Red Carpet Arrangement

CHAPTER TWO

KAT HAD EXPECTED ASTONISHMENT. Shock. Denial and panic. She’d hoped for happiness. She’d been ready for anger. But she hadn’t anticipated the older woman with dark brown hair in a sparkly evening gown who appeared at Riley’s side.

“Riley? What’s the matter?” Her quizzical gaze slid toward Kat. She wanted to curl up in a ball and die.

“Come on.” He yanked her close, the heat of his breath draping over her neck. “And for God’s sake, cover that up.”

She fumbled with the buttons of her jacket as he spoke briefly to the woman standing beside him. Her back stiffened and she stared at Kat. A petite younger woman in black with stilts for heels swept in, cupping Riley’s elbow. A few low words and now her eyes sharpened on Kat, too.

Chicken nuggets. This had been such a bad idea.

Around her, flashbulbs went off. Someone shouted a question at her. Then someone else. And suddenly, she was enveloped in shouting, and then a hand on the small of her back guided her forward as the men who’d previously tried to bum-rush her out closed in around her.

They weren’t leading her away, though. Instead, they waded into a sea of upraised hands holding huge cameras, the flashes like lightning, blinding her. All she could see through her dazzled vision were dark-clad backs and shoulders. The air was so stifling, she thought she might pass out.

All through it she could feel the heat of Riley’s body pressed against her side.

“Don’t say anything,” he said in a low, deadly voice. “Don’t respond. Don’t look up.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him to funnel cake off—that no one told her what to do. But then a car door opened in front of her like a dark maw.

“Get in.”

The air-conditioned leather interior was too tempting to resist. She ducked her head and launched herself into the backseat, quickly scooting over as the older woman in the evening gown slid in after her, followed more sedately by Riley and Stilts For Shoes.

The door slammed shut, and the limo—she realized that was what she’d gotten into, with its rear-facing seats and the floor space between them—pulled away from the curb.

“Back to the hotel,” Riley told the driver before turning his glare to Kat.

Now three pairs of eyes scrutinized her across that narrow space. She occupied the front-facing seat all on her own, the others crammed together in their finery looming over her.

Their questions all came at once.

“What are you doing here?”

“Who are you?”

“How did you get past security?”

“Riley,” the older woman said. “Do you know this young lady?”

“My name’s Katherine Schwinn,” she interjected. She swallowed thickly. “I’m pregnant with Riley’s baby.”

The older woman’s gaze canted to her belly and softened, and the questions that passed over her face all resolved into one gently spoken one. “How far along are you, dear?”

“Twenty-six weeks.” She bit her lower lip, tried not to look at Riley. “I’m due the first week of November.”

“Riley...” Stilts drew his name out. “Tell me this isn’t...”

“Do you have proof?” he asked.

She’d been prepared for his skepticism, but it still hurt. She met his glare unflinchingly. “What do you take me for?”

“What do you take me for? You don’t think other women haven’t tried—”

“Riley!” the older woman snapped. “That is not how you speak to a woman. I taught you better than that.”

“Mom—”

“Sorry for him.” Her eyes, a deeper green than Riley’s, twinkled. “My name’s Winnie. I’m this one’s mother. We’ve had a long night.”

Riley’s mother? Fish sticks and tartar sauce, it really couldn’t get worse.

“The movie!” Stilts exclaimed. She banged on the glass separating them from the driver. “Turn around. We’ve got to go back to the theater.”

“We can’t,” Riley protested. “What about...” He waved at Kat. “We can’t risk going back and having her throw a tantrum in front of the press.”

Anger seethed beneath Kat’s desolation and loneliness. She curved one arm protectively around her middle. Don’t worry, Sweetpea, Daddy’s just in shock...

“You can’t not show up for your own movie premiere,” Stilts exclaimed. “You’re doing a Q and A after the screening, remember?”

“Then, we’ll go back for that. Driver, hotel. We’ll sort this out and return to the theater in time for the end.”

Kat bristled. “If you think you’re going to figure out the future of our baby in two hours—”

“Two hours, two minutes,” Stilts breathed.

“—you have got another think coming.”

“If the baby is even mine.” He crossed his arms over his chest.

Kat raked her fingers through her hair. “You think I would’ve put myself through all this if it wasn’t?”

“People do all kinds of things for money.”

So that was what he thought this was about. Well...he wasn’t that off the mark. She straightened. “The baby’s yours. I didn’t sleep with anyone else after you, nor for months before you. I’m willing to do a paternity test to prove it.”

Riley harrumphed, yanked open the limo’s minibar and emptied a tiny bottle of whiskey into a glass tumbler. Winnie made a noise of disapproval. Kat wished she could share that drink to soothe her nerves.

“Let’s cut to the chase,” Stilts said as Riley tossed back his drink. “What do you want?”

Who was this woman? She looked far too intense and severe to be Riley’s girlfriend. “I think this is a personal discussion I should be having with Riley.”

“Any conversation you have with him you can have with me.”

Kat looked to Riley. He was staring out the window, grinding his jaw.

“Bryan,” Winnie called, knocking on the glass. She smiled pleasantly as the chauffeur lowered the partition. “I’m sorry, but can you go back to the theater, please?”

“Right away, Mrs. Jackson.”

“It’s Jacobsen, dear. I changed it back to my maiden name after the divorce. Jackson is Riley’s stage name, though I still don’t see why Jacobsen wasn’t good enough.”

Bryan the driver nodded his agreement. “It’s a fine name, Mrs. Jacobsen.”

Riley glared. “Mom—”

“I came all this way and got dressed up for this. I don’t want to miss seeing you on-screen. Sam...” She addressed Stilts. Of course. Riley’s agent, Sam, the woman she’d been trying desperately to get hold of since she’d arrived in LA. “You’re coming with me, dear. My son needs to speak with his friend alone.”

The limo hadn’t traveled far from the theater. In a few minutes, the driver dropped the ladies off behind the Fox. Winnie gave a pleasant look to each of them that communicated both warning and warm expectation. Sam offered only a scowl. The limo pulled away from the curb again and it was just the two of them.

Kat’s heart pumped acid into her chest and she swallowed tightly. Deep lines were carved into Riley’s glowering face. He looked tired, worse than he’d looked when Kat had first met him in Hawaii. His hair was a bit longer now, and his tan had faded. The wry twist in the corner of his mouth betrayed his black humor. Despite all that, he was still pretty hot.

“If what you say is true—” he couldn’t seem to look at her now, eyes fixed out the window, instead “—why’d you come here of all places to tell me?”

“You don’t think I tried calling? I got the runaround so many times, it was pointless. I wrote letters and emails. I never got an answer. I even showed up at your talent agency’s headquarters. They kicked me out and threatened to have me arrested for trespassing.”

His jaw worked. “Sam would’ve told me.”

“I didn’t even get to speak to her. No one believes me. You don’t believe me, and you were...f-fries and gravy there.”

His eyebrows clashed. “What did you say?”

She rubbed her neck. “I’m trying to quit swearing so the baby doesn’t hear something she shouldn’t. I replace swearwords with foods I’ve been craving.”

For a flash, his lips fought against a smile. But then his face puckered sourly once more. Softly, he croaked, “She?”

“I don’t actually know.” She pleated the hem of her dress. “I asked them not to tell me. Sometimes I say she...sometimes it’s he.”

He downed the last of his whiskey and replaced the glass in the minibar. “So you decided to come out here and...what? Embarrass me in front of the press? Make sure I pony up to whatever demands you have?”

“Let me make this clear.” She sat forward, indignation honing her words to fine points. “I wouldn’t have had to do this if you’d returned my phone calls.”

“You wouldn’t have had to do this if—”

“If what?” she challenged, the tip of her anger sharp and hot. “If I’d insisted you double bag it? If we hadn’t had sex when I happened to be most fertile? Come on, go ahead. Tell me how this is my fault.”

He clamped his lips so tight they turned white. He sank into the leather upholstery and was quiet for a long time. They hit three stoplights before he finally spoke up. “Suppose...if the baby is mine...”

She clenched her fists. “It’s yours.”

“So...what? I’m not going to marry you.”

She ignored the pinch to her ego. “I don’t expect you to. Seeing what you’re really like, I’m not sure I’d want to.” He flinched, and she mentally chalked one point for herself. “All I wanted was to tell you you’re going to be a father. And I want the baby to know you.” She took a deep breath and forged ahead, praying as she quietly said, “Whether or not you want to actually have anything to do with us is another matter.”

“Hold on a second. Why are you assuming I won’t?”

“Oh, please. You barely believe me. You’re not glad to see me, and obviously, this news isn’t happy news.” Tears burned in her throat. Doughnuts, pregnancy hormones were the worst. She didn’t need him. She’d always taken care of herself. It wasn’t something to cry about.

“I don’t exactly get told I’m a father at the premiere of my biggest film every day. You came out of left field. I haven’t seen you since...”

“Twenty-six weeks ago,” she supplied helpfully, then gave a bitter laugh. “Did you even think about me? About whether there might have been consequences?” It wasn’t a word she liked to use—she’d come to accept the new life growing within her, even if she was in no way prepared to raise a child on her own. True, her mother had done it on less, but Kat wasn’t her mom. And she wanted more for her child than a nomadic life flitting from one coast to the other.

“Excuse me?” Riley’s eyes narrowed. “You were the one who walked out on me.”

Kat bit her lip. The morning after, she’d wanted to stay ensconced in that big hotel room bed. She would’ve loved to share a big breakfast with Riley and seen where things could go. But she’d sneaked out before dawn while Riley slept. There never could’ve been anything but that one night between them, anyhow—she knew it and he knew it.

Seemed they’d both been wrong.

Silence stretched between them as the limo glided through the streets. Riley regarded her with the look of a man calculating the costs of his secrets. “I looked for you,” he said finally. He rubbed his palm over his thigh. “When I got back to LA, I called the bar to check on you.” His brow furrowed. “They said you’d gone. No one knew where.”

She didn’t tell him about being fired. She didn’t want him to know that she’d been so attracted to him that she’d abandoned her post in the middle of her shift. But knowing he’d called trying to find her softened her defensiveness.

He went on, “I figured you’d moved on. Found someone else.”

She buried her clenched hands between her knees. “There was no one else.”

“Right.” He glanced out the window again, infuriating in his skeptical silence.

The limo pulled up outside a fancy hotel. Riley got out and scowled at her before resentfully offering to help her out.

She grabbed his outstretched hand and hauled herself up. She could have managed on her own, but she hadn’t been able to resist the impulse to touch him. He tightened his thick, strong fingers around hers and told the limo driver to stay close, then he guided Kat through the lobby and straight to the brass-and-marble elevator. Riley used a pass card to access the upper VIP floors.

“Where are you living these days?” he asked tersely.

“I’m staying with a friend.”

“But where do you live?”

Her stomach dipped as the elevator shot up at high speed. “I told you. I’m staying with a friend. I’m trying to find a place for the longer term after the baby arrives but—”

“Are you telling me you’re homeless?”

Why’d he have to make it sound so dirty? People always acted as if she’d done something awful to not have a permanent address. “I don’t have enough money at the moment for first and last month’s rent. Doctors are expensive. So are vitamins and food.”

“You don’t have...anything?”

She stiffened. “I’ve got a lot of friends with couches.”

“Do you have a job?”

“I was waitressing—”

“So you’re homeless and unemployed. Right, I get it now.” The elevator reached what she assumed was his floor, and he stalked out ahead of her into the corridor.

She’d had enough. “Listen, you,” she snapped. “I know you’re not happy. I know you’re in shock. But this is the reality I have to deal with. If you’d rather I leave right now, say the word and I will. But I don’t need you judging me or using that holier-than-thou tone with me or bullying me. I’ve got way more at stake here, and this is much harder on me than it is on you, you got that?”

She would walk away if she had to. Her own father, a sailor her mother had met during Fleet Week in New York twenty-six years ago, hadn’t wanted the responsibility of a child. And so Dotty Schwinn had raised Kat on her own. It wouldn’t be easy, but it would be better than being subjected to Riley’s criticism.

His face blanched. He sighed and rubbed his brow. “I—I’m sorry. You’re right. This isn’t me. I apologize.”

Her anger leveled out some. “Do you want me to leave?” Please say no, please say no...

He stared at her for an agonizing second. “Come in and we’ll talk.” The forcefulness of his command was dulled with a follow-up. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. You caught me off guard. Tonight was supposed to be a big night for me.”

And she’d ruined it. Not only this night, but maybe the rest of his life. Her conscience tweaked as some of the starch left his back.

“All right,” she said. “We need to work this out. But we can’t do it in a couple of hours.”

He glanced at his watch. “Right. The movie.”

Clearly, he would rather be anywhere else. She couldn’t blame him. She needed some space, too, to gather her thoughts. “Why don’t we meet tomorrow for lunch or something?”

“No.” The sound of someone leaving their room farther down the hall had him ushering her toward a set of doors. He opened them with his key card, and they slipped in.

They didn’t go past the entryway, but Kat could already tell that the suite was spacious and well-appointed. Riley flicked on the light and picked up the phone by the door. “Call your friend. Tell them you’re staying here.”

Her whole body flared hot. “I can’t stay here with you.”

“I’ll put you up in a room in the hotel for the week,” he plowed on. Had he even heard her? “I have to do promos and stuff in LA and New York over the next few days. You can go back to Modesto with me after I’m done.”

“I may be having your baby, but it doesn’t mean you get to push me around.” She jammed her fists on her hips. “Remember that thing I said about bullying me?”

“I’m not bullying, I’m being practical.”

“And I’m trying to tell you I don’t want to be a...a kept woman. I’m doing all right on my own, thank you very much.”

He gave her a flat look. “Homeless, unemployed and pregnant is doing all right for you?” he scoffed. “And you still insist you’re not here for money?”

She bit her tongue. He had her there. She’d half expected him to write her a check and wave goodbye. Whether it would’ve been a kind gesture or one to simply sweep her under a rug hadn’t mattered to her at the time.

Bottom line, she needed cash if she was even going to bring a child into the world, never mind what came after...

“I wanted you to know about the baby,” she reiterated staunchly.

“I’m not giving you a red cent,” he said sharply. “If you want my help, you have to stick around so I can verify your story. Once that happens, we work things out.”

“And in the meantime, I’m, what, your prisoner? Are you going to tie me to the bed, too?”

“Only if you ask me to,” he replied with dark intimacy.

She gave her best indignant gasp as heat flared low in her belly. It came out forced.

“Would you prefer to return to wherever it is you’re staying?” he asked irately.

She didn’t relish the thought of spending another night on Jamie’s lumpy couch. Besides, now that the press had photographed her confronting Riley, it was only a matter of time before things got awkward between her and her friend. Kat had only told her that the baby’s father was “some guy she’d met in Hawaii”; keeping a secret like this from Jamie had felt dishonest, but she hadn’t had much choice.

I’m being practical. Riley probably had the right idea about that. She had come to him out of sheer practicality after all.

“Fine. I’ll stay one night.”

“The whole week or nothing,” he countered. “And if the baby is mine, you’ll come back with me to Modesto. I can’t have you running to the press.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” she protested.

“If you want me to even begin to trust you, Kat, you’ll have to prove to me how serious you are.”

She blew out a breath. “This is ridiculous. You’re asking me to give up my life.”

“What’s your other option? Walking out? Because I can pretend you were never here and keep going on with my life. Can you?”

She ground her teeth. The only bargaining chip she had was to go to the press, but what would that earn her except his scorn and a lot of attention she didn’t want? And public pressure wouldn’t ingratiate her with Riley. She relented with a grunt. “I’ll have to get my things.”

“I’ll have the concierge send up anything you need for tonight,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Don’t leave your room while I’m gone. The paparazzi will be looking for you, and it’s going to take all of Sam’s focus to keep them off your scent. Do you understand?”

He might as well have tied her to the bed. But she nodded, even though she didn’t appreciate his attitude.

With a quick call to the front desk, the concierge arranged a separate room for Kat on a different floor. Riley escorted her there, his presence as oppressive as a prison guard’s. A bellboy brought a basket of toiletries, grinning as Riley handed him a fat tip. Discretion came at a hefty price, apparently.

“What do I do for clothes?” she asked.

“Send what you’re wearing to the laundry. And you can collect your things tomorrow.”

“But...what am I supposed to wear in the meantime?”

“There’s a robe in the closet.”

“I can’t go around naked.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Are you expecting company?”

She recognized the backhanded insult for what it was and glowered at him. “No.”

He looked at his watch again. “I have to go. Stay here. We’ll talk in the morning. If you haven’t eaten dinner, order room service. Whatever you want. It’s on my tab.”

“I can pay my own way, you know.”

He gave a disbelieving snort. He was right, of course, but that didn’t snuff out her indignation. Alpha douche, she thought, then wondered if douche was a swearword she should have censored.

With barely a nod he was gone, and she was alone.

The baby kicked as if to remind her she would never be alone again—to remind her of what was important.

And you are important, Sweetpea, she thought soothingly, rubbing her belly as if it were a crystal ball she could divine the future from. I won’t let anything happen to you. You’ll go to school and have friends and a place to keep all your toys...and you’ll never have to worry about where you’ll get your next meal.

Her stomach growled then. She’d been so nervous about seeing Riley she hadn’t been able to contemplate eating beforehand. Caving to her need for sustenance, she picked up the phone and dialed room service.

Thirty minutes later, she tucked into a chicken quesadilla, a beet salad, a plate of steak frites and a hot fudge sundae. She ate slowly, relishing every bite.

Once she’d finished her feast, she left her friend a message, simply telling her Kat wouldn’t be home that night, not saying where she was. She hesitated before she dialed the next number, wondering if it was even worth making the long-distance call. Predictably, it went to voice mail.

“You haven’t reached me...and if you don’t know who this is, don’t bother leaving a message.”

Kat sighed. “Hey, Mom, it’s me again. I’ve finally connected with Sweetpea’s daddy.” She cleared her throat. “I hope you haven’t been trying my cell—I couldn’t afford it anymore. And I’m not at my friend Jamie’s tonight, so if you’re going to call...” She left the name of the hotel and the main reception phone number. “Anyhow, I’m okay. Sweetpea’s dad and I have some things to discuss. I’ll let you know more when we’ve sorted it out.” She paused. “Call me, okay?”

She hung up. Hope could be so exhausting.

She stripped down for a much-needed bath, leaving her laundry for housekeeping hanging in a plastic bag from the doorknob of the suite. As she sank into the blissfully hot water, she thought about Riley. He’d looked yummy in that tux, albeit tense. Not surprising after everything that’d happened tonight.

Still, that wasn’t any excuse for his high-handedness. She would have to watch out for that. She wouldn’t let him intimidate her into any kind of arrangement that didn’t benefit the baby. She needed money, of course, but she’d prefer a father for Sweetpea, too. Preferably one who wouldn’t dictate how she was going to run her life.

Don’t leave your room.

She gazed around her gilded surroundings. It could be worse, she supposed—being trapped in a luxury hotel was hardly torture. Even so, she felt like the fox in a hunt, escaping into the woods with baying hounds closing in around her.

Whatever it takes, she reminded herself, and sank deeper into the tub.