Payback (25 page)

“I’m not going back to that house ever again.” Even I knew that I was being melodramatic. “You’re banging Valentine Cassidy in the room where—”

“You banged Gordon?” he reminded me, his eyes now narrowed into angry slits.

I closed my eyes and exhaled; the memory
of his face when he saw us that night flooded behind my eyeballs. “Yeah, well, I keep paying for that one.” I wasn’t going to win this fight, but I was still pissed so I started for my car, which was parked off the property at least a quarter of a mile away.

“We have to talk!” He
demanded.

“No, I don’t believe we do. This was a horrible mistake. I read that magazine and once again I was naïve. I actually believed what I was reading.”

I heard him jogging on the gravel behind me, trying to catch up. “The baby…we need to discuss the baby!” he said desperately.

“Who said I have to discuss
my
baby?”

His hand grabbed my elbow again. As he pulled back, I yanked forward and managed to free myself, but as I did, I went flying forward
, wrenching my ankle as I did. I extended my hands to break my fall. My hands and knees were the first to make contact with the gravel and dirt followed by my extended belly.

“Marie! Are you a
ll right?” he was kneeling down next to me trying to pick me up.

“Stop!”

“I’m just trying to help.”

I winced at the pain of the gravel embedded in my knee. I tried to get up on my own, but I wasn’t doing a very good job. My ankle had already begun to swell. I fell back on my butt.

“Are you going to let me help you or are you going to keep bouncing the baby around?”

“I can’t walk very well.”

“I’m going to go get the cart. You wait here and try to behave.”

“Not funny.”

There were two golf carts on the horse ranch to make it easier to get around. Caden pulled up ten minutes later and helped me into the cart before driving back to the house.

“I told you I wasn’t going back into the house!”

“Marie, grow up. We have some great memories in that house and some crappy ones…that’s just part of life. Now come on, get that ass of yours inside so we can get some ice on your ankle.”

“I’m not going in there with Valentine still in your bed!”

“Fine! You wait here, and I’ll go inside to tell her she has to leave.”

“You’re going to kick her out?”

“Don’t look so shocked. It’s not a hard decision--the woman carrying my child or the one I’ve been banging for three nights?”

He walked inside
, and twenty minutes later a dressed and very pissed off Valentine Cassidy flew through the front door and stormed to the nearby Lexus ES350. She threw a bag in the back and then climbed in the front, slamming the door behind her.  The car threw gravel as she spun her wheels a few seconds before finally getting traction. As Valentine passed by the golf cart, she locked onto my eyes and then flipped me, off while mouthing the word, “bitch.”  I guess that meant I was off her Christmas card list.

Caden appeared in a tight
T-shirt and jeans, looking rather amused. 

“What are you smirking at?”
I asked.

“Let’s just say I thought I’d heard just about every combination of the words
“mother fucker.” but it seems as if Valentine has several new varieties in her lexicon.  Now come on, darlin’, let’s get that sizeable ass of yours inside.”

“What?” I growled.

“Honey, you have to admit, your backside has definitely added a little more girth.”

“You can be such an asshole!”

“Hey, I didn’t say that I didn’t like it. I think you’re the prettiest little pregnant woman in the world, so get your ass off the cart and let me help you inside.”

“Sometimes I don’t know if I like you.”

He put his finger under my chin, lifting it up and kissing my lips. “That’s okay. I like you.”

God, the look he gave me melted my heart and made me want to hold him tight and not let go. “Damn it, Caden, step back so I can get out.”

“Here’s my arm.”

I pulled myself out of the cart
, using his arm to get up on one foot. He grew tired of my hopping and simply picked me up in his arms to carry me inside.

“Put me down! I’m too heavy to be carried.”

“Are you kidding? You weigh less than a newborn calf.”

In reality, I could see the toned arms under his
T-shirt barely constricting as he easily held me safely in his arms. He took me to the game room off the kitchen and put me on a lovely chenille sectional. 

“I’ll get the ice.”

“Do you have a housekeeper?” I called after him as he went into the kitchen.

“Only
once a week. She comes Tuesday. I’m trying to find someone to live in.”

“The place needs a little straightening up.”

“I’ll be happy to hire you at fifteen dollars an hour…three hundred, if you supply special services.”

“Sorry, but I have a real job right now.”

He brought the ice, wrapped in a dish towel, and applied it to my ankle. I pulled back at first, but then my skin became used to the cold. The ankle was an angry red knob.

“Where the hell have you been?”
he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve had two of the best guys out searching for you a week after you left, and the closest they came was that you were in California somewhere.”

“Bakersfield.”

“
Bakersfield? You live in Bakersfield? I didn’t think people with degrees lived there!”

“You can stop laughing. A lot of very intelligent people work at my company.  They built the company in Bakersfield t
o bring jobs to the area.  The county gave them a great break and lots of perks to build the factory there.”

“I still don’t understand how they missed
you.  They were in Bakersfield at one point.”

“I work graveyard
, so not many people even know I’m there. I leave by seven in the morning before most of the day crew arrive.”

“You got off this morning at seven?”

I nodded.

“What
’s your job?”

“I’m a l
ab assistant for a company that develops green cleaning products.”

“You have a degree with honors and you’re a lab assistant?”

“It’s an honest job and, frankly, I’m happy to have it. I’ll get promoted when something becomes vacant. My boss likes me.”

“I’ve been trying to find you to get your signature on a contract.”

“What contract?”

“I’m buying your book.
”

“My book? There is no book. I burned it and deleted it.”

“Yeah, but Jeremiah had the PDF you sent him.”

“I edited it since I sent that one.”

“Well, since you destroyed all your copies, you’ll just have to edit it again.”

“How much are you paying for the book?”

“Now that I know you tried to erase it from existence, I should probably reduce my offer.”

“The situation
was depressing. It was my best novel and no one wanted it. I figured that as long as I had it in my possession it would just hold me back—I’d never find a real job.”

“Then I’ll have a new contract drawn up. You can give the novel to me.”

“Why do you want it?”

“Because it’s good.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“I’m going to get it published and then you’re going
to write the screenplay for me.” He went back into the kitchen.

“I have a job. You should have bought it when I wanted you to buy it.”

“Sorry.  I wasn’t in the market back then.” He poured us both an iced tea and then sat back down next to me. “Why did you show up here today?”

“I want money.”

There was almost some relief in his face, as if he was expecting me to hit him up for money.  “Yes, I was wondering when you’d ask. But I thought you might go through a lawyer. I like this direct approach. It means we can iron out a fair amount. So how much do you want?”

“Five hundred and fifty dollars a month,” I said with confidence.

He blinked and pulled his head back. “Five hundred and fifty dollars per month for child support?”

“If you’d like to contribute to a college fund, I’m going to try and put fifty
dollars a month in an account. You could match that.”

“Are you intentionally being dense?” he said, his face in a scowl. “I’m worth six hundred million dollars and you want six hundred a month from me?  Any court in the USA would easily award you twenty thousand a month minimum.”

“I’m not going to use my pregnancy to take advantage of your wealth. I didn’t get pregnant to make a livelihood. I
earn
my money.  But if I have five hundred and fifty dollars more per month, I can buy us a house in Bakersfield. Here, I have a few photos.” I pulled out my cell phone and proudly showed off the little, two bedroom house with built-in cupboards and the tiny back yard. “You see, this would be my room because it has the bigger closet.  This would be the baby’s. The backyard isn’t much, but there’s a park down the street.  It has a new air conditioner and a new roof.”

He glared at the photos
, and then looked at me as if I was crazy. “It has bars on the windows. Why does it have bars?”

“Well, it’s in the old section of Bakersfield.  It’s for security.”

“But what if there’s a fire?”

“It has rapid-
release handles.”

He shook his head. “So you want six hundred dollars for this?”

“You make it sound like crap!” I hissed. “This house costs forty-nine thousand.”

“And?”

“That’s the best I can afford, so that’s what I am buying. I don’t want to raise the baby in an apartment.”

“You mean that this is what you can afford with my six hundred, right?”

“I don’t think that’s too much to ask for child support, but I’m not going to beg. I don’t absolutely
need
a house.  We can live in an apartment…” my voice started to wobble. “It’s just that I wanted the baby to grow up in a place that we can make our own.  Where he or she will grow up with the same boys and girls.”

“In Bakersfield?” he said with a definite distaste in the back of his throat.

“Bakersfield is as good as any town.”

“It’s a farm town, with a population well below poverty level. Is that what you want for your child?”

“I want my child to grow up knowing the real world.”

“I want my child growing up to know what work is, but I certainly don’t w
ant him or her to live in a two-room house with bars on the windows.”

“Why? Do you think that’s beneath him or her?”

“I just think that a child with a father who owns over forty million dollars in real estate shouldn’t be living in a house that needs bars to keep the criminals out.”

“You have security gates and cameras here.”

“Very different set of criminals. In Bakersfield, they want to get their hands on your money and possessions and don’t care if they have to hurt you to get it; here they just want to get their hands on me. Gang members breaking into homes versus fangirls trying to get my autograph are two very different security threats.”

“Do you know how inadequate you make me feel?”

“Sign the damn contract and you won’t need my six hundred bucks a month.”

“Why?”

He rose and went towards the office. A minute later he handed me several typed pages. I looked at it and felt a scream rise in the back of my throat.

“Holy shit!”

He laughed at me.

“You want to pay one million for the book option plus s
ixty percent on the back end for each book sold and then pay me an additional one and a half million for a screenplay?” My voice had now reached several octaves higher. I kept reading.  “I could make millions of dollars.”

“You’ll make at least two and a half million, and if your book sells a million, you’ll make an additional s
ix hundred thousand.”

I blew out through my cheeks and shook my head. “So you do this and you
don’t have to pay child support?”

“Do you hear yourself?  Do you really think that I would try to get out of supporting my own child?”

“No, but that does lead me to one question. You really didn’t seem shocked that I’m pregnant.”

“That’s why I’ve been trying to find you
, to see if it was true.”

“Who told you?”

“Jason.”

“How did Jason know?”

“Christine figured it out…the weight gain in all the right places. She wasn’t sure, but it made sense to me. Your breasts were bigger, your waist thicker. I had to find you so I could make sure you were financially okay.”