Chapter Twenty-Four
Chap-ter Twenty-Four
D ina paused in front of Adam’s fa-ther’s house. Her “per-fect” plan might not be so per-fect af-ter all. She’d called his fa-ther at work and asked to meet with him, telling him she had news to share that was too im-por-tant to dis-cuss over the phone. In-stead of pick-ing a time dur-ing the week as she’d ex-pected, he’d in-vited her over to his house to-day, Sun-day, at eleven o’clock. Re-luc-tant to go to his home, she’d tried to of-fer al-ter-na-tives, but he’d been adamant. So here she was. At least she was guar-an-teed not to run into Adam.
The house in-tim-i-dated her. The man in-tim-i-dated her. This life-style in-tim-i-dated her. Ev-ery fiber of her be-ing wanted to turn around and leave, for-get about what she knew and go back to her cozy apart-ment to curl up with a book.
But she was right-eous and had a duty to tell the truth.
Dammit.
Find-ing her back-bone, she pushed the door chime and lis-tened to it echo through-out the house. Mere mo-ments later, the mar-ble door opened and the same for-mal woman stood in the door-way. There was no smile of recog-ni-tion, no wel-com-ing ges-ture. I guess hired help is paid to be neu-tral.
“Hi, I’m Dina. I’m here to see Mr. Man-del.”
“Come in.” She stepped back and mo-tioned for Dina to fol-low her. This time, she wasn’t led into the liv-ing room. She was shown to a room off of the foyer. Dec-o-rated in shades of blue and cream, with white or-chids on the ta-ble and a small Queen Anne sofa, it had a more fem-i-nine touch. Dina sat on the sofa and gazed at the Mon-ets on the wall as some of her nerves dis-si-pated.
“This was my wife’s fa-vorite room,” Mr. Man-del said.
Dina star-tled at his silent ap-pear-ance and rose to greet him. “I can see why,” she said, hold-ing out her hand to shake his. “It’s lovely.”
“My son never sets foot in here.”
She did not want to talk about Adam any-more than she had to. “I’m sure it’s a re-minder she left. Thank you for see-ing me to-day.”
He sat in a blue and cream striped wing-back chair, across from her and the woman who’d an-swered the door brought in a tea ser-vice. When Dina nod-ded to the silent ques-tion, she poured tea and handed Dina the sugar, be-fore ar-rang-ing a cup for Mr. Man-del.
When she’d left, Adam’s fa-ther leaned for-ward. “You said you had news for me?”
The bone china teacup rat-tled as she placed it on the saucer and she wished there had been al-co-hol added to it to steady her nerves.
“I have proof Ash-ley lied about ev-ery-thing.”
“Ash-ley…?”
“The woman ac-cus-ing Adam of never giv-ing her the mo-tions she was sup-posed to file.” Did he re-ally not re-mem-ber who she was?
“You know her?”
“I went to high school with her, al-though I never knew her, other than by rep-u-ta-tion.”
“What’s your proof? Be-cause I was never able to find out any in-for-ma-tion. The par-ale-gals in my of-fice pre-sented a united front and de-fended her.”
She told him about the re-union and about Cheryl and Sta-cie and Ash-ley and all the rest of the “mean girls.” She re-counted her din-ner with Cheryl and fi-nally, she handed him her phone.
“The screen-shots are of texts Ash-ley sent her group of friends. Ash-ley is cur-rently try-ing to steal Cheryl’s boyfriend and this is Cheryl’s way of get-ting pay-back.”
“And these girls are your friends?” His dis-dain showed on his face and even though it was un-de-served, Dina winced.
“No, they never were. I didn’t have friends in high school. I was too smart to fit in. They used me back then to try to pass their classes and they’re us-ing me now to get re-venge.”
“Then why are you help-ing them?”
She met his gaze and re-fused to cower. “Be-cause in this in-stance, the truth is more im-por-tant than any-thing else. I’m not a part of them, I never was. And I’m not par-tic-i-pat-ing in their pay-back. I’m sim-ply pass-ing along in-for-ma-tion that you need to hear.”
“What about what I need to hear?”
The voice made her drop her teacup, which shat-tered in the saucer and spilled tea on the ta-ble be-fore drip-ping onto the Aubus-son rug. Mr. Man-del yelled for the maid, but Dina froze, star-ing at Adam.
He never vis-ited his dad. That was the only ben-e-fit she’d seen to meet-ing at his house. He wasn’t sup-posed to be here. Her body tem-per-a-ture plum-meted be-fore ratch-et-ing up and mak-ing her sweat. She opened her mouth, re-mained silent, and closed it again.
The woman en-tered with a rag and cleaned up the mess. Adam re-mained in the door-way, lean-ing against the jamb, feet and arms crossed. Only the tic of his jaw told Dina he wasn’t as re-laxed as he pre-tended to be.
When all traces of the spilled tea were gone, Mr. Man-del set-tled back in his chair and fo-cused his gaze on Dina, seem-ing to ig-nore Adam. If only it were that easy for her.
“Why?” Mr. Man-del asked.
Dina frowned, try-ing to keep her fo-cus on him. “Why, what?”
“Why are you giv-ing me this in-for-ma-tion?”
“Be-cause it’s the truth. Adam didn’t shirk his du-ties or lie. It wasn’t his fault on ei-ther of the ac-counts. She made it up. And with the proof, you can get him his job back.”
“What’s in it for you?”
The ques-tion came from Adam and she had to con-trol her breath-ing be-fore she an-swered. “Noth-ing.”
Mr. Man-del was star-ing at her like she was a brand new species of in-sect. She re-fused to squirm.
“Thank you for bring-ing this to me,” Mr. Man-del said. “Can I get a copy of these texts?”
“You can have them. I don’t ever want to see them again.” She sent him the screen-shots and when he con-firmed re-ceipt, she deleted them from her phone. “If you’ll ex-cuse me, I have to go. Thank you for the tea and I’m sorry about the mess.”
As she passed through the door-way, Adam grabbed her arm, but she yanked it away.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Dina.”
Hear-ing her name on his lips was like a knife through her chest. With-out wait-ing for him to say any-thing else, she rushed out the door and drove away.
“What the hell did you do?” Adam shouted to his fa-ther as he watched Dina leave him—again. Dammit. He’d set this whole thing up so he’d been the one to leave. And now his fa-ther had in-ter-fered. The fa-mil-iar hol-low feel-ing filled his chest and bands of pres-sure squeezed, mak-ing him pic-ture an empty bag with a tie around it, slowly squeez-ing all the air out of it.
“What did I do?” his fa-ther asked. “There you go again, blam-ing all your prob-lems on ev-ery-one but your-self. Why don’t you ask your-self that ques-tion?”
His fa-ther strode out of his mother’s par-lor, into his of-fice and grabbed a bot-tle of scotch off the side-board. Adam hated this room al-most as much as his mother’s par-lor, ex-cept he’d en-ter this one. He fol-lowed his fa-ther and watched him pour a fin-ger-ful into a Glen-cairn tum-bler and toss it back. He could al-most feel the burn in his own throat, but he shook his head. He wasn’t drink-ing. Not un-til he got an-swers from his fa-ther.
“What was Dina do-ing here?”
“I be-lieve you over-heard at least part of what she said. She told me she had some-thing to tell me.”
“And you just hap-pened to in-vite her over right be-fore the time you’d told me to ar-rive?”
“Two birds, one stone.”
“What the hell is that sup-posed to mean?” Adam paced the room, too ag-i-tated to sit still.
“It means you need to fix things with Dina and she was go-ing to be here.”
“I need to…who the hell gives you the right to butt into my busi-ness?”
His fa-ther loomed over his desk, fists planted on ei-ther side of the leather blot-ter, a frown twist-ing his face. “I am your fa-ther and you are roy-ally screw-ing up your life. It’s high time you set-tled down and made some-thing out of your-self.”
“I was mak-ing some-thing of my-self just fine un-til you fired me on a whim.”
For the first time since Adam had ar-rived at the house, a look of dis-com-fort passed across his fa-ther’s face. He’d learned from years of ex-pe-ri-ence, the best way to best his fa-ther was in-di-rectly.
“The ac-cu-sa-tions were hurt-ing the firm.”
“The ac-cu-sa-tions were false, as Dina just proved.” He glow-ered at his fa-ther and watched his face suf-fuse with color.
“I had no way of know-ing that.”
“Yet some-how, Dina was able to find out?” Adam stag-gered back. Were his ac-cu-sa-tions true? Had she re-ally been work-ing with Ash-ley? “How could she have known, Dad? Un-less she was work-ing with Ash-ley all along.” The last sen-tence came out in a hoarse whis-per and he sank into the chair across from his fa-ther’s desk.
“If you be-lieve that, you’re dumber than I ever thought you were,” his fa-ther said.
Adam re-mained silent.
“You’re kid-ding me.” His fa-ther rose from be-hind his desk, came around and leaned against it, mere inches away from him. “Adam, think about it. Can you re-ally pic-ture her and Ash-ley work-ing to-gether? This is Dina we’re talk-ing about. The girl who spouts ob-scure facts Ash-ley wouldn’t rec-og-nize in an en-cy-clo-pe-dia and cov-ers more skin than Ash-ley ever has in her life. Come on!”
“They went to high school to-gether. Ash-ley used Dina to get good grades. Who knows what else they’ve done?” But even Adam rec-og-nized the ab-sur-dity of his state-ment. He dropped his head to his chest. “Okay, scratch that. Dina’s not that type of woman.”
“Damn right. And you owe her an apol-ogy for think-ing that way.”
He was right. “What about what you owe me?”
“I owe you one as well. I’m sorry. I couldn’t face the idea of the firm suf-fer-ing and I let it blind me to how I was hurt-ing you.”
His fa-ther had never shown this side of him-self and Adam rose, stick-ing his hands in his pocket and shrug-ging off the un-ex-pected emo-tion. “It’s fine. I’m used to it.”
“Adz.”
Adam stiff-ened at the un-used child-hood nick-name. He hadn’t heard it since be-fore his mother left.
“Don’t let my mis-takes ruin your life, son.”
“It’s a lit-tle late for that, when your own fa-ther fires you.”
His fa-ther’s gaze bore into him. “I’ll take care of re-in-stat-ing you and mak-ing things right at the of-fice. But I’m not talk-ing about your job.”
“What gives you the right to think you have a say in any-thing else?”
A brief flicker in his fa-ther’s eyes was the only in-di-ca-tion he’d scored a hit. “She did come to me with the in-for-ma-tion.”
And that was the mil-lion-dol-lar ques-tion. Why hadn’t Dina come to him?
“Don’t push Dina away, Adam. Not for me, but for you. She’s the best thing that ever hap-pened to you. Find a way to make it work.”
He couldn’t lis-ten to his fa-ther any-more. There were too many things zoom-ing around in his head—Ash-ley and her ac-cu-sa-tion, Dina, how the hell Dina knew the truth, why she’d gone to his fa-ther in-stead of him, his mother, his fa-ther call-ing him ‘Adz.’ He needed to get out of this house, where mem-o-ries threat-ened to over-whelm him.
Strid-ing out of his fa-ther’s of-fice, he raced to the front door, but his fa-ther stopped him in front of his mother’s par-lor.
“I miss her too, you know.”
The raw emo-tion in his fa-ther’s voice struck him like a phys-i-cal blow. Dar-ing a glance at him, he looked in awe at his fa-ther’s moist eyes. He couldn’t han-dle his fa-ther or the im-pli-ca-tions of his state-ment. He had to es-cape. Throw-ing the front door open, he ran to his car, gunned the en-gine and sped down the drive-way. The thrum of the en-gine echoed the rac-ing of his pulse. He hugged the curves in the road, watch-ing trees pass in a blur, know-ing he was go-ing too fast but not car-ing. When he reached the straight-away, he slowed, tak-ing deep breaths as if to calm his car as well as his heart.
He had to talk to Dina.
Dina lay curled in a ball on her bed, the shades drawn. She’d spent an hour talk-ing to Tracy, or rather, sob-bing to Tracy. Her throat was parched, her eyes were gritty and her limbs felt heavy. She had the “Adam Flu.” And she was pissed.
He was an ass. There was no rea-son for her to feel this bad af-ter clear-ing his name with his fa-ther. The truth was sup-posed to set her free, or some crap like that. It was sup-posed to make her feel bet-ter.
It didn’t.
Maybe if Adam hadn’t shown up. But he did and the sight of him shred-ded her heart.
Her in-ter-com buzzed and she roused her-self enough to stum-ble out to the kitchen. Tracy was a sweet-heart to come over.
“Hello?” Her voice was hoarse.
“Dina, let me in.”
The mas-cu-line voice was not Tracy. For a mil-lisec-ond, she tried to con-vince her-self it was Tracy’s hus-band, but she knew bet-ter.
“Go away, Adam.”
“Dina, I want to talk to you.”
She leaned against the wall. “I don’t want to talk to you. Go away, Adam.”
“Please.”
“No.”
She re-turned to her bed-room and bur-rowed un-der the cov-ers as she lis-tened to the in-ter-com con-tinue to buzz. There was noth-ing to talk about.
Af-ter five min-utes of near con-tin-u-ous buzzing—she could al-most pic-ture him lean-ing against the but-ton like some crazy com-bi-na-tion of debonair movie star and petu-lant tod-dler—the noise ceased. Dina raised her head. The si-lence was dis-turb-ing and a re-lief at the same time. Ex-hal-ing, she made her-self more com-fort-able among the light blue and yel-low throw pil-lows and soft white com-forter.
And then the knock-ing started.
“Oh no,” she said. “Oh no, no, no, no, no!”
She threw back the cov-ers and stormed to her front door. Through the peep-hole, she saw Adam. Which of her neigh-bors was she go-ing to have to kill?
“Go away, Adam!”
“Dina, I need to talk to you. Please let me in.”
“No.”
The knock-ing turned to pound-ing, and as she leaned against the door, the wood vi-brated against her back.
“Dina, come on.”
“Adam, if you don’t stop, I’m call-ing the po-lice.”
Her phone buzzed in her pocket and a text from Tracy ap-peared.
are you okay
adam is here. he wants me to let him in
The knock-ing ceased and Dina waited, sure it would re-sume. But af-ter a few min-utes, she heard his foot-steps re-cede. Her phone buzzed again.
I told him to stop
so did I. how’d you do it?
I have my ways. do you want me to come over?
no, I’m okay now
call me if you need any-thing
Now that he was gone and her anger had sub-sided, Dina started to shake. She was tired, hun-gry, sad and a host of other emo-tions she couldn’t name. She paced the con-fines of her small apart-ment, over-come with a de-sire to leave, which warred with her fear of run-ning into Adam. He’d come to her apart-ment and man-aged to get in-side. Tracy had some-how con-vinced him to leave, but what if he were out-side wait-ing for her?
She raced to the win-dow and peeked out-side. Nei-ther he nor his car was in view, and she backed away. She had no idea how Tracy had con-vinced him to leave, but he was gone, and it was time to go back to her own life.
And some-how find-ing a way to get over Adam.