A Collateral Attraction (14 page)

“I’m looking forward to it,” I say, smiling.

A publicist wearing a name tag identifying her as an employee of Kheiron Industries tells Harris that the press is waiting for him, and within minutes, Harris is whisked away.

“Did you know that Walt Disney was such a fan of polo that he had a cage built on a soundstage so he and other players could practice hitting balls into the goal?” Heath asks me the moment Harris is gone. His hand is pressed along the small of my back as he guides me across the tent.

“No, I had no idea,” I say as a member of the wait staff offers us glasses of chilled rosé wine.

“What did Harris want to talk about?”

“He apologized for calling me a pathetic copy of Blythe,” I reply and Heath stares at me, surprised. “Pam told him I was by the trellis all that time, so he knew I heard him.”

“And?”

I shrug. “I forgave him. At least he apologized. So many others probably wouldn’t have bothered.”

Heath reaches for my hand and holds it, completing our charade as a couple as I take a long sip of my wine — two gulps that almost empty the glass.

“Are you nervous?” Heath asks.

“Not anymore,” I say, hoping he can’t tell I’m lying. Of course, I’m nervous. I’m petrified. “Are you?”

“No,” he says, and why should he? He’s used to this crowd.

“I’ve never seen so many gorgeous people in one place,” I say as I take another sip. I’ve never actually had rosé wine before and right now, it just might be a new favorite.

“Like you,” Heath says, smiling. “You’re beautiful, Billie.”

“Thanks to you and Isabella Marrant,” I say, chuckling. “I really had a lot of fun during breakfast, and as far as that shopping trip is concerned, I’ll add it to the tab.”

If there’s one way to make Heath’s dimples disappear, what I said does it. His smile fades and he frowns, and he’s about to say something when a photographer shows up in front of us and asks to take pictures for the country club website. Heath pulls me next to him and grins at the camera while I do the same.

“Just find Blythe and get her out of Santa Barbara, Billie, and before you know it, this charade will be over and you won’t even owe me a dime,” Heath mutters as he smiles for the photographer, who’s now joined by two press photographers.

Ten minutes later, and I’ve emptied my second glass of rosé to distract me from saying anything more stupid than what I had just said, and holding a third one, though this one I’m determined to be just for show. I normally don’t drink but then, there’s nothing normal about where I am and what I’m here to do. I’ve somehow found myself being photographed more times in ten minutes than I’ve ever been photographed in my whole life, and I wonder if this is how celebrities feel like — bored, yet having to smile till their cheeks hurt and pretending to look like they’re having fun.

I’m actually relieved when Heath has to leave my side, pulled to one corner along with Tyler and Harris by the corporate publicist for interviews with Business Wire, Washington Post, and a Santa Barbara society magazine.

I make my way outside where I have full view of the polo match going on. I watch the players on their horses chase after a wooden ball with mallets, thinking that it truly is the sport of kings, just as I’ve read. Man and horse seem like one as they go chasing after a ball that travels between the horses’ hooves from one end of the field to another. And all that time, they make it look so effortless. I see two female players and I can’t help but smile. Though I know nothing about the game, they seem as good as their male counterparts.

I retrieve my phone from my purse and before I can second guess myself, I dial Blythe’s new phone number. I wonder if I can hear her phone ring in the crowd, that is, if she’s here. But if it is ringing, I don’t hear anything above the many conversations that fill the air, and the sound of hooves in the distance.

Her voicemail comes on the line and I hear her cheerful greeting though this time I don’t leave a message. I hang up and slip the phone back into my purse, turning my attention back to the polo match. I can imagine how I look in my white ensemble, wide-brimmed hat and big sunglasses, a glass of wine in my hand. It’s far from the woman who’d be sitting on the front porch of her shop in Nevada City right now, probably sipping a glass of lemonade and wearing a shapeless paisley dress and flip-flops.

“Babe, you made it! I’m so glad you’re feeling so much better!” a voice behind me exclaims as I feel an arm go around my shoulders, pulling me towards a man who is not Heath, doesn’t sound like him, nor touches me like he does.

And neither does he kiss like Heath.

By the time I exclaim that he’s made a mistake, it’s too late. Ethan has pulled me right up to him and our lips meet in a crushing kiss before I push him away — and right into an angry Heath, who grabs Ethan by his upper arms and pushes him away from me. As Ethan stares at Heath and then at me, his expression changes from utter surprise to shock, and then anger.

“What do you think you’re doing, Ethan?” Heath demands though I can see how both men regain their composure as quickly as it had dissolved seconds earlier. They know where they are, and already people are watching. Still, I can tell how Heath is barely keeping it together.

“What the hell is she doing here?” Ethan asks.

Standing facing each other, the brothers are like night and day. They both have the same nose and lips, but it’s their eyes that make them different. Ethan is blonde with sky-blue eyes while Heath’s ocean blue-gray eyes are set against a thick head of dark hair.

“She’s my guest,” Heath replies, pulling me next to him, his arm holding me possessively around my waist as Ethan stares at me, his gaze going from my face all the way down to my feet. It’s like he’s seen a ghost, and he shakes his head in wonderment.

“Shit, you look just like Blythe, it’s uncanny,” he says. “I could have sworn-”

“Now where are the letters?” Heath asks, his voice almost growling.

Ethan turns to face him, as if snapped from a trance. “That’s no longer your concern,” he says.

“It is my concern,” Heath says. “Those letters belongs to Mother.”

“Let’s just say she loaned them to me, Heath,” Ethan says. “Who’s to say she didn’t anyway? Are you honestly going to ask her, hoping she’ll remember?”

“I don’t need to ask her, Ethan, because she was lucid enough to tell me that you stole them from her safe after she was kind enough to give you her engagement ring to give to Blythe – the same one that once belonged to Gran.”

Ethan’s jaw clenched. “Let’s just say she was careless, shall we?”

“She wasn’t careless, and you know it, not when there are cameras installed in the house,” Heath says through gritted teeth. “Now where are they?”

A photographer asks to take our picture and like seasoned pros, Heath and Ethan sandwich me between them, and smile as the photographer clicks the camera shutter. As soon as he’s gone, both brothers separate and glare at each other again.

“I’ll give them to you,” Ethan says, a smirk on his face, “for a price. You’re a business man, after all, so this you’ll understand.”

“And what, should I dare ask, is your price, Ethan?”

“Her shares — every single share she gave to you, or rather, sold to you in a buy-sell agreement after you declared her legally incapable of handling her affairs,” Ethan says, chuckling drily.

Heath laughs, an amused laugh as he shakes his head. His hand still grips my waist like a vice and I down the rest of my rosé and hand it to a passing waiter. I’m stuck in a show and though I should really leave, I can’t. It won’t look good to Heath and besides, Heath never told me he declared his mother legally incapable of handling her own affairs. Why did he leave that out during our talk on the plane?

“If you bothered to look at her living trust, Ethan, you’ll see that she appointed me her trustee,” Heath says. “It’s my responsibility to ensure that her interests are protected.”

“You mean
your
interests?” Ethan counters. “After all, thanks to you, you greedy bastard, you own majority of the company. So think about my offer, Heath.  Her letters for her shares.”

“And if I refuse, would you really expose those letters to the public and shame not just her but all of us? Even Jessica and her kids?  You and I are their godparents, Ethan.”

Ethan doesn’t answer, his attention now directed to someone right behind us. It’s Harris, and he is livid, his face a bright shade of red.

”Harris!” Ethan exclaims, a forced smile on his face. “So nice of you to join us. We were just having a nice conversation about Mom’s letters.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Ethan,” Harris snaps angrily, though his voice is hushed. “Are you aware that people have been watching you make fools out of yourselves the entire time? Probably even recording you? If your father were here-”

“But he’s not, Harris,” Heath says, “and this is between Ethan and I.”

“As long as you boys are in a public event that Kheiron Industries is sponsoring, you need to remember that nothing is between you and Ethan — not when everyone’s watching, and they’ve got ears everywhere,” Harris says as Ethan and Heath continue to glare at each other. I’m reminded of kids fighting on the playground, before being separated by an adult. “Not only that, but you should be ashamed of yourselves, arguing in front of a lady.”

They all turn to look at me, as if realizing for the first time that I’m actually there. But I ignore them and face Ethan. “Where’s Blythe? You said something about her not feeling well.”

“Jet lag,” Ethan mutters. “Jackson and Charlene are with her.”

A red-haired man wearing a white blazer over a blue shirt and white pants appears behind Ethan. “The press is waiting for you, Ethan,” he says, eyeing all of us curiously, though his eyes widens when he sees me. “Blythe, I thought you were back at the hotel-”

“Her name’s Billie,” Heath says as Richard leans between the brothers to shake my hand, now peering at me with amazement.

“Seriously?”

Ethan rolls his eyes. “Seriously.”

“Wow,” he exclaims, his grip on my hand tight. “I’ve seen twins before, but not like this. You and Blythe should have a pictorial together, a fashion shoot! Shouldn’t they, Ethan? Maybe we could call Elle or even Vogue?  They would love that!”

I fight the urge to roll my eyes, my smile frozen in my face. “So nice to meet you, but no, I’m not a fashion person.”

“Could have fooled me,” Richard grins as he scans my outfit. “Is that Isabel Marrant?”

It takes me a second to figure out who Isabel Marrant is till Heath nudges me. “Yes, it is!” I exclaim, remembering the dress. “Heath picked it out for me.”

“Excellent choice!” Richard beams. “Though I’ll need to remember the cut in case Blythe ends up buying the same thing and you’ll both end up with matching outfits. It would be awkward.”

“Nice to see you again, Richard,” Heath says, shaking Richard’s hand. “I hope all is well.”

“Of course, it is.  Why wouldn’t it be?” Richard replies. “Much better than you, I presume.”

Before Heath or I can say anything, Richard adds, “Did you know even the hottest models are here? We met them all last night, remember, Ethan, even Allorah-”

“Oh, look!” I exclaim, pointing towards the polo field that’s slowly being overtaken by a sea of people in polo-friendly attire. “It’s divot stomping time!  Guess that’s where you’ll find me!”

And with that, I’m off. I don’t care if I’m walking to the field alone, but I can’t be among that much testosterone flying around. And just when I thought my day couldn’t get any worse, with everyone else having their own agenda in full force, but Allorah is there, too. And that only means one thing – Andrew Tennyson is with her.

I need some fresh air, and thankfully, there’s one right in front of me, three times the size of a football field for men on horses to chase a wooden ball around. It’s now filled with people who are much happier than the group I just walked away from, men with their light-colored trousers and white shirts and women wearing bright-colored dresses and wide-brimmed hats, stomping divots with their wedge heels and sandals while holding glasses of champagne, and laughing, and taking pictures which some of them immediately post online. I wish I were holding a glass of champagne, if only to look like I’m having fun like everyone else, but I’ve also had enough alcohol for one day. I’m buzzed, if not drunk from the wine I’ve just had along with the mimosas — four glasses and it’s not even sundown. I also just want to get the hell out of here.

I tip a piece of turf grass side up, before nudging it lightly to its matching hole in the turf. Then like everyone else, I stomp a divot back into the turf, an act that’s both field maintenance to protect horses and their riders during the second part of the match, and a form of happy hour for spectators, though I’m far from happy as everyone else.

“That poor divot hasn’t done anything to you, you know,” Heath says softly as I stomp the divot with my beige sandal.

“Oh, them? We’re just having a conversation,” I say, as Heath reaches out to hold my forearm to keep me upright. “And they agree with me.”

“About what?”

“About how I got stuck in the middle of men arguing while my sister’s back at her hotel, apparently not feeling too well and I can’t help but be worried about her. Instead there I was, stuck in the middle of an episode of Men Behaving Badly.”

“I apologize,” Heath says, “I didn’t realize it was that bad.”

I pull my arm away from his grasp and walk to another divot that I spot, nudge it back into place and stomp at it.

“It wasn’t bad-bad,” I say, shrugging. “I just hated being caught in the middle of it.”

“Stop stomping for a second, Billie,” Heath says, taking my hand this time, his fingers interlacing with mine. The divot’s back in the turf anyway so I stop. “Look at me please.”

I raise my head though I don’t look at Heath’s face. Instead I focus on his shirt, and the nearness of him as he takes a step forward.

“I’m sorry about Blythe not feeling well. I heard that they partied the moment they arrived last night. That, and jet lag must have been too much for her.”

I look up at him, surprised. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I just heard about it from Richard, just after you rushed out here. They’re all hungover — except for Ethan, of course. He had practice this morning and like I said, he’s got his blinders on so everyone else can go to hell in a hand basket, but he’s going to make it back to the list of the world’s top 20 players,” he says, tilting my chin.

“I’m sorry about what happened back there with Ethan. Harris is right. We acted inappropriately in public, of all places, and worse, in front of you.”

“At least you got what you wanted. You got to talk to him,” I say. “You know where you stand.”

“I still don’t have the letters.”

“What will it matter now? For all you know, it’s probably already been scanned and there’s no guarantee that even if you sell him your mother’s shares that he still won’t expose your mother’s letters anyway, considering that he’s angry with her. Though why he hates her so much to do that, I have no idea.”

“She sold me her shares — simple as that,” Heath says softly, his index finger still lifting my chin. “She could have picked Jessie or Ethan the moment she wrote her living trust, and every trust for that matter. But she picked me, and that’s enough to tell him that she favored me over everyone else.”

“Jessica doesn’t run a holding company,” I say, “and neither does Ethan.  And you didn’t almost run the company to the ground with bad investments.”

“You’re right,” he says, “but this isn’t about the letters, Billie. It’s not even about the shares necessarily.” He lowers my chin and begins walking, still holding my hand.

“What is this all about then?”

“It’s about control of the company. I could be chairman of the board but if I’m not the majority shareholder, I won’t have as much control as I do now. I could step down as chairman right now but I’ll still control more than half of the voting interests of Kheiron Industries. By ensuring that I have more than 50% of the shares, it also stops the sharks from circling, the way they did when Ethan ran it,” he says, stomping on a divot with much more calm than I did earlier.

“But I also made a promise to take care of her, Billie, no matter what,” Heath says. “If it weren’t for safeguards already in place that were designed to prevent Edgar to gain control of her family fortune — those trusts that had been set up by my grandfather, for example, and a fully enforced prenuptial agreement — we’d be in the poorhouse by now.”

“Was he that bad an investor?” I ask.

“No, he was just extravagant with his vices — mainly his women. He also loved to gamble, and while he was mostly lucky in his younger years, as he grew older, he became more careless,” he says, pulling me towards him and I find myself looking up into blue-gray eyes.  “Talk about men behaving badly. Here I am doing it again, killing your buzz.”

“We can always change the sub-” I pause, catching sight of a man a hundred feet away from us. He’d been holding his girlfriend’s hand as she stomped on divots gaily, the club photographer taking pictures of her, but now he’s standing stock still, like he can’t believe what he was seeing — or who he’s seeing.

Heath turns to look at who I’m staring at, then returns to face me, his hands moving around my waist and pulling me closer. “Looks like you have an audience.”

“I know,” I say. “Richard did say she was here with other models.”

“I wasn’t talking about Allorah,” Heath says, his gaze moving down my face to settle on my mouth. “Do you think Andrew deserves a show?”

“I don’t know,” I say. My mind is screaming,
nonono
! You’re better than that, but my heart is screaming
yesyesyes
! Do it! “What do you think?”

Heath doesn’t answer, at least not with words, for he lowers his head and kisses me. He has to tilt his head a bit for there’s the floppy brim of my hat to worry about, but it doesn’t matter for his mouth finds my lips, and I’m more than ready to enjoy his kiss, even if it’s for the wrong reasons. For all I know, Andrew’s turned away and this kiss will be for nothing. But as Heath’s tongue sweeps along my upper lip, before nipping my lower lip playfully, I figure, what the hell, I might as well enjoy it. And I have to say I do, for it’s a long kiss, one that leaves me breathless and flushed when Heath draws his head back.

“Is that good enough?” he asks.

It takes me a few moments to answer him for my knees are threatening to turn into mush, but I manage to take a peek behind Heath’s shoulder as I hold on to him.

“He may have to pick his jaw off the turf, so yes, I think that was good enough,” I reply, giggling, for Andrew is staring at us, his eyes wide and his mouth open.  A thin woman standing next to him is glaring at him, her hands on her hips.  She’s got legs for days, her mini-dress with spaghetti straps revealing the perkiest breasts I’ve ever seen, and I realize that I now know the meaning of the side-boob.