“I’m not signing that contract,” he casually admitted, like he had just acknowledged a bluebird flying by. The way he stretched his long legs, crossing them at his ankles, irritated me further. It was evident he was used to getting what he wanted.
Every cell in my body pulsed anxiously. “What is it you want, Trey?”
“I thought I’d made that clear. I want to get to know my daughter.”
“And I thought I made it clear this isn’t something you can undo once she learns you’re her father.” As I stated what I believed to be obvious, guilt again pinched inside my heart. He did have the right to know her, to be in her life. What he didn’t have the right to do was disrupt it, bring chaos into it. And with his lifestyle, that was a definite possibility.
“I have no intention of undoing anything.” Again, his tone became harsher, as it always did when we got into this same discussion. “According to your logic, famous rock stars aren’t capable of having children. My best friends all happen to have them, and those kids are well adjusted and happy.”
“I’m happy you’ve been exposed to happy children, but my job is to protect my daughter—”
“Our daughter,” he corrected. An unexpected surge of nausea engulfed me.
There it was. Maybe what I was really afraid of was that Trey had changed in other ways as well and would decide to make up for all the years he’d been absent from our daughter’s life. Maybe I was terrified he’d try to take her away from me altogether. Crazier things had happened, and I couldn’t compete with the fancy lawyers his money could buy.
“You’re expecting me to give up my kid,” he went on to say. “Yet you won’t tell me why I should. I have my assumptions, and if I’m right, your reasons aren’t good enough for me.” He twisted on the bench and cupped my face, forcing me to look at him. The unexpected spark of attraction I felt caused me to flinch away from his touch and prompted him to drop his hand. “I want you to tell me why you suddenly came to me after six years only to expect me to give her up, Camilla.”
During my panicked silence, Alivia suddenly came rushing over. “Train! Train!”
At first, I had no idea what she meant, until I realized she was calling Trey. “Sweetheart, his name is Trey, not Train.”
“Oh.” She shrugged and amended, “Trey, can you push me on the swings?”
“I sure can,” he said on a chuckle. The biggest smile spread over her sweet little face before she scurried off toward her absolute favorite activity in the park. But as Trey stood to follow her, he first paused and met my eye. “You need to accept this, Camilla.”
Trey
Our park visit was a short one. When Camilla gave the excuse that Alivia had to eat dinner, I offered to take them both out, to which she vetoed the idea. A few minutes after saying my goodbye, Alec appeared to drive me back to the city.
On the way toward the highway, we passed a massive toy store. “Can you pull in here, Alec?” His inquisitive eyes met mine, but instead of questioning me he simply nodded. Although he was there the night Camilla showed up at my building, I hadn’t verbally voiced who she was or why she had come to see me. Even earlier, I hadn’t shared the purpose of our impromptu trip to Queens. By the time he pulled up to Camilla’s house to pick me up, she and Alivia were already back inside, putting distance between us.
“I’ll just be a few minutes,” I said before hopping out of the SUV and into the store.
Only two steps beyond the automatic doors, I went stone-still, sticking out like a sore thumb.
“Can I help you?” an acne-afflicted skinny dude asked from where he stood behind the courtesy counter. Ensuring my cap was low over my sunglasses, my heart sped up, hoping he wouldn’t recognize me. That was the last thing I needed right now, being outed on social media while shopping for toys.
“Do you have Hello Pussy stuff?”
“You mean Hello Kitty?” He rolled his eyes before scowling at me like I had two heads. “Aisle twelve.”
“Thanks.” Five seconds later, I was smack in the middle of an aisle filled with a million choices, all sporting that white cat with the pink bow that I only first saw on my daughter’s T-shirt. The shelves reached floor to ceiling and the options made my head spin.
“This is insane,” I grumbled, not having the slightest idea what the hell a six-year-old would want. I glanced around, debating on asking someone for help, and then thought better of it.
So, what does a man with no clue and a bottomless bank account do? I found the biggest box with the highest price tag and carried it toward the registers.
The figure was probably taller than Alivia, spoke fifteen different phrases, could be tailored to say her name in each one, and could record a personal message.
Perfect.
I found Alec leaning against the passenger door, waiting for me to appear. He took one look at the monstrosity I carried and smirked. Ignoring him, I loaded it in the back seat of the Escalade and slid in beside it.
Once back on the road, I found an accident had turned the usually twenty-minute ride into a ninety-minute one, yet I barely felt the stretch in time. The entire drive was spent with a gorgeous little girl consuming my thoughts. Actually, that wasn’t true… Camilla had also been on my mind.
I tried to imagine her life these past six or so years. She’d done a fantastic job raising our daughter so far. Alivia was intuitive, kind, curious… at least from what I could tell. Being in her favorite place to play left no room to talk to her, and no doubt that was purposeful when Camilla had suggested the park.
I guessed I couldn’t blame her. I really hadn’t thought it through when I decided to just appear at their doorstep. Maybe I hadn’t expected my daughter to be a little person who could actually ask questions, which I really wasn’t prepared for. Still, I didn’t regret the visit. It validated those paternity results while reminding me I couldn’t be all that bad if I had helped create such a perfect human.
By the time we crossed the bridge back into Manhattan, I already missed my daughter. Just like that, within the short amount of time I had spent with her, she had wiggled her cute little self into my heart.
“Your place?” Alec asked.
“Yes, but I’m just going to run this upstairs, and then can you drop me off at the Lairs’?”
“Of course.”
Fifteen minutes later, Jack answered the door with a concerned frown. “Please tell me that you’re okay, because I insisted Lei shouldn’t call you, and if you’re not she’ll kick my ass.”
“I’m fine.” Appeased by my confident response, he moved aside to let me in. “Did I interrupt dinner?”
“Nope, all done. The kids are getting baths.” I followed him into the kitchen, where Leila stood at their massive island, wrapping up leftovers. “Look who’s here,” Jack announced, pulling her attention toward me.
“Are you okay?” she said, repeating her husband’s question. “Jack wouldn’t let me call you earlier.”
I exchanged an all-knowing smirk with her husband before confirming, “Jack was right… I’m fine.”
She followed my gaze to the covered containers before her. “It’s Italian. Hungry?”
“I can eat.”
As she turned to grab me a plate, Jack took a barstool beside me. “Have you decided what you want to do now that you know?”
“Yes, I have.” Without warning, I blurted out, “I went to see her.” Instantly, their eyes widened. “I needed to meet her,” I said, defending my decision. “Granted, Camilla wasn’t happy I just showed up.”
“What’s she like?” Leila asked, her eyes shimmering with emotion.
“She’s gorgeous, Lei.” I wasn’t sure if it was my words or my expression that caused a trembling smile to spread while her trembling hand fisted the fabric over her heart. “I can’t believe she’s my kid. So smart, feisty, and happy. She loves Hello Kitty.”
“Oh boy. Siarra and she will be best buds,” Jack said through a chuckle, conjuring an image of my daughter p
laying with theirs.
Leila leaned her elbows on the black granite, sporting an eager smile. “How did you leave things off?”
“Camilla is being very…” I struggled for the right word. “Overprotective, I guess… and I understand that. It doesn’t mean that I don’t have the right to get to know my daughter.”
“Why does she feel otherwise?”
I met Leila’s concerned gaze. “Because I suspect she believes I’m still the cocky prick she met seven years ago.”
“You need to show her you’re not.”
“Yeah, that’s my plan.” The only way to get Camilla to change her mind would be to show her I was responsible enough to be a father.
“Trey, you need to be careful, man.” Jack didn’t seem as optimistic as his wife or me. “You don’t know her, or what she’s capable of.”
“What’s she gonna do, disappear with my kid?”
“Who knows what she’s truly after? She’s claiming she doesn’t want you in your daughter’s life, yet we don’t know if this is really a game to get you to become attached and vulnerable.” When Jack raised a brow, I shook my head. I understood his lack of trust after what he’d gone through with his ex-girlfriend, Jessa… but this situation was different. Jessa had tried to trap Jack with fake paternity results to forever be connected to the rock star she once loved. Where I truly believed Camilla was trying to shield Alivia from the very thing Jessa chased—fame, wealth, attention.
“She kept my daughter from me for a reason.” I explained the car accident Camilla had been in, how during her recovery Alivia had ended up in foster care. The very thought crushed me, so I couldn’t imagine what Camilla had gone through during those endless days.
“That poor thing,” Leila whispered, her voice heavy with emotion. “But that doesn’t explain why you should have to give Alivia up.”
“She still hasn’t explained why. I can only guess she’s afraid of the realities that come with our profession.”
“As a mother, I can understand that fear, and I live in it,” Leila said with a sad smile. “You have to be understanding of that.”
“I am. Still, she needs to see that I’m not the man she assumes I am.” At one time, I may have been an asshole with no morals that she was so convinced I was now, but I wasn’t that person anymore.
“Just be careful,” Jack countered. “Go the right route with this one, Trey. Use Gene and his legal expertise and prepare yourself for a fight.”
“I don’t want a fight, but I will if need be. Hopefully, she’s smart enough not to make this a battle, because she has a lot to lose.” And as quickly as I said that, I realized so did I.
Chapter 8
Camilla
Trey’s showing up messed with my head to the point that I was no longer worried I may have made a mistake contacting him… I knew I had. That terrified me. And if I was being honest, every scenario I could conjure up that put Trey in Alivia’s future truly terrified me.
I didn’t want that for her, but I really had no right keeping them apart. Protecting Alivia from all the what-ifs that could happen to her from being a rock star’s daughter didn’t give me the right to take away his rights.
Even by having spent such little time with him, I now had no doubt he would fight me on this. A high-profile custody battle could be even more damaging to Alivia than any fear I held of his professional life.
I needed to talk this out, and there was only one person in my life I could get an honest opinion from.
Ten minutes after my SOS call, Debbie plopped herself on my couch with her caffeine addiction in hand. “Okay, tell me everything.” She already knew all that had happened the night I appeared at Trey’s apartment building and what went down the next day when I met with his entourage.
“Well, he now knows Alivia is his.”
“How did he take it?”
Too well. “Deb, he showed up here yesterday.” Predictably, her mouth gaped open wide enough to see her tonsils.
“Shit.”
“Yeah.” I banged my head back against the couch with a groan. “I think I underestimated the type of person he is.”
“No, you assumed based on his history,” she said, defending me. “The man has been screwing anything in a skirt while drinking and partying his way across the globe.”
“That was years ago.” For some reason, I felt the need to defend him. In fact, Trey hadn’t been in the limelight for a while now. And except for when he’d reunited with his band halfway through their tour after a long battle with substance abuse and rehab, there hadn’t been any typical tabloid exclusive on Mr. Taylor to speak of.
I remembered following his life closely after he lost his wife in that horrific motorcycle accident, through his public drunken tirades, and then his sudden disappearance. It had truly hurt my heart to see him hitting rock bottom as he had. But it also supported my objective.
“Well, maybe he needs to prove that to you,” Debbie countered. “This is your daughter’s future, and you have every right to be skeptical.”
“But… I don’t have the right to deny him a relationship with her.”
“Okay, then make it your mission to have him experience firsthand what a hefty responsibility it is.” When I raised my brows questioningly, she added, “Let him spend time with Livi. Put him to the test.”
“You’re saying I should just hand over my daughter to him?”
“Not tomorrow, obviously. But, yes, after he spends some time with her, under your supervision, then he needs to prove he’s capable.” Debbie took a sip through the plastic green straw while watching the range of emotions crossing my features. “Set ground rules, of course, and give him the opportunity to be a dad.”
I didn’t think I could do that. Alivia was so young, and even if he had changed, Trey was still so vulnerable to the breakdown he’d had over a year ago. That had disaster written all over it. Then again, he had enough money to hire someone to care for our daughter… but wouldn’t that defeat the purpose?
“Does he know the reason you reached out?” I shook my head, prompting her to add, “Maybe that will help him realize your well-thought-out plan is for Livi’s best interest.”
“Then I’d have to tell him why I bothered to find him at all. His lawyer already threw that in my face. What was I supposed to say, I planned to tell him years ago but drama happening in his life always stopped me?”
“Well, yeah.” My mouth gawked open. “What?”
Before I could respond I thought that was a dumb idea, my doorbell rang, causing us to comically stare at each other. Half of my entire friend base was sitting in my apartment… the other half being her husband.
“Hold on,” I called out, trotting down the stairs to my door. I poked my head up to look out the small rectangular window to see a gigantic Hello Kitty box held up before it. “Who is it?” I asked, because you couldn’t be too careful.
“Trey.”
“Why is he here?” Debbie hissed from the stairwell behind me.
“I don’t know,” I shout-whispered back.
“Let me in and I’ll tell you why,” he said before chuckling.
The look of death I threw up at Debbie earned me a sheepish shrug before she slipped back inside my apartment. Coward.
Just as I unlocked my door, I threw it open and announced, “You can’t keep dropping by without notice.”
“I called.”
“No, you didn’t,” I snipped while folding my arms.
“Okay, I meant to,” he argued with a grin. “But I’m here now, so can I come in?”
This was setting a bad precedent, one that could confuse matters further. But from what I’d already learned when it came to Trey, giving him an attitude caused a good dose of his own arrogance to hit me in return. The last thing I wanted was to piss him off, because I worried my mama bear brawn couldn’t compete with his bank account.
My delay had the grin on his face widening. And along with him wearing another pair of well-worn
jeans, a midnight-blue T-shirt, black laced boots, and those black sunglasses, I tried my damnedest not to ogle him.
Misinterpreting my silence, he smirked. “Take your time running through all the evil scenarios you can imagine. I’ve got nowhere to be,” he said before plopping down the giant Hello Kitty toy and leaning against the door jamb.
The man was too cocky for his own good, and I silently prayed Alivia didn’t inherit that character trait. It was one thing to be confident, another entirely to be pompous and egotistical.
“Ugh.” With an exaggerated wave of my arm, I motioned him in.
“Thanks,” he said, slipping off his shades while leaning in to place a soft kiss on my cheek.
Instantly my face flushed red and my breath hitched. If he noticed, he didn’t let on that he had, and he lifted the toy to stroll past me without a care in the world. I supposed he didn’t. Meanwhile, my world wobbled on its axis with each encounter we had.
Watching his perfect ass climbing the steps before me, I quickly averted my gaze as Debbie greeted us at the top. Before I could properly introduce him, she thrust her hand forward. “Debbie Whitfield… best friend, godmother, and voice of reason.”
“Trey Taylor… but you already know that.” Trey smirked in that way he always did and slipped his hand into hers. Every move this man made seemed like a seductive dance, a tease, and the way that he slowly pumped my friend’s arm made the act of a simple handshake practically erotic.
Debbie blushed. She actually blushed, before removing her hand from his and having me wonder how long it would take for her to fall under his charm. But when she noticed my glower, she snapped back into protective mode and met his smirk with a coy smile. “Bribe?” she asked, pointing to the huge box beside him.
“Sure,” he admitted on a shrug. He was so cavalier over being called out I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Well, thank you,” I said while tugging on his tattooed arm, pulling him toward the stairs. “She’ll love it.”
Trey twisted in a way that placed his hand firmly in mine. “I’m sure she will. I can’t wait to give it to her.” With that, he squeezed and released me while sauntering over to my couch and plopping down in the center of it. That left one chair and a sliver of space on either side of him to fight over with Debbie. No surprise she took the chair, and I decided to stand in the most threatening way possible. Obviously, my attempt at authority did nothing to intimidate him, because he relaxed back and spread his arms along the back of the couch.
Trey Page 6