by Maryann Reid
“Hi, Brett. I need to talk to you.” She tried to look him in the eyes, but she just couldn’t do it. “Will you come to my office when you’re done with your sandwich?”
“I can talk now.” Brett popped the last bite into his mouth and followed Blake and Antonio into Blake’s office.
Blake shut her eyes and took a couple of deep breaths, bracing herself. She wasn’t braced yet when Brett asked, “Am I fired?”
“I know the timing couldn’t be worse, and I’m so sorry about that. But, yeah, Vanessa said something happened yesterday, and this was her decision.”
“Thank God!” Brett stood with an ear-to-ear grin on his face.
Blake wondered if she’d been slipped a hallucinogen somehow. “What?”
“This is exactly what I wanted,” Brett explained, hesitating at Blake’s office door.
“I don’t understand—” Blake started, but Brett interrupted.
“Watch out for Lang, Blake. He’s doing everything he can think of to fuck you up.” Brett pointed to his slowly healing black eyes. “I disappointed him when I didn’t bring him video of us having sex.”
“Oh. Jesus.” Blake’s mind was a whirling chaotic mess. “How—”
Brett interrupted again. “I need to vanish for a while, but I’ve heard him talking to some people. So trust me just this one last time, Blake, and have some kind of expert take a look at your accountant’s books. If they do it right, you should have Lang by the balls.”
He opened the door and sprinted out of the studio. Blake had to run to catch up with him. “Wait, Brett!”
Bouncing on his toes, Brett stopped, but he kept nervously looking around. “I really need to go, Blake.”
She took a thousand dollars out of her wallet and handed it to him. “I’m trusting you one last time.”
He flipped a wave at her and got lost in the crowded downtown streets. Blake turned to go back to the studio and found Antonio watching her.
“Was I an idiot just now?” Blake tucked her wallet back into her purse, stomach churning as she awaited the insightful bodyguard’s answer.
“No.” Antonio swept his Ray-Bans off so she could see the sincerity in his eyes. “That dude doesn’t tell the truth often, but this was one of the times he did.”
“I wonder how I can afford an expert to look at my accountant’s books.” Blake puzzled over that as she returned to her office and waited for her first mentoring session of the week to begin.
#
July 3
New York, New York
Saks Fifth Avenue occupied a whole city block across from the Rockefeller Center and stood a proud ten stories high, with flags mounted by many of the windows. Blake always thought its exterior looked deceptively like an office building.
Inside, however, was a whole other world of opulence. Which, for the first time in her adult life, Blake could not afford.
Tanaya Steele stood near the information booth on the Fiftieth Street side of the ground floor. Blake almost didn’t recognize her as the pop diva darling she was known for, because Tanaya was dressed in jeans, casual blouse, sneakers, and an Italian silk scarf wrapped elegantly around her head. She looked, in other words, like a middle-class woman ready for a once-in-a-lifetime shopping splurge in one of the world’s most famous department stores.
“Hey, girl, you look fabulous as always!” Tanaya threw her arms around Blake in an enthusiastic greeting.
Blake returned the hug with equal enthusiasm, but felt obligated to be honest immediately. “Thanks, but the way things have been going lately, I can’t afford to spend much money today. In fact”—she eyed her Gucci clothes and shook her head—“I may have to sell off my whole wardrobe to keep myself in groceries soon.”
“I’ve heard about all the shit happening to you. It’s criminal the way everybody is doing you lately, Blake, but you gotta keep your head up. The best revenge is keeping your dignity intact.” Tanaya clasped Blake’s hand and led her through the ground floor’s maze of cosmetics salespeople and perfume spritzers. Suki actually had to walk fast to keep up with them. “Today, just forget all that, and if you want anything, I’ll be glad to get it for you.”
“I couldn’t—”
“Stop me? No, you couldn’t. Glad you know it.” Tanaya threw a wink over her shoulder at Blake.
For the next three hours they explored every one of the ten floors of Saks, and soon Tanaya decreed a rule: anything wearable that either of them looked at longer than five seconds must be tried on. Blake found herself remembering her modeling days, when she and Robin and a few other girls who enjoyed each other’s company used to spend time off together shopping for bargain-but-stylish clothes, furniture, even groceries. She’d forgotten how much fun it was to be with another woman.
That thought brought back other memories that made Blake blush. She moved behind a packed rack of blouses and hoped Tanaya didn’t notice Blake’s red face and wonder what Blake could be thinking.
When Tanaya suggested they go browse the lingerie boutique two blocks farther down Fifth Avenue, Blake eyed her bag of Saks goodies that Tanaya had bought for her and shook her head. “Let’s do something else. Please. I’m afraid you’d spend more money on me, and I don’t even have anybody to wear lingerie for.”
“Now we’ve got to go there, Blake. It’s when you’re single that you ought to get new lingerie. You got to love yourself, so other folks can see you’re worth loving.” Tanaya hooked an arm through Blake’s and escorted her out of Saks and down the street. Suki followed them, blank-faced as always.
Two hours later Blake was the proud new owner of an Agent Provocateur bathrobe made entirely of white lace, a diaphanous rose pink silk bra, and knickers hand-crafted by Carine Gilson. Tanaya had treated herself to an elegant jade-green-and-black silk kimono and feathery lace bra and thong. “Talk about loving yourself,” Tanaya said as the cashier bagged Blake’s sexy new garments. “If you don’t love yourself in those, you just can’t love at all!”
Blake blushed again, with nowhere to hide. Tanaya chuckled and clapped Blake’s shoulder. “Come on, five hours of shopping has got me a little hungry and a lot thirsty. Let’s go hit someplace with a good bar.”
“I don’t have a preference.” Blake thought how that statement could be interpreted, and blushed hotter than ever.
“I’ll take you to Otto’s pizzeria. That’s my favorite place to go unrecognized and drink great wine and eat great pizza.” Tanaya beckoned Blake to follow her, and hailed a passing cab.
Within an hour, they were seated at a table in a cheery Italian restaurant, drinking a red wine that cost $200 per bottle. Blake had a potent buzz by the time the waiter delivered their pizza, topped with asparagus and goat cheese. She’d trusted Tanaya’s recommendation, and she didn’t regret it. This was the most delicious pizza she’d eaten in her whole life, and it saddened her to think that probably nothing like it could be found in Miami.
About nine o’clock in the evening, Tanaya refilled their wineglasses and said, “I’ve had a wonderful time today, Blake. You’re worth every penny I paid to meet you.”
“Thanks.” Blake smiled, and didn’t know what else to say. Drunk and getting sleepy, her shyness of being with someone like Tanaya was coming back.
“I don’t really want it to end. Why don’t we get a hotel room and have a sleepover? It will be like we’re a couple of teenage girls. We can try on clothes and drink and snack and stay up all night if we feel like it.”
Blake chuckled. She had never done a sleepover like most teenage girls. “I don’t know about staying up all night—I’m half asleep already from all the wine. But it sounds fun.”
“Well, all right then, I’ll call for a room.” Tanaya took out her phone and dialed information, requested transfer to her favorite hotel in Manhattan, and arranged for a room to be waiting for them.
Suki halted outside the hotel room and said, “Enjoy the sleepover, Boss. If you need me, I’ll be in the hallway.”
&n
bsp; “Aren’t you joining us?” Blake wished she’d thought to ask Tanaya for a second room, for Suki.
“No, I’ll just call Matt and tell him he’s taking my shift tomorrow because I’m taking his tonight. Third-shift bodyguards are used to entertaining themselves while the boss sleeps.” Suki shrugged and seated herself cross-legged by the hotel room door.
Drunk as she was, at first Blake wasn’t sure what seemed strange about the hotel room. It was luxurious, as everything about her day with Tanaya had been. Thick carpet was gentle on her feet, which ached from walking around all day. A basket of gourmet chocolates, cheeses, and crackers awaited them, along with a bucket of chilled champagne. In the bathroom was a hot tub as well as shower, and the towels and washcloths were decadently soft.
And there was only one bed, she finally realized as she sat on it to kick off her shoes. Tanaya sat next to her and said, “Why don’t we show off our new clothes for each other?”
Blake’s heart raced. She met Tanaya’s eyes and asked, “Even the lingerie?”
“Especially the lingerie,” answered Tanaya, and she cupped Blake’s face in her cool, dark, neatly manicured hands and touched her lips to Blake’s.
For a moment Blake didn’t respond, shocked into paralysis. Memories of fooling around with other models in her younger years filled her head. That had been fun, undeniably, but also…unfulfilling. She’d always thought that meant she was purely heterosexual.
Now, as Tanaya traced Blake’s lips with the tip of her warm, wet tongue, all the nerve endings in Blake’s nipples and that magic spot between her legs shrieked for more, More, MORE. She grabbed Tanaya’s hips and caught her idol’s tongue with her own, and moaned ecstatically when Tanaya dropped her hands to Blake’s breasts and circled her thumbs around Blake’s nipples.
“Have you ever been with a woman before?” purred Tanaya, beginning to slide Blake’s blouse off.
“When I was a model some of the girls and I played around,” Blake whispered, shivering a little as the air conditioning touched her chest and back, bare except for a bra that Tanaya was already unhooking. “It wasn’t like…THIS.” At the last word, Tanaya whisked Blake’s bra off and gave her left nipple a suckling kiss.
“Oh yeah? Why not?” Tanaya turned her attention to Blake’s right nipple, and the love button between Blake’s legs got hard and sore with need.
“We didn’t know what we were doing,” Blake gasped.
Tanaya raised her eyes to Blake’s and gave a hushed laugh. And then she laid Blake back on the fluffy covers and pressed her breasts together and sucked both nipples at once, hard—at the same time her hand brushed Blake’s hot zone.
Blake hoped third-shift bodyguards were used to listening to their boss scream.
#
She awakened to Suki standing over her, looking embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Boss. When she left just now, I thought you must be up and ready to go.”
“What?” Blake sat up, realized she was naked, and pulled the covers up to her neck. “Tanaya is gone?”
Suki nodded, then mumbled, “Uh, you want to sleep some more?”
A sadness filled Blake’s chest, so overfull she thought her heart was trying to burst. “No. I’ll get dressed.”
Going through the clothes Tanaya bought for her when she was back in her penthouse apartment, Blake found a note from Tanaya scribbled on hotel stationery: “Fun day and fun sleepover! Wishing you best of luck, Blake. –Tanaya”
Love ’em and leave ’em—not just for men anymore, Blake thought, and smiled.
Chapter Thirty-Three
July 5
New York, New York
While the rest of the country had celebrated Independence Day on Saturday, Blake spent the day listening to jazz records on her turntable and drinking Jack and Coke. Before night she’d fallen asleep on her bed, at least twice as drunk as the night before and lost in a melancholy she felt through to the core of her bones.
Sunday morning she was awakened by a hammering on the apartment door echoed by the hammering in her head. Matt or one of the others will handle it, she promised herself, and pulled the covers over her head to try to mute the noise.
It was a futile effort. As soon as the knocking stopped, the voice of Margot Mills lifted in a shout that bounced around in the apartment walls and Blake’s skull. “BLAKE BERTRAND! I haven’t slept in two nights and it’s your fault, so you’d better get your ass out of bed and talk to me!”
Blake added the pillow to the padding protecting her ears from the cruel world outside. That, too, was in vain. Margot yanked the pillow away in one direction and the covers in another.
“You know I’m old enough to be your mother, and right now I’m tempted to whip your butt,” Margot said, much too loud. Blake could’ve sworn her best friend’s words were nails she was banging into Blake’s head.
“Go away,” Blake moaned, reaching for her other pillow.
“Oh, no you don’t.” Margot raced around the bed and snatched away the second pillow, as well. “Now, just you sit up and listen to me.”
Blake looked at Antonio and Matt, standing in her doorway and watching the performance with matching grins. “Make her stop.”
“No, ma’am,” said Matt. “I never tangle with a woman in a mood like that.”
“Me neither,” agreed Antonio.
“Why did I have to hear from your Uncle Thorne that you’ve got no money?” Margot dumped pillows and covers in a heap on the floor and glared at Blake, her hands on her hips.
“I thought you were in the hospital.” Blake’s thoughts crawled through a swampland of hangover, and after a time she remembered and added, “And I thought you might hate me.”
“You saved my life.” Margot’s face softened and she sat at Blake’s feet and reached for Blake’s nearer hand. “I was angry at you. Hell, I was angry at the whole world. But I could never hate you, Blake.”
Blake shook her head and mumbled, “Even if I thought we were okay, you’ve got your own troubles to deal with.”
“And you have troubles you can’t deal with alone.” Margot squeezed Blake’s hand. “Besides, since getting out of the hospital Wednesday, I’ve been fine. I’ve even filed for divorce. When Edith told me you’ve laid off everyone who worked for you, I thought I’d have a heart attack.”
“I would have welcomed one when the FBI froze all my assets.” Blake stared at her bare knees. Her legs needed shaving in the worst way, and she wondered if she could do it when she felt like someone had beat her from head to toe with a baseball bat.
“Well, they’re going to have to unfreeze them, because I know my Blake wouldn’t screw around with the Mafia.” Margot gave Blake’s hand another squeeze, then released it to shrug her purse off her shoulder. “Now, first, how much do you need for rent?”
“Uncle Thorne sent me some money. I’m okay.”
“Define okay.”
“I’ve got the rent for this place paid until the lease expires. I can eat, as long as it’s nothing fancy. I already have a ticket back to Miami and a moving company hired to take all my stuff back to Fisher Island. Mom and I have our condos paid through December.”
“You didn’t say anything about an attorney. Or your mom’s nurses and physical therapy. Or maybe even a detective to prove you’re innocent.”
“Uncle Thorne couldn’t afford all that.”
“Well, honey, Thomas owes me half of all the millions he’s earned during our marriage. I can afford all that and more.” Margot took out her checkbook and poised a pen over it. “Name an amount, or I’ll just guess.”
#
August 18
New York, New York
Weeks passed. Much happened in that time, and yet time seemed to crawl.
One week at a time, Blake eliminated six more contestants from The Takeover: Sierra Willis, Chase Painter, Eric Schroeder, Vin Guevara, Danny Sun, and Ray Fisher each in turn punched out the clock. Each week, Vanessa and Jerome urged Blake to name Gabby Truitt as the
winner at the show’s end. Barbara Santers contacted Blake, asking her to appear on The Scene the day after broadcast of the final episode of The Takeover, so that Santers could make a one-time return to the show to interview Blake. It was Blake’s pleasure to say yes to the invitation, because it meant a lifelong dream would actually come true.
Kenton Rhodes sent Blake at least one video per week of Lionel’s jazz band rehearsing, and shared with her the boy’s desire to start performing in public venues and Kenton’s reluctance to let him begin living the show business life so young. Blake didn’t share with Kenton how each video made her heart ache to be a mother to her son, and how each conversation made her yearn to feel Kenton’s arms around her again.
Acting on the tip Brett Skeet had given her, attorney Enrico Torres and his consulting partner Stephanie Chesser hired a forensic accountant to examine the copy of the Bertrand bookkeeping that Blake got as part of her divorce. Within a few days of being hired, the forensic accountant reported that the Bertrand books were “cooked to a crisp.” He added that an expert could easily decipher how Lang had concealed his work for the Mafia from Blake throughout their marriage, including paying their shared accountant to keep an accurate set of records for Lang and present carefully doctored records to Blake. Torres and Chesser provided a partial copy of the forensic accountant’s final report to the FBI, who promised to do as requested and announce a formal public declaration that Blake Bertrand was no longer suspected of any wrongdoing.
She was still waiting for that, and for the rest of her money to be taken off hold. Meanwhile, she had only this last week of filming, and then she could prepare for her move back to Miami. She wasn’t sorry that she’d be leaving New York. Miami was home, where her courageous mother Jacinta no longer needed a cane to climb stairs or walk long distances, where Margot was building a new life, where her son Lionel was growing up fast, and where Kenton loved her in her dreams and in the waking world had just declared himself a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives.