by Lola Gabriel
“That’s your mother,” he said. “It was taken a couple of weeks before she got pregnant with you.”
“I… but…” Laila stuttered.
She stopped even trying to form words. She didn’t even know what she wanted to say. She kind of believed Fabian, but to fully believe him meant believing that her mom wasn’t her mom. It meant believing the woman she loved most in the world was a crazy murderer.
“Was Polly kind to you, Laila?” Fabian asked.
That was something Laila could answer. She smiled as she thought of her mom.
“My mom is the best mom in the world,” she said, meaning it.
“She’s not your damned mother!” Fabian snapped.
Laila jumped and he shook his head.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shout like that. But try to understand how hard it is for me to hear you say that woman who killed your real mom and took you from me is your mom.”
Laila fell silent again. She wouldn’t betray her mom by calling her anything other than her mom, but she didn’t want to antagonize Fabian into harming her.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I’m glad she was kind to you, Laila, but it doesn’t change the fact that I believe you are my daughter. And no, I don’t expect you to just take my word for it. Wait here a moment.”
He got up and left the room. Laila debated running, just running down the mountainside, going home, getting in her car, and driving away from Greer, from Fabian, from handsome strangers who made her feel all tingly inside, and never looking back. But still, despite everything, she was curious. It was such a strange story for anyone to make up, and Fabian did seem to know details of her early life. And there was no doubting the woman in the picture was almost her double. But Fabian was young, way too young to be her father. None of what he was saying could possibly be true.
Fabian returned to the room, and Laila half kicked herself for missing her chance to leave, and half congratulated herself for staying to see what else he had to say. He carried a box in his hands which he showed to Laila.
“It’s a DNA testing kit to see if I’m your father or not. If you’re willing to find out for sure if you’re my daughter, all we need to do is take a little swab from the inside of each of our cheeks and send it back to the lab. I bought it when Alan, that’s my private investigator, confirmed you were my daughter. Are you willing to do it?” Fabian said.
Laila took the box from him and read over the instruction booklet inside. It looked legit, like it was really from a lab. Would it hurt to find out for sure one way or the other?
“What happens when we get the results, assuming I do the test?” she asked.
“Well, if I’m right about this, I would like to get to know you, but if you don’t want that, I’ll understand. Just knowing you’re okay and you had a good life will have to be enough for me. And if I’m wrong? Well, I guess I’ll go back to wondering where my daughter is and what sort of life she has. And, of course, I’ll owe you one hell of an apology,” Fabian said.
Laila’s curiosity was aroused enough that she felt herself nodding her head.
“Okay. Let’s do it,” she said.
She couldn’t help but wonder whether he really would have taken no for an answer if she’d decided not to do it, but she ignored the thought. She would never know now, would she?
Fabian opened up the swabs and handed one to Laila. She rubbed it on the inside of her cheek as Fabian did the same with his. She put it in the test tube he held out. He put his in a matching one and sealed them both in the included envelope.
“And now we wait,” Fabian smiled. “I’ll get this mailed in the morning and we should have the results back within a week. Laila, I know this is going to sound strange, but would you consider staying here in the castle with me until we get the results?”
“Do I have a choice?” Laila asked, feeling afraid again, remembering the flash of the gun as Alan told her to get into the car.
“Of course you have a choice,” Fabian said, looking genuinely surprised that she would even ask such a question. “I only suggested it because honestly, I’m afraid you’ll skip town before the results come back.”
“I have no intention of leaving Greer,” Laila said. “I have a job here, a house. I’m not going anywhere. But if you’re serious about there being a choice, I want to go home,” Laila said.
“Why were you so sure that you wouldn’t have a choice?” Fabian asked.
“Well, your little henchman who brought me here made it quite clear he had a gun and I got the distinct impression I didn’t have a choice about coming here in the first place,” Laila said.
“Oh God, Laila, I’m sorry. I told Alan to do whatever it took to convince you to hear me out. I meant talk to you, make you understand why I needed to talk to you. I see he misunderstood me. I certainly didn’t mean for him to threaten you. You must have been terrified,” Fabian said, looking horrified.
Laila felt herself smiling. Fabian’s reaction was genuine—she could see that much. And she felt much better knowing he thought she had just been persuaded to come and talk to him and not threatened into it.
“Yeah, it was a little unnerving, to say the least,” she agreed.
Fabian shook his head again.
“There’s an understatement if ever I heard one,” he said. “I was going to ask Alan to give you a ride home, but obviously I need to have a little talk with him before he is allowed near you again. I will take you home myself,” Fabian said.
He stood up and Laila stood up too.
“It’s really not necessary. I can walk home,” she said.
“Nonsense,” Fabian said. “You must already think badly enough of me after the way you were brought here. I won’t have you thinking I also let you walk home alone.”
Laila smiled and nodded her head.
“Then thank you. That would be great,” she said.
Fabian led her down the hallway and outside of the castle. He led her to a car and opened the passenger side door for her. She thanked him and got in. He made his way to the driver’s side of the car and got in.
“You’re very trusting,” Laila said, nodding to the keys that sat in the ignition.
“No one ever comes up here except my staff,” he shrugged. “Which leads me to ask a favor of you. If we get a positive test result and you’re willing to let me into your life in any way, then I will quite happily shout it from the rooftops. Until then, I would ask that you keep this meeting between us. The townspeople have a rather bad impression of me, I’m afraid, and I would rather that wasn’t passed on to you just yet.”
Laila nodded and Fabian winced.
“I can see from your expression that I’m a little late to stop you from hearing bad things about me. Let me guess. You’ve heard the charming little local legend that says I keep women as prisoners here?” he said.
“I didn’t honestly put it together that the story was about you until now, but yes,” Laila said.
“I should have just kept quiet,” Fabian sighed. “But I had no idea they would have started spewing their nonsense already. Apparently, it’s a crime to keep to oneself around here. You know the legend also says I’m some sort of immortal wizard, right?”
He grinned at her and started the engine as he said it. She felt herself relaxing a bit now that he was heading back toward the town.
“Actually, the story I heard had you down as a dark fae,” Laila smiled.
“Oh, how exotic,” Fabian grinned.
Laila studied him for a moment.
“I have to say, you do look awfully young to perhaps be my father,” she said cautiously, afraid she might make him angry.
Instead, he laughed.
“We did have you quite young. I was nineteen. So yeah, I’m forty-two now, but I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said.
“If you are my father, I hope I’ve inherited your genes if you’re seriously in your forties. I would have said you were in your early thirties, if not youn
ger,” Laila said.
Fabian smiled at her again. They had reached the bottom of the mountainside now and Fabian slowed right down.
“Where are we going, then?” he asked.
Laila was no longer scared of Fabian, but she wasn’t ready to trust him entirely yet either, and telling him where she lived seemed like an unnecessary risk.
“Just here is fine, or if you don’t mind going into the town, could you drop me at the store, please? I need to grab a few things,” she said.
“The store it is,” Fabian replied, heading toward Main Street.
He dropped her off at the store as promised, telling her he would let her know the second he got the results of the test. He asked her once more not to tell anyone in the town about this. He made it a joke, saying he didn’t want the townspeople turning up at his place with pitchforks and torches. Laila got the impression there was a little bit more to it than that, but she agreed without pressing him. The last thing she wanted was to start telling people in the town she had been to the castle of the evil fae or whatever the hell they thought he was. She didn’t want them to start telling stories about her too.
8
Laila went into the store. She didn’t really need anything, but she didn’t want Fabian to know she had asked to be dropped off here because she didn’t trust him with her address. She thought that realistically, there was likely a part of him that knew that was the case already, but she didn’t need to be nasty enough to confirm it by just walking away.
She grabbed a jar of pasta sauce—the size that was too big for one meal and not quite big enough for two. She paid for it, glad for a quick and easy meal to make once she was done with the after-school club. It was only as she left the store that she checked her watch. Her eyes bugged out of her head when she saw it was almost six o’clock, and her heart dropped. She hoped that the kids were okay.
She had to call Cassie, but first, she had to work out what the hell was going on here. Where had the time gone? She had left work at about three-fifteen and she was at Fabian’s place for half an hour, forty-five minutes at the very most. And it was only a ten-minute drive each way. By that, it should be four-thirty at the very latest.
For the briefest second, Laila saw herself being pulled into a car roughly and dragged into the castle. Drugged. She shook her head. That wasn’t what had happened at all. Maybe her watch was broken. She felt relief flood her. Of course, that had to be it. Her watch was broken.
She started heading toward home when she spotted Cassie. Cassie saw her too and began walking purposefully toward her. Laila thought she looked worried rather than angry, but she didn’t look like someone just coming to say hi. Laila knew then her watch wasn’t broken. She had missed the after-school club and this was likely Cassie coming to fire her. She couldn’t even tell her the real reason she had missed it. It wasn’t like she could say, “Oh, sorry I wasn’t there, but you see, I was just up in the mountains with the lady-snatching fae king.” Yeah, really believable.
Laila’s heart skipped a beat when she saw who Cassie was with. The hot stranger from the pub. Oh God, talk about making a bad situation worse, Laila thought to herself. Not only did I manage to miss my first after-school club with no explanation, I’ve been making eyes at my boss’s husband too.
“Laila? Are you alright?” Cassie demanded as she reached Laila.
Laila realized then that she didn’t look pissed off or even worried now. She looked relieved to see her.
“I… yes, I’m fine,” Laila said. She had started to apologize for missing the after-school club, but she changed her mind at the last second, wanting to know why Cassie looked so relieved to see her. Even knowing she had missed work, the reaction seemed a little bit over the top. “Why?”
Cassie and the hot guy looked at each other. Laila couldn’t help looking at him too, and she reminded herself he was likely Cassie’s husband and forced herself to look away from him. But not before he gave Cassie the briefest of nods, like he was giving her permission to speak.
This town is damned weird, Laila decided.
“Someone said they saw you being forced into a car. I thought something bad had happened to you,” Cassie said.
Someone must have been passing by or looking out of their window when Alan flashed her a look at the gun. Great. Now the whole town was going to be talking about her.
“It was a friend,” Laila lied. “He was just messing around.”
If Cassie asked about the gun, she would tell her it wasn’t a real gun, it was just an old inside joke between friends that whenever he spotted her and offered her a ride, he would do that. She would come up with some movie reference or something.
Cassie and the hot stranger exchanged another glance and Laila got the distinct impression they didn’t believe her.
“I’m sorry if we’ve overstepped the mark,” Cassie said, a little coolly. “It’s just that when we heard that and you hadn’t shown up for work, I was a bit worried. And I roped my brother, Cedric, here into helping me look for you.”
Laila’s heart skipped another beat. The hot stranger wasn’t Cassie’s husband; he was her brother. She looked at him again, unable to keep her eyes off him for long. He looked back at her and gave her a half-smile that made her center clench tightly. Again, she forced herself to look away, feeling the heat flooding her cheeks. She hoped they would put the redness down to the fact that she was embarrassed about missing work.
“How did I miss work?” Laila asked, knowing how to play this now.
“Well, the after-school club,” Cassie said with a frown.
“Oh my God,” Laila said, bringing one hand up to her mouth and widening her eyes a little bit. “The after-school club. Shit, Cassie, I’m so sorry. I forgot all about it. You’re not going to fire me, are you?”
The slight panic in her voice when she asked if she was going to get fired was real. She loved her new job and she really didn’t want it to be over after three days.
“No. No, of course not,” Cassie said. “Just try to be a little bit more organized next week, okay?”
“I will,” Laila promised. “Should I go along to the school now and take over from whoever is there?”
“No, it’s okay. One of the students’ moms has taken them to her place,” Cassie said.
“I really am sorry,” Laila said.
“It’s okay,” Cassie said again, flashing her a quick smile.
“I promise you it won’t happen again. I’m never normally this irresponsible,” Laila said.
She bit her lip, forcing herself to stop talking. The more she said, the more Cedric looked at her. His smoldering gaze was making her feel all hot and flustered and it wasn’t just the fact that he made her want to rip his clothes off and fuck him senseless. There was also the fact that she got the distinct impression that he didn’t believe a word she was saying. She didn’t know why she thought that, just something in the way he was looking at her seemed odd. Like he could see inside of her head and read her thoughts. God, imagine if he could. He’d get to see himself as the star of some very questionable porn.
“Let’s just forget this happened, okay? Call it a trial run. I know how overwhelming your first few days in a new job can be,” Cassie smiled. “And added to the fact that you had to move across the state in a day or two, I’m honestly surprised you’re not a total wreck.”
“Thank you,” Laila said, grateful that she had not only kept her job, but also that she wasn’t going to be punished for doing something so stupid so soon.
“See you tomorrow,” Cassie said.
“Will do,” Laila said.
“See you around, Laila,” Cedric said.
She felt the heat flood across her cheeks again when he said her name, her heart slamming in her chest and her clit tingling. His voice was deep and husky, the sort of voice that just screamed sex.
“Bye,” she managed to squeak out before she practically ran from him.
Laila got home and tried to push aside h
er growing discomfort. She put on a pan of pasta and she poured the sauce into a separate pan. She sat down at the tiny table to wait for the pasta to be almost done before she started to heat the sauce up.
This town was definitely weird. First there was Fabian, reclusive enough that the townspeople told stories about him being some sort of supernatural creature who snatched women away. Then there was Alan and the way he had gotten her into his car with a gun. And worse than the gun, there was this sense she got that there was more to it, that she had actually been dragged into the car. On a rational level, she knew that hadn’t been the case, but the little thread that felt like a memory, but couldn’t possibly be, tugged at her, not quite ready to be let go.
There was also the fact that she had lost over an hour of time with no idea what had happened to her in that time. She thought briefly that maybe she had been hypnotized to forget about being dragged into the car and having her wrists bound—her wrists bound? That bit was new—but she dismissed the thought as quickly as it had come. She was being ridiculous.
But someone had seen something—something bad enough that they had felt the need to mention it to Cassie. And if they had seen a gun, wouldn’t they have mentioned that? And then there was her reaction to Cedric. Yes, he was hot, but she had met hot guys before and she had never felt this certainty inside of herself that she was meant to be with them. Especially when she told them something and they made it clear they didn’t quite believe her. But Cassie seemed to have believed her and she was her boss, so she was the one that mattered.
Laila got up and switched on the gas beneath her pasta sauce, giving the pot of pasta a quick stir. She sat back down and told herself to stop being so ridiculous. She had had a strange day, there was no doubting that, but that was because she had met someone who claimed to be her father.
So, she had lost track of time and a person in town had passed on a bit of gossip. That was it. And Cedric was right not to believe her story—she had been lying, after all. There was nothing weird about Greer. It wasn’t making her crazy; she was doing that all by herself by letting herself think such crazy thoughts.