He Wants Her Back: The Billionaire's Leading Lady novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Helena's Table

Helena offers five million for Juno's baby, Juno refuses in front of her friends, and Vivica arrives with a promise about the baby's face.

"You're not going," Bea said.

"I'm going."

"Juno, she had you followed into a drugstore."

"Which is why I want to see her face when I say no."

Bea drove me to Bel Air in her dented green Volvo and parked it between a Bentley and a fountain.

"I'm staying right here with the engine running," she said. "Like a getaway driver. A broke one."

A maid in gray led me through a white house and out into a rose garden.

Helena Strade sat at a round table under an umbrella.

Silver bob. Pearls. Pale linen.

Two women her age sat with her, holding iced drinks and pretending not to stare at me.

I had seen Damon's mother in magazines my whole life.

In three years he had never once let me meet her.

"Miss Hartigan," Helena said. "Sit."

"I'll stand."

"Suit yourself. Most actresses prefer the light from that side anyway."

One of the friends laughed into her glass.

Helena folded her hands on the table.

"You're pregnant with my son's child."

She said it in front of them.

"That's my business."

"It stopped being your business when you let him put it in you."

The other friend actually gasped.

Helena didn't blink.

"Here is what will happen," she said. "You will finish your little film. Then you will go to a clinic outside Geneva that I use. Very discreet. Lake views."

"For what?"

"To have the child. You'll be well paid for the inconvenience. Five million dollars."

"And then?"

"And then you will sign it over."

I felt my hand go to my stomach before I could stop it.

"To who?"

"To its father and his wife, of course."

"Damon doesn't have a wife."

"He will by autumn." Helena smiled for the first time. "Vivica has always been family. She's agreed to raise it as her own."

The rose garden went very bright and very quiet.

"You want to give my baby to the woman who called me a copy."

"I want my grandchild raised by a Strade, in a Strade house, by a woman who knows which fork to use." She tilted her head. "Not by the girl from the garage."

She knew about the garage.

Of course she knew about the garage.

"Does Damon know about this?"

"Damon doesn't know about the child," Helena said. "And he won't, unless you'd like me to tell him you're trying to trap him with it."

The friend nearest me had stopped pretending to drink.

I looked at her.

"Are you getting all this?" I asked. "Because you'll want it right for your book club."

She went pink.

I turned back to Helena.

"No," I said.

"You haven't heard the number twice."

"I heard it once. It was a nice number. Still no."

"You make four hundred thousand dollars a film, Miss Hartigan. When you work."

"Then I'll work."

"Not in this town, you won't."

"Mrs. Strade." I put both hands on the back of the empty chair and leaned in. "My baby isn't a property your son bought without telling me. It's not going to Geneva. It's not going to Vivica. And you're never going to touch it."

Helena studied me.

"You have his temper," she said. "How unfortunate for the child."

"It'll have mine too. Get ready."

I straightened up.

"And stop having me followed. Next time I'll wave."

I turned to go.

The garden gate creaked at the far end, under an arch of white roses.

Vivica came through it in a cream sundress, her hair shining.

My hair.

Every head at the table turned to her.

"Helena," she said warmly, and kissed the old woman's cheek. "Sorry I'm late. My doctor wanted one more look."

She saw me and her eyes went wide with pleasure.

"Oh. You came."

Up close in daylight, it was a photo of myself someone had edited too hard.

The skin was too smooth. The jaw too sharp.

The little brown beauty mark sat above her left eyebrow, exactly where mine was.

The sapphire bracelet hung on her wrist.

"I'm leaving," I said.

"Don't." She stepped into my path. "We should be friends. We have so much in common."

"We have nothing in common."

"Well." She smiled at me with my own mouth. "We have him."

"I don't."

"No," she agreed sweetly. "You don't."

She looked down at my stomach.

Then she reached out and laid her hand flat on it.

Her palm was cool through my shirt.

Every cell in my body went cold.

"Don't worry," Vivica murmured, so only I could hear. "It'll have my face anyway."

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