Last Time We Kissed_A Second Chance Romance

by Nicole Snow

  “I visited the tomb,” she cuts in, a smile pulling her lips up at their corners. “Amazing what money like yours can buy, isn't it?”

  “Uh, it came out of his estate. My brothers and his wife at the time did the arrangements. I gave the okay, wasn't as involved as they were, so I wouldn't know.”

  “Such a shame. You always were the one who had it hardest, weren't you? The servants said he wasn't quite the monster he became when your older brothers were home. Have you even seen his grave?”

  “Not since the funeral.” What the fuck is she getting at?

  “You should. It's beautiful, the gold and stone and onyx. Especially his name, chiseled into the plaque that'll probably last forever. I love the way it caught my spit when no one else was looking.”

  Anger cracks through my expression, before I regain control a second later. She's trying to get to me. I can't let her.

  “What do you want, Ericka?”

  Her eyes darken, and she leans forward in her seat, clasping her hands. “I want you to leave my daughter alone, Luke. Finish your little movie, and then never talk to her again. Believe it or not, I'm doing you a favor. Don't piss on my kindness, or you'll regret it.”

  “I'm not going anywhere. We're involved, Ericka, and that's not going to change.” I don't flinch at her vague threats. The bitch doesn't blink. We stare, while I decide the only option left is nuclear. “I'm sorry you don't like me. I'm sorry my dad got under your skin, did some fucked up things, and got in the middle of a family that was going to pieces, without his interference or not. Did you know I got your husband in rehab years ago? You abandoned him the day you stormed out with Robbi in tears. I called the ambulance to take him in because no one else would. I tried to fix your mistakes, just like I'm doing now.”

  “Watch your mouth, boy.”

  “Watch yours, before you say something you'll regret to your future son-in-law.” I let myself smile when I see the horror deepen in her eyes. “That's right. Soon as we're in L.A., I'm asking Robbi to marry me, just like I planned to years ago, before you got in the way. It's happening, like it or not, and you won't talk me down. All that's left is my very strong suggestion we hash this out, and come to an understanding, but we don't have to. It's your choice. I'm taking her to the altar either way.”

  “You want an understanding?” Her face tenses. She needs several seconds to collect herself, but she recovers without throwing a fit. For now, anyway.

  “I do,” I say, giving her a serious answer. “We don't have to be enemies. If you can't put the past behind us enough to give me a chance, then I'm asking you to tolerate it. Don't get in the way. Let your little girl be happy, Ericka. She hasn't been, all these years, ever since the shit came down between our families. I'm giving her the chance we always deserved.”

  “Christ, you Shaws are all the same. You're really blind, aren't you? Thinking this is some kind of talk, a negotiation?”

  “Isn't it? Tell me what you want.” I lift the water bottle to my lips, keeping her in suspense while I take a nice long pull. “Is it an apology? Money? I'm more than willing to dole out both. I'll do it sincerely, if it'll stop you derailing us.”

  “No. You're staying the hell away from my Robin. No deal, no discussion, no kombuya. I've come too far to deal with her finding out the truth.”

  I sit up straighter than before. “What truth? You're talking about the arrangement you had with my dad?”

  She narrows her eyes. “You think it was easy, living with a goddamned alcoholic? Danny didn't go down the drain because he found out I was having an affair with an asshole. He circled it for years. I can't tell you how many times I forced him to his meetings, brought him into counseling, watched him start hitting the bottle again two days after he swore he'd had his last drink. I couldn't change him, or fix us. All I could do was hide it from my little girl, minimize the damage.”

  Damn it. Her look of hate aimed at me may be ice, but I think there's actually a beating heart under it. There's nothing worse than realizing the demon in front of me may be human after all. “I'm sorry. My father was a selfish fool. If he had any sense, any morals, he wouldn't have gotten involved, knowing what was going down between you and your –“

  “My husband was a self-destructive prick!” She stands, catches herself, and then sits down again, rage boiling to the surface on her face before fading just as quickly. “Fine, you want the truth?” she sniffs, haughtily, a nasty smile appearing.

  “I want anything that'll make you come to terms with me and Robbi.”

  “That isn't happening. But because you've pretended to be so nice, I'll let you in on a little secret – your father never blackmailed me like I said. If he had, you'd better believe I would've come after him. I didn't give up the cleaning business for law just to let the world walk over me.”

  Fuck. I never thought being right could feel like a punch to the gut. I'm still listening, distracting myself with a sip of water, trying not to retch over everything she hid, destroying my woman with her lies.

  “Your father was a bastard in the end. He had his fun, dropped me for a younger girl, and sent me on my merry way with enough severance pay to send Robin to acting school. He even offered to pay for Danny's treatment. Maybe I'd have taken him up on it, if the drunken idiot hadn't stumbled on the notes your father wrote.”

  “Notes?” So much for not being sick to my stomach.

  “That's right. They were lovely when we had our fling. He put on a nice romantic act. Had me fooled, thinking we might have a future. I should've known girls like me don't belong with men like him. Rags to riches, maid uniforms to wedding gowns? All bullshit. Whatever you want with my daughter, I know you're stringing her along.” She raises her hand before I can say anything. “No, don't apologize. I don't want to hear it. It's in your nature, just like making sure she avoids the same mistake is in mine.”

  She's wrong, dead wrong, but I still don't know what this is all about. Why the rancor? The demands?

  “I don't understand. If there was no arrangement, no blackmail, then why the lie? Why persist?” I'm trying my damnedest not to look at her with total disgust, show her a shred of understanding for the failing marriage with a drunk that made her this way. “Are you really so proud, you can't tell your daughter the truth?”

  “Bravo! And everybody says Hollywood is dumb.” She starts clapping. Her sarcasm shows me what it's like to be a bull with bright red rippling in front of its face. “I thought the world of Frank Shaw, before he threw me away, if you want to know the reality. Hurt like hell when he did, but knowing what Robin would think if I told her, if I came clean about the affair and her screwed up father...she's a fragile girl, Luke. You have to know that. Sensitive, innocent, worth protecting from the sick taint you Shaws leave over everything.”

  “She's stronger than you think. Wouldn't be marrying her if she were the sheltered weakling you think she is. Shit, she's not seventeen, cleaning my family's house anymore. She's a grown woman, acting her heart out in a multi-million dollar film.” I'm glaring. I still can't figure this out, and the sinking sensation in my gut tells me we won't resolve shit here today. “Why tell me anything if you're not here to figure this out?”

  “Oh, I'm going to figure it out, Luke. Since I know you're too damned stubborn to do it the easy way, we'll do it my way instead.”

  That part where something so insane happens your life starts flashing before your eyes? For the next sixty seconds, I'm living it.

  First, Ericka reaches into her purse. I hear a plastic bag popping open, and she brings a handful of something I can't see to her mouth. Her jaws work violently, chewing a mess. Then she stands up, reaches past me to my desk, and grabs the big glass paperweight off it.

  “I'm sorry it has to go down this way. You look just like your father, you know. I'm sure those good looks and rich connections will help you into a comfy prison cell.” She's slurring her words around the red crap drooling down her chin from the corners of her lips.


  I don't realize it's fake blood until she brings the paperweight up, smashing herself hard in the face. She slides out of her chair, stunned. Or maybe exaggerating because she's got the strength to hurl the orb against the wall so hard it shatters.

  “What the fuck are you doing!” It's not a question.

  I'm reaching for her, pulling on the back of her dress more violently than I should. It rips as she struggles out of my grasp. She turns the doorknob and hobbles to her feet, walking down the hall stooped over, heading into the studio.

  I'm fucking frozen.

  I contemplate doing a dozen things. I want to chase her down, throw her to the floor, and stop her before she finishes whatever the hell she's attempting. But I'm so stunned I hang back for too long.

  She's halfway down the hall before I rush after her, get in front of her, and hold up my hands. It doesn't do anything to slow her down. She's smiling through the thick red mess drooling onto her blouse.

  Christ. The woman could give a zombie a run with the way she looks, or at least an extra from an action flick.

  The evil grin melts away when I hear the door opening behind me. I have just enough time to turn around, and see the crowd coming in, before I hear the voice that shoots a hole clean through my heart.

  “Mom?!” Robbi runs forward, her eyes huge as she looks past me, reaching her mother just in time, before Ericka collapses.

  “Oh my God! What's the meaning of this?” Another voice, and it couldn't be more shocked and appalled. Isabella Frieze grabs Ericka's other arm when Robbi isn't strong enough to help her up alone, and the crazy bitch goes face first into the author's white sweater.

  “He...he hurt me. My jaw. I think it's...broken...”

  How does a man describe a chaos so huge and unexpected it chews up his life and shits it out in front of him in all of five minutes?

  By the time I'm no longer paralyzed, roaring my denial, two heavy security guards are on me, slamming my face into the floor. The handcuffs they clap on my wrists aren't the kind of kinky surprises I still had in store for us. Neither is Robbi wailing, and I'm not sure who's louder.

  Her, or Ms. Frieze. The author won't stop shrieking at the top of her lungs, ever since Ericka peeled her face off the poor woman's shirt, and she saw the blood. What she thinks is fucking blood, and isn't.

  “My Miles!” she keeps saying, over and over and over again. “Why, why, why?”

  Pierce, the press people with him, and the rest of the production crew won't even look at me. There's no time for denial, self-defense, or escape.

  I underestimated Ericka, and I'm paying for it with everything I care about. The soulless freak lays against the wall, holding her face with her eyes closed, stifling a smile in her palm as she watches me getting ushered away. Robbi keeps whispering in her ear between sobs, probably something about the paramedics coming soon.

  She looks up once before I'm out the door, meeting my eyes for what I'm sure will be the last time. I trusted you. I loved you. I lost my fucking mind.

  It's too much. I can only close my eyes as I'm thrown into a squad car and driven through the old Chicago streets lining the warehouse district where the studio is closing up shop. By the time everything is moved back to L.A., even if they have to find a new Miles, I know I'll be wearing orange and a number for a name tag.

  I'm fucked, and for once it isn't my own fault.

  11

  Over, Done, Forgotten (Robin)

  Life as I know it is over.

  Destroyed.

  Forgotten.

  I'm dragged down into a numb, gut wrenching haze so thick I spend my evenings dialing crisis hotlines. I always hang up as soon as someone answers.

  I don't have the courage to tell anyone else I loved a violent psychopath. Not even enough courage to admit that deep down, a part of me still might.

  Mom's condo feels like a tomb after the place the studio gave me, not to mention the nights I spent in Luke's luxurious splendor. Future accommodations given to the actors are up in the air, as is everything else with the movie while they desperately try to salvage the horrific PR damage inflicted by 'Mr. Black Hearted.'

  That's what the press is calling him, ever since it lit up social media. Honestly, they aren't wrong.

  Ever since we came face-to-face again after our long absence, I tried not to trust him. I feared the worst, but the absolute darkest places my mind went when assessing the risk a second chance with Lucus Shaw could bring never went here.

  I sleep in my old guest bed, the one that used to be mine alone. Colder than I've ever been.

  The only silver lining is, it hasn't taken mom long to recover. Somehow, the wound was worse than it looked, and the reconstructive jaw surgery they talked about hasn't been necessary. Her bruise is a little better every day, fading after a week, and it doesn't take much dental work to repair her two cracked teeth.

  “One day at a time, sweetie,” she says, as if I have another choice. “You'll get through this. Learn to forget him. The more you dwell on the past, the more it'll control you.”

  Wise words, if she lived by them herself. She hasn't shut up about how awful Frank Shaw was to her all these years. I think the only reason she doesn't discuss what happened with Luke is because she doesn't want to make me feel worse than I do.

  Whatever, she's oddly supportive, when it should be the other way around. She goes about her life like nothing happened, staying strong for me. She'll probably have TMJ issues forever, but it seems she's decided I'm the one who's suffered more. I guess Luke told her about his plans to propose before their talk got heated, and he decided to smash her face in.

  I don't know if he meant to.

  I don't fucking care.

  It's incredible what a bullet I dodged, escaping him before he decided to do something just as awful to me.

  It isn't easy counting my lucky breaks, of course. I'm too eaten up with regret, shame, and disbelief that shouldn't even be there after what he did, after what I saw with my own crying eyes.

  His brothers finally stopped calling this week. I told Hayden and Grant to fuck off, or else I'd seek a restraining order. Apparently, they listened. And no, I don't care what they want.

  There's no fix for this except what I should've done years ago – write Luke out of my life. Forget him. Move on.

  I'm not interested in excuses, or second guessing, or therapy. I want to finish re-shooting my scenes with his replacement, collect the royalties, and move far, far away.

  Japan sounds good, or maybe New Zealand. Some distant island where Bare won't be the main American export for the next year. There has to be a magical place on this planet where I won't have to re-live this lie disguised as love, and where every day I survive a nervous breakdown feels like a major accomplishment.

  One Month Later

  Time's up. There's none left to cry, or reflect, or grieve because I don't let myself do it.

  I ignore the headlines and the buzz on social media about the film. The studio wants me to finish my last scenes with Harkness first, before they find a proper replacement for Luke. I'm happy to comply.

  I give my best tearful speech as Ali, pleading with the Senator for mercy. I'm supposed to make him show his weakness, giving Miles the opportunity he needs to save us by strangling the villain with his own handcuffs. Harkness gives an incredible performance with the stunt actor they've hired to stand in for Miles.

  His fencing skills are truly a lost art. I thought the sword scene at the end sounded dumb the first time I saw it in the script, but that was before I saw what a living legend could do with his fancy footwork and heroic slinging.

  “Truly a shame about your man,” he tells me one day, squeezing my shoulder, his wise old eyes crinkling at the corners.

  “Thanks. It's not your problem.”

  “Hang in there, lovely lady. These things have a funny way of working themselves out.”

  I give him a fake smile. Older and wiser doesn't mean a thing when his advice is ins
ane.

  There's no happy ending here. No third chance, now that our second one is blown. Not after he savaged my mother, tearing my heart out in front of me.

  Bebe calls me several times a week when I'm not on the set. She's in a mad rush to protect my mental state, hoping I won't breakdown and walk, causing her to lose an already tenuous commission.

  I swear up and down that work is all I care about. It's a huge lie, of course, but since when were the comforting ones the most sinful?

  Sweet distractions. Thank God for them.

  They're a small relief from the nuclear surprise I'm doing my best not to acknowledge.

  It doesn't hit me until I'm at mom's place again, alone during the nights, a sheet pulled up to my neck while I fight not to let my mind wander. She's taken several days off to go to a conference upstate, leaving me alone.

  There's only one place my brain goes, and it isn't good.

  Hell, will anything ever be good again after the pregnancy test last week confirmed my worst fears?

  I'll never know how or why my birth control failed. It must've been our last night together, before the world came down the next day. He dialed my baby fever up to ten, or maybe I just missed a pill or two I really shouldn't have in all the commotion that started as soon as he went to prison.

  No, I haven't been to a doctor yet.

  Hell no, I haven't told mom.

  For now, it's my secret, and it's the most bittersweet excuse to hide from the world when I'm not in front of a camera. It's also great motivation to get on with planning my life after the movie in earnest.

  I need to leave Chicago, and never come back. Anywhere, far from the wealthy, evil reach of the Shaws will do.

  This isn't about running from a big, fat mistake anymore. It's about keeping my baby safe, keeping it innocent, and most of all, making sure it never learns the truth about its father, Lucus Shaw.