His Bahamas Affair (The Albury Affairs) (17 page)

Melody spied on Tyler
to make sure his complete attention was taken by his toys and Loraine used that
moment to wipe away stray tears. Melody moved to sit next to her, taking
Loraine’s hand in hers.

“You want to tell me
what’s going on?”

Loraine sighed. Maybe
it was time to share her nightmare with someone else—the complete story.

“When I was eighteen I
went to Paris on a student exchange program for my final semester in high
school. I met this guy, Pierre, and being the silly girl that I was reveling in
my rebellion I thought myself in love. We spent so much time together that I
ignored the girls I went with. They did their own thing and I did mine, I even
moved hotels. I didn’t want them seducing Pierre away,” she chortled. “Now I
wish I did.”

Melody squeezed her
hand encouragingly. Loraine wished she had confessed this to Riana but having
Melody was great too. She didn’t judge her on her stupid decisions like her
father had implied a few times. It was reliving to speak freely about her one
stupid mistake in her entire life.

“One night, while I was
walking to my room after my date with Pierre, I was hit over the head and
blacked out. I woke up in my underwear, tied to a bed. At first I couldn’t see
his face because it was dark but when he…when he climbed over me I recognized
him. It was Pierre.”

“Oh, Loraine!” Melody
lamented.

This time Loraine gave
her hand a comforting squeeze. “Don’t worry, he didn’t do anything. Jeb, my
bodyguard, came in just in time. It took me a year to get over it, before I
could go outside without Jeb or even sleep alone in my room. I changed
everything about myself. My eyes and hair color, the major I was going to take
in college. Everything he liked about me I changed. I was doing great, until I
came back from Paris the second time.”

“Culinary school,”
Melody interjected.

“Yup. I was fine the
entire time until I came back home. Then the nightmares started and I couldn’t
function anymore.”

Melody nodded. “I
noticed something at the wedding. Does this have anything to do with your house
turning into Fort Knox?”

Loraine chuckled. “My
dad went a little overboard, but when my psycho added onto his credentials and
became an international stalking psycho after almost eight years, who can blame
him?”

Melody gasped loudly
and Loraine shushed her when Tyler looked up at them quizzically. She smiled at
him reassuringly and he went back to his toys.

“He knows where you
live! That’s why you were so eager to leave the States!” Melody whispered
harshly.

She nodded. “That and
the fact that I was slowly loosing my mind being imprisoned in that house. I
needed to get out, come here to Reno.”

Melody’s brow raised in
question. “Reno? What does he have to do with this?”

“He keeps the
nightmares away,” she shrugged. “I don’t know why or how but Reno keeps Pierre
away and I feel safe with him.”

Melody troubled her
lower lip before she spoke. “Your nightmares, you see Pierre…the things he did
to you.”

Loraine shuddered,
feeling the familiar terror rush through her like a cold chill. “That’s the
thing, I don’t remember much because I was out cold most of the time. He didn’t
rape me but he must have done something when I was unconscious. And I can’t see
his face anymore. I worked hard to forget it and now all I see is his eyes.
Grey and deep with malice and lust…and I feel his hands on me as he tries to
kiss me and that’s when I wake up screaming.”

Melody pulled her into
a hug. “Oh God, Loraine is there something I can do to help you? I can ask
Allan to find him. He has guys who can find a man hiding deep in the Amazon
forest.”

Loraine laughed pulling
away. “I don’t doubt it. Your brother is mafia creepy when he wants to be.”

She rolled her eyes.
“Tell me about it. When I was sixteen, I thought I was secretly dating a guy.
We snuck around and I loved it because it was mysterious and wrong.”

“And nothing attracts a
teenage girl more than a guy who’s bad for you,” Loraine commented.

“Ditto. Anyway,
the night
when I was going to have sex
with him for the first time, guess who shows up looking like the godfather?”

Loraine laughed,
enjoying the comic relief.

“He didn’t even say a
word he just stood there, his face giving nothing away. The guy picked up his
clothes and took off and I’ve never heard from him since. Allan didn’t speak to
me for a week. Not even our dad could get him to talk to me, which meant he was
really pissed at me because Allan always did what our dad asked him to. I
finally cracked and I begged him to forgive me and he told me, ‘I love you but
the next time you try something that stupid again, I’ll put you in a Muslim
version of a convent in Pakistan’. Since that day I’ve never tried anything as
stupid as that again.”

Loraine’s eyes widened
in shock. “Are you telling me…are you a unicorn?”

Melody blushed. “That
threat stayed with me. I’m twenty-four-years-old and I haven’t had a boyfriend
since.”

“What about Ruiz?”

Her blush deepened. “I
like him, but I want Allan to like him more than I do before I let it get
further than what it is now.”

Loraine smirked. “Don’t
hold your breath. You are his baby sister and now that he’s a father to a
little girl, he’s going to be impossible. What does Ruiz think?”

She shrugged. “As long
as we keep the intimacy light, he’s willing to wait until Allan is comfortable
with him as his brother-in-law then as the guy dating his sister, before things
get serious.”

Loraine smiled noticing
that same glimmer in her eyes that she noted in Riana’s and hopefully was
present in her own. Fairy tale love that makes one think that magic exists in
the world. She just hoped she still had that glimmer once Reno gets his head
out of his ass.

“So, what are you going
to do now Loraine?” she asked somberly.

Loraine wasn’t sure if
she was asking about the psycho stalker or Reno and Tyler. Either way, she
needed to get them both sorted out sooner rather than later.

“Have you pitched your
idea to Reno yet?”

Melody shook her head.
“I didn’t think it was a good time.”

“Do it, soon, and get
Ruiz involved. He needs to shift his concentration from his resort to his son.
He’s going to be on a permanent vacation unless he gets his
sh
—,
his act together.”

Melody laughed at the
near slip. “What about you? When are you going to stop hiding?”

She signed. “When my
dad catches Pierre.”

Melody shook her head,
tagging on Loraine’s hair. “When do
you
stop
hiding from everyone else, including yourself?”

Loraine gave her a
wobbly smile. “Soon, very soon.”

“Lori, can I call you
mommy?”

Loraine felt her heart
stop as she exchanged a startled look with Melody. “What?”

Tyler fidgeted
nervously, hugging Nosey to his chest like a shield again. “Uncle Z says you’ll
love me forever and ever, and you’ll take care of me because daddy is working.”

Uncle Z, Ruiz, had been
filling Tyler’s little head with fairytales. Loraine was sure it was a knee
jerk reaction to Tyler’s question as to why his daddy won’t spend time with
him. Hell! She really didn’t like Reno at the moment.

Loraine wasn’t exactly
sure what to say to him. She wasn’t expecting this, but what else did she think
would happen? Wasn’t this the role she had decided to play in Tyler’s life? At
first because she wanted to be with Reno, until he started ignoring his son and
it turned into needing to take his loneliness away.

Being a mother was a
huge commitment one she wasn’t sure she was capable of doing.

“Nanny said you would
be a great mommy but I had to ask you myself,” he pushed on, hope filling his
eyes. “I promise to be good!” he pleaded, his eyes already brimming with tears.

Loraine felt like her
heart had been wretched out her chest. She hadn’t thought about this, what her
attention to a motherless three year old would be interpreted as. She was
fluttered, but it all depended on Reno and the proposal scared her to death!

Loraine stretched her
arms out to him. “Come here, honey.”

He pushed off the
floor, Nosey tucked to his side and rushed to her and climbed onto her lap. His
eyes widened in that innocent way as he looked up at her, a shy smile playing
on his lips.

“Who else took care of
you when your nanny wasn’t there?” she cautiously asked.

His brows furrowed as
he shook his head ‘no’.

Georgia couldn’t have
possibly left her son alone. “Not even your mommy?”

He shook his head.

Loraine’s heart broke a
little bit more for him. “Why not?”

“I don’t have a mommy,”
he answered with a matter of fact tone.

Loraine rolled her lips
into her mouth to keep from cursing out loud. “Did your nanny tell you that?”

He nodded.

Loraine stroked his
curly hair away from his forehead. “Do you know who Georgia is?”

Tyler immediately
folded into himself and hugged Nosey tightly to him and whispered, “She’s a bad
lady. She doesn’t like me.”

Loraine wrapped her
arms around him, hugging him to her. “Don’t worry, she’s never coming near you
again. I promise.”

Loraine felt his arms
wrap around her, his hands fisting her shirt at her sides. “Will you be our
mommy?”

For a moment Loraine
was afraid there was another kid somewhere. “Our?”

“Yeah, me and Nosey,”
he announced loudly.

Loraine and Melody
laughed. “Of course, you and Nosey.”

Loraine looked at
Melody, hoping her new friend would help her decide. This was not an easy
decision. There was a lot to think about. What if she said yes and Reno came in
and said no, or ten years down the line Tyler ends up screwed up and it was all
her fault?

“Lori.”

She turned her head to
the demanding voice that came from her behind her. Reno saved her from
straining her neck by stepping into view and their gazes clashed. His was hard
and angry as he jerked his head from side to side in a resounding no. She held
Tyler tighter to her as she stared at his father. Reno’s hands clenched and
unclenched at his sides, a muscle working overtime in his jaw, his lips pressed
in a thin line.

Loraine protectively
pressed her hand over Tyler’s ear, holding his head to her chest to keep him
from looking over her shoulder and seeing his father. Reno looked frightening
and she didn’t want Tyler seeing him that way and get scared. If Reno
frightened Tyler, he would never go anywhere near Reno again.

She didn’t understand
Reno’s anger or his order, silent as it may have been it was an order he didn’t
expect to be disobeyed. Well, he had another thing coming if he thought Loraine
would nod and bow like a brainless twit to his every command.

‘Why not?’ she mouthed
sharply to him.

‘I don’t want a kid!’
he mouthed back angrily. He might as well have said it out loud and accompanied
it with a punch in her gut because she felt the impact like it was her he was
rejecting.

Tyler didn’t ask to be
born so why was he the one suffering? Reno and Georgia were responsible for
him, they brought him into the world and they didn’t have a choice but to do
right by him. Georgia had already abandoned Tyler, even though it was a
blessing in disguise. She sure as hell wasn’t going to let Reno do the same. He
had a lot to offer and any kid would be lucky to have him as a father, even
though he was refusing to see that.

Making sure that both
Tyler’s ears were covered, she whispered harshly, though it was like shouting
considering the room had gone deadly silent. “Well too bad! You have one,
we
have one and
we
are not going to abandon him so get with the program and stop
being an effing ass!”

Reno took a step toward
them and she instinctively moved closer to Melody, tightening her hold on
Tyler. Before he could get closer, Ruiz, who had been behind him the entire
time, grabbed his arm and pulled him back shaking his head no.

Reno snarled, turning
around and stomping out of the house.

Loraine took a relieved
breath. She’d never seen Reno so mad before. In fact, she didn’t even know the
man that stood before her a moment ago. Her Reno would have taken his son into
his arms and promised him the world. He would never deny Tyler what was
rightfully his—his father’s love.

How could Reno say no
to what Tyler needed so much? How could he not love him? She fell for him the
moment she held him in her arms the first time. How could she say no to him,
how could she turn away from a piece of Reno especially now that none of his
parents wanted him? It ripped her heart in two.

Maybe this was how she
could return the favor and help Reno. The last thing Reno would want was to
become his own father. It was her job to prevent that.