Chapter 29 Kade
KADE
The Las Vegas convention center was packed with people when I arrived. Hundreds of them, maybe more, all here because I'd made some calls and pulled some strings and promised this would be worth their time.
I had called everyone I knew—business contacts, friends, people who owed me favors.
And to my surprise almost everyone I called on had shown up.
The place was packed with people I knew wearing their tuxes and expensive jewelry, all to help fund cancer research.
But there was a line at the Bake Me Happy table.
People were lined up to buy cupcakes like they were works of art.
Which, honestly, they were.
Lainey had never been anything other than incredible and her work showed that in such amazing detail. I was impressed by it, and I wasn't the kind of guy to be impressed by cupcakes, but wow had I been missing so much for so long.
I spotted her near the main table talking to someone with a clipboard.
She wore a simple black dress and her hair was pulled back.
But even from across the room I could see the exhaustion on her face and how she carried the stress she was under.
I pictured her belly swollen and that dress filled out and it made my chest ache.
I desperately wanted to go over to her and force her to talk to me, because I had so much to apologize for.
But this night was her big night; she didn’t have time for emotional drama.
She had cupcakes to sell and customers to rub elbows with.
I had to bide my time and play my cards right, and hopefully before the night was over we'd have our chance.
"Kade." Gavin appeared beside me with a cupcake in his hand. "These are actually incredible, man."
"I know." I grabbed one from a passing tray and took a bite. Chocolate with some kind of raspberry filling. It was perfect.
"So what's the plan?" Gavin asked.
I grinned at him like the madman I was slowly becoming. My feelings for her had me doing very irrational things. "Well I bought every cupcake here at twice the asking price, and I'm gonna make sure everyone pledges to the research center in her bakery's name."
He raised his eyebrows. "That's a lot of money." It wasn’t often I caught Gavin by surprise, but I didn't mind the look of shock on his face. This was just the beginning of how shocking I could be. I was a changed man.
"I don't care." I finished the cupcake and grabbed another. "She deserves this. She deserves all of it."
Gavin stood there gawking as I walked away and weaved through the crowd to start making rounds.
I talked to everyone I'd invited and made sure they understood what I expected.
By the time I'd finished, my friends had pledged over two hundred thousand dollars to the research center, and my bill for one thousand cupcakes at twice the price was more than ten thousand dollars—plus my fifty-thousand dollar pledge to the research center.
All in Lainey's name.
I knew none of that would make up for how rude I'd been, both with how I spoke about her to the press and how I'd managed to make her believe I didn't care about her feelings.
Nothing I was doing tonight was meant to make her change her mind about me.
All of this was just for her. I wanted the world to support her, and if all I could do was use the curse of my fame and lack of privacy to point the cameras at her business venture, I would.
Near the middle of the night, a news crew showed up.
I had told a few of the normal paparazzi who liked to hound me where I'd be, and that for the amount of trouble they put me through they owed me.
One particular super nosy reporter was thirsty for more juicy gossip about the "mystery woman,” so I told her to be here.
The minute she walked in she spotted me immediately and made a beeline across the floor with her cameraman in tow.
"Mr. Kingston." She smiled with too much teeth, and I cringed. "Can we ask you a few questions?"
I glanced at Lainey. She was busy with customers and hadn't noticed the cameras yet.
"Sure," I said.
The cameraman raised his equipment and the red light blinked on. The reporter positioned herself beside me and launched into her questions.
"You're here tonight supporting a cancer research fundraiser. Can you tell us why this cause is important to you?"
I looked directly at the camera this time, with my prepared speech ready to burst out of me.
"Honestly, cancer research is super important, but the reason I'm here is to support Lainey Rowan and her business, Bake Me Happy.
She's an incredible baker and she's done a fantastic job on tonight's event desserts.
" I watched a waiter walk past toting trays full of cupcakes—now free to anyone who wanted to try, thanks to that hefty check I owed them.
Dad would hate me, but if he wanted to keep his name intact, he'd have to help out. It almost made me chuckle.
"There's been a lot of speculation about your relationship with Miss Rowan. Can you comment on that?"
I'd prepared for this question and rehearsed what I'd say a hundred times. But standing here with the camera on me and Lainey somewhere in this room, all my careful words disappeared. The only thing that came out was gut-wrenching honesty.
"I screwed up," I said. "I said things I shouldn't have said. I let people believe things that weren't true. And I hurt someone who didn't deserve to be hurt."
The reporter leaned in. "Are you saying the rumors about a marriage are true?"
"I'm saying I love Lainey Rowan," I said plainly, and for the pressure I was under, it came out much more smoothly than I thought. "And I want her. And I'm here tonight because she matters more to me than my reputation or my parents' approval or anything else."
The reporter's eyes went wide. The cameraman adjusted his angle. And I kept talking.
"She's talented and kind and she's done something incredible here tonight. All of this?" I gestured around the room. "This is her. This is what she's capable of when someone believes in her. And I believe in her."
"So you are in a relationship with her?" she asked again, leaning in with her mic and I pressed it away.
"Interview over," I told her curtly. "Now if you want the real story, show up at the bakery on Monday morning. Lainey's bakery is the real story, not my love life." It was easy as can be to walk away confidently and know I'd done the right thing. But my chest still felt hollow.
Finally, after so long of wrestling with what I truly felt, I had gotten honest with myself and with the cameras.
Lainey meant more to me than just a good PR move.
My reputation meant nothing. Besides, the press would always skew things and make me look bad in one way or another.
It was my choice to ignore that and choose the right thing, even if it made me look foolish.
The evening started to wind down around eleven, when the crowds thinned and the music faded.
Lainey's cupcakes had been gone for an hour, and I had watched her and Wren doing cleanup while I sipped a glass of bourbon across the room.
When Gavin begged me to go to an afterparty, I reminded him how very uninterested I was in other women.
Only when I felt like if I didn't move I'd lose my chance to speak with Lainey before she left, did I get up and walk across the room.
She saw me coming and straightened, squaring her shoulders and pretending to focus on collecting empty trays.
"If you're here for your card, I have it in my purse," she said softly and she avoided eye contact. Clearly she hadn’t seen the footage of my interview yet, but that didn't stop me from hovering.
"I don't want the card." I stopped a few feet away. "I want to talk."
"I'm really busy, Kade." Lainey huffed and carried a stack of trays through a set of double doors I knew I wasn't supposed to go in, but I followed her anyway.
"I know." I jogged a few steps to keep up as we burst into the chilly fall air outside the back of the conference hall. "But I need you to hear this."
Wren was there stacking trays into the back of a minivan that looked brand new, maybe a rental?
It sparked an idea in my head for a delivery van, and I knew how bad I had it.
I was dreaming up business plans for her bakery and we weren't even officially together. I didn’t know what we were. I just knew what I wanted us to be.
Lainey rolled her eyes at Wren and sighed. Her sister ducked her head and walked back into the venue. Then Lainey turned and crossed her arms over her chest. "What do you need? My feet are hurting; I've been working for hours. I'm tired, Kade. I want to go home."
This was it. I was being given my shot, and I had to pour everything into it.
I needed her to know I wanted her. "I've had those annulment papers for weeks now.
They've been sitting in my car and my apartment and my office.
And I never gave them to you." My chest was so tight I could hardly breathe.
She looked up at me. "Why not?" She didn't look upset with me, but confusion etched her brow.
"Because I didn't want to." I pulled them out of my jacket pocket. "I don't want an annulment, Lainey. I don't want to erase Vegas or pretend we never happened. I want you."
She took a step back and her eyes glistened with emotion. "I don’t know what to think, Kade. You told the whole world I was just a business arrangement."
God, my temper was hard to control. The promise I’d made to keep our relationship secret was on the tip of my tongue, but I bit it back.
I knew things had changed, and I knew the instant I’d said those words to that reporter that it wasn't the right thing to say.
"I was trying to protect you." My voice cracked.
"I thought if I made it sound like nothing, they'd leave you alone.
But I was a total idiot and I should never have said that.
I'm so sorry." I reached for her but she stepped back again.
"You took off your ring on camera." Her eyebrows rose and her shoulders drooped.
"I know." I looked down at my bare finger, where that ring should've been. It was on my keychain. Little good it did there. "I've regretted it every second since."
She ran a hand through her hair and then rubbed her tired eyes. "What changed? Why are you here now, saying all of this?"
I'd known this question was coming, and though I had the answer prepared, I had no idea how she'd react.
"Brandon told me," I said quietly, "about the baby."
Her face went pale. I watched her throat work as she swallowed. "Of course he did."
"Nothing in this world would change my mind about you, Lainey." I took another step closer. "I need you, Lainey. I need you and I need this baby and I need us to figure out how to make this work."
"Stop." She held up her hand. "Just stop." She turned away, walking back toward the doors to the venue and I snagged her wrist to try to get her to stop.
"Lainey—"
"I don't want you to want me out of obligation," she snipped as she pulled her hand away from me.
Her voice was calm, but I could hear the pain in her tone.
"I don't want you here because you feel responsible or because you think it's the right thing to do.
I can take care of myself." She turned fully away from me.
"You clearly do not know what love means, and I don't want a loveless relationship. "
"Lainey, please," I started, but she shook her head so I stopped. I deserved this.
"I was really hurt by the things you said publicly about me. You called me nothing. You denied we existed. And now you show up here with some grand gesture because you found out I'm pregnant?"
"This is not because of the baby." My voice was raised, though I didn't mean to come across angry. It made her look up over her shoulder at me. She had no idea that I'd have done this just for her even if she wasn't pregnant.
"Isn't it?" She moved toward the doors again. "I'm not jumping into something with another man when my heart feels like this. I can't do that again."
"Lainey, please." I followed her. "Don't push me away."
"I'm not pushing you away." She stopped and turned to face me. "I'm protecting myself."
Wren appeared beside her with a box of leftover supplies. She gave me a look that could've frozen fire in its tracks, and my heart felt like it was shattering.
"We're all done in there," Wren mumbled quietly, and I knew I was losing my shot.
"Lainey, I love you, please." If throwing myself on the ground in front of that minivan would've stopped her I'd have done it, but her sister would probably have just driven over me.
"Goodnight, Kade. We can talk about the annulment next week." Lainey met my eyes one more time, and I saw the tears welling up there as she walked past me toward the van.
The women shut the doors and climbed in, while I stood there powerless to do anything. The van fired up; the taillights glowed, and they pulled away without looking back.
It wasn't fair how life had taught me that everything I wanted would be handed to me.
I'd gotten lazy and I expected things like this to go easily.
Yet there I was, learning the hard way how difficult relationships could be.
But if there was anyone in this world that I'd want to do this with, it was her.
Lainey had no idea how badly I wanted this, or to what lengths I was willing to go to show her that it was her—it was always her.
How did I get through to her?
And how would I manage to keep my heart from completely disintegrating until I did?