Hollywood Sinners (30 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

L
ana lay back on her bed at the Orient, staring up at the ornately decorated ceiling. The past two weeks had been bliss.

Since she’d arrived in Vegas she’d felt anonymous, uninhibited, but most of all free, which was ironic given her circumstances. She’d had to stay largely in her rooms, so had found time to be quiet; to read, to watch old movies—even to attempt a letter to Arlene. It was difficult. She hadn’t known where to begin, or how to account for her years of silence. Finding it near impossible to put it all into words, she’d suggested a meeting, maybe after the baby was born. It seemed important to explain in person everything that had happened, right from that day when they had taken her away. But then, partway through, she’d realised she didn’t even know if Arlene was still alive. With all her heart she prayed she still had the chance to make things right.

She checked the time. Eleven o’clock. Robert would be coming for her any minute. He’d been so generous—never had she encountered such a busy man, and yet he was unconditionally there for her. He’d visited her daily, sometimes just for minutes at a time depending on his schedule, and they’d caught up on the lost years. It was beyond the call of duty. She wanted him as fiercely as she ever had, but had been strict with herself—she was in enough of a mess already. Besides, Robert belonged to Elisabeth. He was in love with her, and she with him.

She hoped his company would restore her faith in men.

Lana cringed when she recalled the disastrous conversation she’d had with Parker Troy the morning after Rita had left. The first few attempts he hadn’t picked up. Then, on the fourth:

‘You’re
what
?’ Parker had shrieked, all high-pitched.

‘I’m pregnant,’ she’d repeated calmly. ‘And you’re the father.’

A long silence before he said in a sunken voice, ‘You can’t be. I mean… How?’

‘Well, funnily enough, it went like this…’ Lana had lost patience. They’d both been irresponsible, not just her. Where did he think she’d been the past three months, out shopping for baby clothes with her girlfriends?

‘Does Cole know?’ he’d asked meekly, sounding like someone about to shit themselves.

‘Yes.’

‘And he knows it’s me? Fuck. Does he know it’s me? I mean, do you think he—?’

‘No, he doesn’t know it’s you.’

‘Good, OK. And it’s gonna stay that way, right?’ The relief was audible. ‘There’s no way he can find out—I’d be a dead man.’

Lana couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘I’m OK, thanks, Parker. You know, in case that figures anywhere on your list of priorities.’

‘Of course it does,’ he’d clarified swiftly. ‘But listen, Lana, I gotta tell you—I’m not ready to be a father.’

Lana baulked. ‘Oh, that’s funny. I’m not ready to be a mom either. It’s going to take some getting used to, huh?’

A pause. ‘You’re not considering
having
it, are you?’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I just assumed—’

‘Then don’t,’ she cut in. ‘I
am
having this baby, with or without you, Parker. I’d like you to be involved for the sake of the child, so maybe you could—’

‘But what if I’m not it?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘What if I’m not the father? There’s that chance, right?’

‘Fuck you, Parker.’ She’d fought the urge to hang up. ‘Fuck you.’

‘I’m just saying—’

‘Don’t
just say
anything, you asshole.’

‘Look, I’ve got a career, Lana. I’m just starting out. You—you’ve kind of made it, right? You’ve done what you wanted so, like, I guess it’s the right time for you to have this kid. Y-you know,’ he stammered, ‘if you want it. But for me, well, it’s not. And you know,’ he tacked on hastily, as if it made the damnedest bit of difference, ‘I’ve got a girlfriend. I really think I should be left out of it, totally, so, like, it’s nothing to do with me.’

When Lana had been sure he’d finished, she’d laughed. ‘God, you really are just a kid, aren’t you? And there I was crediting you with more than two brain cells. Turns out you’re just a juvenile prick after all.’

‘It’s not
my
fault,’ he’d whined. ‘You know what I think you should do. And if you don’t agree, why should
I
have to face the consequences?’

She could scarcely get to grips with his immaturity. ‘You may be heartless, Parker,’ she’d said eventually. ‘You may also be a shitty actor and a selfish sonofabitch, but do you know what I never thought you were?’

Silence. Then a grudging, ‘What?’

‘A coward.’

After they’d hung up she’d resisted breaking something. But, then, while she’d hoped for a little more support, she hadn’t counted on it. Parker’s baby was inside her yet she didn’t know its father at all.

Robert sent up a call, bringing her back to the here and now. They arranged to meet downstairs and the prospect filled her with nervy excitement, the kind she’d felt back at school; the kind that made it difficult to eat.

He was waiting for her in the foyer, handsome in a dark suit.

‘Want to spend some money?’ he smiled.

‘I don’t gamble,’ she said coyly.

‘Everybody gambles in Vegas. It’s the rules.’

She smiled. ‘In that case, I guess you’d better show me how it’s done.’

Lana had never hit a Vegas casino before. She found it disorientating, the bright lights and the high-strung buzz, the way glamour and sleaze operated side by side. It worked to a rhythm that got to your blood, chronic and unremitting.

‘Does this ever stop?’ she asked as they moved among the tables. Robert stopped to glad-hand a couple of high rollers, important looking men with pink-hung cheeks and runny eyes.

He turned to her and grinned. ‘Not on my watch.’

Lana noticed the effect Robert had on his staff. News of the boss’s presence spread like a virus through the casino, with everyone working to a hundred and ten per cent. They wanted to do a good job for him because they liked him, she realised—but they were also a tiny bit afraid of him. It was respect. Something Cole had spent his life trying to master but he had perfected only intimidation.

At the roulette wheel Robert slipped into a game and told her to pick a number.

‘Er…I don’t know what to do.’

‘Black or red?’

‘Red!’

The ball dropped in. ‘No more bets!’

They got lucky. Lana went in again, then a third time. People were watching but she didn’t care. She was laughing, getting into the swing of it, happy with Robert at her side.

He put a hand on her arm. ‘Time out,’ he said, giving the dealer a wink as they departed the table. ‘Fortunes change.’

Afterwards they took a seat in the bar. It was innovatively themed, its side tables embroidered with a
trompe l’oeil
poker hand and each chair stamped with a suit. Lana was reminded of
Alice in Wonderland
. She might well have disappeared down the rabbit hole for how it all felt.

Robert ordered them drinks.

‘I’m glad you came,’ he told her, sitting back and looking at her. His gaze burned.

‘It was fun. Never knew I had a gambler in me.’

‘I mean that you came at all. Here.’

Lana looked away nervously. Outside was the Orient’s Dragon Garden, its verdant lawns and stone fountains glinting in the sun.

‘I didn’t think I’d see you again,’ he said quietly.

Lana nodded.

Robert took her hand. ‘I don’t want that to happen any more. I never want to not know how you are, where you are. If you’re happy. Do you understand?’

‘Robert, I—’

‘I mean it,’ he said firmly. ‘No more running. You’re too important to me.’

She drew her hand away.

‘I shouldn’t have said that.’

Lana shook her head. ‘I’m glad you did.’ She paused. ‘I want us to be friends.’

His voice was hollow. ‘Of course.’

‘Rita called this morning.’ She sipped from her glass.

‘And?’

‘Conversations are happening. Cole’s got a great lawyer on board but Rita doesn’t seem worried.’

‘She’s a remarkable woman.’

‘She is.’

Lana looked at him. ‘It’s safe for me to go back. I’ll leave at the weekend.’

He nodded, had been expecting it. ‘How do you feel?’

‘Scared. But I have to do it. I have to face the consequences of what I’ve done.’

There was an awkward silence.

‘I don’t want you to go,’ he said. It was a statement, entirely unsentimental.

Lana was honest. ‘Neither do I.’

‘Then don’t.’

She searched his eyes. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Stay here.’

‘Why?’

His gaze was serious, the look she had loved so long. ‘Because I want you to.’

In that instant, the world changed.

‘Lana, there’s something I have to say.’ He watched her solemnly. ‘I don’t want to marry Elisabeth. I thought I did, but I don’t. I convinced myself it was the right thing but it’s not. Please, don’t interrupt, let me just do this.’ He leaned forward. ‘All I can think about is you. Only you, always you. Since you walked away from us, not a day, not an hour, not a single minute has gone past when I haven’t thought about you.’ A pause. ‘I’m yours. You have me, you always did and you always will.’

She realised she’d been holding her breath. ‘Robert…’

‘I haven’t finished. I love Elisabeth. I do. But not in the way I love you. The way I love you is different, I can’t explain it, like it’s a different part of me I’m loving you with, and that part can’t ever belong to somebody else.’ His voice shook. ‘I don’t care how long I have to wait, how much I have to face, what it means for any of this...’ he gestured around him ‘...but I’m not getting over you again.’ He bowed his head. A frown furrowed his brow. ‘I can’t marry her.’

Lana’s heart was thumping. ‘Did you just say all that?’ she whispered.

‘I’ll say it again.’

The fire that had been dead in her caught light. ‘You don’t need to,’ she said. ‘I can remember it.’

He took her hand again, not caring who saw. ‘Say it could work.’

‘We’d hurt people.’

‘Not in the long term.’

‘It’s impossible.’

He laughed, looked about him, then at her. ‘Anything’s possible.’

She laughed with him. ‘It’s crazy.’

‘The only things worth it are.’

Lana shook her head, squeezed his hand. ‘Robbie Lewis, what have you done to me?’

He smiled. ‘Not nearly enough.’

She smiled back.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

Los Angeles

‘I
am
not
terminating this marriage contract.’

Cole Steel banged his fist on his lawyer’s table, sending a brown puddle of coffee spilling over the rim of his cup.

In his downtown office, Randy H. Ford shuffled a bundle of papers on his desk. He was a sharp-featured man with abundant grey hair and half-moon glasses that perched on the end of his nose. In the business for over thirty years, Randy was one of the best lawyers that money could buy.

He looked between Cole and Marty King, unperturbed. ‘It’s what Rachel Manelli is pushing for, I’m afraid. We need to consider all avenues open to us.’

Cole shook his head in disbelief. ‘It defies belief that Lana’s doing this to me!’ He turned to Marty. ‘
She’s
the one who messed this whole goddamn thing up!’

Randy leaned forward. He removed his glasses and pinched the thin bridge of his nose. ‘As your lawyer I do need to acknowledge that a dissolution would be in our best interests.’

‘How?’ Cole spat. ‘By making me the gullible fucking chump? I don’t think so.’ He laughed mirthlessly. ‘I begin shooting in a few weeks, then what? The movie’s scheduled for release in the same month as some bastard offspring?’

Jesus, he felt awful—and, judging by Marty’s poorly concealed reaction when they’d met earlier this afternoon, he looked it too. Sleep had eluded him since Lana had vanished, along with his appetite.

Oh, he knew where she was hiding. She’d only gone and run off to Vegas, thinking she could get a free deal from that hotelier he’d introduced her to. Rita Clay had been to see him on her return: she’d said that Lana would come back, but that she needed time. Time? What a fucking joke. She hadn’t taken time to think about her husband in any of this, had she? Rita had also assured him that if he tried to seek her out they would go straight to the papers and tell them everything. Apparently Lana was willing to risk it—the bitch knew how to hit him where it hurt.

‘It will end on our terms.’ Randy poured himself a glass of water. ‘For me, this makes it an attractive proposition. Think carefully, Cole. Your wife is pregnant and unwilling to maintain that the child is yours. If the contract is dissolved we can mitigate damage caused to you. That is my primary concern.’

‘Well,
my
primary concern is how in the hell it’s going to make me
look
!’ Cole jabbed his chest with a finger. Marty reached out to calm him and Cole slapped his hand away.

‘Exactly my point,’ said Randy evenly. ‘Your wife has stated that she wishes to continue with the pregnancy, meaning that she
will
give birth to a third party’s child with or without your consent. The option given to us is to take control of the story that emerges—up to a point agreed with the other side, of course. If we fight for the contract we will still face the same outcome, only it will look decidedly worse from where you’re standing.’

Cole had never felt so impotent.

‘I always treated her well,’ he lamented, looking at Marty for reassurance. His agent, sensing he was up, nodded obediently. ‘I never hurt her; I gave her everything she wanted…’
Except what she went out and got.

His eyes hardened. ‘I want this baby to be mine,’ he told Randy.

‘It won’t happen. They’ll never agree.’

‘We’re still in contract!’ said Cole hysterically. ‘There has to be
something
in there that entitles me to have a say in this. Here, give me that.’ He snatched the papers.

‘I’m afraid not,’ said Randy. ‘Nothing that covers your wife getting pregnant by a third party.’

‘Can you stop freaking
saying
that?’

Randy sat back, watching Cole flip through the contract like a man possessed. When he’d finished he looked at Marty accusingly. ‘Great.’

‘We’ll talk in the morning,’ said Randy. ‘Once I know the facts we can start building this case. You’ll be frank with me about everything.’

Marty winced. Cole would love that.

‘I’ll talk her round,’ said Cole suddenly, as if a great idea had just dawned on him. ‘When she comes back.’ He looked between the two men. ‘She has to come back, doesn’t she? We’re still maintaining this, right? She’ll listen to me. If I can just get through to her—’

Randy shook his head. ‘We should avoid discussing this directly—’

‘She can’t really want to go it alone,’ Cole went on, his plan gathering pace. ‘What woman does?’

The other men looked unconvinced.

‘Come on, Cole,’ said Marty eventually, standing up. He shook Randy’s hand.

Cole stayed seated. ‘It’s like you’re both giving up. How am I supposed to work with that?’

‘This is bigger than us, Cole,’ said Marty gently. ‘Especially now that a third party is involved.’

‘
Stop with this third party goddamn bullshit!
’ Cole roared. ‘Soon as I find that jackass I’ll—’

Marty stepped in. ‘Cole…’

His client rose from the chair. Even in built-up heels Cole was the shortest man there. His voice was menacing. ‘We
invented
this. So tell me—how the hell can it be bigger than us?’

Randy and Marty exchanged glances.

‘
Nothing
is bigger than me,’ announced Cole, pushing himself up on his toes. ‘
Nothing
and
no one
. They want a fight? Fine. But I’m telling you now, they’ve picked the wrong freaking guy.’