“Oh.” Alex shook his head. “Theresa and I lived in Southern California. We were both grad students at UCLA.”
Ryan coughed and cleared his throat. “Did you say UCLA?”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Ryan must have had the same thought as she when Alex said UCLA. They looked at each other. Bailey’s cousin Anna had said that Uncle Patrick had attended UCLA.
“Theresa was going to walk Marianne—Bailey—to the sitter’s then meet with her study group and advisor before her first class.” Alex paused, and Bailey saw him drift a little into the memory. “She didn’t want her pregnancy and a new baby to keep her from finishing her thesis. She was a very motivated student. She went right back to class the week after you were born, without much recovery time.”
Alex’s eyes darkened. Bailey looked down at her mother’s photo and wondered what had really happened to her. The words in her Uncle Pat’s letters rang in her head. ‘We have protected him and ourselves long enough.’
“Excuse me.” Bailey stood, setting the photo down. She left the sitting area and went into the bathroom. When the door closed behind her, she sat on the toilet lid and inhaled slowly, trying to catch her breath. Is there a connection here? Was she jumping to conclusions? She had to be.
Bailey stood and looked at her pale face in the mirror, now seeing the difference in her and the photo of Theresa Spatz, and those differences matched her father’s face. She washed her hands, patted her face with water, and dried it, still staring in the mirror. Is this how Dex had figured out who she was? Did he see it in her eyes, her chin, maybe her nose?
When she exited the bathroom, the suite suddenly seemed smaller. Her father and Linda were chatting with Vince, Mae, and Lucas, but Ryan was looking in her direction, watching her. She smiled, hoping to put him at ease. He gave her a crooked smile, and some of her tension melted away.
She sat back down and watched as her father talked. She tried to set everything about him to memory. How strange he seemed to her, but had things turned out a little different, she’d be much more intimately familiar with him, with the way his mouth moved when he talked, the way his left eyebrow lifted when he smiled, and the bob of his Adam’s apple. How odd. He was her father, her flesh and blood, yet a complete stranger.
Her eyes traveled over to Linda, and she thought they seemed well-suited for each other. They were affectionate, but not uncomfortably so. Linda was easy, relaxed, and confident. Alex seemed a little stiffer and more formal. Both looked well-groomed, not a hair out of place. As she considered that, she realized why Alex was uneasy with Ryan. Ryan was all untucked shirt, blue jeans, tattoos, and long, unkempt hair. The unwilling rock star, Mae had once called him. That must go completely against the grain for this well-to-do family.
The thought made Bailey laugh. She couldn’t help it. The entire day was absurd. Her entire life was absurd. What was she doing here? She was Bailey Morton, not Marianne Spatz. She was raised by an eccentric music teacher and a car mechanic, not these people.
When her laughing pitched higher, everyone stared at her. She didn’t care. The sick part of this whole thing was she had no one to blame, no one to be mad at. She could be resentful at Alex for not looking for her, but then she would have hated him for taking her from her home. She could be angry at Ernie Morton for finding her. Maybe she would have been better off dead. Maybe all these people would be better off without her.
She stood up and walked to the large picture window that looked out at the Tower Bridge, hovering low over the river. God, this was crazy. She was still laughing, but nobody was laughing with her. They just watched her like she was crazy. Maybe she was.
“What’s so funny?” Alex finally asked her.
She bent over, now crying from her giggle fit. She shook her head and put her hand over her mouth. Then she took a deep breath and said, “My life…oh, God,” she said, coming out of it. “Sorry ‘bout that.” She turned to look at them. Ryan walked toward her, his eyebrows drawn together. “I’m fine,” she said, still chuckling.
“Really?” Ryan asked, not at all amused.
She looked into his eyes and said quietly. “How could she not tell me about this, Ryan? How could she leave me alone to deal with this? What the hell was she thinking?”
“I don’t know, babe.” He took her hands in his. “I wish I had the answers. I can’t imagine what she was thinking, but you don’t have to deal with it alone.” He was earnest and completely unconcerned about their audience.
Alex stood and walked toward them. “Are you okay?”
She nodded and looked into Ryan’s eyes again. He had relaxed slightly. “I’m fine. I just can’t believe this.” She released Ryan’s hands and went back to settle into her chair again. “All of this is just a bit much. I didn’t know I was adopted until a few months ago, and now this. It’s just so crazy.”
“You didn’t know anything?” Alex asked.
She shook her head. “No, my mother never told me. I found out after her death.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. That must make this much more difficult,” Alex said.
Bailey resisted the urge to laugh again. “Yeah, it’s a little unsettling.” She pounded her fists lightly on her knees and said, “I’m not sure where to go from here.”
“Bailey,” Linda said, leaning in to lay a hand over one of Bailey’s. “Why don’t you stay for a few days? I know your business is important to you. But this is family, and I think it would give us all,
