Page 93 of The Complete Truth Duet
On the way down to the first floor, a lot of things happened:
My mind cleared.
My resolve clicked back into place.
And that all-too-familiar numbness washed back over me.
Penn Walker climbed onto the elevator that night, but when the doors opened at the bottom, Shane Pennington walked out focused, determined, and fueled by more pain than ever before.
The problem was, only a few hours later, I realized they were both irrevocably in love with Cora Guerrero.
Cora
Four years earlier…
“Chrissy!” I yelled, banging on the door to her apartment. I glanced over at Angela, who was standing in the walkway, chewing on her bottom lip. “You did the right thing.”
“We’ll see,” she muttered, turning her nerves onto her fingernails.
I started searching through my key ring. “Ang, listen to me. If she brings a john here, it puts us all at risk. At risk of the cops finding out. Or Dante or Marcos. Or, hell, even Manuel. I don’t know about you, but I’m not willing to hang my ass out on a limb for Chrissy to make a couple bucks on the side.”
“No. I know. It’s just I feel bad. She’s my girl, ya know?”
I shoved the key into the lock. “If she was really your girl, she wouldn’t have put you in this position to begin with.” I didn’t have a chance to turn the key before the door swung open.
Chrissy appeared in the entryway wearing a black nighty. Her thick, dyed dark hair was disheveled, and her lipstick lined the outer rim of her mouth. “Would you stop filling her head with bullshit?” She leaned out to glare at Angela. “I’m gonna fucking sew your mouth shut.”
Angela’s back straightened and her eyes flashed wide before she slunk into her apartment.
“Do you have to be such a bitch all the time?” I asked.
Chrissy grinned, all toothy and yellow. “I could ask you the same question.”
I scoffed. “I’m the bitch? You bring a john here, putting every woman in this building in danger, yet I’m the bitch? Jesus, Chrissy. Pull your damn head out of your ass for a minute and think about someone other than yourself.”
She rolled her eyes, propping her shoulder against the jamb, grinning like I’d told a joke. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s no man here.” She swung her arm out, inviting me in. “See for yourself.”
With less than zero interest in trudging through her trashy apartment in search of an even trashier man, I snapped, “Get him out. Now.”
“There’s nobody here.” She pouted her lips and drew an invisible X over her heart.
Then a woman’s voice I didn’t recognize came from behind me. “Uhhhh, because he’s right there.”
Spinning around, I caught sight of a half-naked man sprinting out of the parking lot. Luckily for me, it was the lower half that was covered. Though, after having witnessed his fur-covered stomach bouncing in the breeze, I wasn’t sure luck was the right term.
“Oh, would you look at that,” Chrissy breathed in mock disbelief. “You know, you should really have a chat with Angela. I saw her sneaking a guy in earlier, but I didn’t want to rat her out. You know being that we’re girls and all.”
I swung my burning retinas back on her. “Are you fucking kidding me, Chris? You of all people know better than—”
“Who the hell is she?” She jerked her chin toward the parking lot.
On reflex, I looked over my shoulder and found a tall, leggy brunette standing just inside the breezeway. She was wearing pink shorts that hugged her thin figure and a white silk camisole that didn’t show nearly enough cleavage for this profession but entirely too much for her to be a Jehovah’s Witness come to save my soul.
“Can I help you?” I asked just before Chrissy’s door slammed shut. I let out a groan, vowing to deal with her later. Though, short of calling in a Guerrero—which, no fucking way—there wasn’t much more I could do.
The woman smiled, revealing what had to be a small fortune in childhood orthodontics and a diet of clouds.
She pointed a manicured nail at Chrissy’s door. “She seems nice.”
“A real prize,” I replied, giving her another once-over. “What can I do for you today?”
“Oh, right.” She walked over, forcing me to crane my head back to see her.
I was short, but she had to have been at least six feet tall in those strappy, nude wedges.
Warm, brown eyes stared down at me as she asked, “I’m looking for Dante Guerrero.”
I curled my lip. “Well, that’s unfortunate. He doesn’t live here.”
She cocked her head to the side like a confused puppy. “But he owns the building, right?”
“That he does.” I opened my arms, waving them around, doing my best impression of a The Price Is Right model. “But, somehow, he manages to resist the urge to make this luxurious palace his primary residence.”
