Chapter Fourteen
“Tired of covering news, Luz, so you’re auditioning for a telenovela soap opera?”
Lane straightened and then calmly stood to face his brother. He let go of her arm, but Luz didn’t flinch. She’d done nothing wrong. She hadn’t gone behind his back. She’d let him know she wanted a divorce. She’d contacted several attorneys who had refused to represent her once they received a call from the state’s attorney general or heard her husband’s name.
“Alex.” Luz stepped to the side of Lane so she had a full view.
Her heart was pounding like a marching band doing a John Phillip Souza song, but she was determined to face him head on with poise and resolve.
“That little confession to my brother makes my quick mood adjustment with Ava a few weeks ago quite innocent, wife.”
He walked further out on the patio, his aviator style sunglasses firmly in place. Wearing a beautiful suit and tie, tall, dark and sleekly handsome, his dark hair was unaffected by the afternoon breeze off the ocean, and only a muscle tick in his jaw gave away that he was coldly furious.
Luz felt dread but she stomped it down. Alex was her problem and she didn’t want Lane involved. Alex would thrive on hurting Lane and there were many ways he could and would do it.
“At least Ava knew she was a pre-party quickie. I always tell them I’m married and intend to stay married, where it sounds as if you’ve been giving my little brother an entirely different idea. Payback’s over. Time to come home, Luz.”
“No,” she said even as Lane opened his mouth. “I’ve left you for good, Alex. I’m not coming back. I told you I want a divorce so stop bullying every attorney in the state. I don’t want money. I want out.”
“You are my wife,” he said each word like a bullet. “For life. No divorce. I’m willing to make an allowance, since you’re had an emotional breakdown from all the fertility treatments. The doctor recommended I commit you, but I was trying to be compassionate.”
“I did not have a breakdown,” she objected. “I’m fine, and I’m staying that way by getting a divorce.”
“Doctor says otherwise.” Alex pulled three prescription bill bottles out of his pocket and rattled them. “You left these behind. The doctor said it’s very hard to come off this cocktail of mood stabilizers cold turkey.”
Lane stepped forward and knocked the bottles out of his brother’s hand and they flew across the courtyard, hit the stucco wall, and rolled under a large banana tree.
“She’s not poisoning herself anymore,” Lane said tightly.
“Doctor Atchison has been worried about you.” Alex ignored Lane. He spoke in his uber-calm voice that meant there’d be hell to pay, but Luz wasn’t in the market for what Alex was peddling anymore. “He said with all the fertility drugs over the past two years and then going off your meds, anything could happen and he was right, although neither he nor I speculated that you’d fuck my brother.”
Lane took two aggressive steps forward, but Luz jumped in front of him, halting his progress.
“It’s okay.” She soothed him, her voice low. She rubbed her hands up and down his arms. “It’s okay.”
“There’s nothing okay about it.” His voice was harsh, angry. “He can’t come in my house and intimidate and insult you.”
Luz could imagine how Alex was calculating each reaction, each tone, analyzing how to use each for his best advantage. The man was a former top trial attorney and attorney general. He had mastered the science of reading body language before he’d been out of elementary school.
“Please, Lane, for me. Go inside. Let me talk to Alex.”
“Like hell. I’m not leaving you alone with him.”
“Please.” She pressed her hand over his wildly beating heart, wanting to soothe him without giving Alex anymore ammunition. “Please.” She repeated. “For me.”
He looked at her like she was insane. Luz imagined Alex was as smug as he was ever going to get, but, if he thought he was getting his wife back, he was in for a big surprise. Probably the only surprise in their marriage, she thought wryly, but instead of Garbage’s “Stupid Girl” song, now her brain played Adele’s “Water under the Bridge.”
Progress.
He pressed his forehead against hers. “You sure?”
She nodded.
“I won’t go far,” he said.
She smiled. She knew he wouldn’t. She’d pushed for what she’d needed, and he’d given it to her. Reluctantly. He took another breath and then exhaled. Their breath mingled and Luz felt as if she were absorbing him into her body. His love. His confidence. His trust in her, which she fiercely reminded herself, she didn’t deserve because of what she’d done, what she’d allowed Alex to talk her into, but still she’d done it.
“Don’t even think about touching her,” Lane said as he prowled by Alex.
Alex, hands in pocket, huffed a laugh. “She’s my wife. Touching’s implied. That warning really applies to you.”
Lane stopped.
“Go.” Luz gave him a little push. “I’ll be fine.” She reached into her pocket and found her cell phone.
Lane’s deep blue eyes met his brother’s light blue. Both glittered threats. Alex broke the stare-down first, but he smiled. “Out.” He made a shooing motion with his hand. “I’ll make sure she hangs your leash on the back door when we leave.”
“Alex,” Luz said, already weary of his posturing and taunts. “Let’s have this discussion as adults.”
“Adults,” he said as if he was just learning the word.
Luz saw Lane enter the house, but he didn’t close the door. The window to the sitting room was tinted so she couldn’t get a clear view in, but she imagined that he was watching. And listening.
“Is that how you were behaving when you tossed thousands of dollars of French lingerie into our pizza oven right before guests were due to arrive? By the time guests were entering the garden expecting you, they were greeted instead by colorful charred wisps of lace floating about.”
“I’m sure you spun a plausible story that made you look sympathetic and tragic and me totally in the wrong.”
“Naturally. The breakdown story. Your sorrow of not being able to bear my child, and then your instability that led to your dismissal at the station…” He spread out his hands innocently in a “what could I do?” motion.
Of course, Alex had been behind her missing several promotions even though she’d won some reporting awards, and then came the downgrade. She had suspected as much, but thought she must be paranoid since Alex had basked in the attention her profession had garnered.
“I was so worried about you that I checked you into a hospital. The guests were quite understanding.”
“Awkward if I’d captured the press’s attention down here during my supposed hospital stay.”
“I’m quite surprised you didn’t, judging by that nauseating display. You really have Lane whipped. But as for the press, naturally, I didn’t commit you. Although, looking at you now, I should have. I can’t believe you convinced Dr. Janssen to undo his impeccable work. You look like an empty sack. And your hair.” His face twisted in revulsion. “You’re not a teenager, Luz, but this rebellion smacks of adolescence, and, holy crap, is that a tattoo?”
He looked at her. She couldn’t read his expression as his eyes were hidden, but it was clearly taking all his effort to stand still and not grip her hard enough to bruise and shake her. He took a deep breath and rocked back on his heels then got himself back under control.
“The tits we can get redone. Extensions for your hair. Laser for the tat. I can get you campaign ready to in a week, tops. Any longer in the hospital and people will question your future stability as first lady.”
He made it sound like she was actually mentally ill and confined somewhere.
“Although mental health reform can be your political wife platform,” he said. “Maybe even women’s issues. Mental health. Same thing.” He laughed. “Although don’t eat another bite of that crap my little brother cooked. What’s he trying to do, fatten you up for market?”
Luz picked up her fork and took a bite of the omelet, one with a big piece of avocado. “He made me brunch,” she said swallowing. “It’s delicious,” she speared another bite. “And no,” she said. “Mental health is not my platform. I’m not coming back. I’m not campaigning for you. I like the red in my hair. I’m keeping my tattoo, and I’m definitely not getting the implants again. And no more antianxiety meds.”
She popped the omelet bit into her mouth and chewed, as if savoring the taste. Lane and his culinary skills deserved a better audience.
“Lane’s really a good cook. I missed that about him among other things. But back to the implants. I got an infection and it nearly went septic. I could have died. So no more Botox, chemical peels, or any other kind of toxins to preserve me like a mummy.”
“That’s inconvenient.”
“What part?” she asked in a voice of stone. “The infection or only almost dying or the deciding to age like a human and not Dorian Grey?”
“I’ll be honest.”
“That’s a change.”
“You have been a disappointment.”
“Great. Divorce me. Move on. Although, to be fair, you should be forced to wear a warning sign.”
“If I were a grieving widower, that would definitely play far better than a divorced man. I’d have to let at least a year lapse before I could be seen in public with another woman, but I have a lot of experience behind the scenes.”
She stared at him. He was actually standing here planning out his public response to her death, which hadn’t happened, along with her trip to a hospital to deal with her mental illness that hadn’t happened.
“You sound nuts. Perhaps you should try the pills,” she said. “Sorry to ruin your pity me voters scenario by being very much alive.”
“Don’t be naïve, Luz. I’m running for governor. I can’t get a divorce,” he said as if she were shy a few dozen IQ points. “Really, I saw you as a marvelous opportunity. Striking looks. Rough background but you’d pulled yourself up by the proverbial bootstraps. Desperate for respectability and approval. Total American dream. Elegant but not too sexy, so women and men liked you. Smart enough you never embarrassed me when you opened your mouth. Hispanic demographic, which mom and dad didn’t see as crucial for my future political runs, but no one’s going to win the presidency without the Latino vote.”
“You aren’t even governor yet, and you’re planning your presidential run?”
“Yes. Political office doesn’t happen by wishing. No one lucks into it. It takes careful planning.”
“You planned marrying me for my demographic for your presidential run in what, four years? Eight years?”
“Of course.”
“How far back did you start planning?” She could barely get the question out around the lump of fury building in her body.
“Since my idiot brother brought you home the first time, radiating happiness like he’d won the lottery and cured cancer all in the same afternoon. My parents were having a charity event at their house and Lane swaggered in with you like he’d invented sex. He barely left your side. He kept staring at you like you were the baby Jesus, Holy Grail, and Arc of the Covenant all rolled into one beautiful, graceful, intelligent, and very ambitious package. And I thought, fuck you, Lane. Mine.” Alex smiled like a shark and it chilled her to her bones. “He was nineteen. He didn’t know what he had. He definitely didn’t deserve you. He didn’t see your political potential. He was just in love, the stupid idiot. He didn’t deserve to be so gloatingly happy.” He shook his head and laughed. “Lane’s always been a changeling. Wore his heart on his sleeve. He was so goddamn in love with you, it was sickening. Where was his ambition? Gone. For a woman. I just knew I needed to wait for him to fuck up or for you to get bored, but when I got a call from our family’s trust attorney that Lane wanted to pull out some money early, I knew I needed to intervene.”
She slapped him. The sound bounced off the walls and seemed to swirl around them like angry harpies.
He caught her hands and held them hard in his.
“Let her go.” Lane’s voice sounded deadly.
Luz froze at the menace she heard in Lane’s voice. Inwardly, she cringed. He must have heard everything. If she felt so furious, what must he be feeling? She had to stay calm. She didn’t want Alex to have any other reason to target his brother. As attorney general, he could go after Lane in a lot of different ways, and she didn’t think he had a moral code, especially when it came to his hatred of Lane.
“Just don’t want to get slapped again, little brother, by my volatile wife. Love that Latin temper, but let’s keep it confined to our bed.”
“Never again.” Luz glared at him and struggled to pull her hands away.
She caught sight of Lane in the doorway, looking like he was about to intervene. She shook her head, her eyes pleading with him.
“I’m fine.” She mouthed.
“Don’t act so pious, Luz.” Alex said. “You wanted the big career and the money. When Lane came to you with nothing, you couldn’t kick his ass to the curb fast enough. I did you a favor.” He kept hold of her hands in one of his, and the other he gripped her chin and tilted her face up to his. “I will say it was easier than even I imagined it would be to get you to turn to me. I had imagined that you returned at least some of his dog-like devotion. But, then again, at the time, I didn’t yet know Lane had left a little present behind that you had no desire to open.” He hissed.
She felt like he was reaching in her chest and clawing out her heart and holding it up to laugh before he shredded it and stomped on it.
“I came to you for help,” she whispered.
Help in finding Lane.
“And I provided it. Just not in the way you’d anticipated. But you got what you wanted.”
She wanted to kick and punch and claw him, but managed to keep her body still. Alex had done worse than lie and cheat, and she’d been so scared and desperate that she’d made it so easy for him to destroy her relationship with Lane. She’d handed him the fuse. But if she vented her feelings, Lane would get protective, and Luz was very frightened. She was beginning to realize Alex had a whole different set of rules that he played by.
“Let me go,” she said through clenched teeth. “You’re hurting me.”
“I’m going to hurt you a lot more, so listen up. Here’s how it’s going to go down, wife.” He ground out the last word, and bent so that his voice was right in her ear and his hands squeezed her so hard they felt bloodless.
Then he let go of her hands and held his out to the side, she assumed so Lane could see that he was no longer holding her.
“You left him once. It was easy. I can hurt him a lot as attorney general, and even more as governor, so play ball.”
She closed her eyes. She felt like she could hear all the doors of what might have been slamming all around her.
“Are you threatening me?”
“I’m threatening my stupid shit of a brother, whom to my total disgust, you obviously still harbor feelings for and who’s managed to build an improbable empire with stupid teenage games. He may have what you want now, Luz, but remember, everyone is vulnerable. Everyone.”
“Yes.” She opened her eyes so they blazed into his. “They are.”
He took a step back, clearly not understanding her lack of fear.
“So, we understand each other.”
“Not sure that you do.”
“I’m coming back here Sunday to pick you up. You have been recuperating with family. My sister and niece will be with me so keep the emotional scene to a minimum. We’ve all been at Lane’s for the weekend, to celebrate his stupid technological advance that is going to make his games more real.” He sneered the words and made air quotes. “And then we will fly home on our jet out of John Wayne.”
She was shaking her head back and forth.
“I’m being kind,” he said. “I’m giving you a couple of days to say goodbye because, actually, I think if I were to be alone with you right now I might do what Lane is clearly terrified that I will do. I need a couple of days to sort myself.”
“Take all the time you need,” she said. “Forever isn’t long enough.”
“I told you. No divorce. You are my wife. For life, however long or short that might be.” He made the last phrase sound like a curse, which it was.
She felt shaken inside, furious, and in pain, but still a little triumph. He’d definitely threatened her and his brother. Admitted to adultery and scheming and threatened her. Not exactly governor material.
Luz tracked Alex as he sauntered across the patio as if he’d won, and in his mind he probably had. She wanted to watch him leave for the last time. Alex may have killed her second chance with Lane, but he wasn’t walking away a victor. Not this time.
Alex clapped his brother briefly on the shoulder as if they were friends. She could see the tension in his body and knew he was squeezing Lane hard enough to hurt, but Lane didn’t wince or even acknowledge him. Alex let go.
“Oh. You look a bit shattered little brother. Luz didn’t tell you about the abortion?” he asked callously, just in case Lane hadn’t figured it out earlier. “She couldn’t get rid of it fast enough. I tried to tell her to wait, to tell you first, but with her, it was all about the career. Always about being on TV. Being famous.”
She wanted to scream at him. Liar. He was a liar. She’d been desperate to find Lane. To tell him. Alex had lied and lied and lied and she’d been so easy to fool.
“I tried to do my best by you. I took her to a private doctor, not a clinic. I was thinking of you when I did that.” He laughed. “I always wondered if the abortion is why she can’t conceive now. Guess we’ll never know, but really Lane, you ought to thank me. You dodged a bullet. She’s an ambitious, money-grabbing narcissist. Far more suited to me than you.”
Luz wanted to scream and defend herself, but she felt like she’d been hit by a powerful wave and had gone under just to struggle to the surface only to be swamped by another, larger, more vicious wave. She had not jumped to the front of the line to get to a doctor. She had tried for a month to reach Lane, but his cell number no longer worked. He hadn’t answered any of her emails, and the few surfers she had met through him either hadn’t known where he was or had refused to tell her where he was because they had known she’d dumped him and had him arrested.
She’d wanted help finding Lane to tell him about the baby. She’d called Alex, thinking he could help her find his brother. She’d been scared. Not knowing what to do. She still had a year of school and internships, and the pregnancy made her so sick it was hard to get out of bed each morning much less get to class and her job.
Luz kept her focus on Alex’s smug retreat because if she looked at Lane, she’d start crying for everything they’d lost. He couldn’t and wouldn’t forgive her. And why should he? She still couldn’t forgive herself. She calmly reached into her pocket and touched the screen of her cell phone for reassurance.
She looked around the private patio courtyard. It was so peaceful, beautiful. Not the place for such an ugly discussion, although there hadn’t been much discussion. Pretty much the story of her whole marriage. Alex laying out the scenario as he wanted it played, only this time it wasn’t going to go his way. She was not going back, and she was not the only one who could make threats.
She’d hurt Lane enough in the past. She wasn’t going to let Alex pile on any more pain. Squaring her shoulders and willing back the tears pricking her eyes, she took one last look around, although everything was blurry. Stupid tears. She turned around to leave, feeling uncoordinated. Her legs and arms and body didn’t want to move together.
Lane stood in the doorway, exactly where Alex had left him. She wanted to say something to him, to explain or to comfort, but really, there were no words of any use to them. He looked stunned. As if he’d just had a body blow. Exactly how she felt.
The best she could do for him now was to give him some time and space to process and grieve. She’d been a coward not telling him earlier. Selfish, snatching a moment of happiness instead of coming entirely clean about their past.
Once in his room though, her attempt at stoicism failed. She started to shake, and her chest seemed to break open, racking her body with sobs. Blindly she pulled her overnight bag out of his master closet and began to jam her few things inside. She seemed to be choking on her grief for what she’d lost, what she’d thrown away by trusting the wrong man, who’d been out to hurt the one man she should have trusted. Luz squeezed her eyes shut hoping that would dam up the tears at least until she could get away before she totally lost it.
She was trying to find her cashmere scarf, her movements almost spastic because her mind seemed to be screaming, and her body, without direction was just a uncoordinated mass of jerks, and she had to fight the urge to curl up and howl. Or better yet, curl up and die. But she wanted to do that in private.
She didn’t even hear Lane come in over the weird gulping and keening sounds. Strong arms held her, but she instinctively struck out, hitting and kicking, but he wrapped her up tightly, his body pinning hers against the bed.
“Sh-sh-sh,” he said. “I’ve got you.”
It was only then that Luz realized the tortured sounds were coming from her. Luz cried then. Deep, guttural sobs that she hadn’t let herself cry, ever, in her life. He laid them both down, wrapping himself around her and, finally, after she was beginning to wear herself out, she felt the back of her neck was damp.
“Don’t be nice,” she said. “You know what I did.”
He rolled to the side of her then and then turned her so they faced each other. Luz tried to hide her face. She must look a mess, and she didn’t want to see the hurt and accusation in his expression.
“You had to make a decision no woman wants to make, Luz,” he said softly, and his voice broke. “And I’m so sorry you had to make it without me.”
She was so stunned, her eyes caught his. She searched his face, looking for anger, condemnation.
“I’m sorry,” she said, cringing at how utterly inadequate the words were.
“Luz, you were on your own. You had to make the best decision for yourself on your own, and that’s my fault.”
“But I sent you away.”
He briefly closed his eyes and then took a shaky breath, his hands, almost involuntarily clutched at hers. “I wasn’t completely honest with you that day,” he confessed, his face, so dear to her, was tense.
“What?” Luz struggled to sit up.
He released her hands and followed, sitting up beside her on the edge of the bed, facing her.
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“I didn’t drop out of Stanford,” he said. “My parents, well, my whole family, made an ultimatum. I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to hurt you or to make you feel guilty or to lose you. That’s the ironic part.”
“I don’t understand,” Luz said. “An ultimatum? What? Dump me or, what, they’d cut off your school funds?”
Lane nodded, a quick jerk of his head, his jaw tense. “And, obviously, I couldn’t come up with my next Stanford tuition payment as I didn’t have access to any of my money until age twenty-five. The trustee told me that. My parents controlled my college funds and everything, so I dropped out and figured I’d surf, earn some money bartending where the drinking age was younger and then enroll in a state school near you in the fall and work.
She stared at him.
“But you said…you made it sound like you were done with school and work, like you were going to be a professional surfer. Like I was supposed to follow you around the world while you competed and we’d live out of a van.”
“I was too proud. Arrogant. I wanted it to sound adventurous. Not that I was a punk kid dependent on my parents when you had achieved everything on your own merits. I’d never had a job, Luz. My parents gave me everything. All my internships were through their connections. All the money I had to take you to concerts, to dinner, away for a weekend was from them where as you earned everything for yourself. I felt so ashamed.”
She stared at him, unable to fathom that he had ever had a single self doubt. He’d always been so confident. So full of life and plans and fun.
“You thought I wouldn’t love you if you didn’t have money?” She finally sorted enough through her dismay to ask the question.
“I thought you’d see me as the dumb-ass kid Alex always said I was. You’d had such an issue with my age at the beginning. You said I was too young for you, and it took me months to change your mind. Then, I was just starting my sophomore year and you were getting a masters and working a job plus getting the internship at NPR, and I was this cocky idiot, totally reliant on his mommy and daddy. I didn’t want you to see me as an immature, spoiled jerk, and I didn’t want to lie. You’d always been worried about what my family thought about you. I didn’t want to tell you that your fears were valid.”
His hands cupped her face, his fingers gentle. “Alex was right about one thing, though.”
“No, he wasn’t,” Luz said vehemently.
“As painful as it is to say, he was. That weekend when I was home getting the family thumbscrews, rack, and water torture methods, Alex said I didn’t deserve you. And I didn’t. I was cocky and immature and so certain that I just had to show up and everything would go my way.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but he stroked his thumb softly against her lips.
“But I want to deserve you now,” he said. “Twelve years ago, when Kadan finally got me to stop drinking myself stupid every night, I realized I had to grow up. I had to become a man, my own man, without any help from my family. Nothing. No money. No family connections. I never touched my entire trust fund when I came of age. I built my company on my ideas and my hard work as well as on the hard work of my employees. I wanted to be someone you could be proud of.”
Luz continued to stare at him in awe. “You became independent for me?”
“For me and for us, so you wouldn’t ever have to feel less because you hadn’t started with more.”
They stared at each other for so long. Luz felt so much emotion she had no idea what to do with it. She felt like she’d been in a nightmare, a long, torturous, frightening nightmare, and she was only now just realizing that she could wake up. Not stay in that place.
“I just wish you hadn’t married my brother.”
She looked down at their joined hands. “I wish a lot of things, Lane, but I can’t look back any more or else my whole life will be constructed out of fear and then regret and sorrow.”
“Agreed,” he said.
Luz reached out to touch his cheek, but withdrew her hand and tucked it in her lap, covering it with her other hand.
“Lane, I did try to find you when I realized about the baby,” she said softly, wanting him to know she hadn’t just cut that last beautiful and vital link with him callously. “But your cell and email didn’t work. None of your friends knew where you were or at least they wouldn’t tell me, so I called Alex. I thought he could help me find you. He was very resistant, so I told him about the baby thinking he’d help me, and then…well, I think the rest was all lies,” she said, remembering Alex’s sympathetic recitation about Lane’s college girlfriends, the girl he was living with on the beach in Thailand. “And he asked me about all my goals, and my finances, and having the baby on my own while trying to finish school and get a job at a station while pregnant and alone, and the more we talked, having the baby just seemed so…impossible. Overwhelming. I had been a mother to my two younger sisters for so long, and I just felt like I couldn’t do that again.” She stared at her hands, twisting in her lap. “I was sick and exhausted and having a hard time sitting through my classes and then working at night. I just didn’t see how I could do it, but all those reasons sound so stupid now.”
“No.” He pressed his finger against her lips. “It was a different time. You were younger and alone, and I know how easily Alex can make something seem impossible.”
“There’s not a day I don’t think about what I did. That I wish I’d made a different choice. I think the reason I can’t have a baby now is to punish me.”
“Baby.” He took her into his arms. “You can’t think like that. You’ve been punishing yourself long enough. It’s time for you to live again.”
He held her so tightly that it was hard to breathe, but she didn’t object. It felt wonderful to be held. It was like she was coming back together in one piece.
“Luz, I know you feel you need time. I want to give it to you. I do, but I also want you to know that I want us to be together.”
She pulled away from him, and after an initial hesitation, he let her. She stood up, her heart heavy.
“I want that, too,” she said.
His smile nearly undid her, and she held out her hand, trying not to be swayed by the way his smile crashed and pain hovered at the edges of his eyes.
“But I have to finish some things first. I owe it to myself and to Paz.”
“Yes, I won’t interfere with anything you want to do. I just want some time with you, whatever you can spare.”
“That doesn’t sound fair to you.”
“It is. I waited twelve years. I can wait longer.” He stood up and faced her. “Just don’t shut me out entirely.” He pleaded.
“I don’t know when I’ll feel whole,” she said. “And you know I can’t have kids, right?”
“Do you want kids?”
“Yes,” she said.
“We can adopt,” he said quickly. “When we’re ready.”
“I feel like you’re in the running for some perfect male award,” she said softly.
“Yeah, something like that.” He took a deep breath. “I’m going to practice the space thing and check on my team,” he said, and left the room quickly as if afraid if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to leave.
Luz looked at the closed door feeling as if Lane had taken all the warmth and oxygen with him.