Chapter 48
CHAPTER 48
HAYES
I was still half asleep, tangled in the sheets, when my phone buzzed insistently on the nightstand. I groaned, reaching for it blindly, and squinted at the screen. It was my father. At this hour? That couldn’t be good.
“Hayes,” he said the moment I answered, his voice tight with panic. “I’ve misplaced the wedding band.”
I sat up, rubbing my face with my free hand. “What do you mean, misplaced ? It’s your wedding band, Dad. You don’t just misplace something like that.”
“I know that,” he snapped, though I could hear the underlying fear in his tone. “I had it last night, and now it’s gone. I’ve turned the house upside down. It’s nowhere. I’m panicking.”
“I hear that,” I said. “It has to be there somewhere. Did you retrace your steps?”
“Yes! Of course, I did. It was the first thing I did!”
“Dad, relax. Sit down and think.”
I could hear him pacing on the other end of the line, his breathing shallow. “Relax? Hayes, I’m getting married in a matter of days. It’s not just a piece of jewelry. It’s everything. Kathy is going to kill me. I don’t know if I have time to get another one.”
“I know,” I said calmly, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. “But panicking isn’t going to help. Where did you go when you got home last night? That house has like a hundred rooms.”
He paused, and I could almost hear the gears turning in his head. “I went to my study, confirmed a few more wedding details, and then got changed and went to bed.”
“Did you check your bathroom? The dresser? Under the bed?”
“Yes, yes, and yes,” he said, exasperated. “I’ve looked everywhere.”
“Alright, I’ll be there in twenty. Don’t tear the place apart before I get there. It’s there. No one took it and it didn’t just walk away. If you had it last night, it’s still there. But Dad?”
“Yes?”
“Are you sure you had it last night?”
He didn’t immediately answer. “It might have been the night before.”
I sighed and covered my face with my hand. My dad wasn’t a spring chicken. He wasn’t losing it, but he was older and could occasionally be forgetful, especially with all the wedding planning they’d been doing.
“I’m on my way,” I said. “Don’t stress yourself out. A heart attack would definitely put a kink in the wedding.”
“Not funny, Hayes.”
I ended the call and sat on the edge of the bed for a few seconds. Once again, it had been another restless night. Spending time with Dixie just made all of this more difficult. I thought it would satisfy my need to be near her. Instead, it made it worse. That kiss in the back of the car had stirred up all the feelings I had been trying to suppress.
I threw on a pair of jeans and a shirt, not bothering with anything more presentable. This wasn’t exactly a social call. I grabbed my Yankees baseball hat and put it on to hide the messy hair I wasn’t going to fix.
The drive to the estate was a blur, my mind still foggy from sleep but already racing with the implications of my father losing something so significant. That ring wasn’t just a piece of jewelry; it was a symbol of his love for Kathy.
When I arrived, the house was in chaos. My father was pacing the living room, his usually immaculate appearance disheveled. His silver hair was sticking up in odd directions, and his shirt was untucked. He looked like a man on the edge.
“Hayes,” he said, relief flooding his voice. “Thank God you’re here. I’ve looked everywhere. The study, the bedroom, the garden—it’s gone.”
“We’ll find it,” I said, though I wasn’t entirely convinced. “You said you last had it in the study?”
“Yes,” he said. “I think. I picked it up from the jeweler’s and put it in the study with Kathy’s ring. When I went to try it on today, it was gone.”
“Did you have it in the box?”
He nodded. “Yes, yes. Of course.”
“Is Kathy’s still there?”
“Yes. That box was right next to mine in the drawer.”
I nodded, already heading toward the study. “Alright, let’s start there.”
We spent the next hour combing through every inch of the study, then the living room. Nothing. By then, Isaac and Hudson had shown up, along with a couple of the household staff. Isaac started methodically retracing my father’s steps from the day before, while Hudson and I went into the library to start searching.
I was on my hands and knees, looking under a sofa while Hudson was running his hands along bookshelves.
“You know, you and Dixie seemed a bit off last night,” he said. “Everything okay?”
I stiffened, not looking up from the floor. “We’re fine.”
“Really?” he pressed. “Because you guys looked like you were pretending to be good, but you didn’t truly seem good.”
“Drop it, Hudson,” I said.
He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Alright, alright. Just asking.”
I didn’t want to talk about Dixie. Not with him, not with anyone. Last night had been complicated. Now, with Hudson bringing it up, the whole thing felt like a raw nerve. I wasn’t surprised Hudson had noticed. I was sure Diana picked up on it as well. My family had seen us together in the Maldives. Last night we tried and failed. Clearly, neither of us were going to win an Oscar for our acting skills.
“I’m going to check the solarium,” I said. “He didn’t say he had coffee out there, but I bet he did. He always does.”
“I’ll go with you,” he offered.
I had hoped to get away from him, but we set to work together. To my relief, he didn’t bring up my relationship again. Was it even a relationship anymore? It felt like we were in limbo. By holding back a secret, she was holding us back.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Isaac walked into the solarium. “Found it!”
He was holding the ring up triumphantly. It had been tucked inside a book on the shelf in the study. My father walked in and took the ring from Isaac.
“Thank God,” he muttered, his shoulders sagging with relief. “I don’t know how it ended up there, but… thank you, Isaac. I’ll go put it in the box right now. All this wedding planning is making me lose my marbles.”
Isaac shrugged, a small smile on his lips. “Just doing what I can to help.”
“That was close,” I said. “I thought we were going to have to make an emergency call to the jeweler.”
“I’m surprised Kathy wasn’t having a panic attack,” Isaac said.
“She didn’t know,” I told him. “She’s out with Hannah and Rory getting their nails done or something. Dad didn’t want her to worry.”
“Crisis averted,” Hudson said. “Now, about Dixie?—”
“Not now, Hudson,” I cut him off. “I’m going home to shower and drink a bucket of coffee.”
Hudson raised his hands in mock surrender but he gave me a look that said we’d talk later whether I liked it or not. I ignored it and walked away.
By the time I got back to my building, I was exhausted. All I wanted was coffee, a shower, and something to eat. If Kathy had been home, she would have fed us a good breakfast. I walked into the lobby without really looking at anyone or anything. I knew my way to the elevator.
“Excuse me, Hayes? Hayes Bancroft?”
I stopped and looked at the woman walking toward me as she seemed vaguely familiar.
“Yeah?” I asked. If this was a reporter or blogger hoping to ask me some stupid-ass question about my father and aunt getting married, I was going to lose my shit.
“I’m Mrs. Holland, Dixie’s mother. We met at her apartment when she told me your name was Paul.”
Dixie’s mother. Now I remember her.
What the hell was she doing here? First her sister’s boyfriend, now her mother. Was there some kind of memo going around her family that I was the go-to person for unscheduled visits?
I didn’t have to question if she was telling the truth. She looked so much like Dixie, but there was a hardness to her that Dixie didn’t have.
“Mrs. Holland,” I said, forcing a polite smile. “This is a surprise.”
“I need to speak with you,” she said.
I hesitated, then gestured toward the elevator. “Of course. Come in.”
She said nothing on the long ride up. I got the impression she was sizing me up. I wondered what I did. She didn’t seem to like me and I didn’t know why.
I led her to the sitting room, my mind spinning with possibilities. What could she possibly want?
“Can I get you some coffee?” I asked, more out of politeness than anything else.
“That would be lovely,” she said, sitting primly on the edge of the sofa.
I busied myself in the kitchen, trying to steady my nerves. By the time I returned with the coffee, I had worked myself up.
“Thank you,” she said, taking the cup from me. “Now, before I begin, I’d like you to hold your thoughts until I’m done. Can you do that?”
I nodded, though my unease was growing by the second. “I can try.”
She took a sip of the coffee, then set the cup down carefully. “Dixie is pregnant.”
The words hit me like a punch to the gut. I stared at her, my mind struggling to process what she’d just said. Dixie. Pregnant.
“She doesn’t know I’m here,” Mrs. Holland continued calmly. “And she wouldn’t approve if she did. But as her mother, I feel it’s my duty to step in and handle this situation before it gets out of control.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but she held up a hand, silencing me.
“I’m not finished,” she said sharply. “I’m here to make a request. I’d like you to write Dixie a check—one generous enough to provide her and the child with a comfortable and secure life. And then I’d like you to bow out. Quietly. Discreetly. Like all good Bancrofts do.”
I felt like the room was spinning. Dixie was pregnant. With my child. And her mother was sitting here, asking me to pay her off and disappear. If I wasn’t so shocked, I would be furious at the suggestion I would abandon my child. What the fuck was she talking about? All Bancrofts do? The balls on this lady.
“I know this is just a fling,” she said, her tone dismissive. “What would a man like you want with someone like Dixie? She’s an artist, for God’s sake. She always has paint under her fingernails. She has no ambition, no status, no reputation. This thing between you two—it’s going to fizzle out eventually. It’s best for everyone, especially the child, if you do the right thing now. Pay your dues up front instead of dragging this out with lengthy child support payments. Dixie needs to get a new place to raise that child. She won’t give the baby your name. There’s no need to saddle the child with a scandal with its first breath. Her father and I will make sure the child is raised right.”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. All I could do was sit there, staring at her, while her words echoed in my head.
Dixie was pregnant.
And her mother wanted me to walk away.