Surrender to You

by Shawntelle Madison

  I’d fucked up big time in more ways than one. During the whole trip down the hallway, I sucked in my breaths. Anything to keep myself from crying or letting what happened between Tomas and me get to me. Good Lord, I should hold a master’s degree in denial. I’d hang up that plaque right beside my bachelor’s degree in cruelty.

  Why did you drink that vodka, Carlie? I asked myself.

  Because I wanted our time together to be sacred. Like it used to be.

  When we were together, vanilla vodka came first. Then around three or four A.M. we’d have strawberry-covered buttermilk pancakes. And finally, before the sun rose, I’d make a run for it like a thief in the night.

  No more pancakes now that I had a new diet as of a few weeks ago. Not a new diet, I reminded myself, a lifestyle change. That was what my oh-so-expensive private doctor in the U.K. had to say.

  Just look in the mirror, Ms. Jason, Dr. Stanger had said with little sympathy. The life you’re living right now leads to malnourishment and pain.

  In the elevator, I clenched my teeth as another wave hit. Dr. Stanger wasn’t joking. Every poor judgment on my part now had a price.

  Tomas immediately came to mind. Oh, the irony.

  Two years ago, I didn’t even blink when it came to eating gluten. Give me bread, pasta, or the like, and I’d eat it. Being picky wasn’t an option growing up. I was used to cheap boxed meals with macaroni and processed meat. Hard blocks of bread you had to work hard to eat. As a kid, I ignored the minor stomachaches. There was never enough to eat, so half the time I assumed the pain was just hunger.

  Little did I know I was a bomb waiting to go off.

  I was finally outside the hotel and the fresh air eased the discomfort a bit. Maybe it was the space I’d put between Tomas and me.

  Instead of catching a cab, I walked until I reached an intersection I didn’t recognize. A bus stop bench drew my eye. It reminded me of a summer day ten years ago. On that day, the NYC weather had been milder than usual, so I couldn’t wait to escape my foster home with Sophie, Penny, Griffin, and my other friends. We normally roamed the streets of the Bronx, but since the heat wasn’t baking us to a crisp, we took the 6 train down to Manhattan so we could hang out in Central Park.

  We usually followed the paths and people-watched. Since we never had much in terms of pocket money, we just hung out.

  Except that particular day.

  Penny had somehow smooth-talked her way into a grocery-bagging job, so she had a few bucks for snacks. Namely, some brain-freeze-inducing snow cones. Since she supplied the cash, I was given the fun job of fetching it.

  “Don’t get me grape to be spiteful,” Penny said to me before I left.

  “You’ll take grape and like it, bitch,” I replied. The walk to the snow cone stand and back wouldn’t take me long. Less than ten minutes later, I reached the intersection at Seventy-third Street, clutching a box full of snow cones. There wasn’t much in terms of traffic, but the cab drivers today seemed determined to run down anybody who ventured out into the street. While waiting for the light, I plotted how I’d tease Penny.

  “Where did you get those?” someone beside me asked. His accent was rather thick. Maybe French.

  I turned to my left to see a tall guy with his hands stuffed in his wrinkled jeans pockets.

  He was a foreigner and I’d seen plenty of them. To visitors with cash to blow, we were just a tourist attraction.

  My elbow moved to indicate back the way I came, but I paused when I saw how cute he was. You couldn’t walk around NYC without bumping into a model, so I’d seen plenty of beautiful people, but this guy was gorgeous. He had the kind of blemish-free, sun-kissed skin you wanted to touch, bright brown eyes, and a smile that I couldn’t help but return.

  “You plan to cross the street?” he asked, his smile growing wider.

  I glanced over to see the walk light was about to change to red.

  “Shit.” I’d dawdled way too long holding melting food.

  “We can make it.” He grabbed my snow-cone box and we sprinted across the street. I squealed as irate NYC drivers had to hit the brakes. I was breathless with laughter by the time we made the curb on the other side.

  “That was so fucking stupid,” I finally managed to blurt, as he handed back the snow cones. I was still smiling, even when a passing cab driver cussed at us.

  Without blinking, the guy beside me yelled back in a language I didn’t recognize. We started walking, and for a moment, I waited for him to walk away. He just kept on going.

  “What are you doing?” I said.

  He grinned and my insides turned to goo. “I’m still waiting to find out where you got those snow cones.”

  “Oh.” I jerked my chin back the way we came. “Rich’s Snow Cones. Can’t miss it.”

  He nodded. We were still walking, and I tried to stop myself from looking down at my torn T-shirt and failed. My jean shorts weren’t that nice, either.

  The entrance to the park loomed ahead. I had to say something or go crazy. “What did you say to that driver?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing good for a lady’s ears. Especially a pretty ginger like you.”

  I laughed, ignoring his compliment. He thought I was a lady? “No, really. What did you say?”

  “I said he shits out of his mouth instead of his ass.”

  “Hi-larious. Was that French or something?” We were almost to the park now.

  “Portuguese.”

  I nodded. “I guess that means you’re from out of town.”

  “You could say that, Gingerbread.”

  I scoffed. “Gingerbread? The name’s Carlie.”

  He chuckled. “I rather like gingerbread.”

  My friends waited around a dark green park bench. I tried to think of something witty to say, but came up with nothing.

  When I reached my crew, it was Griffin who noticed him first. “Who’s this?”

  I glanced at him and he still had that beautiful smile.

  “It’s Tomas,” he said.

  Just thinking of his carefree grin made my heart flutter. We were fools back then. Everything was simple and we fell head over heels with ease.

  I finally hailed a cab. I had too much to do today to let myself sink into the past.

  But I knew I’d fail. I’d head back to my room and curl up under the covers until my mistakes, both present and past, faded.

  —

  A few hours’ rest was good for the soul. For a stomachache from hell, anyway.

  As much as I wanted to enjoy lying in bed all day, I had an address to visit, and I’d waited over twenty-five years for this moment. Finding Frank and Patricia Hall had been one of the most exhausting things I’d ever gone through. The process began with an easy enough request five years ago to see my birth certificate. After that, my tedious search on the Internet began.

  I was hopeful.

  But the sheer number of folks with those names was staggering. To make things even more fun, my parents never formally got married. My birth mom merely changed her last name to match his. I got nowhere fast until I saw Tomas four years ago in Amsterdam and I vented about wanting to find them. Fast-forward to this year. A few months ago, a courier rang my bell in London and handed me a single piece of paper with an address in South Boston.

  The very same address I stood in front of right now. So far, I had yet to leave the curbside and approach the single-story white colonial. I was finally here, but I couldn’t make myself cross the patchwork front yard. The run-down appearance of the place made my heart fall a bit. Was this home the reason I was taken away? Or had my parents given me away?

  I tried to shake the sinking feeling aside and forced myself to move. With increasingly sure steps, I approached the porch. Nothing would stop me from knocking on that door.

  Tomas

  “Good morning, Mr. Goodfellow,” a security guard said with a curt nod.

  Since Carlie had run away, I went straight from the hotel to my workplace: the Goodfellow Towe
r Hotel. Might as well make some money. I had tried to go back to sleep and failed. I even ate the breakfast that had been meant for us to share.

  My employees gave the standard greeting as I walked into my expansive lobby. My gaze flicked from the indoor water garden on my right to the registration desk on my left. The café connected to the lobby had a line out the door. All was well.

  This was just another workday, but somehow I felt different.

  Perhaps it was because Carlie was different this time. Usually, she opened up like a flower that only bloomed in the spring, but this morning she’d run away as if she had something to hide.

  One hour later, I sat in a full boardroom with fifteen pairs of eyes peering at me. One man in particular, with graying hair and wire-frame glasses perched on his nose, stood at the head of the table.

  “How many months until we can find a buyer, Kraven?” I asked, not even attempting to hide the disappointment in my voice.

  Millstadt Kraven’s expression never wavered. After working for the Goodfellow family for over twenty years as VP of U.S.-based operations, he knew every intricate detail. “So far, out of the four companies who have toured the facilities, only one has expressed an interest.”

  Which meant no progress at all.

  The Goodfellow Tower Hotel in downtown Boston was just another project. Unlike my father, who collected hotels like mistresses, I created masterpieces and then sold them at a profit. Maintaining and developing new Goodfellow properties was nice and all—it was my legacy after his death—but I had no desire to add to the empire my British father had valued more than my Portuguese mother. I should be grateful. Even I knew that. But when he’d abandoned me in NYC so he could chase after women and make new deals, it had left me apathetic toward the family business.

  They both had been dead for a while now. All I had left were my aunts and cousins in Portugal. Once my only-child father had his heir with his wife, he didn’t bother with more children. My aunt Daniela tried to keep me in line from overseas, but I kept myself busy.

  Three years ago, I’d begun construction on the Goodfellow Tower here in Boston. My first choice had been a site in London, but I would’ve only been torturing myself. Having an ocean between Carlie and me was for the best. I’d expected to be out of Boston by the time she decided to search for her parents, but she’d taken her time after my investigator delivered the information to her. She’d bought me precious time to escape.

  Unfortunately, nine-figure hotel properties didn’t sell as fast as they used to. Now I was stuck in Boston with her. The idea of leaving and letting Kraven handle the sale, came to mind, but I never surrendered control like that.

  Which meant I had to resist temptation.

  What if we saw each other again? I pushed the idea aside. She was the one who ran away from me. Knowing her, she planned to see her parents, catch up, and then jump on the next flight to the U.K.

  A dull throbbing hit my forehead, but I didn’t move and focused on Kraven’s report. Once he finished, I glanced around the table. Ten folks had already mentally clocked out, perhaps hoping I wouldn’t call on them. The five that were perched on their seats were new hires fresh off the line. Bates, whose receding hairline left him nothing more than a sliver of dyed black hair, appeared ready to give a riveting plan.

  “Solutions?” Might as well see what my board could come up with.

  Eager Bates couldn’t wait to be first.

  “I’m thinking we need focus groups to determine if we need to update.”

  “Next,” I blurted.

  “I’d like a report on our customer service. Based on some initial research, our reviews have gone down in the last quarter. I’d like to discuss this matter with the guest services director and the chef concierge. Are they even here today?”

  Bingo. I turned to Kraven. “Where is the guest services director?”

  Kraven sighed. “That’s a good question.”

  I glanced at each face around the table. “I expect to see progress in two months or I will be reevaluating the effectiveness of this board.”

  One way or another, I was leaving Boston.

  Carlie

  I knocked on the screen door, still giddy with excitement. Soon enough, the emptiness I’d carried around all these years would be filled.

  But no one answered.

  So I waited, counting the cracks in the cement steps and surveying the chipped-off paint. Were they too poor to take care of the place?

  I pulled out my compact and checked my face for the fourth time. I looked just like I had a few minutes ago. The childhood photos I’d brought were still in my purse. Initially, I’d held them, but felt foolish. This wasn’t the time to show up with a handful of baby pics while I was flashing my pearly whites.

  The right thing to do would be to smile—confirm their names—and introduce myself like I’d practiced on the plane.

  Sweat gathered on my back, but I didn’t move an inch from the spot in front of the door. I wanted to be there when my birth mom or dad opened the door. I wanted to be there when my parents’ eyes widened seeing my face.

  But no one answered.

  After ten minutes, I walked around to the side and spotted a window with a gap. With a mighty heave-ho, I hoisted myself up and peered inside.

  Only to immediately fall down after a brief glimpse.

  Nothing. There was nothing but an abandoned house.

  Chapter 5

  Carlie

  I wasn’t sure how long I sat on the porch. Maybe too long for the policeman who drove by twice. On his third lap around the block, he gave me the look. I didn’t exactly look like I belonged.

  I frowned the whole damn time and I was a bit overdressed.

  Before I came, I had these expectations—the whole house would smell like breakfast. That was what I always imagined. Buttermilk pancakes and warm oatmeal for the first course—I always imagined my birth parents were rich, by the way—then another course of biscuits, bacon, and ham cut up in small bite-sized pieces.

  But the house was empty, clearly uninhabited. I’d taken a cab to get here, but now that I didn’t have anything to show for my trip, I began to walk. Might as well save my money.

  According to my smartphone, I had a good five blocks to the nearest subway entrance. Not too bad.

  I should’ve worn running shoes and some comfortable clothes, but I’d wanted to look nice. I’d pictured myself hugging my mom wearing my best bright blue coat. She’d compliment me on the Hermès heels I’d hiked here in.

  My cellphone dinged. Did you meet them?

  I cringed from Tomas’s text message. Why did he have to ask? After years of silence between us, our time together last night still made my skin tingle with pleasure. I even craved the burn on my backside.

  Walking through the neighborhood was bittersweet. I passed a playground and immediately wondered what it would’ve been like if this school had been mine. Would I have played here with friends? Would the woman I was now be different? Not that I didn’t love the lifelong friends I’d made in foster care, but in my fantasies, I imagined that there was something special about childhood friends who grew up knowing each other’s parents. I was just another kid who sat around waiting to be adopted. Folks would come visit my foster home and I’d smile, trying to arrange my unruly curls and wipe away freckles that had no intention of hiding.

  What got me every time was my mouth. Where others were quiet and soft-spoken, I was the bold girl who outright asked people where they lived and if they had a better place than the foster home.

  This particular neighborhood with its single-story colonials and fenced-in yards wasn’t perfect by any means. Signs of graffiti and overgrown grass peppered things here and there, but families had barbecue grills and swing sets, and probably celebrated birthdays and good times together.

  What I wouldn’t give to have experienced that kind of stuff.

  By the time I managed to reach the subway entrance, my feet were killing me. The tr
ip on the Silver Line back downtown was uneventful. Almost deathly silent.

  What are you gonna do now, Carlie?

  Good question. I had no leads and I had no plans to connect with Tomas again. Just seeing that empty house was hard enough. My whole body throbbed at the thought of seeing Tomas. The easy thing to do would be to text him back and tell him my parents weren’t there, but that opened doors I didn’t want opened. Tomas and I were like that. I could still taste the liquor on his lips, smell the spicy cologne on his chest. If I closed my eyes, I could feel his pulse thrumming against my fingertips. Feel the harsh grip of his hands on my hips while he thrust into me again and again.

  My thighs clenched with need, and I bit my lower lip. Being with Tomas always complicated things.

  What if you really make an effort this time? I always asked myself.

  I held back a laugh. We’d both tried that and failed. When two career-driven people are forced into a relationship and have no interest in being tied down, one of them will walk away—and most likely leave the other person bitter and closed off.

  —

  The month passed much faster than I had expected. Twenty-four hours before I had to exit stage left from my hotel, I took stock of what I had on my king-sized bed: fifteen pairs of shoes, ten designer dresses, enough lingerie to open a boutique, and two pairs of jeans. I really had my priorities straight. My fingers ran over the delicate lace of my dark red La Perla bras. Growing up, I couldn’t afford lingerie like this. Time and time again, while looking for work around Manhattan, I’d pass stores and peer inside at the pretty clothes. I had no doubt that someday I’d get what I wanted. I just had to be willing to work ten times harder than everyone else.

  Now I had to let this proof of my success go to keep searching. I still had a return ticket to London sitting in my purse, but I wasn’t ready to cash that in yet. I’d sacrificed so much to come here—money, control of my business, everything I’d worked for was on hold. And I needed cash.

  Let them go, Carlie, I reminded myself. They are just things.