Besides, no one in the quiet place called her a purveyor of falsehoods.
Mona was quick to stick a finger under Frankie’s chin, giving it a nudge. “You will not lie down and die, missy. I won’t have it. You will get up off your skinny keister and go prove that penis pimp was the one who stole that recipe and leaked that video of you two to the press because he wants you to come back and be his slave again. He knew if Nikos saw that video, it would finish you two off!”
Frankie sighed with an apathetic yawn attached. “Mitch is a sick man, Mona. What would you have me do, beat up a man with cancer?”
Mona stomped her foot. “Yes! He’s about as sick as I am a twenty-five-year-old blonde with perky taters and a size-two dress! Now let’s prove he’s not above that kind of trickery!”
“So I can what, Mona? Make Nikos believe me? Nikos didn’t trust me enough to even consider I was telling the truth to begin with. He didn’t even bother to hear me out. That’s all there is to it.”
Jasmine swiped at a strand of Frankie’s hair covering her eyes. “I hate to defend the hothead, but he’s had a bad experience in the past—not to mention, that footage on Hollywood Scoop was pretty misleading.”
“Yet here you all are, trusting that I’d never do something like that to anyone, but the man I…” Her voice cracked. Oh, no. There’d be no more sobbing. She caught herself, gripping the arms of the chair.
“I’m going to make a horrible admission here, Frankie,” Jasmine said with a wince. “I doubted for a minute, too. It was only a minute. Okay, maybe three, but I did doubt. Then I forgot about my doubt because I was so furious with Simon.”
“The point is you gave me a chance to explain. Nikos didn’t. To think I was so close to falling in love with him, I was almost ready to let him see me naked in broad daylight.”
Both Gail and Mona, heads cocked in thoughtful pause, hummed in sympathetic understanding, acknowledging the serious commitment she’d considered making. Maxine nodded her recognition of Frankie’s sentiment.
But Jasmine came to Nikos’s defense. “Our emotional investment in you is very different, honey. I don’t know about the rest of you ladies, but I’ve never had one of my friends, you know, of the girl variety, cheat on me in the physical sense. You can’t hurt us in quite the same way. Nikos is another story. He was dumped by a woman he thought was truthfully over her ex-husband,” she pointed out.
Gail, Mona, and Maxine hummed more unified agreement.
Which served only to make Frankie angry. “You know, I was cheated on, too. Hello. Or have we forgotten how my marriage ended? Nikos admitted there was no proof Anita cheated on him. If anyone should have been suspicious and jealous, it should have been me. In fact, I should have been a raving lunatic every time Chloe stuck her big, perfect hooters in his face or whenever any number of women who ate at the diner flirted with him. But I wasn’t, because I don’t want to be that person. I listened to Maxine’s advice about letting go of past hurt, for all the good it did me. I want to trust a man again. I wanted to have faith that all men weren’t barely evolved troglodytes. That’s where Nikos and I are very different. I went into this thing with Nikos with my eyes wide open, and with the idea I’d at least get the benefit of the doubt if a problem arose.”
She had said that the first time he’d become sullen and moody over Mitch, hadn’t she?
Yes. Yes she had.
Frankie settled back in her chair. Phew—that diatribe had been exhausting. If she raised her hand to her brow, odds were, there’d be beads of sweat on it.
How was it, when you did everything in your power to change all of your bad relationship habits, when you tried to be as open and honest as a person could be, you still ended up back in the same stupid spot you began in?
Mona was the first to respond. Her sharp eyes took in Frankie with a mixture of sympathy and purpose. “And do you remember how your marriage ended, Francis? With you screaming like you were on fire on live television. You reacted. Maybe not the way you would have if it wasn’t such a sock in the kisser, or the way you would have preferred to, but you went berserkers, kiddo. I think I know what Jasmine means. Nikos reacted. Badly, yes, but it’s because he’s been knocked around a time or two. He saw what we saw, and it looked pretty damn bad for you. I’m not saying what he did was all right by me. I wish he had listened to you. All I’m saying is he lost his marbles. You know what that’s like. I’d also like to think if the situation was reversed, and you were the one who behaved like a big, fat baby, Nikos wouldn’t give up so easily.”
Jasmine saluted Mona with her coffee cup and a grin. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”
“I reacted because Mitch really did cheat on me with Bamby. I didn’t cheat on Nikos, and I didn’t steal.” She fought back that lump in her throat—the one filled with her grief over losing the Antonakas family as a whole. “I didn’t...I would never…” She choked on her words. “I would never steal that recipe.”
“Different circumstance, same reasoning, sassafras,” Gail offered, running her fingers over the small pearl buttons on her sky-blue sweater.
Her resolve was beginning to soften. Her longing for Nikos was penetrating her safe cocoon of anger. She missed him so much; her heart was like a heavy lump of rocks in her chest.
“I understand what you’re saying. I hear your reasoning, but here’s the problem. I did try to call Nikos on several occasions before I finally decided I was going to be dubbed not just mentally unstable but stalker worthy if I didn’t give up. He refuses to talk to me. I’m not going back to that diner until we at least talk. Not after the way he looked at me like…” She fought the hitch in her voice. “Should I keep begging and pleading? Shouldn’t I have some kind of self-worth?”
“You mean the kind that involves baths and a hair brush?” Maxine chirped with a cocked eyebrow and a teasing smile.
It was all Frankie could do not to flip her the bird. Even if she was right. “I mean the kind that allows me to see this for what it is and to let it go in favor of moving forward.” Again.
Damnit. She didn’t want to have to start over again.
But a thought occurred to her—she’d have to simply because she was right back where Mitch had put her when she’d left him anyway. Wallowing. Swimming in the deep, soothing waters of self-pity.
A small ember from her recently stamped-out fire ignited.
She’d let another man, despite how smoke-show-licious, drag her down.
No. Nikos hadn’t done this to her. He’d crushed her with his mistrust and doubt, but she’d let herself go right back to square one. She’d let his reaction defeat her when she knew she was right. Okay, so maybe Nikos would never believe her. Maybe she’d never convince him she wasn’t a cheat.
All that mattered in the end was that she knew she wasn’t a cheat.
All that mattered was she was right with Frankie when she went to sleep at night.
How stupid of her not to hang on to that at all costs.
Maybe Mensa wasn’t going to reserve a spot for her just yet.
“I let this happen,” she muttered, reaching down to scoop up Kiki, considering.
Jasmine smiled, bright and beautiful. “In part, yes. You’re doing what you did when you left Mitch. Instead of getting back up on your feet, you’re sitting on your ass in your own cloud of dust. No man, even one as fantastic, albeit stupid, and as ridiculously jealous as Nikos, is allowed to reduce you to this, Frankie. You can hurt. You can cry. You can feast on a high-caloric diet in your mourning, but you can’t stop functioning. It would mean you’ve learned absolutely nothing since your divorce. So get the hell up.”
Maxine grinned at Jasmine. “Grasshopper, I bow to your sage wisdom.” She held out her hand to Frankie. “I’ll help.”
“And I’ll make us some sandwiches,” Mona added, rubbing her hands together with glee. “While we figure out what our next plan of attack is, girls.”
Frankie took Maxine’s hand, wobbling when sh
e rose, clinging to poor Kiki, who missed their daily routine—and seeing Nikos. Each day since this had gone down, Kiki had waited patiently by the door at six sharp, eyes wide and expectant. She was waiting for Frankie to scoop her up, put her in the car, and take her to the diner so she could be with the people she’d come to love.
If Kik only knew her beloved Nikos was the person keeping her from doing just that. No fair. Even if Nikos refused to believe anything she said for the rest of his miserable, jumping-to-conclusions life, he had no right to take away everyone she’d come to love just because he was a bonehead.
Whether she loved his bonehead or not.
Then she had a lightbulb moment.
Wow, did it suck when all you did was alternately cry and drink copious amounts of caffeine in various forms.
And as it turned out, Oreo-cookies-and-cream pie was not part of the four essential food groups some would claim was so critical for energy and a well-balanced diet. Her innards said so when she attempted to move out of her own way.
Frankie’s stomach rolled, but Jasmine pressed an arm around her waist to right her. “You know what pisses me off about you, Francis?”
“What’s that, Jasmine?”
“You did nothing but eat pie and guzzle coffee, and I think you’re skinnier than when this whole thing began. Screw you, Bennett.”
Frankie giggled, righting herself. “So what can we possibly do to fix this mess I’m in?”
Jasmine’s eyebrow arched. “We need to get to Mitch. He’s got that recipe. I feel it in my gut, and he played you like a Stradivarius. He’s no more dying than I am a size four.”
“But you said you were a size four . . .”
“And I lied, all right? All of those McDonald’s french fries with that asshole Simon and the pressure of your skinny ass made me do it, okay? That’s neither here nor there. Mitch isn’t dying, and he got his hands on Voula’s recipe while using you to help him.”
Frankie nodded her agreement, almost sure what Jasmine said was true. It added up, and it pissed her the hell off. “But how did he get it? I mean, it wasn’t like Voula kept it under lock and key, but who’d help him do something like that?”
“I’m thinking Chloe. She’s the obvious suspect. She was pathetically jealous of you and Nikos together. Why wouldn’t she do something that crappy to get rid of you?”
For the first time in a week, Frankie felt the blood in her veins begin a slow simmer. “I know it should have, but the thought never crossed my mind.”
“That’s because you’re not a devious bitch. Chloe is.”
“And what do I do about that, Jasmine? Take her out in the diner parking lot?”
“Chloe’s the least of my concerns right now. Right now, we need to figure out how to get the recipe back from Mitch. Dealing with Chloe can come later.” Jasmine’s cell phone chirped. “Shit. I have to get that. If it’s one more reporter, I’m going to have to change my number.”
Frankie sympathized. Reporters had been calling Gail all week long. You’d think Mitch was Jim Morrison reincarnated. He made cookies and frou-frou delicacies. Yet he was all the rage as of late, and she was a part of that shit storm.
Though, it was so much worse for Jasmine. They’d been hounding her since last week about Simon and his long-lost father. When Frankie’s heart wasn’t aching for Nikos, it was aching for Jasmine. Simon had proven her right. Give a man some bags full of money, and they discovered everything had a price tag. They became invincible and above common decency. Yet, in the process of walking all over you, they ended up breaking your heart.
While Jasmine gave good face, Frankie knew during the brief clearing of her caterwauling and whining that her friend had come to care for Simon. She’d never admit it now, but the hurt that flashed across her face at the mention of Simon was a very real pain.
Jasmine’s lips thinned to an ugly line as she listened, with the phone pressed to her ear, to whoever was on the other end of the call. She shook her head in a distinct “no” motion. Then she bit the tip of her fingernail in thought, her features softening. With a confused, furrowed brow, Jasmine said good-bye and hung up her cell with a grimace.
“Is everything okay?” She put a hand on Jasmine’s arm.
Jasmine’s eyes narrowed, gleaming like she’d just eaten her prey alive. “It just might be, Francis. It just might be.”
Frankie frowned, hiking up her sagging drawstring flannel pajama bottoms. “Who was that?”
“Simon.”
Frankie’s stomach lurched, making those pastrami and Swiss sandwiches Gail and Mona were making much less appealing.
“And you haven’t twitched once. Or spoken in tongues. I’m impressed, Sensei. What gives?”
“We, my friend, have a whole new ball game with Mitch and his kitchen. Get your mitt, Frankie. We have a recipe to catch.”
Chapter Seventeen
From the journal of Frankie Bennett: I have decided a career as a superspy is off the table for me. That I allowed myself to hatch a plan of diabolical thievery with a blind man, his babysitter, two crazy senior citizens, and the hottest blonde, genius mathematician ever is just shy of bungee jumping off the White Cliffs of Dover. So a potential reprisal of Jennifer Garner’s role in Alias is quite safe from me. We’ll just have to chalk this up to the things we do for love.
“You did the stupid thing, didn’t you?”
Nikos ran a hand over his hair. “What’s the stupid thing?”
Voula clucked her tongue and perched herself on the arm of his couch, letting her pudgy, sneakered foot swing. “Do you remember little Angie Staniskoppas?”
“Vaguely.”
“She lived down the road and you had big crush on her, Nikos. You used to play together all the time. Do you remember why you stopped playing together?”
He ran an impatient hand over his chin, sipping at his beer. “No, Mama. Look, what’s the point here?”
“You watch the tongue with Mama. I get to the point when I get there. Answer the question. Do you remember why you stopped playing together?”
“No.” Okay, so that wasn’t totally true. He did remember Angie and how she’d ditched him for Jason Antonetti.
“Because you did the stupid thing. You see her talking to another boy, and you don’t ask her what they are talking about, forgetting you don’t own her. Instead, you think she likes the other boy better. So you tell her she’s not your friend anymore and you make her cry.”
“Point. Please, Mama,” he said, softening his tone a bit.
“This is the point, Nikos. Angie was borrowing a pencil from the other little boy. Her mother tells me this when she calls to say Angie is crying and she doesn’t know why you are mad. I know why you are mad. Because you do the stupid thing. You do this all the time. You don’t listen. You don’t think before you open the mouth. You just see colors.”
“Red. I see red.” Damn right he’d seen red. Lots and lots of red.
“Red, blue, purple. I don’t care. You said mean things to Frankie, and I don’t care what the television says, my Frankie would never do what they say. What you say. I know there is a—a…” His mother frowned, unable to find the word she was looking for.
But he doubted the word she was looking for was what was needed where Frankie was concerned.
“An explanation.”
Voula waved a finger in the air. “Yes. One of those. But did you listen to Frankie? Did you ask her? No. You yell at her, and you send her away. Now she is too afraid to come back, and you won’t return her calls. You did the stupid thing. But I want you to hear me, Nikos Antonakas. You will be sorry. I love you no matter what silly things you do because you are my son, but I am not afraid to tell you when you have done wrong. This time, I think you are wrong. I don’t believe Frankie played cootchie-cootchie-coo with Mitch. I don’t care if he makes piles of money with my recipe for meatloaf either. Not if it mean we lose our Frankie.”
His frustration grew, threatening to bubble over and splatte
r his mother. Couldn’t anyone see she was the root of this problem? How was it even Cosmos had his doubts? Cosmos, who’d all but labeled Frankie from the get-go. Since Frankie had been gone, the diner’s atmosphere had changed.
Barnabas mourned the loss of his Kooky by way of longing stares at her vacant princess bed. Voula virtually became like one of those monks who observed silence during the hour she’d once spent each day making her meatloaf, giving him the evil eye every time he was left to do Frankie’s prep work. Adara had called him from school just to let him have it for buying into the accusations against Frankie, and then she’d hung up on him—with zeal.
Each day was heavier than the last, and no one was laughing the way they once had. They weren’t even laughing the way they’d done before Frankie Bennett came on to the scene. But facts were facts. “She stole from us, Mama. Am I the only person of sound mind to know that?”
Voula’s head shook in typical dramatic Voula fashion. “No. You are wrong to believe the newspapers and television. Do you believe that Jennifer Aniston has baby by aliens? No, but you believe Frankie was making kissy-face with that bad Mitch. The television is lying! But when you find this out for sure, it might be too late. If I have no grandbabies, I will blame you.” Voula kissed the top of his head, gathering her scarf and purse and heading for his front door. “You remember what Mama says. She will be right, and you will be sad again, Nikos.”
The click of the door left Nikos alone with nothing but his hot anger and the residual need for one Frankie Bennett.
“How does it feel, sir, to eat crow? Is it as unpleasant as everyone claims—or does it taste just like chicken?”
Simon pressed his forefinger and thumb to the bridge of his nose. “So Hollywood Scoop had a heavy hand in the editing process of Mitch and Frankie’s allegedly rekindled romance. Doesn’t mean she didn’t steal the recipe, Win.” Though, that nagging feeling he’d had since this had all begun nagged harder.
Win placed his arm around Simon’s shoulder, holding the USB drive one of Simon’s contacts at Hollywood Scoop had managed to get his hands on. The one with the real scoop, sans some artful editing. “Sir? Do you really believe that—or is that what’s helped you sleep at night? You heard just as I did. Frankie most certainly did not betray Nikos with Mitch. You added unnecessary fuel to Nikos’s fire with a stupid assumption. You were wrong, Simonides. I do believe the expression ‘own it’ applies directly to you.”
Burning Down The Spouse (Ex-Trophy Wives Book 2) Page 29