Rage (16 page)

her and made her real.

She’d left the studio that day and wandered the streets in a

daze, snapping pictures and battling tears. Though she struggled to lock it away in a vault, an image started to form in her mind: a little girl with Philip’s fair hair, Steph’s pale skin, and blue green 99

TAMMY COONS & MICHELLE PACE

eyes. His good looks and her sense of humor. And
both
their tempers. Their daughter would have either been the leader of the free world or more likely, the cause of its destruction.

As she drifted in the direction of her apartment, Steph

passed by a well-manicured park. Though it wasn’t far from

where she lived, she’d never even noticed it before that day. A

mother pushed her little one in a swing, and a father played ball with two young boys. Two little girls rode bicycles down the

tree-lined path. Unable to resist, she entered the park, diving

head first into her pain under the guise of taking a shortcut to the Jardin des Plantes Greenhouses.

By the time she reached the first greenhouse, tears had

started to fall in a steady stream. She no longer even bothered to wipe them away. Steph felt a well of repressed grief overflowing from the bottom of her soul. She never even got to see her baby.

Never held her. Never got to bury her or even give her a name. It seemed ridiculous to name a child that had never taken her first breath, but Steph suddenly wanted to nonetheless.

As she sat on a bench outside the Jardin, an ancient little

man in a beret wandered by with an arm full of lively looking

yellow flowers. He paused in front of her with the most heart-

wrenching expression of empathy she’d ever seen. He stepped

forward and plucked one from the bunch.

“Pour vous, Mademoiselle.” He offered it to her. Steph

smiled through her tears and took it, pointlessly swiping at her cheeks.

“Merci à toi.” She sniffed, glad she knew enough French to

politely thank him. His random act of kindness made her hate

herself for every time she’d ever brushed by people as if they

didn’t exist. He nodded in response to her. As he walked away,

she knitted her brows and called after him. “Monsieur! What’s it called? The flower.”

He smiled at her with a wise, knowing nod. “Jonquil.”

Steph went home and dug out a vase, placing the jonquil

100

RAGE

flower in some water. Later, as she sipped a glass of wine, she

searched the internet for the flower’s meaning. She discovered

the flower was descended from another whose name in Latin

meant “stupor” or “numbness.” Jonquil, as the name, seemed

only more poetic.

From that day forward, every time she was in Paris she

stopped by the Greenhouses. She wasn’t sure if this was healthy

or dysfunctional. She didn’t care.

Thinking about Jonquil was a slippery slope. She’d gone on

antidepressants a couple of weeks after that and had been trying to wean off of them when the “Fire Woman” video hit the top

ten. Thinking about the video made her physically ill, especially now that she knew Phillip had slept with his co-star. The entire thing now had a certain Kevin Wiley-style taint to it, and it

crushed her to put Phillip in the same category as Kevin.

She couldn’t think about either of them—it was not a day

for wallowing. She needed a diversion. and she needed it
now.

She hitched a ride to the village center, where she breezed into the swankiest looking boutique and bought a sea foam green

sundress, silver jewelry, and designer sandals. She then headed

for the restaurant her new friends from the beach had recom-

mended. The atmosphere was casual, al fresco, and the food was

high-end perfection. She gorged herself on shrimp, listened with total fascination to a forró band. She downed drinks with the locals, including Enrique “the flirty chauffer” who evidently had

the night off. He made an adorable stab at speaking English. She still couldn’t understand a word he said, but he sure was fun to look at.

Enrique brought her back to the pousada and proceeded to

make a lame attempt at a pass which she dodged. He called after

her in Portuguese, as she rushed away, feeling a bit like a tipsy Cinderella at midnight. She decided making out with one man

who wasn’t her boyfriend a day was her limit.

She managed to get to her room unnoticed by the wedding

101

TAMMY COONS & MICHELLE PACE

guests, who were having yet another one of Yara’s meticulously

orchestrated soirées. Finally back in her room, she realized that she’d had a bit too much sun and her ankles had been a feast for mosquitos. She showered and brushed her teeth repeatedly, trying to rid herself of the lingering taste of Phillip. When that

didn’t work, she took a sleeping pill and crashed.

A horrendous pounding racket blasted her awake.

“Stephanie Brier, open this door immediately, or I swear I’ll

bust it down!” Cedric called from the hallway. Steph rolled over and looked at the clock. It was noon. She’d slept for almost 12

hours. Damn Ambien. She probably shouldn’t have washed it

down with rum.

She climbed out of bed and yanked down her robe from the

closet, sending the hanger springing across the room with a loud clatter. She tossed it on and padded over to the door. As the obnoxious pounding continued, she unlocked it and wrenched it

open. Cheyenne and Cedric both glared at her from the other side of the threshold.

“What the hell!” Steph snapped, looking from Cedric to

Cheyenne.

“Don’t you
dare
act like we’re overreacting!” Cheyenne

strutted into the room looking very much like a supermodel on

the catwalk. Steph often wanted to strangle Cheyenne for rolling out of bed looking like she was ready for the cover of Cosmo.

Cedric limped in after her, his blue green eyes shooting around

the room as if he were Sherlock Holmes and would discover a

clue about why his sister was such a pain in his cloistered ass.

“First of all, let me say that I think that it’s total bullshit that you ditched out on the boat ride back. Pardon my language,

Cedric.” Cheyenne’s long hair swirled around her as she spun on

Steph.

“Completely understandable, given the circumstances.”

Cedric assured her. Cheyenne nodded at him, and her dark eyes

flashed disapprovingly when Steph folded her arms and fell back

102

RAGE

on the bed, settling in for what was sure to be a filibuster of a lecture.

“Do you know how far that beach is from this hotel? I

googled it! It’s on the other end of the island!”

“Yeah. I know. I was there.” Steph took a swig from a bot-

tle of water.

“Answer your phone next time, Steph. The guys were ready

to go out looking for you when you weren’t back by dark.”

Cheyenne blurted.

“Ha! I can just see it. Fury: The British Hardy Boys. Solv-

ing mysteries and saving cats from trees everywhere they go!”

Steph clucked.

“What happened at the beach, Steph? Phillip was acting

shifty and pissy all the way back to the marina.” Cheyenne de-

manded.

Steph opened her mouth, then looked at Cedric and paused.

“I don’t want to talk about him.”

“Quit shutting me out, Steph! Ugh! You talk to her. I can’t

anymore, or I’ll strangle her,” Cheyenne instructed Cedric, and

then she walked out onto the balcony. As the door shut behind

her, Steph heard her complain, “Hey! This view is better than

mine. What the hell?”

Cedric poked Steph with his cane, and she slapped it away.

“Luckily Kara came down after changing Liam and said you

were upstairs in bed before they lit out on a hunt for you. I was convinced someone had kidnapped you.”

“Stop being so dramatic, Father What-a-waste. I’m sure The

Victoria’s Secret Angels would have consoled you Thornbirds-

style if anything
had
happened to me.” Steph smiled wryly when Cedric rolled his eyes at her.

“Phillip and Cheyenne got into it last night. To be truthful, I

had to say a prayer, because I wanted to crack him over the head with my cane.” Cedric sat down and ran a hand through his auburn hair. Steph’s cheeks burned. She shouldn’t have dragged

103

TAMMY COONS & MICHELLE PACE

Cedric into this fiasco. He didn’t need to be defending her or to be put in all these uncomfortable situations. She was a selfish ass to invite him along, and she knew it. But she was still glad he

was here. Steph braced for what she knew was going to be an

upsetting conversation.

She cleared her throat and took another drink of H2O.

“What’d he do now?”

Cedric paused. “He was very dismissive of you. He said

you were probably ‘just looking for attention’ and Chey-

enne…well…she used many words I’d rather not repeat. I think

she was going to swing on him, but Scot took her away to cool

off. I thought you might want to know.”

Steph blinked slowly and toyed with a loose thread on her

pillow case. “I could have gone my whole life without knowing

that, thanks.”

He looked at her for a long minute then added, “Christopher

called the pousada when he couldn’t reach you on your satellite

phone.”

“Dammit!” Steph flopped back and threw her arms over her

face as if shielding herself from the barrage of unwanted news.

“The concierge gave the call to the first person he saw from

the wedding party. So it was Nathan that talked to Christopher.”

He added, lifting his eyebrows and glancing at the floor. Stephanie winced. Only one person in the wedding party would have

been a worse choice.

“Just stop talking, Cedric.” She moaned, throwing a pillow

at him which he aptly deflected with his cane.

“Tell me what you said to Christopher when he called, Na-

than.” Steph demanded. She and Cheyenne were waiting for

their shuttle to the club for Yara’s evening activity. The devious 104

RAGE

look on Nathan’s face made Cheyenne want to slug him. Saffron

looked bored and lit a cigarette which she then handed to Nathan for a drag. Cheyenne thought about asking for one. She’d quit

smoking when she was pregnant and hadn’t touched one since.

Lately, she’d been biting her nails down to the quick from the

cravings. She’d actually been convincing herself that smoking

had an upside. Maybe she’d drop the last ten pounds of her baby

weight. It was a pathetic rationalization, but every time Chey-

enne saw Kara frolicking in a swimsuit with Liam, the idea

seemed to have more merit.

She knew she should be thankful that she’d come through

pregnancy fairly unscathed. She’d been in Steph’s room getting

ready earlier that night and whined to her about her three stretch marks.

Steph whipped up her dress and pointed to her scar. “This

sucker is bigger than all three of those combined, Cheyenne. So

why don’t you shut the hell up?”

Cheyenne felt like the world’s shittiest friend. She had been

so distracted with her own troubles the day before that she hadn’t noticed anything was up with Steph until she got the phone call

that she wasn’t taking the boat back.

When Cheyenne had come out of the shower the morning of

the boat excursion, Kara was in her bungalow. Scot was on the

bed and Kara was leaning in and whispering fervently in Scot’s

ear. In that moment, her world screeched to a grinding halt. Eve-ry insecurity, from small to major, that she’d ever had about herself reached its zenith.

She’d rushed back into the restroom, and if they noticed

her, they hadn’t let on. Later on the boat, Scot had behaved like nothing was out of the ordinary. He held her close, and knocked

her defenses down with that phenomenal smile of his. If he was

playacting at happiness, he deserved an Oscar.

While Cheyenne was finishing up her make-up in silence,

she saw Steph dialing her sat phone. “Calling Christopher?”

105

TAMMY COONS & MICHELLE PACE

“No. Sarah. I want to know what the hell is going on and if

I should slap a chastity belt on Bret.” Scot had come back from

the scuba trip and regaled the two of them with how the slutty

bridesmaids were all over Bret. Steph and Cheyenne had both

become friendly with Bret’s wife Sarah during Fury’s American

tour, and they exchanged a concerned look. Bret and Sarah had

two kids and had always seemed like they were the couple that

were doing everything right. It was rather heartbreaking to see