Undeniable

by Serena Grey

  My phone rings and I hold it to my ear with one hand while pulling the case containing my equipment, as well as my luggage and purse with the other.

  “I can see you,” Nick says, his velvety voice and sexy accent filling my ears like a caress. No wonder the women could never get enough. “Just stay where you are." He continues.

  I spot a deep green jaguar coming along the road. It’s sleek and sexy, with a sound like the deep purr of a jungle cat. It stops right by me, and the glass rolls down, revealing Nick’s dark gold curls, handsome face, and cocky smile.

  He looks unbelievably hot in a dark blue polo shirt and tan trousers.

  “Hey babe,” He drawls. “Wanna take a ride with me?’

  I burst into laughter, unable to stop even as I place my cases in the back. “I didn’t know you drove a Jag.” I comment, impressed. Nick is a native New Yorker, and even though I’ve seen him freezing in St Petersburg and wearing flowing robes in Morocco, I’ve never actually seen him behind the wheel of a car. “Did you steal it?" I ask, settling into the front passenger seat.

  “Would that make me more attractive to you?” He winks.“Bad boy on the wrong side of the law... Clyde to your Bonnie... Tell me that turns you on."

  “Naw.” I shake my head, smiling, “I’m not as adventurous as all that."

  “You never know. You might like it.”His blue eyes hold mine, and for a moment I wonder if he’s serious, not about stealing the car, but about wanting to be attractive to me. As one of the most celebrated editors for Gilt publications, he’s high up there as a force to reckon with in the world of magazine publishing. As a photographer, his patronage is invaluable to me, as a woman, it’s flattering that, in all the years we’ve known each other, he hasn’t given up on making passes at me. Nevertheless, I’ve never taken his attempts at seduction seriously, not when I know all about his charm‘em, fuck‘em, and leave‘em style of dating. I’m not eager to add myself to the list of his conquests.

  “I don’t think so.” I say with a smile.

  Nick shrugs and turns back towards the road. “It’s not my car.” He says, in reply to my question. “Jackson Lockewood lent it to me to pick you up with.”

  As soon as he says the words, my heart stops, and I feel the blood drain from my face. Suddenly I can’t breathe. No, I think desperately, sure that I’m going to have a heart attack. Jackson cannot be at Halcyon. I was told very clearly that he wouldn’t be there. I wait for Nick to say something else, anything to show that I imagined the last sentence, but he just keeps on driving.

  Suddenly, I realize that taking this assignment was a huge mistake. Because, of all the many reasons why I should never have returned to Halcyon, Jackson Lockewood is the greatest of them all.

  Chapter Two

  Past

  I’M sitting in the back seat of my dad’s SUV, engrossed in one of the romance novels my mom has given up on discouraging me from reading. My parents are in front, my dad driving, and my mom in the passenger seat, no doubt checking the rear view mirror every five seconds to see what I’m doing.

  I hear them laugh, my dad’s laugh is deep and resonant, my mom’s, light and soft, and I pretend not to see as her hand crosses over the middle of the car to rest on his thigh. It’s not moving, or doing anything gross, though it’s already gross enough that it’s there at all. I roll my eyes. At fourteen, I’ve already come to terms with the fact that my parents will never be able to keep their hands off each other, even in front of me.

  Outside the car windows, the streets of Foster, the small town in the Hudson River Valley where we’ve recently moved, are lined with wide green trees that provide shade even in the summer. My parents think I hate it here, but I don’t, at least, not as much as I’ve made them believe, but I do miss my old life. I miss my old school, my friends, even our old house on a street where all the houses looked almost the same.

  Most times, I’d like nothing more than for my dad to decide that he doesn’t want his new job managing the Lockewood Trust anymore, and move us back to our old life. But that’s just wishful thinking. My dad loves his new job. He loves that he can commute to his office in New York City by train and be home in time to help my mom make dinner. My mom has also got a job at the Foster library where she can indulge her love of books, and do her freelance writing at the same time. They’re happy here, and I have no choice but to swallow my discontent and try to like Foster, for their sakes.

  “Honey did I mention how nice your dress looks?” I hear my Mom say.

  I roll my eyes. “Yes you did Mom.”

  She chuckles, so I know she saw the eye roll in the mirror. I sneak a peek and sure enough, she’s looking at me. Even in the side mirror, she’s really pretty. Her auburn hair is dark and wavy, and her eyes are deep green with brown flecks, or brown with green flecks depending on what she’s wearing. Today, they’re mostly green. People say I look like her because I have the same color of hair and eyes. But on days like this when she looks so beautiful, I find it hard to believe.

  “I just don’t see why I had to wear a dress, or even come at all.” I complain. Constance Lockewood Milner, the chair of the board that manages Lockewood Holdings, which owns the Lockewood Trust, as well as many other Lockewood interests in finance, technology, shipping etcetera, and therefore my dad’s boss, has invited us to Sunday dinner. I would have been content to stay home and finish my book while my parents went to Halcyon, the Lockewood mansion, but my mom insisted that I go with them, even making me change out of my customary jeans and sneakers as if we were on our way to a fancy restaurant in the city.

  “It wouldn’t hurt you to visit a historic mansion,” my mom says, “and Mrs. Milner’s nephew and niece are about your age.” She adds, “Maybe you can be friends.”

  I don’t reply. I don’t want to remind her again that I already had my friends back home, before we were ripped apart. I miss them, Karen Pace, with her bright red hair, who never lost any weight even though she had celery for lunch every day, and Jamie Novak, who could do a perfect drawing of anyone with just a pencil or charcoal. We had our lunch together and hung out after school. We were a team. Now they’ll forget about me and be a team without me, and eventually we’ll become those kinds of friends whose whole friendship consist of old memories and occasional likes on a Facebook post.

  “They might even let you come back and take a couple of pictures of the house,” my dad adds, “wouldn’t you like that?”

  I shrug nonchalantly, as if I don’t care, but my interest is perked. I got a camera for my tenth birthday from one of my Grans, and I’ve been in love with photography ever since. My parents indulge me, letting me buy all sorts of image editing software with their credit cards. I sigh. I really should be nicer about the move to Foster.

  “Aren’t the Lockewood children older than me?” I ask, thinking about what my mom said about us becoming friends.

  “Not much,” my dad replies. “Jackson is ah… eighteen and his sister Blythe is fifteen.”

  I shake my head. There’s not much chance of older kids being even remotely interested in me. I’m neither outgoing nor funny. I’m one of those people who always have their nose in a book. I love history, poetry, and all kinds of novels. Add my obsession with taking pictures, and I’m a certified nerd. But there’s no point telling my parents that. Like all loving parents, they think I walk on water, and I’m bound to be popular wherever I go.

  I’ve never met the Lockewood children, since they don’t go to the local high school, but I know from hearing some of my parents’ conversations that Jackson and Blythe are the products of Constance Milner’s older brother Daniel’s marriage to Rachel Jackson, an oil heiress from Texas. I know that they both died when Daniel Lockewood crashed his small plane a few years after Blythe was born, killing himself, his wife and Jonathan Milner, Constance’s husband. The accident left the Lockewood children orphans, but heirs to most of the combined Lockewood and Jackson fortunes.

  My parents aren’t poor by any
standards, and they’ve always taught me that a person is worth more than what they have in their bank accounts, but still, the idea of meeting the Lockewoods is a little intimidating. Will they be snobbish like some of the rich kids in my new school, with their brand new convertibles and designer clothes, and total disregard for anyone not in their clique? Not that it matters, I decide, after this dinner I’ll probably never see them again.

  I turn back to the windows, watching as the houses get bigger, and farther away from the streets, until they are barely visible at all behind acres of lawn and trees. After a while, my Dad turns into one of the gravel covered driveways, and a pair of wrought iron gates open automatically, allowing us to drive up to the most beautiful house I’ve ever seen.

  It’s big, with a white, stone exterior that gleams in the late afternoon sun. The numerous windows reflect the sky, and the columns, arches, and carvings look like something out of the drawings of the palaces in my old fairy tale storybooks. At the end of the drive, there is a fountain, with a sculpture of a girl pouring water out of a jar. I stare, unable to comprehend that people actually live in a house that’s so incredible. I’ve never seen anything as beautiful.

  “It’s lovely, isn’t it?”

  I tear my eyes away from the house and turn to my mom, who is smiling at me. “It’s marvelous!” I exclaim, still awestruck.

  “It’s almost a hundred years old.” My dad chips in, laughing at my rapt expression. “Kinda like your old man.”

  I laugh and climb out of the car, rolling my eyes as my dad rushes around to get the door for my mom. He used to get mine too, calling us his ‘ladies’ as he made a big show of opening car doors gallantly, but as I got older, I started scooting out of the car before he got to my side.

  They hold hands as they walk towards the front door, prompting another eye roll from me before I busy myself with looking around the manicured lawns, trees, and gardens, and trying to determine where the property ends.

  We only wait a few seconds at the door before it opens. I look inside, prepared to see a butler, or something else, which, like the house, does not ordinarily exist in my world, but what I see is a boy, a boy who is so stunning, he takes my breath away.

  He’s tall, with dark hair, parted and neatly combed. His features are perfect, wide gray eyes fringed with thick black lashes, a slim, straight nose, and sculpted lips like a male model’s. He’s wearing jeans and a gray sweater, with the white collar and cuffs of his shirt showing above the neckline and at the wrists of the sweater. I stare at him, immobilized, the beauty of the house fading to nothing as I lose myself in the sight of him.

  “Good evening,” He says politely, in a deep, cultured voice that sounds nothing like the boys I know from school. “I’m Jackson Lockewood, and you must be Mrs. Wilder, Mr. Wilder,” he turns his mesmerizing eyes to me and smiles, making my blood rush to my head like a geyser, “and Olivia.”

  I’m too enthralled to reply. I just keep staring at him. On some level, I know I’m supposed to say something, but he’s hypnotized me with his eyes, suddenly my stomach is full of butterflies, and my face feels unbelievably hot.

  Luckily, my mom fills the silence. “She’s Livvie to everyone but her dad,” She warns with a chuckle as my dad shakes Jackson’s hand. He steps back to allow my parents walk inside the house, leaving me to follow them, but I continue to stare at him. I’ve never met anyone so good-looking, and his gracefulness and ease are astonishing, making all the boys I know seem like snot-wiping toddlers.

  When I don’t move, he holds out a hand. “Come on Olivia,” he says with a wink, ignoring my mom’s warning about my name, “we don’t want to keep them waiting.”

  I put my hand in his, and in that moment I know, even though I’ve never even had a crush before, that what I’m feeling is so much more than the adolescent fixation my friends have all experienced. I know that even though I’ve only just met this boy, that I want nothing more than for him to want to be with me as much as I want to be with him. I know that I would live, breathe and want only him, and even when I have him, all the time in the world would not be enough.

  I’m still coming to terms with this realization when a girl bounds into the foyer, interrupting my thoughts. There is a slight resemblance to Jackson, but her eyes are blue, and her hair is the shade of honey. She sees Jackson holding my hand and groans.

  “I’ve come to save you from my boring brother.” She says with a laugh, prompting a headshake from the brother in question. "I’m Blythe,” she continues, her earnest blue eyes looking right into mine.

  “Livvie,” I tell her, unable to understand how anybody in the world could find Jackson Lockewood boring. Even if he never said a word, I’d be content just to look at him forever.

  Blythe smiles and reaches for my hand and I feel a sense of loss as Jackson lets go of my other hand.

  “It was nice to meet you Olivia,” He says with a small smile as Blythe pulls me into wide-open doorway of the living room, a bigger, more beautiful kind of living room than any I’ve ever seen. Inside, my dad is introducing my mom to a woman about my mom’s age, who looks like an older version of Blythe, with light blonde hair, wide blue eyes, and a welcoming smile.

  “I hear you’re quite the photographer,” She tells me when we’re introduced. Her voice is clear and soft, and there’s just something about it that draws you in and makes you feel like there’s no one else she’d rather be talking to, "Halcyon hasn’t been photographed in a while,” She says with a smile. “Maybe you’ll do us the honor?”

  “I would love that!” I gush, even though I know she’s probably teasing, before Blythe pulls me away to sit beside her on a two-seater sofa.

  “Aunt Constance says you just moved here, and you don’t know anyone,” She says when we’re seated. “I can’t even imagine that. No matter where I go, I always seem to know hundreds of people.” She looks wistful, as if she’d like to find a place where she doesn’t know anyone.

  “It’s not fun.” I tell her, thinking of all the kids I’ve known who didn’t have any friends, and of the friends I left behind when we moved. “I’m sure it’s better to have many friends.”

  “Yeah.” She shrugs, and then beams at me. “I have a feeling we’re going to be friends,” she says, “All the other girls are crazy about Jackson, and it gets boring. Please tell me you won’t fall for him."

  Fortunately, she doesn’t wait for a reply before she continues talking. I wouldn’t have been able to lie, especially not when I’d already fallen for him. Blythe is a talker, barely pausing for breath before she launches from one story about her school, a private boarding school upstate, to the next. She even manages to get me talking, extracting some stories from me too. She seems sad when I tell her about missing my friends, but hopeful that I’ll make new ones. I’m surprised to find myself not even missing my book, and really enjoying her company.

  Every now and then, throughout the evening, my eyes would go to Jackson, on the other side of the room with my parents and his aunt, or opposite me on the formal dining table, and each time I look at him, it feels exactly like it did the first time I set my eyes on him. I feel a little lost and unlike myself, as if I’m falling down a deep well with no way to stop myself, and the only thing waiting to catch me at the bottom is him. It’s a strange feeling, but I wouldn’t change it for anything else in the world.

  After that day, I stop missing my old life. With Blythe Lockewood as a friend, there’s almost no space for melancholy or nostalgia. She’s one of those girls for whom everything is effortless. She’s effortlessly beautiful, effortlessly fashionable, effortlessly skilled in sports, whether on the lawn tennis court at Halcyon, or the Olympic size swimming pool. She’s also incredibly sweet and sincerely friendly.

  Constance Milner, or Aunt Constance as Jackson and Blythe call her, is also wonderful. She invites me to come back to Halcyon as often as I need, to take as many pictures of the house or gardens as I want, or to borrow whatever books I want from th
e incredible library, as long as I promise to return them. She’s the kind of graceful woman I’ve never met before in real life, always serene and incredibly put together, putting everyone in a room at ease just by being in it.

  However, it’s Jackson who steals every part of my being. When I start to spend more and more time with Blythe at Halcyon during their school holidays, attending her parties, meeting her friends, and sometimes just hanging out, I really enjoy her company, but it’s always Jackson I go there hoping to see.

  Chapter Three

  Present

  “JACKSON Lockewood lent it to me to pick you up with.”

  My head is spinning so severely that, for a moment, I’m sure I’m going to faint. It’s a good thing Nick’s eyes are on the road because my face has gone white, and my hands... my whole body is trembling. I swallow and take a deep breath, increasingly sure that I must have heard him wrong.”

  “I’m…” I start, panic making me confused and almost incoherent, “What did you say?”

  “This car drives like a dream,” Nick says distractedly, more to himself than to me, and then he seems to remember my question and turns to look at me. “Yes, it’s Jackson Lockewood’s, lucky bastard.” He adds, before turning back to the road.

  “But...” I try not to sputter, “He doesn’t live at the house. He lives in the city. He’s not supposed to be at Halcyon.” I realize I’m beginning to sound hysterical, and I pause. “He’s not there is he?” I ask, desperate and hopeful.

  Nick frowns. “He is,” he replies, unaware of the anxiety his words are causing me “So is his aunt, charming woman, by the way. If I weren’t so in love with all things young and perky, I’d ask her to marry me.”

  I don’t even have the presence of mind to be disgusted at Nick. That’s how anxious I am. I should have listened to May, I think desperately. I should never have come back.

  Just when I think it can’t get worse, Nick says the words that turn my brain into a sea of pure, undiluted panic. “She invited us to stay at the house,” he informs me, with a ‘see, I told you she was charming’ smile in my direction. “So, no nasty Foster Inn.” He fakes a shudder. "Plus the cook is to die for. Just a few days and I already have a paunch.” He peers at me. “Are you all right?”