by Stacy Gail
Surprised and confused, Becks glanced at Payne. “Your launch party happened that night?”
“Yeah.” He closed the short distance between them to tangle his fingers with hers, and he locked his eyes on her as if he believed everyone else in the room had disappeared. “It was the same night, babe.”
There was so much meaning behind his words that it confused her all the more. “Okay. Weird coincidence, but I don’t see why this is being brought up now.”
“Because it’s not a coincidence. That’s why I’ve been so distant. Ever since you told me your brother died in the very same car wreck where I first met you, I’ve needed to get everything straight before coming to you with this. That’s what’s taken up most of my spare time.”
“What?” Becks stared at him, not sure she heard right. “Where you first met me…? Payne, the first time we came face-to-face was right here in your office, remember?”
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves.” From her place by the sofa, Scout pointed a remote at the large flatscreen on the wall opposite the desk. “Aside from the police and coroner’s reports that you’ll find in your files, you’ll discover an itemized evidence list. On that list is a surveillance video taken from the second floor of a jewelry store across the street from where the accident occurred. I don’t suppose you’ve seen it?”
Martin simply stared at her while Janine shuddered and looked away. “No. Please, I could never watch…”
“You won’t see the actual crash,” Payne assured her. “And before we look at the video, I need to set the scene of what exactly happened before Becks drove down a street that’s only a couple blocks from where we’re sitting now.”
“On the second page, you’ll find that the main financial backer for House Of Payne was a man by the name of Frank Bournival. He was the father of Monique Bournival, who had once been romantically linked with Payne.” Ignoring that neither of the Delgados had so much as cracked open the files she’d given them, Scout perused her own, identical file. “Frank was a good man, and an excellent friend of ours. Sadly, he was dying. He desperately wanted to bring Payne into the family, because Monique was a spoiled, entitled junkie, and Frank hoped the ever-stable Payne would somehow be the magic elixir that would fix his badly broken offspring.”
“It didn’t work, and within a month I realized I needed to find the nearest exit regarding Monique,” Payne added with a grimace. “I was upfront about it with Frank, fully aware that he’d pull the plug on my dream of making my little two-room tattoo studio into what it is today. But he surprised me by insisting on moving forward with making my vision of House Of Payne into a reality. He even lived long enough to see the launch party. Ironically, just like tonight, that party had an unwanted gate-crasher.”
“Monique,” Becks guessed.
“She came in fully loaded near the end of the party,” Payne confirmed, nodding. “I didn’t want her to upset Frank, so Scout distracted Frank while I got Monique out of there as fast as I could. She was an absolute mess, could barely walk a straight line, couldn’t keep a thought in her head for more than a couple seconds. There was no way I could abandon her on the side of the road, so I tried walking her around in the hope that some exercise and clear night air would bring her back down. It seemed to be working, so I paused to text Scout that I’d try to be back within the hour. The next thing I know, I hear Monique saying that if I didn’t take her back so she could get back into Daddy’s good graces, she had nothing to live for.”
A shockwave of amazement rippled through Becks. It was all she could do to keep from falling over as she stared up at him. “Are you saying… wow, I can’t believe this. Are you saying this Monique person was the one who jumped in front of my car that night?”
“Becks… God forgive me, that’s exactly what I’m saying.” He nodded to Scout, who aimed the remote at the screen. It flickered to life with a clear black and white surveillance video of a car’s headlights approaching the place where two people could be seen standing on the sidewalk. There was no sound, and somehow that made the images all the more stark. “I still can’t believe you were able to react as fast as you did. At the time I remember feeling so goddamn useless, like my feet were stuck to the sidewalk, and all I could do was watch her jump into the street. After seeing this video, though, I now realize Monique was too far away for me to stop when she shot out in front of you.” He stopped when the dark image of the woman separated from the taller figure, Payne, who was clearly looking away from her. When Monique jumped from the curb only feet from the car’s approaching headlights, Scout turned off the video and let the silence, broken only by Janine’s muffled sob, fill the room.
Remembered horror echoed through Becks as she stared, unblinking, at the blank screen. So that was what happened, she thought, numb. Finally, she had her answer. Her little brother had lost his life for no other reason than a spoiled brat high out of her mind had suddenly decided it was a good idea to play in traffic.
What a terrible, terrible waste.
“When all was said and done, there was nothing I could do, except pull you out of what was left of your car.” Payne pressed her hand to his mouth with gentle violence, as if he burned to kiss away all the agony that had come with the impact they hadn’t seen. “But I’m still so goddamn sorry, Becks. I’m sorry I took Monique outside. I’m sorry I stopped at that moment, at that place, to send a text. If I hadn’t—”
“My son would be alive.” Her father tossed his file to the floor, the contempt for the facts they had collected obvious. “You killed him.”
“Shut up.” Snapping out of her stunned stupor, Becks unleashed every ounce of ferocity she had inside. Enduring her father’s irrational bullshit when it was aimed at her was one thing. But she’d tear the whole world down with her bare hands to protect Payne from it. “Just shut your big, fat mouth once and for all, you crazy bastard. No one killed Justin. An accident killed him, and that’s the end of it.”
“I will sue you for everything you’ve got.” Her father was on his feet, his eyes terrible with an endless rage that had no outlet or logic to guide it. “And I’ll sue that psycho bitch Monique too, and everyone in this room. I’ll fucking ruin you.”
“Good luck with that.” Scout stepped forward and took the trouble of displaying papers she had in her own file. “Monique Bournival died two years ago from a drug overdose in Maui, so there’s no one left for you to go after on that front. As for suing the man who saved your daughter from certain death by smoke inhalation by pulling her out of a burning car, the House’s legal department has reviewed every aspect of this incident. Even if Payne hadn’t saved Becks, our lawyers have ascertained that a wrongful death lawsuit brought by you would get thrown out of court, especially now that you know all the facts. They also assured us that if you do file what would amount to be a frivolous lawsuit, House Of Payne will immediately countersue with a defamation of character suit. You should know we’ve done a background check of your financial profile. We’ve been advised to seek damages approximating your entire net worth if you move forward with any kind of legal action meant to damage Payne, his reputation, or anyone associated with House Of Payne, including Becks. And unlike you, Mr. Delgado, we will win.”
That snapped some much-needed sanity back into Martin’s eyes. “It’s not defamation. It’s your opinion against mine, and we let the world decide who the scum was who killed my son.”
Becks almost groaned. She’d come to the conclusion her father was mentally unstable a while ago, but his hold on reality had obviously deteriorated to the point of nonexistence. “Dad, that’s not how a lawsuit works.”
“Now I get why Scout demanded we get this meeting on video,” Payne said, looking at the other man as if he were the digestive leavings of an unhealthy dog. “I didn’t think it was necessary, but she wanted evidence that you and your wife have been made fully aware of all the facts of that night. Just in case you wanted to harass us with frivolous lawsuits like the spite-crazed s
on of a bitch you are.”
“Video? That’s bullshit,” her father snapped, slipping back into his mad-dog persona. “You didn’t even know we were coming. There’s no way you’d be prepared to—”
“It’s a sad fact that I knew you wouldn’t be able to pass up an opportunity to make your daughter miserable at the height of her greatest triumph,” Payne said, shaking his head. “I hired extra security just for you, while Scout got your files ready and positioned a couple of webcams here in my office. Didn’t you notice how she had everything prepped from the moment you entered the room?”
“Scouting out trouble—and dealing with it efficiently—is my specialty,” Scout offered, and her scarlet mouth curled in a poisonous smile. “It’s a gift.”
“Let it go, Dad.” Becks looked at her father and felt nothing. Nothing, except pity for the empty shell of a man who lived only to make those around him as miserable as he was, just so he could feel he was in charge. “Let this nightmare finally come to an end.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’d like to turn your back on what you did and pretend it never happened, wouldn’t you?”
And now he’d swung back to blaming her. Surprise, surprise. “I’m not the one who turned my back. You did. I’m just not going to let you undo that action.”
“Let me? I can do whatever the hell I want.”
“No, you can’t.” Payne again put his arm around her shoulders, but she didn’t need to lean on him for strength. Now that she knew all the facts surrounding Justin’s death, peace filled every dark corner in her heart. At long last, she knew beyond all doubt that she was blameless, and the relief of it was like being able to breathe after suffering years of suffocation. “In the file folder Scout gave you is a legal document. A restraining order, to be specific. Now that you’ve been served with that document, you’re not allowed within a hundred yards of Becks or anything having to do with her. This includes me, my staff, my house and Becks’s loft, and all things related to House Of Payne.”
That made Becks glance up at him. “How’d you manage that?”
“They abandoned you on a sidewalk with a broken back, no money and nowhere to go—essentially leaving you for dead. Trust me, after our legal guys were told about that, they couldn’t wait to be unleashed on the monsters that did that to you.”
“We’re not monsters.” Janine slipped to her feet, looking apologetic as she did so. “Things were very… very bad at that time. No one was thinking clearly. We’d just lost our only son.”
“And almost lost your only daughter,” Payne returned without discernible pity. “In fact, let me amend that. You lost both your children that night, Mrs. Delgado. One through a terrible accident, and one through a heartless choice. While I’m aware your husband was the driving force behind that choice, you’re still equally to blame. You never stood up and did what most mothers are proud to do—you never protected your child. Not once. You and your husband did the opposite. You deliberately and willfully left her to die. And deep down, you know it.”
“I…” Janine’s mouth trembled, before she looked to Becks, her eyes pleading. “Is this really what you want?”
How strange it was, to finally be asked that question after a lifetime of having her needs ignored. “You’ve never told me you loved me in front of Dad. Even when he wasn’t around, you would whisper it, as though having any amount of love for me filled you with shame. So I have to know now, Mom. Do you love me?”
“What kind of stupid female question is that?” Her father turned his patented look of disgust on her. “All mothers love their kids, it doesn’t have to be said. Don’t answer, Janine.”
“Do you love me?” Angry, hopeless tears tightened her throat, as all the times she’d yearned to hear those words crowded around her. “Say you love me, Mom, please. Say it.”
Her mother stood in agonized silence, her pleading eyes all but screaming at her to let her off the hook, before she darted a timid glance at her husband. Becks slumped, releasing the breath she hadn’t been aware she was holding. She should have known. The words—the love itself—simply wouldn’t appear with her father so close. Though it broke the little girl that still hid within her, she finally accepted that there was nothing left for her to do. Nodding once with a regret she couldn’t hide, she tucked that broken girl gently inside the vault and locked it up for the final time.
Done. Now and forever, she was done with that chapter of her life.
“I know you always tried to keep the peace.” Becks heard the wobble in her voice, but she refused to allow the moisture burning in her eyes to fall. She had shed her last tear over this. “That’s why you can’t say it in front of him, even now. But the peace you always guarded so carefully, Mom… it wasn’t a peace that was meant for the family to enjoy. All that mattered to you was keeping the peace between you and him. Hell, I’ve never even known what real peace was, until recently.” At that, she glanced up at Payne and felt the world steady itself. Somehow he had become her anchor, her rock. When there was friction between them, it felt like the world was ending, true; but when things were good, just thinking about him filled her with hope. There was no greater gift than that, and finally, finally, she was beginning to believe she might be worthy of it. “The answer is yes, Mom. This is what I want. I can’t allow either of you in this new life I’m trying to build, in any capacity. I…” Her throat tightened, and she lifted her chin in a fiercely proud gesture. “I deserve better.”
Payne squeezed her to his side. “Hell, yes, you do.”
Her father made a low hissing noise. “You can’t—”
“No.” Her mother put a hand on her father’s forearm. His bulldog-square jaw dropped, and so did Becks’s. As far back as she could remember, her mother had never defied her father. Not once. “It’s done. We owe her this one last thing.”
“What the hell, Janine? We don’t owe her—”
“You will never bother that girl again, or I swear I will leave you. I swear it, do you hear me?” Her voice, that almost buried relic, rose until it was a force so great it made Becks step closer to Payne. “Justin’s coach called you to pick him up that night! You, Martin, not Becks. It’s a parent’s responsibility to pick up their children when they’re in distress, but you shrugged that off because it was one in the morning and you didn’t want to get out of bed. Then you wasted precious time trying to find Becks’s phone number while that woman Monique wasn’t anywhere near a car to jump in front of. If you’d just gone right away…” The rest faded into a seething kind of sob before she shook her head violently. “No. It’s over, and I won’t play that stupid blame-game like you do, tearing everyone else down so you can feel you’re above it all. The only decent thing left for us to do is free Becks from this… this horrible burden of guilt we dropped on her, and let her live her life. A life where she can finally have the peace and love that she never got from us.” While her husband continued to stare at her as if she’d lost her mind, she looked to Payne with silent tears falling from her tired, defeated eyes. “Please take care of her. No one ever has.”
“Janine—”
Payne nodded, his arms tightening around her. “I will.”
Her gaze slid back to Becks, and for a moment she almost smiled, as if she liked the picture they made with their arms locked around each other. “Be happy, baby.” She turned and left through the door Scout held open for her without looking back. Her husband followed with the air of a man who no longer recognized the world around him.
Chapter Twenty
The next hour went by in a blur. Finishing out the exhibit-turned-party was almost beyond Becks, but she did her best to make one last appearance to thank everyone for coming. Photo ops were unavoidable at that point, posing with people she didn’t know and whose fame meant nothing to her. Her personal world was one big fat roiling mess, to the point where she couldn’t even trust the stability of the ground under her feet.
After a small eternity, it was over.
The unexpected weight of hands on her shoulders made her jump.
“Don’t.” Payne backed away even as she turned to face him, his face a bitter mask as he held up his hands as if expecting a blow. “I won’t touch you, if that’s how you want it, okay? I’m not even surprised, but please just don’t… don’t flinch away from me.”
Of all the shockers she’d heard tonight, that had to rank right up there in the top five. “What?”
“I know I should have told you about our connection from the crash.” Then he grimaced, dragging an agitated hand through his hair. “I have to be honest with you—I don’t think I would have ever told you about it if I hadn’t learned about your brother’s death. But the moment I learned that his death was what weighed you down so much, I had to do everything I could to take that burden from you. It was never yours to carry. If anything, it was mine.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said immediately, appalled. “Payne, it was an accident. I’ve been saying that for four fucking years, so I hope I’ve said it for the last time. When bad things happen, it’s human nature to either assign blame or to accept the blame for it. No one knows that better than me. We feel more secure if we can point to a reason for why bad things happen, because that makes us feel more in control of an otherwise uncontrollable world. But it’s not reality.”