The Stars Trilogy (77 page)

THEY WERE THE ‘IT’ COUPLE at the Cannes. Now, it was all gone in a flash.

The moment the Bombardier landed at LAX, Celine couldn’t wait to disembark.

If she stayed in that plane for a minute longer, she would disintegrate. She was holding on to a very tiny thread of sanity.

“Kels, I want to go straight to my place. Can we ride in a separate car?” she asked her manager politely.

“Of course, my dear,” Kelsey replied, sadness evident in her eyes. Somehow, she knew that Kelsey had pieced together what really transpired in the plane’s cabin.

“Please, I can’t handle the paparazzi—”

“I know. They can’t come near you.”

“Thank you.”

There were two limos waiting for them. Dare rode one with Cruz and several men. She and Kelsey rode the other with Carlos and one bodyguard.

She didn’t exchange any more word with Dare after their last emotional but very brief encounter in the plane. He didn’t even give her a single glance when she boarded the limo. It was as if she no longer existed to him.

Kelsey wordlessly took her hand when the limo rolled out of the airport. It was a silent gesture of comfort and she appreciated that.

When she arrived at her place, Kelsey finally asked her. “Do you want me to stay with you tonight?”

She shook her head. “No. I’ll be fine. But thank you for offering, Kels.”

“Are you sure, my dear?” Kelsey’s eyes were full of sympathy.

She managed a smile to reassure her. “Yes, I’m sure. I’ll be fine. I’ll see you soon.”

They hugged each other.

“Thank you so much Kels, for everything. I love you.”

“I love you, too, my dear.”

“I want this son of a bitch! What the fuck are you doing?! Can’t you subpoena him for questioning?!”

Dare was restless as hell. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat and he had to face a bunch of Feds frying his ass with questions about that bastard Uly and his evil plans to eliminate him so that he can control Sphinx Energy. He wanted to drive straight to Uly and confront him but Cruz dissuaded him. Of course, it was a stupid idea. But he was getting sick of the threats to his life. He felt like driving over a cliff anyway.

“If we do that, he’d abort his plan,” Agent Clifford Worthington said, the lead investigator of the case.

“What about Delano?” he demanded.

“He left France the day you left,” Cruz supplied.

He cursed. “Can’t you get him off my back?”

“No. We don’t have a case on him yet.”

He cursed again. “So, until we caught these sons of bitches in the act of killing me, we’ve got nothing on them?”

“No,” said Cruz.

He paced the length of the den repeatedly, deep in thought. He stopped and looked at the men. “Then we trap them,” he declared, coming to a decision.

“Dare—” Cruz interjected.

He cut his bodyguard. It was time he took charge, dammit! They were all pussyfooting on this! “That’s the only way we can catch them in the act. We set a trap. Bait them to act on their plans.”

Worthington nodded in approval. “I was meaning to suggest that—”

“Out of the question!” Cruz protested adamantly in a rare display of temper. “It’s too dangerous!”

He addressed his bodyguard seriously. “I can’t sit here waiting every fucking hour for a bullet to hit me. I can’t function like that. We set the trap. Work on it. Make the plan. Call me when you’re ready. I am ready.”

He exited the room.

He received a call from Carlos.

Dare clenched his jaw. He didn’t want to hear from Carlos. He still needed to sort out his thoughts about the younger man. Though his suspicions had not sufficient merit, he still couldn’t find the answer to Celine’s sudden condition. If it wasn’t Carlos, there must be someone else. But if it was Carlos...

God, he would become a murderer for real.

Gripping the phone hard, he took the call. “Yeah?”

“I’m about to drive her to the LAX,” Carlos reported in a rush.

“What do you mean?”

“Celine. She just came down from the house, called me and asked me to drive her to the LAX. I asked her where she’s going. She’s not telling.”

Dare was silent, digesting the info with a rising panic and a wrenching pain in his gut. He couldn’t help it. He was losing grip of everything in his personal life right now and he didn’t know how to deal with it.

“Dare, she’s here. I gotta go. What shall I do?”

“Bring a back up to tail you. Just drive to the airport. Slowly.”

He hung up and went back to the den and gestured for Cruz to join him.

They walked outside the house.

“Carlos is driving her to the airport. Find out where she’s going.”

Cruz nodded and was gone to do his bidding.

He sighed harshly.

She was leaving.

As sure as his next breath, he knew she was leaving him. For good. Maybe she was going with the other  guy, whoever he was. It wasn’t Carlos, he knew it now. Surely, Carlos won’t call him to inform him of Celine’s activities if they were leaving together? Then who was she leaving with? Was it Rocky? The questions flooded his brain until it became a pounding headache. The urge to ask Cruz to find out about the other man in Celine’s life was overwhelming and devastating all over again. But he will not subject himself to such humiliation. No, he couldn’t take that.

She was nothing to him now. Nothing!

His breathing escalated until he felt like choking with it. He grabbed a chair and smashed it on the granite floor repeatedly. He had to release this violent emotions inside of him! He had to stop feeling! He had to let it go! Let her go, let her go, let her go!

Throwing the mangled chair aside, he grabbed another one.

“Dare!”

He stopped, looked around and found Cruz staring at him, aghast, the five Feds behind him. He was

instantly embarrassed.“My apologies, gentlemen.”

The Feds went back to the den.

“New York. She’s heading for New York, “ Cruz informed him grimly.

He called Carlos and the younger man answered right away. “Don’t leave the airport until you’re sure she has boarded the plane, is that clear?”

“Gotcha,” Carlos replied.

He cut the call and faced Cruz. “What will she do in New York?”

“I don’t know but she has a relative there named Shavonne Lavega. Her first cousin actually. They’re very close.”

“You seem to know a lot about her,” he sneered at his bodyguard. Maybe Cruz knew who knocked Celine up? Maybe it was Cruz himself?

Fuck, he was totally fucked up with his thoughts. If there was one person who won’t betray him, it was Cruz. The man had more honor than him.

“After the crash, knowing you two were involved, I did an extensive background check on her, Dare.”

“Extensive? What do you mean?”

“I know practically everything there is to know about her now. Well, the things that matter and would directly affect you, at least.”

“Everything? Does she have a boyfriend?” he blurted out, unable to help himself. The thought was simply killing him every damn minute that passed.

“She does. You.”

He lost the battle with his self-preservation. He had to know. “I mean, aside from me.”

“After the crash, none that I know of. Before the crash, zero.”

“Zero?!` How is that possible? She’s a beautiful woman!”

“Sure. But she had eyes only for you.”

“Me?” he repeated, not quite following Cruz.

Cruz sighed. “You gotta see this.”

Dare stared in amazement at the Daredevils Philippines website flashing from Cruz’ laptop screen.

The club history stated that Anette Vega, the self-proclaimed ultimate No. 1 fan of Dare Montgomery founded the Daredevils Philippines club about eight years ago when she was eighteen years old but she had been a fan longer than that. At age thirteen, she was already his fan.

Celine slightly concealed her identity for whatever reason, but there was no mistaking her for who she was. There were pictures of her during the club’s gatherings. She’d organized charity events in his name and single-handedly kept his fan clubs alive in the Philippines and South East Asia.

“Take a look at this.” Cruz put a box on the table full of unopened mails.

Puzzled, he picked up one mail. His heart practically skipped a beat when he saw the sender.

“This letter was sent five years ago. How...?” He looked at Cruz in confusion.

“Kelsey put all your old fan mails in a storage van. I had some guy sort it out. I don’t know, I got curious if she was for real, you know, your ultimate no.1 fan since she was a teenager, especially when I noticed how drawn you were to her. I had to know, to protect you if she turned out to be a fraud.”

He had difficulty breathing. He swallowed to relieve the sudden lump in his throat. “Is she...a fraud?”

“You decide.”

Cruz left him.

Dare read her letters randomly. He felt short of breath every time he’d open a mail and see Celine’s handwriting. Her letters were always written on candy-smelling stationery with colorful designs. Her cursive penmanship varied through the years as she became older but her voice which he could hear from her vivid way of  expression remained sunny, happy and always encouraging, even when she was chastising him for being such a playboy. He found himself chuckling at some point. She had such a saucy mouth, even as a teenager.

One particular letter arrested him, made him weak all over. He read the words aloud, to convince himself that they were really hers.

“What is hurting you, my love? Tell me. I want to help you. Make you feel better. Make you feel good again. I want to make you happy. Tell me...”

A hand seemed to squeeze his heart at the very familiar words from his dreams.
What the...? How...? What coincidence is this?

He paused from reading when his phone rang.

He took the call. “Kels...”

“Did Celine call you?”

“No.”

“Carlos took her to the LAX this morning. She called me on her way there. She’s flying to New York. She can’t tell me when she’s coming back to LA.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re not doing anything about it?”

He sighed deeply, unprepared to deal with such questions. He had trouble dealing with Celine’s letters as it was. He needed time to sort things out. “What can I do, Kels? It’s her decision.”

“My God, Dare, are you such a fool that you can’t see an extraordinary thing even when it hits you in the face?!”

“Kelsey, don’t—”

“Don’t use that tone on me, you stubborn fool! If you let her go, you’ll lose the best thing that ever happened to you!”

He didn’t answer.

“Dare?”

“I have to go. We’ll talk when you come over. Please, come over, Kels.”

“Wait, Dare!”

He hung up.

Cruz appeared on the door again. “Plan’s been made.”

“I’ll be there shortly.”

He reluctantly put Celine’s letters back in the box. He’ll continue reading them later.

Celine was glad there was a vacant seat at this very early flight on such short notice. The moment she arrived yesterday, she booked a flight for NYC online.

She finally got a call from her relatives last night. First from Shavonne, then from her parents. Then there was a barrage of calls afterward. They came like a great flood from cousins, aunts, uncles and close friends.

She even got a call from AZN network’s news and entertainment department, trying to confirm the rumors that she was having a relationship with Dare and that she was with him in France. She tried to dodge all the questions as politely as she could and kept all conversations short. Her brother was especially peeved about it and threatened to come get her himself if she didn’t come home ASAP. Well, he wouldn’t need to do that, because she was coming home without resistance.

While the whole world was still reeling in shock at her very public display of affection with Dare at the Cannes, she was reeling in utter despair at their very abrupt break up.

Until now, she still hadn’t come to grips with what happened. But this was proof of the Hollywood adage, that nothing good could ever last in the celluloid world. The ones that had lasted longer were the ugliest, dirtiest, most salacious scandals that made up its profit-generating machines.

Shavonne didn’t know she was arriving. She made the decision after she shut off her phone last night so she won’t receive any more calls. She had to leave LA immediately or she would go crazy. As far away from him as possible, the better.

She couldn’t stand to breathe the same air he was breathing. She couldn’t take seeing the familiar things and people connected to him in any way. He had been the center and focus of her very existence for almost two decades of her life and now, she didn’t want to hear, see, smell and feel anything related to Dare Montgomery.

She wanted to be numb of it all. She wanted to forget him, erase him from her memories.

For good.

The briefing had been going on for close to an hour when Carlos knocked on the door.

Dare received a small envelope from him. There was nothing written on the envelope but he knew it was from Celine.

He excused himself from the Feds and Cruz and went to his room. He walked outside, to the terrace and paced the expanse of the slate-laden floor, holding the envelope.

He felt something inside it. It contained more than a letter. He was afraid to open it. He didn’t want to read her feelings today.

What more did she want to say to him? More professions of love?

The very love that she trampled on? He had so very little space left in him for love. He’d left that place empty for so long, denying himself, not believing that it can be filled ever again. She did fill it up good, occupying every single cavity of emptiness in his lonely soul, pouring vibrant energy and life into it.

She used up the last precious space in his heart. And when she left, she took everything with her, too. Everything.

He was nothing now.

He dragged more air deep into his lungs and finally ripped the side of the envelope. He pulled a folded paper from the inside. An object fell out. It made a small sound — a metal hitting the hard floor.