“I’m sorry you had to see this.”
Anya was pretty sure it wasn’t Clint. The camera was focused mostly on Rita, which made her want to rip her eyes out and bleach her brain. But what convinced her more than anything was the sheer amateurishness of the camera work.
“Clint told Rita that if she didn’t pay him fifty thousand dollars, he would show me this. Naturally, she came right to me and told me everything. We have an open relationship. When he found out he couldn’t get his money that way, he came to me to get it.”
“I’m not sure who’s lying more, you or Rita. But that’s not Clint. And if it had been, he’s a perfectionist behind the camera. He would have set the scene better than that.”
Cesare turned off the television.
“Thank you,” Anya said. “My eyes were starting to bleed.”
“Anya, dear. My mother is very ill. She has the cancer.”
Looking down into her drink, Anya frowned. “I’m sorry to hear that. We didn’t get along, but I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Why aren’t you with her?”
“It could be days. It could be months. She’s in excellent hands. I couldn’t sit by her bedside and watch her die. But what that means is when she passes and I inherit, there is nothing standing in the way of you and I.”
“Except your wife,” Anya said, finishing the limoncello up in one swallow. She had stopped drinking it because it reminded her of Cesare. But she had forgotten how much she enjoyed it.
“Magdalena is no happier in this marriage than I am. I told Mama that arranged marriages never work. I will set Magdalena up with a generous allowance and divorce her.”
“Then there’s Rita.” Anya gestured to the screen.
“Rita doesn’t like Italy. She prefers your New York. And now that she’s made some friends at Couture, I think she’d be happier staying.”
Anya shuddered. Of all the arguments Cesare had put forth to get her to leave with him, that was the one that was the most convincing. The thought of seeing Rita every day was enough to make her reach for the limoncello bottle again.
“I’ve missed you so much. You have only gotten more beautiful with each passing day. What a countess you would make.”
What a difference two weeks made. Last month, Anya would have crawled over broken glass for this offer and never known what she was missing.
“That’s very sweet of you, Cesare, but I’m not interested. I have my life here. I’m happy.”
“He will betray you,” Cesare said. “I’ll prove it. He’s not serious about you. He’s just having his way with you.”
Anya stood up. “And it’s fantastic. Look, what we once had together, Cesare, is gone. Maybe it could have ended differently, but I’ll never forgive you for caving in to your mother’s demands.”
“I would have been disinherited.”
“I wouldn’t have cared.” She kissed him on both cheeks, with little affection. “Arrivederci.”
“It was my birthright,” he said, following her to the door.
“It was my heart you broke. Stay out of my life. Leave Clint alone. You’re better than this. I don’t blame you for not wanting Rita in your life, but I’m not the solution.”
“Cara, just give me one more night. I’ll prove to you we are meant to be together.”
“Good-bye, Cesare,” she said, and walked out on him.
It felt great.
Chapter Eighteen
She was on the way to the pool the next morning when the text from Trey came in.
I’m no longer your agent.
WTF? Anya texted back.
You lied to me about losing weight. I saw the video, pork chop.
What video? She called Trey, but it rang and rang and went to voice mail. She did it a few more times until the phone immediately went to voice mail.
The second text hit her harder.
You won’t be getting the part. They gave it to someone with a thigh gap.
“Asshole,” she said, and had to duck into one of the classrooms before she started to cry in the hallway. I didn’t even get a chance to audition. That son of a bitch. Anya tried to get control even as her head stuffed up and the sobs racked her. This was an angry cry, damn it. By the time she got it together, there was no way she was going to face Clint looking like she had just been put through the wringer. She made a beeline for the spa and booked a facial. They took one look at her and hurried her in.
About an hour and a half later, Anya felt cool as a cucumber and refreshed as a rose, because that was what the goo they’d smeared all over her was made of. Her headache was gone, but she was still feeling low. So of course, the first person she ran into was Rita.
Be the better person, she told herself. “Congratulations,” Anya forced out, prying her lips up in a smile.
Rita looked at her with an odd expression, calculating. “Yes,” she said slowly. “I’m very excited. I’m heading out to New York tomorrow morning. Cesare got me an apartment near the theater.”
Well, that’s one bright spot, Anya thought. She’d be out of here and hopefully never come back.
“You know, I’m glad I ran into you.” Rita tapped a fingernail on her tooth.
I bet you are.
“I had to pass up a modeling gig in Hartford. I could give the producer your agent’s number.”
“I’m between agents right now,” Anya said.
“Well”—Rita dug around in her purse—“here’s his information if you’d like to follow up on the opportunity. You probably should get back to work before people forget all about you.” With a jaunty salute, she skipped down the hall.
“Break a leg,” Anya called after her, not meaning good luck.
Of course she called the number. She hadn’t been active for a few months, and now that there wasn’t any off-Broadway show in her future, Rita was right. Anya was going to be forgotten if she didn’t have anything current on her résumé. Stopping in to Colleen’s office, she asked Nefertiti if she could get someone to replace her for her two classes today.
“Sure, what’s up?”
“I didn’t get the part in the play.”
“That’s bullshit, man,” Nefertiti said. “You know that’s all politics.”
“Doesn’t hurt any less. Anyway, a modeling job opened up in Hartford and as long as I can be at the shoot by noon, I should get the job. I can’t afford to pass this up.”
“Go, if worse comes to worse I’ll take over. I can get a room full of people to yell ‘fuck.’ ”
“You’re an artist,” Anya said, and waved. “Tell Colleen I’ll talk to her later.”
Clint wasn’t answering his phone and she couldn’t find him in the bar. She didn’t think he had a dungeon appointment but she went down to the studio to check. The sounds of lovemaking were loud, which wasn’t completely out of the ordinary, even at this hour. However, they were coming from the studio. Was Clint filming? The door was locked, but she recognized Clint’s voice. More accurately, she recognized his coming.
Could this day get any worse? She scooted back behind a curtain and made sure Dante wasn’t behind it. The last thing she needed today was his shit. There still could be a reasonable explanation for this. Anya wasn’t sure what it was, but she didn’t want to make an ass out of herself again by jumping to conclusions. About five long minutes later the studio door opened.
Anya wanted to be surprised that it was Rita coming out, but she wasn’t. Rita looked like she had been well and truly fucked. She adjusted her bra and strode out of the dungeon like she owned the place. It was hard to decide who to go after first, but in the end she chose to confront her lover.
Storming in, she was ready to start throwing chairs and anything else at him. But she didn’t see him. Was there a back door to this place? His phone went off and she tracked it into the dark room by his computer console. It was a text message confirming a wire transfer.
Fifty thousand dollars.
She scrolled back and read the text exchange. It was
a good thing Anya hadn’t eaten today because she suddenly was dry-heaving into the wastepaper basket. No. This couldn’t be happening.
Face it, fifty Gs is a lot of money.
Anya’s inner voice sounded a lot like Rita. She staggered to her feet and left Club Inferno with the intention of never coming back.
—
“You better come up to the security office,” Istvahn said. “I think we have a problem.”
It was never good when Istvahn was waiting for you the moment you got out of your car. When Anya had blown Clint off at the pool, he figured she’d just overslept, so he had gone out to breakfast and then done some errands.
“What’s going on?” he said as he locked up the car and followed Istvahn into Couture.
“There’s something you need to see on my security tapes.”
They bypassed several hallways through secret doors that Clint was pretty sure he’d never find on his own. Nefertiti was sitting in his chair with her feet on Istvahn’s desk, eating a bowl of ice cream.
“It’s ten o’clock in the morn—oof.” Clint was cut off as Istvahn’s elbow cut into his solar plexus.
“Are you Big Ben? No? Then shut the fuck up,” she said.
“Fair enough,” Clint croaked out, rubbing his side.
“Your studio alarm went off around nine this morning, activating the cameras,” Istvahn said, calling up the studio on his monitors. Clint and Istvahn reviewed the security tapes, with Nefertiti peering over their shoulders.
“What kind of lock do you have on your door that some two-bit hustler like that can pick?” she asked as all three of them watched Rita tamper with the lock on Clint’s studio.
“I didn’t think I had to armor it up like Fort Knox,” Clint said.
“What do you think she’s doing in there?” Tee asked.
“Probably looking for me. Or maybe for stuff to blackmail people with. She’s that kind of nasty.”
The security tape showed Rita coming out of the studio a few minutes later, adjusting her bra. Istvahn froze the tape and zoomed in. She was clearly hiding square-shaped objects in there. In her hand was Clint’s camera.
“Shit,” he said, shaking his head.
“What’s our liability on that?” Istvahn asked.
“She’ll never crack my passwords, and on the third try, the contents get wiped. All she’s got is a three-thousand-dollar camera.”
“Well, if she’s dumb enough to come back here, we’ll have her arrested.”
“Gotcha, bitch,” Tee said. “Wait, hold up. Look who’s coming in next.”
The three of them saw Anya stare at Rita’s back and then go storming in. She rushed out sobbing a few minutes later.
“What the fuck?” Clint patted his pockets for his phone. “Shit, I can’t find my phone. Can one of you call her?”
“It went right to voice mail,” Nefertiti said after trying. “She was upset that she didn’t get the part in the off-Broadway play. But she was heading out to scope out a modeling job in Hartford. She probably turned it off for the go-see.”
“Was she that upset?” Clint pointed to the camera.
“No,” Nefertiti said. “She was sad, but not like that.”
“Come on,” Istvahn said. “I was waiting for you before I went into the studio. Let’s see what else Rita did.”
Clint took the stairs because he couldn’t wait for the elevator. He turned all the lights on in the studio and looked around. Nothing appeared to be out of place. He found his phone on the console. Checking his messages and texts, he sat down hard.
“Oh fuck me.”
The last two texts were chilling. The first one had been sent from his phone to Cesare:
I’ll dump Anya as soon as you wire the money.
And Cesare’s response:
Done.
Sure enough, in his bank account was fifty thousand dollars.
Chapter Nineteen
Anya had stuffed her phone in her glove compartment and forgotten about it. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. She just wanted to think. But she had to leave a callback number in the paperwork, and since she needed this job, Anya had no choice but to leave her phone on. They said they would make a decision tonight. She hadn’t thought to pack a bag, so she was going to have to go back to Couture at some point or else do some retail therapy.
She was driving around in her car, charging up the phone, when the first call came through. Activating her hands-free device, she answered the phone.
“Ms. Litton, we’d like to offer you the job. Can you be on set at seven A.M. tomorrow morning for hair and makeup?”
“Yes, thank you.”
Well, at least something was going right today. She had voice mail messages from Cesare, Nefertiti, Rita, and Clint. Definitely not in the mood for that drama. Shutting off her phone without even checking the texts, Anya decided to hit the mall. It was probably immature, but it kept her from going back to Couture for one night. She just couldn’t face anyone.
She spent the night in a cute boutique hotel, curled up on the bed eating a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. It didn’t make her feel as good as sorting through the lending closet. But the lending closet just reminded her of Clint, and that pain was too raw.
Tossing and turning, she tried to make sense out of what she had seen. Clint hadn’t been in the room. Sure, there could have been another exit out of the studio, but he always put his equipment away. Maybe they had just been fucking and not filming? But why the studio then? There were plenty of pleasure rooms in the dungeon. Anya beat the pillow and tried to get comfortable. Why did Clint change his mind about the money? Maybe an emergency came up and he needed it to bring his parents home.
She should call Clint. If she confronted him with her information, he wouldn’t lie to her. There had to be an explanation for all this. Anya lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. It took about five minutes before she grabbed her phone. It immediately rang as soon as she turned it on.
“Hello, Anya.”
She almost hung up on Rita. “What do you want?”
“I want you to stay away from Cesare.”
“What?” Of all the things Anya had thought Rita was going to say, this wasn’t one of them.
“I’m going back to Italy with him, not you.”
“What about the play?” Anya said.
“I didn’t get the part either, you stupid bitch. I figured I’d let you think that until I was back overseas. But then Cesare tells me that he’s not taking me back with him.”
“But the New York apartment?”
“I lied,” Rita shouted. “He’s leaving me high and dry and it’s all your fault.”
“How is it my fault?” Anya yelled right back.
“Because he’s on a quest to get you back. But he can’t have you.”
Anya’s head was spinning.
“He thinks he bought off that dumb stripper you’re fucking. And you’ll come running back to him.”
The fifty thousand.
“But I sent the message from Clint’s phone,” Rita said proudly.
“Why did you do that? I wasn’t going to leave Clint for Cesare.”
“Oh please,” Rita said. “There’s nothing holding you here now that the part’s gone to some blond bimbo with your tits and my waist.”
Anya wondered how the poor thing stood upright.
“I’ve got a sex tape of yours. You and Clint fucking like bunnies in his studio. I watched it. I’m surprised he didn’t need a wide-angle lens for your ass. How you didn’t break the chair is beyond me.”
“Fuck you,” Anya snarled, flashing back to the memory of hearing Clint come while she listened at the door. It had been Clint all right. But he had been coming inside her, not Rita. How could she have been so stupid?
“I popped that bad boy out of his computer and took it with me. So if you so much as go out to dinner with Cesare, I’m going to sell it on the Internet. You’ll never get a modeling job again—I don’t care how hot that Yo
uTube video of you and Switchblade is. This one will top it all.”
Anya’s mouth dropped open. “You stole from Couture?” Colleen was going to send the leg breakers after Rita for sure.
“You’re damn right I did. I stole a bunch of DVDs. Someone is going to pay to set me up in the lifestyle that I’ve grown accustomed to.”
“I’m calling the cops.”
“Got proof?” Rita said. “Because these are going live as soon as I hear sirens. You got that, sweetie? Stay away from Cesare.”
Rita hung up.
Anya stared at the phone. She dialed Clint’s number.
“Where the hell are you?” he snarled into the phone.
“I—” she began to say.
“Did you get my texts? Rita stole my phone. I didn’t agree to dump you for money.”
“I know.”
“Rita broke into my studio. She stole my camera and some DVDs.”
“I know. She just called me to blackmail me.”
“She what?” The menace in his voice made the hairs on her arms stand up. “Where are you? I’m coming over there.”
“No, it’s way too late. I’ve got an early call tomorrow. I need to get some rest. All she wants me to do is stay away from Cesare and she won’t post the video on the Internet.”
“Stay away from Cesare anyway, but she’s not posting shit. The discs wipe if the password is entered incorrectly three times. She’ll never figure out the password because they’re dates and places of my first circus performances.”
“Then how come I heard her playing the recording in your studio?” Anya asked.
“It was loaded up on the computer. My bad. I didn’t lock it down before I walked away. But I didn’t expect any visitors. She just clicked on play. When she unplugged the camera, however, all the security reset.”
“So, she’s got nothing?” Anya asked. A wicked idea was starting to form in the back of her mind.
“Baby, she’s going to jail. Do you know where she is?”
“My guess is she’s trying to get back together with Cesare.” Anya gave him the hotel and room number.
“How do you know where he’s staying?” he growled.
“Why didn’t you tell me Rita hired you for a private dance at the strip club?” she countered.
Longing: Club Inferno Page 18