Miss Independent (33 page)

              Sheila and Nathan stormed back into their hotel room. No one had declared the reunion over, thus, those who had not been affected by the fight remained dancing and drinking and were determined to have a good time until the wee hours of the morning. Sheila went to the bathroom to wash her face as Nathan poured ice from a bucket into a towel and placed it on his face. He wasn’t swollen. The most that had been bruised on him was his enlarged ego.

              He went over to Sheila and angrily opened his arms. “What happened with you and Vanessa?”

              “What happened with you and Maurice?”

              “A misunderstanding.”

              “Vanessa and I didn’t have a misunderstanding, we understood each other just fine. Bitch sobered me right up and I learned one thing in all of this, that I was right. She still has feelings for you, and you still have them for her. I saw it plain as day and I DARE YOU to try and deny it.”

              “I don’t know what the hell you saw--”

“Don’t LIE TO ME!” she hollered, slamming her hand down on the counter. He left the bathroom and she followed. “Don’t you DARE lie to me anymore, Nathan! I can’t stand being made to feel stupid or being made a fool of by anyone, ESPECIALLY
YOU
. You want her, I saw it, EVERYbody saw it as you two danced in the middle of that damn room! Lockney High School had their ‘golden couple’ back for a night and that golden couple got carried the FUCK away.”

              “We didn’t DO anything, Sheila!” he yelled back at her.

              “But you would
have
if you could
have
, which is the POINT! I bet you want to be with her right now, don’t you? I bet you’d leave me in a heartbeat if it meant you got to be with her right now, comforting her instead of me, right?” Tears emerged hysterically and streamed down her face. “Tell me that you want to be with her right now.”

              “No.”

              “Why?” she asked. “I know it’s the truth, just tell me.”

              “I won’t do that.”

              “Too late in trying to spare my feelings.” She pressed her hands on either side of her face and shook her head in anger.

“Sheila--” he started.

“LEAVE!” She violently waved her hands in his face. “JUST GET THE HELL OUT!”

              All it took was one time saying it. He never hesitated, only dropping the ice to the floor before turning and exiting the room. There was a part of her that didn’t think he would actually go, but a much bigger, much more insecure part of her knew that he wouldn’t miss a single opportunity to be alone with Vanessa again, and she had just given him the green light.

              She flew over to the door, only to slam it shut a few times, allowing her aggravation to take over. She continued crying as she did, and finally dropped to the floor, sliding down as her hand still held on tightly to the knob.

Part Sixteen

When they arrived home, Maurice was still enraged. He slammed the limo door shut, ripped off his jacket as he walked up the stairs leading to the doorway of their home, and tried disregarding Nikki’s presence entirely, which was difficult seeing as she was right behind him everywhere he turned.

“Would you calm down?!” she asked, quietly shutting the front door behind her as they walked inside. “We still have neighbors and they don’t care about any of this, at all.”

He punched the air with his fist and kicked the closet door, leaving a small dent.

“Vanessa is gonna have a shit fit when she sees that--”

“I can’t believe I let that PUNK get the best of me tonight! After all this time and he still manages to try and kick my ass.”

“You two are the exact same height, there couldn’t have been too much kicking happening.”

He ignored her and yanked open the closet door and tossed his jacket inside, completely forgetting that it was a jacket to a suit, not one to be worn on a cool day in the city and meant for that closet.

Nikki took his jacket back out and followed him into the kitchen, where he went straight to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of previously opened vodka. He didn’t even bother with a glass, he just twisted off the cap and drank it straight from the bottle.

              Nikki watched him from the doorway and tilted her head. “That’s the answer, all right there.”

              “Shut up, Nik,” he responded in a gruff tone.

              “No, I will
not
shut up, you cerdo machista.” She threw his jacket on the counter and moved forward. “What the hell happened to you tonight? What would even make you go after Nathan like that?”

              “You remember what he did to Vanessa.”

              “Yes, I do. But it didn’t warrant you attacking him like that. Vanessa’s a big girl and can take care of herself. She doesn’t need you fighting her battles against Nathan like a giant babuino.”

              “You don’t understand.” He took another swig from the bottle.

              “I think I
do
understand. You’re in love with Vanessa, and she is never going to return those feelings – we all see it. You went after Nathan tonight because you know that she’ll always be in love with him, and you can’t go after her, so he is the next best thing. Maybe it’s finally time you superarlo.”

              “I can’t get over it,” he mumbled, picking at the foil around the rim of the bottle. “She’s everything to me.”

              “You’re not everything to her,” she replied. He looked at her with sadness filling his eyes. “I hate to break it to you like this, but she’s never going to look at you the way you look at her, or the way other women look at you. She doesn’t see you as desirable, she sees you as her best friend and that’s it.”

              “You don’t know anything, Nik. You’re screwing around with Oscar at the coffee shop while standing here trying to give me love advice.” He took another swig of vodka. Her brows crinkled. “What Vanessa and I have is special,” Maurice went on. “It always has been. Meanwhile, you’re screwing a married guy who doesn’t ever plan to leave his wife for you--”

              “How the hell do you know about me and Oscar?”

              “I overheard you and Vanessa talking. And then I remembered coming home and seeing his jacket here. I saw it on him when I visited The Bean a couple of weeks ago. He came to sign papers or something for a new building. I may have been a model,” he muttered, “but I’m not as stupid as you like to think.” He lifted the bottle to his lips again, but Nikki stepped forward, pulling it from his hand and setting it on the counter.

              “Oscar has nada to do with this conversation--”

              “He’s the one that got you pregnant, isn’t he?” he asked. She turned her eyes from his and he had his answer. “Does he know?”

              “No,” she told him. “And he’s never going to find out, because just like you said, he’s never going to leave his wife for me.”

              “Where did you go tonight?” he asked. “To see him?”

              “You noticed I was gone in between fighting with Nathan and slobbering all over Vanessa?”

              “She asked and got concerned. She went looking for you--”

              “And then the fight of the century happened, I know.” She looked to the floor and tapped her toes against it as she nibbled the inside of her cheek. “I went to see him, but…”

              “Are you done with him?”

              She lifted her head and breathed out, irritated. “Stop asking about me. You’re not interested in what’s going on in my life, you’re just trying to deflect from what happened in yours tonight, and the fact that Vanessa is never going to see you as you see her.”

              “She already does, Nik. You just haven’t been too observant.”

              “Are you sure this isn’t just all inside la cabeza?”

              “I know I’m in there somewhere,” he said. “I’m inside of her.”

              She made a face. “I think you mean you
wish
you were inside of her.”

              “I mean I am Inside of her heart. I know she’s got feelings for me. I can see it when she looks at me, there’s something there. It might not have always been there, but it’s there now.”

              “What do you plan to do to find it?”

              “I need to find her.”

              He tried moving around, but she pressed her hand against his chest, stopping him.

              “She wants to be alone, Maurice. She’ll come home when she’s ready. In the meantime, why don’t you go shower and sleep this off.”

              He jerked back and made a face. “Why are you being so pleasant?”

              “I’m not being pleasant. I’m trying to be what you accused me of NOT being before, a friend.” She twisted the cap on top of the bottle and placed it back into the fridge.

              He headed for the door, but stopped and turned to look at her once more. “How much do you think things would change between us if Vanessa and I ever hooked up for real?” he asked.

              “Us?”

              “You and me.”

              She stopped to think for a few seconds and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t think they’d be any different but I’d probably move out. If I were to ever see you in the ‘throws of passion’, Dios en el cielo, it might send me to an early grave.”

              “In that case, you should never leave.”

“Funny, Mo,” she replied.

“In all truth…” He paused to reflect for a moment. “Thank you.”

              “I didn’t do anything.”

              “You might not think so,” he said, “but you did. You did a lot.”

              He headed upstairs to take a quick shower, promising himself he’d be out before Vanessa returned home.

She, meanwhile, was sitting behind her desk at her office still holding her cheek, certain it was going to bruise within days. It wasn’t especially terrible looking at the moment, but she knew that heavy makeup would definitely be needed. But how would she keep her mother from finding out and asking questions? She remembered seeing people pulling out their phones to catch the fighting on video, but seeing as she was too preoccupied with nearly killing Sheila in front of them, ripping the phones from their hands and smashing them was the absolute last thing on her mind.

Feeling restless, she got up from her chair and moved across the room to grab a month old issue of the magazine, plopping it down on the edge of her desk and flipping pages as she stood in front of it. Being in the office late at night was the only time she felt she could be in complete solitude. None of her employees ever worked late and all calls were often forwarded to her assistant, who would later take messages and only inform her if it was dire.

In the midst of reading the magazine, she felt a quick sting of pain coming from her jaw before it went away. It was almost like a spasm, coming and going at whim. She pressed her fingers against it to see if it would return and slowly moved her jaw side to side. She was so focused on herself that she never heard Nathan come up behind. He stood in her doorway, watching as she shifted back and forth in her heels, grinning as he wondered if some things were still the same about her, while others were so exceptionally different. He waited a little longer before finally knocking on the frame of her door.

She spun around and immediately dropped her hand, almost frightened at the prospect of who was there. When she realized it was only Nathan, she wasn’t the least bit thrilled, no matter what he may have believed on his own when he arrived.

“I didn’t mean to scare you. I only wanted to make sure you were okay,” he said.

“How did you get past security?”

He turned his lips downward. “I didn’t see anyone down there. Maybe he’s on a break.”

“They’re not supposed to take breaks. That’s why they’re security.”

“He wasn’t down there,” he said. “If you want to call him, I can wait.”

She rattled her head and turned away. “It’s fine.”

“Alright… How’s your face?”

“Still intact. How’s yours?”

He steadily lifted and lowered his shoulders, and dropped his hands inside his pockets. “It’s been worse. But that’s ‘cause your boy punches like a bitch.”

“So does your girl. But I can guarantee you that you’ll feel what Maurice did to you the next day and maybe even a few after that. Because he, unlike Sheila, is
not
a bitch. And when he hits you, he means it.” She turned back to the magazine and continued flipping pages. “How the hell did you know I would be here, anyway?”

He looked aside and tugged at his collar, then removed his jacket, tossing it across her couch. “Wild guess. I remembered when you liked to be alone before, and you’d go to Alexis’ office after hours. I’d find you in there and we’d—”

“Did Sheila send you or did you come on your own this time?” she asked, purposely cutting him off. “You called Maurice a lapdog, but it seems you’re being run around the city by Sheila to try and appease me. Think that’s very wise?”