Falling into Forever (Falling into You) - By Lauren Abrams Page 0,74

his head as he takes in the pictures, but I can tell that he’s not surprised.

“How bad is it?” I ask, sinking back into the sofa.

Despite the horrific headline, they haven’t managed to dig up anything much, other than the fact that Hallie has a four-year-old daughter named Grace who lives with her in a hideaway somewhere. Apparently, not in one of our secret love nests. Shit. A child. A four-year-old child. I do the math in my head with a sinking feeling. It wasn’t possible. She didn’t have that kind of deception in her, unless I had been mistaken.

Damn it. Why hadn’t she told me?

“Bad. We can try to get the website to take down the pictures, but the damage has been done. You come off looking like the guy who’s been fucking hero teacher’s wife. To be frank, it doesn’t matter that he’s dead. He’s too much of a saint, and you’re too much of a sinner, for the public to forgive you as easily as all that. She comes off like a slut. There’s enough photographic evidence of the two of you from a million years ago that this isn’t going to go away quietly or soon. You have to admit that it looks like what they’re saying it looks like. And the real story is so fucking convoluted that no one would believe it.”

“Great. That’s just great.”

I slam my fist into the couch. “What they’re saying about the daughter? Grace?”

“Jensen. We don’t even know if there’s really a kid. If it’s true, then I don’t know how Hallie managed to keep the press away from the kid for so long. We should hire whoever she’s got working for her.”

“Eva.”

“Or maybe not.”

I glance again at the curly-headed girl, whose face is a replica of Hallie’s, minus twenty years.

“Hallie didn’t tell you about the kid? I thought the two of you had made nice again.”

“Shut up, Marcus.”

“Chris. She might not even have a kid. You know what the paparazzi do. They find some totally unrelated pictures of some random kid from Arkansas. They’re trying to sell ads, man. And you know what you do to sell ads? You sell a secret love child.”

I give him a stony glare.

“Ok. Not the best choice of words. But still. We don’t know.”

“Marcus, are you really trying to tell me that that child doesn’t belong to Hallie? Just look at her. She’s a carbon copy of her.”

I shove the iPad in his face. He glances at it carefully before setting it back on the table.

“Okay. So, maybe it’s her kid.” He takes a long breath. “Hallie Caldwell is a lot of things, and you know we’ve had our battles, but I don’t believe that she would have gone off, married some other guy, and pretended to him and everyone else that the kid wasn’t yours. It’s not in her, that kind of duplicity.”

“I thought that, too…”

Now, I wasn’t so sure. My eyes linger on the photograph, seeking some resemblance between the girl and myself. I can’t find anything, but it doesn’t mean that…

“So, find her. Talk to her. She’s probably still here somewhere. There’s no way she managed to escape without triggering the attention of the vultures.”

I only hear the first part of the sentence, the part about finding her, before I’m out of the seat and across the room. He’s right. I need answers, and Hallie’s the only one who has them.

His phone beeps before I can reach the door.

“Strike that. She’s gone. The press managed to get wind of the fact that a mysterious black car with Wisconsin plates snuck out the back garage.” As I turn back to look at him, I don’t fail to notice that he looks slightly impressed. “I mean, seriously. If we weren’t talking about Eva, I’d have to give them props for the disappearing act.”

“Marcus!”

“Sorry. Sorry. You could always use some of the famous Jensen charm to see if the hotel has a contact number for her. I would say that we could ask Eva, but I don’t think she’s in the mood to share anything with me right now. Sorry, man.”

“Were you being your most charming self again, Marcus?”

“You know me.”

I certainly do. Okay, so there’s absolutely no chance that Eva will help. I search my brain for any hints that Hallie might have given me the night before about where she was off to when Marcus interrupts my thoughts.

“You can’t go looking for her looking like that. They’ll be all over you