Chapter 16 #2
“Let’s get one thing straight, Mr. Gable.
” The whole gang was here. Ms. Sarah Clayborn, one of the bodyguards…
for fuck’s sake, was that the driver? Alicia looked around for the exit.
All blocked! Her only chance for salvation was running back to the staff room, but she had a feeling Danica wouldn’t give a shit about honoring the sacred line between (difficult) guest and employee safe-haven.
“Ms. Colbert is already spoken for. By me.”
“Who the hell are you?”
Danica released him. “Her fiancée. Get out of here.”
“Uh, boss?” Liam spared Alicia one glance before rushing off to the back of the restaurant. A party of three stepped through the doors. The bodyguard advanced on them, sending the two men and one woman back into the elevator from whence they came.
Alicia picked up her marker. She needed something to channel her spite into.
“Party of four?” she cheerily asked after doing a quick headcount of her ex-girlfriend’s entourage.
“We have Japanese-style or normal style seating.” When Danica didn’t immediately answer, she continued her spiel.
“I suggest the Japanese-style seating if you’ve never tried it before.
Really completes the experience we’ve set up here. ”
Danica slapped her hand on the podium. Alicia did not flinch. The spite was taking over, though. Her smile died the moment Danica came closer.
That. Perfume.
Damn that fucking perfume. Damn Danica Moreau, for evoking a shitton of memories Alicia didn’t want to have.
“We need to talk.”
Alicia would not budge from where she stood. Her boss would surely be coming out of his office soon enough. Danica didn’t own this place. She would have to leave.
“We don’t have to do anything,” she chirped, as if she were a singsong bird. “But I do need to ask you to please step back, ma’am. Guests are not allowed in the podium area.”
“Alicia!” Danica gripped both sides of the podium. If the thing hadn’t been bolted to the floor, it might have shaken in front of Alicia. “God fucking damnit, this is important!”
If there was one thing she learned during their brief time together, it was how to level her piercing gaze at anyone. Man. Woman. Janitor. Multibillionaire with some serious fucking complexes. “God’s not here to damn anything, Ms. Moreau.”
She dared her. She dared her to call herself a god.
“If you don’t come with me right now,” she grumbled, “there will be consequences.”
A part of her had missed this snarling beauty, but mostly, Alicia saw her with new eyes. Wow. She’s got issues. “What consequences would that be, ma’am?”
Danica leaned across the podium, breath kissing Alicia’s lips. “I will take you over my knee and strike your ass crimson.”
She dropped the marker again.
“Now, do I have your attention?”
Alicia leaned closer to her, refusing to back down. At the very least, she would make Danica take her down. “I dare say you do.”
“Good.” Danica stepped back, taking her scent with her. “Find us a place where we can speak in private. We have sensitive things to discuss.”
What a time for the restaurant boss to finally show up. “For the record,” Alicia said before her boss could demand what was going on. “You’re not my fiancée.”
Danica coolly looked over her shoulder. “We’ll see about that.”
It was close enough to the end of her shift that, after a brief conversation between Danica and the restaurant owner, Alicia was allowed to leave early.
She did not go with Danica, however. Instead, she grabbed her purse from her locker and motioned her into the small meeting room that was currently unoccupied. The bodyguard stayed outside the door.
“You’ve got five minutes.” Alicia pulled her hakama uniform off and stood in only her black T-shirt and dress pants. “Make them count, Danica.”
She opened her bag and pulled out a thin manila envelope. It landed on the table.
“You were right,” she said. “About everything.”
Alicia wetted her lips and crossed her arms. “You came here to apologize, huh?”
“I came here to offer some explanations and to have you answer some questions.”
“And to get back together. I swear to God, Danica, if you don’t even bother to…”
“Shush.” She held up her hand. Somehow, that was effective. “First things first, love.”
Fuck her. Fuck her for making Alicia crumble with that sweet phrase. For the first time in two weeks, her heart thawed. A little.
Danica opened the envelope and revealed a stack of photos and typed reports.
“As much as I didn’t want to believe you back at the hospital, I had already suspected some foul play afoot in my family.
I have always suspected. I was only stupid enough to believe that everything would continue to be fine if I didn’t look it in the eyes. ”
Alicia steeled herself.
“First, I hired a private investigator to track down my mother. I should have done it long ago.” Danica picked up the top photograph.
The highly magnified and deformed face of Julia Moreau inadvertently looked right into the camera lens.
Her hair blew across her eyes and mouth, but the burn scars could not be shielded, no matter how much curly hair she grew.
“You were right about her injuries. When I looked into it, I was mortified.”
“So?”
Danica showed her one of the typed reports.
“After you were right about that, I tracked down the box you supposedly gave me. Ms. Clayborn had unpacked that suitcase for me. She swore she hadn’t looked at it, but the box mysteriously disappeared into a drawer I never use and certainly didn’t store any clothing in.
When I got a hold of it… damnit, Alicia, I was so angry.
You had met my mother more times than I have in my adult life. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“The things she was telling me? That wasn’t exactly something I could bring up with a woman I hardly knew.”
“We…”
“Danica,” she said softly. “Think of it from my end. I went out with you because you were hot and knew how to spoil me. Yes, I fell in love with you. Quickly. That didn’t stop all reason from living in my head.
On the contrary. I spent a lot of time convincing myself that I was a fool for following you to Chicago.
I quit my job to be your sex doll for a week. ”
“I…”
“I didn’t know if that woman was crazy or even your real mother. I should have told you about it, yes, but it’s over now. What was in the box?”
“Her wedding ring from her marriage to my father.” Danica reached into her pocket.
“A short note saying she loved me and hoped that I was happy. And this.” She pulled out a trinket.
A tiny stuffed bear that barely covered Danica’s palm.
“This used to be mine. I remember it. She must have included it to prove it was her.” She swallowed. “She had it all this time.”
Alicia looked away. “I’m sorry.”
“So if you were right about that, I wondered, what else were you right about?” Danica waved away any words Alicia wanted to interrupt with.
“I did a full investigation into my own father. Do you know how I felt when I gave the order? Ashamed. I felt ashamed. Let me tell you, Alicia, I am not a woman accustomed to feeling ashamed.”
I bet you’re not.
“Nor am I a woman accustomed to feeling betrayed. Imagine my confusion when I discovered some mysterious payments my father had made over the years. This wasn’t including all the other shady bullshit he does.”
“What did you find?”
“I was able to track a single company over the years. This company showed up with the same amount of money owed. Innocuous enough, until I realized that this company had a charge every time someone my father disliked conveniently disappeared.”
“God, Danica…”
“The latest charge was two weeks ago. The night before your incident.”
Danica sat down in one of the chairs, weary. Alicia resisted the urge to go to her. I want to touch her. To console her. To let her know that I will always be here for her. That I love her! No, no, the spite was still necessary. Alicia couldn’t fold so easily.
“I can’t believe he would do that.” Danica placed her head in her hands. Her voice was muffled. “He would kill the two women I have loved the most.” She sat back up. “Why? Why would he do that to my mother?”
Alicia pulled out another chair. “Your mother told me that she tried to see you after the divorce. She went to your school, but security caught her and threw her out. She was attacked shortly thereafter. Your father was doing the same thing he did to me. If not killing her, then sending a serious message. She got it.”
Danica shook her head. What she said next was not something Alicia expected.
“I had Ms. Clayborn contact her the other day. I’m supposed to meet her tonight.”
“Wow.”
Danica met her gaze from across the table. Here I go, falling into those pools of amber again. “Come with me, Alicia. I want you there with me when I meet my mother for the first time in years.”
She opened her purse and pulled out the emerald ring. It was still in the plastic Ziploc that the hospital had put it and her choker in.
Alicia slid the ring across the table. Danica caught it with a deft hand.
“There’s something else you need to do first.”
“You’re right,” she said, reclaiming that commanding presence Alicia succumbed to so easily. Danica rounded the table. “I’m not meeting my mother until we agree about this fiancée thing.”
One thing even the most cynical corners of Alicia’s heart could say: the woman was damn convincing. Especially when she kissed her like that!
“Danica?” A weak yet hopeful voice sang down the hallway. “Danica!”
Nothing could stop the woman barreling down her hallway. Not Alicia, not the bodyguard, and definitely not Danica Moreau, who opened her arms to her crying mother.
To think – the last time this woman held her daughter was almost twenty-five years ago, when she was no taller than her waist. Now, Danica was big enough to pick up her mother and coddle her like Julia used to when she was a child.
Alicia had a feeling that Julia’s country house didn’t hear many tears… of heartbreaking happiness.