Chapter Twenty-One
J.R.'s departure left Zach and Kendall standing more or less together, and separated by approximately five feet of concrete slab and an ocean's width of dissonance from side-by-side Ryan and Greenlee, who was gripping the handle of Miranda's stroller with the air of someone waiting for an earthquake, a hurricane, or perhaps both. In spite of Ryan's stated intention to remove Miranda to the park, without J.R. Chandler as his second, he appeared hesitant to give Greenlee the final signal to depart.
In his minds' eye, Zach was envisioning the Laverys backing down the sidewalk to their destination rather than taking the chance on turning their backs on himself, if not himself and Kendall both. Beside him, Kendall bristled like an offended little hedgehog, yet still refrained from launching into the full-scale counterattack he would have expected by now. Why—because she'd actually heeded his cautionary nod, Zach wondered sardonically, or because she'd simply, finally, completely run out of steam?
His hide was far too tough to be scratched by this latest fusillade of assumptions, insinuations, and zings. Its target was Kendall as well as himself, however…and it came from Kendall's own people…not his people; they never had been and never would be, but hers. Kendall's associating with him, even passively, was costing her dearly, because the reverse was no truer—associating with Kendall wasn't exactly helping Zach, either. The real battle line had already been drawn yesterday between Kendall and Greenlee, and Zach acknowledged that as satisfying as it had been to temporarily spike young Chandler's toy guns, the younger man, with his vast resources and even more unlimited spite, added a new complication.
Like it or not, Zach reflected, he and Kendall had somehow climbed aboard the same small boat in—in which there was really only room for one passenger—on this stormy sea they traversed. She, initially looking for the chance to push him overboard…he, initially trying to keep his own balance while frustrating her efforts…the two of them now discovering that when a boat was in danger of being capsized, all passengers risked drowning.
"Well…we're leaving. Don't try to follow us." Ryan now sounded somewhat less belligerent.
"The park is a public place," Zach reminded him. "But there are other places—and times—for Kendall and me to spend time with our niece. As I said, we won't follow you now, if that's what you're afraid of."
Ryan's chin jutted out as he began to respond, but Greenlee released one hand from the stroller long enough to place it on her husband's arm. "Come on, Ryan, let's go. It's getting late and we need to get back on schedule," she said, adding, "I'll call you tonight, Kendall, okay? We'll set something up."
"Oh, it's the old 'don't call me, I'll call you' routine, is that it, Greenlee?" Kendall asked resentfully.
"I just don't want the phone to disturb Miranda," Greenlee emphasized, as if speaking to an idiot.
Patience, Zach counseled himself. Patience. There was really no more to be said at the moment, so he didn't bother to say it. Instead he reached for Kendall's elbow, steering her back to the Range Rover before conditions between the two women deteriorated any further. Volunteering as Kendall's chauffeur—a chore Zach had undertaken less from the gallantry it would have pleased him to know she'd reluctantly attributed to him, and more to still ensure against her meeting the press on her own—comprised a wider range of duties than he'd bargained for. But as was Zach's custom, he accepted them as part of the deal and regarded them as potential new paths leading to what he might want.
Once sitting across from him, Kendall asked very seriously, "Will you tell me something, Zach?"
Glancing at her before guiding his vehicle into traffic, Zach was very conscious of feeling attuned to her. He was very pissed by what had just happened—and so was she. "Sure. If I can."
"Do you know any hit men?"
After maintaining it all morning, Zach nearly lost his composure. "What?" he choked.
"Well, you're in the gambling business. Everybody knows gambling equals mobsters. Even if you aren't one, you must know somebody who is."
"Let's say I did. Doesn't mean I'd ever put myself into such debt to one of them."
Kendall sighed. "Okay. I wouldn't either. I was joking. Kind of."
Zach decided to be blunt. "Is that so, Kendall? You seem to have an obsession with hit men Has something changed, because isn't that essentially what you think I am?"
"So sue me. I did." Her voice suddenly became very small and then trailed off uncomfortably altogether at the end. "I did, Zach, but…but now I don't think…or I wouldn't…I mean, Derek convinced me…that…that…."
With an inner sight of relief, Zach took pity on her. "Then no more talk about hit men. Joking or otherwise."
"Then what are we going to do?" Kendall burst out again. "Greenlee is so caught up in this babymania thing she's becoming unglued, and Ryan is just making it worse by enabling her. Wait a minute, Zach. Where are you going?"
"Until we reach the onramp to the highway, that's up to you. You may go home or you may come to the casino with me. Your choice. As I told you yesterday, I'm not taking you hostage. So where do you want to go?"
Suspecting that in some corner of hell ice-skates were being strapped on to cloven hooves, Zach privately admitted his preference was for Kendall to choose the casino—even though that meant he'd be stuck with her for at least a few hours more. But he was neither looking forward to making the necessary telephone calls awaiting him when he arrived at his office, the difficult decisions they would engender—or the drive home alone. Sensing her rather searching gaze upon him, he kept his own on the road ahead.
Kendall flopped back against her seat and sighed. "I probably shouldn't go either place. Somebody needs to show at Fusion once in awhile to spell Simone. If Greenlee's going to be spending all her time at home with Miranda, I guess it'll have to be me."
"That wasn't said very enthusiastically," Zach commented.
"Well, aren't you observant," she replied more briskly. "If you want to know what I really want to do right now, Zach, it's to turn into Miranda—I want somebody to feed me, dress me, take me to the park, buy me ice cream, and put me on the swing. But I'm trying to be a responsible business owner."
Zach shrugged. "I get that. That's what subordinates are for. Don't you think Simone can hold the fort down for a few days? She knows it's an emergency."
Kendall sighed once more. "She's very capable, more capable than Greenlee and I put together. Maybe I just want to feel I'm of some use somewhere."
Again, Zach felt attuned to her and made a split decision. The closest highway entrance to the casino was coming up. Pulling over into the right lane, he accelerated up the curved ramp. That was when Kendall seemed to recognize where they were heading, and that he'd summarily taken matters into his own hands.
"Hey!" she protested loudly. "I told you I ought to go to Fusion. What's the idea of taking me to the casino, Zach?"
"No, what you said you wanted, Kendall, was to be coddled like a baby. And do you know what? I don't blame you."
"And just who is going to coddle me, Zach? You?" she asked more than a little incredulously.
Zach passed a slower vehicle and was honked at for his effrontery. "Indirectly. The Seasons has a luxury day spa, Kendall. Massages, body wraps, mud baths, facials, aromatherapy. Gourmet spa cuisine prepared by a Michelin three-star chef and served to you while lounging in our three-tiered waterfall pool—the whole works, or whatever combination you wish, all yours merely for the asking. And yes, that was cribbed from the brochure."
"A day spa? You're abducting me to your day spa?" Kendall still sounded incredulous. "Look…okay, the way you describe it, it sounds really wonderful, I admit—and it is kind of what I said I wanted. All right, it's exactly what I want. But Zach, I wasn't asking you to provide it for me. You don't have to do that. You just don't have to."
Kendall's desire to acquiesce to such a delightful prospect clearly warred with her reluctance to accept any favors from him. If the shoe were on the other foot, Zach realized objectively, he wasn't so sure but that he'd be ambivalent about it too. In fact he probably would have unequivocally refused it. A bit ruefully, though, he conceded, "I know you weren't, Kendall. And I know I don't. So I should point out we are over half the way there. Should I turn around at the next exit?"
A hush fell over them for several moments, before Kendall replied, slowly, "If we're already that close, then I suppose turning around would be pretty inconvenient, wouldn't it? I mean even more inconvenient than just—just—well—"
"Turning you over to the spa director?" Zach asked candidly.
"Well, um—something like that, don't you think, Zach? But you're the one who's driving, so of course you'd be the better judge."
So should he have been a better judge, he would realize later, but he was feeling tired, hungry, and lost too. The casino was closer than Fusion, and so to the casino they went. Kendall was taken in hand by the sympathetic Frieda Swenson, the spa director, to receive a brief introduction to the spa's many features and decide which services she preferred. Zach made no stipulations as to limits on the number or their duration or cost; it mattered not to him, and he could see that Kendall wasn't regretting falling in with his plan.
Initially he'd planned to stay at the office for no more than half a day and even that probably wasn't necessary thanks to his delegations of authority. Being on his own familiar turf again, however, was somewhat revitalizing. With instructions to Frieda to page him when Kendall had had her fill of pampering, Zach went to his private office and closed the door behind him, mentally congratulating himself on holding up so relatively well thus far. Once he'd made the personal calls he needed to make, he intended to alert Edie that he was available; she'd already be aware he was on the premises.
That was when the loss of Ethan hit Zach the hardest that it had yet…hammering him like a heavy blow to the solar plexus he didn't even see coming, the sudden intensity of it sinking him almost to his knees. Staggering to his desk, Zach dropped into his chair and buried his face in his hands.
Before his mind's eye, his relentless memory began replaying scenes from so many painful dramas enacted in this room…Zach's first suspicion that Ethan might be his son, his horrified reception of the DNA test confirmation…the ensuing unproductive conversation where Zach offered Ethan a home anywhere in the world he wanted to live, the career of his choice, and a fortune to spend—as long as Ethan lived, worked, and spent anywhere but Pine Valley, and forgot the name Cambias ever existed.
And so on and so and so on…and all for naught. The Great Wall of China had nothing on Ethan when it came to being an impenetrable edifice. Banging his head against its ancient defiant stones would undoubtedly would have left more of an impression, too, than Zach was ever able to make on the heart, soul, or mind of the boy he'd so yearned yet feared to claim as his son. Meanwhile the Great Wall still stood…while all that was left for Ethan was a different type of memorial stone.
Zach's demons, dormant since early morning, began to come out to play, making up for lost time. You fucked up so royally with Ethan; do you really think you'll do better by Miranda? Zach taunted himself. Maybe Kendall had been right all along in her attempts to come between him and his niece. He would go to his own death rather than deliberately harm Miranda…but then he would have died for Ethan too, if that had been the only way to save Ethan from the taint that promised to devour him. Only Ethan was the dead man now. The wrong ones always died.
Stop it stop it fucking stop it… Zach pushed away from the desk, made himself go out of the office before the images lurking within it consumed him. He had wallowed long enough and no matter how tempting, no, how inevitable it was, he couldn't allow wallowing to become his style. In the same section of the casino as the day spa was a large, bright, well-equipped workout room. Zach decided to go reacquaint himself with a certain weight bench. Those devils hated exercise.