Halo buckled her seat belt and took a deep breath as she rested the back of her head against the seat.
Rosalie continued driving off the property. Now that Halo was in the car, she questioned whether she should change her plans or not. Returning to the old neighborhood was something she wanted to do alone. She quickly glanced to her right. Halo’s eyes were closed.
“Is everything okay?” Rosalie asked.
Halo took another deep breath. “I seriously don’t think so.”
Rosalie was driving the car at a comfortable fifty miles per hour, five miles under the speed limit. She slowed down even more since there was no one behind her and Halo looked as though she was burdened by inner turmoil.
“What’s wrong?” Rosalie asked.
“It’s my mother. I always forget who I am around her.”
“Don’t beat yourself up over that, because it’s normal.”
“And I don’t know why I do it,” Halo said as if she hadn’t heard a word Rosalie said. “I mean what came first? The chicken or the egg?”
It finally dawned on Rosalie that Halo was too much into her own thoughts to hear anything she might have had to say. But she did have experience in the matter of pleasing a mother who could never be satisfied.
“The chicken,” Rosalie said.
Halo faced her. “The chicken?”
“Your mother’s the chicken. I used to think that my mother felt she owned my life. Actually, there’s no thinking to it. She believed that, and so did I.”
Halo made a sudden move and turned her body toward Rosalie. “Do you know what my mom just asked me?”
Rosalie shook her head. “No, what?”
“You know she’s a fashion designer, right?”
“Penelope Di Rossi.”
“Agostino Di Rossi, her third husband.” Halo’s severe scowl didn’t escape Rosalie’s attention. “He was a pig. I hated him.”
“I can see it on your face,” Rosalie said as she navigated the car over the mountain.
“My mom divorced him but kept his name because there was value in it for her.”
Rosalie felt as if there was something Halo wasn’t telling her, such as details about why she hated her stepfather so much.
“A multimillion-dollar value,” Rosalie said, suggesting she knew just what Halo was referring to.
“One point one billion, to be exact,” she muttered as she faced forward again. “But…”
Rosalie waited for her to finish what she was going to say. She took a quick glance at Halo, who was gnawing on her bottom lip.
“I drink too much,” Halo finally said.
Rosalie raised her eyebrows. That had been evident earlier that day at the bar.
“I should get help. I want to get help.” She sighed deeply. “I contacted someone today, you know, when we were driving home from the tavern.”
They reached the stoplight at the bottom of the mountain.
Rosalie turned to Halo. “Who did you contact?”
“A treatment center.”
“Are you going?”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s stopping you?”
“My job. The embarrassment. They all think I’m something special because I’m a Sterling. Sometimes I think it would’ve been better if I had never…”
The light turned green, but Rosalie didn’t go. “Had never?”
Halo sighed. “Nothing. Forget it.”
The car behind them honked deliriously. Rosalie started driving again, but as soon as he could, the crazy driver crossed the broken line to speed past her.
Rosalie took a quick glance in Halo’s direction.
Halo’s eyes were closed, and tears were streaming down her cheeks. Rosalie hadn’t realized how emotional this conversation had gotten for Halo.
She rubbed Halo’s shoulder with her free hand. “You’ll figure it out.”
Halo sniffed. “I think I already have.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Rosalie was overly curious to learn what Halo had decided to do about her grief. She didn’t know Halo well, but she sure hoped the woman wasn’t contemplating suicide.
“Don’t worry, Rosalie. I’m not going to kill myself.”
Rosalie quickly glanced in her direction. “Can you read minds or something?”
“No, but the question is written all over your face.”
Rosalie observed her expression in the rearview mirror. Her frown was just as intense as Chance’s. “Oh, it is, isn’t it?”
Halo chuckled. “Yep.” She rested her head on the seat and closed her eyes again.
“So you’re not going to tell me what you’ve decided?” Rosalie asked.
“Yes. Rehab. I’ll lose my job, but I need rehab.”
For some reason, Rosalie’s heart swelled. Perhaps it was the steadfast tone of Halo’s voice.
“And hey, can you not tell anyone about our discussion? I don’t want anyone to try to stop me.”
There were only two people she could spill Halo’s secret to, Edna and perhaps Chance, considering they had a mission to attend to tonight. But neither would attempt to stop Halo from seeking help for drinking too much.
“Sensationalistic news travels through our family like herpes through a frat house,” she said.
Rosalie sniffed, chuckling. She realized Halo had once again read her expression.
BLUSHING GREEN WAS like many other California coastal towns. It was imprinted by Spanish colonial architecture. Many of the buildings and homes had red clay roof tiles, arched doorways, and walls made of white stone. There were also lots of tall palm trees, aged oaks, and jacaranda trees in yards and planted along the streets. But it was winter, and the jacarandas were bare, and that was a shame.
Rosalie decided it was safe to bring Halo along on her trip back to the old neighborhood. Although after their conversation, she felt less of a need to go. There was something about Halo’s state of mind that cautioned her about revisiting ghosts from the past.
“Where are you headed to?” Halo asked.
“My old neighborhood.”
“Ah… I see.”
They smiled at each other, and Rosalie was pretty sure Halo comprehended all the emotions and questions that were deep inside of her. Rosalie’s family used to live on Lindy Street. Rosalie could read the sign up ahead. The same overgrown oak tree that used to be nestled up against the green placard with the word “Lindy” written in white was still there. Her father used to complain about how the tree was growing out of control. No matter how many times he had called the city, they refused to put in the money and effort to rip the sucker out of the ground by the roots. He’d called it a safety hazard, but Rosalie called it beautiful. The neighborhood kids used to love to climb its thick branches. She and a bunch of kids from the neighborhood used to play on and around the tree regardless of how dangerous it was.
Once, a kid name Robbie Hamm had climbed to the tallest branch and fell to the ground. He hit the pavement so hard that he lost consciousness. Everyone thought he was dead. And since all the kids were in a panic, adults came out of the houses, asking what happened.
“He fell,” someone cried.
Then suddenly, Robbie opened his eyes. He sat up. And finally, he stood.
One of the Kidd twins asked him if he was okay. He said he felt fine. Of course the adults made everyone go home. Rosalie heard about what happened next through conversations her father had with neighbors and from rumors by other kids. Apparently, Robbie’s mother was a nurse, and when she heard he had taken a long, hard fall, she put him in the car and drove him to the hospital. Good thing she did because he had internal bleeding in his brain and three broken ribs. He could’ve done more damage if half his body hadn’t landed on a mound of thick grass. He was in the hospital for a week, but ever since then, none of the neighborhood kids had been allowed to play on the tree, and all the parents had tried their hardest to get the city to rip it out of the ground.
; Like then, Rosalie was happy they never succeeded. Playing with neighborhood friends during the early years before high school, when everyone had changed for the better or worse, were some of the best times of her life, and that tree reminded her of those times.
She made a left onto Lindy and slowly crept down the street. Many of the homes had undergone remodeling makeovers. The neighborhood looked more expensive than it had when she’d lived there. Of course they hadn’t been poor. Her father’s job had paid pretty well, although there had hardly ever been enough extra money to do anything fun.
Rosalie stopped in front of 3425 Lindy. A brand-new, dark-green craftsman home had been erected on the lot.
“And here is where the house used to be,” she whispered.
“Used to be? There’s a house there.”
“The old house was demolished because it had a severe case of mold infestation.”
“Oh, I see. The new house is nice, though.”
Rosalie’s eyes took in every square inch of the property she could see. She especially loved the wraparound porch, which seemed to have been preserved from the old house. They’d also kept the low hedges around the yard. She pictured how they would look in the spring. Orange flowers would sprout beside the leaves, and tiny butterflies would sniff the petals.
“You’re smiling,” Halo said.
Rosalie took a moment to notice her expression. “I guess I am.”
“Then you had a good childhood?”
Rosalie shrugged. “It depends on what you mean by good. Did my parents argue a lot? Yes.”
“What did they argue about?”
Rosalie focused on the large white wooden door with four glass panes up top. The door was stylistically the same, only the new house, also a craftsman, was painted light blue, and the wood was blonde oak.
“My mom was demanding, and my dad was exhausted.”
Halo grunted curiously. “What did she demand?”
“Everything she wanted for herself.”
“And what exhausted him?”
“Everything she required.”
Halo chuckled. “I see. She wanted your father to shit bricks of gold for her.”
“Yeah. And, you know, I thought that’s what a man was supposed to do for me too until I married Peter.”
“Oh, well, Peter wanted you to shit bricks of gold for him.”
Rosalie laughed.
“The men in my family are entitled pricks. All but Chance.”
She quickly turned her gaze on Halo, who immediately tilted her head curiously. “I like you two as a couple.”
Rosalie jerked her head back. “Huh? A couple?”
“But Chance doesn’t have a lot of faith in love and, by the sound of it, neither do you.” Halo looked past her at the house. “But all that shit that went on in the old house you used to live in—that wasn’t love; that was coupling.”
“Yeah,” Rosalie said with a sigh. “I know. Therapy.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
Silence fell between them. Rosalie had seen enough, so she pulled away from the curb and continued down Lindy. Once they were back on the main road, Halo suggested that they go antique shopping to find Edna the perfect birthday gift.
“My grandma loves old shit,” Halo said.
Rosalie laughed because it was true. Edna’s taste was a cross between Liberace and Michael Jackson. Halo knew of an antique shop in Napa that Edna frequented, so they decided to go there. On the drive to Napa, Halo talked about how difficult it had been to tell her mother that she no longer wanted anything to do with the fashion industry. It was as if Penelope had taken it as a rejection of everything she stood for.
“The only reason I ever became a model was because it made her happy.”
“Therapy?” Rosalie asked.
“Yep.”
“Thought so.”
Halo snickered as she adjusted in her seat. “Goodness, I hated that job. I hated the makeup and how photos were touched up to make me look like some sort of beautiful alien.”
“But you are beautiful.”
She shook her hands. “And so are you and just about every other woman in the world. Plus, beauty is subjective. Even the standard of beauty itself is subjective.” She shook her head. “I can’t believe I had anything to do with convincing people otherwise.”
It was clear to Rosalie that she and Halo were meant to be in the car together. They were meant to have the conversation they were having. Earlier, they had been meant to drive to her old neighborhood together. For some reason, she felt as if they were probably always meant to be friends. And so they continued their drive to Napa. Rosalie shared every dirty detail of why she hated her job and her boss but not her profession. She loved being a lawyer.
“And so are you going to take Chance up on his offer?”
“Absolutely! He works for Lord and Lord.”
Halo snickered. “Well then, I’ll have to give you my number because you’re going to need a Chance-o-meter.”
“A Chance-o-meter?”
“No one knows him better than I do, and he’s pretty hard to figure out, but I can help you navigate his crotchety disposition.”
Rosalie chuckled. “Crotchety?”
“Make-you-cry crotchety.”
Rosalie grunted thoughtfully. Did she want to work for a man who was grumpy but hot?
“Fine, then. Let’s exchange numbers.”
The answer to the question was yes.
NINE
CHANCE STERLING
Chance watched the back end of Rosalie’s car make a left onto Grove Road. Halo was with her, and by the way Penelope was walking toward him, asking if he had seen her, he knew Halo had just made an escape.
“She left with… What’s her name again?” Claire asked.
“Rosalie,” Chance said.
“Yes, her.”
He could hear the disdain for Rosalie in Claire’s tone.
Penelope rubbed her narrow chin. “Is that so?”
Chance had always thought his aunt was extremely thin. Her eyes were sunken in, and the skin of her face hugged her cheekbones. He gathered that she preferred to look that way, but he had always wanted to offer her a few cheeseburgers at eight o’clock at night to put some fat on her.
Regardless, he was pretty much over helping with the party. Never before had he involved himself in the setup or the planning, and he didn’t want to start now. Since he knew Grandmother well, Susan asked if he could confirm whether she would like Claire’s plan for where the grand canvas would be set up. She also wanted him to approve Claire’s design scheme, which he knew was a ploy to get them to spend more time together. There was no way Susan was going to give him that kind of say-so. So he told Susan that he wouldn’t provide any feedback on the design scheme but that he could sure let them know where Grandmother would definitely not like a tent to be erected. She was very particular about her lawn. The grass was the greenest in the county for a reason. He had actually tried to ask Susan to move the party to the east side of the estate, where it was always held, but she insisted on doing it differently this year. And since she insisted, he suggested that flooring be laid over the grass.
“That’s a good idea, Chance.” Claire turned to the man who was setting up the tent. “Do you have parquet flooring?”
“Yes, we do,” he said. “It’s going to cost more, though. A lot more.”
“That’s not a problem,” she said as if money was no object.
Chance watched the guy’s eyes light up. Susan and Claire had just become money trees to him. Chance guessed that by the end of it all, the company would have bloated their prices and collected more than a few hundreds of thousands of dollars from them.
Chance looked at his watch. An hour and a half had passed since Rosalie and Halo left, and he had things he wanted to accomplish for his own interests. He figured his job was done as far as the party was concerned.
Claire was still in sight, but it seemed as though impressing Susan and Penelope
with her design abilities was more important to her than keeping tabs on him. He wasn’t the slightest bit interested in her romantically, but if he were, that would’ve been a quality he would’ve liked—a woman who was too busy with her own interests to worry about him.
He reached into his pocket for his phone, but it wasn’t there. He’d left it in the car. “Damn it.”
Chance made a quick about-face. “Damn it,” he said again under his breath. Virginia Sterling, Pete’s mother, who was wearing a pretentious black-and-white-checkered skirt suit, had just cleared the hedges and was on her way to the lawn. It didn’t surprise him that she wanted in on the planning even if she looked as if she had just come from a tea party or somewhere.
If they did so happen to impress Grandmother, then Pete’s mother couldn’t stand by and let Penelope and Susan get all the accolades. It was a dog and pony show, really. He knew what his grandma liked, and it sure wasn’t a stuffy party on the lawn full of pretentious jerks.
The time to escape was now or never. Since all the women were occupied, Chance put his head down and walked quickly to where all the cars were parked. He went to his SUV and found his phone in the caddy between the seats. The faint scent of Rosalie’s perfume softened the air.
He climbed inside and flopped down in the front seat. The last thing he wanted to think about was Rosalie. The shit he had pictured himself doing to her on the drive back from the bar… It was becoming increasingly harder to control his desire to get something started with her. He could’ve asked her out on a date. However, if she ended up working for him, then he would have to be professional and continue admiring her from a distance. Chance shook his head rapidly, hoping to expel thoughts of her from his mind. He had work to do.
It started to rain, so he closed the door but cracked the windows so he could breath fresh air. He looked in the rearview mirror. Garcia was parking another black SUV. As soon as Garcia hopped out, Chance opened his door.
Secrets & Chance (The Sterlings Book 1) Page 12