Bodyguard Reunion

by Beverly Long

  He got up to shut the door and watched her until she got to the middle of the hallway, where she disappeared from view as she stepped into the elevator banks.

  She was up to something. He just wished he knew what the hell it was.

  Chapter 11

  It took Charity twenty-two minutes to walk to the bar. Eight of those minutes were on the strip, another ten minutes in a decent off-strip neighborhood, and the last four minutes she spent traipsing past people sleeping in doorways and thin dogs barking in weed-filled alleys.

  She should have taken a cab but she was a little short on cash right now.

  Not for long. Not if she had her way.

  She entered the Gold Pot Bar and scanned the dark interior. Every time she came here, the green garland hanging from the dingy white drop ceiling looked more ridiculous. Not as tacky as the naked ceramic leprechaun next to the cash register, but close.

  But Lou liked the place.

  She saw her friend halfway down the wood bar, leaning in toward the man next to her, her head cocked, as if the guy she was talking to was the most interesting man on the planet.

  Lou was good at working people for free drinks.

  Charity took the empty stool on the other side, being careful to avoid scratching her leg on the cracked leather seat. When Lou turned her head, Charity mouthed, “See if he’ll buy me a drink, too.”

  And Lou, who had no shame, turned back to the mope and did exactly that. Within minutes, Charity had a Guinness sitting in front of her. Then she leaned forward, made eye contact with the guy and said, “I need to borrow her for a few minutes.”

  Then she led Lou over to an empty booth. As they each slid in on their respective sides, Lou said, “I can’t wait to hear. Tell me everything.”

  “Well, to start with, Bobby almost blew it. He came home before I expected and almost killed JC.”

  “I told you he was trash. You wouldn’t listen to me.”

  “I needed a place to stay. Your place wasn’t exactly an option.”

  Lou sighed. “I need that old woman to drift on into a coma or something.”

  Charity shook her head. “Not before we get the money. One of us needs a job.”

  “You’re right. The bitch needs to hang on a little longer. What happened after Bobby almost killed JC?”

  “I had to call the cops. They arrested Bobby.”

  “That was convenient,” Lou said.

  “It played out perfectly. JC invited me back to her hotel, the Periwinkle. I didn’t even have to ask.”

  “Oh, my God. What’s it like inside?”

  “Gorgeous. Three pools. I ordered a couple drinks and charged them to her room. That was fun.”

  “Now what?”

  Charity leaned back and closed her eyes. “I’m going to enjoy it for a couple days,” she said.

  “You’ll be able to pay for your own stay at the Periwinkle if this works out,” Lou said, frowning at her. “We talked about this. Get the money and we run.”

  “We will. All I want is a couple days. It’s fun doing it on her dime, without her having any idea what’s coming.”

  “What’s she like?” Lou asked, draining her drink.

  Charity hesitated. JC was nicer than she’d anticipated. But people had been nice to her before and it never lasted. “She’s fine. Has some nice eye candy hanging around. Some guy named Royce. He does security.”

  “Is he going to give us trouble?”

  Charity stared at her friend. “No trouble that we can’t handle. Now let’s go see if we can hustle your friend at the bar for some more drinks.”

  * * *

  After Charity left the apartment, Royce watched a little television, but it failed to hold his attention. He wondered if Jules would emerge from her bedroom, but as the hours passed, he figured that wasn’t going to happen.

  Unable to put it off any longer, he turned on his computer, typing names of people into the search field that he’d sworn to never think about again.

  Bryson Wagoner. Royce had never met the man. Had known about his existence from the beginning of his relationship with Jules but had believed her when she’d said it was over. Believed it until that fateful last meeting with Jules and her dad. He’d been less skilled at keeping his feelings under wraps in those days, and Joel Cambridge had been an expert at casually firing the verbal kill shot.

  Everyone pretty much assumes that he and Jules will be married by Christmas.

  Ugly damn words. Hurtful. Frightening to a young man who’d stumbled upon the best thing in his life and knew that there was very little chance he was going to be able to hang on to it.

  Royce had left the Fifth Avenue condo, his head whirling. He’d looked up information on Bryson Wagoner that night. Of course, he hadn’t had the resources available to him then that he did now. But still, the rudimentary search had told him just about everything he needed to know.

  Bryson had passed the bar five years earlier and was gainfully employed at one of the largest law firms in Manhattan. His father was a judge, his grandfather a noted physician and his great-grandfather had made his fortune in steel during World War II.

  Bryson had been a star on the Princeton fencing team.

  He was everything that Royce wasn’t.

  He was everything that Jules should have.

  And when he’d seen their wedding announcement online just months later, he’d sworn never to look again. But tonight, here he was, breaking that promise. He clicked Enter and waited. As the sites popped up, he realized much of it was what he’d seen before. But now, in the public records, was information about the marriage dissolution.

  And then, two years later, Bryson’s second marriage to Ann Kennedy. There had been plenty of social media coverage of their wedding in the Hamptons. They now had two small children and were living in New Jersey. He was still working at the same law firm.

  Next he searched Lara Cambridge. Her obituary was the first thing that popped up. She’d been thirty-eight years old when she’d died in a one-car accident. Her contributions to many philanthropic institutions in New York City and beyond were mentioned. She was survived by her “loving husband and daughter.”

  His damn hands shook when he’d typed in Joel Cambridge. Numerous mentions of him in the society pages. Sometimes alone. More times with a woman on his arm. Many, many different women. Joel Cambridge was rich, sophisticated and good-looking, with his thick silver hair and piercing dark eyes.

  A real catch.

  A real bastard.

  He flipped through various sites, stopping suddenly when he came to one that mentioned the possibility of Joel’s candidacy for the United States Senate. Holy hell. A reputable news source was quoted as saying that he was “seriously considering the possibility.”

  Royce moved quickly to other more recent sites. It became clear that it wasn’t simply speculation. Joel Cambridge was running for the Senate. The election was less than a year away and the campaign was in full swing.

  Jules had not mentioned this. Did she know? Of course she did. It was public record. Were the threats against her in some way connected to her father’s candidacy? It was a long shot, but one that sure as hell should have been considered.

  He should not have been blindsided.

  Before he could talk himself out of it, he set his laptop aside and walked down the hallway. He knocked sharply at her door. “Jules,” he said. “I need to talk to you.”

  He heard rustling from inside. The door whipped open. “What is it?” she asked. She was pulling on a robe.

  But she wasn’t quite fast enough. He caught a glimpse of her bare skin and the tops of her pretty breasts in the short silk nightgown that she’d worn to bed.

  “I...” He stopped. His legs felt weak.

  Th
e pink robe was belted now and she was fingering the edge that hit her midthigh.

  “What’s wrong?” she said. “Is it Charity?”

  He shook his head. “She went out. To meet a friend.”

  She frowned. “Not Bobby.”

  Royce shook his head. “He’s still in jail. I’ll know when he’s released.”

  “I didn’t know she had other friends here,” Jules said, her tone thoughtful.

  “I think there may be a lot that you don’t know about her.”

  Jules licked her upper lip. “Is that what you pounded on my door to tell me?”

  She was very sensitive about Charity. “I saw online that your father is running for the Senate.”

  “Yes.”

  Her pretty eyes told him nothing. “I would have thought that might have been worthy of a mention.”

  “The threats were directed at me. They have nothing to do with my father.”

  “Does he know about them?”

  “I don’t think so. I specifically asked Barry not to say anything. I think that in his capacity as chairman of the board of Miatroth he would comply with that request. However, he’s been my father’s good friend for years. I suppose it is possible that Barry went behind my back and advised my father. In any event, the two of us haven’t discussed it.”

  He recalled Jules and Joel Cambridge as being very close. “That surprises me,” he said.

  She said nothing.

  That unnerved him. That and her standing there, so absolutely perfect in her pink silk and pretty pale skin.

  “Don’t keep secrets from me,” he said. Probably more harshly than he needed to.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t bother me with nonsense again, then. I’m working.”

  She was trying to put him in his place. But when he looked over her shoulder, there were piles of paper on her bed and her laptop computer was open and on.

  He probably should have held his question until morning. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  She gave him a quick nod, then ran a hand through her hair. “I wish I knew where Charity had gone,” she said.

  “I can let you know if she doesn’t come home,” he said.

  “You’ll be up?”

  “Sure.” Nobody was getting in the hotel room without his knowledge.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  The air was very still as the two of them stared at each other. “Well, good night,” she said finally. Then stepped back to close the door.

  He stood outside her room for another minute, waiting to hear the rustle of paper as she settled back in bed. But it was quiet, so quiet that he thought that she probably also hadn’t moved. That they were each guarding the door.

  Closed off from one another.

  Shaking his head, he walked back to the living area and sank down on the couch. This was crazy. He should never have agreed to protect Jules. Too much history.

  But had he not been beside her today, she might be dead.

  The world without Jules Cambridge was not a better place. And he would never forgive himself if something happened to her. Yes, she’d hurt him. But he’d also loved her very much. And had known, even in the midst of the darkest hours of his despair over losing her, that she’d made the right choice. How could he be angry with her for that?

  * * *

  She wanted to be mad at Royce. Wanted to be angry that he’d had the nerve to interrupt her, to demand an explanation.

  She had deliberately not mentioned her father’s Senate run. First of all, she wasn’t all that happy about it for a number of reasons. If politics had been a noble cause at one time, it had certainly lost its sheen in recent years. In her role as a CEO of one of the larger pharmaceutical companies, she knew better than most the powerful lobbying that occurred on behalf of the prescription drug industry. Knew that money made a difference to many politicians, knew that a vote could be influenced by many things.

  Why her father wanted to be part of that cesspool was beyond her understanding. But the real reason she hadn’t told Royce about her dad was that she didn’t want to have a discussion with Royce that in any way involved her father. Royce was too perceptive of her feelings. He’d always been that way. From the first night they’d had dinner, she’d felt that he could really see her, could really know what she was thinking.

  If she’d told Royce about her dad running for Senate, there might have been some discussion about his chances of winning, and she might not have been able to hide the fact that she couldn’t bring herself to care about the campaign or his chances of getting elected, because everything she’d ever believed about her father might just not be true.

  Since the night she’d discovered her mother’s diary, crazy, ugly thoughts had swirled just below the surface. Her mom had been a nice person—everyone said so. But the thoughts she’d expressed had been so bad that it had seemed as if they must have been penned by someone else.

  But she’d had the handwriting compared to that on some old birthday cards that she’d saved. It was the same.

  So either her mother had been losing her mind or her father had done some very bad things. She wasn’t ready to talk to Royce about either option.

  Don’t keep secrets from me. That’s what he’d said. Well, easier said than done because all she was doing was keeping secrets from people. She hadn’t told Barry the truth about why she wanted to stay in Las Vegas, hadn’t told Charity the truth about their relationship and certainly hadn’t told Royce the truth that simply being near him again made her remember every wonderful thing about that summer that she’d vowed to forget.

  She still couldn’t watch a silly fireworks show because of him.

  On the third of July that summer, they’d made plans to picnic on the Fourth. Royce had wanted to buy the food at a deli but she’d insisted on cooking. Like a throwback to some primitive species, she’d wanted to cook for her man, to demonstrate with deviled eggs and fried chicken what she couldn’t say out loud.

  They took a blanket and a picnic basket to Prospect Park in Brooklyn and lay under a tree. It was hot and Royce had stripped down to just his cargo shorts. They drank lemonade with vodka in it and she fed him pickles and olives and he teased her with brie cheese drizzled with honey.

  He raved about her chicken even though she knew that she’d cooked it too long and it was too dry.

  They tossed a Frisbee and petted dogs as they walked by. By late afternoon, he sensed that a combination of ten-hour days at work, too much food and warm sunshine was catching up with her. He lay back, pulled her close, and she slept with her head on his chest for hours.

  They awakened and took the train back to Manhattan, and as the sky was darkening, he grabbed her hand and led her through the city to an old warehouse in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood.

  “My friend owns the place,” he said. “Swears it’s the best spot to view the fireworks.” He led her up to the roof, where earlier in the day he’d left an inflated air mattress.

  There, they opened their cooler bag and ate the remainder of their lunch. And they made love.

  As the fireworks had exploded over the city, she exploded around him, and it had seemed as if she and the blinding, blazing lights were one. And she knew it was more than sex; she knew that she loved him. Neither of them said it, but she knew that he felt the same.

  And when he had held her hand as he’d walked her home, she had known that there never would be another Fourth of July that perfect.

  The next year, when Bryson had suggested they watch the fireworks, she pleaded a headache and lowered all the blinds in their apartment.

  Every year after that, she found some reason not to participate in the ritual.

  She forced her mind back to the present but it wasn’t any easier in that space. Where the heck was Chari
ty? She was meeting a friend? Not really a comfortable thought. Charity certainly had not demonstrated the best of judgment in moving in with Bobby Boyd.

  There was so much about Charity that she still didn’t know. She intended to fix that the first chance she got. Tomorrow, after her panel discussion, she wasn’t coming back and diving into the hundreds of emails that were accumulating in her absence. She intended to spend the day with Charity. Maybe they’d even get to the point where she’d feel comfortable telling her the truth.

  One less secret to have to carry around.

  They were a damn ten-pound bag around her neck, threatening to choke her. When Royce found out that she hadn’t been truthful with him from the beginning, he was going to be very angry.

  And more confident than ever that the very last insult he’d hurled her direction eight years ago had been true. “You’re a liar.”

  She had not lied to Royce about her relationship with Bryson. They’d broken up months before she’d met Royce. She’d thought it was mutual. Had not expected that he’d come back at the end of summer, literally begging her to marry him.

  Had not expected that it would be so important to her father, who had given up so much for her and asked so little in return.

  Or so she’d thought.

  She crawled back in bed and picked up her laptop. Royce had said that he would wait up until Charity came home. She would do the same. But like always, she would fill her time with work.

  * * *

  Royce heard the faint chime of the elevator at twenty minutes after midnight. In his mind, he counted Charity’s steps, and she put her key card into the door just when he expected.

  If she was surprised to see him sitting on the couch, staring at the door, she didn’t show it. Her gait was not quite steady and he suspected that she’d been drinking quite a bit. Now the black eyeliner was smeared beneath her eyes and she’d pulled her long hair, which had been hanging down her back when she’d left, into a haphazard bun at the nape of her neck.

  “Evening,” he said.

  “Hello. You didn’t need to wait up, Dad.” Her emphasis on the last word was deliberate and smug.