Undercover Heat (26 page)

Layla towered over her in her three-inch heels, and the over abundance of designer perfume did nothing to hide the liquor on her breath. Carrie must have winced when the woman exhaled in her face, because it drew a few “
oos” and “ahhs” from the crowd.

“You know, Carrie Ann. I used to be an admirer of yours. But then I realized how much happier I’d be if you never existed.”

“Believe me, I can relate to your sentiments.”

Ty held his hand in front of her. “Carrie, come on. You’re done here.”

“No, I say let her stay.” Layla handed her champagne bottle to a stunned waiter beside her and took a step to Carrie. “Well, here you are. The object of everyone’s affection. You look wonderful by the way. Starving your unborn child to death must have taught you a lesson.”

Carrie blinked. She wouldn’t let Layla’s low blow do more than graze her. Not in front of all these people. “Funny you say that. I was just thinking it’s about time someone taught you one.”

“Now wait just a damn minute!” Deacon Langley jumped to Carrie’s side. “How dare you sling mud at my daughter?”

“Oh and this must be Daddy, the Jesus freak!
”
Layla giggled and made the sign of the cross. “You must be shitting in your pants right now, huh, Deacon. I mean, that would probably be pretty bad if the Archbishop caught wind about how your good little girl almost killed herself, because she was so freaked out that the world might catch wind that her co-star had knocked her up.

“Shut your fucking mouth!” Ty screamed. ‘Shut it, or I’ll shut it for you.”

“Tell me, Deacon,” Layla said. “Has the Catholic Church changed its policy on murder, because you don’t look much like a rule breaker to me?”

“How dare you?” The Deacon seethed. “How dare you?”

A group of security guards descended the stairs behind her, so she scrambled to the bar and hopped up on the counter. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out, Carrie Ann? The trips to buy prenatal vitamins, and shopping sprees and New York baby boutiques. You want everyone including me to be stupid enough to believe your love affair was over long ago? Well it isn’t, and now
I’m the one breaking the story.
”

“Get off the bar,” Ty demanded.

“Carrie Ann Langley is pregnant, folks. And my dear husban
d, Ty Hollister is the father.
”

Stunned mumbles hummed around them, and Carrie swallowed hard when Ty grasped her shoulder. A flashbulb blinked beside them. Harvey, still book ended with a guard on each arm, lowered his camera from his face. “Do you guys think you could push together? I only got one more pictu
re and don’t want to waste it.’

“You son of a bitch!” Ty roared and pounced on him, leveling him with a fury-filled right hook, sending him t
o the floor in a lifeless heap.

The room spun around Carrie. She had never seen Ty loose his cool in a crisis. It was usually her that unraveled, and he was the one left to clean up the mess. It suddenly occurred to her, that if there was ever a time to retu
rn the favor, this would be it.

“Tyler, stop!” She slipped herself under his arm, while he held Harvey by the collar. “It’s not worth it.”

“Carrie step away from them,” her father ordered. “You’re going to get hurt.”

She tightened her grip on Ty’s shirt then calmly tried again. “Tyler listen t
o me, I want you to let it go.”

“This guy is spreading lies about us, Carrie. He can’t do that. The two of them are selling stories that aren’t true. He’s breaking laws and ruining our lives.”

“But he’s not lying.”

He looked at her and shook his head. “W
hat are you telling me, Carrie?

With strength, she had no idea she possessed, she pried Ty’s hands off Harvey and led him up the stairs to the landing. Gazing around the ballroom, she saw every wide eye in the place. The wait staff, security, the Network suits, still nursing watered down drinks. Lizzie, her father, even Manny and Earl with hands in their pockets, and cheeks so red they looked
feverish.

It had all come down to this.

Carrie realized it was five years worth of idleness that had gotten her to this point in the first place. In the few weeks since Ty had shown back up in Middle Valley, she had found a new resolve. Facing things head on allowed more control than hiding from them, and perhaps this situation was the per
fect test for her new attitude.

“So, if you want to know the end of the story, listen up,” she said to the crowd, with a conviction in her voice that made her glad for her acting background. “And if the press people are still here, gets your pens ready.” She locked her knees, cleared the lump in her throat, and took Ty’s hands in hers. “She’s right, I am pregnant, and Ty is definitely the father.”

A collective gasp from the crowd confirmed her news had registered. She closed her eyes and braced herself, for what she wasn’t sure. Fire, a bolt of light
n
ing, a plague of locusts maybe. But nothing came. She looked up at Ty, and the rest of the room fell away. Any misgivings she had about her announcement erased, when she saw the stunned smile pull at his parted lips. “What the hell are you doing?” he mumbled. The room hummed with chatter around them. “You’re not pregnant.”

“Don’t break character,” she whispered back. “Just trust me, and stay with me in the scene.” She grabbed Ty by the back of his head and clamped h
is
lips on hers. It was a stage kiss in every sense. Dry, dramatic, and executed in order to highlight a point. She pulled away and smiled, then offered a wave to Layla, who was now corralled by a group of armed guards. “Excuse us everyone, but Ty and I have decided we would like to celebrate the happy news in a private party.”

She took Ty’s hand and led him down the stairs. The crowd parted, and Carrie made a point to paint on the happiest face she could muster. From the bottom step, she saw her escape route clearly. To the elevators and beyond. But before she reached the hall, someone stepped in front of her. Her nose crashed right into the broad, unyielding chest of Jordon Langley.

“Not so fast.” He seethed, his eyes fixed on Ty beside her. “You’re not going anywhere with this man.”

Ty slipped his arm around her shoulder. “Come on, Carrie,” he said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Over my dead body.”

“Both of you, stop it
,
” Carrie ordered, with a hand on each of their chests. “Look, I know you both think you have good reasons to dislike each other, but if you’re looking to blame someone, blame me.”

“Oh, Carrie Ann, no one is blaming you for anything.” The Deacon scoffed. “See the
trouble you cause, Hollister?”

“The only reason you two bump heads is because you both want what’s best for me, and I admit there was a time when I was my worst enemy. But that’s over. I can make my own decisions.” She turned to her father and slipped her hand over his. “Daddy, I’d like to think that you instilled me with a good sense of faith. I know in my heart that Ty’s a good man, and as my father who loves me, you should giv
e me the benefit of the doubt.”

Carrie stepped away from her father and grabbed Ty by the lapel. The path was still clear to the elevator. It was tempting to break into a full on sprint, but s
he settled on a prideful strut.

“Well that was a scene if I ever saw one
,
” Ty muttered.

“Just keep walking, Hollister. Just keep walking.”

Chapter Eighteen

Ty’s feet barely carried him over the threshold of his Waldorf suite. It was like they’d just played a scene from an “Undercover Heat” episode, the way they snuck through security, and hid in stairwells, even hijacked a network limo to make the getaway. They were laughing about it when they pulled away from the curb, but now they were back here, it didn’t seem that funny anymore.

Carrie sat at his feet, unstrapping her shoes. The job would probably be easier with the help of light, but she didn’t ask, and he didn’t offer. The darkness seemed oddly comfortable at the moment.

She stood, chucked her shoes into the closet, and strode to the long wall of windows. The glare of the city lights cast a silver glow across her, and the mass of diamonds around her neck reflected like prisms against her skin. He mentally cursed. If he wasn’t so damn taken by her beauty, he would have tried h
arder to remember he was angry.

“There are flashing lights going in the direction of the Ritz,” she said. “You think that’s where they’re going?”

“Carrie, I think we need to talk about a few things.”

She didn’t answer, but he could tell by the way she pursed her lip that she heard him. He took a few steps toward her, but stopped short, hiding himself in the shadows. “Look, I know there were a lot of words and accusations tossed around tonight, and I think we should get to the truth about them-”

“I forgive you for leaving me, Ty.” He heard her suck in a breath and sigh. “After what my father did, I shouldn’t blame you, but I did anyway, and I’m sorry.”

The words hit like a well-placed punch. One he would have braced for
, had he saw it coming. “Carrie...
”
he croaked.

“I’m sick of the secrecy and lies
.
” She shook her head
.
“
You left the hospital, or at least I thought you had. I was pretty out of it, but I heard my father discussing my options with the doctors. Something about cardiac arrest, or a stroke, and me being pregnant risking my life. I was only what, twenty weeks along, and everybody knew there was no way the baby would live, but they delivered me anyway.” She looked him in the eye. “My father insisted they deliver the baby. I suspect he had his own se
lfish reasons to do what he did...
but that was our child and I couldn’t stop him and you weren’t there.”

Ty scrubbed his face with his hands and paced across the room. After all this ti
me. She knew. She fucking knew.

“So I had the baby,” she told his reflection in the window. “A little girl and she lived for five minutes. I didn’t know if you knew, and at first I thought you left because I had disappointed you. I know how much you were looking forward to being a father, and I hated that I took the opportunity from you. From both of us.”

“Darlin,’ I
never blamed you for anything.”

“Well, I blamed myself. I still do. If I had been stronger and more present, I would have fought the decision. But my father was adamant.” She turned from the window and wiped the tears from her cheek. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to tell you.”

His legs unsteady, he leaned against the baby grand piano in the corner. The moonlight spilled around her like a spotlight, glistening on her pale skin. “Carrie, what’s in the past is one thing, but what about tonight? How could you t
ell the world you’re pregnant?”

He couldn’t see her face. But he heard her take a breath, before she came toward him. “What, is that something you feel angry about?”

“Angry isn’t the issue,” he snapped. “I just don’t get it. It’s enough that now the whole world knows about our past. Did you think you being pregnant would put Layla off, and she’d give up? Or was it just something that sounded good at the time?”

“Tyler, you’re yelling.”

“Yes, I’m yelling. Why would you say something like that?”

“Would me being pregnant be that bad? Would it cramp the Ty Hollister style or something?” She stopped in front of him and thrust her hand to his chest. Her eyes were on him wide and clear, and his breath hitched in response. “Tell me, woul
d you run the other direction?”

He wasn’t sure he understood the question. Layla’s scene alone would thrust Carrie on the front page of every gossip magazine in the country. Stories that would display their dirty laundry for everyone to see. And what about her family? How would she square things with them? That was a nightmare all its own. But she didn’t seem concerned about that. There had to be something else.

She strutted around him and sat down on the piano bench. “Your girlfriend, Stacy, looked like she was having a good time tonight.”

“Oh Carrie, she was just there for show. It was Man
ny and Earl’s idea.”

She stared down at the keyboard, pressing a few keys before slipping her hand back in her lap. “You know, when I saw those pictures on the news of you with Layla and that girl in the bar, I was really hurt. Not that I had a right to be.”

“Carrie, those pictures...
I know what it looked like, and I admit I made some wrong decisions.”

“And the woman in your hotel suite?”

“The woman in my hotel suite?” He repeated. “What are you talking about?”

“My father said there was a woman in your hotel suite the night he went to see you.”

“He told you about that?”

She flinched as if she had been struck. “Wow, so it’s true? So you mean after what happened in that limous
ine and everything that we said...
”

“No, I mean I didn’t know he told you that he came to see me? There was no woman. He saw your things lying around, and he came to his own conclusions.”

“And you didn’t correct him?”

“Why, so he could give you a hard time?” Again, Ty paced the room. He stopped at the window and glanced in the direction of the Ritz. No flashing lights, and he wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing. “Man, tonight was a big disaster. I’m sorry, I thought I had s
afe-guarded a scene like that.”

“You may not know it, but you and I are a lot alike. If we aren’t in control, we lose control.”

He stared out at the city and smiled. “I think that’s what made me crazy all these years. I couldn’t control what was happening to you and with the baby. I thought if I could keep all the balls in the air with the network, and Earl and your family, I could see you th
r
ough it. I wanted to be the hero and save you. And if I couldn’t do that, I figured that it was just better if I left.” It was enough truth for now, he decided. When the time wa
s right he’d tell her the rest.

“By the way, I’d like to thank you for the jewelry,” she said. “They’re beautiful.”

“You’re on to me, huh.”

“Yeah, and I think they’re quite appropriate.”

“Appropriate?” He
came back over to her. “How so?
”

“Well, Sapphire is the birthstone for the month of September, and if
the baby is a few weeks late-
”

In that instant, his gaze locked on hers. All of a sudden it was five years ago, and he was standing in the kitchen at the farmhouse. With the same hopeful eyes, wide smile, and her cheeks glazed in a cherry blush. He gulped and slid his hand to her face. His palm heated against her skin and her eyelashes brushed his fingertips. “What?”

She stood, taking his hands in hers. “I’m pregnant, Tyler. For real.”

His legs turned to rubber bands, and his mouth went bone dry. Never in his wildest dreams did he think this moment would ever happen to him again. And now that it had, he didn’t thi
nk he could want anything more.

He pulled her close, burying his head in her hair. The condoms. Angie’s condoms. That’s how it must have happened. But right now the logistics weren’t what concerned him. He laughed, holdi
ng her tight against his chest.

“This is good news, right?”

He looked down at her and laughed some more. “The best. But I thought that whole thing was for show?”

“Haven’t you heard? I’m one hell of an actress.” She tweaked his lapel and dragged him to her for a kiss. It was deep and long, and so incredibly powerful that it drove the breath straight from him. She took a step away and took him by the hand with a smile. “So since I’m having your child
, I think I’m allowed a favor.”

“Anything.”

“Will you play the piano for me?” Carrie flipped her dress dramatically behind her and slid onto the bench. He sat down beside her. The black on white keyboard stared up at him in the shadows. The last time he had played was for Carrie, and if he remembered correctly, she was sitting next to him just like she was now. With her legs bumping his, and her head resting on his shoulder. He considered the talent a characteristic of the Ty he no longer knew, but he realized now that it wasn’t that he didn’t know him. He just belonged to Carrie.

He slipped his hands over the keyboard, his fingers finding their place in the darkness. It was the old Elton John tune that reminded him of everything he loved about her. Her strength, her compassion, and how much she was willing to risk by loving him back.

His body moved with the sound, and as it echoed in his chest, he felt renewed. Like a snake shedding his skin. He was reminded of what Carrie had told him. That they, together, were something bigger than each alone. But whatever it was he brought to the union, he wanted it to be the best incarnation of himself he could conjure.

“I love you, Tyler,” she whispered. “I always have.”

The admission crippled his fingers, and he dragged them off the keys. Words he had heard only in his dreams, but when her eyes met his, he realized how real it was. He scooped her up and sat her on the keyboard making an out of tune sound that distracted neither of them. Her long hair fell loose around her, and tears shined in her deep blue eyes. “Baby, I’ve loved you from the minute I saw you step into Earl’s office a decade ago. Everything about you
.
” He ran his hands over her, her shoulders, her arms until they rested on her belly. “About us.”

He couldn’t say anymore. Tears spilled down his cheeks, and he would have been embarrassed if it hadn’t felt so right. He rested her head in his lap, and held her for dear life. This was his second chance, and God help him, he was going to take it.

“It’s okay,” she breathed, stroking her hand through his hair. “It’s just me. I’m right here.”

Damn right she was. And that w
as where she was going to stay.

After a moment, he reached up, slipping his hands over her hair. Soft like silk, with golden highlights that glistened in the light. His insides hummed with electricity so potent, his body shivered. God, if this was what he had to look forward to for the rest of his life, he’d die a happy man. No longer able to hold himself back, he stood and kicked away the piano bench behind him.

He brought his mouth to hers, running his hands over her bare back. He tore at the zipper and pulled off the dress, tossing into it the darkness. And then, there she was, in all her naked splendor, save for the necklace and earrings that danced in the silver shadows. She didn’t move to cover herself, and that alone mad
e him want to look at her more.

“Remember when you were kidding me about my cravings?”

He ran his hand over her breast and smiled. “Yeah.”

“Well I’m having one really bad right now,” she teased, unfastening the fly of his pants. “You up to helping me out?”

His instinct was just to take her. An animalistic need to stake his claim. His woman, his child, and to satisfy the nagging desire to spill his seed inside of her. Clothes were stripped off and discarded like rags, before he pushed her legs open and captured her in a kiss. “I love you so much,” he gasped with his lips on hers. “It would kill me if I lost you twice.”

“Well
then take me, if you want me.”

He lifted her around his hips, and when their eyes locked, he eased himself inside her. It felt so right with no barriers between them. Flesh to flesh. An intimacy he hadn’t shared since being with her. He watched her in the moonlight. Her head thrown back, her hair fanned out around her, her lips parted as soft moans escaped from between. She looked like one of those paintings he’d seen in Italy. A woman in rapture in every sense. Raw. Beautiful. His.

Splaying one hand on her stomach, his fingers on the other traveled over her. Between her cleavage and over her neck, cupping her face in his hand. He pulled her down on him, on the piano keys, driving himself further into her. He couldn’t get deep enough, but tried anyway, each thrust like a purging of the soul. “Things are going to be different this time. I promise,” he said, and repeated it to make sure she believed him.

Her taut ballerina legs wrapped around him like a vine, and her breasts flattened against his chest. The soft round flesh of her buttocks warmed in his palms, and he pulled her harder down onto him. This was where he belonged. With the love of his life. The mother of his child. She was his. Always had been, always would be. Proximity and cir
cumstance wouldn’t change that.