Unrivaled (21 page)

T
ommy watched Layla speed away, his hands involuntarily clenched by his sides. She was smart, shrewd, and capable of reading people in a way that often surprised him. And yet, when it came to Ira Redman and the game he'd conned them all into playing, she was like a blind man slipping behind the wheel of a Ferrari, too caught up in the power and excitement to see the danger looming ahead.

Okay, maybe
conned
was an overstatement. They'd all gone into the interview with the clear goal of landing the job, and it wasn't that Ira hadn't made good on his word. But after observing him for the last several weeks, Tommy had learned Ira Redman was no altruist. He never invested in anyone or anything without expecting a sizable return.

He was challenging Layla to keep up the dirty work—to continue writing about the more salacious events at his club without fear of repercussions, or at least not from him.

No such thing as bad publicity—and in the world of nightclubs, the more scandalous and sordid the story the better.

Of course Tommy had no way to prove his suspicions, but then he didn't have to. It was Ira Freaking Redman—always scheming, always angling—an expert when it came to maneuvering every person, every situation, in a way that served him. Just like he'd done with Tommy's mom and the child he insisted she abort. He didn't want to be tied down, so he gave the order, moved on, and never looked back.

He treated life like a giant game of chess and the rest of the players were pawns. Where the contest was concerned, they were all puppets in his twisted theater, with Ira yanking the strings. There was virtually no limit to the metaphors Tommy could use to describe the situation he'd found himself in, and yet, clear as it was to him, Layla refused to see the truth.

“Tommy? Tommy Phillips?”

Tommy ducked his head low, shoved his hands deep in his pockets, and made for his car.

“Hey, Tommy—we were wondering if you might give us a word. . . .”

If nothing else, his brief experience in the spotlight had
taught him the paps always started off more or less pleasant, like potential friends in the making just looking to connect, only to turn in an instant. Dissing Madison, hurling insults—he'd learned that the hard way on his earlier foray into Starbucks.

“Go away.” He glanced over his shoulder just in time to see a telephoto lens inches from his face. “I said fuck off!” He advanced on the guy, blocking the lens. He was over photogs, gossips, tabloids, and the rest of those bottom-feeding, low-life scumbags who made a living documenting other people's misery. Still the guy refused to give up.

“How's Madison?” he shouted. “Have you talked to her recently?”

Tommy narrowed his focus on the guy's nose, imagining how it might look smashed against his right cheek.

Deciding he might as well punch him to see whether the end result looked anything like the mental picture, he raised a fist, about to make contact, only to watch the asshole grin with the anticipation of filming the assault.

Fuck it.
Tommy shook his head.
It's not worth it.
Without a word, he turned, aware of the photog chasing behind him, shouting insinuations, insults about his hookup with Madison, while Tommy struggled to maintain his cool, reminding himself he'd be out of there soon.

Or not.

He stood beside his car, staring in disbelief at the four
flattened tires—all of them slashed.

“What the—” Tommy whirled on the pap, who was busy photographing the damage. “You responsible for this?” He rushed him, fully committed to punching him in the nose after all, when a shiny, chauffeur-driven black Cadillac SUV pulled up alongside him, and Ira lowered the window and barked, “Get in.”

Tommy shook his head. He wasn't interested in Ira. He had a trashed car and a photog inexplicably taking pictures of the damage. This was his mess to handle, and he would, if Ira would stay the hell out of his business.

“It wasn't a question.” The door sprang open.

Tommy cursed under his breath, took one last lunge at the photog, if only to scare him, then reluctantly slid onto the seat beside Ira. He listened in stunned silence as Ira gave the driver Tommy's home address, reciting it from memory, before turning to him and handing over a fat envelope stuffed with what could only be cash.

“What's this?” Tommy glanced between the envelope and Ira.

“Originally, it was my way of thanking you for a job well done. Now it looks like you should think of it as payment toward a new set of wheels.”

“You didn't have anything to do with that, did you?” Tommy turned to study Ira's profile. The words had come out before he'd had a chance to vet them, though he didn't
necessarily regret them. For one thing, he wouldn't put it past Ira. For another, Tommy was in no mood to play games. The press was on his tail, his car had been vandalized, and despite the moments they'd shared, Madison Brooks had failed to reply to a single one of his texts.

He was worried about her. Sure she came off as tough and capable, but Tommy had seen a vulnerability most people would never suspect. He needed to know she was okay. Needed to know that whatever had shocked her into running hadn't gotten the best of her, or, God forbid, harmed her. If it turned out she'd decided she'd made a mistake by kissing him and that she never wanted to see him again, he'd deal. As long as she was all right, he'd handle it. It was the only thing that mattered.

“So how's Madison?” Ira asked, ignoring Tommy's question.

Tommy dropped his gaze to the envelope. Just how much of a thank-you was this? “How should I know?” He shrugged.

Ira continued to examine him. That was exactly what it felt like, being examined under a high-powered lens. “Considering you were the last to see her, I thought you might have some insight the others are lacking?”

Tommy watched Ira's mouth twitch at the side. Was it amusement? Contempt? At the moment, he didn't much care. He just sighed and squinted out the darkly tinted
window to the sun-seared landscape beyond. Dead weeds, buckled sidewalks, sagging chain-link fences surrounding broken-down houses with peeling paint and bars covering the windows and doors. Other than a handful of manicured pockets they featured on the postcards, Tommy was surprised to discover the City of Angels mostly consisted of bleak urban sprawl.

“She's heartbroken,” Tommy finally said. He needed to say something if he had any hope of getting Ira to stop scrutinizing him, never mind that it wasn't entirely true. Strange as it was, Madison hadn't seemed the least bit heartbroken. If anything, she seemed almost reborn, released, like a person who was standing on the precipice of a bright, shiny future. Though he wasn't about to share that with Ira.

“Heartbroken, huh?” Ira's voice betrayed a hint of amusement. “Who would've guessed?”

It was Tommy's turn to scrutinize Ira. He had no idea what he was getting at, but then Ira often spoke in riddles.

“Who would've thought she was a good enough actress to fool even you?” Ira's expression remained unreadable as Tommy sat speechless beside him. He hadn't even noticed the SUV had pulled up to the curb outside his apartment, until Ira said, “This is you, right?”

Tommy nodded, unsure what to do. Of course he needed to get out of the car and into his apartment before Ira could unnerve him even more. But suddenly the envelope felt too
large and awkward in his hands. He needed the money more than ever, but nothing came from Ira without the expectation of some kind of repayment.

“Ira, I can't—” He started to return it, but Ira dismissed the gesture with a wave of his hand.

“Let's not play this game,” he said. “I'll have your car towed and arrange for a loaner until it's fixed.”

Tommy started to protest, but Ira cut in.

“This is LA, not . . . whatever small town you're from. Access to a working set of wheels is a matter of survival.”

Tommy sighed, palmed the envelope, and slid out of the car before he had a chance to reconsider.

“And, Tommy,” Ira called to him as the car pulled away. “I'm sure you'll find a way to repay me, if that's what you're worried about.”

“That's exactly what I'm worried about,” Tommy muttered, watching the SUV fade into the smog as he raced up the stairs to his shithole apartment before the paps could descend.

“M
om . . . Dad . . . you're home!” Her mouth was moving, words were spoken, but Aster's body had otherwise completely shut down. Stunned, shell-shocked, stupefied—there was no single word to adequately describe the way she felt seeing her parents appear in her room. “I thought you were still in Dubai.”

Her mother advanced, her mouth pinched with fury, eyes narrowed in scrutiny, as her father remained by the door, frozen with grief, and Nanny Mitra hovered in the background, fingering her locket and mumbling prayers of salvation under her breath.

“Where have you been?” Her mother's voice perfectly matched the stern expression she wore.

“Nowhere!” Aster closed her eyes. Damn, why had she
said that? It was the mantra of the guilty:
Nowhere—no one—nothing!
Still, her parents were the absolute last people she'd expected to see. They weren't due home for several more weeks. And yet, there they were, ambushing her in her very own room. “I mean, I was with a friend. I was with Safi—at Safi's.” She cringed when she said it. She'd become so obsessed with her new job and her flirtation with Ryan she'd mostly blown off her friends, and yet, here she was, still using them as her go-to excuse.

“We've spoken to Safi.” Her mother crossed her arms over the classic Chanel bouclé jacket Aster had once hoped to inherit. “Would you like to try again?”

Aster gulped, dropped her gaze to the floor. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. She looked like crap, smelled like boy, and her mother was totally onto her.

“And what is that you're wearing?”

Aster rubbed her lips together, squinted at her clothes—or rather, Ryan Hawthorne's clothes. “It's just, you know, the ‘borrowed from your boyfriend' look, that's all.”

Her father let out a small cry of despair and rushed down the hall as though his daughter had just died and he couldn't bear to look at the corpse. But of course Nanny Mitra stayed put. She had absolutely no qualms about hanging around the crime scene.

“And who is this boyfriend you borrowed these from?” Her mother inched closer. Close enough to catch the scent
of shame and despair surrounding her daughter.

“Mine.” Javen pushed his way into her room and stood before their mom. “I mean, clearly I'm not her boyfriend, because—
gross!
But the clothes belong to me.”

Their mother waved a hand in dismissal. “Javen, go to your room. You have nothing to do with this,” she said, but Javen stayed put.

“You're wrong. I have everything to do with this. My sister raided my closet without my permission! I'd like to see her punished for
that
.” He crossed his arms in defiance and arranged his face into the kind of angry expression he was unused to wearing.

It was a good attempt, and Aster loved him more in that moment than she probably ever had, but she wouldn't let him take the fall. Not like their mother was buying it. With a nod to Nanny Mitra, Javen was hauled out of the room by his arm, shouting in protest the whole way.

Too ashamed to face her mother, Aster stared down at her feet and studied her pedicure, sickened by the sight of the dark-red polish she'd chosen with the sole hope of gaining Ryan's approval. If she confided the truth that she didn't exactly have a boyfriend, but that for a few false moments she'd allowed herself to believe that she had, only to discover she'd been deflowered and discarded without a second glance—well, it was everything her mother had ever warned her about come true, in the most awful, most
dramatic, most public way possible.

“There's no boyfriend,” she whispered, eyes burning with tears.

“Then where did you get these clothes if there is no boyfriend to
borrow
them from?”

“Doesn't matter.” She shook her head, wondering how it was possible for the night that had started so perfectly to end in such a nightmare.

“On the contrary.” Her mother's voice rang as sharp as the verdict she would surely deliver. “You snuck out of the house, only to arrive home early in the morning wearing the clothes of a boy who isn't your boyfriend. I say it matters a great deal.”

Aster forced herself to keep standing, keep breathing, but did nothing to stop the flow of tears that streamed down her face. She'd shamed herself, shamed her family. The only thing left was to wait for whatever punishment her mother deemed appropriate for the offense.

“All of which begs the question: If you're wearing his clothes, what happened to yours?”

Aster thought about the dress and undergarments she'd left in the trash. Stuff her mother had never seen and luckily never would—her one smart move in a long list of regrets.

“Does it matter?” She lifted her chin, her vision blurred by tears, as her mother stood stiff-backed before her. “Do you really give a shit about the current state of my clothes?”

Her mother's gaze hardened, as Aster awaited final judgment. Among her many crimes, she'd used foul language and spent the night with a boy who wasn't her boyfriend—a boy she would never marry—the ruling would undoubtedly be harsh.

“You're grounded until further notice.”

Aster exhaled. She'd honestly thought she might be packed off to a brutal reform school for wayward girls, or excommunicated from the family. In the scheme of things, grounded wasn't so bad.

“You will not leave this house for any reason whatsoever outside of an emergency.”

She nodded. That would certainly keep her out of the contest, but Ira Redman's competition no longer made the list of things she cared about. Besides, she didn't want to leave the house, possibly ever again.

“Okay.” Her shoulders slumped in defeat as she headed for the shower, only to hear her mom call out from behind.

“You've disrespected yourself and brought great shame on this family. This is not something your father will recover from anytime soon.”

Aster stopped, knowing she shouldn't say it, but she'd already fallen so far she figured she had nothing to lose. “And what about you?” She turned to face her mother. “How soon will you recover?”

She held her mother's gaze, the seconds seeming to
multiply before her mother shook her regal head, lifted a finger toward the bathroom, and said, “Go clean yourself up, Aster. Your father and I have had a very long trip. We are tired and in need of rest.”

Without another word, she turned on her Ferragamo heels and closed the door behind her. Leaving Aster to stare after them, knowing she'd disappointed her family in a way
she
might never recover from.