Chapter Forty-Four
forty-four
Lanie
Lanie didn’t know what time it was when she woke up but her mouth felt like it was filled with cotton balls and she needed a cup of coffee, immediately. Glancing across the bed at Ridley, she saw she would have to sort herself out. He was dead to the world with even the occasional snore coming from his slightly open mouth.
Sitting up, she surveyed the room. It was exactly what she would expect Ridley’s room to look like: highly functional but with a minimalist style. The colors were a masculine slate blue and brown, with steel-gray linens and curtains. Lanie let out a sigh of relief. She’d been terrified to wake up in a room that was either untouched since Thyra died or a shrine to her. And she didn’t know how she would have handled either scenario. She hopped out of bed giddily.
As it was, there was only one prominent picture of them as a family and another of Thyra alone. Lanie walked up to the bureau it sat on and picked up the picture frame to have a closer look. In it, Thyra sat out on the balcony relaxing with a sun hat and a book. Lanie had conjured such a complete mental image of the woman—based on nearly nothing, she realized—that actually seeing her now was totally disorienting.
For one, she was better looking than seemed reasonable. If Ridley was normally a solid and respectable eight out of ten on the objective hotness scale, an eleven when he deigned to smile, his wife was well off conventional charts. Absolutely radiant in a totally unassuming way, Thyra Aronsen was a mocha-colored beauty with sexy downturned eyes, high, flat cheekbones and a heavy, luscious bottom lip. She resembled a biracial Liya Kebede, the Ethiopian supermodel, but with a fuller face and a slightly more pronounced forehead. Lanie could now easily envision the stunning woman Bea would grow up to be.
She looked from the frame to the balcony itself. It didn’t look so overgrown and unkempt in the picture. Lanie instantly realized she must have put her foot in her mouth last night when she mentioned it. There was no wonder why it was overgrown. Ridley probably couldn’t bring himself to deal with it.
“I have a black thumb,” Ridley said groggily.
Lanie put the frame down and turned to see his head rising from his pillow. He startled her.
“I have one too.” She put both her thumbs up. “In fact, I have two.”
“Har, har,” he said, rolling onto his side and propping his head up by the elbow. “I mean I kill plants. They’re thriving out there on their own. I go out there and they’d be dead inside a month.”
“So, I guess it’s live and let live, huh?”
“Better than Live and Let Die .” He smirked.
“Solid James Bond reference.”
“Why, thank you,” he said, pleased with himself. “You do realize you’re standing naked in front of a set of glass doors, right? That my neighbors can see you from their houses?”
“Oh my God!” Lanie hustled back over toward the bed. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I like seeing you like that...and I thought, maybe if my neighbor across the street sees I’m finally getting some, she’ll stop trying to set me up.”
Lanie picked up the pillow she’d used and hit him with it. “Seriously?”
“I’m teasing. I mean, they could see you if they were home but they’re out of town. The coast is clear.”
“I want coffee,” she whined.
Ridley fell onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “I drink tea so that sounds like a you problem.”
“Ridley.” Lanie hopped back onto the bed and straddled him. “I. Want. Coffee.” She sat on his abdomen but could feel him stir under the sheet. She shimmied a little and he groaned.
“My mother-in-law drinks coffee, so maybe you can find something in one of the cabinets. She usually has a cup of something when she’s here.”
Ridley pulled himself up to the headboard. Lanie shifted a little more to watch him squirm, relishing the feeling before leaning in to kiss him, buttering him up.
“Fine. I suppose if you give me fifteen minutes I can get up and get you something from the café down the street.”
“Thank you,” Lanie said sweetly, pulling the sheet between them away and kissing a slow trail down his body. She paused at his navel to look up at him. “But you’re gonna need more than fifteen minutes.”
Lanie padded to the landing, shaking her head. Their clothes were all over the stairs. Before she gathered them up to take downstairs with her, she picked through them and pulled on Ridley’s pink dress shirt. She couldn’t walk all over the house naked—he had too many windows for that—and without Charity or Syreeta to help, Lanie also wasn’t sure she could get her saree back on properly. Of course, the shirt didn’t fit properly either, leaving a plunging neckline where she couldn’t button it up across her bosom, but Lanie thought that was a pretty sexy look.
Downstairs, Lanie stood in the pivoting glass doorway of Ridley’s impressive kitchen and sipped the coffee-flavored swill his mother-in-law left behind. Ridley had gone back to sleep and she needed to be back at the hotel by eleven o’clock to help with checkout. Still slightly dazed from their blissful morning, Lanie heard a sound like the front door opening and whirled around, unsure of what to do.
Oh shit.
She pushed the glass panel shut and had just gotten the cup into the sink soundlessly when Bea rounded the corner from the entryway into the living room.
Oh. Shit.
“Melanie?” Bea asked. “What are you doing here?” Her little duffel bag slid from her shoulder.
“I, uh—” Lanie stopped. Nothing would be the right answer.
“I thought you said you were my dad’s friend?” Bea looked her over, frowning.
Friend. Yes. “I am.” Lanie nodded, intensely aware that she wore virtually no clothing. She didn’t even know where her underwear was after Ridley tore it off.
“What are you doing here?!” Bea bellowed like Lanie was a nude burglar.
Lanie was stunned. Though she’d never envisioned this scenario, she certainly wouldn’t have foreseen it going down like this. “Y-your dad invited me over...last night.”
Too much information, Lanie.
“But why are you still here?”
Maybe she doesn’t understand? Lanie thought, grasping for glimmers of hope.
“Are you sleeping with my dad?”
Lanie’s brain short-circuited. Her heart began to race. She had not planned on meeting Bea again for a little while, not until after giving this thing between Ridley and herself time to set.
“I think you should talk to your dad—”
“Dad!” she screamed as Lanie stood there nearly immobilized.
Not now , Lanie begged her body. Not right now . But she could already feel the lightheadedness coming on. She held on to the lip of the sink to steady herself. Nausea was causing a shipwreck in her gut.
A second later, Ridley flew down the stairs, nearly tripping on the pile of clothing Lanie had left on the bottom step. “Bea!”
“What is she doing here?” Bea said with no preamble, pointing at Lanie like she was a stray cat that had gotten into the house.
Lanie did her breathing exercises, trying to self-regulate. Inhale: one...two...three...four...
“Bea.” He frowned. “No. This attitude is not okay. Lanie is my guest.”
“You said she was just your friend!”
Exhale: six...seven...eight...
“She was—is,” Ridley corrected himself.
Before. She was a friend before but now I love her. Lanie finished his sentence in her mind, waiting for him to as well.
“You lied!” Bea screamed, the sound echoing off the tiles in the kitchen. “What about Mum?”
“Beatrix!” Ridley clapped his hands together, making an equally resounding noise, and both Lanie and Bea jumped. Lanie wasn’t positive she’d ever seen Ridley angry before. “Uh-uh. We don’t do this! Let’s calm down and talk.”
Bea cried hysterically. Ridley walked up to her and took her into his arms. Then he looked up at Lanie, making a sympathetic sad face. “I think you’d better go.”
Lanie was about to say that herself but was completely thrown that Ridley beat her to it.
Excuse me?
She’d just had sex with this man for the third time today and he was kicking her out of his house? Thoughts of Jonah and countless others bubbled to the surface.
He has to deal with his daughter, Lanie.
She’s upset, Lanie.
It’s not personal, Lanie , the angel on her shoulder said.
Unfortunately, the devil on the other shoulder wanted their say too. And their arguments were far more compelling:
Here it is, what you’d been waiting for, the kiss-off.
And it’s only the beginning. There’ll never be a moment when you’re the one he chooses.
And “I love you” will only mean I love you when you’re having sex.
It’s exactly as your mother said. You’re no one special to him.
She couldn’t stop the tears that welled up in her eyes as her mouth trembled. She wouldn’t compete with Bea for Ridley’s affection. She would only end up looking foolish in that scenario.
Five...six...seven...eight... Lanie exhaled, continuing her exercises, but she could still feel the unrestrained anxiety ratcheting up. If she didn’t get out soon, she’d be looking like Bea, who was still bawling into her father’s torso.
As soon as she thought she could manage it, Lanie rushed to the pile, pulled out the pieces of her saree and shut herself in the downstairs bathroom to put it all back on.
And to break down in private.
After a few minutes there was a light knock on the door. “Lanie?”
He changed his mind. See, he does want you!
Lanie splashed cold water on her hot, swollen face and squeaked out a hopeful “Yes?”
“Do you need me to call you an Uber?”
Lanie gasped like he’d kicked her in the gut, bracing herself against the wall to prevent collapse. “No,” she said, trying to approximate a speaking voice that was not hoarse from crying for ten minutes straight. “I’m okay.”
“I want to.”
“Fine,” she said, resigned.
“It’ll be here in eight minutes.”
He wasted no time , she thought, crushed . Guess he was just waiting to press the button.
“Are we gonna talk through the door?”
She wanted to but opened it anyway.
Ridley was silent for a moment, examining her face. “Oh Lanie,” he started finally, reaching for her puffy cheeks. “Baby, I—”
“Save it,” she barked back, breaking away. “I understand.”
“I don’t think you do.”
She pushed past him toward the living room, adjusting the fabric on her shoulder. Bea sat hiccuping on a stool but started crying anew when she saw Lanie again. Lanie hurried to the door, feeling Bea’s eyes on her the whole way. Lanie was upset that Ridley wasn’t trying to stop her from going. Or talking it through with his daughter in her presence.
Grabbing her coat, purse and heels from where she’d unceremoniously dropped them last night, Lanie ran out the door.
“Lanie!” Ridley called when she was by the gate. “Wait, the car will be here soon!”
She ran to the tube station in her bare feet anyway.