30DaystoSyn (44 page)

“She wasn’t doing it for the money as much
as she was doing it for her brother,” he said. “It was an altruistic thing for
her, not monetary gain like all the others. She sacrificed her most precious
commodity to make sure Drew would be in a good place and being looked after by
caring people.” He drew his knees up to rest his left wrist on one. “Maybe
that’s where I went wrong.”

“I don’t follow.”

He turned his head to look at her. “I
didn’t wait until the end of the thirty days before I made the world right for
Drew. I moved him out to Cedar Oaks. Hell, I even bought the place so I could
make damn sure he was cared for properly. I gave him the best room there and
furnished it with everything the boy could want.”

She lifted his hand to her lips. “And
that’s why the Fab Fivesome love you so much,” she said of herself, Craigie,
Jono and Jake. “You’ve always done unselfish things for those you care about.
That’s just your nature.”

“Yeah, but that nature backfired on me this
time.”

“How so?”

“I gave her what she needed the money for.
I took away her option to provide for Drew herself. I knew that was important
to her. She already felt like my whore—she said as much—and my guess is she
thought I was trying to buy her affection.”

“Were you?”

He thought about it and had to admit he
probably was. “Maybe.”

“Did you tell her how you felt about her?”

“I didn’t get the chance. I had the ring in
my pocket and I was going to wait until sunrise to propose. It was going to be
a start of a new day for both of us. It never entered my mind that she’d say
no. I really thought she loved me.”

“I believe she does.”

“Then she has a fucking funny way of
showing it,” he groused.

“You didn’t try to talk her out of
leaving?”

“Not after she told me she was glad she
wouldn’t have to suffer my touch and my body anymore.”

Spike winced. “That was cold and totally
out of character for the woman I came to know. There has to be more…”

“I stood there on the deck watching the
launch speeding away and tried to picture her sitting in that boat as unhappy
as I was but you know what? It wasn’t her face I saw. It was my mother’s.”

“Melina is nothing like your mother,” she
said sternly.

“She looks like her,” he said. “All the
women looked like her. Don’t tell me you didn’t realize that.” He shook his
head. “The trouble was I didn’t until Melina brought it to my attention.”

“Melina may bear a resemblance to Olivia
but Olivia is nothing if not pure evil.”

“I tried to buy her love too.”

“Don’t go there, sweetie,” she warned.

“I gave her everything I thought she
wanted. The condo. The new cars. The unlimited credit cards. The only
difference between her and Melina is that I could never give Olivia enough. She
took and took and took and hated me more and more.”

“Melina doesn’t hate you, Synnie.”

“Then why did she leave me?” he asked,
unable to stop his bottom lip from trembling. He could feel the tears gathering
and tried to keep them away. “She made me be the man I’ve always wanted to be.
Why wasn’t that man good enough for her, Spike?” He angrily swiped at a tear
that escaped his tight control. “What is he missing that she needs?”

“Synnie…”

“I love her, Spike,” he said. “I love her
so damn much and she threw me away. She didn’t want me.”

“I know, baby.”

“What’s wrong with me, Spike?” He leaned
over to lay his head in her lap and she put her arms around him.

“Nothing, baby. There is
nothing
wrong with you!”

“Then why didn’t she want me? Am I that
terrible?” he asked and the dam behind his eyes burst. He could no longer hold
back the ungodly agony that was ripping him apart. In some rational corner of
his mind he knew he was scaring her because he was sobbing so powerfully he
scared himself.

But he was incapable of stopping. The
crying, the sobbing, the wild keening and moaning that caused Spike to clutch
him tightly went on and on. He would never know how long. At some point he
heard Craigie’s voice in the background.

“I came to check on him,” Craigie said.

“Do something,” Spike said. “He’s going to
make himself sick.”

There was the sound of footsteps coming
around to his side of the bed. He felt the waistband of his shorts pulled down
and the cold wash of alcohol on his hip. The sting wasn’t bad but it hurt just
the same. God, how he hated needles.

The last snatches of conversation he heard
as his world began to shut down came from far, far away.

“What did you give him?” Spike asked.

“Sodium Nembutal. He’ll be out until this
evening.”

“Good.”

“He can’t be left alone, Spike. Someone has
to be with him at all times.”

“You really don’t think he’d try to hurt
himself do you?” she queried.

“No, but if something happened—a fire or
whatever—he’d never know it. Stay with him until this evening and then I’ll
spell you. I’m sure Jono and Jake will take shifts.”

“You were able to reach them, then?”

“No and that is really starting to piss me
off. Neither one is answering their mobiles. The messages are going straight…”

The voice faded completely away as he sank
beneath a black blanket of warmth.

* * * * *

“Spike?”

She was stretched out on the sofa in the
sitting nook reading a book. She looked around to find Jono standing in the
doorway, a worried look on his face.

“I went to the office and they said you
were here,” he told her.

She put her finger over her lips then
motioned him out of the room. She laid the book aside, got up to follow him.
She eased the bedroom door closed behind her then took his arm and moved him
down the hall that led into the great room. “We tried to get hold of you last
night, but you didn’t answer,” she accused.

“I lost my mobile.”

“That’s no excuse. You should have checked
in,” she said.

“I’m here now. What happened?”

“She took the check and left him.”

His eyes widened. “Bloody hell,” he
whispered.

“To say he didn’t take it well would be an
understatement,” she told him. “That twat Suzi called to say he was tying on a
good one and had locked himself in his cabin. I asked her what had happened and
she said Lina had left with the check.”

“Man, I thought she was different,” he
said, raking a hand through his hair.

“So did Synnie and that’s what set him off
I reckon. Craigie, Kit and I had to go down to Savannah to fetch him back. By
the time we got there, he’d gone berkers and had totally wrecked the cabin.
There was glass everywhere and Craigie had to suture his feet and one of his
knees. Apparently he’d been crawling around on the floor.”

“Shit,” he growled. “Where is she now?”

“I have no idea and at this point I really
don’t give a rat’s prick. She hurt him, Jono. She hurt him bad.”

“So she stayed in Savannah?” he pressed.

“I don’t think so. Synnie said something
about her catching a plane back here.”

“Then she could be at work.” He shook his
head. “Scratch that. She wouldn’t go back there since Synnie owns the fucking
place.”

“Not to mention she doesn’t have to work
another day in her life if she doesn’t want to.”

He looked at the closed door. “Is he all
right?”

“No, he’s not all right, Jono!” she
snapped. “He’s wrecked worse than his cabin!”

“I’m of a mind to call Jake and have him
stop payment on that check.”

“She’s probably cashed it by now,” she
stated. “Where are you going?”

He was headed for the grand hall with its
spiral stairway leading up to the second and third floors then on to the
marble-tiled foyer.

“I thought she cared about him,” he said
over his shoulder. “I liked her. I thought she was good for him. I can’t
believe I was that piss-poor a judge of character. I want to know why she took
the money and ran!”

* * * * *

She hadn’t slept all night. She hadn’t
eaten anything since the morning before. Her head was throbbing with a hunger headache
but her stomach was so tied up in knots she couldn’t even think about eating.

When she’d gotten back to Atlanta, she went
straight to the apartment Jono had procured for her and packed all of her
belongings. She left the key to the apartment on the foyer table along with the
key to the car that belonged to MI. She’d rented a minivan and driven over to
her old place. At that time of the morning there were no camera crews loitering
on the block and for that small favor she was grateful.

Her face felt tight and her eyes were red
and swollen. She couldn’t seem to stop crying but she felt numb all over. The
pain had driven deep. She just tried to keep it pushed down for she had left
her heart in Savannah.

Left everything she had ever wanted there.

Her eyes strayed to the check sitting on
the kitchen counter. It lay there like a coiled serpent and—like that venomous
creature—was as deadly to her self-esteem as the poison from a viper’s fangs
would be to her bloodstream. She hated the sight of it and every time her gaze
slid to it, her stomach roiled.

Her name and the amount had been typed in
but it was his bold signature that drew her eyes like a magnet. She wanted to
trace the swirls and dips that read
Synjyn McGregor
but was loath to
touch the evil thing.

“You are pathetic, Wynth,” she said.
Wanting to touch what he had put his hand to was just plain silly but it was
the last connection she had to him.

The last connection she would ever have.

The longer she stared at the check the more
she hated it. It had no place in her life since what it had managed to do was
destroy what little happiness she’d ever found.

And it was no longer needed, she thought.

“Drew is a true delight,” Ann-Louise
Holloway-Lutz had told her when she called to check on him that morning. “You
don’t have to worry about us taking excellent care of your brother. Mr.
McGregor would have our heads if we so much as let Drew catch the sniffles! As
I told you yesterday, his place here is assured for as long as he lives.”

Drew had everything he would ever need and
was as happy as a squirrel with an ear of corn.

“I’ll be moving out of town,” she had told
Mrs. Holloway-Lutz, “but I’ll come visit as often as I can.”

It wasn’t like Drew would know her then any
better than he did now but she felt an obligation to her brother even though it
hurt every time he looked at her without recognition.

“You’ll leave a forwarding address, though,
won’t you?”

“Yes,” she said. “Most definitely.”

“I’m sure Mr. McGregor will hate to see you
go,” the woman said wistfully.

Oh, yeah
,
she thought as she glared at the check.
He’ll be pining away for me.

Unable to look at the hateful thing one
second longer, she picked it up and tore it in half. Tore it in half again and
yet again. She scattered the pieces on the counter then went to the window.

The cardinal was on the birdfeeder again
but there was no lunch for the pretty boy. He pecked at the opening anyway,
pecked again and then flew off to a more accommodating household.

“Sorry, sweetie,” she said. “I just keep
letting you down, don’t I?”

The knock on her door startled her and she
whipped her head around. No doubt it was one of the persistent paparazzi. She
had no intention of answering the door. Instead she wrapped her hands around
the edge of the counter and returned her attention to her backyard.

Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.

“Go away,” she said quietly.

Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.

“Go. Away, you moron!” she whispered. “I’m
not going to—”

Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock
, accompanied by “Melina? I know you’re in there. Open the damn
door!”

It was Jono’s voice and she groaned. He was
the second to the last person on earth she wanted to talk to at that moment.

Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock!

“Melina! I’m not going away. You might
as well open up if you want this door to stay on its hinges!”

“Shit!” she snapped and pushed away from
the counter. She knew he’d make good on his threat.

The first thing she noticed about him when
she jerked the door open was a look so mean, so nasty and so thoroughly
dangerous she took a step back.

He lifted his chin. “May I come in?”

“Do I have a choice whether you do or not?”
she countered.

“Fuck no,” he said and barreled past her.

He went straight into her living room. She
followed at a slower pace, puzzled and a bit concerned at why he was there. He
was pacing in front of the window when she took a seat in her favorite chair.

“Why are you here, Jonny?” she asked.

“I was in Mobile,” he said as though he
hadn’t heard her question. “Picking up a birthday present Synnie ordered for
Kit. I lost my damn phone and that’s why Spike couldn’t reach me.” He swept his
hand to the side. “And she read me the riot act because I didn’t phone in. If I
had known the shit had hit the fan…” He stopped and turned a cold look on her.
“I went to the apartment but all your things were gone. I came here
straightaway.”

“I’ll be out of here by the end of the
week,” she said. “It’s his house and he can do whatever he wants with it.”

“You can keep the damn house. He doesn’t
want it. He wants you.”

She laughed although there was no mirth in
it. “Oh, yeah, I’m sure he does.”

Jonny’s face twisted. “Why, Lina? Why did
you leave him?”

“Saving face, I suppose,” she said, looking
down at her hands. “I left him before he could toss me out,” she said.

“Toss you…?” His scowl was threatening and
she felt her heart speed up. “What the fuck does that mean?”