by Serena Grey
My heart soars when I see that it’s Jackson, but it comes back down with a jarring thump almost immediately. His face is impersonal and expressionless, almost bored.
“Aunt Constance wanted to check on you,” He says, without any inflection in his voice. He could be a stranger, not the Jackson I fell in love with. I wish I could be as uncaring as he obviously is. I wish I could suddenly not give a damn what he thinks of me. I wish the sight of him leaning on the door frame, looking so effortlessly perfect, and sexy didn’t make me want to beg him to forgive me, even though I know I haven’t done anything wrong.
I turn my gaze away from his perfection. “I’m fine.” I mumble.
“So why didn’t you come down for dinner.”
I can feel his eyes on my face, but I don’t look at him. “I wasn’t hungry.” I reply sullenly.
He enters the room and shuts the door behind him. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t bother to come meet Jessica.” He states, “That was rude, don’t you think?”
I don’t care. I hate her already. I sit up on the bed and look at him. “Why did you bring her here?” I ask. Was it his way of telling me that it was over between us, and that he had moved on? “Is she your girlfriend now?”
He pauses for a long moment, his eyes on mine. “Maybe.”
I inhale sharply. “Then I don’t want to meet her.”
“I suppose if it were Carter, or some other cute boy you could fool around with, you’d have been downstairs in a flash, wouldn’t you?" His voice is cruel, “Tell me, was it just Carter you wanted or would any of the guys have done for your hungry little body? Cause it would be unfair for me to keep hating him if it could have been any one.”
I feel tears stinging my eyes, and I blink fiercely, trying to keep the moisture inside. For so long, I’d dreamed of the kind of love Jackson and I would have, something total and absolute that would survive anything, but I’d been dreaming, basing my future on the nonsense in the romance novels. Hopelessness set in, and I feel the tears start to fall, staining my cheeks.
I hear Jackson sigh. “Olivia.”
“Leave me alone,” I cry, angry at myself for letting him see me cry. I toss the pillow I’m holding away and get up from the bed, facing him angrily, even though my cheeks are wet with tears. “Just go back to your Jennifer or Jessica or whatever her name is, I don’t care.”
At first he doesn’t move, and then, so swiftly that I have no time to expect it, he’s walking up to me and pulling me into his arms, kissing me through my tears. I want to stay angry, but instead, I surrender myself to the heat of his mouth on mine.
“You make me so fucking crazy.” He mutters between kisses. He threads his finger through my hair, holding my head back, so I’m looking up at him. "What have you done to me?” His lips cover mine again and the next moment we’re tearing at each other’s clothes, hungrily devouring each other. I can’t wait to feel him inside me, and it seems he can’t either. He lays me back on the bed and kneels between my legs, pushing my skirt up around my waist while I undo his belt and zipper. I can hardly wait while he pulls out the small foil package from his wallet, puts it on, shoves my panties aside, and pushes into me with one firm thrust.
It’s hot and fast and so good that I have to bite on my lip to keep from screaming loud enough for the whole house to come running. He groans as he slams into me again and again, his eyes closed and his head thrown back. In no time, uncontrollable pleasure suffuses my body, and I cry out helplessly, coming apart in his arms.
“I think I’ve gone insane,” He says later, when we’re still trying to catch our breaths. “You’re like a siren, making me crazy.” He pulls away from me and sits on the edge of the bed. “Is that what you want, helpless guys, so crazy about you they can’t even think straight?”
“Jackson...” I start, “about Carter...”
“Just… stop.” He says, a short, humorless laugh escaping his lips. “I don’t want to know what you were playing at.”
“But I love you,” I blurt out, my hands at my neck fiddling with the platinum heart pendant he gave me. “I love you Jackson, so much."
He shakes his head and gets off the bed, “Not as much as I hate myself,” he says cruelly.
I freeze, the rejection stunning and hurting me so badly, I can’t even speak. I huddle in the bed while he puts on his clothes and leaves, turning off the light and closing the door behind him. I start to cry again, wondering if he really hates himself so much for being with me, or if he just said it to hurt me, and knowing that it makes no difference.
Book Two
Chapter Twelve
WE still haven’t gone in for dinner. Elaine is describing some interesting fact she’s discovered in her research on Halcyon, her smoky voice holding everyone's attention but mine. I can’t stop thinking about the fact that Jackson is with Lindsay. They could very well be reigniting their adolescent relationship at the moment. I wonder how much, if anything, he knows of what she did. Did Blythe and Constance ever tell him that she had been behind everything that happened that night?
Would it even have mattered if they had? Over the years, I’d come to realize that the events of that night had probably been an excuse for him to end the clandestine relationship he was having with his family’s charity case. It had been a way out for him, a way to leave me hanging without feeling the regret any decent man would have felt at crushing the illusions of the foolish girl I had been then.
He crushed more than my illusions. Would he be so hateful if he knew what his rejection had really cost me? I wonder sadly, my eyes going to the curtains at the French windows that open into the garden. I watch them move, slowly, almost dreamily, in the gentle breeze coming from outside. Well he would never know.
“What happened to Carter Felton?” I find myself asking Constance.
Constance sighs. “Blythe broke up with him after he told her the truth. I heard that he went to rehab in some place in California, and he decided to stay, he’s a coach there now, helps people get over their addictions.”
I nod. Apparently, it all worked out for everyone. Blythe must have gotten over him too. She had transferred to some university in France soon after I left Halcyon. When she came back a couple of years later, she had been quite popular in the New York society scene. Now she ran her own interior decorating firm and seemed to be doing very well. Everyone’s wounds and bruises had healed, I decide. Except for mine.
No, mine are healed too, I remind myself. This house I once loved, the people who own it, they mean nothing to me now. I’m not a lonely girl yearning for acceptance anymore. I’m an independent young woman with a career, and a full life. I keep this thought in my head as we all move to the dining room where Mrs. Shannon has laid out a sumptuous dinner. I allow myself to get lost in the taste of good food and wine. Who cares what Jackson and Lindsay Gorman are doing right now? I tell myself. I sure as hell don’t.
After dinner, there’s a lively discussion about the paintings in the house, from the various master’s paintings in the main living room to the more contemporary ones hanging in the foyer. Carl surprises us all by having a seemingly inexhaustible supply of information about painters and paintings, from dates and places of birth and deaths to the occasionally incredible stories behind some of the art.
“I don’t know why he sticks with you.” I whisper to Nick, “He should be working in one of those swanky art galleries or auction houses.”
“He used to.” Nick says. “It went bankrupt, I think. Anyway he meets a lot more people working for me,” He grins, “and yes, by people, I mean women.”
I shake my head, and listen as Elaine tries to match her knowledge of art against Carl’s. After a while, I get up and go out through the French doors, onto the terrace overlooking the garden. There’s a carved stone railing between the terrace and the garden, and I lean on it, enjoying the summer sounds of the night around me.
“So you and Jackson Lockewood…�
� I don’t hear Nick until he’s right beside me. “What’s the story?”
I don’t look at him. “What makes you think there’s one?”
“Come on.” He chuckles and leans down on the railing beside me. “Anyone could see the sparks flying from miles away. Were you in love with him?"
I snort. It’s a harsh, bitter sound. “As much in love as a teenage girl could be.”
“And he took advantage of you… what a bastard.”
“No, I… It wasn’t like that.” Even after everything, I don't want anyone to think that Jackson took advantage of me, because he didn’t. I’d wanted him, and I would have given him every part of me without him having to ask. “He never did anything I didn’t want desperately.”
I can feel Nick’s eyes on me, and when I turn to face him, there’s compassion in his gaze, and understanding. “Love is so short," he quotes solemnly, “forgetting takes forever.”
Exactly, I think. How I’ve wished at times that I could flip a switch and forget that I ever loved Jackson, but I know I’ll never forget him. “What do you think of the house?" I ask, changing the subject.
His eyes gleam. “It’s a treasure.” He says. I’ve been talking with Elaine. There’s so much material here, the history of the house, the land, the architect, the influences, the changes and additions over the years, the exquisite art collection and furniture, and the people who have lived here. It’s going to read almost like fiction, but with images. Gilt wants the book to be interesting, not just a collection of photographs of famous houses.
“Well that certainly explains Elaine.” I say, “Grace told me that she’s been quite successful writing short stories.”
“She might look like a model but she’s as sharp as a needle, too sharp to fall for an old lothario like me, anyway.”
“Good for her,” I say teasingly, “she deserves better than you, every girl does.”
“Don’t go around telling them that.” He laughs, and then surprisingly pulls me towards him for a quick hug. “You’ll be all right here, won’t you? Jackson being here won’t be too much of an issue?”
“I’m big girl, Nick.”
“Good.” He smiles.
I enjoy his good humor because I know it’ll only be for a short while. Tomorrow he’ll be a tyrant, yelling at Carl, and giving me cryptic instructions on the exact messages he wants the images to convey, expecting me to be able to read his mind and see the picture exactly as he does, and get my camera to give it to him exactly as he saw it in his mind. However, I don’t mind, I’m even excited. If there is anything that has brought me comfort in the last few years, it’s been my work.
The sound of a car on the drive disturbs the silence outside. “Well, that’s probably the big bad Jackson.” Nick observes. He looks at me. "Don’t hide out here because of him. You only defeat your demons by facing them.”
Only, some demons cannot be defeated, I think sadly. “I’m not hiding, Nick. I’m enjoying the night air.”
He laughs and goes back inside. The breeze picks up, bringing with it the scent of the flowers in the garden. I inhale, remembering the peonies and tulips Constance used to grow and wondering if she still gave the gardeners trouble with her strict instruction on exactly how to plant them.
I thought I had forgotten this place. The realization that I never really did causes a small ache in my chest. For a moment, I allow myself to mourn the life Jackson and I could have had. The love I thought we had when I used to dream of living here with him, of watching my children grow up in the house I loved.
How foolish I was! I think, snapping out of the thoughts. How idiotic to have thought that there would be any happy ever after for Jackson Lockewood and pathetic orphan who depended on his family for a home.
I don’t want to go back into the living room, so I descend the steps from the terrace into the garden and follow the stone path past the meticulously maintained patterns of flowers and shrubs. I keep to the lit up path, walking aimlessly for a while, knowing but not wanting to acknowledge where ultimately, my legs are leading me.
I round the corner of the house, and there it is, just the way I remember, the lily pond, now covered with the wide green leaves, and the gazebo in the distance, small, quiet, and lit only by the lights around the house. I pause, unsure whether to proceed, whether I dare disturb and revisit the memories that were made inside that small place.
My legs carry me forward, and I walk up the stone steps into the small space. It looks exactly the same, empty except for the seats along the walls, and clean, except for a few stray leaves that must have been blown in by the wind.
I almost turn back. What did I hope to achieve by coming here? Already my head is being assaulted by the memories I’ve followed here, memories like a ‘voiceless ghost,’ leading me up cliffs, and down, till I’m lonely and lost.
Chuckling ruefully at the sad poetry that’s snuck into my head, I make my way to one of the seats and settle into it. Over the dwarf wall, I can see the pond, and I watch the wide, dark leaves float over the surface, and here and there, the pink bursts of color where a lily is blooming.
I sit there lost in my thoughts for a while, until the sound of footsteps breaks me out of my reverie. I look up to see Jackson walking towards me with that firm, long, stride. He’s wearing a dress shirt, unbuttoned at the collar, and black trousers that accentuate his long legs and lean figure. His hair is slightly disheveled, just enough to make him look even sexier than he usually does. The moonlight and the lights from the house cast shadows across his features that move as he walks, emphasizing the angles of his face and giving him a hard and implacable expression.
I don’t want to admire him, so I look away, back to the flowers on the pond. Why is he here?
He stops at the entrance and leans on the frame, watching me silently for what seems like an eternity. Still I refuse to look at him. If he followed me here, then he must have a reason, something to say perhaps. Well, I’m not going to be the one to draw it out of him.
“I see what you’re doing,” He says softly, so soft that I almost don’t hear the words. “You are leading me on; to the spots we knew when we haunted here together.” He pauses, and smiles, obviously pleased with himself for remembering the line from one of my favorite poems, the same one coincidentally, that I had been thinking of a moment ago. Is he really a demon then, one who can read my mind?
“Well,” He continues when I don’t reply, “How does it feel to revisit olden haunts at last?”
I shrug, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of acknowledging that any memories of importance reside here for me. “How did your dinner go?” I ask conversationally.
He replies with a small dismissive movement of his shoulders. “There was food, and there was Lindsay. It seems her parents suddenly had to visit a friend in town.”
“How convenient.” The words escape me before I can put on my verbal filter.
He chuckles. “You’re very imaginative.” He says, looking slightly amused. “In your head, does she get her parents out of the way so she can me serve dinner on her naked body?”
The image, coupled with what I imagine his response would have been, fills me with a sudden, unreasonable surge of jealousy.
“Neither you nor Lindsay feature very much in my head.” I retort sharply.
“Hmmm,” The small sound manages to convey both disbelief and dismissal. “You must be very forgiving,” he says, “if you’ve managed to forget that she convinced her brother to assault you.” He’s watching me as he speaks. “I was not so forgiving when I found out. Carter’s beautiful face will always be ruined by a broken nose, and Lindsay,” he grins almost malevolently, "I doubt she’ll be inviting me over again anytime soon.”
I swallow, disbelief making me confused. “How long have you known?” I ask.
“The day after you ran away.” He folds his arms over his chest, but his eyes remain on my face. “Constance was worried that you'd left because she hadn’t given you a chance to
defend yourself. She told me everything.”
“Then why…” I stop myself before I can complete the sentence, ashamed of what I’d been about to say. Why did you let me think you hated me all this time for something you know I never did? Why did you never come to find me? Why did you let me suffer all these years when you knew the truth?
But I don’t ask, because the answer is obvious. He hadn’t cared enough. My departure had probably been his way out from a relationship he knew was going nowhere.
“Why what?” he’s looking at me as if he knows what I’m thinking.
I shake my head. “Nothing,” I say. “She did us both a favor, didn’t she? If not for her we’d have spent a lot more time on a relationship that ultimately meant nothing.”
I can’t read the expression on his face as he pushes off the frame and moves towards me, coming to sit facing me. To anyone looking at us from outside, we would seem like lovers having a private conversation in a romantic setting, but it couldn’t be farther from the truth.
“I’m sure she’ll be glad to hear that,” he says, "although maybe she shouldn’t have bothered. If it meant so little then it probably would have fizzled out very quickly on its own.”
“Yes,” I agree softly, knowing that I’m lying to him, and to myself. Seven years, and still, nothing has fizzled out for me. I'm still as affected by his presence as I ever was. His eyes are intense as they study my face, and I suspect that I’ve not fooled him with my lie. I find myself wishing he hadn’t come to sit so close to me. I can feel the heat from his body, and the faint scent of his aftershave teasing my nostrils. And his eyes, they’re like a spell, holding me captive, so I can’t look away from the challenge and the invitation I see in them.
I want to hold his gaze, and return the challenge in his eyes with indifference in my own, but my heart is pounding, and my hands are suddenly trembling, even my mind is betraying me, supplying me with images from my memories. Images of those eyes filled with desire for me, memories of those lips on my skin, my neck, my lips…
