She knew the depths of depression her twin sometimes went to because she’d been forced to go there, too. Through a cruel twist of fate at birth, they didn’t grow up looking exactly alike, but they were identical twins in every other way that mattered.
And now Viv was pregnant. She thought she knew everything about Vicki. But she hadn’t known how much her twin wanted a child of her own.
25
“So, has he popped the question yet?”
Julian Gerard and his sister, Ginger, shared a meal at a little restaurant downtown. Ginger, who had never been to Cloud 9, wanted to go there, but Julian vetoed that. He had enough on his mind without being in the place where Vivienne walked out on him.
She waggled a finger in his face. The diamond, at least three carats, maybe four, was set off by emerald baguettes. It was too big, too gaudy, in short, far too ostentatious to be elegant. And Ginger loved it.
“Congratulations,” Julian said dryly. “Have you set a date?”
Ginger pouted. “Not exactly. Humphrey wants . . .”
Julian winced. “You’re going to marry a guy named Humphrey?”
She reached for her wineglass. “He made his first fortune in the oil business in the eighties. The second one came at the start of the telecommunications explosion. He was there at the beginning of cell phones.”
Julian conceded the point, knowing love didn’t—and wouldn’t—fit anywhere into the picture. “Has the prenupt been drafted?”
She grinned, then took a delicate sip of the expensive wine for which he knew he’d end up paying, even though it was her turn to pick up the tab. “I, big brother, don’t need a prenupt. This one is going to last. We’ve decided that.”
He didn’t look convinced.
“And before you say it, no, he doesn’t look anything at all like what’s-his-name.”
“Thank the gods for small favors.”
“It’s time you found someone special. A guy or a girl.”
It grated on him that even she insisted he batted for both teams. Sure, he’d experimented back in the day, but he’d been solidly hetero for the last ten years.
“I’m not bi, Ginger.”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “Whatever.”
“You know, you are incredibly exasperating.”
She blew a kiss at him. “That’s why you love me.”
She had him there, and she knew it. All Julian could do was smile.
“Have you talked to Lance Heart Smith lately?”
Ginger heaved a sigh. “I’m trying to forget him.”
“A good idea since you’re about to walk down the aisle with your oil well–cell phone guy.”
Ginger clasped her hands together. “I did try to contact him a couple of weeks ago. Actually it was the day after Humphrey proposed.”
It didn’t take a PhD from MIT to figure out that equation. She’d obviously been hoping that Lance would have a change of heart. Was she going through the charade of another wedding just to get Lance off her mind?
Julian desperately wanted to ask, but Ginger could compensate with the best of them. And if she married old Humphrey, she’d truly be compensated in the best of ways. Julian wondered if there remained an untapped resource in that area. The best way to get back at Viv would be to get back at the man she loved, or at least the man she professed to want to be with more than she wanted to be with him.
“Are you truly over him?” He didn’t need to clarify on just who him might be.
The facade and Ginger’s smile faded a bit. “I’ve always been crazy about him,” she confessed. “Any woman he’s ever dated would say the same thing. But Lance isn’t the kind of man who sticks around for the long-term. Love ’em, and leave ’em is his motto. He never engages.”
Julian cocked his head. “He’s never been engaged?”
She shook her head. “Not that kind of engage. I mean, he’s never there,” she tried to explain by wagging her finger near her head. “Lance is a lover. He’s not someone you can depend on for the long haul. If you want to party, to eat great meals, to have a good time”—she paused and closed her eyes for a moment as a slow, dreamy smile transformed her face—“if you want to have a great time in bed . . .”
Julian frowned at that.
“. . . if you want someone who’ll be attentive and charming and fun to be around, Lance is the man.” Her gaze connected with Julian’s again. This time, instead of fond memories, he saw new hurt in her eyes. “But you say or hint at the C word and he’s gone. You get a lovely parting gift and then you never hear from him again.”
“A lovely parting gift?”
Ginger held out her arm, where a pearl bracelet dangled. “This was mine.”
Julian looked at the bracelet with its expensive gold clasp and the distinctive Tiffany charm. When he looked up, he was stunned to see real tears in Ginger’s eyes. She’d actually cared for the guy. Maybe she was even still in love with him.
As he watched Ginger, realization slowly dawned. She’d had an awful time several years ago after a breakup with a husband—he couldn’t recall which. She’d nearly bled to death after an abortion, her second or third.
“Was Lance one of the . . . ?” He couldn’t even bring himself to say it out loud. “One of your . . .”
Pain sliced across Ginger’s face, and she looked away, then drained the remaining wine in her glass. “We’re supposed to be here celebrating my engagement to Humphrey.”
He reached for her hand and squeezed it. “I’m sorry. Tell me about your wedding plans. Have you chosen colors?” The question, he knew, would get her mind off of that son-of-a-bitch Smith, and onto a happier track. It worked. He refilled her wineglass and watched the color and the smile he loved so much return to her face as she went on and on about a midnight ceremony on Humphrey’s yacht.
But Julian paid scant attention to Ginger. His mind was on the man who twice now had done him personal injury. Lance Heart Smith had wrecked his sister’s life, and he’d stolen Vivienne right from under his nose. If what Ginger said was true, as soon as Lance tired of her, Viv would eventually be turned out with a piece of jewelry and a boost out the door.
It would serve her right.
In their large stateroom, Virginia and Lily unpacked for their vacation at sea.
“I’m nervous about this,” Virginia admitted.
“Nervous about going on a cruise? Don’t be,” Lily said as she shook out a bathing suit. “All you have to do is kick back and relax. They do everything.”
“It’s not that part that worries me.”
“What then?”
Virginia tucked several packets of panty hose into a drawer, then leaned against the bureau. “Malcolm.”
Lily wagged her eyebrows suggestively. “What about him?”
“That!” Virginia said. “What if he expects . . .”
With a wave of a carefully manicured hand, Lily discounted her friend’s fears. “The ball is in your court, Ginny. He obviously likes you. Just do what comes natural.”
Virginia pursed her lips, then moved back to her Hartmann suitcases, the matching set she’d owned for years. “That’s what I’m worried about,” Virginia muttered under her breath.
Turning from the closet where she was hanging three sequined cocktail dresses, “What was that?”
“I said, are you looking forward to meeting Malcolm’s brother?”
Lily flashed a wide smile. “If he looks exactly like Malcolm, you better believe it.” She held up one of the dresses.
Virginia nodded her approval of the choice, then selected a dress that she’d wear for their double date at dinner.
“I’m so glad you decided to come,” Lily said. “I think we’re going to have a great time. And your mind won’t be on Lance or Cole or Jimmy . . .”
“Do you know that Negro threatened to come on this cruise?”
“Jimmy? What for?”
“To watch over me. As if I needed a keeper.”
Lily glanced at
her friend. “You know, Virginia, he’s always been in love with you.”
Shaking her head, Virginia pooh-poohed that with a roll of her eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous.” Lily opened her mouth, but Virginia forged on. “Besides, I married Coleman.”
“The wrong brother.”
Virginia dropped the slippers she’d pulled from her bag. “I thought we were supposed to be on this cruise to get away from the past and from just this sort of thing.”
Lily went to her friend and put her arm around her waist. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have brought it up. From this moment on, we live in the moment. The only thing that matters is where this boat takes us, and the fun we have while we’re on it. Deal?”
Virginia nodded. “Deal.”
But the seeds that had been planted long ago had suddenly taken root. What might her life have been like with Jimmy had she made a different choice all those years ago? It was way too late to second guess the decisions she’d made when the fork in the road led to not just one or two paths, but a crossroad of options. She’d made her decision and had had to live with it. All of that was then. Today, she could choose to look back with regret or look forward with anticipation.
She picked up the telephone and connected with the ship operator. “Malcolm Grant’s stateroom, please.”
From across the cabin, Lily grinned.
In a rented but top-of-the-line BMW, Dean Khan slowly drove past the Ghent store called Guilty Pleasures. An unassuming little place, he wondered what kind of clientele Rachel catered to. She was calling herself Vivienne la Fontaine these days. But he’d known her as Rachel Jackson.
Rachel had apparently learned a lot in the years they’d been apart. If the neighborhood, with its sporty two-seaters, gleaming SUVs and trendy little shops, was any indication—and he knew it had to be—she’d chosen quite well.
He wanted to go inside the store, to see her setup, but he wanted the surprise to be total when she saw him again.
When she’d turned state’s evidence against him, evidence that landed him in prison for ten fucking years, she’d turned on the innocent act and charmed her way out of a trial and jail time. He halfway hoped she’d pull that unassuming role again, if for no other reason, to give him the added joy of wiping it off her face.
His dick quivered at the thought of bringing Rachel to bear.
She’d pay. She’d pay him back not only the time he’d lost, but the money she’d stolen.
He hardened at the thought of ramming himself into Rachel. She’d always been a good lay. It would be fitting that she’d be his first since his release from Fairton. His right hand dropped from the steering wheel and into his lap where he stroked himself.
He drove by the store one more time, then glanced at the map he’d opened across the dash. Not wanting to leave any written evidence of his passing through town, he’d memorized the address of his next stop.
Dean Khan knew where Rachel worked. Now he’d check out where she lived.
A party in the East End of Newport News was going full blast. Tarique heard the music from the front of the courtyard. But as he rode closer to his apartment, he realized that the music was coming from two units away. He slid off the bicycle he’d stolen from Juanito and carried it up the few stairs to the front door. The screen door had holes in it as big as a grown man’s fist. It swung open, but the main door he quickly found out was locked, with the chain on it from the inside.
Tarique swore.
His mother only remembered to put the chain on the door when she had male company over. Since the black Escalade was nowhere in sight, he knew it wasn’t her new sugar daddy. What a man like that saw in his mama, Tarique couldn’t figure out. She’d been a babe years ago. He’d seen the pictures. But now . . .
Shaking his head, he carried the bike down the steps and rode it around to the back of the building. Getting in the house wasn’t the problem, getting the bike in was. He’d jacked up his bedroom window for emergencies like this one. Tonight, he’d have to take a chance on the bike, hoping it didn’t get ripped off.
After chaining it to a metal pipe outside, he jimmied the window, boosted himself up and entered his bedroom.
The smell hit him almost immediately. The sounds from the front room registered next, the television and a man’s grunts.
“Whore,” he muttered.
Female laughter followed and then some scuffling and a thump. He figured there were five or six of his mother’s friends over tonight.
Waving his hands to clear the air, he quickly crossed his bedroom and closed the door. From his closet he pulled out a fan, propped it near the open window and set it on the top speed. A can of spray room deodorizer that he boosted from the dollar store helped cover up the acrid stench of marijuana. Some of them, he knew, including his mother, would be smoking crack.
He’d go check on them in a little bit. Gayla liked to light candles and he always made sure they were out before he went to sleep. When she started nodding, she couldn’t be counted on to remember anything like the possibility of a fire.
Tarique watched a little television, then pulled out his accounting books to check on his business. He used a marble notebook, the one he was supposed to use in his English class, to keep up with his protection company. He didn’t like English, but he was really good at math. So good that the principal said he must have somehow cheated on the state’s standardized test, the Standards of Learning. In response, he’d called the principal a bald-ass lying punk and got three days’ suspension. When he came back, they made him take another test with two teachers standing over him the whole time. He’d scored even higher on the math portion.
Tonight he made quick work of updating his accounts—and his bank balances. He’d managed to salt away quite a bit.
About half an hour later, he got up. Figuring they’d all be passed out by now, he wanted to go blow out the candles in the front room before starting a new video game. In the hall, he stopped short when he heard his name.
“When you gonna tell Tarique?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I won’t. What’s the point?”
His mother and Shay were talking in those hushed afterward voices that let him know the men had fallen asleep. The blue reflection of the TV cast shadows but the sound was muted in the dark room. Their voices, over the snores of a man, were heard pretty clear.
“The boy should know that Lance is his daddy.”
Tarique’s eyes widened. He pressed closer to the wall and inched forward a bit.
Lance Smith, the sugar daddy with the Escalade and the cash, was his real father?
“Yeah, I’ll tell him.”
“When?” Shay pressed.
“Get off my case, will you? We’ll tell him. Lance wants it to be a moment we share together.”
Tarique heard the sarcasm in Gayla’s voice.
“Shit, the sharing time happened a long time ago.”
“Tell me about it,” Gayla said. “But check it out. Look what he gave me.”
Tarique strained forward in an effort to peep around the corner. He must have made some noise.
“Hey, baby. That you?” Gayla called out.
“Uh, yeah, Mama.”
“Get yourself something to eat. There some hoagies in there.”
She’d never been concerned about what he ate when she had her pipe so maybe she was just high, not all cracked up. Tarique stepped into the room, trying to look like he’d just gotten in.
Gayla sat on the sofa, one arm thrown back, a cigarette burning from her hand. Shay was in the chair and a man was sprawled on the floor, still snoring. The coffee table, littered with forty-ounce bottles and overflowing ashtrays, also held the remnants of a meal the small party had eaten. The other voices he’d heard must have been from the television.
“You come in through that back window again?”
She definitely wasn’t on crack. At least not right now.
“Yeah. The door was locked.”
Gayla glanced
toward the front door. “You shoulda knocked. I don’t like it when you do that. Somebody gonna see you and come in the same way one of these days.”
Tarique grunted. He nodded toward Shay. “What she say true?”
The two women exchanged a glance.
“What’d you hear?”
“Lance Smith my real daddy.”
Gayla leaned forward, snagged a forty-ounce bottle and took a chug. “Yeah.”
“How come you never told me before?”
She shrugged. “He wasn’t around.”
“And now that he’s around. What’s gonna happen now?”
Her girlfriend looked at Gayla. “Yeah, what’s gonna happen now.”
“I don’t know. He wants to get to know you.”
“Well, I don’t wanna know him.” He ran back to his room and slammed the door.
Shay laughed. “Well, I don’t think that was the kind of moment your husband had in mind.”
Gayla just shook her head. “Both of ’em will get over it.” She reached for her purse and pulled out three crisp one hundred-dollar bills. “Page Peanut Head and tell him we wanna party tonight.”
Shay reached for the phone and dialed the number that would get Gayla’s favorite supplier. He even made house calls. “I’m starving. You said there some subs up in here?”
Gayla got up, padded to the kitchen and came back with a big bag of chips, three subs and two more bottles of malt liquor. She poked the man with her foot. “Hey, Charlie. Wake up.”
The man grunted and rolled over.
In his room, Tarique got some money and slipped out the window. He secured the opening, then unlocked his bike and took off.
26
The pajama party at Guilty Pleasures was in full swing. Guests, also known as well-maintained customers, feted with champagne and light hors d’oeuvres, mingled among the merchandise. In a cost-control move, Viv had nixed the notion of a three-piece combo. Instead romantic jazz on CD piped in via the sound system set a lingering tone in Guilty Pleasures. She’d even gone so far as to alter the lighting, offering an even more muted and sit-back-for-a-while atmosphere achieved with a few strategically placed lightbulbs. All of the store employees worked this evening. And it promised to be a lucrative one.
Enchanted Heart Page 32
