Beyond Paradise

by Barbara Nolan

  “I got a friend downtown who can hook us up with passports fast, and we’re outta here.” He kissed her, then mumbled against her lips. “You and me on the next plane to Cabo.”

  “And how would that work?”

  “We leave and go where no one can find us.” Even he couldn’t believe he’d said it. He never imagined he’d sound like one of those sappy movies, but it didn’t matter as long as they were together.

  “You can’t leave the club, and I won’t leave my brother behind. From the day he was born, he’s been mine.” Her voice hitched. “I love him.”

  Her simple words squeezed his heart. So fuckin’ plain and honest.

  “I can’t make any more stupid mistakes.”

  He furrowed his brow. “Stupid mistakes?”

  “Not you, not us.” She touched his cheek. “But don’t feel because of what happened you have to . . .”

  His brain zeroed in on the word us. He huffed out a breath. “You don’t get it.” He hoped his words would make sense. “I’m not the one who saves the girl, the one who does the right thing.”

  “I know, but . . .”

  “You make me want to be better. And believe me, I’m not that guy.”

  “Well, that’s true.”

  They whipped their heads to the voice behind them. Angela stood in the doorway assessing the situation.

  “I knew it.” Angela marched into the room. “You see a woman, and you just have to screw her?” She spewed her venom on Cheryl. “I hate to break it to you, honey, but Jonny can’t keep his dick in his pants.”

  “Don’t,” Jonny warned.

  “No, I think this poor girl should know about you.” She got in Cheryl’s face, but Cheryl didn’t flinch. “We have about twenty dancers, and I’d say he’s screwed at least half of them.” Angela faced him. “Right, Jonny?”

  “That’s enough.” Jonny pressed the tips of his fingers to his temple.

  “Fine, tell her I’m wrong,” Angela dared. “Tell her you haven’t slept with half the women in this club, plus the rich and famous clientele who find you so irresistible.”

  Cheryl squared her shoulders and faced Angela. “If everything you say is true, it looks like you were the bigger fool for being with him.”

  His lips kicked up into a smirk. He’d seen Angela make the toughest dancers in the club cry over a ripped costume, yet Cheryl stood up to her. That took guts. He wanted to pull her into his arms just for that.

  Angela opened her mouth to retaliate, but Cheryl had already stormed off.

  “Cheryl, wait,” He called after her as she ran from the room, slamming the door behind her.

  They stared at the door, as Angela geared up for round two. “What was going on here?”

  “I think that’s pretty obvious, don’t you?” The smell of sex still hung in the air, but he had no remorse, and Angela knew it.

  “You broke up with me for her?” Angela sneered. “Nicky Falcone’s leftovers?”

  Angela went right for the jugular. Attack or be killed.

  “It’s time for you to go.” He turned away from her and half expected something to whiz past his head. Angela had a crazy fucking temper, and more than once he found himself ducking some of his finest glassware.

  “I’ll go, but don’t think you can shut me out because I’ll make you pay.” She stood her ground.

  He spun around. “You won’t make me do anything, and if you try, you’ll be sorry.” He kept his voice dangerously low. “Now get out.”

  Angela’s tawny complexion became blotchy with rage. Her eyes flickered with a million deadly thoughts before she stomped into the living room. He followed her, and when she toppled a priceless vase to punctuate her dramatic exit, he wasn’t surprised.

  He stormed down the hall and found Eddie’s bedroom door locked so he banged and kicked at it a few times, then gave up. Who could blame Cheryl for locking him out after that shit show. He returned to his bedroom, eased against the headboard, closed his eyes, and saw Cheryl’s face. He had just had her, and all he could think about was having her again. Her scent was in the room. It surrounded him. It taunted him. It held him captive.

  ~ ~ ~

  In less than a minute Cheryl fled Jonny’s bedroom and locked herself into Eddie’s. With her ear pressed against the door, she heard more shouting, something crash, a door slamming and then silence.

  “Cheryl!” Jonny shouted.

  She jumped away from the door as it rattled under his pounding.

  “Open up!”

  He banged, yelled and kicked at the door a few more times but she stayed quiet, and he finally gave up. Sucking in a deep breath, she swallowed past the lump in her throat. She would’ve loved to fling the door open and fall into his arms like a scene from some old movie, but that would be another colossally bad decision.

  The grim facts mounted up fast. The first night she’d seen him with some bimbo on her knees in his office. Even his bitchy ex-girlfriend said he screwed everything that walked, and this was the man she picked to tell her darkest secret. It must’ve been some fucked up gene she inherited from her mother which made falling for the wrong men part of their DNA.

  But something didn’t fit because Jonny the uncaring player conflicted with the man who wanted to protect her. The man whose dark, sultry eyes melted when they made love. She usually hated the term, but tonight making love fit. A night so full of mysterious contradictions. His impatient fingers and the way he responded to her. The touch of his hand grazing her hip, and the way he filled her, made her come around him, pulsing and stretching her and spoiling her for any other man. She hugged herself with the possibility of wanting such a man. Or the possibility of such a man wanting her.

  Tears gathered, but she refused to give in to them. She’d learned long ago crying never solved anything.

  Chapter 12

  The following night, Jonny stifled a yawn and wished he’d taken the coffee the bartender offered him earlier. After last night’s shit storm, he’d gulped his way through the rest of the tequila and passed out. As Cheryl predicted, his arm got worse, but a trip to the doctor and getting thirteen stitches with a raging hangover was not a great way to spend the afternoon.

  Now he sat in his office with his head and arm throbbing in unison, each competing to see which would make him hurl first. He popped another pain pill to dull the physical pain because nothing would dull the feel of Cheryl’s touch. How her fingers worked him over until he saw double, or how she trembled when he lit her up and made her melt around him. Pain or not, his dick got hard just thinking about her.

  Most women he’d been with were like a bad porn movie, screaming and gasping and saying things about his dick even he didn’t believe. But with Cheryl, it was all soft murmurs and passionate sighs. An honesty that can't be faked.

  He rolled his shoulders to relieve the tension in his neck seconds before Max and Eddie filed into his office and assumed their usual spots. Eddie slouched on the couch lighting a cigarette, and Max perched on the edge of his desk.

  “I still can’t believe it.” Eddie blew the smoke toward the ceiling. “I knew she was keeping something from me, but stabbing Nicky? That is fucked up.”

  He'd filled them in earlier, and now he eyed Eddie, then Max.

  “This shit’s a mess,” Max grunted.

  “That fuckwad deserved it,” Eddie said.

  Jonny fought to focus past the pain pills. “If it’s true.”

  Eddie and Max shot him a look.

  “Why would she make it up?” Eddie asked. “Most people deny that shit not admit to it.”

  “Nicky was small time, but he did have a rep on the street.” Jonny ran his hand over his jaw. “We would’ve heard something. She stabs him and he vanishes. Her story has too many fuckin’ holes.”

>   Max nodded, and Eddie cleared his throat. “She asked me about working here.”

  Jonny’s chest tightened. Why hadn’t she asked him about a job? Not much time for talking when I had my tongue shoved halfway down her throat.

  “I put her at the main bar.” Eddie’s eyes bore through him waiting for a reaction. “She’s got plenty of experience, and once she learns how the club works, we can move her up to the VIP.”

  Hell if he understood it. A week ago he hadn’t even known Cheryl. Then she flung herself into his life, patched up his arm, fucked him into a coma, and spit out a confession that would make most men run for cover. Not the traditional beginning to a new relationship but —She was all he could think about.

  “What happened with Angela?” Max asked.

  Jonny glanced at Max. The man usually kept his thoughts to himself.

  “She left me a very detailed text this morning explaining exactly what I could do with the club and her job,” Jonny drawled. “I think it’s physically impossible, but the bottom line is, she quit.”

  “So how much new barware do I have to order?” Eddie ground his cigarette into the ashtray.

  “Took her anger out on the vase in the foyer.” Jonny shrugged. “Ain’t a good fight unless somebody breaks something, right?”

  “Thank fuck, I hated that thing,” Eddie added.

  “And of course she reminded me Cheryl was with Nicky first.”

  “Jealous women do the best research,” Eddie observed.

  “Better than the fuckin’ CIA,” Max agreed, then asked, “Did Angela mention Frank at all?”

  “Why would she?”

  “Frank was the one who put her here, and you and her . . .”

  “What are you saying, she was fuckin’ me on Frank’s orders?”

  “Nah . . . forget it.”

  Max’s comment made the muscles in his chest contract again, especially since Angela insinuated the same thing.

  “So just to be clear, you and Cheryl . . .” Eddie cocked his head.

  “You got a problem with that?” Jonny snapped.

  “Not the way you think.” Eddie waited a beat. “I just don’t wanna see her get hurt.”

  “And you think I’m gonna hurt her?” Jonny stood and came around the desk.

  “It’s me you’re talking to, remember?” Eddie blew out a sharp breath. “You can’t just fuck her and forget her like all the rest.”

  “I don’t get it.” Max pushed off the desk and faced him. “Why her? Is she so good in the sack you’re willing to . . .”

  Jonny stepped to Max. “Shut it.” Anger turned the two words ugly. Goddamn irrational, but again the impulse to protect Cheryl unraveled him and made reasonable thinking impossible.

  Max could’ve easily taken him out. He had at least three inches and fifty pounds on him, but the larger man stepped off. “I didn’t mean nothing by it.”

  An awkward silence filled the room until Eddie moved between them. “Why don’t we all dial it down?” Eddie clapped his hand over Max’s shoulder.

  “I just don’t want any trouble,” Max mumbled, then slouched out of the office.

  “You gotta ease off,” Eddie warned when they were alone.

  “I’m a little on edge.”

  “More like over the edge.”

  “It’s just . . .” Even he didn’t understand his compulsion to play the hero, but he couldn’t ignore another woman in a hopeless situation. Maybe evening the score would end the guilt that gnawed at him like a toothache.

  A sharp knock stalled their conversation, then they looked to the door as Frank swaggered into the office.

  Jonny blew out an exasperated breath that should’ve contained fire.

  “What’s up?” Eddie said.

  “Should be my dick, but it's my blood pressure.” Sarcasm and Frank were not a good mix, so Jonny stayed silent.

  “Why don’t you go down and check in with the bouncers,” Frank nodded to Eddie and then to the door.

  Eddie stared down the shorter man, then flashed Jonny a look before he left the office.

  “What’s with him?” Frank asked.

  “He doesn’t like being talked to like shit.” He hoped the twitch in his eye wasn’t noticeable.

  Frank roamed around the office. “Then maybe he should remember that twelve months ago he was just another punk running the streets.”

  “You come up here to bust balls, or you got something on your mind?” Jonny sat behind his desk. The need for some distance between them overwhelmed him.

  Frank snatched two tickets off his desk. “Why’re you going to the NY Bar and Nightclub dinner?”

  “To thank all those city officials who pushed through the variances for my new club.” Jonny pictured those documents locked up tight in his office safe.

  “Sounds like you’ve forgotten your obligations.” Frank kept his voice low, but a vein throbbed in his forehead.

  “I didn’t forget nothing.” His gaze cut to Frank.

  “So you’re just going to leave?” Frank’s voice raised enough for Jonny to hear the anger.

  “I told you months ago I have people lined up to take my place.”

  He’d been grooming the beverage manager for weeks. He’d told him all this, but as usual, Frank only heard what he wanted to hear.

  “And how do you see this playing out?” Frank stepped forward and rested his palms on the desk.

  Jonny leaned in. “I can go wherever I want.” They were close enough for him to get a whiff of Frank’s heavy cologne. “I got my own money.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Frank slammed his fist on Jonny’s desk so hard it almost toppled a half-filled water bottle. “Your money is my money. You think you’d have those hot babes blowing on your dice if you were still some cheap hustler over on 86th Street.”

  Cheap hustler. Frank hurled the insult like a rusty spike.

  “Yeah, I do,” he spat. “Cause I would’ve made it, with or without you.” His voice held more emotion than he’d intended.

  Jonny’s cell vibrated on his desk, and they both grabbed for it. Frank beat him to it, swiped the phone and canceled the call.

  “What the fuck?” Jonny jumped from his chair.

  “I don’t like interruptions when I’m talking.” Frank tossed the phone on the desk.

  He contemplated snatching it up, but instead, he clenched his fists so hard he could feel his nails digging into his palms.

  “Just remember you have some outstanding debts that can never be repaid.”

  Nobody had to refresh that memory. It would live in his subconscious forever.

  Jonny barged into Frank’s office that night breathless and sweaty. His mother’s broken body wrecked him. He wanted revenge. He wanted his father to pay for what he did.

  Frank listened in silence. Then he reached into his top drawer, pulled out a gun, and slid it across the desk. “Let’s take care of your business.”

  “You know where to find him?” Frank asked when they hit the street.

  Jonny knew. He’d spent plenty of nights dragging his father home from his sleazy hangout.

  When they entered the bar, Jonny called him out to the alley where they faced each other, father and son.

  “You finally did it,” he said. “You finally killed her.”

  “She was nothing but a worthless tramp.”

  “Shut up.” His hand shook as he pointed the gun at his father.

  “You don’t have the balls to pull the trigger,” his father taunted, “‘cause you’re useless like that cunt mother of yours.”

  All the years of anger, fear, and frustration welled up in him. He held the gun with both hands to control the shaking.

  His father
spewed out a mean, harsh laugh. It was the last sound he ever made.

  A second before his knees buckled, his eyes registered one emotion, shock.

  Frank stepped to Jonny’s side and slipped the gun from his limp hand. “I didn’t think you’d be able to do it, kid.”

  Jonny stared at his father’s limp body, then nudged him with his foot.

  “Don’t worry; he’s dead. You don’t take a shot like that and live.”

  Jonny scanned the alley, concerned about onlookers. “I thought you were still in the bar.”

  “I figured you might need some help.” Frank curled his lip. “You were right. He was an annoying prick.”

  “I wanted to do it . . . I just couldn’t.”

  “The first time is the hardest. After that, it gets easier.”

  “I guess.” His voice sounded far off and dazed.

  “Get outta here and let me take care of it.” Frank holstered his gun and shoved the other one into the back of his pants.

  Jonny felt washed clean. Free for the first time.

  “And another thing,” Frank’s voice snapped him to the present. “I know you’re banging that hot piece, Cheryl.”

  Angela probably spilled all the gory details, but the glint in Frank’s eyes when he said Cheryl’s name made his stomach clench.

  “Screw all the chicks you want but forget about the Manhattan club, or you’re gonna have more trouble than you can handle.” Frank closed the gap between them. “You get my meaning?”

  “I got it.”

  Chapter 13

  Jonny banged out of his office, then kicked the door closed for good measure. He stormed behind the bar in the VIP Room, filled a glass with ice, and shot the seltzer gun over the cubes. He snatched a lime off the condiment tray.

  “These lime slices are too thick,” he yelled at the bartender, then held a glass up to the light. “And there's water spots on the glasses. Rewash them.”