Chapter 14 Talia #2
But it was Foster who took the opposite side of the booth. My heart leapt. It always leapt, the traitorous organ.
“What are you doing?”
He answered by plucking the wine list from where it was propped against the brick wall.
“Foster,” I drawled.
“Talia.”
I glanced over my shoulder. Were Vivienne and Kadence nearby?
“They went out to dinner together. Vivienne is visiting for the weekend before she heads back to Vegas.”
“And you’re not joining them?”
“Nope.”
The waitress returned with my wine, startled by Foster’s presence. “Oh, I’m sorry. Knox said he was eating with you tonight.”
“He is—”
“Not.” Foster gave her his most charming smile. “Change of plan. I’ll have red wine too. Whatever Talia’s having.”
“Foster,” I warned, but he ignored me.
“What is your special tonight?” he asked the waitress.
She rattled it off, then after he ordered one for us both, she left us alone, probably to inform Knox that I had a date.
“You’re exhausting.” I took a long gulp from my wineglass.
He smirked, reaching across the table to take my free hand in his. “Vivienne said you talked.”
“I was mean to her.” Shit. “And now I feel guilty.”
“She’ll be okay.” His thumb stroked my knuckles. “What did she tell you?”
“She told me about Kadence.”
“Good.” He sighed, like that was the answer he’d hoped I’d give. “It was important to her that she be the one to tell you.”
“Why?”
He threaded his fingers through mine, staring at them like he’d forgotten what it looked like to have our hands intertwined. “We both have regrets. Vivi carries a lot of guilt because it was her dad who put us in this position.”
“What happened with her and Arlo?” Vivi had called him a monster in the lobby, but when I’d lived in Vegas, she’d adored him. “She said she was pregnant. Who is—”
“Me. I am Kadence’s father. She is mine.” There was an edge to Foster’s voice before he swallowed hard, clearing his throat. “And she is not mine.”
The waitress appeared at that moment, delivering Foster’s glass of wine. He nodded his thanks, then took a sip. All while he kept his hand clasped with mine.
I didn’t try to take it away. At the moment, he looked like he needed it.
“Vivienne was five months pregnant when you left. When Arlo blackmailed me after that fight.”
“Five months?” I searched my memories for any signs. She hadn’t been showing, which was normal that early with a first pregnancy. And Vivienne’s style had trended toward boho chic with flowy tops and layered pieces. I couldn’t remember her being sick. I couldn’t remember her dating anyone.
“She was seeing a guy. They met at the gym, but I didn’t know him. I guess he came in and out, was there for a short time. Probably because it was a well-known fact that if anyone touched Arlo’s daughter, they were dead.”
“It was?”
“Oh, yeah.” Foster huffed. “Only a guy with a death wish would have chased Vivi at Angel’s. Arlo wanted that to be her safe place. If anyone looked at her too long, one of us would run the guy off.”
“But not this one.”
Foster shook his head. “She kept it quiet, and he stopped coming to the gym. She said it was casual, mostly they’d meet and hook up. Then she got pregnant. Got scared. She wasn’t sure how to tell anyone, including this guy. I guess he’d made some comments about not wanting kids.”
“Oh.” Vivienne had been going through all of that while we’d been living together. What kind of friend was I that I hadn’t noticed? “She didn’t say a thing to me.”
“She kept it a secret from everyone. I think she was working up the courage to tell this guy first. She went over to his place one night to tell him but walked into a bad situation. This guy had a roommate. The roommate’s girl was mouthy.
Vivi said she was a lot of drama. Vivienne heard this commotion in the apartment, so she peeked inside.
Her guy and his roommate were taking turns punching and kicking this woman. ”
I gasped. “Oh my God.”
“Vivienne went straight to Arlo. It was the week of my fight.”
“It was because of the baby that she married you, wasn’t it?” I’d assumed she’d been in love with him.
“Vivi’s guy was in a gang.”
“What gang?”
“The kind where members end up dead more often than not. The kind with close connections to drug cartels.”
I gaped. “And Vivienne didn’t know?”
Foster shook his head. “Not a clue. Not until after Arlo laid it out. When she told him she was pregnant and told him what she saw at that apartment, Arlo went ballistic.”
“And that’s when he decided you were going to get married.”
“Yeah. He had me by the balls. So he just kept twisting. Arlo wanted Vivienne safe. He wanted her to have money. Security. And yeah, she could have moved in with him. Arlo could have watched out for her. But why, when I was a long-term solution with enough earning potential for her, the baby, and him on top? He wanted his daughter married to the man of his choosing. He saw her fear and the chance to take control, so he capitalized on it.”
“Why would Vivienne agree?” She could have told Arlo to go to hell and not married Foster.
“She was terrified. She wanted to keep the baby. And Arlo, that manipulative son of a bitch, took everything he knew about that gang and threw it in her face. Made sure she wasn’t just scared, but petrified.
Told her that if she didn’t marry me, this guy might figure it out.
Might try to hurt her before she could have the baby.
That the best way to avoid it was to make the world think this kid was mine. ”
The cost? My heart. “Do you think it was true? Do you think this guy would have hurt her?”
“Maybe. More importantly, Vivienne believed it. So she went along with her father’s wishes. Arlo knew I’d never hurt Vivi. He knew I could provide for her, and if I was his son-in-law, it was just another way to shove those hooks deeper into my spine.”
“And the guy from the gang? What about him?”
“A month before Kadence was born, he showed at the gym looking for Vivi. He was stoned out of his damn mind. Reeked of booze. I told him I married her. Lied and said we’d been hooking up for years.”
“He believed you?”
Foster shrugged. “We never saw him again. About two years ago, Arlo came to the gym with an obituary.”
“He died.”
Foster nodded. “Two gunshot wounds to the chest.”
I tensed. “Who knows about this?”
“Me. Vivi. Jasper. Arlo.” He blew out a long breath. “And you. I’d like to keep that list as short as possible.”
Because Kadence was his daughter and he wouldn’t lose her.
“Someday Kaddie will need to know,” he said. “But even then, it won’t change the fact that I’m her father. She is my daughter.”
“She is your daughter.” Just like Drake was Knox’s son, even if it wasn’t Eden blood in Drake’s veins. He was ours. Like Kadence was Foster’s.
“So Arlo convinced Vivienne to marry you,” I said. “But if that guy believed you and disappeared, why didn’t you get your marriage annulled? Or why not after her ex died? Why did she stay married to you?”
“Arlo never let either of us forget the cards he was holding. He reminded Vivienne that he’d ruin my career if we got divorced. He’d paint me as a criminal, and since Kadence isn’t mine, he’d file a custody suit to take her away. Claim that Vivienne was unfit.”
“Could he do that?”
Foster shrugged. “It would have been bullshit, and we would have fought it. But it would have been a fucking mess regardless. And the person who would have suffered the most was—”
“Kadence.”
“Yeah.” He gave me a sad smile. “Vivienne and I weren’t willing to risk her happiness simply to test Arlo. He never let go of the strings. Every year he just wound them tighter.”
“What do you mean?”
“Besides ruining me, he never let me forget what he could do to you.”
My eyes bugged out. “Me? I was gone.”
“Maybe from Las Vegas.” Foster tapped his heart. “But not here. Arlo saw it plain as day. I couldn’t risk it.”
So Foster and Vivienne had played into Arlo’s hands. Everyone had stayed quiet until the day he’d died.
My head was spinning again. Swirling around the truth, trying to make sense of what I’d convinced myself since leaving Vegas. Maybe there had been a better way. A path that wouldn’t have been so hard for us all.
Would I have done differently in Vivienne’s place? Or Foster’s?
There was no way to know.
“I don’t know what to say to all of this.” Maybe I should have been livid. But damn, I was tired of being angry. I was tired of being hurt and confused. I didn’t have the energy for any of it tonight. “I wish you had told me.”
“What if we forgot?” Foster asked, his thumb caressing my hand. “What if we forgot the past? What if we forgot the world, just for tonight?”
“I’d like to forget. Just for tonight.” The words slipped past my lips. The smile that stretched across Foster’s face made them worth it.
The waitress appeared, two plates in hand with Knox’s famous cheeseburgers and fries. She set them down, forcing Foster to release my hand. “Anything else?” she asked.
“Ranch,” Foster said. “Please.”
He didn’t like ranch. But I did.
I grabbed the bottle of ketchup, twisting open the cap, just as Foster lifted the tomatoes off his plate and put them on mine. “You could have ordered it without tomatoes.”
“But you like them.” He didn’t. But I did. “Do you remember our first date?”
I laughed. “You mean the time you ambushed me at my favorite diner? Your tactics haven’t changed.”
“It worked for me then.” He chuckled, the light in his eyes dancing. “Figured, why not try again?”
We’d been flirting at Angel’s for months. It had gone on so long that I’d begun to think I’d misread everything between us because Foster hadn’t once hinted at a date.
Instead, he’d just taken it. In true Foster fashion.
He’d found out from Vivienne that I liked to study at this fifties-themed diner not far from our apartment.
The booths were spacious. It was rarely busy.
And even though the smell of grease would stick in my hair so badly I’d have to shower whenever I got home, the scent reminded me of home.
Of coming home from school to find Mom in the kitchen, frying burgers for dinner because Dad always said he could eat a cheeseburger for every meal for the rest of his life and die a happy man.
Foster had slid into my booth at that diner one night, exactly like he had tonight, and we’d talked for hours. We’d been nearly inseparable from that moment on.
“I want to start over, Tally.”
It sounded so easy. So simple. Foster and me, starting fresh. “Do you really think that’s possible?”
He shrugged. “Why not? Unless you’re afraid to try.”
“Are you baiting me?”
Foster smiled, arrogant and assured. “Is it working?”
I fought a smile and took a drink of my wine. Maybe. Maybe it was.