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Oriana read the email twice, trying to align this new version of reality with her old version. Roland and Grant were up in arms, with Grant calling Katrina at home and asking her to pack a bag for him. “I don’t care what’s in there. I’ll be gone two days, maybe three.”
“You’re not going to New York on your own,” Roland insisted as Grant blathered on. “We’re all going with you.”
“It’s so bizarre, isn’t it?” Brea said, crossing her arms over her chest. “He had this information in his back pocket for the past twenty-three years. Now that he’s broke and in trouble, he decided it’s time to use it.”
“We won’t let him,” Meghan assured her.
Oriana eyed Roland and Grant nervously. After Grant got off the phone, she said, “Nick’s been watching me the entire time. I mean, he knew where I was so often. Who’s to say he doesn’t know you’re all in on it, now?”
“You’re meeting him in the city today,” Brea said. “He thinks you’re coming to him for solace and help.”
“That’s right. My guess is he planned to charge you to ‘hunt down’ your blackmailer— and then double down on the blackmailing efforts later on,” Roland said. “He had you cornered. Until now.”
Oriana, Meghan, and Brea drove to the city in Oriana’s car, while Roland and Grant took Roland’s BMW. Throughout the drive, Brea flicked through radio stations nervously, and Meghan sighed occasionally, in a way that translated her fears and regrets and the horror of the entire operation. Oriana was speechless.
“I remember how you never liked Nick,” Oriana said suddenly, her eyes flashing toward Brea in the front seat. “I remember you asked me why Nick always had to come out with us.”
Brea grimaced.
“You just didn’t trust him?” Oriana asked.
“He wasn’t like us,” Brea said. “I mean, he just always seemed up to something. Besides, he never wanted me around. He wanted you to himself.”
Oriana groaned and bounced her head on the seat rest. With all her strength, she wished she could go back in time and shake herself, to tell herself to be more aware of what was going on around her. More than anything, she wished she could scream at herself for her inability to see how much pain Brea had been in during the months Kenny had been so sick. Oriana had had her head in the clouds. She’d been a bad friend.
Nick had texted her an address and a time: his apartment at eight in the evening. Oriana and Roland valeted their vehicles at a garage down the road from the apartment building, then struck out— Oriana, Meghan, and Brea in front, and Roland and Grant staggered a bit behind.
The doorman of Nick’s apartment building was expecting Oriana and even Brea, but he wasn’t expecting anyone else. He insisted that only the two women could go up. Everyone else had to remain outside.
Oriana should have anticipated this. It was the way of these swanky apartment buildings in Manhattan.
“I’ll come up with something,” she muttered to Roland and Grant.
“Have us on speed dial,” Grant urged her, then pointed to the Irish Pub across the street. “We’ll be there, waiting.”
“And we can call the police at any time,” Roland assured her.
Oriana and Brea laced their fingers together and entered the lobby. Oriana could feel Brea’s pulse fluttering in her wrist. As they rose through the heart of the building on the elevator, Oriana struggled to breathe. However, Brea locked eyes with her right before the doors opened into his penthouse suite and said, “We can do this. We’re together again. And we know things that would destroy him.”
Oriana knew she was right. But she couldn’t trust Nick and had a hunch his slippery nature would help him evade them.
When the doors opened, Nick stood directly in the center of the foyer, his Italian suede shoes shining from the light of the chandelier and his smile sinfully handsome, fit for the cover ofGQ. Oriana’s heart flipped over with recognition. Her first instinct was to think: my friend!
“Oriana! Brea. So happy you could make it to the city today.”
Oriana thought it was funny. She hadn’t mentioned Brea at all on the phone with Nick yesterday. This was either a slip-up on his part or an acknowledgment that he knew she knew about his blackmail scheme. Oriana decided to tread lightly.
“Nicolas,” Oriana said, rushing forward to hug him.
Brea walked up behind her, her smile wavering just slightly.
“Come on, Brea. Give us a hug.” Nick waved his hand, and Brea sidled beside him, swatted his back, then stepped away.
“You were never particularly warm,” Nick said with a laugh. “But I suppose we never really change, do we?”
Nick led Oriana and Brea to his state-of-the-art kitchen, where he poured them helpings of very expensive red wine and raised his glass. “To new beginnings,” he said.
Oriana felt out of breath, on the verge of collapse. She heard herself echoing what he said, laughing at his jokes. But in reality, she felt as though she watched the entire exchange from above, as though it happened to someone else.
