Chapter 18
BABY MOMMA ON BOARD
Isla
“What’s the headline?” He barged into his own office.
“Baby Momma on Board? Casey and I tried hard to find that photographer.” Lisa shot to her feet and followed him in. “I’m sorry.” She met my gaze, silently apologizing to me.
She understood Declan was used to the paparazzi. If he was pissed now, it was because his son and I were involved now.
“Baby Momma on Board isn’t so bad.” I fished my phone out of the front pocket of my skirt and scrolled the Twitter feed. “This isn’t bad.” I looked up at him. “You can’t really tell that’s Joey.”
“They think he’s yours. And because of where we are, they’re surmising I don’t trust you enough to believe he’s mine. They crossed the line.” He raked a hand through his hair, cheeks flushed.
“What matters is that Joey is safe.”
“If I may.” Lisa stepped in, meeting my gaze with zero judgement in her eyes. “Should I schedule a meeting with Nicolas? At a glance, the optics don’t look good for you.”
She was looking at Declan, not me. And she was right.
The article insinuated that I got a promotion because of the baby.
In one paragraph, they made it sound like Declan was trying to wiggle out of his responsibilities as a father.
In the next, he was paying for sex. And then of course, they had to end it with a jab in my direction.
Was this the first baby I had with a billionaire? Really? That didn’t even make sense.
“Yes, do.” He nodded. “It’s really none of his business what I do outside of the office, but he deserves the truth. My truth. In case the board gets weird about things.”
“Right away.” She nodded and returned to her desk.
“Lisa,” he called after her. “Get Casey on the line.”
“On it.”
As soon as Casey’s face appeared on Declan’s wide screen, my nerves settled.
If anyone could help us out of this mess, it was her.
But first, we had to come clean. I felt I owed her an explanation after all the sound advice she gave me my first day of training.
Mainly: don’t sleep with the boss. I opened my mouth to apologize, but she cut me off.
“Save it. Since the first time I spoke with Declan, I got the sense this might happen. Let’s focus on what we have to work with. Shall we?” She tapped on her iPad screen. “So far, the only photos making the rounds are the ones from the clinic where Joey’s face isn’t recognizable.”
“Thank God.” I pressed a cold hand to my forehead.
“Oh dear.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Anything I should be watching out for?”
“Yes.” Declan cleared his throat. “At the restaurant.”
“Got it.” Casey raised her hand as if saying, “No explanation needed.”
“I really don’t give a shit what people think of me or how I choose to handle my private life.”
“I know.” She sat back in her chair. “But too many scandals like this one could negatively impact the company.”
“You need Harper.” I squeezed his arm, wishing I could do more to comfort him.
“Yeah.” He took my hand and kissed it.
Right in front of Casey. I supposed that meant we were officially together, together. When I met her gaze on the screen, she cocked an eyebrow as if saying, “I warned you about this.”
“You’ll need to make a statement.” Casey typed fast on her computer, showing us only her profile on the wide screen. “Something to appease their curious minds and set the record straight without giving them too many details.”
Made sense. But without Harper, he couldn’t come up with a narrative that was closer to the truth. He didn’t know why she had left Joey with him. He didn’t even know for sure the baby was his. More importantly, he didn’t know what Harper’s reaction would be when she saw the article.
The phone rang, and we both glanced up in Lisa’s direction. She leaned forward and called out. “Perry is on line one.”
Declan rushed to his desk. When the light lit up again, he hit the speakerphone button. “Tell me you found her.”
“She found me. She wants to meet, privately.” He paused for a breath, the continued. “At the Crucible. That’s, um…”
“Yeah, I know the place.”
“She doesn’t trust any other place. What should I tell her?”
“I bet she’s been keeping an eye on the latest tabloids.” Declan pinched the bridge of his nose. “Tell her I’d like to meet with her tonight.” Declan glanced up at me as if asking my permission to go to a sex club.
“I’ll let her know.”
“Thanks for the call.” Declan hit the speakerphone button again, his gaze still on me.
“Why that place?” Casey asked.
“That’s where we met.” He paused. When Casey didn’t have a reaction to the news that he met Joey’s mom at a sex club, he continued. “Plus, it’s a good place to keep a low profile. Very private. No paparazzi allowed.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“Is that a good idea?” Casey asked.
“Thanks to Twitter, I’m implicated in all this.
The sooner we find her and come up with a good retort to the tabloid article, the sooner I can get back to work.
” I pressed a hand to my forehead, feeling dizzy.
“I was finally making progress with my sister. Now she’s going to think I was here to catch a millionaire. ”
“Billionaire. As of last year.” He winked at me. “I’ll talk to her and explain. I won’t let anyone hurt you. I promise.”
“Then let me come with you.”
He inhaled deeply. “Fine.”
Later that night, I was a bundle of nerves getting ready for a second visit to the Crucible.
I thought of the marble lobby with its shimmering chandelier, all the broody security guards, and the huge crowd outside when Steve and I walked up to the main entrance.
Anxiety took hold when I thought about cutting through the throng with Declan.
Most of the people were there hoping to spot a celebrity. Someone might recognize him.
“How are we going to get in without being seen?”
“You’ll see.” He squeezed my fingers.
Tommy managed to get us all the way to the front where a bouncer opened the door for me and helped me out of the car. “Good evening, Mr. Noble. Welcome back.”
“Thank you.” Declan placed his hand around my waist protectively and ushered me toward the double glass doors.
“This is a different side of the building.” I turned to face him.
“Yes, this entrance is reserved for members who prefer privacy.”
“Wait.” I stopped to look at him. “The night I met you. You were out there with the big crowd where everyone could see you.”
“Indeed. The woman I had invited home wanted to go out that way.”
“She wanted to be seen with you.”
“I suppose.” He shrugged and gestured toward the private elevator. This lobby wasn’t as opulent as the main one, but it was quiet, and best of all, it was empty.
I couldn’t imagine living my life like this—unwillingly in the public eye.
With women who, in spite of his hot looks and incredible smarts, only wanted him for his money and his celebrity status.
I pressed my body against his. I wanted to comfort him and tell him that, to me, he wasn’t clickbait. He was special.
“Stop looking at me like that or you’re going to make me forget we’re here on a mission to find Harper and not make proper use of my suite.” He smirked at me.
Before I could tell him that I’d be okay with that, a security guard came out of nowhere and escorted us to the elevator car. “I trust you’re having a good night, Mr. Noble.”
“We are.” His tone was low and sinful.
“Glad to hear.” The security guard inserted his key card in the slot and pressed the button to the thirty-sixth floor.
When the doors slid open again, we walked into a wide corridor with beautiful wallpaper in muted tones and huge flower arrangements everywhere.
For some reason, I had expected something more decadent, like velvet walls and naked people walking all over the place.
Declan had called the Crucible a sex club, but I hadn’t seen any part of it that had people having sex or anything like that.
We walked the length of the hallway, then turned left and then right.
The security guard finally stopped in front of a double door and again inserted his own key card to let us in.
The suite was exactly that. Except it was a room with a view.
I walked past the king-size bed in the middle and went straight to the window and the bouncing nightclub lights coming through.
“What are we looking at?” I stepped closer until my breath fogged the glass.
“The sex club.” Declan’s tone sounded tentative.
When the security guard left, Declan joined me by the window. “We’re on the second floor of it, facing the main stage.” He cocked his eyebrow.
I pressed my hand to the cool glass and focused on the scene below where, in fact, people were having sex.
Like, in front of everyone one else. Like one big orgy.
Everyone was so beautiful, with amazing bodies.
I supposed if I looked like that, I would also want to pay thousands of dollars to have someone watch me have sex. Actually, no, why would I?
“I can’t believe people are into this. Are you—are you into this?”
He chuckled. “Do I strike you as the saint type?”
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes. Mostly I stay up here and watch from a distance.”
“Oh.”
“I haven’t been here since the night I met you. If that’s what your ‘oh’ was for.” He cupped my face. “More than the kink, I like coming here for the privacy it offers. And it’s Michelin three-star restaurant. Wait until you try their caviar dish.”
“I wasn’t asking, but it’s good to know.”
I used to think that once I had a fancy job and money, I would finally belong. Now that I’d gotten to meet Declan, I realized I was wrong. He was so alone. Everywhere he went, he was surrounded with people, but he didn’t belong.
“How about a drink?”
“I could use one.” I walked around the huge mattress and the living area on the other side. “Why is the bed in the middle?” I leaned on the bar where a bottle of Champagne on ice and couple of glasses had been left for us.
“It’s the main attraction.” He pointed at the sofas, which I now realized were all facing the bed.
I quickly turned around and poured myself a glass. I drank fast and then poured some more. “In over my head” didn’t begin to cover my current situation.
“Tell me about Harper.” I sipped more of the wine.
“Hmm. Well, we met here.” He pointed in the general direction of the orgy downstairs. “About eighteen months ago. Do you want all the details?”
“Yeah. I’m, um, I’m okay with details.”
He furrowed his brows as if considering his next words. Was he nervous about telling me about his latest sexcapade? If the tabloids knew of this place, they would have a field day. Was that his concern?
“I would never tell anyone.”
“I know.” He rubbed the side of his face. “It’s not that. I trust you. I don’t know much about Harper. I first saw her down on the main floor. I’ve no idea why she caught my attention. Later that night, I saw her out in the corridor. She was crying and looked frightened.”
“What happened to her?”
“No idea. We never got to talk about it. She had a few drinks, and then we had sex. That was a Saturday night. We spent Sunday morning in this suite, then I flew back to the UK that same night.” He shook his head. “I swear, we wore a condom every time.”
“Obviously, one didn’t work.”
“Right.” He peeked at me with a boyish look in his eyes. “You’re okay with all this?”
“I think so.” I shrugged.
Yeah, the sex club, Harper, and the baby were a lot to take in.
But in the past few weeks, I’d gotten to know a different side of Declan.
He was funny and kind. And he loved Joey.
How it all got started didn’t matter. I wasn’t one to judge.
Someone like him, with the weight of the world on his shoulders, would need some sort of outlet.
“How often do you come here?”
“On previous trips? Almost nightly.” He sat on the sofa armrest.
“Oh.”
“Like I said, it isn’t always about sex or kink. Sometimes I just need a place where I can be left alone. Surrounded by people but alone. If that makes any sense?” He chuckled.
“It does.”
My chest tightened, and I thought of all the times I had spent scouring the internet for new images of Declan. Maybe I wasn’t the one taking the pictures of him, but I was certainly creating a demand for all things Declan Winston Noble.
“Should we go out there and look for her?” I had no idea what she looked like, but it felt like the right thing to say. Being here with Declan was doing things to me. I couldn’t stop undressing him in my head.
“She knows where to find me.” He lifted his eyes to meet mine.
His intense look imprinted a new image in my head.
Suddenly, I couldn’t stop thinking about having sex where everyone could see us.
He shifted his gaze toward the tall windows and smiled.
Colorful lights flashed upward from the main floor and danced on the ceiling and walls as the DJ mix thumped under our feet.
The music was a slow and sexy beat. If I was being honest, the orgy, the nude people, and the overall vibe of the club was a huge turn-on for me.
Even now, safely tucked away in this room, I could feel the pull of it.
My body tingled everywhere—my skin felt extra sensitive to Declan’s warmth and even the way the fabric of my dress rubbed against me.
He pulled me toward him until I was wedged between his thighs. “I wanted you to see this place, show you where I’ve been, how I choose to spend my time. Are you spooked yet?”
“No,” I said honestly.
Declan was known as the playboy billionaire who didn’t believe in relationships. More specifically, he wasn’t interested in them. My heart melted at the idea that he was trying to make a connection with me—an invitation to share the space he protected so fiercely from the tabloids.
“The club is doing it for you, isn’t it?” A smirk pulled on his lips. He slipped his hands under my skirt and slid them all the way up to the apex of my legs.
“Maybe just a little bit.” I released a breath, leaning on him for support.
“This is the same dress you wore before when you climbed in the back seat of my car.” He gripped my waist and sucked along the cord of my neck. “That night you flashed me your pretty ass. And I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.”
“This is not why we came here.” I halfheartedly pushed on his shoulders.
“Are you sure?” He cupped my butt cheeks while his mouth roamed from one breast to the other.
That was a loaded question because when it came to Declan, I wasn’t sure of anything. When I shook my head, his mouth crushed into mine. I was so addicted to his kiss, his hands on me, his body heat.
“Declan,” a female voice called from behind me. “You look exactly how I remembered you.”
“Bloody hell.” Declan slowly released me from his arms. “Hello, Harper.”
Harper strode toward us until she was facing the two of us. “I want Joey back.”