If I Dream

by K. M. Scott

  Her blue eyes opened wide, and she looked like she’d begin to cry at any moment. “Oh. I miss you when you can’t come.”

  We went through this routine every time I left after we slept together. I hated it.

  “I’ll talk to you later, Kitty.”

  I didn’t kiss her before I left, throwing her a half-hearted smile instead.

  By the time I returned to the estate, the sun had begun to go down and all the torches blazed out in the garden as the staff scurried around making the final preparations for the engagement party. I’d been to enough of Robert’s get-togethers to know this one was different, and not just because Janelle was getting married.

  A glance at the food told me he’d pulled out all the stops for tonight. Trays of lobster, shrimp, and crab filled an entire table, and the two chefs manning the grills that took up the far side of the enormous patio looked like they’d been brought here straight from some five-star restaurant with their white chefs’ hats and uniforms.

  I headed inside to Robert’s office to ask if he had anything he’d like me to do special tonight, even though I already knew the answer. As part of his security detail, my job was to keep him safe.

  Security detail wasn’t exactly what I did for him. In the plainest terms, I was the muscle he used to get people to come around to his way of thinking. At least that was the way he liked to describe my job.

  Whatever I was, I knew my role in this whole thing Robert Erickson had going on. He said jump and I answered how high. Ownership was like that. I’d long ago worked off what he paid Floyd for me, and I technically was free, but he had a way of making a person realize they probably weren’t going to find much better anywhere else.

  Well, most people. Not Serena.

  I hadn’t seen her since that night two years ago, but I’d heard enough from her father’s complaining that she’d gotten just what she wanted, even after he sent her away. She’d gone to school in Italy and done well.

  He’d never said anything to me about what he’d seen the two of us doing in my room that night, but I knew how angry he was when he put me up against the biggest fighter ever seen on the underground circuit. I didn’t last five minutes against that guy, and my reward for that defeat was two weeks in the hospital with a bruised kidney and spleen and a collapsed lung, in addition to a broken nose and cheekbone.

  When they released me, Robert stood waiting for me at his car out at the curb. What choice did I have? I could have chosen homelessness and stealing like I’d done before I met Floyd, but I’d had a taste of more and didn’t want to sleep in piss stinking alleyways with fucking drunks and drug addicts anymore.

  So I took the ride back here to his house and accepted the security job he offered with his new detail he claimed to everyone he needed. I didn’t have to fight anymore, at least not in The Pit, and when I did have to use my fists, I wasn’t in danger of getting my head crushed in.

  All in all, it was a decision I could live with.

  Robert paced back and forth across his office with a glass of his favorite bourbon and branch in one hand and his phone in the other as someone on speaker begged him for more time paying off some debt they owed him. I could have told the guy it was a hopeless cause. Once you were into Robert for anything, he had you.

  And he didn’t let go, no matter how much you begged. Two years in his world had shown me that.

  “Carlson, you know the terms. You have until next Friday. I wish I could do more, but I simply can’t. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a party to attend for my daughter’s wedding.”

  The man continued to plead his case, but Robert simply ended the call and stuffed the phone into his suitcoat pocket. Noticing me standing in the doorway, he waved me in.

  “Just who I want to see. Your timing is perfect. Did you hear any of what that call was about?” he asked before downing the last of his drink.

  “No,” I lied, knowing how much he hated when anyone eavesdropped on him.

  “Well, when that man doesn’t pay me what he owes me next Friday, you’ll be paying him a visit.”

  I nodded my understanding. He’d kept me busier than usual the past few days with jobs like that, so much that I hadn’t seen my own bed in three days. I wondered if the cost of Janelle’s wedding had put a dent in his bank account and to pay for it he felt he needed to press his debtors a little harder than usual.

  Whatever the reason, it didn’t change what I had to do. I was just a messenger, although the news I had to deliver to the poor saps wasn’t what they wanted to hear.

  Robert stopped in mid-pass in front of me and studied what I wore. “You look ready for the party. Good.” His mouth turned up in that terrifying crocodile smile I hated. “By the way, expect a surprise tonight.”

  Hearing a man who enjoyed hurting people for kicks say you should expect a surprise was never good, so instantly my senses went on high alert. I hadn’t done anything to piss him off, so I was pretty sure I was in the clear.

  “A surprise?” I asked, wishing he would just tell me what the hell was going on so I wouldn’t have to wonder for the next few hours.

  “Yes. It arrived two days ago.”

  His eyes practically danced this surprise made him so happy. That Robert Erickson could honestly be called a sadist meant his happiness might very well be my pain, so that sparkle in his eyes only made me more uneasy.

  “Okay,” I said, even though suddenly I felt nothing close to okay.

  “Good. I’ll see you out in the garden in a couple minutes. Make sure the staff hasn’t fucked up anything.”

  His vague dismissal of me sent me on my way, and although I didn’t have one clue as to what he wanted me to check up on concerning the staff, I headed out toward the party to scan the area for anything that could send him into a rage and ruin Janelle’s night.

  “Ryder, I want you to stay near me tonight.”

  I turned to face Robert and saw a strange look on his face. “Okay. Do you want me to tell the guys to position themselves anywhere particular?” I asked, unsure what he was up to.

  He shook his head. “Whatever you think is right,” he said as he scanned the garden.

  Even though I knew I shouldn’t ask, my curiosity got the best of me. “Any reason why you want me to stay close to you during a party? Are you expecting some potential problem?”

  If I was actually security of any real sort, that kind of question would be something I’d ask, but since Robert either thought of me as some kind of adopted son or his hired muscle, my question verged on stepping over the line. I knew that and still asked because his threat of a surprise had me on edge.

  His crocodile smile returned, and he patted me on the shoulder. “You tell me.”

  Robert generally didn’t speak in riddles, so I had no idea what he meant. Following his gaze to the patio doors, I watched Janelle and her fiancé walk out of the house and then saw Robert’s surprise.

  Serena.

  In the two years she’d been gone, she’d grown up from that pretty teenage girl into an even more beautiful woman. Her hair was longer now, but it still fell in those sexy waves around her face that made her look soft and touchable. Just seeing her made an ache form inside me I thought had gone forever.

  My breath caught in my chest as I stared at her and thought of all the time we’d spent together. That last night before all hell broke loose wasn’t all I remembered. Hours talking about things I’d never told another soul came flooding back now, and I couldn’t help miss what we’d been to each other.

  Her father had taken my phone while I was in the hospital, so I never knew if she tried to contact me from Italy. The night after she left I got my ass beaten in that fight and never had a chance to let her know how much I was going to miss her every night. I never got one card or letter or anything the whole time she was gone.

  It was like she just moved on from everything that was part of this place, including me.

  I didn’t blame her. After how her father treated her j
ust because she wanted to go to college and improve herself, I would have put this place and all of us in the rearview mirror and thrown it all the finger as I drove away.

  As I reminisced about those sweet times so long ago, she left her sister and fiancé to mingle with guests. Swallowing hard, I pushed down those feelings that still remained inside me and forced myself to remember I had a job to do. It didn’t serve any good purpose to live in the past.

  “Are you going to just stand there or are you going to say hi?” Robert asked, tearing me out of my memories.

  “I’m sure she wouldn’t even remember me,” I answered as casually as possible while I watched Serena follow her sister over to the bar.

  Robert patted me on the shoulder. “You’re probably right. Once a girl grows up, she leaves everything from the past behind. I think you should go join the other men on the grass.”

  His dismissal now that he’d gotten the exact reaction he’d hoped for from me stung. I knew as soon as I saw her that he’d be watching carefully to see what I’d do when I realized Serena’s return was the surprise. His warning from the first night I arrived at this house echoed in my ears.

  Don’t even think of doing anything with either of the girls.

  I’d dared to think of exactly that with her and we’d both paid the price. Then he’d made sure she stayed away, but now he wondered if our living so close to one another again would rekindle what we’d had between us.

  I wanted him to believe her return meant nothing to me, even as every cell in my body craved to be near her again. I couldn’t understand what power she had over me, but whatever it was, all it took was seeing her after all that time and I wanted to risk everything once more.

  Chapter Nine

  Serena

  After an hour of forcing myself to smile for all of Janelle and her intended husband’s party guests, I stole away inside the house to let the muscles in my face rest. I’d never been good with being fake, and standing around pretending my sister and her fiancé were anything close to being in love required a level of fake I couldn’t achieve if I wanted to.

  Which I didn’t.

  I’d been away long enough from this place that I knew there were people in the world like me who didn’t want to spend their time pretending to be something they weren’t. My father worked tirelessly to make the world think everything here was picture perfect, even as he paraded around with some woman who wasn’t his wife and pretended like my mother didn’t still exist somewhere.

  And Janelle had practically perfected fake into an art form. Set to marry a man she barely knew just days from now, she beamed happiness like she’d found her soul mate.

  Neither of them had anything real about them.

  I walked through the house toward the front door, hoping to escape the noise of the party to find some peace and quiet. My time in Italy had been many things, some of them pretty awful, but one of the things I’d loved about living there was the quiet all around my uncle’s villa. Now as I heard strains of dance music and people talking, I missed my former home.

  Sneaking out, I made my way down the driveway to a tiny grove of Japanese maple trees my father had planted halfway between the main house and the front gate when I was eight. I used to pretend it made me invisible to be surrounded by them, and now as Janelle’s engagement party raged on, I could think of nothing better than disappearing from this place.

  Fireflies did their best to light up my special spot as I sat down on a concrete bench and struggled to push away the party just a few hundred yards away. I didn’t want to think about Janelle and Charles. Nothing about them made me look forward to their wedding in just a few days. I had no idea why he wanted to marry my sister, but I knew all too well what her motivation was.

  Money. Security. The continuation of the life my father had given her.

  A life that had hobbled her in so many ways and made her so emotionally fucked up she actually believed marrying a man chosen by our father in this day and age could ever be okay.

  My mind wrestled against such a horrible future, vacillating between disgust at her choices and pity for them. But only I worried about it. She and my father, always like two peas in a pod, walked around perfectly content with her willingness to be subjugated.

  I’d only been back in this house for a few days, but everywhere I looked I saw people who’d had their choices stripped from them. It made me miss my time in Italy all the more.

  One person I hadn’t seen was Ryder. My sister mentioned him, but only to say he’d become one of my father’s men. I tried to imagine what would have made him come back here at all after my father had him beaten for what we’d done, but in truth, for everything I knew of him, I guessed I never really knew him at all.

  The person who’d sat with me all those nights talking about my mother’s disappearance, his parents’ deaths, and how much we both wanted more than what life at this estate offered would never have willingly stayed here if he had a chance to get away.

  I choked back emotion as that reality settled into my brain. He deserved more than being trapped here in my father’s world.

  The noise from the party filtered into my hidden area, breaking the peace I’d tried to find, so I stood to leave, not knowing where I’d go to find the quiet I so craved. All I knew was this place wasn’t where I wanted to be anymore.

  I turned to walk toward the house and saw a figure coming toward me in the dim light of dusk. Hoping they wouldn’t see me, I stood perfectly still and watched as they walked straight at me and saw Ryder there in front of me.

  His hair was no longer short anymore. Not exactly long, it skimmed his collar and looked as touchable as ever. He seemed bigger than when I’d last seen him, but his face with its sculptured cheekbones and strong jaw remained intensely masculine. And as always, his stunning green eyes next to his dark hair made him seem unlike anyone else I’d ever met.

  He stopped a few feet away and stared at me with a pained look in his eyes. “Hi. I saw you had come back.”

  All at once, everything we’d shared seemed lost and we stood facing each other awkwardly.

  “Yeah, I got back a couple days ago. I guess you aren’t staying in that room near my father’s office,” I said, knowing full well where he lived now since Janelle had told me.

  He shook his head and appeared to wince, like the idea of that room hurt him somehow. “No, not anymore. Not since I stopped…not since I became one of your father’s security guys.”

  “Oh. Security guy,” I mumbled, hating how strange we felt around one another.

  I wanted to ask why he never answered any of my letters or returned my calls. I wanted him to know I never wished for him to suffer because of me. I wanted to say so many things but didn’t know how to begin.

  “Are you going back to Italy after the wedding?” he asked, taking a step toward me, shrinking the space between us.

  “No, I don’t think so. My father seems to think I’ve paid enough penance for my sins, so I’m back here for good.”

  All I could think of when I said that was there was so little good about being back. Except for him. After just a few seconds being near him, I wanted to return to those moments we’d shared together in that room when it was just us in the house and we still had dreams of things we could do if only we got away from this world.

  He smiled at my mention of staying but said nothing else. The awkwardness returned in the silence, and no matter how many words begged to be spoken, I couldn’t ask those questions for fear I might hear he never cared enough to be bothered with thinking of me after I left.

  “I better go,” I said finally as the seconds of silence turned to a minute and then two of us just staring at one another like strangers.

  I took one step and then another hoping he would stop me from leaving him once again, but he said nothing and with each step my heart sank. Finally, just before I left the grove, I felt his hand touch my arm and turned back to see him staring at me with a look of pure need like
I’d never seen before in him.

  “Why didn’t you ever call? Did you decide after what happened that you needed to break free of everything in this place, including me?” he asked in a low voice tinged with hurt.

  “I did call. I called every day for months, but your phone wasn’t working. I wrote letters too, but you never wrote back. So I just assumed you moved on and you weren’t here anymore.”

  Ryder shook his head sadly. “I never got any letters and your father took my phone while I was in the hospital. Why didn’t you call the house?”

  Looking into those green eyes so full of that beautiful intensity I loved, I saw the answer to all my questions I’d been afraid to ask. “I did call, Ryder. Every time I was told you weren’t around.”

  He stepped toward me and brushed his hand against mine as he did. “I missed you.”

  Those three tiny words took my breath away. After all that time apart, he still had the same effect on me.

  “I missed you too. You grew up, Ryder. That guy who looked so uncomfortable in a suit that night of the party—I remember him. He’s gone now.”

  “You look as beautiful as ever,” he said with the same smile that had always made my insides feel like they were melting.

  He looked down at the ground and shook his head. “But no more bare feet?”

  I looked down at my shoes and smiled. “Only for tonight. I’m still all about the barefoot thing.”

  Our gazes met, and he smiled again. “Good. There’s something natural and real about that.”

  Another awkward silence crept into our conversation, but this time I didn’t want to allow that strangeness to ruin things between us, so without a word, I wrapped my arms around him and hugged him tightly. His body felt so right against mine, like two years hadn’t gone by since that night in his bedroom, and I loved how his arms enveloped me as we stood there in an embrace I’d wanted for so long.

  I felt his hand gently stroke my hair down my back while the steady pounding of his heartbeat sounded in my ear as he held me to him. His strength washed over me, and I loved it.