Hollywood Divorces
Page 46
“You stay with us,” horny Spaniard number two said, making kissing noises with his lips. He was a thin man in an off-white seersucker suit and shiny two-tone patent leather shoes. He smelled of lavender.
Stoned as she was, Sofia knew it was time to get out. She also suspected that they’d locked the front door, which was not a good sign.
“Sorry, guys,” she said, heading for the door and trying the handle. Yes, it was locked. Damn! “My old man’s a cop,” she said sharply, furious that she’d gotten caught in such a sucker situation. “So we don’t want any trouble, do we? You’d better let me out. And I do mean now.”
“No, no—you come here, cara,” Paco crooned, coming after her and pawing her bare shoulder with his sweaty palm. “We show you sexy time.”
“No thanks,” she said, twisting away from him. “And open this fucking door before I kick it in.”
The men exchanged conspiratorial looks, then Paco grabbed her while the other man moved in.
Sofia experienced a shiver of fear for the first time in her young life.
She knew she was in trouble, and it wasn’t a feeling she appreciated.
Las Vegas
My daughter is in trouble. The thought kept running through Dani Castle’s mind. She’d awoken that morning after experiencing a vivid nightmare about Sofia, and hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her since. Now it was nighttime, and she was having dinner with the man she should have married, but even so, she couldn’t concentrate—her mind was elsewhere.
Dean King, a distinguished-looking man in his sixties, tall and barrel chested, with a thick head of silver hair, had never failed her, never let her down. However, in spite of their long relationship, she still lived with the hope that one day Michael would marry her and legalize their union.
Michael Castelli. The love of her life.
The father of her two children, Vincent and Sofia.
She loved him. She always would.
Dani was, at fifty-three, a beautiful woman—tall and naturally blond, with smooth skin, ocean blue eyes, and a showgirl’s body. Once a headline performer in Vegas, she now organized the occasional PR event at her son’s hotel. She was very proud of Vincent; he’d done so well—with only a small amount of help from his dad.
Yes, Vincent could certainly take care of himself. It was Sofia she was worried about.
Both of her children bore a strong resemblance to Michael. They had inherited his deep olive skin and jet black hair. And Sofia had definitely inherited his wild streak. One memorable day, after a big fight with her dad, she’d dropped out of school and taken off, leaving only a short note.
Fifteen years old and she was gone. The only contact Dani had had with her since then was the occasional phone call or postcard.
There was nothing she could do about it. Sofia possessed a will of steel, exactly like Michael, who had not seemed at all concerned by his daughter’s taking off. “The kid can look after herself,” he’d assured her. “You gotta stop worrying.”
Easy for him to say.
Sometimes Dani thought the only offspring he really cared about was Madison, his daughter from another woman.
“What are you thinking?” Dean asked, leaning across the table and attempting to take her hand.
She pulled back. Dean’s devotion was endless; maybe rejection did make the heart grow fonder. It certainly did in his case.
Dean lived in Houston. He owned oil wells, and was extremely rich and quite powerful in his own way.
So why didn’t you marry him, Dani?
Because I never loved him.
“I’m thinking about Sofia,” she sighed, sipping her wine. “I worry about her so much. I wish I could see her.”
Dean studied her face. “Have you heard from her lately?” he asked.
“A few weeks ago. She’s in Spain somewhere, she never says exactly where.”
“I’ve told you many times,” he said. “If you want me to, I can hire people who’ll find her and bring her home.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Sofia will come back when she’s ready.”
“Then you’ve got to stop worrying.”
God! He sounded like Michael!
“I have an early meeting,” she said, placing her napkin on the table and pushing her chair back.
“Does this mean dinner is over?” he asked, raising a quizzical eyebrow.
“You don’t mind, do you?”
“Would it matter if I did?” he said, thinking that this woman drove him insane—she always had. The problem was that he couldn’t stop being crazy about her. Two marriages to other women along the way had done nothing to extinguish the flame.
“Of course it would,” she lied, trying to figure out why she kept Dean in the wings.
“Well . . . ,” he said hesitantly. “I can postpone leaving and stay another day.”
It won’t do you any good, she wanted to say, but she didn’t. Dean lived to please her, and she lived to please Michael, whom she hadn’t heard from in months. She wondered where he was and what he was doing.
She refused to call him. She had her pride.
Thirty-six years ago, at the age of seventeen, she’d given birth to his only son—and then eighteen years later, a daughter. He’d never married her, and yet there was no way she could ever stop loving him.
Yes, it’s true, she thought ruefully, rejection does make the heart grow fonder.
Jackie Collins is one of the world’s top-selling authors, with more than four hundred million copies of her books sold in more than forty countries. From her first sensational release, The World Is Full of Married Men, to her sexy excursion in 2013’s The Power Trip, from Hollywood Wives to Hollywood Divorces, Jackie Collins skewers the lives of the rich and famous with “devastating accuracy” (Los Angeles Times) in all of her internationally bestselling novels. She lives in Beverly Hills, California.
Visit Jackie’s website
www.jackiecollins.com, and follow her on
Pinterest and Twitter @JackieJCollins and
Facebook at www.facebook.com/jackiecollins.
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Hollywood Husbands
Lovers & Gamblers
Hollywood Wives
The World Is Full of Divorced Women
The Love Killers
Sinners
The Bitch
The Stud
The World Is Full of Married Men
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