June 2018
Long Beach Private Airfield, Long Beach, California
(The 405 South exit at Long Beach Airport)
“What the—”
“That, Harry, is a Gulfstream G650. If you really want to know.”90
Mercedes had been busily narrating the finer points of private air travel since Harry had parked his police cruiser at the hangar. For someone who didn’t actually own a plane, she sure had plenty of opinions about them. On the other hand, Bach and Porsche hadn’t said a word, and Harry didn’t blame them. This whole week was only getting stranger and stranger. The Santa Ana winds were back, and the combination of the heat and the investigation and the media and the whole hectic pace of the last few days was starting to catch up with all four of them.
Which is why he hoped the small white jet in front of them now would lead them where he thought it would.
“I guess this is it,” he said, double-checking the directions he’d gotten over the phone.
Mercedes dragged her Vuitton bag toward him. Porsche and Bach followed a few yards behind her.
“You realize how strange this is? That we’re just trusting you,” Mercedes said, looking at Harry.
“Well, I am LAPD,” Harry said. “Got a badge and everything.”
“Says the dirty cop.” She sighed.
He laughed. “Ouch.”
She looked annoyed. “We could be kidnapped and held for ransom.”
“I guess. You’re not much more of a kid than I am, though,” Harry said, winking.
Mercedes pretended not to hear him. “You could be selling us on the black market.”
“I could try.” He shrugged. “You’d be surprised. It’s really a buyer’s market now.”
“You could harvest our organs.”
“Guess it depends on the organ,” he said, elbowing her. “You can probably keep that Hollywood liver.”
“My liver is in excellent condition,” Mercedes said, stopping to glare. “You, on the other hand, could be a madman.”
He stopped next to her. “Well, I can’t argue there. Do you want me to roll that for you?”
She shoved the handle of her bag at him. “We could all wake up in a bathtub full of ice.”
He took it, and they began to walk again. “Not in this weather.”
Now the two of them were staring up at the steps leading to the open doorway of the plane.
Even Mercedes looked impressed. “But I have to say, whoever your generous benefactor is, at least he has good taste.”
“Well, there you go. What’s an organ or two, if the plane is nice. Right?” Harry smiled. Mercedes smiled. They just didn’t smile at each other, exactly.
Not yet.
“I think you got a little something in your teeth,” Harry said. “Little black thing, like a peppercorn.”
“It’s chia.” Mercedes froze. Then, almost automatically, she smile-grimaced to show her teeth. “Where?”
“Over one.”
“There?”
“Now up.”
“Is it gone?”
“You want me to get it?” he finally offered. “I might have floss in the squad car.”
Mercedes’s cheeks went pink, as if she’d only just now realized what she was doing and who she was doing it with and where she was. “Don’t be disgusting. I barely even know you.”
As if for emphasis, she grabbed her bag from his hands and tried to lug it up the first step to the plane.
It ricocheted off, bouncing back down to the ground.
“I’ll get it,” he called.
“I can manage,” she huffed, shoving her bag back up onto the stairs. Her face was bright red, like some kind of alarm system had just gone off, somewhere in her body. She was radiating like a stoplight.
Harry looked back at Bach and Porsche, who looked as confused as Harry was starting to feel. “Is she always this much of a kick?” Harry asked Bach.
“A kick?” Porsche asked.
“Sure,” Harry said. “A kick. A hoot. Hot tamale. Splash of Tabasco.”
“Pretty much,” Bach answered.
Harry nodded and straightened his sun hat. “I can see why folks watch.”
The SUV had been waiting for them when they landed.
Now it curved down a long, winding road fringed with wild palms—taking them from the beach to a mountain overlooking it—and then the sea, of course the sea, on every side.
“Tulum,” Harry mused. “I’ve wanted to get down here my entire life. But you want to know something wild? Before today I’d never even been past Cabo.” He shook his head. “Things don’t exactly turn out the way you think they will, do they?”
Mercedes said nothing. Her face was glued to the window, although Harry could see in the reflection that her eyes were squeezed tightly shut.
He suspected she was thinking about her kid, as any mother would be. Porsche and Bach were quiet in the backseat, as well.
The only sound was the constant hum of loose gravel spinning beneath their tires on the asphalt road.
He let them have the silence.
A lot had happened to this family.
The rest was going to be up to them.
Bentley Royce took a deep breath. It had been a quiet week, if not a calm one. But now that time was over.
Now came the storm.
She braced herself for the fighting and the blame. She waited for the judgment and the fury. She wasn’t expecting to be forgiven. She was expecting the worst, but also expecting to tough it out, one way or another.
She knew she could, and more than that, she knew she would.
After all, she’d come this far—hadn’t she?
And she was a Royce—wasn’t she?
And Mercedes Royce’s daughter could handle anything—including herself—couldn’t she?
I can.
And this time it’s me who can handle it.
Not Bad Bentley.
Real Bentley.
It was true. Real Bentley was a survivor. She’d learned that the hard way—which she now knew was the only way anyone ever learned anything at all.
She stepped out of the shadows of her villa doorway and went to face the bright afternoon light.
Bach reached her first.
His arms were around Bent before she could get a word out, his face buried in her shoulder.
Before Bent could say a word, Porsche piled on top of both of them, leaping up onto her little brother and sister as if they were once again wrestling on their old couch-cushion fort.
Muscle memory being what it was, Bentley went for her sister’s armpits, while Bach kicked the backs of his sister’s knees—until Porsche collapsed into a hysterical heap, a squirming, ticklish tangle of family.
Bentley looked up from the dog pile.
“Mom?”
Mercedes stood a few feet away, watching her children be with each other in a way she never had been, and never could be.
“Mom?” Bentley repeated the word. She reached out her hand.
Mercedes took it. “Baby B.”
Mercedes tried to smile, but she stumbled over her words, and then everything inside her ruptured into what felt like chaos and fire and the end of the world—but turned out only to be tears.
Tears that came out, slowly and shyly at first, then uncontrollably, and without any sign of stopping.
Mercedes Royce cried at her children.
She cried because she missed them, and she cried because they missed her.
More than anything, she cried because she didn’t know how to say it, or what to do about it.
Then her own children swarmed her, and as it turns out, she didn’t need to know how to do anything more than stand there and let them.
Harry watched, satisfied.
He’d seen lots of families before, in lots of different pieces. Before and after. Together and apart. Some eternally fixable, some forever broken.
The Royces, they were all of those things.
One big piece of work, that family.
It was a good one.
It was finally Diego Sanchez, standing in his pressed white suit, who cleared his throat. “Welcome, Mercedes. Porsche. Maybach, of course.” The old man smiled at Bach, whose eyes widened at the sight of him.
Bent stood up and took Mr. Sanchez by the hand. “Mercedes, you know Mr. Sanchez, right?”
Mercedes just stared.
Bent smiled. The Diego Sanchez name, especially for Lifespan employees, was no different from Willy Wonka. She also knew her mother, almost better than anyone, and Mercedes Royce was not used to being a mere Oompa-Loompa.
Yet here they all were.
Because Diego Sanchez, majority shareholder in DiosGlobale, parent company to Lifespan Network, owner of Rolling with the Royces, the top-rated reality program in the world, was Yoda himself.
The old man from the Lifespan lobby, whom she and Bach had met when he refused to pay thirty-eight dollars for a parking validation in his own building.
When he told them how to really play the game.
When he taught her how to pitch her own family, and her own life, not just her show.
When he listened to her crazy idea about a TryCycle instructor who wanted to be an actor, and who looked like ready-made ratings (especially in the bicep region).
When he set her up with the head of a record label who was only too happy to help out his largest principal investor—for an even bigger investment (especially if it meant taking an extended holiday at the Copa Palace on Rio’s fabled Copacabana Beach).
When he’d watched and advised from afar as the season exploded—only intervening in the case of one right hook to the jaw.
When he’d welcomed her into his home, and—miracle of all miracles—stood by her side as he hugged his long-lost grandson for the first time in three long years.
Because Asa’s story was every bit as long and convoluted as her own.
Because Asa was bound and bound again with her life, in so many different ways.
Because Asa was Diego Asa Sanchez III, son of Diego Sanchez II, grandson of Diego Sanchez himself.
Asa (Venice) moved out from the shadows of the immense oak tree to take Bentley’s hand. His grandfather slid his arm around his shoulders, smiling at both of them.
When he spoke, he spoke directly to Mercedes.
“Bentley is my friend, Mrs. Royce. She’s not just a remarkable person. She brought my only grandson back to me.”
Bentley looked at Asa, and he intertwined his hand with hers. She spoke slowly but clearly, as if she’d just woken up from a long sleep—which in a way maybe she had.
“I was just trying to keep the show going, at least in the beginning. And, to be honest, I was hoping to build the show around Porsche and Whitey so that no one would notice when I went off to college next year. But I—”
“Wait, you got into college?” Bach asked.
“Yep.” Bent beamed, glancing briefly at her mother. “A few of them, actually. My essay explaining that all my Get Bent behavior was a ruse to help my family was apparently super touching.”
Mercedes covered her mouth with shaking fingers.
“But after everything with Bach and the police and the wedding,” Bentley continued, “and Porsche falling for someone who didn’t even exist in real life—I panicked.”
Asa squeezed her hand.
She took a breath and looked at her family. “I’m sorry. I know you must have been worried out of your minds. It’s just, I knew it was my mess, and I knew I had to fix it. So I ran, and I got Tomme to come with me. I thought that was the only way I could help, but Asa convinced me I was wrong.”
He nodded. “We made a deal. First we’d face my family. Then we’d face hers.”
Mercedes raised an eyebrow. “And she somehow talked you into coming back to rough it on eleven acres of beachfront real estate, with a dock and a chef and more villas than I could count as we drove in? I can’t imagine the hardship.”
“No families are easy, Mrs. Royce.” Asa smiled.
Mercedes waved him away. “Oh, please. Nobody calls me that. Mrs. Royce was my mother. Call me Mercedes.”
Porsche snorted. “Last time I checked, your mother was Lucille Blatter from Blatter’s Gas and Go, in Richfield—also known as the Gateway to Southern Utah.”
Mercedes turned red—but other than that, she took it all in remarkable stride. Bentley realized then that the past months had changed her mom more than she would ever know. And she reached out and grabbed her mother’s hand.
Mercedes looked at both daughters, equally surprised, but all she said was one word. “Lucille?”
Porsche nodded. “I read my birth certificate when we went to get our marriage licenses. Lucille’s name is on it, as my grandmother. And it looked like she was the only witness to my birth.”
Mercedes shrugged. “Well, of course she was. It was her gas station.”
“What happened?”
“We had a falling-out, and I picked up the three of you in the middle of the night and ran away.” She looked up at the bright sky. “I can’t remember why, of course. That was sixteen years ago now. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. As you might imagine.”
Her eyes were bright and shining. There was more, so much more, Bentley knew.
But not for today.
For today, there had been enough.
Diego sighed happily. “So you see, Mercedes. You have your family again, and I have mine. Bentley reunited me with Asa, and I owe your daughter everything.”
“Did she?” Mercedes said, looking from Bentley to Asa.
Then she looked at Diego and smiled. “Do you?”
“Mercedes—” Bentley said. It was a warning, and like all warnings issued to Mercedes Royce, it went entirely unheeded.
“When you say, ‘owe her everything,’ Diego,” Mercedes purred, “could you be a little more specific?”
Diego smiled. “Perhaps over café?” He nodded at Harry, who was mopping his brow with his sun hat. “Would your gentleman friend care to join us?”
“Gentleman friend?” Bent whispered to Bach.
Bach shrugged. “It’s new. I give it five minutes.” His eyes flickered over to Asa. “Speaking of new…” He lowered his voice. “Is it serious?”
Bent smiled. “You know what they say. Never underestimate a Blatter.”
“I never do.”
Bent put her arm around her brother and pulled him close. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you, Bach. And I’m sorry I left. And…I missed you.”
“I get it. It’s just…well…I’m starting to think you Blatters are just a bunch of big softies.”
Bentley shoved him.
He laughed.
Asa cleared his throat. “Hey, is that your wallet?” he asked awkwardly, pointing to the ground next to them.
Bach looked down and nodded, picking it up from the grass. “Thanks. Guess I dropped it.”
Bent saw that it was made entirely out of red duct tape. She smiled, because she’d made it for him.
“It’s pretty cool,” Asa said. “I guess.”
Then he pulled out his own wallet.
It was made entirely of silver duct tape.
Both boys laughed.
From then on, Bent wasn’t worried at all.
Porsche Royce walked across the lawn to the swimming pool, where someone was practicing his nearly perfect front crawl.
When he came to the edge of the pool and burst up from the surface of the water, gulping in air, her face went pale, and then red.
She dropped her handbag, kicked off her Chloé flats, and threw herself into the pool, Isabel Marant sundress and all.
Before Tomme Torres knew what had hit him, Porsche Royce was kissing him as hard as she could, two arms flung around his slippery, well-muscled torso. (And the arms! Those infamous arms!)
The fighting would come later.
So would the explaining, and the apologizing—and the story of a well-meaning fitness enthusiast slash actor, who had gone looking for a big break but found only a broken heart.
Now wasn’t the time for that.
Now was the time for kissing and crying—for both former fake fiancés.
Or formerly former fake fiancés.
What did that make them now? What had they become?
Actual real fiancés?
As they sank below the surface of the water, Porsche knew there was nothing fake about the way either one of them was feeling.
And she knew something else.
She could do more than just love.
She could do forever.