CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“I want to kill you or fire you. I can’t decide which.” Probably not the best way to start a conversation with one’s lawyer. Morgan only laughed and said he had felt the same way about Daniel over the years.
“Please, Morgan, give me one piece of good news. Other than it’s Wednesday afternoon and the week is half over.”
“How about your date’s people called to tell your people that she is sick of people?”
“Really?”
“Yes, go to the Rangers game alone or skip it. After all, you have work to do. And I hate to tell you this, but it looks like you need to go to London again for some PR shots with the new buildings and a ribbon cutting.”
“No.” I need to go to Indiana. I need to fix things. Daniel looked at his calendar. “That is Mandy’s MFA show.” The words came out in a whisper.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing. Go ahead and book it. I need to go. Lunch break is almost over.”
“I hope they call you to the stand today.”
“Me too. I think the Vandemarks have realized I am here for the defense even though their lawyers subpoenaed me too. Summerset looks like she can’t decide if she wants to kill me or seduce me.”
“Watch your back.”
Four hours later, on the bottom step of the courthouse, Daniel wished he had taken his mentor’s advice literally. The screech of “Da-a-an-i-i-e-l-l-l!” matched a computerized falling-bomb effect, with the explosion landing on his back.
Summerset wrapped her arms and legs around him and rained sharp little kisses on the back of his neck.
And the cameras flashed.
Then she slid off his back and stood on the step behind him but kept her hands on his chest. “Darling, you must stop playing hard to get.”
Daniel spun around and stepped back disentangling himself. She moved in for a kiss, but Daniel threw his hands up to block her. “Miss Vandemark, you forget yourself. I have other plans this evening.” He slipped past a cameraman and hailed a cab.
Mandy texted a response to Daniel’s voicemail to acknowledge she was okay. To do less would be rude, especially when he’d picked up the hospital bill again. She’d sent four texts since yesterday afternoon. All of them impersonal and short. She needed their relationship to be a thing of scrapbooks past.
His mansion loomed large on her screen. Her additional meeting with Dr. Christensen had not gone well. The dean had not been pleased that her designs had been on television but had been mollified when her manipulations had been praised by extension from the university’s Art and Design school. She needed one more variation of the mansion by Monday for the show deadline. Fortunately, this would be a touch-screen piece, so she didn’t need to take the time to print it onto canvas or render it on a 3-D printer. Unfortunately, the touch screen would allow people to zoom into nearly pixel level, so her work had to be flawless. Dr. Christensen wanted her to email him a tight comp by 9:00 a.m. Friday. That left her a little over thirty-six hours, and seven of them she needed to be at school teaching.
School turned into another disaster. Memories of the football players’ glares at her and the female teachers’ smiles made it difficult to focus on her work this evening. She didn’t send Rodrigo to the office for his cartoons about the coach’s arrest. But she had kept them. It wasn’t her fault he was arrested, as the administration had fielded complaints for years.
Abbie and her brother traded off following her. Apparently Daniel still hadn’t testified. The Vandemarks had brought in several experts, and the news channels were calling the trial the most snooze-worthy of the century. Good. Daniel needed some boredom in his life after all those dates.
Not having a single idea for the photo, Mandy went in search of sustenance and found Candace and Abbie eating popcorn and watching Candace’s favorite cable channel.
The eight o’clock show started—a celebrity gossip affair. Daniel Crawford was the lead story. The three women sat glued to the screen, mouths agape at Summerset’s back hug. Photos of all his dates over the past week flashed across the screen—the kisses, the hugs, and the lick.
There were no tears to prick Mandy’s eyes. Instead, her stomach rolled, threating to send back up the popcorn.
She ran to the bathroom as fast as one could run in a medical boot and rinsed out her mouth. A wicked thought entered her head. Dr. Christensen would disapprove, but she couldn’t resist. The idea was original, and it would push her skills to the limit, requiring hundreds of manipulations. Did such a place even exist outside of the Old West? Possibly in Nevada. Mandy hurried to her room and turned on the screen. She had research to do.
Tacky hot-pink buildings, garish signs, and suggestive names filled one screen. Mandy flipped through the mansion photos, wishing she had one taken from a drone. But then, with the crutches, she had only been able to take the photos from a few angles. Still, better than the fence shot.
Oh! That gave her another idea, and her favorite stock photo site obliged.
Early the next morning, Candace tapped on her door and entered. “Didn’t you sleep? I came to see—Oh no! You can’t!”
Mandy didn’t look up from her work. “Why not? I think it is a perfect use of the building for him and all his friends. Even men like Coach Robb would find the place enjoyable.”
“But it is a brothel!”
“Bordello, aka brothel with some class.”
“I know you are mad at him, but this is going too far. And the hot-pink shutters are too tacky to be called classy. The swimming pool looks like a—No, Mandy! I can’t believe you would do this.”
“Look closer.” Mandy zoomed in on some of the windows. One had vinyl lettering: “No tops allowed, bottoms optional (but frowned upon).” Several other windows boasted activities worthy of bodice-ripper romance covers.”
“You can’t do this. Isn’t it slander?”
Mandy shook her head. “Every photo I used is from a stock-photo site, and although some of the men may be blue-eyed, tall, and sandy-haired, none of them are DC.”
“Where on earth did you find statues and topiary so . . . so . . . risqué?” Candace pointed to a garden and maze and a large gazebo with a bed at the center. “They are like triple-X versions of Rodan’s Kiss.”
“They are highly manipulated stock photos from a pretty trashy site.”
“Trashy or pornographic?”
“Technically art nudes, but I have seen some rather shocking things.” Mandy gave the tiniest of shudders.
Candace sat down on the bed. “Mandy, I am sure this is good therapy, but you realize this image can never leave this room. He only took you to dinner and kissed you once.”
“Yes, and thanks to that, I have had death threats and my schoolroom vandalized. I’ve been humiliated on TV—okay, that was our fault. And the same lips that kissed mine—did you see those photos last night?” Mandy burst into tears, all the pain of the last two weeks trying to leave her body at once.
Candace wrapped her arms around Mandy and let her cry. There wasn’t enough fudge extreme ice cream in the world to solve this one.