by Shelly Ellis
“Is . . . is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine,” Paulette answered quickly. A little too quickly, in Leila’s opinion. She watched as Paulette reached for a sugar packet, ripped it open, and sniffed.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m . . . I’m sure.” A solitary tear spilled onto Paulette’s cheek and she wiped it away with the back of her hand. She poured the sugar into her tea, grabbed a straw, and began to stir.
Leila sat down on the sofa beside her. “You know you can talk to me. I know we’re not as close as we were back when you were a teenager, but I’m here for you now like I was back then. That hasn’t changed.”
Paulette sniffed again and turned away from her. She murmured something in reply that Leila couldn’t hear.
“What did you say?” she asked, placing a consoling hand on Paulette’s shoulder.
“I said that I can’t, Lee! I just can’t. I’m too humiliated. I can’t believe I did this shit to myself all over again! I’m so fucking stupid!”
She was crying more now and Leila quickly rose from the sofa to grab some tissues from a box on the edge of her desk. She glanced at the rest of the office, where a few passersby stared at Paulette curiously through the glass enclosure that surrounded Leila’s office. Leila handed a few tissues to Paulette and watched as the younger woman wiped her eyes.
“Let’s go somewhere else,” she whispered to Paulette, feeling several eyes now watching them. “We should talk about this in private.”
Leila could have closed the blinds, but it still didn’t seem private enough, not with Evan only a few feet away.
Paulette nodded weakly and lowered her tea cup back to the table.
A minute later, Leila guided the younger woman into an empty conference room and shut the door behind them. She pulled out one of the twelve leather roll-away chairs from the table in the center of the room and gestured for Paulette to sit down. She then took the chair adjacent to her.
“Now tell me what’s wrong,” Leila said.
“I’ve ruined my marriage,” Paulette began, now sobbing. “I’ve ruined everything! I let some asshole blackmail me into cheating on my husband. And if Antonio finds out, I don’t know what I’m going to do!”
Leila gazed at Paulette in shock. “What are you talking about? Why are you cheating on Antonio? With who?”
“Marques,” Paulette whispered. She twisted the tissue in her hands. “My ex . . . the one who got me pregnant.”
Leila closed her eyes. Now she knew why that name sounded so familiar.
“He said that he was going to tell Antonio about the baby . . . about the abortion, I mean, if I didn’t give him money. I was so afraid, Lee! Antonio thinks of me as this perfect little wife. Sometimes, he even calls me his black Barbie. We were already fighting. I didn’t want to make things worse so I-I-I just gave Marques the money, but . . . but it got to be too much! He asked for money constantly. When I tried to tell him no more, he drugged me.”
Lee’s eyes flashed open. She gaped in horror.
“He raped me, Lee!” Paulette said between sobs. “And he took a video of it. He said he would send the video to Antonio and that’s how he blackmailed me into having this . . . this affair. And now he still wants more money. But I don’t have it. My trust fund limits how much money I can get each year and I’m already at my limit.” She shook her head. “I’m an idiot, right? I’m a moron for getting myself into this.”
“No, you’re not,” Leila answered quietly. She reached out and placed her hands over Paulette’s trembling ones. “You didn’t want to hurt or disappoint Antonio and Marques took advantage of that.” She gazed into the younger woman’s eyes. “But you can’t let him do it to you anymore. You have to go to the police.”
Paulette furiously shook her head. “I can’t! I can’t, Lee!”
“Yes, you can! That son of a bitch should go to jail for what he’s done to you!”
“Didn’t you hear what I said? I don’t want Antonio to find out. If I went to the police, I’d have to press charges. If I did that, there’s no way Antonio wouldn’t discover what’s been going on. What if the story gets leaked to the local newspapers? Antonio would be humiliated. My entire family would—”
“Damn it, none of that matters, Paulette!”
“Jesus, what is it with the Murdochs?” Leila thought with exasperation. They were obsessed with maintaining their reputations, with keeping up appearances, and the only thing it did was make them miserable.
“Look, you said yourself that you don’t have any more money to give him,” Leila argued. “What other choice do you have but to go to the police?”
“You’re wrong. I do have another choice. That’s why I’m here today. I was going to ask Ev to give me a loan of about a hundred grand or so. That should be more than enough. Maybe then, Marques will finally leave me alone!”
“Paulette, you can’t honestly think Marques is going to stop after you give him even more money. You weren’t being stupid before, but if you do this, you’re a fool!”
Paulette angrily yanked her hands away. She glared at Leila. Her expression became stony. “I’m a fool?”
“Or a smart woman who’s lying to herself!”
“So what if I am, Lee? I wouldn’t be the first person to lie to myself, would I? My mother did it for the thirty plus years that she was married to my dad, telling herself that she could make him love her. Evan does it every day that he stays married to his wife, pretending like no one notices that those two can barely stand each other. And I bet you do it too, pretending that you and Evan can carry on this little charade . . . that things aren’t going to come to a head and he’s not going to be angry, hurt, and rejected all over again! We all lie to ourselves!”
Leila winced. That last jab particularly stung. She opened her mouth to reply just as the meeting room door opened.
“Oh! I’m sorry,” said the young man who stood in the doorway. He held a laptop in his hands. “I didn’t know anyone was in here. I thought this room was reserved for ten o’clock IT review. I can come back if—”
“No, you can have the room,” Paulette said while shoving herself away from the table and rising to her feet. “We were just leaving.”
Five minutes later, Evan’s meeting ended and he was surprised to see that his sister had paid him a visit.
“I didn’t know you’d be here today,” he said, looking genuinely elated at seeing Paulette there. He embraced his sister as Leila sat quietly at her desk.
By now, all of Paulette’s tears had dried. She had artfully reapplied her makeup in the women’s room so that she looked as beautiful as she had when she’d walked into the building. Evan had no idea about the little meltdown his baby sister had had only minutes ago. He had no idea about the upheaval now going on in her life either.
“Lee, will you hold my calls?” Evan asked as he ushered Paulette into his office.
Leila nodded. “Sure,” she said just as he closed the door behind him.
When she heard the lock click, Leila closed her eyes and lowered her head, saying a little prayer for Paulette. She hoped everything would be okay. She hoped that things would turn out all right for the younger woman, but a part of her—the one that was now cold and hollow—knew it wasn’t likely. It wasn’t likely at all.
Chapter 19
LEILA
Leila lowered the tinted window of the Lincoln Town Car, held her hand over her eyes to shield against the sun glare, and peered at the pedestrians wandering through downtown L.A. It was a gentrified area that had been once known as seedy, but now only a few homeless people bothered to tread the streets of San Figueroa and West Olympic.
While the driver dodged through L.A. traffic, Leila took in the sights. She beamed, feeling like an absolute tourist, when they passed the Grammy Museum, the Staples Center, and L.A. Live. She and Evan were on their way to the Ritz-Carlton, where they would be staying for their brief business trip.
“So how
does it feel to be back on the West Coast?” Evan asked from beside her.
Leila sat back in her seat after slowly rolling back up the window. She turned to Evan and grinned. “It feels a hell of a lot better than when I left! It feels damn near wonderful!”
He chuckled. “You’re in a good mood.”
“How could I not be?”
She had been traveling like a queen and treated like a high-level celebrity all day.
I could get used to this, she thought as she slumped back into the plush leather seat. Classical music played over the car speakers. A small television in the headrest in front of her showed stock and business news.
This is the life!
She had flown on her first private jet—a Gulfstream G550—that took them from Dulles to LAX. While Evan had scanned his BlackBerry and reviewed documents from his briefcase during the flight, Leila had been giddy with excitement as she peered out the jet’s windows, barely able to stay in her seat. She had sampled the complimentary champagne and the wine and cheese the charter service had offered for the flight. She had dumped a few complimentary mints in her purse, along with the soap from the women’s room, as keepsakes.
Then, when they arrived in L.A., a driver had greeted them as soon as they stepped out of the gate and quickly ushered them to the waiting car. A fleet of airport personnel had been there to take their bags, which were being shuttled in a separate car even though it was only two suitcases. Now they were pulling up to the VIP entrance of one of the best hotels in town.
“Welcome to the Ritz-Carlton,” the doorman said as he held open their car door.
“Thank you,” Leila murmured in reply.
The driver of the other Town Car unloaded their luggage, which a hotel bellhop placed on a luggage cart.
A woman wearing a black skirt and crisp white blouse stood near the revolving door, smiling. “Mr. Murdoch? Ms. Hawkins?”
They nodded.
“My name is Ingrid. I’m with the concierge staff. I’m here to show you to your suites.” She gestured to the door. “Please come with me.”
They stepped through the revolving doors and Leila gazed in awe at the hotel’s foyer: the high ceilings, the marble floors, the sumptuous topiaries in stone vases. As they neared the elevator that would take them to one of the penthouse suites, where Evan would be staying (Leila would stay at one of the slightly cheaper, though still outrageously lavish, suites on another floor), she shook her head in amazement.
“What?” Evan asked, finally glancing up from his BlackBerry. The whole time she had been gawking, he had been checking his email and prattling on the phone.
“How do you do this every day?”
“Do what?”
“Take all this luxury as a given,” she said as she gestured to the sumptuous lobby. “You’re so blasé about it.”
He shrugged while Ingrid pressed the up button for them. “I don’t know. I guess because . . . I grew up with it.”
Having everything at your fingertips and having people fawn over you were definitely things Leila Hawkins hadn’t experienced. She remembered her childhood as being tough. She remembered her mother working multiple jobs just to pay the bills. She knew that Evan had grown up very differently. She hadn’t been blind. She had visited his home enough back when they were younger, but seeing all this and experiencing it firsthand were reminders of just how different their lives were.
Damn, he’s rich!
The elevator doors opened, and Ingrid turned to them and continued to smile her beatific smile. “This will take you to the top floor, where another hotel staffer will be waiting for you at your suite. Thank you again for staying with us, Mr. Murdoch and Ms. Hawkins.”
Evan nodded and Leila followed suit, afraid if she spoke out loud she would start gushing again and embarrass herself by showing how gauche she was.
They boarded the elevator and she slumped back against the wall, watching the numbers overhead as they ascended to the top floor.
“ ‘Must be nice’ . . . I remember thinking that back in high school.”
“Thinking what?”
“That it must be nice to be a Murdoch. I mean . . . you guys get everything! You—”
“We don’t ‘get everything,’ Lee. Not by a long shot. Money can buy you a lot of things, but it can’t buy you happiness.” He paused to tuck his cell phone into his breast pocket. “I was just saying that to Paulette the other day, but I’m not sure if the message got through to her.”
Leila fell silent at the mention of Paulette’s name.
“Have you spoken with her, by the way?” he asked, turning his penetrating gaze on Leila. “Has she . . . has she mentioned anything to you?”
Leila’s eyes widened. She cleared her throat. “Umm, no,” she lied. “W-w-why?”
“That day Paulette came to my office, she asked me for something. I didn’t want to give it to her at first, but she sounded so . . . so desperate, Lee. I couldn’t turn her down.”
“What was she so desperate about? Did she tell you what was wrong?”
“No! That’s the problem. She wouldn’t tell me any details. She said she couldn’t tell me. But I don’t like it, Lee. What she asked me to do . . . all the secrecy . . . I’m really starting to worry about her.”
Leila felt the overwhelming urge to tell Evan the truth. She wanted to tell him that he should be worried about his sister because Paulette was in a lot of trouble. But how could she betray Paulette like that? If Paulette hadn’t told Evan the truth, then it wasn’t Leila’s job to do it.
“But Paulette’s digging herself into an even deeper hole,” a voice in her head argued. “Maybe if you told Evan what’s going on, he could talk some sense into her. He could help her!”
Leila bit the inside of her cheek, now facing a dilemma. She didn’t want to break Paulette’s trust, but she hated keeping a secret like this. This wasn’t like the secret she’d kept for Paulette more than a decade ago. This was much, much bigger, and the price Paulette could pay for continuing to be blackmailed by her ex could be immeasurable.
“Ev . . .” Leila took a deep breath. “Ev, I have to—”
Just then the elevator doors opened, causing Leila to stop mid-sentence. They were greeted by a young man in a dark suit with a gold name tag with the Ritz-Carlton emblem pinned near his lapel.
“Hello, I’m Kevin! Welcome to the Ritz Carlton!”
Leila instantly fell silent as Kevin ushered them down the hall to Evan’s suite, where she checked every detail to make sure the accommodations were as Evan had requested.
As she followed the hotel staffer from room to room, asking questions that a competent assistant should ask, she got the gnawing feeling that she’d missed a golden opportunity in the elevator that she might regret later.
I should have said something, she thought as she glanced at Evan, who had returned to talking on his BlackBerry.
But the topic of Paulette would never come up again, not while they finished checking into their hotel rooms, took a chauffeured car ride to a downtown office building, or ran to a flurry of business meetings that would last well into the evening. By the time they returned to the Ritz-Carlton, they were both exhausted and in no mood to talk at all. They walked through the lobby, which was teeming with even more people than when they first arrived. All the patrons looked as if they were preparing for a night on the town. Meanwhile, Leila and Evan planned to spend the night in their respective hotel rooms, recovering from the jam-packed day and jet lag.
“I’m going to take a hot bubble bath, then sleep forever!” Leila groaned as they boarded the elevator.
“Not forever. We have more meetings tomorrow starting at 9 a.m.”
She nodded and sighed, before glancing down at her business phone, which was buzzing. She dug her phone out of her purse and raised it to her ear.
“Hello, Leila Hawkins speaking.”
“Hi, Leila! Glad I finally caught you!” said Carl, the assistant to Murdoch Conglomerated’s COO.
“Carl? What’s wrong?” She glanced down at her watch. It was a little past 7 p.m. West Coast time, and after 10 p.m. on the East Coast, where the headquarters were located. If Carlton was calling at this late hour, something was definitely amiss.
“We have a little emergency on our hands over here,” he said, confirming her worst fears.
“What emergency?”
Overhearing her conversation, now even Evan was frowning.
“I emailed you earlier, but I guess you didn’t get it,” Carl explained. “Joe tried to contact Mr. Murdoch too, but had no luck. We figured you guys were busy. It’s about the new warehouses the company is purchasing.”
As Leila listened to Carl talk on the other end of the line, her shoulders fell. The details were above her head, but it all sounded like she and Evan weren’t going to get any rest any time soon.
There goes that bubble bath, she thought sadly.
“Okay, I’ll have Mr. Murdoch call Mr. O’Brien as soon as he can, Carl. Will do . . . bye,” she murmured before hanging up.
“What was that about?” Evan asked.
“I’m not quite sure.” She dropped her phone back into her purse. “Something involving warehouses and a refrigeration system, I think. Joe say he has to talk to you about it immediately.”
“Shit,” Evan said as the elevator doors opened.
“Shit indeed,” she mumbled.
An hour later, Leila was gathering printouts of documents corporate had emailed from the printer in Evan’s hotel suite. Evan sat in an armchair with his laptop open on the ottoman in front of him, making the suite’s living room his makeshift office.
“Yes, I’m looking at it now, Joe,” he said into his cell phone as she walked into the living room and placed the neatly stacked sheets on the ottoman cushion beside his laptop. “I’ll review the docs tonight and tomorrow when I get the chance. I’ll be ready to discuss it with you Tuesday.” He shook his head. “No apologies necessary. We’ll figure this out.... Now get some sleep. Talk to you tomorrow, Joe.”
She watched as he hung up and set his BlackBerry on a nearby end table. He then tiredly ran his hands over his face before glancing at her.