Eden Newell met me in a spacious foyer that had a glass-top roof showcasing a view of the gray sky. Like most Hollywood actresses, Eden was classically beautiful, with light-blue eyes, which were striking in combination with her tousled chestnut hair. Beneath her round and high cheekbones was a wide mouth that made it impossible to miss her smile, even the pensive one she held as I walked into her house. I felt as if I’d interrupted her in the middle of trying to complete one last task before my arrival.
“Did you have any trouble finding the house?” she asked, scratching the back of her head.
I smiled. “Not at all. I used the navigational system just in case, but you don’t live that far from my family’s property.”
“Oh, the Christmases are my neighbors?”
I chuckled. “I guess so.” There was no use explaining that we owned hundreds of multimillion-dollar properties all over the world, all purchased by Randolph, who’d used them as his sex lairs.
She squeezed her palms together as if nervous about something. “Wow, so it’s finally happening. We’re going to do this.”
I frowned, concerned. “Did I catch you at a bad time or something?”
“Hey, hon,” a guy said.
I jerked myself into a straight position. There was no way in the world I was hearing who I thought I heard. The guy was behind me, and Eden was watching him.
“I see that the interior designer’s late but here,” he said. “I guess that counts for something.”
The voice. I knew it, and I knew it well. Holy crap.
“Hey, babe,” Eden said in her lackluster tone.
I turned my head slowly, feeling as if it was time for the big reveal on a game show. Then I saw him. My stomach tightened in disbelief as I inhaled sharply. I was looking into the eyes of my ex-boyfriend from hell, Dale Rumor.
Chapter Four
Bryn Christmas
My eyes felt as if they were spewing enough fire to scorch Dale Rumor alive. I wanted to ask why he was there, but the words would not come out. Dale wrapped an arm around Eden’s tiny waist and looked at me as if he’d never seen me before in his life.
“Can I get you anything—coffee, tea, water…?” he asked.
I could have choked with embarrassment, not for me but for Eden. I knew what came after “water.” It had been a habit of his to say, “Coffee, tea, water, or me?” He only proved he was the same scoundrel of a boyfriend for Eden that he’d been for me.
“I’m fine,” I said, glaring at him. I didn’t like the emotions I was having.
I could have bet a million bucks he’d orchestrated the present situation without her knowledge. He was sneaky in that way. He’d put me in a severely awkward position. I didn’t hate Dale, but no one could push my buttons like he could. The last time we’d seen each other, we fought because he’d decided to fire me from the film project we were both producing. I screamed—admittedly crazily—that he couldn’t do that because we had a contract.
He told me I should have read the fine print. “Plus, working together isn’t working, Bryn. It’s ruining us, and you know that.”
“You’re ruining us,” I shouted and then called him every derogatory name in the book.
He called me a nutjob who had extreme rapist-father daddy issues. Then I jumped and clung to him like a spider monkey and clawed at his face. He pulled me off him and held me down.
One of our neighbors had called the police, and when they arrived, I was still yelling and screaming that I was going to kill him. While I was trying to spit on Dale, my spittle landed on one of the officers, and they arrested me for disturbing the peace. When they put me in the back of the squad car, I was lethargic and unable to stop crying. One of the officers thought I was high on drugs, but I wasn’t. I was merely having another mental and emotional breakdown.
My memory of that night remained foggy, to a certain extent, but I recalled one of the officers saying that they weren’t taking me to the rich people’s station—I was going to Twin Towers in downtown LA. One of them mentioned my pretty little face that liked to spit.
One of them said something about saving my spit for a blow job. “Is that what you like to do?”
His tone was salacious, aggressive. He said that he would teach me a lesson. He had no idea how much I wanted to learn that lesson. I didn’t want to be Bronwyn Henrietta Christmas. I hated that girl. I felt I deserved hell on earth, and Dale was just a start. Out of all the children my father had produced by inflicting violence on innocent girls, he’d chosen to use me and the brothers I’d grown up with to make him appear normal. My name was evidence of that. Blue-blooded. Rich. Lofty.
Screw my father and Dale, I’d thought back then. Screw her too. Screw Bronwyn Henrietta Christmas.
I never made it to Twin Towers. The officers received a call while en route. A man with a gruff voice ordered them to take me to the Lighthouse Recovery Center. One of the officers shouted that it was too late—I was as good as booked.
“What the fuck? Take her!” the guy over the radio said. “And I know you two fucking fucks. Nothing better happen to her, or your asses are grass. And you don’t want to fuck with her brother.”
“Who’s her brother?”
“Jasper fucking Christmas,” the voice blared.
It got deathly quiet in the car. My brother’s name repeated in my mind. Then, as further evidence of my mental breakdown, I started crying for him.
There was no more taunting or talking after that. I was taken straight to the recovery center. That wasn’t my final stint in rehab, but it was the last day I saw Dale Rumor. I later learned that Dale had called Jasper to let him know I’d been arrested. It wasn’t that he was looking out for me, though. He was afraid that if Jasper found out he’d been the reason I was taken to jail, he would incur the wrath of my brother. I doubted that would have happened. Jasper would never have let me spend more than a day in jail, but he was all about me taking responsibility for my inappropriate behavior. Even though his motives were selfish, calling my brother was the last good deed Dale had ever done for me.
I didn’t want to lie to Eden, but it didn’t feel like the appropriate time to tell her the truth about my past relationship with Dale. A pinch of anger raced through me. I didn’t let it catch fire and burn down all the progress I’d made by getting happy. But I had to think it was strange to run into Jamison on Sunday and Dale on Monday. Is that a good or bad sign?
“That’s right,” Eden said jubilantly. “The two of you know each other.”
I forced a smile. I was right on the money—he hadn’t told her everything about us. If he had, her tone would have been the direct opposite of happy.
“Hi, Dale.” I kept my voice deadpan.
“Good seeing you, Bryn.” He sounded cordial and casual, as if there was no reason to let his girlfriend know that we used to be an item.
I pressed my lips together.
Eden patted him on the shoulder. “Now, go. Bryn and I have work to do.”
I found it interesting that Eden hadn’t picked up on the cold formality between Dale and me. I wondered if she was ignoring it on purpose. What did he tell her, anyway? At least I strongly believed the ambush had been Dale’s doing—which, again, wasn’t at all surprising. I would have to tell her about us at some point. Hopefully, she was more intuitive than I was giving her credit for, and at some point during our long day together, she would ask, “So, what’s the deal with you and Dale?” If that happened, I felt like I would tell her everything—the bad, the worse, and the ugly.