Married by Monday (Weekday Brides)

by Catherine Bybee

  “Eliza?” As if saying her name snapped her out of a daze, she shook off his hand and glared at him over her shoulder.

  “I have this,” she told him.

  “If you’d come with us, we can—”

  “Hold up,” Carter stepped in front of her, stopped them from leading Eliza away. He might not know what she was hiding, but he wasn’t about to let her leave the hotel in custody without some explanation. “I am a lawyer and was a judge before seeking office. If you have a reason to take Miss Havens—”

  “I’m sure you’re a brilliant attorney, Mr. Billings, but even you understand that some things shouldn’t be discussed in the hallway of a very public hotel with an entourage of people at your back.”

  Taking the clue, Jay said, “That’s our cue, gentlemen. Time to give everyone some space.”

  “No.” Eliza grasped Carter’s arm and tugged him back. “I’ll go.”

  “The hell you will.”

  “Listen, Hollywood. I get that you feel the need to protect and serve here, but you don’t get it. I’ll just go. Everything is fine.”

  “If you’re in trouble…”

  “I’m not.”

  “She’s not.” Both Eliza and the detectives spoke at the same time.

  “I’ll call you later,” she promised and then stepped away from Carter’s protection and walked alongside the detectives down the hall.

  What the hell is going on?

  Carter met the eyes of his bodyguard, Joe, and nodded toward the retreating figures. Taking the hint, Joe followed them.

  Unable to pursue without drawing attention to them, Carter watched until Eliza turned the corner and disappeared.

  The woman he’d just asked to marry him was being escorted away by bona fide detectives and hadn’t been surprised in the least. Expected it even.

  The gun didn’t faze her.

  She didn’t explain it.

  Twisting on his heel, almost colliding with Jay, Carter returned to his hotel room and swung his cell phone to his ear. “Go.” He told his staffers. “And I shouldn’t have to tell you to keep your mouths shut about what just happened.”

  “We’re on your team,” Jay reminded him.

  Carter’s jaw hurt with the amount of pressure his back teeth were taking. “I know. Just… just keep the others silent.”

  Jay nodded to those leaving the room. “I’ll spin it…don’t worry. It’s what you hired me for.”

  Rubbing a frustrated hand over his face, Carter managed a half smile while the cell phone in his hand rang. Answer the fucking phone, Blake.

  Answer the fucking phone.

  ****

  At least the detectives waited until they hit the car before they started in. “What about “low-profile” did you not understand, Eliza?”

  “I’m not in the mood for a lecture,” she told them. She’d had a right-shit day, starting with a press conference she really didn’t want anything to do with. Moving on to the twisted media who couldn’t recognize a red light at an intersection if it was flashing in their face. Then onto a proposal from a gorgeous, successful man who, if she were being honest with herself, she had the ultimate hots for, but to whom she promptly said no…and ending with, but not limited to, being driven to destinations unknown by two of L.A.’s finest!

  Yeah! She’d had a shitty-ass day!

  “Standing in front of every media station in the greater Los Angeles area, and at least two national channels, isn’t exactly low profile.”

  Dean, the overweight detective in the passenger seat glared at her. The last time she’d seen him he was chewing nicotine gum like it was crack. From the slightly yellow teeth peeking through his lips, Eliza guessed the cigarettes won.

  James, his skinny partner drove while keeping a keen eye on his rearview mirror.

  Yeah, Jim was short for James…and the fact that putting their names together spelled out James Dean wasn’t lost on her.

  “I’m not eight,” she told them.

  “But you look exactly like her.”

  Her…damn it, her mother had a name. Not that she’d remind them.

  “She is dead. Has been for a long time.” No one knew that more than Eliza.

  Dean twisted in his seat and poked a yellow finger in her direction. “She gave everything to protect you. The least you could do is stay hidden so she can rest knowing you’re safe.”

  “Hide you mean?”

  “Hide, live life out of the spotlight…however you want to put it. Shouldn’t be hard. Zillions of people aren’t splattered all over the damn TV.”

  “Yeah well…life happens.” Life with a duchess as your best friend and an influential politician suggesting marriage.

  Nibbling on her fingernails, Eliza took two seconds to wish things in her life were different. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to live a normal life with a sexy man like Carter protecting her.

  Wasn’t gonna happen.

  She glanced at James who had stayed painfully silent during their drive. “You don’t have anything to add,” she asked.

  “We’re being followed.”

  Unable to stop her natural instinct, Eliza shifted in her seat and noticed Carter’s bodyguard in the dark sedan following them. “It’s okay. He’s harmless.”

  “Your boyfriend’s?” Dean asked.

  “Carter isn’t my boyfriend.”

  “Looked like it to me and half of America. Even those in prison with privileges.”

  Taking a deep breath and blowing it out thought clenched lips, she sputtered, “You’re reaching, Dean.”

  “I’m not and you know it. You’re biting your nails. You know this shit stinks.”

  Asshole.

  “How are the cigarettes? Still smokin’?” It was mean, but he wasn’t playing fair and Eliza didn’t care. “I’ve lived my life like a good little witness-protection-program girl. I’m done. You got that…? Done!”

  “I don’t think you have a clue who you’re dealing with if you think you’re done. This isn’t a joke, Lisa—”

  “It’s Eliza. I haven’t been Lisa since I was nine.” Just one of the many changes she had to make in her life. “Take me home.”

  “That isn’t wise,” James finally said.

  “Take me home.”

  Jim met Dean’s eyes. She couldn’t help but wonder if they’d take her into custody for her own protection.

  Jim took a sudden turn back toward the freeway. Toward her home in Tarzana.

  She sat back in her seat with her purse in her lap.

  “I hope you know how to use that gun,” Dean said.

  How did he know? Of course he knew. Jim and Dean seemed to know everything about her life.

  “Anytime you want to have a shoot off, or whatever you call it, you let me know.”

  “I might just do that,” Dean said.

  Jim laughed. “You’d lose,” he told his partner.

  She let a half smile meet her lips.

  “So. Was this a scare tactic, or do you two know something?”

  Dean looked at Jim and then the rearview mirror.

  Neither of them said anything.

  Scare tactic. Which worked when she was a kid trying out for the cheerleading team. Not so much now.

  They turned off the freeway and down her street.

  “Get back to the studio, Eliza. Brush up on your Tae Kwan Do. Stay alert,” Dean told her as he turned into her driveway.

  “And for the sake of God, call us if you find the butter in the wrong place in the fridge. Got that?”

  Yeah, she got it.

  Through their rough exterior, James and Dean were good guys. They had no idea what her life was really like, but they meant well.

  “Got it.”

  Chapter Seven

  Her phone was ringing when she walked into the house. Caller ID told her it was a private number, but Eliza knew without a doubt it would be Samantha. Blake and Carter were close. He probably hit speed dial the minute she disappeared down the hall.
<
br />   To avoid a face to face with her friend, Eliza picked up the phone. “Hey.”

  “What the hell, Eliza? Are you okay?” Under the tone of what the hell is going on was, I’m scared for you.

  “I’m fine.” She pulled back the curtains and checked the street. As expected, Joe was parked across from her house and it looked like Jim had circled the block and was now a few houses back.

  “Carter just got off the phone with Blake.”

  “Yeah…” Looked like Jim was staring at the license plate of Joe’s car. Eliza hoped Joe didn’t have a background he wanted buried.

  “Yeah? Eliza? Talk to me. What’s going on?”

  She let the drapes fall back into place and stepped away from the window. Let the cops and bodyguards work it out among themselves. “I’m fine, Sam. Really. I’m sure Carter painted an ugly picture, but I’m good.”

  “The police don’t escort you away for a private chat if everything is good. Carter is freaked out, and he and Blake are on overdrive trying to figure out what’s happening. You can save us all the trouble by talking.”

  Eliza leaned against the wall in the hallway and toed off her heels. How was she going to avoid this? She’d managed to keep her past buried for years. Maybe she could buy some time and figure out a plan. “Some things shouldn’t be talked about on the phone. I’m sure you understand that.”

  Samantha hadn’t always lived the perfect life. And when she and Blake were dating, his crazy ex bugged the very phone Eliza spoke on to gain information about their relationship.

  “I understand. Do you want to meet for coffee? Come over to the house?”

  As much as Eliza would have liked to ignore Jim and Dean’s warnings, she couldn’t. How much could she tell Samantha? And how wise was it to have Gwen stay with her?

  And how soon would Carter be pounding on her door for answers?

  “I need a day or two. And before you say it, I know I can trust you. I just need a little time.”

  Samantha blew out a sigh over the phone. “Okay. Promise me you’ll call or come here if you need anything.”

  “You know I will.”

  After hanging up, Eliza ran upstairs and changed into two outfits, one hidden under another, and then quickly locked up her house before getting in her car.

  Two cars followed her. Joe stayed close, not caring that she saw him, but Jim followed a few cars back.

  Within ten minutes, she was in a packed mall parking lot and out of her car.

  The crowded mall would have made ditching one person following her easy. Three would take some effort.

  Dean weaved in and out of people, easily seen because of the size of his waist. Joe was talking into a cell phone, probably to Carter.

  Keeping her sunglasses on, Eliza found the movie theater inside the mall and noted the movie times. The latest young adult vampire movie was about to let out. “Perfect,” she whispered to herself.

  At the ticket booth, she smiled at the twenty-something attendant and bought a seat for the latest chick-flick. “One for Ten Million Dollar Bride please.”

  Ten bucks later, Eliza was slipping into the crowd. She diverted to the ladies room but not before noting Joe buying a ticket.

  Inside a stall, she shimmied out of her loose knit pants and black shirt and tucked them into her oversize purse. Her barely-there shorts fit the teenage style and the shoestring top should have been illegal to wear. She pulled her hair through a trendy black hat with a sparkly cross embellished over the brim. As she was applying gloss to her lips, a slew of giggling teenage girls crowded into the bathroom.

  “Oh, my God that was the best one yet,” one of the girls squealed as the others oohed and awed over the latest teen heartthrob.

  One of the girls noticed Eliza standing there and let a toothy grin brighten her face. After a few seconds of chatty teenage noise, Eliza glanced at the obvious popular girl of the group and said, “Love that shirt. Where did you get it?”

  The tiny blonde lifted her chin and smiled. “Forever Teen,” she said. “Cute hat.”

  Using the desire to impress an older hip girl to her advantage, Eliza complimented the girl’s taste and in a weird way managed to gain her trust. The girls moved like a small mob from the bathroom while others shoved in. Eliza slid her glasses on and melted into their group, chatting as she went about a movie she’d not seen. Thank God the trailers of the film had dominated the movie ads for weeks.

  In the small gaggle of teens, Eliza snuck out of the movie theater, right past a clueless Joe. Dean stood outside the door of the theater, but didn’t see her slip by.

  “Do you go to Valley High,” one of the girls asked her.

  Do I look that young?

  “UCLA, actually,” Eliza lied.

  “Cool.”

  A city bus was pulling up to the curb, and Eliza made her break. “Nice talking to ya,” she said, waving at the girls.

  Eliza overpaid the bus fair and found a seat by the back door. Acting the part of clueless kid, she tucked ear buds in her ears and pretended to listen to music. A couple of rough twenty-year-old kids watched her from across the aisle, trying to get her attention with a smile.

  Five stops from the movie theater, Eliza stepped off the bus just as the door was closing. Two blocks on foot, she found a bathroom at a fast food restaurant. She changed back into age appropriate clothes. One taxi ride later and she was sipping a cocktail at an outside lounge in Santa Monica.

  No Joe.

  No Dean.

  No Jim.

  After the third time her cell phone rang, she finally turned it off.

  A smile crept onto her lips. You still have it, Lisa. She’d manage to escape those following her and fade into the world undetected.

  She managed to hide.

  Again.

  ****

  Carter debated on using Samantha’s key and letting himself into Eliza’s home to wait for her return. But then what? She’d kick his ass out, and he’d be no closer to answers than he was when she stormed out of his hotel room.

  Blake knew nothing. And Samantha knew even less. How was it that two women as close as they were could keep deep secrets from the other for so long? Carter thought men held the award for silence.

  Apparently, he needed to reevaluate his assumptions.

  Blake pulled a couple of favors and discovered that before Eliza was nineteen years old she didn’t exist. There were no school records, no teenage job, and no driver’s license at sixteen. Carter would have dug deeper but couldn’t shake the feeling that he was violating her privacy.

  After the third time he called her cell phone, he left a simple message. “Call me.”

  She had to know they were all worried. Detectives don’t knock on your door every day and ask to talk to you without explanation.

  Or did they?

  Carter ran his hand through his hair in frustration.

  Every time he watched the media coverage of his press conference, he was struck with how amazing Eliza appeared before the cameras. She couldn’t have been more perfect from the way she dressed to the way she teased the reporters. If he could convince her to be his wife, if only for a little while, his political future would be that much more secure. At least that’s what he told himself. He knew that marrying her might give them both a reason to give into the simmering heat between them. The hammering inside his chest wasn’t due to his political career.

  Her flat out refusal of his proposal shot his plans to hell. He should have expected it. Her utter revulsion to the idea rocked his world and not in a good way. He knew now he’d blown his proposal. But that wasn’t going to stop him from making Eliza his wife. He just needed to change his strategy.

  His thoughts swam around about how to do that when his cell phone rang.

  “Yeah?”

  “She’s home.” It was Joe who had taken watch over Eliza’s house awaiting her arrival.

  “What about the two cops? They still hanging around?” According to Joe’s earlier co
nversation the detectives who escorted Eliza from the hotel were just as dumbfounded when she disappeared in a movie theater as Joe was. “She vanished like a pro, boss,” Joe had told him. “She’s done it before.”

  “They took off as soon as she showed up.”

  Carter wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

  “Okay. I’m on my way. Go ahead and take off once I get there. Get some sleep. I think we’re all going to need some.” Carter hung up, grabbed his keys, and left his house. Even if Eliza didn’t tell him what was going on, he wasn’t going to leave until he knew she was safe.

  Cross-town traffic was light, and he made it to her Tarzana home in less than twenty minutes. He signaled Joe who waved back and left once Carter parked in her driveway.

  A shadow behind the living room window, followed by the curtain moving made him realize that he was stalling. Sitting in her driveway like a stalker wasn’t his style.

  He pushed out of the car and marched to her door.

  He knocked but she didn’t answer.

  “I know you’re home, Eliza,” he said through the door.

  After knocking a second time, he said. “I’m not leaving.”

  He heard the click of locks disengaging before she opened the door.

  Her hair had been brushed out, her makeup scrubbed clean from her face. Even still, she was beautiful. Although there was a heaviness in her gaze he hadn’t seen before. Worry maybe or perhaps it was doubt.

  She stepped away from the door in a silent invitation for him to enter.

  At least she gave him that small comfort.

  He closed the door and walked into the hall.

  She quickly stepped behind him and slid the deadbolt in place. The move caught him as strange, but he didn’t comment.

  Walking past him she said, “If I wanted to talk to you I would have called.”

  Carter followed her into her kitchen.

  “When would that have been? Tomorrow? The next day?”

  Water boiled on her stove inside a kettle, and the steam was starting to hum. Without an invitation to sit, Carter leaned against the wall and watched her mill about the kitchen as she made herself a cup of tea.

  “Maybe.”

  Translation, no. Damn she was stubborn.