“The prosecutor is asking for bail to be set at two hundred thousand.”
“Wut?”
Forget the devil-may-care stare. Just forget it, because it falls right off my face, seamlessly replaced by shock and unmitigated fear. My heart begins thumping so hard inside my chest it feels like it’s about to explode.
“Explain to me exactly what happened and don’t leave out any of the truthful parts.”
There’s blood rushing in my ears. All I hear is wah wah wah wah truthful parts. I’m feeing woozy, my legs unsteady. Stumbling, I seek out the only chair in the room and slump down in it.
“I…I––” My chin jerks up to take a good measure of the man hovering over me. “Are you suggesting I would lie?”
“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m telling you to give me the truth and only the truth, or you’ll be spending this night and every other night in the foreseeable future in a place worse than this.”
Swallowing is an impossible feat, my throat dammed up by a hot chunk of terror. Under any other circumstance, I would rather shave with a rusty blade than expose my soft underbelly to this guy. However, as it stands, looking like a gullible jackass is a far cry better than serious jail time.
“Parker, my ex-fiancé, called two days ago and said he really needed to speak to me, that he was in town for his parents’ New Year’s Eve party. The Gregorys have it every year––”
“I know,” Vaughn interrupts.
“How do you––”
“Never mind how.”
His tone irks me in the worst possible way. It gets under my skin and makes me itch to hurl words that would make your ears bleed. Need I explain that I have poor impulse control?
He steps closer and I instantly tense. He half sits on the corner of the table, looming over me, and says…nothing. He simply waits me out as if has he all the time in the world to torture me with his silence. Not for the first time I wonder who I raped and pillaged in a past life to deserve this crap.
He’s too close. His proximity is messing with my ability to form a single, cohesive thought. And I can smell him. Christ, what is that? It’s seriously distracting––in a not entirely unpleasant way. Which only stokes my anger.
“Jones?”
“Right.” I glance up and meet his intense gaze squarely. “He invited me. Left me three messages saying that he had something important to tell me. I have them if you need them.”
“Personal?”
“At the time, I had no idea. It could’ve been work related.” I sure as heck hoped it was personal, though. That, I do not say.
“Go on.”
“There were over a hundred people there, most of who were either drunk or high by midnight. The few times I saw Parker he kept saying he needed to talk to me, that he would find me the minute he got a chance. His parents had people there that were potential investors for one of his films and he was busy pitching them. I thought nothing of it…” I fiddle with the ripped seam of my dress, every word coming out of my mouth making me more anxious as I relive the events. “I know a few of his friends so it’s not like I was waiting around…” My voice loses volume. Who am I kidding? Of course I was waiting around. Even to my own ears the excuse sounds pretty thin.
“But he didn’t.”
“No,” I murmur, shaking my head. “Then, right before midnight, Susan, his mother, made a toast congratulating Parker on his recent engagement.” I glance up into a face as flawlessly static as a sheet of ice, nothing to indicate what he’s thinking. “I was…surprised.” Not exactly the right word but I’m keeping it PG. “He never even mentioned dating anyone.”
My voice fades. Vaughn’s expression hasn’t changed one bit. Not a drop of sympathy or understanding to be found anywhere.
“I thought…” What the hell did I think was going to happen? That he’d fall to his knees and profess he’d made a mistake––beg me to take him back? Yeah, I did. I wanted him to grovel. I had no intention of taking him back––there was a greater chance of me curing cancer––however, the thought of Parker groveling made me maniacally giddy with delight.
“Let’s get to the part where you started a fire.”
My narrowed eyes cut back to him. If I ever again hear Camilla call this guy charming, she’s getting tit punched without warning. “Why are you really here?”
“I owe Calvin a favor.”
This night keeps getting better and better. I should’ve known. My relationship with Calvin can best be described as tenuous. I think he’s a grouchy asshat. He thinks I’m…who the hell knows what he thinks, but I have reason to believe it isn’t good.
Thing is, he loves Camilla. He makes her happy. And as long as she’s happy, we get along. God help him if he starts making her unhappy. I certainly don’t want to owe the man, however, with an almost quarter million dollar noose hanging around my neck, I am not about to take my chances with a public defender.