Zelda sent him her best ‘aren’t you a sweetheart smile’ but before she could open her mouth to promise she would behave herself from now on, Ty Sullivan got there ahead of her. “She won’t. I guarantee it.”
Without another word, he gripped her upper arm and proceeded to haul her off the premises like a harassed parent corralling a wayward child.
Struggling to keep up with his long strides in her heels, the lamé gown wrapping round her legs like an anaconda, they were all the way down the steps of the station house before she managed to get over the shock of being manhandled enough to yank her arm out of his grip.
“Will you let me go. I can walk out on my own, you bloody baboon.”
He shot her the self-righteous glare she recognized from ten years ago. The brittle contempt might have wounded a more fragile woman. Luckily Zelda Madison was not fragile.
“That’s rich, princess. I just shelled out two hundred of my hard-earned dollars to pay your fine and get you out of the hole you managed to dig yourself into tonight.”
She didn’t miss the insinuation that her cash wasn’t hard-earned. She took two deep breaths, crossing her arms over her chest, which heaved with exertion and indignation, in an attempt to quell the lava flooding her veins.
Eight hours ago she would have agreed with him—in a purely existential sense. Modeling might be physically demanding and emotionally grueling at times, but it was not going to change the world for the better. But after the night she’d had, and the amount of humble pie she’d had to swallow already, she was not in the mood to be patronized.
Still, she bit down on the urge to slap back. She’d woken him at two in the morning and he’d come. She would be contrite and magnanimous now if it killed her. “Which I greatly appreciate. And which I will pay you back as soon as I can get to a cash point.”
“A cash point?” The icy disdain in his tone hit critical mass. “You mean an ATM. What’s with the fake British accent? Real American not good enough for you?” he said, in the thick Brooklyn accent which seemed to have gotten even thicker for her benefit. “’Cause I happen to know you were born in Manhattan.”
And had spent nearly all of her childhood in London while her father was a diplomat and then the American ambassador. Not to mention several years in a Swiss Finishing School and then the last eight living mostly in Paris, Barcelona, and Milan while not on assignment. And even though she had been born in New York, her mother had been British and Zelda held both British and American passports.
She also spoke five languages fluently. Two more well enough to get by in. But unfortunately none of them had the surly Brooklyn twang that would make her a ‘real American’ in Tyrone Sullivan’s judgmental eyes. Sullivan’s accusation reminded her of the year at St. J’s when all the other girls except her friends had delighted in mocking her ‘snooty accent’. But she didn’t intend to bother enlightening Sullivan now by explaining why she spoke the way she did. Because she’d learned at the age of sixteen, while sitting in the Mother Superior’s office, being accused of things she hadn’t done with her brother’s hollow indifference making her stomach hurt, that if people insisted on assuming the worst of her, it was useless trying to defend herself.
She tapped her Laboutin on the sidewalk. “Fine, I will pay you back when I get to an ATM.” She glanced around. “Now if you could direct me to the nearest taxi rank or subway station, I’ll get out of your hair.”
“The subway isn’t running after midnight all this week, they’re working on the line. And you’re not catching a cab in that get up.” His gaze seared down to her cleavage again with enough self-righteous superiority to seriously piss her off. “Where’s your car? I’ll take you to it, assuming you’re not too hammered to drive,” he added, sounding even more exasperated.
“I don’t have a car. I don’t drive,” she replied, ignoring the snipe about her sobriety. Let him believe what he wanted to believe, he wouldn’t be the first.
The sky was still defiantly dark behind the convenience store on the other side of the station parking lot, so she was probably several hours from dawn yet, and as her phone was dead and there was very little traffic, catching a cab was probably out. “When does the subway open?”
“If you’re not catching a cab in tha
t costume, you’re not catching the subway either,” he said as if he were the boss of her. “How the hell come you don’t drive? What are you, the Queen of England?”
“No, I suspect the Queen probably drives,” she managed, clinging to magnanimous by her fingertips.
She’d stopped driving after hitting a tree in Fontainbleau forest five years ago, in her brand new Jaguar convertible, while over-celebrating her twenty-first birthday with ten too many Kir Royales at La Coupole. The subsequent shots of her in a bloodstained T-shirt with the words ‘Crazy Bitch’ sequined across her bust had scored a full-page spread in Paris Match and been syndicated round the globe. She hadn’t gotten behind the wheel of a car since. Obviously Mr. High and Mighty didn’t read the tabloids though, so she didn’t intend to enlighten him.
“Just out of curiosity, who put you in charge of my welfare?” The last thing she needed after taking five years to get free of her minders was another one. Especially one as pissy and rude as this one.
“You did.” He shot back. “When you decided to haul me out of bed to deal with your latest drunken stunt.”
“I wasn’t drunk.”
She hadn’t touched a drop for five years—not that she cared whether he believed her or not.
He narrowed his eyes, not looking convinced. “Uh-huh? So what were you doing skinny dipping on Manhattan Beach at midnight?”
“I wasn’t skinny dipping, I had underwear on.”
“According to the desk sergeant your underwear consisted of three pinpoint triangles of red lace that became transparent when wet. In my book that counts as skinny dipping. You’re lucky you didn’t get raped.”
She flinched. “The beach was deserted. There wasn’t a soul about and I hadn’t planned to come out of the water to find two patrol cops standing guard over my clothing.”
“Doesn’t sound like you plan a whole hell of a lot now, does it? Just, FYI, next time you’re in a fix call one of your lackeys or, better yet, one of your brother’s pricey legal team. I bet they’ve got a ton more experience dealing with your bullshit.”
If she’d known she was going to get this much grief she would have. Despite the fact her brother would have given her that indifferent look that made her stomach hurt, and the presence of anyone from Goulding and Hatchard, the East Side lawyers Seb used for the Madison Foundation’s business, at the Sheepshead Bay precinct house at three in the morning would have put her in grave danger of having the press alerted. Then again, arguing at top volume with a pill like Ty Sullivan right outside the station house probably wasn’t helping to keep this debacle under wraps either.