30DaystoSyn (21 page)

Night Fifteen

“No session tonight,” he told her as soon
as she answered her phone. On the other end of the line there was silence then
a soft click.

She had dismissed him that easily last
night, he thought and it rankled. It made him angry and it hurt him.

He was tempted to call her back and tell
her Jono would be picking her up but he wouldn’t.

He couldn’t.

Sighing, he looked at the dark screens
across the room. He hadn’t wanted to torture himself with images of her when he
couldn’t touch her. Instead he slouched on his sofa, fingers laced over his
belly, his jean-clad knees raised and the soles of his bare feet curled over
the edge of the coffee table.

Something had come up—something over which
he had absolutely no control—and he was not in a very good frame of mind. He
knew if he went to the Room, he’d take his frustrations out on her and that was
not what he wanted. Things between them were gelling and he wanted to keep it
that way.

He felt her presence in the room and
tensed. Not bothering to look around, he sat where he was on the sofa, keeping
his attention on the screens. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her go to the
bar and reach for the bottle of absinthe that was her drug of choice. The green
liquid she poured into a special reservoir glass wasn’t the legal variety of
herbal liqueur to be found in American liquor stores. The kind she drank had
been smuggled to the States from a small private distillery in New Zealand. It
was one hundred and forty-eight proof with an alcohol content of eighty-nine
point nine percent. It contained
terpene thujone,
which was distilled
from the aromatic leaves and flowers of the absinthe wormwood plant.

The clink of a spoon to glass made him close
his eyes and lay his head on the back of the sofa. Even peripherally he didn’t
want to watch her perform the nasty little ritual. He had done it himself
enough times. Another small sound told him she had placed a sugar cube atop the
specially designed slotted absinthe spoon. Next she would dribble iced water
over the cube to dilute the bitter, anise-flavored liqueur.

“How have you been, Synjyn?” she asked as
she came to sit opposite him.

He didn’t open his eyes. “Do you care?”

“You know I don’t but I am in your home. It
is only polite I ask.” There was a pause and he knew she had taken a sip of the
absinthe. “I hope my visit has ruined whatever evening you had planned.”

“It did,” he admitted.

“Good.”

He heard the unmistakable sound of her
settling comfortably in the chair, her high heels hitting the floor.

“What are you doing here?”

“I heard of your troubles.”

“And you came to gloat?”

“To enjoy. Too bad you beat the charges.”

He opened his eyes and lowered his head to
look at her. He told people she was dead. A part of him wished she was. The
sight of her never failed to surprise him.

Or to make his soul ache.

She was a beautiful, infinitely evil woman.
At fifty-two there were precious few lines in her face despite the life she had
led and the absinthe she consumed like water. In fact, her complexion was
flawless, her very expensive makeup expertly applied to accentuate her large
green eyes, her full lips and high cheekbones. There was no trace of gray in
her sleek and dark brown glossy hair. The lush figure beneath the costly
form-fitting black sheath would turn the head of any man.

“I see you have a new toy in the driveway,”
she said, taking another sip. Her long eyelashes slowly lowered almost
seductively. “A Ducati?”

“Icon Sheene,” he replied.

“And how much did that little trinket cost
you?”

“Nearly two hundred thousand,” he said.
“Does it matter?”

“That you waste your father’s money on such
silly, childish things?” she asked with a careless shrug of her slender
shoulder. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s none of your business what I
do with
my
money,” he replied. “How long are you planning on staying
this time?”

“I haven’t decided,” she told him.

The last time he’d seen her was nearly a
month ago when her mother had died. He’d gone home to New Zealand to attend the
funeral no one in her family had wanted him to grace with his presence. They
had, however, allowed him to pay for it.

And that, without a single thank-you from
any of them.

There had been far more mourners than he
would have imagined. Her family had shunned him. At the gravesite, he had stood
alone in the rain with no one speaking to him. Not that it mattered. He hadn’t
gone there for them. He went to pay his respect to a woman he had never met, to
a grandfather who loathed his very existence.

Thankfully she had stayed away even though
Cheri Hanere had been the only person in the world she had ever loved.
Afterward, he had gone to the condo he had purchased for her but she refused to
let him in. She had stood on the balcony staring down at him with the
ever-present glass of absinthe in hand.

“Do you need anything?” he’d asked her.

She’d snorted, turned and went inside,
closing the French doors behind her to shut him out.

As she’d done all his life.

He’d left on the corporate jet that same
afternoon with a vow never to return.

“Are you fucking anyone new?”

The question, its bluntness and vulgarity
made him wince. Such language came second nature to her.

He drew in a long breath then exhaled
slowly. “What it is you want, Olivia?” he asked. She’d never allowed him to
call her Mother.

She drained the glass then got up to pour
another. “I want seven-hundred-and-fifty-thousand dollars.”

Not I need or would you give me? Her demand
might well be her life’s motto—I want.

He intended to have it chiseled into her
headstone.

“For what?”

“You should never have moved the corporate
offices from Auckland to the States,” she said ignoring him. “It is a nuisance
to come here to deal with you.”

“Why do you need
seven-hundred-and-fifty-thousand dollars?”

She came back with the absinthe and sat
down in a way so the hem of her very short dress revealed she wore no
underwear.

He looked away from that shocking sight.

“You know I don’t like seeing you.”

“Oh, I know that all too well, Olivia,” he
snapped. “What do you need that kind of cash for?”

“It is none of your—”

“My money, my business,” he said. “You want
it, I want to know why.”

Her eyes flashed green fire and her full
lips twisted to an ugly sneer. “If you must know I need my tits and arse lifted
and the lips of my cunt tightened!”

He closed his eyes slowly. The crudeness
brought bile to his throat but he smiled, hanging his head to keep from feeling
her glare scorching his face. There was nothing humorous in what she’d said. It
disgusted him but it also gave him the courage to shake his head.

“No,” he said to her for the first time in
his life.

There was a pause then her voice filled
with venom.

“What did you say?”

He opened his eyes and leveled his gaze on
her. “I said no. That’s way too much money for operations such as those and
besides, I’m not going to pay for you to get shit like that done.”

“You owe me!” she shouted.

“Owe you for what?”

“Your life!” she said with a hiss. “I could
have aborted you but I didn’t!”

“Well, I guess there are some lines you
won’t cross,” he said. “Doesn’t matter. I’m not giving you money for either of
those things. You want that shit done, find a john to pay for it.”

She threw the glass at him and he ducked to
the side. The glass sailed past his head but splattered him with the absinthe
in passing.

“God, how I detest you!” she said,
springing out of the chair. She came to stand over him. “You are a hateful
little son of a bitch!”

“Yep, that’s exactly what I am,” he said.

She slapped him hard enough to rock his
head to the side but he never flinched. He kept his face averted for he knew
she’d do it again given the chance, maybe even rake her fingernails down his
cheek. She’d done it before.

“Fuck you, you useless little prick!” she
hurled at him then spun on her heel.

“You forgot your shoes,” he called after
her but she never turned around. His front door opened and closed with a savage
bang.

He sat there for half an hour with the
anger and hurt building. Tears pricked behind his eyes but he refused to shed
them. He concentrated on maintaining slow, steady breaths but after a while his
heart felt as though it was going to explode.

He reached for his cell phone.

“Can I come over?” he asked.

“Of course.”

She’d just taken her shower and was putting
on her pajamas as the toaster oven cooked the frozen jalapeño poppers that
would be her supper. The moment the bike pulled up in her driveway she
regretted that she had given in to the temptation of such a terrible choice.
She’d probably have heartburn all night now.

The sound of a key in the lock stopped her
in midstride.

“Damn it, Kiwi,” she said on a long sigh.
She
had
to get that key away from him.

Padding into the living room, she was
surprised he wasn’t in there. She stuck her head around the archway into the
front hall and found him standing in the foyer. He had his back to the door,
leaning against it. The look on his face was devastating.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, hurrying over to
him. She reached out to put a hand on his arm.

And just like that he crumpled, going to
his knees with such force she flinched. He wrapped his arms around her waist,
buried his face against her stomach, and the most heart wrenching sound she’d
ever heard was torn from his throat. He clung to her—keening, sobbing so
wretchedly she was shocked to the very core. She put her hands on his shoulders
but she couldn’t hunker down before him for his arms were so tightly
constricted around her.

“Kiwi, what’s wrong?” she asked, terrified
something had happened to Jonny or Craig or Jake. “What is it?”

The pitiful crying, the desolate, hopeless,
helpless sound of it made her soul ache for him. She curled her arms around his
head and held him as tightly as he held her. His tears were soaking through the
material of her T-shirt and were scalding her.

“Baby, what happened?”

But until the tears were spent and the last
racking shudder left him, he kept his silence and his body rigid. She felt him
beginning to relax the tense muscles and put her hands to his cheeks, lifted
his tear-ravaged face up to her. The look in his eyes tore into her like an
arrow.

“Let’s go in the living room, okay?” she
asked, fanning her thumbs under his swollen eyes. “That floor has to be hell on
your knees.” She swept her palm over his left eye and up his forehead into his
short hair. “Okay?”

He nodded and released her, got to his feet
as though he were an old man. He ran the back of his forearm under his nose.

“Oh, that’s just nasty,” she said. She
turned and plucked a trio of tissues from the box on her foyer table. “Here.”

She left him blowing his nose and went into
the living room. Sitting down on the sofa, she watched him walking toward her
with his shoulders slumped dejectedly and his head down. She patted the cushion
beside her but he knelt at her feet, wrapped his right arm around her legs and
laid his head in her lap, his face away from her.

“Kiwi, that has to be uncomfortable,” she
said as she smoothed her palm over his head but he didn’t reply.

They sat that way for the longest time and
she thought he had fallen asleep but when he drew in a long, wavering breath
she knew he was ready to talk.

“You want to tell me what happened?” she
asked, fearing some terrible news about Jonny or Craig.

“My knees are killing me,” he said.

“Then get off the floor, goofball,” she
told him.

He pushed wearily to his feet but instead
of sitting beside her, he stretched out on his back with his knees drawn up and
once more laid his head in her lap. One hand rested on his stomach and the
other was splayed on his thigh. He craned his head back to look up at her. His
eyes were sorrowful blue pools rimmed in red.

“Can I spend the night?” he asked.

“You know you can,” she replied.

“Because I’m paying you to be nice to me,”
he said.

“Because I like you, Kiwi,” she said. “If I
didn’t, I wouldn’t still be here.”

He stared hard at her. “You’re still here
because of the money.”

“I won’t deny that but I think you and I
both know it’s become more than just about the money,” she replied.

He lowered his eyes. “Maybe.”

She took a deep breath, almost afraid to
ask. “Did something happen to Jonny or Craig?”

His eyes flicked up to hers again and
frowned as though he didn’t understand then shook his head when he did. “No,
nothing like that.”

“Then what?” she pressed. She ran her hand
over his forehead, stroking him as she would a little boy.

He reached up to capture her hand, brought
it down to his heart and held it there. He took a deep breath. “Olivia came to
see me tonight.”

That was the last thing she’d expected him
to say. She tried to keep her voice even as she asked if he’d been expecting
her. “Your mother? I thought both your parents were dead.”

“Surprise,” he said between clenched teeth.
“I’ve always dreaded this day would come.”

“You didn’t want anyone to know about her,”
she said. “I understand.”

“She called me from the airport to send a limo
to take her to the Hilton,” he replied. “She ordered me to have the limo
available to her for when she needed it.”

“Ordered you,” she repeated and the first
word put a bitter taste in her mouth.