Page 19 of The Best Worst Mistake (Off-Limits #2)

Abby

I close my eyes and exhale a steady stream of hot air before turning all the way around in the driver’s seat, looking for any sign that says I’m still going in the right direction.

“He what ?” Olivia yelps into the phone, sounding just as shocked as I was this morning when Dax failed to explain that he and Lila were there for The Nile Group, too.

“He and Lila are trying to steal The Nile for their client,” I tell her.

“I had no idea there was a potential hostile takeover in the works, but I should have known it could be a possibility once I heard Davenport Media was showing interest. Somewhere in my brain, I should have recognized that Dax and Silas Davenport might be connected legally. They are buddies from their boarding school days, but I had no idea that he was solely representing The Davenport Media Group now. There were rumors of another party wanting to enter the negotiations — which Brett knew more about than me, going into this morning — but I never saw this particular left turn coming.”

“Wait, Dax went to boarding school with Silas Davenport?” Liv asks, sounding impressed.

I sigh, feeling lost — and certainly in more ways than one — but hoping the gate I’ve been trying to find for the last forty-five minutes is the one I’ve just pulled up to.

I’ve already tried two other gates on my way here since none of the directions to Quinton and Selma’s estate are based on actual street names after a certain point and only mention random landmarks.

Apparently it’s one of the ways they try to maintain a private residence here in L.A. with all the paparazzi roaming around.

“I think I mentioned that to you at some point?” I say, feeling distracted, looking around for any sign that this gate belongs to a famous movie director. But all I see is a fake boulder in front of a very nondescript metal gate.

“Have you kept up with Silas in the media?” Liv asks. “The guy’s apparently a bit of a loose cannon, although, from the look of most media coverage he’s definitely figured out how to have a good time with that pile of money he inherited a few years ago.”

“Wonderful,” I mutter, studying the dark gate in front of my headlights, praying that this is the right one.

After a full day of fending off Brett, who’s somehow managed to act more stressed than usual, along with a pack of overzealous hyenas coming in hot from Dax’s firm — and who had the audacity to threaten a hostile takeover of The Nile Group if we don’t all agree to capitulate — I’m really too overwhelmed to zero in on our opponent’s rich-boy party habits right now.

I push the brake pedal to the floor and resist the urge to press my forehead against the steering wheel for a nap.

Instead, I let out a heavy, soul-cleansing sigh — praying with my last ounce of strength that these gates truly belong to Selma and Quinton and I won’t be forced to drive back to that awful hotel from last night.

Brett and I stayed in separate hotel rooms near the airport last night after getting in late from New York, since I didn’t think I’d have the energy to find my way over to this house following a cross-country flight and a full day of work.

But now, I’m wondering how I had the energy to navigate through L.A.

traffic after our meetings today (without any accidents, thank you, although there were a few near misses) to find this place.

A place that’s so deeply shrouded in secrecy that a clearly marked street sign is apparently too much to ask for.

This would all be quite thrilling if I wasn’t so freakishly exhausted.

“Hang on, Liv, I’m pressing the rock’s speaker button thingy now,” I tell her, wearily.

“Oh, you made it!” she squeals.

I wish I had her energy right now.

“God willing,” I mutter back, feeling a slight wisp of excitement twist through me at how excited she sounds.

I would hold up the FaceTime screen for her to tell me whether I’m at the right entrance or not, but all these gates and rocks look the same to me.

I lower my window, then press the tiny red button set into that enormous faux boulder.

There’s a bunch of holes all over one side, which must be a speaker.

I notice a tiny little camera lens off in the top right corner and force out a smile, trying my best to look bright-eyed rather than haggard to whoever might be watching on the other side.

As soon as I hit the red button near the speaker, a bright, white spotlight shoots out of the trees behind the fake rock, blinding me.

I shade my eyes with one hand and stare into the camera, hoping to be let in, or for something to be said other than leave the premises — as happened at the last two places.

“Uh, hello?” I prompt, after a moment of silence, then press the red button for a second time.

The speaker gargles to life, and a woman with a voice like butter answers.

“Good evening.”

“Good evening,” I echo, probably louder than I need to. “Uh, I’m Abby Torres. Sent by Olivia.”

Silence.

“Olivia and Dom — erm, Dominick Bryant? Quinton’s brother? I think you’re expecting me? Is this Quinton and Selma’s home?”

“Oh, of course, hon.”

Hun ?

“Thank God,” I mumble to Olivia.

“One moment, please. Just double-checking that you’re who we’re expecting. If you’d just smile real big up at that camera lens, please, dear.”

I squint my eyes up toward the camera lens, but the happiness on my face is real.

I finally made it.

“Perfect. Oh my stars, you are just beautiful! Okay, head on in, honey.”

The gate in front of my car suddenly unlatches itself and then swings open on a silent hinge.

“This could be the start of a really bad movie,” I whisper to Liv, hopefully quiet enough that the woman talking through the rock can’t hear me. “You’re sure I’m in the right place?”

“Go ahead and follow the driveway down and to the right,” the woman says through the hidden speaker. “You can park in the circle drive in front of the doors when you arrive at the main house.”

“You’re all good,” Olivia chimes in. “You should see it during the day. Probably a bit dark there right now, but you’re fine. Seriously, just wait until you see the place. And Starry is just the best.”

The speaker clicks off.

“Uh, thank you!” I call out, a moment too late.

“In fact, I think that was Starry who answered,” Olivia adds. “House manager, though she’s more like everyone’s favorite grandma.”

“Everyone’s favorite grandma?” I ask, feeling that old familiar pang — like a thick root lodged in my throat.

A root because it’s been there as long as I can remember.

Longer than most things I can recall, like it was there first and I simply grew to exist around it, growing thicker at any mention of family.

“You’re going to love her,” Liv says.

“I’m sure I will,” I say, picturing the type of grandma I’ve only ever seen depicted in sitcoms or movies full of smiling, happy families.

The only grandmother I ever knew was Grandma Tally, and she died just before I turned eleven.

She lived alone in Kansas, so I only met her twice when my aunt and uncle took me down to visit, but when I did, she served me grapefruit pie and yelled at me when I accidentally used her dog’s toothpaste instead of my own since it was sitting in the bathroom drawer.

I’d fallen asleep with a gritty, meat-flavored film crunching between my teeth each time I accidentally let my top jaw touch my lower one — and wondering why I didn’t get the type of grandmother that baked cookies and gave cuddles instead of what I experienced on that awful trip.

The gate swings open slowly in front of the headlights.

I refocus and ease my foot off the brake, slowly inching the car forward.

I tell myself that what I’m doing is totally normal — driving up to a dark house alone at night, in the middle of a deserted mountain road above an intimidating major city, and being trapped behind electronic gates that someone I’ve never met before has control over.

Totally, totally normal.

I wish I had Dax in the passenger seat for all this.

“You sure I’m in the right place?” I ask Olivia, creeping forward. “What if some nice-sounding sicko just let me into their gate? Someone that doesn’t care who I am as long as I’m a piece of fresh meat for the taking? I might not look super cute right now, but definitely cute enough to kidnap.”

She laughs, and I bite my lip down hard as I make my way down the long driveway. Olivia continues cracking jokes about getting tortured by Selma’s professional house staff, while wondering aloud whether or not that would be the worst way to go.

“You might feel like you’ve died, but gone straight to heaven when you get there,” she assures me. “Trust me.”

As I continue on toward the house, I imagine Dax holding my hand to steady me as we make our way silently through the dark, reassuring me that everything is going to be fine. But, let’s be honest, he’d have to forgive me for what I pulled on him after our rendezvous back in New York.

I force the thought out of my mind. We just need to finish the conversation we started earlier, before Lila and Brett flung that door open on us.

I’m certain they didn’t notice Dax and I pulling apart.

Besides, I’m sure Brett would have mentioned it to me by now if he had noticed anything funny going on between us.

I stare up at the tunnel of trees I’m driving through, starting to feel a little bit like Belle from Beauty and the Beast , making my way through the great and forested unknown.

“Tell me when you can see the place,” Liv says.

The route becomes more peaceful as I meander through an apparently unending line of willowy aspen trees lining the subtly lit driveway. My headlights reflect off their smooth, dove-white bark beneath a thick canopy of fluttering leaves.

“This place is pretty unreal,” I tell her. “How long is this driveway?”

“You’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy,” she says, dreamily. “Open your window and smell that fresh air. They built the place way above the smog there. High enough to get that famous sun and ocean breeze that first brought people flocking to L.A.”

I lower my window again, dropping one hand outside to feel the cool night air trickle by, like water slipping across my skin.

It smells faintly of the saltwater mixed with dampened earth from the light sprinkle of rain we got earlier tonight, and I take a deep inhale, filling my lungs, allowing myself to feel the first real nudge of excitement since I landed on another planet last night.

I already love how green and natural it is up here — a far cry from the concrete jungle back home, with the exception of my apartment overflowing with plants.

Around the last bend in the driveway, a beautiful French-chateauesque house — no, a legitimate chateauesque mansion — comes into view, surrounded by a line of antique street lamps.

They’re lined up in the style I remember seeing along the Pont Alexandre III in Paris, except that instead of reflecting into the Seine River, these lamps are reflecting into a shallow creek, which winds along the front of the home and driveway, nestled beside what looks like a gravel walking path.

The whole view reminds me of Paris, a mini City of Lights.

“Whoa,” I say quietly, keeping my eyes fixed on the three-story main building that’s surrounded by a sea of sandstone and cut grass, carefully crafted to create a green and tan checkerboard effect upon the ground.

I glide the car up to the apex of the circle drive, coming to a stop just a few yards down from a pair of enormous arched doors made of twisted iron and deeply tinted, warbled glass.

I’m half-expecting the cast of Downton Abbey to parade out those enormous double doors to greet me.

“This place,” I sigh into the phone. “I’m not sure that I deserve to stay here.”

“I know, right? I’m not sure any of us do. Not even Quinton and Selma.”

“Wish you were here,” I tell her, feeling a pang of loneliness. The same one that crops up every time I experience a moment that makes me wish I was sharing it right beside someone else.

“I do, too,” she says. “But you’re going to feel at home the second you meet the staff. Everyone there is beyond nice.”

“Thanks for setting this up.” I don’t bother to remind her that I’ve never, not once, felt at home . “Beats the hell out of staying next door to Brett at that hotel.”

She chuckles.

“I can’t believe they actually tried to stick you in a hotel next door to Brett for multiple weeks. Haven’t they at least heard of Airbnb?”

A light flicks on from the inside, casting a blanket of light across the flat hood of my rental car.

“Someone just turned on a light,” I whisper. “I think that’s my cue to get out of the car.”

“Good luck!” she calls. “Let me know how tomorrow goes.”

“Lord, help me,” I groan. “Love you.”

“You too! Tell them I say hi,” she says. “I guarantee you’ve never experienced anyone like Starry before.”

“I have a feeling I’m about to experience a lot of things I’ve never experienced before,” I say.

“I know,” she says, not forcing me to go through the long list of completely normal things I’ve never done, or had, or felt. “Now go!”

A moment after we’ve hung up, I’m pulling my bags out of the trunk, still wondering if someone is going to pop out that front door to shoo me away. When the front door finally swings open, a tiny figure steps out, illuminated by the warm glow of the house from behind.

“Hello!” a sweet voice calls out, then the figure begins walking down the stairs to greet me.