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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“You brought my ex-girlfriendhere to stay with me? No way! No way she’s staying here.” The presumption of his mother killed him every time he thought of it. And Melissa. Oh, he wanted to strangle her, the conniving little witch. Pulling on his mother’s heartstrings to get invited along when she knew damn well they had broken off their relationship.
“I told you last night, she’s the last person in the world I want to see. Why did you move her into my house?” Taylor stalked back and forth across the kitchen floor.
“You and Melissa should be together. You two have been together since high school. You took her to prom! She’s a sweet girl. You can’t put her out, Taylor,” his mother argued back.
“We had this out months before I came out here. She’s being a stalker, for God’s sake. She will not let go. First, she shows up in my apartment in LA. Now she talks you into bringing her here. I’m going to get a restraining order.” He paced the kitchen again. “She is quitting this house tonight. Now, in fact.”
Taylor walked to the front door and called for Alex. The chauffeur came running, meeting him on the front porch. Taylor launched his list of demands. “I need you to take Miss Cahill to a hotel this evening. After dropping me off at the set in the morning, I need you to make sure she gets to the airport.”
“Yes, sir. Any particular hotel?” he asked, his face expressionless.
“I’ll call you with the details. Can you help Miss Cahill with her luggage?” He rubbed the scratched-up surface of his cell phone between his palms, knowing it was probably the closest he would get to Roberta tonight.
“Yes, sir.” Alex followed him into the house and went for the luggage. Taylor opened the phone and dialed Laurel Lynn. As soon as she answered, he jumped on her with demands, not something he usually did.
“Laurel, I need a hotel reservation for Melissa for this evening. Somewhere. Anywhere. She also needs a one-way ticket back to LAX first thing tomorrow morning. Coach. And I need a damn restraining order against her.”
An hour later, Laurel reported back. “Sorry, no can do with the hotel room. Every hotel room in this town and every surrounding town is booked solid. Even Pittsburgh. Big convention going on. I got the ticket to LAX. And your attorney will handle the restraining order Monday morning.”
Shit! I can’t get rid of the witch.“Argh. You have got to find a hotel room for her. I don’t want her here. I won’t have her sleeping under this roof while I’m here,” he nearly screamed into the phone. Taylor’s chest tightened, and the veins in his neck bulged as he rapidly paced the area. “And you tell Marty I want a restraining order now—make it an emergency order. I’m not screwing around with her anymore. Tell him to check the LAPD records. I’ve placed at least a half dozen complaints against her. Tonight, she went too far. She shows up and talks herself into my house while I’m in the hospital.” Taylor disconnected the phone abruptly. Melissa had him so spun up he had to get out of the house.
He slammed out the back door, storming out on the lawn. Pacing across the lush grass, his mind skittered through all the times Melissa took liberties during their relationship. Making copies of his house keys, borrowing his Lamborghini without permission, taking pictures of herself with his Oscar award in his rumpled bed, and posting them on social media. The worse was her stealing his credit card and racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars for furnishings for her apartment. An apartment she had borrowed money from him for the down payment. She said she’d repay him after her next movie, which never happened: the movie or the repayment. Not one slim dime.
He rubbed his eyes, burning with fatigue. Keeping them closed, he took several deep breaths to calm himself as he stood still and listened. It was quiet except for the trill of cicadas. The grass smelled freshly cut, probably that day. Opening his eyes, he looked up. The stars shone brightly, not a cloud in the sky to impede the view. Glancing over at Roberta’s house, he noticed the lights were off. He wanted to go over, climb into her bed, into her arms and stay there until morning. With that thought in mind, he walked around to the driveway where Alex waited patiently.
“Miss Cahill isn’t leaving until morning. Lock her luggage in the Escalade and take it with you. I don’t want her getting any ideas. She still needs to get to the airport in the morning after I get to work. Do not give her any luggage, or she’ll stall, making herself late for the flight.” Taylor scrubbed at his chin. “Better yet, you know what? She’ll come with me in the car tomorrow morning bright and early at five a.m. We’ll drop her off at the airport before I go to the set. I need to see she gets there.”
“Yes, sir. See you in the morning.” Alex returned to the SUV and backed out onto the street.
Melissa came screaming out the door. “He has my luggage!”
“He’ll be picking you up in the morning,” Taylor said. “I expect you to be in that vehicle at five,” he ordered. He couldn’t feel sorry for the conniving witch anymore. She had brought this on herself, refusing to take “it’s over” for the finality it was.
She stood on the porch, her mouth gaping open like a fish out of water, no words coming out, watching the SUV disappear down the road. Finally, she turned back to Taylor, narrowed her eyes, and stomped back into the house.
Glancing over to the other house, he couldn’t stand it. Taylor pulled out his cell phone, found “Bertie,” and hit send. He prayed she would answer.
“I had given up hope of hearing from you,” Roberta said when she picked up.
He rubbed his collar bone, eyes closed. Maybe he needed to take another pain pill. “It’s taken me this long to square everything away for the night. I hope you don’t mind, but I would really like to come over. Maybe spend the night?” Drained and unsure of his welcome, nonetheless, he longed for the comfort of her arms.
?
Her heart leaped in her chest. He wanted to come over. Aiming at casual, inwardly, she was turning cartwheels. “Sure, I’ll unlock the door.”
She scrambled around the dogs and flew to the kitchen door. Taylor’s handsome face waited on the other side. She didn’t know who held whom or led whom down the hallway to the bedroom or who stripped off what clothes. All that mattered was having Taylor in her arms again. They didn’t make love because of his injury. They kissed and held each other tightly. It was perfect for the night.
Taylor left early the following day with a perfunctory kiss and no explanation. Something weighed heavily on his mind again; it was evident in his body language ... the tension in his injured shoulder, the stance and posture of his spine, and the way his fingers curled, not quite a fist, not quite a claw. His eyes focused more often on a distant thought than on the world in front of him. Even his walk. Instead of an easy, loose-jointed lope, he stalked, stiff steps hitting the ground with determination.Was it the pain or his frame of mind?
A short time later, he came out of the house leading Melissa roughly by the elbow. Crying, she dabbed at her eyes daintily with a tissue and stopped frequently to throw open her arms in exasperation and argue. Taylor, stone-faced, gestured to the idling Escalade. Mrs. Reyd stood on the front stoop in a silky bathrobe, tight-lipped, observing the drama. When the SUV backed out, she returned to the house. It was not hard to surmise whose side she was on, though she stayed with her son. Roberta didn’t need any explanations to understand what was happening.
Her workday dragged by. The dogs were let out as soon as she was home again, late in the afternoon. Roberta spent an hour on her yoga mat before indulging in the Chinese takeout she picked up on the way home. It had been far too long since she had managed to get in her exercise. For good measure, she added an additional half-hour of meditation. It cleared her head, soothed her nerves, and was quite fortuitous, as it made what was to come later that evening far easier to take.
