“You will.”
“I’m going to work for it. Anyway, he made damn sure I knew he’d come like the wrath of all the gods on anybody who hurt his daughter.”
As she had no problem hearing her father say just that, she clutched Noah’s arm, clung to it. “They’re protective.”
“It’s okay, I get it, and I said how I don’t hurt people, especially people I care about. I think he liked that. I think he almost liked me by the time we finished lunch.”
“You did great.” She kissed him to prove it. “And I’m sorry I can’t go back to your place.”
“No, that would be weird, too, now. And, you know, disrespectful. Besides, I think I’m going to need a little recovery time after the grilling.”
“You can take some comfort knowing I’m in for it next.” She glanced back. “Might as well get it over with.”
“Text me later?”
“Count on it. I’ll see you tomorrow, backstage, and then I’ll be front row center when the curtain comes up.”
When she walked into the condo, she saw immediately her grandparents had cleared the field. Her father sat, solo, on the terrace.
She went out, sat in the chair beside his. Waited.
“I love you, Caitlyn.”
“I know, Dad. I know. I love you.”
“There’s a part of me that’s always going to look at you and see my little girl. That’s how it is, that’s the deal. And you know the reasons I feel the need to protect you.”
“I do. I need you to know I’m getting good at protecting myself.”
“That doesn’t change my need. I’m not going to pretend those calls don’t worry me, or to accept I can’t just wrap you up and keep you safe.”
“I know I didn’t handle it well, but I will if it ever happens again. Not just because I gave you and G-Lil and Grandpa my word, but because I’m not going to let some faceless asshole scare me stupid again.
“New York’s been good for me,” she continued. “It’s given me some distance—not from you, from everything else. I panicked because I thought it was Noah, and I was half-asleep.”
“The first one came when you were alone and sleeping.”
“Yeah, but that’s easy to figure. People are more vulnerable late at night. Whoever it is had that advantage. I won’t let him keep it. It was months between calls, and if he’s not getting anything out of it, I think whoever it is will stop.”
“If they don’t?”
“I’ll tell you. I swear it.”
“The calls weren’t the only thing you didn’t tell me about.”
“It’s a little awkward for a daughter to tell her father about the guy she’s involved with. You’ve met him now, talked to him now, you must know what a good person Noah is.”
Saying nothing for a moment, Aidan just tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair.
Then relented.
“He seems to be. He can also have actual conversations, seems to know what he wants in life, has a work ethic. I still want to beat him off with a stick.”
“Dad!” She snorted out a laugh. “Come on.”
“That’ll ease off. Maybe.” He turned to her then. “I didn’t ask him because there were a lot of other things to ask. How long have you been seeing him?”
“A couple of months.”
“Are you in love with him?”
“It feels like it. I know being with him makes me happy. He got me back into dance class, something I’d forgotten I really enjoy. He’s not why I’m taking the classes at NYU, but I think I built up the confidence to try that because, well, because of the normal. It’s nice to have the normal.”
Watching her face, he nodded, then looked out over the city. “It was hard for me to let you come to New York. It’s not hard for me to say you were right. It’s been good for you.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t miss you, and Grandpa. And Consuela. I miss the gardens, and the pool. Boy, I really miss the pool. But . . .”
She rose, walked to the wall. “I love walking wherever I want, meeting friends for coffee, or going to a club. Going into a shop for jeans or shoes, whatever. Now and then somebody will give me a look, or even say I look familiar. But nobody really pays attention.”
“Your movie comes out soon. That could change things.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I hope not too much or for very long. Either way, I don’t feel as, I guess it’s vulnerable.” She turned back to him, smiled. “I’ve toughened up.”
Charlotte had it all. She’d bagged a gloriously rich, indulgent fiancé who believed her the most charming, delightful woman in the world. Sex wasn’t a problem—despite his age, he actually had some style there. Plus, the trade-off was well worth it.
She lived in the biggest mansion in Holmby Hills, all fifty-five thousand square feet, with its marble walls, twenty bedrooms, ballroom, two dining rooms—the larger boasted a custom-made zebra-wood table for eighty—its hundred-seat movie theater. She had her own beauty salon, a dressing room suite attached to two rooms of closets, and a third dedicated to her shoes.
Her jewelry, and Conrad indulged her, resided in a vault.
More than six acres held a serpentine swimming pool, clay tennis courts, a two-level garage with elevator, formal gardens, six fountains—one that now centered on a statue made in her image—a putting green, and a small park with a koi pond.
She had a staff of thirty at her beck, including her own social secretary, two personal maids, a driver, a dresser, a nutritionist who planned her daily meals.
She had a media specialist under contract whose job it was to pitch and plant stories, to make certain she was photographed at every event she attended.
Of course, she had access to her choice of three private jets, the mansion on the Kona coast of Hawaii, the Tuscan villa, a castle in Luxembourg, and the manor house in England’s Lake District. Not to mention the three-hundred-foot superyacht.
On Conrad’s arm, she had entrée into the top levels of society, not only in Hollywood but anywhere.
He bought the rights to the script she personally selected, and would produce what she saw as her blockbuster return in a starring role that would, at last, bring her the fame and adoration she deserved.
It wasn’t enough. Not when she sat in bed with her breakfast tray—Greek yogurt with berries and ground flaxseed, a one-egg spinach omelet, a single slice of sprouted grain toast with almond butter—and watched that two-bit director Steven McCoy drone on and on about Cate and her stupid movie on the Today show.
“It’s very much an ensemble movie, a story of family, but Olive’s the heart of it. Caitlyn Sullivan brought that heart. She was a joy to direct, professional, prepared. The Sullivan work ethic, well, it’s legendary for a reason. She’s carrying that through to the next generation.”
“Bunch of bullshit.”
She burned inside, burned so hot the fire pushed tears out of her eyes as they went to a clip.
And there was Cate, young, fresh, beautiful.
Bad enough, Charlotte thought, bad enough the damn trailer was all over the place, the reviews rolling out like slaps in her face.
She could fix that, she thought.
She picked up her phone. She’d see how the little bitch who’d cost her seven years liked the kind of press she could pay for.
The tabloids hit the day Change of Scene went into full release. Headlines shouting CAITLYN’S LOVE NEST and SEX IN THE CITY screamed from newsstands all over the city. Photos of the apartment building in Hell’s Kitchen, of Cate and Noah caught in a kiss outside the stage door dominated the front page. Interviews with neighbors inside the articles reported on wild parties, speculations of underage drinking and drugs. Details of Noah’s life, his family, sprawled through the column inches.
“I’m sorry.” She stood with him in Lily’s living room—or she stood, he paced.
“They went to my mom’s house. They got Tasha—I dated her for like five minutes two years ago—to say I cheated on
her. I didn’t. They’re saying I use drugs—no, they don’t actually say it, just hint at it. My mom’s a wreck.”
She said nothing as he paced, as he ranted. What could she say?
“They’re hinting I got into Mame because of you. I didn’t even know you when I auditioned. How you’re turning down offers because I’m jealous, and you’re, like, what, under my thumb.”
When he ran out of steam, she said the only thing she could. Again. “I’m so sorry, Noah.”
He scrubbed his hands over his face. “It’s not your fault. It’s just . . . they make everything ugly.”
“I know. It won’t last. It’s all timed because of the movie. That’s what Lily thinks, and I think she’s right. I know it’s awful, but it won’t last.”
He looked at her then. “It’s easier for you to say that. Yeah, I’m sorry, too, and I know it’s screwing with you as much as me. But it’s Hollywood shit, Cate. You’re used to it.”
Everything inside her shrank. “Do you want to break up with me?”
“No. Jesus, no.” Finally he went to her, pulled her in. “I don’t want that. I just . . . I don’t know how to handle this. I don’t know how the hell you do.”
“It won’t last,” she said again. But she was very much afraid her interlude of quiet had ended.
Grant Sparks knew how to run a con—long or short. After his initial terror and fury in prison, he calculated the way to survive meant running the longest continuous, multiarmed cons of his life.
Maybe of anyone’s lifetime.
He kept the gangs off his back—and kept himself out of the infirmary—by smuggling contraband inside. That meant bribing a couple of key prison personnel, but he didn’t have much trouble homing in on who he could get to do what, and what it took to incentivize them.
He still had contacts on the outside. He could order in a carton of reals, then jack up the price of an individual cigarette, split the profit with his source.
Booze and weed moved profitably, too. But he stayed away from hard drugs. Selling smokes would get him a slap. Selling smack? More prison time at best, a shank between the ribs at worst.
He took orders for items as diverse as hand cream and hot sauce, and earned a rep for reliable delivery.
He had protection, and nobody messed with him.
Making sure he also gained a rep for doing his assigned work without complaint, keeping his head down, following the rules came easily. He went to services every Sunday, after gradually letting the prison holy assholes convince him in the power of God and prayer and all that shit.
Reading—the Bible, the classics, books on self-awareness and improvement—helped him transfer from the prison laundry—a hellhole—to the library.
He worked out religiously, and became a de facto personal trainer, always helpful.
Because he needed to keep fully informed about certain people on the outside, he read smuggled-in tabloids, even read Variety. He knew the little brat who put him inside had made a couple of movies. He knew the bitch who’d screwed him over played the penitent mother with the press.
And it burned his ass to read about her engagement to some old, fucking billionaire. He hadn’t considered she had that much grifter in her. Maybe he admired it, on some level.
But either way, payback would come.
He saw an opportunity when he read the brat was in New York banging some dancer (probably gay). He spent some time working out how to give the little bitch a shot, who to assign, how much to pay for the job.
Making connections with anyone up for release had paid off in the past. He saw just how it could pay off now.
It took Cate less than two weeks to realize she hated school. Sitting in classrooms hour after hour listening to her instructor talk about things that—it turned out—didn’t interest her didn’t really open doors, she discovered.
It just closed her inside rooms someone else had designed.
Except for her French course. She liked learning a language, practicing the sounds of it, making sense of its rules and quirks.
Film Studies bored her senseless. She didn’t care about analyzing a film, finding hidden meanings and metaphors. To her, it dulled the magic that offered itself on-screen.
But she’d see it through, every course. Sullivans weren’t quitters, she told herself as she sat through another lecture.
“They expect me to know stuff because I acted, because my family’s in the business.”
She cuddled with Noah on his little bed on what she thought of as Blissful Mondays.
“You do know stuff.”
“Not the sort of things they want. In an acting class, I’d have more to say, I guess. But I don’t know why Alfred Hitchcock decided to film Psycho’s shower scene in those quick cuts, or why Spielberg let Dreyfuss’s character live at the end of Jaws. I just know they’re both really brilliant, scary movies.”
Lazily, he stroked her hair, now nearly to her shoulders. “Do you want to take an acting class?”
“No. That one’s all yours. You’re the one in the hottest ticket on Broadway. I—”
“What?”
She turned her head, kissed his shoulder. “Stupid to think I can’t bring it up, since all that crap’s faded off.”
“You said it would.” He turned to kiss her in turn. “I should’ve listened.”
“It was a kick in your gut, Noah.”
“Lower,” he said and teased a laugh out of her.
“I was going to say that people at college—even the dean of students—have asked if I can get them tickets to Mame.”
“We’ve always got a handful of VIP seats available.”
She shook her head. “Do it once, it would never stop. Oh, I have to go. I have a class at ten tomorrow morning, and I haven’t finished the reading.”
“I wish you’d stay.”
“I wish I could, but I have to finish this, and I told Lily I’d be in around midnight. It’s already midnight.”
She slid out of bed to dress, sighed when he did the same.
“You really don’t have to walk me to a cab, Noah.”
“My girl gets an escort.”
Sitting, she pulled on her shoes, watched him pull jeans on that lithe dancer’s body. “I really like being your girl.”
He walked her, as he did every Monday night, to Eighth so she could hail a cab going uptown. She remembered the first time, after their first time, in the chilly drizzle, the shine of wet pavement. Now they walked through the heat of a long summer night, the humidity baked in by clouds that blanked out the moon and stars.
“Text me when you get home,” he said, as he always did.
And they lingered over a last lovers’ kiss.
As she always did, she watched as he stood on the corner.
When the cab drove out of sight, Noah slipped his hands into his pockets, pulled out his earbuds to listen to a little 50 Cent on the way home. In his head, he choreographed steps to go with the beat, with the lyrics, considered asking his dance instructor to help him refine them.
They jumped him on Ninth Avenue.
Cate sent the text as she rode up in the elevator—and didn’t notice Noah didn’t send his usual smiley-face emoji in response, as she saw Lily sitting out on the terrace.
“Are you waiting up for me again?” she asked as she went out.
“What I’m doing is enjoying this heat and humidity. I’m a southern girl, and it takes me back home.”
“Is that why you have two glasses out here with that bottle of water?”
“Thought you might be thirsty when you got here.” She poured a glass to prove it. “And that you might sit with me for a few minutes.”
“Yes to both.” Though she thought about the reading she had yet to do, Cate sat.
“How’s Noah?”
“He’s good. We’re good,” she added, knowing that the question lay under the terrace-sitting. “Things got messed up for a while, and I can’t blame him. But it’s eased off. There’s no rea
l story, and a lot of other drama to write about.”
“All right then. I can cross that off my list. Now, just how much do you hate these summer classes?”
Cate blew out a breath. “So I didn’t pull that one off. I don’t hate them, say, with the heat of a thousand suns. Or even a hot summer night in New York. I just don’t like them, or school. At all. I didn’t know I didn’t like school until I tried this. Oh, except for French. That’s my bright spot. J’adore parler français et penser en français.”
“I got the first part—you like talking French.”
“I do, and thinking in French. I have to think in it to speak it. It’s only a few more weeks, and I want to see it through. Then, I think I might look for an adult ed class on conversational French, maybe take a course in photography, get back to dance class. I don’t know what else yet, but I’m thinking about it, what to do with what I learn, what I’m good at.”
“You’ll figure it out.”
She hoped so. One thing she knew when she settled in to do the reading, the analysis of same? It wouldn’t be teaching Film Studies.
The call from one of Noah’s roommates woke her just after six a.m.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Fear in every pulse beat, Cate rushed to the nurse’s station. “Noah Tanaka. They said downstairs he’s on this floor. He—he was attacked last night, beaten. I—”
Despite the sunniness of her scrub top of yellow daisies over a blue field, the nurse spoke briskly. All business. “Are you a family member?”
“No. I’m his girlfriend. Please—”
“I’m sorry. I can’t give you any information on Mr. Tanaka. He’s restricted to family only.”
“But I need to see him. I need to know if he’s going to be all right. I don’t know how badly he was hurt. I don’t know—”
“I can’t give you that information. If you’d like to wait, the waiting room is right down there, on the right.”
“But—”
“The waiting room,” the nurse said, “where some of Mr. Tanaka’s family is. His family isn’t restricted on sharing his information.”
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