sold her body to rich men. That doesn’t bother you?”
“It bothers me because it hurt you, but who your mother was has nothing to do with who you are. It doesn’t have anything to do with us.”
“You’re kinder to her than I ever was. There were so many days I resented her, had no respect for her because she had no respect for herself. She let herself die of hepatitis C. The pills the doctors prescribed made her gain weight, so she refused to take them.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I needed her. For so long, I needed her.” She sighed, shaking her head, because it didn’t matter anymore. “I would have killed for her to have cared about my homework or to have asked me what I wanted for dinner the way she used to. I just wanted for us to be a normal family. I had that for a little while.”
“Before your dad left.”
She nodded. “Sometimes I think I’m still looking for that, the feelings that used to come with that: warmth, safety, home.”
“Come here.” He wrapped her up in a hug, pressing a long kiss to her temple. “I’m sorry you went through all of that.”
“I just—it makes me feel ashamed. And I feel ashamed that I’m ashamed. She was such a good mom when I was little. I remember our garden and Dad taking me to the park. They read to me every night.” A smile ghosted her mouth. “He used to let me brush his hair with my Barbie brush.”
“He sounds like a good guy.”
“He is. I love him so much. I’ve missed him for so long.”
“He never saw you in Vegas?”
“No.”
“Do you have any other family?”
“An uncle.”
His arms gripped her tighter as he slid his hand through her hair. “Do you keep in contact with him?”
“No. He’s my mother’s brother. He made it clear a long time ago that my mother was trash and he wanted nothing to do with either of us.”
“What about your dad’s side?”
She shook her head. “We never knew any of his family. He told my mother his parents died.” She rested her hands on his hips. “I know I was named after my grandmother. I remember once he told me she was the only good one out of the whole lousy bunch.” She tried to smile. “He said I should be proud of my name.”
“It’s a beautiful name.” He smiled at her, kissing her again. “Thank you for trusting me, for telling me. I know this wasn’t easy for you.”
“Thank you for listening—for being so understanding.”
“I want to help you. I want to meet your father and do whatever I can to make this easier for you.”
She nibbled her lip. “I don’t know.”
“Let me be here for you, Bella.”
She sighed.
“Let me help you.”
She’d never let anyone share her burdens. The idea of having Reed by her side felt good. “I’m going to see him tonight after work—bring him something to eat.”
“I’ll drive. You’re exhausted. Why don’t you call in and get some rest today?”
She shook her head. “It’s more work to cancel than it is to just go in and do what I need to do.”
“Are you sure?”
“Definitely,” she said with a decisive nod.
“All right. Then I’ll pick him up some food before we go. What does he like to eat?”
“I’ve been feeding him a lot of fruits and vegetables, but probably something easier on his stomach. Maybe some soup.”
“Consider it taken care of.”
She wrapped her arms tighter around him. “Thank you, Reed.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m going to go take a shower. I have to get to work. I’m already running late.”
“Okay.”
She walked into the bathroom, feeling lighter despite everything that had happened over the last several hours. She and Reed had a tough night, but today he’d been exactly what she needed.
~~~~
Reed waited until he heard Bella step into the shower before he pulled his phone from his pocket and selected Joey’s number.
“’Lo?” Joe said, answering on the second ring.
Reed rolled his eyes, listening to the noisy sounds of the precinct in the background. He didn’t have to be sitting at the desk across from his old partner to know that Joey was tackling a police report with his two-finger typing method. Joe had never been much of a conversationalist when he was concentrating on the keyboard. “Working hard?”
“Fuckin’ scumbags. If they would just do the right thing, I wouldn’t be sitting here doing this.”
He glanced toward the bathroom again and turned away, wrestling with the guilt of betraying Bella for the benefit of his job. “I’m meeting Nicoli Caparelli tonight.”
“What?”
He winced, holding the phone away from his ear when Joey’s booming voice ticked up several more notches.
“What?” Joey repeated, much quieter this time. “How the fuck did you manage that?”
“Bella’s taking me to see him. He’s sick—dying of cancer.” He sat on the edge of the bed, sliding his fingers through his hair, hating that this was his priority when Bella was in so much pain.
“He’s dying?”
He nodded, despite the fact that Joey couldn’t see him. “She told me this morning. Colon cancer. He’s got less than six months.”
“She just found out?”
“No. She’s known for a few weeks.”
“And she’s just sharing the news?”
He rubbed at his jaw, restless, struggling with the idea of breaking Bella’s confidence. Her shame and grief—the things she’d shared with him—were supposed to have stayed between the two of them. “He left her. When she was four. One night, he told her he was leaving. She woke up the next morning and he was gone.”
“Where’d he go?”
“She doesn’t know. She just found him again.”
“You believe her?”
“Yeah, I do. I think she’s in the dark. I don’t think she has any idea about Nicoli’s life.”
The line stayed silent.
He stood and started pacing. “Look, I know I’ve screwed this up. On every level I’ve fucked this up, but my gut’s screaming at me, Joe.” He puffed out a long breath when Joey still said nothing. “You weren’t here. You didn’t see her eyes, hear the agony in her voice.” It still ripped him apart that there hadn’t been anything more he could do for her than listen. “You don’t have to trust me on this one. Right now, I’m having a hard time trusting myself, but I can’t shake the feeling. This makes more sense than anything else.”
“Because you want it to?”
“Maybe.” He sat again and gained his feet just as quickly. “No. This fits—her phone calls to Reseda every day, driving up to check on him. She went to the grocery store for him on Sunday. That didn’t make sense at the time, but it does now.”
“What about the pictures?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know, Joe. But the woman who cried in my arms this morning isn’t a mobster.” He fiddled with the ivy leaf Bella had touched several minutes ago.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”
“I don’t either. I get the position I’ve put you in. We both know I’m fucking crazy about her, but my eyes are open. They’re wide open.” He moved away from the dresser, standing by the window. �
��She hired one of Ethan’s PIs to track down her father.”
“You gonna corroborate?”
“No. I don’t want anyone knowing we’re sniffing around. If I ask questions, he’ll ask questions. We both know how that goes.”
“Yeah.”
He sighed.
“Go see him. Get some impressions.”
What else could he do at this point? He and Joe finally had something to work with. Bella had given him a glimpse into her past—who she knew her father to be—but it still wasn’t the answers he needed. “That’s the plan. He’s in the hospital with pneumonia. We’re bringing him dinner.”
“Sounds like we’re running out of time.”
It certainly wasn’t on their side. Nicoli was dying and Alfeo was counting down the days until he was free from his cell. “It’s working against us.” The shower shut off. “I should go. I’ve gotta get to work.”
“Call me later.”
“I will.” He hung up and shoved his phone away, resenting that the Caparellis ruled his life once again. Giving a quick knock on the bathroom door, he walked in, finding Bella standing in front of the mirror, wrapped in a towel and brushing her hair. “How are you doing?”
“Better.”
He hooked his arms around her waist, meeting her gaze in the foggy glass. “I have to go to work.”
“We both do.”
“You’re going to be okay?”
She nodded.
“You’ll call if you need anything?”
She turned and faced him, lacing her fingers at the back of his neck. “I’ll be fine.”
“I want you to let me know if you’re not.”
“Okay.”
He kissed her, letting himself get lost in her taste, in the way her soft skin felt beneath his palms as he cradled her face and took them both deeper. For just a second, he wanted to pretend that the investigation didn’t exist, that there weren’t still too many questions unanswered. Bella needed this moment—he did too.
She eased away, smiling at him. “I think that will get me through till tonight.”
He smiled back. “Call me if you need me.”
“I will.” She stood on her tiptoes, pressing another kiss to his lips. “Be safe today.”
Deceiving Bella: Book Eleven In The Bodyguards Of L.A. County Series Page 28