by Luna Joya
She crossed her ankles and composed herself, unwilling to entertain his demands. “Why don’t you tell me how you’ve given away our business to Alan Knapp for a gambling den?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t play dumb with me. I hear Alan has you by the short hairs for Coral’s debts. You know what I went through standing my ground to keep the criminals out of this place.” Her words came so quick and emphatic that her curls shook from the forcefulness of her conviction. “You don’t understand what they’re capable of. I do. I was married to one.”
He leaned forward, jabbing a finger into the air. “Don’t you dare speak of your ex to me, and don’t you presume to tell me what to do with my business. You’re just a pretty face and a name. I’ve been getting the job done since before you were in your crib. You cannot understand the amount of money we stand to make from this.” Paul swiped spit from his mouth. “We will work with Alan. I will make the decisions as far as the extra business. That’s the end of it.” He drained the glass and pushed out of the chair.
“No.”
He stopped. “What do you mean no?”
“No. I won’t do it.”
“You will.” His voice rose to a yell, echoing in the big room.
“No, I absolutely won’t. I’m out. I don’t want any part of this. Buy my share of the restaurant for a fair price.” She waved a hand before clenching it. “Or I’ll tell the studios what you’ve done, that you’ve conspired with a criminal to open a gambling den. They won’t stand for the scandal.”
“Who do you think you are?” He looked down his long nose at her. “You’re just another face that will age and fade away. Only talent and conviction like mine remain. You’ll do what I say. I am the café. You’re only its name.”
“Not anymore. I’m finished.”
“You can’t blackmail or threaten me.” His voice shook more with each word.
She pointed to the bar cart. “Why don’t you bring me a drink, and we will discuss terms.”
He slammed his glass onto the floor, stepped around the shattered pieces, and stormed to loom over her. “You watch your tone. Both you and the business are mine.”
She shoved her finger into his face. “We are done. Finished. In business. In bed. I don’t want anything else from you except to cut me out of it.”
He grabbed her arm and dragged her from the couch. “Look at you. Drunk. Stinking of gin. And high too. Look at your eyes. Your pupils swallow the green. What have you taken?”
She rubbed the skin over her skipping heartbeat. The diet pills. It had to be. They dulled the alcohol but sped up everything else. Pep, Artie had called it. She wished she hadn’t taken the damn things.
He sneered at her. “That’s what I thought. Go down to the café apartments and bathe. Put some clean clothes on. You reek.” He dropped her onto the floor.
She picked herself up.
“I told you.” She slowed each word, persisting until every syllable got through his thick head. “I am finished.”
He snatched at her again. She evaded.
“You’re leaving me?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Are you going to him? Or is he only a distraction for the day?”
“Who?”
“I saw you,” he spat at her. “In the street outside. Ready to go after him?” He looked her up and down. “Slut.”
She balled her fists, ready to fight. “What did you just call me?”
Paul scoffed and ambled toward the fireplace. “Slut. You’ve always been a slut. I tried to class you up, to make you an honest woman.”
“An honest woman? If anyone made me less than that, it would be you. You with a wife you couldn’t bring yourself to leave. You had to take off from the Scoria set to get away from me. How stupid was I to try and pick up where we left off? To want to build a life with you? A business?”
She paced as her words raced from her mouth, the bitter truth spilling out. “When Coral would always be in the picture? Standing by like some silent watchman over our relationship. She’s not part of it. No, she’s more. She’s the dark cloud over it. I’m done with being the spare. What was it about her? Talent? She hasn’t worked in ten years. Some sick sense of loyalty?”
Her fingers curled, nails biting into her palms. “Does she have something on you? Is that why you haven’t worked since our last film?” She advanced on him. Unease flashed through his gaze before the anger returned. “That’s it, isn’t it?” How had she not seen it before?
His rage vanished in an instant, replaced by a cool mocking tone. “Did you even know his name? The man pawing you outside? I saw his hands roaming toward your ass.”
She moved toward the stairs. She had to get out of here.
“He’s none of your business.” She tightened her arms around her middle, fighting to find any warmth in this cold shell of a home.
Paul chuckled.
She glanced over her shoulder.
He tossed a match onto the kindling “You seem to think you know a lot about what my business is and what’s not today. Let me tell you, it’s all my business.” He stared at the spreading flames. “How many men have had you since we got back together? One a week?”
She rushed toward him on teetering heels. How dare he accuse her after consorting with criminals? She stopped a few feet away, unsure if she’d halted out of fear or because she’d stumble if she took another step.
“I’m done,” she repeated. “You can find someone else to bully. I’m not your whipping girl anymore.”
“I won’t sell to you. You’re in this business.” He dug at the fire with the iron poker. “All the way in. Alan will have the gambling equipment installed within the week. Construction has already started.”
Her hand slashed through the air. “You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into with this. Cops will be the least of your problems. The crime bosses won’t like your incompetent attempt at a power move. They will be on this place so fast you won’t know what happened.”
He jabbed the growing flames again. “It’s been handled. Alan has prepared for all the possibilities.”
“By hiring muscle? Bringing in guns?” She almost chuckled at his naiveté. “Because that’s what it’s going to take. Enforcers to return fire when the rivalry comes here in a turf war. This isn’t the movies. It’s real life. Do you think guests are going to risk bullets flying?”
“They’ll come,” he said with firm insistence.
Her tone hardened again. How ignorant could he be? “No, they won’t. My name will come down. The business won’t last the year. You will have to figure out another way to maintain your lifestyle with all the luxuries you think you deserve. This house? It’ll be the next thing to go right after the café. You won’t have anything left.”
His grip tightened on the poker with his knuckles flexing one by one. “It won’t happen. You’ll stay.”
She laughed so hard she tilted on her heels with the alcohol still swirling in her system. “No. No, I won’t. I’m done with your games.” She glanced up and down his body, wasted from years of hard drinking and harder living. Gone was the handsome man who she’d met years ago. “I can’t imagine what I ever saw in such a washed-up remnant of a mean petty nothing.”
He rounded on her, the poker still in hand. “You bitch. You can’t leave me.”
“You’re a failure.” She jabbed at his chest with a finger at each word.
He jerked the poker toward her.
She swayed to the right, avoiding his swing. “You going to hit me with that?”
His grip tightened.
She pointed a finger at him. “How will you explain it away to the studio? That’ll take longer to heal than bruises from your fist.”
He threw down the poker with a clatter. “I’m going to have to remind you of your place.”
“My place? My place?” She spat at his feet.
He flinched.
She snarled at him. “
I am finished. Finished.” She turned to leave. It was over. She had told him in no uncertain terms that she was out. The liberating headiness of it made her giddy.
She would head down to the café, find Joey, and ask him to stay while she packed. She knew he would. Then he would either take her to her mother’s or she could go with him and explore his dark curls and wide sensuous mouth. Every step away from Paul would be closer to Joey.
Paul grabbed her bicep and yanked. She lost her balance and stumbled into him. He pushed her to the ottoman. So different from Joey. Paul’s blond leanness contrasted to Joey’s muscled darkness. She staggered to stand.
“Don’t touch me again,” she hissed.
“I own you,” he snarled.
“Talk to my lawyer.”
“I’m talking to you.” His finger flew at her face, an inch from her nose.
She stepped back. “I’m through with you, and by the time my lawyer’s done, you’ll be finished. Your marriage. Your career. Your stake in the business. It will all be gone.”
“You can’t.”
“Oh, but I can. Gambling is illegal.” Donning her most innocent schoolgirl face, she mocked him. “Officer, I didn’t know. I did everything I could to stop them.” She smiled. “You’re finished.”
His arm snaked out lightning fast. The alcohol and diet pills slowed her reactions. He backhanded her hard in the face, hitting her square in the lower lip with his ring. She recoiled and pressed her fingers to the ache. She would bruise. Again. It was past time to go.
She would get Joey, maybe even find some retribution for what Paul had done. He deserved to know what it felt like to be smacked around by someone stronger. She folded an arm protectively against her waist and withdrew. She eyed the distance to the stairs. Could she outrun him? In heels? Inebriated?
She looked back at him. He had murderous rage in his eyes. She froze, trapped like a hunted fox waiting in the bushes for the hounds to come. Taking her chances, she lunged toward the stairs, sprinting as best she could with the dress tangling her legs.
He clutched her shoulders and yanked her to him. “You’re not going anywhere.”
She stepped into him. He hadn’t expected that. She shook off his hold, and he staggered two steps back. Touching her tongue to the loosened cap on her tooth and the tender spot inside her lip, she tasted for blood and broken skin.
Every previous attack ran through her mind. She had relented each time, accepting what he said as right and acquiescing that he was better or smarter or superior. Her skin reverberated the sting of every other pinch, each slap, the hard hand clasp on her to keep her in check.
He had never been as open as her ex-husband. Paul was sneakier with the pain he caused, the taunts to belittle her, and the control he had over her. Until last weekend. Until he came after her in the restaurant in front of witnesses. Now he smacked her around to stop her from leaving him. He had become bolder, meaner. It would never stop until she stopped it.
She attacked. It was a last resort. She knew it. She planned to use her hands, fists, nails, and teeth if necessary. She would get free of Paul. Her ride to safety and escape waited only a short distance down the hill. She would make it out. She had to. She could not endure this any longer. She launched herself at him. His hands shot out and shoved.
She lost her balance. The fleeting moments paused and materialized in her mind in drawn-out slow scenes like a flickering movie reel winding through a broken projector as she felt the momentary wobble of teetering on her heels. The lovely heels she had asked Mabel to send out for dying to match this beautiful dress that snarled and caught between her wobbling legs.
She shunned the scorching heat of the fire at her front even as the chill of the room from behind bit at her. The long mink coat, so soft, so delicate like a child’s sweet touch brushed against her skin. Her arms shot out into the open empty air to grab hold of a piece of this house that would never be a home. The rings on her fingers slid and jostled together with a clink. She reached for something, anything to break the fall.
Her fingers clutched and finally fisted on blank space. Her hands curled back into her body, and her knuckles brushed against the delicate fading petals of the camellia pinned to her dress before scraping against the hard diamonds.
Sunny saw a flash before the back of her head hit something solid with a muffled thump. Darkness descended.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Casa Oceana
Present Day
Cami screamed his name, and Sam’s heart stopped. He sprinted into the grand room, frantically searching for her. She sprawled on the spiraling stairs with Mina in her arms. It looked like Cami had managed to get beneath her sister before any fall to cushion the blow.
“What happened?” He hurried to them.
“Her time slip turned violent. She blacked out. She’s not responding.” Her words came fast.
He took Mina’s weight while Cami skimmed her hands over the younger woman’s body before running deft fingers through the long curly tumble of hair.
“No blood or broken skin. No obvious signs of injury,” she said. “I wish Ruby was here with her healing abilities.”
“You’re here. You have magic and training. What do we do?”
Her gaze met his. “We get her out of here and away from the source. Now.”
“It can’t hurt.” He swung Mina into his arms before heading for the door.
Lottie ran in. “Oh. no!”
He dashed by her and sprinted like a man from a fire. Cami chased after him.
“Check the house,” she shouted to Lottie. “Lock up. Please. She’s done here today.” On the stairs behind him, her soles slapped the concrete with her flimsy sandals. He didn’t slow. She opened the back of the truck and helped him ease Mina inside. Lottie joined them breathless and panting a moment later.
“What happened?” Lottie echoed his earlier question.
“She time slipped.” Cami ran her hands over Mina’s face. “She watched something happening in the grand room. I think the action moved toward the fireplace. There were at least two people the way her attention divided.”
“Did she slip to the time she was looking for?”
“I don’t know. I can’t tell. Only Mina can see and hear the slip. She said something about a woman leaving and a man being angry. But if it was Sunny’s last day or an argument from twenty years later, I don’t know.”
“She didn’t make a sound as I carried her,” he said.
Cami clambered into the back with her sister. “Help me roll her onto her back. Elevate her legs higher than her heart. It should help if she’s simply fainted.”
Sam helped her position Mina’s limp body and moved to allow her access. She checked her sister’s airway.
“No obstruction.” She patted down her clothing. “Everything’s loose.” She unhooked Mina’s bra beneath her shirt. “Ruby would open up the airways. Maybe a strong smell? Where’s your board cleaner?”
“What?”
“Your board cleaner?”
Sam frowned, wondering why in the hell she’d want to shine his surfboard and then realized. A strong smell, she’d said. “Mineral spirits. Paint thinner.”
“Strong chemical smell, right?” She tilted her head toward Mina.
“It’s worth a shot.” He scrambled to the toolkit, uncapped a small bottle, and handed it to her. She waved it under Mina’s nose. Once. Twice. Three times.
Mina sputtered to life and pushed away the scent before grabbing the back of her skull. Cami gave him the bottle to close and wrapped her arms around Mina. “Welcome back, little sister.”
Mina bolted to stand, swayed, and went down on Cami before he could reach them. “I’ve got to get back in there. I almost finished. It was all there. It was horrible. I only need a few more minutes to sift through all the memories.”
“Absolutely not.” Cami tightened her hold and nodded when he moved to block them.
“I have to put it together. I’m so close.�
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“No. I shouldn’t have let you go in. You’re never going back in that house. You want to stand out here again another day, we can do that. Or you’ll figure it out tonight. Or maybe over the next few days.”
“But it’s right there.” Mina struggled.
Sam put a hand on her arm, and she shrank in fear. He saw the flash of fright go through her eyes and slowly lifted his hands, palms outstretched. Damnit, was this the terror Cami felt with her ex-boyfriend?
“Easy,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Mina trembled, and Cami pulled her close. “It’s okay. You’ve had more than enough to handle. You go ahead and shake it out.” The shivering escalated.
He draped a blanket around them. “She saw too much,” he whispered to his sister.
“Not enough,” Mina answered hoarsely. “It’s gone now. I can’t feel it. It’s like the stations all turned off.”
“Too much for one day.” Cami smoothed Mina’s hair. “You’ll get it back. Just not right now.”
“I can’t feel it at all.” Mina looked lost. “This is so frustrating. How can you stand it?”
Cami chuckled. “You can’t miss something you’ve never known.” She held her sister through the low sobs, accepting the tissues Sam offered.
“Wow.” Lottie whispered. “You two have had a rotten day. I still think Cami wins.”
Cami scoffed. “It’s not a contest. She’s short circuited her powers with an overload. I’ve got nothing to go home to.”
Sam set his jaw. What did she mean nothing? “You’ve got my place.”
She nodded and checked her vibrating phone. She turned it off before Sam could take it. He wanted nothing more right now than to have a nice chat with Neil and arrange a meeting where Sam could tear him apart piece by piece for what he’d done to her.
“The creep?” Lottie asked.
“Probably.” Cami helped Mina into the backseat. He stopped her before she climbed inside.
He kissed her forehead. “Hey, you handled that like a pro.” He touched his thumb to her cheek and enjoyed the way she melted at the gentle sweep. “Lottie’s right. You’ve had a shit day. Let’s get back and pick up the things she brought you.”