Текст книги "Broken Crown"
Автор книги: Susan Ward
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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 18 страниц)
Simple.
She’s right.
All we have to do is both step into the now.
“I love you, Chrissie.”
“I know, Alan, and I’ve been waiting for you.”
* * *
I lie in bed with Chrissie tucked into my side, her limbs draped across me, my arms around her, physically drained and emotionally full.
With my fingers I lightly stroke her spine and I feel her cheek start to brush lightly against my chest.
She laughs. “Last night was amazing, but we should probably go.”
I tighten my arms. “No, not ready yet.”
She kisses my chest and settles back against me.
We’ve not talked about anything. Not the things that have happened, but it doesn’t feel swept under the carpet, waiting for us, like it used to.
It feels swept away.
Irrelevant.
I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s just because that’s how we want it to be. I shouldn’t ask. But this one I need to know.
I kiss her head. “Do you remember my party in New York?”
She doesn’t look up. She nods, her chin moving against me and the softness of her skin teasing my flesh.
“The reason you came. Was it to tell me about the girls being my daughters?”
She lifts her chin. Her eyes meet mine directly. She nods. I lightly caress her cheek.
“Why didn’t you?”
She gnaws her lower lip in that way she has when she’s searching for words. “It was clear in my head when I left California. But when I saw you everything inside me scattered like it always does. I wanted to tell you and I couldn’t. I wanted you and I couldn’t have you. Once I saw you I wasn’t sure I could fix what I’d done and not lose you and I wasn’t willing to risk it. I love you so much it makes me afraid that I’ll lose you.”
She settles back against me.
Why, Alan, does everyone I love leave me?
“Oh, baby, there is nothing you could do to make me leave you.”
Jack’s right. The answers are always simple if you let them be. I get it. No more questions. Let it rest, Alan. It doesn’t matter. You love her.
Out of nowhere, laughter bubbles upward. I try to fight it, but it pushes out stronger.
Chrissie’s face snaps up. “What?”
I can’t stop laughing.
Fuck, she’s going to get pissed if I say it.
Why does she have to stare at me with those eyes all confused and expectant?
I can’t look at her.
I close my lids.
Nope, not helping. The chuckles come louder. I can’t stop it.
“You came…to New York—” I choke out. “—to fix a problem…and you left creating two new ones. That’s so you, Chrissie.”
Oh fuck, I’m laughing like a madman. She’s going to be beyond pissed. She pulls from my arms and hits me with a pillow.
“That was mean, Alan.”
I laugh harder.
She hits me again.
“Stop laughing. It’s not funny,” she chides.
Good, she’s laughing, too. I spring up, grab her around the waist and lower her to the bed beneath me. I cover her mouth with mine, swallowing her humor, and fuck, I’m fully hard and pulsing again.
I start roaming her body with my kisses. My hands travel, lightly brushing her flesh. Her laughter melts down.
“Do you want to create more problems?”
Her eyes fly wide.
Exactly.
Too late now.
Whatever happens, happens.
I didn’t bring rubbers.
Neither did she.
I’m not cut. And I’m pretty certain birth control is still beyond manageable for Chrissie.
Fuck, I’m just going to enjoy being alone with her and worry later.
She groans. “Oh fuck, Alan.”
I sink myself deeply inside her. “I’m going to take that, Chrissie, as a yes.”
* * *
Mexico City, three months later
“Alan! Get in here. Now.”
I jerk awake.
Oh no, I know that tone of voice.
Oh please, don’t come in here and tell me you’re pregnant.
“I need to show you something. Darn it. It’s afternoon. Wake up. Why do I always have to come to you?”
I hear running footsteps and then I feel her in the room.
Grimacing and tense, I roll over in bed. Chrissie is holding a laptop. Not a stick from a test. Oh, thank you, God.
She stares at me, exasperated, from the open bedroom doorway. “Didn’t you tell Krystal not to lend her computer to Kaley?”
Oh fuck.
I sit up in bed. “I didn’t think of that. I didn’t think of cutting her data package and limiting the international airtime thing either.”
Chrissie plops down beside me, sets the computer in front of her and starts clicking away.
“What has she done now?” I ask as dread tightens every muscle in my gut.
She waves me off with a hand. “No. No. No. This is good. I want to show you this and then sneak it back into Krystal’s room so Kaley doesn’t know that we saw it.”
Not buying it. This will not be good, no matter what Chrissie thinks. Everything Kaley does digitally is an all-out nightmare.
Chrissie moves to sit between my legs, her ass brushing me there as she settles against me and sets the laptop on her thighs.
“Look, Alan. Look at what she’s been doing.”
She clicks on a video and hits play. Long and Hard: My Journey with My Father. Oh Christ, she’s got sixty minutes of video already cut into a documentary. Oh my. Photos and film. I don’t remember her taking those photos.
Oh fuck.
Tears.
Not again.
“Isn’t it amazing?” Chrissie whispers, overwhelmed. She starts to anxiously brush her cheeks. “This is good, Alan. Really good. This is how she sees you. Look at that photo of you with the boys.” She laughs. “You and Krystal. Oh gosh, look at us. God, I hope she shows me her photos of this trip. I want them. Aren’t they beautiful?”
Chrissie looks over her shoulder, her eyes sparkling, and my arms tighten around her. My chin rests on her shoulder. I can’t breathe. The emotion is just swallowing up all the oxygen the second I pull it into me.
When it’s over, Chrissie turns off the laptop and closes it. “Everything is going to be all right, Alan.”
I nod.
“Let me put this back in Krystal’s room before Lourdes returns with the kids.”
She springs from the bed and runs from the room. I lie back and close my eyes, trying to calm everything roiling through me. We are a long way, all of us, from where we were four months ago. It’s overwhelming at times. And yes, it was long and hard. But I think maybe we’re in light.
“I did something bad,” Chrissie says.
My eyes shoot open. Oh no, not now. I’m happy.
“What?”
She scrunches up her face. “Miles Abernathy sent the galley of your biography to the house for your approval. I didn’t tell you. I kept it. I read it, Alan.”
Oh fuck.
She drops it on my lap. Long and Hard—The Biography of Alan Manzone. What the hell is it about that song? Will all media creation about me forever and exclusively be that title?
I exhale. “How awful is it?”
Chrissie smiles. “It’s not awful at all. It is wonderful. I tucked it into Kaley’s suitcase before she left with you from California. I’m pretty sure she read it. Especially after seeing what she titled the documentary.”
Oh fuck.
Really, Chrissie?
I lie back on the bed, groaning. “Yep, give that to our daughter to read. Way to go, Chrissie. Way to be a team player.”
“Stop it,” she admonishes, lifting it from the bed.
Paper rustles.
Oh crud, she’s looking for something she wants me to read. I don’t want to read anything in this nightmare Miles Abernathy created.
I open my eyes and she shoves it at me. I drop it on the bed. I read the first paragraph and look up.
“How the fuck does Miles Abernathy know what happened in the nursery the first time I went in to meet Khloe?”
She bites her lower lip. She rolls her eyes and exhales.
“Jeez, Alan, I’ve got baby cameras in the nursery. When Miles called me wanting something for the chapter on Khloe, since that event happened after his meeting with you, I told him about that. How you were in the nursery with Khloe. I saw everything. When you picked her up. Sat on the bench. Held her.” She smiles. Her eyes shimmer more brightly. “When you cried. I never loved you more or more desperately wanted to be with you than at that moment. But it was enough I got to share it with you even if you didn’t know it. That’s when I knew we’d be OK.”
I stare at her.
“I love you, Chrissie.”
Her gorgeous blue eyes grow enormous in her face. “You are the most loving man I’ve ever known. I think it’s time, Alan, that you let people know it.”
Epilogue
Chrissie’s Journal
I never thought I would get to write this in my journal. Alan and I have made it through our first year of marriage. Even with how badly it started, the highlights and the lowlights, we’re both here. In the now. I think we both want to be here, clear and in the now.
An unpredictable journey in every way. But I don’t think we could have gotten here any other way, not really. If I had told Alan that Kaley was his, back when we were young, when Alan was the Alan of those days and I was the me of that time, we would have ended forever then.
And us ending would have been a tragic thing. We would both have missed so much and I would not have been able to gather the things along our journey so I would have them to share with Alan today.
It is how we have always loved, watching each other’s back and never testing an end. I took what he could give. He accepted the limits of what I could be. He slugged through the years of my need to wait until I was in a place where I could dare the possibility of him. Perhaps I’ve been unfair and dishonest.
Alan loves me anyway.
Perhaps this is love: loving within the limits of our limited beings; seeing possibilities even in mere tokens and the tears; forgiving what others consider the unforgiveable, but hell, they don’t know what we can forgive because they don’t know what Alan and I have shared; being with someone who gets that; and loving them still in the comfortable quiet of loving where you are no longer young and have lived.
~The End~
Continue the Parker Family Saga with the next generation, Kaley Stanton The Girl of Sand & Fog. For all my current and future releases visit my website:
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Oh shit, silence. I don’t like the way Mr. Jamison is staring at me at all.
He leans over his desk, scribbling frantically on the dreaded pink sheet. He holds it up to me and points to the door. “Principal’s office now, Miss Stanton! If you can’t be respectful of the opinions shared in class then keep your opinions to yourself. We don’t criticize each other’s ideology. Not in this class. We encourage open and respectful dialogue.”
I gather my things, feeling the heavy stares and smirks of the silent room, and strangely I realize that I am even more irritated since I haven’t been booted from class for the British vulgarity, but for showing disrespect for liberal politics.
I snatch the pink slip and smile, but then again, what should I have expected? I mean really. I’m in an affluent city in Southern California.
I shove the door open a little too hard, not giving a shit and not even provoking comment from Mr. Jamison. I must have really rocked his world and I think I’ve finally found where intolerable conduct goes over the line with my teachers. Any language that isn’t politically correct speak crosses the line and will be dealt with. No one even seemed to notice that I’d call the girl a “twat.” It’s not on the description of my infraction, and the twat comment is where I would have started listing my crimes and offenses.
I show the pink slip to the office secretary and am instructed to sit down on the waiting room sofa outside the principal’s office. After five minutes, the door opens and in meanders a boy, pink slip in hand, who is directed by pointed finger to the seat across from me.
He drops heavily on the bench facing me and says nothing. He closes his eyes and crosses his arms.
There is something strangely familiar about the guy, but I chalk that up to probably having passed him in the hallways. He isn’t exactly cute, but he isn’t exactly unattractive either. He is interesting, quite a unique specimen at Pacific Palisades Academy. He has that guy’s guy intensity that radiates an air of not giving a shit, though somehow in a strangely intelligent way, and I am surprised to find it mildly thrilling.
He is taller than me, a good thing since I rarely find guys of adequate height for my five-foot-ten-inch frame, and he has a lean, nicely muscled body like a surfer, a slightly worldly aura somehow accomplished by his clothes that are more European style than American, and the most penetrating green eyes I’ve ever seen.
Interesting. I can’t tell what he is, since he’s such a hodgepodge of mismatching things that it is impossible to identify the group he falls in with at school.
I sit there staring at him, fiddling with the pink detention slip, and when the office secretary leaves, those green eyes open and he asks, “You’re Kaley Stanton, aren’t you?”
Shit, not this again. And it’s such a disappointment because there was a slight prick of interest before he spoke and his voice—well, I never expected that—but it made the hairs on my body stand up.
“Oh, fuck me!” I snap, letting loose my fallback response, the knee-jerk reaction that comes from perfect strangers knowing my name.
“Not on the first detention.”
That is the first quick comeback I’ve heard in two months here. I try hard not to smile and can’t stop myself. Arching a brow, I counter, “I’ll probably be here next week. Maybe you can fuck me then.”
Those green eyes sharpen on my face. “You don’t recognize me, do you?”
I tense. Why would he think I’d recognize him? “No. Should I?”
The guy shrugs. “What landed you in here?”
“Fomenting political insurrection. You?”
“Jerking off in the gym.”
It is hard to tell if he is serious or just trying to shock me. Masturbation is a perfectly acceptable topic of conversation at PP Academy. PP Academy…I laugh, stare at him hard and say, “I’m glad you didn’t offer to shake my hand.”
The boy doesn’t smile and I bite my lip to stop my laughter.
“You look and sound just like your dad. Sans accent, of course,” he says in a heavy, all-knowing way, irritating me and sounding as though he’s irritated by his own discovery.
OK, it’s time to stop this now. The boy is messing with me, but unfortunately I’m a little off-kilter from my bizarre internal response to him and whatever it was I heard in his voice when he made that annoying assumption on my parentage.
I snap, “How would you know?”
“I just saw him a month ago in Munich,” he replies casually, twirling his own pink paper around his finger.
“Did you really? Do you have a psychic hotline? Do you speak with the dead as well as see them? My dad has been dead over ten years.”
The guy shrugs again, leans his head back against the wall and closes his eyes. “You’re funnier than Alan Manzone. He’s a real prick these days.”
Before I can stop myself, yet again I respond to his baiting. “Alan Manzone is a prick every day.”
The boy just shakes his head. “No, he’s actually a really cool guy.”
“He’s a narcissistic asshole.”
“You really hate him, don’t you?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“Probably,” he says. “Do you want to get out of here? If we stay, Williams will keep us until after six cleaning the bleachers. We won’t get in trouble, you know. No one wants to deal with my mother so they won’t call her. I don’t think they’ll call Chrissie either. I never stay for detention. Do you want to get out of here?”
I stare up at him apprehensively. Who is this guy? He says everything with such an air of knowing unenthusiasm. Debating with myself over whether to leave with him, I ask, “If you don’t stay why were you on the bench?”
“I saw you leaving class with the pink slip.”
That pleases me more than I want to be. Direct and honest in a no-bullshit type of way. Another rarity at PP Academy.
I give him the stare. “You know, you could have just said ‘hi’ to me in the halls. You didn’t have to be a stalker about the whole thing.”
“Sure, I could have. But meeting on the detention bench makes a more interesting story, don’t you think?”
“Interesting for who?”
“My mom and dad, who by the way, think that I am gay.”
That level of honesty wrapped in self-confidence is too appealing. I don’t want to get close to any guy, something tells me especially not this guy, but somehow I feel myself being drawn to him.
I sink farther back into my seat. “And are you gay?”
“Hell no. I just like to fuck with my dad.”
Enjoy Chrissie and Alan’s story from the beginning with The Girl on the Half Shell, The Half Shell Series Book One:
The room is so quiet it is deafening.
I find Alan on his bed, casually reclined against a stack of pillows, dressed only in flannel pajama bottoms, and reading—of all things—the Wall Street Journal. There is a fire lit, the silver candlesticks flicker with flame, the bedcovers invitingly turned down as if in preparation for some sort of romantic scene. But he is focused on the Journal.
He doesn’t look at me and I feel stupid hovering by his door, so I start to wander around the bedroom, trying to still my frantic pulse. It’s a good thing that it’s an interesting room, otherwise my deliberate study would seem silly.
Even Alan’s bedroom is something I find weird and demands a certain amount of mental analysis. It looks like something from a nineteenth century English manor, elegant to the point of being almost a touch prissy. There’s an antique mahogany king-sized bed facing the fireplace; floral wingback chairs with pillows positioned before the hearth; and high-tech conveniences camouflaged in antique furniture. There’s a Monet on the wall; tall, polished sterling silver candlesticks; crystal; and fine, leather-bound, first edition books of classic literature. I sink down before a small, mahogany table where I find a stack of newspaper: Barons; the New York Times; the Washington Post; and the Daily Telegraph.
The warmth of the fire surrounds me like a caress, but I am quaking like a leaf. I wasn’t sure what Alan expected after he walked out of the kitchen. It would have been logical to assume that I would leave. But he knew I’d follow him. I don’t know why he’s ignoring me now. I look at the lit candlesticks—he wanted me to follow him.
I bite my lower lip and stare at my knotted fingers. I stayed alone in the kitchen for what seemed like ages, and now that I’ve done exactly what he expected me to do, nothing.
I struggle for something to say to break the silence. “You do have seven bedrooms. I counted them twice. But there are seven only if I include yours.”
He folds the Journal, tosses it on the table and fixes those penetrating, mesmerizing eyes on me. “Is this the room you want?” he asks, his voice gentle. “I meant it when I said you could have any room. It doesn’t have to be my room for you to stay.”
Does he not want me in his room? A ragged breath forces its way from deep in my lungs. “Do you want me to go?” I murmur.
“Of course not. I want you here.” His voice is husky and his eyes are wandering in a leisurely hold that is tender and oddly comforting.
Or Enjoy Rewind A Perfect Forever Novella.
He doesn’t laugh. Instead, his gaze sharpens on my face. “I am being nice, Kaley. I came to you. I got tired of waiting.”
What? Did I just hear what I think I heard?
Before I can respond, he says, “How’s your afternoon looking? Do you have time to take off and come see something with me?”
My afternoon? There is something. I’m sure of that, but I suddenly can’t remember a single thing.
“What do you have in mind?”
“I want to show you where I’ve been living. What I’ve been doing. I think you’ll find it interesting.”
Interesting? Why would I find it interesting?
“So do you think you can cut out for a few hours?” he asks, watching me expectantly.
I focus my gaze on the table, wondering if I should go, wondering why I debate this, and what the heck I have on the calendar that I can’t remember. God this is weird, familiar and distant at once, and I haven’t a clue what I should do here.
I stare at his hand, so close to mine, on the table. Whoever thought it would be so uncomfortable not to touch a guy? It doesn’t feel natural, this space we hold between us, spiced with the kind of talk people have who know each other intimately. What would he do if I touched him?
His fingers cover mine and he gives me a friendly squeeze. The feel of him runs through my body with remembered sweetness.
Suddenly, nothing in my life is as important as spending the afternoon with Bobby, and for the first time in a very long time, I don’t feel like a disjointed collection of uncomfortably fitting parts. I feel at ease inside myself being with Bobby.
I stop trying to access my mental calendar and smile up at Bobby. “I’ve got as much time as you need.”
Bobby chuckles and his hand slips back from me. He rises and tosses some bills on the table. “Just a few hours, Kaley. I’ll have you back before the end of the day.”
I rise from my chair and think not if I figure out fast how not to blow this.
Or enjoy the first novel in the Perfect Forever Novels: The Signature. Available Now. Please enjoy the following excerpt from The Signature:
She became aware all at once how utterly delightful it felt to be here with him, alone on the quay, with the erotic nearness of his body.
She closed her eyes. “Listen to the quiet. There are times when I lie here and it feels like there is no one else in the world.”
“No one else in the world? Would that be a good thing?” he asked thoughtfully.
“No. But the illusion is grand, don’t you think?” she whispered.
Krystal turned her head to the side, lifting her lids to find Devon’s gaze sparkling as he studied her. He shook his head lazily. “No. The illusion wouldn’t be grand at all. It would mean I wasn’t here with you.”
It all changed at once, yet again, and so quickly that Krystal couldn’t stop it. The ticklish feeling stirred in her limbs. Devon’s words, as well as the closeness of their bodies, should have sent her into active retreat, and instead she felt herself wanting to curl into him. What would it feel like if he kissed me? Would I still feel this delicious inside? Or would that old panic and fear return?
Laughing softly, Devon said, “I’m not used to relaxing. Can you tell?”
“I wasn’t used to it before Coos Bay either. There is a different pace of life here. At first I thought there was no sound. That’s how quiet it seemed to me. Then I realized that there is music, beautiful music in this quiet.”
After a long pause, he murmured, “You’ll have to bring me here every Saturday until I learn to hear music in the quiet.”
Krystal smiled. “Once you hear the music it’s perfect.”
“It’s perfect now to me.” His voice was a husky, sensual whisper.
He was on his side facing her. When had that happened? An inadvertent thrill ran through her flesh, and she could see it in his eyes—the supplication, the want, and an unexplainable reluctance to indulge either.
Devon was no longer smiling, his eyes had become brighter and more diffuse. His fingertips started to trace her face with such exquisite lightness that her insides shook. For the first time in a very long time, she felt completely a woman, and wanting.
Was it possible? Had she finally healed internally as her flesh had done so long ago? Was she finally past the legacy of Nick? Was what she was now feeling real? Should she seek the answer with Devon? Or was it better to leave it unexplored?
“You are a very beautiful woman,” he whispered.
She watched with sleepy movements as his mouth lowered to her. It came first as a touch on her cheek, feather soft between the play of his fingers. Her breath caught, followed by a pleasant quickening of her pulse. She was unprepared for the sweetness of his lips and the rushing sensations that ran through her body. His thumb traced the lines of her mouth as his kiss moved sweetly, gently there.
His breath became rapid in a way that matched her own, and his mouth grew fuller and more searching. The fingertips curving her chin were like a gentle embrace, but their mouths were eager and demanding. Flashes of desire rocketed through her powerfully. Urgency sang through her flesh, a forgotten melody, now in vibrant notes. She found herself wanting to twist into him. Reality begged her to twist back.
