Paxton Blaincot. The stupidest thing she could have done was calling him. He’s always had an obsession with protecting her, and showing up with EJ and a bagful of secrets was—it was stupid. But also inevitable.
He wasn’t just the only option when they left NOLA in a stolen car and no plans—he was the best option.
“What is it?”
“I’m done.”
She straightens, and turns to him, her eyebrows raised. “I thought you’d need another day.”
That’s what he told her when they were in the car, when EJ was lost in silence and she’d been too tense to do anything but stare out the window and wonder how badly they’d fucked up.
“I was able to pull some strings. Do you want to see?”
She nods and he leads the way to the kitchen bar, which partitions the small, shiny kitchen off from the rest of the loft. His laptop is set up at the bar, and he turns it to her before he busies himself opening a bottle of wine and pouring them both a glass. She scans it with interest, but—
“Pax, this doesn’t make sense.”
He laughs, a quick, rough noise that has her mind wandering to areas she can’t indulge in just now.
“Look. This—the majority of the money is spread out in four off shore accounts—the Swiss accounts, one in the Caymans, and a fourth in Belize. All of them are clean—just like you asked for. Your account info is here.” He slides a thumb drive to her and she takes it absently.
“The portion you wanted invested,” he says, sitting next to her and turning the computer, “I put in a diverse portfolio. Low-risk tech and established companies with good returns. It’s the same portfolio I use for my clients who want to increase their wealth but who don’t need the profits to survive. You fall there, between what you’ve given me and what you have in your accounts already.” He pauses, watching her. Waiting for an explanation.
He’ll be waiting a while.
“That’s good. Excellent. And what kind of safeguards do you have in place?” She glances at him and he sighs.
“The investments are through my personal firm, Blaincot Returns, and I scrubbed the files of your name. If it comes up, you’re listed as my third cousin on Mother’s side—she went to Korea to teach English, so I don’t think anyone will ask questions but we can cross that bridge when we come to it. The bank accounts are accessed by account number. Even if you were to walk into the bank, you wouldn’t need to provide ID. I kept it as anonymous as possible.”
“Thank you,” she says again, and it’s not a paltry thing she’s saying to appease his ego or manipulate him into doing what she wants. For once, she actually means it.
“Are you going to tell me why?” he asks, turning her barstool with one knee so that she has little choice but to face him or retreat. “Charlie, tell me why this is important? Why you’re running and who the hell has EJ so scared and why the actual fuck are you with her?”
“Because she’s my best friend,” Charlie says, her voice sharp. “She was there when the rest of my damn world fell apart and everyone wanted to talk about poor Charlie and how horrible it must all be for her, what with that rat bastard disappearing. Fuck that,” she snarls, and he flinches, backs away a little.
“Don’t push me on EJ,” she says. “You don’t have to like her and you don’t have to understand—but she’s here. She’s not going anywhere. Accept that.”
“You thought the same thing about Tre,” he says quietly in answer and she stares at him. Long enough that Pax flushes and looks down.
“That was an asshole thing to say, Paxton,” she says, her voice shaking just a little.
“You left me, Charlie. I’m allowed to be a little bit of an asshole.”
“That was eight years ago,” she scoffs and he leans back on his stool.
“You say that like it was a lifetime, but once, you wanted to marry me. You were going to leave everything in Charleston behind and start over. You were in my life, my bed, and you were fucking happy there.”
“And then you decided that I was a little fucking flower to protect and you suffocated me. You drove me back to Tre, Pax. You want to walk down memory lane, remember all of it,” she spits and stands, stalking away.
“I would never have done this to you. I would never have vanished like this and left you with her.”
Charlie looks at him, and she feels nothing. Just a wide, yawning emptiness and the absurd sadness that it has come to this.
Once upon a lifetime ago, she thought he was someone she could love. Not even love—she had never put much in that. Maybe the way she was raised, by parents who barely tolerated each other and used affairs like a stiff drink at the end of a bad day.
But she thought he could make her happy. For a heartbeat, staring at him, she wonders—if she had stayed at Vandy, stayed with Pax—would they still be here. In this moment, with a dead fiancé and a furious drug lord and—EJ, whatever that whole thing was. Would she have been so bored she had jumped at the chance to deal drugs, just for the momentary high?
Or would she be happy, bored, raising two point five kids in a spacious antebellum house and making dinners she saw on the Food Network when she gave the staff a night off.
Would she have been happy, in that fictional life that she can see so damn clearly?
“I’m just worried. Because I care about you,” he says and she lets out the breath she’s been holding. Because there is her answer.
She would die, suffocate and wither away, under Pax’s constant possessive worry.
“Don’t,” she says. “I know what I’m doing.”
She turns and freezes.
EJ is standing in the doorway, sweaty and gorgeous in her jean shorts and white v-neck t-shirt, her lipstick smeared and her eyes big with eyeliner that’s begun to smudge.
She’s watching Pax, and her expression is furious and fierce, and almost—amused.
“Where did you go?” Charlie asks, her lips numb and dry. The question cracks in half and EJ’s gaze darts to her, a smile ticking up her lips. She swallows. The words are on the tip of her tongue. I was worried. The same thing that irritates her so much from Pax. And from the amused gleam in EJ’s eyes, she knows it.
Charlie swallows hard and smoothes out her expression by force of will, ignoring the chuckle from EJ.
“I needed a little time to think,” EJ says, brushing past Charlie. She can smell the alcohol on the other woman, the scent of smoke and perfume and she wants to ask, about that and the past hours and how angry Jacobs is and what they’ll do next.
Instead she clings to her silence, and drinks her wine as EJ disappears into the backroom.
*
They need the time, to regroup. To breathe. That’s what EJ tells herself in the morning when she crawls out of bed. That they need the break—from the tension, from the constant motion, from fear. She’s being reckless and stupid—even now, with the stale taste of Jaeger in her mouth and the feel of Karla too real against her fingers, she knows it.
Last night was a stupid mistake. She rubs her eyes and pushes her hair out of her face, and wanders out of the partitioned bedroom in search of coffee or Charlie.
She finds the former in the kitchen, which is silent and empty. A nibble of curiosity makes her wonder where Paxton is, before it’s gone.
“Charlie?”
Her voice echoes around her as she searches the loft.
She finds her in the bathroom, in a bath drawn to the edge of the wide stainless steel tub, the water frothed with bubbles. A candle is burning next to her, with low music, and her eyes are closed. EJ hesitates in the doorway, not sure if she should intrude. The conversation she overheard last night comes back to her, and she is—for the first time in she can’t remember how long—uncertain about her place. Her role. It’s a disconcerting feeling, one she doesn’t much care for, and tightens her lips.
“Don’t lurk,” Charlie says, “it’s creepy.”
She makes a soft laugh, a weak thing. “I’m not lurking. I’
m just not sure you want me around.”
Charlie moves, sitting up enough that she can look at EJ, her shoulders and the slope of her breasts exposed above the water. “When have you ever been unsure about anything?” she asks, an eyebrow raised.
“More often than you would think,” EJ admits and comes deeper into the bathroom. She perches on the windowsill by the tub and stares at her friend. “Are you mad at me?” she asks, finally, when the silence stretches out too long.
Charlie shakes her head. “I don’t know, EJ. I just—I don’t know what we’re doing. I don’t know why. It all seemed like a dream, back home, and it was easier to let Jacobs fix it than to face the consequences. But now—now the bruises are faded and the body is gone and what the hell are we doing? How did we end up here?”
That is the question. Except that she’s been headed to this point her entire life. Since that first afternoon in the park.
“You can go home.” EJ says, and she is proud of herself, that her voice comes out steady, without any inflection or the bone crunching fear that grips her when she thinks about Charlie disappearing from her life.
When the hell had this blonde ice queen with her southern drawl and bitchy attitude slipped so firmly into her life?
“Do you want me to go?” Charlie asks, eyeing her.
EJ flushes and shrugs. “It’s your choice.”
Charlie makes a low disbelieving noise. “That’s not the question. Of course it’s my choice. It’s always been my choice. But I’m asking what you want. Would you be happy if I left and went back to my father’s home?”
No. Without her, without Jacobs—what’s left? A pile of money and a game, and—she shivers. “No. I don’t want you to go home.”
“Why?”
“Fuck, Charlie,” EJ says, pushing off the window. She prowls the room, nerves dancing along her skin. “What the hell do you want?”
“I want you to be honest and upfront about shit. You called Jacobs, and you didn’t bother to mention the history there until after it was over—until we were at Pax’s house with that damn car in the parking garage and there was no turning back. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not running home. I’m in this—but I need you to be honest with me. If you can’t be honest about anything else, then be honest about this. What the fuck do you want?”
Charlie has never spoken to her like this. Not with that much anger and disgust, and it shocks her. Makes her stop in the middle of the bathroom and stare at the girl still sitting in the tub.
How can a girl surrounded by bubbles and dripping wet manage to look and sound like a fucking goddess?
“I want to bring Jacobs to his knees. And I want you with me.” She says, without letting herself think. “I don’t want you to leave.”
Charlie smiles, a slow smile that makes EJ irrationally nervous. She swallows hard and Charlie pushes up out of the water. It cascades down her body, bubbles dotting her pale skin. It should be ridiculous.
It’s not.
EJ clears her throat and steps back as Charlie steps out of the tub and casually wraps a fluffy white towel around herself before smirking at EJ.
“It’s about time you admitted it.”
EJ stares for a long moment, wonder what the hell just happened, when Charlie yells from the other room. “Get dressed! I want to go out.”
*
They end up shopping. Charlie adores shopping—it’s one of the few things she is unabashedly spoiled about, and one EJ takes great pleasure in teasing her over.
EJ has never found much enjoyment in retail therapy, but she’s more than willing to follow her friend around, and forget the tension in the bathroom earlier that morning.
They’re in a small, upscale clothing shop and Charlie is modeling a silver dress, floor length and open in the back, that displays her curves perfectly when she says, almost absently, “Pax finished setting up the accounts.”
EJ, toying with a shadowy blue halter top, drops it on the low velvet couch and turns on the other girl. “When the hell did that happen?”
“Last night, when you were out, doing whatever it is you were doing.” Charlie’s voice goes up just a little at the end and she gives EJ a curious stare.
“Don’t deflect. Why the hell did you wait so long to tell me?” she snaps. “Get changed.”
“Are we in a hurry?” Charlie asks.
EJ stares at her. “We aren’t fucking on vacation, Charlie. What the hell do you think we’re doing?”
“Well, personally, I think you’re being paranoid.” Charlie says, smoothing the skirt of her dress and frowning at the mirror critically. “He has no idea where we are. Relax. We’ll stay the night and leave in the morning. Pax deserves an explanation anyway.”
EJ studies her friend. “What are you going to do about him, by the way?”
Charlie stills, and her dark gaze meets EJ’s in the mirror. “What do you mean?”
“Just that. We need to go. We have to decide where. It’s time to step up or step out. So—what are you going to do?”
“What are you going to do?” Charlie snaps back, twisting and crossing her arms over her chest. EJ shakes her head.
“We aren’t having this conversation here. And I’m starving. Are you almost done?”
Charlie huffs but vanishes back into the changing room. She emerges a few minutes later in her jeans and black one shoulder top. “Let’s go,” she says.
They wander down the street to a small bistro and sit outside. The day is gorgeous, and even with the stress of everything going on, and all the reasons she should be careful, EJ has to wonder if Charlie might not be right. If Jacobs is a long distant threat that she needs to quit seeing behind every corner.
She snorts softly. As long as that damn thumb drive and cell phone sit in the bottom of her purse, she knows she’s being exactly what she should be—vigilant and smart.
Charlie leans back in her chair, and EJ studies her. She’s indolent, lazy, lounging there, her golden hair throwing glints of red, eyes hidden behind oversized sunglasses, and a tiny smirk on her lips.
She’s missed this. It’s a realization that hits her hard, suddenly, without warning, and it stirs unease in her belly.
A waitress, pretty and altogether too damn perky, swings by the table and both girls order mimosas and salads. When she retreats, Charlie pulls off her sunglasses and fixes EJ with a searching stare.
“What now? We’re covered financially, and we have the leverage on Jacobs to cripple him. So what do you want to do?”
Now that some of the anger is abating, she has time to think, to process everything they’ve been doing. And the familiar resentment is there, bubbling angrily at Jacobs, but that’s it. Not the uncontrollable desire to see him and his criminal network burn.
“I want to go somewhere where no one knows me. Where I’m just a girl and I’m not expected to marry into trust fund royalty and my mother can never snap her fingers and demand obedience again.”
Charlie arches an eyebrow. “Where is that?”
She smiles, “Ireland.”
Charlie blinks and EJ shrugs. “When Mom got married to lucky number seven, they took a six month honeymoon trip around the world. Jacobs was gone then—that fun time before he reappeared in my life, but only just. But I had a housekeeper, named Kristin. And a passport. Kristin was only a few years older than me, and I’d been bribing her for almost a year to keep out of trouble with Mom. So it wasn’t hard to blackmail her into taking me to Ireland for a few weeks. Mom never found out, and I fell in love with it. Do you know there are castles there for sale? I could live in a castle and never see anyone I didn’t want to. No one would ever know I was there, because why the hell would I ever go there?”
Charlie stares at her. “You want to buy a castle in Ireland.”
“You asked,” EJ says, giving her a tiny smile. It’s just a little bit self-conscious and embarrassed, but unrepentant.
“So do you have a castle picked out?” Charlie asks after a heartbe
at, and some of the tension eases in EJ. She wasn’t sure what kind of response she’d get from Charlie, and it matters. Galling as that is, the little blonde girl’s opinion matters.
“Yes.”
“Can I come?”
The question is soft and vulnerable somehow and EJ smiles. The first real smile she’s given in so long, without shadows or fear or worry plaguing her. She opens her mouth to respond, and her eyes go wide.
“What is it?” Charlie asks, sitting up in her chair, and EJ shakes her head.
Her lips are numb and fear is stealing through her. She’s almost shaking.
She’s seen him before. She can remember the first time she saw him—she remembers everything about the night Jacobs first took her into his criminal empire. The night it went from games that she was good at to what he did.
He’s tall and thin, almost cadaver thin, his jaw and cheekbones standing out in his face like a death mask, his dark eyes sunken. A shaved head and tattoos that cover his arms and crawl up his neck, with skinny jeans and a hipster pair of glasses—he could be any wannabe musician on the street, a pretentious asshole hung up on clean eating and cold-brewed coffee.
Except she knows better.
For a heartbeat, as fear stutters through her like a live wire shorting out, as her stomach churns and the bitter taste of acid floods her mouth, she knows how badly they’ve fucked up.
But he is only watching. A private smile on his face. Observing from a distance. She swallows hard, gagging a little and forces her gaze away from him against every instinct screaming inside. “We need to go. I forgot—I need to buy something.”
Charlie’s moving before EJ finishes talking, tosses some money on the table and follows her out of the little bistro. And despite the feeling of being watched, like insects crawling over her neck, she turns her back on him and trusts that this is too public.
Jacobs might be angry enough to send his favorite enforcer after her, but he won’t throw aside all his common sense—they won’t be gunned down in the middle of a busy street.
Fatal Beauty Page 10
