High Tide

by Michelle Mankin

  If I was going to dream, I’d dream big.

  I was a Lesowski, after all.

  In my mind, I was the most sought-after actress in Hollywood, married to the hottest actor. Our house wasn’t in the hills, but directly on the beach. In reality, the ocean was miles away from our Beverly Hills mansion, but even in the distance, the view of the fathomless blue somehow soothed me.

  Instead of loud arguments and strained formalities, my house would be a home brimming with an abundance of easy affection and unconditional love. The rhythmic sound of the ocean would be so near, I would be able to hear the waves tugging at the shore.

  My imagination was so good, I could smell cinnamon and melted butter as my mother baked her famous cinnamon rolls in my kitchen. I could feel the soft breeze on my skin as it lifted the gauzy curtains from my dream house’s open windows. Outside, my children and Fanny’s giggled as they frolicked in the surf together and built dreams of their own out of sand.

  In my fantasy, my husband’s face was in shadow, his features unclear. I hadn’t yet met a man to fascinate me the way my sister already had. Her dream man was the Dirt Dogs’ drummer, Ashland Keys. She had posters of the former SoCal-surfer-turned-rock-star plastered all over her room.

  One thing I did know about my dream man was that he had to treat me like I was a priority. He would have to be honorable, faithful to me and me alone. And he would have to be my forever shelter from harm, not just a temporary, fleeting ideal.

  Falling further into my imagination, I pictured my husband with his arm around me as my father appeared on the television screen to announce my nomination for an Academy Award.

  Hollie Lesowski.

  Best actress in a leading role.

  A comedy.

  My lips lifted, my floundering spirit reviving at the thought.

  “Hey.”

  “Huh?” Recognizing my sister’s voice, I opened my eyes and blinked her concerned face into focus.

  “You okay?” Silver eyes as shiny and mesmerizing as our mother’s searched mine. Opening the door wider, Fanny leaned closer. Her slender frame was outlined in gold from the setting sun behind her.

  “Yeah, sure.” My brow furrowed. “Why do you ask?”

  “’Cause you’ve been sitting in the back seat like a zombie since they got out. I saw you from upstairs and came down to check on you.” She glanced toward the house.

  The beveled-glass door stood ajar. The shouting voices beyond it were impossible to ignore.

  I shrugged. “Lost in my own thoughts.”

  “Well, that’s understandable.”

  We were two halves to a whole. Fanny escaped into her music the way I did inside my imagination. Creativity by necessity. If Samuel was hard on me, he was far harder on her, though she didn’t buckle under the stress like I did.

  I gasped as glass shattered somewhere inside the mansion. They were probably in the library, their preferred battleground. Abigail had probably thrown another prized piece from Samuel’s Waterford crystal collection.

  “They arguing in front of you?” Fanny asked.

  “Almost all the time now,” I whispered.

  Shame setting fire to my face, I covered my hot cheeks with my hands. I often felt as though the troubles in their marriage were my fault. After all, my mother had married Samuel because she’d gotten pregnant with me.

  “He doubts her. She doubts him. Love shouldn’t be like that.”

  “I know.” In my head I did, but in my heart I struggled.

  “Love should be a firm foundation you can always stand on, not faulty ground.”

  “‘Doubt that the stars are fire,’” I said. “‘Doubt that the sun doth move his aides. Doubt truth to be a liar. But never doubt I love.’”

  “You recite sonnets beautifully, Hols. One day everyone’s going to know what a brilliant actress you are. No matter what he says.”

  “Maybe.” So accustomed to my father’s criticisms, I found myself uncomfortable with compliments.

  “No maybe. Definitely.” Fanny nodded with authority. She was five years older than me. It was decided. “‘Where there is light and love, there is a way.’”

  One of our mother’s favorite phrases.

  “I don’t know if I believe in love the way she does.” My hands twisted tighter together as I glanced again at the house. They were still going at it.

  “When it’s real, love is a bright, beautiful dream better than anything you can imagine.” The underlying message was that what our mother and my father had wasn’t real.

  “So, I just need to have faith?”

  “Yes. Don’t close your heart because of the way things are with Mom and Samuel.” Her expression soft, Fanny untwisted my hands and gathered them in hers. “We both know she had something bright and beautiful once.”

  I nodded. We knew it had been a union of love that had produced Fanny. We just didn’t know her father’s name or what had happened to end his relationship with our mother.

  “You’ll find true love like she had one day.” My sister’s gaze was as unshakable as her faith. “And once you find it, everything will make sense.”

  I hoped she was right.

  But as the voices of our parents rose, I lifted my gaze to the light that blazed forth from the library window and saw a cautionary tale about love, not an endorsement.

  2015 – Present day

  “‘Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.’”

  Alone in my suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel, my gaze dropped to the small patch of illumination in the otherwise pitch-black room. Throwing back the covers, I climbed out of bed and shuffled toward it.

  I needed light. After another night plagued by misgivings, the inside of my heart was a tomb nearly as dreary as the room.

  A showdown with my stepfather overshadowed everything in my life. It was guaranteed to be a long, drawn-out fight. Thoughts of it and uncertainty regarding the outcome eclipsed my attempts to be positive. Plus, my brighter-minded sibling was far away.

  Quoting Shakespeare couldn’t drive out the darkness, given those obstacles. But it did make me miss my sister.

  And my mother.

  Not a day went by without my sister and me missing her. Our mother’s untimely death three years ago had ripped away the underpinning of our world.

  Fanny poured her heartache into her chosen profession. I did the same with mine.

  Music and a chance reconnection with Ashland Keys had reaffirmed my sister’s faith in love. Acting hadn’t restored mine; my faith was too fractured to be repaired. Time hadn’t eased my sorrow. It only made me more resigned to the absence of light in a world without my mother’s love.

  At the window, I gripped the wooden rods and yanked open the curtains. Light flooded the room. Momentarily blinded, I blinked to adjust my eyes. The bleakness of my physical environment could be remedied. But there was no cure for the malaise inside me.

  Chilled, I wrapped my arms around my body and tipped my face up to the warmth of the sun.

  My phone lay behind me on the nightstand, my ringer still off from the night before. I hadn’t checked it for the time or messages before I climbed out of bed, but I knew by the position of the sun that I’d overslept.

  Olivia Avalon would likely arrive any minute.

  My agent was no-nonsense, no excuses, and militant about punctuality. She was also the best, a badass in the entertainment industry. She had only two clients, Shaina Bentley and me. I was fortunate to have her. But she wouldn’t be pleased that I hadn’t set an alarm.

  I sighed, not in the proper mindset for a reprimand or another hectic day.

  Lingering at the window, I stared out at the tranquil surface of the pool. Sunshine spilling through the palms made the turquoise water sparkle invitingly. But there would likely be no time for a swim today. No time for recreational activity or escaping the confines of the suite.

  Holliewood Central was what my sister had called my hotel room before she returned to O
cean Beach and Ashland Keys. The Dirt Dogs’ drummer was a dream no longer. He was real, kind, supportive, and just right for her. I’d never bothered to put a face on my own dream man.

  Maybe if . . .

  I cut the film on that reel of thought. I didn’t do if-only imagining any longer. I had set those things aside the night my father—my stepfather—had returned to the house to tell Fanny and me that our mother was gone.

  Wishes couldn’t change harsh reality. Dreams were for dreamers, and dreaming was a pastime that required Fanny’s kind of faith to sustain it. Nowadays, I pretended in front of the camera, voicing scripted words to bring someone else’s dream to life.

  Hard work. Success in my profession. Those were my goals now. Tangible ones. To achieve them, I couldn’t look back, I had to move in one direction.

  Forward.

  I straightened my shoulders. Pulling in a steadying breath, I turned away from the window. Enough reverie. It was time to get ready for the day.

  Yet knowing what I needed to do to get my life on a positive track was one thing. Implementing it was another. I’d grown accustomed to being dependent on someone stronger, an old habit ingrained from childhood. It would be difficult to break. Maybe even impossible.

  I faltered in the center of the room.

  Breathe, Hollie. I heard my mother’s sweet, encouraging voice inside my head. There is always hope, and a second chance for a new beginning with every dawn.

  Thinking of her, I found my strength. I drew in a measured inhale, held it, then let it out slowly. Then I broke my goals down into manageable pieces. A Zen technique, a sure, certainly, and truly for me that brought me the peace of mind my sister achieved from her to-do lists.

  Sure, I had a lot more work ahead. Certainly, there was no quick fix. But truly, I had begun the process. I had gotten myself out of bed, after all.

  Later than I should have, I knew, but even late counted as a step in the right direction.

  I’d brought light into the room, literally, and on a larger scale, I’d given myself a chance for a new beginning by starting the complicated legal process to remove my stepfather from my life.

  “Miss Lesowski.”

  The deep voice and polite knock on the bedroom door reminded me that though my sister was in Ocean Beach, I wasn’t entirely alone, nor was I unprotected. I had Maximillian Cash.

  My bodyguard was a recent addition to my entourage. A necessary one, given my stepfather, but one I hadn’t figured out how to deal with yet, so I was attempting to limit my interaction with him.

  But that wasn’t working out well. For one thing, he was always around. He was also an imposing presence. It was impossible to ignore someone who didn’t fade into the background the way I’d naively imagined a bodyguard would.

  “Are you okay in there?” Cash sounded concerned.

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “It’s late.”

  “I know, I know. Hold on.”

  I crossed the room and slid open the door that separated the living room, where he had inevitably slept through the night, from the bedroom where I’d mostly tossed and turned.

  “Good morning,” I told the six-and-a-half-foot tall, blue-eyed, blond giant filling the door frame.

  Raising my chin to bring his very handsome face more fully into view, I tossed my long hair over my shoulder, affecting what I hoped appeared to be a casual response. It was an Oscar-worthy feat, considering I was standing in front of a guy I was very much attracted to and wearing only my pajamas.

  “Morning.” He raked his piercing blue gaze over me, a thorough, assessing glance.

  I experienced a head-to-toe shiver, my body reacting much as it would—or I imagined it would—if he’d physically caressed my flesh.

  “You don’t look okay.” He crossed his muscular arms over his brick wall of a chest. “You look pretty keyed up.”

  His brow creased beneath the messy fringe of hair that sometimes hid his eyes. On the sides, his hair was shorn close to his skull. The unruly blond strands left deliberately long on top were the only part of him that didn’t seem strictly regimented.

  “You didn’t sleep well.”

  I shook my head, and when his lips flattened, my stomach fluttered. I tried to avoid staring at his lips. To look at them was to risk imagining the feel of them pressed to mine.

  “I’m up.” I glanced down at my tiny tank top and sleep shorts. “Just not dressed yet.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I can see that for myself.”

  His thick drawl melted me, coating my tummy flutters in warm, Southern, butter-and-brown-sugar syrup.

  He ran his gaze slowly over me before he lifted it to scan the room beyond. “But I need to do my job, and I can’t do it properly from this side of the door.”

  His expression efficiently neutral, Cash stepped inside the room and slipped past me. A former military man, his muscles were battle-honed and his large frame was enemy-ready, but there were no enemies in my bedroom.

  “You saw me go in here alone last night,” I said, surreptitiously watching him in his usual navy security blazer, white button-down shirt, and khaki pants as he swept the room. “There’s no one in here but me.”

  He didn’t acknowledge my comments. His long strides took him quickly to the other side of the standard-sized hotel bedroom. He checked the attached bath with a quick walk-through of the spacious travertine interior, a methodical front-to-back inspection of the double sink, glass shower big enough for two—I wish—and the toilet, before he turned around and returned to where I stood.

  “Clear?” I raised a brow, my signature close-up move for the cameras. It made the teenage boys who were my biggest fan demographic go crazy, but it had no noticeable effect on my bodyguard.

  “Not done yet.”

  “Of course not.”

  I tapped my toes on the plush carpeting as he searched the rest of the room. He even dropped down to his knees to look under the bed.

  Don’t look at his ass, I told myself. But I did anyway. I couldn’t look away. The khakis fit him as if they were as addicted to the feel of his backside as I was to the sight of it. His posterior had been the subject of a few—okay, more than a few—fantasies.

  “You sure you don’t want to check the window too?” I stamped a hand to my hip, arching my back and lifting my breasts. As he moved to stand in front of me, his gaze dipped, and my nipples tightened to points, tingling beneath his lingering regard.

  “Not worried about the window. I checked it before. It’s painted shut.” His voice was rough, like the golden stubble that covered his square jaw.

  I looked up at him through my lashes. “Good to know that part of the room is secure.”

  He nodded, his face flushed. He had freckled skin like I did, but was tanned where I was pale. Reaching up, he dug a finger into his collar and tugged at it.

  Had I embarrassed him with my teasing, or was my attraction to him too obvious?

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be flippant, Mr. Cash.”

  He didn’t react to my apology. Besides being undeniably handsome, he was completely unattainable, with his glacial blue stare and his I’m-always-a-professional boundaries. He was an ice man, albeit from the South.

  “I know you’re just trying to do your job. I appreciate you looking out for me.” I twisted my hands together as he gave me another all-encompassing scan. “I just know Olivia will be here soon, and she’s going to give me a hard time about not being ready.”

  “No offense taken, Miss Lesowski.” He took a step back. “I’ll leave you so you can get dressed.”

  “Call me Hollie.” I didn’t want to be associated with my stepfather in any way whatsoever. I made a mental note to see if I could expedite the process to officially change my last name.

  Cash frowned at me. “You’re my boss. It wouldn’t be appropriate.”

  “Maybe not. But I’m not a Lesowski. Samuel is not my biological father, and even if he were, after he . . .” I curled my fingers in
to fists, focusing on my nails biting into my palms and not on the events of that horrible night. I hadn’t told a single soul, not even Fanny, exactly what Samuel had done.

  “I understand.”

  “No, you don’t.” I shook my head. No one could truly understand.

  Samuel had betrayed the father-daughter bond, a sacred trust that should never be broken. But broken it, he had, treating me like I was an object and not the daughter who had once idolized him.

  “You didn’t mention the interview yesterday.” Agitated, I shifted in the club chair that my agent made feel like a hot seat.

  “I emailed you the change in itinerary last night.” From her spot on the couch, Olivia lowered her readers to the tip of her nose and aimed her greenish-brown eyes over the lenses at me.

  “Late-late last night, I bet.” Needing a diversion, I picked up the pile of precisely folded linens Cash had used on the pullout sofa overnight. I placed the linens on the coffee table, resisting the impulse to hug them to my chest. “I certainly didn’t see it before I went to bed.”

  “If you had checked your private in-box this morning, you would have known about it.”

  But I hadn’t bothered opening my emails. I’d barely managed to get dressed before she arrived. My hair remained noticeably damp from my quick shower.

  “I’ve committed to the engagement on your behalf.” Giving me her no-nonsense tone, she swiped the calendar app on her iPad closed.

  “But Carter Besille—”

  “I’m aware he has a reputation.” She lifted her chin to frown at me.

  Cold droplets from my long hair trickled down my spine, chilling my skin and adding to my discomfiture from displeasing her. “He’s an opportunist who thrives on exploiting the pain of others.”

  “His talk show is the most highly rated one on television.”

  “I’m not prepared.”