Glitter Baby (Wynette, Texas #3)(125)

“From the beginning, you’ve been a worthy opponent. I expected you to discover the fire in the basement, but substituting the dresses was quite clever.”

“When you’ve been around a snake long enough, you learn how to crawl in the dirt. Tell me what you want.”

“How very American you’ve grown. Blunt and vulgar. No patience for nuance. It must be the influence of those crude friends with whom you keep company.”

A chill crept through her. Was he talking about Kissy? Michel? Or was it Jake…? Alarms shrieked inside her. She had to keep her relationship with Jake tucked safely away, well hidden from Alexi’s ruthless calculations. He surely knew Jake had lived in her attic. Maybe he even knew about her trip to his house. But he had no way of knowing she’d fallen back in love with him.

She crossed her legs and launched her counterattack. “I’m happy with my friends. Especially my brother. You made a disastrous mistake, you know. Michel is an extraordinary talent, and he has a brilliant career ahead of him. Admittedly he’s bad at business, but I’m very good at business, and I’ve made sure his money is tucked safely away.”

“A dress designer,” Alexi said contemptuously. “How can he hold up his head?”

She laughed. “Believe me, with the entire city courting him, he doesn’t have any trouble. It’s funny. He’s so much like you. The way he carries himself, his walk, his mannerisms—they all come from you. He even has your habit of looking at someone he doesn’t like with his eyes narrowed and his brow lifted. You can practically see the person shrink. It’s very intimidating. Of course, he also has the humanity that you lack, which makes him a far more powerful person.”

“Michel is a tapette!”

“And your mind is too small to see beyond that.” She heard his sharp intake of breath and concentrated on keeping her gaze even with his. “Poor Alexi. Maybe sometime I’ll be able to pity you.”

He slammed his hand down on the desk. “Do you feel any remorse for what you did? Any shame for destroying an object of such remarkable beauty?”

“The Bugatti was a work of art, and it’s sad that it no longer exists. But that’s not really what you’re asking, is it? You want to know if I’m sorry.” She pressed her fingers into the beadwork on her skirt. Alexi leaned slightly forward, and she heard the soft creak of leather as he shifted his weight. “Not ever,” she said. “Not for one moment have I ever been sorry.” The beads bit into her fingers. “You declared yourself the emperor of your own private kingdom, a man who’s above the law, just like Belinda’s movie stars. But nobody is above the laws of decency, and people who try to crush others should be punished. What you did to me was horrible, and I punished you. It’s as simple as that. You can threaten Belinda and keep on trying to ruin my business, but you’ll never make me regret what I did.”

“I’ll destroy you.”

“I think I’ve grown too strong for that, but if I’ve miscalculated—if you somehow manage to destroy my business—then so be it. I still won’t regret what I did. You don’t have any more power over me.”

The chair screeched as Alexi settled back into its depths. “I said I would destroy your dream, chérie, and that is what I intend to do. The score will finally be even between us.”

“You’re bluffing. There’s nothing you can do to hurt me.”

“I never bluff.” He slid a small envelope across the desktop. She looked at it for a moment. A chill passed through her. She reached out to take it. “A keepsake,” he said.

She slit open the envelope, and a battered piece of metal fell into her lap. The letters embossed upon it were still visible: BUGATTI. It was the red metal oval from the front of the Royale.

He pushed something else across the desk. In the dim light, it took a moment before she saw what it was. Her blood froze.

“A dream for a dream, chérie.”

It was a tabloid newspaper—an American paper with that day’s date—and the headline leaped out at her:

NEW KORANDA BIO REVEALS CRACK-UP

“No.” She shook her head, willing the ugly words to disappear, even as her eyes skimmed the sentences.

Actor/playwright Jake Koranda, best known for playing the renegade cowboy Bird Dog Caliber, suffered a nervous breakdown while serving in the United States Army in Vietnam…Fleur Savagar, the actor’s literary agent and recent companion, revealed in a press release today that Koranda was hospitalized for post-traumatic stress syndrome…

According to Savagar, details of the breakdown will be revealed in the actor’s new autobiography…“Jake has been honest about his emotional and psychological problems,” Savagar said, “and I’m certain the public will respect him for that honesty and look upon his terrible experience with compassion and pity.”



Fleur could read no further. There were photographs—one of Jake as Bird Dog, another of the two of them running in the park, a third of her alone, with a sidebar bearing the headline, GLITTER BABY SCORES BIG AS AGENT FOR THE STARS. She put the tabloid on the desk and slowly stood up. The battered Bugatti oval fell to the carpet.

“I have been patient for seven years,” Alexi whispered from across the desk. “Now the score is settled. Now you, too, have lost what you care about most. It wasn’t your business that was the real dream, was it, chérie?”