Temptations - The Complete Series Page 34

  I cleared my throat. “Is there a date that you’re going to go in to plea?”

  “Next Wednesday, so you and I have a week and a half to have some fun before…” He sliced his hand across his throat.

  I pushed him away and kept him at arm’s length. “We aren’t going to be having fun. There’s no way that I can do that when you’re facing what you’re facing.” I glared at him. Truth be told, I wanted him to suffer, as he was making me suffer. I wanted him to feel the knife twisting into his gut, the tip slicing, the pain excruciating. I hated that he was so nonchalant about it all. How could he possibly be, when he was probably going to prison for life for something that he didn’t even do?

  He finally got a kiss planted on my lips, and even though I was feeling pissed at him, I soon felt myself melting into the kiss. He put his finger on my chin, and his entire mouth was devouring my own. His kisses always got me going, because he was an amazing kisser. His kisses were passionate, yet he knew when to slow down for maximum effect. I wrapped my arms around his neck, feeling like I was trying to breathe underwater. My head was swimming, and the peril that surrounded us was forgotten.

  “Serena, are you expected back at the office?” he asked me, as his hands leisurely explored my backside. We were out on the street, in front of the police station, and the reporters were behind us, taking our picture and looking like they were ready to pounce. Nevertheless, Slade seemed way too calm. He even had a hard-on, as was evident when he leaned into me.

  My back was against my own car, but that detail seemed lost on me. The whole world had faded away as Slade had begun to kiss me, so even the reporters seemed to be on a different planet than the one I currently occupied.

  “I am,” I whispered, my lips trying to find his again. He obliged, his tender mouth searching mine. His hands went from the small of my back down to the curves of my butt, and he gently stroked his hands up and down on that area. “But I can be persuaded to take a sick day.”

  “Hmmmm, I was going to suggest you taking another hour or so before going back to work, but having a whole day with you sounds great, too. I can just imagine all the ravishing I could do to you this entire day.” He inhaled my hair. “You always smell so amazing.”

  I bowed my head, not wanting to part with him. “As do you.”

  “So,” he said, lifting my chin up to him again as he planted another kiss on my lips. “Shall we meet at my place or yours? I would suggest your place, because I know that you want to see your dogs, although I’m sure that they’re fine in their day care place. I’m fine either way.”

  “Let’s go to my place. We can walk along the beach and build a fire in my fireplace.” I suggested the fire in the fireplace not because the weather called for it, because it didn’t, but because I found the fire romantic. I was born under the sign of fire, as I was a Leo, and it was something that always drew me in.

  “Your place it is,” he said.

  The two of us then parted and got into our respective cars.

  We would meet at my house, and I hoped that I could still find a way to talk him out of what he felt that he needed to do.

  If I couldn’t, I knew that there was always Plan B.

  Chapter 16

  Slade – Present Day

  As I drove my car down the Five freeway, I knew that I was completely looking forward to being with Serena that whole day. I also knew that we had to cherish every single second together, because if we didn’t, then that would be a shame. Once I pled guilty to the murder of Jordan, I doubted that Serena and I would see one another again. Indeed, I would discourage it, because I didn’t want her to waste her life on somebody who would never be able to give her what she needed and deserved – she needed and deserved somebody who could give her stability and comfort. Once I got to prison, I wouldn’t be able to give her either of those things.

  There was a part of me that felt guilty about keeping Serena until the last second. I really should have just let her go right then. But I didn’t want to. I wanted to be with her as long as I could, and I was so grateful that Detective Branson didn’t move to put me into jail when I just made my confession. Maybe it was because, with the story that I gave, I had grounds for a self-defense instruction to the jury. What he didn’t know was that there was no way I would pursue self-defense, because it would completely negate the entire reason why I was making this confession.

  I hated that Malcolm and Charlotte were going to get away with killing Jordan. But, at the same time, I knew that it was best. My mother and Serena were protected, and that was really all that mattered at that moment.

  Charlotte called while I was in the car, and I turned on the blue tooth to talk to her. “Yeah,” I said to her when I saw that she was calling. “What do you want?”

  “Just making sure you’re keeping up your end of the bargain.”

  “I am. I just saw the detective, and I have my guilty plea teed up for a week from Wednesday. So, yes, the wheels are in motion for me to plead guilty for the bullshit you and your crony did.”

  “Good.” She paused. “I’m doing this for your own good, and for the good of your mother and Serena.”

  “Whatever. Listen, I’m going to get some assurances that you’ll never double-cross me and go ahead and talk about my mother or hurt Serena. Don’t forget that I have the entire videotape on my hard-drive and in various vaults around the nation. There’s no way that you could possibly confiscate all the copies I have of that videotape, so if anything ever happens with either Serena or my mother, these videos will conveniently make their way to your nearest police department for authentication.”

  “Don’t worry, Slade, I have no intention of double-crossing you. I just want to make you suffer for all those years that you made me suffer through your indifference towards me. I loved you, Slade. I still love you. Why you ever thought that you could treat me as callously as you have, I will never know.”

  If I ever believed in an entity that was beyond my comprehension, which I didn’t, but if I ever decided to, I would have believed that I was being paid, karmically, for the way that I used Charlotte when I was younger. The only reason why she was ever able to blackmail me was because she was outside my house when I went to see my mom that fateful night. The only reason why she was outside my house was because she was desperate for some attention from me. Attention that I never willingly gave her.

  The chickens have come home to roost, and roost they have.

  “I know that you won’t double-cross me, because if you do, your goose is cooked and so is Malcolm’s. By the way, Malcolm is really a shitty attorney. I mean, I know that he’s throwing my case, and he has been from the beginning, I just wish that he would be a little less obvious about it. The people in the media have begun to talk about him and his incompetence.”

  “It will all be over soon, won’t it?”

  I rolled my eyes. I hated this woman so much. Even if I didn’t treat her very well, as I should have when we were younger, I couldn’t believe that she was willing to see me go to prison for what she did. But that was the case, and I knew it. I knew it, and there wasn’t a damned thing that I could about it.

  Especially not now. Now that Serena was in danger, I really had to toe the line with Charlotte.

  “So, why aren’t you in jail right now? You talked to the detective, you told him that you killed Jordan, yet he didn’t take you into custody. Why not?”

  “Because, he seems to think that I might have a case for self-defense. I admit, he’s right about that. Why don’t I try that angle with the jury? Think about it – you and Malcolm will still be off the hook, and, if it works, I won’t be in prison. Everybody wins, and you still got your pound of flesh from me. Just my going through the stress of this situation should be punishment enough for all the transgressions that you imagined I committed against you.”

  “Is that what you think? That I’m just getting my pound of flesh from you?” She started to laugh. “You’re very perceptive. You know, S
lade, I probably would have dropped this entire thing, if not for that slut you’re banging. In fact, I probably never would have framed you for Jordan’s murder if it weren’t for her.”

  I bit my lip. Charlotte knew about the fact that I had seen Serena well before she came up to meet me in Los Angeles? That I saw her when I went to visit a friend of mine in San Diego, and she was on the beach, sunning herself? I saw her and thought that she was the most magnificent woman I had ever set eyes on. How did Charlotte know all that?

  Slowly, it all began to become clear. Everything. Malcolm and how he got involved with the whole thing. Why Charlotte was so clear that she wanted Malcolm to defend me. Did she also make Malcolm force Serena to stay with me? Was that all part of exacting the revenge on me? It wouldn’t have been fun for her to just see me go to prison. No, she clearly wanted me to fall in love with Serena, and then my prison term would be that much more torturous.

  Well played. Well played.

  “Okay. It’s time to come clean. I now know that you know that I saw Serena before I ever met her. How you know that, I don’t understand. But your choosing Malcolm for this charade definitely has to do with Serena, doesn’t it? Or is it all a happy coincidence that Serena is working for the man whom you set up to murder Jordan and defend me for Jordan’s murder?” I suddenly felt stupid for not seeing all of this before. “The only thing that I want to know is how you found out about my seeing Serena on the beach.”

  “Slade, I’ve had a tail on you for months. It’s a good tail, too, because you apparently never suspected it. And yes, the tail told me all about the beautiful brunette you couldn’t keep your eyes off of that day. He gave me pictures of her, and I matched her up on the Internet through Google Images. Her picture was part of the firm’s website, so I knew that she worked for Malcolm, and the plan was in place from there. It was so easy to get it all set up, too. Malcolm was eager to work for me, and do whatever I asked of him. All he wants is publicity for his firm, and when I told him that I was going to frame you and that you were going to be his client, he was salivating. Absolutely salivating. It was almost all too easy.”

  My shoulders slumped as I drove. I looked behind me and saw Serena was tailing me on the highway. That was the only reason why I didn’t completely despair in that moment – I was in love with Serena, and she was in love with me.

  “And yes,” she continued. “I knew that you would fall for her. I knew it from the moment I asked Malcolm to send her to your home. And damn, did you ever make my job easy. You fell for her immediately, and now, well, when you go to prison, you’re going to see what it’s like to have a broken heart. Your heart is going to be as broken as mine.”

  Hell hath no fury. Boy, is that saying true. “Okay. Listen Charlotte, as I said, you have your pound of flesh. The media has been crawling all over me from the beginning, I’ve lost a lot of business from this, and my very life and freedom are in peril. I would like to at least try for a self-defense acquittal for Jordan’s death. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. The jury will send me down the river. But if it does work, then…”

  “You won’t be punished the way that I want you to be.”

  “No, but I’ll be plenty punished.”

  “And, what? You’ll marry that whore? You and she will live happily ever after? No, Slade, I won’t be okay with that. You know what you need to do, and that’s plead guilty and go to prison for the rest of your life. You know the consequences if you don’t. If you want to keep Serena alive, then you’re going to have to dance the way that I want you to. I hope that I’m making myself crystal clear.”

  I shook my head. There had to be a way out of this for everyone, but I couldn’t see it. Charlotte was a loose cannon, to say the very least. If I didn’t do what she wanted, she would have Serena killed and she would turn in my mother for the homicide of Hugh all those years ago. She certainly had her ducks in a row on this one.

  If I was less of a good guy, I would simply have Charlotte killed. That would solve all my problems. Then I would turn in the video of Malcolm bludgeoning Jordan, and everything would fall into place. Malcolm wouldn’t be as dangerous to deal with as Charlotte. He didn’t have the connections that she did, and he wasn’t present when my mother was standing in the living room with a dead body. Charlotte had the connections to get Serena and she was there when my mother was standing over Hugh. That made her 1000 times more dangerous than Malcolm.

  No doubt about it, if Charlotte were just out of the way, I probably could get out of the entire mess. And it would be nice to see that weasel Malcolm get what was coming to him too. I still couldn’t believe that there were men in the world who would kill somebody just because he wanted publicity for his firm, but apparently Malcolm was one of those “special people.”

  “I don’t want to talk to you anymore,” I told Charlotte. “It’s bad for my blood pressure. I can feel it rising up with every word I say to you.” I couldn’t believe that I was seriously entertaining thoughts about killing Charlotte. I remembered what I told Serena – that everybody is capable of anything. You just have to push them far enough.

  I was pushed far -- extremely far. I needed to get off the phone with Charlotte right at that very second or else I may have turned the car around and went to that bitch’s house and sliced her throat.

  That was a dark fantasy that I was having right at that moment, and I didn’t like it. Even though Charlotte was the last person who deserved mercy, I couldn’t admit that I was truly capable of doing something like that.

  “Okay. Listen. I need to be reading in the papers soon about your guilty plea. I need to see the expression on your face when you’re all lined up to go to prison and be the butt-boy of an enormous black man. I need to see all the stories that will crop up about your life behind bars. All those Dateline specials and cable news channel programs that will breathlessly detail every aspect of this case and all the wonderful times you will be having in prison. Only then will I know that I really, and truly, got my just revenge on you. So, no, it’s not okay for you to plead self-defense, because if the jury buys it, you’re just going to live your life on the outside and get married to that whore. And that’s the last thing that I want to see, Slade. You just remember that.”

  “How can I ever forget?”

  At that, I hung up on Charlotte. I was getting closer to Serena’s neighborhood, and I just wanted to concentrate on her. There really wasn’t much time for Serena and I to continue to be together. I had about a week before I would be pleading guilty, and then it would all be over. Charlotte was right, too – I was going to have a broken heart. That was going to devastate me more than anything else once I went down for Jordan’s murder.

  I was going to prison. My entire life’s dream would be ruined because my business would have to be sold to the highest bidder. I would make sure that my mother was taken care of from the proceeds of the sale though. I was going to be notorious and everybody was going to be talking shit about me for the rest of my days. I was going to give up my freedom and everything that I worked so hard for, all because of Charlotte and her sick and twisted mind.

  Yet still, the only thing that I could truly think about was that Serena wasn’t going to be in my life anymore. Somehow, that was the worst thing out of all of this.

  Charlotte did know what she was doing when she made sure that Serena and I fell in love. She knew that my prison sentence was going to be that much more devastating now that Serena was in my life.

  Stupid cunt.

  Chapter 17

  Present Day – Serena

  I arrived at my home just a few minutes behind Slade. He was standing out in the driveway waiting for me when I pulled in. “How did I beat you here?” he asked me with a smile.

  “I guess you’re just faster than me,” I told him as I buzzed past him to open my door. I was shaking, so I dropped my keys. Slade picked them up and handed them to me.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked me as he gently took my hand.


  I shook my head. “I can’t get over any of this, Slade. It’s like it’s a horrible dream. There must be a way out of this for you.”

  “There’s not. In the meantime, I really need to feel myself inside of you.” He kissed me, and, for a brief moment, all was forgotten. In my mind, he wasn’t in peril, and neither was I. He wasn’t going to prison. He and I were going to be together, through thick or thin. I desperately needed that in my life, because it was the one thing that had brought me stability and happiness these past few months – being with him. It was a bright spot, a bigger bright spot than anything else had been in a long, long time.

  “Slade, I….” I couldn’t finish my sentence though. I put my head on his chest. The warmth of his skin and the beat of his heart were comforting to me. I couldn’t imagine what life would be like if I didn’t have this on a regular basis.

  “Where are your brother and sister-in-law?”

  “They’re staying at a hotel in town. I’m probably going to be seeing them later if you would like to come.” Actually, I hoped that he would turn that invitation down. I really needed to brainstorm with Luke and Dalilah about the Slade situation, to find out if there was anything that could be done to make sure he didn’t plead guilty to Jordan’s murder. I was already thinking of a few angles that would make sure that the judge didn’t accept his plea.

  “Mmmmm, that’s tempting, but I really need to catch up on reports and the day-to-day running of the company. I’ve been behind on certain things, as you might imagine. It’s not that big of a deal, because I have the interim CEO running the company right now, but I still like to keep on top of things. And now that I’m certainly going to prison for the murder of Jordan, I need to get a transitional team in place for when I’m no longer going to be there. It’s going to be sad for the team, because we always worked together so well.”