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I stared down at the phone. Was Fletcher serious? Last I’d heard he had blown up his chances with that insane documentary idea. Was that why he wanted to call a truce? Because he had lost?
As if he could hear my thoughts, Fletcher went on. “When my daughter ends up in the hospital, I think it’s gone too far.”
“Your daughter is in the hospital?” I repeated. “Tiffany?” The band was around my chest again. Tightening. Tightening. He couldn’t mean Tiffany. It didn’t make any sense.
“My other daughter,” he said gleefully. “I think you know her a little bit better than Tiffany.”
No. Fuck no.
“You’ve gotten to know her pretty well over the last few months. I’m guessing she was on her way to your place when she got in the accident.”
The motherfucker was building suspense, the glee in his voice notching higher and higher. He was getting ready to drop the bomb, and even though I knew it was coming, there was nowhere to hide. No way to avoid the blast.
“Her name is…”
Don’t say Willow. Say any other name. Tell me that Dana is the fucking double agent somehow. But don’t say Willow.
“Willow Laurier.”
I hung up the phone a second too late. The name slipped through, branded itself in my brain.
Disbelief, quickly followed by anger, coursed through me. I stared around at the living room I’d been sitting in for the last twelve hours, worrying about Willow. The kitchen we’d cooked dozens of meals in. We’d made love on every couch, up against the balcony railing. It was saturated with her, with us.
And it had all been a fucking con.
The revelation was a kick in the chest, a knee to the balls. My whole body hurt with it. But I couldn’t get it through my thick skull. Not entirely. My brain kept saying,but it couldn’t be. It couldn’t.
So I called Landon.
“I need to know if Willow Laurier is really Willow James,” I said when he answered.
“Willow James?” he repeated.
“Yeah, as in Fletcher James’ daughter.”
A long, ominous silence. The quiet rhythm of his fingers flying across his keyboard. And then, “Shit.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, my brain finally getting the message. “Tell me,” I gritted out.
“She’s the daughter of Melinda Laurier, a former production assistant. Fletcher was fucking around on his wife, no surprise there. Got his production assistant pregnant. Looks like he got his wife pregnant around the same time.” Landon’s voice was measured, but I knew him well enough to catch the note of disdain. “Melinda Laurier had to sue to establish paternity and collect child support. There are a few articles about his relationship with Willow James. Doesn’t sound like he’s up for any father of the year awards.”
I sucked in my breath slowly, released it even more slowly, trying to dispel the red mist that was gathering in my vision. “Willow James,” I repeated slowly. And Fletcher had said she was in the hospital, but no wonder none of them had been able to tell me whether she was a patient. I hadn’t even known her real fucking name.
I got off the phone with Landon and called Willow. She didn’t answer. I called Cedars Sinai. Willow James had just been discharged. They couldn’t tell me anything else. I didn’t know what I wanted them to tell me. That she was okay? It wouldn’t be enough. I needed someone to tell me this was all a big misunderstanding. Someone had gotten something fucked up. I didn’t know what.
I didn’t care what, as long as it meant I hadn’t fallen in love with my enemy’s daughter.
27
WILLOW
My mom wanted to stay with me after she drove me home. She wanted to talk about the baby—whose, and how, and what was I going to do? But I couldn’t bring myself to face it yet. First, I had to face Julian. I had to tell him what had happened last night, and then I’d have to tell him everything that had happened over the past few months. I had no choice anymore.
I just had no idea how to do it.
I was curled up on the couch under a blanket, holding my phone, trying to screw up the courage to return Julian’s call when a knock came at my door. I started upright, sure it was him. It had to be. It had the heavy, authoritative fall of a man’s fist. My heart climbing into my throat, I wrapped the blanket around myself and walked slowly toward the door. I wanted so badly to throw it open and fall into his arms and push this horrible conversation off for another day, but I was on a deadline now. This baby was coming in seven and a half months whether I was ready or not. Whether Julian hated me or not.
I took a deep breath and opened the door, bracing myself for what was coming. Except I’d braced myself for the wrong thing entirely. It wasn’t Julian standing on the other side, fist raised, about to knock again. It was Fletcher.
