by Brenda Joyce
Rosalie buzzed. “Will Hayward’s here to see you.”
Abe felt irritation. A quick glance at his calendar told him Will didn’t have an appointment. Now what in hell did he want? “Send him in.” His instincts were warning him that this was no social call.
Will walked in, a slight, slim man with a receding hairline. “Hi, Abe.” His smile was quick and nervous.
“You look like shit, Will,” Abe said, meaning it. “You’d better get off that damn cocaine and booze, or you’re gonna wind up six foot under.”
“Abe,” Will said, wringing his hands. “Abe, I need a favor.”
“Yeah?”
“I need a small loan. Five grand would do it.”
Abe started laughing. “You gonna give me some bullshit about how you’re gonna take a vacation in the Caribbean?”
Will just looked at him.
“After the way you fucked up, after Detective Smith, you expect me to support your drug habit?”
“It’s not for drugs,” Will said intensely. “Abe, please. We go back a long way.”
“Will, you go check into some rehab program, and then I’ll think about it.”
Will’s face hardened; his nostrils flared. “Abe,” he said trembling, “I’ve done a lot for you.”
Abe threw back his head and laughed. “You’ve done for me! That’s funny! Real funny!”
“All right,” Will said, his voice hard. “Look at it this way. I know about Smith, what happened—in detail. And I know about other things too. I mean, take Senator Wilkie, for example. Take the Lazarus contracts with the Pentagon. Take—”
“Are you threatening me?”
“I need the five grand, Abe, but I’ll pay it back.”
“You’re blackmailing me?”
Will took a step back. “You fucking owe me, dammit!”
“You know, don’t you,” Abe said, his face red with rage, “that if I fall, you go down with me?”
“Not necessarily,” Will stammered.
They stared at each other, Abe’s rage and incredulity growing. Hayward was threatening to go to the cops, the Bureau, the DA, whoever, and make a deal. Turn state’s evidence and make a deal. The fucking idiot. The no-good little prick. Abe smiled. And reached for the intercom.
“Rosalie, bring me five G out of petty cash. Now.”
27
Jack cruised the black Ferrari slowly down the block, approaching Beverly Hills Day School. Kids were streaming out, fanning away in both directions, mostly walking in groups of two and three, maybe four. His eyes scoured them all, looking for Rick.
He thought about Melody. He was no longer shocked. Now he could smile slightly. She had been red as a beet, saying she didn’t want to spend the night alone. She had fled his office. Later she had apologetically told him it was just stress, making her say something so strange. Jack understood. He’d said and done a few things under stress too. Still, to be practically propostioned by Melody … It was so unbelievable he had to smile again.
Thank God he was on his way to Tucson tomorrow. He was dying to get back to work. It had been almost five months since the Berenger shoot, and he wasn’t the type to adjust well to prolonged vacationing. In fact, he hated it. How much fund-raising could he do? Five months, and he was sorry he was locked into an exclusive contract, but it was almost over …
Five months.
He couldn’t help it, but every time he thought about finishing that Berenger shoot he thought about the North-Star party and he thought about her.
Her. The blond broad who had stood him up.
The cockteaser.
It was the first time in his life he had ever been stood up, and even now, months later, he was furious just thinking about it. Just who in hell did she think she was? Just who in hell was she anyway? Shit! Not that he gave a goddamn!
He remembered waiting and waiting at Nicky Blair’s. His anticipation had never been so high. He’d been so intense and so focused on her that he hadn’t even been able to flirt with the women who’d tried to come on to him. He was having a lot of fantasies, explicit, graphic fantasies, the foremost one being his holding her head in his large hands while he prodded past her lips with his huge cock …
The anticipation became sprinkled with slight foreboding. Souring. Anxiety drifted over him. He began scanning the entrance. Every time the door swung open his spirits lifted, only to come crashing down when it wasn’t her. Until he knew. Until he knew the bitch was standing him up.
She had stood him up.
First she hadn’t known who he was; then she had stood him up.
Unfuckingbelievable.
And he didn’t even know who she was. Not that he cared. He could find out her identity in one minute if he did care, but he didn’t, so he wouldn’t even bother.
He spotted his brother just coming down the steps of the school. The cool-down that began was a relief. He was leaving for Arizona tomorrow, leaving Rick behind. He was worried not just because Rick needed guidance and parental authority, not just because he didn’t quite trust him, but because the kid needed him, Jack. He needed someone to spend time with and show him some caring. Rick was indifferent most of the time, and the rest of the time he was hostile, but Jack understood.
He didn’t know why, but after Janet’s unwelcome visit he had started thinking about what she had said, about his having a brother and sister. At first, whenever his mind had dared to veer in such a direction, he had purposely, adamantly shut off his thoughts. He wasn’t interested in her kids. No way.
Except, wasn’t he her kid too?
There was a blood connection. It seemed to compel him. He had finally given in and hired Peter Lansing, considered one of the best free-lance private investigators in L.A. And Lansing had come through quickly.
He had arranged for a top lawyer to handle Rick’s case separately from those of the other kids involved in the gang fight. And the same lawyer had arranged for Jack’s custody prior to legal guardianship and also for Rick’s probationary release into Jack’s custody prior to his hearing.
The first time he had met his brother had been in Juvenile Hall. Jack felt a tremendous pang upon entering the cold corridors and was swept back against his will to another time, another place, when he was twelve and tough and alone and frightened. Not that he’d shown anything but bravado to the cops and lawyers and social workers who refused to leave him alone. And all for stealing a car! Thank God he’d been caught. It had changed his life as surely as Rick’s life was going to change now.
Rick had been sitting in tense and hostile defiance with the lawyer and a police officer when Jack walked in. The resemblance struck him first. Rick had the same face, the same green eyes. Unlike most adolescent boys, his face wasn’t gawky and out of proportion, but perfectly formed—beautiful in youth. He stared at Jack with open anger.
“Hi,” Jack said softly, momentarily overwhelmed. “I’m your brother—your half brother.”
“Fuck you,” Rick said. His eyes blazed.
Jack looked at the lawyer and the officer. “Can I see him alone?”
“He’s all yours,” the lawyer said, with a shrug.
Jack sat down across the table from Rick. “Whaddya want?” Rick snarled.
“I want to help you,” Jack said honestly. He was stunned because of the surge of warmth he was feeling for a brother he’d never laid eyes on before. The feelings were new and strange, wonderful and frightening, the kind of feelings he’d never had before, not for anyone—love. The kid’s a delinquent, he warned himself. Trouble. Stay on guard.
“Fuck you,” Rick said. “I don’t want shit from you.”
Jack leaned back. “Do you want to go to a detention center? I mean, I can throw you to the wolves, and you can spend the next few years locked up in a prison for kids. Or I can buy your freedom and give you a home, while all you have to do is go to school and act civilized and stay out of trouble.”
“I hate school, and I hate you too,” Rick said, but with less
hostility. Jack could feel his mind working.
“Well, I don’t hate you, and I don’t know why you should hate me. After all, I’ve never done anything to hurt you.”
“Where were you—Rich Man—when me and Mom and Leah had no money and no food and got kicked out of our place? Huh? Where were you then—Mister Big Star!”
Jack leaned forward, intense. “I didn’t even know about you and Leah until four months ago, Rick. Your mother—my mother—walked out on me when I was eleven years old.” He felt his anger rising. “I was like you, kid. I had no money and hardly any clothes and I spent all my time stealing on the streets. Janet entertained all her johns and didn’t pay any attention to me. One day I came home and she was gone—just fucking gone—her and all her things. I was eleven, Rick. Eleven and completely alone.”
Rick stared.
Jack was on a roll now, and he pointed at Rick, his voice hard. “So I know all about you, kid, and don’t think I don’t. I know who you are because I was you! And the reason I didn’t know about you and Leah until recently was because when Janet left me, that was the day she died, as far as I was concerned. Whether you believe it or not, that’s the truth. Now, I was smart. When the cops threw me in Juvie, I knew it was definitely not the way to go. I got placed in a foster home, and I played it cool so I wouldn’t have to go back to the slammer. If you’ve got any smarts, you’ll throw your lot in with me.”
Rick was silent for a few minutes. “So what’s the deal?”
“I want you to come live with me. I’m filing for legal guardianship. You have to go to school and pass your courses and stay out of trouble.”
“What do I get out of that?”
“You get food and clothes and a roof over your head.”
“Shit!” Rick spat out. “I got that without you!”
“You’ll have freedom, Rick.”
Rick was silent, and Jack felt he could read him like a book. He knew the kid didn’t trust him, but he also knew he had already seen the light. Finally Rick shrugged. “Why not? I’ve never lived with a fat cat before. What the hell do I got to lose?”
“Nothing.”
Now, driving along the street, Jack watched him. He was the only kid walking alone, a tough and pathetic figure in black jeans and a black denim jacket, striding hard past all the laughing camaraderie he so clearly wasn’t a part of. Jack felt his heart tighten in pity. Even kids who noticed Rick gave him a wide berth. Jack slowed even more as he pulled alongside. Before he could speak, Rick saw him. A dark, wary glance.
From somewhere undefined, there was a female shriek. “Jackson Ford!”
Jack frowned at the sudden hysterical chorus of his name. “Get in, kid!”
Rick jumped in just as a swarm of teenage girls came rushing to the car, crying his name. Pandemonium was about to break loose. Jack stepped on the gas amid cries for his autograph and hands on his car. One redhead jumped aside, and they were free.
God—he would never get used to it.
He would hate it if he didn’t keep his sense of humor.
Rick was staring straight ahead, his jaw working.
“They don’t bother you, do they?” Jack tried.
Rick still didn’t look at him. “I get lots of requests for your autograph,” he grunted.
Jack glanced at him. He hadn’t been aware of that. “That bother you, kid?”
Rick threw him a belligerent look. “No, why should it? I don’t give a shit.”
Jack stopped at a red light. “What happened?”
“Nuthin’.”
“Don’t hand me that,” Jack said sternly. “What the hell happened today?”
Rick shot him an angry glance. “It wasn’t my fault!”
“It’s never your fault, is it? I seem to recall you saying that the last two times.”
“They’re nothing but a bunch of candy-ass faggots,” Rick grated. “They cross me, and they learn fast not to do it again!”
Jack placed a hand on his shoulder. The kid was a coiled bunch of steely muscle. “C’mon, Rick,” he said soothingly. “Tell me about it. I’m on your side.”
“Fuck!” Rick glared. “You’re not on my side. I got you all figured out.”
“Now what the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
Rick ignored the question.
“Look, you’ve got to learn to control your temper. You’re not living on the street anymore. If you hurt someone, there could be criminal charges and you just might have to go to jail. Money can buy a hell of a lot—but not everything.” Jack was grim.
Rick glanced at him, and Jack saw that he seemed to be listening. “Yeah, well … It wasn’t my fault,” he muttered again.
“I hate to see you spend another Saturday in detention,” Jack said truthfully.
“Tell them I’m sick!”
Jack hesitated. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, kid,” he said.
Rick slammed his back hard against the seat and stared straight ahead, arms crossed tightly. “You’re no different from all the rest.”
“Yes, I am,” Jack said. “But you won’t give me a chance.”
28
“Adam.”
“What?”
Belinda took a breath against his shirtfront. His body was warm, hard. His hands on her back felt good. His cologne, now familiar, Lapidus for Men, was most definitely delicious. “Adam, you do know I’m buzzed?”
He spoke into her hair. “Umm. So am I. You smell good.”
She felt his mouth brush her temple. Desire, warm and tingly, pulsed gently through her. I’m not madly attracted to him, she thought. But with the wine and the stars, it would be so easy, and she knew she would enjoy it. Wasn’t this overdue?
But what about their relationship afterward?
“Belinda,” Adam said, lifting her face.
For a moment, their eyes met. He is handsome, she decided Very handsome, impeccably handsome. “I don’t know …”
Adam kissed her, He had an erection. She definitely liked the feel of that, and there was an answering swell in her own groin as he pulled her hips against his. She knew she had to make a decision. His tongue probed past her lips, and she let him.
Too much wine, she thought, opening her mouth to him. He was a very good kisser. An impeccable kisser. Not too insistent. Too much French kissing with a man she wasn’t mad for turned her off; somehow it seemed more intimate than the act of copulation. Adam sensed it with his impeccable timing and knew just when to withdraw. So impeccable.
She leaned back. “I’m buzzed. And I have to get up early. I don’t know, Adam.”
His body went tense beneath her hands. “It’s still early,” he said. “Belinda, you’re so beautiful. I want you. I’ve waited. Please.”
She was unsure of everything really, except that his thighs against hers felt strong and male and good. She closed her eyes, letting him pull her back hard against him. “Tonight is our night, Belinda.”
“Tonight it’s the wine, Adam.”
Their gazes met, and she saw that he was angry. “Damn, I’m too blunt sometimes. I’m sorry. Adam, I like you—you know I do.”
“Do you? Then show me, Belinda.”
She hesitated. “We’ve never really discussed things. Discussed us. Discussed what happens afterward.”
“Let’s discuss us now.”
“Is there an us?”
“God! I’m crazy about you! You must know it!”
She blinked at him. “What do you want from me?”
Adam hesitated, but only briefly, and when he spoke his voice was strong. “More than just your body, Belinda, more than just a night. I want lots of nights. And lots of days like today. I want to wake up every morning and reach for you and find you there. I want you in my life.”
She was stunned out of inebriation. Thoroughly stunned. “What are you saying?”
“I want to marry you.”
She stared.
He cupped her face. “Belinda, you must care for me—don’t you?�
��
“Of course I do,” she said instantly. “We’re friends. But I’m not in love.”
“Give me a chance,” he said. “You haven’t given me a chance. You’ve been totally preoccupied with your career. You’ve held me at a distance. Let me into your life, Belinda, and I guarantee it will be good. We’ll be good.”
But will you let me down? she thought. Her heart was racing. She was feeling something suspiciously like fear. And she knew she didn’t love him. But hadn’t she been keeping him at a distance on purpose? Hadn’t she been keeping all men at a distance on purpose? Ever since Rod had walked out on her she’d erected impenetrable walls, preferring men like Vince, men either married or not intellectually on her level, so that there was no question of ever facing the possibility of commitment and betrayal. It was almost ten years since Rod. Damn. Did she want to be alone forever?
I don’t mind. Really I don’t, she told herself.
Liar!
I have my work. I have myself.
Everybody needs somebody. It was a cliché, but true.
“Belinda?”
She looked at him. What harm was there in sleeping with him? She’d slept with hundreds of guys. It was a step in another direction, because Adam was eligible, but she could still keep him at a distance if she chose. Couldn’t she?
She smiled slightly. She gave him a look. An unmistakable one, one she’d perfected years ago. Adam’s eyes went hot. Belinda reached for her keys.
29
“Belinda, I tried calling you all night last night.”
Belinda turned her back to the doorway, thinking, Oh, shit. Vince had better timing than Adam. So that had been him ringing repeatedly last night? She had disconnected the phone the third time, while Adam was expertly and insistently tonguing her clit, bringing her repeatedly to the brink of an orgasm, then refusing to take her any farther, until she couldn’t stand it. Until she was reduced to a quivering, begging mass of jelly. Now guilt assailed her. How come Vince had the knack of making her feel guilty and Adam didn’t? And how come, even though Adam knew all the right moves and had superlative timing, there was something missing in his lovemaking, something that Vince had? And what was she, thirteen, to be comparing the two men? And just what in hell should she do about Vince? Or for that matter, about Adam?