Chapter Twenty-Three - Cindy
“Hey,” Pax whispers in my ear as he unbuckles my seat belt. “We’re home.”
Home. God, what was up with that whole conversation about giving me this house? I can’t take this house. That’s crazy.
I sigh, let him help me out of the car, then follow him into the house by way of the garage. This door leads straight out into the pool area, since the garage is street level and the guest house is technically on the second floor.
“You ready for some steaks?” he asks as we walk into the beach-side part of the house. He drops his keys on the kitchen island and walks to the refrigerator to pull it open and study what’s inside.
“So hungry,” I say. “I’ll start the grill.”
We went grocery shopping yesterday since he didn’t have to go into the office to work and our take-out options in Malibu are limited.
Have I ever… grocery shopped with a man before?
Honestly, I don’t think like that. I have had girlfriends who gush over a guy asking her to grocery shop with him—like it’s something very meaningful. But even though I’m a romantic in many ways, I take love very literally.
Grocery shopping is… well, buying food to eat and nothing more. Now, letting me win a house from him in a silly bet—yeah, that gesture has some meaning behind it.
I just don’t understand why he’s so worried about me leaving. And it’s not like I can even tell him how obsessive I’ve been trying to sneak my way into his life.
No. I can’t tell him any of that. And he’s right. I’ve got the past of a girl who takes off. A wanderer. A leaver, as my uncle Ford would say. I’m a leaver.
“I need to call that Liam asshole and let him know I’m out.”
“You were in?” I ask from the patio. “You’re not considering it for real, are you?”
“I told him I’d call him tonight and let him know. So I just have to wrap that shit up and get him off my back.”
“You said text. I was there, remember?”
Pax backs away from the fridge as the door closes, with a package of T-bone steaks and a head of broccoli. “He’s not really the kind of guy who takes no for an answer in a text. I’ll have to call at least.”
“Hmmm,” I say.
“Hmm, what?” he says, tearing the plastic off the meat and walking towards me on the patio. “I can handle him.”
“OK. I trust you completely.” I just wish you’d trust me back, I want to say. But then he’ll bring up all the things I really can’t talk about. Like why I have no office and why I never stick around in one place. Why I bribed a teenager to let me deliver his food all summer. And why he can’t meet my mom and dad, even if we did both win today.
Am I in too deep? Did I fuck this all up with my stalking?
“You wanna go surfing?” Pax asks. “After we eat? And watch the sunset from our boards?”
God. How does a man like this—tall, dangerous, mysterious—manage to say the most romantic things ever?
“Yes,” I answer. “Yes, I’d love that.”
He cooks the steaks to perfection while I wash the broccoli and squirt ranch dressing into little ceramic dipping bowls. And then we eat outside and watch a movie star toss a football with his two sons on the beach.
“You’re gonna love it here,” Pax says, once we’re done. “It’s your kind of place.”
“I already love it here, Detective. And it’s not because of the ocean, or the house, or the movie stars on the beach. It’s because you’re here. I’m not leaving, Paxton Vance.” Not after I worked so hard to get you in the first place.
He looks at me for a long second. “How about you let me fuck your brains out on the kitchen counter and we’ll save that sunset surfing for another day?”
I laugh, feeling more comfortable with this man than anyone I’ve ever known. “You’re like a goddamned poet. Anybody ever tell you that?”
He stands up, pulls me to my feet, hoists me over his shoulder as he smacks my ass, and says, “Only the girl I fell in love with.”
We fuck all over the house that evening. On the kitchen island, as promised. Then we take a swim in the pool and fuck in the outdoor shower, Pax pressing me up against the hard stucco wall until we laugh about the impressions it leaves on my back once he throws me down a lounge chair and starts rubbing lotion all over my body as he massages the tightness away in my wound-up muscles.
He fucks me during the massage, since the massage mostly consists of him playing with my pussy until I’m squirting and screaming his name. And some time after midnight he puts me into bed, drags the light cover over me, and kisses me on the cheek, saying, “Be right back. Just gonna make that call to Liam now.”
I don’t know what happens after that.
Because when I wake up he’s gone and the only clue he left behind is a note.
I stuck it out for two weeks. Patted myself on the back and read that note over and over.
Cinderella,
I gotta do this job for Liam or he’s just gonna get someone else to do it instead and the only way Corporate comes out of this alive is if I take over. Be back soon.
Mr. Charming
P.S. Don’t leave.
I admit, the cute note was what made me stay so long, wondering what the fuck just happened. How I went from the best night of my life to… well, dumped. What else can I call it? I called him about a hundred times and it went to voicemail. I even hacked into his email just to make sure he wasn’t dead. Because I thought he was dead for a good forty-eight hours before I got the new password to his email account.
He changed it. He knew I was hacking him and he changed it.
Which means we’re over.
But nope. He’s still alive. Because he’s been checking emails. None of them with a reply, but every day some are marked read.
He’s not even leaving me messages or texts in the middle of the night while I’m sleeping, so he doesn’t have to talk to me. Not an email—I mean, he’s online, right? He can’t just bang out a few words? Hey, it was fun, but moving on? And there’s always good old snail mail. I’m not expecting a Hallmark card, for fuck’s sake. A few words scribbled on a Taco Bell napkin would suffice. And do I really need a slap in the face like that to take a hint? He’s just not coming back.
So I left.
I packed up my backpack, sold my damn car, got on a plane, and left.
And I’ve been here in the Bay Area for almost ten days now, telling myself there are so many new things to do and see, I will never miss Paxton Vance. I will move on and chalk it all up to a bad case of delusional lust. And I have already answered ads for two jobs, and closed both cases with one hundred percent customer satisfaction. So, good omen, right?
But man, does my heart ache. My whole chest, really. Every guy I see who might be a reasonable alternative just gets compared. Like I have this checklist with Pax on one side and the whole world of men on the other.
And no one will ever come close to what I feel for him. All the billions of things I love about him, like the way he plays along with my crazy and calls me Miss Sugar Cookie while trying to give me his bazillion-dollar house on the beach. Or the way his head angles down while he walks, but his eyes are always aware of everything around him. Or that his mother bought him a baseball for Christmas last year with a card inside that said, Remember that day I took you out of school early when you were eleven so we could go watch the Bats opening game? Well, my gift to you this Christmas is the memory of that day.
Is his mother adorable or what? I mean, my mother is fucking adorable too. The best. But you gotta love a man who loves his mom. She gives him memories for Christmas, because really, what do you give a man who can buy himself anything he wants?
I’d like to think we were making memories that would last forever. That we’d be old one day and I’d write a note saying, Remember that day we pretended you were a detective and I was Miss Sugar Cookie? And make his whole life brighter just thinking about it.
I sigh as I look out at the ocean. I found another place to rent, this time a real house. Well, cottage. OK, vacation shack on the beach, if I’m being honest. But it’s the same ocean as the one we had back in Malibu. And picturing him looking out at the Pacific is just about the only thing that makes my heart stop hurting.
Heartbreak is a real physical condition. Not a disease, exactly. But something worse. There is no cure for heartache except time. I am broken. I had never realized that the same love that pulls you together can break you in half. I literally feel broken.
I wish I kept my old phone number, but I was so angry when I left Southern California that I cancelled the account, burned the chip in the microwave, and tossed it in the ocean. The only way he can reach me now is… well, he can’t. He said once if he left I’d never find him, and I guess he’s right. But I’m just as elusive as he is. I can throw things away with the best of them. I didn’t want to bring anything with me. Not even my clothes. So my backpack had nothing in it but the contents of my purse.
I won’t call him again. I refuse. I just need to accept that it’s over and move on.
I pick up a rock from the beach and skip it across the water. There are almost no waves this morning, so my rock jumps three times.
Maybe I should call Oliver and see if he can tell me what’s going on?
But then I’d have to explain this whole fucked-up stalking thing to him. And I can’t do that.
“Cynthia?”
I whirl around, startled. “What?” I say, not quite believing my eyes. “What are you doing here?”
Mariel Hawthorne is standing on the ridge that leads to my cottage, long coat pulled tight around her body and cinched at the waist with a belt. It’s not a trench coat. She’s too high-fashion for that. But it’s got the same look and what I see is Pax the Detective when I look at her features. She’s wearing sunglasses, even though the sun is just barely rising, and she slides them down her nose to see me better as I stare.
She starts walking down the embankment, her designer leather boots sinking into the sandy pebbles that line beaches up here. “I think we need to talk.”
“Did Pax send you?”
“No.” She laughs, and my heart hurts so bad, I have to clutch at my coat to try to numb myself from the pain. “No, I’m here for something else. Something I need to tell you. Probably should’ve told you that first day we met.”
“Back in Del Mar?” I ask, happy that she’s here. That some small bit of Pax is so close to me again. But confused. So utterly confused.
“No, dear. We both know you came to see me at Belmont a while back. I don’t recall exactly when it was, but I never forget a face. Especially one as beautiful as yours.”
“Oh,” I say, letting go of my coat. “Well, thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. Not until you’ve heard the whole story.”
“Story?” What is she talking about?
“Of why you’re here. Why all this is happening. And what we might do about it.”
“We?” I ask. “As in, you and me?”
“Yes, we, Cynthia.”
“Cinderella.”
“Oh, I know, dear. I just want to smile every time I say your real name, and what I have to tell you isn’t anything to smile about. So Cynthia it is. Until all this is over, at least.”
“Oh, God,” I squeak. “It’s Pax? He’s dead? They killed him? That last job?”
“No, no, no,” she says, coming within arm’s reach, so she can pat my shoulder. “He’s back from that. He’s looking for you, actually. But of course, he got drunk last night and told his friends who you really are and now I’m just not sure what to do. So I came here. To talk to you and see if we can’t come up with some kind of understanding.”
“Fuck,” I say, forgetting who I’m talking to for a moment.
“Right. You’re going to have to deal with that, of course. The next time you see him. But I’m here about something else entirely.”
“What?” I ask, a chill riding up my spine. The kind of chill you get when you’re about to hear bad news. “Why me? What could I possibly tell you?”
“Those silver envelopes. You said you’d never seen one before.”
“I hadn’t,” I say. “Not until that day with you at the track.”
“Think back, Cynthia. Never? Are you sure?”
I shrug. “I don’t remember them. But then again, I was never on the lookout.”
“Your sisters? They never got one?” She cocks her head at me, like she might think I’m lying. But I’m not lying.
“Not that I saw. Why?”
“I think we should take this conversation inside. Have a hot cup of tea. Some scones I brought with me from the bakery down the road. Something soothing.”
Just picturing this makes me frown. “My mom used to do that when she had to break bad news to me and my brother and sisters. She’d bake all day, or make a big roast, something huge and delicious for dinner or dessert. And then she’d say, ‘You’re not getting money for that trip, Belle. Your father does not approve.’ Or, ‘There is no new car in your future, Ariel. So put that illegal hacking site aside and get a real job.’ So this must be your version of parental guidance night if you’re trying to feed me tea and scones just to have a talk.”
She smiles, like she’s picturing my family dinner. “I think I will love your mother when we finally meet.”
“I think you will too. If…” I say. “If you ever get to meet her.”
Mariel pats my hand and then nods her head towards the cottage. “Come on, let’s go inside. It’s too cold and damp up here in the north. And I don’t approve of your rustic accommodations, Cynthia. You’re going to be in a five-star resort this afternoon. I’m not against roughing it, sweetie. But this is going too far. Your parents would never forgive me if I let you stay out here for one more second.”