Ricardo was a stronger man than me. I wouldn’t have given her time to calm down. I would’ve kept throwing questions at her. Instead, he waited. Finally, once she had stopped crying quite as hard, he asked, “And then what?”
“I asked him what he thought he was doing,” she said. “I mean, it was one thing to scare her, but he might have killed her. He told me it was all part of the plan, that he didn’t mean to kill her. I wasn’t sure if I believed him and I told him so. He told me I was already in too deep, and he could prove that I had booked his early flight back to New York and say it was because we were in on it together.” She gulped and nodded her head. “Which was true. That was true.”
“What about the Palcohol?”
“That was his idea, too, of course. I didn’t know there was such a thing before he talked about it.” She wiped her cheeks with the sleeve of her sweater. “It was all to undermine her, you know? To make it look like she was falling off the wagon and couldn’t be trusted.”
“But why?” he asked. “I don’t understand how that would help either of you. What would happen if she lost her job on the film and you had to go home?”
“Well, I’d be home,” Janine pointed out. “That’s not a bad thing.”
“But what if nobody would hire her anymore? You would be out of a job after a while. You both would.”
She stared down at the table. “He took care of that,” she whispered.
“What do you mean, he took care of it?”
Her head snapped up again. “If I tell you this, I want a deal. Got it? I want a deal if I give you information about him.”
“I’m not in a position to offer a deal—that’ll be up to the district attorney,” Ricardo replied.
“Do you think they’ll give me one?” she asked in a trembling voice, near tears again.
“I don’t know what it is you have to tell me. If you would rather wait until a lawyer comes in…”
She shook her head. “I need to get this off my chest. I don’t care if I’m making a mistake by telling you now rather than waiting.”
“What is it you want to tell me?”
A deep breath. “He’s been stealing money from her for ages. From her investment accounts. He has the login information and shuffles things around online. He even forges her signature on paperwork. He showed me once.”
“So it didn’t matter if any of them had a job,” Pax muttered beside me. “He was gonna take the money and run, and leave this one behind as his patsy.”
I could hardly look at her, but that was nothing compared to the way I felt about him. Him, I wanted to kill. I had a strange feeling that there was still another reason why he’d gone to all the trouble he had. Some deeper reason. He’d already lied to Janine about wanting her and had framed her for the Palcohol purchase. What else had he done? What was he capable of?
I had to talk to Charlotte. I had to make sure she was all right. I’d send a car over to her place and have them bring her to the police station, just to be sure she was safe. If what Janine was telling me was true, I couldn’t trust anybody.
When I called her, the phone rang and rang. Why would she let it ring like that if she knew it was me?
Nausea hit me when I realized what might have happened. No. I couldn’t fail her like I’d failed before. Images of Sayed and his mother filled my head, dead in what used to be the market. Only instead of Sayed’s mother, it was Charlotte I saw. Lying there with her eyes open, staring up at the sky.
Chapter Twenty – Charlotte
“Here. Let me take care of that.” I watched in horror as he pulled my phone from my hand and threw it to the floor before stomping on it. “There. That’s better. Now we can talk in peace.”
I was frozen stiff, completely stunned by the change in him. That was Spencer calling. I just knew it. And Brian had cut off my communication. Oh, please, Spencer, know that there’s something wrong. Have a hunch or something.
“I don’t understand.” I whispered. My eyes shifted right and left as I looked for a way out of the room as I stood on shaky legs.
His face contorted into an ugly sneer. “You don’t? Oh, come on. You’ve been spending all this time with that new boyfriend and the cop who’s always around, but you still haven’t figured it all out? You’re still not smart enough to get it?”
When did it all fall apart? One minute he was all right. He’d been all right ever since he started working with me. But in the blink of an eye, he’d become a different person. Or maybe he was always the person who stood before me just then and the rest was an act. “No. I’m not smart enough. So all of this is a waste of time.”
“No, it’s not.” He shook his head with a grim smile. “I need to get out town, it’s true. Maybe further away than that. But I couldn’t leave without having it out with you, first. I couldn’t let you just walk away from this.”
“Walk away from what? What are you trying to punish me for?” My mind whirled, trying to find an escape. He blocked the door, so there was no way out through there. I thought about the fire escape, but what were the odds he’d let me get down it without chasing after me? Then again, there were motion sensors out there. If somebody from the agency detected movement, they’d send somebody.
His eyes were wide, a little glazed. Like he was on something. I wondered if that was it, or if he really hated me as much as the nasty look on his face told me he did. “What am I trying to punish you for? Where do I start?” He took a step toward me, then another. I backed away, never letting my eyes leave him. One false move and I was done for. Nobody was there to scare him off that time. Not like in the trailer.
“Let’s see,” he muttered. “Maybe it was the way you always treated me like an afterthought. The way I worked my ass off for you, but you repaid me by sleeping around with your costars.”
“What’s that got to do with you?” I did what I could to stall. If I took a step toward the window too abruptly, he would know what I was thinking. I had to take my time. It was like playing a scene with a partner, only we were doing improv. I told myself to make believe it was improv. I would be fine. I was safe.
“You never saw me. Not once. No matter how many ways I tried to tell you I cared about you, you brushed me off. You acted like I annoyed you. You treated me like a servant, when you would be nowhere without me.” His laugh was an unhinged bark. “Do you know the hoops I’ve had to jump through just to keep you employed?”
“No, I don’t. I admit it. You never told me.” Another step. Like a dance. He stepped forward, I stepped away. Only he was backing me into the wall. The window was to my left, on the other side of the wide room.
“And you paid me nothing—nothing! Not a fraction of what I was worth. I made you over seventy million dollars last year, Charlotte Banks! Movie deals, endorsements, appearances. And all you had to do was show up and look pretty. Meanwhile, I was the one behind the scenes. I was the one who made it all work. You would be nowhere without me.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“So, why raise a big fuss over your finances?”
“I didn’t raise a big fuss! I barely even noticed the missing money.”
“But you did notice, didn’t you? You noticed it, and you probably told your new boyfriend about it.”
“That’s not true.” I glanced toward the window again. I didn’t think he noticed—or, I hoped he didn’t.
“And why did you notice it, anyway?” he asked. His hands were clenched into fists. “Because he convinced you that you don’t need this life, this career. Right? You never said anything about that before, did you?”
“No. I never thought about it before.”
“Because he convinced you. He got in your head.”
“Why do you care?” I didn’t mean to question him so much. I didn’t mean for him to hear how much the sight of him turned my stomach just then. I didn’t want to earn any more of his rage. Still, I couldn’t help asking. “You want me dead.”
He frowned. “Don’t b
e so dramatic.”
“But you do. Or else you wouldn’t have attacked me in my trailer.”
“I was only trying to scare you. I didn’t want to actually kill you.” He rolled his eyes. His attitude chilled me to my core. How could he speak that way? Like a totally different person.
“I don’t believe you.”
“It doesn’t matter if you believe me or not.” Another step. “I don’t care what you think.” Another step. I was edging closer to the window, but he’d also given me a clear path to the door. Could I make it?
“Why not?” I breathed, eyes darting back and forth.
“Because you won’t be able to tell anybody.”
I fled to the door, fingers fumbling with the lock before flinging it open. I must’ve surprised him, since he didn’t recover fast enough to catch me there. I ran down the hall, into the living room. They’d see me, the people watching the video feed. They’d see him. They’d send somebody up.
“What do you think you’re doing?” He caught up to me at the front door, where I was panicking over the locks, took me by the waist and threw me to the floor. I hit my head, making stars dance in front of my eyes.
“You’re not fast enough for that,” he breathed, panting a little after the chase. He fell to his knees, one on other side of me, looming over me. I clawed at him, punched him, screamed, tried to buck him off. He sat down hard, using all his weight and knocking the wind out of me. No way I was getting out from under him once he did.
His hands closed around my throat. “I’ll just have to finish the job now. It didn’t have to be this way, you know.”
I couldn’t breathe. I clawed at his hands, kicking my feet. Why hadn’t anybody come? Why didn’t Spencer come for me? All there was in the world was Brian, and his face looming over mine, and his hands tightening around my throat. Tighter and tighter. My eyes bulged as I struggled. I reached up, raking my nails over his face. He squirmed away from me, and his hands loosened just enough to let me take a single, blessed breath. But then they were tighter than ever.
“You never looked at me,” he muttered as he squeezed. “You never cared about me. You didn’t want me. Why didn’t you want me?”
I felt the world going black. This was it, I realized. I would never tell Spencer that I loved him…
Then, so many things happened at once. His hands were gone. I could breathe. I gasped and coughed, rolling onto my side, curling up in a ball as I choked and struggled to get air into my lungs. It burned with every breath, but at least I was breathing.
“It’s okay. I’m here.” Strong arms lifted me off the floor and pulled me in. I was against Spencer’s chest, sitting in his lap. I wrapped my arms around his neck and cried as Ricardo’s guys arrested Brian.
***
“So he was embezzling? It was him?”
Ricardo nodded. I rubbed a hand over my throat, which was still raw and sore. Not as bad as it had been after the first attack, but not something I’d want to relive anytime soon.
“He told me it was because I didn’t pay him what he was worth.” I shrugged, looking at the floor. “Maybe that’s true.”
“Don’t you dare blame this on yourself.” Spencer’s hand was on my knee. He hadn’t stopped touching me since it all happened. No matter where I was or what we were doing, he was there. Touching my shoulder, my knee, my hand. “Lots of people feel like they don’t make enough at their job, but they don’t try to kill their boss because of it. That’s just a bullshit excuse. The guy’s a nutcase. Obsessed with you.”
“I have to agree,” Ricardo added.
I smiled at him. “I bet you’re glad this is wrapped up, huh?”
“Not as glad as you,” he smiled.
“It was sort of exciting. Though I could do without this.” I motioned to my throat. “Stephen will go ballistic when he sees it. I guess my character will start wearing scarves.”
The cops left the apartment after a few hours, which meant Spencer and I were alone for the first time since he left for the police station. Only when we were alone could I fall apart a little, but just a little. It was over, and it wasn’t worth me losing it again. I had already sobbed my heart out against his chest earlier.
“Janine, too, huh?” I shook my head. “I was so blind.”
“I didn’t see it, either.”
“I knew her longer.” I curled up on the couch, knees against my chest, my head against the pillows Spencer had insisted on tucking behind me. “I should’ve seen it. I used to feel bad sometimes for talking to her the way I did, too.”
“She felt invisible, and she would’ve felt invisible no matter how you talked to her. Brian saw that. He took advantage. He was the one who told her she deserved better. He made things worse when he planted ideas in her head.”
“I guess you’re right.” But I was the one who gave him the ideas to plant. No matter what I said to Spencer, he wouldn’t agree with me. I decided to drop it.
“So.” He sat there, looking at me without looking me in the eye. “What happens now?”
“We go back to life,” I shrugged. “I have another week or so on the shoot, barring any other emergencies. Then it’s over and I go home. In a few months, they’ll be ready with the edited version of the film and I’ll go on the press junket.”
“I didn’t mean that.”
“I knew what you meant.” I played with the edges of a throw blanket to avoid having to look at him. I shrugged. “Well, we both have lives of our own, right? I don’t expect you to drop everything to come out there with me.”
He was silent. How could he be silent? How could he not know what I needed him to say? I needed him to tell me he wanted to be with me no matter where we were. I needed him to tell me we would figure something out. I needed him.
And he dropped the ball.
“I guess I can get my things packed up,” he murmured. “The crew will be out in the morning to take the cameras out.”
“Thanks.”
“Do you want me to stay the night?”
Of course, I did. That night and every night, but especially that night. It wasn’t every day a girl almost choked to death. Didn’t he understand that? What was wrong with me, thinking we were so in sync? It was just the excitement of the case, that was it. The case was over, so there was no reason for us to be so close anymore.
Everything was over.
“I don’t think you need to, unless you want to.” Please, say you want to. Tell me you want to stay with me to be sure I’m okay.
“I have some follow-up stuff to go with Pax,” he replied. His voice was flat. He never felt anything for me, I realized. Just another guy who thought I was good enough to screw but not enough to love. That was fine. I didn’t need him. And I kept telling myself that as I walked to my room and collapsed into bed.
To think, we were supposed to pick up where we left off when he got back. Weren’t we? How had things changed so quickly?
Chapter Twenty-One – Spencer
“Brian’s trial is scheduled for four weeks from today,” Pax told me. It had taken three weeks to get things sorted out. Much less than that for Janine to turn on him and tell the DA everything he wanted to know. Her lawyer and made a plea bargain that got her two years in prison and three years’ probation. She was getting off easy, as far as I was concerned. Way too easy. But that was the way the law worked, sometimes. The DA wanted Brian, and he’d get him.
Brian deserved it more than she did, really. He’d used the feelings Janine had against Charlotte to manipulate her. He’d lied to her and twisted her up. All to get what he wanted.
“Will she come back for it?” I asked.
“I don’t know. They might want her testimony, but since she can’t actually testify to anything that hasn’t already been proven—financial records, the order for the Palcohol, evidence he was at the scene of the first attack, not to mention Janine’s testimony—there might not be a reason for her to be involved. I can see why she wouldn’t want to be anywher
e around the trial.”
I shrugged. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “It doesn’t matter, anyway.”
“Why not?” I could just tell from the smartass smirk on his face that he thought he knew it all.
“Because she went back to LA. I think that’s a pretty definitive answer.”
“Well, here’s a question.” Pax leaned back in his chair and crossed his ankles on his desk. “Did you give her a reason to stay?”
“I told her she didn’t need to go back there. She doesn’t need that life.”
He blinked. “And?”
“And…that’s it.” I stared mutely at him. “Why are you asking?”
“Because that’s a shit answer. And it’s no reason for her to stick around.”
“I don’t get it.”
“No, you obviously don’t get it, or else you would’ve given her an actual reason to stay here.”
“What, being miserable in LA isn’t reason enough for her to stay here?”
“Not really, since you made it sound like you were telling her what to do with her life instead of telling her you care about her and want her to stay with you.”
I looked out the window for a long time. “You don’t have much of a view,” I muttered.
“No, I don’t.”
“You own the company but you don’t even have a view.”
“You love that girl but you didn’t even tell her you do.”
“I don’t love her.”
“Bullshit. And even if you don’t, you do care about her. This wasn’t just caring about a client. You know it, I know it.” He shrugged. “I can’t even be mad at you for crossing the line with her. I know it would be a waste of time.”
“Thanks for that, anyway.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Listen. I know I’m not the guy anybody’s going to for advice about women. My track record sucks ass. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t learned things.”
“Like what?”
“Like when you care about a woman, you tell her so. You don’t try to convince her to do things in a roundabout way, because that’s not fair. If you really want her, and you want her here with you, you should tell her so in plain English.”
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