Can't Get Enough (25 page)

PEARL PUT DOWN the
Washington Post
. The article about Jolene Brown’s involvement in the break-in was unbelievable. She would never have thought that Jolene would do something so vicious.

She looked across the table at Patrick as he sipped his morning coffee. He seemed to be taking this harder than she was. His ex-wife, the mother of his daughter, had ordered the vandalism of Pearl’s salon. Patrick looked lost.

She reached across the table, took his hand and squeezed.

“What will I tell Juliette?” he said, his voice cracking.

Pearl shook her head. “I honestly don’t know what to tell you.”

He stood and shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. Juliette had been living with Patrick ever since Jolene was taken to police head-quarters for questioning a month earlier. Patrick and Jolene had agreed that would be best while Jolene was going through all of this.

But Jolene had insisted that she was innocent and that she was being framed by Brian in an act of revenge. As soon as she was cleared of the charges, she said she wanted Juliette back home with her. Patrick had wanted desperately to believe Jolene, but yesterday they learned that she had accepted a plea bargain and now it was in the newspaper.

“I have to tell Juliette the truth,” he said sadly. “With it in the papers, she’s going to hear about it from somewhere. I’d rather she get it from me.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Pearl said.

Patrick banged his fist on the countertop. “Dammit! What is wrong with that woman? I knew she was jealous of you, but this? What the hell was she thinking?”

“I don’t get it,” Pearl said incredulously. “She won the lottery and even before that she had more than I ever did.”

“If you’re talking about material things, yes. But not when it comes to character. She’s not getting Juliette back. I don’t want that woman raising my daughter. If she fights me on it, I’ll take her to court and sue for custody.”

Pearl nodded in agreement. She had no doubt that Jolene would fight to get her daughter back, and going up against her was obviously not something to be taken lightly. But Patrick was right. He had to do what was best for Juliette.

Pearl stood up, walked to the cabinets, removed a frying pan, and placed it on the stove. “The girls will be up soon. I’m going to fix us all a big breakfast—bacon and sausage, eggs, pancakes.” Food always soothed the soul, and they could all use a little comfort now.

Patrick came up behind her and turned her to face him. He pulled her into his arms and hugged her tightly. She rested her head on his shoulder and they stood there silently for a moment.

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am about your salon,” he said. “Somehow I feel responsible now.”

She looked up at him. “Don’t be silly. I’m sorry that it turned out to be Jolene who hired that thug to break into my salon, but now that we know who did it, I feel at ease. Not knowing was the worst. A huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Does that seem weird?”

“Not at all.” He chuckled and released her.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“I was just tying to imagine Jolene doing community service.”

Pearl had to smile at that thought, too. “It’ll be good for her.”

“Yeah, if she doesn’t get out of it.”

“Do you think she’ll try?”

“I know she will.”

“I’ll be hoping she can’t. Well, let me start on breakfast. Why don’t you get the girls up?” She turned him around and shooed him out of the kitchen, then she went to the refrigerator, removed a half dozen eggs, and began to crack them open into a bowl.

Pearl’s lawyer had informed her yesterday that the judge had ordered Jolene to pay her a large sum of money. Pearl hated the idea of taking money from Jolene but she needed it desperately. Insurance wouldn’t cover all the costs to fix the salon exactly the way she wanted it, and she needed income until she could get back to work.

Pearl shook her head as she whipped the eggs. Jolene Brown jealous of
her
? Jolene had won five million dollars in the lottery, she lived in a house that was probably five times the size of Pearl’s town house, she drove a nice car, and she had a beautiful daughter.

It just went to show that some people were never satisfied.

THE MORNING SUN streaked through the drapes in Jolene’s bedroom, and she yanked the sheet up over her head. She hadn’t been able to get a wink of sleep all night. Reporters from the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun had called repeatedly the previous afternoon. They had said that articles about the break-in at Pearl’s salon were going to run the following morning and they wanted to ask her some questions. Jolene slammed the phone down on both reporters.

The last thing she needed were articles in the
Post
and the
Sun
about all of this crap. She had already been humiliated enough. Patrick was furious about how it would affect their daughter. Her parents weren’t speaking to her. Her neighbors, including Veronique, all looked at her as if she was from another planet. And her party plans had been shattered.

Her alarm clock went off.

“Shit!” she screamed aloud as she sat up and shut it off. It was seven-thirty on a Saturday morning and she had to get up and drive all the way into D.C. to a women’s homeless shelter to start her hundred hours of community service.

She moaned, fell back down on the bed, and pulled the covers over her head. She hated getting up early on Saturday mornings for any reason, and she damn sure didn’t want to get up early for this. But the worst of it was that she would have to give part of her lottery winnings to that bitch Pearl. What a nightmare. She had been on top of the world and look at her now. Her only consolation was that Brian was back in prison, right where his ass belonged.

The thought of having to spend thirty days or more in jail popped into Jolene’s thoughts—it was a very real possibility if she failed to show up at the shelter, as her lawyer had reminded her when she asked him how she could get out of performing community service. She threw the covers off.

God, was she sorry she had done this. It had been monumentally stupid. If she could go back in time to before the break-in and that first conversation with Brian Watson at the Holiday Inn she would. She grimaced. She should never have trusted that idiot to pull off the job. If she ever did something like this again, she would make sure she found someone with the smarts to do it right.

But what was done was done. Right now, she had to get this community service behind her. Then she was going to have to figure out how she would support herself. After paying Pearl, she would have several hundred thousand left in the bank, but the way she lived that wouldn’t last much more than a year or two.

She got up, strolled into her walk-in closet, and picked out an off-white St. John pantsuit. Even if she was going to a homeless shelter, Jolene Brown intended to look her best.

BARBARA CLIMBED OUT of her Benz and carried her two Louis Vuitton suitcases to the front of the house in Silver Lake. She unlocked the double doors and stepped in.

Everything was just as it had been when she left five weeks earlier. The marble floor and crystal chandelier in the foyer looked as if they had just been polished, and fresh flowers sat in a crystal vase on the small round table in the center of the foyer. To her left was Bradford’s study and its mahogany bookshelves, to her right, the music room with the handcrafted baby grand piano that no one had ever learned to play. Straight ahead a carpeted staircase led to the balcony on the second floor. All of it was spotlessly clean.

Phyllis appeared from around a corner, and they hugged warmly.

“It’s good to have you back, Mrs. Bentley. How was your stay at the Ritz?” Phyllis sounded as lighthearted as she would have if Barbara had just come back from visiting a spa. The truth was a lot more complicated. After a week of living with Noah, Barbara had spent a few weeks at a local hotel because she needed time to think about whether she wanted to return to her husband. Barbara was certain that Phyllis knew better.

“Thank you, Phyllis. Is Bradford here?”

“Yes, ma’am. He’s waiting for you in the library.”

Barbara nodded as Phyllis reached for the suitcases and walked toward the kitchen and the back stairs to the second floor. She removed her fox coat, draped it over her arm, and headed for Bradford’s study.

She opened the door and looked around. She didn’t see Bradford, but a large elegantly wrapped package with her name on it sat in the center of his desk. She folded her coat across the back of a chair and tore the wrapper off to reveal a box from Bergdorf Goodman. She flipped the top open and looked down to see a dark brown, full-length sable coat.

She lifted the sable coat out of the box and draped it around her shoulders. As she ran her hands across the luxuriously soft fur, she heard a sound in the doorway. She turned to see Bradford standing there looking handsome as always in slacks and a beautiful gray shirt, holding two champagne flutes filled with sparkling water.

She caught her breath at the sight of him. It was amazing that he could still do that to her at times, even after all these years. Of all her possessions, many of them given to her by Bradford, none mattered more to her than the man standing before her. She still loved him dearly. That was why she was back at home.

But if their relationship was to work, things were going to have to change, as she had explained to him when they talked by phone over the past few days during her stay at the Ritz. He was going to have to be mindful of her needs, and they would both have to be open and honest in their dealings with each other. No more lunches with ex-lovers, no more long trips out of town without each other. No more lies, no more secrets. He might wheel and deal in his business but he was going to have to respect his wife at home.

She had also insisted on opening a bank account in her name only and that he keep it generously funded. The first check she wrote was to Noah, giving him the money to make a down payment on his house. Noah would never have accepted a handout directly from Barbara, so she had a cashier’s check hand-delivered to him. When Noah called to ask if she had sent the check, Barbara denied it. Noah still suspected that it was from her, but the anonymity had allowed him to tell himself that it wasn’t and to keep the money.

She hadn’t told Bradford about the check yet. He still blew up whenever she mentioned Noah’s name, and Barbara thought it would be best to give it a few weeks before telling him.

She smiled as Bradford handed her one of the glasses. “The coat is beautiful.”

“And so are you. It’s so good to have you home.” He leaned down to kiss her, but she gently put her hand on his chest and held him back.

“It’s good to be here,” she said, “but I meant all of those things I said about us being honest with each other from now on. The furs and jewels are nice, Bradford. But what I want more than anything is attention from you. And no other women.”

“I understand that, Barbara. I really do. And I’ve changed. Sabrina and I had lunch, nothing more.”

“That may be true. But do you understand why I had such a hard time believing it?”

He nodded. “I haven’t been the most faithful husband in the past. I have a lot of making up to do. From now on, I won’t be having lunch with Sabrina or any other woman unless it’s strictly business. I don’t want you doubting me ever again. Or running off with other men because you do. You mean the world to me, and I don’t want to lose you. I’m going to start doing a better job of showing you that.”

Barbara nodded. She didn’t know if Bradford could live up to all of his promises, but they both knew that she now had the strength to leave him if he couldn’t.

She smiled. “That’s what I wanted to hear. You should say things like that to me more often.”

“To us,” he said, lifting his glass.

“And new beginnings,” she added.

They clinked their glasses and sipped. He took her glass and placed both flutes on his desk. Then he gently slipped the sable coat from around Barbara’s shoulders and took her into his arms.