by Amarie Avant
Avery nodded slowly. “Dinner? Hmmm well, in two weeks or so, we will have a very nice dinner, I guess.”
“Let me take you out tonight?” He pushed tendrils of hair behind her ear.
Eyes narrowed in mock paranoia, Avery smirked. “Um-hmmm, it seems that you just want to make sure I don't stay here tonight.” She cocked her head toward her great-grandparents extravagant-sized home that had seen grander days.
The family home had once been a beautiful plantation. Now, the few shutters that were still hanging on the faded white walls were barely holding on. The mansion was in shambles.
“Well, my request is threefold. Primarily, keep you from staying here until the contractors have completed basic work is my top priority. Avery, when you get a project going, you have no breaks.”
“Nope. Not one.” She shook her head.
“Second, I'm so damn addicted to this ass.” He shrugged.
“Third?”
“That ass, of course.” Salvador took off at a jog, but not before Avery saw a megawatt smile spread across his face.
“Hey, where the hell is my Latin lover going? I want sexy accents and endearing words that soak my panties.” She called out to him as Salvador reached into the front driver side of his brand-new, unmarked Impala.
With a cocky grin, he held out the keys to her car, and she knew that Salvador had gone into her grandparent’s deteriorating home this morning. That meant he saw the sleeping bag in the middle of the ballroom floor. Even if the mansion were falling to pieces, the ballroom would forever be the place that she could sleep soundly. Its walls were almost as high as the great trees mother nature saw fit to grow outside.
The marble floors, scuffed with over three hundred years’ worth of festivities; the Venetian walls, cracked and showing the signs of their age. Avery found the ballroom enchanting. In Salvador’s opinion, it was fit for a historical horror movie.
With a smirk, Avery grabbed the keys dangling from his index finger. “Whatever, I’ll go home now.”
Avery backed away toward her iridescent-white luxury coupe.
“Sure, you need a shower,” Salvador quipped.
She gasped, then leaned her chin against her collarbone while taking a good sniff. Salvador laughed and slid into his car. Avery delighted in such a beautiful, strong Cubano that made life worth living—if only she could hear the sound of his laugh.
After Salvador drove away, Avery pressed the unlock button. Her mind drifted. She was considering an attempt on a new composition on her piano once home. Or maybe not. She sank into the soft, creamy-white leather seat. She looked down at fingers that would only play a certain kind of tune. A song for another . . .
~~~
The drive from her grandparent’s estate allowed the sweat and sex to become a delicate salting on Avery’s skin. She took the back roads to her parent’s mansion about twenty miles away. Instead of driving past the Spanish-style mansion and heading toward her own four-bedroom house on the same lot, Avery pulled into the U-shaped driveway of the main home, parking between her mother’s shopping spree convertible and her Mother’s Day spa luxury coupe. She spotted her little brother tiptoeing from the showroom garage that housed their father’s fleet of custom luxury cars. Her eyes narrowed as she got out of her car.
“Antonio! Get your ass over here,” she ordered.
His back was to her. The teen’s shoulders tensed. She imagined him cussing her out as he turned around. “What?”
“You've been out all night, haven't you? If Dad comes home to a “natural” fragrance in his car,” she said, using her fingers as quote marks while glaring at the pothead before her, “your little bad ass is going straight back to boarding school. Maybe so far as Europe this time.”
He glared.
Avery snatched the hood of his jacket from off his head and pulled the Beats earphones from his ears. The little gremlin hadn’t even heard her. Placing the earphone against her palm, she studied the vibrations. “Rap? Seriously, you’d listen to something that would degrade your mother, your big sister! We used to be so close.”
“Yeah, and then you went backpacking around the world for a few years, no calls, nothing.” Antonio’s nostrils flared, although he appeared more disappointed than angry.
“I didn’t go back—I—I just had to get away from home, you know?” She lied. Their parents weren’t big fans of telling anyone—not even her brother—that their only daughter had lost a child and ended up committed due to major depression and, more importantly, extreme delusions.
“Humph, I understand completely. Our parents are crazy. It’s Kendrick Lamar,” he huffed, signing the words.
“Ken who?” Avery’s eyebrows furrowed. Since the death of her only son, she didn’t keep up with current music, not if she could help it.
She almost felt like telling her brother, the one person in the entire universe who meant the most to her these days, what had actually happened. But her eyes narrowed, as she assessed him further. “Boy, stop smoking weed. Your eyes are blood red.” She smiled curtly at the sixteen-year-old. “You really want to go to boarding school, don’t you?”
“Whatever. I'll run away again.” Antonio’s tone and expression said he could not care less. “They only care about the special child anyway.”
Antonio was being a little douche. Avery hated to be called special. She preferred regular or mundane any day of the week.
Her dark eyes sent daggers into the pest. There was a time when Avery would watch her brother for her parents without arguing like other teenagers would about preferring to be out with their friends. She and the boy she once loved didn’t mind Antonio being the third wheel. They’d go anywhere and everywhere together.
She followed her brother into their family home. Its exterior was made from top of the line red clay tile, and its interior intricate Ebony woodwork. Their mother, Verdrena, was descending the left staircase with an ageless mask on her face. Avery almost turned around. The French mask cost an arm, a leg, and a big toe too, but it stunk.
Even with the putrid green mask on, Verdrena Castle was a sight. She had the softest, darkest skin in the universe. Verdrena’s mother could have passed for white when she was alive, especially with her French upbringing, but Verdie’s genes had reached way back down, and instead, took that of the French master’s best girl—and not the one who lived in the big house.
While mother and daughter were both exercise nuts, Avery would bulk up with muscle if she didn’t watch herself. On the other hand, Verdrena’s body stayed slim, although softly curved. Verdrena was a hand and foot model when she was younger, although she was very beautiful and could have been a runway model. Her back and shoulders held the same erect stature as before. Time, in Verdrena’s case, ceased to exist.
“Avery, tell me you didn't sleep at my family home last night?” Verdrena asked.
Before it was given the lofty term Estate, the large home and vast grounds had once been the Baudelaire Plantation. The talk of how free slaves ended up with it still disgusted Verdrena, since she knew they were the rightful heirs.
Her great-great-great grandfather had also passed for white, and that ensured him getting the land instead of the master’s barren wife. Verdrena hated the soil beneath her feet as a child, and like her mother fled. But instead of running into any man’s arms like her mulatto mother, the gorgeous Verdrena’s networking as a model kept her away. She’d send money to her grandparents to help with the upkeep of a place she’d never loved. But they were the sort that took nothing and put it all in savings for Avery and Antonio.
It was funny, though, when they had acquired the Baudelaire land, the home was too taboo for Verdrena. Noting Avery’s wistful attraction to the humongous shack, Verdrena had it willed straight to Avery once her grandmother, Francis, died. Verdrena shunned the home, without so much as hiring a caretaker for it until Avery could care for it herself.
“If you prefer another answer, I can say that I slept at home.” Avery tried.
“You just moved back from New York. Why not move in with Salvador?” Verdrena asked, eyebrows wriggling. It was something to be said, in her mother’s opinion, for Avery to have gotten her claws into a Cuban man—a dominating man. But Avery didn't feel like her man was one of those creepy, domineering alphas her mom read about in romance novels. With Salvador and Avery, they were equals in everything that counted. Sure, he didn't want her to stay at her maternal family’s estate, but other than that, they made decisions together.
“I am not moving in with Salvador out of wedlock,” she said, following Verdrena into the airy kitchen.
Her mom looked back, a perfect eyebrow arched. She turned around to gather Avery’s attention. She and Antonio were the only family members who had taken the time to learn sign language. Verdrena enunciated every word as she signed, “Why not? You are a Baudelaire-Castle, Avery. Your snickerdoodles have too much sugar to be free. Look you can have it your way, but when the time comes, make sure he signs a prenuptial agreement.”
“Why?” Avery grumbled. “Mom, I'm poor as dirt.”
“Blasphemy!” Verdrena said, and they both laughed.
But in Avery’s mind, she really was broke. The child protégé hadn't composed a piano symphony since the age of sixteen. Those scores were all about her broken heart. She had believed Donavan was dead. Their son was dead. She’d declined a world tour when her composition was being praised by the masses. It had been easy to push aside the worldwide acclaim because she’d been at Sunnymead Resort for the wealthy psychotic. Now, the royalties for CDs were all but gone. The present only solidified her fears of failure. Well, perhaps her father’s fears of her as a failure since Avery chose never to compose again.
The world didn’t have to know though.
After she got out of the crazy house, or as her father would call it the therapeutic resort, where she obtained her high school diploma and started attending classes at New York University online, the symphonic world wondered why she never composed again. Once she completed her degree at NYU, she did the unthinkable. She became a piano instructor at a non-profit in Harlem’s inner city. To Avery, her life was perfect and returning home was for the holidays or Salvador if he couldn’t come visit her. Now, here she stood, living in one of the guest houses on her parent’s vast acres of land. It wasn’t too far from the grand princess-style bedroom she grew up in, but the three-bedroom guesthouse was her own for now.
The death of her mothers’ grandparents had dug its claws into Avery, uprooting her happy-go-lucky life, and transported her back into the former glamour of her childhood. She had only returned because she wanted to restore her grandmother Franny’s estate, not to be thrust back into her parent’s world.
Freshly baked bread, any woman’s diet kryptonite, was baking in one of the many wall ovens. Avery opened one and took a deep breath.
“Have you had any tunes swarming around in that genius head?” Verdrena asked, bypassing the carbs for a crystal bowl filled with sliced exotic fruit.
Avery shook her head. When she went for a freshly baked croissant, her mother’s hand pounced, smacking it out of Avery’s hand.
“I'm not a baby.” Avery gasped.
“Go write a song or two.”
“I only have one melody weaving through my mind, Mom,” Avery replied. She quickly grabbed the cream cheese croissant and bit down. The sugary confection lifted her spirits, so she didn't have to think about the tune . . . or Him.
CHAPTER 2: Donavan Hardy
She was a tangible keynote from the past. A past when he was a good guy and not quite the beast he was now. But there Avery Castle stood. She’d just stepped out of one of those damn flashy coupes, a white-on-white Audi. She pressed the lock button on her car and walked over to the curb without so much as a glance across the street. Donavan paused, his dark blue helmet still clasped within his thick bicep. By God, if his damn Kawasaki fell over, he wouldn’t have noticed.
She consumed his eyes. The girl who was supposed to be reserved for reminiscing when he was once a good guy. Now, she was grown up with a little more weight settling in all the right places, still soft, but more athletic. She moved along the gum dotted sidewalk, seemingly out of place in an urban neighborhood. Those slender manicured fingers, he would never forget, were skimming on a soft southern breeze. He had no doubt that Avery was conjuring a melody with her ingenious, petite hands. It almost made him jealous. Even when he was a teen, he could get any girl he wanted. The bad boy swagger just made pussy fall so easy, yet, Avery’s hands. Her mouth. Her mind. Shit, he had never felt for a female the way he had felt for AC. However, at this moment, he knew he could never fall for her again.
Besides at the young age of sixteen, sweet, rich little Avery had ruined his life.
Donavan Hardy took one last look across the street before stepping into the bar. He dare not let his eyes land on Avery again, and he stopped his mind short of wondering where in the hell she was going on these streets. Who would have thunk it? Seven years later, and he didn’t have the balls to step up to AC and tell her how he really felt. Being so young, it didn’t seem like it would matter, but Donavan was a welfare kid, a rolling stone with nowhere to go before AC made him fall. Then she screwed up what little bit of a life he had. Royally.
A frown inched its way across his face, what most chicks called a baby face. With skin kissed by the sun and gold hair that grazed at the edges, he was confused for the nice guy—still.
His hand went straight beneath his leather jacket into his distressed jeans waistband. His gun always brought a person’s mindset around to his way of thinking. Dark. Deadly.
Upon entering JJ’s Bar, Donavan saw the place was a ghost town. Too soon for happy hour and being a few miles in from the coast, not a lot of Myrtle Beach tourists frequented this place.
“Aw fuck! You again?” The old man said, wiping down the Cherrywood counters. With all the scuff marks and blatant cigarette burns in the lacquered cheap wood, Donavan didn't even understand why the man bothered.
A half-cocked grin became the sidekick to Donavan’s gun. “C'mon, Willie, you gotta pay up today.”
“Does it look like I have a dollar to my name? Hell, I ain't barely got a pot to piss in.”
The man looked over his shoulder. He wanted more time. It was in his pale blue eyes. Willie had stopped begging the last time he owed Mr. Palmer five thousand. The missing middle finger on Willie’s dominant left hand was evidence that Donavan would collect by any means. That was also the day that Willie had almost lost his tongue for cussing, but his finger was an easier deal. Donavan had been kicked out of the army and did two years at Fort Leavenworth, so he didn’t mind being ruthless.
“Listen, you little shit. I don't have any money. Put that gun down and show your elder some respect.”
Donavan shook his head. Evidently, the old man had already forgotten their previous dealings. With some of them, Donavan learned the hard way that they just didn't learn at all. For his own Pop’s sake, Donavan channeled a calm tone saying, “With all due respect, I am giving you more leeway than most.”
Donavan’s smile twitched as he considered human punching bags. Donavan’s knuckles were obscured with marks and indentations from extracting teeth the good old fashion way. His fists were powerful. He wasn’t tall, five ten, but he was burly.
Donavan’s glare made Willie avert his gaze from the hard soul before him until he was yanked over the bar. His knees crunched against the countertop then his chest thumped into Donavan’s steel one.
Donavan held him with one hand, and his Glock went to Willie’s chin. “Listen, old man; this is fucking respect. Trust me; it is. If you were some young shit, talking the way you do . . .” Donavan nudged the gun harder against his cheek which was enough emphasis.
“Okay, Okay, money.”
Then Donavan wasn’t staring into Willie’s eyes anymore.
The old man was just about to piss himself but turned to look through the window where Dona
van was staring.
All the anger in Donavan drained from his bones and muscles as he watched Avery exit the gates of a crappy construction company. The owner also owed Palmer.
“She could make a blind man see,” Willie said, his voice somewhat constricted from how tightly Donavan still held him. He gave a trembling smile as he was placed on his own two feet.
“You got the money?” Donavan finally asked.
“I-I have half of it.” Willie gulped.
“Okay give me what you got.” Donavan shrugged. It was bad luck murdering Willie on the same day he saw the woman who snatched his heart out anyway.
“And I can keep my fingers . . . the rest of them?” Willie backed away slowly.
Donavan nodded.
Five minutes later, with a little over two grand in his leather jacket, Donavan stepped out of the bar just as Avery’s car headed down the street. He walked toward the chain link gate to Kelly’s Construction. Two pit bulls were barking as soon as he touched the gate.
“Try me,” he growled at them while pushing through the gates.
Both dogs lunged against their restraints. Donavan loved animals, but these two were out for blood. He pushed back his leather jacket, quickly showing them the butt of his Glock.
“Oh, so you’re gonna shoot my dogs today, huh?” A fat, short redheaded man in a suit asked, stepping out of his office.
“Mr. Kelly.” Donavan nodded. “I can’t knock a good guard dog, but these two . . . clipped ears . . . sharpened teeth. They’ll turn on you one day.” Running a hand over the stubble of his strong jaw, Donavan was prepared to tell him why he came by, but Mr. Kelly beat him to the punch.
“I don’t owe Palmer anything. Zip-zero. Not a daggone penny. So why has he sicced his dog on me?” Mr. Kelly shrugged, nodding toward the dogs. “They’re bloodthirsty. You’re the same breed, Don.”
“The girl.” Donavan still didn’t feel comfortable saying AC’s name, not out loud. The bitch broke him. And he had loved her so good. “What did she want with you?”
