My Sunshine (22 page)

“Mine, too.” He hugged her tighter. “You know,
Tyler and Christine and Mike and Dennis and Josh and all them always talk about how much they love Christmas. I never really felt that way. I’ve always sort of dreaded it. Ever since high school and

I didn’t live at home, I hated going back there. My family isn’t
a family. That’s why those other guys love Christmas. They love being with their families. I want that.”

Chloe
relaxed against him. “When I first met you, you said you didn’t want that now.”

He shrugged his shoulders slightly. “I changed. I’m such a
different person than I was then. Chloe, you won’t believe how far I’ve come since I met you. I’m ashamed to even think about who I was before and the things I did.”

“It’s not because of me, though,
John. You know who’s responsible for changing you.”

He nodded. “I know. It’s God. I can feel Him working on
me, but if it hadn’t been for you, I would have never changed. I would have never given Him the chance.”

Chloe
shook her head. “Please don’t give me the credit for this, John. I don’t deserve it.” She lowered her voice.

“Sometimes I wonder if I’m even good enough for you at all.”

Of course you're not. You're both bad. You know he hasn’t changed. No one really changes. You didn’t really change. You’re still a whore.

They stayed in Vegas until they had to be in New York City on New Year’s Eve. Two days later, Chloe was back at work, and John was sitting at the kitchen table watching Mrs.

Potts clean the oven and listening to her stories about her family.
His cell phone rang.

“Hello?”

“John, it’s Carl. The production has been moved up on the video fo
r
Anything You Wan
t
.”

“To when? Why?”

“Monica wanted to move it. Who knows why? You know how she is, always changing her mind.”

“Yeah, I know.”
Monica Williams was notorious for flying by the seat of her pants, most of the time leaving disaster in her wake. “So when?”

“You start shooting next Monday. There is going to be a
production meeting Sunday night, so you’ll have to be in LA by then. I don’t know when it will be done, but I would imagine you should be back home by Wednesday.”

John
sighed. “Okay. Oh, and Carl, remind me never to work with her again.”

“Anything you say,
John,” Carl agreed. John knew it was a lie. Carl was paid well to make his clients happy, but if their working together would make him more money, he would do everything in his power to make sure it happened.

John
clicked off the call and dialed Chloe’s work number.

“Hello,
Chloe Boston.”

John
smiled into the phone. “Hello, Chloe Boston.”

“Hello, Martin
Bernett. What can I help you with?”

“I’ve got some bad news. We’ll not bad, just a change in
my schedule.”

“What is it?” This would be the first time in her relationship
with John that his scheduled had changed on the spur of the moment. From her conversations with the Christine, Jane, Dana, and Shannon, she knew that she had been lucky.

“I have to fly to LA Sunday afternoon. The production of
that music video starts Monday morning. Can you go?”

“Oh, okay. That’s not bad. We didn’t have anything

planned. It’ll be good to go ahead and get it out of the way.

When are we going to be back?”

“Carl said by Wednesday.”

“This will be fun,”
Chloe said. “I’ve never really seen you working.”

“What are you talking about? You’ve been to the studio.”

“That’s just you standing around with headphones and singing. I want to see you do something.”

John
laughed. “Well, that’s about as good as it gets,” he said. “I’m a singer.”

“And a dancer, and I’ve never see you do that, other than
what you do around the house. I want to see something choreographed.”

“Well, I’m not sure if this video will be or not, for me

anyway. I’m sure Monicawill do some dancing.”

“Well, it will be fun, nonetheless.” Mr. Briggs stuck his
head into Chloe’s door. “I gotta go. Love you.”

“I love you, too. I’ll see you when you get home.”

Chloe hung up the phone. “Come in, Mr. Briggs.”

Her boss came into her office. “Hey
Chloe.” He handed her some papers. “There’s going to be a three-day training workshop for the new software next week. Everyone who has been here less than a year is required to go.”

Chloe
glanced at the paperwork. The workshop was Monday through Wednesday, the same days she was supposed to be gone with John. “Oh, man.”

“Is there a problem?”

Chloe shook her head. “No, just…nothing. Thanks.”

She waited f
or Mr. Briggs to leave the office before tossing the papers onto her desk and muttered an expletive.

Now you can’t go with
John and you can’t watch him with Monica Williams. You’ve heard that song, Chloe, you know what the video is going to have to be like. He’ll probably get him real excited and who do you think he will turn to?

“Not her,”
Chloe argued. “He would never do that to me.”

Do you know that for sure,
Chloe?

She shook her head. “No.”

You know he’s slept with her. You saw the pictures of them together. People like John just don’t have friends like he
r
.

“I don’t know that he has,”
Chloe said, but she knew deep in her heart he had.

She clicked an icon on her computer desktop and opened up
the Internet browser. She used a search engine to find several pictures of John and Monica together. She focused on one of them together on the red carpet at some awards show. She couldn’t stand the way she held his hand in both of hers and the way she leaned her body into his. His free hand was wrapped around her waist and rested low on her hip. It was obvious that they were very comfortable and familiar with each other’s bodies.

“So what if he has,” she mumbled. “That was a long time
before he met me.”

Whatever you say.

She closed the browser window and picked up the phone, using the speed dial to reach John on his cell phone. “I’ve got bad news,” she said when he answered.

“What’s wrong?”

“I can’t go with you. Mr. Briggs just told me that I have to go to some training workshop that same week. I can’t believe it.”

“Quit your job,
Chloe. Come with me. You don’t need that stinking job anyway.”

“I do, though,” she argued. “I like making my own way
and having my independence.”

“I understand that. I do. But my schedule is going to get
real busy this spring, then a tour…I want you to be able to go with me to all that. Just quit your job.”

“I don’t know,
John.”

“What’s there not to know?”

She sighed. Her phone beeped, signaling that she had another call holding. “I’ve got to go. We’ll talk about this when I get home.” She answered the other line. “Hello?”

“Hello,
Chloe.” Her mother’s voice sounded cold and hard.

“Why are you calling me?”

“I need that money,” she said. “I know you’re good for it. I know who you’re living with.”

“How do you know that?”
Chloe asked. Her hand was shaking and she gripped the receiver tighter.

“I saw you with him. How did you manage to snag
someone like him? Does he know you’re insane?”

“I am not insane.”

Cassandra laughed. “Oh, but you are little girl. Maybe he does know, but the media doesn’t. The press would have a field day with this information.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying that I’m coming to your office this afternoon at four o’clock and you’re going to give me ten thousand dollars in cash, and you’re going to make this debt to the hospital disappear. If you’re not there, or you don’t give me the money, then I’m going to the tabloids with the information that you are schizo.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Oh, yeah I can. I’ll see you at four o’clock.”

Chloe
slammed down the phone furious and confused.

She knew she needed to tell
John the truth about her illness. If her mother told him, at least he would know, but to blab it to the media was another story altogether. That would do more damage to his reputation than hers. She was nobody. She didn’t even have a reputation. Sure, she had been seen around town with him, and the paparazzi had taken some pictures that had ended up on the Internet, but no one knew much about her.

She played over her options in her head and imagined the
consequences of each. It all played out the same, though. If John found out, her relationship with him would be over. Her only option, the only one that gave her even a slim chance of keeping her secret, was giving her mother the money. She pulled her pocketbook from her bottom desk drawer and took a credit card out of her wallet. It had a three thousand dollar credit limit and she was saving it for emergencies. This seemed like an emergency to her. She opened her mother’s account on her computer. She knew a few tricks that would eliminate some of the late charges and fees. Once she had reduced the amount as much as she could, she entered her own credit card number and paid off the balance.

She rubbed her chin. That was taken care of, but getting the
ten thousand in cash was going to be a bigger problem. She had the money; part of the sales of Duke’s car padded her account nicely. It was just a matter of getting it in cash. Her savings was stored in her bank in Canton. She looked through her wallet once more. A flicker of silver caught her eye. She pulled the card out. It was a Visa Card that John had given her to take shopping during their Christmas trip.

I can’t steal from him.

What choice do you have?

Chloe
tapped the card on her desk
.
I have no choic
e
.

With a few clicks of her mouse and
John’s credit card number, she wired $10,000 against John’s credit card to her checking account. She checked the clock. It was just past eleven in the morning. She would be able to retrieve her money on her lunch break.

Her hands shook as she approached the bank teller. “Can I help you?” The teller asked in a friendly voice.

Chloe
nodded. “I had some money wired into my account this morning. I need to withdraw it please.”

The teller handed
Chloe a form. She gripped a pen with trembling fingers and wrote her name and account number in the appropriate places before giving the slip of paper back to the teller.