She looked at the dishes piled in the sink and the overflowing trash bin stacked with pizza boxes and soda bottles. “You'd never guess two bachelors live here.”
“I'm in trouble, Sonja.”
She nodded. “Yes. I'd say you were.”
“Social services called. They said I have to fill out some paperwork.”
She patted him on the back as she passed by. “But that's not the problem,” she guessed.
Lance shook his head. He wiped up the spilled milk and put the bowl with its soggy cereal on a lopsided stack of dishes already clogging the sink.
Rap music could be heard from Tarique's room, but the sound, thanks to excellent insulation in the penthouse, was muted. Not really loud enough to disturb them. The music didn't bother Lance, but what his son had said cut him.
“He blames me for Gayla's death. He said if I hadn't given her money she wouldn't have bought the drugs that caused her overdose.”
Sonja came over and wrapped an arm around his waist. “And how do you feel about that?”
“It's true,” he said.
The guilt had been eating at him. “When I saw her laying there in that apartment, the same thing crossed my mind. But how was I supposed to know?”
“Gayla made her own choices, Lance. She was an addict. There's nothing you could have done about that.”
Lance moved away, his back to Sonja. He wiped at his eyes before she could see. “No thanks to Virginia.”
“Cole's mother. What does she have to do with anything?”
Lance told her the story. Sonja nodded. “It fits her profile. She gave me constant grief and the cold shoulder from the moment I showed up at Heart Federated offices.”
“I'm having nothing to do with her.”
Sonja shrugged. “Fine with me. You know I don't have anything to do with her either.”
“There's something else,” Lance said. Then he told her that he and Cole were really half brothers.
It took a while for Sonja to digest that news. “That means, your mother isn't Cole's sister.”
Lance shook his head. “She apparently was one of my grandfather's”âhe stopped and shook his headâ“one of my father's girlfriends, a much younger girlfriend. How sick is that?”
“It's why Cole is so by-the-book,” Sonja said.
“And why he's always been on me to do better, be better.”
Sonja nodded. “It also explains why you were such a favored grandson in Coleman Heart's will. Cole told me that his mother hit the roof when she found out how much money you'd gotten.”
Lance nodded. “Cole had to have known.”
Sonja nodded, tentatively agreeing. “If he didn't, he probably suspected as much.”
“And never said anything?”
“What was there to say, Lance? All the lies and all the deceit had been played out more than twenty years ago. My own mother got caught up in that Heart drama.”
Lance grinned. “But she got the last laugh.”
Smiling, Sonja snagged a pretzel from an open bag on the top of the range. “That she did and she made a way for me by suing their butts off.”
“But all that past stuff is done and gone,” Lance said.
Sonja jerked her head toward the music coming from Tarique's room. “Is it? Isn't he a product of lies and half-truths, of Heart manipulation?”
Lance stared off for a while. Then, slowly, answered her. “Yeah, he is. But it's up to me to stop the cycle of deception and dishonesty.”
“Where are you going to start?”
“With the truth,” he said. “With the whole, unabridged ugly truth. He's still a kid, but he's old enough to understand.”
“That's what I came over here for,” Sonja said, pulling a piece of paper from her slacks pocket. “I don't know what it means, but my gut tells me there's something that isn't right. I know Cole. He'd never agree to what's written here.” She handed over a copy of the fax that had arrived for Cole.
The letterhead, from DK Enterprises Ltd., was confirmation of an agreement between Cole and the owner of the company. There was a handwritten note at the bottom that said:
60/40. This arrangement suits me much better.
It was signed with the initials DK.
Lance cocked his head, trying to remember where he'd heard that particular string of words. Then it clicked. Vivienne. The man who'd come to Viv's house that night. She claimed he was blackmailing her. And now he was mixed up in some business of Cole's.
Lance swore. “Where'd you get this?”
“It came on the private fax at the house. For Cole. I know all of his contacts in this Bahia project.” Thinking of Jack Spencer, she amended, “Well, I thought I knew all of them. Cole mentioned a third investor . . .”
“DK is Dean Khan.”
“Never heard of him.”
“I have,” Lance said, his jaw set.
Two steps ahead of Sonja, Lance had already made the critical connections. It couldn't be a coincidence that this Dean Khan showed up now. He thought back to Vivienne's reaction to him. Now that he had a clear head and time to think, he realized Viv had seemed more distressed than glad to see Khan.
This Khan guy was putting the screws to Cole, demanding a much higher percentage of the return than a third and silent partner should get. Could he be doing the same thing to Viv via blackmail?
He'd accused her of some awful things, and then claimed the child she carried wasn't his.
Lance's groan was the only sound in the otherwise quiet kitchen. Then, “Sonja, can you watch Tarique for me?”
“Sure, but . . .”
“I need to go. Viv could be in danger from this guy.”
“From him?” she said, pointing to the fax.
“It's a long story.” He was already moving around the island and toward the front door. “Thanks. Call me on the cell if you need anything.”
Sonja was left standing there, not quite sure how she'd been roped into baby-sitting duty and why laid-back Lance was moving as if the house were on fire.
Taking a look around the kitchen, Sonja shook her head.
She knocked on the boy's door. “Tarique, honey.” She had to raise her voice to be heard over the bass beat. “It's Sonja. Lance went out but I'm here.”
A sound that could have been a grunt of awareness came through the door over the music.
“I'm going to fix some dinner,” she said. “I'll call you when it's ready.”
She stood there for a moment, wondering how in the world Lance, who until the last couple of weeks had been nothing but an overgrown kid himself, was going to raise somebody like Tarique. In many ways, the child was older than the man.
A while later, after setting the kitchen to rights and finding enough ingredients in Lance's freezer and pantry to make a stir-fry, Sonja went to get Tarique.
She knocked on the door. “Tarique?”
She got no answer. But the music still played loud and crude.
“Tarique, honey. It's Sonja.”
When she didn't get a reply, she turned the handle and stepped into the room. Clothes and magazines, cereal boxes and DVD cases were everywhere. Tarique was nowhere to be seen.
The bathroom door was closed though, so she carefully made her way across the room, dodging sports equipment and high-priced sneakers abandoned like wounded soldiers on a battlefield.
She knocked on his bathroom door. “Tarique?”
When she got no answer there, either, she pushed the door open. The shower stall and everything else in the bathroom was a mess, just like the bedroom, but it was empty.
“Oh, Lord.”
She dashed through the rest of the penthouse, opening doors and calling for the boy. Less than five minutes later, she came to the sick conclusion that should have been evident from the beginning.
Tarique was gone.
31
“O
pen the door, Dakota.” Lance stood outside Guilty
Pleasures, rain pelting his side. The squall had kicked up shortly after he'd crossed the bridge-tunnel.
Viv wasn't at her house. Vicki told him she was at the store with Dakota doing inventory.
“She doesn't want to talk to you, Lance.”
“Either open the goddamned door, or I'll break it down.” His cell phone trilled, but Lance ignored it.
A moment later, he heard the door locks tumble. “She's already upset and doesn't want to see you. This isn't good for the baby.”
Lance brushed by the salesclerk and headed to the office. It was empty. He found Vivienne in the storeroom. Red lace panties surrounded her.
For a moment, Lance couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. He couldn't move. All of his being was centered on the woman who'd made such a change in his life. The woman who, probably without even realizing it, had forced him to grow up, to face the consequences of his actions. But more importantly, Vivienne had taught him to love.
He needed to tell her so many things. To plead with her not to destroy their child. To warn her against Dean Khan. To assure her that the business she'd built up, and the expansions they'd planned were going to be safe and that they would thrive. To explain that Sonja wasn't his wife.
He wanted to tell her how beautiful she was.
She turned. He held up a hand when it seemed she was about to order him out of her store, out of her life. When he spoke, none of the speech he'd planned on the drive over came out of his mouth.
“Before you kick me out, Viv. I need to tell you that I love you.”
“What?”
He walked around the boxes of merchandise that would soon be displayed on the Guilty Pleasures showroom floor. He picked up a pair of red lace panties and smiled, thinking of the first day he'd walked into Guilty Pleasures.
“I came to tell you that I'm sorry. I've been a fool. I hope you can forgive me.”
Vivienne stood. Lingerie tumbled from her lap and onto the floor. “Why the change of heart, Lance?”
He reached for her hand. “It's not a change of heart,” he said. “It's an opening of the eyes.”
“Well, isn't this sweet? I always seem to show up at just the right moment.”
They turned.
Dean Khan stood in the doorway of the storeroom.
Lance stepped in front of Viv, whose eyes flicked over him.
“Dakota?”
Dean Khan chuckled. “She's fine. Just taking care of a little bruise she just acquired.”
Viv leaped at Khan, but Lance held her back.
“If you hurt her . . .”
“What are you going to do, Rachel? Go to the police?” His laughter echoed through the room.
“Yes,” she spat out. “I'll get rid of you once and for all.”
“Vivienne, let me handle this.”
Fighting mad, she barely spared a glance at Lance. “This is my battle.”
He stopped her with a hand cupped against her cheek. “No, Vivienne. It's
our
battle.”
“You two are enough to send somebody into a diabetic coma. Save that lovey-dovey shit for later.” He focused on Viv. “You know what I've come for. Go get it.”
“She's not giving you a dime.”
Dean Khan's attention shifted to Lance. A small, cold smile tilted the right side of his mouth. “You're Heart. I didn't make the connection the other night. Your uncle and I have been doing a little business together. He's making a lot of money for me.”
Lance didn't say anything. He didn't know the extent, if any, of Cole's involvement in Khan's scams and had no intention of finding out via this criminal.
“I want what's mine, Rachel. It's time to pay up.”
“I don't owe you anything. I had to pay back the money you stole from the government. They should have thrown you under the jail.”
Dean Khan laughed. “You always had a flair for the dramatic. But I want what's mine, Rachel, and I aim to get it.”
“Not if I can help it.” A moment later, one of the plaster pedestal counters from the store crashed over his head. Khan stumbled and fell onto a stack of boxes.
Lance leaped forward while Dakota skirted the man she'd whapped and ran to Viv's side.
“I called the police. They're on the way.”
Viv looked at the swelling bruise near Dakota's eye. “He hit you.”
“But I got him back,” she said.
The blow had taken Dean down but not out. He and Lance tussled on the floor, crashing into boxes. Each man got in licks, but Lance saw an opening and went for it. A right blow, followed by a left hook sent Khan reeling. He crashed into two naked mannequins and fell to the storeroom floor.
“Get me something to tie him up with.”
Cussing and flailing, Khan threatened Viv. “You think you're so smart. But I'm going to get the last laugh.”
“Well, you'll be laughing from a prison cell, buddy,” Lance said.
Khan spit at Lance.
Lance backhanded him once. “That's for cutting Viv.” And again. “And that's for hitting Dakota.”
“Your bitch set me up. This place is mine. You owe me,” Khan yelled at Viv.
“I don't owe you a damn thing,” Viv said. “You used me. You used all of those college kids.”
“Ha! They just wanted a quick dollar to party with. I gave people a means to get to their end.”
Lance chuckled. “And that's what you've done for yourself, too.”
Khan cut his eyes at Lance, even as his arms were yanked around his back. “What are you talking about?”
“When you messed with my brother, you messed with the wrong man. The Treasury Department and the IRS are going to have a field day unraveling your business assets. Seems to me they'll have a lot of questions about someone who has as much money as you do, considering how you've been indisposed for several years.”
When two Norfolk police officers arrived, they found Vivienne nursing Dakota with a pack of ice, Lance hovering over them both and Dean Khan trussed up with two beige Wonderbras and a pair of black silk stockings.
As the police were taking their statements, the store phone rang. Vivienne answered then handed the phone to Lance.
“It's your wife.”
Lance started, then realized who she meant. “Sonja isn't my wife, Viv. She's my . . . she's my sister-in-law,” he said. “I had a wife, but she's dead now. There's a lot I need to tell you, Vivienne.”
She stared into his eyes, willing his words to be the truth. The love she saw there mirrored her own, though she was still frightened of what that kind of commitment might mean. She swallowed, once, then nodded.
“All right, Lance. We'll talk.”
She held the phone out to him. Lance took her hand instead. “Thank you.”
“You better take your call. She said it's important.”
He didn't take his eyes off Vivienne as he spoke. “Sonja?”
“Lance, you better come home quick. Tarique is gone.”
He released Viv's hands and gripped the phone. “What do you mean gone?”
“He's not in his room. He's not anywhere. I've looked all over the apartment. I even checked with the doorman. He said Tarique left right after you did. Lance, I think he's run away.”
Lance didn't waste any time cussing. He had a pretty good idea where his son had gone off to. “Thanks, Sonja. You don't have to stay there if you don't want. I think I know where he is.”
“What's wrong?” Viv said.
“I won't be here, Lance,” Sonja said. “I have a plane to catch.”
“A plane? Where are you going?”
“To Brazil. A wife's place is beside her husband. It's time Cole knew just how much he means to me.”
“It'll all work out.”
Sonja laughed, but the sound was shaky, uncertain. “I'll hold you to that.”
As Lance replaced the receiver, his gaze connected with Viv's. Sonja's words echoed in his head. He put the phone down and took her hands.
“What's wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said. “As long as you're by my side, nothing is wrong. We need to talk though. I want to tell you about Tarique and his mother, Gayla. And I want to ask you to marry me.”
“Marry you?”
“When I married Gayla, I was seventeen and didn't have a clue. I'm a grown man now, and the woman I'm in love with is right here in front of me.”
“I love you, too, Lance, but I'm afraid of what . . .”
He silenced her with a finger across her lips. It was followed with his mouth as he kissed her.
“I'm afraid, too,” he said. “But together, we can conquer our fear and make a life together.”
“What about Tarique?”
Lance stilled. “He's a part of me, Viv. I'm a package deal now.”
She smiled and placed his hand on her stomach. “We're a package deal.”
“You really are pregnant?”
She nodded.
Lance answered with a grin and a quick kiss, a kiss that turned into a lingering taste of sweetness he'd missed.
“Excuse me, folks.” One of the officers led a snarling Dean Khan away. “We'll need to get formal statements from you.”
Viv nodded. “With pleasure,” she told the cop.
Â
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Lance's first stop in the hunt for Tarique was the cemetery, just in case. But the boy wasn't at his mother's grave.
“Where do you think he went?” Vivienne sat in the passenger seat of the Escalade as Lance took the interstate exit that would dump him in downtown Newport News.
“He's lived with me since Gayla OD'd, but my guess is he's at his own house.”
Tattered police tape still hung from the railing of Gayla's unit at Granger Shores. A housing authority notice had been tacked to the front door that was sealed with eight strips of heavy sealing tape.
“If he's here, he didn't come in this way.” Lance took out a small pocket knife and cut through the seals, then fished for the key that he'd found in Gayla's belongings and opened the door.
Music and intermittent booms pumped from the back bedroom.
He looked back at Viv. “Bingo.”
He led Vivienne into the apartment. “It's not . . . well, here,” he said, pulling out a vinyl topped chair. “Wait here. I'll go talk to him.”
Viv nodded. He stepped away. “Lance?”
She closed the distance between them. “No matter what happens between you and your son, I'll always be by your side,” she said. “It's taken me a long time to realize what love really is. I don't want to lose it now that I've found it.”
He pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her waist, one hand trailing along her derriere, which he squeezed through the jeans she wore. “You're my heart, Vivienne la Fontaine. Together we're going to be lingerie moguls and terrific parents.”
“It'll take practice.”
He thrust himself against her, a naughty smile curved his mouth. “I'm looking forward to it.”
She swatted his behind. “Go to your son.”
With a final kiss, Lance headed down the hall. He knocked once, but didn't wait for an answer.
Tarique sat on his shabby twin bed, its dingy sheets barely covering the mattress. His back propped against the wall, he balanced the video game control in his lap while a fiery battle in Terminator III raged on the television.
“What're you doing here?”
Lance turned the sound down on the music and picked up the remote for the TV. “I came to talk. About us,” he added. He muted the sound of the film.
“There ain't no us.”
Ignoring the filth around him, Lance sat on the edge of the bed. What he said in the next few moments would determine his destiny with this son so recently acquired.
“I loved your mom,” he started. “We fell in love in high school.” He told Tarique the story, not sparing any of the details. The boy remained quiet through it all, including Virginia's role in keeping Gayla and Lance apart and how Lance had reacted to Gayla leaving him all those years ago.
Tarique listened then rolled his eyes.
“That ain't got shit to do with me.”
“It has everything to do with you,” Lance said. “I want the chance to make it right with you. I can't get back the first ten years of your life. But I hope you'll let me learn how to be a father and maybe a friend for the next ten or twenty.”
Tarique considered that for a moment. Then, “Can't we live here?”
Lance breathed an internal sigh of relief. If Tarique was negotiating living quarters, maybe he was willing to give Lance a chance. Lance shook his head. “No. But you can get a vote in where we do live.”
“How many votes do you get?”
Lance smiled. “A lot. But I want you to grow up knowing that there's a legacy waiting for you.”
“What's my legacy?”
Lance touched his heart. “Truth,” he said. “And heart.”
“I've got heart.”
Lance put his arm around his son's shoulder. “I know you do, man. If we're gonna make this work, you gotta promise me some things.”
Wary, Tarique shrugged out of the embrace. “What?”
“No more stealing. No more shakedowns. And no more running away.”
Tarique thought about the conditions for a moment. “Can I drive the Escalade?
“Yeah.”
“Cool.”
“When you're sixteen,” Lance added.