Paradise Wild (Wild At Heart Book 2) (17 page)

The living room was illuminated by a single stainless steel floor lamp that arced gracefully over the sofa and ended in an elongated oval of blown white glass that glowed with a soft light. He looked at the floor and stepped into the room.

“Ellie.”

“Denver?”

He flinched at the sound of the unexpected but familiar voice and stared. It took a few seconds to reconcile the expected image of Ellie with the actual figure of Vivyenne rising from the couch, her black bob cut floating like a period above a fluttering white silk nightgown exclamation mark.

“Vivyenne?”

“What are you doing here?” Their simultaneous questions bounced off one another and echoed in the large room.

Denver advanced, but Vivyenne spoke first.

“I heard from the Kirkpatricks that you sometimes stay next door. Am I correct…” Her eyes contemplated his towel. “That you also sometimes stay
here
?”

Denver yanked his towel farther up his chest. “I was going for a swim. I saw the lights on. I thought…”

“Ellie might like to join you?” Vivyenne lowered herself to the edge of the sofa, her white night gown blending perfectly with the surgical white of the cushion.

“I guess.” Denver’s hands moved restlessly from hips to arms to thighs and back again.

“Do as you like. But she’s not here. I sent her to a hotel.” Vivyenne smoothed the front of her gown. “You needn’t have sent that email, you know. I have a…relationship…with someone, myself. For more than half a year.”

She regarded Denver with a glance that mixed pride with disinterest.

Denver shifted from one bare foot to the other.

How were we ever involved?

“I’m happy for you.”

“Yes.” The corners of Vivyenne’s mouth twitched upward for a second and then relaxed. “We plan to move into this house…together. That’s why I’m here.” She rose in a smooth movement. “Your timing is good. I can return your cat. Philbert is allergic to animals.”

“My cat? Return it?”

Vivyenne’s eyebrows arched. “You must remember your own animal?”

I remember all right. He’s what’s keeping Ellie employed.

Denver shook his head. “I can’t take him now. I’m just here for a day. I flew in from China.”

Vivyenne gave a slight shrug of her square shoulders. “Send the cat to Seattle and get a sitter. You seem to know how to find them.”

Is that a joke?
Denver eyed her.
She never jokes.

“Keep Viv for a while longer, would you? It would really help me out.”

Vivyenne’s hair bounced slowly back and forth as she shook her head no. “Having him here makes it necessary to keep Ellie. In a few weeks, the house will be in a state where I won’t need someone here full-time.”

“You’re going to fire Ellie?”

Vivyenne’s face remained as blank as a morning’s fresh expanse of snow.

Denver racked his brain. “I’ll pay the expenses.”

He watched indecision flash across her face and smiled to himself.

Come on. I know you’re a cheapskate at heart.

Vivyenne used her little finger to edge a stray hair on her cheek back into place. “Philbert can’t relocate for another few months at the earliest. So…we can come to an arrangement until then.” She twisted the tie of her robe around her wrist in a tight loop. “Let’s see…You pay Ellie’s full salary and I continue to use her for the renovations. It’s you who is inconveniencing me, after all.”

Always have to come out on top. Some things never change.

Denver exhaled quietly and tried to look frustrated. He clasped his hands behind his back.

“I guess you have me over a barrel. Or a cat box.” He smiled while Vivyenne stared at him. “It’s a deal. Ellie doesn’t need to know.”

Vivyenne raised an eyebrow again. “As you like. I’ll have Devora let you know about the details.” She tossed her head. “When that woman bothers to recover.”

To Denver, the air in the room, previously tense and conflicted, smoothed. His shoulders relaxed. He took a deep breath and grinned.

You were never one for change, Vivyenne. Thank goodness I still know how to play you.

He looked around the room, a mixture of the old dark wood floors and new white walls and furniture.

It’s good to see you again. It makes things very clear. I want Ellie. Thanks for underscoring that.

He extended his arms. “I’m glad we ran into each other.”

Vivyenne eyed him skeptically. Then she shrugged. “Yes. I’m glad too. It’s saved me some money.”

He pulled her into his arms, laughing.

“I love that you never change, Vivyenne.”

At a thump and startled meow, Vivyenne and Denver turned toward the door, arms still around each other.

Viv’s red cat carrier lay on its side. Beside it stood Ellie, pale and rigid. 

Chapter 17

In the hotel, Ellie flung herself onto the king-size linen bedspread. Tears streaked her face. Her chin sunk to her chest. She wrenched a pillow from an enormous pile and crumpled it against her stomach, unable to imagine a moment further into the future. Her only thought was that she’d lost Denver forever.

“Denver.”

She sobbed into the pillow.

“You love…Vivyenne.”

The words burned her mouth, her brain, and her heart. She had searched on the way to the hotel for other explanations. But none of them fit. The only logical conclusion damned him as a cheat and cast her as an ignorant fool. Ellie curled into a fetal position and pulled a second pillow over her head.

“He never even told me he was back on Maui.”

The living room scene at the house mocked her no matter how hard she screwed her eyes shut. Vivyenne’s white silk nightgown flowing across her strong shoulders, sculpted chest, and thin waist. Denver’s strong arms, squeezing her to him. Their warm laughter. Vivyenne’s eyes glittering with surprise and pleasure. The broad smile bisecting Denver’s face. The sound of him telling Vivyenne he loved her.

Through every image, the towel wrapped around Denver’s firm stomach glowed like a beacon. It was
her
towel, she was sure. It had to be. It was just like the one she’d bought at Target that first night for her beach adventures. The one she had washed and folded and put in the master bedroom closet before her move to Jacqui’s house. Of everything she had seen and heard, the thought of the towel she had bought covering the nakedness he’d obviously been about to share with Vivyenne dug into Ellie’s soul.

Why did they think I wouldn’t come back in and find them? How long was I out in the car with Viv? Or did they want me to walk in?
She screamed frustration and hurt into the fluffy down bolster.

Only now, after he was gone, did she realize how much she had given herself to Denver. How her thoughts over time had become intertwined with his. How she had incorporated his face into her days. How his work trouble slowly became something she thought about at night. How the little joys he shared with her over the phone or in texts lifted her own spirits.

Without conscious effort, she had strung their lives together, weaving one cloth from their two separate skeins. He had seemed so aligned with her. She thought back to their half-formed ideas of how they could build on what they had. Could she finish school and move to Seattle? Could he open a branch office in San Francisco? Maybe her computer skills could help him with his business?

She bit the pillow, reviewing the minutes after she had dropped Viv to the floor. But the scenes were fuzzy, still photos of live action, compiled from the glances she shot toward their feet, the white sofa, the darkened windows facing the garden. She’d wanted to look anywhere but directly at the two perpetrators.

What did he say? That he’d seen the lights and come over? Vivyenne had said something about cat supplies. I said I had to go.

She remembered running back through the gate. Spinning her car violently in the driveway. She’d wanted to return to Jacqui’s but couldn’t face having anyone see her torn heart. Her head and hands barely held the thing together.

She remembered slapping her car keys into the hand of a bemused valet and stumbling into the women’s bathroom near the hotel’s front desk. She’d splashed cold water on her face and rubbed away the tear smudges as best she could, making herself presentable enough to check in and get her room key.

She’d fumbled in the bright elevator alone, its lights and mirrors ridiculing her from every angle. The tears in her eyes had made reading numbers difficult. The conveyance had finally whisked her silently to one of the top floors. She’d squinted through her tears at the room numbers, found hers, and slipped the key card into the lock.

After an hour on the bed, Ellie hoisted herself to her feet and shuffled around the room, jerking open cabinets in search of the minibar. When she found it tucked inside a dresser, she loaded small bottles of gin and vodka into her shorts and carried two sodas back to the bed. Half an hour later, empty bottles and cans formed a pile. Ellie lay curled under the covers, staring at the screen of her phone. A white ‘delete contact’ button hovered over Denver’s information.

Fuck you, Denver.

Her finger weaved. She poked randomly at the screen until she hit the button. His information disappeared. Then she navigated with only marginally more adroitness to the calls screen, where Denver’s name had fifteen recent calls registered behind it. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she blocked the number. She chucked her phone into the far corner of the bed.

Good riddance.

She sobbed for hours and finally fell asleep.

***

A quacking awoke her the next morning. Her eyes resisted opening, glued shut with the residue of tears, sleep, and too much alcohol. She wrested them open with her fingers and peered, blinking rapidly, around the brightly lit room.

Where am I?

The disaster of the previous evening rushed back at her, crushing her to the mattress. Only the annoying duck sounds from her alarm roused her to action. She found the phone, turned it off, rolled to the floor, and flung her arm over her forehead.

Why did I drink so much?

She rubbed her temples, willing the throbbing in her head to subside. Later, the rainfall shower that cascaded over her head slowly washed away her headache. Underneath lay smoldering anger. Ellie climbed out and stomped around the stone tile floor, manically rubbing her hair dry with an oversized towel.

You want him, bitch? You can have him. And just so you know, I’m quitting your job. I don’t need your money.

At twenty to seven, Ellie pulled in front of the house, face firmly set, eyes narrowed and resolute. But it took the next twenty minutes for her to wrestle the conflict that churned within her to the ground.

Just act cool. Get everything arranged. Get back to San Francisco as fast as you can. Then you can surprise her and quit. You don’t have to do anything this morning.

At the door, Ellie’s gaze shifted from the floor to Vivyenne’s immaculate short white skirt and cream top and back again. Vivyenne hardly glanced at her.

“Let’s get started. There is a lot you have to fix.”

This woman’s made of ice. She’s acting like last night never even happened. Fine. Two can play that game.

Vivyenne led the way through the house, pointing out defects, design flaws, and do-overs. Ellie took notes on her iPad, eyes boring hatred into Vivyenne’s back
.

When they entered the master bedroom, Ellie couldn’t stop herself from scrutinizing the bed for signs of the previous night’s passion. But the crisp sheet and cover looked like they’d just returned from a military barracks. They stretched tightly over the mattress and Ellie was sure a penny would have bounced if she’d thrown one.

Bet she has sex like a robot.
Ellie made a face behind Vivyenne’s back.

The room itself looked unlived in. The suitcases had disappeared, the towels in the bathroom hung just as Ellie had left them, and there were no toiletries on the sink.

This woman’s a freak. How can she not leave a sign of herself anywhere?
Ellie pulled a towel to the floor as she exited the room behind Vivyenne.

She expected Vivyenne to be less meticulous about the garden than the house, but she was wrong.

“That bush ruins the sweep of the view.” Vivyenne pointed at a magenta bougainvillea plant near the house that Ellie had particularly admired. “It will go.”

She marched to the fountain. “And these loose lava stones. Why aren’t they in place?” Her foot nudged a stone as carefully as Ellie would nudge a scorpion.

An involuntary band tightened around Ellie’s chest. For the first time, she looked at Vivyenne’s face, defiant and ready to fight. “The guy who was doing that was Brandon. He passed away. I think the others just haven’t had the heart to touch this yet.”

Vivyenne’s expression registered only consternation. “This needs to be finished. It’s been long enough.” She shrugged, her straight shoulders moving toward her ears like the inept flap of a bird’s wings. “Now this…”

Ellie closed her eyes with a sinking feeling as Vivyenne strode toward the line of shrubs and trees that separated her house from Denver’s.

“This set of trees is hardly high enough to serve as a real privacy wall.”

Ellie gazed at the ten-foot tall palms.

What kind of privacy are you after? I thought you’d want them to build a gate to his house.

Vivyenne’s long fingers fondled a frond. “Find out whose land they’re on, mine or the neighbor’s.”

The neighbors? That’s what you call him?

“If they’re on my property, they’ll need to be cut out. Something else will have to be planted. Something taller.”

“Right.” Ellie traipsed after her onto the lanai, where Vivyenne turned and stared over Ellie’s head as she talked.

“You can move back in here tonight. I’ve seen what I needed to see. And something at work has come up. I will fly back this afternoon.”

Ellie stared. “What about Den…Viv?”

“Who? Oh, the cat.” Vivyenne wiped her hands on the sides of her skirt. “He will stay.”

Not with me, he won’t. Not in the house where you had sex with Denver.

Ellie dropped her iPad onto the deck chair. “Vivyenne…”

“You won’t have to take me the airport.” Vivyenne swung around to the door, her back bob sweeping around her head, looking for a split second as though it might slice her neck with its sharp corners. “Denver’s offered to take me.” She paused before stepping across the threshold and spoke to the empty hallway before her. “I think you know Denver. The man from last night.”

Ellie stood riveted, jaw sagging toward the floor.

***

Celine’s concerned expression stared at Ellie from the laptop that lay propped on her knees.

“He took her to the airport?”

“I guess. I wasn’t here. By the time I got back from the hotel, the alarm was set and the house was empty. Except for Viv. Poor guy. I don’t think she fed him or anything.” Ellie’s fingers played absentmindedly with Viv’s paws. “They probably went back to San Francisco together. The whole work thing he was telling me about all the time was probably a lie.”

Celine’s eyes blazed. “If I ever see Denver, girl, he’s going to hear some language that will make his eyelashes curl.”

A brief smile flickered then died in Ellie’s eyes, wet with a sheen of tears. She rubbed her cheeks with the back of her hand.

“What should I do? Should I quit? I was going to this morning.” She blew her nose. “Now I don’t know. If they’re both gone, I might as well stay here and take her money. It’s not like I have any other place to go.”

“Sure you do. You can come back here. For Thanksgiving at least. Get your mind off this.”

Ellie shook her head.

“You think you’ll feel better feeling sorry for yourself?” Celine tapped the camera to get Ellie to look at her. “K-Rao’s coming. Try to get on the same flight as him. He’ll keep you entertained.”

“I’m so depressed. I’ll spoil your Thanksgiving.” Ellie lifted Viv and rubbed her face in his stomach. He batted at her head with soft paws.

“I’ll have booze and friends waiting for you. Hold on.” Celine propped her phone against something and typed for a minute. “There’re some first class seats left on K-Rao’s flight.”

“First class?”

Celine nodded. “Spend some of that bitch’s money. And when you get here, we’ll call her up. Give her some West Side Chicago attitude. You deserve a raise.”