Читать книгу One Night, Two Secrets - Katherine Garbera - Страница 11

One

Throwing up three mornings in a row wasn’t unheard-of for an O’Malley. After all, they were a family known to live life to the fullest, and that often involved excess. But Scarlet hadn’t been drinking for weeks, ever since her best friend, Siobahn Murphy, lead singer for the hottest girl group since Destiny’s Child, had broken up with her fiancé and he’d immediately eloped to Vegas with Siobahn’s main rival. The paparazzi had been on Siobahn 24/7, and Scarlet had wanted to keep her wits about her to help protect her friend. She’d had her own experiences being hounded by the press, and wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

Now Siobahn was safely ensconced in the guest room of Scarlet’s East Hampton cottage, being watched over by Billie, Scarlet’s personal assistant.

As Scarlet splashed water on her face, she went through all the reasons she might be throwing up. Food poisoning wasn’t the issue. No one else staying here had been sick and her personal chef, Lourdes, was pretty scrupulous about kitchen hygiene.

“Not food poisoning,” she muttered aloud as she wiped her face with a muslin cloth recommended by her aesthetician. At twenty-eight, she didn’t have many fine lines or signs of aging, but still, her mother had always said it was never too late to take steps to prevent them.

You’re distracting yourself from the obvious.

Scarlet looked in the mirror, knowing the voice was in her mind and that she was alone. She’d lost her sister three years ago to a drug overdose, but that hadn’t stopped Scarlet from still hearing her voice at odd moments. Usually when she least wanted to hear it.

Tara had been a bossy older sister and apparently didn’t want to stop giving her orders. Scarlet sighed and stared down at her stomach. She hadn’t had a period in over six weeks even though she’d always been regular as clockwork.

Yup, you’re preggers. Wish I was still there to see the old man’s face when he hears the news.

“Shut up, Tay. I’m not even sure yet.” Scarlet couldn’t believe she was talking to herself, and that she was even in this situation to begin with.

If there was one thing the O’Malleys were good at, it was making money, living life full on and making colossally bad decisions. It went all the way back to her mother, who’d died when Scarlet was seventeen. Dying under mysterious circumstances that had been concluded an accident but many believed might have been more deliberate. Her father was on his sixth wife, and that didn’t count the mistresses he’d had in between and often during those liaisons. Scarlet’s longest relationship to date was twelve days, and honestly, she knew that was because they’d been on her private island and Leon’s private plane couldn’t land because of high winds.

She couldn’t be pregnant.

If she was...

God, this was a nightmare.

She knew the responsible thing would be to give the child up. Everyone said she was spoiled, and she took it as a compliment. Her goal had always been to live her best life.

But a kid?

She had a few acquaintances who had children but they tended to employ an army of nannies to care for them. Her own childhood had shown her how alienating that could be.

She walked into her bedroom and fell back on her bed, staring up at the ceiling that she’d had painted to resemble the night sky. As she looked up at the “stars,” Lulu, her miniature dachshund, bounded up the ramp that Scarlet kept next to the bed and hopped on her stomach. She petted her sweet little dog as she lay there trying to ignore the inevitable.

What about the dad?

Tara’s voice again.

The dad?

That’s right... Mauricio Velasquez. Texan Humanitarian of the Year. Other than drinking too much with her and hooking up for one night, he was pretty rock solid. And he’d told her about his large family and how close they all were.

She put her hand on her stomach again. Mauricio might be the best chance this baby had...if there was one. She’d have Billie get Dr. Patel to drop by later on today. If she was pregnant, she’d book a trip for herself, Billie and Siobahn to Cole’s Hill. The tiny town might be the perfect place for Siobahn to recover from her breakup while Scarlet checked out her baby daddy.

Four hours later she was sitting on the couch across from Billie and Siobahn, who were both staring at her as if she’d lost her ever-loving mind. To be fair, she might have.

“Texas?” Siobahn asked again. “No way. That’s the last place I want to be chased by paparazzi.”

“Precisely my point,” Scarlet reminded her friend. “They won’t follow you there. It’s the perfect move. I rented a house this morning in something called the Five Families neighborhood, which has a manned security gate. We’ll have plenty of privacy.”

“But why Texas?” Billie asked. “I mean, I don’t mind going, but it’s hot in Texas in July.”

Not as hot as it was going to be when she found Mauricio Velasquez. Dang, but the two of them had burned up the sheets during their one night together.

“I need to see someone there, and we could all use a break,” Scarlet said. “Trust me. It will be fun, and Siobahn, you’ll forget all about Maté.”

“I already have,” her friend said.

“Liar,” Scarlet said in a kind tone. She walked over and sat down on the arm of Siobahn’s chair and hugged her friend.

“This will be good for both of us,” Scarlet promised.

Siobahn looked up at her, and it broke Scarlet’s heart to see her usually bubbly friend’s sad, red-rimmed eyes. She would do whatever it took to distract Siobahn, and though she hadn’t mentioned it to her friend, Scarlet knew that this pregnancy was going to be a distraction for both of them.

Dr. Patel had confirmed it—she was going to have a child. Scarlet was still reeling from the news but she’d always been the kind of girl who dealt with things by getting busy and moving. She couldn’t stay in New York City or the Hamptons. She had to see Mauricio again and then she’d figure out this entire baby thing.

If there was one thing the O’Malleys were bad at it was taking care of someone else.

A baby.

She had always wanted someone of her own to love, but she had promised herself that she’d never have kids. She’d seen firsthand what happened when the wrong sort of people had kids. And she had never been anyone’s idea of a “good girl.”

She put her hand on her stomach and looked in the mirror. Mauricio Velasquez was a decent guy. He’d won a humanitarian award. He’d be a good father, right?

She’d meet his family and make sure, but she wanted everything for this baby that she’d never had. Two loving parents, and a family support network so that her baby wouldn’t turn out like her.

Sunday brunch with the parents was a Velasquez tradition, one that Alec Velasquez had been lucky enough to miss for the last month thanks to various speaking engagements at different technology symposia around the globe. In fact, if he could figure out a way to miss this week, he would do it, as well.

He hadn’t been back to Cole’s Hill since the fiasco where he’d posed as his twin brother, Mauricio, to accept a humanitarian award on Mo’s behalf in Houston and—damn. He’d had the night of his life with Scarlet O’Malley. But there’d been no way for him to contact her again. He’d tried to come up with a plan where he’d go to New York and just casually run into her, but then he kept coming up against how to tell her he wasn’t Mo. He knew straight off that no woman liked being lied to like that.

At least he’d spoken on the phone to Mo’s girlfriend, Hadley Everton, and cleared things up with her. After initially thinking it was Mo in the tabloid photos with Scarlet from that night, Hadley had been able to sort it out with him. And now they were engaged. That made their mom so happy she’d almost been okay with Alec missing all those brunches.

But she knew he was back in town and she wanted answers. Given that Hadley and Mo were engaged, everyone knew it was Alec who had hooked up with Scarlet O’Malley. Around town, the gossips referred to her as “the heiress.” And unless he wanted to deal with the full force of his mother’s temper, he’d be at brunch.

He sat down at his laptop and looked at the email to Scarlet he’d saved in his drafts folder. He kept changing it but every time he read it he knew he couldn’t send it to her. He should be happy they had one night together and let it go.

He heard the ding of his security system and suspected it might be his twin brother, who had texted him that they could ride together out to the polo grounds where brunch was being held today.

He hid the email window on his computer and stood up just as his brother entered the room. The walls of Alec’s home office were lined with leather-bound volumes of books; the interior designer had thought they would make the study look more elegant. But Alec had insisted that the books all be ones he’d read. So there was an entire shelf of Goosebumps and Harry Potter, all leather-bound, right below the Shakespeare and Hemingway.

“Morning, bro.”

“Morning,” Alec said. They did the one-arm bro hug and then he stepped back. “Where is your better half?”

“There was some sort of emergency with Helena’s wedding and she had to go see Kinley this morning to solve it,” Mo said. Hadley’s sister, Helena, was planning a wedding to her high school sweetheart, Malcolm. They had faced a rough patch recently when Mal had gambled away their wedding fund. But the couple had come back together stronger than ever.

Kinley Quinten-Caruthers was a sought after wedding planner working for the famous Jaqs Veerland. Kinley was a hometown girl who’d moved back to Cole’s Hill a few years ago to open a Texas branch to service high profile clients including former NFL bad boy Hunter Caruthers, who became her brother-in-law after she married Nathan Caruthers, the father of her child.

“What kind of emergency? It’s a Sunday.”

Mauricio shrugged and shook his head. “I have no idea. I’m told it’s better not to know.”

“Indeed,” Alec said. “I guess we should be heading out.”

“Before we do...”

“I knew it.”

“Knew what?”

“That you were here for something other than to carpool,” Alec said.

“Well, you’ve been shifty recently.”

“Shifty?” Alec asked, arching one eyebrow.

“Mom’s words. She suggested I use our twin connection to find out what’s going on with you,” Mo said, pacing over to the bookshelf. “I didn’t want to tell her that it’s probably a girl problem because that would activate her matrimony radar and you’d never have a moment’s peace today.”

“Thanks for that.”

“You need to come up with something I can tell her,” Mo said.

“Yeah, we don’t want a replay of what happened when we were kids and you told Mom that I skipped soccer practice to talk to a girl.” Alec smiled at the memory.

Harking back to their childhood provided a momentary distraction, but he knew that Mo wasn’t going to let this go that easily. While neither of them believed in a psychic twin sense, they’d always been able to perceive when the other brother was in turmoil.

“And still it’s a woman causing you problems—wanna talk about it? We have some time before we are due at the polo grounds.”

Did he want to talk about it? Hell, no. He wasn’t a touchy-feely sort of guy, and to be fair, neither was Mo.

“Not really.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? Mom would be so disappointed,” Alec said.

“No she wouldn’t. I suspect that Bianca is going to be the next one to try to figure out what’s going on with you.”

Alec groaned. Their sister would be a lot more persistent. Even though she was a year younger than the two of them, she’d always had a way of getting what she wanted from all of the Velasquez men.

“I don’t think there’s anything that can be done about this,” Alec said. “It’s Scarlet. I can’t stop thinking about her but I can’t contact her because she thinks I’m you. If I say, ‘Hey, I was pretending to be my brother,’ I don’t think she’s going to want to see me again.”

There, he’d said it. And saying it out loud made him realize how ridiculous the entire thing was. He and Mo were thirty years old, almost thirty-one. The time for switching places with his twin had long passed.

Mo clapped Alec’s shoulder.

“That is a tough one. But if I learned anything from my relationship with Hadley, it’s that if you want a woman badly enough, you go after her. Apologize for your mistakes, tell her the truth and then tell her how you feel.”

“Ugh. That’s a lot of telling.”

“Maybe you could write an app that would do it for you,” Mo said sarcastically.

“Screw you.”

But Alec felt better after talking to Mo. Maybe he would call Scarlet or even take the jet to New York and see her. It wouldn’t hurt. And then he’d have an idea if this obsession was simply because she was out of reach or if it was something else.

When they finally arrived in Cole’s Hill, Siobahn decided to stay at the house but Scarlet was eager to find Mauricio right away and talk to him about the pregnancy. She had Lulu in the large bag that she carried her in when they were in a new place and Billie by her side as they drove into town for coffee.

She wasn’t sure what kind of man he was; after all they’d spent only one night together and they’d both been drinking and dancing and laughing. When she’d woken up the next morning, he’d been gone, and she didn’t blame him after she’d seen the paparazzi pictures from the night before that had ended up on TMZ.

Her life wasn’t for everyone, but she’d gotten used to it. Tara used to say they’d been born a goldfish bowl and like good little guppies they’d learned how to preen for the press. There were times when Scarlet wished for a simpler, less public life, but to be honest she loved it most days.

In this town, though, no one seemed to pay her the least bit of attention. She could get used to this. When she stopped into the coffee shop to get her coconut milk latte, everyone left her alone.

“Do you know the Velasquez family?” Scarlet causally asked the barista after ordering.

“Everyone knows them. They’re legends in Cole’s Hill. I think they’ll all be out at the new polo grounds today. I don’t follow the sport but there’s a former professional scheduled to play today... Dee, do you remember his name?” the barista asked the woman at the espresso machine.

“Bartolome Figueras. He’s also a model. Oh, my, he’s good-looking,” Dee said.

“He is,” Scarlet agreed. She had met him and his sister at a polo match in Bridgehampton earlier in the summer. She might even have his number. “I love polo. Do you think that we could attend the match?” Scarlet said, turning to Billie, who smiled.

“I’m sure you could. They’ve been doing monthly matches to raise money for a housing charity that Mauricio Velasquez runs,” the barista said. She pushed a button on her register and some receipt paper came out. She ripped it off and jotted down a website.

“I think you can get all of the information from here,” she said, handing the paper to Scarlet. “Have fun.”

When they had their orders, Scarlet and Billie walked out of the coffee shop toward the parking lot.

“That was surprisingly easy,” Billie said.

“It was. Let’s go home and get changed. I bet Siobahn will want to join us,” Scarlet said.

“I don’t know about that. She’s sort of in a funk this morning.”

Scarlet stopped walking and turned to her assistant. Billie had been picking up the slack the last few days, looking after Siobahn for her while Scarlet had been trying to figure out this pregnancy thing. She hadn’t mentioned the test results to anyone, even Billie. Only she and Dr. Patel knew.

“I should have stopped in to see her. I’m sorry I’ve been so focused on finding Mauricio.”

“It’s okay. I’m just saying I don’t know if you’re going to be able to persuade her to come with you to the polo match.”

“Fair enough,” Scarlet said.

They went back to the house. While Billie tracked down contact info for Bartolome Figueras’s assistant and texted her to put their names on the VIP list, Scarlet talked with Siobahn. She wasn’t in the mood to leave the house, so Scarlet left Lulu with her.

The polo grounds were busy when they arrived. Billie went to see if she could find out where the stables were. Scarlet moved through the crowds, searching the men who were dressed in traditional polo shirts and jodhpurs, scanning for the one she’d spent the night with.

She saw Bart first, and heard his sister Zaria’s laughter. Scarlet smiled at the sound of it. The Argentinean heiress had a big, bold laugh that matched her personality. Scarlet headed toward them, then noticed Mauricio Velasquez was standing in the same group. He had his arm around a very pretty woman with thick dark curly hair that hung to the middle of her back. She watched them for a minute. Maybe she was his sister. But then he bent to kiss the woman, and not in a sisterly way.

Scarlet had never in her life been a timid person, and seeing the father of her unborn child kiss another woman made her angry. For a split second she realized she’d had a little fantasy of some sort of perfect rendezvous where they’d instantly agree to spend the rest of their lives together.

It was as if she’d forgotten she was an O’Malley and that kind of thing wasn’t in the cards for her. She didn’t do commitment. She wasn’t programmed for long term. She’d seen what that had done to her mother, who couldn’t handle being left by Scarlet’s father as he’d moved on to someone younger, hotter and a little bit wilder.

Tara had been the same as their father, living fast and hard and burning bright for such a short time. But Scarlet had been confused, caught between two opposites. On the one hand, she had the dream of having the perfect family that at times she saw in old pictures of the O’Malleys taken when she was a child. And then there was the reality that she had never been responsible for anyone but herself.

O’Malleys were better when they only had to look out for themselves. It was what they were the best at...that and doing something outrageous and creating scandal.

Plastering a smile on her face, she strode determinedly toward the group, forcing herself not to look at the woman or Mauricio again. Instead she’d just play it cool and pretend she was here to see Bart. But as she got closer, she couldn’t prevent her gaze from straying to Mauricio.

He was still handsome—damn him. For a brief second she wondered if there was a world where the Velasquez good would balance out her O’Malley bad. She’d heard nothing but good things about the Velasquez family and how close knit they were.

And it had created a longing inside her for the family that she’d never had and had always been a little curious about. Even though she wasn’t built for commitment, it might be nice to be a part of this kind of thing for real.

“Scarlet,” Bart said in his wonderfully accented English. “What a surprise! I’m glad you’re here. Please meet my friends Mauricio Velasquez and his fiancée, Hadley Everton.”

Fiancée?

What the hell?

She turned toward the man she thought she knew and noticed the set of his shoulders and the scar on his eyebrow. The man she’d slept with didn’t have that. What the hell was going on?

“Hello, Mauricio,” she said. “I believe we’ve met. At that gala in Houston.”

“Well, actually—” Mauricio began.

“I’m the one you’re looking for,” a male voice said from behind her.

She turned to face the man and was struck speechless. He was a mirror image of Mauricio. He had a twin? In that moment, Scarlet realized that in true O’Malley fashion this situation had gone from bad to worse. A baby scare from a one-night stand? Sure, it happened. But learning that her baby daddy was an impostor, a virtual stranger whom she knew nothing about... Well, that was the old O’Malley bad luck.