“I thought your luggage got delayed.”
“Yeah. I lied. Didn’t want you covering up.”
“Ha.” I smiled. Then I stopped. “I am sorry about all this.”
He shrugged. “Had nothing else planned for tonight. What’re they all up to?”
“Ah, well,” I said. “Ray is on the phone to his lawyer trying to best assess how to destroy me while doing damage control to preserve the good Delaney family name. Samantha, meanwhile, is over there busily trying to push your friend, Officer Andy, into hauling me away in cuffs for assaulting her son.”
“Shit.”
Chris looked up, giving me a truly malevolent look. Hate filled his bloody face. To think I’d been about to marry the asshole. At any rate, no matter the provocation, the chances of him letting me get away with hitting him were nil to none. His pride would demand I be punished.
No, he was just letting me stew with this show of deliberation. Jerk.
To think I’d believed all of his sweetness and light for so long. I really needed to bang my head against a brick wall at the earliest opportunity. Try and knock some sense into myself.
Paul tugged on his arm and they returned to their intense heart-to-heart. They actually made a nice-looking couple, Chris with his dark hair and chiseled face, and Paul with his Nordic good looks. Pity about the general acts of bastardry surrounding the entire affair.
“Why hasn’t he, do you think?” asked Vaughan, studying all the people standing in his front yard.
“I honestly have no idea.”
“Hmm.” He huffed out a breath. “You’ve got shit taste in men, Lydia.”
“Understatement of the year, babe.”
He gave me a half-smile. “How’s your hand doing?”
“Swollen and sore.” I turned it this way and that, letting him see. My knuckles were a delightful chunky blue-black. “But I think it’s just bruised.”
“Matches your cheek.”
“Lovely.”
He trudged down the front steps, hands in his jeans pockets.
I slipped my arms into Vaughan’s shirt, doing my best to cover my womanly assets. Wondered if jail was anything like on TV. Guess I’d soon be finding out. A shame I hadn’t kept the ring. Pawning it to pay for my legal defense would have been beautifully ironic. Whatever happened, I was done being the resident fool for the Delaney family. Dumb was never cute.
“Lydia.” Ray stalked toward me, stopping at the bottom of the couple of stairs leading down off the small front patio. “You’re fired, in case that wasn’t clear.”
Asshat. “Am I, Ray?”
He puffed himself up, preening. Lucky one of the buttons on his shirt didn’t pop. “You punched a work colleague, Lydia. One who just so happens to be the boss’s son. You do the math.”
I nodded. “You’re right, I did. Speaking of which, what do you think my chances would be of suing Chris for fraud and emotional distress? Guess I should talk to a lawyer too.”
“What?”
“Goodness, what a scandal that’ll be. The folks in this town are going to be talking about this mess for a good long time, aren’t they?”
The lines around his mouth looked cavernous in the early evening light. “Are you trying to blackmail me?”
“You really want to start digging into the ethics of this situation? I don’t know if that would be wise for any of us, Ray.”
He growled into the phone for another minute. When he faced me again, he was not a happy camper. “Some sort of settlement might be reached if I was assured that video would never again be seen. It would also involve you keeping your mouth shut about anything to do with my family.”
“I also want a reference reflecting my prior work history as opposed to today’s unfortunate events.”
“All right.”
I tipped my chin. Accepted. “I’d also prefer it if your son chose not to press assault charges.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” With a frown, Ray looked to his wife, not Chris. Big surprise who held the reins in that marriage. Not. His wife was a Harpy Queen of Darkness if I’d ever seen one. The chances of me not getting a criminal record tonight were slim.
At any rate, the Delaney’s had oodles more money than me if it came down to duking it out in court with regards to my emotional distress, et cetera. Best just not to go there. Doubtless, Ray would destroy my reputation any other way he could. The doors of CDA’s social elite would be closed to me now. They’d trash talk me all over town and I’d probably never find work.
However this went down, CDA and I were done. A pity, I’d liked it here. The town had a nice vibe and it was neither too big nor too small. What with the lake and the hills, the town was insanely beautiful. For me, it’d been just right.
Oh, well.