End of discussion.
That was written all over her as she turned and walked back into Waffles.
She was only gone a minute before she was all but dragging a drunk Court out toward me. “Here. Please just take him home.”
“Lark, please. If you’d just let me explain…”
Court stepped forward and put his hand on my shoulder. “Hey bro, even I know that’s not something you should ever say to a woman.”
Lark raised her eyebrows as if to say to listen to him. “I’m sure you have your reasons. And they all sound perfectly valid to you. But I assure you, anything that you say to me tonight won’t sound valid to me. All it feels like is history repeating itself. Nothing you say will change my mind about that. So…just deal with Court. Do that for me, and we’ll just…figure it out later.”
Figure it out later sounded like a death sentence. Like the end. And this couldn’t be the end.
As she slipped back into Waffles, I stepped forward to go after her. As if apologizing again would fix it. Tell her what had happened and how wrong she was. That it wasn’t what she thought. This wasn’t Melissa again.
But Court stopped me. “I’d let the lady be. It only gets worse from here.”
“It can’t get any worse than this,” I told him, feeling myself fall into a bottomless black pit as Lark walked away from me.
Court sighed. “Here’s some Kensington wisdom: it can always get worse.”
And I feared he was right.
35
Lark
Camden’s limo was finally able to extract itself from the onslaught and whisk us all back uptown. I stumbled upstairs to my empty apartment, prepared to sleep away the nightmare of this weekend. But sleep never came.
All I did was toss and turn and replay Claire throwing herself at Sam. The way she’d cried so prettily and how he had taken care of her as he did. Nausea swept over me, and nothing dispelled it.
At some point, I must have fallen into some kind of comatose sleep on the couch because I was abruptly ripped from it when the front door opened.
“Sam?” I asked before I could stop myself.
But it wasn’t Sam.
My vision cleared. “English?”
She sniffled and wiped at her eyes. “Hey, Lark.”
I sat up with my fuzzy, sleep-deprived brain. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in London for another week.”
She swallowed hard, pushed her carry-on into the living room, and closed the door. “Yeah, I was.”
“What happened?”
Then English burst into tears. I jumped to my feet, forgetting all my woes of the night before and pulled my friend into a hug.
“Shh,” I whispered against her hair.
I maneuvered her back to the couch. She plopped down next to me, completely inconsolable.
It was several minutes before she could even speak.
“I went to the set to see Josh. At first, it was all great. And then…and then I overheard some members of the cast talking about how Josh and his coworker Celeste—you know, the, like, Bond girl of the film—were together. How they weren’t even good at hiding it. How they…they felt bad for me.”
“No!” I gasped. “But Josh is…he’s head over heels for you!”
She shrugged helplessly. “I thought so too. We talk every day. He bought me that apartment. He was so supportive of this job. He was even going to move here before he went on his promotional tour.”
“Did you confront him?”
“Yeah,” she whispered. “Yeah, I did. He denied it. So, I told him that I’d ask Celeste. Get her take on it. Then it all spilled out of him. He said that he didn’t care for her. He didn’t love her. It was just a”—she choked on the next words—“publicity stunt.”
“He did not say that to you. To you of all people.”
She nodded, tears flowing freely down her cheeks again. “He did. The bastard. He said it was to sell the last movie. He actually had the audacity to say that it worked for Mr. & Mrs. Smith.”
“No fucking way!” I cried. “That’s…I have no words.”
“Yeah. I didn’t either.”
“Oh god.”
“I couldn’t stay another second. I packed all my shit up, bought the most expensive first-class ticket on his credit card, and came right back.”
“No wonder you weren’t answering your phone last night. You were over the Atlantic.”
“Answer my phone? Why were you calling me last night?” she asked, scrubbing at her cheeks.
I took a deep breath. “There was a raid on the party last night.”
“What?” she gasped, sitting up perfectly straight with wide eyes. “Were you arrested? Was Court arrested? Fuck!”
“No, no one was arrested. Well, not our friends. Camden knew someone, and they tipped us off. We got out ahead of the police. I don’t know what happened to everyone else.”
English sank back. “Thank fuck. I couldn’t imagine. I’d lose my fucking job over that.”
“I know. I had the same thought.”
“But why was there a raid on a poker game? It was just for fun. Nothing to try to crack down on with a police raid.”
I sighed. “It wasn’t what we’d thought it was. It was a built establishment. At least a dozen poker tables. Plus, blackjack, craps, roulette, and slots. There were platforms for dancers and everything. This place had been in operation for a while.”
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“None of us knew it was going to be like that. It was a nightmare.”
“I’d hate to be the publicist for whoever has to deal with the fallout,” English said.
“That person doesn’t need a publicist. They need an attorney.”
“You’d be shocked at how often those two things go hand in hand.”
I managed a laugh. “And…something else happened last night.”
English arched an eyebrow.
“Claire came back and declared her love for Sam.”
“Oh shit. What did he do? Tell her to fuck off?”
I shook my head. “No, she was blubbering about how much she’d messed up. He…decided to talk to her. Told me to go to the party. He’d text me and meet me there. But he didn’t…he never texted, and he only showed up two hours later after the party was raided. I made him take Court home and told him I’d talk to him tomorrow. Well, now, today.”
“Fuck that shit! Two hours later!” English seethed. “What is with men? Why are they all so awful? I just…I thought Sam was good for you. I was the one who convinced you to see this through. Now, look at the bullshit he pulled. Look at the bullshit Josh pulled,” she finished in a whisper as her anger died down to grief.
“When I saw Claire, I wanted to break her into pieces. But I don’t know what to think about Sam.”
English laughed. “Bad Lark came out to play.”
“More or less. And I don’t want to be that person. I just want to be me and also not get stepped all over. Like, how hard is it to send a text message?”