Delusive (51 page)

THE GRAND LOBBY swam with people in suits milling about. I looked at the board in the elevator lobby to search for a familiar name. I didn’t find Natanael’s name, but I did find Kirsten’s.
 

On the way to the elevator, my phone buzzed with a timely call from Skylar.

“Hey, my friend of a friend found out what that stuff you gave me was. Why the hell are you carting around poison in sugar packages?”

“I know it’s poison. I need to find out what kind it is.” I added a lie, “I bought a stack of them and I need to make sure of what they are.”

“My friend says it’s hemlock. Lethal stuff that in the right dose can kill someone in less than ten minutes. I think I remember him saying something about respiratory failure. So…what do you need it for?”

I hung up on her, turned off my phone, and took the elevator up to the twentieth floor. I knew Skylar’s mind would go wild with the possibilities. If she was predictable, she would’ve thought what I needed her to—that the poison was for Elias. Her assumption would put me closer to uncovering the veracity of everything she’d ever told me.

She would never need to know the real reason I entrusted her with finding out the information.

A few different businesses were on the floor, with the largest space given to Cari Properties. The moment I stepped beyond the smoky double glass doors, I was faced with a narrow hall. Offices encased in smoky glass walls lined either side of the corridor. A large espresso-stained desk stood at the end, set up in front of an office that extended the entire space of the east wall.

“May I help you?” asked the graying receptionist who sat at the desk.

“Yes, I’m Mrs. Cari’s daughter-in-law,” I informed her with a pleasant smile. “I wanted to take her to lunch.”

Her mouth twisted up as she regarded me from head-to-toe. “Mrs. Cari doesn’t have a daughter-in-law. Who are you again?”

The door to the main office swung ajar. Kirsten stood in the doorway wearing a royal blue pantsuit with her hair up in a tight bun. “Hanley, is there something I can do for you?” she asked, smiling wryly as she plodded toward me. “I’m very busy at the moment.”

I maintained my simper, keeping my posture broad. “I really need to speak with you and it might take a while.”

“You can make an appointment with Mrs. Cunningham.” She nodded to her receptionist, directing me to do what she’d advised.

“It’s about Elias,” I said with urgency.

Successfully garnering her attention, she turned on a dime and headed back inside her office. With her hand up in the air, she gesticulated over her shoulder, directing me to follow her inside.
 

Upon walking inside her office, I closed the door behind me.

She ambled to the far side of her office and stared out at the downtown L.A. landscape through her floor to ceiling windows. Sighing, she turned around to regard me with arms folded. “You’re very different for Elias, but you’ve become the equivalent of a much-needed wrecking ball.”

I sat in the chair opposite the desk and clasped my hands together on my lap. “From what Elias has said about you, you don’t really interact with him much.”

“True. It doesn’t mean I don’t research the women he dates. It’s a necessity that I know who he allows in his life. That includes you, Hanley.”

“It was made known I’m not his typical type.”

She laughed. “You are most certainly different for him in a lot of ways. You remind me a bit of myself when I was your age. Ambitious. Ruthless. Strong. Alluring enough to distract a man from his duty. My son doesn’t know left from right since he met you. His work has suffered. His views have changed. You were everything I needed you to be for him.” She pulled out the chair from her desk and slipped into it. Crossing her legs, she folded her hands over her lap. “I won’t be keen on calling you my daughter-in-law until you two have a proper wedding in a church in front of family and friends.”

That was unexpected. She made me believe there was a chance we could actually have a relationship. It made me rethink her position in everything. Maybe she truly was on her son’s side. Maybe she realized she had abandoned him and wanted to right her wrongs.

Maybe I was being unrealistically optimistic. She did, after all, admit to using me to get through to her son.

Stretching her neck, she looked me over. “What are you? A size twelve?”

“Ten, actually.”

She gave me a smirk and smoothed her hands over her size two frame before switching the position of her legs. “It will be tough to find a good wedding dress off the rack for you, but you peg me as someone who might have her dress custom designed. I can give you the name of the dressmaker who designed my wedding dress. I think you’ll be happy with her.”

Thrown again, I looked down at my lap. “I didn’t come here to discuss wedding plans with you. I know you know who I really am.”

She quirked a perfectly shaped brow at me. “Oh? What is it you wanted to discuss, Hanley…or do you prefer Leina?”

“Either works,” I said quickly. “I have a lot of things to say, actually.” I had a lot of time on the ride down to formulate my thoughts. At the moment, the woman I was made to be had fully returned to me, and she was prepared to provoke the woman in front of me. “It must drive you crazy. The way Natanael can’t keep it in his pants. Did he cheat on his first wife with you?”

Her cold smile turned into a scowl. “Is this going somewhere?”

“Give me a minute. It is.” Feeling smug, I leaned back in my chair. “I think you’re the type of woman that when you set your sights on something, you will do anything you can to have it. I think maybe your usual way of getting a man’s attention didn’t work, so you got pregnant and made him think it was his so he would marry you.” I waited for a reaction, and although her face remained pleasant, her demeanor told me I hadn’t lost her interest and I had yet to offend her.
 

“But,” I continued, “as Elias got older people started to ask questions, you avoided giving the answers until you couldn’t. You delayed until you could use your son to make your lie believable. You found a son, Keith, who hated Natanael. Elias helped to prove the lie by getting in good with Keith. Together, the three of you made Natanael think Elias was his.
 

“Because I’m sure Natanael is as psychotic as Elias is, Elias’s behavior made him proud. Proud enough to leave him with everything he had. But see, while Elias thinks he’s going to run the show once he takes down his father, I think you have other plans. You want Natanael gone, so
you
can run the show. I think it was you who pushed Natanael into the drug business. I’m not sure if you purposely set him up to fail or if you are resetting the scope of the business in preparation for your takeover.
 

“You mentioned something about using me, which brings me back to, hmm, let’s say about twelve years. I heard the conversation my father and Natanael had. I can tell they were friends. It makes me wonder why Natanael would betray him and cut him out of the insurance money…doing so would not only hurt his friendship and loyalty ties with my father, but it would hurt his pockets. I think you had something to do with the way my mother’s death was looked at as negligent.”

She pressed her lips together, the corners of her mouth turned up into a smile to suppress her laughter. “What an imaginative tale. Please, go on. This is the most fascinating thing I’ve heard all day.”

“Well…assuming you’re a woman who uses sex to get what she wants, maybe you seduced the driver Natanael sponsored. I think you filled his head with empty little promises, coercing him to do you a favor. You told him to make it look like my mother was negligent.”

“Please, go on.” She nodded excitedly, inviting me to continue. “Tell me why would I have done what you claim?”

“To get to my father. You knew doing so would put my father at odds with Natanael. Odds so severe my father would seek revenge, dethrone your king and give you exactly what you wanted while keeping you and your son’s hands clean.”

Her smile tempered and I was smug with the knowledge the pawn had just taken the queen.
 

She stood from her desk, standing a little too confidently for me to hold onto my self-congratulations. “What is it you want, Hanley?”

“I want what you stole from me.”

“I can’t revive the dead,” she responded with a flippant shrug of her shoulders, “so I suppose you’re talking about money.” Without waiting for an answer, she rounded the desk and continued to speak, “That’s disappointing. I wouldn’t peg you as someone who would set her goals so low. Do you love my son at all?”

Feeling like she kicked me in the chest, I couldn’t find my steady breaths.

A warm grin pressed across her plump lips. “Is it love you want after all? Good. You’ve realized it can be a force more powerful than money, haven’t you?”
 

My tongue was too tied to give her an answer. The woman had successfully thrown me from my high perch with a few pointed sentences.

She glanced down at her nails, contemplating them for a moment. “I have an appointment at the spa. I’m sure I can change my appointment and add a guest.” Reaching behind her, she retrieved her phone and began to text someone. “Do you mind indulging your future mother-in-law, Hanley?”

I blinked at her, stunned. “I-I guess.”

“Good.” She put her phone down and stood up tall. “Follow me, it’s conveniently on the fourth floor of this building.”

On the way to the spa, we engaged in small talk, initiated by her wish for me to have a real wedding, which was one of the few things Elias and I hadn’t discussed yet. She seemed ecstatic over the prospect of helping me with wedding preparations.

We reached the spa on the fourth floor and were greeted by the ambient music filling the room. The earthy color scheme and the use of wood paneling made the spa very inviting. We were separated and taken to changing rooms where lockers were available to store our belongings. I was told to remove everything and visit room number four when I was done.

Prepped in a black terrycloth robe, I navigated my way down the narrow hall, finding the open door to room number four. The walls were an eggplant shade and decorated with abstract art and several potted plants and flowers. Two black leather massage beds were in the center of the room. Nature sounds played softly in the background through the speakers implanted inside the walls.
 

Kirsten was perched on the massage chair, dressed in a white robe similar to mine, with her cell phone in her lap. “Did you remove everything underneath?” she asked, keeping her eye on her cell phone as she texted someone.

“I did.”

“And your phone?”

“It’s in the locker.”

She slowly leveled her eyes at me. “You’ll excuse me if I need proof.”

Hesitantly, I closed the door and stepped in front of her. I opened my robe to show her I was naked and turned around with the robe draped down at my thighs, giving her the proof she needed.

“Perfect,” she intoned. “Have a seat.”

Closing my robe, I hopped up on the massage table. Crossing one leg over the other, I maintained a straight posture.

“First,” she started, placing her phone down on the bed, “I recognize the signature on the lies you were told. Like the good habitual liar that she is, Skylar never changes her tune.” Her brow furrowed as she searched my face. “I’m aware you assumed some things on your own from what she has told you, but the lies you’ve been told by Skylar—are just that. Lies.
 

“Skylar wants things she doesn’t deserve, nor does she have a claim to them. Her rash actions have firmly placed her at the bottom of the food chain.” She uncrossed and recrossed her legs. Her posture maintained its perfect form as she slid her hands behind her to grip the massage table. “She tried to seduce Elias once, did she tell you that? My son could smell the sour on her from a mile away. All that woman has ever wanted, was to be the woman Elias called his wife. Now that you’ve stolen the title, I can’t imagine what she’ll do to try to break the two of you apart.

“Luckily, I believe she’s met her match with you and she will be outsmarted, the same way Elias outsmarted her when she did what she did, incorrectly thinking it would bring Elias closer. Did she tell you about the man she killed?”

Swallowing back the barrage of truth about Skylar, I rasped, “She said she didn’t do it.”

“Oh, come now, Hanley.” She waved me off with a chuckle. “You’ve had to have caught that woman in a few lies by now. She wants out from underneath Elias’s thumb and into his bed, permanently. My son knows—or used to know—how to use mentation over emotion. He didn’t believe her lie about Carter spilling Elias’s secrets—secrets she wouldn’t disclose to Elias—and that she protected Elias from Carter by killing him. Carter was loyal to a fault. He would never be disloyal to the man he grew up with for someone like Skylar. Elias forgave her for murdering his closest friend in cold blood, because he knew he could use her. Unfortunately for her, you came along, and now Skylar is on a different agenda.”

Uneasy about all that she told me and still unsure of what she wanted, I studied her carefully. “Am I supposed to just believe you?”

“Doesn’t matter if you do,” she said with a shrug. “She drugged Carter because she couldn’t stab the man that many times when he was sober; he would’ve killed her. The man was shaped like a Roman Gladiator. If you wonder how I know all of this, it’s simple—my husband has quite a few vacation homes and in every single home he has, there are cameras. Skylar didn’t know that. If that isn’t enough, I always keep one man around Elias who is loyal to me. Mateus is that man.”