The Singles (14 page)

“Yes.”

“Good. You find anything worth reading over, get me a copy. I’m ready to see what this bitch is hiding.” Before Pen rushed out the apartment, she gave me a stern glare. “Be careful and be smart.”

“Always,” I swore.

Although Margaret had given me her address in the email she’d sent, I didn’t use the GPS as I drove the half hour from my Marina del Rey apartment to her home in Bel Air. I didn’t need directions. Some of my happiest childhood memories had taken place inside the house I was heading to, and upon my return to L.A. over a month ago, it had been one of the first neighborhoods I’d driven past. Of course, I hadn’t been able to get through the gate because I didn’t have a code, but Margaret had just fixed all that.

Driving to the end of the cul-de-sac, I parked my Mini Cooper in front of one of the garage door bays—there were five in all—and turned off the ignition. For a moment, I sat in breathless silence, staring up at the Mediterranean-style house with its lavish balconies and stained-glass entry door. I could clearly remember my sixth birthday, following my father up the steps leading to that door. He’d knelt down and grinned over his shoulder.

“
Birthday girls get piggyback rides
,” he’d told me, and I had giggled and jumped on his back, burying my face into his short blond hair as he took me inside to where my mother and a room full of people whose faces I couldn’t remember were waiting to celebrate.

But then, I blinked, and that memory was gone.

I gulped down the fist-size lump in my throat. Now was not the time for emotion. I could shed my tears over the past—let myself wonder about what could have been if my parents hadn’t divorced or passed away—later.

Much,
much
later.

Holding my keys so tightly the metal dug into my skin, I gingerly got out of my car and crept to the front entrance, the sound of the pencil-thin heel on my suede booties seeming to echo off the stone driveway. I started to put in the lockbox code, but then I paused for a moment.

1283.

It was Oliver’s birthday, December 6, 1983. And the code I’d entered at the gate to get into the community was a reference to my father’s April 1951 birthday.

Maybe—just maybe the stepmonster was softer than I’d originally thought. I unlocked the front doors and stepped into the chilly foyer. I immediately disabled the security alarm, coughing at the overpowering scent of sandalwood vanilla fragrance oil.

I was home.

––––––––

A
few years before my mom was killed, we had started a ritual. Even though she swore she was getting old—she was only in her mid-thirties when she died—she had more modeling gigs than ever before, and every now and then, her job kept her away from me. Whenever she was working late or had to leave town for a night or two to do a photo shoot, we would each read the same book, alternating whose turn it was to choose. Our quirky, two-person book club had carried me through some of my loneliest moments. It was why I fell in love with
The Outsiders, The Princess Bride,
and
Blood and Chocolate
. It was also the reason behind the Margaret Atwood quote sneaking through my mind.

“When we think of the past it's the beautiful things we pick out. We want to believe it was all like that.” 

Because as I stood in the two-story entry, with my head tilted up toward the balcony on the second floor and my legs threatening to give out from the nervous energy slicing through me like a dull knife, I thought of the past. Of the
beautiful
things about it. Like the memory of attempting to ride the banister to my left, my mother chasing after me and admonishing me in a mixture of English and her native Ukrainian. Or when I saw the family room where we’d opened Christmas gifts and remembered how the stockings always sagged crookedly off the mantle no matter how much my mom fussed with them.

The furniture had changed over the years. Like the executive floor at Emerson & Taylor, it had made the jolting transition from deep, bold colors to the sterile neutrals Margaret seemed to prefer. But the memories—the recollections of my mom and dad evoked from being inside this place again—they stayed the same.

Achingly beautiful.

And a driving force to get
something
done. “I’ve screwed off too long,” I sighed ruefully. “It’s time I figured this out so I can get out of this place.”

Because the reality was that if I stayed around too much longer, that other force in my life—the one of the tall, blue-eyed, cocky swagger variety—would complicate things even more. It was inevitable. And being in
this
house—this blatant reminder of exactly who he was—did nothing to stop the harsh tug I felt in the pit of my stomach when I pictured my stepbrother’s face.

“Don’t think of him.” I breathed harshly and coerced myself to move from my spot. “Uncover, expose, and get the hell out of here.”

When I was a little girl, my dad’s home office was on the other side of the den attached to their bedroom. He’d often bring his Emerson & Taylor work home, and I’d sit on the burgundy jacquard armchair, my legs dangling off the edge as I pretended to assist him on the toy laptop my mom had bought me.

Halfheartedly, I shook the thought from my mind.

Since it was an incredibly large house—at least ten thousand square feet, twelve times bigger than my apartment in Vegas—the upstairs office was the logical place to start.  After locking the front door and donning the latex gloves I’d brought with me, I left Margaret’s keys on the mantle in the family room and inched upstairs, my fingers trailing up the cold metal banister.

I hadn’t been inside this house for more than half my life, the few times I’d seen my father following my parents’ divorce had been on my mom’s terms and far away from L.A., but I still found the master bedroom without having to search. The path was automatic for my feet. My boot heels drumming a staccato beat on the bleached wood floor of the bedroom, I kept my brown eyes straight ahead, but I still couldn’t help glancing at the empty nightstand.

I tried not to compare Margaret to my mother, who’d kept pictures all over the place.

Before I stepped into my father’s old office, I paused. Part of me wanted to believe Margaret would have left it the same. That she would have left
some
part of this house untouched.  I twisted the knob and gradually opened the door. The air left my lungs, making me feel like an iron fist had just slammed into my chest. His office, like everything else in this damn house, had changed.

New furnishings, white and silver Chateau Versailles wallpaper, and a sculpture that reminded me of the one in her office at work— the room reeked of her. Gritting my teeth to hold back the angry sound threatening to burst from my lips, I dropped on my knees beside the desk, yanking open a drawer chock-full of hanging file folders. I would not let this bother me.

I. Would. Not.

Resting my back against the side of the desk, I studied the contents of the folders one at a time, taking care to put everything back in the exact place I found it. Every several pages, I’d pull out my phone and use the scanning app Pen had installed, taking photos of the pages I thought I should keep and sending the PDF files to the secure email she’d set up for me. It was mostly a bunch of old financial records—bank statements and personal investment reports—but I copied everything that had the name
Gregory Emerson
listed on it.

When I reached the second drawer, I expected much of the same. But the moment I opened the first thick manila folder, I was stunned to see myself staring back. Well, a very young version of myself. The picture I was looking at—of my father, mother, and myself at some company party—was at least eighteen years old, and the corners were frayed. They stood on either side of me, with his hand affectionately touching the top of my white-blond hair and her slim arm wrapped around my shoulder. Both my parents were smiling, but now I could see the distance in their stance, in their eyes. Maybe a week ago, I wouldn’t have noticed that, but I did now, and I almost missed the ignorance.

I dropped my head back, hot moisture blurring the corners of my eyes as I stared up at the chandelier hanging over the desk. Pressing my fist to my mouth, I breathed. So deeply my chest burned.

When I was calm enough to continue, it required everything in my power not to take that original picture and slip it into my bag, but I took the safe road and scanned it. After this was all over, when I went home to Vegas, I’d have it enlarged and hung in my apartment.

Reluctantly, I flipped the picture over to find a few more. Toward the back of the folder, there was a neat stack of papers a quarter of an inch thick. They were court documents dated from ten years ago. Settling back in the seat, I skimmed over them, a dull ache throbbing in my heart every time I saw Olena Andreiko-Emerson’s name mentioned.

She was my mother.

My mother who, up until today, I never realized had tried to contest my dad’s will. From what I could see on the papers in front of me, she’d been much too late—years, in fact. I positioned my phone over the first page of the court documents and started scanning, my fingers almost too numb to press the buttons.

Why hadn’t she mentioned any of this to me?

And, more importantly, why had she waited so long to ask questions? My father had been dead for five years at that point, and she went out of her way not to talk about him with me. What had changed?

My phone vibrated in my hand, startling me. Dragging my gloved hand over my face, I took in a deep breath and checked the caller ID. Since I didn’t recognize the number—and it could easily be Margaret checking in on me—I decided not to ignore it.

“This is Lizzie,” I answered, speaking softly so my caller wouldn’t hear the tremor in my voice.

“It’s Oliver.” At his low growl, that tremor extended to the rest of my body, changing to a shiver that made my toes curl. No matter what I was doing, that man’s voice seemed to have an effect on me. “Did you miss me while I was away?”

“I’ve been working.” Forcing my concentration from the papers in front of me, I stood, placed the folder on the desk, and paced over to the tall, round top window. I stared down at the tennis court. “Besides, since you were able to get my number this easily, you knew I was only a call away.”

Denying nothing, he said, “Talking to you makes it impossible to not want to see you right then and there, so I’ve refrained.” I heard his hand covering the mouthpiece as he spoke to someone else before returning. “As far as you working, I was just at your office and even checked with Ms. Marchand. You were nowhere to be found.”

“You tracked down my coworker?” When he murmured a confirmation, I sardonically added, “I’m touched, Oliver.”

But it
was
flattering. Breathtaking and ridiculously flattering.

“You’re upset.”

I flinched. “Excuse me?”

“Your voice just trembled. Lie all you want, but I can tell you’re angry about something.”

Turning from the window, my eyes swept over the open folder on Margaret’s desk. The sight of it made me nauseous—it was full of more problems that I wasn’t quite ready for—and I wrapped my arm protectively over my stomach. “Your mother has me all over the place for this event, and—”

“Say the word and I’ll have someone take care of everything.”

“Oliver—” I groaned.

“I want to take you for lunch,” he said, his voice reaching a sexy low. “I
need
to see you.”

God, why did that have to sound so tempting? “It’s a little early for lunch, and besides I can’t just pass off my job on someone else. For starters, Margaret would kill me, and secondly—”

“It’s fifteen minutes after one,” he corrected, an edge of worry affecting his deep voice. “Which just goes to show you’re working too goddamn hard. Even you, beautiful, can take the time to eat.”

Jerking my phone from my ear, I held it out in front of me, and my eyes nearly bugged when I saw he was telling me the truth about the time. I’d been in this house for over three hours. How the hell had I let myself lose track of time so easily?

“Fuck,” I breathed.

“If that’s how you’d prefer to spend the meal,” he agreed suggestively. “But once you’re naked, I won’t be able to let you get back to work.”

My stomach fluttered, and I tried not to focus on it as I scrambled over to the desk. “You know that’s not what I meant,” I said, sounding winded nonetheless. “Look, I have to meet someone at your mother’s house, and we both know she will dance on my corpse if I’m late. Sorry, Oliver, I’ll have to call you back later.” Then, I hung up before he had the chance to respond.

Staring down at the folder on the desk, I slowly came to terms with the fact that I’d run out of time to finish what I started. I began to return everything to the drawer.

But I couldn’t do it.

Like the call that had started all this, knowing missing pieces of the puzzle were so close to being within my reach would drive me crazy.

“Fuck you, Margaret.”

I plucked out the last half of the paperwork—the part I didn’t have the chance to copy—and slipped them carefully in my purse. Quickly, I arranged Margaret’s office like I found it. Then I returned to the main floor, pulling off my gloves and shoving them in my bag along with my phone.

*

L
ess than half an hour later, the sound of the doorbell—the chime was custom, Beethoven’s “Für Elise”—snagged my attention from the only photo in the family room, a giant portrait of Margaret and my dad that hung over the mantle. Adjusting the hem of my lacy off-white dress over my black tights, I plastered a smile on my face and went to the door.

Throwing it open, I was prepared to kiss ass for the sake of making my boss happy, but instead of meeting the stares of strangers, I was looking directly at a rock hard chest. Glancing up the length of the thin, sapphire-colored tie, past the full lips I’d dreamt of having on my body, and at last, to the stunning blue eyes that were burning into me, I swallowed hard.

“I’ve missed you,” Oliver said simply.