Luxe Glamour (The Glamour Series Book 5) (24 page)

Angie nodded. “I know.” Her voice was soft. She glanced at her hand that lay in her lap. “I’m sorry Trick. If I could make this better for you I would.”

My throat tightened. I was such an asshole. There was my sister who I’d paralyzed from the waist down as a result of my completely narcissistic addictive behavior, and she felt bad for me? Because I had a heartache? Because I hadn’t heard from a certain woman? Nothing had changed in five years. I was still a fucking asshole.

“Are you kidding? Please, Angie, don’t feel bad for me. I don’t deserve it.”

She looked up at me and there was a storm in her eyes. The spot between her eyebrows creased. “Would you stop with that? You
do
deserve it. You’re my little brother. I love you. You deserve to be happy. You’ve worked like a son of a bitch to get rid of your addictions. And this? This pain you’re feeling is because of that work. You’d never fallen in love until you met Sophia. You’ve never had a relationship like that. You’ve never allowed yourself to be this vulnerable. And as much as this hurts, and is hard, and it sucks, it’s because you’ve fought the addiction and the demons. So don’t you ever tell me that you don’t deserve my empathy and my love. Okay?” Her finger pointed at me. Angie was strong and she rarely yelled, but today she was raising her voice just to get through my thick skull.

Angie turned that finger back toward her own chest. “I get to decide who is worthy of my empathy and my love. You don’t get to tell me I’m wrong about that.”

I nodded. I looked down at my boots. Angie was right. But she was usually fucking right when it came to me and my bullshit. She’d been calling me on my stuff since we were kids. I’d only been smart enough to start listening in the last five years.

“Okay,” I said, my voice low and thick. I cleared my throat and willed back the tears that brewed in the backs of my eyes. “You mentioned two things?”

“We’re receiving an award.”

“What kind of award?”

“The ‘Save Them All’ award.”

Great. So now was I not only no longer permitted to ostracize myself from my co-workers at Pawtown, but I had to go on display at an event.

“You pick it up for us.” I turned toward the door and Estrella jumped to her feet. “I’m unavailable.”

“No can do.” Angie wheeled around to the far side of her desk. “You’ve got two weeks to get it together. Then we go to Los Angeles for the award ceremony. Choo is over the moon. It’ll be great publicity. He’s thinking that we’ll do another celebrity adoption event the day after the award ceremony.”

My chest tightened. I kept my back to Angie and dropped my head forward. “I don’t want to do any of this, Angie.”

“I understand. Believe me, I do, but you
will
do it. If not for yourself, or even for me, you’ll do it for all the ones we haven’t saved yet.” She was looking at the photos, the hundreds of happy pets we’d already helped, that lined the wall. The happy pets with the happy people, all of them saving each other and making a better world. Air filled my lungs. I couldn’t say yes right now, I didn’t have it in me, but I knew that Angie was right. I would do it. I would do it for the animals and I would do it for Angie.

Estrella nudged my palm with her nose. I opened the door and walked out of Angie’s office and back toward my work on the dog run and the kennels, and away from everyone, human and otherwise. Away from everyone but my Estrella.

Sophia

Paris had been dirty and Milan had been wet. Now, back in Los Angeles, the Pacific was cold and the beach was like the tundra. 

“Darling, I need you to move further into the water.”

My nostrils widened and the goose bumps on my arms and legs turned into boulders. Javier could eff off. The water was below forty degrees and I was wearing a string bikini and earrings.

“Look, Sophia, if you won’t try then we’ll simply have to find another model.”

Not try? Oh no, no, no. A Legend didn’t try, we simply
did
. My gaze wandered to Ellen, who sat on a beach chair with a book on her lap and Carl beside her. I’d made some pretty serious promises with regards to airplane tickets and travel to convince my twin to come to this shoot with me today. I walked further into the surf.

It was so fucking cold!

“Okay. Now I want you to lie down and sprawl. But a sexy sprawl.” Javier pointed his camera toward me as I lay on the wet sand, the water splashing in and out with the tide. Sexy? Ha? How sexy was an ice cube? How sexy when my lips turned blue? Not that it mattered, blue lips could be air brushed out.

For another hour I rolled around in the surf. I gave him my noncomplaining sexy. Then, when Javier called the shoot I jumped up and grabbed the terry cloth robe. Night was falling, the golden hour almost gone.

“Sophia, it’s Choo!” Ellen held out my phone and walked toward me across the sand.

I ambled up the beach and petted Carl on the head. I took the phone from Ellen.

“I’m freezing,” I said into the phone. “It’s a good thing you’re not my booking agent because I would scream at you if you were.”

“Diva,” Choo said playfully.

A smile cut across my face. My first smile today that wasn’t bought and paid for, and actually reflected my true feelings. “Thanks to you,
diva
is the last word anyone will ever use to describe me.”

“True enough.”

Choo’s brilliant plan of sending me to Pawtown had not only salvaged my image and career, but had caused it to burst to ten times its original size. My day rate was up. The offers were up. People wanted to work with me. The fashion industry and entertainment industries thought of me as beautiful, talented, down to earth, and easy to work with. Yeah … now after scooping poop on TV I was suddenly easy to work with.

Who cared? All was well. My career was at a fever pitch and that was the main thing.

So why was I so unhappy?

“Listen, babe, I need a favor.”

“You know you’re on my good list. So,
anything
for you.”

“I need you to present an award. It’s a non-profit that I do pro bono work for and they present the award every year. This year, because of everything that has happened, they feel you’re the ideal person to present the award at the ceremony.”

“What’s it for?”

“It’s the ‘Save Them All’ award. They give it out to people or groups who have worked diligently to save animals.”

My chest tightened. I knew somebody who did that. I knew a couple of people who had dedicated their lives to saving animals. I turned away from Ellen and Carl. “Sure,” I said. “I can do that. Just email me the details and book it into my calendar. Tell Beverley.”

“Already done, my love.” Choo paused and silence hung between us. Finally, in a gentle voice, he asked, “So, how are you doing?” There were all kinds of unspoken meanings in that one question. Choo was asking about my life, my heart, my feelings for Trick … Choo was asking about everything.

Choo was close to Trick and Angie, and he still did Pawtown’s PR. Plus Choo and Ellen talked daily. Once I returned from Milan I’d holed up in my room at our condo. Not in the same way that I’d hidden after I’d hit Drummond with my car, but in an entirely different way. I needed to be alone. I didn’t want the Los Angeles luxe existence. The excess, the cameras, the nightlife. Funny, huh? The crazy L.A. existence had been exactly what I thought I wanted when I was at Pawtown. Now that the L.A. life, the celebrity life, the I’m-on-top-of-the-world life was mine again, I didn’t want to take part. 

Who was I when I had accidentally hit Drummond with my car? I could barely remember that girl. I felt like a completely different person now.  I stared out at the ocean. The calm waves danced along the sand.

“How am I?” The words trailed from my mouth as though I was trying to discover the answer myself. “I’m … maybe … I’m confused?”

“Oh, Sophia,” Choo said in the gentlest voice. “I felt that way for decades. It’s not the easiest place to be. I’m here and so is Ellen, if you need me or her or anyone else. There are so many people who love you.”

“Thanks, Choo.”

My family loved me. My brother, my sister, and even Daddy in his odd sort of way. I knew that my half-siblings would love me if I’d let them. I even suspected that the man I couldn’t get out of my head, Trick Williams, might love me, too.

“You could call him,” Choo said softly.

I nodded. My lips thinned. “I could.” I turned back toward Ellen. “But what’s the point? He left the life I want. It’s not fair to ask him to come back to Los Angeles and this life.”

“It might not be fair to make that decision for him, either.”

I closed my eyes. Heat flared through me. My temper. Breath filled my lungs. Choo was my friend, and he was trying to help me see a way back to the man that I was in love with. “Damn,” I said. “How the hell did I let this happen?”

“Ha! Lovey, you don’t get to choose. Not really. Have you seen my brother and his wife? Their relationship was definitely not convenient in the beginning, okay? Amanda and Ryan? Who would have called that couple? Or Sterling and Rhiannon, after all the things that happened between their parents? No. Way. And your brother? Rhett Delgado Legend? The biggest lothario in the music business? He’s all settled down and practically married. I’m telling you, love happens, and it happens in spite of all the obstacles. Babe, you’ve just got a geography problem. That’s nothing when you think about it.”

“Yeah, nothing,” I said. 

Choo was trying to help and while he knew the story, he didn’t know Trick. At least not like I knew Trick. Did anyone really know him? I closed my eyes. This distance between us was so much more than geography. This distance was about a lifestyle, a desire, a need that pulsed deep in my gut to succeed on my terms, with my career and with my life. I needed to prove that I was a Legend. A real Legend.

“I’ll let the foundation know that you’ll present the award and, lovey, will you come by? Maybe this weekend? It’s especially easy now that you aren’t afraid of the pups. I’ll even cook you dinner.”

“You’ll cook?” Disbelief slid through my voice.

“Okay, Jackson will cook, but I’ll take the credit.”

A tiny giggle passed over my lips. The first laugh of my day. Trick would do the same for me. Cook and let me take the credit. I closed my eyes. Trick. Every thought I had led back to Trick.

“I won’t take no for an answer, okay? I’m texting Ellen now. I know she’ll get your ass there.”

We said our good-byes and I wandered up the beach toward my trailer. The sun was nearly immersed in the Pacific and bright orange traced with magenta slicked the sky. The sunsets at Pawtown had been just as bright, just as beautiful, but they’d been more beautiful with Trick there.

“You okay?” Ellen asked.

I turned to my sister. My mirror image. Her downturned lips mirrored the feelings in my heart. I pressed my hand to her shoulder. “Not yet, but I will be.”

Trick

I’d convinced Luis to come into town with me. The beer was going down easy. There wasn’t much of a crowd tonight at Big Daddy’s. I’d already left about fifteen bucks in the Golden Tee machine, and another fifteen for beers at the bar.

“Man, I’ve got to hit the head and then let’s roll.” Luis stood from the seat beside me at the bar. I nodded and Luis headed toward the bathrooms.

“Can I get you anything else?” Tabitha leaned over the bar. Her long blonde hair brushed over her shoulder. The lush pale flesh of the top of her breasts pressed out of the top of her V-neck. Great view. After four beers I wasn’t able to turn away, or avert my gaze, or do anything that could be considered gentlemanly. Her smile and the curve of her chin were a clear invitation for more than a beer. Tabitha and I had flirted for going on five years. The beer wasn’t helping me forget Sophia. Maybe Tabitha’s lush flesh would.

I leaned closer. Close enough to smell the scent of cinnamon and soap. A scent so different from Sophia’s. “Maybe,” I said.

A smile lit Tabitha’s face. “I’m finished here. Chuck is gonna close tonight. Why don’t you come to my place?”

Luis sidled up to the bar and Tabitha slipped away. “You ready?” he asked.

“Think I’ve got a ride,” I said, and nodded toward Tabitha, who had moved to the far end of the bar to gather her jacket and purse. I upended my beer and took a last long drink.

“That’s one way to get over heartbreak,” Luis said. He’d nursed the same beer all night, and didn’t even plan to finish it. “You sure?”

“Oh, I’m sure.” I stood and nodded toward Luis. “See you tomorrow, compadre.” I tapped him on the shoulder and walked toward the far end of the bar where Tabitha stood with her purse over her shoulder and a smile on her face. Oh, yeah. I knew one way to forget about pain and heartbreak. One way that would work for sure. And with Tabitha I was definitely about to get my adrenaline rush.

*

I followed Tabitha into a bungalow on Main Street not far from Big Daddy’s. I pulled the door shut behind me. She turned and I wrapped my arm around her waist and pulled her to me. Again, the scent of cinnamon and a clean fresh soapy scent. Her body melded into mine and my lips pressed against hers.

Her kiss was firmer and less plush, not anything like Sophia’s kiss. She was shorter than Sophia and kinda thin. She did not remotely resemble Sophia. I pressed closer to banish the thoughts of Sophia. My hand trailed up her shirt and I cupped her breast. Round and firm, but not like Sophia’s breast. I stopped myself.

I couldn’t do it.

I pulled my lips from Tabitha’s and my gaze met hers. “I’m sorry. I just … I can’t.” A giant breath filled my lungs. My hands dropped to my sides. She could slug me and yell if she needed to. I was a douchebag, an idiot, a complete ass. I was definitely not nearly as deep into recovery as I wanted to believe I was. “This isn’t fair to you, or to me, or to the person I keep thinking about.”

Tabitha’s gaze remained locked on mine. I expected her to slug me, or at the very least throw me out of her house.

“I get it.” Tabitha patted my chest with her hand and her eyes held a knowing look with hints of pain. “Better to tell me now than later. I appreciate that. Makes you one of the good ones.”