Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
ELLA
T he cottage had filled up with sisters, so Rhett and I drove to his cursed manor for some peace and quiet. We sat for an hour nibbling popcorn and musing about a giant chandelier falling from the ceiling in the middle of the front parlor. It was a terrible tragedy, but it was hard not to be somewhat entertained by such a wild and weird way to die.
I stretched my arms up over my head and yawned. Rhett had filled the hearth in the smaller parlor with a roaring fire, and we’d sat ourselves on the couch in front of the warmth. I rested my head against his shoulder. “This is the best way to spend a lazy afternoon.”
He took hold of my hand. The feathery ends of his scar poked out from his sleeve. I stared down at our clasped hands and rubbed my thumb over the ridges of the scar on the heel of his thumb. “Right after our mom died, Nonna used to tell us that catastrophes built character. She insisted the only way to grow in strength and integrity and humanity was to experience hardship. She’d grown up on a small farm in an Irish village. For the longest time her father, Sean, had been the most important man in the village. People came to him for help with their problems, whether it was mending a fishing net, solving an issue with a herd of sheep or learning how to plant a certain crop. Maeve, that was Nonna’s name, was so proud of her father. She thought the world revolved around him and that he was the most invincible man in the world. He was walking in from the fields one day, where a lamb had gotten tangled up in fence wire. The rain was pouring down in sheets. Nonna was in the kitchen making stew with her mother, and the family was looking forward to a nice, hearty meal and some music afterward. Nonna glanced out the window and saw her dad walking through the inner gate. She waved and he waved back. She turned to pick up a carrot that had rolled on the floor. When she swung back to the sink to wash the carrot, she saw her dad clutch his chest and fall to his knees. He died three days later—a heart attack. She said she didn’t eat or sleep for days and stayed inside the house, not wanting to see the sadness on her neighbors’ faces. Six months later, a funny thing happened. The villagers started coming to her to solve problems. You see, Maeve had spent so much time with her dad, she’d learned everything. She was devastated by her loss, but she also took on a new role—most important woman in the village.”
“Great story,” Rhett said. “Made even greater by the storyteller.”
I squeezed his hand. “This day turned out way better than I expected.”
“Definitely had a rough start,” Rhett said. He lifted our clasped hands and kissed the back of mine. “Let’s forget this morning altogether. I’ll even pretend that I never saw my ex-wife. In fact, it’s easy to push her out of my mind.”
I sighed. “Yeah, I’m feeling the same way about my new neighbor, Monica ,” I said with proper disgust. “She’s very snooty and ugh, I don’t know. She rubbed me the wrong way.”
“Is that the neighbor you mentioned the night of the storm? She’s a renter, right? So maybe she’ll be gone soon.”
“Hope so. In the meantime, I’ll try to avoid her. It won’t be easy because there are only a few cottages along that strip of coast. She’s just a little too catty and pretty and flexible. Ridiculously flexible, as if she’s spent the last ten years in yoga classes. She was asking about the house, too.”
“Your house or the one she’s renting? Do you think she’s planning to buy the rental?”
“Audrey would never part with it. No, I meant Grimstone. She was asking about Grimstone.”
Rhett’s body tensed next to me. “What did you say her name was?”
“Monica.”
He fell silent, and I could still feel tension in the shoulder I rested my head against. I lifted my head and looked at him. “Everything all right?” I asked tentatively because clearly it wasn’t.
His jaw was set tighter, too. “Monica—what does she look like?”
“Blonde hair, blue eyes, perfect white smile and an incredible fig—” My words trailed off. “It’s her, isn’t it?”
The expression on his face assured me that was the case.
“Why is she here?” I asked.
Rhett stood up and raked his fingers through his hair. Tension rolled off him in waves. “She’s determined to make my life miserable, and she’s doing a great job.”
“Do you think she knows about us? I sort of got this kind of—I don’t know—icky feeling from her. Like we were mortal enemies in a different life, and we’d now met in this new one.”
Rhett turned to me. “I’m so sorry, Ella. Maybe we should?—”
I hurried over to him and pressed my finger against his mouth. “Don’t finish that. We’ve already taken a ride on that train, and we’ve determined neither of us want it. I’m not afraid of a skinny, bendable Barbie doll. I can handle her.” I paused. “Or are we talking Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction ?”
Rhett raised a brow. “You don’t happen to have a pet rabbit?”
“Oh my gosh, is she that nuts?”
“I’ll take care of it.” Rhett turned to the fireplace and pretended to be busy with the fire.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll talk to her, get her to leave town. I know what she wants, so I’ll just give in. It’ll be worth it if it means getting her out of my life, our life, for good.”
I took hold of his hand. “Let’s make that cocoa I brought. I think we could use some chocolate cheer.”
A few minutes later some of the earlier angst had been muted by the rhythmic crackling of the fire and the smooth, chocolatey cocoa. I hadn’t meant to disrupt the calm, but that insatiable nosiness poked its head out.
“Is it more money? Is that what she wants? Because, really, Rhett, I can take care of myself. It’ll be fine. I’ll warn my sisters not to get chummy or invite the new neighbor over.”
“I couldn’t live with myself knowing that I pulled you into my sordid problems.”
Red sparks fluttered off the burning logs and then settled down into the light gray ash piling up under the grate. I turned slightly toward him. “First of all, I love sordid problems. Big fan of sordidness in general, because every story is more intriguing with dirty laundry. Not that yours is dirty, necessarily,” I added quickly. “I suppose rich people don’t have dirty laundry, just untidy laundry.” I sat back. “All right, I’m babbling, so I need to take another swig of cocoa.”
“I don’t think it matters how much money you have. Dirty laundry is just that, with or without the full bank accounts.”
I looked down at his arm. The blazing fire was just right for me, but I sensed it had grown too hot for Rhett. There were beads of sweat on his forehead, and he’d rolled back the sleeves of his flannel shirt. He was no longer trying to hide the scar, and seeing more of it made my chest ache. He’d been through something harrowing, shocking. The scar was almost beautiful in its own way, smooth creases followed by ridges, like the topographical map of a pink desert.
He flinched as I reached over and ran my fingers over his arm. I paused and peered up at him to make sure it was all right to continue. He unclenched his jaw and nodded. His breaths came in shorter spurts, and mine did too, as I traced some of the ridges and ran my fingertips over some of the creases.
“You’ve told me part of the story, but I don’t have a full picture,” I said softly.
Rhett got up. I sat back disappointed. I’d pushed it too far. His shoulders were pulled tight under the flannel shirt as he dropped two more logs on the fire. He returned to the couch and stared into the hearth for a few seconds.
“We were at a party down in Malibu, near the coast.” He was still staring into the flames. It seemed he’d allowed himself a mental trip back to that day when his life unraveled. Something told me it was a trip he didn’t take often or willingly. “It was the usual rotten bunch of greedy, shallow people who had been an unfortunate part of my success. It was hard not to stay in certain social circles. That was where networking happened and business deals were made. “There were a few investors I needed to placate at this particular function. Rumor had started that there was another startup working on the same kind of navigational software that we developed, only they were using AI. It was supposedly going to be much faster and was more accurate. I did some research and found that the company was only in the ideation stages. They hadn’t come up with any kind of demo or product, so I knew I could talk my investors off the ledge. At least for the time being.” He sat down again. Most of the tension was gone, eased perhaps by talking about it aloud.
“I suppose that AI will eventually tank a lot of businesses,” I said.
“Yep, only just getting started. I’m lucky I was able to sell my business when I did, while the stock was high and the investors were still confident. That might not be the case in five years.”
“So, you were at a snooty, boring cocktail party doing your CEO thing?—”
“Right. I got there late. Mike, my partner?—”
“And best friend,” I added, just to make sure I had the details right.
“Since high school. We did everything together.” His face dropped, and he stared down at the scar on his arm. “Still can’t believe the way everything ended. Christine was anxious to see her friends and get the latest scoop on all the gossip, so she took off without me. I had some work to finish, so I got there an hour later. Apparently, the booze had been flowing fast and furiously. People were already quite drunk. Christine had a drinking problem. She would never admit to it and got angry when I brought it up. After a few conversations, I realized I hadn’t seen Christine or Mike. I decided to look for Christine, to make sure she wasn’t already drunk.”
“You found them together, Christine and Mike,” I said.
“Behind the pool house. Christine’s drunken giggle led me there. They both turned pale when I came around the corner. Mike was the first to peel away and come after me. I shoved him. He fell down hard. They were both really drunk. Christine started with the big fake tears. I didn’t want to create a scene in front of the investors, so I left the party and got in my car. I drove to a nearby park, pulled into the lot and sat staring at the city lights in front of me. That was when it hit me. I didn’t care. There was nothing. No heartbreak, no sadness, just anger. Anger at myself for being so blind about it. As I sat there, I went through all the incidents that should have been red flags. My relationship with Christine started fraying just months after the wedding—a wedding that cost an obscene amount of money. I should have known then. She kept adding to ‘her big day.’ That’s what she called it. Her big day. I was just the guy she expected to show up in a tux and the guy who would pay all the bills.”
“She is very pretty.”
Rhett chuckled. “Yep, guess it was hard to look past that. I think I’ve grown up now.”
“I guess that works well for us. You can’t let all my extreme beauty get in the way.”
Rhett leaned over and kissed me. “You, Miss Lovely, are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.”
I practically melted into a pool of butter. “Oh, you’re good, Mr. Lockwood. You’re real good.”
“Easy when it’s true.”
I wrapped my arm around his and rested my head against his shoulder. I realized how much I enjoyed having a big, strong arm to lean on. “So, you were at the park?—”
“Yep, sitting in my Porsche rethinking everything about my life.”
“You had a Porsche?”
“Yep. Worst car I ever drove. Now do you want to hear the rest?”
I drew an invisible zipper across my lips to let him know I was ready to listen.
“I’m sitting there thinking about how I was going to gladly cut both my wife and my partner slash best friend out of my life. Mike’s betrayal hurt more because we had so much history together. By that time, I’d already pegged Christine as a shallow, unlikeable person. Letting her go was easy. I started up the car, ready to go home and spend the rest of the night with a whiskey bottle, when Mike’s bright red Ferrari sped past. I saw Christine’s light blonde hair blowing in the wind. I pulled out to follow them, hoping to get ahead of them and stop Mike from doing something stupid. He was far too drunk to be driving, especially at that speed. I was also going to tell them they could have each other. That I wanted nothing to do with either of them.”
The story was getting to the terrible climax. I sat up and turned toward him. Rhett’s face held some of the pain from that day. His brow was creased, and his mouth was pulled down at the sides. There was even a slight twitch in his cheek. “It happened so fast. One minute the taillights of the Ferrari were in front of me, the next they were gone. Dust and debris flew up from the steep hill on the side of the highway. By the time I got down to them there were flames in the drought-parched landscape around the car. It had tumbled several times, and the driver’s side was caved in. Christine was bleeding from the head, and she was in pain, but I was able to get her out.” Rhett paused and stared at the fire again. It was amazing how quickly a fire could burn through logs. The two he’d added were almost gone already. Red coals kept the heat flowing, but it wouldn’t be long before the room cooled.
“I raced back to get Mike out. His door was jammed shut, and he was tangled in his seatbelt and the airbags. I ran around to the passenger side and called to him to climb out over the console, but he was out cold. I dove inside. It took a few minutes to get him free from the seatbelt and deflated airbag. It was like untangling him from a parachute. The fact that he flopped around like a rag doll didn’t help. Mike was a big dude and trying to pull him over the console was almost impossible. Then I heard the first small explosion, and I could feel heat coming from the front of the car. Smoke started pouring through the vents. I had to turn my head to get some fresh air into my lungs. As I turned back, flames shot through those same vents. My shirt sleeve caught fire. By the time I put it out, my entire forearm had suffered second- and third-degree burns. A second explosion was bigger, and it shook the entire car. In the meantime, the landscape was taking off in its own fire. Christine was up on the road screaming and growing more hysterical by the moment. I leaned into the car one more time. The cab was filled with smoke, making it hard to see anything. I grabbed Mike by the shoulders, but I couldn’t budge him.”
Rhett got up. The tension in his shoulders had been replaced by a slump, the slump of sadness. He dropped a log on the fire and stayed facing the fireplace, staring down into the playful sparks as they danced around the new log. “Leaving him behind, in that car, was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
“Do you think he was still alive?”
“Coroner found a ruptured aorta. She thought he died just minutes after the accident.”
“That must give you some solace then. You didn’t leave him behind because he was already gone.”
Rhett turned around. A tiny smile curled up his lip. “You sure have a way with words, Ella. After all this time, after having to relay the awful story to authorities, police and even my lawyer, it never felt cathartic to lay it all out in the open. I still always felt terrible about it. Heck, I even questioned myself about my decision to leave him in the car. I considered the possibility that I’d done it because I was mad at him, upset about the betrayal.”
“That’s ridiculous. You suffered severe burns. You must have been in a great deal of pain yourself, and surely you would have died right alongside him once the fire reached the gas tank.” I got up and wrapped my arms around him. “You were a hero that day. You saved Christine.”
“Yeah, I sure did. Now she’s haunting me.” He chuckled. “But you know what? I don’t care. Things have been looking up for me, and the main reason is standing right here in my arms. She’s the first person in the past year to say something that actually made me feel better about all of it.”
I shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a word magician.”