For His Forever (15 page)

“I’ll explain it some day, Kallie. There’s just things about that book…”

“I guess I should have known something was up with you and that book,” she said. “I mean, I saw that weird, cryptic dedication at the beginning.” She was pushing him, she realized—but hadn’t he pushed her enough to warrant it?

“Don’t you fucking talk about that,” he said. His voice was dead serious.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re so far out of line,” he started.

“I’m out of line? Me? That’s funny.” She got out of bed and started putting on her clothes as fast as she could. “I can’t believe I was dumb enough to sleep with you.

Holy crap. I really am an idiot.” She found her shorts and her bra. Now where was her top?

“Kallie,” he said, his tone suddenly conciliatory. “Hold on a second.”

“Don’t talk to me.” She wasn’t even remotely conflicted and he knew it. “Just take me home,” she said. “Right now.”

Neither of them spoke as she finished getting dressed and went downstairs and then outside to wait for him. She hated that she was now stuck with him for a ride. Not just a short car ride. They’d taken a damn helicopter to get here.

Finally, he came outside and got in the car. They drove to the private airfield, and on the way, Hunter made the appointment for her flight.

“Would you like me to come with you on the helicopter ride back?” he asked softly.

She shook her head no, although a tiny, tiny part of her cried out for him to come.

It hurt that things had gone so wrong after such a promising start. But here they were—

he’d been an asshole and that wasn’t her fault.

“No thanks. I’m good.” And then he’d parked the car, and she’d gotten out without so much as a glance backward.

Soon, she was in the air, and against her better judgment, Kallie looked down and happened to notice that his car sat where it was until she was out of sight.

***

Nicole wasn’t supposed to let herself get stressed, but she was stressed. She was beyond stressed.

Kallie had been gone all day and into the night. Red also had been gone for hours and hours.

He’d called her once to tell her that the work meeting was running very long, that they had so much to cover. He’d been very vague about what was so problematic, and Kallie thought she could hear the guilt in the timbre of his voice.

And now Nicole was pacing. She was pacing the verandah, and then sometimes she’d pace her way into the kitchen, one hand on her belly, as if asking the baby to forgive her for being this upset.

She was picturing Kallie and Red in some penthouse suite, or maybe even his little apartment in the city that he’d first taken Nicole to back in their heyday.

Nicole imagined Red tying Kallie’s hands behind her back, forcing her to kneel, as he cupped her perky breasts in his hands and kissed her neck. She would be blindfolded, of course.

How can he do this to us? Isn’t our love enough for him? Isn’t the baby enough
for him?

Calm down, she told herself. You might be wrong. It really might just be a coincidence. And if they were having an affair, they’d have to be idiots to make it so obvious.

Except that Nicole knew people really could be that dumb and that obvious—

sexual attraction made people do stupid things. She’d done enough stupid things herself to understand how it could happen.

Suddenly, she heard the front door opening, interrupting her pacing and frantic worrying.

Please let it be Red, and please let him tell me something that can make these fears go away, she thought.

But it wasn’t Red. It was Kallie, trying to sneak upstairs.

“Kallie, you’re home,” Nicole said, walking into the foyer as the younger girl stopped in mid-climb, looking guilty as sin.

“Oh, hi Nicole. I figured you might be sleeping.”

Nicole shook her head and folder her arms just above her belly. “Nope. Not asleep, Kallie.”

“Are you feeling all right? Do you need anything?” Kallie asked, still perched on the stairs, like a nervous colt ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble.

Nicole shrugged. “I’ve been better,” she said, walking closer to get a better look at her. Kallie looked disheveled and tired. Her hair was a mess, her clothes were somehow more wrinkled than they should have been. But it was her wrists that got Nicole truly frightened—and truly angry.

There were red marks on Kallie’s wrists—marks that Nicole remembered all too well after nights spent with her husband. Her blood felt as though it had turned to ice.

“Let me get you some water or something to eat,” Kallie said. “I just need to go upstairs and freshen up a bit first.”

“What did you do all day? You’ve been gone so long.”

Kallie couldn’t even look at Nicole now. And the younger girl’s cheeks were burning crimson. “I just—I walked around town. Had ice cream at Scoop Du Jour…went to the bookstore…uh…and then I hung out at a bar for a while.”

“A bar? Which one?”

Kallie thought. “You know, I kind of forget the name. I’m exhausted, Nicole.”

Nicole walked closer, right to the bottom of the stairs. “Kallie—“

Kallie started to literally run up the steps away from her. “I just have to go to the bathroom, Nicole, I’ll be back down in a minute.” But she didn’t even get to the top of the stairs. In her haste to get away, she tripped and fell. Her purse spilled its contents out, including her makeup and cell phone, tampons—even some random bills fell out.

Amongst everything else that fell out of her purse, was a small white bag with a blue bow around it—some sort of gift. It rolled down two or three stairs before Nicole was able to catch it.

Inside the bag was a champagne bottle. “What is this?”

“That’s nothing,” Kallie said.

But Nicole was struck dumb, staring at the logo on the side of the bag.

Hampton’s Executive Flights, with a logo of a helicopter below the name. “Did you use this helicopter service tonight, Kallie?”

Kallie was flustered as she tried to pick up her things. “Yes. I did. I…I thought it might be fun.”

“So you weren’t just hanging out at a bar tonight. Who did you go on this helicopter ride with?” Nicole asked. “I mean, it sounds like a blast, but let’s be honest—

you really can’t afford it. Who took you on a helicopter ride?”

“Just some guy I met, okay? It’s really not your business, Nicole. I’m an adult and you’re not my mother.” Kallie’s cheeks were scarlet, and she was scooping everything into her purse. “I’m going to the bathroom and when I come down I’ll get you whatever you need. But I’m not going to be interrogated about what I do on my day off.”

“I don’t need anything from you,” Nicole said, still holding the bag with the helicopter logo on it. “And I certainly don’t need you staying in my house, eating my food, taking my money, while you have an affair with my husband.”

Kallie’s jaw dropped. “Are you crazy, Nicole? Have you seriously lost your mind?”

Nicole wanted to slap her. She really did. How could this girl stand there and lie to her face after everything she’d done for her?

“I’m not crazy. And I’m not stupid, either,” she said.

“Well, I’m not listening to this,” Kallie said. “I’ll get my things together and then I’ll leave.”

Nicole was about to respond, when she heard the door open again. Footsteps came toward her from the main entrance, and then Red entered the foyer. He saw Nicole on the stairs and his eyes went wide. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not okay.” She stared down at him.

“What happened?”

“Tell me the truth,” she said. “Tell me where you went today.”

He stared up at her. “I was in a business—“

“Bullshit.” She tossed the bag down to him, and he caught it, his expression confused. “What’s this?”

“It fell out of Kallie’s purse. Now tell me why you were both on a helicopter ride together today. Better make it a good one.”

He shook his head. “Nicole, I don’t know what you’re talking about. If Kallie took a helicopter ride, it’s got nothing to do with me. I didn’t even use this place. There are dozens of helicopters coming and going from The Hamptons at any given moment.”

“I don’t believe you,” Nicole told him.

Kallie had already left, presumably to go to her room and pack her things. For the first time, Nicole was wondering if she’d actually gone crazy. She walked downstairs, slowly, and Red pulled out his cell phone. “Okay, I lied about the business trip. But it wasn’t because I was off on some secret helicopter ride with Kallie.”

Nicole was angry, and she was certain that he was about to lie in order to cover up whatever had gone on between them.

Red stood there looking at his phone, and he then spent a minute tapping and swiping and pressing the touch screen, which would have been comical if Nicole weren’t so upset.

Finally, he handed the phone over to her.

“This is where I was,” he said.

Nicole looked closely at the pictures he’d pulled up on his cell phone. There were dozens of pictures of one of the rooms in their Connecticut home. The room they’d talked about turning into a nursery. Of course, because of their superstitions, they’d agreed not to do any decorating or furnishing of the room until the baby was practically on its way.

But Red had apparently taken it upon himself to do go against their agreement and make it into a nursery anyhow.

The room results were simply incredible. There were pictures of the room in various stages of renovation. Red was in the pictures, along with some of the guys from work—even Kane and Danielle were there, helping out. In one picture, Kane was pretending to paint Danielle’s face with his brush, and she was backing away with a horrified look.

Nicole could see from the date and time stamps that the pictures were from earlier in the day.

“You did all of this in one day?” she asked, her eyes filling.

Red shrugged. “It took a lot of advance planning, but we managed to pull it off. I wanted it to be a surprise.”

Each picture showed a different, wonderful detail they’d built into the room. The walls were painted a light shade of pink, and there was a beautiful white crib in one corner. Above the crib, a cute sign said “Fairy Princess Sleeps Here” in swirling script.

In the middle of the room was a white changing table, and then to the left of that was a nursing chair with comfy pillows.

Nicole could already picture herself in that sweet room, quietly nursing their child and smiling peacefully. She looked up from the phone and Red was watching her.

His eyes were sad.

“I’m so sorry I doubted you,” she told him.

He hugged her and pulled her in tight. His hand stroked the back of her head as he kissed her lips softly.

Tears began streaming down her face and he brushed them away with his thumb.

“Don’t cry, beautiful.”

“I’m such a jerk.”

“I lied to you and you were too smart to fall for it. I should have known better.”

“And then I yelled at Kallie and accused her of having an affair with you. That’s practically as bad as what the other family did to her.”

“So go upstairs and tell Kallie you’re sorry, that you’ve been under a lot of stress.

She’ll understand.”

“You think?”

He sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe she won’t.”

Nicole’s shoulders sagged. “I don’t know what to do about this. I feel so unattractive, Red. I feel like you don’t want me the same way you used to want me.”

“It’s been hard for me to resist spanking you and tying you up,” he said. “But I just didn’t want to take any chances with the baby. I got a little gun shy, I suppose.”

“Red, you can’t hurt the baby by doing that stuff.”

“I know you’re right, and I’m not going to worry about it anymore.”

She kissed him then, and he kissed her back with passion she hadn’t felt in some time. He smiled at her. “Tell you what. Let’s you and I drive back to Connecticut tonight.”

“Now? It’s so late.”

“We’ll get home and then we can sleep and cuddle and lay in bed together—just you and me.”

“That sounds nice, actually.”

Red grabbed her hand. “I’ve been thinking about it. About you and me together.

I thought about you all day today. I planned on doing a lot more than just surprising you with that nursery.”

“Really?”

He smiled and one of his hands moved down to her buttocks and gave a firm slap.

“Yes, really.”

So it was decided. They were going back to the mansion for a getaway, just the two of them.

Red went to the master bedroom to pack some clothes and sundries, while Nicole went to Kallie’s room and knocked twice.

“I don’t want to talk to anyone right now,” Kallie called from inside.

“Please, Kallie. Can I just talk to you for one minute and apologize?”

There was a long pause and then footsteps. The door opened about six inches and Kallie stood there, watching her warily. “I don’t have anything to say to you right now.”

“I deserve your anger,” Nicole said. “And you totally didn’t deserve what I said to you tonight. I’m so sorry for insulting you and attacking you and mistrusting you.”

Kallie’s expression was stony. “I had a really strange night tonight. I had some things happen…it would have been nice if I could have told you at some point, gotten your advice. But no. All you did was think about yourself, your own fears—you didn’t care whether or not it was fair to me.”

Nicole felt it like a blow. “Please stay, and let me make it up to you. I want to rebuild our trust.”

“I don’t know Nicole. Maybe I’ve outstayed my welcome here.”

“You haven’t done any such thing. We hit a bump in the road, but we can get past this. I really value your friendship, Kallie.”

Kallie shook her head. “I think I’m going to book a flight back to Ohio for tomorrow,” she said.

“Red and I are going away for the next day or two. Can you just take some time and think it over? You’ll have the place to yourself.”

“I don’t think so. I think I’ll probably be gone by the time you guys come back.”

Kallie looked down at the floor. “I do accept your apology, and you’ve done so much to help me…I’ll always be thankful for that.”