by Leah Leonard
“Great! This is just great! When will we get clearance to land there?”
“It could be minutes or it will most likely be hours at this point, sir. The British National Weather Service says the storm system is hanging over the area and is not expected to leave any time soon. For now, it would appear our best bet would be to land in Paris.”
Erick knew he was acting just as his father would have behaved in a similar situation and he hated himself for it. It was certainly not this poor man’s responsibility to control the weather in Great Britain. As it was, he figured Cindy had about four or five hours on him and he planned to catch her, or come pretty darned close to it, but now, there would be no telling how he could ever find her unless….
“How long has the weather been acting up?”
“Not long, sir. The front only came in an hour or so ago.”
“Agh!”
After considering several possible options, Erick realized Cindy would be long gone by the time they reached London and there was likely no way to catch up with her there anyway. He may as well find her back in Dallas.
I need to get Gloria on that right away….
“I apologize for my outburst earlier; it’s just that this is an emergency.”
“Yes, sir, understood.”
Erick knew he needed to calm down. The last thing he wanted was for his display of disrespect to get back to his host, who had so generously lent Erick his plane.
“I am needed urgently in the States and Mr. Jibade was kind enough to make these arrangements for me. I’m just disappointed, that’s all, but I realize it isn’t your fault. We can go on to Paris if that’s what the pilot feels is best.”
“I understand, sir, and again, I apologize. We will do our best.”
Erick nodded him off with a smile and a thank you and picked up his phone for the third time in the past few minutes.
“Gloria, it’s me again. There’s been a change of plans.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Cindy uneventfully changed planes in London and was soon headed back to the United States. She felt numb, overwhelmed and exhausted with all that had transpired during the past week. All she wanted now was to get back home and try to make sense of the whole thing—preferably by forgetting completely about it.
She slept most of the eight hours back to Dallas. When the plane hit the ground, she slowly opened up her eyes and yawned. Cindy felt as if she’d taken an overlong afternoon nap, the kind that left her feeling groggy and exhausted.
As soon as the flight landed and before she could retrieve her only bag, Cindy was on the phone to Victoria.
Cindy felt under control as the phone rang, but as soon as she heard Victoria’s voice on the other end, she began a fit of uncontrollable bawling.
“It’s me, Victoria…I….”
“Cindy? Is that you? I can hardly understand a word you’re saying, sweetie. What’s wrong?”
“I need you to come get me.”
“Come get you? What are you talking about? You aren’t supposed to be here for another two days, I thought.”
Cindy cried even harder as her friend pointed out the disaster this week had turned into. “I know. I….”
“It’s okay, Cindy. Where are you?”
“At the airport.”
“I’m coming. Just keep your cell on and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Cindy filled out the paperwork to allow her re-admittance into the country and stood in the long line waiting to speak to a customs officer. When her turn finally arrived, she stepped beyond the waiting line and up to the plastic window where the officer asked her about her belongings.
“Are you bringing anything with you into the United States?”
She shook her head and began to cry once more.
She should have been bringing lots of new things with her, but she left them all behind, realizing she not only had no new clothes or jewelry, but no new man either. It was completely depressing for her to realize she went all that way and had absolutely nothing to show for it except for her memories, which were both the best and worst of her entire life. But Erick was the only thing that had mattered to her in the end.
Cindy paced around the baggage area and collected her bag, which was one of the last to pop out.
She went outside into the cold December air and walked briskly up and down the sidewalk between the two gates, seeing every breath she took as a puff of steamy smoke.
She rubbed her bare hands together and breathed hot air into them just as Victoria pulled up in her little red sports car. Before Cindy could get all the way up to the car, Victoria had already popped out and was running toward her.
The sight of her friend sent Cindy into another fit of sobbing. “Thanks…for coming to get…me.”
“Honey, of course I would get you. Now tell me, what happened? Why are you here?”
The question made Cindy cry even harder and she couldn’t get a single intelligible word out of her mouth. After a few minutes, Victoria picked up her bag, slipped it in the trunk and helped Cindy into the passenger’s side of her car. Before pulling away, Victoria sat and stared at Cindy for a few minutes until she stopped her crying and settled down.
“What happened? Was he that horrible? I can call the cops and have that agency turned in for setting vulnerable women up with criminals. We can slap a lawsuit on them, if you want. Just tell me what happened. Was he a creep?”
Cindy shook her head, imagining all the awful scenarios racing through Victoria’s litigious mind.
“No, no, it wasn’t anything like that.”
“What do you mean, ‘no’? You have the best law firm in Dallas behind you, sweetie, so believe me, we will sue this bastard for damages and make that agency go out of business if that’s what it takes. I don’t care how many millions he has, he won’t have a dime by the time I’m finished with him!”
Under any other circumstances, Cindy would have laughed, but today, the words Victoria certainly meant to follow through on only made Cindy cry harder.
“No, you don’t understand. It wasn’t like that. He was…he was…so…wonderful.”
Through her tears, Cindy saw Victoria furrow her brow, obviously straining to put the missing pieces together.
“So you…fell in love with him? That’s it, isn’t it? You fell in love with him.”
Finally, Cindy nodded. Tears continued to roll down her cheeks, but her labored breathing began to slow down.
“Yes.”
“You’re coming over to my house today so we can talk about all of this and you can fill me in on exactly what happened out there, okay?”
Cindy nodded as the tears steadily streamed down her face. Victoria ripped out of the airport in a puff of smoke and steel.
She turned the radio on, which Cindy appreciated, and didn’t say a word about any of it again during the entire drive back to her house.
The car fit nicely under a carport and as soon as she parked, Victoria rushed around to grab Cindy’s bag and help her get out of the car.
“You hungry? I’m going to make us some hot tea and get a snack put together and you can just sit here. Okay, hon?”
“Okay, thanks.”
Cindy looked around the small but luxurious home nestled in a wooded area on a lake. The atmosphere was posh, yet cozy, and Cindy felt at ease there. Victoria was clearly making the money to be able to afford it, but she was a very capable lawyer and Cindy knew she earned every penny she made.
In all the time they’d been friends, she realized she had never been to Victoria’s house before, and from the looks of it, Cindy thought Victoria would have been completely in her element with the jet setters in Morocco.
She turned on the television and leaned back in a comfortable chair.
She began to change the channels and to her stunned amazement, Entertainment Tonight was on and, lo and behold, the story was all about the Marrakech International Film Festival.
Victoria heard it from the kitc
hen and came out to see what was happening. “Look, that’s the festival you were at! Isn’t that too cool?”
“We caught up with international beauty Petra with her new man, Hollywood bad boy Erick Redmund.
“Petra, are you two an item?”
Cindy watched as the stunning starlet kissed Erick passionately on the lips.
“I guess she just answered that question, folks! Mary, back to you!”
Seeing the incident all over again nearly killed Cindy. She began sobbing uncontrollably and ran from the room. Victoria was right on her heels, but wasn’t quick enough to prevent Cindy from locking herself in the bathroom.
Victoria pounded on the door. “Cindy? What is it? Tell me what’s wrong.”
As Victoria knocked at the door, Cindy sat on the edge of the tub, the scene between Erick and that woman replaying in her mind over and over again.
“Cindy? Please come out and talk to me. You’re worrying me and I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”
Slowly, Cindy cracked the door open, looking at Victoria with sore, red eyes as she slowly hiccupped her response.
“That was him. That was my Erick with that…woman…that Petra woman…that movie star.”
“No! You have to be kidding me.”
“I wish I was. Believe me, I wish I was.”
“You were with that guy?”
“Yes, that was him all right. The man who until yesterday I thought was the love of my life.”
“But he was…”
“Yeah, I know. I saw them in the bar together. Who would have known? Especially after we…”
Cindy’s mind instantly returned to the tender night of passion they shared only hours before that incident and she again began to feel sick about the entire episode.
The look on Victoria’s face told Cindy that her friend seemed to know exactly what was upsetting her.
“So you had sex and then found him with the bimbo? Is that it?”
Cindy nodded and sobbed some more as Victoria reached a hand out to her.
“Come on out, sweetie. Let’s sit on the couch and talk about everything that happened while you were there. I fixed some hot tea to keep us warm. Come on.”
Cindy took her hand and they walked down the hall back to the living room, where the television had been turned off.
“So tell all, Cindy. What happened?”
“He was a movie producer…or at least he wanted to be one. He was there trying to get investors. He wanted me to pretend to be his wife.”
Cindy glanced down at her left hand, where the ring had been only hours before. She could almost still feel it on her finger; she could definitely feel it in her heart.
“Pretend to be his wife? Why would he want something like that?”
Cindy shook her head as tears slowly fell into her lap and her stomach knotted up a little tighter.
“I don’t know. He said it was a cultural thing. That the people there might accept him more if he was married, but…it started to feel like….”
Head down now in the palm of her hands, Cindy roared in agony as her friend did her best to comfort her by putting an arm around her shoulders.
“Oh my, Cindy. You started to think it was…what? Real?”
“Yes!”
“Oh, Cindy. That is so horrible. It sounds like this guy is a real pro, a player of the worst kind. I am so sorry for you. So sorry you had to go through all this, sweetie. I feel just terrible about it.”
“It’s not your fault.”
Cindy wiped her eyes on the napkin her tea was sitting on.
“Of course it’s my fault. Here you are, a sweet, shy girl from the farm, and now I’ve introduced you to a womanizing maniac who crushed you like a tin can!”
“Listen, you told me about the service. I was the one who signed up, remember? And besides…as painful as this is, there was a lot of good came from it.”
“Like what?”
Cindy began to describe the typical day of gourmet food, spa trips and handmade clothing.
“You mean a new gown every night?”
Cindy nodded as she smiled and thought back to how special the fittings made her feel.
“Yes.”
“Handmade?”
“Yes. It was really something.”
“Well you should’ve at least made off with the dresses and the jewelry so you could have gotten something out of this whole mess.”
Cindy shot her a glance that told her friend exactly how disgusting that idea was to her since she truly didn’t care a bit about the things, only about the man.
“Sorry about that. I was only saying….”
“I don’t care about that stuff, Vic. Yes, it was an experience, but it was Erick I wanted in the end. I was a real idiot to think he was for real; that’s the bottom line. I was stupid, just plain stupid, and I don’t know how I’ll ever love anyone again, ever.”
Victoria put a compassionate arm around her friend’s shoulder.
“Yeah, I know. Love stinks, huh?”
“You’ve got that right.” Cindy actually managed the first laugh she’d had in a while.
“Well maybe we can just call Entertainment Tonight and you can give them your inside scoop for a big expose about how you and Petra were both seeing him at the same time. Now that would be something else, and it might be worth something. These shows pay for interviews, you know?”
“No way! I would never even consider something like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because as much of a jerk as he may or may not be, I love him and to do something like that would diminish the whole thing, cheapen it. I would never do that.”
“He didn’t seem to think about cheap when he ran off with Miss Priss, did he?”
Cindy felt her face flush with anger now.
“He’s not like that!”
“Oh he isn’t, is he?” Cindy watched Victoria’s brow suddenly furrow with concentration. “Wait a minute. Do you really think he was with that woman? I mean, it doesn’t make any sense if you think about it. If he was really with her, then why invite you all the way over there and pretend to be his wife, no less, when he could have just been with her?”
“I don’t know. It’s all a blur. All I know is the reporter you just saw on TV was there with them and that Petra woman said they were together, so it must be true.”
“Dear one, how is it that he is not like that, yet he must really be with this other woman? The two conditions at once are completely illogical.”
“I don’t know, Vic. I saw them on the TV just now; I saw them in the hotel. It must be true. Maybe I just don’t want to believe it yet, I don’t know!”
“Do you really believe everything you see on TV, my naïve little lamb?”
Cindy considered what her friend was saying, but jetlag was starting to set in now and the more she tried to go over it logically, the more illogical it all seemed.
“I know it seems a little off, but I was there, remember? I saw the two of them canoodling by the bar that afternoon as if they’d been an item for years. I saw the look on her face, and his too! I tell you, they are most definitely together.”
“Okay, if you say so, I promise not to bring it up again. Let’s go get some food. I know I’m hungry; you must be starving by now.”
They shared a simple dinner of sandwiches and hot tea.
“Are you sure you didn’t have some other plans tonight? I hate for you to have to stay here and take care of me.”
“Believe it or not, I had no plans tonight, so it’s nice to have the company.”
“Thanks a million. I really do appreciate your coming to get me.”
“That’s what friends are for. And speaking of that, are you sure you don’t want to stay here tonight?”
“No, I want to get home to Max. So far, he’s been the only man in my entire life I could completely trust.”
Victoria was busy buttering a piece of bread and seemed to be only half listeni
ng.
“Max? Have I met him?”
“Uh yeah, Max. You know; my cat, Max?”
Victoria laughed and something about the look on her face sent Cindy into a fit of hysterical laughter.
“Glad to see you laughing, my friend. Don’t worry. It won’t be long until you find somebody else.”
That was the last thing on Cindy’s mind at the moment. Within the hour she was riding back to her apartment.
“You sure you don’t want to bring the cat back to my place? You’re both welcome, you know.”
“No, that’s okay. I better start getting back to my life and the sooner I do that, the better.”
“If you need anything at all, you call me, okay?”
“Thanks.”
Cindy picked up her bag and walked up the concrete stairway to her front door, where Max greeted her with a hearty meow and rubbing on her legs.
As she looked around the lifeless room, Cindy felt she was seeing this place for the first time. She wasn’t the same person who’d left a week ago. She’d been to the other side of the world and back and how she could ever be the same again, she didn’t know. It just wasn’t possible.
She climbed the stairs and instantly got into bed, heavy with exhaustion that should have put her immediately to sleep. Instead, she cried until there was nothing left in her before finally drifting off to sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“There aren’t any flights from Paris. They’re all leaving out of London and by the time you land there, from what I can see there won’t be any way to get there at all due to the weather hanging over the place.”
“What do you mean, Gloria?” Erick shouted at her, knowing he’d just lost even more precious time. The plane was already en route to Paris and it was too late to turn back now.
“It is December, sir. You’re bound to run into weather. Plus, now you have the holiday travelers to contend with.”
Erick took a deep breath, finding it increasingly harder to maintain his cool.
“Why don’t you send the jet then? Send it to Paris and pick me up there, will you?”
