Vixen (37 page)

She must have meant someone else. Lorraine felt only love for Gloria, and everyone knew that. Didn’t they? Lorraine had tried—was trying—to make sure of Gloria’s happiness! That was why she had come here tonight.

Wait. Why
had
she come here? The memory was hazy now: Lorraine had been going over her notes from Shelly, figuring out just how best to break the news to Gloria.

And then, because she’d been feeling a bit nervous, she’d gone for a drink at a speakeasy called Sub Rosa—a glass of wine that had turned into three or maybe four glasses. The wine was to bolster Lorraine’s courage—telling Gloria the scummy truth about Clara was going to be difficult, very difficult—and a way to distract herself from the engagement party that was going on without her.

There’d been a man with a mustache there, and he’d been very friendly. Maybe too friendly, now that she thought about it. He had kissed her, his rough hands dropping fast to her garter.

She had slapped him and run out to the street, her skirt twisted halfway around and riding up her legs. But she didn’t want him to catch her—the nerve of that man!—so she had run for all she was worth, but hadn’t noticed all the ice on the street from the cold snap.

And she had slipped and fallen on the frozen pavement and torn her stockings and the skin of her knee, and it had
hurt
, but there was no one there to help her, so she swallowed her tears and another slug from her flask and then found her car and got in. And that was when she saw it:

REDEMPTION

The word blinked in red. Followed by:

TRUTH

In green.

If that wasn’t a message from somebody up above, she didn’t know what one would look like. Sure, the sign was on the front of some sort of crazy downtown church—what kind of person went to church under a neon cross?—but she wasn’t going to be picky right then about where she found her divine inspiration. So she had fired up the car and driven off toward Astor Street with a mission in mind.

But somehow it all had gone terribly wrong.

Clara was gone now, had rushed off in a storm of tears, Marcus running after her. The party was breaking up, the reporters slipping their notepads back into their bags. Guests
were gathering their coats. Members of the orchestra were packing their instruments.

“I think it is high time that you leave this house, Lorraine Dyer. I want you to listen very carefully: Don’t you ever set foot under my roof again.” Mrs. Carmody’s hands were at the small of Lorraine’s back, pushing her toward the front door. Lorraine tried to resist, but the old biddy was like a force of nature, and anyway, Lorraine had lost a shoe somewhere.

Then they were on the porch, and Mrs. Carmody was handing the shoe to her, and Lorraine felt cold and confused and terribly, terribly alone.

“I’ve put up with a lot from you, Lorraine Dyer. I know your parents are mostly absent from your life, and I always wanted you to feel welcome here. But now look what you’ve done. This is the final straw. Never again go near my Gloria. For as long as you live.”

Sitting on a bench, shivering, Lorraine gazed up at the sky through bare branches.

Her nanny used to bring her and Gloria here to Astor Square Park when they were young girls—it was within walking distance of both of their homes—and they would play for hours. Now she was smoking a cigarette, alone, sober, her head still hammering. Her dress was filthy and
ruined. She was the one who felt like crying now, but the raw wind was stinging her eyes dry.

She could barely make sense of what had transpired. If Lorraine had been in Clara’s shoes, surely she would have fallen prey to a man like Harris Brown—so handsome, so powerful. But a miscarriage? No girl deserved that kind of trauma.

She took out her silver Tiffany cigarette case, only to find it empty, gleaming at her almost malevolently, as if playing a cruel joke. She chucked it as far as she could into the darkness of the park.

She put her hands to her temples. There was a throbbing rhythm like feet tapping on her head. No, wait, those were actual footsteps. Heavy, like a man’s. And she was alone, at night, in a deserted park. Dressed like a floozy, and without the energy to run.

“Lose something?”

She recognized the voice immediately. But she was more surprised by her initial reaction—of relief?—than by the fact that it was Bastian Grey. He waved her cigarette case like a fan as he stepped out of the shadows. His bow tie was loose around his neck, and his shirt was hanging out over his formal trousers. “Or was that just your unconventional method of quitting? I hear it’s good for the lungs.”

“Since when are you concerned with my health?”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m much more concerned with your
un
healthy habits.” He sat down next to her on the bench.
“Although, as far as I know, you have yet to display any healthy ones.”

Bastian’s motives were always suspect, but it was nice to have a warm body against hers—his mere presence distracted her from the unbearable tension of being alone. Plus, he had cigarettes. “Care to corrupt my lungs a little more?”

“The pleasure is all mine,” he said. He retrieved his own cigarette case and lit two in his mouth before handing her one. “Nice show you pulled tonight, by the way. You should really consider taking that act on the road.”

She wasn’t in the mood for his sarcastic banter. “Why did you follow me here?”

“I’m a gentleman at heart, Raine. And if Marcus was so gentlemanly as to follow the victim, I figured it was only fair to follow the villainess.”

Marcus
. No matter what she did, Marcus would never want her. The realization was terribly sobering and made her body ache all the more.

She found herself leaning into Bastian’s wool coat, but quickly pulled away. “Fair? Since when do you believe in fairness?”

“Don’t they say all’s fair in love and war?”

“All is
un
fair in love and war.”

“You know what I think your problem is?” He turned to her, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes. “You don’t know who your enemy is.”

She shivered at his touch. No, the problem was that everyone was her enemy.

“See, you chose to make war with the wrong person,” he continued. “In this town, bad press is the best press of all.”

Lorraine cringed. “Yeah, well, I didn’t know Clara was going to steal the story.”

“She actually came off pretty sympathetic,” Bastian said. “Everyone has a skeleton or two in his closet. Most people sympathize.” He cocked his head. “What they don’t necessarily like are the people who open the closet doors. Scares them.”

“If you’re trying to say I did the wrong thing, can it. Gloria deserved to know. Everyone deserved to know. Clara is a con artist.”

Bastian smirked. “Maybe she is, but she’s not the one who told me about the Green Mill.”

Lorraine was shocked. Somewhere along the way, she had miscalculated.

“At any rate,” Bastian continued, “she certainly has her claws securely into pretty boy Marcus Eastman. I wonder what they’re doing as we speak.”

Lorraine rubbed her arms. “I don’t care. I’m moving on to bigger and better things—I’m waiting for New York.”

New York. The city that never slept. New York would be where she would start over. Barnard would be her new home, where no one knew about her life in Chicago.
Columbia was right across the street, filled with dozens—no, hundreds!—of gorgeous, smart, rich boys. Surely she would find one of them to date, to love, one who wouldn’t ignore her the way Marcus did or treat her like some little floozy, the way Bastian did. New York was where her life would change—and unlike Clara, she wouldn’t mess things up. Lorraine would do it right.

“And what will you do in the meantime?” Bastian casually draped his arm around her. “You’re too beautiful a girl to be by yourself.”

His arm brought her back to reality; instantly, she removed it. “Don’t even start with me, Bastian.”

“Come here,” he said, in almost a whisper. “Do you not trust me at all? I said, come here.” He gently pulled her against him, rubbing her arms to warm her up. “You were shivering.”

“Oh, thanks.” What was she thanking him for? This was just a ploy, some sick sexual ploy to draw her close to him—had she learned nothing from the past two times in his apartment? But her body was numb, and her fingers were numb, and her heart felt numb, too. She would let him warm her up, but that was all.

He rubbed her hands together, as if he were trying to spark a fire from two sticks. “Better?” he asked.

“A little,” she said, pulling her hands back and placing them in her lap.

They sat for a moment in silence, listening to the wind in the bare branches of the trees. Then he said, “I may have gotten a bit … out of line the last time I saw you—”

“ ‘Out of line’ is an understatement,” Lorraine said coldly.

“You’re right, and I’m sorry. You deserve to be treated with respect.”

“Respect?” She wiggled away. The outside of Bastian might have been gorgeous—that dark hair, those smoldering eyes—but his insides were surely rotten. “Cut the bushwa!”

“I’m serious, Raine. The Greys and the Dyers go way back. And if we can’t treat each other with respect, how do we expect the dirty lower classes to?” His expression nearly made Lorraine sick.

She looked at him squarely. “You are such a—”

“A what?” His eyes shimmered with amusement. “What title do you think
you
deserve after tonight? Good Samaritan? Savior? Oh, Saint Lorraine, please have a drink with me,” he pleaded. “Let me bask in your holy presence, and accept my paltry mortal offering.”

“And what is your offering, exactly?”

“A drink. At my place.”

Something inside her knew better than to accept Bastian’s offer. His intentions weren’t pure, and she was pretty sure he wanted to sleep with her. And while she didn’t want that to happen, Bastian was making her feel as if she hadn’t messed up her entire life half an hour earlier. Surely in the
morning she would be grounded forever by her parents. She might even make the society papers alongside Clara.

Tonight might very well be her last night of freedom. Why not enjoy it?

“
One
drink,” she said. “That’s all.”

Bastian grinned and raised two fingers in a mock pledge of honor. “You make the rules, Miss Dyer. I simply follow your lead.”

All thoughts of Clara disappeared. All thoughts of Marcus vanished. Gloria, Mrs. Carmody, even Lorraine’s parents—gone. She could feel herself changing, something dark inside her rising, forcing its way to the surface. “Well, in that case,” she said, her voice newly energized, “let’s get sloppy.”

GLORIA

Now Gloria understood everything.

That was why Clara was here. To escape. All her talk about romantically following her heart was a sham—Clara had followed her heart, and look where it had led her: to shame, to loss. To disaster.

Gloria wouldn’t repeat her cousin’s mistakes. She’d go to the club and say goodbye to Jerome. Quick and simple. No room for failure. No room for regret.

Surely, her feelings for Jerome were nothing more than a childish infatuation—like Clara’s for Harris Brown. Gloria might have thought she shared something special with Jerome, but they had no future together. Where would they live? Where would their children go to school? Even though her life with Bastian might be dull, it would be respectable.

Gloria had said as much to Bastian in the aftermath of the engagement party. He had forgiven her, saying, “I’m happy to see that you’ve come to your senses.” Then he had kissed her goodnight and gone home.

Gloria wouldn’t be causing scandals or getting her name in the gossip columns as Mrs. Sebastian Grey III. Her mother would be secure. There was so much that made
sense
about the wedding.

Nothing about her and Jerome made sense at all.

So why was she standing here the next day, paralyzed, at the entrance to the Green Mill? She had rehearsed this. She’d written out a script during study hall, treating it like a cut-and-dry English class assignment: