by Kenzie Reed
My hands are shaking so hard it takes me three tries to bring up Pamela’s phone number, but I finally do.
“Pamela,” I wheeze when she answers.
“Oh my God. What happened? Is it Linda? Did something happen to her?”
“It’s Donovan.”
“Okay,” she says cautiously. “Is he… How bad is it? Is he dead?”
“To me, he is.”
I hear the hiss of angry, exhaled breath. “Oh, Jesus. I warned that son of a bitch. I will end him. What the fuck did he do to you? Angus, I’m sorry, babe, you need to take Amelia. I’ll be over in fifteen minutes, Sienna – don’t do anything until I get there.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
DONOVAN
I look good with beard stubble. I squint blearily into the bathroom mirror. Why did I never think to grow a beard before?
“This is a good look for me, right?” I say to Cleocatra. She’s my new best friend. Currently, my only friend. Nobody else is speaking to me.
The day after Sienna stomped my heart flatter than a pancake, I went to the animal shelter and got a cat. She’s a regally beautiful tortoiseshell and she’s startlingly affectionate, winding her way around my ankles as I walk. Or maybe she’s trying to trip and kill me, but just being more subtle about it than Aceto.
Anyway, apparently I’m a cat person now.
Cleocatra purrs in response to my question, and I nod in appreciation, then wince and grab both sides of my head. My skull is pulsing with pain.
“Who put paste in my mouth while I was sleeping? It’s that kind of glue paste we used to use when we were kids. Did you do it, Cleocatra?” I ask accusingly.
She just purrs some more.
All right, I may have hit the whiskey bottle a little too hard last night. And the night before, and the night before.
I rinse out my mouth, brush my teeth, and gobble aspirin. “Onward and upward! Follow me,” I mumble, and we make our way through the apartment past piles of pizza boxes and takeout food cartons.
It’s amazing how many food cartons one man can accumulate in eight days. I’ve shucked my clean diet with gleeful abandon. In my spare time, which I have a lot of these days, I’ve gone on a tour of Los Angeles’ seedier dive bars. Started a few fights. Won some, lost some. I’ve got a split lip and a cut cheek to go with my beard stubble.
“But that’s life, right, Cleocatra?” I say loudly. “You win some, you lose some?”
She utters a questioning meow, which I find a little offensive. I rescued her from the kitty gas chamber – the least she could do is agree with everything I say.
“I’m still giving you breakfast, but that’s just because I’m an incredibly nice guy. Wish Sienna could appreciate that. I mean, she’s wrong and I’m right, aren’t I?”
I fetch Cleocatra her can of cat food, and sit back while she dives into it. She’s still skinny under all that fur, but she’s starting to fill out.
“I loved her, you know?” My throat is raw as I husk out the words, and my heart hurts with every beat. “I absolutely loved her. I loved everything about her. I loved the way she breathed. I loved the way she turned the pages of books. When she annoyed the hell out of me, I still loved her. How could she do this to me? I didn’t lie to her. I’ve never lied to her.”
Cleocatra actually pauses and looks up at me skeptically. Wow. Just wow.
“Fine, I broke promises to her when I was much younger, and that is unforgiveable. I meant what I said at the time I made those promises, though. Just, things came up and… I didn’t deliberately lead her on. Okay, that sounds lame even to me. I get it. But the thing with her mother… I never lied to her about that, right? I just didn’t tell her everything. That’s different than lying.”
Cleocatra hunches her shoulders and resumes eating. I think she just doesn’t want to hurt my feelings. That’s okay. Part of me, the pea-sized rational part of my brain, knows my feelings deserve to be hurt.
My cell phone, resting on the counter, rings, and I ignore it. It’s not Sienna. Sienna hasn’t taken my calls or called me back, and after a few days of my bombarding her with phone calls, text messages, flowers, and bottles of Lafite Rothschild 1874 estate wine, I got a curt message from Angus:
Stop calling her. Stop sending her things. It’s making her cry.
As for Graham, he didn’t even look at me after Constantine told us that he’d decided to go with the other company. He just got up and walked out of the conference room. I haven’t checked in with the company all week. I know he’ll keep things going. If there were an actual emergency, he’d call and tell me.
I lean against the counter, watching Cleocatra clean her face, steeped in gloom. It’s too early to start drinking. I don’t have the energy to work out. How can I kill time today? How can I absolutely grab time by the throat and choke it to death?
The doorbell rings, and I straighten up too fast and nearly heave. I allow myself one wild, crazy leap of hope.
Sienna!
Then cruel reality comes crashing down on me. No, of course it can’t be. This is a doorman building – they’d have rung me to ask if I wanted to let her up.
I haven’t ordered food today, so who could it be? Maybe the Ribaldi family pooled their resources and hired an assassin. I should be so lucky. I’m sure my sister would give them my address in L.A. She’d even draw a map.
I stalk across the room, kicking food cartons out of the way. The video panel on my door reveals an impatient-looking Graham – with Constantine, one of his sons, and a couple of bodyguards.
Graham is on the doorman’s “always let him in” list.
I yank open the door. “What the hell, Graham? A little warning?”
His thick brows draw together in a scowl. “I tried to call you repeatedly. Idiot. You’re lucky I didn’t have a SWAT team bust your door down to do a welfare check.”
They all stream past me, through the foyer and into the apartment. There, they stop and take in the shattered vases, the scattered pillows, the curtain I don’t remember ripping down and, of course, the food cartons.
“It’s even worse than I thought,” Graham says to Constantine, who nods sagely.
“What are you doing here?” My voice comes out strangely croaky. Is that what I sound like these days? I clear my throat. “Graham. Constantine. And Darius, is that right?” I ask his son. I glance over at the bodyguards, who are picking up food cartons with looks of disgust on their faces. Why are they doing that? “And the Bobbsey Twins.” They ignore me and continue picking up the food cartons.
“Donovan, sweet suffering Jesus. When you lost your mind, did you also lose your sense of smell?” Graham fans the air with his hand. He looks down at his feet. “Hello, cat.” Cleocatra’s walking on his shoes.
“Her name is Cleocatra. I brushed my teeth,” I say irritably.
“Yeah, well, you need to brush the rest of you. The city’s air quality warning was issued this morning just for you. Go shower now.”
“Well, excuse me, I wasn’t expecting guests. Fine. I will shower.” My head is starting to clear a little bit, and I can actually smell myself when I move. Damn, I am ripe.
I stalk past the guards, who have somehow found garbage bags, or maybe they brought garbage bags with them. They’re stuffing the cartons into bags. “Stop doing that,” I say sullenly.
They ignore me.
“They don’t speak English.” Constantine bends down to pet Cleocatra. When she responds with enthusiasm, he picks her up, apparently not the least bit afraid of getting cat hair on his bespoke raw silk suit. Damn it, he’s a genuinely good guy, and I blew everything.
I take a quick shower, and also realize that, in fact, I do not look good with beard stubble. I look like a low-rent Tom Ellis.
I shave, throw on a Brioni polo shirt and slacks, shove my feet into Italian loafers, and slouch into the living room, defensive and embarrassed. The room is now clean.
“What happened to your face?” Graham asks, peering at my
split lip.
“You should see the other guy.” I smile, and it hurts.
“Was the other guy the sidewalk?”
“What is this, open mic night?”
Graham shakes his head at me. “Even your insults are sad and weak today. Do better.” He walks over to the sofa and settles down on it, looking at me with pity.
“Hello,” I say uncomfortably to Constantine. “I apologize, again, for how matters were handled with you. Are you here to offer us a second chance?”
“I am afraid not, no.” He shakes his head. “I am here out of concern. We were friends before we almost became business partners, and this self-destructive streak is most unlike you. I did not understand, until Graham explained it to me.” He claps his hand to his chest. “It was all for love. That, I understand. My beloved Anastasia made me chase her for two years before she agreed to marry me. I frequently lost my mind over that woman. And I would give my whole fortune to have her alive again and by my side. Ah, agapi!”
“Agapi,” his bodyguards echo with enthusiasm.
“Love,” his son Darius explains to me.
“But now, enough is enough,” Constantine says.
“I know!” I nod vigorously, and my hangover sets off mild detonations of shrapnel in my skull, making me wince. “Believe it or not, I planned for all this. Here, follow me.” I lead them over to the calendar and point at it.
For Sunday, July 4, which is tomorrow, I’ve written down, “Shave, shower, and get your shit together.” For Monday, I’ve written down, “Go back to work. Grovel.”
Then I slap my hand over the calendar and try to cover what I’ve written down for the following week. Graham pulls my hand off it. I’ve written down, “Win Sienna back.”
I’ve written that down for the week after that, and the week after that…
“I feel for you, my friend.” Constantine carefully readjusts his tie. “But with or without her, life must go on.”
“There is no ‘without her’,” I reply fervently.
“Very romantic,” Guard One says to Guard Two, nodding approvingly.
I squint suspiciously at Constantine. “I thought they couldn’t speak English?”
Constantine shrugs. “Well, only when they are especially inspired.”
“I appreciate you coming here. I’m sorry about what happened. I do want you to know that if you’d gone with us, our team would have over-delivered on everything we promised you, but I know that I appeared distracted and less focused than I should have been, and based on what you saw, your decision is completely understandable.”
“I believe you.” Constantine smiles with wry sympathy. “I have a much smaller job that is available, involving sorting equipment in a warehouse. I can give you the specs for what I need. If you wish to develop a prototype, I will take a look at it.”
“I would be forever grateful,” I say fervently.
“And if at any time you need to win back this woman, talk to me first, so you don’t make a fool of yourself. I know much of the matters of the heart.”
His son nods sagely. “He helped me court my fiancée,” Darius says.
“Oh, I will win her back. I’ve wasted most of my life not having her by my side, and I don’t care what it takes, I will find a way to win her forgiveness.”
“Agapi,” Constantine says to his son. “Aphrodite is a harsh mistress.” Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love.
“Very romantic,” Bodyguard One says to Bodyguard Two.
Chapter Thirty
SIENNA
The oppressive humidity of late August threatens to crush me. I’ve grimly resisted all efforts to cheer me up. Donovan’s obeyed my request to stop trying to contact me, and I’m very happy about that. So, so happy. If I were any happier, I’d go on a stabbing spree.
It doesn’t help things that Aceto and Ducktape miss him terribly, and wander around the house and the back porch looking for him and meowing and quacking plaintively. Every night at seven, the time that he usually came home, they get all excited and hopeful, staring at the door, and then they slink off in disappointment when he fails to appear. I mean, I know he’s gone. Thanks for rubbing salt in my wound, you jerks.
One moistly humid day, as we draw close to the Greenvale Fall-fest, Pamela comes to the winery office, carrying Amelia.
“Good morning!” she says with excessive cheer.
“It is morning,” I acknowledge. I glance at the wall-clock. “For five more minutes. Then it’ll be noon.” My voice is a monotone. Emotion takes so much effort.
“Here, hold my baby while I open up a bottle of your wine.”
“Negative. This is a transparent attempt to make me smile. It will fail, and instead, I’ll infect your daughter with my melancholia.”
“I’ll take that chance.”
She sets Amelia in my lap, and I loop a protective arm around her. Amelia is wearing a headband with strawberries on it, a red dress with strawberries, and little red shoes with strawberries on the buckles. It looks so adorable it makes my heart ache. I need to protect this child from heartbreak.
“Never fall in love,” I inform Amelia. “Never believe a man. Never get married. That’s the secret to happiness.”
Amelia responds with a gummy smile that reveals four teeth.
“Never listen to you crazy aunty Sienna.” Pamela grabs a bottle of Pinot Noir from the cart by the wall, and opens it. “That’s the secret to sanity.” She pours two glasses, and sets one in front of me. Then she settles down on the old wooden bench by the wall. Uncle Nuccio carved that bench.
She takes a sip of wine. “I’ll pay you five hundred dollars to see one genuine smile. I can afford it, too. I’ll write you a check right now.”
I shake my head, my expression grim. “I do not have a genuine smile in me, thanks. I appreciate the offer.”
“Who is this bitter, humorless wench I see before me?” She holds up her glass. I know she’s been super excited to finish weaning and start drinking. She’s one of our best customers now. “Can I at least tempt you with some yummy, yummy wine?”
I bark out a small, humorless laugh. “If Aunt Fernanda heard you describe her precious nectar as ‘yummy’, she’d give you the evil eye. Then again, she’s never speaking to any of us again, so big deal.”
“I know that bad things happened with…” Her voice trails off. We’ve agreed to avoid all mention of the man I am technically still married to. “But you’ve got a lot to be happy about. Your sales are climbing every single week, right?”
“Sales are excellent. Your marketing company is worth its weight in platinum.” My words march from my mouth in a dull monotone. I am such a drag right now. I don’t even want to hang out with me.
“So, is that a no on the wine?” She waves her wine glass in front of me enticingly, then sets it down and nudges it in my direction.
Amelia has fallen asleep in my lap. She’s letting out tiny, adorable snores.
“I feel like my mood would just ruin the taste.” I push the glass towards her. “I don’t know whether I should keep looking into this Ferguson thing or not, Pamela. Carrie’s the one who put the bug up my butt about it, and of course she’s hardly rational about the subject. The only thing that keeps my mind off of Mr. Lying Liar-faced Lie-hole and my missing maternal unit is working every waking moment. Out in the vineyard or in the office. And the work is paying off and things are really turning around for us, so maybe I’d just be wasting my time.”
My phone, which is stuffed in my purse, bleeps with a text message sound. I ignore it.
“All I can tell you is that I’ve looked over the contract, and it’s well written and also air-tight. They can’t back out for any reason unless you violate the conditions that you agreed to. And they did put up two million to hold onto the property, so that’s a sign of good faith on their part. If they don’t sign on the dotted line on September 8, they lose the retainer. I’ve done some searching, and I didn’t find any more information about their comp
any than you did, but then again, I just checked what was easily accessible on the internet.” She shrugs. “If you want to do more research, let me know. I have an investigator who can dig deeper, but I’d have to give him a retainer.”
My phone bleeps again. “Are you going to get that?” Pamela asks.
“Nah. It’s probably just bad news, which I do not want more of. Did I just end a sentence with a preposition? Do you see how far I’ve fallen?”
“These are dark times indeed.” Pamela takes a sip of her wine. “You really should have a glass. It’s impossible to be in a bad mood when you’re drinking Ribaldi wine.”
Outside the window, I spot Jamie walking around with a tour group. She’s still wearing her deely-bobbers. “She’s really committed to her crazy,” I say to Pamela listlessly. “You’ve got to admire that in a person. Commitment.”
“You’re killing me here, Gloomy-guts.” Pamela huffs an exasperated breath. “When the Fall-fest is over and the property sale goes through, I’m going to kidnap you for a girls’ weekend. I think you need a change of scenery. Don’t say no.”
I lift one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. Maybe I’ll have recovered some of my mojo by then. “We’ll see. Thanks for the thought.”
My phone bleeps again. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Sienna!” Pamela leaps to her feet and snatches it from my purse, and looks at it.
“Huh. Message from Sara. You know how you mentioned that your aunt would never speak to any of you guys again? Apparently you were wrong, but that isn’t necessarily good news. You should go over to your uncle’s house right now. You should probably run.” She snatches her daughter from my lap. Amelia wakes up and lets out a wail of protest.
“Dang it!” I bolt out the door, not even bothering to ask her what she means. Could we have one disaster-free week around here? Just one?
I jog past the vineyards, over our fields, and onto the dairy farm’s property. I make it to Uncle Vito’s house in just a couple of minutes, panting hard.
His house is a white, early 20th-century farmhouse, ringed with rosebushes and a short walk from his barns. A large asphalt parking area off to the side has room for a dozen cars. Aunt Fernanda is standing there, next to Cesare’s car. She’s clenching a cane with three little rubber feet and waving it wildly and furiously, while leaning on Cesare’s hood with her free hand. She’s wearing a clean pink housecoat, her hair is twisted up into its traditional knot, and she’s painted on her eyebrows and lips just like she used to.