Tiana (Starkis Family #3)

by Cheryl Douglas

  “It is too late.” She smiled as though she appreciated my support but wasn’t willing to hope for more. “Most professional ballerinas peak in their mid-twenties and their career is over by their late twenties or early thirties. It would take me a long time to get back to the level I was at, and by then, it would be too late. Twenty-seven may not seem old, but it’s a little long in the tooth for a ballet dancer.”

  “I’ve seen you dance with your niece. You light up when you’re teaching Dalia. Maybe you should consider doing that.” When she didn’t respond, I said, “How many years did you dance?”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Were you in any notable productions? Did you perform for large audiences?” I was trying to be objective, questioning her as if she were coming to me as a stranger.

  “Yes, and yes.” She smiled as though recalling fond memories. “I felt so alive on stage, as though that’s where I belonged.”

  “Maybe that is where you belong,” I said, trying to pour gasoline on the fire, to reignite her passion.

  “I told you it’s too—”

  “Too late, I know.” I shook my head. “But you could start your own dance school. With your experience and connections, I have no doubt it would be a success.”

  She looked at me as though she was trying to gauge whether I was serious before releasing the breath she’d been holding. “I don’t know anything about starting a business.”

  “Fortunately your boyfriend does.” I winked at her as I tipped back my beer bottle.

  Poking her cheek with her tongue, she asked, “Since when are you my boyfriend?”

  She was just teasing, so I decided to play along. “Since you ruined me for all other women. You’re stuck with me now.”

  “I am?” She grinned. “I guess I can live with that.”

  I moved to the chair closest to hers. “Baby, I’m serious about this. Let me help you start your own dance school. We’ll find the perfect location and—”

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?” she asked, patting my cheek. “I already have a job, working for my father.”

  “But do you love it?”

  She seemed to consider that before she said, “I like it most days.”

  “But do you love it? Do you jump out of bed anxious to start your day?”

  She giggled. “That depends. If you’re on the other side of the bed, I’d rather stay put.”

  I grinned as I pulled her into my lap. “Good answer.” Nuzzling her neck, I whispered, “I want you to be happy, Ti. Don’t waste your life trying to make someone else happy. Do what’s right for you.”

  She looked pensive as she bit her lip. “You really think I could have my own dance studio?”

  “I’d invest in it.”

  “If I quit my job, my father would never speak to me again.”

  I couldn’t make the decision for her. I didn’t want her to resent me later if things didn’t work out the way I hoped they would. “I’ve always believed I’d rather try and fail than live with regrets.”

  “Easy for you to say,” she muttered. “It doesn’t matter if you fail at something. You couldn’t possibly lose everything.” She was clearly upset with me for pushing this; it was resurrecting dreams she thought she’d buried years ago.

  “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” I asked.

  “I already told you—my father would disown me.”

  “Yeah, and you said he’d disown you for dating me too, yet here you are.”

  “That’s different,” she said, slipping her hand under my T-shirt.

  “Why is it different?”

  “Because,” she whispered, “I already love you. I couldn’t leave you even if I wanted to.”

  Oh wow. She’d caught me off guard with that one and made me fall just a little deeper in love with her, if that was even possible. “I love you too, beautiful.”

  Our kiss was long and lingering, both of us getting lost in our exploration of each other’s bodies.

  Chapter Eleven

  Tiana

  We were lying in bed hours later, after temporarily satiating our craving for each other, when Blake’s suggestion about a career change filtered through my head. Could I really take that kind of risk, knowing that if it didn’t work, I’d have burned my bridges behind me? Things with Blake were new and uncertain. He said he’d help me get my business off the ground, but if things didn’t work out between us, would he bail on me? I could always count on my brothers for support, but I wanted to do this on my own, if at all.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking,” Blake said, long after I thought he’d drifted off to sleep. “And don’t say nothing. I can practically see the wheels turning in that beautiful head of yours.”

  My father’s words that afternoon had stung, mainly because he made me aware of how insignificant my contribution was in his mind. I was giving him the better part of my day, the best years of my life, and he’d basically told me my efforts would never rival my brothers’, no matter how hard I worked.

  “I was just thinking about what my father said to me today. He made it clear how little he values me. I don’t know why I couldn’t see it before.”

  He pulled me closer, running his hand over my bare shoulder and down my arm. “I’m sorry he doesn’t appreciate you, sweetheart. I’ve said it before, Demi’s an idiot.” He must have felt me tense because he added, “I’m sorry. I know he’s your father and you probably don’t want to hear anyone bad-mouthing him.”

  I’d spent most of my life defending my father. I was getting tired of being one of the few people who saw good in him, especially since I wondered whether I’d been fooling myself all along. “If I were to quit my job…” Just saying it made it feel as though someone had released a cloud of butterflies in my stomach. “How would we go about setting up this business? I know the first step is securing a space, but—”

  He kissed my lips, silencing my questions and allaying my fears. “We’d write a business plan to outline your goals and objectives.”

  “I’ve never written a business plan before.” The idea was flinging me into a whole new and unfamiliar world. I was an art curator, not an entrepreneur. Was I crazy to think I could make this work?

  “Baby, before you freak out, it’s not as hard as it sounds. In fact, it can be fun.”

  “If you say so.” My mind raced as I considered all of the things that could go wrong.

  “I have an idea,” he said, inching back on the king-size bed so he could see my face. “Why don’t we go away this weekend? Take three or four days to strategize, work on this business plan, and have a little fun at the same time?”

  “What did you have in mind?” I loved the idea of spending more time with him, but the prospect of turning his business idea into something concrete, even on paper, was scary as hell.

  “How about Vegas? We could fly out on my private jet on Friday morning and return Monday night. What do you think?”

  “That’s a pretty long flight for just a few days,” I said, thinking about the logistics. My father would demand to know why I needed the time off, and I’d have to lie to him about why I was going away and who I was going with. I hated lying, but my father often backed me into a corner with his irrational need to monitor my life.

  “Hey, you wanna stay longer?” he asked, grinning. “I’m definitely game.”

  That’s what life with Blake would be like: fun, spontaneous, unpredictable. I supposed that being able to call all the shots without having to answer to anyone was one of the perks of being obscenely wealthy.

  “I wish I could,” I said, thinking of how nice it would be to escape with him, though Las Vegas wouldn’t be my destination of choice. I’d want to escape to a sandy private beach where clothes were optional and I didn’t have to share him with anyone.

  He closed his hand around the back of my neck and kneaded my taut muscles. “We can do anything we want to, sweetheart. Just say the word, and I’ll make it happen.”

  I
got caught up in his eyes as I imagined our future together. When he said he could make anything happen, I knew he wasn’t exaggerating. I had to admit that being with a powerful man was a turn-on. Most of the guys I’d dated were students struggling to finish their degrees. One had been a stock broker and another a banker, both at the start of their careers and with a lot of corporate ladder-climbing ahead of them.

  But I didn’t want to get caught up in the excitement of Blake’s world. I wanted to keep both feet firmly planted on the ground while we navigated what I knew would be a treacherous path, especially if my father had anything to say about it.

  “You’ve already made an enemy of my father,” I reminded Blake. “He blames you for luring Deacon and Damon away from the family business. That’s the main reason he hates you so much.”

  Blake laughed. “I have a feeling that’ll pale in comparison to how much he’ll hate me when he finds out I’ve taken away his baby girl.”

  I wished I didn’t have to choose between my inexplicable bond with Blake and a relationship with my father. But I knew in my father’s eyes, if I loved Blake, I couldn’t possibly love and respect him.

  “I’m sorry,” Blake said, palming my cheek. “I don’t mean to make light of it, baby. I know how hard this is for you.”

  “He hasn’t given me a choice. Now that I know how irrelevant he thinks I am to the future of Starkis Inc., why stay?” I propped my head in my hand, looking down at Blake, who was lying flat on his back. “Can you believe he actually said that I wasn’t as important to the future of the company as Deacon or Damon because I’d just want to quit when I got married and had babies?”

  “Hmmm.”

  I’d expected a different reaction from Blake. Righteous indignation on my behalf, maybe? “Can you believe he actually said that?”

  Blake tucked one hand under his head, distracting me with his bulging muscles. “I don’t know why you’re surprised he’d say something like that. We all know Demi’s traditional.”

  “He’s a chauvinist pig!”

  Blake’s lips twitched. “Have you thought about what you might want to do when that time comes?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He rolled onto his side, curling his hand possessively over my hip. “We’ve never really talked about this, but you do want to have kids, don’t you?”

  I saw the anxiety etched on his handsome face, and I realized Blake was really serious about a future with me. “Um, sure.”

  “How many kids do you want to have?”

  “At least a couple, maybe more.” I smiled. “More than one, less than five. How’s that for an answer?”

  He grinned before kissing me. “It’s a good answer.”

  “How many kids do you want to have?” It still seemed surreal to me that I was lying naked in the bed of the man who’d been the object of my teenage fantasises, and talking about babies.

  “I always thought I’d like three.” He skimmed the swell of my breast with his soft, full lips, making me shudder. “But I could be talked into having more. As many as you want, in fact.”

  I gripped his shoulder, forcing myself to remain coherent enough to ask the question I desperately need an answer to. “That’s really where you see this going?”

  His head popped up so fast he nearly caught me in the chin. “Don’t you?” When I didn’t respond right away, I saw a flash of annoyance in his eyes. “I’m not playing around here, Tiana. I told you I love you. I want a future with you. If you don’t feel the same way, we’ve got a problem.”

  “I do.” I kissed him to offer reassurance. “Blake, I’ve never met a man I want as much as you. I know we’re going to raise a lot of eyebrows and take a lot of grief for our relationship, but I don’t care. I want to be with you.”

  He wrapped his arms around me so tightly, I had to struggle for breath. “You don’t know how happy I am to hear that, baby.”

  “I think I have some idea,” I said, wriggling out of his tight embrace. “So about Vegas…?”

  “You in?”

  I thought about it for half a second before nodding. “I’m in.”

  ***

  It was girls’ night, and I’d gathered my cousins, Kara and Catia, along with Mia and Eleni. Unfortunately Mia couldn’t drink, so she was sipping on a virgin daiquiri while the rest of us were well past tipsy and on our way to smashed.

  “So are you going to visit the Hamptons while you’re in New York?” I asked Kara.

  Her family had a summer home there. It was where she’d met her first love, Dustin, the boy next door. They’d been madly in love, even planned to marry, until she’d decided that at twenty-one, she was too young to make that kind of commitment.

  “I haven’t been back there in years,” she said, stirring her Long Island iced tea.

  “Seven years?” I asked. That was how long it had been since she’d called off the wedding.

  “I guess.”

  I could tell by the way her eyes drifted around the busy nightclub that she didn’t want to talk about it, but I couldn’t quash my curiosity. My cousin was gorgeous, smart, and successful, yet to my knowledge, she hadn’t had a serious relationship since she and Dustin broke up.

  “Do his parents still own the place next to yours?” I wouldn’t have probed had I been sober, but I’d wanted to ask about Dustin for years.

  “I guess so.” Her gaze collided with mine, and the pain in her eyes made me feel guilty for being so nosy. “My parents stayed there for a couple of weeks last summer. Dustin was there with his fiancée.”

  I covered her hand with mine. “Oh God, I’m so sorry, sweetie. I had no idea.”

  “It’s okay,” she said before taking a sip of her drink. “It was a lifetime ago.”

  Mia and Eleni exchanged a confused look before Mia asked, “What are we missing? Or are we not supposed to ask?”

  “It’s okay,” Kara said, waving dismissively. “We’re all family now, no secrets.”

  Except I was kind of keeping a secret from them: Blake. It wasn’t that I didn’t want them to know, but I hadn’t had a chance to talk to my brothers about my relationship with Blake yet, and I thought the news should come from me, not their partners. I wasn’t as concerned about Damon’s reaction, but Deacon was another story.

  “Dustin’s family has a summer home next to ours in the Hamptons,” Catia offered. “He was Kara’s first love. In fact, they were all set to get married, but this one backed out days before the wedding.” She set a hand on her sister’s shoulder.

  “Days?” Eleni asked, her jaw dropping. “Are you serious?”

  Kara nodded, looking miserable. “What can I say? I was young and stupid.”

  “Does that mean you’d do things differently if you had to do it again?” I asked. That was what I was most concerned about—having regrets about Blake. Being afraid to take a risk and driving him away.

  She brushed her long dark hair off her face with a heavy sigh. “Yeah, but you don’t get a do-over. At least we don’t. He’s moved on, not that he would have given me a second chance. He hates me now.”

  “You don’t know that,” Catia said, putting her arm around her sister. “You haven’t seen or spoken to him in years. You don’t know how he feels about you now.”

  “I know that he hated me then,” Kara said. “And he had every right to. What I did to him was unforgivable.”

  I remembered how torn up my cousin had been about making that decision, but she was so afraid that they were making a mistake, that they were too young to know what real love was. Apparently they’d had it and lost it. I only hoped Kara wouldn’t spend the rest of her life punishing herself for that mistake.

  “You were young, right?” Mia said, squeezing Kara’s hand. “We all made mistakes when we were young.”

  “That’s what I keep telling myself,” Kara said, her slim shoulders slumping. “But it still doesn’t take the pain away. And now…” She closed her eyes before shaking her head. “It’s not like I really
thought there was a chance we’d get back together. But now that I know he’s married someone else, the possibility is off the table.”

  “You don’t know that he’s married her,” Catia said. “Last you heard, they were engaged. Engaged is a long way from being married.”

  Eleni frowned, and I knew she was hoping nothing would happen to derail her upcoming nuptials. I knew that was impossible. My brother was so crazy about her, he’d chase her around the world if she tried to get away from him.

  “I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Kara said, pasting on a fake smile. “I want to know what’s up with you, Tiana. Have you hooked up with that guy your dad hired yet?”

  “Uh…” All eyes were on me, and I knew I had to say something. “No. That’s not going to happen. He’s a nice enough guy, but he’s not my type.”

  “Good for you,” Mia said, winking. “I hope you told Demi that.”

  “I did.” I offered a faint smile before waving the waiter over. I hoped his presence would distract them from talking about my personal life. Tomorrow, I would talk to Deacon and Damon about Blake. Then I could share the news with the girls.

  Once the waiter was gone, Eleni asked, “So how did Demi take it when you told him Chris wasn’t the man for you?” She laughed. “Knowing your father, it couldn’t have gone well. He’s been planning this little union for a long time.”

  “Screw your parents!” Kara covered her mouth when a few people turned to stare. “Sorry, but my parents were the reason I called off my wedding, and I’ve regretted it ever since. Don’t let your father decide for you, Tiana. It’s your life.”

  “I know, that’s what I told him.” I glanced around the table, trying to gauge their state of drunkenness. “In fact, I’m thinking it’s time for me to leave Starkis, do something on my own instead.”

  “Like what?” Mia asked with a wide grin.

  That was what I loved most about my sister-in-law. Aside from how happy she made my brother, she was one of the most upbeat, supportive people I knew. “Well, I’ve been talking to a friend about the possibility of opening a dance studio.” I cringed inwardly, knowing Blake would hate that I’d referred to him as a friend.