Chapter 8
The pads of Cole’s fingers stroked Dina’s cheek. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, uncovering her lips. The earlier reservation etched in his face disappeared, and he lowered his mouth. She wanted this, him.
A blaring noise blasted in her ear. She waved it off, and parted her lips. Nothing would stop her from touching her mouth to his.
A vibration followed by a crack of thunder shook the room. Her eyes popped open, chasing away the perfect Cole-dream. She groaned in disappointment.
Four times, the rumbling woke her during the night. Each time, she had just closed her eyes and thought of Cole. She slipped into a dream with him as the star, but the sound of thunder woke her and ended her fantasy.
She glared out the bedroom window and cursed the storm for her not letting the fantasy play out.
Her cell buzzed. The source of the unknown vibration minutes ago. She snatched it from her nightstand and checked caller ID. Preston, her pitiful ex. Twice last week, she refused to answer, but listened to the voice messages. How he could ask her for money after the stunt he pulled perplexed and outraged her. “Ask your twelve-year-old girlfriend, bastard,” she grumbled, hitting the reject button, and tossed the phone on the bed.
“Dina, come watch this.” Monique’s urgent voice filtered past the closed door.
Yoga pants and T-shirt on, Dina walked out of her room and headed toward the wonderful aroma of coffee and bacon, and stopped.
Vince stood beside Monique wearing nothing but briefs.
“Where are your clothes?”
He ignored her, both of them did. Their focus stayed on the news report on the television.
Her stomach growled. As if she’d never spoken until then, they twisted around and stared at her.
“Food’s on the stove,” Vince said, “but check this out.” He pointed to the TV. A reporter stood near a Café Coffees. The wind from the storm playing with his coat and teasing his hair as debris whirled around him. “This is the place it happened,” the reporter said.
“What happened?” A bad feeling about what she’d hear next sent ice down the back of Dina’s neck.
“Another victim,” Monique snapped.
“Queens,” Vince said, not moving his gaze from the TV.
Gesturing to the coffee shop, the reporter continued. “The missing woman was last seen here two days ago. This makes five disappearances in the New York City area. Authorities continue to patrol the area. I spoke with the representative for Café Coffees. They’re taking proper precautions to stay open, and to make sure another person doesn’t fall victim to the Caffeine Junkie at one of their coffee shops.”
“The Caffeine Junkie is what they’ve dubbed this guy?” Vince laughed. “You’re kidding me.”
The missing women’s names and the locations displayed on the screen.
“Oh, no,” Dina gasped, her hand covering her mouth. “One of the girls was taken not far from here.”
Vince turned to Dina. “The women are all blonde. Be careful. Don’t go anywhere alone.”
She’d lived in Manhattan all her life. She didn’t want to start having an escort all these years later. “What are the victims’ ages?”
“A teen up to thirty-five,” Monique said, heading to the kitchen. “Don’t even think you shouldn’t be concerned.”
Dina let out a long sigh and watched the news to see if anymore alerts crossed the bottom of the screen. “Okay.”
“What do you girls have planned today?” Vince asked, scratching his bare chest with one hand and carefully taking one of the three cups of coffee from Monique with the other hand. “Thank you.”
“Thanks, Monique.” Dina accepted a coffee, and slid her gaze down Vince’s body, over his briefs. “Why aren’t you wearing clothes?”
He lifted his hands in a “what’s-the-problem gesture.”
“I like him that way.” Monique wiggled her eyebrows. “Gives my eyes something to do.”
“I’m sure.” Dina’s hope for her friends not to hook looked bleak. “To answer your question, I don’t have any plans. You?”
“You finished the ad?” Excitement pushed Monique’s words out on a high octave.
Last night, she worked into the morning to complete the right version of the ad for The Fold. No wonder Cole stayed on her mind the entire night. “I did. Want to celebrate by having a movie day?” Dina asked, taking to the idea more by the second. “A day doing nothing sounds wonderful.”
“I’ll cook my famous chili.” Laugh lines formed around the corners of Vince’s eyes and mouth. “Once you eat mine, you won’t want anyone else’s.”
“Just so we’re clear, you are talking about chili?” Mischief danced in Monique’s voice.
“Ah.” Vince’s eyes rose and his gaze glassed over as if playing out a vision in his head.
“Uh-oh.” This was the first time Dina had ever seen Vince rendered speechless. “Cat got your tongue?”
“I wish!” Monique raised her hand and curled her fingers inward toward her palm, as if her hand was a cat’s paw and roared like a tiger. “I gotta go. I’ll be back in a few hours,” Monique said between spurts of laughter and darted out of the apartment with Dina’s coffee cup in her hand.
“Is she always this spontaneous?” Vince asked staring after Monique until the door shut.
“She is.” Dina shifted over to the couch and sat. Sipping the coffee, her mind drifted to the past. How she, Vince, and Preston spent hours hanging out together on a rainy day, either watching TV, or playing cards. That fun-loving tradition came to a halt with Vince’s sudden disappearance, but one she hoped might resurrect with Monique, and the delicious guy down the hall.
“I have a cashier’s check,” he said, pulling Dina out of her head. He set his mug on the table and strolled to his pack in the corner. “Thank you for bailing me out of jail.”
“Anytime.” She accepted the check and placed it on the table. “We need to talk.”
“We do. First, I need a shower. Where’re your towels?” Vince lifted his arm and sniffed his armpit. “Phew!”
“They’re in the closet across from the guest bedroom. I’ll get one,” Dina said laughing, and set her cup on the table before strolling toward the closet.
A chime echoed off the walls. She jolted and smacked a hand to the wall. “Would you get that? It’s probably Monique.” Dina snatched the towel out of the closet and froze. Monique wouldn’t ring the bell. Oh shit!
“We’re about to take a shower, come join us,” Vince teased, swinging the door open as Dina barreled around the corner.
The single, less severe oh shit, turned into a bucket load of oh shit, slamming into her chest and steeling her brainwaves.
An arm braced on the doorjamb, Cole’s blue eyes shot beyond Vince and skimmed over her rushing toward them.
She needed to say something, explain the situation, but the oh shit! phenomena hadn’t left and words wouldn’t come.
His gaze snapped to Vince’s nearly naked body and his mouth pulled into a flat line.
Cole looked beaten, but her gut told her his gloomy expression was caused by something else, not Vince in her apartment.
“Hey, man,” Vince said, a lilt to his voice. Any minute he would make a bad situation worse.
“Vince,” she said on a low growl, bracing a hand on his shoulder and pushing. “Go.”
She didn’t budge him, but he went with it, stumbling to the wall and acting like a scolded puppy. “Dang,” he whined and snatched the towel from her hand before disappearing around the corner.
Cole met her gaze. The area between his eyes wrinkled and he shook his head. “I shouldn’t have come. My apologies.”
“Cole—”
“I’ll see you Monday.”
“We’re childhood friends,” she rushed to say, knowing the picture Vince and her presented made her explanation sound like a lie. “It’s not what it appears.”
Doubt flashed in his features. “Never is.” He held up a hand and stepped away. “I need no explanations.”
She followed him into the hall. “Please, don’t go. Really, Vince is a dear friend who just came back to the area, nothing more.”
Cole faced her, his eyes tinged red. “I came to—”
“Come inside.” Him stopping by her apartment gave her hope he’d resolved whatever issue stood between them.
His gaze traveled from her to where Vince had stood and back. “You’re busy and I have an appointment.”
The same type of excuse he made on the sidewalk, only this time it wasn’t a meeting. He shut her out. “Cole!”
“Please don’t.” He kissed her cheek, his lips lingering, and left.
She didn’t know what he wanted. They had two brief encounters, albeit wonderful ones, but they had no claims on each other. No right to demand they tell each other their innermost secrets. Still, she wanted to go after him and beg him to confide. Thanks to Vince, she learned a long time ago people would confide when they were ready, if ever.
She had no choice but to accept him leaving, turned to the man in her life that kept her guessing for different reasons, and closed the door.
Vince stood in the hall, near the kitchen in jeans and a T-shirt. “Rough morning?”
She held her face in her hands and pressed her fingers over her eyebrows. Not understanding men was becoming a habit for her. One of her biggest conundrums stood not two feet in front of her. “You decided not to take that shower, huh?”
“Later, besides men don’t stink, women do.”
Dina punched him in the arm and headed for the living area and her abandoned cup of coffee. Vince grasped her arm and pulled her into his embrace. “Don’t be upset. That guy looks like he’s got a lot on his mind.”
Years ago, when her parents fought…yelled at each other…at her, Vince held her like this, like a protective bear. The protection had ended when he left for a decade without a reason, taking his security along with her best friend. She stepped back and eyed him. “Time for answers.”
“I figured as much.” He shifted to pick up his coffee from the table and swallowed a mouthful, as if the caffeine would take some of the discomfort of what he had to say away. “At one time, I’d hoped we would have a chance, but when you planned to tie the knot with Preston I threw all hope out the window and left.” His eyes widened and lips went lax.
The expression on his face was the same as when he was a teen, telling his parents lies. “Bullshit,” she said, flopping on the couch and grabbing her cup off the table.
“Since when do you swear?”
“Since you started lying to me. The truth.”
He gave a half-hearted chuckle. “You could always call my bluff.”
She could, but now wasn’t the time to analyze how well she knew him. “Spill.”
For a long moment, he didn’t say a word, just studied her face and drank his coffee. “You really don’t know what made me disappear?”
What transpired between her father and Vince’s mother replayed in her mind often, but she’d never considered that the reason Vince had left. Now, she wondered why she hadn’t. She clucked her tongue, and sipped coffee. If she spilled her knowledge of the affair and that wasn’t what had troubled him, then speaking it would open a whole new can of worms. “I don’t.”
His posture stiffened and his eyes glazed over, as if he dug deep to find the strength to say what he needed to. “You know how our parents did everything together?”
She did, every vacation, every holiday. “Inseparable.”
“There’s more.”
Knowing he was about to confirm what a lowlife her father was twisted her stomach and made a nerve twitch in her eye. “More?” she begrudgingly asked.
“I witnessed something I couldn’t fathom, especially during the time of life where I idolized my parents.” He let a long breath and set his cup on the coffee table. “I can’t look at you while I say this. It’s hard enough for me to think about it, but telling you…this tortures me.” He diverted his gaze to the stormy weather outside.
The tension in the room thickened. Vince’s shoulders grew ridged and his jaw tightened.
“Dina, what they did, screwed me up. It’s the reason I don’t trust anyone. Why I don’t want a relationship.” Like a young boy, confessing his actions to his mother, Vince’s words were tight and sullen. “I stayed gone to avoid my mother. What she did to my father...”
Agitation surged under Dina’s skin. Knowing her father caused him anguish, she couldn’t sit still. She moved over to the window. The rain hammered the street. The weather looked like a welcoming friend compared to staying in the apartment with the walls closing in around her. “I don’t want to hear it. Sorry, that’s mean, but I don’t.”
“You know?” A surprised expression crossed Vince’s face.
She hugged herself and refused to speak the secret. “No.”
He inhaled a deep breath and released it. “I couldn’t stand for you to know about the betrayal. Afraid of breaking your heart, I remained quiet. I was wrong. When I first left, I hadn’t planned to stay away so long, just a few months to get my head together and figure out how to handle the situation. Now, here we are a decade later. All those years lost and I still have to tell you what I tried to shield you from.” Vince ran a hand over his face. His gaze went unfocused as he stared at the rain. “I suck at this. Could you imagine what it’d been like if I’d told you in your teens?” He shook his head. “Don’t answer.”
Her heart ached for him. She couldn’t believe she was about to help him justify his actions. “The one good thing about you leaving, you started your own business.”
A light came back to his eyes. “I did. I left the family money, and my trust fund.”
“You stood on your own two feet, something your mom never thought you’d do. Carrington Textiles is thriving.”
He faced her and rubbed her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Sweet as always, but don’t let me off the hook. Not yet.”
Twin reactions coursed through her. Admiration filled her that he was willing to listen to her response when he finished, knowing she probably wouldn’t like what he said. And frustration since the conversation wasn’t over. “Okay.”
“Carrying around this secret ate me up,” he was quick to say.
A sign blowing in the wind across the street caught her attention. She pressed her forehead against the windowpane, let the chill glass cool her overworked mind, and gazed at the narrow trees bending along the street. “You’ve told nobody?”
“No one.”
“I believe I know what you’re about to say,” she said, choosing to keep her focus on the upcoming storm instead of looking at his grief stricken face.
He walked up behind her, slid his arms around her waist, and rested his chin on her head. “I ran home to pick up my mother for a meeting.”
“My father said you packed your bags and left without a word.” The atrocious truths swamped her: The reason she left home and hastily into Preston’s arms was possibly the same motive that forced Vince to disappear. Not only had her father ruined her life by inadvertently prodding her into marrying Preston, his callous actions robbed her of her best friend.
“Not exactly. On the days I picked up my mother, she always waited for me on the porch. That day, when I arrived…the rocker was empty. Thinking something had happened, I raced inside. I found them downstairs.”
A weight pressed on her chest. The sting she experienced the day her mother told her what happened came back two-fold. Tears slipped down her cheeks.
“I found them on the couch.”
Her father’s actions were comparable to her low-life ex-husband’s. Hearing what Vince witnessed churned the bile, sitting in the pit of her stomach. “You don’t need to say anymore.”
“Yes, I do.” Pain spiked his voice to an uneven tenor. “To see Clarisse walk across the room to the bathroom, naked, floored me.” His chest vibrated against her back and he tightened his arms around her.
What Vince saw cut him to the core. How his mother could do—the name he said repeated in her head. Clarisse. Clairsse! A shockwave thundered through her system, exceeding the sound of the rolling noise outside. She griped the ledge of the windowsill as confusion and anger shattered what she knew as the truth. “My mother?” The commotion outside blurred and white noise muffled Vince’s words.
“Yes.” The agony in his words, his face, solidified it as fact. The confession upset him to speak the same as it broke her heart to hear.
Years ago, when she learned of her father’s disloyalty, it had stung, but this outrageous duplicity from her mother slammed a knife into her heart. The woman who declared she loved Dina unconditionally let her father take the blame for the demise of their marriage. “No, this can’t be real. My mother told me details. He was hateful.”
Vince stepped back and looked her in the eye. “Both of our mothers were hateful.” He said the words as if spitting out a nail. “I think when my dad learned of their affair, his heart couldn’t take it.”
For all of these years, she blamed her father for her mother’s oddity. Never once had it occurred to her that Clarisse Saunders, the pretentious, snooty, president of the country club, would cheat on her husband.
“There’s more.”
Dina moved to sit on the couch and rested her elbows on her knees. “What’s worse than learning my mom lied to me for years?”
“When Betty,” he said his mother’s name on a snarl, “spotted me, she flipped. A few days later, she eradicated your father’s position, dissolving the partnership. The reason for termination: Tom Saunders made unwanted advances. With the company having strict fraternizing rule, your dad didn’t have a chance. He graciously gave her space.”
Dina’s mouth fell open and every muscle went rigid. “What? Clarisse didn’t stop Betty?”
“No. Betty fired and stripped your dad of his stocks.” Vince’s words spilled out rough and snippy. “I hate her.”
Dina swallowed, producing a little bit of moisture in her suddenly dry mouth, and walked the length of the room. “Why didn’t Dad tell me? Why would he endure the cruel accusations?”
“In our parents’ circle, an affair kills their social standing. Betty could do whatever she wanted and your father stood powerless. Trust me, I confronted her. She said Tom didn’t want anyone to learn the truth about his wife.”
“Oh, no! My poor Dad. The way I treated him.”
“I told Betty to go to hell and stormed out. I haven’t been back and don’t plan to. She killed my dad.” Vince stood in front of her, one finger raised, and his face red. “One week, Dina, he’d been dead a fucking one week, when I caught Betty and Clarisse together. His body wasn’t even cold in the ground before they were back acting as lovers again. I’ll never forgive her.” The short, clipped words reflected the anger behind his eyes.
Did Betty and Clarisse care about the damage they forced on their families? How could her mother think splitting two families apart was worth cheating? “Are our mothers seeing each other now?”
Vince dropped his hands to his side. “No idea. I’m not in contact with her or her friends.”
Dina was in contact with Clarisse and couldn’t see what was right under her nose.
For a long moment, they stared at each other and listened to the rain hitting the glass.
“Sorry it took me so long. I wanted to tell you right away, but every time I looked at you…I couldn’t let what they did suck the life out of you like it had me.” He dragged his hand through his hair. “Finding Dad with a hand clutched to his heart played over in my head every day while I lived in New York. I had to leave. I’ve never forgotten, but I don’t see his lifeless image every minute of every day. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you and for not being here when you needed someone to beat the shit out of Preston. Without my dad, you’re the only family I trust and I let you down.”
Vince had always been family to her. Their bond didn’t compare to anyone else’s she’d ever met. She paused and thought of the instant, magnetic connection she had with Cole, but his was different. The feelings she had for him were stronger. “You are my family. You are a brother in every sense of the word. Well, except for that kiss.” She smiled, attempting to relieve the tension in the room.
He gazed into her eyes. “You’re not mad I didn’t come home sooner?”
She couldn’t imagine what he experienced, witnessing his adulteress mother in action. Being mad wasn’t an issue. Hurt followed by concern was. “I’m ticked you ran like a scared dog.”
“I saw red. I buried my dad and found out what my mom really is…a lying slut who has no mercy on anyone! I found out later our mothers’ affair started a year before my father’s death. I believe he found out and his heart couldn’t take it. Betty was the love of his life.”
Betty was. Vince’s dad gloated over her constantly. “How’d we not see this?” Thoughts ricocheted across Dina’s mind. “How did you find out? Did your mom confess everything when you confronted her?”
“I don’t know. We were blind I guess. Betty didn’t tell me. Mother Dearest did.”
Would the hits ever stop coming? “My mother?”
“Yep. She begged me not to say anything, said the information would destroy you.”
The pain shooting between her eyes and across her muscles made her head and body ache. Her parents holding back the truth, Preston’s infidelity, who could she trust? “My life crumbled anyway.”
He sat beside her on the couch and kissed the top of her head. “A setback, but you’re strong.”
“I don’t know if I could have handled the truth any earlier. It’s like someone lifted the veil from my eyes. I see everything clearer.”
“I think it’s easier, knowing how to process a conflict when you’re older rather than when you’re a kid.”
“I imagine so. I assumed my dad lost his money in the stock market. I worried about what you’d think when you found out about my parents’ state of affairs…when our mothers caused…”
“Why would I think anything?” Vince interrupted, his voice torn with conflict. “Money doesn’t matter. It’s not who you are.”
“Rationally, I know, but it’s embedded in me. Our parents raised us to be snobs.”
“Yes, but we’re not now. More importantly, we both made it, have our own businesses without our parents’ influences.”
“True.” An array of emotions inundated her, guilt weighing on her most. “I owe Dad an apology. If I head over there now, Mom will be at the gym. I’m not in the mood to have a mother-daughter chat with her just yet.”
“I should go with you. Remember the psycho on the street?”
She did, but having Vince there would diminish the monumental moment with her father. “No. This I need to do on my own.” The burden her father undertook to protect his family from a time when being different would have marred them was nothing less than remarkable. “Besides, not even a criminal would want to venture out in this weather.”
He nodded at the rain. “Good point. It’s nasty.”
“I won’t be long. I’ll be back in time for movie day.” She placed a hand on his chest and kissed his cheek. “Are you okay?”
“I am. Do you want wine or beer with the chili?”
“Beer sounds good.” Dina headed toward her bedroom. The sooner she showered and met with her dad, the quicker the horrible daughter image would vanish and she could enjoy the nasty day watching movies and eating chili. “See ya, later.”
“Stay safe,” Vince said, snatching a jacket off the back of a chair. “I’m off to the grocery store.”