“I’m happy for him if it’s his.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“Last night at the house.” Michael replayed the scene in his mind, watching his father place his hand on Carter’s shoulder and walk him away from the rest of the family. What were they talking about? “Carter kind of lost it and Dad . . . I don’t think I’ve ever seen Dad be that . . . It was like they were closer than they’ve ever been.”
“He’d do it for you.” Kimberly caressed his arm. “You can’t expect to have all of Steven’s affection. There are three other children.”
Michael frowned. “I never said I did.”
“Don’t get mad at me,” Kimberly said. “I’m not the cause . . .” From the look on his face, Kimberly realized that he did blame her; he still blamed her.
“Where you going?” As she stood up, Michael reached out to her, but she pushed away from him. “What did I say?”
“This is my fault, right?” Kimberly felt herself already near tears because of this and so much more. “Steven is closer to Carter because of what I did. You get punished for it.”
Michael refused to feel sorry for her. Her scheming had almost killed his mother and it did hurt his standing with his father. “Don’t bring that up, Kimberly. It won’t end the way you want. You aren’t the victim. You did a horrible thing and our entire family paid the price, not just me.”
“How long are you going to punish me for my mistakes?” Kimberly asked. “How long before everything isn’t my fault anymore?”
“Damn it, Kimberly!” Michael shot up from the chair and slammed his hand against the bookcase, making her jump away. “I’m trying, okay? I’m doing the best I can. I love you and I’m here. But this hurts. I can still feel something between me and him and—”
“What about me and you?” Kimberly asked. “Our relationship is supposed to be more important. He’s your father, but I’m your wife. Nothing means more than you and me.”
She was right, but it didn’t make a difference. He lived and breathed his father’s opinion of and affection for him, with the latter being almost impossible to come by. But he loved his wife. She was the mother of his children and he didn’t enjoy hurting her.
He stepped toward her and she leaned into his chest. She wanted to disappear inside him. “I’m sorry, Michael. I’m so sorry.”
“I know.” Michael caressed her back. “It’s not you. It’s me and I’m just scared. I’m scared that something is slipping away with him and I’m afraid if I make one more mistake, it’ll do me in.”
Kimberly shivered at the eerie resemblance his words had to Janet’s the night of Carter’s party. She had to find that gun before she left the house tomorrow.
6
As they walked up the steps to the massive front doors of Chase Mansion, Leigh was curious about Lyndon’s expression.
“Your house is bigger than this,” she said. “Isn’t it?”
“I think so,” he answered. “I just didn’t know houses this size were out this way.”
“You expected me to live in Bel Air or Malibu?”
He nodded. “Or someplace where other filthy-rich people live.”
“Most rich people do,” she said. “View Park used to be like black Hollywood in the day, but the stars are all in the Hills. Now, just old-fashioned honest money lives here.”
Lyndon had a smirk on his face. “You saying my millions aren’t honest?”
She shrugged with a coy smile. “All I’m saying is that View Park stays under the radar and that’s the way we like it.”
“I’m moving in next week,” Lyndon said defiantly. And I’m telling all my movie star friends, especially the white ones.”
“Stop it.” Leigh slapped him on the arm. “My father will disown me if he knows I started this.”
Just before Leigh reached for the door, Lyndon took a step closer to her, making her hesitate. “I had a great time tonight, Leigh.”
Dinner at a hidden-away Turkish restaurant and a walk along the beach. There were some stares, but none of the drama that Leigh had been so anxious about. It was actually a simple, romantic night and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had that.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” She placed one hand on the doorknob, feeling the anticipation creeping inside her.
Lyndon frowned. “Is that my brush-off?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know a brush-off when I get one and—”
“Yeah, like you ever get a brush-off.”
Lyndon tilted his head in a cocky gesture. “It’s been a while, but—”
“Get your arrogant butt back in there.” She pointed to the Porsche in the driveway. “And I will see you tomorrow.”
“I won’t be in tomorrow,” he said.
Leigh blinked, taken off guard. “Why . . . why not?”
“I have some publicity thing I have to do.” He seemed uninterested in his own words. “The DVD for my last movie is coming out and I have to film some promo reels.”
“Okay.” She hesitated. “Well, I’ll see you when I see—”
“I love it.” Lyndon laughed with boyish pleasure. “You just made my night, Dr. Chase.”
“What?” Leigh was too self-conscious for the level of their relationship.
“You’re upset that I won’t be there tomorrow,” he said proudly. “You’re going to miss me.”
Leigh rolled her eyes. “You just love yourself, don’t you? If you must know, I’m actually glad you’re not coming.”
“Oh, really?” he asked sarcastically.
“Yes, really.” She was searching for the words, knowing she was going to trip over them anyway. “I could use the break of having to watch after you. I’ll get more done if I don’t have to—”
His lips came to hers in a second and Leigh was surprised by the surge of energy that lifted through her. As his mouth pressed a little harder, she heard herself let out a little sigh and her tense body relaxed. Her stomach felt a pull at its core, and a tinge of excitement wrapped around her.
This was a problem, a voice inside told her. Common sense that she had relied on her entire life said she couldn’t be into this man, but her body said she definitely, most definitely was. And as her arms rose around his neck, pulling him closer, Leigh said to hell with playing it safe. What girl would turn down a chance with Lyndon Prior? She would deal with the drama. How bad could it be?
Kimberly had already thrown up in the bathroom of Bistro 45 and was afraid she would again. She was scared to death, but tried her best to look cool and collected. She looked devastating in her St. John Couture vanilla/black dress. Michael always told her when you dress like you don’t have to take crap from anyone, people are disinclined to give you any. So she’d done her best Janet Chase impression with the outfit and had her hair and makeup as intimidating and unattainable as possible. Whoever she would be dealing with had to know that she was not Paige anymore.
She still had the gun in her purse and it was loaded. No, she didn’t have the guts to do anything yet, but she needed to get used to the reality if that’s what it was going to lead to. She was in public now, so it was out of the question to act on her impulse, but having it on her gave her just enough confidence to keep from falling to the ground.
She kept praying and begging that this was just about money, but something told her she wouldn’t be that lucky. She’d been lucky for too long and life required that her luck run out at the worst possible time it could: when everything else was going wrong.
Kimberly’s hand went to her queasy stomach as she looked around the restaurant. She didn’t recognize anyone. She was looking for the girl, but didn’t expect her to show up. She would stick out like a sore thumb in this type of place. Besides, she was just a kid and didn’t appear capable of being the brains of any operation. No, Kimberly was waiting for the girl’s boss.
She gasped loud enough for the couple at the next table to turn and look, but she
didn’t notice them. What she’d seen was a woman, a regal-looking black woman in a Christian Dior white silk pantsuit, pass by the door. She looked like . . . Kimberly was paralyzed with fear.
Could Janet be behind this? She had tried desperately to search into Kimberly’s past the moment Michael introduced her to the family, but Michael had spent his time prior to this erasing that past. When Kimberly asked why it was so important he did all this before his parents knew who she was, he only answered, “Because of my mother.”
Kimberly’s world of invisible, absent, and wandering people had served their purpose, and Janet gave up looking into her past. It wasn’t as if she could prevent the wedding, and once Kimberly was a Chase, it was more likely Janet would want the past to stay where it was for appearances’ sake.
But that was before last September and the incident that had revived Janet’s obsession with destroying Kimberly. She promised revenge. Had she somehow found out that—
“Hello, Paige.”
Kimberly jumped, almost falling out of her seat. She had been so preoccupied with the door, waiting for Janet to walk in, she hadn’t noticed the man who had come up behind her. When she looked up at him, she was certain she would die in that moment.
Kimberly blinked, feeling all breath escape her. Her hand went to her pounding heart as her mouth opened to no words. This was going to be the end of her life, the absolute end. As David Harris sat down across from her, she asked herself if this was real or an apparition.
Her hand fell limply to her lap as she screamed inside. He smiled at her, with that greedy face of his. Nothing had changed from the day she’d first seen him. She had been waiting at the bus stop for nothing in particular. She’d been a runaway for two months and was out of money or places to stay. It was raining for the third night in a row and she was freezing. Kimberly remembered it now as clearly as if it were the day before.
“Hello, little girl,” he’d said. “Aren’t you as pretty as a rose?”
That was how it began. That night he offered her food and a bed in a nice, cheap hotel in exchange for sex. Two weeks later, he pimped her out to a friend of his. Then another and . . . Kimberly needed to throw up again, but she couldn’t move.
David was in his early forties and looked as if he’d ridden every bit of those years rough. He was thinner than usual, on the shorter side with saddle-brown skin, large eyes surrounded by even larger dark circles around them. His skin was dry and lips had grown dark from smoking weed all his life.
“Aren’t you gonna say hello, Paige?”
Kimberly dug her nails into her palms to keep from crying. She would not give him this satisfaction. She fought with everything she had to not feel like that fifteen-year-old girl again.
“My name . . . is Kimberly.” She sighed from the exhaustion of just managing four words.
“Yes, that’s right.” David’s smile was ear to ear. “Used to be Kimberly Hill, but now it’s Kimberly Chase. Damn, girl, you look good.”
“I know.” She hoped she seemed tough. She certainly didn’t feel it.
David’s smile faded. “You always were conceited, but you had a right to it. You are one exceptionally beautiful bitch.”
Kimberly needed a drink of water, but she couldn’t even muster the strength to lift her hand to the glass in front of her. She kept it on her purse where the gun was. She would kill him. She’d thought Michael had.
“Bet you never thought you’d see me again.” David brushed away an invisible strand of dust on his silk shirt. “Thought I was dead, huh?”
“Didn’t care either way.” Kimberly remembered those first few months after she’d run away from David and Detroit. She’d been kept up nights wondering if David was coming after her to kill her as he’d always promised he would if she ever left him.
She was seventeen, and a modeling agent she’d met at a bar with some girlfriends offered to take her to New York to be his little kept thing. He was going to make her a model. That was what David had promised as well, but this one had a business card, a Web site, and a wedding ring, so she took the chance that he wasn’t a pimp and it paid off.
“That’s not right, Paige.” He waved the waiter over. “After all I did for you. I took care of you and made you into a woman.”
“You’re a pig,” she said. “You’re an animal. I was fifteen.”
“You weren’t no virgin,” he said. “You took to it too well.”
“I don’t owe you anything.”
Kimberly took the moment the waiter came for David’s order to try to compose herself. She would have to kill him. There was no other choice. Now get over it and get on with it. He was nobody, only important in his own mind. No one would miss him.
“Aren’t you curious about where I been these last seven years?” David asked as soon as the waiter was gone. He leaned forward with that threatening left bushy eyebrow raised.
“No.” Kimberly finally gripped the glass of water and took a drink. Her hands shook only a little. “You haven’t been on my mind since the day I left Detroit ten years ago.”
David leaned back, nodding as if this was what he’d expected. “You can’t lie to me, Paige. I’m your daddy, and you—”
“You’re not . . .” Kimberly checked herself, realizing that her voice was getting too high. “You’re no one to me and my name is Kimberly Chase.”
“You better watch your attitude with me,” he warned.
“You think you still own me? I’m not that little girl anymore, David. I’m a woman, my own woman, and there isn’t shit you can do about it.”
David looked around the place with an approving grin before returning his attention to her. “You’re still a ho. You just got a different pimp.”
The waiter brought their drinks and Kimberly couldn’t bear to make eye contact with him because she wasn’t sure if he’d heard David or not. She couldn’t be seen with him. Someone would know it was she who killed him.
“Back to me,” David said. “I was hurt when you left, Paige. Your ass made me a lot of money. But I bounce back. There are always younger, prettier girls than the next. I was going about my business for a couple of years, then guess what?”
Kimberly couldn’t stand this anymore. “David, what do you want?”
“Guess,” he ordered. His hands were clenched in fists on top of the table.
Kimberly looked down at her glass. Why was she still afraid of him?
“Some motherfucker calls me and tells me I need to come out to L.A. for a player’s ball. That I’ve made a name for myself in the Midwest and I need to flaunt that shit.” He laughed bitterly for a moment. “I was, like, fuck it at first, but he kept calling. Offered to fly me out there first class and let me stay at the Peninsula, whatever that was. It sounded tight, so I come out there, brought a couple of my best hos with me. I’m ready to get my play on in my pimp suite, but next thing I know, some niggas jump me and knock me out. I wake up, but I’m not in L.A. anymore.”
Kimberly shrugged as if he was boring her, but he wasn’t.
“I’m in motherfuckin’ Mexico!” David slammed his fist on the table.
Kimberly looked around nervously. Several people were staring at them now.
“But that’s not all,” David said. “I was in a whorehouse with ten kilos of cocaine and you know who woke me up?”
“The Mexican police.” Kimberly had to hand it to Michael. He’d known what he was doing.
“Five minutes later I’m sentenced to forty years in a Mexican prison.” David straightened up, clearing his throat. “But someone, whoever it was that set me up, thought I was nobody. They thought I would rot forever in that prison, but they were wrong.”
Kimberly gripped the edges of the table. “Just tell me what you want.”
“Oh, I will,” he said. “But you gotta hear my story. You see, about a year ago we got a new guard. He’s an Ese with family in Chicago. I convinced him I could get him there with ten thousand dollars if he could get me out of Mexico.�
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“Not too smart,” Kimberly said. “You’re only a hop, skip, and a jump from Mexico. You should be in Canada if you want—”
“Thanks for your concern about my freedom.” He waved his hand dismissively. “But when I got out, the first thing I did was set my operation back up so I can make that money. Then I got down to business, finding out who tried to take my life away. It wasn’t easy. It took me more than a year and a lot of money. Tracing cell phone calls, airline tickets, hotel rooms. The more brick walls I came against, the harder I wanted to fight. Made me broke, but I wouldn’t give up.”
Kimberly imagined Michael’s mistakes had been because of his youth or maybe the P.I. he hired to handle this hadn’t been the best. He’d told her that he couldn’t use anyone the family had used before because he couldn’t risk its getting back to his parents.
“I understand why he did it.” David’s tone was solemn and reserved. “When I finally got the name Michael Chase, I was wondering why in the hell would this rich bougie brother want to ruin my life?”
“You want money,” Kimberly said. “Give me a number and get the hell out.”
“I ain’t going nowhere, bitch.” The words seethed from his lips. “You will listen to me!”
“Okay.” Kimberly gestured for him to keep his voice down. She couldn’t kill him today. Too many people would remember seeing them together. Maybe tomorrow.
“He had to keep his embarrassment quiet.” He looked her up and down. “You got yourself an impressive catch, but you always had it going on. Sisters are always using the baby trap and come up empty. You’re all too stupid to realize that the baby trap only makes a brother want to get as far away as possible. But you did it. When did you tell him who you really were? After the wedding night?”
“He always knew who I was,” Kimberly said. “He loved me anyway and I didn’t have to lie or trap anyone.”
“No,” he said. “You just had to get rid of me.”
“David, I—”
“Do you know what it’s like to be in a Mexican prison?”
Kimberly couldn’t believe his nerve. “I know what it’s like to be pimped out at fifteen. You can’t possibly expect me to pity you after everything you put me through.”
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