Chapter Three
Tiffany rocked her Versace halter stretch dress that cleaved to her like they were conjoined. Opaque from above her cleavage to well above her knee, it provided enough peek-a-boo leg to smoke a pair of silver Jimmy Choo sandals.
A quick spritz of the Joy Daddy gave her every birthday and she was unstoppable. The subtle perfume lingered in the air, and Tiffany breathed it in. It was the same perfume her mother had worn, one of Tiffany’s few memories of her. It was like having a tiny part of her mother with her tonight.
The doorbell interrupted her last-minute check. Ryan must have sent the car early, eager to get their evening under way. She checked her reflection one more time. Everything as it should be for a perfect daughter, soon to be perfect wife.
Are you ready for this? Ready to be this Tiffany?
The doorbell pealed again. Of course she was ready. Lingering tendrils of her crappy day were upsetting her balance. Taking one more sniff of Joy for good luck, she opened the door.
Lola barreled through like a small force of nature, swathed in white fox despite the heat of June and hiding behind a large pair of bejeweled sunglasses.
Tiffany gaped at her, frozen in place for a minute. She hadn’t seen Lola in years. The woman looked good. Great, actually.
“Precious.” Lola dropped the fur over the kitchen counter and tossed her dark, gleaming hair over her shoulder. “I have been trying to get you forever.”
“Yes.” Tiffany lifted the fur out of a small ring of condensation left by her wineglass. Lola here, now, was definitely not in the plan. The car was due any minute. A wave of panic threatened as her past and her future headed toward each other at warp speed. “I was working today.”
“All day?” Lola gaped. She wore a figure-clenching scarlet bandage dress that stopped just short of her crotch. Perfectly toned, tanned legs ended in a towering pair of Manolos.
“Since about one thirty.”
“Precious.” Lola’s voice quivered. “They could not pay you enough for that.” Her hands flashed scarlet polish and diamonds as she whipped off her sunglasses. “Is that the new Versace line?” Her brown eyes homed in like a scalpel on Tiffany’s dress. “It’s simply divine. What are you now? An eight? Did you see it in a smaller size?”
She needed to get Lola out of there. Now. “I was going to call you in the morning.”
“I saved you the trouble.” Lola tossed a red-gloss-and-white-teeth smile at her. “Did you get my present today?”
Present? Tiffany didn’t like the sound of that.
Lola shimmied her skin glittered cleavage. “I sent a big, blond hunk of muscle your way.”
Thomas Hunter. “Yes, I wanted to speak to you about that—”
“Muy guapo, sí. And so manly.” Lola growled the last word.
Spanish, seriously? How much Spanish could Lola have picked up when she was still Debbie Wilson from Iowa? Tiffany shook her head and concentrated on the main part of her gripe. “You shouldn’t have told him where to find me.”
“Really?” Lola blinked at her. “I thought you’d love him.”
“He’s a stranger and you told him where I worked.” Tiffany stared at Lola. How could she not be getting the point here? “And you told him about Luke.”
Lola waved her hand in a nose-searing draft of Poison. “He already knew about that. Apparently Luke told him.”
That rocked Tiffany back a bit. Her secret was turning out to be not so secret after all. “Anyway, I can’t help him. I don’t know where Luke is. That’s why I was calling you.”
“That’s what I thought.” Lola raised a hand to her head and pressed her forefingers into the skin between her brows. Not a line marred her forehead. She flung a hand toward the door. “And I have solved the problem for everyone.”
Tiffany turned to look behind her. And stopped.
A figure, possibly male, dressed in unrelenting black broken by the pasty white of skin for a face and hands.
“Dakota?” Tiffany took a step closer. Her last memory of Luke’s half brother was as a cute ten-year-old, all gap-toothed grins and tousled hair.
Dakota peered at her from beneath the inky swath of his hair. His face stayed in a rigid mask of teen scorn.
“You don’t know where Luke is. Hot man doesn’t know where Luke is, but he does.” Diamonds flashed as Lola jabbed her finger at her son.
“Weren’t you away at school?” Lola shuffled the poor kid from one boarding school to another. At least when she and Luke had been married, that had stopped for a while. If she was still married to Luke, did that still make her Dakota’s guardian? She should have sent him a birthday gift every year, a card at the very least. He’d been such a sweet kid. With Lola for a mother, God help him.
Dakota blinked at her. Light played over the row of piercings that went from mid-brow to the end.
“He is expelled.” Lola tottered into the kitchen. Wrenching open the fridge, she grabbed the bottle of wine Tiffany had opened earlier. Lola hauled open cupboards until she found the wineglasses and grabbed one.
“Expelled?” Make yourself at home. Tiffany shrugged off the thought. That was Lola for you. Why take a hand when she could grab the whole arm.
“God, I needed this.” Lola took a slug of her wine. “Which brings me to how we can help each other.”
Tiffany struggled to align this dark, brooding ghost with the bouncing ten-year-old she’d last seen. Shit. He must be seventeen by now.
“This is the sixth school, and I can’t deal with it anymore,” Lola said from the inside of her wineglass. “Then you called and it all became clear.”
It took a while for Lola’s words to penetrate. Tiffany whirled about. “What?” This had all kinds of trouble scrawled all over it. The Lola she remembered had no problem making her needs other people’s problem. And Lola had a lot of needs. Calling Lola had been a huge mistake. Time to end this. “I’m not sure I can help you. I’ll call you in the morning and we can talk then. Right now, I have a date.”
Like hell she’d call in the morning. In fact, she would change her cell number in the morning. It would be a pain in the ass, but getting rid of Lola had shifted to the top of her priority list. After getting to her date. She checked the time. Shit.
“A date?” Lola’s eyes narrowed speculatively. Tiffany knew she was close to mid-forties, but she looked not a day over thirty. “Are you still seeing that man your father set you up with? Roland? Ronald? Randy?”
“Ryan,” Tiffany said. Show no fear. Where the hell was Lola getting her information?
Lola’s eyes glittered as she made thousands of minute calculations. “Things must be getting serious?”
“Yup.” Lola needed to go. Tiffany picked up Lola’s fur and held it out. “And the car is due here”—she checked her phone for the time—“now.”
Lola chugged the remainder of the wine. “Does your father know about, you know?” Lola leaned forward. “Our missing friend?”
“No.” Damn. Strategic error, because now Lola looked smug.
“And we will keep it that way.” Lola winked at her. She jerked her shiny head at her son. “Get in here.”
Dakota shambled a couple of steps forward.
“Lola, I have to go out.” Tiffany shook the fur in encouragement.
“I know, Precious.” That wink again that made Tiffany grind her teeth. “I know everything, and this is your show. I will not interfere.” She put the glass down on the counter with a loud click. “This works out nicely for everyone. Sí?”
Tiffany concealed her wince as the other woman slid obediently into her coat. “I’ll call you in the morning.”
“You can’t.” Lola replaced her sunglasses. “I’m going away in the morning.”
Something about the way she said away made Tiffany itch to ask.
The intercom from the lobby chimed. Her car waited downstairs.
“Okay.” Tiffany grabbed her purse. “Then you call me when you get back. Nice to see you, Dakota. Take care.”
A disquieting glitter played across Lola’s face. She clicked her fingers at her son. He shoved his hands in his pockets and stepped into the kitchen.
“Don’t fuck up.” Lola opened the front door and sailed toward the elevator. Her heels clacked against the marble corridor outside Tiffany’s condo.
Tiffany’s mouth dropped open. Wow! As far as parental advice went, just, wow.
Dakota blinked.
The elevator pinged from the hallway. Lola was walking away. And Dakota wasn’t going with her. He stood in her entrance hall like the walking dead with a middle-distance stare fixed on the view.
It was difficult to run in five-inch sandals, but Tiffany managed to catch up with Lola as the other woman stepped into the elevator. “Where are you going?”
“Away.” Lola pursed her lips as she jabbed at the buttons on the elevator panel. “I told you that.”
“Yes, but what about Dakota?”
The teen stood exactly where she’d left him. He kind of curved over like a bold-print exclamation mark. “Come on.” Tiffany waved her hands at him. “Your mother is leaving.”
The elevator doors slid shut. The soft whir of mechanics carried Lola away.
“No.” Tiffany hit the down button. “No, no, no.” This wasn’t happening to her. This. Was. Not. Happening. The illuminated numbers above the door crawled up to her penthouse and she leaped inside. “Hurry.” She begged the descending floor numbers to go faster.
The elevator opened onto the lobby and Tiffany skidded across the slick marble floor to the entrance, her vision locked on the flash of scarlet on the sidewalk. Lola was not leaving Dakota with her.
“Miss Desjardins?” The doorman jumped into step behind her. “Is everything all right?”
“No!” Tiffany hit the street outside in time to see Lola leap into a cab and slam the door.
“Drive.” Lola smacked the driver’s seat with her fist.
The cab moved away from the curb.
“You are not leaving him here.” Tiffany banged on the roof to stop the cab.
Lola closed the window, leaving only enough of a gap for Tiffany to hear. She pressed her finger to her lips and winked. “You be good to me, Precious, and I’ll be good to you.”
Blackmail? Seriously? Tiffany ran as the cab crawled forward. “Stop.”
“Miss Desjardins?” The doorman hopped off the curb and back on again. His face creased in a frown. “Did you need a cab?”
Lola made frantic go motions at the driver. Her jewelry flashed in the dim cab interior.
“You can’t leave him here.” Tiffany tottered after the accelerating cab. Her heel caught on a manhole cover and she almost went ass over teakettle. “Don’t you dare leave him here with me. Where the hell are you going?”
The cab pulled into the traffic. A horn blared and Tiffany leaped back out of the path of a Jeep full of cruising kids. “Get out of the fucking road, lady.”
No goddamn way was this happening to her. The town car driver stood beside his car, not even pretending not to enjoy the show. She streaked past the frozen doorman to her building and leaped into the elevator. “You are so not doing this to me.” She glued her glare to the climbing numbers above the door. Her fingers tapped against her thigh, willing it to go faster.
Dakota stood exactly where she’d left him as she scrabbled through her purse for her phone. He hadn’t even flinched. She jabbed her fingers at the keypad.
“Hello?” A male voice answered. Thomas Hunter.
“Shit! Fuck!” Tiffany hung up quickly. She’d hit the wrong buttons. She took a deep breath and dialed Lola’s number.
“This is Lola. I will be away until the eighteenth. You know what to do, darling.”
“Lola,” Tiffany bellowed at the voice mail. “Answer your phone. You’re not leaving your son here with me.”
She hung up and dialed again.
“This is Lola. I will be away until the eighteenth. You know what to do, darling.”
“She won’t pick up.” Dakota spoke from behind her.
“What?” Holy shit. When had his voice gotten so deep? Tiffany blinked at him stupidly.
He shrugged, done with talking for now.
“Do you know where she’s gone?”
Nothing. Tiffany charged over to him. With a start, she realized they were now eyeball to eyeball. Dakota wasn’t a little boy anymore. “Could you answer my question?”
The contempt in his expression almost made her flinch. “She’s gone on a snip and safari.”
Tiffany shook her head to clear her hearing. “A what?”
“A snip and safari.” Dakota drew out each word painstakingly as if she were brain dead.
Tiffany dragged in a deep breath. Hysteria bubbled up her throat. Her voice rose like a banshee. “What the hell is that?”
“You go to South Africa, get a face-lift, and go to a private game reserve to recover.”
Tiffany blinked at Dakota. That was even a thing? She shook her head. Not the most pressing question right now.
“Miss?” The town car driver stood in the open doorway of her condo. “Am I still driving you to dinner?”
Dakota looked at her. The driver looked at her. Tiffany wanted to scream and melt into a puddle all over her shining hardwood floors. Ryan. Ryan was waiting for her. Ready to start the night that would launch her new life, while her past life was stuck in her condo. Fuck, how had things gotten so out of control? Her book sat on the kitchen counter and she looked at it. There wasn’t time.
“Go.” Dakota jerked his head toward the driver. “Because she sure as shit isn’t coming back.”
“Miss?”
“Just a minute.” Tiffany glared at the driver. “Could you wait in the car?”
He sighed and strolled back to the elevator.
“Don’t you have a friend you can stay with?” It was the best she could manage. She wanted to yell at the teen that he couldn’t stay here, but it didn’t seem fair. His mother had just dumped him, and none of this was his fault.
Dakota shook his head.
Tiffany fumed at his back as he slunk over to the deck. What the hell was she going to do now? She dialed Lola again. And got voice mail. With a growing sense of futility, she left another message. “I have a date,” she said to Dakota’s back. “I can’t miss it.”
He didn’t seem to hear her. She could call Ryan and cancel, but he’d want to know why. Panic whipped the wine in her stomach into acid. This was Luke’s brother. Luke, who she was still married to. Luke, who Ryan thought was a part of her past. Dakota had bits of metal stuck to the back of his T-shirt. What if Ryan found out about Luke? Breathe. God, she was going to throw up. Breathe in and breathe out.
Simple. Ryan couldn’t find out. She would have to get rid of Dakota somehow. There had to be someone else who could take him. He could stay here for the night. Then in the morning, she would find the solution. “I have to go out.”
Dakota examined the furnishings of the deck, his hands jammed in his pockets.
“I have a date.” It sounded so lame. “A very important date that I can’t miss. We can sort this out when I get back.”
“So, go.” Dakota sniffed and threw himself onto her daybed. The legs screeched across her beautiful hardwood floors.
She grabbed her purse, strode for the door, stopped, and came back. It didn’t seem right to leave him here. She briefly imagined taking him to dinner with her. Oh, God, that would go down so well. He was too old for a babysitter. Tiffany clutched her purse to her middle. “Will you be okay, on your own?”
Horrible things happened to teens when they were left on their own. Her mind cycled. Odds. What were the odds of something happening to Dakota? She factored in his age, the area, crime statistics. She stopped. There were too many variables to be reliable.
“Go.” He put his head back and shut his eyes. “You have an important date, remember?”
“It is important.” God, she wished she knew her neighbors, she could ask one of them to watch him. Watch him? He was seventeen, not seven. She reached for her book.
“Miss?” The driver stood with his arms folded by the elevator. “I don’t wish to concern you, but we’re running late and I was given explicit instructions.”
“I know.” Ryan always gave explicit instructions. She pulled her hand back from the book and a touch of sanity. “Give me your cell number,” she said to Dakota.
He must have one. All teens had one. If she had his cell number she could sneak off to the bathroom during dinner and check on him. Her proposal dinner! Damn, when she got her hands on Lola . . .
“Why?”
“So I can check you’re all right.”
“Fuck.” He cut his hostile gaze in her direction. “I’m not in fucking day care.”
She swallowed, hard. All the black definitely worked to make him more intimidating. But he was seventeen. She was the adult in charge. In charge? She almost started laughing hysterically. “Cell number.”
Dakota snorted and fired off his number as rapidly as his mouth could move.
Tiffany opened her contacts and entered them, number for number. She hit Dial. Dakota’s pocket rang and she ended the call. Okay, what next? “Have you eaten?”
Up and down went his shoulders.
“Well, there’s food in the fridge.” Tiffany waved in the direction of her hulking Sub-Zero. “There’s some salad, some yogurt, fruit.” It didn’t sound all that appealing when she said it out loud. “Eat what you like.” She clutched her purse tighter. He wouldn’t want any of that. “Or you could order pizza?” She found her wallet, grabbed a handful of twenties, and held the money out to Dakota. “Here.”
He kept his eyes shut.
Tiffany contemplated marching over there and stuffing the money into the pocket of his baggy pants. She slapped the notes on the counter instead. “Order yourself a pizza if you get hungry.”
He yawned in a wide flash of teeth.
“I won’t be late.” Not anymore, anyway. Shit, Ryan might want to come up after dinner. One problem at a time, Tiffany. First dinner and then . . . whatever. “Okay, I’m going now.”
Nothing.