He needed her. He called her number. He knew she slept with her phone on the bedside table.
The phone rang only one time before going straight to voice mail.
“Damn it,” he cursed, switching off the phone without leaving a message.
“Uh-oh,” Ben said as he walked with Bruce to the front door.
Outside in the early dawn, news cameras and paparazzi lined the walkway from the jail to the parking lot.
“You’re probably going to be the lead story this morning.”
Bruce’s headache just got worse. He put a hand to his temple. “Where are you parked?”
“Not close enough,” Ben admitted.
Just then, a limited-edition white Bentley with gold trim glided through the sea of cameras. It pulled to a stop in the middle of the drive and the orange hazard lights began blinking. Bruce saw Missy LeGrange hop out, wearing solid white from head to toe, as if she’d planned to coordinate with her car.
“Don’t touch the car. None of you can afford to fix it,” she proclaimed to the news crews as she shoved her way past them. She pushed open the door to the police station and instantly fell upon Bruce.
“Oh, Bruce, I am so sorry. I came as soon as Daddy told me the news.”
Bruce glanced at Ben, confused, and Ben shrugged. “I called Thomas LeGrange right after I got your message. I figured since he’s executor of the Patman Estate…”
Bruce waved a hand to show it was fine. Actually, more than fine. Bruce felt happy to see another supportive face. For a brief second, he wished it were Elizabeth’s. He glanced down at his phone and wondered where she was.
“I know this will all get cleared up just as soon as we get the right attorney on this case,” Missy said. “Honestly, when nobodies try to mess with somebodies the nobodies never win.” Missy thought anybody who didn’t have substantial wealth was a nobody. Normally Bruce was amused by Missy’s snobbery. Elizabeth was not, but right now, snob or not, Missy had shown up when he needed her. She was a good friend. Which made him ask himself, Where was Elizabeth?
As if Missy had heard his thoughts, she asked, “Where’s Elizabeth?”
“Um…I wish I knew,” Bruce grumbled.
“Don’t tell me she’s abandoned you,” Missy said, shaking her head in happy disapproval.
“Where is her loyalty? A little bit of trouble and she runs and hides? Honestly.”
Missy’s assessment felt a bit too close to the truth for Bruce’s comfort.
“No, no, it’s not that,” he said quickly. He felt the need to defend Elizabeth. “She’s probably just got her phone off.”
“Well, isn’t she a reporter?” Missy said the word as if it tasted bitter on her tongue. “She should know already, and she should be here. I mean aren’t those her people out there?” Missy waved her hand at the gathering reporters outside.
“And why wasn’t she with you last night? If she’d been there to drive you home from that bar, none of this would’ve happened.”
The truth of Missy’s words hit Bruce like a slap. She was one hundred percent right. Bruce never would’ve showed up drunk at Robin’s house if Elizabeth had been there. Not that Bruce would blame Elizabeth for his mistakes, but facts were facts.
Bruce couldn’t help feeling that Elizabeth had managed to abandon him when he needed her most—again.
“Oh, Bruce, I am so sorry.” Missy put her hand on Bruce’s forearm. “And those animals out there just have no right to be badgering you like this. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Not on TMZ, anyway.”
“Maybe I should try to get my car and bring it closer?” Ben offered.
“Nonsense,” Missy said, waving her hand. “I can drive Bruce. My car’s right here.”
Her Bentley was as close to the door as a car could get, but there were still half a dozen cameras between it and Bruce.
“Okay, remember, we have no comment,” Ben said. “Just move as quickly as you can to the car.”
Ben swung open the door and almost immediately Bruce felt blinded by the white-hot lights of the cameras as reporters shouted questions.
“Is it true you attacked the same Jane Doe who accused you of attempted rape?”
“What do you have to say to the allegation you broke her window and tried to force your way in?”
“Are you a rapist, Bruce?”
Missy shoved one camera out of Bruce’s face. “Would you animals leave him alone?” she yelled as they moved quickly past.
Bruce sent her a grateful glance.
“No comment,” Ben said. “My client has no comment!”
The questions kept flying at him, each new one more awful than the last. Bruce forged ahead with Missy holding his arm, helping to clear the way. Even with only a few feet separating him from the Bentley, the trip seemed to take forever. By the time he’d slid safely into the front passenger seat, Missy had the car in drive and roared out, whipping one of the cameras into the air with her side-view mirror.
“Reporters are animals—all of them,” Missy exclaimed with disgust. “I honestly don’t know how Elizabeth does what she does.”
On any other day, Bruce would have felt the need to point out that Elizabeth was a print journalist and not one of the opportunistic paparazzi like the TMZ photographers they’d just run past, but he didn’t have the energy to defend her or her chosen profession at the moment.
Not when she wasn’t there to defend him.
Missy glanced over at Bruce and laid a sympathetic hand on his arm. “Why don’t you let me drive you to my family’s vineyard? It’s only about two hours away. The paparazzi will never find you there.”
Chapter Three
Elizabeth picked up her phone, frantically scrolling through her messages from Bruce as she sat in her car at a red light. She’d calmed down Robin with a Tylenol PM and comforting words and promises to come back as soon as she could. She’d also managed to convince the girl not to talk to the police again—at least not right now. In the meantime, she told her not to let anyone in. Luckily, Elizabeth had been able to slip out the back door unseen.
Bruce’s texts were growing desperate. He needed her. He said he could explain. The journalist in Elizabeth told her there were two sides to every story. No question that Bruce had done a crazy thing, but she wouldn’t be an objective reporter unless she gave him the chance to explain.
Plus, the man she loved was in jail, and no matter what Elizabeth suspected, she did still love Bruce. She wanted to help him if she could.
But she also worried. Did he know she’d been the one to pay Robin Platt’s rent?
I CAN EXPLAIN, Bruce had texted.
So can I, Elizabeth thought. Or, at least, she hoped she could.
The light turned green and she tossed the phone to her passenger seat and stomped her foot on the accelerator. As a reporter, she knew where the jail was, of course, and with hardly anyone on the street at almost five in the morning, she could easily make it in less than ten minutes. Please God, don’t let me be too late, she thought.
By the time she sped into the parking lot, she saw a news crew cameraman climbing into a satellite truck in the parking lot. A hard pit formed in her stomach. She’d missed him.
She recognized Daniel Scott, a local news anchor for Channel Five, from seeing him on the local morning show.
“Daniel!” Elizabeth called. The reporter paused, his hand on the truck’s door handle, and glanced over in her direction. “Hey, I’m a reporter from the Tribune.”
“Oh, right. I think I saw you at the mayor’s press conference last month.”
“That’s right. Did I miss Bruce Patman?” Elizabeth asked.
“Yep.” Daniel laughed a little. “You Tribune guys are always sooooo slow. You missed the money shot. Patman’s been bailed out. He left already.”
“Do you know where he went?”
“We’re not TMZ. We don’t give chase,” Daniel said, and shrugged. “But he was with some woman who drove a white Bentle
y. A flashy one with gold trim.” Daniel rolled his eyes.
Elizabeth knew exactly who was driving a white Bentley with gold trim. How did Missy get there so fast? Just in case missing Bruce wasn’t bad enough.
“How long ago?” she asked Daniel.
“Just a few minutes.”
“Damn,” Elizabeth breathed.
“Oh, trust me, no need to be that upset. He didn’t say anything. It seems he’s lawyered up. You didn’t miss much.”
Elizabeth thought of Bruce, alone in his time of need in jail, only to be saved by Missy LeGrange, and she couldn’t stop the thought, petty though it was: Why did it have to be her?
Chapter Four
Bruce let Missy drive for a few minutes in silence. Did he want to go to her family’s vineyard? Should he be going somewhere else? His head throbbed, and the thought of even trying to make a decision only made it hurt more. Part of him didn’t even trust himself to make the decision at all. Clearly, after last night, his judgment was off.
The sunrise bathed the street in a grayish pink glow. A new day, a new headache, Bruce thought.
His iPhone dinged, announcing an incoming message. He looked at the screen, hoping to see Elizabeth’s name there. Instead, he saw Gavin MacKay, the private investigator he’d hired to find Robin in the first place.
JUST FOUND MORE NEWS ON YOUR CASE. CALL ME.
He didn’t ask why his private eye was working so early. He didn’t care. Desperate for any news, Bruce dialed Gavin’s number.
“Are you sitting down?” Gavin said, not even bothering with a hello.
“Yes.” Bruce glanced over at Missy, who sent him a concerned look.
“I’ve got a copy of Robin Platt’s new lease. You’re not going to believe who signed it and put up the deposit.”
“Please tell me it’s Rick Warner,” Bruce said.
“No, I’m afraid not,” Gavin said, his voice somber. “Bruce…it’s Elizabeth Wakefield.”
“What?” Bruce sat up straight, straining against his seatbelt. “Elizabeth! That’s not possible!”
“I’m afraid it is,” Gavin said. “I just sent you a picture of the lease with her signature.”
“But…” Bruce felt like he couldn’t breathe. Somehow, this all had to be a big mistake.
“Take a look at the lease I sent and call me back later. I’m headed into the office to check on a few more things.”
“Thanks, Gavin,” Bruce said, and clicked off. He scrambled to scroll through his text messages. Gavin’s popped up, and the picture was there, crisp and clear.
Elizabeth’s loopy E jumped off the page. It was Elizabeth’s handwriting, all right. And all of her personal information: her phone number and work address—everything.
Feverishly, Bruce clung to the pathetic hope that somehow this might have a logical explanation. Yet the sinking feeling in his stomach told him nothing could explain why his girlfriend seemed to be in bed with the enemy. All this time he’d thought Rick Warner or someone else might be playing him. He never suspected Elizabeth.
He texted her.
WE NEED TO TALK.
“What’s Elizabeth done now?” Missy asked Bruce. She’d heard every word of his conversation and hadn’t even pretended otherwise.
“Take me home,” Bruce said.
“But…”
“I need to go home, Missy.” Bruce’s tone left no room for argument.
Chapter Five
When Elizabeth pulled up to her home—Bruce’s mansion—she found a crowd of paparazzi and two news trucks already waiting outside his gate. She clicked the remote and the gate opened even as reporters shouted questions at her rolled-up windows. She inched her car through and closed the gate behind her. She pulled up the drive but soon found her normal parking spot taken—by Missy LeGrange’s white Bentley.
Elizabeth swung her car into the circular drive, where florists and deliverymen usually parked, and hopped out of her car. All she wanted was to see Bruce.
She slipped her key in the lock and felt her heart rate speed up. Elizabeth hurried inside and found Bruce and Missy sitting together on the large, coffee-colored leather couch. Despite the fact that it was not even seven in the morning, both held cocktails in their hands. Bruce drank scotch, and it looked like Missy had opted for a wine spritzer, as if this were a garden party and not the morning after Bruce had been arrested for trying to break into a woman’s house.
They looked up, surprised.
“Well, look who’s finally showed up,” Missy said. Elizabeth took the hit and flinched. She ignored Missy and searched Bruce’s face for clues about how he felt, but he wouldn’t look her in the eye. She felt the knots in her stomach tighten. Missy put down her wine spritzer.
“Where were you?”
Elizabeth opened her mouth to tell Missy it wasn’t her business, but before she could get out an answer, Bruce interrupted.
“Missy, I need to talk to Elizabeth.”
“I should say you do,” Missy agreed, but she didn’t budge from the sofa.
“Alone,” Bruce clarified, his voice hard as he stared into his glass.
“Oh,” Missy said, rising.
“I mean, thank you, Missy, for everything.” Bruce’s voice softened as he looked up at her. Missy smiled.
“You know I’ll always be there for you.” Missy squeezed his shoulder before moving away from the couch. She strut past Elizabeth in her platform Christian Louboutins without another word, her expression saying it all and none of it nice.
Elizabeth stood there in front of the sofa, feeling guilty and angry at the same time. She couldn’t think of a worse person to rub her guilt in her face than Missy. But none of that mattered as she watched the painful expressions cross Bruce’s face. He exhaled slowly, still staring at his glass. Elizabeth listened as the click of Missy’s heels on the marble floor retreated, punctuated by the soft thud of the front door shutting behind her.
Elizabeth took a deep breath. “Bruce, I am so sorry I wasn’t there for you this morning. I—”
“No,” Bruce held up his hand, stopping her midsentence. “I don’t want to hear about that. I don’t even care that you weren’t at the jail, Elizabeth.” He lifted his eyes to meet hers. She saw pain and it broke her heart. “I know what you did and I want to know…why?”
His words rolled over Elizabeth like a tsunami; they felt unnaturally loud, a roar in her ears. He knew. He knew about Robin Platt.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she began, even though she knew exactly what he was talking about. She only prayed she was wrong.
“Don’t lie to me,” Bruce shouted, his voice a bellow that nearly knocked her down. “I know you signed Robin Platt’s lease. I know you’ve been hiding her from me. But what I want to know is…why? Why would you do this to me?”
Elizabeth’s knees buckled and she sank into the oversized leather chair nearest her. She began to cry as she told Bruce everything—how she’d found Robin weeks ago, how desperate the girl was, and how all she wanted to do was protect Bruce and the girl.
“You’ve got to believe me, Bruce. I only wanted to find out the truth.”
“I told you the truth, Elizabeth. I told you what happened. But you never believed me, did you?”
“I wanted to, but—”
“God, Elizabeth, I’ve known you for years. Years. I’ve been in love with you for God knows how long, and you’ve been living with me for three years, and all this time you thought I was a monster?”
“No, you don’t understand.”
“I understand that the woman I thought I loved never really loved me at all. Never even knew me. Did you ever really love me? Or were you just using me to get back at Todd? Is that what I am? Some kind of rebound for you?”
“No, never! Please, Bruce, I love you.”
“This is what you call love?”
Elizabeth could hear the pain in his voice. And at the same time she felt it in her chest, too. All she wanted to do was go to him, put her ar
ms around him, hold him, and tell him how sorry she was and that it wasn’t too late to fix things.
Except she couldn’t. Because it was too late, far too late, to make all of this right. Yet she couldn’t stop herself from trying.
“I just thought maybe there was some other explanation. Like maybe you had a seizure or something and you blacked out. I mean, what if there’s something going on—some emotional issue, you know, like your mother.”
Bruce leaped to his feet and hurled his glass across the room. It hit the wall on the opposite side of Elizabeth with an explosive pop, shattering into tiny pieces that rained down on the floor.
Elizabeth jumped back.
“Goddamn it, Elizabeth. I am not my mother!” Bruce’s face flushed red. Every nerve ending in his body was alive and angry, and he looked like he wanted to kill her. “I told you about my mother’s condition in confidence. And now you throw it back in my face? How dare you?”
“S-s-sorry, I…” Elizabeth actually had her hands up, as if to protect her face. “Please don’t…”
He took two steps and grabbed her by the arms and pulled her up to her feet as if he wanted to shake sense into her. Their faces were so close, almost touching. She could feel his angry breath on her cheek.
Elizabeth feared what would come next. A slap? A shove? Was this what had happened to Robin Platt? When she looked into Bruce’s rage-fueled eyes, she didn’t see any trace of the man she loved. His hands dug into her arms, pinching her.
“Bruce, please, you’re hurting me.” Her voice was hardly a whisper, the fear in it unmistakable.
Then, just as suddenly, the anger drained from his face and confusion took its place. Bruce looked down at his hands around her arms as if he couldn’t remember how they’d gotten there. He seemed as shocked as Elizabeth that his temper had gotten so far away from him. He released her instantly, as if her arms were the handles of a hot pan.
“Elizabeth, I’m sorry. I…”
But Elizabeth wasn’t going to stay. She couldn’t stay. Not anymore. She just wanted to get away. From Bruce, from everything. With tears streaming down her face, she turned and ran to the front door, down the steps, and to her car, all the while hearing Bruce’s voice calling behind her. But she didn’t stop.
The Sweet Life Page 2
