Frog Tale

by JT Schultz

  Her heart tightened. Damn her body for not staying numb and unfeeling. “Nothing I wish to share.”

  “Chloe you just received a necklace worth the price of a small car and you tell me there is nothing you want to share.”

  Tears filled her eyes. “I’m not ready to talk about the letter with anyone. I don’t even know whom the gift is from. It doesn’t matter Dad because I hurt so bad right now. I don’t feel bad for what I did to Stella. She threatened Luc, time and time again.”

  “What if Stella had nothing to do with Luc’s disappearance.” He wrapped an arm around her and she only became mildly comforted by the gesture.

  “I don’t believe you. I would hate to think she’s that cruel, but I know from past experience she is.” She gulped back a sob. “Please don’t defend her anymore.”

  “Chloe, maybe one day the truth of what happened to Luc will come out. Go easy on your sister.” He paused. “Why would you think I don’t love you as much?”

  More hot tears rolled down her cheeks. “You didn’t wait up for me last night. You always wait for Georgina and Stella, but not me. I could have come home at three am and you wouldn’t have cared.”

  He frowned. “You don’t believe that do you?”

  “It’s not a far stretch, I saw you first hand asleep in your chair.” The memory of the sight flashed through her mind followed by the horrific ones that followed and the realization her friend and world were gone.

  “Oh! Chloe,” he sounded so apologetic. “It’s not that I don’t care about you. You’re my youngest daughter. I love you just as much as I love your sisters. Only, maybe in truth I don’t worry as much about you.”

  I knew it. They say admitting it is the first step.

  She sniffled and wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. “Big shock.”

  “I don’t think you understand.” He sighed and squeezed her shoulders gently. “You are nothing like your sisters and for that I’m grateful. You’re the one with a good head on your shoulders, where Stella and Georgina, well I wonder sometimes what runs through their head.”

  “The word ‘sale’ in shiny bright colors?”

  Her father smirked but then shook his head. “Can you try and be nice?”

  “Do the evil blonde minions from hell have to make it so hard?”

  Chuckling he titled his head to the side. “Please don’t be sad about, Luc.”

  A sob rushed from her lips and fresh tracks of watery grief made their way down her cheeks. “I loved him, even though he was only a frog. He was special, Dad.”

  “Indeed he was. Maybe he just escaped and is alive and well?” He tried to sound positive but the sorrow in his tone wasn’t hard to miss.

  Her gaze fell again on the gold and diamonds blinking up from the box in her hand. “How strange is this?”

  Her father sighed. “I would say more expensive than strange.”

  Chloe shot him a glance and had to agree then looked back at the tiara pendent.

  Either my frog is dead and I have a secret admirer or I rescued a prince. Maybe I’m crazy.

  She shook her head and despite the fact, there were no such things as real life fairy tales, knowing in her heart, somewhere, Luc lived was easier than thinking him dead and losing her soul.

  Whom am I kidding? I’ve not only lost my soul, but my heart to a frog.

  Chapter 6

  Present Day…

  “Hello?”

  Silence.

  “Hello?”

  “Is Albert there, please?” The sexy baritone sent a shiver down Chloe’s spine and her heart started to race.

  No, no crazy thoughts. I am past this. I don’t want to have an episode, not after all these years.

  Her heart pinched, she closed her eyes and shook off her less than lucid thoughts. “Just a moment please.” She swallowed the lump in her throat, and with a shaking hand pushed the hold button as heavy footsteps came in the room.

  “Chloe, are you okay?”

  She hadn’t realized she stared at the base of the phone and still clutched the receiver. “Fine, Daddy.” She forced a smile, knowing she was far from―fine. Her mind swirled with memories that she had no right to have and swore she was too old for this to happen.

  Her father drew closer and took the phone from her. “Are you sure? You look like you’re about to cry.” He lifted the receiver from her hand. The residue of sweat from her hand marked the black of the phone piece. Her palms sweated, her stomach churned and, maybe after all these years, she was having another panic attack.

  “I have a headache. I’m going to lie down.” How she choked out the words was a miracle, the lump in her throat was enormous and swallowing was hard. Maybe Georgina and Stella were right, maybe she had lost her mind.

  She walked around her father toward the office door as her father picked up the line. “Albert Starling.”

  Closing her eyes for a brief moment at the threshold, she struggled to breathe.

  “I’m doing great, how are you?” Her father’s voice greeted cheerfully into the phone.

  She stepped into the hallway, trying desperately not to think, feel and most of all remember. She wasn’t that little girl anymore and had to get her act together.

  Her father paused then chuckled. “Yeah, that was her.”

  Turning, she looked at her dad who was busy pulling a file from underneath others on his desk and sighed. “I know, but you know how I feel about that.”

  Her hand reached for the knob of the office door. The brass cool against the heat radiating from her hand and she savored the feeling a moment.

  “You never listen, maybe you should take my advice.” Her father chuckled again and she shut the door behind her.

  She hurried down the hall to her room and tuned out every memory flashing through her mind. Throwing herself on her bed, she started to cry. “I’m crazy. I know I’m crazy, I still mourn him.” Heavy sobs left her and her chest tightened. The voice at the other end of the phone just moments ago had reminded her down to the faint accent of the one person she had spent the last thirteen years trying to forget.

  Life isn’t fair. I learned that long ago. How could I forget that detail, yet never―him?

  She sniffled and shook her head thinking she had to be the most insane person on the planet. Her sisters were right, she had to be crazy, and though more than one psychologist had assured her over the years she wasn’t. They told her the loss of a pet could be traumatic.

  She’d never bothered to explain he’d been so much more. Fear of being locked away from the world in a padded room wouldn’t have benefited anyone. Although that would’ve gotten her away from her still nagging and bitchy sisters.

  More tears fell and her heart ached, the voice at the other end of the phone…

  Don’t think about him, it only makes you hurt more.

  Despite the voice of warning in her head, nothing changed. After thirteen years she missed her best friend―and still loved a frog.

  Luciano hung up the hand piece and stared as if the phone on his desk were a foreign object. Her voice hadn’t changed much, an older, sultry edge, but for the most part, the same as he remembered.

  Chloe.

  His heart tightened. At first he and Albert had agreed it was for the best that she didn’t talk to him and or see him. When she was older, she was away at either school or traveling, and then she went back to university. Now she was home in California and her father’s assistant. Luciano had always been careful to avoid her―more for his own reasons over the later years than that of propriety. Today, after hearing her voice…

  He shook off his thoughts and instead turned to the computer and opened the email from Albert. Over the years they had become friends and Albert always sent pictures of the girls. Stella and Georgina, they were lovely, but Georgina had been married twice and was on husband number three. Stella had done everything and everyone, except settle down. Like her teen years, she was still the wild one.

  His mouse
scrolled down the email that wasn’t business, but one of the personal ones they exchanged. He stopped and stared at the picture of Chloe with her father. Stunning, she had grown up into the most beautiful woman. He had to be crazy, since he had never forgotten the girl and now obsessed over the woman. So many times he longed to go to America to see her, to pick up the phone and call, but every time the same thing stopped him―fear.

  “I take it that was Albert on the phone?”

  He smiled at his father as he stood on the threshold of Luciano’s office. “Yes, come in, sorry.” His gaze slipped to the picture then met his father’s eyes again. “He knows you and my step-mother will be arriving, he and his family are well.”

  Slipping his hands into his suit pant pockets, his dad walked over to the desk and glanced at the picture. “A picture of Chloe, she sure has grown up to be beautiful.” He thought a moment. “You’d like her.”

  I know that, I do, not that I can tell you that detail.

  “So you've said.” Luciano forced a smile, though he didn’t feel like offering the congenial gesture. The sound of her voice still echoed in his mind and brought to the surface the hurt he’d buried years before.

  His father studied the picture and looked at him. “I see she still wears the necklace.”

  “Necklace?” he hadn’t noticed and raked his gaze over the beautiful brunette. There, hanging around her neck was a white gold chain with a tiara pendent. He closed his eyes then opened them. It was still around her neck.

  His father shook his head. “She always wears it. I don’t recall seeing her on any of my visits without it, not even at formal occasions.”

  Why didn’t I notice it before? Why would she still wear it after all this time?

  His father walked to the front of the desk, sat down in a chair and their eyes met over the large computer monitor. “It’s weird.”

  Oh hell, here we go. He’s about to go digging again, we have only had this chat a hundred times over the years.

  “What’s weird?” he knew the game of twenty-one questions was going to begin, and he already dreaded having, for the umpteenth time, to tell his father the same thing. His time away is not open to conversation.

  “You, you were a different man when you came home after your… disappearance.”

  “So you’ve said.”

  And so begins the modern day Spanish inquisition.

  His father shook his head. “You came home and threw yourself into being a very regal and noble prince. I’m proud of the man you’ve become.”

  The compliment did his heart good. However―“Dad, where is this going?”

  “You never really talk about your months away. You’re still very bottled up over what happened and it was over a decade ago.”

  He knew his father was going to try bringing up the past. Why couldn’t he and Albert both just leave it behind him. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.” He again thought of Chloe’s voice on the phone earlier and he sighed. If it was really the past why did the sound of her voice open old wounds?

  I’m still not over her. I may never get over her.

  “I do want to know what happened during that time.” His dad’s tone was firm as he reached and turned the monitor so they could both see the picture.

  Luciano gritted his teeth then snaked his tongue across his top upper ones. “We’ve had this talk.”

  Again his father shook his head. “And you never answer my questions.”

  Don’t do this to me. Please, Dad, don’t make me talk.

  The sound of throat clearing from his dad indicated the conversation tonight was far from over. “I just find things a little strange. You talk to Albert a couple times a week. Yet, you never go to see him.”

  All hail the king, his father had obviously decided to take a new approach this evening. “I went a couple times.”

  “About seven years ago.” He shook his head and stared at the picture. “Sure is a pretty necklace―must have cost a fortune with the diamonds.”

  A small one.

  “Dad, where is this going?” He already knew the answer to the question and regretted asking.

  “Chloe was just a kid when you met Albert, you were young and―”

  “Nothing happened.” He didn’t mean to sound terse, but he did and knew to his soul he’d always been honorable where the youngest Starling daughter had been concerned. “Relax dad, I had standards even then.” His shoulders raised then lowered in a sigh. He lived with the guilt over the fact he had lost his heart to a kid. “I promise you, nothing inappropriate happened. She doesn’t even really know me.”

  Yet, knew me better than I knew myself.

  His father stood and walked over took the crystal decanter from the top of the large bookcase, poured two glasses of scotch then walked back over to the desk and passed him a glass. “Your mother is out for the night. I thought we should have a talk.”

  He took the scotch from his father. “She’s not my mother―my mother was Gwen and for the record we are talking.”

  “No.”

  Shit, this not a good time. Never talking about this, would be a good time.

  “How did you meet Albert? Why didn’t you contact us? What happened in Beverly Hills all those years ago?” he grabbed a chair from in front of the desk and pulled it closer to the one where Luciano sat.

  A strange feeling that he wasn’t going to get out of the conversation this time tickled at his resolve, His father could be head-strong. At least he knew which parent he’d gotten the trait from. “You would never believe me.”

  His dad shot a look to the screen then met his gaze. “No, Son, not this time, I want you to tell me. I also want to know why you get pictures of Chloe, but rarely of Albert’s other two daughters.”

  “Dad―”

  “Most of all,” he sipped his scotch. “I’m wondering about a necklace around a lovely woman’s neck that is fit for a princess.”

  He took the last words like a stab to the heart. “A queen, it is fit for a queen.” His voice was unrecognizable and revealed a bit of the emotion he struggled to keep at bay.

  His father chuckled. “She’s a hell of a girl, Luciano. Her father is this country’s sole supplier of sugar and other imports. He saved this country and saved my son. Chloe has to be one of the smartest women I’ve met. So tell me a story.”

  “It’s really unbelievable.” He swallowed back a healthy slug of the amber liquid in his glass. Fate tempted him to tell his father and he debated. The problem was he didn’t want his father to think him weak if his emotions entered his voice or worse filled his eyes with tears.

  “Try me, I’ve lost and seen more than you can imagine.” He knew his father was referring to the death of his mother. However, Luciano still carried animosity over his father remarrying Ella and didn’t get how his dad could remarry so soon. Something was wrong with that situation but Luciano didn’t have the mental strength or the focus to sort through his father’s marital status tonight.

  “I’m waiting for an answer,” his father reminded―as if he forgot.

  Another heavy sigh escaped him and the weight on his chest increased. “What happened is the unimaginable.”

  “Did you buy her the necklace?”

  He nodded and took another sip. The scotch burned his tongue and throat, a sidetrack from the hurt in his heart. “Yes.”

  “So, why don’t you come with Ella and me to see her?” His father’s expression became unreadable. “What are you so afraid of?”

  “She deserves more than a scarred man.”

  There I said it.

  He hated his looks and resented the fact he’d confessed what had truly plagued his heart and brain. Not even the best cosmetic surgeons could fix the scar the wicked witch had marked him with. “She deserves so much more than me and I couldn’t bear her pity or her rejection.”

  “You aren’t being fair to Chloe, let alone yourself.” His father shook his head and his disapproval became more than apparent. “Tell m
e this unbelievable story and let me make that judgment myself.”

  He wanted nothing more than to see Chloe. His heart and soul still longed for her. She was no longer a girl but a woman and according to the talk he’d just had with Albert moments ago, she was very single and slightly out of sorts since she’d heard his voice. Just like days gone by, knowing she was sad hurt his heart and he longed to tell her everything would be okay. However, the knowledge she had become upset after hearing his voice raised more than one question in Luciano’s mind.

  Could she possibly…

  Fear stopped him from finishing that thought, like always. Believing she still thought of him was nothing but a boyhood dream. He stopped his childish and spoiled ways the day he realized he loved her and had become a man.

  “You like her, you say you don’t know her, but I wonder.” His father smiled and his tone held a note of promise. If his dad only knew―doubtful he would believe Luciano’s story and most likely commit him to a padded room in an asylum.

  Downing the remainder of the scotch in his glass, he rose from the chair. “Need me to refill yours?” He darted a look to his dad’s glass, still half full with scotch.

  “No, I’m good.”

  Luciano wasn’t good and definitely needed another drink.

  What am I thinking? I’m not. How can I even consider telling him? Right. He won’t let it drop tonight and I’m just as shook up from hearing her voice as she is from hearing mine. Great―let insanity prevail.

  Tonight he wasn’t going to get out of this conversation with his father. How could his father suggest seeing her? Luciano wanted to tell Chloe everything, most of all that she still held his heart. In one way the memories were as fresh as if it was yesterday, and yet they seemed a lifetime ago. He had been young, she much younger―too young. Now the age difference was minor and his body ached for her. Picture after picture over the years, she grew before his eyes and seared deeper into his soul. He turned and threw himself down in the chair.

  “Are you going to tell me or am I going to badger you some more?” The smile on his father’s face was sincere, but his expression came across as determined. He wasn’t going to let this go.