“I’m giving him as much of a proper life as I can”, Dante says. “He’s got everything he needs. I pay for the house, his education, your health care. He’s got toys, clothes, safety and security. You wouldn’t be able to provide any of that for him on your own.”
“He doesn’t have a father”, Tess says, as though the point is so obvious she shouldn’t have to mention it to him.
“That’s not my role anymore”, Dante says.
Tess is shocked. “Not your role? That’s your two year old boy lying there on the ground in front of you and you’re telling me that’s not your role. Please.”
“It’s not my role”, Dante says again.
“Why are you here then?” Tess asks. “To say goodbye?”
“No”, Dante says. “I don’t want that.”
“Then what. You can’t have your cake and eat it, Dante.”
“I’ve moved on Tess, I think you should too.”
“This is a goodbye isn’t it?”
“It’s not a goodbye”, Dante says.
“Six months ago, when I last saw you, you said things were going to change. You said you’d make more time. You said, you’d be here for him.”
“I am here for him.”
“Here, Dante”, Tess says, raising her voice now. “Here in LA. Here by his side. Here like a father should be.”
Dante takes a moment to sip his coffee. Tess hasn’t carried motherhood well and in the harsh artificial light of the coffee shop, he notices it now. She’s still beautiful, of course, but she looks tired, as though exhausted just by her daily life requirements. Dante finds himself thinking about Sash. He knows what she is doing, because he’s paid someone to watch her. He knows how much she’s spending, and what she’s spending it on, because every evening in his hotel room, he double checks the account. Everything is under control, and that pleases him greatly. She’s passing the test. She’s proving she’s capable of fulfilling her role. If Oliver had her genes, he’d be even more handsome than he is now. He’d be theirs.
“Are you dating?” Dante asks.
“Dating? Are you serious?”
“I can’t be the person you want me to be, Tess. I love Oliver and I want to be part of his life, but I can’t be here with you, not in the way you want me to.”
“I’m giving you a chance, Dante. I’m giving you an opportunity to make amends, before he gets too old and before you regret it.”
Dante sighs, “And you and me?”
“We had something, we still can”, Tess says.
“We had a month together”, Dante says. “Not even that. You said it yourself, we were never together properly.”
“I still have feelings for you”, Tess confesses. “We can make it work.”
“I’ve moved on, Tess”, Dante says. “I thought you knew that.”
“From your boy? From your own flesh and blood?”
They pause while a waiter picks an inappropriate moment to clear the empty cups and saucers from the table, taking a ridiculously long time to do so. When he has finally finished, taking specific care to ask if they might care for anything else while they are here, listing today’s specials as per the requirement of his job, Tess sits back in her seat, exhausted by the conversation.
When she looks over to the floor again, Oliver is no longer lying there. She panics, her heart leaping in her chest, as she twists in her seat to scan the cafe, desperate to find him. Unable to see him, she rising quickly and calls out.
“Oliver.”
“Tess”, Dante says, but she’s already on her feet.
“Oliver!”
Bemused dinners watch her with suspicious concern. She goes to the counter to look behind it. She drops to her knees to check under the tables. She rushes to the restrooms and pushes the cubicle doors and finally, when she still hasn’t located him, she runs outside and stands in the middle of the pavement, looking hurriedly left and right.
When she gets back to her table, ready to phone the police, Oliver is there and in Dante’s arms. She breathes a huge sigh of relief, and then can’t help but break down into tears. She sweeps the boys hair from his eyes and kisses his forehead. Oliver has no idea what’s just happened. In his hands, he plays with an expensive toy car, trying to open the doors and get inside it.
“Where was he?” Tess says, as though accusing Dante of hiding him in the first place.
“Behind my chair apparently”, Dante says calmly. “I guess he was playing a game.”
Tess sits down with the boy and hugs him tightly. “Losing a child is not a game”, Tess says angrily.
“Tess, calm down. He’s here now. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Never hide from Mommy”, Tess says to the boy. “Do you understand?” Mommy was worried, she didn’t know where you were.”
Oliver nods, the look on his face an indication he knows he’s done something wrong.
Dante wants to say something but he thinks better of it. When Tess’s pulse has slowed sufficiently, she regards Dante again.
“I’ll fight you Dante”, she says, “you know I will. You turn your back on him now, don’t expect to be able to come back whenever you feel like it.”
“You think that’s necessary, Tess?” Dante asks.
“I’m not the one doing it, you are”, she says. “I’m giving you a chance to be part of this boy’s life. It’s all or nothing.”
“All or nothing?” Dante repeats.
“He deserves better”, Tess says, “And you don’t deserve him at all.”
“That’s not for you to decide”, Dante says.
“No?”, Tess says bitterly. “I guess we’ll see won’t we, when someone else comes along and that person fits so perfectly into our lives that Oliver forgets about who his real father is. What are you going to do then, huh? Because there is no way I’m letting you sweep in like this and expect to see him at a moment’s notice. Over my dead body.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that”, Dante says, and it’s unclear what he’s referring to.
Tess shakes her head. “I should never have come.”
“Why did you?”
“For Oliver, why do you think?”
“Yeah, right”, Tess says. “This isn’t a goodbye for you? Well maybe it is for me.”
“You think that’s what Oliver wants?”
“Don’t emotionally blackmail me”, Tess says. “I’ve had enough of it.”
“The clothes, the presents, the house, the car, the insurance, the medical bills, the holidays.”
“I never asked for any of that”, Tess points out. “The only thing I ever did ask for, was something you’ve still failed to give me.”
She’s already gathering up her things. Dante sighs. There is nothing more he can do here. Tess is powerless to cut him out of Oliver’s life and they both know it. If it went to the courts she’d lose, simply because she doesn’t have enough money to win. This is just a desperate stance to make him feel guilty about something that happened as a reaction to Sash’s inability to satisfy him sexually, all those years ago. He was just unlucky that it ended up like this. A two year old boy and a clingy, unsatisfied mother.
With Oliver in her arms, and the stroller unfolded and ready to go, Tess makes a last ditch attempt to win him over.
“You could be happy with us, Dante”, she says. “We could make a family together. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”
“Tess”, Dante says, trying to reason with her.
The tone of his voice tells her everything she needs to know. Enough is enough. Even though Oliver explodes in a fit of ear-splitting wailing when he realizes that they are leaving his brand new toys behind, she has no intention of letting Dante get his way by taking them along with her. She also has no intention of letting Dante say goodbye to the boy she now considers solely her own.
“If you thought for once about someone else but yourself, none of us would be in this mess”, she says, and with that, and the attention of all the
other diners, who first watch her leave and then look over to the man she’s left behind, sat there alone amongst a stack of bags and toys, she turns the stroller, holds her wailing boy to her chest and storms off with no intention of ever looking back.
Chapter 3
In a derelict warehouse in a forgotten part of the city, a young man sits on a chair, his legs and arms bound, and his head covered by a brown, hessian sack. He is watched by someone else, who regards him in the same way a fisherman might a recently landed catch, while it gasps at the air pointlessly, clinging desperately onto the final seconds of life.
From his jacket pocket the man takes out a cell phone, speed dials an already inputted number and waits for the call to connect.
Still in the cafe surrounded by bags of toys, sipping at a recently ordered latte, Dante takes the ringing phone out of his pocket.
“Dante Hix”, he says, smiling at a pretty young girl sat alone at a table near him, who catches his eye and then looks away quickly again as though she’s been caught doing something she shouldn’t. Dante watches crimson flush to her cheeks, a tingle of pleasure cascading through his body.
“We have him”, the man from the warehouse says.
“Well that’s only taken you a week, hasn’t it?” Dante says. “Are you sure it’s him?”
“Jason Walker”, the man says, reading his hostage’s driving license. “It’s him.”
“Can I talk to him?” Dante asks.
In all this time, he hasn’t taken his eyes off the girl in front of him. She knows he’s looking too, it’s the reason she’s still flushed with embarrassment.
“Sure”, the man says. “Hold on a minute.”
He puts the phone on his seat while he removes the sack from Jason’s head. There is electrical tape sealing his mouth shut, which he removes with a skin tearing rip.
“What the fuck?”, Jason complains, as soon as he’s able to. “Who are you? What do you want?”
Dante waits patiently while his colleague holds the phone to Jason’s ear.
“Jason Walker?” Dante asks.
“Hello? What’s this about? Who are you?”
“Jason my name is Dante Hix, do you know who I am?” Dante asks.
“Dante who?”
“Dante Hix”, Dante repeats.
“No”, Jason says, shaking his head for emphasis. “I have no idea who you are.”
“Do you know who Sash Cooper is?”
“Sash who?”
Dante passes the phone from one ear to the other. He plays leisurely with Oliver’s toy car and winks at the girl on the table in front of him when she looks up. “Sash Cooper”, Dante says again. “About five three, a hundred and fifteen pounds, big, beautiful eyes. She has a scar about five centimeters long, just below her hip bone. She might have shown you that.”
He words are slow and carefully measured, as though ordering necessary but uninteresting items.
“I’ve met a lot of girls”, Jason says. “She doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Oh, you’d remember this one”, Dante says calmly. “Lived on Mapleforth Avenue. Drove an old sky blue Toyota Corolla. Loved to dance.
“What did you say her name was again?”
“Sash Cooper”, Dante repeats, just the words alone making his cock tingle.
“Sash the dancer?” Jason guesses. “Oh man, I remember her. I haven’t seen her for like , I don’t know, three years. We were in dance class together. We maybe hung out once or twice.”
“Did you fuck her?” Dante asks.
The girl sat on the table in front of him desperately wants to look up, but knows he’ll see her if she does. Instead she just lets her eyes go wide and continues to read.
“Look, who is this?” Jason asks. “What’s this all about?”
“Just answer the question”, Dante says calmly.
“Are you going to let me go if I do?” Jason asks, his voice heavy with fear at what the response might be.
“If you answer the question I will.”
“Yes”, Jason says. “I fucked her. Like a handful of times, nothing more. I dropped out of dance class and we fell out of touch.”
Dante passes the phone back to the other ear. He sips his coffee, licking the latte foam off his lips when he’s done.
“Was she a virgin?” Dante asks.
Now the girl from the other table does look up at him. Dante smiles at her and she quickly looks away. She doesn’t know why but this man is turning her on. She can feel her pussy tingle just listening to the lilt of his voice. He’s course and arrogant and full of himself, but she can’t help but be drawn to him, as though he’s got some kind of incredible, magnetic power.
“What?” Jason says, unsure if he’s heard the question correctly.
“Was she a virgin?”, Dante asks. “Answer the question.”
“Yes”, Jason says. “She was a virgin. We both were. Fuck man, what is this all about?”
“Thank you, Jason, you’ve been most helpful.”
Dante’s colleague takes the phone away again. He takes two paces into the shadows of the warehouse, far enough away to be out of earshot.
“Take care of it”, Dante says and ends the call.
When the girl looks up again, unable to avoid it, Dante decides it’s the perfect time to go over.
Chapter 4
As soon as she’s half way into the room, Abbey drops her bag in shock, only to stare goggle-eyed and open mouthed while she tries to touch everything as quickly as possible.
“Get the fuck out of here!” she says. “Dante is paying for this?”
Sash giggles as she watches from the sofa. “He said he wanted to apologize for what happened last week.”
“No shit he does”, Abbey says.
She moves from room to room shocked at the sheer size and elegance of it. She goes to the terrace, kicks her feet in the warm swimming pool water and then leans over the balcony to scream at the city.
“I need a stepbrother like yours”, she says, coming back into the room again to join Sash on the sofa. “Does he not have the word subtle in his vocabulary?”
“I told you didn’t I?”
“Yeah but this is like”, Abbey searches for the word, only to get distracted by some of Sash’s shopping bags. “Oh my fucking god are those Manolo Blahnik shoes?”
Sash giggles at her enthusiasm. This was exactly what she was like a week and a half ago. It’s amazing how quickly people adapt to new situations.
“I’ll buy you a pair if you want?” Sash says.
“Shut up”, Abbey says, already trying them on.
“I’m serious”, Sash says. “Dante gave me some money to spend too.”
“I can see”, Sash says, rifling through the shopping bags. “How much have you spent already?”
“I don’t know”, Sash says.
“Jesus, Sash, this is a Gucci dress”, Abbey says, lifting it out of the bag to press against herself while she looks in the mirror. “So what’s the deal with you two anyway, I thought you didn’t get along.”
“We don’t really”, Sash says, spinning around on the couch so she’s looking at the ceiling again, her hand underneath her T-shirt, on the soft patch of skin below her belly. To a casual observer it’s a relaxing and natural pose, to an expectant mother it means something else entirely.
“Thousand dollars hotel rooms and as much money as you can spend aren’t really signs of a bad relationship”, Abbey says.
“He felt bad”, Sash says.
“If this is how he apologizes, what does he get you for your birthday?” Abbey says, pressing a different dress against herself now, happy to root through the bags.
“He’s a billionaire, Abbey, it’s a completely different world. This is like you and I going to Starbucks and staying in a crummy motel.”
“I still don’t get why he’s doing it”, Abbey says. “You don’t hear from him for three years and suddenly, completely out of the blue he turns up in the middle of the night and wrest
les you into his car. I mean, what the fuck is all that about anyway? And now all of this. I mean he was always a bit weird, but this is way off the radar, even for Dante.”
“Beats me”, Sash says. “I gave up asking questions a long time ago. If Dante’s going to throw money at me for not being around when I needed him, I’m not going to turn around and say no. If he wants to buy me shoes and dresses and pay for me to live here, that’s fine too.”
“If he wants to buy dresses and shoes for your best friend, that’s fine too”, Abbey agrees. “This one is absolutely beautiful.”
Sash turns to look at her. “That was four thousand dollars that one. I think I bought shoes with it too. You can have it if you like.”
“Get the fuck out of here!” Abbey says, her eyes going wide in astonishment.
Sash giggles again. “I wanted to thank you for what you did for me last week, and also apologize for leaving you on your own in the middle of the night.”
“This is too much”, Abbey says, already looking for the shoes.
“Dante was a dick for doing that”, Sash says, almost to herself.
“If this is what happens afterwards, you can leave me in the middle of fucking nowhere as many times as you like. I love these shoes!”
“That’s not all”, Sash says.
“What’s not all?” Abbey asks.
“You know we sent those pictures from my phone?”
“Cole and his rowing team?”
“It worked”, Sash says, unable to keep the smile on her face.
“Wait, you got back together with the douche?”
Sash nods.
“You slut!” Abbey jokes. “I knew there was something going on with you, you’ve got this kind of glow.”
“I have huh?”
“Uh-huh”, Abbey says. “All over you. You’re glowing. From head to toe. I can almost feel the heat from here.”
“He said he made a mistake.”
“Go on.”
“He said he wanted us to get back together.”
“Go on.”
“He said he wanted to be serious.”
“Unbelievable”, Abbey says, shaking her head. “Isn’t that what he said last time?”
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