Park Avenue (Book Six in the Fifth Avenue Series)

by Smith, Christopher

  “What conversations?”

  “Your father’s failures. What it means to be broke. How we should look to all of you as examples of how tragic life can be. That sort of thing.” Leana looked at her father. “So, what’s the big news? Pepper was brimming not to tell me, so I’m curious. What’s going on?”

  “I thought we’d wait until after lunch,” George said.

  “I can’t stay,” Leana said. “When I was leaving, I received a call from Anastassios. He has a security crew lined up for me and I need to be there in an hour to interview them.” It was a lie, but there was no way she was staying here to have lunch. If it was just her father, fine. But Pepper was working her last nerve.

  “All right,” George said. “Why don’t we go into the library and have a seat? I’ll tell you what’s going on. We’re going to make a formal announcement soon, but I wanted you to hear it from me first before the media got hold of it.”

  That piqued her interest.

  With Pepper leading the way, Leana followed them down a hallway that opened into the library. It was a large room paneled in dark wood and filled with books from floor to ceiling. Her mother was a voracious reader and took pride in building their collection. Just being here again brought back mixed memories—some good, some that could go to hell. Her mother’s first-edition classics, most bought at auction, took up much of the space, though the popular thrillers her father enjoyed were allowed a corner of their own.

  In the center of the room, two red sofas faced each other with a table between them. Leana sat in the center of one of the sofas facing her father and Pepper, who sat opposite her. She was focused on her father, but out of the corner of her eye, she could see the expectation on Pepper’s face like a spotlight turned to her own.

  “You’re not going to like this, so I’m just going to say it and be done with it,” George said. “I bought The Hotel Fifth. After the past several months of working with Pepper, she’s convinced me that she is a good fit to oversee the project through to completion.”

  He might as well have slapped her. “You purchased Ryan’s hotel? The one I was going to run? The one we were shot in? How could you do that after what he did to us?”

  “It’s not as if he benefitted from the sale, Leana.”

  “Manhattan Enterprises did.”

  “So they did, but he won’t. The man’s dead. And this is business. There was an opportunity to get it inexpensively due to the damaged exterior, so I acted upon it. We’ve since repaired the building and now we have a beautiful hotel with one of the best locations in the city. It’s on Fifth, after all. It was a smart move.”

  She shook her head at him. How could she have missed any of this in the press? Did it happen while she was out of the country? “I’ll say it again. We were shot there.”

  “Does that really matter?”

  “To me, it does.”

  “This is what Celina understood that you never have. In business, you have to overlook the personal and go for the deal, regardless of what might be attached to it. In this case, a few bad memories.”

  “Is that what you call them? A few bad memories? I nearly died. So did you.”

  “But we didn’t.”

  He’d never change. It was always business, never family. Never what was right. “When are you opening?”

  “In four weeks,” Pepper said.

  Leana ignored her and kept her eyes on her father. “That’s interesting,” she said. “I’m opening in four weeks.” She read his face. “But that’s intentional on your part, isn’t it? In fact, you’re probably opening on the same day as I am. Is that right?”

  “That’s right,” George said.

  “So, you’re coming after me?”

  “Come on, Leana. This isn’t a conspiracy. I’m not ‘coming after you.’ It’s not personal. We’re competitors now. When Harold left you his money, you decided to go out on your own. You never asked to do something with me, which is odd because that’s what you claim you’ve always wanted. We should have opened The Park together. It should have been us. Instead, you went with some random group of investors.”

  “They weren’t a random group. Harold suggested them. Do you even know why he gave me that money? He gave it to me so I could get away from you. He saw how you treated me over the years and he hated it. He knew you favored Celina over me. He wanted me to succeed on my own and he gave me the means to do so.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Bullshit? I’ll send a copy of the note he left me. It’s all there. You didn’t even know Harold. He was your best friend—”

  “—and he was a liar. That’s what he was, Leana. A liar. And a freak. He lied about who he was. He lied to everyone important in his life, and he sided with Ryan in an effort to bring me down. He did it all because he was too afraid to face the truth about who he was.”

  “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.”

  “I can,” Pepper said, and when she spoke, her voice was no longer as light as it had been earlier. It was direct. It had an edge to it. Gone was the Southern schoolgirl giddiness. Now, her voice was laced with confidence. It was clear to Leana that what she heard earlier was an act.

  She glared at her. “Here’s some advice, Penelope. Stay out of this. My father only wants you because he thinks he can replace my sister with you. But he can’t. If he thinks he can, he’s deluded. You don’t even come close to having what Celina had, but that’s what he’s going to expect of you. When you let him down, watch your back. Because it will likely be you who’s thrown to the wolves.”

  “You don’t know a thing about me or what I’m capable of, Leana.”

  “One glance tells me everything I need to know.”

  “Really? Well, here’s something you should know. You don’t intimidate me. I’m stronger than you. I’m smarter than you. I’m better than you. I have connections you only could dream of having. For you, that’s the bad news because I’m the one who’s coming after you. Your hotel is going to fail. Your father asked you here today so he could tell you to your face that we’re opening The Hotel Fifth. He wanted to give you a heads-up because he’s making an effort to be kind. He wants to be fair. I respect that because he’s a good man. The reason I’m here is that I wanted to see the look on your face when he told you. I think you’re in over your head. I think you’re going to need all the help you can get. The invitations to your opening celebration have already been sent. Your father’s received his. But on the same night you’re set to have your opening, we’re going to crush you with a social event of our own that will elevate The Hotel Fifth in ways that will bury The Park.”

  Leana looked at her father. “You should be ashamed of yourself. Seriously. Why would you do this? What’s the point? And why are you allowing her to speak to me like this?”

  “I don’t control her, Leana.”

  “Please,” she said. “You manufactured this.”

  “She’s a businesswoman addressing the owner of a competing hotel. She can say whatever she wants, and so can you. You certainly don’t have to sit there and take it. Give it back to her. It’s these fundamentals of business that you’ve never understood.”

  But Pepper understood them. She was prepared for this in ways that Leana wasn’t. She pressed forward before Leana could say a word.

  “Don’t you listen?” Pepper asked. “Don’t you get it? None of this is personal. It’s business and if I were you, I’d pay attention to yours. It’s obviously come under attack by someone who doesn’t think very highly of you. They called you a murdering cunt, for Christ’s sake, which just continues your campaign to ruin the Redman name. Don’t you think it’s in your best interest to find out who did it and why before you open your hotel? Don’t you think you owe your family that before you embarrass us any further than you already have?”

  Leana stood and swung her Birkin over her shoulder. Years ago, she would have taken that bag and slammed it against the side of Pepper’s head. But not now. Now, she l
ooked down at Pepper and cocked her head to the side. “You’re not a Redman,” she said.

  “The hell I’m not.”

  “You’re just some chicken-fried wannabe from the back woods of Arkansas who got a good cut-’n-color before getting on a bus to New York and maxed out your credit cards buying that suit when you got here. You’re using our name because whores like you will do anything to succeed. Anything. You know, like hiring someone to vandalize my hotel and say that I’m a murdering cunt—whatever that means. If this conversation has proved anything, it’s that you have motive, Pepper. And I’m taking that motive to the police. Expect to hear from them.”

  “I’d be happy to talk to the police.”

  “We’ll see how happy you are after they’ve grilled you. And they will. Because, while you may not think so, I also have connections. I’ve lived in this city my entire life while you sat on a cot in Arkansas picking bugs from your teeth with your chipped fingernails and struggled to make a go of it in that shack you were raised in.”

  “Shack?”

  Leana walked over to the doorway, then stopped. She felt beaten up and set up, but she wasn’t about to stand down. She’d done that her entire life. Pepper and her father could play as dirty as they wanted, but Leana was going to play smart.

  She removed her iPhone from her Birkin, scrolled down the list to find his number, and dialed it. It had been a year since they last touched base—he called her after what happened at the Four Seasons to see if she was all right and if there was anything he could do. He couldn’t help her then, but he could now in ways that could change the landscape in her favor. A celebrity event always was the event and through one person, Leana had a direct line to dozens of the biggest and most popular celebrities and movie stars.

  A woman answered the line. Leana remained in the doorway because she wanted to make certain that Pepper and her father heard every word.

  “I’d like to speak to Michael Archer,” she said. “Tell him it’s his sister, Leana Redman, and that it’s urgent.”

  Pepper recognized the name instantly. She turned to Leana with her lips slightly parted. Before Michael came on the line, Leana wanted to leave her and her father with something to worry about, so she acted as if Michael had already answered. “Michael, it’s Leana. I’m in a bind and need a favor. Are you up for lunch?”

  She turned and started to walk down the hallway. As she walked away from them, her footsteps were so firm, they sounded to her like small explosions on the marble tile. In a voice that would carry, she said, “That’s perfect. Thirty minutes. I can’t wait to see you, either.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  On the sidewalk, where the sun was hot, the air was still and Sunday afternoon had come to life with teams of people walking down Fifth, Leana finished talking to Michael, who had come on the line when she was in the elevator. She then went to the curb to hail a cab, snagged one and stepped inside.

  “Where to?” the driver said.

  She gave him the address of Tribeca Grill, which was within walking distance of Michael’s apartment. Michael said he could get one of the corner tables where they’d be able to talk as discreetly as possible while having lunch. “I’ll take care of the seating arrangements before you get here,” he said.

  Meanwhile, in the cab, Leana checked her phone for messages. There was one from Mario, who was off to see his father at his Todt Hill mansion. “How about dinner with me tonight? Our place? I’ll cook. Maybe a movie afterwards? We can talk about today if you want or we can talk about it when you’re ready. See you tonight.”

  She put the phone in her handbag and thought about how much she loved him. She’d go to the end of the earth for him and she knew he’d do the same for her. After all they’d been through together, she couldn’t imagine life without him. She couldn’t wait to be married to him.

  The cab raced down Fifth and her thoughts turned to Michael. The last time they spoke, he was here in New York and had just published his latest novel, Fifth Avenue. Allegedly, it was a fictional account of everything that went down between Louis Ryan and her family. The names were changed but there was nothing fictional about it. She read the book and, in spite of using a bit of creative license to keep the story intense, everything in it was true.

  Because he was so deeply involved in the story, he and his editor decided to publish the book under the pseudonym Christopher Smith. To their surprise, the book immediately hit the international bestseller list and remained on it for seven consecutive months.

  It sold millions of copies, which was nothing new for Michael, who had published several bestselling thrillers, which likely received a boost because of his other career as an A-list movie star. But it certainly was new for “Christopher Smith,” a writer few had heard of before and who curiously didn’t give interviews or make public appearances in spite of how white-hot his book was.

  I wonder why, Leana thought.

  When the driver arrived at the Grille, she slipped him a twenty, told him to keep the change and felt a nervous pit growing inside her stomach. This was twice today that she was seeing someone she hadn’t seen in years. First her father, which turned out to be a disaster. And now Michael, her former husband, who was revealed to be her half-brother when his father, Louis Ryan, confronted the Redmans with the truth about George Redman’s infidelity with his wife.

  She was about to step inside when someone came up behind her and took her by the arm. It was Michael. He was wearing sunglasses and a cap over his dark hair, but that was nothing new for this place, which attracted celebrities like a magnet. Tribeca was filled with them.

  Without thinking about it, she reached up and held his face in her hands. There was no awkwardness between them. Both of them had been used by Ryan and suffered at his hand. She kissed him on the cheek and he held her close.

  She took a step back and smiled at him. “Look at you,” she said. “So incognito.”

  He blushed, which surprised her. “I have a new movie coming out in September,” he said. “They’re promoting the hell out of it now.”

  He’d been famous for years, but still he wasn’t comfortable with it. Perhaps that wasn’t possible at his level. She caught the look of concern that crossed his face and realized why. “This is your first time back on screen, isn’t it?”

  “First the book. Now the movie.”

  “You look worried.”

  “You never know if they’re going to come back, Leana. In my business, three years away from the screen might as well be ten.”

  “So, I guess we’ll wait and see.”

  “You know, you’re one of the only people in my life who doesn’t bullshit me.”

  “Not my style.”

  “You don’t know how much I appreciate that.”

  “I expect the same from you. Were you able to get us a seat?”

  “I think so.”

  She knew that was an understatement, but she loved him for it. He never put on airs. He opened the door and a beautiful woman greeted them with a look of recognition. She led them to a corner table that overlooked the street at the far left of the restaurant. Leana took the chair facing the windows. Michael kept his back to them.

  “You look great,” he said.

  “A relationship suits me.”

  “At least this one does.”

  She put her hand on the back of his. “I’d rather have you as my brother. We’ll be together forever that way.”

  “I’m glad you called me.”

  “It’s time we get back on track. I need a brother.”

  “You’ve got one.”

  “We’ll see how happy you are about that in a minute.”

  “What’s up? You sounded irritated on the phone.”

  “Just irritated? Michael, I was nuclear. They could have plugged the entire city into my ass and there wouldn’t have been a blip in service.”

  “And thank you for that image.”

  “I have more.”

  “I think I’m goo
d.”

  “I’m sorry to start off this way, but I need a favor only you can deliver. I really need your help.”

  “What’s the favor?”

  She told him about the scene with her father and their cousin.

  “Her name is Pepper?”

  “It’s actually Penelope. The kids at Wharton called her Pepper because she’s spicy. And, man, is that ever true. Let me tell you about our cousin. She’s one mean-spirited bitch.”

  A waiter came over to take their orders. Each went with an iced tea and a salad. When he left, Leana told Michael everything that had transpired in her father’s penthouse.

  “He’s never going to let you in, is he?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “What’s his problem?”

  “Take your pick. I was a drug addict when I was in my late teens, I caused nothing but trouble in my early twenties and I agreed to open Louis Ryan’s hotel because I knew it would piss Dad off. I understand he has legitimate reasons for being angry with me, especially when I was becoming an adult. What I don’t understand is why he treated me like a third-rate nobody when I was a kid. He ignored me. That’s where my problems with him began.”

  Their drinks arrived and as Leana looked up to thank the waiter, she was aware that she and Michael were the room’s focus. She couldn’t tell if people were looking at him or her. For the past twelve hours, her face had blanketed New York.

  “So, what can I do for you?” he asked. “You said you needed a favor.”

  She told him about her hotel on Park. “In a month, I’m celebrating its restoration with a grand opening party. Naturally, Pepper and my father have chosen the same night for a ‘social event that will elevate The Hotel Fifth in ways that will bury The Park.’ Or so says Pepper.”

  “She really is a bitch.”

  “You don’t even know.” She hesitated, then told him what she needed from him. “I know it’s asking a lot. If you can’t do it, I understand.”