Work In Progress (Red Lipstick Coalition #3) - Staci Hart Page 0,34
you for protecting me. I love you for taking care of me. But there’s something else.”
I waited, not sure I wanted to know what she would say.
“One day, I’ll be much worse off than I am now. One day after that, I’ll be gone. And if they know, they’ll ask you about your pain all the time. They’ll make you revisit it for themselves, for money, for the masses. It’s easier, keeping it a secret. But maybe I don’t want to be kept a secret anymore. Maybe I want to meet your friends. Maybe I want to get out, enjoy my life while I can, however I can.”
“You really feel like that, Ma?” I asked quietly.
“I do. And I know you don’t want to use me for sympathy. But they want to know you, not just the image you give them. They want what’s real. And, baby, if they knew who you were, who you really were, they could only love you. Would you do it for me? Would you do it if I asked?”
I covered her hands with mine, leaned in closer, searched her face. “Ma, do you understand what you’re asking? Do you understand what it’ll really mean? They’ll use our misfortune to sell magazines and newspapers. I can’t do that to you. I won’t.”
“I don’t think you have a choice,” Ma said. “Give the girl the story her boss wants, so she can have the job she wants. It’s the simplest solution to all of this.”
“She’s right,” Theo added.
I swiveled my head to pin him with a glare.
He took a seat on the edge of the coffee table, looking more tired than I’d ever seen him. “It could convince Amelia to help you, and it would help your image to have an editorial. You could have someone write it sympathetically, not like some garbage Vivienne Thorne would publish. Amelia would write the truth. The real Thomas Bane. Just good ole Tommy Banowski from the Bronx. Doing what he can to take care of his ma as she suffers through Parkinson’s.”
“You’d use Ma that way?” I spat. “I can’t even believe I’m fucking hearing this.”
“You think I want to?” he shot back. “If you’d kept yourself in line, we wouldn’t have to. But what the fuck else can we do?”
“Kept myself in line? Jesus, you act like I am a menace. That guy fucking hit me.”
“And you hit him back like your fucking job wasn’t on the line. That’s your problem. You don’t fucking think. You just do.”
“Enough!” Ma yelled, though her gusto dissolved as she hunched, coughing.
My arm wound around her, and Theo knelt at her feet, our faces turned to hers.
She held up a hand, her head bowed as she caught her breath. “Please, don’t fight,” she croaked.
I squeezed her. “Sorry, Ma.”
“Don’t say you’re sorry either. Just say you’ll do it. Ask the girl if she’ll help you. Offer her the story everyone wants. Save yourself, Tommy. Please, I’m begging you.”
And there was nothing left to do. So I nodded, swallowing to try to open up my tight throat.
It didn’t work.
“You’ll do it?” she asked, her face full of hope.
And I tried to smile. “I’ll do it.”
Theo and I caught each other’s eyes, and I swore I could read his mind.
His thoughts echoed mine.
I hope this fucking works.
Ambush
Amelia
My hands, resting still and cold in my lap, felt like someone else’s.
Tommy and his brother watched me silently. Expectantly. And in the air between us all was the last word that had left Thomas Bane’s ridiculous lips.
Married.
That was what he’d said.
“We should get married.”
It had been the absolute last thing I ever thought he’d say to me. I’d have been less surprised if he’d suggested a bank robbery or a possible hit.
But, no. He’d suggested we get married. And now, he and his brother wore matching expressions of hope and expectation as they waited for my answer.
I couldn’t seem to find my voice. My tongue was slow and stupid, sitting incompetently in my mouth.
My brain wasn’t much better off.
“I…did you just…married?” I blinked, unable to parse the word.
Tommy’s lips were set in a determined line, but the very edges curled up, as if he couldn’t help but smile. “It’s crazy, I know. And the truth is, Amelia…I’m at your mercy. There’s not much I can offer you that you don’t already have. Or things I don’t think you want, like fame. But I can offer you the story Janessa wants. You can get the job you want.”