VANCE

by Hawkes, Leila

Chapter 4

  I make arrangements with Jeb and he goes straight away to collect Jules. Vance and I then go on to a small late night coffee shop I sometimes go to on my days off. It is tucked away on the edge of the town square, and overlooks the park. As I’d hoped, there are only a couple of patrons in, and we sit on the comfortable sofa in the far corner of the room. The lighting is low, and Vance looks very mysterious and sultry in the warm glow.

  As a consequence, I struggle to keep my hormones in check. I have to keep telling myself he is not available, and even if was, I am not. I am not going to get my heart broken again, no matter how charming and brave Vance is.

  “So, what brings you to Pikeshaw?” I ask in a neutral voice when he returns from the counter with our coffees. “You and Mrs Drake don’t strike me as the type of people to come to a small town like ours very often.”

  “You should never judge by appearances,” Vance says cryptically. “What’s wrong with your town anyway? I think it’s very pleasant. Much nicer than where I grew up.”

  “Oh? Where was that?”

  “I grew up in a slum in the Ukraine,” he says, his tone deadly serious.

  I am not sure how to respond to this. “I, I mean, I wouldn’t have guessed it.”

  “You mean I look too much like a rich playboy jerk,” he says with a sly grin.

  “No!” I exclaim, nearly spilling my coffee. “I mean, you just look . . . different,” I trail away lamely and decide to cut my losses. “I’m sorry if I offended you.”

  “You didn’t offend me. Actually I am a rich playboy jerk, well it’s the impression I like to give, though the allowance Estelle gives me doesn’t let me be as rich or as jerky as I might like.”

  There are so many questions I want to ask, but I am unsure whether he would take offence if I pry too much. I decide to err on the side of caution. “You and Estelle are on vacation then?”

  He dips his gaze for a moment. “Not exactly, we are here on business. We’re in antiques and we’re down here to talk to a collector.”

  “How fascinating,” I say, now genuinely intrigued by the couple. “You run your own business?”

  “In a manner of speaking, but let’s not talk about me, it’s boring. I want to know more about you.”

  The request startles me, and I am not sure what to say. “Well, there’s not much to tell. I work at the Cherry Tree, as you know, and I grew up here. I live with my aunt and a cat called Captain Razzamataz.”

  He laughs. It is a rich, gorgeous sound and I want to curl up against his chest to feel it reverberate through me. “Sounds like a pretty nice life you got.”

  “I suppose so,” I say. “I am very lucky.”

  “Apart from an aunt and a cat is there no one special on the scene?”

  “No, I’m single,” I reply, feeling uncomfortable. “I’ve been single since just after High School, in fact.”

  He raises his eyebrows at me. “I’m really surprised. What’s the reason for that?”

  I am a little stunned by his directness, and my instinct is to fabricate an excuse. But I don’t want to lie to him, and and part of me feels I can trust him, so I decide to take a risk and tell him the truth. “There was someone I really cared about,” I say, looking into the depths of my coffee. “His name was Dominic, and we’d technically been dating since fifth grade.”

  “Childhood sweethearts,” says Vance, “how sweet.”

  “More like dumb,” I reply sourly. “I thought Dominic was the man of my dreams. We even got engaged when we were eighteen. I really believed we were going to spend the rest of our lives together.”

  “Something tells me things didn’t turn out so rosy in paradise.”

  I taste bitterness in my mouth as I recall those bleak times. “I thought Dominic was the one. He made me laugh and feel special, and we shared a deep connection, even as kids.” I pause, and press the coffee cup to my chest. “He was . . . my first, you know what I mean?”

  “I get the picture,” Vance says.

  “It was wonderful,” I say, forgetting I am talking to a virtual stranger. “It was not how I expected it to be, and I thought then he’d be the only man for me. Only he had other ideas.”

  “He cheated on you?”

  “More than that,” I reply. “He controlled me. It started after we got engaged. He got a job with an insurance firm, and I started work at a restaurant. We decided to rent an apartment together. I was all ready to play the little woman and make a cosy home for us both, and things were great for a while. It is wonderful, like something out of a fairy tale. But then he started to change. He started drinking and going out late. When I confronted him, he’d get mad, abusive.”

  Fire kindled in Vance’s eyes. “He hit you?”

  I shook my head. “No, Dominic preferred to hurt me mentally rather than physically. He told me about all the women he’d slept with, even showed me videos of some of them he recorded on his phone. Most of them were supposedly my friends from High School. In fact, he’d been cheating on me when we are still at school. They were laughing at me behind me back.”

  “Why didn’t you leave him?”

  “I almost did, but he said I’d be sorry. He said he’d tell people I was the one cheating on him, that I was violent and unstable. He was very persuasive and everyone liked him, so people would believe him over me. I was shy and had zero confidence. I believed what he said, and couldn’t bear the idea of having other people think that I was a horrible person.”

  “He sounds like a complete bastard,” Vance says in a tight voice.

  “The worse thing is he convinced me that it was my fault he behaved the way he did. He said I was fat and ugly, even though I was the same weight as I am now. He forced me to go on a diet. I became a walking skeleton, and he wouldn’t let me go out on my own. He forced me to give up work because he didn’t want me talking to other men. I became a prisoner, never going out and waiting on him hand and foot.”

  “But you got away eventually,” Vance reasons, “or you would still be in there and not here to tell the tale.”

  I smile mirthlessly. “I collapsed with exhaustion and I had to go to hospital. Dominic made up some phoney story that I had a drinking problem to cover what was going on. After I got discharged I went straight to my Mom’s. I knew I couldn’t carry on the way I was, but that only made things worse.”

  “How can anything be as worse as what you’d already been through?”

  I swallow hard, almost regretting how much I’d opened up. But there is no point holding anything back now. “Moving back in with Mom turned out to be a big mistake. Like everyone else she thought Dominic was wonderful. She was angry and confused that I’d walked out on him. To make matters worse he started telling everyone that I had been cheating on him. I started getting nasty phone calls, emails and texts and stuff is thrown at our home. The victimisation went on for months and started to take its toll on Mom. She wanted me to go back to him. He told her he was willing to give me a second chance.”

  Vance sits very still, his brow creased as if he is concentrating hard. “What happened?” he says in a hushed voice.

  “It got too much for Mom,” I say, feeling hollow inside. “She had a heart attack and died. After that, I had a kind of breakdown and had to go into hospital again. In a way it was a good thing. I somehow managed to rebuild everything that Dominic had destroyed. When I got out of hospital, Mom’s sister, Aunt Shelley moved in with me and I got my job at the Cherry Tree. Now I’m trying to move on as best I can.”

  I finish, and cast a nervous glance at Vance. He seems deep in thought. “That’s quite a story,” he says at last. “You’re an amazing person, Holly.”

  His praise touches my heart, and I melt to goo. I expected him to close down after he found out about my breakdown, like most other people do. They would be sympathetic of course, but people would generally keep their distance after they found out. It was as if they thought mental illness was infectious. Vance, though, is not reacting that
way at all.

  “I’m not that amazing,” I say wryly. “If I was stronger I would never have let Dominic do all those things to me. It is all my fault.”

  Without warning, Vance reaches over and wraps his hand around mine. “Don’t ever say that,” he says emphatically. His lustrous blue eyes spear me with their intensity. “You’re so brave, and don’t forget it. I would have never survived what you have.”

  “You must be much tougher than me to survive in a slum,” I say. “I’m just very lucky to have survived, I guess.”

  “More than lucky,” he says. “You have a strength I don’t have or ever will.”

  “I doubt that, look at the way you handled that creep.”

  “Physical strength is nothing,” Vance says mournfully. “It’s what’s inside that counts, and I’ve been a coward for a very long time.”

  In that moment, his sadness overwhelms me. I want to hold him, soothe his inner pain and make him happy. He is still looking at me, and it feels like my need is silently communicated to him. Without a word, he leaned closer to me. My heart is beating madly as his lips brush against mine.

  “We can’t,” I say in a broken voice, pulling away.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to,” he pauses, suddenly looking like a confused little boy. “No, I did mean to. There’s something going on here, we both know it. I felt it when I met you this morning.”

  “We can’t,” I repeat, steadying my nerves. “You have a wife, it’s not right.”

  “My wife,” Vance says bitterly. “She doesn’t care what I do, as long as I’m around to carry out her orders.”

  I look at him curiously. “I’m not going to let you cheat on her with me,” I say firmly. “Dominic did it to me, and I won’t do it to anyone else.”

  “She doesn’t care,” Vance says. “She cheats on me all the time.”

  “You’re married,” I retort. “It’s a commitment, no matter what. I’m sorry, Vance, but I can’t get my heart broken again. Let’s just pretend this didn’t happen.”

  “No,” he says firmly. “I’m not walking away from this. Not now.” His eyes are steeled with resolve.

  He gets to his feet, and takes my hand again. I look up at him, now completely baffled.

  “Come on,” he says, his easy going charm returning to the fore. “There are some things you need to know about my wife.”

  Chapter 5

  Still confused, but unwilling to part company with him, I let Vance drive me back to the Cherry Tree. Bobby is covering the reception desk, and his eyes goggle in surprise as we enter. I offer him a weak smile as I follow Vance, completely at a loss as to how I am going to explain this. Vance doesn’t seem bothered. He marches with purpose to the elevator, and I follow him.

  We go up to where his and Estelle’s room is, and he puts his key card in the door. He puts a finger to his lips, instructing me that I should be quiet, and then gently opens the door.

  The room is in darkness, but I can hear heavy breathing, and the murmurs of a woman. Vance flicks the light switch, and a few heartbeats later the room is drenched in light. I let out a startled cry as my brain takes in the scene.

  Estelle is in bed, naked, and on top of her is Harvey, the hotel manager and my boss!

  “Vance,” Estelle exclaims. She looks baffled as she takes me in.

  Harvey, staring at us like a deer caught in the headlights, clambers off Estelle and pulls the sheets up to his chin. “Vance,” he repeats, “Holly! What are you doing here?”

  “Vance, don’t get mad,” Estelle says. “It just happened, it was a mistake.”

  “There’s no need for the performance, Estelle,” Vance drawls. He heads over to the half open closet opposite the bed, and to my surprise takes out a high-tech camera on a tripod. “It’s all been recorded Harvey. This little baby has night-vision too. I will make an interesting movie for your wife to watch.”

  Harvey opens and closes his mouth like a fish, before his shock turns to anger. “You were filming me! You bitch!”

  “Shut up,” Estelle spits. She glares straight at me. “Vance, what the hell is going on?”

  “Holly, I told you that I grew up in the Ukraine,” Vance says conversationally. “It was a hard childhood, and I almost didn’t make it. In fact, I was a hopeless drug addict by the time I was fourteen. I certainly would have died if a kindly lady by the name of Estelle hadn’t come along and saved me from a life of poverty.”

  I stare at him and then at Estelle, and then back at him. “Vance, what is this all about?”

  “Well, as you can imagine I was overjoyed that this wonderful lady had come and saved me. She cleaned me up, got me off drugs and introduced me to a life of luxury,” Vance carries on conversationally, “but I later found out there was a price for my redemption. I was expected to carry out certain duties. Estelle educated me, trained me in certain techniques, like how to handle creeps like the one at the bar, and we embarked on an exciting life travelling across Europe, swindling rich idiots and parting them from their money. Estelle’s really good at it and she taught me everything she knows. When I was old enough, she took me into her bed too, and taught me a lot of other stuff.”

  “Swindling,” Harvey repeats. Something seemed to click inside his head. “What the hell is this?”

  “This is where our friend Harvey comes into the story,” Vance says. “You see Holly, I told you we were in the antiques business. Well, that’s true, after a fashion. Harvey here is also a bit of an antiques expert. This hotel is full of fascinating curiosities you know. Most of them are worthless junk, except for a certain bronze statuette. Of course Walden who owns the hotel and the statuette doesn’t know that, but Harvey does, don’t you Harvey? He decided to take it for himself and try and sell it, and that’s where Estelle and me come in. We came here to buy it, only Estelle had other ideas.”

  “I’m not listening to any more of this,” huffs Harvey. Still wrapped in the sheet, he tries to reach out and grab his discarded underwear from the floor. They are too far away though, and he seems unwilling to expose himself to us, so he stays where he is.

  “Don’t take it too hard, Harvey, if you’ll excuse the pun. You’re not the first,” Vance says. “You see, the plan was that Estelle would invite you up to our room to discuss terms and to . . . make you comfortable, while I went to your house to find and steal the statuette. If I couldn’t find it, I’d come back and ‘accidentally’ catch you with my wife, therefore putting you in a compromising situation. We filmed it too, so we had more leverage in getting the statuette from you. We’ve done it plenty of times in the past, and it’s worked every time.”

  Estelle, still lying in bed, gives Vance an unreadable look. She says something under her breath in a language I don’t understand. It sounded like Russian, and I don’t think it was very complimentary.

  Vance turns to me, and smiles. “I’m sorry for all the dramatics, Holly, but as you value honesty so much I decided to make sure you knew the whole story about me. I think you and me could be very good together, but not while I lead this kind of life.”

  “I, I can’t believe what’s happening,” I stammer. “Why would you do this? We’ve only just met!”

  “I’m not expecting you to declare your undying love to me,” Vance replies smoothly. “Not yet anyway. But I’d be really honoured if you’d let me take you out for another coffee sometime, or to the movies. Then we could go from there.”

  I stare at him, unable to comprehend what is happening. Then, very slowly a new realisation dawns. I see the possibility of a new life opening up before me, and for the first time in a long time, hope burns in my chest. I look up at him and smile. “Okay” I say, “It’s a date.”