The words were delivered in a hiss that marred the effectiveness of the curse not to mention she was in socks, and once again he dwarfed her.
“Spare me the phony outrage. You knew I couldn’t ignore this!”
He thrust a bunch of damp tabloids in her direction. His face was livid, his voice clipped with barely contained anger.
“What could you possibly? Oh no…” she said.
The Post, the Herald, the Eye of New York each had a similar screaming headline:
Billionaire Baby Drama!
Baby Mama Bolts!
Grigory Jolted by Appearance of Love Child!
All were accompanied by a photo of Sabrina and Alex in their ineffectual raingear standing in front of the VGI building yesterday looking utterly pathetic as the rain pelted down on them.
Sabrina shook her head. Fired, now this? Had the world completely fallen off its axis? They were calling her the baby mama of her boss’ son? It was such an insane tale, she should be rolling with laughter. But Vlad’s furious face was no laughing matter.
“Are you kidding me? How could someone take two and two and come up with something so outrageous?” If she wasn’t looking into his seriously enraged face and the black-and-white tabloid proof, she would have laughed at the crazy of it.
Vlad looked like he wanted to throttle her.
“You engineered this. You went one better than a
harassment claim, didn’t you? And these are just the print tabloids! My people tell me that TMZ, Huff and the online outlets are going crazy posting their speculation as to why we kept our supposed relationship a secret.”
“Our relationship? That’s ridiculous.” No way would she ever seek any type of publicity, much less come up with this crazy accusation.
“Since you have done it,” he waved the papers in front of her face again, “that denial amounts to another lie. Who can believe anything you say?”
Sabrina waved her hand right back.
“Get them to issue a retraction. You’re VGI, just call them, threaten a lawsuit, tell them what’s what.” It was ludicrous for them to think she and her boss, her former boss, she corrected herself, had been lovers.
Really, Sabrina? She stopped that line of thought in its tracks. No, that part wasn’t outlandish. He was wildly attractive, and she’d spent fifteen never-to-be forgotten minutes in a car with him just the night before last but nevertheless.
“A response will only cause further inquiry, further investigation. Legal says the quickest way to get out from under this is to say nothing.”
Further investigation? Sabrina was having a hard time getting her head around the concept of his accusations. Was he serious? This was hardly the kind of stuff the media wasted time on. At least, not serious time. Was that the right approach? Just ignore it all till the uproar blew over? The tabloids, thanks to who knows whom, thought she was the baby mama of the child of one of the richest men in the world. It would be funny if he weren’t fuming like an angry bear in her postage stamp of an apartment.
“Legal? Have you been involved in this kind of thing before?”
“No! Never!” The contained power in his voice made her think of a volcano about to erupt “This has never happened before.” He said the words slowly as if his patience was hanging by a thread.
“Then what are you doing here? Won’t that just fuel speculation if someone spots you here where I live…?”
“No one knows I’m here, yet. I came in through the alley behind this building. We’ll go out the same way.”
“Wait, what did you say? We? No way! You fired me, remember? We aren’t going anywhere!” Anger surged like a tidal wave inside her, and Sabrina could barely form words.
“Save it, Sabrina. We’re in this together. You pulled me into this mess, and now I’m calling the shots.” His eyes darkened to black and his deep voice dropped to a threatening register.
“Pack some things for you and the boy. Your sitter will take him. You’ve got five minutes.”
“Whoa. No. No way. I’m not going anywhere and neither is Alex.”
“That was not a request nor was it an invitation.”
He glanced at the stainless steel Rolex on his wrist completely ignoring Sabrina, which only made her anger sizzle hotter.
“Four minutes.”
She stood her ground. “I don’t know who you think you’re speaking to, Mr. High and Mighty Grigory. Mrs. Egan…”
“Has already agreed to look after your boy. We spoke not five minutes ago, and she’s been paid a bonus for the unexpected time.” He folded his arms across the breadth of his chest, his stance implacable.
“By the way,” he paused maliciously, “she told me she read the papers and she forgives you for not telling her about me.” His laugh was cynical.
Sabrina digested his words. Then, comprehension dawned and the feeling of defeat that understanding engendered, deflated her anger like so much hot air expelled from a balloon. She was done. If Mrs. Egan, who knew Sabrina better than anyone, except for Lacey, believed the ludicrous tale in the tabloids, everyone would. Her panicked gaze sought the unyielding navy of his.
“Two minutes,” he said.
****
“At least tell me where we’re going.”
They’d been on the road for three hours and spoken not a word. The rain had only worsened over the previous twenty-four hours. Right now, it was a furious stream gurgling along the gutters of the city streets and its outer roadways, way too much for the sewers to handle. Blinding drops the size of quarters bulleted the windshield, and Vlad had powered on every available gadget in the late model Navigator to keep the interior comfortable and the sightlines clear.
The late summer storm that had been plaguing the city and its surrounding suburbs had now turned into what the weather forecasters were calling a hurricane event.
“We’re going to my place on the north shore of Long Island. A property the paparazzi don’t know about. You don’t need any more information than that.” His deep voice was icy-calm, his jaw set with concentration. He didn’t even glance at her as he spoke.
His assertion was laughable. Long Island was all she needed to know? He might be a globetrotting tycoon, but she’d never been out of the five boroughs in her life. In fact, she’d never actually made it into two of them. So, Long Island might as well be Timbuktu as far as Sabrina was concerned.
Her father was the traveler. Apparently, he’d been crisscrossing the states for years. Probably toured the rest of the world too for all she knew. When she’d begged her mother, back when she was an impressionable thirteen year old for some information about him, when she’d wanted to visit him, her mother had laughed a harsh kind of laugh that was really no laugh at all.
Then swallowing tears, Lily filled her in. Her dad could be anywhere from Oregon to Florida. He hadn’t given them his address, she’d gently explained because he didn’t want to be found. Apparently, he moved around so much, his addresses expired faster than the milk in their fridge.
He’d stopped by New York to see them, exactly once, but when the divorce was finalized, he disappeared. Sabrina hadn’t heard from him in almost ten years.
When her mother had been in the fatal hit and run two and a half years ago, Sabrina hadn’t any address to let her dad know. Nor had she discovered any information giving her the identity of Alex’s dad. She would have notified him as well.
From that moment, Sabrina accepted that Alex had only her to depend on. And she had only herself.
She pushed those old thoughts down. She had enough in the present to worry about.
She looked over at Vlad’s hard profile. The storm clouds cast his face in shadow and the day’s growth of beard darkening his jaw accentuated his uncivilized air.
“You’ve got this all wrong you know,” she said.
His gaze remained fixed on the road. He handled the SUV like an expert, but the afternoon sky was like pitch and visibility nil. It was a challenge just to see the white lines painted on the road with rain lashing the windows faster than the high-tech windshield wipers could carry it away. They were alone on the road, no doubt the only people foolish enough to brave the storm as they powered down the highway.
“If you want to talk, then tell me why you did this or who put you up to this. Who caused you to claim I’m the father of your child? Because that was a grave mistake. Tell me now. If not, I’ll see to it that you never work in New York again.”
Never work in New York again? Never? Sabrina fell back against her seat squashing down the rising feeling of panic. Could he really do that?