Authors: Emily Snow
“It’s more what
I
didn’t
do,” I explained, carefully studying the Scotts’ itinerary.
Three people would be arriving at two-thirty this afternoon, which would give
me plenty of time to check in on the event planner and catch up on my in-office
duties. “She sent an email yesterday asking me to let some guests in—” As soon
as I said those words, my breath caught.
Holy crap.
Margaret had just given me access to her house.
“You’re
creeping me out,” Pen announced in a singsong voice, kneeling beside the couch
to look inside her laptop bag. “What’s up?”
“She’s out of
town and left me the key to her place.”
My best
friend’s head whipped around, and she stood upright, her hands on her curvy
hips. “Get the fuck out of town.” I flashed my phone up at her. She took it,
reading over the message before tossing it back to me. “What kind of idiot
sends all their passcodes in an email?”
“The kind who
doesn’t think their system can be penetrated and who doesn’t put a password on
their laptop.”
Pen snorted.
It had taken her all of two days to get into Margaret’s laptop this past
weekend, and she was slowly starting to sift through the hundreds of files.
There were more pictures of Margaret and my father, more proof that he was
involved with her while he was married to my mom. I tried not to let it bother
me, but it did.
No matter how
jaded I might be, I still wanted to believe in that happily ever after.
Two
purple-painted fingernails snapping in my face jerked me out of my thoughts. My
best friend’s grayish-blue eyes hovered in front of mine. “How long is she gone
for? You need to get off your butt and get the hell over there.”
“Just until
tomorrow.” I slid on my shoes. “I’m supposed to be meeting her guests at her
place this afternoon.”
“Screw this
afternoon,” she said, reaching for her laptop bag and slinging it over her
shoulders. She backed toward the front door. “Go.
Now
.”
Nodding, I drew
myself to my feet, hobbling a little on my high heels. “Where are you going?”
A guilty
expression passed over her features, but she replaced it almost immediately
with a frown. “Unfortunately, I
can’t
go with you,” she said evasively,
sounding genuinely sorry.
What were she
and August working on that would make her be so secretive? Before I could do
something I rarely did when it came to her extracurricular activities—ask
questions—she said, “You can make up an excuse why you’re there but explaining
me would be a stretch. You remember how to use that app I installed to your
phone?” When I rolled my eyes because she’d added several apps recently, she continued,
“The scanner one?”
“Yes.”
“Good. You find
anything worth reading over, get me a copy. I’m ready to see what this bitch is
hiding.” Before Pen rushed out the apartment, she gave me a stern glare. “Be
careful and be smart.”
“Always,” I
swore.
Although
Margaret had given me her address in the email she’d sent, I didn’t use the GPS
as I drove the half hour from my Marina del Rey apartment to her home in Bel
Air. I didn’t need directions. Some of my happiest childhood memories had taken
place inside the house I was heading to, and upon my return to L.A. over a
month ago, it had been one of the first neighborhoods I’d driven past. Of course,
I hadn’t been able to get through the gate because I didn’t have a code, but
Margaret had just fixed all that.
Driving to the
end of the cul-de-sac, I parked my Mini Cooper in front of one of the garage
door bays—there were five in all—and turned off the ignition. For a moment, I
sat in breathless silence, staring up at the Mediterranean-style house with its
lavish balconies and stained-glass entry door. I could clearly remember my
sixth birthday, following my father up the steps leading to that door. He’d
knelt down and grinned over his shoulder.
“
Birthday
girls get piggyback rides
,” he’d told me, and I had giggled and jumped on
his back, burying my face into his short blond hair as he took me inside to
where my mother and a room full of people whose faces I couldn’t remember were
waiting to celebrate.
But then, I
blinked, and that memory was gone.
I gulped down
the fist-size lump in my throat. Now was not the time for emotion. I could shed
my tears over the past—let myself wonder about what could have been if my
parents hadn’t divorced or passed away—later.
Much,
much
later.
Holding my keys
so tightly the metal dug into my skin, I gingerly got out of my car and crept
to the front entrance, the sound of the pencil-thin heel on my suede booties
seeming to echo off the stone driveway. I started to put in the lockbox code,
but then I paused for a moment.
1283.
It was Oliver’s
birthday, December 6, 1983. And the code I’d entered at the gate to get into
the community was a reference to my father’s April 1951 birthday.
Maybe—just
maybe the stepmonster was softer than I’d originally thought. I unlocked the
front doors and stepped into the chilly foyer. I immediately disabled the
security alarm, coughing at the overpowering scent of sandalwood vanilla
fragrance oil.
I was home.
A few years before my mom
was killed, we had started a ritual. Even though she swore she was getting
old—she was only in her mid-thirties when she died—she had more modeling gigs
than ever before, and every now and then, her job kept her away from me.
Whenever she was working late or had to leave town for a night or two to do a
photo shoot, we would each read the same book, alternating whose turn it was to
choose. Our quirky, two-person book club had carried me through some of my
loneliest moments. It was why I fell in love with
The Outsiders, The
Princess Bride,
and
Blood and Chocolate
. It was also the reason
behind the Margaret Atwood quote sneaking through my mind.
“When we think of the past it's the beautiful things we pick out. We
want to believe it was all like that.”
Because
as I stood in the two-story entry, with my head tilted up toward the balcony on
the second floor and my legs threatening to give out from the nervous energy
slicing through me like a dull knife, I thought of the past. Of the
beautiful
things about it. Like the memory of attempting to ride the banister to my left,
my mother chasing after me and admonishing me in a mixture of English and her
native Ukrainian. Or when I saw the family room where we’d opened Christmas
gifts and remembered how the stockings always sagged crookedly off the mantle
no matter how much my mom fussed with them.
The
furniture had changed over the years. Like the executive floor at Emerson &
Taylor, it had made the jolting transition from deep, bold colors to the sterile
neutrals Margaret seemed to prefer. But the memories—the recollections of my
mom and dad evoked from being inside this place again—they stayed the same.
Achingly
beautiful.
And
a driving force to get
something
done. “I’ve screwed off too long,” I
sighed ruefully. “It’s time I figured this out so I can get out of this place.”
Because
the reality was that if I stayed around too much longer, that other force in my
life—the one of the tall, blue-eyed, cocky swagger variety—would complicate
things even more. It was inevitable. And being in
this
house—this
blatant reminder of exactly who he was—did nothing to stop the harsh tug I felt
in the pit of my stomach when I pictured my stepbrother’s face.
“Don’t
think of him.” I breathed harshly and coerced myself to move from my spot.
“Uncover, expose, and get the hell out of here.”
When
I was a little girl, my dad’s home office was on the other side of the den
attached to their bedroom. He’d often bring his Emerson & Taylor work home,
and I’d sit on the burgundy jacquard armchair, my legs dangling off the edge as
I pretended to assist him on the toy laptop my mom had bought me.
Halfheartedly,
I shook the thought from my mind.
Since
it was an incredibly large house—at least ten thousand square feet, twelve
times bigger than my apartment in Vegas—the upstairs office was the logical
place to start. After locking the front door and donning the latex gloves I’d
brought with me, I left Margaret’s keys on the mantle in the family room and
inched upstairs, my fingers trailing up the cold metal banister.
I
hadn’t been inside this house for more than half my life, the few times I’d
seen my father following my parents’ divorce had been on my mom’s terms and far
away from L.A., but I still found the master bedroom without having to search.
The path was automatic for my feet. My boot heels drumming a staccato beat on
the bleached wood floor of the bedroom, I kept my brown eyes straight ahead,
but I still couldn’t help glancing at the empty nightstand.
I
tried not to compare Margaret to my mother, who’d kept pictures all over the
place.
Before
I stepped into my father’s old office, I paused. Part of me wanted to believe
Margaret would have left it the same. That she would have left
some
part
of this house untouched. I twisted the knob and gradually opened the door. The
air left my lungs, making me feel like an iron fist had just slammed into my
chest. His office, like everything else in this damn house, had changed.
New
furnishings, white and silver Chateau Versailles wallpaper, and a sculpture
that reminded me of the one in her office at work— the room reeked of her.
Gritting my teeth to hold back the angry sound threatening to burst from my
lips, I dropped on my knees beside the desk, yanking open a drawer chock-f
of hanging file folders. I would not let this bother me.
I. Would. Not.
Resting my back
against the side of the desk, I studied the contents of the folders one at a
time, taking care to put everything back in the exact place I found it. Every
several pages, I’d pull out my phone and use the scanning app Pen had
installed, taking photos of the pages I thought I should keep and sending the
PDF files to the secure email she’d set up for me. It was mostly a bunch of old
financial records—bank statements and personal investment reports—but I copied
everything that had the name
Gregory Emerson
listed on it.
When I reached
the second drawer, I expected much of the same. But the moment I opened the
first thick manila folder, I was stunned to see myself staring back. Well, a
very young version of myself. The picture I was looking at—of my father,
mother, and myself at some company party—was at least eighteen years old, and
the corners were frayed. They stood on either side of me, with his hand
affectionately touching the top of my white-blond hair and her slim arm wrapped
around my shoulder. Both my parents were smiling, but now I could see the
distance in their stance, in their eyes. Maybe a week ago, I wouldn’t have
noticed that, but I did now, and I almost missed the ignorance.
I dropped my
head back, hot moisture blurring the corners of my eyes as I stared up at the
chandelier hanging over the desk. Pressing my fist to my mouth, I breathed. So
deeply my chest burned.
When I was calm
enough to continue, it required everything in my power not to take that
original picture and slip it into my bag, but I took the safe road and scanned
it. After this was all over, when I went home to Vegas, I’d have it enlarged
and hung in my apartment.
Reluctantly, I
flipped the picture over to find a few more. Toward the back of the folder,
there was a neat stack of papers a quarter of an inch thick. They were court
documents dated from ten years ago. Settling back in the seat, I skimmed over
them, a dull ache throbbing in my heart every time I saw Olena
Andreiko-Emerson’s name mentioned.
She was my
mother.
My mother who,
up until today, I never realized had tried to contest my dad’s will. From what
I could see on the papers in front of me, she’d been much too late—years, in
fact. I positioned my phone over the first page of the court documents and
started scanning, my fingers almost too numb to press the buttons.
Why hadn’t she
mentioned any of this to me?
And, more
importantly, why had she waited so long to ask questions? My father had been
dead for five years at that point, and she went out of her way not to talk
about him with me. What had changed?
My phone
vibrated in my hand, startling me. Dragging my gloved hand over my face, I took
in a deep breath and checked the caller ID. Since I didn’t recognize the
number—and it could easily be Margaret checking in on me—I decided not to
ignore it.
“This is
Lizzie,” I answered, speaking softly so my caller wouldn’t hear the tremor in
my voice.
“It’s Oliver.”
At his low growl, that tremor extended to the rest of my body, changing to a
shiver that made my toes curl. No matter what I was doing, that man’s voice
seemed to have an effect on me. “Did you miss me while I was away?”
“I’ve been
working.” Forcing my concentration from the papers in front of me, I stood,
placed the folder on the desk, and paced over to the tall, round top window. I
stared down at the tennis court. “Besides, since you were able to get my number
this easily, you knew I was only a call away.”
Denying
nothing, he said, “Talking to you makes it impossible to not want to see you
right then and there, so I’ve refrained.” I heard his hand covering the
mouthpiece as he spoke to someone else before returning. “As far as you
working, I was just at your office and even checked with Ms. Marchand. You were
nowhere to be found.”
“You tracked
down my coworker?” When he murmured a confirmation, I sardonically added, “I’m
touched, Oliver.”
But it
was
flattering. Breathtaking and ridiculously flattering.
“You’re upset.”
I flinched.
“Excuse me?”
“Your voice
just trembled. Lie all you want, but I can tell you’re angry about something.”
Turning from
the window, my eyes swept over the open folder on Margaret’s desk. The sight of
it made me nauseous—it was full of more problems that I wasn’t quite ready
for—and I wrapped my arm protectively over my stomach. “Your mother has me all
over the place for this event, and—”
“Say the word
and I’ll have someone take care of everything.”
“Oliver—” I
groaned.
“I want to take
you for lunch,” he said, his voice reaching a sexy low. “I
need
to see
you.”
God, why did
that have to sound so tempting? “It’s a little early for lunch, and besides I
can’t just pass off my job on someone else. For starters, Margaret would kill
me, and secondly—”
“It’s fifteen
minutes after one,” he corrected, an edge of worry affecting his deep voice.
“Which just goes to show you’re working too goddamn hard. Even you, beautiful,
can take the time to eat.”
Jerking my
phone from my ear, I held it out in front of me, and my eyes nearly bugged when
I saw he was telling me the truth about the time. I’d been in this house for
over three hours. How the hell had I let myself lose track of time so easily?
“Fuck,” I
breathed.
“If that’s how
you’d prefer to spend the meal,” he agreed suggestively. “But once you’re
naked, I won’t be able to let you get back to work.”
My stomach
fluttered, and I tried not to focus on it as I scrambled over to the desk. “You
know that’s not what I meant,” I said, sounding winded nonetheless. “Look, I
have to meet someone at your mother’s house, and we both know she will dance on
my corpse if I’m late. Sorry, Oliver, I’ll have to call you back later.” Then,
I hung up before he had the chance to respond.
Staring down at
the folder on the desk, I slowly came to terms with the fact that I’d run out
of time to finish what I started. I began to return everything to the drawer.
But I couldn’t
do it.
Like the call
that had started all this, knowing missing pieces of the puzzle were so close
to being within my reach would drive me crazy.
“Fuck you,
Margaret.”
I plucked out
the last half of the paperwork—the part I didn’t have the chance to copy—and
slipped them carefully in my purse. Quickly, I arranged Margaret’s office like
I found it. Then I returned to the main floor, pulling off my gloves and
shoving them in my bag along with my phone.
*
Less than half an hour
later, the sound of the doorbell—the chime was custom, Beethoven’s “Für
Elise”—snagged my attention from the only photo in the family room, a giant
portrait of Margaret and my dad that hung over the mantle. Adjusting the hem of
my lacy off-white dress over my black tights, I plastered a smile on my face
and went to the door.
Throwing it
open, I was prepared to kiss ass for the sake of making my boss happy, but
instead of meeting the stares of strangers, I was looking directly at a rock
hard chest. Glancing up the length of the thin, sapphire-colored tie, past the
full lips I’d dreamt of having on my body, and at last, to the stunning blue
eyes that were burning into me, I swallowed hard.
“I’ve missed
you,” Oliver said simply.
I rubbed the
back of my neck, brushing strands of blond hair from my nape. “You have a hard
time taking
no
for an answer.” I stepped aside so he could come in.
Nodding teasingly, he walked past me, his muscular arm brushing against my
breasts. My nipples immediately hardened under the contact, and I turned my
body away from him and hoped he didn’t notice. “I was going to call you back.”
“No you
weren’t,” he tossed over his broad shoulder.
Slamming the
door so hard the stained-glass rattled, I followed him into the family room,
where he sprawled out on the white Belgian linen couch. Today, I would keep my
distance from him. I couldn’t handle letting him screw with my body when my
mind was already so overwhelmed. Resting my shoulder tiredly against the crown
molding in the doorway, I watched him furtively, willing myself to stay strong.
“I told you,
you sounded upset. I couldn’t sit across town thinking of you being here alone
like that because then I’d get pissed off.” He loosened his tie, his expression
softening. “Let me fix this, so we can go eat.”
“I’m fine,” I
argued, my pulse speeding as I processed his words. It was similar to what he’d
written on the envelope he sent four weeks ago—
I fix what I break.
The
thing was, nothing that was broken was Oliver’s doing. It was all on his
mother. “I’m
fine
,” I repeated. “But you should probably leave.”