by Anya Summers
“How you doing today?” Nancy asked, entering with a radiant smile. Her black hair with hints of silver at her temples was pulled back in a ponytail. Today, she wore blue scrub pants with a colorful, patterned scrub top.
“Not too bad. I worked late last night, and Jeanine covered for me here. She said Alex did great overnight.”
“That’s good. And you, child? How late were you up?” Nancy asked sympathetically.
Sabrina was exhausted. She wanted to crawl back into bed. Between the relief she felt over her money situation being solved and the sheer lack of sleep, she’d bet she could sleep for days. “It’s not important. What’s important is that Alex is taken care of properly.”
“You’re a good person, Sabrina. You should be going out dancing with a nice gentleman every night and not working yourself old,” Nancy said with a concerned frown.
Ignoring Nancy’s well-meaning sentiment, Sabrina said, “About that, I think I’m going to be moving him into the assisted living facility we talked about.”
Nancy smiled and clapped her hands over her heart with genuine joy. “Really? That’s wonderful news. Houmas will be so good for him.”
“Even though it will mean you won’t have any hours here.” She hated leaving Nancy in the lurch when she had been so good for her and Alex. And her brother would miss Nancy. He didn’t express his emotions the same way, it was part of his disease, but Sabrina knew he adored Nancy.
Nancy shrugged. “I go where the agency sends me. And as much as I will miss our chats, it’s what is best for Alex and in the end for you too, my dear. Don’t you worry about me. Once everything is arranged for Alex to move into Houmas, I will let the agency know and they will reassign me. I’ll always have work.”
“I’m going to try and get him into Houmas House by the end of the week. And I will pay you a two week severance beyond that to cover you so that you aren’t without.” Sabrina had to have him installed somewhere soon because Michael already needed her on a trip to Los Angeles on Saturday, to attend a swanky Hollywood premiere for his production company on Sunday.
Nancy’s brows rose. “That quick? Well, you do work fast when you put your mind to it now, don’t you?”
“I hope that it won’t hurt you at all.” Sabrina didn’t want someone like Nancy stuck with Alex all weekend while she was gone. It was one thing to have a nurse here during the day, but at night, the neighborhood was rough. She carried pepper spray on her person at all times, even when going into her own bathroom. This area was known for violent crimes. Just last week, one of the neighbors down the street had been robbed at gunpoint.
That was another reason why the bargain she’d struck last night was a godsend. Not only could she afford to get her brother institutionalized at an assisted living facility, but she could move out of this community. Sabrina wasn’t ashamed of their home. She had worked her tail off to afford it. But that didn’t mean she didn’t see the drug deals going on, or hear the pop of gunfire, or the constant sound of police sirens overnight.
“Child, I will be fine. You just tell me what you need.” Nancy cocked her head. “And I hear my patient stirring. You go on now, I’ve got this.”
“I’ve got some calls to make. I’m being picked up at ten, and will be gone for most of the day,” Sabrina explained.
“Don’t worry about us, we’ll be fine. We’re going to watch our daytime television and have a good old time,” Nancy said, patting her hand, and headed down the hall to Alex’s room with his medication.
Sabrina sat at her kitchen table—the small two-seater dinette she’d found at a garage sale some years back and had turned into a decent piece—with her small tablet computer and brought up the Houmas Assisted Living Facility information. She yawned as she made the call. It had been an hour before sunrise when she’d strolled inside the shotgun style duplex with iron bars on the windows in the seventh district neighborhood of New Orleans.
She had gotten maybe a grand total of three hours of sleep. But she had a smidge over one hundred thousand dollars in her bank account. Michael had made good on his word and fulfilled the terms they had hammered out overnight.
And she would do her part, because the money she would end up with would grant her freedom. Freedom from worrying about money all the damn time. People who had never had to worry about where their next meal would come from could count themselves fortunate. She also now had freedom from worrying about her brother, and struggling to take care of him with his demanding disease. It wasn’t Alex’s fault that he was sick, that the cost of his care had drained first the insurance money from their dad, and then from their mom, and the small amount of savings Sabrina had put by.
This deal would give her the freedom to rest, to do nothing for a change, if she chose. Sabrina couldn’t the remember the last time she’d not had any responsibilities—when she had been able to take a break from them, or had just had a day to do nothing.
She spent the time she had before Dante arrived to pick her up getting an appointment scheduled to meet with the administrator at Houmas, paid the outstanding balance on the rent that was owed, paid for next month’s rent, and called Daisy’s Diner—where she waited tables three times a week—and quit. Once Alex was situated in the living facility, she would pack up the belongings she wanted to keep—the things that were handed down heirlooms, like the dresser in her bedroom, and family photos that were irreplaceable—and get them moved out. She didn’t know where to, maybe a small storage facility. And then she could start looking at where she would like to live after her time pretending to be Michael’s fiancée was up.
She had sold off almost everything else that had been handed down to her to pay for Alex’s medicine.
At the knock on the front door, she closed out of the program and headed for the door with her purse. Dante stood on the small stone front porch, looking like a big, bad, and dangerous alpha. He was dangerous to her sensibilities, she thought as her gaze dipped to his full lips shrouded by his dark scruff, and she couldn’t help but recall the way his mouth had felt on hers, nor that it stirred up elemental longings. Even in his plain black tee and blue jeans, the man was downright edible.
She pasted a smile on her face when he shoved his aviator sunglasses on top of his head and scanned her sparse living room with its threadbare couch, scarred coffee table, and old style television with a gargantuan back.
“Morning. Ready, or do you need a minute?” he asked her. His expression remained neutral, giving nothing away as to what he thought of her home.
“No, I’m ready.”
Nancy came shuffling down the hallway with Alex walking beside her. It was a good morning. Alex’s eyes were glassy from his medicine but there was an angelic smile on his face. It meant he wasn’t lost in his own personal hell and being tormented by things no one could see but him. Her brother looked like Sabrina in many ways. They had the same nose and similar hair coloring. But his eyes were brown, and his shoulders tended toward frailty from years of being dosed with medicine, and a sedentary existence.
“Dante, this is my brother, Alex, and Nancy, his caretaker. Nancy, I should be back by six.”
After assessing the situation, Nancy gave Sabrina a sly grin and jutted her chin. “You go on, this one and I will be just fine now, won’t we, honey?”
“It’s nice to meet you, ma’am. Alex.” Dante nodded before he escorted Sabrina out the door to his waiting vehicle.
Alex didn’t respond. When he was in that happy state and flying on his medications, he typically didn’t.
A block away from their home was a group of guys in their late teens, surreptitiously glancing at the fancy SUV parked in Sabrina’s drive. Dante, being a gentleman, helped her into the passenger side before heading around to the driver’s side. He stared the boys down while he did so, projecting his usual touch of badassery that was always beneath the kind veneer. None of them moved away, but then again, none of them advanced toward them or brandished a weapon in their direction. Sabrina kn
ew that group: if provoked, they had no problem throwing down and attacking.
“It’s best to leave them alone.”
Dante gave a confident shrug, like they were nothing but flies to be swatted away. “I can handle them. Bullies will continue to be that way unless you stand up to them.”
Sabrina snorted. “It’s your funeral. The former leader is doing ten years hard time in the state penitentiary. They aren’t a group people mess with around here. It’s best to steer clear of them.”
“And yet you live a block away from where they hang out. Are they on that lot frequently?” Dante asked, pulling out of the drive.
“They typically don’t hassle me.” It was the best way she could answer him without getting him all riled up like he needed to defend her. They didn’t bother her—at least, not much beyond a few catcalls. There had even been one who had stated she should suck his dick.
While it wasn’t harmless and made her sick to her stomach, what was she going to do, call the cops on them? Please.
If she had done that—reported them, even anonymously— she would have wound up dead, or worse. Yes, there were worse things than death out there. It would have left her brother with no one to care for him, and that was something she couldn’t risk.
“They will never hassle you again. How long have you lived here?”
“Five years. I had to sell the house our parents bought to pay for Alex’s bills.” She shrugged as they drove past the group.
“That won’t be a problem ever again. We’re moving you out of there tonight if at all possible,” Dante stated, as if it were a done deal already.
“Dante, I appreciate the sentiment. But I can’t move Alex without having professional help for him. Change of any kind agitates his condition. He’s already going to have enough difficulty being moved to live somewhere else. I can’t bounce him around like that.”
“You can’t possibly stay where you are at,” Dante replied, with abject horror lacing his voice.
Frustrated, her pride stinging from his unspoken revulsion of her home, she said, “Why not? We’ve been there for five years without incident. A few more days won’t hurt. I have arrangements to meet with Houmas Assisted Living Facility administrative management tomorrow to move Alex in by the end of this week, before I leave with Michael for Los Angeles on Saturday.”
“That was fast.”
“I’ve wanted to—needed to, really—move him into the facility for a long time. It’s the best place for him, to meet his needs and manage his condition. I just didn’t have the funds until now.” She would do her part, ensure she made the full amount. That way, she would never have to worry whether she had the funds to cover his care and see to his specialized needs.
“What’s wrong with him?” Dante asked as he drove. His relaxed confidence as he wove in and out of traffic drew Sabrina to him. When she looked at him, she thought: now there was a man she could lean on who wouldn’t buckle under the weight of the burdens she carried. Had she ever noticed just how powerfully built the man was, from the top of his head to the tips of his fingers?
She had known the question about Alex would come up eventually. There was no point in hiding his disease. “Severe dissociative schizophrenia. Basically, it means most of the time, he doesn’t know who he is or where he is at. He’s on a cocktail of medicines that keep him stable, for the most part. But any change in his routine disrupts things for him. If I’m going to move him, it’s going to be a one-time only deal to minimize the disruption as much as possible.”
“Understood. I still don’t like the thought of you in that neighborhood. If we had known…” Dante trailed off and shook his head, his face grim.
Pride straightened her backbone. It was time to set the record straight. “You would have done what, exactly? Come riding in and saved me? Dante, where I live isn’t your responsibility, but mine. When you have a crappy hand dealt, you can either fold—which for me would have been depositing Alex at a state run psychiatric facility and walking away—or do the best with the hand you’re given and make the most of it. I chose door number two.”
She leaned back in her seat as they entered a nice area of town with manicured lawns and shopping areas without boarded up windows.
“Still, we would have helped where we could. We care about you, and would never allow a friend to suffer. How long?”
“How long, what?” She sighed.
“How long have you been taking care of him on your own?” Dante asked, pulling into La Pierre Spa’s parking lot.
“Since my mom died. I was nineteen. So it’s going on ten years now. It’s why I never went to college, and barely finished high school, come to think about it. What are we doing here?” she asked, trying to think of a reasonable explanation for their location. She had always wondered what went on behind spa doors. It just sounded so decadent to go to a spa. And she had stayed away from researching places like it, because in all honesty, she hadn’t been filled with much hope for years, and looking at pretty places she couldn’t afford would have depressed her.
“Hair, nails, the works, really.”
“You’re taking me for a spa day? Really? Why do I need that?” she asked, even though she was secretly thrilled. She had never had one. There had never been money for one. As for her hair, she hadn’t seen the inside of a salon in two years, and had been whacking at it herself.
“Sabrina, you have to look the part of Michael’s fiancée. This is part of living in the society circles Michael moves in. Enjoy today and the pampering, have fun with it. This will take a few hours. Then we’ll get some lunch before we head out and get some shopping in.”
“Why are you with me? Why didn’t Michael just send me by myself?” she asked him.
“Because we don’t know who is behind all this subterfuge at his company, and until we do, we want you protected at all costs,” Dante explained.
“You think someone would hurt me? Over a company?” she asked, trying to comprehend that kind of materialistic greed.
“Listen, while I don’t think you’re in any danger, understand that there are billions of dollars at stake. Someone who has gone after Michael the way they have doesn’t operate under the same moral code you or I do. We can’t fail to consider the possibility that anyone or anything that could keep them from achieving their aims could wind up as a potential target.”
A shiver of fear whipped through her. “They wouldn’t go after my brother, would they?”
“No, love. We won’t let that happen. But for the time being, any time you aren’t with Michael, you will be with me, and vice versa.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. That was something. “Okay, as long as Alex is safe, I will be fine. I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can, but you’re not alone anymore.” He gripped her hand and brought it up to his lips. Then he held her hand at his chest.
Sabrina had the distinct urge to climb over the console and curl up in his lap. She had to stop it with the fantasies, with the longing he continued to trigger. He might have kissed her last night, but he had stated he wouldn’t do it again.
“Not for the next thirty days, anyway.” She smiled but it was forced. Because when her time was up, what exactly was she going to do with her life?
The fact that it could be anything she wanted, that she could go lie on a beach somewhere for a month without any pressing responsibilities, amazed her. Or she could decide to go to college and get a degree in anything she wanted. The possibilities were endless, and with that, a bit daunting as well.
“Come on. Let’s get inside. You are to enjoy being pampered,” he murmured, and escorted her inside.
The boutique style spa with its soothing, calm colors of light green and taupe smelled like heaven. There were display shelves full of feminine-looking products for styling hair, for the body, and the face. Even the white chairs in the front for customers to wait in were white and feminine. After giving the receptionist Sabrina’s name, Dante had no pro
blem sitting in one of those chairs and dominating the space with his animal magnetism.
And that’s exactly what happened when she was led away into the back—she was pampered. Her hair was expertly cut and styled; the stylist only took about two inches off the length, but then she added layers to Sabrina’s hair, making it so that it framed her face. She experienced her first facial and body wrap. She nodded off a bit while she resembled a burrito in the body wrap. But how could she not? With the soft flute music playing, and the low light in the treatment room.
Her eyebrows were tweezed, and her upper lip waxed. She was waxed beneath her arms and, embarrassingly, along her bikini line. Her nails were buffed and painted, and she was given a pedicure that left her sighing in bliss.
And through it all, Sabrina hoped that she was doing the right thing for her brother, trying like mad not to feel guilty that she was being pampered all day instead of taking care of him.
She nodded off again during the massage. After only three hours of sleep the previous night, it really wasn’t a surprise. Besides, her body became so loose and relaxed, it seemed only natural to slip into a dreamless sleep. The technician gently woke her with kind smiles and soft words, helping her into her robe and taking her to her next treatment session.
Then, trying to hide her exhaustion, Sabrina did her best to pay attention to the makeup lesson she was provided as they transformed her. She was fascinated by all the different varieties of makeup and what each product did. She’d never had the time or the funds over the last decade to indulge in silly things like makeup lessons. Long ago, she had stopped hoping that she would get a chance to experience a normal adult life, to be the kind of woman who had time to put makeup on and do all the girly things to make herself look pretty. Hope could be a cruel mistress. Over time, if someone wasn’t careful, unfulfilled hope turned into a dagger whose cuts ran deep. And while one little cut wouldn’t kill you, as time passed and the yearning was never satisfied, that dagger sliced again and again. Then, after thousands of tiny cuts, the light inside would be extinguished and sputter out completely. She knew because it was something she had been fighting against descending into for years.
