SIX
Since I would be leaving the next day, Landon insisted on taking me to one of the nicest restaurants in L.A. on Saturday night.
Figaro was humming with people, but honestly, we could’ve been anywhere; all I could focus on was Landon.
He’d definitely been in a strange mood all day. I knew he didn’t want me to leave, but he was giving me the impression that he felt conflicted about something.
It was an unsettling feeling to know that the man I was falling in love with hadn’t opened up to me fully. At the same time, I knew he realized, even though I hadn’t come out and said it, that I was hiding something from him, too. But I could also understand why he didn’t want to put a damper on this trip. The curiosity was killing me but not enough to push having that heart to heart tonight and possibly ruining the last hours together.
We were surrounded by several other couples who were out on dates in the packed restaurant. I noticed a few women staring in our direction, checking out Landon. I guess that was something I was going to have to get used to. He looked so amazingly hot in his short-sleeved, black polo that showed off the tats on his arms. The material looked like it could have been spray-painted onto his amazing chest. It was seriously no wonder why they were drooling. I felt like reaching across the table to stake my claim.
Landon took something out of a small bag he’d brought in from the car. “I have something for you.”
My heart fluttered. “What is it?”
He slid it across the table.
I opened the purple box and smiled. “My Rubik’s Cube. I still can’t believe you kept it all these years.”
“It was one of only a few non-necessities I brought with me when I moved here. I guess I must have had a sixth sense that it was going to become important again someday, that you might find your way to me so that I could personally return it to you.”
“I guess I know what I’ll be doing on the plane home.”
“You’d better not figure it out without me there.” Landon locked my feet in with his under the table. “I still can’t believe you have to leave tomorrow. Are you sure there’s nothing I can do to convince you to stay?” He looked seriously troubled.
“We’ll see each other again. I promise.”
In a last-ditch effort, he once again tried to urge me not to leave. “I wish there was a way you didn’t have to go at all. I could even hire you as an extra hand in the truck so you wouldn’t have to worry about work.”
“You have no idea how much I would love that…”
My expression must have reflected the opposite of my words.
“But it’s not an option…” he said.
“I’m afraid not.”
“Well, I’ll keep dreaming about that scenario.”
He pulled my legs into him even more with his own. “So, I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“Okay…”
“I know we joke about Lenny being a psychopath, but I’m starting to really hate the idea of you living with a weirdo.”
“I’m not sure what to do about that. You know how I feel about kicking him out.”
“I’ll kick him out.”
“My father says the same thing.”
“Then Eddie and I will do it together. It would give me great satisfaction. Rana, I don’t want you living with a fucking nutjob anymore. I feel even more protective of you since we’ve spent this time together. It’s ten times stronger now. And it makes me feel helpless that I’m going to be so far away from you.”
“I’ll figure something out, okay? Maybe I’ll start looking for another place. I need to do it carefully.”
“You’re crazy, girl.”
Reaching across the table for his hand, I winked. “You love my crazy.”
“I do.” He took my hand to his mouth and kissed it. “I really do, Rana.”
His protective nature was a huge turn-on—among other things. It was hard to believe that I’d likely be going back to Michigan without knowing what it was like to make love to this man. I appreciated how careful he was being, but I was seriously dying for more with him. I was afraid of what his answer would have been if I begged him outright to fuck me tonight. Too terrified of the rejection, and pretty sure he would be vehemently against us taking that step given my leaving tomorrow, I decided to keep my feelings on that to myself.
We ended up having a really laid-back dinner. We reminisced and also started thinking about where he’d take me during my next trip out west. Insisting I indulge one last time during this vacation, Landon ordered me the chocolate pistachio torte for dessert. The meal was perfect. Everything was perfect. That had to mean something bad was going to happen.
Sure enough, the mood was about to change dramatically.
At one point during dinner, we were interrupted when a woman approached our table.
“Landon. I haven’t seen you in ages.”
The muscles in my body tightened as an uncharacteristic look of fear flashed across his face.
He looked extremely uncomfortable and simply said, “I know.”
The blonde woman was tall, about five foot nine and looked to be in her late thirties. With high cheekbones and a symmetrical face, she was attractive enough to make me uneasy—especially with the way she was looking at him, as if he were a piece of meat she wanted to sink her teeth into.
Catching a whiff of her perfume, I was pretty sure it was Quelques Fleurs, the same brand my mother used to steal from the mall. That made me despise this person even more.
With an icy stare, she looked at me. “Hello, I’m Carys.”
Her name sounded like Paris with a C. I didn’t answer her, because it didn’t seem like Landon would’ve wanted me to. I felt like a cat ready to hiss.
Something was off.
Turning to him, she grinned. “I’ve tried to get in touch with you over the years, but your number is out of service.”
His body went rigid. He wasn’t looking at her when he said, “That’s right.” If looks could kill, she would have been dead.
Carys wasn’t getting the hint. “Are you still around?”
He raised his voice. “No.”
“Can I convince you to reconsider? I’ll leave you with my new numb—”
“Please, leave,” he insisted. “This is disrespectful.”
I’d never seen Landon looking so angry yet vulnerable.
What the hell is going on?
“Oh, well.” Addressing me, she shrugged. “Enjoy him while you can, I guess. Before he changes his number on you.”
Then, she just walked away, leaving the lingering scent of Quelques Fleurs in her wake. Her small ass wiggled against the fabric of her white capris. Feeling like my insides had been twisted, I kept watching her until she disappeared.
He placed his fingers on his temples. His shoulders were rising and falling with each breath, and he wouldn’t even look at me. He looked utterly gutted.
“Landon, please, talk to me. What was that all about? Who is that woman?”
When he lifted his face to meet mine, the fear was written all over it. “I can’t lie to you.” He shook his head. “I’ll never lie to you.”
“Please. What’s going on?”
He threw his cloth napkin down on the table. “Let’s go home, okay?”
The wait for the server to bring our bill and process his credit card was excruciating. Landon was bouncing his knees up and down while he continued to breathe in and out heavily.
Finally in the car, I watched him fumble with his keys before starting the engine. Unaware of what was really happening, I sort of froze, at a loss for words. Feeling cold, I rubbed my arms as he sped away.
Neither of us said a single word during the entire ride back to his place. Night Swimming by R.E.M. was playing low on the radio, and I somehow knew that song would forever have a negative connotation in my mind.
Landon rolled down the window and reached for his cigarettes in the center compartment. He quickly lit one up, sucking the smoke in deeply and blowing it out. He never smoked in the car; he only ever did it outside and away from me. I didn’t even question why he was smoking in that moment because my instinct told me he needed it more than anything.
His utter silence left me with a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach, because even though he wasn’t saying anything, I could feel that he was gearing up for something big. I could somehow recognize that he was in the middle of an internal conversation. A million thoughts were going through my mind as well.
When he finally parked in front of his place, he turned the car off and took my hand, caressing it with his thumb before lifting it to his mouth for a kiss. Letting out a deep breath, he finally exited the car.
My heart was pounding as I followed him into the house.
He stopped in the middle of his living room with his back facing me. I came up behind him and looped my arms through his, resting my cheek on his back. Placing one of my hands on his heart, I could feel his nerves beating through it.
We stayed like that for a while until he suddenly turned around and took me by the hand to join him on the couch.
He just started talking.
“I was really messed up for the first few years after I moved out here. I managed to rent a bedroom in this place off Sunset and started waiting tables, but I was basically living aimlessly for several months. It took me a while to build up the courage to start really looking for Beverly. And you already know how that story ended.”
“Yeah…”
“Anyway, when I finally met her sister—my aunt, Miranda—she gave me a lot of information about my mother. She told me there was this movie director named Bud Holliday. Apparently, before he became successful, he and my mother dated, and he was the one who got her hooked on heroin. He ditched her when she started to really lose her way. He’d been sort of acting like her manager before that. He really did nothing for her, except ruin her life. Anyway, years later, he ended up actually directing some films and became a pretty big deal.”
“What does this have to do with that woman in the restaurant?”
He closed his eyes momentarily. “I need to tell this story from the beginning, okay? Bear with me.”
“Alright.”
“Around the time I turned twenty-two, I had gotten a job working as a waiter for a company that catered to the rich and famous. One of my assignments was to work a private party in Beverly Hills. It was at Bud Holliday’s house.”
I gasped. “Oh, my God.”
Landon suddenly got up and headed toward the kitchen.
“Where are you going?”
“Getting you a drink. You’re gonna need it. Getting myself one, too.”
He returned with two cold bottles of Miller Lite and handed me one.
“Thank you.” I chugged some of it down, coughing from the rush of cold liquid barreling down my throat.
Landon took a long sip and placed the bottle on the coffee table before continuing his story. “So, obviously, as you can imagine, I was kind of freaking out that I was going to be in the house of the man who I basically considered the catalyst for my birth mother’s drug problem. I was filled with anger. I didn’t know whether I wanted to physically harm him, give him food poisoning, or what. I just knew that I couldn’t waste the opportunity to fuck him up in some way. It felt like fate brought me to that house.”
“What did you do?”
“Well, the chance to get back at him—so I thought—was sort of placed in my lap...and I didn’t even need to use my fist.”
“How?”
Landon took another long swig of his beer. “After the event winded down, I ended up hitting it off with this woman in the kitchen. She was about ten years older than me and made no secret of the fact that she wanted me.”
“What was her name?”
“Jamie-Lynne Holliday.”
“Holliday…his daughter?”
He shook his head slowly. “His wife.”
My jaw dropped. “Oh…”
“I had no clue at first that she was married to Bud. She was a lot younger than him. Of course, once I found out, it was all the more incentive to go along with her advances.”
“You slept with her?”
“I ended up having an ongoing affair with her, yeah.”
“Is this what you’ve been hiding from me—what you were ashamed to tell me?”
A long, slow breath escaped him. “I wish.”
I swallowed, dreading his continuing the story as much as I needed him to continue. “Go on…”
“Bud ended up catching me at his house one night. He’d come home early from a trip. It was exactly what I’d wanted—for him to find me with her. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect as far as I was concerned.”
“What did he do?”
“That’s the sad part. Get this…he didn’t even really care. Apparently, they had an open marriage. She just never let me know that. I think she wanted to pretend that our thing was something more forbidden than it was. It made her feel like she was doing something sordid and maybe that got her off even more. Meanwhile, all I’d wanted was to enact revenge on this guy. So, I was feeling like my mission had failed.”
“Did you tell him who you were?”
“Yeah, I pretty much lost it. I ended up going off on him—admitted who my mother was. Jamie-Lynne was shocked because she had no clue I was using her to get to him.” He let out an angry laugh as he looked up at the ceiling. “Would you believe he didn’t even seem to care about that, either? Barely remembered my mother’s name. That fucking killed me more than anything.”
“What happened after that night?”
“I was just in such a bad place. I didn’t give a shit about anything. Jamie-Lynne wanted to keep seeing me, and I continued with it because I’d gotten accustomed to the lifestyle and felt like I had nowhere else to fucking go. But she wasn’t out for my best interests. I was using her, and she was using me. That was all there was to it.”
My palms were getting sweaty. I still didn’t understand what this had to do with the woman in the restaurant tonight, but I was apparently about to find out.
He continued, “One night she brought this friend of hers named April around. April started joking about how she wished she could ‘borrow’ me. I didn’t think anything of it until later that night when Jamie-Lynne told me that her friend had been serious, that April would pay me big money to keep her company. She was basically trying to talk me into it.”
“She wanted to pawn you off to her friend? What kind of a person does that?”
“I was so floored and angry that I made a rash decision to take April up on her offer, just to spite my so-called girlfriend. By that time, I was pretty sure Jamie-Lynne had moved on to some even younger, fresher meat. I had no real feelings for her anyway—never did. So, I started—quote, unquote—seeing April.”
My voice was trembling. “She was paying you for sex?”
He looked me straight in the eyes, even though it looked like it pained him to answer. “Yes.”
That hurt to hear so much. “Wow,” I muttered.
“That was how it started.”
My head was spinning. “Started?”
“I found out that there was a close-knit network of Hollywood wives who traded boy toys like me. They’d use you until they were done with you then introduce you to a friend in what was supposed to seem like a seamless transition. Young guys get caught up in the lavish lifestyle. At the time, you think you’re living the good life and don’t see what’s horribly wrong with it. You’re making loads of cash—more money than you could even fathom—and all you have to do is look good and give them their bad boy fantasy.”
The harsh words escaped me before I could think better of it. “You were a whore…”
He shut his eyes as if I’d just stabbed them with my words then said, “At the time, I never considered myself that. I’d prettied it up in my mind to make myself feel better, because I didn’t really want to stop. The money was too good, and quite honestly back then, I didn’t feel like I had anything to live for.”
Feeling my stomach churning, I stood up and paced. “Whoa. I’m gonna be sick.”
He walked across the room to be closer to me. “You have to understand my mental state at the time. I was very angry at the world, so fucking miserable.”
I suddenly turned around to face him. “How long did this go on?”
“About a year and a half.”
Trying hard to fend off the tears that were forming in my eyes, I took a deep breath in and just stared up at the ceiling, attempting in vain to absorb this upsetting news.
“What made you stop?” I finally whispered.
He looked at me with pleading eyes. “I had a dream one night. And in it, I was the father to a little boy who was asking me point blank if I sold my body for money. It was freaky and messed up that this little kid would even be talking about that shit, but clearly it was coming from my own guilty subconscious mind. In the dream, I remember really struggling with how to answer him. I was so ashamed. Who knows if the boy represented my inner self or my fear of having a child someday and having him find out. Anyway, I woke up in a cold sweat, ran to the bathroom, and just looked myself in the mirror for the longest time in disgust. Absolute disgust. In that moment, I knew it had to stop. That was the end of it. I changed my number that morning. Never looked back. Needless to say, it was an awakening that I’ll always be grateful for. I’m very happy I saw the light.”
“How long ago was that day?”
“That was almost three years ago now.”
It eased my mind a little to know that so much time had passed.
I hesitated to ask, “Is that how you got the money to buy the truck and everything else?”
“Partly. I banked everything I ever made.”
“That explains the Range Rover.”
“Yeah.” He looked so ashamed to admit it. “I’m telling you right now, Rana, that I don’t think I could handle this situation if the roles were reversed. If you can accept me after this, you’re a hell of a lot stronger person than I am. I understand completely if you can’t see yourself being with me after what I just admitted to you. It disgusts me to think about what I did. I think about myself back then, and it’s like looking back at a different person. Those early days in L.A…in many ways…it was like getting abducted by aliens. That person isn’t who I am now. I made all of my life mistakes within a two-year span.”
“How many women?”
“There were six total.”
Six?
I swallowed. “That woman at the restaurant tonight—Carys—she was one of them?”
“Yes. She was the last one.”
It made me so sick to hear him confirm he’d had sex with her, even though I’d suspected that was the case before he even told me any of this.
“What if we hadn’t run into her? When were you going to tell me?”
“That’s a big reason why I’d wished you were staying longer. I needed more time before I dropped this bomb on you.”
“You were going to let me go home without having this conversation?”
“My hope was to use every moment of this time for you to get to know me—the man I am now. I would’ve probably told you after you left or during our next visit. The main thing is, I just didn’t know how to tell you. How do you tell someone who believes in you, that maybe you’re not worthy? I’m ashamed, but it’s a chapter of my life I will never be able to erase no matter how hard I wish I could.”
“So, you didn’t want to have sex with me until I knew…”
“Yes. I didn’t know whether you’d still want to be intimate with me after you found out. And as much as it would kill me, I understand if you don’t.”
I was afraid to ask, “Do you have a disease?”
He was quick to answer, “No. God, no. I was always safe. I used condoms religiously, and I’ve been tested multiple times. The one consolation is that I’ve always had my head screwed on straight in that respect.”
“I don’t even know how to process this. I mean, I know it wasn’t like you did it with a hundred women. Most single guys sleep around all of the time, but I guess it’s the principle of this that’s so troubling.”
“I always intended to tell you, Rana. I just hoped for a little more time first. That’s all. I don’t blame you for being confused and upset.”
I wanted to comfort him, wanted to tell him it was going to be okay, but I couldn’t seem to get past my shock.
“I’m not going to lie to you, Landon. This is really upsetting.”
Devastating.
“I know. I’m sorry. In some ways I’m glad it came out tonight because I’m falling hard for you, and if there’s a chance that you don’t want to be with me, then the sooner I know that, the better.”