I barely get a clean diaper on him when I feel his presence at the door of the room.
“Go away,” I say over my shoulder.
Does he go away?
Of course not.
In direct defiance of my wishes—which is yet another reason to hate him—Chase comes into the room and stands behind me while I wrestle DJ’s overalls back on.
“He’s going home tomorrow.”
“Huh?”
Moving closer, Chase looks down at the squirming boy who’s reaching out for him now, laughing and resuming his chant but including Chase’s name. “Jace, Jace. Biggun. Biggun.”
“Hey little man.” Chase says, reaching for him and letting DJ wrap his pudgy little hands around his finger.
Picking up the boy forces the connection between him and Chase to be broken. I hold DJ on the hip furthest away from Chase. “What did you say?”
“The social worker called this morning. DJ’s mom has been deemed fit. They’re coming for him tomorrow.”
“No.” I shake my head, holding DJ even tighter to me. “She broke his arm when he was three months old. He can’t go back. Marcy has to do something.”
“There’s nothing she can do. The woman’s gone through rehab. It’s a done deal.”
“That’s not fair.”
Emotions flash across his rugged features as he regards the toddler in my arms. “I know.” His voice is low. Scary.
You know what the fucked up thing is? Chase is only four years older than me. Four years. Another reason to resent him except I’m having a hard time finding a resentful patch in my heart as I see him struggling to keep calm around DJ right now. The two of them showed up at Marcy’s house at almost exactly the same time. One big man, one little one.
That means Chase is the only dad DJ has ever known.
Chase’s inability to show what he’s feeling unravels me and I shove DJ at him before he sees me succumb to the emotions that we’re both feeling. I run out of the room and down the hall to my room, throwing myself on the bed and screaming—silently—into the pillow. The tears that are demanding to be set free will not fall. I won’t let them.
Goddammit!
He’s only a little kid. I’ve seen little kids come and go all my life. Why do I care so much? God! How many times have I come and gone? This is what life is like in the system. I’ve had seven foster families, if you count the Martins, who were the family before Marcy and basically asked for a teenager in order to have a live-in babysitter for their kids.
At least when my parents abandoned me they gave me to the state and didn’t leave me in the hands of a fucked up foster kid.
While I’m lying on my bed, my pillow so thoroughly mashed into my face I’m on the verge of gagging on it, I realize something...
This is not me.
I mean, this was me.
But, I am not this girl anymore.
I take the pillow away from my face and stare at my hands, flipping them over back to front, tracing my life-line and then my heart-line. I can hear the voice of a man from my past—no! Not my past, my future!—telling me there are many breaks in my heart line but that it becomes strong again later in life.
That’s real, right?
That’s not a dream or my imagination talking. It’s real. It happened. I can see his face, his tawny eyes, his dark curls. I met him in Greece. Or...will meet him in Greece. His name is Nicolai...
I sit up and look around at the room. My room. The last real room in the last real home I’ve ever had. There’s the small desk in the corner, the faded peach walls without any of the typical teen posters or decorations. There’s a full length mirror, white dresser and closet. It’s my room but it isn’t real. It can’t be because this is part of my past. It’s a memory or some weird vision or fevered dream, that’s all.
It sure as hell feels real.
I get up and move to the closet, opening the door as if there might be something that jumps out at me. The only thing that jumps out is the black grad dress that I never wear...wore. I touch the strapless black satin remembering clearly the day Marcy helped me pick it out. That was a fun day. I’d never done anything like that before.
“I don’t wear dresses,” I’d complained.
“Says who?”
“Everyone.”
“Who cares what everyone says. The beauty of life is we get to decide for ourselves what we do and what we don’t do. It’s not up to anyone else.”
“That’s easy for you to say, you’re an adult.”
She looked at me in that kind, non-judgmental way that was so Marcy. “I know you haven’t had a lot of choices in your life, Tessa. But you are a smart, beautiful woman and believe me, you will go far if you only figure out who you are and what you want. All you have to do is be the person you want to be. And you’re so close to figuring that out already. I can see it.” The look in her eyes was genuine, like she really believed what she was saying.
“Then,” she continued while searching through the racks of dresses, “let every decision guide you toward your goal of being that person.”
“You make it sound easy.”
“Why does it have to be hard?”
“Because everyone says it is.”
She grinned. “And you really want to believe what everyone has to say? You really think you have to live a certain way? Be a certain person because everyone tells you that?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll tell you, I’ve never met someone as strong as you. You are unique. Since the moment I met you, you have been your own person.”
“Don’t fuck with me, Marcy. I’m a shit and you know it.”
“You’re a teenager. You’re supposed to be a shit disturber at your age. I’ve had enough teenagers under my roof to know. Plus, believe it or not, I was one once.”
“Lies!” I joked.
She twisted her lips to keep from smiling. Another Marcy-ism. Then she pulled a dress from among the masses of discount dresses, the one I’m touching right now. She held it up against me. “Everyone else will be wearing pinks or reds or purple. You will look stunning in this.”
Except I never went to grad.
I couldn’t. I mean, I graduated and all that, I just couldn’t bring myself to go and Marcy never made me, thank God.
I close the door of my closet and look at my reflection. I’m not wearing cut-offs and a t-shirt anymore. My hair is shorter than it was ten minutes ago, like I just got it cut—sort of like I’d done a couple days before my failed grad attempt—and I’m wearing pajamas. There’s a knock at my door and I turn to see Marcy peeking in.
“Happy Birthday.” Her twisty smile wobbles as she glances at the two suitcases sitting open and empty at the end of my bed.
It’s my birthday?
Oh my God.
I remember this day.
This is THE day.
Shit.
“You don’t have to leave today, Tess.”
“State says I do.” The words fall out of my mouth, like I’m reciting a script I’ve memorized.
“Fuck the state.”
For a woman who never drops the f-bomb, her use of profanity has way more impact than mine because I overuse profanity so much. The effect is an immediate choking sensation at the back of my throat and I turn away because I don’t want her to see what’s going on in my throat and on my face. She throws open the door, strides into the room and takes me into her arms.
“This is your home and I love you. You are welcome here anytime, do you understand?”
I nod, clutching her like a life preserver, because I’m pretty sure if I let my tears come, they’ll be so many I’ll actually flood the house and be in danger of drowning myself and everyone else around me.
After a few minutes, I disengage and go back to the closet, open it and start pulling things out.
She watches me in silence. Finally, “Chase said he’ll drive you to the bus station.”
“I can walk.”
; “You’re not walking,” she says, her voice weird and broken. “I gave in on not throwing you a birthday party, I’m not giving in on this.”
“Then you drive me.”
She comes over to me, turns me around—gently—and frames my face, looking directly into my eyes while tears spill down her cheeks. “I can’t. I can’t even say good-bye to you, Tessa, that’s why I’m going to Houston. Right now.” She closes her eyes and more tears tumble down her cheeks. “This house will be empty for the first time in my life. I’m not about to sit around to wallow in it.
“Chase will be here.”
She shakes her head. “Didn’t he tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“He got a job in New York. He starts next week.”
My immediate thought is panic. Chase will be in New York? What the fuck? He can’t be there, that’s my town. Not that I’ve ever been there before but I claimed it first. That’s not fair! What am I supposed to do now? Change my mind? Change the destination I’ve chosen to begin my new life?
I move away from her and sit down at my desk, going through the drawers just to give me something to do so I don’t have to see her cry. “What about other kids, Marce? I thought social services would have a whole bunch lined up.”
“I quit.” She makes this weird half-laugh, half sniffle sound. “I need a break. It’s fucking hard.”
Wow. Marcy has just said fuck two more times than I’ve ever heard her say it before. And in that moment, with her two f-bombs and the uncharacteristic tears, I realize how hard this must be on her. She’s fostered kids since Chase was little. Twenty years of kids coming and going. Falling in love with them only to give them back to broken families.
That means I’m her last.
That thought hits me hard like a line drive to the gut when you’re not looking. I snatch air like it’s in short supply and squeeze my eyes tight to keep everything bottled up. Not that the expression on my face in any way hides my emotions.
Marcy walks over to where I’m sitting and hugs me from behind. Then she whispers something in my hair, something like, “You’re going to be okay. I know you are.” After that she lets me go and leaves. Just like that. The door shuts quietly behind her and footsteps fade softly down the hall.
I hear the back door open and close. The station wagon coughs to life. I can picture her sitting there, her eyes closed, hand on the gear shift, waiting.
I get up and go to the window, holding the curtains back carefully so she won’t see me if she looks at the window. I can see her outline, her head bowed. Then she lifts it, puts the car in gear and backs out of the driveway and drives away. Gone.
Chapter Fifteen – Past (Chase)
The pain is a force, a fucking physical force and it throws me up against the wall, making me careen into my bookshelf and closet, tripping over the items piled on the floor.
I can tell you something right now. The reason foster kids can be shitty is because they are afraid of just this sort of pain. The pain of goodbyes. The pain of uncertainty. Better to make everyone hate you because it makes life way easier when the inevitable goodbyes come. God help you if people should fall in love with you, like Marcy, and make you feel this god-awful, soul-rendering, bone-crushing pain.
“She’s hoping if she leaves, you’ll change your mind and still be here when she gets back.”
Chase is standing in my open doorway, his hair in disarray—like mine—sweatpants riding low on his narrow hips, his impossibly broad and much too muscular chest bare.
His presence taunts me in a way that I cannot manage right now and I stride right up to him, angry, ready to do battle.
And then time stops.
Like something out of an old black and white movie, the edges around the perimeter of the scene go fuzzy. Everyone freezes. My present-self steps away from the situation, from the youthful body of my past-self and takes everything in. I have no idea what’s happening and how it is that I am reliving my youth, but I do recognize very clearly that at this moment I have been given a rare and wonderful gift. I have been given the opportunity to relive my past but to do things differently. I have the wisdom and knowledge of experience from all the years in between then and now to alter my behavior and my decisions.
God!
Isn’t this everyone’s greatest wish? To go back in time and to do things differently?
If I only knew then what I know now...
Is there anyone out there who hasn’t said that phrase? Thought it? Wondered it?
This is one of those moments.
I am standing here at a crossroads in my life where I am about to do something that will impact the rest of my life and I can change it. I can make a different decision and alter my future. If I want.
Wow.
I touch the face of my eighteen-year-old self, trying to erase the scowl directed at the man standing half-naked in the doorway.
If I could say something to her, impart the wisdom of years, what would it be? What would I say? Should I tell her not to do what she’s about to do?
Because I know exactly what she’s about to do.
I glance back at Chase. His hand is frozen halfway through his mussed hair, his biceps flexed in natural motion, completely unaware of the effect he’s having on my young hormonal body. What would I tell him, if I could? Should I tell him to be stronger? To hurt me? To deny his feelings for the sake of my eighteen-year-old-self?
The tension in this moment is thick and murky. I know what is about to happen between these two, I know it like I know the heart line on the palm of my hand is broken. This moment is a scene I’ve played over and over in my mind. This moment shapes the next chapter of my life.
Because of what happens right now, I never get over Chase. It’s the reason I finally called him up a year after arriving in New York and asked him to meet me for coffee—just to say hello. Coffee turned into lunch and then a walk in Central Park and before we knew it, we were back in his tiny apartment—which was so posh compared to the hole in the wall I was staying in.
Marriage came ten months later before I even turned twenty. God. I was so young. So stupid.
And it all started right here. Right now. The pain of the whole relationship still courses through me
“What should I do?”
My eighteen year-old self has turned to me, her eyes huge, her face pale. “I’m so confused about him. Tell me what to do.”
I take her hands—my hands—and squeeze them. I honestly don’t know what I’m going to say until the words come out of my mouth. “Trust yourself,” I say. “There are no mistakes.”
A lone tear trickles down her cheek.
“You’re going to be okay.” I wipe the tear from her cheek. “You’re going to be happy.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
Like that, I’m back in my body—her body. Like that, I lose myself and am overcome by my eighteen year old self. The anger, the hurt, the pain, the overwhelming feeling of sadness picks me up and carries me over to where Chase is leaning against the doorframe and just like I remember, I touch him.
My palms press flat against his chest. Still at first. Absorbing his warmth and strength, hoping—maybe—that some of his confidence will pass through into my hands and then into me to help me get through this monumental moment, this crossroads and the uncertainty of it all.
I’m scared shitless and I need his strength.
I don’t look into his face because I’m too afraid, so instead I watch my hands on his skin, marveling at the fact that I’m actually touching him. Finally. I notice how his nipples peak when I graze over them, how his stomach muscles flex unconsciously beneath my touch. He remains completely still as I reach up to his shoulders, the reality of just how tall and strong he is made clear by the extension of my arms. My hands continue up his neck to his face. His jaw is rough with morning beard. I touch him without looking, my eyes closed now, not even sure of what I’m doing but knowing it’s import
ant to somehow memorize this man’s features.
I hate him.
And, I love him.
“Tess?” My name is a questioning caress, deep and low, like the lowest note on an instrument, barely audible.
In my head I say the words, “Make love to me, Chase.” But I don’t say them out loud for fear he’ll deny me. So I tell him with my hands and touch. The fingers that are so used to being clenched in angry fists, feather lightly over his hard male flesh. My ears hear only the sudden intake of his breath when I sweep my hands low, just above the waistband of his sweats. I breathe deep and smell him, his unique scent that is part soap, part yesterday’s aftershave and part Chase. Not wanting to neglect any of my senses, I lean close and press a partially open mouth to his chest, touching his skin with the tip of my tongue.
“Goddammit, Tess.” His words and tone sound reproachful but he doesn’t move so I don’t either. I stay exactly as I am, my mouth pressed to the indent of his chest, my hands resting on his hips. My tongue defying the motionlessness of my body by continuing to taste, resulting in a reaction—finally—from Chase. He grabs my shoulders and pulls me away so he can look at me.
His eyes are wild. His lips are parted and swollen. His breath comes in quick, hard panting breaths.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“This.” Before he can do anything about it, I snatch the hem of my pajama top, carrying it up and over my head.
“Don’t,” Chase says, yet his body language says something else altogether. The pressure of his fingers around my shoulders tells me to stay put. The fire in his dark eyes as his gaze flicks down to my breasts and back to my face, tells me to please touch him again and to let him touch me too. The rapid intake of breath tells me to move my hands around to the front of his sweats, untie the cord and slip my hands beneath the material. And the slight sheen that appears on his belly tells me he likes the way my hand feels wrapped around his impossibly hard cock.
The fact that his cock is impossibly hard also tells me something.
It tells me to drop to my knees, pull his pants and shorts down and to taste him, to fulfill the desires of that oh-so-important sense and to answer the age old question, what does Chase Walker taste like? I need to know so I can remember absolutely everything about him before I leave.
[Invitation to Eden 24.0] How to Tempt a Tycoon Page 19
