Marbella Twist

by Camille Oster

  Looking back on the journey, she had made a mistake by thinking a man would get her here. In the end, it was her. Men had helped with each step, but it was her who had made everything happen. There had been set backs, obviously. Many and heartbreaking, but she had learned from them.

  The only regret she’d had was how things had ended with Alexi. Or rather that they had ended. Something in her had liked him, had seen kinship with him, but he hadn’t. It was a shame, because they would have been good together. But in the end, she had superseded even him. Maybe not in terms of wealth, but she had reached pinnacles of society that he hadn’t, where he was never quite seen as good enough, or more than his thuggish roots.

  Then again, he had thrown it all away to be with that woman, who was clueless in every important regard. A choice that had made no sense at all to Cheyenne.

  Samara had it all. Money, attitude and a life membership to anything she wanted. She even had a husband she loves to some degree, which was not something anyone else had, including Dominic. Alexi gave up his ambition for love—the notion Cheyenne had always felt was a tool for manipulating people. Granted, it was not a tool she had ever successfully used. It hadn’t been an emotion she could inspire in herself or anyone else. But did one really have it all without that elusive quality? It wasn’t as if she strictly believed it didn’t exist. She knew it existed, just for very few people.

  Was it something she would never experience? Relationships without it were a dime a dozen, every possible version of it. But Alexi had found it, and Samara had it, and they were the two people she truly related to in this world. How about that? Didn’t that realisation just come out of the blue?

  Chapter 52

  Mist sat on the land as they walked through the tall grasses of Seb’s estate, hearing the beaters in the distance finding fowl to frighten. Inns walked with his grandfather’s old Purdey sitting in the crook of his elbow. Cold stung his nose with the crisp autumn morning. The sights and sounds, even the smells felt both familiar and nostalgic at once. Dogs milled, overexcited and noisy, ready to run for any grouse that tumbled from the sky.

  Inns was a good shot. Years of practice had paid off. When he’d been home over summers, there had been little else to do. There hadn’t been a safe pigeon on the estate. Each shooting season had been welcomed with a mounting sense of excitement, because it was the one thing where he held his own.

  A warm thermos top full of coffee warmed his hand as he followed the large group of shooters. He knew most of the men in the group, had seen them at various events for most of his life. Nothing ever changed; the same people, doing the same things. There was a brutal pecking order that actually had nothing to do with your wealth or the size of your estate.

  It was determined separately within each generation, an order where he’d been relegated to the bottom. It was an issue that older generations were completely blind to, but every once in a while their old order leaked out with careless comments bordering on crass immaturity.

  The landed gentry had an astounding propensity for ignoring what it didn’t want to acknowledge. According to Aggie, that included that the world was irrevocably changing around them, while they refused to change. Nothing new was embraced, except maybe money. Gentile poverty wasn’t quite the badge of honour that it used to be, and more estates were dedicating themselves to becoming revenue generating assets. A stint of lucrative years in one of the venerated investment banks was now generally expected for the younger generation, before taking over the estate when the parents sought to retire to some far-flung island in the Caribbean.

  “Inns,” Lord Denning said, clapping him on his shoulder. “How is your father?”

  “Well,” Inns said. “Prior engagement. Couldn’t come.”

  “That is a shame. And the Fellworths? I understand you have been spending some time with them.” There was a guarded curiosity about the Fellworths, the rebellious part of the family that ventured away from the tried and true. Everyone still asked about them, even though they quietly tsked over their choices. Curiosity overwhelmed the disapproval. It wasn’t like they were the first family with a house in warmer climes, but most didn’t pack up and move there on the permanent basis, accepting a more peripheral role in their own society.

  “From what I saw, they are very settled.”

  The venerable Judge Hornsby joined them, all waiting for their turn on the shooting line. This was the man who had a seat on the admissions board at New College, and this was his chance. These things were not done by asking directly. Subtlety was required.

  “I have been studying under Professor Wallis, quite a well-known Oxford academic. His tuition has been quite transformative.”

  “I know him,” Judge Hornsby said. “Good man.” This was a stroke of luck. What he needed was a reference from Professor Wallis. “What college is he at nowadays?”

  “At the Marbella Business school,” Inns said.

  The judge blinked. There was that subtle disapproval.

  “Not ideal by any standard,” Inns continued, “but I think I needed a moment outside my own environment to get myself in order.”

  “Time away can do that,” Lord Denning said.

  “And it was a good choice seeking out Professor Wallis.” He made it sound like it was a choice, when in fact he’d had very few. Promoting the professor’s qualification was a way to promote his own. Exalting his own wouldn’t be the done thing, but suggesting that the professor’s esteem has rubbed off on him was perfectly acceptable.

  “The good professor aside, a degree from a third-tier foreign school is never going to serve you well,” the judge said in low brusque tones.

  “No, of course not, but this time has framed and clarified my academic ambitious. A good teacher does bring out the joy in learning.” Okay, that sounded quite sappy, and Inns didn’t really know if this was going to work, but he had to put some spin on performing so poorly that he’d had to be relegated to foreign wilderness for his continued education. And with his coursework in Marbella, he had some marks that weren’t a complete shame to the family, and a good behavioural record. And most importantly, those marks were from an acknowledged academic. That had to count for something.

  Hopefully all the damage that he’d done himself was roughly, if not perfectly, overwritten. From what the family solicitors had said, the approval process for transferring students was more subjective than for graduating students.

  In a sense, it was even a miracle that he was fighting for this. Aching paralysis was the best way he could describe his last couple of years at school. Then there had been that fight where he’d nearly been expelled, the one that hadn’t been deemed completely sporting by everyone around him. Inns had snapped. This kid, who was even further down the rung than him had had the gall to disdain him. Inns had lost it. The kid had been concussed and hospitalised, and parents had been called.

  Along with his poor marks, it had been the death knell for entrance into any recognised university within the UK. No doubt, the Marbella Business School only accepted him along with a substantial donation. But if it provided a ticket back, it would be worth it.

  “Reform is commendable,” Lord Denning said.

  “Yes,” the judge agreed guardedly. It was so hard to read the judge and how this whole overture was being received.

  Lord Denning came to his assistance, and Inns knew they would have to thank him for it. “Well, we must do what we can for the boy,” Denning said, clapping Inns on the shoulder. It was as if the old guard had spoken. He was to be forgiven for his transgressions. The establishment was ready to accept him back, which meant that the judge not helping him would be seen as bad form. It didn’t one hundred percent mean that he had entrance, but his stocks were better than they had been yesterday.

  The men shifted away and Inns tried to steady his nerves, stop his hands from shaking. It wouldn’t do to shoot like a complete novice at this point. Worse was that Seb and the boys were watching as well. If Inns climbed back on
the pecking order he’d fallen off completely, it would still be that little bit less than. But the pecking order wasn’t completely immobile, either.

  Chapter 53

  Lauren had accepted his friend request and her whole profile and activities were now open to him. There were pictures of her kid and some vacation they’d gone on. He remembered her parents although they looked older and more grey. Scrolling further back, he saw every holiday—Thanksgiving, Halloween, Fourth of July, and he got a strong pang of homesickness.

  In LA, these holidays had simply meant parties, except Thanksgiving, when he’d flown his parents out to LA to spend a few days with him as he’d had a matter of hours off from his shooting schedule. In Wisconsin, these holidays meant so much more—decorations, costumes, barbeques and excited kids.

  As he watched, the cursor in the status box blinked at him. He wasn’t even sure she knew it was him. With this new account he’d set up, he had no pictures. There was too much danger there. If he took some, and she shared them, they would soon get around and his agent would go ballistic.

  He’d used the name Ronny H, which she would know. Only his mother still called him Ronny when they spoke on the phone, a hang-on from when he was a little kid.

  Shit, what should he do? He’d been staring at her profile for an hour. For all he knew, she hated his guts, and at this point, he would probably be better off not knowing that.

  Grabbing his phone, he walked out on the balcony and took a photo of the coastline and sea visible from his hotel room. He uploaded the photo, saying this was the view from Spain.

  Afterwards, he watched some TV, wondering if he should go out and do something. The driving push to always be working was starting to relent, but he still had no idea what to do with himself. Later in the afternoon, he would drive out to see Cheryl. He would probably find her doing something inane like potting, but it was surprising how much he enjoyed spending time with her doing all these mundane things. Probably, she would invite him to have dinner with her and the boys.

  It would be so easy to slip into a relationship with her. Cheryl was easy. She and her house were now the only anchors he had. He would simply drift if it wasn’t for her. She was so easy to talk to and there was never any judgement. It was strange how, of the hundreds of people who had drifted through his life, this woman, who he’d met randomly at a party, had stuck. How had he known that she would end up being a real person in his life? What was it she had said that had spelled that out for him? Perhaps it had been how suspicious she had initially been of him. If she’d grabbed on for dear life, he would have shook her off without a moment’s thought. But now, it was basically him holding onto her for dear life.

  Grabbing the hotel phone, he ordered a club sandwich for a late breakfast.

  He had to get out of this hotel, but he simply didn’t have a direction. His agent was still urging him to go back to LA, sending him scripts every single day, but he didn’t open them. He would disappear if he headed back to LA now. Something about all this felt very precarious. He had no grounding and he needed it. It was no secret what LA did to people with no grounding. You could actually tell the people who had it from those who didn’t. It was almost as blatant as a look in their eyes, and he didn’t want to be the vacant arsehole he’d been. By far not as bad as some, but not who he wanted to be either.

  Maybe he needed a shrink—not that they’d proved useful in the past with all their stupid questions about how he felt about it. ‘So how do you feel about suffering an identity crisis?’ He knew what the problem was, and a shrink was categorically not going to tell him what he needed to do.

  Room service arrived along with a collection of newspapers. World politics was frankly beyond him at the best of times, so he looked for cartoons in the back, or reviews for something else innocuous to read while he ate. Celebrity gossip wasn’t something he could tolerate reading either. He knew most of the people and what was written about them was all bullshit. And he particularly didn’t want to read about himself.

  Only crumbs were left of his sandwich and he wiped his hands on the linen napkin and leaned back, watching a sailboat glide past out his window. His eyes meandered back and were distracted by a little red notice on the menu of his computer. Lauren had liked his post. It had to be late in the evening back there. A little thumbs up had appeared underneath the picture.

  What did this mean? Thoughts rushed around his head. If nothing else, she wasn’t opposed to interacting with him.

  Sitting forwards, he leaned forwards on his elbows and considered what to do. His contact panel only had one name on it and she was clearly online. Did he dare message her?

  Would he be able to tolerate himself being a pussy about this?

  He clicked on her name and the message screen came up. Hey, he said and waited. She didn’t answer for a while and Roan pressed his thumbs against the bridge his nose as he waited. The writing symbol switched on. She was writing and Roan felt his pulse quicken.

  Hi Roan, how are you? Finally appeared in the message box. He didn’t know what to write back.

  How’s Spain? Appeared before he had a chance to say anything.

  Warm. Warm? That was all he could say? Nice. You’d like it. Was that too forward?

  The cursor blinked endless moments. God, this was awkward.

  How’s everything in Wisconsin? he wrote after a while.

  Good. The snow has started. Had to shovel the car out this morning.

  I don’t miss that.

  Not much snow in either LA or Spain. Are you filming in Spain?

  No, I’m having a break.

  Nice. It’s strange talking to you. It’s been so long.

  Too long.

  The cursor blinked.

  I saw that Sci Fi movie you did on the TV not so long ago. It was really good. You’re a good actor. You look a bit different.

  You don’t, except the hair.

  My profile photo is a bit old. It’s longer now.

  I remember how it was longer.

  This was growing even more and more awkward, but he couldn’t stop. It felt like some old floodgate was opening. Lauren had been his best friend, and he’d never had one since. As long as she stayed on, he could chat with her. It felt like no time had passed at all. As she wrote, he could even imagine her saying it in her voice, with her facial expressions. Everything was so familiar. His girl, Lauren.

  Chapter 54

  A knock at the door wasn’t surprising, but seeing Dominic Dunbury there made Cheryl speechless. She’d expected it to be Roan, who dropped in almost every day.

  “Dominic,” she said. “How are you?” What are you doing here? It was too rude to say, but the thought went through her head.

  His suit was sharp and perfectly tailored. There were few times when he didn’t look perfectly tailored. His dark hair had recently been trimmed.

  “Can I come in?”

  “Of course.” Although he usually didn’t ask. In her time knowing him, Dominic did exactly as he wanted. It seemed to not even occur to him to do anything but. “Is this a social call?”

  He turned to her almost with surprise. “I suppose it is more of an apology.”

  “Apology? What for? You have been nothing but kind to me.”

  There was always a certain stiffness to his stance, maybe even more so when he was with her than when she saw him unobserved. She’d known for quite some time that she made him uncomfortable. Their prickly past where she’d refused to bend to his will shaping their dealings since. In the end, he’d bent and they had both been aware of it, particularly as he hadn’t needed to. What made him do it, she still didn’t know.

  “It turns out I have also indirectly been harmful to you.”

  Cheryl’s insides cramped together with discomfort. Was he the origin of these rumours? Was that how she saw her? She wasn’t sure if she could face him if he saw her as some social climbing gold-digger. For some reason that would sting more than anyone else.

  “The source
of the rumours was a woman I dated.”

  “Oh,” she said with surprise. It had to be that stunning brunette she had seen him with. Cheryl had been jealous of her beauty and outright poise. That wasn’t something you could readily emulate. But to find out that the woman, who Cheryl had barely even been introduced to, had spread those nasty rumours about her, that was astounding. That exterior poise wasn’t reflected on the inside, it seemed. “I see. Why?”

  “She saw you as competition, I guess,” he said, looking around the house as he always did when he appeared. The large map of the coast was still unfolded with a few towns circled. He stopped and regarded it for a moment. He was too intelligent not to guess what she was doing. “Travel plans?”

  “Competition for what? That isn’t even logical.”

  “Jealousy never is.”

  “What would she have to be jealous about? My whole life wouldn’t be worth the shoes she wears. Very nice shoes, by the way.”

  “If by chance I speak to her, I will tell her.”

  Mortification flared up her. “Don’t do that.”

  “I was joking.”

  Of course, he was. Cheryl felt stupid. Well, that certainly explained all and nothing at the same time. What in the world did this woman have to be jealous of? This woman had torn her life apart, and for what? “I don’t understand.”

  “Your boyfriend is not here?”

  “Roan? He’s not… my boyfriend.” Exactly what he was, she wasn’t sure. Because he had hang ups about his childhood sweetheart, and also thought she had hang ups about Dominic, which was ridiculous. Not that she had told him anything about Dominic. It wasn’t a topic she even allowed herself to think about.