Temptations - The Complete Series Read online

  As I drove, I was fixated on so many things – what Slade was still hiding, why he was acting like he didn’t really want to win his own case, and how was I going to bring down Malcolm? I wished that Jordan had given me more pertinent information when he contacted me in that hole. It certainly would have helped my situation right then.

  At some point, I got out of the car. The ocean was beckoning to me, as if it had the answers to the questions that were going through my mind. Indeed, that was often the case. Being around the water calmed my mind, and cleared it of any extraneous information that was clouding my judgment.

  I sat down on the sand, without even putting down a blanket or chair or anything. The sun was beating down and I had on a floppy hat to protect my face from the glare. I hugged my knees to my chest and closed my eyes. I listened to the waves that were crashing and the seagulls shrieking. I tried to become one with the universe, so that I could listen to what the collective consciousness was trying to tell me. The answer was right there, somewhere. The key that would unlock it all was so close I could taste it, as much as I could taste salt on my tongue.

  I was starting to drift off into a place where I could access the answers that were inside of me when the phone started to ring. I answered it, although I was exasperated that it had to ring at such an inopportune time. “Malcolm,” I said. “How are you?”

  “Fine. Listen, you have to get back into the office ASAP.”

  “Why?” I didn’t like the sound of Malcolm’s voice.

  “It’s Slade. He wants to confess to the Jordan’s murder and change his plea to guilty.”

  Chapter 7

  I blinked my eyes when Malcolm dropped that bomb on me. “What?” My breathing started to come faster and faster. “No. No. He can’t.”

  “He can and he’s going to.”

  “No. Let me call him.”

  “Don’t call him. Listen, just stay calm. I’ll try my best to talk him out of doing that, but Serena, maybe it’s for the best. Let’s face it; things aren’t exactly looking good for him.”

  I had to bite my tongue when Malcolm said that bullshit to me. I wanted to tell him that I knew the truth. I also knew why Malcolm was so ready and willing to let Slade go down for Jordan’s murder. It would take the heat off of Malcolm altogether. Once Slade pled guilty, all eyes would be off of Malcolm forever. He would have gotten away with it and Slade would be the one who would be punished.

  I couldn’t possibly let that happen.

  “Okay. Listen, I’m driving, so…” Of course, I wasn't driving - I was sitting on the beach. But I wanted off the phone with him ASAP, so I lied.

  “Talk to you later.”

  At that, I immediately called Slade.

  To my surprise, though, he didn’t pick up. In fact, his phone didn’t seem to be on, because it went straight to voice-mail.

  I shook my head. I was going to go to his home and hope that I found him there. I needed to talk some sense into him. I had no clue why he was going to do this either; none whatsoever.

  This whole thing presented another mystery for me to solve. Slade was protecting somebody, but who? Was he protecting Charlotte? Gianni? Malcolm? All of the above? Why would he be doing that?

  I got off the highway and made my way back up to Del Mar. I was determined that I was going to talk to Slade.

  I needed to find him and talk to him before he made a horrible mistake.

  It could be the most devastating mistake of his life.

  Chapter 8

  Slade – Ten Years Earlier

  After Charlotte and I came to our “understanding,” things were certainly tense, but bearable. I held my breath as I saw the news reports, night after night, about the missing prison guard. What soon became clear was that, thus far, there was no suspicion on either my mother or me about the disappearance. I kept expecting that the authorities would call her in at any moment – perhaps somebody from the bar where she and Hugh went recognized Hugh from the pictures shown and managed to perfectly describe my mother as being the woman with him that night. Maybe there was a picture that was inadvertently taken of the two of them together.

  But no. The weeks went by and then the months, and at some point, the news of Hugh’s disappearance was no longer splashed on the front page of the paper. It was no longer mentioned on the evening news. It seemed as if the trail on Hugh’s disappearance had grown cold and the police no longer seemed interested in it. Hugh was just one more person who just disappeared out of thin air, never to be seen or heard from again.

  After six months of nothing, I breathed a sigh of relief. My détente with Charlotte was holding, my mother seemed to be in the clear, as was I. I felt as if we were truly out of the woods.

  Charlotte and I continued to see one another at the same level we were on before – which meant that we went out once every couple of weeks and had sex about once a month – and even though Charlotte clearly wanted more from me, I kept it as casual as possible. She tried to blackmail me once or twice – she would tell me that she would go to the police and tell them everything if I didn’t give her the attention she was demanding – but I called her bluff every time, and every time, she proved to be a lot of hot air.

  I knew better than to give into her blackmail. I had her right where I wanted her, and she knew it. She also thought that I had “proof” of her affair with Michael, because she erroneously thought that I had her abortion records. Thank god she never actually asked to see these records for herself though. If she did, she would have figured out that I had nothing at all to prove that she had been with Michael. That might have changed the dynamic, possibly. But, then again, Charlotte seemed loathe to doing anything that would permanently put a wedge between her and I. She always had it in her head that I was going to end up with her.

  I walked the tightrope, afraid that I was going to fall off at any time. But, day after day, when there was no news and no shoe that dropped, I felt more and more relieved. My mother and I were finally in the clear.

  My mother had also moved to New York City, at my urging. She had family there, and I really needed her to get out of the state. I wanted her to be able to make a run for it if she had to, and being near a large international airport like La Guardia was going to possibly come in handy. Her parole officer didn’t have a problem releasing her to another state, because mom had been a model parolee. So, her move was another thing that was good. I missed her, but I sent money to her whenever I could. I knew that she was in good hands too, because her sisters lived in Brooklyn, and one of her sisters, Tessa, took her in and let mom live with her.

  That’s how it was for years. As the years went by, the memory of that night with the prison guard receded more and more from my memory. Mom and I never talked about it. Ever. And, after a while, even Charlotte gave up her threats to blackmail me over it. She finally figured out that blackmailing me was getting her nowhere and she always thought that I would bring her down anyhow if she breathed a word. So, she didn’t.

  Our stalemate was therefore what defined what had happened that night with mom and the dead Hugh. I got my PhD, with honors, and went on to found my pharmaceutical company with seed money from some venture capitalists who were friends with Scott, money that I managed to save over the years, and money that Jordan had from a substantial inheritance. My company took off with the introduction of what was being hailed as the best anti-depressant the market had ever seen, and things were rolling.

  Life was good.

  Until it wasn’t.

  And, just like that, everything changed.

  Chapter 9

  Serena – Present Day

  I got to Slade’s house and rang the doorbell.

  Nobody answered, so I used my key. Slade had just given me a key to his home, telling me that it was time to move our relationship to the next level. This showed how much he trusted me, he told me.

  I opened the door and looked around. Nothing was out of place, except he had some magazines that were piling up
on the coffee table. I furrowed my brow as I looked at the magazines that didn’t seem to belong to him. There was a People magazine, a Star magazine, a Redbook, Vogue and Elle. Among those magazines were ones that seemed more like Slade – Inc., Businessweek, and Forbes.

  Then I heard it. A female voice. “Slade, is that you?” the voice said from a bedroom up above. “Did you bring me my soup?”

  I drew a breath, not wanting to go upstairs to find the origin of the voice. I wasn’t going to jump to conclusions, but I certainly wasn’t encouraged by any of this. It seemed that he had a woman living there with him, when he never told me that this was the case.

  I looked around the rest of the house, the lower level, and, just when I was getting ready to leave, I turned around and saw a slight, but very beautiful woman. I narrowed my eyes at her because there was something that was just a tiny bit off.

  She looked to be around her early forties, with dark hair and green eyes. Eyes that were similar to Slade’s own.

  And that’s when it hit me – this was Margot. What was unusual about her, the thing that I was trying to put my finger on before, was her skin color. It was slightly yellow. She was obviously jaundiced from her disease, and my heart went out to her.

  She raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

  I finally went over to her, extending my hand. “Hello. I’m Serena. You must be Margot.”

  “I am,” she said, extending her own hand to me. And then she smiled broadly. “Oh, yes, Serena. You’re the woman that my son is seeing. He’s told me all about you. I thought that we were going to meet, and here we are! Of course, Slade didn’t set this meeting up. Did he?”

  “He didn’t.” I stood there, wanting to ask this beautiful woman so many questions about Slade. She knew him better than anyone, after all. But, I had no idea how I was going to ask him these questions.

  “Well, have a seat. He went to the grocery store to get me some soup.” Then she smiled. “Slade told you about my condition? It’s been hard for me to get solid food down these days.”

  I nodded, taking a seat. Margot poured a glass of wine for me. “Slade tells me that you love this particular brand of cabernet,” she told me. “I wish I could have a glass of wine, too, but I’m on these damned drugs, which don’t mix well with alcohol.”

  As I drank my wine, I was confused. She referenced the drugs that didn’t mix well with wine, but what about her cancer? It was difficult to bring that up to her though. I didn’t know if it was a sore subject or any of my business.

  “What did Slade tell you about me?”

  She shrugged. “He just said that you and he were in a relationship with each other.” Then she giggled. “I told him that I had never known him to be in a relationship with anyone, ever, so this is really something.”

  I smiled. “Yes, I guess Slade, uh, never really had time for anything serious.”

  “Yes. And he never met anyone who floats his boat quite like you do.” She smiled when she said that. “Sorry for my goofy expressions. I learned them from my mother.”

  I nodded, feeling connected to her when she said that. I learned some goofy sayings from my own mother, even if I did learn that she didn’t create them. “I understand, believe me.”

  She put her teacup to her lips and drank daintily. “This tea helps me feel better. The antivirals haven’t quite kicked in, but I hope that they will soon.”

  “Antivirals? Is that how they’re treating pancreatic cancer these days?” That was something new to me, although I knew that there was always some kind of cutting-edge treatment options that were emerging all the time.

  She smiled. “No, but it turns out I don’t have cancer. I got a second opinion and the lab results just came back today. I have an advanced case of Hepatitis C, but the doctor has told me that it’s treatable with these antivirals. I’m very hopeful. It will never be cured, but it can be treated. Kinda like HIV.”

  I felt a sense of relief when she told me this. Slade was going to be so happy. “That’s wonderful news. I wonder how a mistake like that could happen?”

  “I don’t know. I think that it was a lab error with my doctor in New York. Slade wants me to sue for malpractice, but I really don’t have the energy for all of that.”

  “I can certainly relate to that. Lawsuits are no fun, to say the very least.” I personally hated trying malpractice claims. They were expensive to bring to trial and the juries were often skeptical of the plaintiff’s claims. Like police officers, doctors were often given the benefit of the doubt. Margot was probably right in refusing to bring a lawsuit in this case.

  “No, I guess that they’re not.” Then she patted my hand. “I’m really glad that I finally have gotten the chance to meet you. Now that I’m going to live for longer than a few months, I’m really looking forward to seeing my son happy in life. I had thought, when I got that other diagnosis, that I was going to die before I could get the chance to see him truly fulfilled. It’s so wonderful that that’s no longer the case.”

  “Me too.”

  Just then, Margot’s phone started to ring. She picked it up and she said a few words, and then mentioned that I was there. “Serena’s here,” she said. “I’ll tell her, unless you’d like to tell her yourself.”

  She handed the phone to me. “I guess that Slade is held up somewhere. But I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”

  I shook my head. I knew what “held up” meant in this situation. “No,” I said aloud. “I need to talk to him.” At that, I put the phone to my ear. “Hello?”

  I took the phone into the other room, so that Margot couldn’t hear me speaking. “Slade, what’s happening? I need to see you right now.”

  “Things have changed,” he simply said. “I’ll explain it all later.”

  “Not later, now. Now, Slade. Malcolm told me some very distressing news.”

  “I have my reasons for doing this. Now, I don’t know if I’m going to be a free man for much longer. I know that I’m springing this on you, but things have changed. My mother isn’t dying now.”

  “I know that she’s not, but what on earth does that fact have to do with anything at all? I’m missing something here, Slade. Please tell me what it is.”

  “It’s a long story. One that I’ll probably never tell you. All that I can say is that I’ll go to my death protecting the ladies that I love. That’s all that you need to know.”

  He was sounding so weird and so cryptic. I had no idea what he was talking about. How was his falling on his sword in Jordan’s murder going to do anything to protect anyone at all?

  “Okay. Listen, I’m coming into the office. That’s where you’re heading, isn’t it?”

  “No. I’m heading to the police station in Los Angeles. I’m heading there, and I’m almost there right now. You can’t stop me from what I’m about to do, so don’t even try.”

  No. No. No. Slade was going to confess to Jordan’s murder.

  And I had no idea why.

  Chapter 10

  Slade – Present Day

  I got to the police station. I had made an appointment with the lead detective on the case, Detective Hanson. I didn’t want to do this. God knew I didn’t want to do this. I knew what it was going to mean – that I was going to spend the rest of my life in prison for a murder that I didn’t commit. But, at the same time, the events that have recently happened forced my hand on this.

  It was all so simple before…Charlotte and I had our détente, and the status quo was serving both of us well. Then Michael died. He was pumped full of lead by somebody in his own organization. That sent my agreement with Charlotte off-kilter. She was emboldened, knowing that if I ever exposed her affair with Michael, she would have an easier way out of it, seeing that he was dead and couldn’t corroborate my story anymore.

  “Okay,” Charlotte said when both of us found out what had happened to Michael. “You don’t have anything on me anymore. I really don’t care if you tell the world that I had an affair with Michael. I’ll j
ust deny it, and now that he’s dead, he won’t be around to confirm your story.” She crossed her arms. “And I’m finally calling your bluff about my abortion records. I don’t think that you have them.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that you’re vulnerable again, so you better kiss my ass better than you’ve been doing. I’m tired of reading in the papers and tabloids about you and some piece of ass of the week. From now on, when I say ‘jump’, you’re going to say ‘how high?’”

  I simply shook my head. “No. That’s not how it’s going to work. Listen Charlotte, we had an agreement, and that’s that. I won’t have you controlling my life.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Listen Slade, it’s not you that you’re defending here. It’s your mother. She’s the one who is going to be in a lot of trouble, big trouble, when I go to the authorities with my tip about the disappearance of Hugh all those years ago.”

  I bit my lip, angry that I had let her trap me into this situation. But, she was absolutely right. I was going to have to kiss her ass, and kiss it often, if I ever hoped to make sure that the ghost of Hugh never rose up to threaten either me or my mom.

  And that’s how it was, for a few weeks.

  At least that’s how it was until Charlotte decided to get her ultimate revenge on me.

  The Hugh thing wasn’t good enough for her – the one person who would be most damaged from the Hugh incident becoming known would be my mother. I would be too, because I helped cover up the homicide, but mom would be the one who would spend the rest of her life in prison, if not on death row.