The sun climbs into the middle of the sky and starts to fall behind me. Cacti dot the barren land. For the longest time, I think of random things, like the cologne Cross wore in high school, which I loved so much. I remember Suri telling me one night when I slept over that if she turned thirty and she wasn't married, she would marry Cross. At the time I was surprised. She'd acted nonchalant and shrugged. "I bet I would never get bored with Cross."
I remember how Cross's jackets used to smell when he put them around my shoulders: like pepper and mints. Remembering a time when Cross lent me his jackets reminds me of being younger, and of course, I think of Mom. How she never had sex with my dad, and how I really wished I didn't know that.
Thinking of Dad makes me think of Hunter. I remember a younger Hunter West, grinning, on his back, gliding underneath Mom's Porsche. I remember his gorgeous golden hair. How, for years, I thought he was the consummate playboy, f**king wealthy, silk-robed women by the pool before the sun was fully up. I recall the glitter of his eyes as he looked up from Priscilla, on the fireplace, in the same room where he and I had...
I don't know if it's because it's dusk and cool, or if it's that thought that gets me, but I'm shivering. I feel naked, and I hate it.
In a few days I'm going to sell my body. I'll strip naked and let a stranger shove his stranger dick inside me.
And it's true, I don't place much value on it: my virginity. For eons it was traded in exchange for land, cattle, power, whatever, so I know full well I'm in good company. I'm okay with that. But the idea of the act as a sensory experience—the knowledge that someone I won’t choose will invade my body... I guess I kind of hate that.
I really hate that.
The image of Hunter leaning down to kiss me flits like lightning through my mind. I can almost feel his lips on mine—warm, soft, gentle. The look in his eyes as he watches me from the foot of the bed, and I can see he's haunted by something and I know I'll never know what it is.
Tears start to fall as I think of Hunter cutting a path to me as I'm hounded by media outside the courthouse. Is that the closest I'll ever get to a fairy tale?
I wrap my hands around the wheel, and I can't help but think of mother, in her curlers, behind the wheel of a much older, larger car; her foot on the pedal; my foot on the pedal. And for a long second, I want to run the car into the crag of rock off to my right.
I really kind of want to. Crazy is a siren call.
But I'm too practical. Practical Elizabeth. Elizabeth the whore.
I wonder what Cross will think. I wonder what Mom will think. I wonder what my dad would think.
I wonder what Hunter West would think.
I pass the sign marking the Vegas city limits with a lightness deep inside me. Like the part of me that matters is somewhere up above, floating in a helium balloon. This me behind the wheel is hollow. Brave and ready.
This me is older and stronger and smarter.
When I think about the tears that I shed back there in the dark, I know they won't come so easily again. And I am fine with that. I am.
Chapter Fifteen
~HUNTER~
I've got on my penguin suit when Priscilla calls. The Heat Enterprises Brawl for Innocence Gala begins in an hour, and I'm pacing around my penthouse, chewing on the laundry list of bullshit I just got from Dave the PI.
I feel a hot stab of guilt deep in my gut—that I’m worried about myself, when Sarabelle is God knows where—when my phone rings, flashing a red "P". I groan.
When Priscilla heard I volunteered for the fight tomorrow night, earning myself an invitation to the gala even after all the charity plates have been purchased, she demanded to be my date, but we're not riding together, so I shouldn't have to see her until I arrive at the Heat Enterprises Mansion in an hour.
"Damnit." I bring the phone up to my ear, working to sound calm and aloof, the way I used to sound before I realized Priscilla was going to Michael Lockwood's house on a regular basis, in addition to f**king Josh Smith.
I take a deep breath. "Priscilla."
"Hunter."
I roll my wrist, which is sore from the last time I saw her. “What can I do for you?"
"I'm coming up in ten." I can hear her Cheshire grin through the phone, and then her laughing hiss. "Get ready.”
I strip out of my tux and swear that this will be the last time. Tonight, I'll figure out Priscilla's game, and end it. Josh Smith will be at the gala, as will Michael Lockwood. If I can find out what Priscilla wants with Smith—other than his dick—or the nature of her relationship with Lockwood, maybe I can finally put a stop to this farce.
I wait behind the front door of my penthouse. I'm planning to grab her from behind when she walks through it. Maybe rip her gown off. Bind her wrists with my neck tie and f**k her doggy style.
I shut my eyes, inhaling slowly while I wait in my darkened foyer like the crazy SOB I am. The small amount of enjoyment I've begun to get from these games with Priscilla makes me sick. I'm further disgusted by my cowardice. I pretend like I’m keeping her close for Sarabelle’s sake, but the truth is I won’t turn her in, just like I won’t stop f**king her, until I know my skeletons will stay in the closet where they belong.
I don't give a shit about my father's political career, about what people would think if they knew he fell in love with an escort. Their relationship would be painted in the most tawdry light possible by the press, but would it jeopardize anything about my father's position? Very unlikely. Would it shock all of New Orleans? Yes. My father returned from his business trip with a newly pregnant Roxanne, but for most of her pregnancy, she stayed secluded in West Manor. Less than a week after she died in labor—at the house—Rita came knocking. Dad was somehow able to hush the whole thing up, and I was presented many months later as Dad and Rita’s child.
Things went just the way Rita had hoped, and ten months later, my half-sister Amber was born. She still lives in New Orleans, managing the advertising arm of West Bourbon, and she knows exactly what kind of insanity went on in our house before Rita got cancer. She also knows just how Rita died, and what went on afterward.
I lean my head against the wall and go over what we’ve got so far. The PIs—Dave and the two other Vegas PIs we just hired, Julie and Roberto—have found a few good leads:
Josh Smith is Michael Lockwood's third cousin. Last time Smith saw Lockwood: the morning before Smith told the FBI that I liked to tie girls up.
Michael Lockwood took a bus to San Luis two days ago. He had lunch in a hotel and went to the men's room twice.
The night Priscilla invaded my plane, a man searched both of my homes in Vegas. Marchant's guy, Dave, captured the whole thing on film, proving that, for now at least, the bad guys have no idea that we are onto them. When he later pulled up an image of Gus Victor, the man's mug shot matched the face of the guy searching my homes.