"Single," he said after a pause.
"Single and damaged? Single and carefree? Single and pining or single and secretly gay?" Amoy asked.
Yuri laughed. "I take it there is not just single anymore?"
"Not in my world," Amoy grinned. "So which one are you?"
Yuri shook his head. "I am just single."
"Single, handsome, rich and in denial," Amoy said, turning to him fully. "I can see the hesitation at the back of your eyes when you said just single, which means you are either single and damaged or single and pining. Those are fine, I can deal with those. I have dealt with them before. It’s the curse of twenty-first century life. What I can’t deal with is single and secretly gay. Been there, done that and hated it."
Yuri laughed. "And you are what, single and cynical?"
"Nope. Single and perceptive. I am cynical to a point, yes. I have to be. I was a criminal lawyer for three years. Now I am just a boring corporate attorney. I hardly go to court anymore."
Yuri laughed out loud. He liked Amoy. She was refreshing.
"So I heard that you are planning to buy a house near here." Amoy batted her eyes coyly, "I could help you decorate since you and I have similar tastes."
"I would like that." Yuri smiled.
He was suddenly feeling lighter and better than he had in six weeks.
Amoy nodded. "It’s time for us to go into dinner. It’s a good thing I arranged the seating so that I’ll be seated next to you, isn't it?"
Yuri looked at her and shook his head. "Have we met before?"
"No, Mr. Scarlett, but I saw you in the parking lot of our business premises and I told my brother that he had better invite you tonight and after just one conversation I am getting the feeling that we are going to get on like a house on fire!"
*****
Yuri drove home after the party with a smile on his face and Amoy's number boring a hole in his pocket. He had promised to call her, and he would. She was different, refreshingly so. There was a lot that could be said for a woman that was forthright and honest and unattached and liked him and was not afraid to let him know.
She was the opposite of Marla. That was a big part of her appeal. Amoy was nothing like Marla. And that was more important than anything else.
He didn't feel like protecting her, nor did he feel helpless and emotionally choked up around her.
No baggage.
No past history.
Amoy didn't marry his best friend. She didn't even know where on the map Treasure Beach was, though she had heard of it.
It was good. She was perfect. He really could see the two of them getting on like a house on fire, as she had said.
He turned on the car radio. He had to slow down and fumble with it for a while. He had not familiarized himself with the controls yet. He finally found a station that sounded crystal clear. The deejay announced a new song by Passenger, Let Her Go. He resigned himself to listening to the station. He had no idea who Passenger was but he needed to get going and he wanted to hear something in the car while he headed down the hill.
They played the song twice; apparently the disc jockey loved it too. Only know you love her when you let her go...and you let her go.
The haunting melody of the song followed him all the way to the third floor of his apartment and then Marla was back in his head with a vengeance.
He let himself into the apartment and headed for the fridge at the same time that his phone rang.
He grabbed it out of his pocket and glanced at it. It was Ricky. The call he had been dreading.
He couldn't take this right now. He couldn't talk to Ricky. Not after what he and Marla had done.
He cut the call and sat in his favorite chair in the dark. The phone rang again and he turned off the phone. If he was going to be totally honest with himself, now was the time to do it. He had always thought that he was morally better than Ricky.
Ricky had been the rich one with a bottomless pocket but he, Yuri, was the one with the rock-solid family with the bottomless love. Ricky had been the kind of person who went to nightclubs and enjoyed a varied and somewhat checkered sex life.
But Yuri had been the one who went to church services, sometimes three times per week, with his family. They didn't just visit, they participated. He knew Bible stories, he heard the lessons, he knew right from wrong, he prayed to God earnestly when he was helpless. He was fastidious with his sex life; he had kept himself until he had become slightly unhinged several years ago after Marla had gotten married to Ricky.
He had turned into something of a man whore. He had slept with more women than he cared to think about. Luckily, he had wised up after a year, when he had come to realize that he was feeling more guilt than pleasure.
As a matter of fact, that and anger were the only emotions that had fueled his actions. Apart from that lapse, he had always known he was a better person than Ricky. And Ricky knew it too.
But not now. Now he had slept with Ricky's wife. Whether they had consummated their relationship or not, Marla was Ricky's wife and he had slept with her. He could no longer claim a moral high ground.
He didn't know if he even wanted to talk to Ricky again.
He pulled himself out of the chair and headed for the fridge. He swigged down a bottle of water without even stopping to breathe.
No matter how he wished it, no matter how much he had thought that he had moved on, Marla, Ricky, and Treasure Beach had a tight hold on him.
Chapter Ten
Ricky wheeled himself into his office and slammed the door shut. Things were not working out as he hoped, and he hated that. Yuri had cut him off.
How dare he?
He grabbed the phone and dialed SofServ's number. He couldn't believe that Yuri was pushing him to do this, but he had no choice.
Yuri was not answering his cell phone. He had been trying for the past couple of weeks. He had to act.
Yuri was driving him to this. Marla was already three months pregnant and he needed to rub Yuri's face in it. He needed his friend to know that he was going to be a father but never a dad.
Never. Not to this child.
This child was going to be his to do with as he wished. He would mold him and shape him as he wished and there would be nothing that Yuri Scarlett could do about it.
Ricky waited for the phone to ring for the managing director’s office. He would buy the business. Why he hadn't done it sooner, he didn't know. He should have done something as soon as Yuri had expressed an interest in it.
"Mr. Ripon's office," the voice broke into his reverie.
"Yes, Mr. Ripon please," Ricky said, putting on his best business-like voice.
"Who may I say is calling?" the secretary asked.
"Ricardo Mills," Ricky said, wishing that he had gotten his father's name. Mills sounded so ordinary; Stravinsky was known and respected the world over. He had stopped introducing himself as Stravinsky a long time ago though. His mother had ordered him to stop. Apparently his father's widow didn't like it. Besides, he was never registered with that name.
"What is this about, Mr. Mills?" The secretary had adopted an even more clipped and professional tone.
"I want to buy the company," Ricky said impatiently. "I heard it's on sale. I have money."
"Okay," she said quickly, and the next thing he knew a buoyant voice was on the phone.
"Mr. Mills. How may I help you?"
"Is this Frank Ripon?"
"Yes. Yes," Ripon said, his voice excited. "It is."
"I heard you are selling the company."
"I was," Ripon said, "but it is gone, already sold. We are just finalizing paperwork, actually."
"Oh." Ricky grinned. Suddenly his mood was lifted. Poor Yuri. He slept with Marla and then he was afraid to face him and the company that he had been so wild about was sold. He must be down and out now.
Why hadn't he contacted him to beg for money?
"Well, that's good news for you, I am sure," Ricky said.
"T
he best," Frank Ripon said. "I get to spend more time with the family now."
"Well, all the best," Ricky said insincerely and put the phone down. He didn't want to hear one more person harping on about family. The word family irritated him and made him irrationally angry. He supposed that some therapist somewhere would call his feelings envy.
Just like that bug-eyed doctor that his mother had sent him to when he had been fifteen and living in Switzerland with her for a while. The doctor had declared that his feelings toward Yuri were obsessive. He guessed the therapist thought so because he had spent most of his time talking about Yuri. He had to remind the stupid bug-eyed man that didn't have a crush on Yuri Scarlett; he was completely straight.
In fact, he had spent most of his teenage years lusting after Terri Scarlett, but after a while he had stopped because Terri was obviously too hostile to tango with.
But from the moment he met Yuri he had a fixation on him.
He used to follow Yuri around without him knowing. He had watched him and his grandfather down at the beach repairing nets. He had watched him cycling through the neighborhood with his other friends.
He watched him with Marla, how he looked at her with such a protective air. He watched him with his family, how he had a great rapport with his father. How he helped his mother and was caring toward her. How he joked with his sister and was playful with his brother.
Yuri was a family man through and through. And for a long time that had fascinated him. He couldn't fathom why a boy his age was so enmeshed with his family.
He remembered the year that he had insisted that he be sent to Jamaica for high school. His mother had finally acquiesced. He had been kicked out of several boarding schools by then anyhow, and she was at her wits’ end as to what to do with him.
By then she was freshly married to her third husband and had not cared one iota about what he was doing with himself anyway.
He had happily settled down in the insignificant quiet Treasure Beach because Yuri was here.
His so-called obsession was on full blast. He didn't care about beaches and pretty vistas. He had traveled widely, and there were nicer places in his opinion, and nicer people too, because everybody in Treasure Beach seemed to hate him.
He couldn't blame them; he had gone out of his way when he was younger to disturb the peace in his earlier stays there. His last nanny had called him an unmanageable, untamable hooligan. And that about summed up his behavior.
Yuri was the only one who had tolerated him for long. And except for the poverty factor, sometimes he wished he was Yuri. Sometimes he wished that they could exchange places at least once, and then he became obsessed with wanting Yuri to be obsessed with him too. But Yuri never budged.
He had quickly found that Yuri could not be bought. He was not as impressed with material things as he should be. He had never had anything that Yuri wanted until he saw the opportunity to be with Marla.
Ricky hadn't even liked Marla when they were younger. He didn't see what Yuri found so fascinating in her.
She was a pretty girl-next-door type who was on the quiet side. She smiled shyly whenever Yuri was around. She didn't say much to add to any conversation, she was not as spirited and opinionated as Terri, nor was she forceful and demonstrative as he liked his women.
Marla was simply vanilla. Unmemorable. If he hadn't been in that freak accident and if he had the use of his legs and his lower anatomy he would cheat on her, he was sure of it—vanilla didn't interest him.
But Yuri used to talk all the time about marrying Marla. And suddenly it had clicked. If he wanted Yuri to want something that he had, he had to marry Marla first. He would finally have something that Yuri wanted.
It would be the same with the baby too.
Yuri would want this baby.
A smile crossed Ricky's face and suddenly he felt better. There was no rush to get in touch with Yuri Scarlett; he was going nowhere. He would eventually find out that Marla was pregnant and when he did, Ricky would have his attention.
****
Marla banged on Ricky's office door forcefully. She had knocked before but he did not respond.
"I know you are in there!"
"It's opened." Ricky barely raised his voice.
Marla knew that he did it deliberately because he sensed how upset she was.
"I have to go to the hospital; it's my dad."
"What happened to the old goat?" Ricky asked, only half interested in her response. John Roundtree was little more than scum to him. He had inherited him when he bought Villa Ingles from the previous owners.
He had been the handyman, gardener, general dog’s-body before, and he kept him on even though he knew he had been the town drunk and was unreliable when it came to work. But he needed him to stick around to remind Marla that they were both under threat.
"Did you hear me?" Marla asked, a stricken look on her face.
"No. Forgive me," Ricky said. "When you mentioned your father I tuned out."
"He had a stroke," Marla said hurriedly. "They found him this morning in a ditch near Calabash Bay. They are taking him to Black River Hospital. I am going to meet him there."
"No, you are not," Ricky snarled. "Not alone. I'll get Jason to go with you."
His new security guy. Marla's heart deflated. Ever since her night on Sherman's Cove with Yuri, Ricky had upped his constant surveillance of her.
She couldn't even move without him being suspicious. He thought she would make up such a serious lie about her father to escape. It was ridiculous but these days she didn't have the strength to argue and she was finding that she was lacking the willpower to put up more than the token fight.
"Fine." She closed the door and leaned on it.
She was feeling nauseous today, ever since she heard about her father's condition. He was her only family in the world and she realized that despite his faults she loved him. If anything happened to him now she would be alone. Except for this baby. She cupped her still-flat belly.
She roused herself from her contemplation when Jason cleared his throat and nodded to her.
"Mr. Mills said you wanted to go to the hospital?"
"Yes." She nodded shakily.
Jason walked before her. He was a big, muscular fellow from a new security firm. Ricky had fired the old one.
Marla sighed. Him following her was totally unnecessary; she wasn't going to run away. She didn't like her jailer but she wasn't going to exchange her gilded prison for something far less savory.
Jason headed for the Range Rover and she followed him slowly. Usually she would protest about taking her own car but today she was not up to it. She must be more shaken than she had initially thought.
Marla got into the car and leaned into the seat. Her phone rang shortly after they drove off and her father's friend, Rose, who had found him in the ditch, was on the other end.
"They admitted him," Rose said dryly. "He is not moving or responding."
Marla's hand trembled on the phone. "I am on my way."
"Okay." Rose sighed. "Don’t panic too much Marla. You must know that John was on a downward spiral for years now. This was a long time coming."
"I know but I am still concerned. He is my only family, you know."
"I know," Rose said softly.
When she hung up, Marla shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
Jason looked over at her. "You and your dad are close, huh?"
Marla looked at him, startled. Usually Ricky's security guys acted as if they were invisible. The one before this was especially good at it; sometimes Marla forgot that he was around.
She couldn't even remember his name now. Obviously, this one had not gotten the memo that she was not to be talked to.
"Not really," Marla finally answered. "My dad always had issues but he was my dad. He’d do anything for me."
"You are one lucky lady," Jason said cheerfully. "Your dad loves you and would do anything for you and your husband thinks the world of you; he even has a securi
ty detail on you twenty-four hours. Considering that Treasure Beach is a very low crime area and at the end of nowhere, you must be one important lady."
Marla couldn't help it; she laughed…and before she knew it, she started sobbing. Big gasping gulps that shook her entire frame. She was so massively unhappy.
Jason looked at her, concern lighting his eyes. "Mrs. Mills, what did I say?"
"It's not what you said," Marla gulped and searched in her bag for a wipe. "I guess I am overdue for a cry."
Jason nodded.
"And I am not precious to my husband," she added, not caring if Jason reported the conversation. She was feeling reckless these days. "I am in prison. I guess that would make you the warden. Ricardo Mills is my jailer. An evil fiend in a wheelchair."
Jason stopped the vehicle. Marla didn't even realize that they weren't moving until she looked to the side of the vehicle and realized that the trees were stationery.
She looked at his beefy profile and felt a shaft of fear slice through her. "Did he order you to kill me?"
"No!" Jason was frowning fiercely now. "What on earth is going on?"
Marla laughed shakily. "Well, now that's a relief that you aren't going to kill me. As for the rest, I can't..."
Jason shook his head. "You can tell me."
"Ricky pays you to watch me. He's probably watching us right now. The vehicle is probably bugged and when I tell you, he is going to find some way to get back at me or the Scarletts."
"The who?" Jason was looking at her as if she was a complex puzzle and some of the pieces were missing.
"Scarletts," Marla repeated. "It's a long story."
"We have some time." Jason started the car again. "And since I am going to be staying with you at the hospital I have nothing else to do but listen."
Marla swallowed, looking at Jason suspiciously. "I don't trust you."
Jason shrugged. "Fine. Your husband pays me—well, he pays the company for me to be your security—but I can assure you that I do have a free will. I have been working security for years, Mrs. Mills, but I have never been referred to as a prison warden. That alone has me curious. Did you commit some crime?"
Scarlett Baby (The Scarletts Page 7