Red Hot Lovers: 18 Contemporary Romance Books of Love, Passion, and Sexy Heroes by Your Favorite Top-Selling Authors

by Milly Taiden

  26- Oz

  For two days, Adrienne kept to herself and spoke to no one. Both Nicolas and I attempted to call on her, but she said nothing when we came to her door.

  After she threw herself into my arms, she asked me about what happened to me. Instead of lying to her, I told her about the visit with Angelique and Anne, and all that followed. She watched me in quiet grief and when I finished, she asked me to leave her to her thoughts.

  It was then she turned to her solitude, locking her door against those who cared for her; against life itself. The urgency I felt to resolve the issue of the Fontaines subsided temporarily, because I knew she was safe with Nicolas and me.

  Rather than sit listlessly outside of Adrienne’s door, begging her to see me, I spent time on the gallery outside of Nathalie’s old room. Richard brought me the newspaper with my breakfast after I took a shower. By lunch I would pick up Adrienne’s copy of The Brothers Karamazov and read until the time Condoleezza brought my dinner.

  Strangely, I thought of Adrienne very little during this time, only that I would no longer lie to myself about the love I felt for her. I hoped her solitude was because she felt the same. Maybe she even understood the feeling was not a new one, but remade from an old and very serious one.

  Instead, I thought of my job, and my father and mother. I would go back to work as soon as I resolved things here. How long that would take, or even what it would entail, I didn’t yet know, but the firm was where I belonged. It was no longer a sense of family duty and honor which made my career important to me. This pivotal shift in my thoughts was a mystery that did not require solving. The awareness I was a good lawyer was as straightforward as my feelings for Adrienne.

  My father once told me acting with integrity was the very thing that made a man great. I had always tried to do the right thing. More so than anything else, I had wanted my father to realize this. I understood now my father would acknowledge it only when I no longer needed him to.

  I was not afraid of what would happen when Angelique played her hand. My self-confidence was brimming. I knew I could handle whatever was thrown in my direction.

  On the evening of the first day, a Thursday, a tropical storm blew through the area and kept everyone indoors. The rain continued into Friday evening, and I sat on the gallery, watching the trees bow and flex in the squall.

  I heard her come up behind me, but I didn’t turn around. Instead, I said, “There’s something I must tell you.”

  She knelt down behind where I sat in the wicker chair and rested her face softly against the back of my neck. “You haven’t slept,” she whispered.

  “No.”

  “I wish you would.”

  “No need.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “For not talking to you. For leaving you here, like this.”

  “Don’t be. I haven’t seen a storm this beautiful in years.”

  She stood and moved around to the front, to face me. My eyes were tired and bloodshot, my face unshaven. “What did you want to tell me?” She sunk down in front of me on the floor of the gallery, between my legs, and rested her head against the side of my thigh as she looked at me. This intimacy seemed natural.

  I looked down at her and smiled. “You’re still not afraid of the rain, right?”

  I took her by the hand and led her out into the garden, through the old fields behind the house. We ran like children through the rain, just like we had not so long ago on St. Charles Avenue, at dusk. We both laughed as our feet splashed through the giant puddles of mud in the grass, and our hair and clothes became laden with rain drops.

  We ran until we reached the farthest outbuilding, a curing shed not used in over a hundred years. It was empty aside from cobwebs and insects, but it was the best privacy we could find anywhere on the grounds. I wanted no interruptions, nothing that would deter me from my train of thought and saying all I needed to say. I hadn’t forgotten Angelique and her family could show up at any time.

  Adrienne climbed up on to a small table, the only piece of furniture which remained. I struck a match and lit the small stove that, to our luck, had old logs in it. Accompanied by much popping and cracking, the dim light lit up the otherwise dark shack, and revealed only a couple of leaks, over in the corner.

  Though it was August, the breeze from the river and rain brought a chill to the room. She wrapped her arms around herself and drew her knees to her chest, as her wet hair spilled over the left side of her face.

  I was no longer nervous or anxious. I would simply tell her and then await her reaction.

  “There is so much I need to tell you, too,” she said to me, her eyes radiant and full of energy.

  “Me first.”

  “Of course,” she said with diplomacy. “There’s time for both of us to talk. Are you going to sit down?” She motioned toward the space beside her.

  I shook my head. “I’ve been sitting for two days.”

  The room lit up with white light, and moments later thunder cracked overhead, closer than it had been when we left the house.

  “I haven’t been entirely honest with you, Adrienne. There are good reasons why I was unwilling to help you, and why I wasn’t the best person to handle your case.”

  Adrienne said nothing. She watched me as if she knew what I would tell her, and was ready to finally hear it.

  “I was truthful when I told you I was Nicolas’ friend. I’ve known Nic nearly all my life. But I also knew you and your three sisters.

  “I was attracted to Giselle, and friendly to Lucienne, and even Nathalie later on, but it was always different with you. You were the younger sister I never had, with intelligence and wit I was jealous of, though I was five years older than you. You said, did, and knew things most people couldn’t begin to say, or do, or know. You seemed to know that I understood you and, because of this, you always liked me.

  “When you were sent away to school at thirteen, I went through a period in my life where I used women to try and fill a void in me I didn’t understand at the time. I could romance you by saying the void was created when you went away, but truthfully, when you left I barely noticed. You were just Ade, my best friend’s little sister, and a child I thought of only in the moments you were right in front of me, asking for help on a science project or book report. By the time you returned, I was not the same person you knew.”

  Adrienne focused her gaze at me, not missing a single word.

  “Your sister, Nathalie, was the one who changed all that. I could say many wonderful things about all of your sisters, but Nat kept the four of you together.

  “I knew nothing of what she was doing at the time, only later realizing how skillfully she had prepared me for you. She alone understood how special you were. I could not go from the life I had been leading, into a life with anyone else, without first understanding the beauty of friendship. That was exactly what Nathalie gave me.

  “She knew and loved you the way everyone knew and loved you. She also understood what her sisters needed to flourish, and at some point in time, she decided I was exactly what you needed.”

  I looked for a reaction in Adrienne, but she sat and watched me with the same steady expression.

  “Nat spent several weeks with me, nurturing qualities I let go dormant in my college years. I enjoyed talking with her. It was a gift to have someone understand everything I said, and who could maybe even relate to my perspectives. Her motives, whether personal or altruistic, are still unknown to me. I only know that the active part of this friendship ended when you returned home at the age of sixteen and came to my house for dinner.”

  I recounted the essential facts of that evening. She continued to watch me without surprise, but with a sad smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

  “I’ll never forget the way you looked back at me as you left and told me that you loved me. I knew at that moment, when your eyes met mine, I could never be happy without you.”

  Thirst
, and hesitancy, caused me to stop. I was unsatisfied on both accounts, as there was no water in the shack, and she continued to sit without reaction. Lacking direction, I went on.

  I told her of how we spent three months together, stealing time at every opportunity. How she came to my house daily after school and would spend the night when her father was away on business. How Cordelia never told Charles, enabling our continued rendezvous. I talked of the weekends in the Quarter, the blissful ignorance of two people unaffected by anything, and how they came to a catastrophic end when her father could no longer ignore our relationship.

  For over an hour I relayed our past to her, pacing the room, sharing my memories of any story which came to mind; both in parts, and wholes, or however it happened to come to me. She listened in rapt attention, never speaking.

  “I never forgot how young you were, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered Adrienne, nothing except you.”

  Finally, I revealed to her the part which pained me the most: how she had disappeared and left me with nothing but despair.

  Adrienne betrayed herself when first one tear, and then many, slid down her cheeks.

  “Please say something,” I begged. My voice was desperate and annoyed, but not with her.

  It was then her sobs broke loose, and I went to her. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Please, please don’t be upset, Adrienne.”

  She looked up and I saw her tear-stained face; it was the very same face that appealed to me the night she told me about the bullies in Brussels.

  “Oh Oz, I knew, I knew,” she cried and held me all the tighter. “I knew it when I called you.”

  “I don’t understand...”

  “I knew it was you. Oz, I haven’t been completely honest with you, either, but please don’t be angry because I did it for many of the same reasons.”

  It was apparent she would go mad if I didn’t reassure her. “Adrienne, listen to me. I spent years convincing myself I no longer needed you, and until two nights ago, I still believed that.”

  I touched her face; her chin fell neatly into the palm of my hand. “Apparently there is something special about you that does not allow me to be unforgiving. So tell me. Tell me anything and I will understand, whether I want to or not.”

  Her chin quivered. “I started to have some memories a while ago. They were in the form of dreams. And I started to remember you, and when I called you… I don’t know what I was thinking! I knew I had to see you, and to figure it all out, somehow. The more time I spent with you, the more it came back to me, and in the end it was too much. Oh, those phone calls Oz... if only you knew the danger I understood.”

  This came as a great shock. “You knew it all then?”

  “No, not all. But enough to know not pursuing my memory of you would be a mistake.”

  “You’re extremely perceptive. I wonder if you can read everyone’s minds the way you do mine.”

  “Oz-”

  “So what am I thinking now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You do know, and I need to hear you say it. I need to know you understand what I am telling you.”

  “No. I really don’t know.” She looked down, away.

  “Yes you do. If you won’t say it, then you force me to-”

  “No, Oz, not yet! Not now. First let me tell you my side of the story. Let me tell you about how all of this came to be, and why you’re here now, with me, instead of living your life the way you should be. And then, if you still find I'm the same person you're unable to turn away from, I will read your mind with pleasure.”

  I sighed. I could think of nothing she could say, nothing she could do, that would change how I felt. But I knew her story, and the uncovering of a dozen mysteries, was imperative if I was to begin to understand what was happening to us. I had to know, and she was finally ready to tell me.

  “Fair enough,” I agreed.

  ***

  27- Adrienne

  “There is so much I want to tell you, it’s hard to know where to start. I want to back up and begin with the night of the accident, even though it’s painful for both of us.”

  Oz, having been talking and pacing for more than an hour, settled quietly on the table beside her. With understanding in his eyes, he nodded encouragingly.

  “I wish I could tell you everything, but I only recently started to have memories of that night. I know we were driving down to the Gulf for a vacation. I don’t know where Nicolas was, but I remember wishing he'd come along. Obviously, now I am glad he didn’t.

  “I also know I felt conflicted about you and me. I know that might upset you, but try to understand what it was like to be in my shoes. There I was, a sixteen year old girl, in love with a man of twenty-one, who had already finished college, and was going into law school. I felt so overshadowed by what you could be doing with your life, rather than spending it with me.”

  Oz pulled back slightly, and lifted an eyebrow.

  “Don’t look at me like that, Oz. You know I loved you. But I never felt good enough for you.

  “Your parents even staged an intervention not long before the accident. You and I probably talked about this before; it doesn’t seem to be the type of thing I would have kept to myself. I wish I could say it didn’t affect me–remember how we always swore we cared not at all what others thought?–but it did. They reinforced the fears I'd been keeping secret from you all summer. Hearing them from adults I respected only made them more real, and valid.”

  To this Oz resumed his comfortably snug hold, and nodded mutely against her shoulder, indicating he had discussed the conversation with his parents.

  “Back to the night of the accident. We had gotten off to a late start because my father was busy wrapping up his business so we could leave. This put Cordelia in a worse than usual mood; their bickering started in the house, and didn’t end until the accident.

  “Most of what they said was so repetitive I won’t bother repeating it now. But they did argue about something which concerns me greatly, years later. When we neared Abbeville, Cordelia mentioned an ‘Angelique’–threw it in his face, more or less–and that he had been sending her checks. Even made a sarcastic comment about stopping to pay respects. This can’t be coincidence. Oz, I hope when I am done telling you my story, we can find out together.”

  Though he didn’t say a word, Oz’s posture was tense, as his mind assimilated this detail into the larger narrative. The determination in his eyes meant they would find the answers they both wanted.

  Adrienne continued with the few details she remembered of the accident itself, focusing mainly on her terror in the aftermath. Her audience of one gave her hand a gentle squeeze, his eyes reflecting Adrienne's pain, but he did not interrupt.

  “The first few days with the Fontaines are hazy. I recall waking up, seeing them, and feeling only a mild comfort. Any sense of safety was completely eclipsed by the panic in remembering nothing of how I had gotten there, or where I had come from. I didn't know who I was.

  “It was only by chance we discovered my name. I was wearing that gold bracelet you gave me, Oz, the one with my first name in glittering letters. ‘Adrienne.’ It was the only clue at all I had existed before that moment. When they said it out loud, the name felt right, though nothing else did.

  “Angelique and Anne played a very small part in those first days. I knew they were curious, because they came by the small room often, but Jesse would usher them out. ‘She is not yet well,’ he would say. ‘I promise when she is ready for company, I will let you know.’ Jesse had a wonderful bedside manner. It is such a shame he was not able to become a doctor.

  “I floated in and out of consciousness, and when I would wake, his face was always there. I counted on it. I don’t know what I would have done had I woken up and not seen it.”

  Out of sequence, but how she learned it, Adrienne then relayed the details Jesse told her later, about the old man, Amos, who had pulled her from the swamp. Jesse’s horror at the extent of her in
juries, and his patience in nursing her back to health. His tenderness after.

  “I know this is hard for you to hear, Oz. Please know that I didn’t love him then, not the way I had loved you. But I did need him. Imagine knowing nothing else in the world but one person, and you might be able to understand.”

  Compassion filled Oz’s face. It was clear he understood, completely.

  “As I recovered, I expected my memory to slowly return, but it didn’t. There wasn’t even a glimmer. Angelique told me she was checking the local papers, searching for any news of a lost girl of my age, but nothing was ever mentioned. I now know that was impossible; knowing who my family was, it must have been all over the news for months. Heck, she probably talked to the police at some point! I have an idea of why she might have lied to me, but I will get to that later. I still think there is more to it.”

  As Adrienne relayed what life was like with the Fontaines, she realized much of it centered around her growing reliance on Jesse. Wanting to reassure Oz, she interrupted the narrative to explain, “I’m sorry to go on and on about Jesse, but I only want to say that I loved him for many of the same reasons I loved you: his kindness, his sensitivity. But I loved him mostly for how he cared for me. I loved you because you were you.”

  To this, Oz only smiled. While she appreciated his respecting her telling with silence, it left her hoping he understood.

  Adrienne continued her story with details of their daily life, and her interactions with Angelique and Anne, A&A. The routine, the wonderful, the deception she now saw, and how the relationship changed as her bond with Jesse evolved.

  “As time went on, my role in the family became more important. Jesse and I grew closer. I never thought of him as a brother the way I thought of Anne as a sister, but I hadn’t ever thought of him romantically, either. When it finally happened, it was very natural.

  “I won’t dwell on the details. But I will tell you one night we found ourselves talking on the porch after A&A had gone to bed, and he kissed me. It didn’t feel spectacular the way kissing you always had, but it felt right. Of course, I had no memory of kissing you, so I had nothing to measure against.