TAUT (27 page)

He looks at me with a very serious face and says, “Yes, sir.”

Money does this. The fucking Bronco is nothing but scratches from top to bottom because the two-toned brown and tan paint is original. Ashleigh just shakes her head at me and we walk through the lobby doors together.

The concierge approaches us immediately and I bark out, “Aston family.”

“Yes, sir. You have the Presidential Strip-View Suite on the thirty-ninth floor. Can I have someone help you with your bags?” He looks around, noticing we have no luggage. Ash has a purse and the diaper bag and I have the baby in the car seat and that’s it.

“There should be clothes upstairs?”

“Yes, everything you asked for has been provided.”

“Thank you. And have the staff come find Miss Li for her spa and dressing appointment in thirty minutes.”

“Yes, sir.” He hands the key card to the bellboy and we follow him to the elevators.

Ashleigh squeals again and kisses Kate on her head.

“You act like a resort virgin, Miss Li.”

“I’m a resort slut, Ford.”

I shake my head at her.

“But it’s been a pretty long time since I’ve been pampered, so if it’s all the same to you, I’m gonna be a silly virgin today.”

I take it Tony is not loaded. But I’m not gonna bring him up at all. She doesn’t need me to point out the financial differences between the two of us so I hold in any and all snide remarks I feel like making and concentrate on keeping her on her toes. “I love silly virgins who are really sluts so I do not mind one bit.”

The bellboy laughs, then pretends to cough as Ashleigh kicks me and shoots him a dirty look.

I wink and hand her a dimpled smile in return, and before she can decide if she’s really upset or not, the elevator opens. The bellboy walks us to our door and presents it to us like he’s Vanna White. I set Kate’s carrier down in the room, then stuff some cash in the bellboy’s palm and shove him down the hall.

“OK, let’s see what they left us.”

“Baskets filled with baby stuff.” She sorts through it and then looks over at me with a questioning smile. “Breast pump and bottles?”

“Hey,” I say, opening my arms up wide. “It’s what all the moms do.”

“Says who?”

“Says Pam, my assistant. I asked her how I’m supposed to sweep you off your feet if I have to bring you back to feed Kate, and she said pump.”

“I think you have a thing for Pam.”

“She’s fifty-two, Ashleigh. I do not have a thing for her. Now get pumping. I want it stored in the fridge before you leave. And I rented the room across the hall for the babysitter. When we’re done, the baby can come sleep with us. But I get you alone until I say we’re done.”

I wait for the fight but she tips her head up and smiles. “Deal.” Then she grabs the pump and the bottles and settles on the couch. The room is boomerang-shaped, like it’s got two wings. One side has the master bedroom and bath, the middle is the sitting area, and the far side has the dining room. Our dining room has been transformed into a nursery complete with crib, baby swing, changing table, a supply of diapers and so much other shit I can’t identify, I start to feel a little apprehensive. “Should I put Kate in the swing? Does she use one of these?”

The pump is making noise in the other room so I walk back out and pick up Kate and ask again. “Can I put her in the swing, Ashleigh? We have a whole room filled with baby stuff back there.”

“Yeah, she might like that,” Ash says with her sleepy eyes. Shit, I guess pumping makes her just as tired as nursing.

“Come on, Kate, let’s check out the rides.” I carry Kate over to the dining room and set her down inside the swing. I lower the tray that locks her in place so she can’t slip out, and then turn the thing on and press start. It begins slowly, gently swaying back and forth and each time Kate comes forward she closes her eyes. Each time she goes back, she tries to open them again, and after about ten swings, she’s out.

I go back to find Ash and she’s sleeping too.

Fucking girls.

I’d like to just stare at her, but the bottle is almost full so I tap her on the shoulder. “Ashleigh. You need to change the bottle.”

She reluctantly opens her eyes, switches the pump to the other breast and gets a new bottle. “This thing is the shit, Ford.”

I laugh. “Is that right?”

“Yes, I like the nursing, but bottles of breast milk, that’s like revolutionary. I should’ve done this a long time ago.”

I grab the remote and turn the TV on for some background noise, then go back to my phone to check messages. Pam is handling things—Pam always handles things. I’ve been living in Denver for the past seven months, taking a few trips here and there trying to secure this producer job for the sci-fi thing, so Pam had to keep everything in check. I’m not worried about what’s going on in LA professionally, but I am getting nervous about what Ashleigh might do once we get there. If I knew Tony’s last name I’d look him up, check his shit out and see what his deal is. But now that Ash knows I can hack, I’m pretty sure she’d see through any prying questions.

A little while later Ashleigh is packing the bottles away in the pantry fridge and Kate is sending off stink signals. I get up and get her out of the swing, just as Ashleigh comes out of the pantry.

“She needs a new diaper, Ford. I got this.”

There’s a knock at the door and Ashleigh looks conflicted.

“I’m not helpless. Besides, it’s just Kate and me while you’re getting all spa-ed up. I’m gonna have to do it eventually, might as well give it a try now.”

“Ford—”

“Go. That’s an order.”

She hesitates a little longer but then lets out a long sigh. “OK, thank you. I totally owe you for all this.”

I smile big and if she could read my mind right now, she’d be wet and blushing.

I wait until she’s gone, then lay Kate on the changing table near the window. It’s got a mobile toy thing over top of it, and even though Kate is a little bit upset at first, she’s attracted to the bright-colored things dangling above her. I take off her t-shirt and open the diaper carefully.

“Yeah,” I say to Kate, my captive audience. “That’s some shit right there.” She throws me a gummy grin and I laugh. I manage the diaper duty, toss that thing in a bag, and then put it in the diaper pail in the corner.

I grab a diaper that has Elmo on it and slip it under her butt, then close it up with the sticky tabs. Any man who cannot figure this out is a moron. I get busy dressing her in a new outfit next and this is a little more challenging, but I’m not called a genius for nothing.

Chapter Thirty

I answer the knock at the door a little while later. “Can I help you?” I ask.

The messenger holds out a slip of paper. “The name of the babysitter procured for this evening, sir.”

I get some cash out of my pocket and hand it over as he passes me the envelope. “Thanks,” I say as he smiles and walks off. I close the door and go back to the couch. Kate is in the swing again. She’s a pretty good baby. Not that I have a lot of experience, but from what I can tell, she’s not anything like those babies you see in movies that make fun of clueless dads.

I take out my phone and start with the first name in my professional contacts. It’s Adam. His name’s not Adam, he’s just my number one. I don’t usually call him for easy shit like this, but I know he’ll do it while I’m waiting if he’s available.

If. He’s iffy. And the last time I talked to him over Christmas, he had a huge mess on his hands, so he might be holing up, trying to stay out of sight. Which means he might actually be available. I press the generic avatar used for his name and listen to it ring. One. Two. Three. I’m just about to hang up and call the next guy on the list when he picks up. “Yeah.”

“Can you vet for me while I wait?” I can hear a girl panting on the other end. Fucking Merc.

“Is it absolutely necessary?” Now the girl is grunting, then a slap and a squeal.

“I don’t call unless it’s necessary.”

“Hold on,” he says as I listen to shuffling, the girl protesting in Spanish, and then, “Get off me, I gotta work for a minute. Stay put, though. Don’t move. OK, dickhead, give me the name.” I can hear his keystrokes as he gets online.

“Dee Vasquez, birthday 10-27-62, born in Jacksonville, Florida.”

“One sec, let me pull it up. Why don’t you just do this shit yourself?”

“I’m on vacation and I left the rig at home.”

“OK, coming up.” He snorts a little. “She’s got two traffic tickets for speeding back in the Nineties. Lives in… Vegas. You in Vegas? I’m in Palm Springs. You should stop by.”

“Negative. What else you got?”

“Nothing. This bitch is boring. Who is she? She fuck you over or something?”

“No, babysitter for tonight.”

He laughs. He laughs so hard I have to hold the phone away from my ear.
“Baby-fucking-sitter?”

“Nice talking to ya, Merc. I owe you a small.”

He’s still laughing when I hang up. I walk over at Kate and she’s got her eyes open, staring up at me. “Fuck him, huh, Kate. He has no clue.” She smiles at me and I melt a little and pick her up. She flings her little fists around in agreement. I take her back over to the couch and sit down. She’s got her head on my shoulder, just kicking it, so I flip through channels until I get to the news.

We relax together listening to the stock report.

Merc’s laughter comes back to me. If he saw me right now he’d never let me live it down. We met at a recruitment weekend for MIT back in high school. He was from Boston, not the nice parts, so he took me on a memorable one-night bender through numerous back-alley bars. I think they stuck us together to avoid corrupting the normal students. Or maybe they hoped we’d both go to jail together before the weekend was over. That’s a toss-up.

Merc and I both got offers—they couldn’t
not
give us offers. We’re fucking geniuses and MIT likes to hoard the country’s geniuses, keep us all neatly contained in the socially accepted bubble of serving the nation.

I went to film school—and I’m pretty sure my recruitment adviser from MIT threw up on the other end of the phone when I told her that. And Merc went into the army, but only so they’d train him how to kill. He never wanted to be a SEAL or a Ranger. He just wanted some hard and fast training so he could slip underground and not get himself offed when he completed his more hands-on jobs. He never had a team like I did. He’s a solo guy.

But he’s good at what he does, so if he says Dee Vasquez is clean, then she’s clean.

Pam had one of my suits driven up from LA and the staff delivers it at six. Kate’s asleep now, so I take the suit into the bedroom and get dressed. I don’t mind the jeans, but I love the suits. This one’s black, has a short coat, the sleeves are tailored just right so it shows some of my crisp white shirt at the cuff, and my broad shoulders are accentuated by a taper from the waist of the jacket all the way down the slim-fit trousers. The white pocket square and the black tie sets the whole thing off.

I comb my hair back and leave the one-day stubble on my chin.

Even I know that shit looks sexy.

The sitter arrives at six fifty and takes Kate and the bottles of breast milk across the hall to the second room I reserved that is stocked with everything she’ll need for the evening.

And at exactly seven o’clock Ashleigh walks through the door.

Chapter Thirty-One

I unleash the dimple on her. “I love it.”

“Well.” She blows some hair out of her eyes. It’s piled high on top of her head but she’s got those cute bangs that are too long to stay out of her eyes and too short to put up with the rest of her hair. “You
should
love it, they tell me you picked it out.”

The dress is very revealing, but only in the back—and that’s because there is no back. But her front is covered from neck to toes as it drapes down in a triangle shape and then fastens at each hip. The top is attached to a delicate red ribbon that circles her neck like a collar and the flowing fabric is snug at her waist, and then falls to the ground like a red waterfall. Her matching red toenails peek out from black strappy heels. “I have no bra on, Ford. If I leak through this dress in public—”

“Relax, Miss Li.” I hold my arm out to her and she smiles.

“It’s nice. Thank you. I haven’t dressed up in forever and I haven’t been on a real date in, God, I have no idea.”

I have a million questions and I want to ask them all this very second. I want to know why he left her. Did she do something? Is Kate not his baby? I admit, that question has popped into my head more than once. Maybe that’s why his parents haven’t seen her. Maybe that’s why he left? I secretly hope that’s the case. In fact, I’m in full-on fantasy mode right now, picturing all the ways in which Ashleigh might’ve fucked up and ruined her chances with this guy. I want to ask so fucking bad. What the hell kind of relationship was she in that he never took her out? But this is her night and the last person we’re gonna spend our time talking about is Tony. “You look spectacular in red. Are you ready?”

She looks around the room, trying to see into the dining room-turned-nursery. “Where’s Kate?”

“Across the hall in the other room.” She opens her mouth to say something, probably about checking on her, but I put up a hand. “Ashleigh, stop. She’s fine. I’ll bring her back at the end of the night, she’ll sleep with us tonight. I had the babysitter checked out, she’s got the milk, she’s perfectly safe.”

“OK, sorry. I’m kinda nervous.”

“Why?” I ask as I touch her elbow and lead through the door and down the hallway to the elevators.

“I don’t know what to expect.” The elevator doors open and I put a hand on her bare back and guide her inside. “What are we doing?”

“We’re having a night out. A slow, quiet night out.”

She looks up at me and her eyes are wide and uncertain. “What about after?”

I think this through for a moment because I’m starting to understand what has her so edgy. She’s scared of me. Of what I might do to her tonight. Of what I might expect of her tomorrow. I pull her in front of me and put my arms around her waist, then lean down into her neck. She’s a few inches taller in her heels so she’s easily accessible. “You can say no anytime you want.
Stop
.
Enough
.
No more
. All these are words you can use if you want to. I would like it if you trusted me to take care of you, but you’re not my prisoner. You can sleep in the room across the hall if you’d like. I won’t be mad.”