13. Daniel
Chapter 13
Daniel
D aniel couldn’t remember the last time he’d had so much fun over a meal.
He’d actually managed to tempt her into another bite of the strawberry waffle. The whipped cream on the corner of her mouth had left him aching to clean it away for her, but her pink tongue slipped out and took away his excuse. By the time they climbed back into the car, their conversation shifted to tunes and she argued for control of the music. He insisted on using his phone. That was before she declared his music list hopeless and downloaded a Pandora app.
She erased all his complaints when Katy Perry started playing and she danced in her seat. Like the Madonna lyrics, she knew these too. He’d never been a fan of pop music, but Alyx rapidly revised his opinion. He followed the GPS instructions toward the address where she grew up, but the closer they came, the more dilapidated the neighborhood seemed to be.
It wasn’t until he pulled on to her street that he regretted the impulsive journey.
Halfway down the block he stopped the car next to the curb and fought the urge to curse. No houses remained. Nothing of a neighborhood was visible. Instead, a national chain’s superstore occupied a huge lot with a strip mall’s worth of little stores jutting out from each side.
He felt more than saw Alyx deflate. She turned away to look out the window, absorbing the scene.
“I’m sorry.” Two of the lamest words on the planet folded together, offering paltry compensation.
“It’s okay.” But the emptiness in her tone gave lie to that phrase.
“No, it’s not.” He leaned against the steering wheel and glared at the blacktopped parking lots and the sunlight bouncing off the cars. Why the hell didn’t he check with the P.I.? Copies of the news articles about her parents’ deaths had been in the files and he could have sworn there were photos of the house—but now he had to wonder if they were older images the investigator found.
“It’s okay, Daniel.” Her shoulders lifted and she folded her arms across her chest as she sat back in the seat. Gone was the loose bounce of her foot and nod of her head to the music. Her expression tightened, turning her lips down in a pensive frown. “Really. We should probably just head back to Los Angeles. I can get some more work done.”
Maybe that’s what they should do, but her touch-me-not aura aggravated him almost as much as the strip mall. “We’re not done. We could go down to social services and talk to them about your file.”
He plugged in the request to his phone, searching for a social services office in the area. It made sense that she would have gone into local foster custody before she began the pattern of bouncing from home to home.
“It’s not important.” The dullness of those words scraped over his nerves. “Really. We’ve already wasted a lot of time—not to mention money—on this.”
“My money to waste.” He didn’t mean to snap but it wasn’t a waste. Dammit. He focused on the phone’s GPS. The social services office was just ten blocks away—if the damn thing was still there. “And my time.”
“I forgot. You’re the boss.” The retreat turned into a full rout. Daniel cut a glance sideways at her, but she didn’t look at him. He touched a hand to her leg, the gesture almost tentative after the ease of earlier. But when she stiffened further, he backed off. Both hands on the steering wheel, he turned them around and followed the phone’s instructions.
Twenty cold minutes later, he pulled up in front of the nondescript and altogether depressing concrete building with Child Protection Services printed on the glass door in block letters. He slid out of the car and waited in the cool sunshine. He thought she was going to let him fend for himself, but after three long minutes, she stepped out, her normally expressive face fixed in a cool, detached mask.
She followed him to the door and he managed to grab the handle and open it a second before she did.
The office smelled like feet. Worn carpet and split vinyl demonstrated that the agency’s funds certainly didn’t cover their interiors. The noise level climbed exponentially and stacks of paper littered the myriad of desks forming a horseshoe beyond the receptionist. An older woman looked up at them with a careworn expression but sharp eyes.
“Can I help you?” The brisk tone ordered him to make it quick and not waste her time.
“You can.” He leaned an elbow on the counter and gave the receptionist a charming smile. “We’re here for the personal items of Alyx Dagmar. She would have been entered into the system sixteen years ago. Most of her belongings were not taken with her when she was placed.”
White eyebrows knitted together. “Sixteen years ago? And who are you?”
“Yes, sixteen years ago. I’m Daniel Voldakov.” He pulled out his ID and handed it to her. “And this is my fiancée, Alyx Dagmar.”
He glanced over his shoulder in time to catch Alyx wince at the word fiancée. But she pulled out her own ID and passed it over.
The receptionist scanned both cards and looked past Daniel to Alyx. “You don’t remember me, do you, sweetie?”
Alyx moved closer, almost brushing his arm, but shifting at the last minute to avoid contact. She studied the older woman. “I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “I don’t.”
“Well, that’s to be expected. I was there the night they came to tell you about your parents. Probably best that you don’t have a crystal-clear memory of that.” She handed their IDs back. Her face wrinkled in a gentle smile.
“You weren’t my representative, though.” The question in Alyx’s voice betrayed her uncertainty.
“No, unfortunately, we were massively overloaded. I was just here when the call came in. I picked you up and stayed with you that first night. You were Susanna Fraser’s after that. But Susanna—oh, she left for the private sector nearly?—”
“Ten years and six months ago.” Alyx finished the sentence for her. “I remember. She promised to get some of my things together, but the next week it was Mr. Daughtry and he didn’t have time for it.”
“Him. Yes. He never had time for much.” The older woman rubbed her chin. “You should have been given your boxes when you turned eighteen.”
“My boxes?” The stiffness in Alyx’s shoulders relaxed some. “What boxes?”
Pushing her chair back, the white-haired woman motioned to another harried worker. “Cynthia? Watch the front for me. I want to take these two into a client room.” She disappeared around the side and a door buzzed, admitting them to the chaos of the work area. Daniel held the door, careful not to touch Alyx lest she really pull away. He trailed after her as they walked through the cubicles and down to a small conference room.
It was more dismal than the rest of the office, if that was possible. He ignored the plastic chairs, and took a position against the wall and waited. This was about her and he didn’t want to push her by playing their charade any further in the office. She looked so damned uncomfortable as she perched on the edge of one of the seats.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t remember your name.” Alyx half-rose again when the older woman returned and pulled out a chair for herself.
“It’s Grace, Grace Burrows. Don’t worry about that. Sit.” She flipped open a digital tablet and touched a few buttons. “This will take me a moment. We just upgraded our system a couple of weeks ago. They’re supposed to make life easier, but that remains to be seen.”
Alyx hesitated and for the first time since they’d arrived, she cut a glance at him. He gave her what he hoped was an encouraging smile and she returned a close-lipped one. Her body seemed wound too tight as she sat on the very edge of the chair. “You mentioned boxes?”
“Yes, dear. When your parents passed, we waited the requisite six months for another family member to be located before seeking a permanent foster situation for you. We also took the time to box up all the personal items in your home and put them into storage. Our space is limited, which is why we don’t take furniture. I am sorry about that, you had a lovely bedroom set, if I recall.”
“Butterflies.” The word seemed to pop out of Alyx. “Butterflies and a garden pattern with faux roses and a trellis on the wall. I—I don’t know why I said that. I just remembered it.”
The description intrigued Daniel. She’d loved his garden from the first day she arrived. It had trellises and roses. He would have to talk to someone about a way to encourage butterflies.
“It’s quite all right. We just can’t take it all. But the furniture and home would have been sold. Now, the money from those sales would have been put into a fund for your college or for special project needs, if you required it.” The woman puffed out a breath. “Hmm, I know we have most of our files transferred now. We began migrating older files to digital a few years ago and this new upgrade meant we should—here.” She slid the tablet onto the table and pushed it toward Alyx.
“Your boxes were stored at the Easy-Lock-And-Go on fifteenth. It doesn’t show that they were ever picked up, though.” The woman’s bright smile dimmed, a frown worrying her brow.
“I didn’t know they were there.”
Daniel pushed away from the wall. “They are still there, aren’t they?”
Now the older woman looked stricken and he knew her next words would be disappointing. “After your eighteenth birthday, they would have been held six months, but if they weren’t claimed…” She trailed off.
Alyx rubbed her palms against her cheeks and he heard the catch in her voice. “No one told me.”
“A letter was sent to your final foster family…” Grace turned the tablet around and read off an address.
“That wasn’t my final family. I had to move midterm to a new one… You mean they had all my stuff and a clerical error is why I didn’t know it was there?” Anger quavered in the sadness.
“Stay here.” The woman squeezed her arm. “I’m going to call down and see if it’s still there.” But Daniel heard the doubt in her voice, no way Alyx could have missed it. She was twenty-four. They didn’t keep the materials past the eighteenth birthday. Six years was too long a stretch of time for hope.
Grace hurried out and Alyx leaned forward, elbow on the table and a hand over her mouth. Daniel pushed the door closed, then moved over to squat next to her, hand braced on the table to keep from touching her. “Hey, don’t give up. She remembers you and she wants to help.”
“I wish like hell we’d never done this.” The earlier anger surged beneath the words. She turned hot eyes on him and he saw the shimmer of tears glazing the surface. “You made me hope for something and I knew it was stupid and a bad idea and now…”
She bit off the words and shoved the chair back to stand.
“Let’s go.”
“We should wait.” He held out a placating hand.
She avoided his hand and shook her head. “Don’t you get it? Six years ago they sent a letter to an address I was no longer at. They gave me six months to claim my stuff. I never showed up—ergo, I didn’t want it. Why would they keep it another six years? There’s never enough time or money or space.”
Pulling the door open, she spared him a bland look. “I get that you like to solve problems and fix things. You need to learn to accept there are some things you can’t fix.” She marched away and left him no choice but to follow. He caught up to her as she waved Grace’s apology off. “It’s okay, Ms. Burrows. I appreciate you looking into it, but you have so much else to do. Don’t waste your time on this.”
She was out the secure door to the lobby and the tinkle of the bell warned she’d headed outside. Daniel stared after her, then passed over a business card to Ms. Burrows. “Maybe she’s right, maybe there’s nothing there, but if you find something…”
“I’ll contact you, Mr. Voldakov. But you have to understand, I can’t release these items to you if I do find them.”
“You won’t have to. Just get me the message. I’ll get her here to pick them up.” He left it at that and hit the unlock button on the car remote before stepping outside. Alyx sat in the passenger seat and was belting herself in before he got his side open.
“We have a couple of other opportunities here,” he began, but she flattened a palm against the air.
“No. No more digging. This isn’t about the past. This is about your business and my ‘princessing’ it up for you. If we head to the airport now, maybe we can get an earlier flight back.”
The conversation ended there. She didn’t talk. Didn’t press Play on the music. Instead she sat stiff and distant, her gaze away from him, all the way back to the airport. They managed to trade their tickets and boarded a flight less than an hour after leaving the social services office. Each time he tried to touch her arm or her hand, she pulled away from him. She sat as far away from him as the first-class seat would allow, her arms folded and her attitude closed off.
He waited until they were in the air to send some messages via his phone. He told Martin to get the P.I. back on the case. If those boxes were out there, they needed to be found. He also wanted him to scour the news sites and personal social media pages of anyone who may have known the Dagmars.
She might have been too young to have social media account of her own at the time but that didn’t mean pictures couldn’t have made their way online via old family friends. Her parents had to have had jobs. His people would contact coworkers, former neighbors—anyone who may have a link. When the stewardess came by to offer drinks, Alyx didn’t look away from the window.
At LAX, she deplaned ahead of him but maintained a touch-me-not distance that forced his hands to stay in his pockets. By the time they reached his car, his nerves screamed for a return to the camaraderie that marked the beginning of their trip.
The freeze-out remained in place all the way home, where she disappeared into the garden, and he was left to watch her from a distance. By dinner, his teeth and his temper were both on edge. When she picked at her food and refused to look at him, he’d had enough.
“You’re pissed and it was a bad day. I get that?—”
“Really?” Heat snapped from the words, and she slammed her fork down. “I’m sorry, what foster home did you grow up in? What happened to all of your family valuables? You look like your father, and his father. You know your family.” The chair fell over as she pushed it back violently and rose. “You hired me to do a job and I’ll do it. But you don’t know a damn thing about me, rich boy. You haven’t lost everything that mattered and become a cog in a wheel of a system that didn’t give a damn about you.”
“No, but I buried my father when I was a kid.” He tossed his napkin on the table. “I grew up in trailer parks and I ran away to video games because it was better than watching my mother try to drink herself to death. We lived paycheck to paycheck when she worked and on my father’s pension when she didn’t. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth. Yeah, I’m lucky, I know exactly where I came from. I know what failure tastes like and every single thing I have I earned—by busting my ass.”
Exhaling hard, he tried to stuff his temper back in the bottle but like the genie it was out. Alyx stared at him and he clenched his hands, counted to ten and let them go again. “No, I don’t know what being a foster kid is like and I’m sorrier than you’ll ever know that was your childhood. But all I’ve done is try to help.”
“I—” Her voice hitched and a fresh sheen of tears sparkled across her eyes before she turned away. She gripped the back of a chair, and he was torn between going to her and leaving her be.
He kept screwing up with her.
“I’m sorry today sucked for you.”
“It pretty much sucked for you too.” She sniffled, wheezing a half laugh, half sob.
“I don’t know.” He raked a hand through his hair to keep from grabbing her like he wanted. “It had waffles.”
Her shoulders shook and the last dregs of his anger drained away, leaving a bitter aftertaste in his mouth. Taking a step forward, he started to reach out to her. “Alyx…”
But the face she showed him might have been damp with tears, but also watery laughter. “You’re right, it had waffles. I have a bit of a headache. You mind if I go on up?”
Yeah. He minded. But she needed a break. And maybe he did too. “Not at all. Sleep well.”
“You too.”
Moodily, he stared at the remnants of their uneaten dinner, then finally headed into his office. Maybe he should do what she asked—butt out of her personal life, keep it all a business transaction.
That way they both got what they wanted. Right?
* * *
He was asleep on the sofa in his office when a newspaper slapped against his chest. Opening his eyes, he found Victor glaring at him. A hard line knitted the man’s brows together. Sitting up slowly, he peered at him. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I could ask you the same question, since trouble has erupted in paradise.” He pointed to the photo on the front of the social section. Daniel sighed.
It showed Alyx marching away from him and his own confusion mirrored in the grainy photograph. The caption read “Has Spherecast billionaire already crashed and burned his secret romance with ‘Russian’ princess?”
“Well, shit.”
“My thoughts, precisely,” Victor scolded. “You have made my job infinitely harder, Mr. Voldakov, and the two of you will have a lot to do to make up lost ground here.”
Daniel tossed the paper onto the coffee table and stood. “Leave it alone. We’ll take care of it.” He should have been paying attention for a photographer. Hell, he’d forgotten about the “job” in his worry for her. She’d shut him out but good.
“No, I will not leave it alone. I warned you that body language would sell or break this plan of yours. After an image like that, after the teases we’ve leaked for the last week, we’re going to have to dig deeper.”
“Dig deeper how?” Alyx interrupted from the doorway. Her pale face showed deep smudges beneath her eyes. Had her sleep been as bad as his?
“You’ll have to demonstrate the romance to repair this?—”
“I can hold her hand, we can dance.” Daniel waved away the man’s concern, his attention focused on the woman drifting closer. She looked more waiflike than ever before. Her red hair seemed so dark pulled back from her face emphasized the fragility in her features and that damn haunting sadness seemed to have taken up permanent residence in her eyes.
“It will take a lot more than some hand holding.” Victor eyed them both. “A great deal more. You should both have breakfast and then brush your teeth.”
Alyx swung her gaze away from him to stare at Victor in confusion. “Our teeth?”
“Yes, your teeth. You’ll be kissing today, and a lot of it, until you make me believe that you two can’t think of anything else. Then you’ll go out tonight and show the world just how much you want each other.”
Daniel froze.
Oh shit, indeed.