Susan Andersen - Coming Undone

He leaned into the mic. "I wonder why she would do that, Mrs. Morgan?" he asked in an interested, non-confrontational tone. "Could it have anything to do with the fact that you stol-"

"And you are?" The older woman interrupted with saccharine sweetness even as her eyes narrowed in sour assessment. Then, without taking her gaze off him, she gave her brittle ash-blond hair a little pat and strode through the parting press until she stood in the pit directly below their table. "No, don't tell me. You must be the new manager Priscilla replaced me with when she tossed her own mama aside."

"No, ma'am," Ben said, leaning forward. "That would be me."

"Oh." Hands on her hips, she turned her attention to the New Yorker, taking in his faultlessly tailored suit and patina of sophistication until the flashbulbs going off around her like paparazzi covering the red carpet seemed to recall her to her mission. The hard-edged calculation melting from her expression, she turned a tragic face toward the press. "Then who is this other man?" she asked piteously. "Is he some hanger-on, hoping to get his hands on my baby's money?"

"Interesting question, coming from you," Jared said. "Sorry to disappoint you, but I neither want nor need Priscilla Jayne's money. And frankly I'm not sure why you would assume I'm after it in the first place." She was drunk, he suddenly realized. Not falling down, sloppy drunk, but he recognized the exaggeratedly careful mannerisms for what they were. "However, please allow me to put your mind to rest. My name is Jared Hamilton. Your daughter's record label hired me."

"You!" For an instant unbridled hatred twisted her features. Almost immediately, she wrestled her expression back into her oh-so-sad poor-abused-mama look. "You're that young man she mooned over-the boy who killed his own father!"

"Mama!"

Like Romans uncaring whether the gladiator or the lion won as long as it was a good, bloody fight, the press turned on him, shooting off questions right and left. They quieted, however, when Jared looked at Jodeen with a cool, shuttered gaze and said, "Careful, Mrs. Morgan. I doubt you can afford to be sued for slander."

"I apologize," she said hastily. "I meant to say the young man wanted inquestioning for killing his own father."

He had to hand it to her, that was pretty slick. She'd managed to cover her ass and still get that killing-your-own-father bit in twice in thirty seconds.

"Someone else was convicted of Jared's father's murder, Mama," P.J. snapped. "As you very well know, since I told you all about it when you finally let me come home."

"Don't you take that tone with me, missy!"

P.J.'s jaw went up, but her pointed little chin wobbled for a second before firming up.

Jared's heart clenched so hard that for a second he thought it was going to seize. Ah, man, she was killing him, sitting there taking it on the chin and refusing to let the world see how much it hurt. He was mad as hell at Jodeen for wounding her this way.

He was even madder at himself for having done the same. That didn't stop him, however, from taking his wrath out on Jodeen.

"Don'tyou take that tone with her," he snapped. "Your daughter's still recovering from a fundamentalist right-wing whacko who tied her up, struck her, cut her hair and threatened to kill her, which he would have done in a New York minute if he hadn't been stopped. She's been traumatized and she's been hurt, and so far the only thing I've heard you ask, Mrs. Morgan, is if I'm after her money."

"Well, of course I'm worried about her! Haven't I said so a hundred times?"

"No. You haven't. You've wailed about your 'baby' and you've claimed that you just had to see her after her ordeal. Yet not once did you ask her how she's faring." Taking off the gloves, he demanded in clipped tones, "Isn't it true that your main concern here is to regain your meal ticket?"

Still playing the room, she fluttered a hand to her breast as she weakly gasped, "That's ahorrible thing to say!" But if eyes could morph into knives, hers would have eviscerated him.

"Yep, it's pretty lousy," he agreed. "Still, you kind of set yourself up for a few sticks and stones when you embezzled from your own daughter."

"I never! You better watch yourself, sonny-that suing for slander can go both ways!"

"Except it's not slander if you've got the books to back up the claim. And isn't it true that you're jealous of your daughter? That you've alwaysbeen jealous because she's sweet and has talent and is everything you never were?"

"I made her career! If not for me, she'd still be playing bars and honky-tonks. But when she started to get somewhere, what did she do? Dumped me like yesterday's dirty dishwater for Mister Fancypants there."

"So your contention is that it had nothing to do with your helping yourself to her earnings."

"I deserved that money! Anyway, she was starting to make pots, so I don't see what a dollar or two here and there matt-" She cut herself off, but more flashbulbs flashed and voices erupted and it was too late to take the words back.

P.J. pushed back from the table with a screech of her chair. Ignoring the pandemonium breaking out all around her, she strode from the stage.

Shit.Shit! What the hell had he done? He, too, pushed back. "Take over," he said to Ben, who was all but rubbing his hands together in satisfaction over Jodeen finally having been outed for the crook she was.

Then Jared hotfooted it into the wings after P.J., covering ground as fast as he could without pulling attention to himself by actually running.

"PEEJ."

P.J.'s footsteps faltered at the sound of Jared's voice.

Then she caught herself and picked up her pace once again. Just a few more yards and she'd be at her dressing room where she could close out the world, if only for a little while. "Go away, J."

"I can't. I can't just leave you to deal with this all on your own. I think you've had to do way too much of that already."

She moved even faster, but he closed the gap between them just as she reached the dressing-room door. Before she could open it he was behind her-crowding her backside, caging her between his arms, his hands spread on the wood entry on either side of her head. He bent to bring his lips close to her ear.

"I'm sorry, baby," he said in a low voice that sent goose bumps shivering down her spine. "I didn't mean to embarrass you in front of the press. I was just so pissed at Jodeen for all the crap she's dealt you over the years. I hate that she doesn't value you, but I should have left it alone instead of pushing her the way I did."

"That would have been nice," she whispered to the door. "I could have lived very nicely without the entire world knowing how little my own mother likes me."

Still, honesty compelled her to admit, "But you know what? Humiliating as it's going to be reading about it in the papers, I've moved beyond my need for Mama's affection. It hurts and it sucks that she's such a bitch, but I can survive perfectly well on my own."

"P.J.-"

She turned to face him, pressing her back against the door to avoid brushing up against his hard body. Looking him in the eye, she said, "I deserve better than to beg for the crumbs of anyone's affection."

He stepped back, giving her breathing room. "I was an idiot."

"Which time, exactly?"

Amusement lit his eyes and tugged up the corner of his mouth. "Yeah, that's the question, isn't it?" Stroking his fingers along her cheek with heartbreaking tenderness, he gazed down at her. Then he stuffed his hands in his pockets. "I was an idiot when you told me you loved me and I blew it off. A fool when I decided I knew better than you what you felt. But I was the biggest dumbshit of all when I ran scared from the one thing I want more than anything else in the world."

Her heart began to pound with:well, not hope. No, sir, she wasn't doing hope anymore; she'd finally learned her lesson on that score.

All the same, she mentally held her breath even as she scoffed at the notion he could ever be scared. "You're not afraid of anything."

"You always did give me way too much credit," he said softly, easing near again. But his hands remained deep in his pockets. Then his gaze locked with hers and what she saw there sent a jolt clear down to her toes. "But everyone's afraid of something. And my fear is that I'll disappoint you. That you'll see what a flawed man I am and think as little of me as my old man did." His Adam's apple took a slow ride up and down his throat. "That you'll take off-like you did fifteen years ago-and I'll never hear from you again."

"That's not how it was!" she denied instinctively. Then she shook her head. "That is, I guess it was, but not because I wanted it to be!"

This time it was Jared who made a skeptical noise.

"I didn't! Look, I tried to explain this before, but I only made you angry by bringing up your wealth. But give me a break here, J-I was thirteen years old! When Mama finally let me come back home, I knew darn well it was only because Gert had somehow forced her to. You had come to mean more to me than anyone I'd ever known, but I'd seen the way you lived. So I was already intimidated by your big, fancy mansion and your cook and your maid and:and:the way you'd corrected my grammar! I mean, I know you did that sometimes when we were on the streets but when you did it in your big ol' hotel of a house, I just felt:I felt so-"