by Megyn Ward
“Why not? I’ll go shopping and get the ingredients. That fish market in Bodden Town still open?”
She nods. “Yeah, but let’s eat out somewhere. It’ll be easier.”
“It’s been forever since I’ve had fresh shrimp and you always said I made the best garlic shrimp you’ve ever tasted.”
She blinks several times. “Our place is a mess. I don’t want you to see what slobs we are.”
I laugh. “I lived with you, remember? I know what a slob you are.”
Her chuckle is only half-hearted. “Seriously, you don’t want to cook.”
“Seriously, I’ve been looking forward to this since I booked my flight a month ago. What’s your address?”
She walks me back to the dive shop and scribbles it down. “It’s a mother-in-law casita but there’s a private entrance. Park on the street and come in the garden gate. I’ll leave it unlocked.”
There is something strange about the way she acts. This girl really doesn’t want me coming to her house and I wonder why.
Chapter 3
Lauren
Ellie sits in her booster chair and kicks her feet. “I’m not hungry.”
Part of me wants to hold her mouth open and cram the squash inside. Does that make me a bad mother?
Of course it does.
Actually doing that makes you a bad mother, wanting to only makes you normal. I put a smile on my face. She’d already eaten her grilled fish, so it wasn’t as if she’d starve. “You don’t have to eat it. But this is what we’re having and that’s all we’re having until breakfast.”
She folds her tiny arms across her chest in exactly the same way I’d seen Kylie do. Exactly like I do. “I don’t want to eat this yucky squash and I’m not hungry.”
Stubborn, like all of us Knightly girls. Except Kylie refuses to take the name of Knightly. If our father, Jonas, was the sole possessor of the name, I’d refuse, too. But I prefer to celebrate the link with Gram. I want Ellie to be proud of being in that chain, too. Unlike me, Kylie had a great mother she’s glad to share a name with.
I wipe Ellie’s face, untie her bib and set her on the floor. “There you are, little miss.”
I hold back my laughter as she stomps across the room, arms still folded, showing me what she thinks of me feeding her squash. They always say, if your kid likes you, you’re doing something wrong.
The sun is setting and I wander toward the window where I’ve set my easel. The half-finished painting is missing something. Blues swirl and pinks spike, but the heart isn’t there, yet. Or it’s there, but I can’t see it.
Ellie has taken her miffed self outside to the piazza. In no time, she forgets she’s been offended by the egregious squash and now she’s singing a made up song about princesses and dancing.
I wander into the bedroom to my bedside table. The perfect sand dollar sits next to the reading lamp. To anyone, it’s a silly little seashell, like a million you can pick up along the beach. To me, it’s the symbol of perfection I held close but somehow managed to break. I couldn’t let go of that stupid shell.
Something about her soft brown curls and the tilt of her head brings it all back to me. His laugh, the sly twinkle in his eyes, the way his smile is open, as if he’s got nothing to hide, nothing to protect.
Blake.
I don’t want to remember but I can’t forget. Like an addict, I play those few scenes in my head, even though it shreds my heart every time.
I found a quiet place in the house where I was sure no camera would venture and I knew without a doubt Simone would never find. The pantry in the kitchen. Cook had a predictable schedule that kept her out of the house between 2 and 5 in the afternoon and gone all night after dinner was over. I added thick pool towels and stashed them behind the flour and sugar bags.
Blake and I met there whenever we could. Blake’s signal to me was to whistle this low, long tuneless sound and I’d know he was on his way. My signal to him was to sing any old time love song. I often picked a Beatles’ tune or sometimes Prince. My favorite was a sugary Rod Stewart song I found particularly sexy. Blake laughed at that and went so far as to tell me I had a terrible singing voice. He was right about that because if I had been any good Jonas and Simone would have had me sing on Liesa’s Life.
One night, Blake was waiting for me in the pantry. When I got there he’d already spread the towels on the floor. We tried to keep all noise to a minimum and often spent the time without speaking at all, even in a whisper. It upped the sensation for some reason.
When I ticked the door closed behind me, Blake lit a match to a little tin of sterno that was kept in the pantry to light the chaffing dishes at the morning buffet. Without a word, he slipped the straps of my sundress over my shoulders and let it fall to the floor. I had nothing on underneath and he bent his head to lick and tease first my right nipple, and then my left.
I tangled my fingers in his soft brown curls, letting the surging heat build between my legs and vibrate through my body. He nipped so gently with his teeth, sending a jolt of fire hopscotching through my belly, pulling tight on my pussy.
I bunched his shirt in my fingers, drawing it up until he let go of my nipple and stepped back to help me toss it over his head and to the floor. I jerked at the waistband of his shorts and yanked them down. His cock caught in the mesh, already hard as stone.
He led me to the makeshift bed on the floor and helped me down to lay on my back. Still, no talking. I anticipated him covering me with his long, lean body, pushing his cock into me and riding me. We often tore at each other quickly, needing that instant release. Afterward, giving ourselves more time to explore. To taste every inch of our bodies, touch, discover, and build to a longer, more satisfying climax.
I was ready for him, wanting to feel his heat, anticipating bucking against him, driving toward my own climax. It’s all I could think about when we weren’t together.
He urged me to roll over and pulled at my hips to raise me to all fours. I shoved my ass into him, feeling his fullness nestle between my ass cheeks. He bent over my back, with one arm propping him up, he grabbed my left breast.
I was new to this game. But there wasn’t much I wasn’t willing to try. This didn’t seem so far out. Blake nuzzled my neck and kissed my ear. He ran his tongue along the lip of my ear, sending a gusher between my legs and nearly making me collapse. “I want you. Forever. Only you.”
His words melted something in me. “Blake.” I whispered it into the dim flame of the pantry as he straightened on his knees and grasped my hips. He pulled my ass up and exposed my dripping pussy and buried his cock inside me. When he started pumping into me, it almost hurt but in a way so delicious I had to stuff my mouth with the towels and groan into them.
He pulled out before he came and I felt the hot splashes slap my ass.
He rolled me over then and spread my legs wide, sliding his face between my thighs. “Now it’s your turn.”
He breathed those few words into my clit and that, alone, nearly made me cum. The guy-next-door Blake, Mr. “Yes, please and thank you,” did the rudest, most marvelous things with that tongue. The slurping and sucking in the tiny room of the pantry added to the building wave and when it hit me, I might have knocked a tooth or three loose in his mouth. I couldn’t help the violent shudders that took hold and made me buck against him. He never let up and sucked my clit even harder, taking me from a climax to a supernova.
When it was done, he sat up and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “That was nearly a meal,” he whispered. “I believe I’m in the mood for dessert.”
He reached behind him where I hadn’t noticed the jar of Nutella and honey.
I shook my head and sat upright. I never have been one to get dirty and sticky. “Oh, no. I’m not into that.”
He gently pushed me back. “But I am.” He kissed me and I, tasted myself on his lips. It sent a tingle through me. When I’d first been with Blake I hadn’t done more than kiss any other boy. Everything he’d sho
wn me, taught me, done to me and let me do to him had been better than what I’d expected from sex. I leaned back and relaxed. Whatever he wanted to do to me, I trusted I’d like it.
He dipped his finger into the Nutella and spread it across one areola and then the next. The honey he dribbled on my mound and let it slowly drip down my clit. It took a long time for him to finish his masterpiece. All the while, my passion had built again.
By the time he finished slurping and licking every bit of sticky from my skin, I’d climaxed twice more. It was a wonder Cook didn’t find us dead from exhaustion the next morning.
It’s dark now but I don’t turn on the lights. I pad around my bungalow in bare feet, smelling the sweet nighttime jasmine and listening to Ellie’s songs. If I have to leave Gram’s compound, Ellie won’t have this kind of freedom. She’ll have to stay inside or be under my supervision outside. That kind of restrictive life is something I can’t stand to think about for her.
But finding a job? I know Gram would help me with childcare and Ellie would be well looked after by some highly paid nanny, at Gram’s expense. Ellie would be okay if I found a job out there doing something. How can I do that, though?
After a lifetime in the spotlight, I retreated to the shelter of Gram’s world and over the last four years, I’ve grown more and more reluctant to leave. Gram and Kylie don’t know the extent of my dread of leaving here. They think it’s more a choice of me staying, when it feels more like panic at the thought of leaving.
I force myself out at least once or twice a month. Usually with Kylie. I help them at Paradise Found occasionally. I can build myself up for that and pull out my old acting chops. But it’s exhausting. I pretend I’m someone who grew up in the Midwest. My parents are named Ken and Deb and they are proud to have a daughter. I give myself a whole backstory about playing basketball in high school and living in a sorority at a state college. It’s all mundane and regular. That makes it possible for me to be the friendly girl-next-door dive master.
I couldn’t play that role every day. So, getting a job is out of the question.
Ellie’s chatter filters in my head. It’s this part of me that happened almost immediately with her birth. No matter where I am, some portion of my brain is tracking her, listening for signs she’s okay or hurt.
I run my hand over the canvases stacked in my kitchen. Sell these? That’s what I painted them for, isn’t it?
No. I painted them to help me. Because everything I’ve ever felt in my whole life has been controlled, monitored, manipulated, and exploited.
When Blake finally found a way into that synthetic life, I’d let down all my walls and my heart cracked wide open. I believed we’d be together. I worked so hard to make it all happen.
In retrospect, everything I gave up didn’t amount to much. My mother? She never really loved me. But she was all I knew and I had been terrified to push her so far away.
My stupid-assed, fucked-up career? I hated the TV show, but was afraid of not having it. I’d never really had a chance to enjoy the money from the show. I lived in luxury, but that was all for TV. All the profits funneled away from me and I ended up with nothing.
I leaped. I trusted Blake to be there to catch me. I’d begged him to trust me.
When I landed in a splat, everything inside me broke.
Until Ellie.
She gave me purpose and made me want to paint again. Something I’d given up in the grind of reality TV. I flip through the canvases and wonder which of them I can bear to sell. Bits of my soul going to the highest bidder.
Ellie’s excited whoop alerts me that Kylie and Zach are home. She adores them and the feeling is mutual. I love that she’s surrounded by family. There’s a clatter in the piazza with the side gate opening and closing, Ellie shouting and the quieter voices of Kylie and Zach teasing and laughing with Ellie.
I’m halfway across the kitchen on my way to retrieve Ellie when Kylie appears in the doorway with Ellie’s hand in hers. She looks nervous. “Is your phone off again?”
“Oh, shit.” I cast around for it and see it on the kitchen table. “I forgot to turn it on after Ellie’s nap.”
Kylie nods in a knowing way. “I figured. I’ve been trying to reach you.”
Ellie tugs on Kylie’s hand. “Mommy won’t let me eat supper.”
Kylie arches her eyebrow. “That so?”
“Yes.” Ellie says, trying to pull Kylie out of the house. “Can I eat with you and Zach?”
I shake my head to signal Kylie a no.
Kylie doesn’t budge. “I can’t believe she won’t feed you.”
Ellie nods in all seriousness. “It’s true. What are you having for supper?”
Kylie urges Ellie into my bungalow. “I think you need to stay here with your mom. We’re having company for dinner.”
Company? I glance out my window toward the piazza. They don’t entertain much. More than I do, but that’s not saying much. Sometimes Diana comes over and we have a put-together meal and drink beers on the piazza. But a dinner party is unusual. “Is that why you were trying to call me?”
A sign of strain flits across her face. “Yeah. I know you hate surprises.”
Ellie plants her hands on Kylie’s thighs and tries to push her out. “You aren’t having squash, are you? ‘Cause I like everything except squash. You have ice cream, right?”
I take hold of Ellie by the shoulders. “No ice cream. No dinner at Kylie’s. We’re going to read some stories and then it’s bedtime.”
Ellie wants to do battle. I’ve seen her throw herself on the brick and roll around. She’s never had favorable results with that tactic and is learning better ways of getting her way and sometimes, even compromise. She pouts for a second. “If I eat my squash can I have ice cream with Kylie and Zach?”
I shake my head. “Dinner at our house is over for tonight. But if you eat your squash tomorrow, maybe you can have ice cream then.”
She frowns at me and casts a pleading face toward Kylie.
Kylie ruffles her hair. “Sounds like a good plan. Please eat it up so you can come tomorrow.”
Kylie steps back. “So, um, like I said. We’re having company and I wanted to warn you because you sometimes don’t want people to know you live here.”
I run a hand along my scalp. With such minimal hair, it’s hard to see the blonde. “You don’t think I’m incognito?”
“When you wear your sunglasses, it’s hard to figure it out. But your face is still famous.”
She’s right, and that’s the other big reason I can’t get a job. There’s nothing worse than that moment when someone thinks they’ve spotted the elusive Liesa Temple. I can’t risk Ellie being exposed to that.
It makes it uncomfortable for Zach and Kylie, too. Their friends don’t need to know Liesa Temple lives next door. Avid fans might remember the tabloids’ announcement when it was discovered Kylie and I are half-sisters and our father is Jonas Knightly, but four years is a long time in the celebrity world and Kylie doesn’t have to deal with it much anymore.
“We’ll be quiet as happy little mice. Just a little squeaking between us, huh, Ellie?”
Ellie folds her arms again. “Can’t I go to the party at Kylie’s?”
I scoop her in my arms. “We’ll have our own party.”
She brightens. “With ice cream?”
“Nice try.”
Chapter 4
Blake
I don’t have much trouble finding the gate, even though this isn’t a neighborhood I spent any time in when I lived on Cayman. Diana, Kylie, and I shared a shack in the middle of the island. It was a saltbox kind of place with chipped tile floors, chipped counters, chipped walls, and chipped siding. We gathered a collection of used furniture and kitchen equipment and made do. I loved every minute of our chipped little lives.
Most of it, anyway. Until it all went to shit. Because of Zach Lowery and Liesa Temple.
And now, I find out Kylie and Zach are married and living in a casita
behind a wrought iron fence in the most expensive walled community on the island.
Kylie swings open the gate before I can juggle the groceries and reach for it.
She’s wearing a sundress and her hair is bunched on her head. “I’m starving. I hope you brought a lot.”
Again, I’m shot through the heart at how much she looks like Liesa.
She doesn’t look that much like her, only the legs and blonde hair. You just see her everywhere.
Zach hurries over to take a bag. “This is heavy and cold. My kind of groceries.”
When did Zach get so friendly? My impression of him from four years ago, is of a guy who sold out and agreed to fuck the girl I loved to save his inheritance and earn some big bucks. The guy who broke Kylie’s heart. I’ve wanted to punch his lights out for four long years.
He slaps my back. “You’re about the last person I expected to see on that boat today. Come on in and tell us what you’ve been up to.”
It seems weird the way they flank me and usher me to their house and inside, shutting the door. I mean, the brick patio is cool and inviting. Soft lighting and the scent of night flowers would make it perfect for sipping a cold beer before we cook.
Kylie sets the grocery bag on the counter of a cook’s kitchen and takes out the shrimp and butter.
“Wow!” I take in the gleaming rosewood floors, the granite counters of the kitchen, the airy floorplan. The furniture is new and everything looks as though it was purchased with a real decorating plan in mind. Nothing like the odds and ends we’d put together or the cheesy crap every law student gathered for their cheap and shitty apartments in New York. “You’re moving up in the world.” Maybe Zach got his inheritance after all.
Kylie surveys her little house with a bit of sheepishness. “There’s a lot to fill you in on.”
Their house has obviously been newly built and well taken care of. An island with a granite top fills the open space and creates a separation between the living and kitchen. Teakwood stools make it a breakfast bar and I’d bet with just the two of them, that’s where they eat most of the time.
