by Shelly Ellis
“Terry,” Evan said warningly. “Stay on script.”
Terrence rolled his eyes. “All right. All right! Well, anyway, congrats. This has been a long time coming—damn near twenty years! And I’m ecstatic that it’s finally . . . finally happening! Cheers!” Terry suddenly turned to his sister. “Did you want to add anything, little sis?”
“Not really,” she muttered before crossing her legs and sipping from her chilled glass.
Evan squinted. “Are you sure you’re okay, Paulette?”
“What does it matter?” She laughed coldly. “You guys are finally getting your happy ending—like Terry said. Who gives a shit about the rest of us?”
“Whoa! What’s with the attitude?” Terrence asked with a curl in his lip. “You’re bringing the room down, Paulette. Why are you acting so pissed off?”
She raised her eyes to glare at her future sister-in-law. “Maybe you should ask Lee that question.”
Leila lowered her glass to the fireplace mantle. “Why should they ask me? What did I do?”
“Nothing, Leila. You’ve done absolutely nothing,” she said sarcastically before slumping back into her chair and finishing her glass. “You never do anything wrong. You’re absolutely fucking perfect—or at least, that’s what you would like everyone to believe, right?”
Leila walked toward Paulette. Instead of anger at Paulette’s words, Leila’s features were etched with so much concern that Paulette wanted to laugh.
Of course, she wants to pretend like she cares now, Paulette thought, feeling the venom of anger coursing through her veins. Where was all that concern when she was betraying me?
“Honey, what’s wrong? You don’t want Ev and I to get married?” Leila asked as she drew near her. “Is that what this is about?”
“I couldn’t give a shit what you two do!” Paulette spat. “I don’t care about you getting married. What I care about is that you put my marriage at risk, you . . . you backstabbing bitch! I trusted you, Lee! You said you wouldn’t tell anybody!”
“Hold it right goddamn now!” Evan barked, striding across the sitting room. “I don’t know what the hell is going on, but you can’t talk to her that way! I won’t—”
But he stopped mid-motion and fell silent when Leila held up her hand and shook her head warningly at him.
“Don’t, Ev. Don’t, all right?” she said calmly before turning back to Paulette. She reached out for her and placed a warm hand on her shoulder. “Let’s not do this here. We should talk about this in private. Okay? We can go to another room and—”
“Oh, now you want to talk about this in private!” Paulette screamed, feeling herself coming even further unhinged. She shoved off Leila’s consoling hand. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. Even always unfazed Terrence was starting to look alarmed. “Now you want to pretend like secrecy means something to you? Why, Lee?” She shot up from her chair and glared into the other woman’s eyes, feeling all her rage come bubbling to the surface. “You want to protect your image in front of your new fiancé? You don’t want him to know what a liar and a schemer you are? How you ratted us out to Dante during your pillow talk? How you told him about Marques?”
“Who’s Marques?” Terrence asked, bewildered.
“A guy I fucked!” Paulette yelled.
She saw the look on her brothers’ faces change when she said those words. They morphed from outrage and confusion to total horror. She turned to stare at them both.
“That’s right! Little Sweet Pea fucked another guy! In fact, several different guys before I got married! And I had an abortion too!” she shouted, making Evan grimace like she had struck him. “Never would have guessed, huh, Ev? Huh, Terry? Not your innocent little sis. Well, I have . . . and I’ve done a lot worse . . . more things that neither of you would ever believe I could do so just ruminate on that!”
“Paulette, please don’t do this,” Leila said. “Don’t—”
“Don’t do what? Tell the truth? You want me to keep lying? Sure! Why not? Let’s keep pretending that we’re the perfect family and we have perfect lives and everything is going to work out just fine! Antonio will still love me when he finds out everything I did. Charisse will just miraculously disappear and you guys will get married and live happily ever after.” She clapped her hands and laughed again. “I’m sorry, Lee. I don’t believe in fairy tales. They don’t exist and you of all people should know that. Because the world isn’t perfect and people can’t be trusted—especially you!”
“But you can trust me!” Leila cried. “I never told Dante. I promised you I would take that secret to my grave, and I meant it!”
“Then how does he know? Why would he lie?”
Leila fell silent and so did Paulette’s brothers.
Leila closed her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t . . . I don’t know how he knows, but I swear I’m telling you the truth.”
“Of course, you would,” Paulette said.
“Paulette, sweetheart,” Evan said softly. The anger that had flooded his face earlier had now disappeared. He looked sad and disappointed instead. “Look, I understand why you’re angry, but are you really going to take Dante’s word over Lee’s? She’s practically family! We’ve known each other since we were kids. She loves you like a sister! Why would she betray you?”
“I don’t know, Ev,” she answered honestly. “I don’t know why she would betray me, but I know now that I can’t trust her . . . and if you’re smart, you won’t either.”
“Oh, come on!” Terrence shouted. “Damn it, this was supposed to be a happy occasion! This was supposed to be a good thing for once! Now we’re fucking it up again with all this drama. Let’s just sit down, have some of this weak-ass cider, eat some canapés, and cool off. Okay?” He turned to his sister. “Paulette, I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about, but don’t do this. I’m sure there’s a good explanation for all of it if you would just—”
“I didn’t do anything, Terry! I’m just pointing out what’s been done to me by Leila and calling her on it! Besides, why are you defending her? You guys are supposed to be my brothers,” she insisted, pointing at her chest, “not hers.”
“Because you’re not making sense!” Evan yelled. “You’ve been acting strange for months, Paulette, and now you flip out like this? What the hell did you expect us to do?”
She stared at her brothers. “I can’t believe it. Dante was right! He warned me about this.”
He told her, when it came down to it, everyone was alone. She should never assume her brothers would be in her corner. In the end, they—like everyone else—would turn on her.
“Since when did you get so chummy with Dante?” Terrence asked. A sneer was on his lips
“Since he was the only one willing to be honest with me,” she muttered. “To hell with this. To hell with all of you.”
With that, she grabbed her purse and walked out of the sitting room, leaving Leila, Evan, and Terrence completely stunned.
As she strode through the French doors and down the stone steps to her BMW, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed Dante’s number. He picked up on the first ring.
“Hello?” he answered.
“Dante,” she said before opening her car door, “how much are you offering for my shares?”
Chapter 27
EVAN
Evan was roused awake by the ringing of the phone on his night table. The instant he heard its shrill bleating in his dark bedroom, he cursed under his breath. He had only fallen asleep an hour and a half ago. He had lain awake staring at the ceiling, worried about Paulette, wondering when and why his relationship with his sister had gone so horribly wrong. Then, sometime around 2 a.m., the turbulent ocean that was his mind had finally, mercifully quelled long enough so that he drifted to sleep. But now Evan was awake again and annoyed.
“Who is that?” Leila asked drowsily as the phone continued to ring.
She was sleeping at his place tonight, a rare treat for them. Leila spent most of
her nights at the apartment she shared with her mother and daughter, though he had been trying for a while now to convince her to move her family into his mansion.
“I have no idea,” he muttered, wiping his eyes with the heels of his hands.
“Well . . .” She rolled onto her side and gazed at him in the dark. “Are you going to answer?”
Evan sighed and reached for the cordless phone. “Hello?” he grumbled.
“E-Evan?” a woman replied.
“Yes, who is this?”
“Evan, it’s me . . . Charisse.”
“Charisse?” He squinted in the confusion.
The voice on the other end of the line didn’t sound like his wife—technically his soon-to-be ex-wife, now that he had filed for separation. She sounded timid and confused. She also sounded a little scared.
“Charisse, why are you calling me?”
At the mention of his wife’s name, Leila frowned. She pushed herself up to her elbows and stared at him.
“Do you realize how late it is? I was—”
“Ev, I-I need your help. Please!” she sobbed. “Please help me!”
He instantly sat bolt upright in bed, pushing off the sheets and comforter. The cold air hit his bare torso and legs. His skin lit with goose bumps, though he wasn’t sure if it was from the chill or because of how desperate Charisse sounded.
“What’s wrong?” The haze of sleep had disappeared from his voice. His sluggish mind was clear now. “What happened?”
“I didn’t mean to do it! I swear, Ev! It was an accident.” She loudly sniffed. “They’re going to put me in jail.”
“Ev? Ev, what’s going on?” Leila whispered behind him and he held up his hand, motioning her to stay quiet.
Dear God, he thought. This is it.
The call he had anticipated for years while his drunken wife took a chance with her life and everyone else’s by insisting on driving. Had she finally hit the innocent pedestrian idly walking through a crosswalk?
“They want to charge me with . . . with all these things,” Charisse continued on the phone. “They want to keep me here overnight. But I didn’t hurt anybody! I didn’t kill anybody! I just ran into a-a empty yard and hit a street sign!”
No people were involved. At least there’s that, he thought, feeling some small parcel of relief. He fell silent as he listened to her weep on the other end.
“Evan, please . . . please help me,” she whispered, sounding a lot like a lost little girl at that moment. “Please don’t leave me alone here!”
He closed his eyes. “Where are you?”
“At the Chesterton Sheriff’s Office. They had me in a holding cell, but I could make one phone call. I called my mother and she’s not home . . . s-so I called you.” She paused. “I didn’t know.... I didn’t know who else to call.”
“Why didn’t you call Dante? He’s a lawyer. He could help you.”
“Dante doesn’t care. I-I know that now. He’s made it pretty clear.”
“Just hang up,” a voice in his head urged. “Or better yet, laugh in her face and tell her that you don’t give a damn if she rots in jail!”
Almost the entire time they had been married, she had acted like she had loathed him, like she would rather be married to any man but him. And she had cheated on him with his brother, for Christ’s sake! Yet, as he listened to her cry, he couldn’t work up enough anger or contempt to do what he had every right to do. He found himself feeling sorry for her.
“I’ll be there in less than an hour,” he said, his tongue heavy with reluctance.
“Oh, thank you! Thank you so much, Ev! I appr—”
He hung up, unable to listen to any more of her gushing. He sat on the edge of the bed with his head bowed.
“What happened to her?” Leila asked, startling him. For a minute there, he had forgotten she was in bed with him.
“Charisse had an accident. It sounds like she was driving drunk again. No one was hurt . . . or at least, she claims no one was hurt. She was arrested and now she’s at the Sheriff’s Office.”
Leila sat up and reached for the lamp on the night table nearest to her. The immense bedroom suddenly flooded with light. Evan could see Leila clearly now, though her facial expression wasn’t decipherable.
“You’re going to bail her out?”
“Yeah, she said she had no one else to call. But I need to make a few phone calls first. It sounds like she’ll need a lawyer.”
Leila slowly nodded, pushing her hair out of her eyes.
“You don’t . . . you don’t mind, do you?”
“Don’t mind what?”
“That I bail out Charisse.”
“She needs help, Ev. I don’t begrudge you for wanting to help her.” He watched as Leila hesitated. “As long as . . . well, you’re doing it for the right reasons.”
“Right reasons?”
“I mean as long as you aren’t doing it to protect the Murdoch name again. Or because you still . . .” Her words trailed off.
He turned around on the bed to face her. “Because I still what?”
“Because you . . . because you still have feelings for her.” She lowered her eyes. “If that’s the case, then I can leave.”
“Leave? Why would you leave? I’ve tried everything imaginable to get you here, short of putting you in handcuffs and dragging you to my bed!”
She pursed her lips and stared down at the sheets. He watched as she absently began to fiddle with the engagement ring on her finger, twirling it around and around. “I told you before that I can’t be the other woman again. I won’t be, Ev. So if you want to try to make your marriage work with Charisse, don’t let me—”
“Wait! Wait!” He reached for her hand. He held it and her ring firmly in place. He gazed into her eyes. “Let’s stop for a second here. I have no intention whatsoever of trying to reunite with Charisse. There is no way you could be the other woman again, Lee. You’re the only woman for me! You know that. Me posting bail for her and getting her a lawyer doesn’t change that.”
Leila stared at him a long time then finally nodded again. “Go ahead and make your phone calls.” She pulled her hand away from him then tossed back the bedsheets and stood. “I’ll get you some coffee. It sounds like you’ll need it.”
He watched as she grabbed a silk robe, put it on, and shuffled out of the bedroom, quietly shutting the door behind her.
“All right! So here’s the situation, Ms. Murdoch,” the lawyer said as he leaned forward on Charisse’s sofa in her new condo. He spread out a series of documents on the coffee table and adjusted his tie. “You’re being charged with DUI—obviously. The breathalyzer test placed your blood alcohol levels well above the legal limit.” He glanced at a copy of the police report and let out a low whistle. “Wow! I haven’t seen a level that high in quite a while!”
He guffawed, but neither Charisse nor Evan joined him in his laughter. He glanced at them both anxiously, then loudly cleared his throat.
“Uh, you’re also facing property damage charges,” the lawyer continued. “The homeowners say not only did you hit their fence and destroy a prized rosebush, but you also hit a Mercedes-Benz that was parked in the driveway.” He looked up at Charisse. “Any questions so far?”
Charisse shook her head. “No, keep going,” she murmured.
She sat with a bandage on her brow, nursing a cup of black coffee. She wasn’t wearing a lick of makeup and her blond hair was pulled into a severe ponytail. Despite the monthly visits to a plastic surgeon for face peels and Botox injections, she looked like she had aged about ten years overnight.
“And finally, we have the disorderly conduct and resisting arrest charge. The homeowners said you yelled and cursed at them, I believe. The arresting officer claimed that you were combative when he tried to get you to perform a sobriety test. He said you slapped him and kicked him when he tried to place you in handcuffs. It took a second officer to subdue you.”
Her brows furrowed. She winced. “I don�
��t . . . I don’t remember any of that.”
The lawyer chuckled again. “Most people don’t in these situations, Ms. Murdoch.”
“Please . . . call me Charisse,” she said, glancing sheepishly at Evan. “I don’t think I’ll be Ms. Murdoch for much longer.”
The lawyer looked at Evan. “Oh.”
Evan didn’t say anything. He sat across from Charisse, looking grim. He was meeting with the lawyer to find out just how bad the charges Charisse was facing were. The more he heard, the dourer his mood and facial expression became.
The Chesterton Times had already run a story in the morning paper. They had somehow managed to get a copy of Charisse’s mug shot. His wife had looked glassy eyed and out of it. A cut had been on her brow where her head had hit the steering wheel as she plowed thirty yards up the front lawn of a lovely Tudor on Pembroke Lane. She was lucky she had only hit the fence, rosebush, and Mercedes. She had nearly taken out the side of the house too.
“The bad news is,” the lawyer continued, “a DUI in the state of Virginia comes with a minimum penalty. With your blood alcohol level, you will have to serve a minimum of ten days in jail.”
“What?” Charisse yelled. “You mean I have to go back to that place?”
“That’s the law unfortunately.”
Evan closed his eyes, envisioning his wife in an orange jumpsuit, forced to share a cell and an open toilet with three other women. Charisse had thought the condo was a major step down. What the hell was she going to think about living in prison?
“You could also face up to a year of prison for all the combined charges—three years if the judge decides to run them consecutively.”
Charisse let out a groan and raised her fist to her mouth and bit on her knuckle. “I couldn’t! I’d die in there! I’d—”
“But, ” the lawyer said, holding up his hand, “the good news is that this is your first criminal charge . . . your first DUI. I highly doubt the prosecutor would seek such a stiff penalty on a first offense. We can put in a guilty plea and offer the state’s attorney’s office a deal. Maybe you can get away with the ten days and that will be it.”