She gives another furtive cackle. Terri’s dark laugh has the power to send chills up a demon’s spine. No one else has that ability. Not my mother, for sure, with her sweet, girly giggle. Terri commands the universe with her caustic chortle. She’s shaking out the reigns over the horse’s back and making it dance for her.
“Aspen, who are you? Are you a baby sparrow who needs her mother to shove a worm down her throat? Or are you a lioness who sets out after her prey and brings home a feast? Why are you letting this ex-wife shove a fistful of legal worms down your throat? Go after her. You are the huntress. Your instincts say go for the jugular.” Her hand clasps over my chin as she steadies her eyes on mine. “She does not win. She may have the man, the child, and the fortune, but she will never own you. You hear me?”
I give a stiff nod with my chin still tucked firmly in her hand.
Terri takes a breath and heads for the door.
“Can I ask you a question?” I call out just as she hits the door.
“Just one, you’ve sucked the life out of me for the day. Tell Stevie I’d like for her to do the same sometime. Now that’s she’s a corporate goddess, she’s all but forgotten about the woman who grunted her through her loins.”
I give a bleak smile at her dark monologue. “Did you kill Carter’s mother?”
Her eyes widen. Terri’s entire demeanor shifts as if someone took an eraser and wiped her clean of all that smug lion pride.
“It’s a terrible thing to lose the love of your life.” She pivots on her heels as she treads out of the studio. “It can drive a woman to the brink of madness. A terrible tragedy I tell you.” She leaves chanting the words to a poem she wrote a long time ago for my father of all people. Terri Eaton and Hans Lionheart would have been like fire and ice together. Even my own, down to earth, pillar-of-the-community mother is nothing more than a question mark when it comes to pairing her with my father. Nope. The woman he’s with now, his dutiful wife that he’s cheated on liberally—she is a far better match than any of them. She’s treated Stevie and I like dirt all our lives as if it were our fault we were put on this planet. To put it simply, she and my father deserve each other. For a second, I envision Cher with Henry—now there’s another couple who deserve each other—her pious beauty, his greedy gain and lingering lustful eye on anything that moves. That’s a pairing. I’d love to throw those two firecrackers in a furnace and watch them blow up in each other’s faces. I’m sure there would be a domestic violence dispute nightly. I might be rooting for Henry in that one. There’s a beat down I wouldn’t mind seeing.
I reach into the drawer for some old catsup packets and stumble across a bottle of unopened curry before digging into the paper bag Terri brought. I can’t remember the last time I ate an onion ring. That’s preposterous, a testimony to my own piousness. I really need to loosen the hell up a little before I hit prison.
“Hey.”
I glance up startled by a male voice. My first thought is that I’ve called Henry to me like incanting a demon. My throat still feels the pressure of his fingers as they cut off my breathing. But it’s not Henry. It’s Carter. Wrong demon.
“What are you doing?” He offers an apprehensive smile that slowly takes over. His seldom-seen dimples dig in, and my stomach pinches with heat.
“Dipping onion rings in curry.” I swirl a soggy, battered ring through the sauce. “I call it lazy Thai.”
“Forget lazy—let me take you out. I know a great Thai place less than ten minutes away. I want to put good food in your stomach—a beautiful baby in your belly. Let me love you the way I want, Aspen.”
I glance up mildly amused by this visceral turn of events.
“Wow, dinner and a baby?” I take a bite of my onion ring—first one in forever, and it tastes like an oily sin. “Sorry, but I can’t do either. I have to keep one hundred feet away from you at all times, so, unless you have sperm with dynamic aerial capabilities, I’m afraid you can’t provide me with an offspring.”
“Cher lied.” His affect falls flat as he takes a few steps in. “I’m having my attorney review all of the evidence as we speak.” His gaze travels to mine. “Fuck her restraining order. Fuck Cher. I’m going for sole custody. She’s proven, without a doubt, she’s an unfit mother in dire need of a straitjacket.” He glances to the door a moment before backtracking and sealing it shut. “What happened, Aspen? I already know you didn’t try to kidnap Abby. Let’s start with the Maritime Widows Association.”
I take in a breath and hold it. He knows. The Cannons probably know. Holy, holy. I close my eyes and expel a long sigh.
“Talk to me,” he pleads.
I get up and pull a tube of paint from off the rack, Azure Blue, and spin off the cap.
“Aspen, please, don’t shut me out.” Carter comes up from behind and molds his body to mine, his steady, even breathing caresses the side of my face. Carefully, he extracts the tube from my hand. “Speak to me, or the canvas gets it.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
Paint squirts out of the oversized tube like a blue worm wiggling through the air before landing over the canvas in an unchoreographed manner. He then proceeds to empty its contents as useless acrylic worms dance all over the place.
“Carter.” I swallow down a laugh. “I paid for that.”
“With the money you stole from me. Why did you do it?” Carter twists me into him, cups my face with his palms as he draws me near his person.
“Because you’re an asshole, and I wanted revenge.” Maybe in the end that’s all he wants to hear. A lie that fits the hole I left in his heart.
“I don’t believe you.”
“I did it for Henry—because of Henry.”
“Then it’s true. The story about the boat?”
“You know?” I sag into him. “Why would you ask me if you already knew?”
“I wanted to hear it from you.” His thumb touches over my cheek and incites a fire ripping through my veins. “Because I choose to believe every word that comes from your lips as though it were from God.” Tears fill his eyes as an easy smile glides over his lips. “We survived. We’re unbreakable, Aspen. We walked through hell and back, and we came out without a singe.”
“Just a child.”
He closes his eyes and gives a single nod. “I’m sorry for bringing you so much pain.”
“Never apologize for Abby. She’s our precious gift.”
A single tear rolls down his cheek. “Come here.” In one easy move, Carter strips me of my sweater.
“What’s fair is fair, Cannon.” I peel off his dress shirt, his T-shirt underneath that.
“How about we make some art?” He unbuckles my jeans and pulls down my thong right along with them. He works off the remainder of his clothes, his shoes. With a single twist, he unhooks my bra, sends it flying, freeing the girls with a bounce. “You up for getting a little dirty?”
There’s a dare in his eyes. The promise of something wonderful hangs in the bounds, and I want in on it.
“I guess I am.”
Carter brings his lips to mine in the most delicate manner. His kiss is soft, careful, as if asking permission before he dives right in and makes my mouth the sole focus of his being. Tongue fucking. That’s what we called it back in the day. That’s how we consummated our staged marriage, our very real vows—Romeo and Juliet pledging their undying love.
His hands float up my body, caressing, teasing every last inch until I’m groaning to have him inside me. Carter pulls me to my knees then lies me carefully over the fresh paint, the crisp, cool canvas. My hair, my bare skin, I can feel the acrylic suctioning to my flesh, and it feels decadent. I’m in love with this man who knows what my wildest dreams consist of and then spontaneously makes them come true.
Carter glides his tongue straight down my body and buries it in the wettest part of me.
“I want to hear you come.” He says it matter of fact, his breath slightly out of pace. Carter bites and teases before settling in and cu
rling my existence into a meticulously tight knot. For so long I’ve wanted everything he’s said today, everything he’s doing. Carter and I have finally crossed over some invisible finish line that we’ve been chasing for years. It only took the madness of Cher, the madness of Henry, to propel us in the right direction. All of that insanity, all of those years of dancing in the fire, have brought us to this one divine moment. Carter reaches down and inserts his finger deep inside me, his mouth moving over me in a fury. My hands fan out over the canvas, dipping into the acrylic, and that foreign sensation coupled with Carter’s infallible love sends me sailing toward the stratosphere—and I take it. A hard gasp hitches in my throat as I dig my fingers in his hair and hold him there while all of creation disintegrates into a million blissful pieces. I ride the beautiful wave that Carter gifts me for far longer than I ever thought possible. And then, rather unceremoniously, I give him a hard shove off.
“Carter.” I laugh through my panting. “Come here.” I pull him up, examining him like this with his newly christened azure blue hair. “You look beautiful,” I say, creating a single line down the bridge of his nose. I fan a thick line under each of his eyes until he’s fierce like a warrior. “You’re amazing. I’m not sure why the savages thought this was such a scary look. It only makes me want to fuck you.”
A quiet laugh sputters from him as he swipes through the paint and returns the favor.
“Hmm,” he muses as he pulls back to examine his handy work. “I want to fuck you, too. Looks like we have a proven aphrodisiac on our hands.”
“You’re vulgar,” I giggle as his body slowly spears into mine.
“You started it, sweetie.” He glances down. “There are some parts we’d better keep clean.” Carter pushes into me as far as he can go before expelling a heavy sigh. “This, right here, is my piece of heaven. I love you, Aspen Cannon.”
I give a wry smile. “That’s not my name.”
“It will be.”
Carter thrusts in with love, with fury, with unmitigated passion. Carter and I roll around on that wet canvas with our bodies striped blue as a testament to our love. We make love for hours, stopping, starting all over again until the entire cloth is branded with our unsinkable, unbreakable, affection.
I’m in love with Carter Cannon.
I belong to him—always have.
* * *
For three blissful days, Carter and I make love at the beach house—down at Lover’s Cove, warm in the sand. Carter’s powerhouse legal team is readying to do a takedown of the temporary restraining order put up against me. Carter isn’t too worried about our outright rebellion since Cher is still successfully keeping Abby at bay. But the turnaround is coming. They have an emergency hearing set before a judge next Monday. Cher is about to endure every mother’s worst nightmare, and I hurt for her, despite all of the bullshit she’s put me through. But my loyalty lies with Carter. He says he’ll eventually relent if she shapes up, but, for now, she’s a poison seeping into Abby’s innocent blood. He’s right. Another few years, and Abby will hate us all. Carter doesn’t deserve that. But Cher is too wicked to figure it out.
It’s the official launch day of the Jeneration Jinx 2 app. Stevie and Ford sit at the head of the boardroom and talk it up while camera’s roll. Every major newsroom is present and accounted for. We can literally take roll. They’re all here.
“At this time”—Stevie motions for me—“I would like to call up the rest of the team, the two key factors in the success of our company, Aspen and Carter Cannon.”
A deep blush comes to my cheeks. Why would she say our names like that? It’s one thing to hear Carter say it in bed, but another entirely when your sister announces it to an audience of seven billion people.
Carter and I make our way to the front of the elongated room and accept the accolades of our peers in the form of an applause.
Carter wraps his arms around me and plunges in with an unabashed kiss.
The crowd cheers louder than ever as if a riot were about to ensue.
I wonder if those seven billion people would be willing to keep our secret?
I hope not.
* * *
In the quiet of the evening, post dinner with my siblings, pre making love to Carter until we both drop into a coma, my phone buzzes. It’s a text from Henry.
Saw your show. I always knew you’d be a star. Glad to see you’re finally happy. I mean it. I know you’re probably busy, but I have a bunch of your stuff boxed up. I’d like to give it to you. Also I’d like to talk, just you and me. I think it’s time we did this the right way like adults.
I stare at the phone an inordinate amount of time. Adults? Since when did Henry ever grow up? My neck still aches from his hostile brand of adulthood. He doesn’t know the meaning. But then this is Henry. If his temper doesn’t come to the party, he can be pretty tame. And I would like to get back the wedding ring Carter gave me that I stowed in my underwear drawer, safe in a turquoise felt pouch. I never could bear to part with it. The ring belonged to his mother for God’s sake. But I wasn’t about to put it on display, either. Right about now, I’d love to wear it, and, if I leave now, it can be on my finger by tonight. I vacillate a moment. Henry still elicits a million bad feelings in me. Something in me stirs because, deep down, I realize it’s pretty stupid of me to hold onto a grudge. That, in a word, is what our marriage had become. But I’m not sure I’m ready to abandon my animosity either. A little bad blood is what puts that extra pep in my step.
I frown into the phone as though it were Henry himself before texting back.
I’ll be there in twenty minutes.
For a brief second I consider texting Carter and letting him know where I’m headed, but he’s with Abby, and I know he’d curtail his visit just to try and protect me. I doubt I’ll need protection. I can always text Lincoln, and he’ll be there in a flash. Instead I leave a note on the kitchen counter before grabbing my jacket. Carter kindly gifted me the keys to his SUV. Now that Sonic Glass is permanently out of the picture, I’m less hesitant to venture out on open roads.
I give Harley a friendly scratch behind her ears and head out the door.
Night claps over Los Angeles like the flipping of a switch. The chocolate mountains line the back of the city in rugged pieces as if a child hastily broke them off. The sky bleeds purple as its stars mitigate the bright flash of the city.
I make it all the way up to the Hollywood Highlands Condominium Complex and stare at it in wonder. For so long this was home. Henry was my world, my lousy lover, my over-aggressive beast of a husband. And now we’ve both picked up and moved on, me with Carter, and Henry, most likely, with his mother. God knows he can’t afford the rent on this place without my income.
The air smells of sweet night jasmine mixed with the grime of the city. Not one hint of the salty brine I’ve become addicted to at Carter’s place—at the house we share together. I park out front and trot up the stairs, anxious to get this over with. A pile of trash sits outside, a broom, a pile of old rags, all signs of someone motivated to get their security deposit back. Before I can get a good rhythm to my knock, Henry lets me in.
It’s strange seeing him here. At my office he was an unwanted wife-beating leech, but here it feels normal in every capacity. He’s just the wife beater, and I’m the wife.
“I’m here for my things.” I force a smile to my lips and make it linger.
His cheek twitches with a short-lived grin.
“Cool.” He extends his hand, I walk right in. “I’ve got all your shit packed and ready to go.”
“Is she here?” A female voice carries from the bedroom as a familiar, petite girl saunters out wearing a pair of my shorts, my vintage crochet cover up I bought to wear to the beach last year.
“Jennifer?” I’m stunned that this milquetoast waif, this plain nosey-as-fuck Jane, insignificant as a housefly of a girl has made her way into my bedroom. “What are you doing here?” I’m shell-shocked. Even though Henry and I aren’t
together anymore, it’s hard for me to see a woman coming out of my bedroom, wearing my clothes, and judging by the dark crimson lipstick, possibly my makeup.
“It’s Nikki.” She gives a little wink. “Jen is my stage name.” She lets it sink in a moment. “And I’m taking care of Henry the way a woman should.” Her hands curl over his waist. “The way he deserves.”
I don’t know whether to laugh or applaud her for taking on the challenge.
“Well, I’m glad for you—Nikki.” I clear my throat. “For you both.”
Henry’s chest bucks with a huff.
“Are you now?” Jenny—or, what she will forever be known to me as, Henry’s Nikki—scuttles over and gets in my face. “Don’t tell me that a part of you isn’t missing what that boy has in his pants.”
“Oh.” I take a solid step toward the kitchen. “You can have his pants and their contents. I’m just here for my stuff.” Regrettably. “If I were you, I’d make sure he was treating you right.” I add as an afterthought. I may not be in Jenster’s fan club—for sure I’m not in darling Nikki’s fan club—but I’m not for other women being abused, emotionally or physically either. “Henry likes to play rough, if you know what I mean.”
“You deserved all the things he did to you,” she seethes with a level of hatred that seems genuine, and I’m curious where it’s rooted from. “He’s been telling me for years how you led him to despair, made him feel like less of a man, tested his masculinity in ways that weren’t right. You put your career over your husband. You wanted expensive things you knew he couldn’t afford, and it drove him to do the unthinkable. And about the hitting, you probably started it. It’s one’s natural instinct to fight back. When you throw an object, it’s a call to arms. Don’t start a war unless you’re prepared to fight. No, he wasn’t right, but neither were you. It’s like all you want to do is push him off a cliff so you can have a nice cushy life with that wealthy businessman you’re cheating on him with. Poor Henry never stood a chance with a gold digger like you. He said as soon as you found out the O’Tool fortune was bust, you were clawing your way out of this marriage. You only have yourself to blame for pushing Henry into another woman’s arms. You never praised him or gave him credit for a damn thing.”
A Thousand Starry Nights Page 25
