Fifth Ave 02.5 - From Manhattan With Love (28 page)

“It’s not what you think,” Eric said.

“It’s exactly what I think,” Celina said.
 
“And I don’t want to see you again.
 
What we had is over.”
 
She looked at Leana, who was standing now, holding the kimono shut with tightly clenched hands.
 
“I just want to know one thing before I leave--what did I ever do to you to deserve this?
 
Why did you tell that man to meet you here?”

Leana shook her head.
 
She felt confused, embarrassed and ashamed.
 
Never had she wanted this to happen.
 
And yet it had.
 
But how?

“Answer me,” Celina said.
 
“I have a right to know.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Leana said.
 
“I never gave anyone a message.”

The silence stretched between them like a dangerously fraying thread.
 
Celina turned to leave.
 
“I never expected you to tell me the truth,” she said.
 
“You always were a liar, Leana.
 
And a coward.”

Hand trembling, she opened the door and was about to step through when she stopped and faced her sister a last time.
 
“You can pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, but I know you planned this.
 
I know you told that man to have me meet you here.
 
I think you’ve been waiting years for this moment.
 
To see me hurt.”

Before Leana could say anything more, Celina was gone.

In the silence that passed, Eric looked across the room at Leana.
 
She was dressing.
 
Behind her, Manhattan pushed up a glittering wall of glass and concrete.

“Where are you’re going?” he asked.

“After her, of course.”

“Don’t you think you’ve done enough?”
 
He slid off the bed.

“I’ve done nothing, Eric.
 
That’s the point.”

He looked at her incredulously. “You call having Celina catch us in bed together nothing?
 
Are you fucking out of your mind?”

“If what she said is true, I call it being set up.”
 
She slipped into her dress.
 
There was a tiny rip in the back near the zipper.
  
Earlier, Eric had torn it in haste.

“You know you’ve ruined whatever chance I might have with her, don’t you?”

Leana shot him a fierce warning look.
 
“This was not my doing, Eric.
 
I’ve told you that.
 
Now, drop it.”
 
She stepped into her shoes, walked past him to the dressing table and fixed her hair.
 
She had to speak to Celina, she had to find out who had given her that message, she had to clear her name.

A thought occurred to her while she brushed her hair.
 
Leana always had wanted to see her sister hurt--but never like this.

“I’m sorry,” Eric said.
 
“I know you had nothing to do with this.
 
It’s just that--”

“Apology accepted,” Leana interrupted.
 
He was drunk.
 
She didn’t want to hear him talk.
 
She just wanted to leave this room and find Celina.
 
Quickly.

“Who told her?
 
Who knew we were here?”

She looked at his reflection in the dressing table’s mirror.
 
“I’m not sure who told her.
 
But I intend to find out.”
 
She turned in front of the mirror, thankful that her hair covered the rip in the back of her dress.

“I’ll come with you,” Eric said, and Leana noticed as she faced him that he had put on his pants.
 
The rest of his clothes were still on the chair beside him.
 

“You need to stay here,” she said.
 
“Celina can’t handle seeing us both right now.”

She began to step past him.
 
And as she did so, Eric pulled back his hand and struck her hard across the face with the belt he'd been hiding behind his back.

The blow took Leana by surprise and she fell to the floor, blood spraying from her nose and mouth, spotting the beige carpet.
 
Before she could defend herself, before she even knew what was happening, Eric was straddling her, swinging the belt, raining blows on her thighs, shoulders, face and breasts.

Her dress ripped from the strain of their struggling.
 
Her cries of pain and help echoed hollowly in the room.

“You fucking bitch!” he shouted.
 
“You knew what she meant to me!
 
You’ve ruined everything Celina and I could have had together!”
 
He pulled back the belt and struck her once more across the face, leaving her cheek hot and swollen.
 
A dusting of red stars flowered before Leana’s eyes as she skated closer to the gray edges of unconsciousness. Somewhere, far in the dark corners of her mind, she realized the blows could kill her.

And then Eric punched her.
 
Hard.
 
In the mouth.

Leana forced herself to think through the daze.
 
If she tried to resist him, he would hurt her worse than he already had.
 
She tried to move her arms, but they were pinned beneath his knees.
 
And then her mind froze.
 
Eric was forcing her legs apart.
 
She felt his hand race up her dress and tear at her underwear.
 
His fingers clawed and searched.

Leana struggled and was about to scream when Eric clamped an open hand over her mouth.
 
She felt wetness and smelled a heady mixture of Scotch and blood.
 
Her blood.

Eric pressed his mouth against her ear.
 
“Just remember,” he said, as he ground his hips into hers, “you wanted this.”

And then Leana unexpectedly relaxed against him.
 
Eric looked at her with such surprise that he involuntarily relaxed with her.
 

It was then that she made her move.

She bit hard into his hand and shoved him off her when he recoiled.
 
Her heart thundering, her sense of direction shattered, Leana stumbled to her feet.
 
The door was across the room, a million miles away.
 
She ran for it.

Tried to run for it.

Eric grasped her ankle and she lost her balance.
 
The room whirled.
 
Leana knew it was over at the same instant her forehead struck the carpet.
 

But Eric did nothing.
 
He was on his feet, suddenly aware of what he had just done.
 
How could he have lost control like that?
 
What had gotten into him?

He looked at Leana.
 
She was lying motionless on her stomach, her head buried in the crook of her arm.
 
The area of carpet surrounding her was stained with her blood.
 
A wave of nausea overcame him and he wondered how badly she was hurt.
 
She wasn’t moving....

He glanced at his watch.
 
How long had Celina been gone?
 
Four minutes?
 
Five?
 
If she had told George what she had seen, he would be coming up here now.

His drunken haze lifting, he stepped over Leana, locked the bedroom door and hurried into his clothes.

Leana waited.
 
She listened to the sound of Eric dressing and peered across the room.
 
He was standing in front of the dressing table, tucking in his shirt, quickly checking his appearance in the oval mirror.
 
He was fully dressed now--except for the belt, which was still clutched in his hand.

He faced her.
 
There was a moment when their eyes met, when a universe of hatred passed between them, and then Eric said calmly, “These are your options--you can either get yourself cleaned up and pretend none of this happened, or you can run to your father and tell him everything.”
 
He moved toward her, the belt swinging like a pendulum by his side.
 
“And doing that, Leana, would be a mistake.”

As he approached, Leana recoiled, her eyes riveted on the belt.
 
A section of it was stained with her blood.
 
“Get out,” she gasped.
 
“I’ll call the police.”

“You can do whatever you want,” Eric said.
 
“But I promise you this--if you do call the police, or go to your father, I’ll have a contract put out on you so goddamned fast it’ll make your head spin.
 
You hear me?
 
I hope so.
 
Because I will do it.
 
I’ve got the money and I’ve got the contacts.
 
If anything happens to me, you die.
 
It’s that simple.”

*
 
*
 
*

The elevator door slid open and Celina hurried out.
 
She slipped through the crowd, avoiding the questioning stares, not stopping until she came upon the twin glass doors that were across the lobby.

Curtains of rain were billowing down the avenue, lashing the windows and the reporters on the sidewalk.
 
She turned to ask a doorman for an umbrella and came face to face with the man from security who had given her Leana’s message.

He nodded at her.

Celina moved in his direction.

“That message you gave me--you’re certain it came from my sister?”
 

“She told me herself she was your sister.”

She had to be certain it was Leana who did this.
 
“Describe her for me."

“She has long dark hair and she’s pretty.
 
I only talked to her for a few seconds.”

“What she was wearing?”

“A white dress, I think.
 
It left one of her shoulders bare.”

Celina turned away from the man, her stomach sinking.
 
She was about to leave when she saw her father moving in her direction, sifting through the crowd, his expression grim.
 
“We need to talk,” he said.

She wanted out of here, but she didn’t want to tip him off.
 
She followed him to an area just behind the waterfall.

“I just got off the phone with RRK.
 
They’re worried about what happened today.
 
I think they’re going to back out of the deal.
 
They're waiting to see what the police find.”

“And?”

“If there’s even the slightest hint that those spotlights were rigged in protest of our deal with WestTex, they’ll pull financing.
 
Richards says it’ll be a public relations nightmare if we takeover that company in lieu of what’s happening in the Middle East.”

“Maybe in the beginning,” Celina said.
 
“But when the public learns what we’ve done, we'll be fine.”

“They're panicking,” George said.
 
“They know that until WestTex is ours, our agreement with Iran is only verbal.
 
They feel there’s a strong possibility the Navy won’t move into the Gulf on the date we’ve been given.
 
They're going to pull out.
 
I can feel it.”