“I should leave,” I said abruptly. “I’ll make the arrangements as soon as possible.”
“You don’t have to go,” Hayden said, wiping at the tears with the back of her hand. “Really, Lucy, I’m going to make this right. That’s why I have to marry Trip. Then all of these problems will go away.”
“Marrying Trip isn’t going to make this go away,” I said slowly. “Hayden, you have a problem. Surely you must see that. You need help, professional help, to deal with your gambling addiction.”
Hayden looked at me blankly. “Gambling addiction? Jesus, Lucy, I think you’ve watched a few too many episodes of Oprah. I’ve just had some bad luck, that’s all.”
“When you reach the point where you’re auctioning off all of your belongings to feed your habit, it’s not just a run of bad luck. It’s a serious problem.”
Hayden shook her head, her face hardening. I made one last try.
“I’ll help,” I offered. “I’m sure we can find a program designed to help people with this sort of problem.”
“You, help me?” Hayden laughed scornfully. “That’s a good one. You, the woman who wins millions and millions of dollars, the kind of money that can solve any problem, and yet acts like it’s the worst thing that could’ve happened.”
“No, I don’t! I never said that!” I exclaimed, stung by this sudden attack.
“Please. How many times have you moaned about missing your pathetic job? As though not working when you don’t even have to is some sort of tragedy. It makes me sick. You have no idea how lucky you are. So how dare you lecture me!”
I stared at my friend, so startled by her anger, her vitriol, that I couldn’t speak. Is that how she really saw me?
Hayden seemed to realize that she’d gone too far. She stopped abruptly and covered her mouth with one hand. Her eyes, green and luminous, were wide with shock. “Oh, God, Lulu, I didn’t mean to…” she began, reaching toward me.
I knew she was about to apologize, and I didn’t want to hear it. For now I was angry, too, my rage rising up until I could feel the blood pounding in my ears. I stared at her, wondering if I was seeing the real Hayden for the first time. She’d used me, stolen from me, and then finally sneered at me, as though I were some pathetic loser, beneath her contempt.
“Don’t bother,” I said. And then I got up and walked away from her. As far as I was concerned, our friendship was over.
I spent an hour on the phone—making travel plans, touching base with my parents, letting Peter Graham know where I’d be—and then I dropped Harper Lee off at a luxury kennel, where she’d stay for only a few days, until my dad got the chance to drive down and pick her up. When I got to the Drum Roll in the late afternoon, the bar was mostly empty. Ian was there, cutting up lemons and limes, prepping for the crowd that night. And sitting at the bar, watching a football game playing on the television that hung over the liquor bottles, was Mal. They both looked up when the door opened, throwing a slice of bright sunshine into the room. My stomach gave a nervous wrench.
“Hi,” I said, heading toward the bar, trying to quell my flutter of nerves. I hadn’t seen Mal since the night we kissed, and I had no idea how he’d react to my suddenly appearing in the bar.
“Lucy!” Ian said. I saw hope and concern flash across his face and knew that Hayden probably still hadn’t returned his phone calls.
“Hey, Ian,” I said hesitantly.
“Is Hayden with you?”
“No, she’s not.”
“Is she okay? Why hasn’t she called me back?”
I had no good answer for this question. I don’t know would be a lie. But telling him that she was too busy giving blow jobs to an older and, more important, richer man seemed unnecessarily cruel.
“I think you need to talk to her about that,” I said, earning a sharp look from Mal.
And even though my words were guarded, Ian wasn’t stupid. His face darkened, and he looked away.
After a long, uncomfortable pause, Ian finally said, “I’ll be back in a minute. I have to bring in a few cases of beer from the back.”
I wasn’t fooled, and I doubted Mal was either. Ian wanted to be alone, even if it meant sitting in the cooler behind the bar until he had a chance to collect himself.
“What are you doing here so early on a Sunday afternoon?” Mal asked casually.
“I was hoping to get a drink,” I said. I glanced in the direction Ian had just disappeared. “Maybe I should have ordered first, before breaking the news about Hayden.”
“What is the Hayden news?” Mal asked. He stood and walked around the bar.
“Are you allowed to be back there?” I asked.
“Desperate times,” Mal said. He deftly mixed me a vodka tonic, put in two freshly cut slices of lime, and pushed it across the bar to me. “And you look like you could use it.”
“You could say that,” I said, taking a grateful drink. “In the past twenty-four hours, I’ve been accosted by the parents of the boy who got me fired from my school in Ocean Falls, I broke up with Drew, I was uninvited to my sister’s wedding, and I found out that someone I thought was a good friend has been stealing from me.”
Mal gazed at me with those disconcerting pale eyes and smiled slowly.
“At least your life doesn’t lack drama,” he said.
“That’s just it. I don’t like drama. In fact, I hate drama. I want my life to be drama-free,” I said.
“So, let’s take your problems in the reverse order. Who’s been stealing from you?”
“Hayden,” I said. I closed my eyes for a moment, and shook my head. It was still hard to believe.
Mal gazed at me, his expression sympathetic. “I can’t say I’m surprised.”
“You’re not? I was. And I was especially surprised to discover that she has a gambling habit. That’s why she stole from me. I know I can afford it, it’s not that….”
“No one likes being taken advantage of,” Mal said.
“No,” I agreed. I stirred my vodka tonic with a plastic swizzle stick.
“Why hasn’t she called Ian back?” Mal asked. I looked up sharply, then glanced toward the door to the back.
“Don’t worry. I won’t say anything. Not that I have to. I’m sure Ian’s figured it out,” Mal said.
“Figured what out?”
“Rich man, probably a bit older. The type to be flattered that a younger woman would flirt with him.”
“How did you know that?”
“Let’s just say I know Hayden’s type,” Mal said.
“Apparently better than I did. I was shocked,” I admitted.
“You tend to accept people at face value.”
“What does that mean?” My two earlier confrontations had me on the defensive. I crossed my arms over my chest and glowered at Mal.
“You saw me with younger women and assumed I was a player. You saw me with an older woman and assumed I was a gigolo,” he said.
“I did not!”
“Yes, you did.” He held up a hand to ward off my protests. “Hayden told Ian. He told me.”
My denials died in my throat. “Oh,” I said. I could feel my face flaming. I stared down at my vodka tonic, too mortified to meet Mal’s eyes.
“Don’t look so traumatized,” Mal said, a smile spreading slowly on his face. “I’m actually a little flattered.”
“Yeah, right.”
“No, I am. Just the idea that you’d think women would pay to sleep with me. It’s nice to be thought of as a sex god,” Mal said.
“I never said I thought you were a sex god,” I muttered.
Mal laughed. And then he did something unexpected. He leaned across the bar, tipped my face up to his, and kissed me full on the lips. I was now flushing with a very different sort of heat, one that was ricocheting around my body. His mouth was warm and tasted of beer and the lime juice he’d licked off his fingers after making my drink. My entire body suddenly felt liquid with need.
“What was that you said abou
t breaking up with that asshole Drew?” Mal murmured.
“He’s not an asshole,” I protested. “He’s really a pretty decent guy.”
“I never liked him,” Mal said. “Did you know he irons his jeans? They have creases down the front. What sort of a freak does that?”
“That’s a pretty shallow reason not to like someone.”
“That’s me. Shallow Mal,” he said. And then he went back to kissing me.
If it’s decadent to drink a vodka tonic in the middle of the day, it’s probably downright degenerate to have a one-night stand immediately thereafter. But that’s exactly what I did. Mal and I could hardly keep our hands off each other long enough to get out of the bar and into my car and then back to his apartment on Cherry Lane. I was too busy kissing Mal and trying to pull off his clothing while he fumbled with mine to pay much attention to what his place was like, but from the brief glimpse I saw as we stumbled through the front door, it was more grown up and put together than I would have expected from Mal. A black leather sofa, a pair of boxy white chairs, a modern abstract painting hanging on the wall.
But the apartment decor quickly vanished from my thoughts as Mal pulled me into his bedroom and began to kiss my neck. I have always had a weakness for having my neck kissed, and Mal was particularly good at it—the perfect proportion of pressure and movement as his lips moved slowly from the hollow of my throat to the sensitive patch just under my ear.
“You have goose bumps,” Mal said, running one hand down the inside of my arm to demonstrate. Which, of course, caused even more goose bumps to rise up.
I leaned into him, pressing my body to his. His response was gratifying. The way his breath grew shallow and his body curled into mine thrilled me. Then, suddenly, his touch wasn’t so gentle. His kisses bruised my lips, his hands gripped at my wrists, his thigh moved in between my legs. I didn’t mind. To the contrary, his need and want fueled my own excitement. I just wanted more of him.
More, and more, and more.
Later, as we lay side by side on his rumpled bed, I told Mal the rest of it. The Forresters yelling at me in the middle of the charity ball. My breakup with Drew. My sister’s temper tantrum when I refused to give her more money.
“I’ve always had such an ordinary life,” I said. “And you know what? I liked it that way. I’m not one of those adrenaline junkies who has to have everything topsy-turvy all the time.”
Mal laughed softly. I liked his laugh. It seemed to rumble up from deep within his chest. And it was a very nice chest, muscular and pale compared to his arms and face. He had a tennis player’s tan. We’d always called it a “farmer’s tan” as kids, not that I’d known any farmers. I ran my fingers lightly over his chest hair, enjoying the soft feel of it against the hard ridges of his muscles.
“Ordinary is not the word I would use to describe you,” he said without opening his eyes.
“But I am ordinary,” I exclaimed. “Just look at me!”
Mal rolled over onto his side, his teeth flashing white as he smiled. He reached out and traced the curve of my side, from the swell of my hips to the indent of my waist, up one side of my breast, and then back down again. I closed my eyes, thrilling at his touch.
“No. Definitely not ordinary,” he said.
I lay there silently, lost in the sensations of touch and caress, the clean male scent of his skin, the rhythmic rise and fall of his breath.
“Do you know what I’m in the mood for?” Mal asked, his mouth millimeters from my ear.
“I think I can guess.”
“I meant after that.”
“What?”
“A steak. Medium rare. And a Caesar salad. Doesn’t that sound perfect?”
It did sound really good. What with all the drama, I hadn’t eaten much today. “Okay. Where do you want to go?”
“How about Morton’s?” Mal suggested.
“I don’t know if I’m dressed for that,” I said. Then, remembering I was naked, I blushed. “I mean, I was just wearing jeans before.”
Jeans that cost more than my prom dress, but still. Morton’s was a nice restaurant.
But Mal shook his head. “It’s fine, I don’t think anyone will care. And if they do, we’ll eat at the bar.”
“No,” I said firmly. “I’ll go home, take a quick shower, get dressed, and meet you over there.”
The truth was, this would be our first real date, and I wanted to dress up for it. And while the logical part of my brain was still baffled that a guy like Mal—the sort of man whom women drooled over—could possibly be interested in someone as ordinary as me, the less logical side was over the moon. Maybe it was naive of me, but somehow I just knew—maybe from the way he looked at me, or the touch of his fingers against my skin, or how comfortable we were lying together—that he really did want to be with me. At least for now. The knowledge filled me with a pure, incandescent joy.
I started to sit up, ready to hunt down my clothing, which was scattered across Mal’s apartment, when a hand snaked out and pulled me back.
“Not so fast,” Mal said, rolling toward me, weighting me down with his body.
“I thought you were hungry?”
“I am,” Mal said. The smile he gave me managed to be playful and wolfish at the same time. It was a heady combination.
The sun was still shining when I drove back to Crane Hill, feeling tired and boneless and so perfectly happy, I thought I might burst. My thoughts were full of Mal and what I should wear on our first official date. There was an olive-green Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress with short sleeves and a ruffled collar. Or I could wear the pretty floral silk sundress I’d picked up at Anthropologie, the pattern a mélange of bright greens and happy yellows.
I was so caught up in thoughts of my wardrobe as I pulled up to the gate outside Crane Hill, ready to punch in the security code on the keypad, that I didn’t notice the man approaching me until he was right next to the car.
“Lucy Parker,” he said.
Instinctively I stared up at him, startled to hear my real name after all these weeks. The man grinned down at me, pleased to have caught me off guard. This irritated me, and I wished I’d been more careful. For that matter, I was, for the first time, regretting the convertible. It left me too exposed. This was why movie stars rode around in dark cars with tinted windows, I thought.
“Who are you?” I asked warily.
“Mitch Hannigan from the Palm Beach Post,” the man said. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Twenty-Two
I STARED UP AT HIM, MOUTH AGAPE. WHEN I FINALLY found my voice, it was shaky with fear.
“How did you find me?” I asked.
“I saw your picture in the paper. Imagine my surprise. Everyone’s looking for the Lottery Seductress and she turns up in the society section of my newspaper.” Mitch Hannigan flashed an oily smile, and handed me a newspaper folded open to a collage of photographs. There I was at last night’s fund-raiser, a candid shot taken while I was talking to Drew’s mother. “The hair is different, but I recognized the face. It didn’t take much digging to learn that you and Hayden Blair were roommates in college.”
I didn’t like him. I supposed no one in my position would, but even aside from the fact that he had me cornered, there was something unpleasant about Hannigan—a hard glint in his small brown eyes, the way that his smile looked more like a sneer, the goatee he wore in a failed attempt to disguise his weak chin.
Hannigan didn’t wait for my response. Instead, he began to rattle off a series of questions. “Do you deny the allegations Matt Forrester made against you? Are you angry at him? Do you feel a sense of vindication at having won the lottery after being fired from your job?”
I looked at the front gate and tried to remember how quickly it closed. Would I be able to punch in the code and drive onto the estate without Mitch Hannigan following me? Doubtful. Hannigan’s eyes followed mine, and he guessed what I was thinking.
“I’m not the only one who’s g
oing to find out you’re living here, Lucy,” he said. “The press is going to be all over you. You’re going to have to face us eventually. So why not talk to me now and get it over with?” he asked. I think he was trying to make his voice silkily inviting, but I found him repulsive.
“So if I talk to you, the press is going to just go away? Somehow I doubt that,” I said.
Hannigan shrugged. “As long as there’s a story, there will be reporters sniffing around it. If you put your side out there, it may mean they’ll leave you alone sooner.”
I shook my head, not believing him.
“I just want to live in peace,” I said. To my horror, I could feel tears stinging hotly in my eyes. I tried to blink them away. I didn’t want to betray any sign of weakness in front of this man.
But if Hannigan noticed my tears, he wasn’t moved by them. “You’re a big story. People want answers to their questions.”
“It isn’t any of their business,” I snapped.
“Have you ever read one of the gossip rags while you’re in line at the supermarket? Clicked through to an entertainment story on the Internet? Sure you have. There’s no point in pretending you’re above it. And this is no different,” Hannigan said.
“Of course there’s a difference! I’m not an entertainer. I didn’t willingly enter the public eye!”
“But you’re there now. And this story isn’t going to go away anytime soon. The woman who wins millions in the lottery turns out to have a dark past? That’s huge. People love to see the rich and powerful take a fall,” Hannigan said with obscene relish. He seemed to realize I was recoiling from him, for he made an effort to inject a wheedling tone in his voice. “Come on, Lucy. Don’t you want to get your side of the story out there? Don’t you want people to know the truth?”
“The truth as you report it,” I retorted.
“I’ll tell you what: You give me a statement, and I’ll print it verbatim,” Hannigan said.
I thought for a moment, drumming my fingers against the steering wheel. I could feel the muscles in my jaw tightening, clenching down until my teeth ground together. Hannigan and the other reporters were never going to leave me alone. They were going to hunt me and harass me until I buckled under the pressure.
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