Tangled Hearts (Evermore 4 Book Box Set)

by ANDREA SMITH

  The truth was I wanted—I needed Neely in my life in some way. I’d never felt for Julia the way I had for Neely. She’d been a surrogate; someone who was perfect for me on paper. But in the real world? Julia and I were both on a mission to launch our careers and I knew that by hitching my star to hers, my rise would be much easier because of her father and his influence.

  It was pathetic, but it was the goddamned truth.

  I checked my Rolex. It was just going on four o’clock. Neely might be out of class by now, that is, if she was still in school. I didn’t know shit about her life anymore because I’d been so wrapped up in my own, and because I thought we were done with one another. But we would never be done and I knew in my heart she felt the same way.

  Her eyes told her story. And that day this summer when I’d practically mowed her down I’d seen her eyes for a brief moment and they had told me everything I needed to know.

  I mattered to her.

  I always would.

  The same was true for me with her.

  I got into my car and started the route towards Santa Monica. It wasn’t that far of a drive. Maybe twenty minutes. I would park in front of her condo if she wasn’t home, and I’d wait for as long as it took until she arrived home and then we would talk.

  I pulled into the 76 Station on Lincoln Boulevard to grab a soda and some chips in case it turned out to be a long wait. I hadn’t eaten a damn thing all day.

  At the register, I got behind a dude that was buying scratch-off lottery tickets, and then standing there and scratching them off to see if he’d won so he could collect or buy more.

  I started whistling and tapping my foot, but he was undeterred. I glanced around and that’s when the headline and picture caught my eye. The new Hollywood Tattler was out, and a picture of Tiffany Blume was plastered on the front with a caption: Love Blumes at the Ritz.

  What the fuck? I could buy the rag and have something to read at least while waiting for Neely if I had to. I made my purchase and headed back to my car. I unfolded the tabloid to get a better look at the picture on front.

  Holy fuck.

  It was Tiffany Blume from the waist up wearing only a lacy bra. She was looking directly at the camera, her mouth hanging open in surprise—or maybe it was shock, and some guy identified as world-renowned movie producer Eric Fellner, with his face buried in her neck. He was naked from the waist up. My eyes scanned down to the photo tagline:

  Grace Evangelista.

  I started my car and pulled back out onto Lincoln Boulevard and couldn’t help chuckling. Not that I approved of stalkarazzi, which was the category I placed this Grace Evangelista in being she seemed to have the goods on all of the scandalous shit going down in Hollywood, but this one felt good to even me.

  Tiffany Blume was due some Karma, and it looked like Grace Evangelista had served her up just that in a major way. I couldn’t see Randall Evans putting up with that type of scandal, being in the business he was in. I wondered if Neely had seen this yet. I wasn’t sure how she’d take it, but I knew she loved her father. I doubted whether that had changed.

  When I reached the address that Blake had given me, there was one car sitting in the drive. I knew it was Jazzy’s from watching her tear out of Blake’s parking lot the other night. Hopefully, my arrival would show her that I’d gotten the message.

  When she answered the door, her brows quirked in confusion. “Seth? What is it?”

  “I want to talk to Neely. I want to get the story right. I’m kind of dense, I get it, but I’m here to make things right on that account. Is she here?”

  Jazzy sighed and held the door open permitting me to enter. “You would pick today of all days to do this, right? Of course you would,” she grumbled, closing the door behind me. “She’s not here, Seth. But I know where she is if you want to find her. She’ll be there for a while. And maybe it’s the perfect place for your talk.”

  Jazzy had aroused my curiosity with her words. “Cryptic much?” I replied.

  “Stay put. I’ll get you the directions,” she remarked, walking into another room.

  I looked around. They had some pretty nice digs going on here. They must be making some decent bank to afford it. I knew Jazzy worked at a studio, but obviously, Neely was working now as well.

  “Hey, she’s not at work or anything is she?” I asked when Jazzy reappeared with a piece of paper in her hand.

  “Nope,” she said, holding out the paper for me to take. “She’s there and she’s alone. Just follow the directions.”

  I glanced down at the directions. “You’re kidding, right?”

  Her indomitable stare assured me she was not.

  “Garden of Innocence Memorial Park…a cemetery?”

  Jazzy nodded. “It’s about thirty minutes from here. She’ll be there until six o’clock when they close the gates, so if you wanna catch her, you better be on your way.”

  I knew Jasmine wasn’t going to elaborate any further on this. So, I left and hoped that when I found Neely, she would be okay with my being there. It was so strange. But glancing down at the directions, there was a diagram of the section where Neely would be which told me Jazzy had been there with her as well.

  Had her mother passed? Certainly Jazzy would’ve shared that bit of detail with me. I shoved a Metallica CD in and hit the I-10W towards Pasadena. I tried to relax as much as I could, knowing that at least I’d know the reason Neely was at a cemetery today, if nothing else, before it was all over.

  Chapter 17

  October 22, 1999

  I hadn’t been here in a year. This was the longest amount of time I’d gone between visits, but there was no way I would’ve missed being here today.

  It was a sunny, balmy day, but then October in Southern California was usually mid-seventies with a light breeze. It was after five, so I knew at a few minutes before six o’clock the caretaker would be driving his pick-up truck through the paved driveway that wound all through the cemetery to make sure everyone left so he could close the gates.

  The section I was in was usually deserted. Except for a few teddy bears placed next to a flower arrangement, or a balloon blowing in the breeze on a couple of the graves, that was about it. And those got to be fewer and fewer.

  The first year, I’d come here more often. It felt like a place where I could reflect on anything and mourn in private without anyone trying to console me. Like Jazzy.

  I knew before I’d moved out of my father’s house that August that I was pregnant. My period had always arrived like clockwork, except for when it hadn’t in June. And then again in July.

  I’d informed Jazzy. Nobody else.

  “Oh girl,” she said, her eyes wide with concern, “What are you going to do?”

  “What I’m not going to do is tell my father,” I stated very matter-of-fact. “I’ll be out of his house and in our apartment in two weeks so he doesn’t need to find out.”

  “So, what? Are you going to get an abortion?”

  I looked at her squarely. “I won’t lie, Jazz. I thought about it, I really did. I mean, I’m the first one to stand up for a woman’s right to choose, and I always will, but it’s not for me. I considered it for about thirty seconds. And then I felt guilty as hell even for that.”

  She’d placed her hand on my shoulder. “I’m glad. We’ll figure it out together. Are you…”

  I hadn’t let her finish. “No,” I said abruptly. “I’m not telling Seth.”

  “No?” she replied, arching a brow. “Why not?”

  “I can’t throw a wrench into his plans. I won’t do it. He’s with someone else anyway. How pathetic would that look for me to walk back into his life with this kind of news, huh?”

  Jazz and I had argued about that point on and off for the next few weeks. But she finally had backed off; telling me it was my decision and my life even though she didn’t necessarily agree with it.

  And so our life had continued on once we’d moved
into our own place. I did all the things an expectant mother is supposed to do.

  I saw a doctor.

  I took my prenatal vitamins.

  I abstained from all the things a pregnant woman is supposed to abstain from, not that I had been doing any of them anyway.

  And I’d kept a low profile.

  School and home. Home and school.

  I kept in touch with my dad by phone, and had finally decided when I was in my fifth month of pregnancy, to share the news with him before the holidays. Even though I barely had a baby bump, I knew by Christmas it would be fairly obvious given my due date was February 24th.

  We’d had plans to meet for dinner the following week. But, as it turned out, that didn’t happen. I cancelled the day before telling him I was home with the flu. Besides that, there was nothing to tell him anymore. There would be no baby.

  I stood up and brushed the errant twigs and dead grass from the flat marble headstone. A lone tear traveled down my cheek as I recalled that day two years ago when my heart broke for the very last time.

  I read the words that I’d had engraved on our daughter’s headstone.

  Drake Evans

  Born Silently Into This World

  on

  October 22, 1997

  ‘Planted on this earth

  to bloom in Heaven.’

  I turned to look up as I heard a car stop and the engine shut off. I raised my hand to shield my eyes from the sun, knowing it was too early for the groundskeeper to be nudging me out.

  When he got out of the car my breath hitched in my throat. He walked through the grass to where I was crouched down by the headstone.

  Seth.

  I was frozen. It wasn’t in fear or in shock, it was more like I couldn’t believe that he was really here of all places. How? Why?

  It was as if he read my mind. “Jazzy,” he said softly, coming up to stand beside me. “She told me you’d be here when I insisted I needed to see you. To talk to you. To get the story straight. I want to do that very much, Neely,” he continued, dropping down into a crouched position next to me.

  I remained silent, watching as his eyes left mine and traveled to the ground, and the shiny stone memorial that had been encrusted in that small piece of earth. It was the mark that told the world, or maybe just the handful of people that came to the baby section of this cemetery, or the groundskeepers that mowed around it that Seth Drake and Neilah Grace Evans had created an angel that would never walk among them. Not in this world anyway.

  And it hadn’t been insignificant. This tiny human being that had come into the world too soon, too silently, but not without a soul.

  I felt another tear roll down my cheek, grateful that Seth had not looked back over at me yet when I heard his breath catch and caught the movement of his hand to his face where he cupped his jaw and rubbed his stubble.

  “Oh My God,” he said, and his voice cracked in a way that I’d never heard before. “Oh Neely,” he continued now standing up and pulling me up with him.

  Before I could even respond, I was wrapped tightly in his arms, and one of his hands was tangled in my hair at the nape of my neck, rubbing it softly with his fingers. He buried his face into my hair and pulled me in even tighter as deep sobs shook his body.

  I’d never seen Seth cry. I wasn’t sure up to this point if he’d even been capable of it. We were strangers to one another. “Why…why’d you let me think…”

  “Don’t,” I said, my voice muffled against his chest. “Let’s not do this, Seth. I’m tired of tearing each other apart.”

  I felt him nod against me. “Me too,” he replied softly. “Me too, baby.”

  I wasn’t sure how long we both stood there wrapped in one another before I heard the sound of the groundskeeper’s truck. I pulled back from Seth, my hand wiped my damp cheek.

  “We’ve got to leave, Seth. They close the gates at six.”

  He looked down at me, his lashes damp with tears. “Can we talk, Neely? No blame game. No rehashing shit. Just talk? I want to know what happened with my…”

  He paused because he realized he wasn’t sure if the baby was a boy or a girl. He waited for me to respond.

  “Daughter,” I supplied him.

  He nodded and his fingers gently plucked a stray lock of hair from my face. “What happened with our daughter. That is, if you’re up to it.”

  I nodded. “I am, Seth. As long as we don’t make it about hurting each other.”

  He put his arm around my shoulders as we walked to where our cars were parked. “No hurt, baby, I promise. Do you want me to follow you to your house?” he asked softly.

  My mind raced. There’d be no privacy there unless we went to my room. And if we did that, he’d see my shrine to Grace Evangelista and conclude that either I was her, or that I had an extremely odd fascination going.

  “Um…can I follow you to your place? That might be better. Privacy and all.”

  “Sure, babe,” he said to me. “I actually don’t live far from you.”

  So, we each got into our vehicles and headed back towards the coast. I was prepared to share everything with Seth, but what I hadn’t been prepared for was the way I’d felt again being in his arms.

  It had felt right. Normal. The way it was supposed to feel between two people that loved each other. And no matter what happened, I would always love Seth Drake whether he liked it or not. I wanted him in my life, as a friend or as a lover, it didn’t matter which, just as long as it was one or the other.

  I never wanted to be at odds with him again. It was too painful.

  When he hurt, I hurt. It was as simple as that.

  Epilogue

  Two years prior . . .

  October 22, 1997

  Jazzy was trying to keep it all upbeat for me. But there was no upbeat potential for this—there never would be. Not in a million years.

  “So, has that epidural thing kicked in yet, Neel?” she asked, her leg doing that restless leg syndrome thing from where she sat in a chair across from my hospital bed.

  “I’m not feeling any physical pain if that’s what you mean, Jazz. But the contractions weren’t that strong before anyway. I could’ve handled it all without an epidural.”

  “Yeah, you’re tough, I get it. But why should you have to, I mean…” her voice drifted off.

  “You mean why should I feel any pain when there’s not going to be anything worth enduring it for at the end of this journey, right?”

  “That’s not what I meant,” she snapped. “It’s just that you’ve been through enough. With all that shit over the past couple of days with your doctor not knowing what the hell was going on with your…your...”

  “HCG level,” I supplied her. “And that could have been caused by several things, not necessarily anything catastrophic,” I reminded her. “We didn’t know anything until yesterday when the ultrasound showed that the baby had died in utero?”

  “Yeah. Why didn’t your doctor know there was something wrong?” she demanded.

  “Jazzy, I don’t know. Maybe it was something I did or didn’t do. I didn’t know anything was wrong so how could I expect him to know?”

  “No! Stop that. You’ve done and not done everything you were supposed to, don’t go there.”

  I nodded, taking a sip of my water. “I won’t. But he told me we wouldn’t know anything until after…after they do a post-mortem on the baby,” I finished quietly.

  The labor room nurse came buzzing into the room to check my monitors that flashed all kinds of digital and line graph data, which was Greek to me. “You’re contractions are coming stronger honey,” she said, patting my arm. “It won’t be long now. Is the baby’s father expected?” she asked.

  “No,” I replied. “He’s not expected.”

  She gave me a meek smile and left the room assuring me she’d be back in a few minutes with the doctor.

  “Why don’t you call Seth?” Jazzy asked getti
ng up and moving to stand next to my hospital bed. “He should be here.”

  “What would be the point, Jazz?” I asked incredulously. “I had no plans to make him a part of this baby’s life, so why would I want to make him a part of her death?”

  She looked at me. Stunned. “I can’t believe you said that. Do you really think you’re going to hold all of this together by yourself?”

  “I don’t have to. I have you.”

  She leaned over and brushed a kiss on my forehead. “Yeah, you do, girlfriend. You’ll always have me.”

  An hour later, with Jazzy, the nurse, and my OB/GYN in attendance I delivered my stillborn baby girl. She looked perfect. Just miniature. She weighed fourteen ounces and was 8-1/2 inches long.

  “Can I hold her?” I asked, as the nurse wrapped her tiny body in a baby blanket.

  “Sure, honey. We’ll give you a few minutes with her. The doctor has to fill out the Certificate of Fetal Death. It’s required after twenty weeks gestation in California. You delivered at twenty-two weeks. So, I’ll be bringing a form for you to sign with options for how you wish to handle the remains.”

  She hurried out the door before I could react to her last sentence.

  The remains.

  I was holding this tiny bundle that was still warm from my womb next to my heart and there was nothing inside of me that could think of her in terms of anything other than my baby.

  My baby with Seth.

  She’d been born silently, but she still had been born.

  I pulled back the blanket and found one of her perfect little feet. “Look Jazz,” I said in awe, “She has five perfect toes on this foot and, look here, five perfect toes on this one.”

  “I know, Neely,” she sobbed, wiping at her eyes. “I know she does, girl.”

  “And look here,” I continued, “She has peach fuzz on her head. Dark peach fuzz. I bet her hair was going to be dark like Seth’s.”

  Jazzy nodded, another sob escaped her. “Neely, are you sure—”

  “I’m sure,” I said not letting her finish the question I knew was coming. “I can make the decision regarding her remains.”