Chapter Two
Lilah
Four years later…
Many people think I was born with an I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude, but they’re wrong.
It started during my parents’ tragic marriage and the constant pressure for me to become a movie star like my mother that began when I was old enough to understand the words coming out of their mouths.
“Their” being every-fucking-body. When I told them to fuck off though, it worked.
They left me alone. Law enforcement does that to people, too, makes them walk away, and stay away, and so I began.
A badge was my life, not a camera and makeup artists.
As for today, on the seventeenth of October, I’ve been an NYPD detective for a full six months, and I’m finally taking my first day off in weeks to return home to see my mother, joining her for breakfast at one of her favorite Hamptons beachfront cafes.
It’s a warm day, near seventy but the heaters are as fired up as the grill.
I step to the host stand, where the tall, lanky dude, I know to be Jeff, stands in wait.
His navy-blue blazer is as perfectly pressed as his face is sunken in the cheekbone region.
“Ms. Love,” he greets, his tone positively unimpressed. “Your mother is seated on the east side of the balcony.” The way he looks at me is borderline rude, but it’s also an example of why my mother loves it here.
The staff’s trained not to give a damn about her stardom. My mother can come here and live the facade of freedom that fame strips away, at least in public settings.
Jeff’s already dismissed me, thank fuck, looking to the guest who’s entered to my rear and I hurry through the restaurant that’s a sea of blue and silver décor, to locate my mother in the most in-demand seating area in the joint.
The balcony is private and overlooks the harbor, as well as an outdoor seating area below us.
Rounding the corner, I bring her and her table into view, and for just a moment, I capture her distress.
She’s at a square table for four, and instead of claiming the seat with her back to the wall and facing the views, she’s in profile to the harbor which in itself feels off, but it’s her body language that’s of real concern.
Her hand is on her forehead, her lashes lowered, her ivory skin pale, and a look of near tearful eruption etched on her heart-shaped face.
My stomach knots and I move in her direction, a sense of urgency hurrying my steps.
As if she senses my approach, she glances up and her expression lights, her hand sliding through her silky brunette hair a moment before she pops to her feet to greet me.
“Honey!” she exclaims, rounding her chair to pull me into an embrace. “I’ve missed you.”
I hug her with all my might and then pull back to inspect her. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.” Her brows knit. “Why would you ask that?”
“I saw you fretting.”
She laughs. “I was running lines in my head for a new movie. You know I forget where I’m at sometimes. Let’s sit down.” She moves to claim her seat. “I left you the best view. I know you don’t get to enjoy the harbor that often now that you moved to the city.”
The seating makes sense and is so my mother.
She’s always trying to make me number one, almost to an extreme which I’ve always believed to be a compensation for the way the world sees her as the star.
She never quite gets that I don’t want to be her.
I just want to be with her. Andrew might be a pain in my ass on most things, but where mom is concerned, we’re the same.
Most people are not though. They hunger to be her, to piggyback her fame.
It’s irritating to me, but she sees it as the price of show business.
I sit and a waiter immediately appears. Monty is his name, an older guy with gray hair and perfect manners.
“The usual, ladies?” he asks, filling our flutes with the champagne my mother already has on ice.
We offer our approval and then we’re alone.
“How’s the youngest detective in department history?” my mother asks immediately.
“You say that like it’s special. They have a bunch of idiots working there, Mom.”
“You see idiots everywhere, honey. I thought for sure you’d have taken the FBI up on their offer.”
“I wouldn’t be sitting here having breakfast with you if I’d done that. I want to stay local, more now than ever. I want to work with the profiler here in New York. He’s known across the country.”
“Oh. That sounds dangerous. Won’t that pit you against horrible criminals?”
“My badge does that, Mom. You know that. You’re married to a police chief.”
“Hmmm.” She sips from her glass. “That I am.”
And there it is. The reason she looked distressed when I walked up. And damn Andrew for not telling me things were bad again. “How are things with you and dad?”
“Fine. Absolutely fine. Why would you even ask that?”
The food arrives and I’m forced to wait through the process of being served before I ask, “Are you at home or in your cottage right now?”
She stabs a bite of her omelet. “You know I like to stay at the cottage when I prep for roles.”
No. She stays when she and my father are not getting along. “It’s the holiday season. You love to decorate.”
“I’ll be filming most of this season so I’m having a service get us all decorated, but I’ll be home for Thanksgiving. Please tell me you will as well.”
“How could I miss us all trying to pretend to be a happy family?”
“We are happy. We love our holidays. We’ll bake cookies like we used to.”
“You’re going to ruin my cranky detective reputation.”
“Nonsense. You’ll be cranky to your brother and I’ll just eat cookies and laugh at the two of you squabbling. It will be marvelous.”
I laugh and pick up my fork. “Whatever you say, Mom. Tell me about this new role.”
She winks and tells me all about the script and her leading man, who she’s never worked with, but seems to like well enough.
On the surface she’s herself, but she’s a masterful actor and I feel something dark and troubled beneath her surface.
We’re just clearing our plates when my mother’s lips curve. “You’re being watched.”
“Me? I’m not being watched. You’re the movie star.”
She motions discreetly to the lower patio and my gaze lands on a familiar face.
It’s Kane Mendez, sitting alone, his laptop open in front of him.
I haven’t seen the kingpin’s son since that day he drove me to the airport, and my stomach does a little flutter with the kind of female awareness that defies all the ways we are supposed to be enemies.
“I heard he’s moving his headquarters here.
” She assumes I know who he is, and of course, I do.
My gaze shoots to my mother. “Why would he do that when that’s sure to bring heat on his business?”
“There’s already heat on his business. I was home when an FBI agent came by to see your father about six months ago.
I overheard most of the conversation. The feds have been harassing Kane because of his father and forever coming up empty.
Maybe coming here is his way of telling them he won’t run or hide. ”
My attention shifts back to Kane, who’s still watching me and while I can’t pretend not to be pleased with the news he’s not been connected to his father, I’m not sure coming home is a smart move.
“He’s quite good looking,” my mother says. “Very suave Latin movie star material.”
I drag my gaze from Kane’s to look at her. “How are you not put off by him being the son of a drug lord? His business could be a shell for the cartel.”
“Now you sound like your father.” She grimaces. “Why go to Yale if he wants to keep running the cartel?”
“To protect his family, of course.”
“Why not get a criminal law degree then? I believe everyone deserves their own identity. You do. So does he. Everyone does.”
It’s basically what Kane himself had said to me during our ride to the airport.
I flash back to sitting in the car with him just outside the airport, to feeling something forbidden in the air between us, that neither of us had been brave enough to pursue, but I’d googled him that night.
I’d gone to bed thinking of him. My gaze shifts back to the patio area, seeking Kane, but he’s not there.
He’s gone.