Chapter 9
Beatrice
I don’t think I’d ever been so mad in my life.
Lifting my chin a little, I struggled with the urge to slap the superior look off of Gary’s face. “You can talk shit about me. You can say all the horrible lies you want, and I’ll usually brush it off. But don’t you ever, ever talk about my Alfie.”
“Bee,” Gary said with the most innocent look on his face, a mixture of shock and hurt that I now realized was as fake as he was, “you know I didn’t mean it. I was just upset because Alfie wouldn’t tell me where you were. I was worried about you. I think of you as part of my family.”
“Stop, Gary, just stop with the bullshit. I only put you on my list of approved visitors because you were so insistent that in case of emergency you were able to respond immediately. As you can see, I’m fine, so tell me, why exactly are you here?”
I’d never spoken to him like this before, and I could tell it rattled him because he smoothed his hands down his suit before lifting his chin again. “I consider this entire situation an emergency. I’m here to save your career, darling. To talk some sense into you. I don’t know what Alfie’s trying to do here, maybe he’s jealous of you, but not taking this tour is the absolutely wrong decision.”
“Don’t ‘darling’ me and my career doesn’t need saving. Also, Alfie has never tried to manipulate me into doing something I don’t want to do. He’s always had my back.”
He rubbed his nose, sniffing a bit, then switched tactics. “Has he really, though? Is he the one who got you those jobs on the celebrity dance show? Is he the one who had the connections to get you those parts in the movies? Was he the one who helped you win awards for best choreographer? No, that was me. I’m the one who cares about you. I’m the one who has broken his back to help you succeed. All Alfie has done is leech off of you. He wouldn’t even have a job if it wasn’t for you. But he’s jealous, jealous of your fame, jealous of your opportunities. He’s worried that you’ll leave him behind once you become next-level famous, which is what you want? Right? You’re the one who has the big dreams and the talents to make them happen, not him. He’s the one trying to hold you back, not me. I want to see you shine.”
There was so much bullshit to unpack in his statement I didn’t even know where to begin.
Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm my racing heart, but my voice still trembled slightly as I said, “How dare you. How dare you say those things about Alfie, how dare you claim to have my best interest at heart, and how dare you try to claim all the hard work that I did to win those awards and get those roles. Yes, you had a part of it, but I’m the one who busted my ass day in and day out. I’m the one who danced until my feet bled, I’m the one who went on five hours of sleep for months at a time, I’m the one who did all of that. And Alfie was a huge part of helping me maintain my health and my sanity. He was there with me every step of the way, setting up my props in shitty bars, driving through the night to get me to my next gig. He was the one who shared crappy hotel rooms with me, who ate soup and hotdogs for weeks at a time because that was all we could afford. So how dare you accuse him of holding me back. How dare you.”
No doubt sensing he’d fucked up big time, Gary straightened his tie and quickly said, “I’m not saying he’s a bad guy?—”
“That is exactly what you’re saying. If anyone in my professional life is a bad guy, it’s you, Gary. You’re the one who doesn’t give a crap how much pain I’m in. You’re the one who tells me to get on painkillers so I can dance and you can get your cut of the profits. You’re greedy as hell, always have been, but I never thought you’d be so greedy that you would screw me over. Yet here you are, showing up at my hotel room to try and manipulate me into doing a tour that I physically can’t do. I’ve seen the texts from my crew asking me to take the gig. I know who got them to send me those texts, who manipulated my people into guilt-tripping me. Well, those days are over, Gary. No more. Do you hear me? You’re fired!”
“What… what…” his face turned purple as he shouted, “you can’t do that! Be serious, Beatrice, you’re never going to work in Hollywood again without me. Don’t do something rash. Do you think they want to hire dried up old hookers? You need me.”
Oh, I wanted to slap him. I wanted to slap him so bad, but I didn’t.
“Get out of my room,” I seethed.
He took a step closer to me, sweat dotting his brow and his upper lip as he nearly yelled, “Now just hold on a second. Let’s think this through, okay. Don’t do anything you might regret. You’re gonna what? Teach here at this freak-filled whore house? Look at this place, Bee, it’s disgusting. You think anyone is going to hire you for any legitimate work after they find out that you’re teaching here? No decent producer is gonna want your name associated with them. You’ll be stuck doing porn, but I don’t know what kind of porn company is going to want your old ass. You will regret this for the rest of your life, you bitch!”
Ice frosted my voice as I growled out, “The only thing I regret is not firing you earlier.”
“I’ll sue you!” he shouted as he grabbed his phone out of his pocket. “I’m gonna sue you for breach of contract and I’m gonna take everything you own. Do you hear me? You can’t do this to me. I made you.”
“Get out!” I shouted louder.
“Fuck you, you—” Gary’s face went from red, to white, back to red again as he stumbled back a step.
Wondering if he was having a heart attack, I took a step forward as Tristan’s voice came from my back, “I believe the lady told you to leave.”
“Stay out of this, we’re having a private discussion,” Gary mumbled as he moved across the room, away from where Tristan was basically hulking out. “If you put one hand on me, I’ll have you arrested!”
When I glanced back at Tristan, even I was a little intimidated by the look in his eyes and the way he held himself.
Guard dog indeed.
“I’m a member of the resort’s security, and the lady has asked you to leave. You have the option of leaving of your own accord or I will be more than happy to escort you out.” Tristan moved closer to Gary, basically herding him away from me and toward the hallway. “You have been verbally abusive towards her and you are a threat to her safety. I will be more than happy to call the police and report you and get a restraining order against you. Both of which are very public things. And since you’re so worried about your reputation, I’m sure you don’t want the fact that you were banned from a ‘freak-filled whore house’ getting out to the media. And I can assure you, if you even think about breaking the NDA you had to sign to be allowed access to the Ranch, the owner of this establishment has a long list of lawyers on retainer who would just love to take you on, and the deep pockets to fight you in court for the next ten years. Think about it.”
Adrenalin was pouring through me as I moved next to Tristan and pointed to the door at the end of the hallway. “Leave.”
“Fuck you,” Gary snarled, his normally smug expression gone and his patrician features twisted with contempt. “You’ll regret this.”
Tristan physically blocked me with his body. “Is that a threat?”
“It’s a promise,” Gary yelled as he fumbled with the door for an embarrassingly long moment, then jerked it open and left.
Tristan moved quickly over to the table against the wall that held the resort phone and picked it up, then punched a number. “Hey, it’s Tristan. There’s a man in a silver suit with a goatee and dark hair coming down the elevator. Notify Chief Berringer and make sure security escorts him out. He’s not a guest and he was here harassing one of our people. Yeah… yeah… no, I don’t think there’s a need to involve the police, but if he gives you any problems feel free to do so. Make sure his name is removed from the approved visitors for Ms. La Pearl. I’ll be down to make a report in a little bit. I need to spend some time with Ms. La Pearl and make sure she’s okay. I will, I will. Yep. Thanks, I owe you one. Bye.”
He turned back to me, his voice soft as he asked, “Are you okay?”
“That… that…” I tilted my head back and fisted my hands, then screamed long and loud.
Tristan tossed me a pillow from the couch. “Go ahead, whack the shit out of that chair with it, you’ll feel better. Pretend it’s that prick.”
In a frenzy, I did as he suggested, slamming the pillow against the chair over and over again, yelling insults, pretending in my mind that it was Gary. I was so mad, so mad at him, so mad at myself for sticking with him for so long, so mad that he’d said all those horrible things to me. And I was hurt. Beneath all that anger was a big wound on my soul, fresh and bleeding. I had trusted that asshole. I thought he genuinely cared about me. I knew his fucking family, went to Christmas Eve dinner at their house, took his kids to Disney Land.
My energy left me in a rush and I burst into tears, hugging the pillow to me. Tristan came up behind me and wrapped me up in a big hug, his presence huge and comforting. Sobbing now, I let him shuffle me over to the couch and collapsed against him, curling up on his lap. We stayed like that for a long time, my tears never seeming to end as I just cried out all the pain and stress I’d been carrying with me, letting myself feel all these terrible emotions I’d been bottling up inside for what felt like years.
“Easy,” he whispered against the top of my head as he simply held me, letting me soak his shirt with my tears, “don’t forget to breathe, sweetheart. He’s gone, he’s out of your life, and he can’t hurt you anymore. I won’t let him.”
The door to the suite burst open and Alfie yelled out in a frantic voice, “Bee! Where are you?”
“Down here,” I yelled back, my voice thick and barely recognizable.
Alfie came sprinting down the hallway, his hair in a disarray and his right eye bruised and swollen almost shut.
“Your face!” I croaked out as Tristan nearly dumped me from his lap as he stood up, then set me on my feet.
“After Tristan took me outside in the hallway I decided I needed to get away from Gary before I went back in there to tell him exactly how big of an asshole he was. I went down to the lobby and walked around that big foyer to cool down. I was coming back to the room and Gary passed me in the hallway. He yelled some incoherent shit, I yelled back, and that motherfucker hit me! I didn’t even hit him back. That coward took off running and I was so shocked that he’d hit me that it didn’t even occur to me to chase after him.”
“Do you want to press charges?” Tristan asked from behind us. “I really think you should.”
“Hell yes, I want to press charges,” Alfie said as he tried to pull back from me as I lightly touched his face. “Ow, that fucking hurts. I still can’t believe he hit me! That coked up fuckhead!”
Alfie’s good eye was open wide in shock, and I understood where he was coming from. My best friend was a lover, not a fighter, and he never instigated violence. I couldn’t believe Gary had hit him, then again, I kinda could. Gary had a cocaine habit that he’d sworn he’d given up, but obviously hadn’t as the drug would go a long way in explaining his erratic behavior tonight. Not that being high was any excuse.
Tristan’s voice came from the background as he spoke with security again and I hugged Alfie tight.I heard Tristan speaking to Derek and knew the Ranch owner was going to be furious as we all were. I also knew he’d make damn sure Gary never stepped foot on Rawhide again.
Knowing people were working to keep us safe, I repeated to Alfie what Tristan had said to me, “It’s going to be okay, you’ll see. Everything is going to be all right.”
Alfie began to cry and my heart broke anew. A few moments later Tristan wrapped both of us up in his enormous arms, patting Alfie on the back with me squished between them. He listened to us as we whispered words of comfort to each other, both of us feeling safe in his arms.