by L. B. Dunbar
“Did he call Guinevere?”
“I don’t think so. I think he’s waiting to come home before he tries to contact her. If he contacts her.”
“Asshole,” I said under my breath.
“Yeah. Hey, on a side note, how is it down there?”
“Gorgeous,” I said, as I looked in the direction where Ireland disappeared. I couldn’t see her anymore. She walked fast.
“Sun. Sand. Pussy.”
I blinked as if Kaye could see me.
“Dude.”
“Well, got someone there with you?”
“No,” I snorted. “Why?”
“No reason. The owner called me. She was worried her daughter might be down there. Said it was a long shot, but had to ask. Something about her running away, but they weren’t overly worried. Also, something about her fiancé being concerned about her, so she had to ask if I knew if someone was with you. You wouldn’t be screwing around with a girl that was already committed, though, right? You like things lighter than that.” Kaye laughed, nervously.
Yeah, I thought, lighter than that. Fuck, I screamed in my head.
“Hey, Kaye, do me a favor. Know the nearest liquor store and a delivery service?”
“What are you up to, Tristan?”
“Think I’m going to have a party.”
“Tristan.”
“Grey Goose, Island Rum, some local red wine. A case of each. Rum punch mix. Bags of ice.”
“Tristan, don’t do anything foolish.”
“The Heartbreaker never does anything foolish. Hey, and I need the number for that Estella girl. The maid. I can’t find it. Text me.”
“Tristan, don’t trash the place…”
I had hung up.
Fiancé? Runaway? The owner? What the fuck, Ireland? I stared down the beach after her, but I shouldn’t care.
Fuck it, I thought. I didn’t want to care.
The delivery service was quick. I met the man at the door, taking a bottle of the vodka, right out of the case, before the man even had each box inside the house. I cracked the label and drank like it was a bottle of water. I waited for the burn to take me. The numbness would be coming soon.
I wandered onto the patio, with the sun hitting it full-force, as the day was drawing to an end. It was going to be a beautiful sunset. Ireland and I hadn’t seen one together. It seemed too romantic, but I was aware she sat out there to watch the sun disappear beyond the water’s edge each night. We were growing more comfortable with each. After the tussle on the couch, I would have hoped to bring her out to watch the sunset one night. But that would have been too romantic. Something you did with a lover…or a fiancé.
I stumbled down the cement stairs as I took another pull from the bottle. Walking was difficult. I attributed it to the sand. I hadn’t been swimming in the ocean yet. I’d hardly been outside to enjoy the beach. I need to enjoy this place more, I decided. What was I holding out for? I could have gone swimming with Ireland or maybe snorkeling. I heard from Kaye that the snorkeling was amazing, but that again was something you only did with a partner…or a fiancé.
I waded into the water’s edge, carrying the bottle loosely in my fingers. Within the first few feet, a ledge of sand dropped off drastically, and I stumbled forward with the unexpected change in surface under my footing. I fell into the water, shocking myself in the face. I laughed wickedly as I rolled over. I held the bottle of vodka above my head.
“I saved it,” I yelled, before taking another swallow. I stood awkwardly and walked deeper into the subtle waves. I was watching the sun lower slowly. Time stood still. I had the strangest sensation I could feel the earth move for a moment.
It was all too much. Why couldn’t I freeze time? Why couldn’t I go back to the couch? The moment before the phone call, when I wanted to kiss her. She looked at me so willingly, at first. She was ready for me. I had regained her trust. I had gotten too close to her, though. I hadn’t meant to tackle her, but she was teasing me. She had discovered who I was. She might have known from the start, but she didn’t say a thing. She wasn’t using it for her own gain.
Or was she?
She had a fiancé. She was here with me, not at home with another man, but she wasn’t really here with me.
I slipped down onto my knees in the water and let the ocean engulf my chest. Damn that phone call. It all slipped away. She suddenly looked so sad while it was ringing. I realized that she was hiding, but why? She had a fiancé who was worried about her. She was doing the same thing Arturo was doing to Guinevere. She was making some poor man suffer, keeping him in the dark.
Damn woman.
Damn Arturo.
Arturo was coming home. My aimless thoughts changed focus. Arturo would be there in a few weeks. Undetermined. Kaye had said. There were so many unanswered questions. I was so angry. I was so excited. I was so nervous.
I closed my eyes to the sensation of the waves lapping around me. Salty water ebbed and flowed against my chest, licking at my skin that prickled at the thought of Ireland’s hands against me. Taking one more swing from the bottle, I let it rest in my hand as I lay back in the buoyant waves. I stared up at the changing color of the sky while I floated. The sun was fading in the background. Dark blue followed close behind. Dark blue, like Ireland’s eyes.
Damn it.
I had let the open bottle slip under the water and my next swallow was full of salt water. My body began to flounder and flail as I coughed, choked, and coughed some more. I spit the salty mixture out of my mouth and it started a chain reaction. I vomited in the water. I tried to get away from it and fell, face first again, into the soothing water.
Warmth washed over me. The water wasn’t deep, but my legs didn’t want to work. I was drifting. I was flying. It felt so peaceful and I opened my eyes. They burned from the salt, but I watched my shadow reflected on the bottom of the sea. It was an outer body experience and I let the water push me, until I felt something tugging me, pulling at my limp body.
“Tristan? Oh my God, Tristan. What have you done?”
Her voice filled my ears as I came up from the depths. She flipped me over, trying to hold my head above the ocean. I spit and coughed, and had the vague sensation of being dragged backward in halting motions. She had her arms under my armpits, and she grunted as she pulled me through the force of the water. My feet were dangling in the sand below.
“What. Are. You. Doing?” she huffed.
“And. What. Is. This?” She reached for the bottle in my hand, but I pulled it away from her, rolling my body, so I was face first in the water again.
She fell backward, slipping under me, as I spun over again. She must have hit that sandy edge, as she sat on the gritty ledge of sand, chest deep in water. I was settled between her bent legs, hovering between them. She had her hands wrapped around my chest and her breasts were pressed into my back.
“What are you doing?” she demanded again, angrily.
“What am I doing? What am I doing?” I emphasized each question differently. One was to repeat her, the other to question myself.
“What are you doing is a better question, my Irish Isle?” I slurred.
“What do you mean?”
“Stop playing coy with me, Irish. You knew who I was, now I know who you are.”
“What do you mean?” she said softer, her body stiffening behind me.
“You’re somebody’s fiancé,” I spit. I tossed the bottle up onto the beach behind her as I twisted to face her. The alcohol was a loss.
She still sat on that bump of sand, with her knees bent, legs spread. I slid between them in a push-up style, letting my legs float behind me as waves crashed over my back. My face was level with her breasts.
Damn small breasts.
“You’re engaged, huh? Forget that detail, Irish Isle?”
“Stop calling me that. And I’m not engaged.”
“Got a fiancé, I hear?”
“What?” she responded with a deep swallow.
I remained silent; keeping my narrowed eyes on her, as I pushed back, then let myself be forced toward her with the forward movement of the tide.
“It’s complicated,” she said, resolved, looking away from my glare.
“Oh, I bet it is, Irish. And just when were you going to tell me you were engaged?”
“Stop saying that. I’m not engaged.”
“After I kissed you, or before?” I growled, ignoring her.
She gasped.
“After I tried to get in your pants, or before?” I shouted.
“Are you drunk?”
“What do you think?”
“Not again,” she mumbled, as she hung her head.
“Not again what, Irish? Afraid I’ll attack you? Newsflash, I don’t do girls who are engaged.”
“Stop it,” she cried. Literally, her eyes were filling with tears. “I’m not engaged. It’s complicated. He isn’t my fiancé. He isn’t even like a boyfriend. I don’t know what a boyfriend’s supposed to be, but I’m sure it’s not him. You just… I told you, you won’t understand.”
“Right. Thank goodness you mentioned that before I kissed you. I don’t steal from other men.”
“It’s not like that. You wouldn’t be stealing. Anyway, you’re such a player, why do you care? Upset that you, actually, did get turned down by a girl? ‘It’s not you. It’s me,’” she growled in my face.
I moved my body closer to her, letting the waves push me forward. My hands under the water, dug into clumps of sand, and balanced me between her legs. I could open my mouth and nip her breast, if I wanted to. I could lick between those small breasts, if I wanted to. I could slip a hand up her leg and take her under the water with my fingers, if I wanted to. Damn it, I didn’t want to, but I did want to. I wanted her desperately. It had been building for days. I’d had a hard-on more times than not, when she was around, because she was playful and flirtatious when she let that guard down. But this?
“You’re engaged,” I snarled again, my voice sad. I gave in. I leaned forward and kissed the exposed skin between her breasts.
She pushed me back. “I should have let you drowned,” she whispered, as the tears slipped from her eyes. She lifted herself off the sandy ocean bottom and turned her back to me. I reached for her ankle before she exited the water, but she was too fast and my reflexes were too slow. She ran away from me.
Chapter 12
[Tristan]
A thirst for power on another shore
I flipped onto my back and balanced my elbows on the sandy ledge to anchor myself in the shallow water. I ran a hand over my soaked hair, slicking it back, and mindlessly watching the sunset. Time moved slowly and my body turned cool, despite the warm ocean water. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been sitting covered by waves. It was gradually sobering me up, as the sky grew dimmer, but not completely dark.
My elbows held me against the gritty, pebbled bottom and my legs stretched forward. I felt like a little kid in an extra-large bathtub. I cursed myself for wishing I was in a tub with a woman. I needed to get the number for that Estella from Kaye and drown myself in something other than water or booze for the night. I needed the warmth of a woman to rid my mind of another.
When the sun finally sank behind the watery horizon, I rolled onto my stomach and pushed up to stand. I glanced up to the house to find Ireland sitting in one of the chairs, facing the fallen sun. She balanced a glass of wine in her hands and stared without focus at the horizon. I slowly climbed the short set of steps to the raised patio. Ireland didn’t even look in my direction. She was wrapped in a towel around her chest, across her breasts, covering her bikini. I noticed another towel on the glass patio table, and took it as a sign of her kindness toward me. I didn’t deserve it, though, even if I was the one angry at her.
I sat in the metal patio chair next to her, prepared to ignore her. I would need to get a room at one of the resorts, if she stayed. I couldn’t stay here with her. It would be too awkward. I didn’t know what she was running from, or who, but I didn’t need to be involved in her trouble. I had enough of my own.
“I’m not engaged, not yet,” she practically whispered, defeat in her tone. I didn’t want to hear this, but her voice froze me. It sounded distant, as if disembodied from her. She didn’t look at me, only continued to stare forward at the ocean.
“I’ll tell you the story. You’re probably drunk enough it will bore you to sleep, or you won’t remember anyway, so what will it hurt to tell you, right?”
I wanted to respond to her mean words with my own sarcasm, but I kept silent. I was curious about her story. I wanted the truth.
“My mother comes from a matri-lineage. Do you know what that means? A long line of women. My great grandmother was a famous actress, who started her own modeling company named, Trinity. She was married to a hurtful man. She formed a heritage estate, because of him, that provided each woman in her family to inherit the company and any fortune directly. Not the men. She wanted the women to be provided for, without needing a man.
Somehow that translation got lost on my mother. She inherited the company from her mother, who inherited it from her mother. She married a weak man with loads of money and wasn’t happy. She turned from an independent woman to a needy female. She’s become obsessed with saying that I need a man, and my future will be set, without seeing the disconnect between the two.”
She paused to sip the red wine in her glass. I almost asked if it was from my precious cases. I didn’t care about her needing a man as a husband and settling her future, but I remained silent.
“I don’t see what the big deal is. The fortune is set from woman to woman in my family, and one day it will be mine. My great grandmother was an only child, who had only one female child, who had another only child that was female, until my uncle was born. He was my grandmother’s miracle baby. Seven years younger than my mother. Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t inherit anything when my grandmother died. The fortune went to my mother.
My mother loved her younger brother, though, and she set him up with some money when he ran away to New York City. That money only aided him in getting into tons of trouble when he was in college. My father eventually cut my uncle off, and one of my uncle’s friends had to bail him out of some serious infractions. My uncle felt indebted to his friend.
Eventually, my father needed money for some secret purpose and went to my uncle, who had developed a lucrative business in illegal substances. I’ll never know why he didn’t go to my mother, but he didn’t. She found out, anyway. My parents feel beholden to Marshall, my uncle. My mother still feels guilty that she inherited everything, and the estate prevents her from giving it to anyone but me.”
She finished her wine in one long swallow and looked into the empty glass as if it held some answers for her. I didn’t speak. I knew a Marshall, but it couldn’t possibly be the same man, despite the uncommon name.
“My uncle decided that to cover the debt owed to him by my parents, I should marry his friend. This covers his debt to his friend. The marriage would be a merger of sorts. Marshall enters into a more reputable business or uses that business connection to help support his current illegal practices. I’m the price and the prize.”
I felt sick. This couldn’t be happening in our modern day and age: an arranged marriage. Her uncle had to be an older gentleman, at the youngest in his forties, which meant his friend was, as well.
“My intended isn’t a terrible man. He’s rather kind, when he wants to be. He lavishes me with gifts and compliments. Publicly, he likes the attention he is gaining from having the daughter of a former famous model. My mother is Isa Ireland. Ever hear of her?”
Hear of her, I thought. I whacked off to pictures of her when I was a young teenager. Isa Ireland was an Irish beauty with dark hair and dark eyes. Her wild curly hair was a temptation, in and of itself. I didn’t dare admit what I had done to myself with fantasies of Isa to her daughter.
I was about to ask her a question regarding herself
, when she began again.
“Everyone gets what they want. Marshall makes a business deal. His friend gets the girl. My mother satisfies her brother, and my father gets off the hook. I, however, get nothing. I get a marriage to a man that’s too old for me, and a fortune once my mother dies, which will be years, as she’s only in her forties. But I’ll be set for life,” she sarcastically spat the last words, and twirled her wineglass between her thin fingers.
She sighed heavily and paused a few minutes. She didn’t appear to have more to say, but the weight of her words was heavy on her shoulders. She didn’t care for this plan to save the debts of foolish adults. I suddenly didn’t like the plan either. I didn’t know what to say to her, though. I didn’t have any answers, not that she asked any questions. She seemed quite resolved that at twenty-one, this was her fate.
She stood when I didn’t respond. She probably thought I had fallen asleep, like she accused me of. Maybe, she thought I wasn’t interested in the story, by my silence. In fact, I was quite the opposite. She never looked at me as she spoke. It was like she was telling the story to the warm tropical night and no one else. As if the truth of that painful situation could be buried by the dark sky.
She was walking passed me, when I gently grabbed her wrist. I was trying to be as careful as I could. I wanted her to stop, without me physically forcing her. She did pause and I felt her blue eyes on my hand around her thin wrist. My thumb rubbed back and forth over her vein before using my other hand to caress up her forearm. I didn’t move any other part of my body as she stood next to me.
“I don’t know what to say,” I spoke huskily.
“You don’t need to say anything. I just wanted to explain to you that I’m not engaged. He hasn’t asked me yet. That’s part of what I’m doing here. Avoiding it. I don’t want him to ask me, and then maybe it won’t happen.”
I nodded as I kept rubbing my large hand up and down her forearm, softly stroking my fingertips down her cool skin. My own skin had grown cold as I sat in my wet clothes in the evening air, but I was so riveted by her story, I didn’t dare move. In fact, it might have been her story that made me cold inside.
