by Alice Ward
“You didn’t realize it would upset her to be set aside? She’s too loving and nurturing to take that kind of treatment. She’s a wild spirit and as long as you let her be herself, she’s the most loyal damn person you could have in your corner. You, of all people, should know that.” That was the tersest I’d ever heard him be, and I deserved every fucking word of it.
We stood there in the circle of light created by the spot mounted high atop the pole next to the barn. It felt like a judgment, or perhaps more of a condemnation. “Can I see Carlos?” I asked, yearning to be close to something of hers that was gentle and innocent, if only by proxy.
“She took him,” her dad responded bluntly. “Right now, with the possible exception of me, he’s the only living thing on this planet she feels loves her and that she can trust. I’ll be damned if I’m going to betray her,” he said, pushing his hands into his pockets and turning back toward the house. He kicked at rocks along the way, his only method of displaying emotion in a house that belonged to his dramatic wife.
“Sir?” I called after him and he stopped but didn’t turn around.
“Did you know?” I couldn’t be any more oblique than that.
Now he turned and regarded me with, if anything, more disdain than before. “Know? Hell, I drove her down there the minute after I said ‘I do.’ Go home, Worth, or wherever that still means to you.”
His words were still fresh in my mind, despite the empty wine bottle and the lack of sleep. I ached for her. I realized now that I had responded in the same way I’d been taught to handle anything, with cruelty and an utter disdain for those closest to me. They say you only hurt the people you love. In my case, he hurt me because he had loved my brother better. Perhaps in his world, I was all that stood between him and the pride he wanted to take in a son that stood for something better. Could I blame the bastard? I had lived up to every rotten thing he could have thought of… and then some.
I must have finally passed out because the burning came again and it was sunlight, forcing its way through the slats in the blind to scorch my already seared head.
I opened my eyes only a slit, at first, hoping to gradually acclimate but there was a figure standing in the doorway to the bedroom. I drew in my breath and sat upright, eyes fully aware and unbelieving of what they saw.
Auggie stood in the doorway, her face thin and her hair needing to be brushed. I couldn’t think of what to say. I’d rehearsed our reunion a hundred times with as many outcomes, but now I was struck dumb. She took care of the problem, as always.
“I’m pregnant,” she announced and turned to run into the bathroom. I heard her retching.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Worth
I got caught in the sheets and fell to the floor in my scramble to my feet. I cursed and finally got to the bathroom door.
“Auggie! Are you okay? Can I get you something?”
She opened the door and looked at me, at the stubble on my face and the bloodshot eyes. “How about an abortion?” she said curtly and began stripping off her clothes while she turned on the shower.
I stood there, mute, trying desperately to remember whether her words had been real or a transition from my sleep. She stepped under the water and I decided to collect myself. I found another shower, washed quickly and threw on sweatpants and a t-shirt before setting off to find her. She was in the kitchen, a cup of hot tea steaming on the placemat in front of her.
“Auggie… I’m so sorry.” All the words, all the attacks, the condemnations, the accusations of cowardice I had planned, had all disappeared in that one moment. “I’ve missed you,” I added and went to stand before her.
She looked up. “Did you hear what I said?” I nodded. A thousand questions sprang to mind but there was only one I wanted to ask, only one that mattered and only one I could not ask. I didn’t need to.
“Of course it’s yours.”
I managed not to blink. I don’t know whether it was because my eyes were so swollen or that I was in complete shock as the realization of what she was saying found its way through the inflamed tissues of my sodden brain.
“I didn’t need to ask,” I said quietly.
“Liar.”
Then she did something entirely uncharacteristic of the stiff-chinned, unflappable Auggie. She began to cry.
I did the only thing I could think of, the only thing that came naturally. I knelt and put my arms around her, holding her against my chest and using the cloth napkin next to me to wipe her face and nose. Eventually, I picked her up and cradled her, carrying her back to one of the guest rooms that was as of yet, untouched. I laid her on the bed and collapsed gently next to her.
I’d admit to being a bastard when I said that even the sound of her crying was welcomed, if only because it meant that my Auggie was back.
I began to talk then, into the thickness of her damp hair, all the while petting her shoulder as I cradled her thin form against me. “I want to talk, Auggie, and I’m asking you to listen. Can you do that for me, just this once?”
I felt her head nod beneath my chin. So, I began.
“There is nothing I can say to excuse the way I’ve treated you. You have always been faithful and my rock. I need you more than any person alive on this planet. You’ve become the other half of my miserable self, and I’m not worthy of being half to you. I know I became distant and I know that wasn’t fair to you. What I don’t know is why I thought you would put up with that. I have no excuses but I do have an explanation as to what was going on and you may draw your own conclusions. If, when I’m done, you still want to leave, I’ll pack my things and deed the condo over to you without a word and leave you be. If, however, you can find it in your heart to understand, and if not to quite forgive me, then I will sleep in the other room until the time you think you want me back, and to once again wear my rings. Can we agree on that?”
I felt her head nod again and I handed her a tissue as she sniffed loudly.
“I’m about to lose the clinic,” I said and felt her stiffen immediately and felt her head tilting upward for an explanation. “No, just lie still and listen.” I kissed her forehead.
“Just after the grand opening, I received a letter from an attorney. It accused me of professional misconduct and assorted various personal attacks that damaged the reputation of Dr. Jervis. I made the mistake of not reporting something I witnessed, Auggie, and it will involve hurting you a bit more. Can you take it? Can I tell you this last thing so that all is clear between us?”
“Yes, it can’t get much worse,” she whispered.
“I walked in on Dr. Jervis and a woman having sex in his office one evening. The woman was a client and had other ties that made the entire thing more than inappropriate. Auggie, that woman was…” but before I could go on, she interrupted.
“My mother.”
“How did you know?” I felt relief that she knew and pain that she hadn’t confided in me, but then who was I to judge anyone for their lack of confidence?
“She has a pattern. I’ve come to know it fairly well,” she explained and I nodded, hugging her as if it were nothing more than a bee sting that would quickly fade, although I knew that would never happen.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to find out and I took advantage of the situation to force Jervis into selling me his share of the clinic. Jervis has always had one hand in my father’s pocket. Evidently he knew about Linc and had blackmailed my father. I’d always known there was something shady and disturbed between the two of them; rather like honor among thieves. I couldn’t put a finger on it until just then and that was the beginning.” I gave her a few moments to digest this before continuing on.
“Jervis avoided confronting me directly but went to my father instead. His timing was perfect. Father was angry because his second-born, black sheep son had shown him up, outmaneuvering him using his own game. I owned the clinic, had the degrees and the success was about to follow. I had even captured the daughter of his former mistress.
”
“Did you come after me because of who my mother is?” she asked and my heart ached that she would even question this.
“No, Auggie, even I am not that devious and anyway, I knew you before I figured out the affair with your mother. She gave it away herself, that first night when you introduced me to her and then later when you told me about the pictures in her album. It all snapped into place then.”
She sighed. “I wondered what that was all about.”
I nodded. “So, you take one pissed Jervis and one highly jealous bastard of a father and the result is a lawsuit that threatened to expose me and disgrace me forever in a professional sense, as well as drain me of finances through interminable lawsuits, all of which would be financed by my own father. That’s when it started coming down on me. I knew I was being short, being distant, but it was the only way I knew how to protect you. You see, as much as I hate it, there’s enough of my father in me to see the pattern, too. When crossed, I go for the throat. I didn’t want you getting in the way.”
I kissed her hair. Her forehead. Willing her to understand.
“So all those nights when I left you to sleep in your bed alone, I was craving you. I needed you. You belonged to me. But I was too dangerous to be near. I don’t know why I thought you would understand that. You had none of the facts and certainly none of the suspicion and background to even guess at what was going on. Your world may have been colored by a promiscuous, controlling mother, Auggie, but your dad is who you take after and he is a true gentleman.”
I held her tighter as sobs once again wracked her shoulders.
“It was my mistake,” I whispered. “I should have never underestimated you. I should have realized that, if anything, it not only involved you but that we could have gotten through it better if we were together. I’m so sorry, Auggie… but once again, I didn’t give you the credit you deserved.”
She stirred in my arms and turned her face up to kiss me. It was nearly my undoing, but I had to stay sane for the moment. There was more to be said.
“I take it you met the statuesque, Dr. Hunt?” I asked and she nodded. “My father and Jervis knew me well. Not only was she the kind of woman I would normally have been attracted to, she was also in a position to bail me out. She was a staff doctor with a firm on the west coast. They approached me after the grand opening with an offer to buy me out. I refused. That’s when my father executed his next move and the letter and Hunt showed up. She was to be my partner, essentially taking up the share Jervis had sold to me. She had ruling control and if I screwed up again, she would see me barred from my profession. I found recordings from previous sessions with clients had gone missing from the server. Jervis had taken them for insurance. They were not illegal, per se, but definitely condemning because I overstepped my influence as a therapist to coerce patients into taking steps and actions they ordinarily would not have taken. In short, I chose to send some of them home still ‘broken.’ It would have never stood in front of a board of review, but I would have been disgraced and banished, nonetheless.”
Auggie hugged me tighter and I knew hope for the first moment in weeks.
“My father wanted me disgraced because he felt I had done the same to him. He knew you would see Hunt and leap to the worst conclusions. Why wouldn’t you? I was a known entity. So, all this time, I’ve been trying to figure out a way to get rid of her, my father, and Jervis’ threats. I never counted you would leave me. Nothing mattered once you were gone. I’ve only been going through hell worrying about you, but your dad wouldn’t tell me where you were and there was no way I could find you. I gave up on fighting. I’ve just been going through the motions. My father and the west coast firm is about to leverage me out of the business entirely.”
“This is like a nightmare,” she murmured.
I swallowed, emotion clogging my throat. “Can you forgive me, Auggie? I’ll give it all to them and we can move somewhere else. We can just liquidate and start again somewhere. We’re not broke, we’re just broken,” I finished and waited for her reaction.
It was some moments in coming. “What about the baby?”
“Auggie, I want our baby and I don’t believe in aborting something that is live, and most especially a part of us. Will you marry me? Both of you?”
Auggie snuggled harder against me and I took this as an affirmative. I tipped her face up so I could kiss her. I was so hungry for the taste of her mouth upon mine. I remembered her scent, the feel of her skin. I couldn’t hold back and all the hell of the previous months disappeared in her touch. I devoured her face, her mouth, her neck and sucked the soft skin beneath her ears. Her clothing disappeared somewhere in the haze and I sought her sweet pussy with my mouth. I wanted to taste every inch and every bit of her juice.
Auggie spread her legs for me and I settled between them, opening her to my ingress. I feasted, my tongue sweeping her wet walls, needing more. I couldn’t get enough. I pulled her hips forward, resting her legs on my shoulders and she crossed her ankles, pulling me tightly into her. I wanted to drown in the wetness that was pouring out of her.
Auggie’s head rolled from side to side in her ecstasy. I knew she was ready to explode and rubbed her with my finger, increasing pressure against the tender skin. She came then, her bottom rocking upward and frantically seeking me. I did not disappoint. I was already rigid and needing her. There was no need to hesitate. I plunged into her depths and she cried out with the filling pressure.
I felt pure adoration of her. Her body was the perfect receptor to mine. We were matched in passion, in need, and in the intense relief we could only find in one another.
I looked down at her beautiful face, her hair spread across the pillow and realized that for the first time in my life, I loved someone else more than I loved myself. I would never again endanger her by exposing her to the darkness of my past. She now held our child, a creature that would only know the world because the two of us had come together in just this way.
Her breasts begged for my mouth and I kissed her sweet nipples, sucking at the rosy flesh that made her groan and pull me flat against her. I rolled so that she was atop me and lifted her down upon my hard shaft. I gently worked up into her. She threw back her head and I watched her beautiful long throat as she growled with the need to find her peak again. She rolled her hips as I thrust upward into her. I knew by the frequency of her movement that she was almost there. I bucked up hard then and she screamed, tears of achievement wetting her long lashes.
Three more thrusts and I followed her over the edge.
She collapsed on me then and together we clung and slept that entire day. My Auggie was back, the words had been said and nothing and no one would ever separate us again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Auggie
Worth and I were married in a private ceremony deep within the woods of our new estate. He had gardeners bring in hundreds of potted tulips. Dad gave me away and served as witness while Carlos stood nearby with a wreath of white tulips wound around his neck. It was simple; it was perfect. The engagement ring was augmented by a band of red rubies representing the joining of our blood from that moment on.
My mother was not invited and neither were Worth’s parents. I know it saddened him that his mother couldn’t be there, but he said she had stood by her husband so long that it would be dangerous to ask her to relinquish that post while he still lived.
Afterward, we enjoyed a simple picnic and listened to the wind rustle the leaves while Chopin played from a small stereo. It was nothing like I’d imagined my wedding would ever be and that made it magical.
We had decided to resurrect our life. We were going to live it our way and that meant taking control of our own future.
Beverly Dexter had our new house almost complete. It still lacked the fripperies that were now my department and once again. I set about getting everything I wanted, but this time I brought in interior designers from Cincinnati, Atlanta, and Chicago and let them show me their ideas.
I approved what I did and didn’t want, and the house was soon brought into shape.
Worth was fond of pale and muted colors so I chose a palette that brought the outdoors inside for most of the rooms, although I saved a few for my own personal taste. My office was one room where I indulged my love for equine furnishings. Completely French heritage, the cherry woods blended with a deep crimson, silk sofa and a pair of striped crimson and cream side chairs. The lighting was all for ambiance and only a desk lamp on my Queen Anne secretary was intended for actual work. I installed cherry bookcases along one wall and one of these held my Remington collection. A fireplace in one end added the cheer I missed on the cold, snowy days of winter.
For most of the more formal rooms, I chose Italian design, including a Spyder wood dining table. It looked very sophisticated, yet clean with a natural, organic base.
Designer Jane Hamley Wells pieces went into the living room as matching, opposing sofas and sleek, gray lounge chairs were accented with low, round coffee and end tables. Beverly Dexter had the lighting throughout the remainder of the house custom made and it blended beautifully.
I insisted that a smaller version of Worth’s clinic be installed on the lower level. We not only had the hot tub, but an enclosed lap pool and massage table. I also requested a home theater and a bar made from old reclaimed barn wood. It made Worth cringe with the cliché, but he never said a word.
We delayed moving into it until we had the clinic settled. After all, selling the house was still a possible option we could not ignore.
I consulted with the best OB/GYN team in town and learned I was in perfect health and the baby would be expected just about Christmas. Worth and I elected not to know the sex and to let it be a surprise. We were becoming more and more the unconventional couple.
In the meantime, Worth’s clinic was doing a booming business. They were booked for appointments three months out and there had been several features written about him in not just professional, but popular, broader audience publications that catered to health and wellness. To the outside world, Worth appeared to be the man with the golden touch. Inside, however, I could tell that he was anything but.
