by Lili Valente
Anastasia shakes her head. “You don’t—”
“What kind of mother does that?” I insist, cutting her off. “Hell, I wouldn’t do half the things you’ve done to my worst enemy, let alone someone I’m supposed to care about. You aren’t the victim anymore, Anastasia, your daughter is. And you’re the one who’s hurt her the most.”
She crosses her arms, blinking fast as her eyes begin to shine. “I know I’ve hurt her. I never said I was going to win mother of the year.”
“No, no one would ever make that mistake.” I step closer, adding in a softer voice. “But you can show that you give a shit about her. Don’t let on that you know about my consulting business or what I do for my clients. And don’t tell Phillip. Let this play out the way it should. Let Penny have her victory and walk away with her head held high. You and Phillip still get your dream wedding, Penny gets to put this nightmare behind her—everyone wins and no one gets hurt more than they’ve been hurt already.”
Her breath rushes out. “It’s not that simple.”
“Please,” I say, ready to beg if that’s the only way to keep her from ruining this for Penny. “Just do the right thing. For her. She deserves that much. She’s not weak; she’s a good person. One of the best I’ve ever met.”
For a moment, Anastasia’s mask slips and I see the woman beneath, the scared mother who knows that she’s already lost her daughter in all the ways that matter. “But she can’t forgive me, can she?” she asks in a small voice. “Not really. Not even Penny can forgive the things I’ve done.”
I press my lips together. “I don’t know. But if anyone—”
Before I can finish, the door opens and Nanny Helms sticks her head into the room. “Miss Ana, I—” She breaks off when she sees me, her gaze cooling as her eyes track back and forth between the two of us. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you had company.”
“Oh Bash isn’t company, he’s practically family.” Anastasia laughs, that same, cozy fireside laugh from when I first stepped into the library, as if we haven’t spent the past twenty minutes locked in verbal combat. “What is it, Nanny?”
“It’s Miss Penny,” Helms says, her tone still cautious and controlled. “I found her asleep on the bathroom floor upstairs.”
“Is she okay?” I ask, pulse speeding.
“She’s fine. I helped her into her bedroom and tucked her in.” Nanny Helms holds up a calming hand, but I don’t feel calmed. Somewhere up there Penny is passed out with no one watching over her.
“I’ll go get her.” I take a few steps toward the door, but stop when I realize I don’t know where I’m going. I didn’t get a tour of the upstairs rooms. I glance from Anastasia to Nanny Helms. “She shouldn’t be alone. She’s going to need someone to watch her while she sleeps and make sure she doesn’t get sick.”
“I’m going to sit with her,” Nanny Helms says. “I just wanted to let Miss Ana know that Penny will be staying the night and that I’ll be in her room instead of my own. I’ve left a note for the twins in case they wake up and need me for any reason.”
“That sounds perfect. Thank you, Nanny,” Anastasia says before I can say thanks, but no thanks, I would rather carry Penny to the car and take her back to the cottage with me. I know she doesn’t want to stay here, but I can’t very well tell Anastasia that, not when I’m trying to get her to play nice for Penny’s sake.
“Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of her.” Anastasia moves toward the door as Nanny Helms disappears back into the hall outside. “I’m sure she’ll call you in the morning as soon as she’s awake.”
“I’d like to see her now,” I say, hands curling into fists at my sides, not liking this feeling, like Penny is slipping through my fingers. “I want to make sure she’s okay.”
“She’s fine, Bash. She’s sleeping.” Anastasia pauses with her hand on the door handle and turns back to me. “But thank you for caring so much about her. And for the things you said. I think you’re right. It’s best to let this go, let things take their natural course and move on. I’ll sign a nondisclosure agreement if you’d like, but I give you my word that I’ll keep your secret and advise Cheyenne to do the same.”
“Thank you.” My shoulders relax away from my ears. “I appreciate it.”
“I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for Penny,” she says standing up straighter. “I assume you can show yourself out. Unless you’re interested in returning to the bachelor party?”
I shake my head. “Not even a little bit interested. But tell the douchebag you’re marrying goodbye for me.”
She smiles, a sad, tired smile that makes me think her life isn’t as picture perfect as she would like people to believe. “I’ll give Phillip the message.”
Lifting one elegant arm, she points toward the wall filled with photographs. “Be sure to take a look at the pictures on the bottom left before you go. When she was little, Penny was Miss July for a baby calendar. I show the pictures to all her friends when they come over. She’ll assume something is wrong if she finds out we were in the library and I didn’t do my best to embarrass her.”
“I’ll take a look,” I say. “And please call me if she wakes up and needs anything tonight. Sprite or aspirin or something for her stomach. Anything at all.”
This time, her smile is warm. “I will. Good night, Sebastian.”
“Good night.” When she’s gone, I turn, ambling past the framed photographs, scanning them until I find the ones Ana was talking about. When I do, I smile.
There, dressed in a lobster costume, is a cherub-faced baby with dark curls and a toothless smile who can only be baby Penny. In one, she’s lying on the sand, caught mid-giggle as a wave crashes onto the shore. In another, she’s sitting in a pot, brown eyes wide, as if contemplating her own mortality. And in the last, she’s making her escape from the pot, claws reaching for the ground as the costume falls down around her legs, revealing her bare little bottom.
“Penny for your lobster pot,” I whisper aloud, finally understanding her e-mail address. It’s another piece of the Penny puzzle.
Another something to love about her, I think, my chest going tight.
This isn’t how I wanted this night to end, with Penny out cold and me going home alone without having said any of the things I need to say. But I should know by now that life rarely works out as planned. If it did, there wouldn’t be a need for Magnificent Bastard Consulting in the first place.
I stand staring at the pictures of the beautiful baby my beautiful girl used to be, foolishly hoping that Penny will wake up and come downstairs to look for me. But the house remains quiet and finally, I’m forced to admit defeat.
I let myself out the mammoth front doors and walk down the path leading to the circle drive where Penny and I parked just a few hours ago.
I pause, checking my watch. No, not even three hours.
Just a little over two, in fact.
My forehead bunches. How the hell did she get passed out drunk that fast?
I turn, gazing back up at the house, scanning the windows on the second floor. But there are no lights on and no movement behind the gauzy white curtains. Finally, after a long, tense moment in which my gut does its best to convince me I’m being watched, I shake my head and hurry toward the car.
I’m getting paranoid. Penny isn’t trying to avoid me. We didn’t have time to grab dinner before the party and now she’s paying the price for drinking too much champagne on an empty stomach. That’s all.
But as I start the car and drive away, I can’t shake the feeling that I shouldn’t be. I should be storming the castle and fighting for the princess asleep in her tower, not taking my sorry ass back to our romantic cottage alone.
But then, I don’t have much experience playing Prince Charming.
“Prince Charming is a crock of shit,” I whisper to the dash lights. “He doesn’t exist.”
But maybe he should. Maybe he fucking should.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
And now something from
Penny Elizabeth Pickett…
I’m watching him walk away, admiring how damned beautiful he is and the way he walks like he’s never known what it feels like to be anything be perfectly at home in his own skin, when he turns and looks up, scanning the second-floor windows.
I freeze, terrified he’s going to see me hiding behind the curtains and terrified that he won’t.
God, I don’t want him to leave without me.
I don’t want to spend the night alone in my childhood bedroom, haunted by the ghost of the girl I was back when I believed that the people I loved would never hurt me—at least, not on purpose. At least, not on purpose and then come back for seconds, blackmailing me into being the maid of honor at this nightmare wedding when I proved that I could take the “you’re sleeping with my boyfriend” punch without hitting the mat.
I want to go back to the cottage with Bash and pretend we belong there. Pretend he’s mine and I’m his and he’s never going to run from me again.
Please, see me, I silently beg. See me and come back and make me stop pushing you away.
Don’t go. Please don’t go.
But after a moment, Bash tilts his head down, casting his eyes in shadow, and starts toward the car. He walks faster than he did before as if he can’t wait to get away from this house and all the crazy inside of it. The crazy fading movie star, the crazy douchebag ex-boyfriend, and the crazy client/assistant/friend he made the mistake of letting get too close.
I press my lips together, fighting the tears filling my eyes, blurring the taillights of the rental car as Bash drives away.
Too close. I knew better than to get too close. He always runs when he starts to feel something real. Every single time.
But I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t help falling in love with him.
Looking back, I realize I’ve been falling in love with him a little bit every day for years. It wasn’t watching him kiss my horrible, awful, very bad tattoo or the way he looked at me after we made love yesterday that started this; it was what sealed the deal. Sealed my fate. Sealed the slow, painful death of our friendship because there’s no way I can go back to the way things used to be now that I know what it’s like to make love to him.
To wake up next to him. To share meals and conversations and silly jokes and watch him get his fingernails painted because he knows it’s making two little girls I love happy.
Today almost killed me—pretending I wasn’t hurting, that I didn’t miss him already. Fighting the urge to grab his big, stupid, beautiful shoulders and shake him until he realizes that when you find something like this you should run toward it, not away.
But shaking him wouldn’t do any good and it wouldn’t be fair.
I knew this was the way Bash conducted business. I knew it going in. I’ve read the “It’s not you, it’s me,” e-mails in his LetsGoLove account, the ones where he bid a gentle, kind goodbye to any woman who got within spitting distance of his heart. I’ve been the buddy he texts while he’s walking away from another shot at something more, the hand he holds until he’s out of firing range.
But I won’t let things go that far with us. Not now.
For the first time in years, I’m free. When I ran into Phillip on my way to the bathroom tonight, I felt nothing at all. No hatred, no shame, no longing or regret, just a mild irritation that I was forced to chat with him for a few minutes while my bladder was uncomfortably full. The ugly spell he used to be able to cast over me has lost its power. I’m finally out of the dark shadow of one man who didn’t want me and there’s no way in hell I’m going to crawl into another.
Not even for a man as wonderful as Bash.
I’m finished with people who think I’m a stepping stone on the path to something better or a little mouse so desperate for love that she’ll chase after it on her hands and knees. I’m not chasing or cowering or settling for being someone’s second best ever again.
Bash might not love me the way I love him, but he gave me enough of a taste of what it feels like to have it all that I refuse to settle for less.
I don’t want good enough or almost wonderful. I want love and happiness and safety and passion and a home in someone’s arms. I want to feel like the most beautiful woman in the world because one man loves me so much he’s gone blind to my flaws. And I want to make him feel the same way.
If Bash would let me, I know I could love him like that. Like a king, like the center of a world built for two.
I would love him until he’s not afraid of close, until he knows that he can trust me with every bossy, sweet, silly, scared, passionate, perfectly damaged part of him. Until he realizes that the parts of himself he tries to hide are the parts that make me love him the most, the parts that make one strong, seemingly flawless man my perfect match. I see him, the real him, beneath the glossy, seductive Magnificent Bastard persona.
And I love him.
But I love myself, too. I love myself too much to chain my heart to a man who runs when things get heavy. After years of hiding from the world and my feelings and myself, I don’t want to run. I want to live. Fully. Authentically. No holding back.
Which is why I have to tell Bash goodbye.
I should have told him it was over before we came to the party tonight, told him the friends with benefits situation is finished and that I’m handing in my notice, but I wasn’t sure I would be able to hold it together. It’s better to wait until we’re back in the city, away from Mom and Phillip. And my sisters, who I know will be disappointed that “Uncle Bash” won’t be coming for another visit.
Then I’ll tell Bash that I’ll stick with him until I train an assistant who will meet or exceed all of his expectations, thank him for all that he’s done for me—for the job, the friendship, the intervention, and those moments when he showed me what it must feel like to be completely, beautifully loved—and move on with my life. I’m not sure what “my life” is going to look like post-Phillip, post-Bash, post The Years of Shame, but it will be mine and it will be real.
And maybe someday, when I meet the right man, it will have love in it.
Enough love to make up for how hard it’s going to be to tell Bash goodbye.
With a final sigh, I turn away from the window, crawl into my twin bed, and close my eyes, willing myself to sleep and not to dream of things I’ll never have.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Dear Penny,
I’m writing you this letter because you’re not here to talk, and e-mail and texts just won’t cut it for something like this.
I haven’t written a real letter in years, but when I got back to the cottage and saw the stationery sitting on the desk in the bedroom, it seemed like the smart thing to do.
To write down all the things I’m thinking and feeling before they drive me crazy.
So here I go, writing down what I’m thinking right now, when I think of you, my friend.
My very good, very sweet, very beautiful friend…
I work on the letter for hours, writing like a man possessed, pouring out the story of the pissing contest with Phillip and how I realized that I loved her. Loved her more than Rachael, more than any of the girls I practiced loving in my early twenties when I was still too full of shit to love anyone but myself.
More than I’ve loved anyone in my entire life.
I write down all the things I would normally be too much of a guy—or too chicken shit—to say out loud. I confess that I’m scared, that I’m not sure I know how to do love the way I want to be able to do it for her, but that I promise to work at it like I’ve never worked at anything. I promise to try to be Prince Charming, to slay her dragons and be there to swoop her up onto my white horse and ride into the sunset on days when she needs swooping or sunsets or just feels like going for a ride.
And I put some dirty stuff in there, too, because that’s all part of what I feel for Penny.
I tell her that I’m a slave to her body, that I’m going to dream ab
out having her tonight, that I’m headed to bed jonesing for the taste of her pussy in my mouth, and fully expect to wake up hard and miserable because she’s not next to me, warm and sweet and ready for me to fuck her into a few good-morning orgasms.
After five pages, my hand begins to cramp, but I push on, getting it all down while it’s pressing up inside me, like lightning in a bottle, demanding to be free.
By the time I finally finish, it’s almost midnight and the wind from earlier in the day is gone. There’s no creaking from the trees out back or rushing outside the windows. The night birds in this part of the world are good at keeping quiet—the better to sneak up on the things that need to be killed and eaten—and the morning birds are still asleep.
As I flop into bed and turn out the lamp, the cottage is deathly still.
I lay in the dark for what seems like forever, staring up at the shadows on the ceiling, feeling like the last living person at the ends of the earth.
I feel alone. Powerfully, incredibly alone.
There are people I could call—Aidan, who never goes to sleep before two, and my mother the night owl—but I know no conversation with a friend or family member could ease this ache. This is the kind of loneliness that comes from being separated from the one you love. I haven’t felt it since Rachael.
That should scare me, I guess, but it doesn’t. It makes me even more determined not to fuck this up. First thing tomorrow, I’m going over there and telling Penny everything I wrote down.
Or maybe I’ll give her the letter, let her read it all in blue ballpoint pen.
The thought makes my throat close up a little, but if I’m going to trust anyone with my emo, midnight feeling-ravings, it’s going to be Penny.
I close my eyes, willing sleep to come so the night will pass faster and I’ll be that much closer to getting back to her. But my brain keeps racing around in circles. Finally, it gets around to racing through a very detailed recollection of when Penny sucked my cock in the shower and I pull the crazy train in for a stop.
