Nicki’s lower lip trembled. “But you don’t know where she is.”
Chris flipped open the newspaper. “I think I do. I saw something this morning.” He paged through, then whistled. “Here it is.”
Then he started to read, each word making Max’s brain chill.
“ ‘Jennings Stansfield Returns to His Kingdom,’ ” Chris read the headline. “ ‘The errant Jennings Stansfield has returned to town, staying in style at the Camino Real after he was evicted from his former residence. Isabelle Stansfield has returned as well, but don’t expect the former husband and wife to reconcile. Jennings is sporting a new woman on his arm—the very wealthy and very young Maybelle Masters, the coffee heiress from Boca Raton, Florida.’ ”
Chris looked up. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” he said, before continuing. “ ‘Could Ms. Masters be responsible for the sudden relief of Jennings’s debts? And is it possible that El Paso will see a Christmas bride after all—with Jennings at the altar and his precious daughter waiting in the wings another year?’ ” The younger Landry shook his head. “Vivi must be devastated. What do you think, Max?”
But when Chris glanced up, Max was gone, the only sound coming from the front door slamming, then the Mercedes screeching down the drive.
Chapter Twenty-eight
The stormy sky threatened as Max wheeled up to the hotel. In some recess of his mind he realized it was going to snow. But he only leaped out, tossed the keys to the valet, and headed inside without waiting for a ticket.
At the front desk it was all he could do not to grab the clerk by the lapels and drag him across the counter when he said he had no Jennings Stansfield listed.
“Though I do have an Isabelle Stansfield,” the man squeaked.
“Give me the room number.”
“Oh, no, sir, I couldn’t do that. Though I can ring her.”
Which would no doubt get him nowhere. But he didn’t see much of a choice. If he had to, he’d sit in the lobby as long as it took for Vivienne to come downstairs, because he was certain this was where she had fled.
The clerk picked up the phone and dialed. “Ah, yes, I have a Mr.—” The clerk looked expectantly across the counter.
“Landry.”
“A Mr. Landry.” He paused. “Yes . . . yes.” He glanced at Max. “Of course, I understand.”
He hung up the phone, his expression grim. “She’ll see you. Room 1112.”
Relief shot through Max. He hurried to the bank of elevators, then was expelled into the long carpeted hall on the eleventh floor. He had to force himself to knock instead of pound on the door.
An older woman answered, her gray hair pulled up in a loose bun, her face gently lined and tan, her clothes like gauze, flowing about her like drapery in the wind.
“So you are Maxwell,” Isabelle said grandly, taking his hand and pulling him into the room.
Once inside, he saw that she had a suite. His mind cemented as he wondered what the hell was going on.
“I see you’ve noticed the room.” She floated past him, leading the way. “I imagine you are wondering why, if I can afford this, my daughter was working in your home as a domestic.”
Max looked at her hard. “She was the nanny.”
“Of course, of course. I’m sure there’s a big difference. Regardless, Vivi shouldn’t have been put in the position of getting any sort of job. It’s her father’s fault. Really, how was I supposed to know any of this was going on when I was halfway around the world? India’s beautiful this time of year—that is if India ever can be considered beautiful, given the poverty. But what better place to find one’s true spiritual core?”
“I take it you have money, then,” he said without hesitation.
“Not exactly. I am dependent on alimony, since I was the only woman Jennings married who wasn’t wealthy. But back then, he had money of his own and could afford to marry for love.” She sighed dramatically. “We were a love match. But then the money ran out, and, well, somehow the love ran dry. Jennings has been replenishing his bank account with rich wives ever since. I really don’t know what they see in him.”
Max could hardly believe what he was hearing. “Does Vivienne know this?”
“Vivienne. You call her Vivienne. How powerful you sound. No wonder you give her such fits.” She smiled at him. “She told me about the two of you.”
He wanted to ask what she said, but held back. He would ask Vivienne what she felt, not her mother.
“Does Vivienne know about her father’s financial situation?”
“She knows now, poor child. It’s always distressing to have the wool pulled away from one’s eyes. She actually believed in the man, believed he was an outrageous Texas king like the newspapers make him out to be. I tried to explain that she should think of this as yet another adventure in life. She seems only to think of it as having lived a lie.” The woman waved the words away. “Her father isn’t a bad man. Just a dreamer who found money in rich women. He could have been a whole lot worse. He has always found a way to pay for the things he wanted Vivi to have. And she’s led a wonderful life. Skiing in the Alps, schooling in France.”
“What about spending time with family?”
He saw the woman flinch. And suddenly the show was gone. Isabelle looked abashed.
“I love my daughter, I do. But not every woman is meant to give up her whole life to be a dutiful mother.”
“You should have figured that out before you had a child.”
Isabelle’s chin rose, but then an inside door opened, and Max expected Vivienne to appear. Instead, he recognized Jennings Stansfield.
“Max Landry.” The man’s voice boomed through the room. He was larger than life, a misguided hero from a comic book story.
Max glanced back and forth between the two.
Isabelle rolled her eyes. “Don’t look like that. The new, soon-to-be Mrs. Jennings Stansfield is in that room—and paying for all of this, I might add.”
What kind of a family is this?
“She’s a pretty thing,” Jennings boasted. “Pretty—”
“And not terribly smart. Talk about stereotypes,” Isabelle scoffed. “But who am I to complain?”
Jennings lit a cigar. “Sorry that my daughter has been such an imposition, Landry. I hated leaving her in the lurch that way.”
Isabelle snorted. “You only hate that you didn’t snag your newest wife sooner to save yourself the embarrassment. You’re losing your touch, Jennings.” She skewered her ex with a glare. “This time, however, Vivi will not forgive you.”
But Jennings laughed confidently. “Of course my little princess will forgive me.”
The memory of that debutante ball surfaced in Max’s mind. He saw her beauty. He remembered the dance. And the newspaper photographs.
But then another image reared up. Of Jennings leaving, the night still young, and Vivienne standing at the window, thinking she was alone, pressing her hand to the glass.
“Daddy,” he had heard her whisper.
Max understood that she had spent a lifetime forgiving this man in hopes that one day he would stay. She had learned the hard way that her mother never would. She had needed her father to be there—she had needed him to love her as more than an accessory.
But what Max realized now was that this man, perhaps even this family, had nothing to give other than the show. Love like a Hollywood facade. Nothing behind the fake front.
No wonder Vivienne didn’t know how to love. Or how to trust that anyone she cared about wouldn’t hurt her.
Max wanted to wring the man’s neck. But he also cursed himself for not looking beyond his own insecurities and for not seeing Vivienne for who she truly was.
“Where is Vivienne?” he demanded.
“She doesn’t want to see you,” Jennings said.
Isabelle studied her ex-husband. After a second, she turned to Max. “I might not have been the ideal mother,” she said, “but I can help her now.” She wrote out an address. “This i
s where you’ll find her.”
The sky split open and it started to snow, a whirling, intense desert storm that would be gone by morning. When Max saw the old building on Texas Avenue, he didn’t know what to think. What could Vivienne be doing in a place like this?
The stretch of road was commercial, hosting small businesses of a clearly unsuccessful sort. There was a paint store with a peeling veneer, and a bakery with hand stenciling on the glass that had faded years ago. It was like stepping back in time to the days before strip shopping centers or malls. MBL Holdings wouldn’t touch a place like this.
Pulling over to the curb, he parked and went to the door. When he turned the knob, it was unlocked, a tiny overhead bell ringing when he pushed inside.
The place was old, tattered, and colder inside than it was outside. But there was evidence of someone cleaning it up. The smell of turpentine and soap stung his nose. Someone had been scrubbing, fixing the place, which assured him that Vivienne was indeed there.
“Just a minute,” he heard her call out.
Holding a bucket of paint, she emerged from the back part of the building, dressed in coveralls and a heavy coat, wearing mittens with the fingers cut out, her hair pulled up in a ponytail. At the sight of him she stopped in her tracks. He was certain that her eyes went wide first with surprise and joy. Then they darkened, the flip sarcasm coming up like walls around her.
He had never been so glad to see anyone in his life. His heart opened up, the tight vise that had clamped around his chest since he found her gone easing just a bit. As always when he was near her, he felt desire shimmer through him.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“Nicki told me about finding the diary.”
Just that, and he was sure something flashed in her eyes. Not anger, but embarrassment.
“Ah, the infamous wedding diary, kept by a woman who isn’t getting married. Did you read it, too?”
“No, and I never would. Nicki feels terrible.”
Vivienne didn’t look as if she believed him.
“She told me everything,” he explained. “She told me she went to the party with the Bonner boy when she wasn’t supposed to, then about how you picked her up. She also told me about how badly she acted toward you. Thank you for being there for her.” He hesitated. “And thank you for helping me see that I have to be there for her, too,” he added truthfully, unable to keep the intense emotion he felt from his voice.
At the sound of it, her hard stance wavered, but she held firm. Barely. He was sure.
“I’m glad it all worked out.”
She walked past him to a tarp she had laid out on the floor and set the bucket down. Then poured paint into a roller pan like a pro.
“Pink?” he asked.
“Do you have a problem with that?”
He realized he didn’t. Vivienne was Vivienne, in all her enthusiasm and jangling bracelets. More than that, she was the woman he loved. “If anyone can pull off a pink room, you can.”
She slanted him a suspicious gaze. “I’m doing the ceiling sky blue,” she added defiantly. “With fluffy white clouds. The perfect setting for my new business.”
“Business?” he asked.
She studied him for another endless second, then she pointed to a tiny box sitting on the floor. Leaning down, he opened it up.
“My first business card,” she stated proudly, defiantly.
The minute he pulled a card from the box, his brows slammed together. “ ‘Pampered Princess,’ ” he read, glancing from it to her, unable to hide his confusion. “You’re making a business out of being a pampered princess?”
Vivienne arched a brow. “Read the whole thing.”
He did, silently, his heart clenching in his chest as understanding came. Then he smiled.
Be a . . .
Pampered Princess
Let someone else do the dirty work for you.
Estate Sales, Party Planning, Errands, Home
Organization
Vivienne Stansfield 915-555-8378
Her perfect chin rose. “Andy has already hired me to do two more houses for the bank. The job on University really did impress him. If it hadn’t, he wouldn’t have hired me for more.”
“Of course he was impressed. You did a great job. Congratulations, Vivienne. You should have your debt paid off in short order.”
“I’ve already paid everything off.”
He should have realized. Her father had returned to town with money. He must have cleared up the debts and her name while he was at it. Andy had said he thought the man would land on his feet.
Max started to say something about that and her family, but stopped abruptly when he saw a small satin box discarded in a pile to be thrown out. He took the steps to the pile and retrieved the box. It was empty. Turning back, he met her gaze. “You sold your tiara?”
“I did.”
“But you loved it.”
“No, I didn’t. I loved what I thought it meant. And it was actually worth quite a lot of money. Selling it was easy.”
He saw in her eyes that she didn’t mean it. But he saw as well that she was proud of what she had done.
“You’re amazing,” he said quietly.
He wasn’t sure what she expected, but he could tell it wasn’t the smile he felt pull on his lips.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked, her expression growing suspicious. “Are you sick? Dying? Did you come to tell me you’ve lost your mind?”
“I did that a long time ago. I was crazy the minute I didn’t take you in my arms in that damned stone weather tower and tell you that I loved you. That I have loved you for as long as I could remember.”
Her chin rose defiantly. “Why didn’t you tell me that you knew all about me?”
He set the box aside and crossed the room, stopping in front of her. Even with paint streaks on her cheek she was still beautiful, but now it was in a wild, unruly sort of way. He wanted to pull her close, hold on tight, and make her love him in return. But he wouldn’t do that. He made himself keep his hands at his sides, not take her in his arms. This time he wouldn’t force her to admit anything.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t, Vivienne. I should have told you. But I didn’t know how to tell you that I had wanted you for as long as I could remember—how to tell you that I had needed you since that first day I saw you.”
“What are you talking about?”
He hesitated. He had never been much for talking. It was action that got results—commanding, demanding, making things happen. But with Vivienne, it was the commands and the demands that continually got in the way. So he knew that if he was ever going to make things right between them, he had to open up, be vulnerable as he had made her be the night they made love. He had to tell her everything.
“Do you remember when you were six years old and you cut the ribbon at the opening ceremony of your father’s plant? I was there that day, and the second I saw you, for reasons I can’t explain, I wanted you to see me.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’m sure you don’t remember, but you walked over to me and reached out— like you really saw me. It was amazing. But just before our fingers touched, your father pulled you away. Then he made you give me money.”
Her eyes narrowed, the pale gray intensifying, and he could see her mind swirling back in time.
She tilted her head, her eyes narrowed. “I do remember.”
“From then on you represented my greatest dream— and my greatest anguish. You were what I wanted and what I couldn’t have. Standing in that crowd, I realized that I had to become someone different from the little boy who needed a dollar shoved in his hands.”
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“No. Don’t be. The truth is, who would I be today if that hadn’t happened?”
“You were shaped by your responsibility to your family, Max, not by me.”
“Sure, but you planted the seed for me to be more than just a poor kid who lived on a dirt road
. It was you, and even your father, who started the change. We all need to find a way to recognize who we really are before we can realize the potential of who we can become.”
“That’s what you said to me.”
“Yes, and I said it because I know firsthand that it’s true.” His blood thundered through his veins. He needed her to understand. “That day was the first time I realized I was poor—and that there was a different world out there. I worked hard to become more than I had been every day after that. But just when I started college, the first person in my family ever to go, my plans got torn apart when my father left. When my mother died, I had to quit altogether and face the reality of taking care of seven brothers and sisters.”
“Which you did and succeeded anyway.”
“Yes!” It was all he could do not to touch her, hold her. “But I succeeded because every picture of you I saw or article I read that had you in it motivated me. It was a strange, unsettling mix of dreams and torture that pushed and pulled me through year after year when what I really wanted to do was run. There were days when I wanted to leave the kids so badly that I could taste it. But I stayed, because I knew if I ran at nineteen or twenty or even twenty-one, I’d spend the rest of my life running . . . and I’d prove that I really wasn’t more than the poor kid who could never touch someone like you.”
Vivienne didn’t move, just stared at him.
Max raked his hand through his hair. “I didn’t run, but deep down I resented it. I was defiant and angry and I cut myself off from my family emotionally. I supported them and made the tough decisions, but I didn’t have anything left inside to give them. In my mind, I had succeeded despite my father, despite your turning away from me.
“The day you walked into my office, I felt like someone had punched me in the gut. I wanted to reach out, but just as badly I wanted to erase every last bit of the little boy who needed you to see him. I realize now I was afraid that despite my success, despite the house and awards, that somehow I’d always be the grimy street kid who had to claw his way through the mud to succeed and you’d always be the pampered princess who’d always pull away from me. But despite the different ways we were raised, I realize now that we are very much the same. Our worlds aren’t as different as I thought.”
The Wedding Diaries Page 27