A Jade's Trick (Lilly Black's Jaded Series Book 1) (24 page)

Thursday night at work, I'm exhausted, but the same reason I got up so early today could very well prevent me from sleeping again tonight.  Cain and I haven't talked all day, and tormented by that
something is amiss in the universe
feeling, I start to question everything.

"I wish I knew what Cain bought at the jewelry store," I say to Nicole, hoping maybe Caleb told her something.

"Evan, what are you doing?" she asks, seeing right through me.

"I don't know.  I'm just afraid...what if what that bitch said about him marrying her when he's through with me was true?"  I tell her about how he left this morning wearing the last suit he had at my house, how he took the clothes he had on last night with him, leaving nothing behind but disposable items like his toothbrush, how I still haven't seen his apartment and he hasn't said a thing about it since Monday.

"Come on, Ev.  Don't do this to yourself," Nicole implores.  "If he says it wasn't an engagement ring for her, you have to trust him."

"I trust him..."

"Then you're a fool," says a low, throaty voice from behind me.  I turn around and find a well-dressed, older woman with blonde hair and tanned skin.

"Catherine Ballantyne," she introduces herself.  Cain's mother.  Fuck.  This is the absolute last thing I need right now.

"What can I do for you, Mrs. Ballantyne?" I ask politely yet firmly, unsure what to expect from her, though her ice-breaker already has her classified as a major league bitch in my book.

"You're not busy.  You can take a break and talk with me," she snaps.

Apparently taking charge of my work schedule runs in the family,
I think as I turn to Nicole.

"Already on it," she says, lifting the hinged section of the bar at the waitress station so we can trade sides.

"Girl, make me a martini," Catherine orders Nicole dismissively.  "Asgård if you have it."

"Vodka or gin?" Nicole asks, her disapproval thinly veiled.

"Vodka," Catherine says, and somehow it comforts me that she and Cain don't drink the same liquor.  She leads me to a table to the left of the bar, behind the dark pillars designed to look like volcanic earth, and she takes the seat facing the bar where I can't see Nicole when I sit across from her.

"Miss Lucien," Catherine begins.  "I'd like to apologize for what happened at the stadium Monday night.  Miss Chadwick and my daughter-in-law acted prematurely."  Immaturely, I'd say, but prematurely?  I don't like what that implies.

"It's fine," I say, trying to maintain my composure despite her rudeness.

"If they had known you were there, they never would have come."

Okay, what the fuck am I supposed to say to that?
 

"I know Cain has urges," she continues.  "Boys will be boys, but in end, my son will marry Elizabeth."

And there it is! 
My heart leaps into my throat, and I feel like I can't get enough air as the tiny spark of fear that Cain is using me ignites into a blaze.  If not for the fact that I would sit here and die before showing this woman any weakness, I'd collapse to the floor, but my sharply-honed defenses serve me well.

"If you say so," I respond facetiously.

"Miss Lucien, don't mistake the fact that I married beneath my station for a family tradition.  Cain will..." 

"Beneath your station?" I ask.

"It means..."

"I know what it means, Catherine," I spit her name out of my mouth, refusing to give her the respect of calling her Mrs. Ballantyne because I can no longer stand the thought of that name associated with this woman.  "I repeated it because I'm shocked that you had the gall to use it.  If you've just come to insult me, we're done here."

"I am here on behalf of my son."

"If Cain has something to say to me, he'll say it himself."

"I'm afraid that isn't so, dear.  You see, my son has never been good at cleaning up after himself." 

"That doesn't sound like Cain," I say, maintaining my poker face.

"You're going to tell me about my son?  You've known him a few weeks.  I raised him." 

Oh, yeah?
I think as my pride supersedes my instincts.

"I'd say I know him just a little better, Catherine.  Your son just left my bed this morning," I say with an impressive level of swagger, wanting her to know that no matter what she does for him, there are some things she can never have over me, but all I have really done is exposed a chink in my armor.  She goes for the kill.

"That's why I'm here, girl.  Cain has
left
your bed," she says, her tone almost sympathetic.  "I know it's hard to swallow.  He has a way of making you feel like you are the very air he breathes, but I'm afraid that once he gets what he wants from you, you have nothing more to offer him."  She rattles it off like a well-practiced speech borne of exasperation.

And he did take the last of his clothes this morning!  Oh, God! 
I don't want to believe her, but inside me now is an all-encompassing inferno that only a decade of practice at hiding my emotions from the world outside could mask.

"Forgive me if I don't take your word for it," I hiss.

"That's why I've come in person," she says, sliding me an envelope.  "In here you'll find ten thousand dollars.  If you go quietly, it's yours."

"Really?  I can have the ten thousand dollars and all I have to do is walk away?"  Catherine's eyes light up, and just that little ray of hope in her, gives me hope as well.  "I don't want your money, Catherine." 

"Not enough?  Twenty thousand?" 
She's unbelievable!
  "Thirty?  Fifty?  Everyone has a price, Miss Lucien."

"I don't," I say sternly as I sling the envelope back across the table at her and stand up. I have had enough.

"That behavior may have convinced my son, but I know a gold-digging, coonass whore when I see one," Catherine says as she smugly looks up at me.  Her words sting, but I've lived for years with my own conscience calling me a whore.  She doesn't know who she's up against.

"Goodbye, Catherine,"
and fuck off. 
I give her one last unyielding look, and pleased with how I've handled myself, I turn to walk away, crashing directly into Cain.

How long has he been here?  Did Catherine see him before now?  Does that mean he did send her?
  My mind is reeling as I look up at Cain, my face an undeniable mask of torment, and for an excruciatingly long second, I think the iciness I feel from him is meant for me.  Then he folds his arms around me, my head against his chest, holding me so tight I can feel his heart beat.

"You parked in my space, Mother.  If you hurry, you can catch your Rolls," Cain says, coldly, and despite that the only thing I want to do right now is fall completely apart, I laugh because of everything he could have done, he's had her car towed.

"And Mother?  If you ever contact Evan again without going through me..." He pauses for a second before lowering his voice to cold, calculated drone.  "I'll kill you."  It's disturbingly beautiful.

"She's gone, baby," he whispers and kisses me atop the head.  I open my mouth to speak, but he puts one finger to my lips.  "Shhh.  Nicole's bringing your purse.  No arguments.  You either leave with me now, or I'll buy this place and fire you."  I smile because that is such a Cain thing to do.

"Don't let her get to you, Ev," Nicole says as I hand her my car keys, and I wonder what she knows or what she thinks she knows about Catherine's intent until it dawns on me that she probably read every word on Catherine's lips. I really wish no one else knew that she called me a coonass whore.  Hopefully Nicole doesn't even know the word "coonass."  She's never heard it from me.

"You should have seen her face when he put his arms around you," she adds while Cain retrieves the envelope Catherine left on the table.

"Did you call Cain?" I ask.

"I was going to, but then he showed up," she says.

Downstairs the Maserati is backed into his parking
space, and after he closes the passenger door for me, I look out across the lot and see a sable-colored Rolls Royce.  What I don't see is a tow truck.  The parking lot is almost empty tonight, and as I watch Catherine rant into her cell phone and pace near her oddly parked car, I burst out laughing, realizing exactly what Cain meant when he told her that she could catch her car if she hurried.  There never was a tow truck.  The driver's side window is smashed out.  He must have busted it, put the car in neutral, and just let it roll.

"I can't believe you did that," I say, beaming because he did it for me.

"Evan," he says, turning toward me and taking my hand.  "I know you must be tired of hearing me apologize, but I swear to God I had no idea she would do this.  If I hadn't been so close by when Cary called me..."  He sighs and squeezes my hand.  "Baby, I am so sorry." 

"It's not your fault," I say as I abruptly burst into tears.

Fuck!
  I know he must be tired of seeing me act like a sniveling baby.  He puts the car in gear, drives to the back of the lot, and in the darkness, away from any prying eyes, he pulls me into his lap.

"I'm sorry," I say, ashamed of my weakness.

"You have nothing to be sorry for."  He strokes my hair as my tears stream down onto the fabric of his jacket.  "But I want to know what she said to you."

"It doesn't matter," I say unconvincingly.

"Goddamn it!  It does matter!" Cain shouts, his fist coming down on the dash beside me  I startle, but he immediately softens, lifting my chin and wiping my tears with his fingers.  "I'm not mad at you.  I'm just fucking disgusted with my mother."

"I'm okay," I lie.

"I picked up an envelope of cash from that table.  That is not okay.  I want to know everything." 

"Alright," I say, and though Catherine made me feel powerless and childlike, looking at Cain, my dominant, unassailable Cain, makes me feel safe and protected.

"You don't have to tell me right this minute, but..." he says.

"I just want to get it over with, but can I tell you on the way to my place?"

"I'd rather you tell me on the way to mine if that's okay."

Okay?  It's the best thing he could have said in this moment!

He kisses my head, and when I slide back into my seat, he clasps my seatbelt for me.  As he pulls out on the road, I tell him what his mother said before he showed up, rushing through it and omitting the "coonass whore" part.  He's mad enough, and I'm ashamed enough, already.

"Baby, I swear to you," Cain says when I come to the end of the tale.  "If I had known she would come to the bar..."

"This isn't typical of her?"

"My mother is a world class cunt, but I've never seen her do anything like this."

"Maybe because her son has never hooked up with a lowly barmaid before." I say it like a joke.

"Cary has brought strippers to Sunday dinner."

"Great!  She even thinks I'm beneath strippers."

"I'd like to see you beneath strippers," Cain says.

"Shut up!" I take a swat at him, but I'm already laughing, unable to be too serious for too long, and though I understand his need to be certain that I know how sorry he is about this, I just want to forget it.

"Evan, I don't deserve you, and I'm sorry I haven't done a better job protecting you from the crazy bitches in my life."

"It's not your fault."

"It is my fault.  My mother thought I was about to put a ring on Liz' finger, and when that didn't happen, she lashed out, trying to control me by taking you away.  She'd have me as miserable and broken as Caleb as long as I live the life she has planned for me."

"Is Caleb really so miserable?" I ask.

"My big brother is the most pussy-whipped man I know."

"He just doesn't seem like a 'yes, dear' kind of guy."

"You only know him around Nicole.  I hadn't seen that Caleb in years, but it's his own fault.  He let our mother make his bed for him, and now he has to lie in it.  I make my own bed, and I don't want anyone but you in it, Evan."  I just smile in response, trying to put what Catherine did out of my mind.

"We're almost there," Cain says as we approach his exit off the 5.  "So if there is anything else that you need to tell me about my mother, now is the time because once I get you home, I don't want you to even think her name." 

There is one more thing, but as Cain puts on the blinker to turn into his apartment building in downtown San Diego, it will have to wait because I can't allow Catherine Ballantyne to continue to torment me tonight.  I need to lock her away in the oubliette with the other horrors that dwell inside my mind.

Using a key card to get into the underground parking garage, Cain has to use it again to get to the bottom deck where the very end of the line looks like a luxury car dealership.  He pulls into a space marked Ballantyne,
and as I get out of the car, I notice that the signs on the wall in front of the surrounding cars say the same.

We get in a posh elevator with coffered walls and ceiling, and when Cain slides his card again, we begin the ascent. There are thirty-six floors.  We stop on the 35th, exiting into a foyer.

"There is one other residence on this floor, but the building is very private," Cain explains.

"But there are three doors."

"Two are mine, and the third is Lucy's," he says casually as he opens the door with his card.  No big deal.  It makes sense that Lucy should live so close.

"It's beautiful," I say as I walk through the door.  Straight ahead of the entryway is the dining room, and beyond is a stunning view of the San Diego bay.  The entire wall is windows that extend to a cozy living room to the left and go around toward a right angle to a large balcony.  I head straight out the glass door, and Cain follows.  Standing at the railing, we look out over the bay as it curves toward a dazzling cityscape, and he puts his arms around me from behind.

"I'm so glad you're finally here, Evan."