“Since I’ve been the one bankrolling all of that expense, of course I know. But you knew my ATM was closed. I gave you ample warning. You could have foregone one damn season to get yourself some investors and start the new year off right. But no. You can never think ahead. You can never skip a season.”
“No designer can afford to skip a season, Mick, you don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“You know what?” Mick shook his head. “I’ve got to go,” he said as he threw his white shawl around his neck.
Bella panicked. “You can’t leave me now! What if they come here?”
Mick looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “I know how your slick ass got up here with all these levels of security. I failed to tell them you were no longer on the list. But those Russians aren’t coming anywhere near here. They’re bad, but they know I’m thebaddestmotherfucker they’ll ever encounter. You’re safe here. I’ll be back,” he said and walked out without giving her a chance to object. It was unobjectionable as far as Mick was concerned. He closed the door behind him.
Bella leaned against that closed door still looking flustered. But then she thought about something he said and she smiled. The fact that he had failed to tell Security at his hotel that Roz had made him cut her off was music to her ears. She felt she knew Mick better than any human being alive. And she knew that man never failed to inform anybody about anything unless he didn’t want to inform them. Unless he had no intentions, despite Roz, of truly cutting his ties to her.
Which meant that he still cared about her.
Which meant there was hope for her and Mick yet.
Which made her heart sing.
But when she thought about Datvey Gagarin again, and what that fucker already showed her he was capable of, that smile turned to pure fear. And she quickly bolted that door.
But ten minutes later, after she had undressed and put on one of Mick’s big dress shirts, did she hear somebody knocking at that same door.
Terrified, she hurried to look out of the peephole. Who would be knocking? When she saw that it was Teddy, her heart relaxed. And she opened the door with a smile on her face. “Hey baby,” she said as she gave him a big bear hug.
Teddy returned the hug because he and Bella had always been cool. As the mother of his beloved half-sister Gloria, she was like a member of the family. But when he pulled back from her and saw that she was wearing one of his father’s shirts and presumably nothing else, he was inwardly enraged. But not at her. He knew she was just a pawn in his father’s twisted pleasures. He was angry at Mick. “He’s here?”
“No.”
Teddy inwardly sighed relief. “He’s not here?”
“He left maybe ten or fifteen minutes before you got here.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
“No, but he was dressed as if it was an evening out. He said he had to be somewhere.”
“Okay, Bella, thanks,” said Teddy, and then he took off before she could ask him any questions.
But after he nodded at the security team that covered the penthouse and got on the elevator, he leaned against the wall and shook his head. Mick and Bella. Bella and Mick. Would they ever leave each other alone? And didn’t Roz give his ass an ultimatum about that woman just a couple weeks ago? And he was already doing for her and putting her up and getting his ass all involved in her life once again?Who does that?
His old man, that’s who, Teddy thought. And he wondered what was it about Bella anyway. Teddy’s mother was one of Mick’s baby mamas too, but he was nowhere near all involved in her life the way he was involved in Bella’s life. The mothers of his two deceased half-brothers, Joey and Adrian, never received the star treatment from Mick either.
But Bella? Gloria’s mother? It was as if she was the belle of the ball to Mick.
But Teddy was no heartless idiot either. The fact that Bella saved Mick’s life once when they were much younger had something to do with Mick’s devotion to her. But damn. When was enough enough? For Roz’s sake, Teddy thought, Mick needed to figure that out.
But after he got off the elevator, hurried out of his old man’s luxurious hotel, and then got into the SUV and made his way back to Broadway, he wasn’t going to let his old man nor his old man’s woman spoil the night.
This was Roz’s night.
Her opening night.
This was her moment.
This was her comeback as a leading lady on Broadway although she never went anywhere. Bump Mick and Bella!
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Teddy arrived at his seat just before curtain call. He had to squeeze past his father, who sat beside Nikki. He took his seat on the other side of Nikki. Duke and Jackie were seated on the other side of him.
