Tara Sivec - Shame on Me

Well, the multitude of kitten pictures on her Facebook page makes sense now. But I fear for the children of our future if she’s the one educating them.

“It has to be the guy she was with the other night then. You don’t know anything about him? You didn’t recognize him?” I question as someone jostles me from behind and I slam up against the front of Matt.

I put my hands up against his chest and look up at him so I can apologize. He’s staring down at me. Actually, he’s staring right at my lips and his arms wrap around my waist to steady me, but pull me closer instead.

We stand this way until the noise and all of the people around us fade away like in some cheesy rom-com. All I can focus on is the feel of his body pressed up against mine and the way he can’t stop staring at my mouth, like he wants to kiss me.

“This is weird. Is it weird for you? Tell me it’s not just me. I mean, I just met you,” he explains with frustration.

“It’s not just you,” I reassure him, feeling equally annoyed and turned on all at the same time.

Shame on me for thinking I was going to get out of this with my heart intact.

Are you sure? I don’t have a good feeling about this,” Matt tells me as he grips my hand tightly while I pull him with me through the dance floor and over to the roped-off VIP area.

I stop right at the edge of the dance floor and turn around to face him. “I’m sure. Don’t worry. Someone needs to go up there and get her to talk, and it’s obviously not going to be you. She has no idea who I am, so it’s the perfect plan.”

He glances back and forth between the VIP area and me. “You must think I’m a complete loser. What kind of guy asks the most beautiful woman in this place to spy on his ex-wife?”

I laugh and rub my hand up and down his arm reassuringly. “You didn’t ask. I volunteered. But thank you for the compliment.”

“I don’t know why I’m even worrying. You’re never going to be able to get in there,” he tells me, staring at the bald, buff, badass-looking bouncer who is currently standing guard in front of the ropes.

“Don’t worry about me, I’m pretty resourceful,” I tell him with a wink. “Just wait for me back by the bar so she doesn’t see you.”

He leans in and kisses me on the cheek before walking away. I watch him push his way back through the crowd, then I take a deep breath and walk right up to the bouncer, tapping him on the shoulder so he’ll look down at me.

He turns his head with a scowl on his face, not too happy about the fact that yet another person is going to bug him to get up into the VIP area. When he sees me standing there, the scowl turns into a huge smile that appears rather strange on a man who looks like he just got out of prison.

“Paige! Holy shit! What the fuck are you doing slumming here, beautiful?”

Yet another thing I failed to mention to Matt—I recognized the bouncer as soon as I walked into the club. He was one of the regular bouncers at a club I frequented during the height of my modeling career.

“Ronny, it’s so good to see you!” I tell him as he leans down and scoops me up into a bone-crushing hug, lifting me up off of my feet.

I guess when you’re six foot seven and weigh over three hundred pounds, you could lift a building without breaking a sweat.

Ronny finally sets me back on my feet and holds me out at arm’s length.

“When did you start working here? Last time I saw you, you were breaking up a fight at the Viper Room in LA,” I remind him.

“Eh, the wife got transferred to Indy for her job. So here I am,” he says with a shrug. “You want to go up into the VIP area?”

He nods behind him and unhooks one end of the velvet rope.

“Thanks, Ronny. Give Kim my love,” I tell him as I walk past him and into the private area.

“Will do. Don’t be a stranger now,” he calls after me, hooking the rope back into place after I walk through.

I make my way up the three steps to the walkway that leads to all of the VIP lounges, grabbing a glass of champagne off of a passing tray as a waiter walks by. I pause just outside of the wall of Melanie’s lounge and take a deep breath.

Showtime.

Putting on a huge smile, I giggle at nothing as I stumble into the opening of the room and flop down on the end of the huge sectional sofa where Melanie and her friends are sitting. They immediately stop talking and stare at me. They look like Charlie’s Angels. Melanie in the middle is blonde, the friend on her left is a brunette, and the one on her right has black hair.

“Oh, my gosh! I’m SO drunk. I’m totally in the wrong lounge!” I tell them with another giggle and a sip of my champagne.

They immediately smile at me and Melanie speaks first. “It’s cool. Drink up, sister!”

She raises her glass and her three friends copy her, all of them taking a sip of their drinks. I notice two bottles of Dos Lunas Grand Reserve tequila sitting on the table in front of them and even I’m shocked by the indulgence I see right now. Just one of those bottles is easily twenty-two hundred dollars. Whoever booked this room isn’t playing around.

Time to get to the bottom of things.

“I hope you don’t mind me hiding out in here for a minute. The guy who invited me to his lounge is a total creeper,” I complain with a roll of my eyes.

“We don’t mind at all!” the brunette next to Melanie speaks up. “There are a lot of creeps here tonight. Thank God we’re in here and not out there.”

She points out to the dance floor and the rest of the girls nod in agreement.

“Are you guys hiding out too? Wait, did you guys pay for this room yourself? You must be, like, totally rich or something,” I say with wide, innocent eyes.

“Oh, hell no! We could never afford something like this. Melanie has a rich boyfriend!” the brunette says with a laugh.

Melanie shushes her and the other friend smacks the brunette in the arm. All three of them look over at me nervously.

“Sorry, it’s just . . . I’m not really supposed to talk about him,” Melanie tells me.

What the hell?

“Is he a spy or something?” I ask with a laugh.

“No. He’s, um . . . a businessman. He’s just very private.”

Right. My ass he’s just a businessman.

No one says anything for a few seconds and then the brunette finally rolls her eyes and laughs. “Oh, what the hell, Melanie. What’s the point of dating him if you can’t brag about it?”

Melanie sighs and then looks around. When she’s satisfied that no one is walking by the room, possibly listening in, she shrugs and nods to her friend.

“She’s totally dating someone in the Mob!” the brunette gushes. “Like in The Godfather, but cooler!”

Oh, no. This is not good. Maybe they only THINK he’s in the Mob. They don’t seem very bright. Maybe they misunderstood.

“He’s got more money than God, I swear,” the one with the black hair finally adds.

Melanie is still keeping quiet about the boyfriend. I need to turn up the drunk-moron routine if I want her to tell me what I need to know. I can’t really go back to the office and Google “members of the Mob.”

“Wow, that must be so awesome. My ex was a total loser. He had a bunch of money, but never spent any of it on me,” I complain.

That’s all it takes. Melanie’s eyes light up and she looks at me like we’re long-lost sisters.

“Oh, my gosh, me too! My ex practically owned his own company and he wouldn’t even consider buying a summer home in the Hamptons when I asked him,” Melanie whines. “Vinnie buys me stuff every day and takes me to all the best restaurants. He’s a total keeper. But just in case, I’m still going to take my ex for all he has.”

All three of the girls laugh and clink their glasses together.

I want to punch this bitch right in her selfish little face.

“So, this guy is really in the Mob? Like, the real Mob?” I ask.

“He totally is! He’s like the boss or something. But you can’t tell anyone I told you this, okay?” she begs.

Yeah. Right. Your secret is safe with me.

I sit with the girls for a few more minutes as they all go on and on about how amazing this Vinnie person is because he isn’t afraid to shell out thousands of dollars a day on Melanie, and how Matt isn’t going to know what hit him when she takes control of the company.

It’s sad and pathetic and makes me even more determined to do whatever I can to help Matt. I also make a mental note to never send any future children I might have to the school system these idiots work for.

Unfortunately, none of them are forthcoming with Vinnie’s last name and I find out that he’s not joining them tonight because he had some business to take care of. If he really is with the Mob, I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume this “business” probably has something to do with offing someone. I might make a few stupid choices here and there, but even I know that trying to hunt down someone who works for the Mob just to get a few pictures of him with Melanie is a bad idea. I’m going to have to come up with another plan for making sure Melanie keeps her greedy paws off of Matt’s company.

No. Absolutely not. There is no way you are going to dig deeper into this guy’s background. That just has bad news written all over it,” I tell Matt.

After we left the club, we decided to stop at a twenty-four-hour diner on the way home. Since we drove separately to the club, Matt followed me in his car.

“What else am I supposed to do? You said it yourself: She is determined to fuck me over. I can’t let that happen¸ Paige.”

Reaching across the table, I rest my hands on top of his. “I know. We’ll think of something else. I have a few contacts in law enforcement. Let me have them do some checking first and find out what we’re dealing with.”

Matt stares at me across the table and I can’t bring myself to move my hands off of his even when the waitress comes over and refills our coffee cups. I think back to his words at the club about this thing between us being weird. It is weird, but in a good way. I feel like I’ve known him forever.

“Where did you even come from? My life was total shit a week ago and then all of a sudden, you show up out of nowhere and make everything better,” he tells me with a smile.

I swallow past the lump in my throat. Now would be the perfect opportunity to tell him that it wasn’t a coincidence, me showing up in his life the way I did.

“You are amazing,” Matt tells me earnestly.

I shake my head at him, wishing the words would come out of my mouth as easily as they pop into my head.

“Yes, you are,” he insists. “I barely know anything about you, but I know that much at least. I’m pretty much a stranger to you and yet you’re willing to do whatever you can to help me out. That’s amazing, if you ask me.”

Oh, but you aren’t a stranger, Matt. I’ve read your file. I’ve MEMORIZED your file.

“So, tell me something about you. I’ve bored you to death and most likely insulted the hell out of you with my problems. What do you do for a living when you aren’t trying to make it in the modeling world?” he asks, moving one of his hands out from under mine to pick up his coffee cup and bring it to his lips.

Of course he couldn’t start with something easy, like my favorite color.

“I’ve actually given up the modeling dream. Um, I mostly just do some office work for my best friend’s company.”

I am going straight to hell.

“Why would you give up on the modeling thing? You’re gorgeous, obviously. I have a hard time believing it wouldn’t be a pretty lucrative career for you once you got your foot in the door.”

If you only knew . . .

“I just realized it wasn’t something I loved doing. It got old really fast,” I explain, giving him as much as I can of myself right now. A part of me wants to tell him everything. About how I was, and still am, kind of a big deal in the modeling world. How I got tired of being paraded around in front of people for my looks, no one even considering that I might have a brain that I’d want to use for something else. And how the person I loved, trusted, and married only cared about my looks and used me for what those looks provided him. It’s so refreshing being anonymous that I’m almost drunk from the joy it brings me.

“You should never do something you’re not passionate about. I’m glad you aren’t doing it anymore if it didn’t make you happy. Although it would have been kind of cool to drive down Route 20 and see your picture splashed across a billboard,” he jokes before taking another sip of his coffee.