Chapter Twenty-four
“You’re getting out of this apartment today,” Kandy said, hands on her hips as she glared at her cousin.
“And if we have to drag you out in your pj’s, we will,” her sister, Gemma, added. “You don’t want two pregnant women to have to physically remove you from this place, do you?”
Kandy sat down on the edge of the bed and grabbed Stacy’s hand. “You’ve been holed up here for two weeks. It’s time to get out and be among the living again.” The warmth that spread from her cousin’s hand into her own icy one was a jolt to her senses.
“Two weeks is more than enough time to wallow,” Gemma added, as she carefully lowered herself to the chair opposite the bed.
“I’m not wallowing,” Stacy said. “I’m resting and recuperating after a very grueling assignment.”
“Bullshit.” Gemma pointed her index finger at her. “You’re hiding out, playing the self-pity card. Over a man.”
The word spat from between her lips.
Kandy shot an annoyed glare at her sister, then turned back to her cousin. “Gem’s delivery may be a little harsh, but she’s right, Stace. You have been hiding out. Avoiding the family, ducking phone calls and texts. And before you say you’re tired and have needed the rest again,” she added when Stacy opened her mouth, “we get that.” She glanced back at her sister and nodded.
Gemma followed her lead and did as well.
“But there’s resting and then there’s isolating. That’s really what you’ve been doing and it’s just not good for you. It stops today.”
Kandy squeezed Stacy’s hand.
She didn’t want to admit the truth, but her cousins were right. She had been isolating herself, shunning all contact with family, with work. She hadn’t left her apartment since Kandy had driven her home from the airport. The moment she’d walked into the familiar, safe surroundings, the delicate thread she’d kept her emotions leashed together with since leaving the ranch at the crack of dawn the day after the finale, tore. Body-racking sobs flew from deep down inside her. She crossed her arms over her stomach and doubled over in the foyer, tears streaming down her cheeks like a plugged and congested dam had suddenly been unclogged.
Kandy had pushed her down onto the couch. Through a box-and-a-half of tissues Stacy had confessed everything, including how she’d fallen in love with Nikko Stamp and his daughter.
Kandy listened, as she always had, calmly and without interrupting once, until Stacy, talked and cried out, had been led into the bedroom and helped into bed.
Where she’d spent the majority of the past fourteen days.
Stacy knew if her parents had been there, they’d have descended on her the second she’d walked through the door and then camped out in her living room.
That she was thankful they were out of the country made her feel small and ungrateful, but she knew they’d have coddled and babied her with their version of loving and smothering affection.
Stacy neither wanted nor needed that. She wanted to be left alone and had gotten her wish.
Until the moment her pregnant cousins burst in on her solitude.
“I know,” Stacy said with a sigh. “I know.”
“Then if you know, get your skinny ass out of that bed and come to lunch with us,” Gemma said. “This baby is starving”—she rubbed her hands across her burgeoning midsection—“and so am I. You look like you could use a good meal or two,” she added. “And some sun. You’re as pale as chalk.”
Stacy couldn’t help the twitch that pulled at her mouth. “You’re such a boost to my fragile ego.”
“Your ego is as hard as steel forged in iron,” Kandy said, squeezing her hand again. “Grandma’s backbone to a T.”
Stacy remembered saying the same thing about her oldest cousin a time or two over the years.
“What do you think Grandma would say if she knew you were acting like this? If she walked in here and found you idling in bed with the covers pulled over your head, avoiding everything and everyone?” Kandy asked, one delicate eyebrow arched high on her forehead.
Stacy sighed again and sat up, adjusting the pillow behind her. “No thought needed. She’d glare at me through those all-knowing eyes of hers, fist her hands on her hips and ask, “Who you are? You not my Estella. Not my little wojownik.”
The perfect imitation of their grandmother’s thick Polish accent had her cousins grinning.
“She always called you her little warrior when you were in the hospital,” Gemma said.
“I don’t feel much like a warrior right now,” Stacy said. The bone-sapping weariness of the past two weeks slowly wound through her. “I don’t feel much like anything, except an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot,” Gemma said. “As far from it as a person can get.”
“What do you call someone who falls for a guy who so obviously doesn’t feel the same way about you, then? Who’s so wrong for you on every level, but you still can’t see anything else? Want anyone else but him? Smart? A genius, maybe?”
Kandy looked over at her sister and then back to Stacy.
“Normal?” she said, with a shrug.
Stacy’s laugh had a sad edge to it. “If that’s normal, then I want to be the polar opposite.”
“Sweetie, correct me if I’m wrong,” Kandy said, “but you’ve never really been in love before, have you? Total, consuming, devouring love?”
“The kind that knocks you on your ass and won’t let you get up?” Gemma added.
“No.” She shook her head. “I’ve never felt anything this powerful with any other man. It’s…scary.”
“You don’t, exactly, have a history of getting too hung up on guys or letting them get hung up on you,” Kandy said. “You pretty much shy away from strong relationships. Even before that whole disaster with Mark Begman, you held men at arm’s length.”
“Yeah. So?”
“I always thought it was because... well, you were afraid to let anyone get close.”
Stacy shook her head. “Not so much afraid as cautious. I was always worried if I let a guy get to know me, get close... well, something bad would happen. Something tragic. Dumb, I know. But…”
“Oh, Stacy.” Kandy leaned forward and hugged her. “You don’t think the crash was your fault, do you? I mean, you can’t.”
“Not anymore, no. But I did. For a long time, especially when I was lying in the hospital with nothing but time to think. If I hadn’t been so eager to rebel, that joyride would never have happened and Freddie Boxer would be alive today.”
“Okay, so maybe you are a little bit of an idiot,” Gemma said. “For thinking that,” she qualified when her sister’s head whipped around. “Nothing that happened was your fault. Nothing.”
“I know that. Now. For the longest time, though, I protected myself from getting emotionally involved with any guy because I was worried it was. Keep it light. Keep it easy. Nikko was the first man I ever let get that close, let in. And I don’t even think I let him in. He kind of just barreled in without any kind of warning.”
She rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands. “One minute he looked like he wanted to yell at me, the next he was holding me, his hand on my butt, his tongue down my throat, and all I could think was it felt so damn good. So…right. And it was wrong in so many ways. I was his assistant, and that whole workplace-romance thing bounced through my head. I was there to do a specific job, make sure it got done, and then leave. Not get caught up in a love affair with a guy who I didn’t even think liked me. Who gave me no indication I was anything other than an annoyance at best.”
Kandy’s gaze slipped to her sister’s. “You two have more things in common than you realize.”
“What do you mean?” Stacy’s gaze went from Kandy to Gemma. “That’s what it was like for you and Ky?” Stacy asked, referring to her cousin’s husband.
“Yup,” Gemma said.
“I didn’t know that.”
Gemma flicked a hand in the air and pursed her lips into a very feminine pucker. “Only I was the one who was doing the yelling,” she admitted. “The man made me crazy. In every way. He still does.”
“But you two wound up together,” Stacy said. “Ky loves you. Nikko doesn’t love me. He thinks I’m untrustworthy and a liar. A liar! He wants nothing to do with me because he thinks I used him to advance my career. As a means to an end, according to him.”
“You kinda did,” Gemma said. When her sister shot her another annoyed glare, she added, “In the beginning and until you fell for him, that is.”
“Okay,” Stacy pointed her finger at her cousin much the way Gemma had just moments before. “I’ll give you that. Maybe I did. Initially. But would he let me explain that? Would he let me tell him what I felt? Tell him how everything had changed? That he meant more to me than the show concept? That I wanted to be with him after the show wrapped? That I was totally in love with him and his daughter? No. He just looked at me like I was pond scum and stormed off like a big baby.”
“The male ego has always been such a mystery to me,” Kandy said.
“You’ve said that before.” Her sister grinned. “A whole bunch of times.”
“And it’s still true.”
Stacy raked her hands through her hair. “I can’t believe he dismissed me outright, without even giving me a chance to explain what really happened,” she said, ignoring her cousin’s banter. “I never blackmailed Teddy. The offer was already on the table before he asked me to go to Montana. All I did was make him put it in writing.”
“We know that,” Kandy said.
It was as if she hadn’t spoken. Stacy steamrolled along. “Sure, maybe I sweetened the pot a little by asking for full control, but Teddy agreed. He never said if I didn’t go I wouldn’t get my show. But Nikko never gave me the chance to tell him that. He just believed what Jade, that bitch, told him, that I had a quid pro quo agreement with Teddy. That I’d only agreed to produce the show if I was given my own when it was over as a repayment. Nikko never allowed me the courtesy to explain what really happened. Who does that? What kind of supposed grown man acts like that? It’s no wonder people are scared of him. He’s a megalomaniac whose only opinion he values is his own. The jerk.” She kicked the covers off.
“Ah, and here’s the Stacy we all know and love,” Kandy stood. “Grandma’s little warrior.”
Stacy sprang up from the bed. “I’m done wallowing.”
“I thought you weren’t wallowing,” Gemma said. Kandy shot daggers at her again. “Well, she said she wasn’t.”
“I did nothing wrong.” She strode into her bathroom and turned the shower on. “I’m done wasting another second on regrets. Done mooning over a guy who doesn’t want me. Who can’t see me for the person I am. Who can’t see I was willing to give him everything, every part of me.”
The shower door slammed shut. “I need ten minutes,” she called back to her bedroom.
“Take your time,” Kandy called back.
“But not too long, because junior here is screaming for lunch!” Gemma added.
* * * *
Hearts, she realized as she plowed through her work emails and tried to de-clutter her desk, were both fragile and resilient. In the three days since she’d had her self-imposed banishment revoked and joined the living again, Stacy had learned this one very real fact. The heart she had never given to a man before had been battered and bruised, but still beat, still felt, and still went on.
After a lunch filled with family gossip and plans for the future, Stacy had kissed and thanked her cousins for forcing her ass into gear again. Then, she’d changed into workout clothes and put herself through an invigorating, exhausting yoga session, followed by a solid hour of meditation.
When she opened her eyes, the day had turned long and her spirits had turned light. She’d missed this during her emotional and physical exile. Missed the quiet contemplation; missed the rejuvenating bounce to her body and soul.
Wallowing, she’d found, did nothing but waste time. She realized that now, even though in the moment she’d needed the disconnection from everything in her life.
But not anymore. Her head was back on straight, her body was aligned, and her spirit was calmed. Grandma Sophie’s little warrior was back.
Now all she had to do was clear her desk and see Teddy Davis. She’d arranged a meeting today, which he’d granted enthusiastically. She knew he’d grill her on the Montana production, but she was ready to answer any and all questions. When it came time to discuss her next project, she had an entire dialogue already constructed in her head. She was going to fight tooth and nail for her show.
A knock on her office door pulled her out of her musings. “Yes?”
Melora Stamp pushed her head through.
“Hey,” the girl said.
A warm rush of pleased surprise ran through her. “Hey, yourself. Get in here.”
Stacy rose and jogged around the desk, met Melora, and pulled her in for a tight hug.
When the girl wove her arms around Stacy’s waist equally as body-huggingly snug, tears stung her eyes.
Stacy pulled back from the embrace and raked her gaze down the girl’s frame.
“I’m so glad to see you. You look good,” she said, meaning it. The subtle weight gain she’d noticed in Montana had started to fill in Melora’s hollowed cheeks and neck. Now, the hollows were gone, her cheekbones high and round, her skin pink and tinged with a healthy glow.
“What are you doing here?”
The teen fell into the chair in front of the desk. “Nikko had a meeting, so I tagged.”
Stacy had to will herself not to let out a sigh at the sound of his name. If he was in the building, there might be a slim chance she’d see him on her way to Teddy’s office—a chance she didn’t want to take. Seeing his daughter brought back the painful memory of the last time she’d spoken to him, the angry words he’d tossed at her, the heartbreaking way he’d left her. She took a mental breath and shut the feelings away.
“How’ve you been?” she asked. “Everything okay?”
“Cool. Things are getting back to, like, normal, after being away.”
“School should be starting back up soon, right?”
Stacy hadn’t realized until that moment how much she’d missed seeing that eye roll. “Ugh, yeah. I’ve got a few weeks, though, before it starts.”
“Any plans? Or just having fun being back home?”
“Yeah, that’s kinda the reason I’m here. I came with Nikko because I was hoping to catch you. Talk to you.”
“Oh?” For a brief moment, Stacy was afraid it might have something to do with the way she’d abruptly left the ranch without saying good-bye.
“Gemma Laine called me,” Melora said, her expressive eyes widening, a free and easy smile gracing her face.
“Oh. Oh, good.” Relief washed through her. “I had lunch with her the other day and told her all about you and how much you like photography. I’m glad she reached out.”
“She did, like, way more than reach out. I met with her yesterday, showed her some of my stuff. She offered me an intern job starting, like, today, and said if I can work it out, I can continue with it during school.”
“Oh, Melora, that’s great! Congratulations. I know how picky Gemma is with the people she lets intern for her. You must have really impressed her.”
“She’s so so so nice. I wanted to see you, to thank you for, like, telling her about me, and…”
“And?”
“Well.” Melora dropped her chin.
“Sweetie, what is it?”
She watched as the girl took a deep breath, lifted her head, and stared at Stacy with such a look of pain in her eyes, she wanted to come around from behind the desk and gather her into her arms again.
“Did you and Daddy have a fight?”
Stacy’s breath hissed in at the question.
“Because you left without saying good-bye and he was in such a grouch of a mood the night after the finale and the next day when he found out you’d left the ranch. He stomped around and grumbled like a rabid, starving bear when Mr. Dixon told us you’d bolted. You didn’t even say good-bye.”
She’d rushed it out all in one breath, the last word ending on a heartbreaking whine.
Before Stacy could respond, Melora went on. “I went looking for you the morning after. You weren’t in your room. I needed to talk to you about, well…something. But you were already gone. I told Daddy and he went schizoid.”
“What do you mean? What did he do?”
She sat forward in the chair and flipped her hand in the air. “Cursed. Threw his coffee mug. Then cursed again. I think he forgot I was in the room, ’cause he usually gets all batshit crazy if I so much as say ‘damn.’”
Stacy was a little confused at his response. If he was so angry at her for “using him to advance her career” why, then, would he be mad she was gone?
“I know the two of you, like, hooked up—”
“What?”
“—and I thought you were, like, good for him. Daddy was happier than I’d seen him in a long, long time. I thought... well, I thought you’d, like, be together after the shoot was done. You know? Like a couple.”
“Oh, Melora.” Stacy sighed and shook her head. “Sweetie.”
“Look, it was no secret, okay? I’m not two, you know. I could see how much Daddy changed when you were around. He was, like, calmer, and not such an ogre. I know some of that had to do with his leg pain getting better. But I think most of it had to do with you. How much he liked you. Depended on you. You were good for him.”
Stacy sighed again.
“Plus, I saw him going into the main house one night when I was, you know, out talking with Riley.”
“So much for keeping things a secret,” Stacy mumbled. She wasn’t sure if she was uncomfortable with Melora knowing about her and her father, or worried more people had found out about them.
“You did, didn’t you? Have a fight? That’s why you left before you were supposed to?”
“It was more of a misunderstanding,” she told the girl after a moment. “But your father was very…angry at me and I thought leaving would be better all around. Production was done. He didn’t really need me for anything any more.” Not that he’d ever admit he had in the first place. “It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”
“It wasn’t. It sucked. And it hurt. Big-time.”
She could see that for herself. “Melora, for what it’s worth, I never intended to hurt you. Especially you. I loved spending time with you. Getting to know you. I really did. You made what could have been a miserable two months so much better.”
The girl nibbled on a thumbnail. With a quick nod, she said, “Okay. I, like, forgive you for bolting. Even though it was lame and shattering.”
With a wry twist of her lips, she said, “Thanks. Are you—”
Her cell phone buzzed with a timed reminder for her meeting with Teddy Davis.
“Crap.” She turned the reminder off. “Listen,” she said, rising, “I have a thing I can’t get out of. Are you going to stick around?”
“No. I’ve gotta get over to Gemma’s studio by one. I don’t want to be late my first day, you know?”
“No, of course not. When you’ve got a free afternoon, or even an hour sometime, text me. We can grab some lunch or go shopping. Do something fun, okay?”
The warmth from the smile that lit the teen’s face seeped through her.
“Fab. Will do.”
Stacy grabbed her notebook and phone, hugged Melora again, and said, “It was really good to see you. Really good. Thanks so much for stopping by.”
“’K. I’ll text.”