For His Trust (11 page)

She clenched her fists involuntarily as she listened to his side of the conversation.

“I kind of have something I need to do right now,” he said. “Can’t they handle it without me?”

She heard the far away mumblings of a female voice. Red shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Right. But we could just re-shoot…yeah. Yeah. Fine. Tell them I’ll be there but I’m not happy about it.”

He got off the phone and looked at her.

“Don’t say it,” she warned him. “You promised me we’d do this.”

“That was Gia. There’s been an issue with the video shoot they’re doing this morning. They had to fire the director and they need me there to figure out what’s next.”

Nicole put a hand to her forehead. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.

What video shoot?”

He stood up. “We’re shooting a video for the Erikson Bikes pitch. I’m losing money every second that goes by. I need to get down there and try and salvage this thing.”

“Not before we talk about the guest list.”

He stopped and put his hands on his hips and his expression was strained. “Come on, Nicole. Give me a break, here.”

“You said you’d do it. You’ve been putting it off every time I ask and now you’re putting it off again. We need to get these invitations out.”

“Listen, I printed out all of my contacts and addresses yesterday and brought it home with me. It’s got everyone in there. When I get home tonight, you and I can go through every single one of them…”

“You didn’t print anything out.”

“I did. I brought it with me last night and it’s right upstairs. But now something unexpected came up and I just don’t have time to go through it all. I’m sorry.”

Nicole’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m getting so sick of being put third behind your work and…everyone else.”

“Everyone else? Who else do I put ahead of you?”

“Gia,” she said, hating herself for sounding like a fifteen-year-old spoiled brat.

“Gia?” he said, stunned. “You hired her, Nicole!”

“Because I got confused. I didn’t realize she was going to become your new wife.

She sees you more than I do!” She slapped the table in frustration.

“I don’t have time for this,” he said. “I love you—“

“Just go, don’t lie to me again about how we’ll do it later.”

He looked at her, his face flushed, his eyes dark with barely repressed anger. “I love you, Nicole. And we’ll deal with this tonight when I get home.”

She just shook her head and didn’t even look at him. She wanted to scream. In all honesty, she wanted to pummel his chest and have a fit like a little kid. Only it wasn’t cute or funny or silly. She was truly enraged.

Red left and the door slammed shut. When she heard his car engine start, she yelled. “Go fuck your little whore!” as loud as she could, knowing there was no way he could hear her.

It felt both good and awful at the same time to say those words. Not that she honestly believed he was having sex with Gia. It was just the feeling it gave her when he left home because Gia was calling him, the knowledge that they were spending days together while Nicole was left home.

She felt powerless. Every decision she made, although intended to make things better, only seemed to make the situation worse.

Nicole went upstairs to the master bedroom and surveyed the room. On the desk she saw a thick stack of paper and walked over to look at it more closely. It was the contact list Red had mentioned, along with phone numbers and addresses.

It was simply enormous. It would surely take them hours and hours to go through all of these people and decide who could come and who could not.

She flipped through and felt a simple, pure rage at his refusal to make even the slightest attempt to assist her with the guest list.

“Fifty people?” she muttered. “Fifty people?”

There was simply no way they could cull this list down to fit a wedding size of fifty people. Not unless Red’s intention was to insult almost every friend, contact, and family member in existence, by only inviting a handful of the hundreds of people he knew.

Nicole’s blood was boiling. She called his cell phone and it went directly to voicemail. Rather than leave a message, she hung up.

What to do with this list? She asked herself.

No answer was forthcoming. She supposed she would just have to wait for his return late that night and hope he would deign to give her a paltry few minutes of his precious time for her silly wedding planning.

Nicole slammed the thick book of contacts back on the desk and started to leave the room. Just then, she heard the loud ring from the downstairs phone, the one that was connected to the security gate.

She ran downstairs and answered, breathless.

“Ma’am, this is Derek, out front with security.” He explained that Danielle was at the front gate and requesting to be let in.

Surprised that Danielle hadn’t bothered to call her in advance, Nicole told him to of course let her through.

Then she went out front to wait for her friend.

A couple of minutes later, a yellow cab pulled up out front and Danielle got out, sobbing—her face a mask of tears. Nicole instantly had the horrible sensation that Kane Wright was dead.

“Oh my God, Danielle, what happened?”

Danielle could barely speak through her sobs. Nicole literally couldn’t understand her. “Come and sit down,” Nicole said, trying to calm her. “Tell me what happened.”

The cabbie got out. “Hey, she said you’d pay me?”

Nicole looked up. “Oh. Yes, sure. How much?”

“Eighty-seven fifty,” he told her. Nicole quickly went and got her credit card and paid the driver, who promptly left.

Danielle was still sobbing on the front steps

Nicole was growing concerned and frustrated with her friend’s inability to speak a coherent sentence. “Danielle, you need to tell me what’s going on.” She sat down and took her by the shoulders. “Can you do that?”

Danielle nodded, still wailing. She started to speak but it was gibberish mostly, garbled by her wracking sobs.

Nicole went and got her a glass of water and then came back. “Here, drink this,”

she said, rubbing the girl’s back. Danielle was without shoes, wearing only a light summer dress. Her hair was disheveled. She had no purse, nothing with her, no phone.

Maybe she’s been assaulted or raped. If it was Kane, Nicole thought, then he was going to pay big time for this.

Finally, Danielle’s tears began dissipating enough for her to speak and be understood. “I had to get away from him,” she cried.

“Of course you did, sweetie. Did he hurt you?”

Danielle began to shake. “I decided to make him an omelet this morning.

Broccoli and cheese,” Danielle said. “I got up early and got everything ready so that when he came to the kitchen he’d have fresh orange juice, coffee, and eggs just the way he likes it.”

Nicole listened attentively, waiting for when the first punch would be thrown.

She looked at Danielle’s face, searching for bruises, but she didn’t see any. “And then what happened?”

“He took one…b…b….bite,” Danielle said, turning to Nicole and bursting into a fresh round of tears. “And then…”

Oh, no, here comes the punch, Nicole thought, bracing herself for it.

“And then he said he needed to show me a thing or two about making an omelet.”

Danielle started to cry. Snot bubbled from her nose.

Nicole just stared at her. There has to be more, she told herself. Be patient because there has to be more than this. “It’s okay,” she soothed, rubbing Danielle’s shaking back again.

“Kane got up and started making a brand new omelet,” she said. “He told me to come over and watch so I could learn the proper way to do it. And he was talking about this famous French chef who’d taught him and it was so rude and insulting.” Danielle was crying again now, not as out of control as before, but the tears were streaming down her cheeks. “He was so…so…condescending…and mean. He’s a big bully. I told him so. And he told me that I’m just naïve and ignorant of the wider world or something.

And then I yelled at him and he yelled back at me and…and…I left. I had to get out of there.”

She fell into Nicole’s arms and sobbed for a while longer.

Nicole found herself feeling angry with Danielle for how immature and silly and overdramatic she was being. Then Nicole reminded herself how many times Danielle had been there for her during moments like these. So Nicole tried to be patient, even though she was annoyed and her fuse was decidedly short from everything that had gone on in the last twenty-four hours.

Finally, Danielle wiped her eyes and tried to laugh. “I needed that,” she said, laughing.

“I know how it is,” Nicole told her. “Being married to a very powerful, confident man can be incredibly difficult.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I’ve been there,” Nicole said. “It will get better, I promise.”

“Really? You think so?”

“Yeah, I do.” She forced a smile. Sure, things got better. Then they seemed to get worse again—best not to mention that part.

“Enough about me,” Danielle said. “I need to focus on something else, something fun. Tell me about your wedding. What’s going on with it?”

Nicole felt her stomach clench like a fist. “Nothing much is happening.”

“What? But you told me how busy you were going to be planning everything. If I were you and I had a chance to have a big, fancy wedding with all of those famous people, I’d take it. But Kane would never show me off to the world the way Red does you, because Kane is ashamed of me.” Danielle’s expression was positively bitter. “You got the good one, it turns out.”

“Don’t say that,” Nicole said. “I’m sure Kane loves you more than anything.”

Danielle shrugged and screwed up her face. “Tell me something about the wedding. I need to live vicariously through you.”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“Oh, come on, Nic. Did you at least decide on a date?”

“Seriously, Danielle. I don’t really want to get into it right now.” Her tone was harsher than she intended.

Danielle turned away from her. “Okay. Jeez. Sorry I asked.”

Nicole got up and folded her arms. “Are you feeling better?”

Danielle looked up at her. “I don’t understand why you’re being like this, Nicole.

Suddenly I’m not good enough to discuss your wedding with? Why, because I’m not some hoity toity wedding planner?”

“That’s got nothing to do with it, Danielle. Why can’t you just let it go?”

“Because, I don’t get it. What did I do wrong?”

Nicole looked at her. “Well, for starters, you’re way too interested in the finer details of my wedding.”

Danielle’s face registered shock—as if Nicole had actually slapped her. “What?”

“You know what I’m talking about, don’t act like you have no idea. The tabloid that your husband owns and runs just did a nasty story about Red and I getting married.

Almost nobody knew about it but you and a very few other people.”

Danielle stared at her in awe. “You think I gave them a story about your wedding?”

“No, I think you probably blabbed about it during pillow talk with Kane, but there’s no difference as far as I’m concerned, because anything I tell you ends up in his ear and then he’s probably on the phone with Anderson from The Rag about five minutes later.”

“That’s ridiculous. I don’t tell Kane about your wedding and he doesn’t have the least bit of interest in it.” She got up. “I can’t believe that’s what you think of our friendship, Nicole.”

“I don’t know what else to think.”

“Maybe it was your mom,” Danielle replied. “You know she’s just as likely to do that as I am.”

“Don’t try and tell me about my mom.”

“Well don’t blame me for your problems, Nic. Jesus, who even cares if someone knows when your stupid little wedding is?”

“And who really cares if Kane tried to teach you how to make an omelet? Maybe he’s better at it than you are,” Nicole sniped.

“I’m so out of here,” Danielle replied, starting to walk down the private road in her bare feet.

“Tell the guys at The Rag that I say hello,” Nicole yelled after her. Danielle just kept walking.

Nicole considered going after her, especially knowing that Danielle didn’t have a cell phone or money or anything. Instead, she called down to the front gate and alerted them that Danielle was walking on the private road and asked that they arrange for a cab to bring her back to her home.

A few minutes later, they called back and said it had been taken care of and she was on her way home.

Nicole was so upset that she didn’t even know what to do. Why couldn’t she have taken the high road with Danielle instead of sinking to her level?

She needed to talk to Red right away. Nicole needed a calming voice, she needed her husband. She picked up her cell phone and called him, her heart racing.

“Come on, please just pick up,” she prayed. “Please.”

Finally, mercifully, the line was answered. But it wasn’t Red.

“Hello?” The perky, female voice said into Nicole’s ear.

For a split second, she thought she must have dialed the wrong number. But then she looked and realized it wasn’t the wrong number at all. “Hello, who is this?” Nicole asked.

“My name is Gia. And who might I ask is calling?”

Nicole felt a surge of new, fresh hatred coursing through her veins. “Gia, this is Nicole Masters, Red’s fiancé and I’d appreciate it if you’d put him on the phone immediately.”

Gia’s voice became positively chipper. “Oh, Nicole. Yeah, he’s in a meeting right now so I’m taking messages for him.”

“I understand he’s busy, but I need to talk to him.”

“He gave me strict instructions. Sorry.” She drew out the last syllable of the word sorry so that it sounded gleeful rather than apologetic.

Nicole could feel her blood pressure rising. “That’s good that you follow instructions,” she said in a measured tone. “Thanks so much for your help, Gia.”

“Your wel—“

Nicole hung up the phone. Her jaw was so tight that she thought she might grind her teeth to dust if she wasn’t careful. She couldn’t believe the nerve of that girl, nor could she fathom that Red was allowing her to handle his cell phone—something Nicole never even did!