by Reiss, CD
“Do you need more pillows under your leg?” Ella asked. “It’s going to bruise.”
“I’m fine,” Amanda said, leaning back with her eyes closed.
“Let me get more ice.”
“She said she’s fine,” I growled.
I didn’t realize how aggravated I was until I heard it in my own voice. It wasn’t caused by the promise of sex I couldn’t deliver now or even the deal we had to break, though both of those things frustrated the fuck out of me.
Inside this house, Amanda was mine to care for, and I had to sideline myself to let Ella take over.
If I sat next to Amanda on the couch the way Ella was, I had enough control not to touch her. If I tended her forehead, I had enough control to not kiss it. If I put my hand on her knee, I could easily hide that I hadn’t kept my distance, but I wasn’t the problem. Amanda didn’t know how to be as reserved. She’d give it away, and when I growled, our eyes met, and I knew she was letting Ella play nurse for the same reason.
So, I held back every instinct I had and let Amanda’s friend take the lead, which should have been easy. Holding my instincts in check was what I did every day.
My impulse to control was under control.
And yet, with Amanda, every second of surrender was mentally painful.
“Dante,” Ella said, “where’s the Advil?”
“In the cupboard over the kitchen sink.” I jabbed the logs even though they were glowing.
“Show me. Please.”
“There’s only one kitchen sink.”
Fact: I didn’t want to hear whatever Ella had to say when Amanda was out of earshot.
Also fact: Ella knew it.
She was barely in the kitchen when she called, “Can’t find it.”
When I stood, the sight line between the living room and kitchen was clear, and Ella was leaning against the counter with her arms crossed. The back of the couch blocked Amanda’s view, but when she looked at me with her big, green eyes, they told me she knew Ella was trying to get me alone.
This was ridiculous. I was acting as if I had no power in this little triangle. We were in my house. I could handle my sister in-law.
I strode to the kitchen.
“This is a sink.”
“You came here to work,” Ella said.
“And above it”—I snapped open the cabinet—“is a cabinet.”
“Did you get anything done?”
“These”—I took out the bottle of pills—“are on the bottom shelf.” I smacked it on the counter. “For short people.”
Ella did not take the bait. “You said you were sending her home. I was worried.”
“She’s a grown woman.” I closed the cabinet. That would have been the time to leave, but I stayed so my sister-in-law could berate me.
“Listen. When you hide it so hard I panic she’s dead, I start to ask myself why. And the answer I get is that you’re just gearing up to have some la-di-da fuckfest.”
“Did I mention she’s a grown woman?”
“You have no idea what she’s been through. This isn’t just any heartbreak, Dante. This is very serious, and it’s playing out in public. You have no business doing whatever it is you think you’re doing with her. Maybe later. In a month. But now?”
If she’d just said Amanda had been through a lot, I would have walked away like I should have, but she tacked on the assumption that I knew nothing about it, and I did. I knew damn well what Amanda had been through, and Ella was the one who didn’t know the half of it. Amanda had dedicated herself to a man who couldn’t give her what she needed in bed and who couldn’t love her the way I could.
Which was not the train of thought I meant to get on.
While I rooted around the pockets of my mind for the right one, Ella jumped in in a hard whisper so Amanda couldn’t hear.
“Logan said you wouldn’t last five minutes in a house with her.”
“Tell your husband I’m not an animal who constantly needs my balls emptied.” My answer didn’t address her assertion, which was intentional and also not a strategy that would withstand direct questioning.
“Nah, nah,” she said, wagging one finger. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about her.” She jabbed that finger in the direction of the living room.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I crossed my arms and leaned on the counter to mirror her earlier posture—one of cool, dispassionate inquiry.
“I didn’t believe him until the wedding. The way you look at her?”
Which wedding? The one where she wore a yellow-gold sheath gown that melted onto her body like a stream of molten metal? Or Ella and Logan’s wedding, where she wore a buttercup jacket dress I imagined her opening when I told her to and not a second sooner?
“You’re imagining things,” I said.
“Are you serious? You’re going to deny it?”
“Deny what?”
Deny, deny, deny.
“You look at her like you want to eat her alive, and Logan says you always did.”
I scoffed. This had to be a fantasy my brother had about his friend and projected onto me. Maybe it was something he’d convinced himself was the truth, or maybe he only had to convince his wife.
“And you know what? It’s great. I’m happy for her. Happy for you. Just thrilled she’s not dead on the side of the road and you guys are hooking up, but swear to me you’re being nice. Swear it’s serious and not just a conquest?”
“Okay,” I said. “Ella. This is cute, but is there an actual problem here? She needed to stay. I let her stay. The roof leaked, and she offered to go into the crawlspace to assess the damage. She fell. She’s fine.”
No lies detected.
“Then swear to me you’re not fucking her, right now.”
“I swear I’m having an irritating conversation right now.”
“I’m not mad, I just don’t like being lied to.”
“I’m not fucking her right now.”
“You’re telling me to mind my own business.”
“I’m telling the truth.”
Ella was about to drill down to dates and times, and I was going to have to decide whether or not to tell a direct lie to protect Amanda from being infantilized or stand up for both of us and tell the truth that we were two consenting adults and—
“Hey,” Amanda said from the living room. I whipped around to find her standing with an ice pack in one hand. “I think the knee’s okay.”
My attempt to rush to her started right after “hey,” but Ella pushed past and got there first. “Can you put weight on it?”
Amanda glanced at me and walked two steps, favoring the bad knee. “Yeah.” She took two more in my direction with less of a limp. “See, I’m fine. And my head too. I don’t think I’m concussed or anything.”
“No dizziness?” I asked. “Nausea? Do you know your name?”
“Amanda Jean Bettencourt.” With a quick glance, she acknowledged to me that she’d called herself what she told me not to call her. “It’s Friday, March 13th, blah, blah, blah. I’m fine.”
“Cool!” Ella slapped her palms against her thighs. “Well, you don’t need me to drive you home, which is great.”
“And she’s fine,” I added.
“And you”—Ella pointed at me—“are also all good. Yay. Dante, once Mandy’s home, I’ll grab these clothes from her and get them washed. Logan can return them to you, and no one has to go out of their way.” She turned to Amanda. “Have you packed up?”
I started a denial. “No—”
“My stuff’s in the car,” Amanda interrupted me with the truth. “So, you don’t have to worry.”
“Okay!” Ella said with enthusiasm. “Great.”
We all stood there as if we’d ordered a shoe that was about to be dropped.
“Okay,” Amanda said. “Let me get my shoes on.”
In the blink of an eye, a decision had been made, and I wasn’t the one to make it.
I had no power, no choice, no co
ntrol.
Chapter 24
MANDY
This was going to go on all day unless I made some kind of decision.
Ella thought I was getting sucked into something I couldn’t handle.
Dante thought I was too weak to say no to Ella.
They were both wrong, but if I asserted what I actually wanted, I’d be setting them against each other, and the animosity and drama would bleed into our lives in Los Angeles.
I had enough in my life, but another ten percent wasn’t going to bother me much. Dante, on the other hand, had his own trouble with whatever was going on with these tapes. Family drama wasn’t going to help him any.
So, though my head throbbed and my knee ached, it was time to call it off. I had hoped I could get Ella alone long enough to explain, then she’d leave, then Dante and I would be alone. But Ella had her keys in her hands, and it was clear that she would only be satisfied if I walked out the front door while she watched.
“Okay,” I said. “Let me get my shoes on.”
With that, I got control of the situation.
It felt great, but Dante looked as if I’d slapped him.
Being in control was fine, but it didn’t fix anything.
* * *
For the third time, I walked down the hill to my car, and for the first time, Dante wasn’t with me.
“That was weird,” Ella said after we passed her blue El Camino. She’d refused to get into it, insisting on walking me all the way down to where I was parked.
“What was weird?”
“The way Dante just said bye and walked off.”
I shrugged, unwilling to share the necessary details to pick apart the man’s motivations.
“I mean, you’ve been there how many days? You’d think he’d do a hug and a ‘nice to have you,’ but…” It was her turn to shrug. “I guess Logan’s right. No feelings.”
I felt, more than saw, her check my reaction, so I made sure I had none at all.
“Anyway, we got some security at your house, so no more brick envelopes through the window.”
“Thanks.”
Up ahead, my yellow Jag was a spot of sunshine in the gray landscape, still parked in the drive exactly as I’d left it, at a funny, frantic angle. Tire tracks arced in the mud around it where Ella had driven the El Camino.
I ran my thumb over the key fob. The button for the doors was right there, but I didn’t press it.
The way he’d said goodbye was too curt, even for Dante Crowne. Had I hurt him? I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want anyone to do that. I didn’t want him to hurt at all.
Or maybe he was just angry with me for leaving?
Wasn’t that the same as hurt?
Why did I care what he thought of me?
I didn’t. It wasn’t that.
My mind shuffled my heart like a deck of cards. If Renaldo had said goodbye like that, I would have run back to him and begged to know what was wrong, what I had done, and what I could do to fix it. And I wanted to run back to Dante with the same questions, but it didn’t feel the same. This need ran deeper. It called without the driving force of an anxious, tightly wound chest. I needed to see if he was okay for him.
Couture Mandy was supposed to take every inverse action. Where I would have begged for affection, I’d give or take it. Where I would have hung by the phone, now I’d call when I had nothing else to do. And if I did something that sent a man into a mood with a sullen pout or a derisive scowl, I would turn my back on his manipulative bullshit instead of running to him, begging to know what I’d done wrong.
But Dante wasn’t manipulative, and I knew Couture Mandy wasn’t going to do anything different. I was going to feel different.
I popped the trunk and approached the back of the car.
“Mandy… what are you doing?” Ella gestured at the suitcase that was already in there, ready to accompany me back to the city. “Oh, do you need something? Whatever it is, I can—”
“No.” I pulled the bag out of the trunk. She’d watched me pack all of this crap on one of the most miserable days of my life. When I’d left LA with this bag, I’d been running away from people’s opinions. Now, I was going to run toward something. “I’m a grown woman, and I really appreciate you coming to get me, but I don’t need you to…”
I realized her gaze had drifted down, and mine followed it to the stack of magazines I’d bought in Harmony what felt like a hundred years ago. Taking the bag back out again had dislodged the copies so that they were now a disordered spill, slices of my miserable face staring up at both of us, reminding us how much help and support I’d needed lately.
For the first time though, I looked at them without feeling any shame. Those headlines were basically about someone else—someone who cared about what people thought of her.
I didn’t care.
Like, at all.
I slammed the trunk closed on those images. They weren’t going to be a part of my life anymore. Ella watched me with a wariness I’d only ever seen her direct at teenage boys being reckless on skateboards and businessmen who left the tacking stitches on their suit vents.
“I’m going to stay for the rest of the day,” I said simply. “I’ll be back in LA tonight, and I’ll see you then.”
“I’m not sure—”
I held up a hand to stop her. For once, I felt certain about what I needed to say and what I wanted to do. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you, El. Not just this last week, but all these years—you’ve really stayed in my corner, even when I was making it harder. I never could have gotten through any of it without you.” I didn’t have to butter her up; it was the plain truth, and we both knew it. “And I know you came up here to get me because you were worried. But I’m leaving here on my own terms.”
I wanted to say, “You understand that, don’t you?” but that would have been like asking for permission, so I didn’t.
She stood there for a moment, clearly waiting for me to elaborate, but I didn’t do that either. She’d have to tell Logan, and that would only make things complicated for Dante. Our relationship—or whatever it was—was outside her purview until both he and I decided it was.
“Okay, then.” Ella clearly didn’t like it, but whether she respected my determination or not, she had no choice but to honor a decision clearly stated.
One day, we’d talk this all out, but not now.
We walked up the hill again, footsteps crunching together as if she and I had found a sort of rhythm.
“I just don’t trust him,” she said. “He’s going to hurt you, and the last thing you need right now is someone else sticking his fingers in your wounds. I’m sure the attention feels good, but you just got your heart broken. Shattered. You’re barely in your right mind.” She stopped walking and turned to face me. “He’s not the right guy for you right now. I don’t trust him.”
I shook my head and kept walking, and after a moment, she followed.
“Is it him you don’t trust or me?” I asked. “Because seriously, I’m okay. I’m…” How could I say this without letting on what was actually happening between us? “I know who Dante is and who he isn’t. I’m not asking for anything he can’t give me, and he’s doing the same for me.”
“I hate the idea that you might get hurt.”
“And I love that about you.” We’d reached the El Camino, which was also parked haphazardly. It looked as though it had skidded the last few feet of its stop. I realized that Ella had probably been pulling in when she heard me fall. No wonder she was being so protective—I had probably scared her half to death.
“I know you’re a big girl,” she said. “If you need anything—”
“I appreciate it so much, El. I’ll need to see you in LA tonight. I’m absolutely dying to get too much takeout and drink a big old martini. We can order from Jaxy and eat on your roof. Under the billboard. All right?”
“All right.” She admitted defeat with a huge, long hug, lingering to check my bruises once
more, before she got into her car and backed down the driveway.
* * *
I expected to find Dante inside, dealing with the debris on the bathroom floor. The master bedroom was still relatively unscathed, so I figured it wouldn’t be a long commute to get him into bed for the sex I had been promised. Not that I needed an orgasm at that point. I felt as good as I had in months—years, maybe. Couture Mandy wasn’t just a character I was inhabiting—she was starting to feel like a person I could actually be.
A person I wanted to be.
But Dante wasn’t in the bathroom or either of the bedrooms, the living room, the kitchen, or the mud room. When I found him, he was out back, loading the banker’s box of tapes into the trunk of his truck. Startled, he straightened when he saw me.
Next to the banker’s box was a stack I recognized because I had a matching set: every issue of DMZ Weekly that they’d had out at that convenience store in Harmony.
“That magazine any good?” I asked. “My phone doesn’t work up here, so I’ve been looking for some reading material.”
The smile I expected didn’t arrive. Instead, his face was stern and stormy, and I remembered why everyone was intimidated by him.
“I appreciate your help,” he said. “It’ll be a lot easier to get the contractor to fix the roof if they know what they’re dealing with.”
I stepped closer to him. “I’ll send them when I have signal.”
“Good.” He was rigid, tin-soldier stiff.
“Are you forgetting what I’m owed?”
I was ready to fuck him on the hood of his car—the cold metal biting at my thighs, my body bare to the sky above as I let myself be taken. I didn’t want anything more than his cock inside me, my pleasure our mutual priority, and to drive back to Los Angeles with the ache of him still thick between my legs.
He said, “No.”
“No?”
“I don’t break promises, but I’m doing it now. I took advantage of you. I don’t feel good about it. I don’t feel good about any of this. I’ve lied to be with you. I’ve let myself want you, and not just your body, but your time.” He restacked the tabloids with one swipe of his arm. When he turned back to me, his eyes were so cold they burned. “I’ve been bargaining with myself, trying to find ways to make myself believe that when we get back to LA, I can have this.” He flicked his hand between us. “I’ve been playing games with myself, and you.”
