Miss Independent, Volumes 1 - 4

by Kiki Leach

  Nikki stared at Melanie until she was forced to turn away.

  Melanie kept her eyes on the both of them until they finally crossed the street.

  When her phone finally stopped ringing, she planned to throw it back inside her purse.

  And then it began ringing again.

  Annoyed, she finally pushed the green button.

  “Hello?” she asked. “Who is this?”

  On the other end of that phone was Nathan, who stood in front of The Palace and pulled his watch from his pocket to check the time.

  “Is this a, uh, Melanie Bruchesque-Malone?”

  She yanked her head back and stared at the number on her phone again. It had been a long time since someone had used her full name, especially when she didn’t know who the hell they were.

  “That depends,” she told him. “Who the hell are you and how did you get this number?”

  “All you need to know is when and where to meet me --”

  She laughed, nervous. “I’m not meeting you anywhere, I don’t even know who the hell you are.”

  “Meet me at The Palace in an hour and find out.”

  She contemplated. “What kind of game is this?” she asked him.

  “It’s not a game. I just know that um, you’re interested in making things official with Maurice Livingston. I can make that happen for you if you choose to meet me.”

  “Maurice? How do you know Maurice?”

  “Meet me at The Palace in an hour and I’ll tell you all about it. I’ll be sitting in the corner booth of the restaurant drinking a cognac and wearing a dark suit jacket.”

  “That’s pretty distinguishable.” She rolled her eyes. “How about giving me something more to work with.”

  “Look, you go to the bar and the bartender will send you straight back to me, alright?”

  She chewed the inside of her cheek and tapped her foot on the ground. The voices in her head telling her to hang up NOW! were being drowned out by significant amounts of ‘what ifs?’.

  “Meet me in an hour,” he said. “Or lose your chance to be with Maurice for good.”

  He hung up on her and dropped his phone into his pocket. He looked up and down both directions of the sidewalk and smirked before heading inside the building and straight to the lobby and bar.

  Melanie continued to be skeptical as hell. What if this was a prank? Some kind of joke that Vanessa had set up for her as a way to knock her down thanks to all the time she had been spending with Maurice in her absence?

  But then again, if there was an honest chance that she could finally get him to herself for good, she couldn’t pass it up.

  Part Thirty-Three

  An hour later, Melanie breezed into The Palace restaurant and went straight to the bartender as directed. When he pointed to the back of the room, she gave him a quick thanks and headed over. Taking her time as she moved forward, she stopped just before reaching the booth and squint.

  She chuckled to herself and felt stupid for having even bothered to show up.

  “Vanessa put you up to this, didn’t she?”

  Nathan stood up and spun around to face her. She winced at the bruises on his face.

  “No,” he told her. “She doesn’t know anything about me being here, aside from living upstairs. Please.” He showed his hand toward the booth in front of him.

  Melanie looked all around her, at the few people sitting at the bar, at the rest enjoying their meals in other booths and around tables. If she were afraid, she’d have made a scene. What she hated to admit was that she was a little bit more than intrigued.

  “Please sit,” he said while reclaiming his own chair.

  She threw her purse on the table and slid around inside the booth.

  “Thank you for meeting me.”

  “You’re not exactly welcome,” she began, “until I find out what this is all about.”

  “Look, I know that you don’t know very much about me aside from what you’ve heard or read about me in the papers--”

  “You’re right.” Melanie wrapped her arms around herself and rested her elbows on the edge of the table, glaring. “I don’t know much about you. But what I’ve heard not just from the papers or online, but from both Sheila and Vanessa themselves hasn’t been very good. So forgive me if I don’t have much of a desire to get to know more about whoever the hell you are, Nathaniel Taylor.”

  He wagged a finger at her and grinned. “I thought you might say that,” he told her.

  “Which is why you chose to use Maurice as a lead in to get me here?”

  “He wasn’t a lead in. What I told you about him is the truth. If you want to be with him, to make it official, I can make that happen for you. But you’ve got to make something happen for me in return.”

  She folded her arms and leaned back. “And what is that?”

  “You’ve heard about Nikki’s party for that play she’s in right? The one being held at that Bar Nineteen or something?”

  “I’ve heard about it and I have no desire to attend.”

  “Wrong answer,” he said. “No doubt Maurice has been invited, much like Vanessa.”

  “I’m sure they both have. But why the hell would I want to go someplace celebrating that woman’s successes after all the hell she’s put me through?”

  “For a chance at Maurice, I’d almost think it might be worth it.”

  “How do you even know anything about that?”

  “The specifics behind all of this shouldn’t matter. What should is that I can get him to take you.”

  She laughed again. “After what he did to your face, I don’t really put much faith into you making that happen.”

  “It will if I can convince Vanessa to take me as her date. If Mo thinks he still has a chance in getting her back where he thinks she belongs with him, he’ll use this as an opportunity to take her to this thing as his date instead. But if I can convince her that he’s already asked you--”

  “Then it’s a win-win.”

  “Exactly.” He winked. “All you need to do is casually mention something about it and say you heard that I was going with her. He won’t want to believe it at first, but he will once he realizes that’s it’s coming from someone that he doesn’t think will be gaining anything from it by lying. I can take care of the rest as long as you do that.”

  Melanie stared at him in awe. “Wow, you are some kind of manipulator.”

  “I do what I can--”

  “I can’t believe just how much Sheila was right about you and all of this,” she said.

  “Right about what and all of what?”

  “V, and how you feel about her, your obsession. This woman is clearly working with something between her legs that the rest of us couldn’t even dream to have, with men like you and Maurice fighting over her, literally tossing blows. Maybe some of it rubbed off on Nikki, but the rest of us were left in the dust without it.” She took a breath and dropped her head. “I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I don’t want Maurice, because I do. And I’m not going sit here and tell you that Vanessa and I are on the best of terms now, because we’re not. But with all of that being said, I don’t know if I feel all that great about her seeing me with him so publicly. We’ve already had an initial run-in not far from her office building that I’d like to forget. Not to mention, I know all about what happened at your high school reunion and I have no desire to be dragged across the floor of a bar like we’re two animals in a pigpen.”

  “I can’t guarantee that it won’t go that far, but I can at least guarantee that I will get her to back off if she tries,” Nathan said. “And if I know Mo, he won’t let a damn thing happen to either one of you.”

  “He’ll try to protect her first,” she said.

  He bobbed his head side to side. “Maybe. But if you want to be in her place someday in his life, you’ll start by agreeing to be his date.”

  She leaned forward on the table again. “For a high school relationship, you two must have been intense as h
ell. What is it about her that still makes you tick like this, even after all this time?

  He picked up his cognac and whispered. “Everything. She lights a fire underneath me like no other woman ever has and I intend to keep it burning for as long as possible.”

  “She’s not going to just come running to you, even if we do this.”

  “I’m aware of that,” he said. “It’ll take time and I’m willing to wait it out if it means having her.”

  Melanie furrowed her brows, watching his face closely as he took a long sip of his drink. As handsome as he was, it didn’t hide that he could be more frightening than beautiful.

  “Alright,” she agreed. “I’ll casually mention it to him.”

  “Tomorrow. That’s when I plan to ask V.”

  “You let me know when she agrees, and then I’ll mention it to Maurice?”

  He nodded. “I’ll let you know.”

  “Alright.”

  She reached for her purse and he showed her his hand and smiled.

  “It’s not official until it’s official,” he said.

  She glimpsed his hand and gave it a quick shake before snatching her purse from the table and hurriedly exiting the restaurant. Nathan chuckled to himself as soon as she was gone and ordered himself another cognac.

  If everything went according to this makeshift plan, he would get back the woman he truly wanted before all was said and done.

  Though it wasn’t exactly the same woman Melanie had in mind.

  Part Thirty-Four

  After dinner with her family, all Vanessa wanted to do that Saturday morning was sleep off the booze she had downed the night before in order to keep from strangling both her mother and sister, who wouldn’t stop suggesting that she take Maurice as her date to Nikki’s party. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t thought about it, the very idea had been on her mind since finally telling Alexis the truth of why they broke up. But she wasn’t certain if showing up someplace with him again in public when they were barely sure of what they were to one another anymore was the best idea.

  As she rolled over in bed and turned to the ceiling while continuing to contemplate, she heard the doorbell blaring from downstairs.

  “Oh, fuck.” She ripped her pillow from behind her head and smashed it across her face. “No, no, no, no, NO! Go the fuck away, PLEASE!”

  But they wouldn’t.

  “Shit!”

  She ripped the blankets from her legs as fast as she could and ran a comb through her hair as she made her way downstairs.

  “Who the hell is it?” she called out. But the person on the other side didn’t answer.

  When she looked through the peephole, she didn’t see anyone standing there, which made her nervous.

  “If this is a crank, I’m calling the police!” she called out, slapping her hand against the door for emphasis.

  After a few seconds of silence, she turned away.

  And then it blared again.

  “FUCK!”

  As soon as Vanessa opened the door, a hand thrusted out from around the frame, holding a medium sized purple box. She jumped back, terrified at what was inside, what it meant and who the hell it was from before the person holding the box rounded the corner and dipped his head inside, smiling.

  “Nathan!” she screamed out as soon as his face entered her doorway. Furious, she threw her hand out and smacked him directly in the middle of his forehead.

  Nathan grabbed his temples and tumbled back toward the stairs, nearly dropping the box in his hand.

  Bending forward, he screamed out. “AH, V! What the FUCK?!”

  “I could say the same about you, you crazy ass son of a bitch! What the fuck are you thinking scaring me like that, huh?”

  “I wasn’t trying to scare you.” He moved his fingers around to his forehead and pressed down hard to stop the throbbing sensation vibrating throughout his skull and down to his ears. “Shit.”

  “If you weren’t trying to scare me, then what the fuck is up with you standing on the side of my door instead of in front of it like a normal human being? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “Nothing is wrong with me.” He dropped his hand and stood straight. “But I’m starting to wonder if your ass is suddenly so damn slap happy because you haven’t been--”

  She rushed out of door and stood directly in front of his face. He lifted his head back and nearly tripped back on the stair behind him.

  “Don’t.” She lifted a single finger and pointed it directly toward the center of his face. “Don’t you dare start in on some shit like that with me when you can’t seem to keep yourself from whipping that thing out left and right and yet, it makes absolutely no difference on your personality or who you are from one day to the next. In fact, it seems like the more you get, the more stupid you become. What the fuck are you doing here anyway?”

  He grunted and lifted the box. “I came here to give you a peace offering.”

  She stared down at the size of the box again and stood back, knitting her brows and lowering her eyes to look for anything sticking out around it. “What the hell is that?”

  He lifted the box even higher and slightly leaned his head while clinching his jaw, irritated. “It’s a fucking peace offering, V. A gift.”

  “Yeah, I’m really gonna buy that garbage with the way that you keep saying it. Take that shit and get the hell out of here before I call the police on your ass again, and this time, no one will be coming down there to bail you out.”

  She turned away from him and went back inside her house, but he was quick on her tail. So quick that she hadn’t any time to close the door in his face before he was inside as well. Shutting it behind him, he moved forward and raised his other hand to stop her from potentially attacking him at close range again.

  “I didn’t come here to start any shit with you again, V, alright? I came to offer you some peace,” he said in a cool voice. He curved his lips up into a genuine smile in the hopes of making her believe it, but Vanessa couldn’t read much of anything from his expression except for more bullshit. “I just want peace.”

  “Me too. Let’s start with getting you the hell out of my house.”

  “I’ll go.” He shoved the box toward her again. “After you open this first.”

  “I told you that I’m not opening that thing. It’s probably ticking like crazy as we speak and you’ve just got some kind of silencer around it to keep me from hearing the actual sound it’s making.”

  “You think I’d actually do something like that to you, Vanessa?”

  “You know what, Nathan? As far as I can tell over the last few months and especially within the last few days in dealing with your crazy ass, you are absolutely, positively capable of anything, good or bad. Therefore, nothing you do or could try to do to me or anyone else that we know surprises me anymore. And I’m not opening that thing because of it--”

  “It’s a bottle of perfume,” he said, trying to reassure her. “The kind you used to wear when we were together, called Fearless? It’s rare now because it’s expensive as hell, which means I had to go through a lot of shit to actually get it for you, and on time since I just ordered it for you two days ago. I swear to you that what’s inside this box is not a bomb or anything else that could cause any kind of harm to you--”

  She looked down at the box again and crossed her arms over her chest, still disbelieving. “It’s a bottle filled with poison,” she mumbled.

  Exasperated, he placed the box on the table near the door. Then he stared at her, just as she stared down at that box.

  Realizing he wasn’t going to leave until she at least took a closer look, she gradually stepped forward.

  “Why the hell would you bring me a peace offering anyway?” she asked. “We were fine after I left you at the jail.”

  “I want us to be more than fine.” He bent his head down toward the box. “Open it.”

  Vanessa paced back and forth a few times and wiped her hand across her mouth.

 
Standing on one foot, she tipped forward and tossed her hand out to thumb the box, then jumped back. Nathan chuckled.

  After taking a few more seconds to realize that he hadn’t been lying and had in fact brought her something not intended to cause her any harm, at least on the surface, Vanessa snatched the box from the table and shuffled to the other side of the room.

  “If this isn’t the exact kind that Alexander first bought for me on my fifteenth birthday, I’m gonna beat you silly with one of the broken legs on that railing.”

  He looked over at her stairs and gulped. “Understood,” he said. “I remember you telling me once that you didn’t wear anything else outside of that because it made you sick.”

  Slightly impressed that he could remember something like that as she had mentioned it offhandedly after sex, Vanessa backed into the living room without saying another word and placed the box on the edge of the bookcase.

  Nathan followed her inside and stood near the frame as he watched her open it with caution. It wasn’t until she pulled out the purple diamond shaped bottle with a glass cork covered in pink diamonds that he actually saw an honest smile cross her face. Her eyes seemed to shine as bright as the sun and for the first time, she didn’t look as if she had the urge to toss the bottle at his head.

  He was relieved.

  Until she turned around with the bottle in her hand. He looked down and noticed that she was clutching it the way a pitcher would his baseball. He stood straight and puffed out his chest, preparing for severe damage.

  “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  “You’re asking me that like I put in some sort of special request to you for this bottle, which I didn’t.”

  He anxiously ran the palm of his hand back and forth across his forehead. “I know that you didn’t put in a request, V.”

  “Then why ask me a question like that?”

  “Why the fuck are you giving me grief for doing something nice for you?”

  “Because you didn’t do something nice for me. The gesture itself, yeah, that was nice, thanks. But the sentiment behind it sure as hell isn’t, you want something. If you didn’t come here to chew me out for something or tell me some shit that you know damn well I have no interest in learning about, then you want something. God knows you didn’t just show up here out of the goodness of your heart with a thirty-five thousand dollar bottle of Fearless perfume.” She rested one hand beneath her elbow and raised her arm high while holding the bottle in the palm of her other hand. She arched a brow and sucked in her cheeks. “Tell me what the hell you were thinking with this and why you’re really here.”