Part 21 (2/2)
Jordan raised his hands and began to clap. Lonnie stared at him, confused, but what else could he do? ”That was one well-played game, Lonnie,” he commended her. ”Had me looking left while you were making your move on the right.”
Lonnie remained expressionless.
”I have to say,” he continued. ”I haven't had my a.s.s handed to me like that in many, many years. I didn't think it could happen. Not to me. Not like that.”
Lonnie didn't say a word, and she didn't need to. Jordan remembered now what it was he'd always seen in her. As beautiful as she was, that wasn't the reason he'd fallen in love with this woman. Lonnie was brilliant and capable and cunning. She was a problem solver, a bulls.h.i.+tter, a liar. She was him in a dress, and the narcissist in him loved her for it.
”How'd you get her to do it?” Jordan asked. ”How'd you talk Desi into buying in to Anton?”
She hesitated for a moment and then smiled. ”I reminded her that she owed me a favor.”
”And told her that she could make a fortune?”
She shrugged. ”A win-win for both of us.”
He paused and studied her carefully. ”Are we even now?”
One corner of her lips turned up into a smile. ”As even as we'll probably ever be, Jordan. My life changed that night you tried to kill me, and I'll never get back to who I was before then, but maybe I can build a new me, a better one.”
Jordan shook his head. ”G.o.d! I can't believe what I did to you.” He shamefully dropped his gaze, but recovered and stared deep into those dramatic eyes of hers. ”It's a shame,” he admitted.
”He was so much more than that.”
He cleared his throat. ”I loved you, Lonnie. h.e.l.l, I-think I still do.”
”I don't want to hear that,” she said, shaking her head.
”But I have to say it because despite that night, and what happened-I have never felt any other way.” He needed to say this. He needed for her to hear it even if she couldn't bring herself to believe it.
She stared blankly at him, almost as if she were waiting for the punch line.
”So, what's next? And don't tell me that Frank Ross is going to go forward to the media with the truth about who my father is, because that's not going to happen. He's knows now that it wasn't you who bailed him out of jail, Lonnie.” Jordan laughed. ”But, nice move on making him think it was.” Jordan stopped laughing. ”I own him now. He owes me.”
She shrugged. ”No big deal. Frank served his purpose,” she said indifferently. ”You can keep him.”
He nodded. ”Like a pet.” He locked gazes with her knowing that she was thinking the same thing. ”You going to be leaving town now?”
Lonnie hesitated before responding. ”You going to let me?”
Jordan shrugged. ”All's fair in love and war, baby.” He raised his hands in defeat. ”I concede. It's the least I can do.”
”Then my work here is done,” she said and sighed, ”and I'll be on a plane first thing in the morning.”
His gaze lingered long enough to make her uncomfortable.
”I will miss you,” he said sincerely.
Lonnie managed to smile. ”I almost believe you will.”
The two of them finished their drinks, and left the hotel together. Jordan held the door open for her and then followed her outside. Lonnie stopped abruptly, and turned toward him, standing inches away from him. The light breeze in the air carried the scent of her perfume toward him.
”I'm going to take my toys and go, Jordan,” she said, as she reached up and touched his lapel. The gesture seemed strange to him, but nothing about their relations.h.i.+p had ever been normal. ”War is h.e.l.l,” she said, looking up at him. ”I would tell you to take care of yourself, but it would just be words.”
”Not for me,” Jordan said, giving in to the urge to lean toward her and kiss her forehead.
Lonnie surprised him, put her hand around the back of his neck, and pulled his lips to hers. ”Now, we're even,” she whispered, sweeping her tongue into his mouth, and kissing him the way she used to. Moments later, she broke the seal of her kiss, smiled at him, and glanced one last time over his shoulder, setting off a strange alarm inside him. Jordan turned and saw his wife, sitting parked across the street, watching with horror the scene that had just unfolded. By the time he turned around, Lonnie was pulling away from the curb in her car.
Feeling It Deep Tonight and I'd Rather Die ”I know you don't believe me, Claire. Be outside the Joule at six thirty and you'll see that I'm telling the truth.”
The only sound Claire could hear was the sound of her own breathing. She sped away before Jordan could reach her because there was nothing he could say anymore, nothing else he could do to make her believe that he gave a d.a.m.n about her.
”Claire!”
There would be no babies! There would be no more of her believing his lies! No more hoping that somehow he had changed! No more of her pretending that the two of them would recover from this mess called a marriage!
”Claire!” Jordan burst into the bedroom. ”Claire-?”
She had packed some of her things by the time he'd gotten there. Claire had to get out of this house and as far away from him as she could.
”Claire! Baby-”
He touched her! Claire jerked away from him. ”Put your hands on me again, Jordan and I'll-”
Claire didn't recognize the sound of her own voice. But that was because she wasn't the same woman. A moment, that one moment when she saw him kissing that woman, everything about Claire changed into a complete and total stranger. Inside she was different! Just different, hollow and different, angry and different.
”Claire! She set this whole thing up!” he argued. ”She directed that scene like a movie! Claire!” He grabbed her again, and Claire spun around and hit him hard across the face.
Jordan stood there. A moment flashed in her mind that he would do to her what he did to Lonnie in that house, but he just stood there. She hit him again, and again, and again.
”Enough!” he said, grabbing her by the wrists.
”I know what you did!” Claire exploded. The words burst through her mouth like water through a dam and she realized how relieved she felt to finally say them. ”I know what you did to her.” She was crying now. Claire jerked away from his grasp, and backed away from him as if she were truly seeing him without the mask he'd always worn with her. The truth flooded her gut and burned her lungs. It scratched at the back of her throat, and Lord, she had to say it! She had to tell him everything.
”I went to the house that night, Jordan!”
Claire's mind flashed back to how fragile she had been that night. She'd tried to take her own life over him. She'd loved him so much that she'd have rather died than live without him, and he just left her there! He left her alone in that hospital, discarded and dismissed like she was a nuisance to him.
”I saw her lying there on the floor!” Claire said, turning her nose up in disgust. It was as if she could smell the funk of what had happened in that room all over again. ”b.l.o.o.d.y and beaten and almost dead!” Tears streamed down her cheeks. Claire's hands shook, her whole body shook as she wrestled against completely falling apart long enough to get away from him and to get out of that house.
The look on his face was cla.s.sic.
”I got Lonnie out of that house and I took her to the hospital and I begged her not to call the police.” She sobbed and struggled to catch her breath. ”I'm the reason she's alive, and I'm the reason that you didn't go to jail, Jordan! Don't call the police! Don't call the police! I begged her!”
He looked at Claire like he didn't recognize her. But Jordan had no choice but to believe her. She'd given him every ounce of her, every inch of her body and soul and still, he wanted that b.i.t.c.h! He could have her!
<script>