Shattered With You

Chapter One

I know I shouldn't want him.

I wish I didn't crave him.

With every day that passes, I pray that the sweet throb of yearning will dim. And yet it doesn't.

Awake, I can feed the pain. Can fall back into those memories that cut as deep as a knife. Passion erased. Love eradicated.

Before, there'd been a man who wanted me. After, only a scorch mark remained, like a shadow burned into the ground from a nuclear explosion.

Awake, I can hold onto my anger.

But in my dreams, I always surrender.

I tell myself I'm better off without him. But I need him. His skills. His help.

I have no options left. He is the place where desire and fear meet. And all I can do is pray that I don't shatter like glass under the weight of my regrets.

***

Built in 1931, the historic Hollywood Terrace Hotel once reigned supreme as the place to see and be seen along the famous boulevard. But time wreaked its revenge, and like the fading beauty of Golden Age starlets, the Art Deco palace fell into disrepair as flappers gave way to hippies and Baby Boomers, all of whom were overrun by Millennials who watched as the twentieth century rolled inexorably into the twenty-first.

For the first decade of the new millennium, the once majestic icon stood faded and broken. The exterior stucco dulled to a lifeless gray. Windows soiled and cracked. The famous gardens overrun with vermin and weeds.

The interior fared no better. Mold grew around leaky pipes. Rats scurried the halls, surrendering only to the feral cats who claimed the dark spaces as their own. Carpets rotted. Wallpaper peeled. And a fine dust covered every surface like a blanket of neglect.

With the determination of a beleaguered prizefighter, the building fought to stay upright despite the repeated blows of weather, earthquakes, and the monotonous parade of progress marked by shiny new storefronts. When yellow tape emblazoned with Condemned and Do Not Cross appeared across the etched glass doors, the locals were certain that the final blow had been landed.

Then Scott Lassiter rode to the rescue, and it turned out that the story of the Hollywood Terrace wasn't a boxing movie after all. It was a makeover. My Fair Lady for the bedraggled hotel.

The international real estate developer pulled out all the stops, remaking The Hollywood Terrace into the gem it had been almost a century before. He turned the mezzanine conference rooms into his private suite of offices, and claimed the entire top floor as his stunning penthouse residence, complete with an indoor pool and a formal ballroom.

Everyone who was anyone attended the grand re-opening five years ago, and Lassiter was feted by the town's movers and shakers as a hero. A miracle worker. A true citizen, devoted to preserving the history that had put this corner of Southern California on the map when those first pioneers with cameras had hustled to the land of manna and sunshine.

That party had made headlines across the globe, the Hollywood connection and the many stars on the guest list making the story too delicious to ignore.

Tonight's party was even more lush. Dozens upon dozens of guests filled the meticulously restored Art Deco ballroom with its bold colors and geometric designs. The combined incomes of the well-heeled, international guests made a Hollywood star's bankroll look like a teenager's allowance. Rare champagne vintages flowed in fountains of pure silver. The women glided over the marble floors in formal gowns designed to accentuate assets of the non-gemstone variety. And any man in a suit that cost less than twenty-five grand was obviously a poser.