“What?” Eleni looked around at her modest house. “To my home?”
“Sure.”
“How about we meet someplace neutral.”
“Fine.” Skye sounded as though this was not her preferred method. How odd. Surely she hadn’t been expecting to take pictures of the humble dwelling that Eleni called home. “I’ll meet you at a little coffee shop in downtown Dallas called The Corner Shop. We can meet tomorrow. I’ll be there pretty much all day. Come whenever you want before three o’clock.”
This was beyond odd. It felt strangely dirty. Almost like Eleni was making a deal to somehow sell the skeletons in her family closet in order to buy immunity for herself from the Dallas rumor mill.
“Uh. Okay.” Eleni swallowed the lump that seemed determined to take up residence in her throat. Her phone started vibrating. She held it away from her ear long enough to see that her mother’s number was once again on the screen. “I’ll see you tomorrow then. Have to go. Bye.”
Eleni continued to stare at the display of her phone. She really didn’t want to talk to her mother. She didn’t want to know. And yet she needed to know because if her mother had somehow roped her into some kind of financial disaster it was better to know upfront than to find out later.
“What?” Eleni barked into the phone. “I swear if you tell me that I need to come down to the police station and bail you out, I will leave you there. Do you understand me?”
“I can well understand your concern,” said a distinctly male voice filled with dark, warm humor. “But I think we can probably skip the police station scenario if you come down here to the mall and help me smooth out a few rough edges between your mother and mall security.”
Orion King. Holy crap, she was on the phone with Orion King! Eleni pulled her smartphone away from her ear and looked at the display once again. It was the same blocked number that came up every single time her mother called. Her mother’s phone. The same one that Eleni had been trying unsuccessfully to ignore for months.
“I’m sorry, but how did you come to have my mother’s phone?” Eleni swallowed the four letter words that wanted to leave her lips.
Orion’s laugh. It was so distinctive. Silky smooth and faintly sarcastic, nobody sounded like Orion King. He was all man and absolutely obnoxious while simultaneously looking like a sex god that every woman on the planet wanted to worship. Or perhaps he was the sort of man that every woman wanted to have worshipping her.
“I know you know this is Orion,” he said in that slow, milk-chocolate tone. “Please just trust me. All right? Just this once, Eleni Ariosa. Come down here and help me bail out your mother before she manages to make things worse for all of us.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Eleni agreed. There were only so many attempts to pique her curiosity that she could ignore and right now she was totally at her limit. She would go and she would find out what was happening and hopefully that would be the end of it.
Chapter Four
Orion King did not like the mall. In fact, just the words the mall had the power to make him feel instantly ill-tempered. Unfortunately for him, it was Christmas. Or rather it was almost Christmas. And because of that, there were certain items that Orion needed to fulfill the requirements of his Christmas list that suddenly became unavailable online through the regular channels because everyone else was clogging the online shopping outlets. That meant he had to come down to the mall in person in order to make his purchase.
“Italy is really nice this time of year,” Alaina Ariosa gushed.
Alaina was and had been clinging to Orion’s arm like a barnacle. He glanced at his watch. This particularly mall was not all that far from the tiny house in Addison where Eleni Ariosa lived. It was a huge complex though, which was why Orion had wound up there to find the one item he needed to complete his Christmas shopping.
“I’m sure your brother Edward and your sister-in-law Diana would just love your company!” Alaina had been working on Orion for nearly twenty minutes to try and get him to agree to take her to Italy to visit her daughter.
Fortunately for Embry and Joseph Orville Junior, Orion was not an idiot. He knew full well why Alaina wanted to go to Italy. He snorted and shook his head at her. “You know, I tell my mother this all the time, so maybe I’ll just handle you in the same way. The whole friggin’ world knows what your angle is. So can we stop pretending that you’re not trying to mooch a plane ticket just so you can go over and set up house with your daughter so that you can continue freeloading off her family? This whole pretend thing about just wanting to spend some time with her at the holidays is bullshit, Alaina. I wasn’t born yesterday. Remember? Your best friend is my mother.”
“She’s not my best friend!” Alaina pouted. She let go of Orion’s arm and scowled at him as though he had just suggested she work for a living. “I hate that woman. I’m sorry, because I know that she’s your mother, but she’s a horrible person!”
“I won’t argue with you about that,” Orion mused. Then he glanced over Alaina’s head and spotted Eleni heading in their direction. “But I will also suggest that you’re about as horrible as Tisha Olivares-King so perhaps those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. Hmm?”
“Glass houses? Glass houses?” Alaina’s face was contorting into something truly ugly as she geared up for a tantrum. Even the computer store security guard was cringing as he prepared himself for another round of tantrums.
Orion didn’t give her a chance. “Your daughter is here.”
“My who?”
“Hello there, Eleni.” Orion felt ten years old again as he smiled at Eleni. The woman looked good, really good. She had a caramel complexion, full lips, big dark eyes that conveyed every emotion she felt, and dark curls that bounced becomingly around her shoulders. She was dressed casually in jeans and a sweater as though she had been relaxing at home when he’d called her. “Thank you so much for hurrying down here. I’m sure it’s not such an easy thing to come out on an evening so close to the Christmas holiday.”
Eleni stopped walking and looked at Orion as though he had suddenly sprouted a second head. “I’m sorry, who are you?”
“Don’t be like that,” Orion chided.
“No, seriously.” Eleni waved her hand. “You’re acting all nice and calm and sober and I’m beginning to wonder if there’s some kind of body snatching going on. What is wrong with you?” Then Eleni tilted her head to one side and glared at him. “Cancer? Is that it? You’ve discovered you’re dying?”
The funniest part of what she was suggesting, if such a comment in poor taste could really be called funny, was that it was actually impossible for Orion to get cancer. His genetic makeup just wasn’t prone to that sort of thing. He was too different. Some people might even call him special. But not Eleni Ariosa. And that was probably why Orion found her so refreshing.
“Eleni!” Alaina crowed at her daughter and flung her arms around the young woman’s neck. “You’re here. That’s good. So I’ll need you to give me your credit cards—”
“No.”
“Excuse me?” The whole conversation stopped cold as Alaina glared at her daughter. “Don’t you argue with me. I’m your mother!”
“I’m thirty years old, Mom. I’m not buying you a damned thing. Use your own money if you have it and cry me a river if you don’t.” Eleni’s flat tone suggested that this had been going on for a while now.
“Excuse me?” The security guard was waving his hands at them. “While I find this whole family reunion thing heartwarming, I would appreciate it more if you guys would pay for the merchandise that Ms. Ariosa stole from the store.”
Eleni frowned. Then she pressed the knuckle of her index finger to her forehead. “I’m sorry. Did you not take the merchandise back?”
“The security measures on the products make it that once you pass the detectors at the front of the store, the items are zapped and are rendered basically useless.” The guard shrugged. “It’s not our first time d
ealing with people who steal.”
“I didn’t steal!” Ariana turned and curled her lip at the man. She was obviously still very angry about being called a thief. “I just walked out of the store to take my call. I was totally coming back. I couldn’t hear a damn thing inside your store! It’s too loud. You should really do something about that. In fact, I think you should be offering me some free stuff for all the trouble.”
The security guard was now gaping openly in shock. “You do?”
The guy was probably in his mid-to-late twenties with a beefy bouncer-sort of build. Orion could tell that the man could handle himself in a fight, but he obviously didn’t know what to do with a woman like Alaina Ariosa who was now cocking her head and tossing her hair around as though she were about to offer the guy sexual favors.
“Oh, for shit’s sake, Mom!” Eleni groaned. She reached over and snagged her mother’s arm. “Don’t try to seduce him. He’s young enough to be your son!”
“Try grandson,” the guard chortled. He held up his hands. “No offense, but you’re about as appealing to me as a root canal!”
Alaina’s cry of outrage was so loud that it actually stopped traffic around them in the crowded mall. People turned to stare at the woman in her early sixties who was dressed like a twenty-year-old hooker in a tight black skirt that barely reached her midthigh and a sweater so tight that you could see the outline of her nipples beneath it. Launching herself at the security guard, Alaina started screaming obscenities and calling for security. She was now trying to claim that the man had been trying to assault her.
“Stop. It!” Orion grabbed Alaina’s arm and spun her around so fast and so hard that she squeaked and ended her tirade. It was still horribly disturbing though. And Orion was afraid the reason it bothered him so much was that he could totally see his mother acting the same way. “That is enough! You’re embarrassing me, your daughter, and this poor security guard.”
Orion pushed Alaina down onto a bench. A few feet away Eleni was wringing her hands as though she were afraid she was actually going to have to pay for her mother’s stupidity. Was Alaina really that broke? Orion had no doubt that she was accustomed to making everyone around her pay her way in life, but right now it was almost like she couldn’t manage to pay for herself. At all.
“How much does Ms. Ariosa owe?” Orion asked the security guard.
“Two thousand, five hundred sixty-three dollars and forty cents.” The guard rattled off the number as though he’d had it stamped on his brain. Then he pointed to a laptop lying practically forgotten nearby on the ground. “She can have it if you pay for it. The thing is toast though. I’m sure the store would be happy to put it in for a repair if you want to pay a little extra. The warranty will be voided because of the theft, of course.”
“Of course,” Eleni said through clenched teeth. She was looking almost sick at the amount of money. She looked at her mother. “Where are your credit cards?”
Alaina’s expression was almost belligerent as she stared at her daughter. What was going on here? “They’re at home where they belong. It’s not like I could use them. That’s why I called you to ask for your credit card number.”
“Then how did you buy what’s in the bags?” Eleni gestured to the shopping bags Alaina was still clutching despite the gravity of the entire situation. “You’ve obviously been shopping so what were you using for money?”
“Oh, I had some cash.” The obviously evasive answer did not appear to sit well with her daughter.
Eleni gestured to the security guard. “Then I guess you’d better go return your merchandise to the stores where you bought it so you can pay off this debt!”
“I didn’t have that much cash.” Alaina’s answer was delivered in an almost flippant manner.
Orion could feel his mouth wanting to pop open as he watched the grown woman act as though she absolutely expected her daughter to cough up over two thousand dollars. It wasn’t like Eleni made much money. Orion wasn’t an idiot. The woman was hard working, but she was a teacher. They didn’t have a ton of money. Besides, as he recalled, Eleni had her own home and a car as well. That meant she was likely making payments like most people scraping by on one salary. It was the holiday season. It was ridiculous for Alaina Ariosa to think that her daughter was just going to toss around that kind of money because her mother had developed a penchant for unintentional shoplifting.
Eleni shrugged her shoulders and gestured to the guard. “If you can’t pay your bill, Mom, then you’re going to have to go back to jail and explain why you couldn’t even go two days without committing the same crime. Maybe this time the judge will shut you away where you can’t try to buy things you can’t afford.”
Alaina glared at her daughter. “Don’t you talk that way to me! Pay the man, Eleni. Now! Don’t you dare disobey me. I’m done tolerating all of your rudeness.”
“Uh, ladies?” The security guard was waving his hands around. “I don’t care who pays me, but if someone doesn’t cough up the money in the next five minutes I’m calling the cops. It’s as simple as that.”
“Call ‘em,” Eleni growled. “It’s about time someone makes my mother pay for her crimes.”
The guard looked surprise. No doubt he was having difficulty trying to imagine how people like this didn’t have the money to pay a simple twenty-six hundred dollar tab. Especially since Alaina was dressed in designer clothing and toting bags from high-end stores in the mall.
“I’ll take care of it,” Orion told the guard with a sigh. He pulled out his wallet. From the corner of his eye he could see Alaina giving him a speculative once-over. That could not be good.
“Orion, no.” Eleni reached out and touched his arm. “Please don’t do that. My mother needs to reap the consequences of what she does. Someone has to make her pay for it or she’ll never learn.”
It wasn’t lost on either of them that Eleni was talking about her mother as though the woman were nothing more than a headstrong teenager. Orion wondered if that was how Eleni felt, like she was raising her mother now after all these years of Alaina Ariosa mooching off of one man or the other.
Orion withdrew a credit card and handed it to the security guard. “I’ll take the receipt,” Orion told the guard. “And I would like the merchandise in a bag please. I’ll have my tech department repair it and do something with it.”
The guard nodded and snatched the silver plastic card from Orion’s fingers. He strode back into the crowded store and left Orion there with the Ariosa women. Alaina was glaring at him with her hands on her hips.
“You can’t have that computer!” Alaina snapped. “It’s mine!”
Wow. Orion heard Eleni’s horrified gasp and saw her bury her face in her hands in obvious embarrassment. Orion just shook his head at the selfish woman who acted just like a spoiled teenager. “It isn’t yours unless you pay for it. My money. My merchandise. And I can assure you that I don’t like you enough to give you a present or buy you anything but a bus ticket home.”
Now Eleni was struggling to hide a smile. Orion was glad. He felt an urge to help her out. Their history was totally convoluted and very confusing. There was no doubt in his mind that Eleni was just as stuck with her mother as Orion was with his. That was a bond of sorts, and Orion could not help but feel that he needed someone who understood the problems that he was facing thanks to his mother’s maneuvering to try and take everything from him and his brothers.
Alaina was still pouting when the guard returned with Orion’s credit card and a white shopping bag containing Orion’s unintentional purchase. Of course he hadn’t actually had a chance to make the purchase that had brought him out here to the mall so close to Christmas. But maybe that didn’t matter right now.
“You got a ride home?” Orion deliberately addressed his words to Eleni.
She blew out a stream of air. “Yeah. I’ve got my car.”
“What about you?” Orion looked at Alaina.
She eagerly thrust her shopping ba
gs at him. “Nope. I took a taxi. You may take me home now.”
“Like hell!” Eleni growled. She snatched the shopping bags right out of Orion’s hands and thrust them right back at her mother. “I’ll take you home. I have my car. You’re not going to impose on Mr. King any more this evening. There is absolutely no reason for it.”
“No reason?” Her mother snorted so derisively that Orion wanted to slap the smug look off the woman’s face. “Orion and I live in adjoining neighborhoods. You live across town! Addison is miles and miles away from my place. There’s no need for you to waste your time when my home is right on Orion’s way.”
“It would be,” Orion agreed. “If I was going home. But I’m not. So since you’re in such capable hands, I’ll leave you with your daughter.”
Orion hated to leave Eleni with this mess. It felt like he was dumping it in her lap. But there was nothing left for it. So he hitched the shopping bag up onto his shoulders and headed back into the computer store to finish his shopping. At the last second he met Eleni’s gaze. There was so much anger and desperation behind her eyes that it caused his breath to stick in his chest. But there was nothing for it. Not right now. Eleni had her own demons to deal with just like Orion did.
Chapter Five
Eleni was pretty sure that she had never been so humiliated in her life. The car ride from the mall to her mother’s house in Highland Park was silent. Dead silent. Eleni’s hands were clenched tight on the steering wheel of her modest little vehicle. The white commuter car was immaculate inside. She kept it that way on purpose. Growing up with her mother throwing trash and stopping at every fast food drive thru between point A and point B had taught Eleni all about trashing a vehicle. Alaina Ariosa had never valued a car. They were as disposable as everything else in her life.
Including boyfriends. Which brought Eleni around to the next question on her mind. “What happened to Michael?”
Billion Dollar Wolves: Boxset Bks 1-5 Page 98
