Клео Коул - Latte Trouble

Then why are you trying to kill her? I wondered. Clearly, it didn’t add up. About then, the room began to spin. “So what’s the big deal, Fenny?” I found myself babbling. “Woo her. Win her. Marry her even—just like everybody else.”

“You don’t understand. She wants nothing to do with me. The past is still alive for her as it is for me. But Lottie only remembers the hurt I inflicted on her, not the ecstasy we shared. Now with her line a success, I fear she may soon not even need our business relationship. And I’m not taking the chance she’ll disappear on me again. I have the power to take over what means the most to her—so I will. Then I’ll have power over her, too, you see?”

“No, I don’t see. If you cared so much for Lottie all those years ago, then why the hell did you sleep with her sister?”

Instead of answering my question, Fen rose. He seemed taller now as he loomed over me. I looked up, startled as I realized the ceiling was a stylized mirror—inside it I saw the reflections of the oil paintings that covered three of the room’s four walls.

“My god, look at them,” I murmured, “all those women…” The room spun faster, and I couldn’t seem to control my tongue. “Oh, wait. Now I get it!” I cried, a tad too loudly. “This club of yours is called the Inferno because it’s Dante’s hell, and we’re in the Fourth Circle—the circle of the hoarders. You hoard women, Fen. You’re a hoarder!” I was now shaking my finger at the man like a scolding little nun.

He stared at me with pure disgust. “You have grown tiresome again. I would like you to leave.”

“Ha! First you kidnap me, then you throw me out. You’ve got some nerve, Fenny!” I waved my arm to emphasize my point, and knocked over the half-empty wine glass. It fell off the carved table and bounced softly off a silk pillow, staining it beyond redemption.

“No one has kidnapped you, Ms. Cosi. I merely provided a ride—and bodyguard—to keep you safe for your trip downtown. You did willingly get into my car, if you recall. I’m sure the Pierre doorman would testify to that.”

“Bull-loney.” I rose. Like a listing ship, the entire room seemed to lurch to the side. I stumbled, clutched the edge of the carved table and nearly toppled it, too.

“You say you were kidnapped, Ms. Cosi. But I say you came here to my club inebriated and became quite loud and disorderly. Indeed, you caused a scene, as my staff will attest. Why, a scandalous story like that could even reach the papers.”

“You rat!” I hollered. “You drugged me!”

“Just a healthy dose of grain alcohol, nothing to get excited about. We’re done now, Ms. Cosi, and I do hope you are, too. All this nosing around in other people’s affairs is really not a healthy pursuit. And we did drink to your health, did we not?”

Then Fen was through talking. He no sooner gave me his back than his nephew, Bryan Goldin, emerged from the shadows. Not gently, he ushered me out the door, depositing me at the bottom of the spiral staircase, which might as well have been the base camp at Mount Everest.

“Sweet dreams, Cosi.”

After taking a deep breath, I grabbed the wrought iron railings with both hands and began to climb. It took an eternity to move from one step to the next, and I had to stop for oxygen every minute or so and wait for the room to stop spinning. God, where’s a sherpa when you need one?

Finally, I reached a level I recognized—the dance floor and that long bar made of glass bricks, illuminated from within by a blood red glow. The sight of it, and the thought of all the animals slaughtered in this building, was suddenly making my stomach churn. Just then, I spied the public phone—which was in use—and the ladies room next to it.

Oh, lord, I’m going to be sick. I lunged for the bathroom. No line, thank goodness, so I pushed my way through the door. Inside I found two large stalls, both in use. I heard giggling, then voices echoing from behind one of the partitions. Whoever they were in there, they were taking up a stall without making proper use of it, and that suddenly made me furious. The grain alcohol made me bold, if not certifiably insane, and I began to pound on the stall door.

“Hey, knock it off,” a woman cried from the other side. I pounded again, then kicked the thing. It burst open.

Two young women and a young man in a business suit were crammed inside the stall—one of the women was a tall blonde with a daring leather vest and skirt that bared her belly. The other was a pretty brunette with a short velvet dress that revealed lots of leg and plenty of cleavage. Her lipstick was familiar, I suddenly realized, a garish hue I would never wear, but the exact shade I’d found on my husband’s collar the day before.

I blinked, not sure, but hoping, it was all just a nightmarish hallucination. The brunette’s eyes were as wide as a deer’s on a busy highway—not surprising since she’d been caught in the act of holding a tiny spoon full of illegal white power under her nose.

Then her familiar voice cried, “Mom!” and I knew this was no delusion. The brunette holding the cocaine was my daughter, Joy.

“Drink this.”

“What is it?”

“Water.”

Still holding the cool cloth over my eyes and forehead, I blindly accepted the tall glass from Matt. “Where’s the coffee?”

“It’s coming. For now, your body needs water. Drink it down, Clare. Trust me, I’ve had enough hangovers to know what helps.”

On this subject, I did implicitly trust my globetrotting ex-husband, who seemed to personify the lyric from the old hit song “One Night in Bangkok,” which, paraphrased, essentially says, all countries look the same with your head in a toilet bowl.

I myself had already worshipped the porcelain god in the Inferno, right after I discovered my barely adult daughter about to shove Bolivian marching powder up one delicate nostril.

The scene after that was a fairly horrific blur—I was about to take Joy by her wrist and drag her out of that club, but I hadn’t needed to do anything nearly that dramatic. She was so alarmed at seeing her mother inebriated to the point of passing out, she’d helped me to the door and into a cab. I pulled her in with me, refusing to let her out of my sight, then insisted she stay the night with me in the duplex.

When we got upstairs, we found Matt already home—to my stunned surprise. I would have bet the farm he’d been planning to spend the night in Breanne’s bed. But there he was, ready to take care of us both.

He’d given up his own room when he realized Joy was spending the night. After digging out one of his T-shirts to sleep in, he tucked me into the master bedroom’s four-poster. I was too shaky to ask where he was going to sleep—and once again assumed he had some other woman’s bed in mind anyway.

“Matt, you have to talk to Joy,” I said, still staring at the inside of my hangover cloth. “Straight talk.”

“I will, Clare. First thing in the morning. Let’s all just get some rest tonight.”

I didn’t have it in me to argue. Just then, I heard a delicate tinkling, like a toy piano playing my favorite song from The Sound of Music .

“My cell,” I moaned. “Matt, I’m sorry, but can you help me out again?”

“Sure.” He followed the electronic rendition of “Edelweiss” to the chair where I’d thrown my clutch. Fishing inside, he found my phone and brought it to me.

“Thanks,” I said, flipping it open. “Hello?”

“Clare? It’s Mike. You left a message to call. I hope it’s not too late.”

“No. It’s fine. Just a minute.” I sat up, the cloth falling from my eyes. Matt stared. I met his gaze with a pleading look. “Coffee?” I asked with wide-eyed innocence.