Chapter 85

Chapter 85
Elvie was about to round the corner and turn onto the street when a limo pulled up at the curb and the passenger door flung open. Her eyes widened, and she stopped in an instant. Her brother was no Liam Neeson, and if she was going to get kidnapped, she very much doubted she could be saved. She turned around to look at the person getting out of the vehicle. It was Kristal, dressed to impress in what looked like a cocktail gown. She seemed to be alone.

“Can I help you?” Elvie cocked her head. She wanted to be strong, but she was tired, hungry, and annoyed. And pissed at herself—so pissed that she’d let herself get carried away with a man like Zander Stanton. She usually made smart choices. She was a salad girl, and he was a deep-fried chocolate lava cake.

“Me? No, though I’m sure you’ll do it at some point once you get fired, divorced, and have to become a waitress to support your slutty ways.” She walked towards her on her high heels. The limo driver looked the other way, like he couldn’t watch the scene. Her sentence hadn’t even made any sense. Elvie folded her arms across her chest. “Why are you here?”

“To tell you to back off.” Kristal smirked.

I'm the wife, for heaven’s sake!

Elvie rolled her eyes. “If Zander doesn’t want me, he’s welcome to tell me himself.”

She didn’t agree with any part of that sentence. She was no longer sure she wanted him anyway, and at any rate, it wasn’t entirely clear they were even together. But she’d be damned if she’d let Kristal boss her around like that.

Kristal kept coming until she was chest-to-chest with me. She was much taller and a little leaner. Most of all, she was meaner.

“You’re ruining his life, Elvira.”

“Elvie,” she corrected. 

Kristal rolled her eyes, like she was an idiot for even pointing that out. “Whatever. You butting into his life means he’s losing everything he cares about. He doesn’t have a family of his own. We were his family—not to mention the network. You are toxic to him, and he’s trying hard not to hurt your feelings, but whenever I call him, he comes back.”

Elvie’s face heated, but she said nothing. She didn’t believe her—not completely, anyway. Yet her words got to her. She started walking, bypassing Kristal on the sidewalk. She felt her turning around behind her.

“He’s going to be back in my arms by the end of this week. He is going to divorce you again. Remember that!”

“Good luck, and by the way, let Patrick know your plan. The man surely needs someone. He is lonely, you know," Elvie shouted back, not turning around to face her.

“You’ve always been a second choice! A meaningless fling stand that got stretched into more because of the circumstances.”

"Yeah, right, that's why he married me again? Because of what? Of my daughter? Yeah, right! Good luck taking back Zander, and oh! Patrick says he likes me.” Elvie winked at her.

“Bitch!”

Kristal's last words echoed in Elvie's mind as she sighed.



The next morning, “Would you look at that? It's Zander!”

Elvie halted and nicked her little finger when the thought of Zander sprung into her mind.

Was he in trouble? More importantly, was I supposed to care this much?

“What do you mean?” She tried to keep her voice light.

“He looks good in a tux; I’ll give him that. Of course, if I were as tall as LeBron James, I would rock a designer suit like nobody’s business. You have to see this, sis.”

Elvie placed the knife on the chopping board and wiped her hands on her jeans, walking over to the living room. She stood behind the sofa, so Joey couldn’t see her. Good call, considering the horror she knew had plastered itself on her unsuspecting face as she realised what she was looking at.

It was a gossip show rerun from earlier in the day. Some Scottish socialite had celebrated her birthday and rented out half the left wing of some glitzy hotel. She’d ordered a cake the size of a car—literally, an actual car. As the camera spun around the horrendous excuse for a sponge cake, it caught some of the guests at the party. And there was her very own Waldo, who’d been missing in action for the past three days.

Kristal’s arm was looped around Zander’s.

Zander smiled.

She clapped.

They looked happy.

“What is he doing with that bitch?” Joey grumbled under his breath.

He looked happy.

happy, like his ex-wife had just helped him save the world.

“I have no idea.” Elvie nodded, squeezing her eyes shut so he wouldn’t see the pain swirling inside them. She wanted to run to the garden and throw herself on the little koi pond—so her heart would be lonely and hungry, so it wouldn’t be linked via an invisible string, like a balloon, to a man who was too good at sucking the air out of it.

“I thought you two were together; I mean, he married you back.” Joey brushed his fingers along her arm.

“I thought so, too. He decided to get back with her earlier this week to save SBC.”

“Idiot.”

Elvie knew he meant Zander, but the same could be said about her.

The whole world had warned her about him, and she’d chosen to stick her earbuds in and ignore them.

“Well, I’m pooped. I’ll finish Thea’s carrot soap later. I need to go to work.” She dropped a kiss on his head, escaping to her room.

She checked the messages on her phone. There were none.

Kristal had spent the evening with him, then paid her a visit to warn her she was going to steal him back.

Kristal could keep him.



A few hours later, Zander walked into his office with a fresh cup of coffee and another new suit that cost fuck-knows-how-much so Bella wouldn’t have to move her precious ass an inch. Bella was sitting behind her desk, but he didn’t have it in him to kick her all the way back to the newsroom.

She didn’t look up from her laptop as he approached. “The dog house is all the way down, to your left, at the nearest Petco store.”

She rubbed her eyes, causing a streak of black eyeliner to run down her cheeks. She looked like she’d been sucking dick for twenty years straight without taking a break—haggard, frizzy hair, with red blotches covering most of her skin. Her grey shirt had at least three different sets of unidentifiable stains.

“You look stunning, by the way.” Zander slid her his cup of coffee.

“Well, you look like the asshole who’s about to get dumped and fired on the same day, so I wouldn’t go around offering sarcastic compliments, sir.” Bella sighed and shut her laptop, tucked it under her arm, and stood up.

Zander followed her with his eyes as she made her way to the door. If she thought she was walking away without explaining her behaviour, she was gravely mistaken.

“Stop,” he commanded. She did, her back to him.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Zander leaned against his desk.

She didn’t turn around. “I stayed here all night, sir.”

“Why?”

“Have you not checked the news in the last fifteen hours?”

Alarm trickled into his system. If the mayor had decided to go into cardiac arrest on the first day he decided to unplug, he was going to be ushered to a room right next to him.

“Get to the point,” Zander bit out.

“Check your phone,sir?” Bella spun on her heel slowly, arching a patronising eyebrow.

He shook his head, regarding her through hooded eyes. “This game of yours might cost you your job, so I sure as hell hope you’re enjoying it.”

She rolled her eyes and said, “Oh, I’m not. Trust me. Now, let’s see.” She made a show of turning to him fully, tapping her lip. “It started with the fact that the entire newsroom saw you leaving with your ex-wife a hot second after you’d declared that you and Elvie were not divorcing, which put her squarely in the position of being the official office joke—the building’s leftover who’s been dumped by the boss. Spoiler alert: She doesn’t like it. Then, sometime last night, it was revealed that there’s an oil spill threatening to kill thousands of mammals and birds. People stayed overnight. Elvie didn’t, because she had to take care of her brother and daughter after working overtime. So don’t worry, I’m sure she caught the Gossip Road rerun of you hanging out with Kristal. Gosh…” She slapped a hand over her chest. “What a multitasker! Banging your ex and your life simultaneously.”

Zander erased the space between them, jerking his chin up to look down at her. She hadn’t told him anything he didn’t already know—well, okay, except the oil spill—and he wasn’t an idiot, so obviously, he had a good idea of what it all looked like. Keeping Elvie guessing was the plan. 

Pushing her away—the goal.

But he didn’t like what Kate had insinuated. “I didn’t fuck Kristal. Her grandmother died.”

That was not something he could exactly shout from the rooftops. The Davis family was private. Her sisters were adamant about working regular jobs.

“Does Elvie know?”

“She will.” Zander was playing with fire, but the self-fulfilling prophecy wasn’t uncalled for. He didn’t really do commitments and relationships, and the shit with Elvie was getting to be a bit much.

“You’re not listening, sir. She’s not going to hear your bullshit. How will you explain hanging at Kristal’s apartment building? Attending a birthday party with her? Disappearing to all of us?”

He shouldered past her, and she gasped, taking an evasive step. The impending calamity he’d inserted himself into with eyes wide open was going to come raining down on him. It wasn’t pouring, but they were already at a steady trickle. Shit. He was in deep sht.

“I attended all those functions for her family,” Zander told Bella, still unable to reach his office door. “That included Kristal’s cousin’s stupid birthday party. I went to her apartment twice—without her—because I needed to get her fresh clothes and her toiletry shit. We were never in the same vicinity with our clothes off. She tried to hold my hand for half a fucking second at the party, and I bit her head off for it. We’re over, but that doesn’t mean I need to be an ass to her. I wanted to be there for the Davises, because when my life was crumbling and my parents died, they were there for me.”