by T. K. Leigh
“No matter what,” he added, his rhythm increasing, his muscles tightening, his gaze intensifying on me.
“No matter what,” I murmured as I edged perilously close to the cliff, ready to jump, to fall, to fly.
“Promise me. No matter what, you’ll be mine. No matter what happens.”
“Yes, Dante. Te lo prometto. I promise you,” I exhaled, my body quivering and shaking as I pulled him tighter, thrusting, driving, stealing as much of him as I could. He buried his head in my neck, moaning through his own release, then collapsed on top of me, our sweaty bodies intertwining with each other in a spiderweb of legs and arms.
“Te lo prometto,” he said through his labored breathing, his tone foreboding. “Te lo prometto.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“ELLIE…,” A WOMAN’S VOICE called out softly, teasing. “Where are you?”
I crouched farther into my body as I hid behind a tree, trying not to giggle. I was getting better and better at hiding. There was no way she would find me.
“Ellie,” she called again. “Hmm… I wonder where my darling girl could be.” I buried my head against my knees, trying not to laugh as I heard her footsteps grow closer, a slight breeze as she walked near me blowing around her familiar aroma of lilac, lavender, and love. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to find her. She’s such a good hider.”
I glanced over my shoulder, seeing the fabric of her flowing white skirt passing me, and I pinched my lips into a tight line, giggling through my nose. I covered my mouth to quiet my laughs.
“I wonder if she’s by the swing set.”
Her voice grew quiet. I turned my head, looking behind me to see the woman in white heading toward a playscape in the distance, several yards away from the tree-filled area in the park where I currently hid.
I opened my mouth, about to run after her and tease her for not being able to find me, when two arms grabbed me from behind. I screamed at the top of my lungs, flailing against the person holding me captive and dragging me away from the tree.
Panic overtaking me, I kept screaming and screaming, begging for the lady in white to rescue me, but my pleas fell on deaf ears. She made no move to look at me, to come save me. I made one final plea for help.
“Mama!” I cried at the top of my lungs. She finally glanced over her shoulder and I peered into her eyes, regret and sorrow in the lines of her face.
It wasn’t my mother.
~~~~~~~~~~
I STARTLED AWAKE, GASPING for air, feeling like a weight was crushing my chest, making it hard to breathe. I threw the duvet off my body, a chill washing over me, despite the pool of sweat around me. As I attempted to calm my racing heart and shake off the dream, I glanced beside me to make sure I hadn’t woken Dante. I was caught by surprise when I saw him peering at me, his eyes tracing over every inch of me.
“Eleanor…”
I quickly turned over, pulling the duvet back around my body as I tried to hide, my dream still flashing before me. I knew people who dreamt all the time. I didn’t. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually had a dream. It was probably after I’d returned from Rome and dreamed Dante was still with me. But was that really a dream? I couldn’t be sure.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I huffed. I heard him take a sharp inhale of air, as if he were surprised by my answer. “It was just a dream. Nothing for you to worry about.”
I could feel his hesitation as he continued to study me. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t see him. I knew him well enough to know he was waging an internal battle about something.
“But I do worry,” he insisted, bringing his body closer and wrapping me in his tight embrace.
“It was just a dream. One dream. Not something to worry about.”
He pushed me onto my back, forcing my eyes to his. “It wasn’t, Eleanor.”
I furrowed my brow, my heart pounding in my chest as a renewed chill washed over me. “What are you talking about, Dante?”
He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “It wasn’t just one dream that caused me to worry. This isn’t the first time you’ve woken up startled from a dream.”
I sat up, vehemently shaking my head, unable to believe the words falling from his lips. “No. It is. I would have remembered. I don’t dream. I haven’t in ages.”
“You do,” he insisted, propping himself up onto his elbow. “That’s what woke me up our first night together, why you found me in the kitchen making you dinner at midnight. You were screaming for help.” His voice softened. “It scared me.”
I avoided his gaze, laughing slightly to make light of the situation. “I really know how to catch ‘em, don’t I? Wake you up with my screams just hours after we slept together for the first time.” I peered into his glassy eyes, his expression still full of worry. I sighed, lowering myself back to the mattress. “How many times have I woken you up like that?”
“A few.”
“How many is a few?”
He studied me, tentative. Then he blew out a long breath. “Almost every night.”
I stared at him, my mouth dropping open, dumbstruck by his revelation.
“I wanted to tell you,” he added quickly, wrapping his arms around me and bringing my head to his chest. “But you never brought it up.” He brushed back my unruly hair. “I tried to wake you so many times, but you never would. Whenever you startled awake after screaming and fighting against the covers, you’d shoot up straight in bed, look at me with this sort of terror in your expression, then mumble something and fall back to sleep.”
“I don’t remember any of this.” I struggled to believe what he was telling me could be true.
“Lilly had night terrors.”
I flung my eyes to his. “Night terrors?”
“It’s pretty common in children. It’s harder on the parents, I suppose. You just watch your child scream and thrash and cry, but there’s nothing you can do. Then they wake up the next morning and act as if nothing happened because they can’t remember it.”
I averted my eyes, staring at his naked chest. “Just like me.” I chewed on my bottom lip, still having difficulty wrapping my head around this. How could I simply not remember?
“Do you recall your dream at all?” Dante pushed. “When I talked to the doctor about Lilly’s night terrors, he said most children wouldn’t, but any adults who suffer through them may recall bits and pieces.”
I rolled onto my back, peering at the ceiling as I tried to piece together my dream, or terror. It was so clear while I was having it, but now it felt foggy, blurry.
“There was a woman,” I began after a minute.
“Anyone you recognize?”
I slowly shook my head. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I ever saw her face. We were playing hide-and-seek,” I said urgently, recalling more. “I couldn’t have been more than four or five.” I closed my eyes, hoping it would help bring it back to the surface. A small laugh fell from my mouth. “I was wearing a pink tutu and bright purple Converse.”
Dante pulled me closer, kissing my cheek. I met his enamored gaze. “I bet you were an adorable little girl.”
I smiled, all my panic and anxiety slowly washing away.
“Do you remember anything else?”
Inhaling a calming breath, I closed my eyes once more, concentrating hard, doing everything in my power to force my vision to the forefront of my mind. Dante ran a gentle finger down my arm, comforting me, soothing me, relaxing me.
“I was taken.”
“Taken?” he asked nervously. I instantly recalled his unsettling words to me all those weeks ago, words I thought were just the result of him muttering nonsense as he drifted off to sleep.
No one will take you away.
Now I couldn’t shake the feeling these words held a bigger meaning, that he’d been keeping something from me…something that would unravel everything.
“Yes.” I concentrated hard, bits and pieces slowly trickling back
into my memory. I could almost smell the fresh-cut grass, feel the wind on my skin, hear the chirping of the birds. “We were playing hide-and-seek. The lady in white was trying to find me, but I was hiding behind a tree.” I opened my eyes, peering at Dante. “Instead of her finding me, someone else did.”
“Who?” Dante pressed, his voice becoming edgy. “What did they look like? How many were there?”
“I don’t know. I never saw a face.” My throat tightened as that feeling of complete helplessness washed over me again. “I kept screaming for her to help me, to save me from the stranger taking me. She ignored me. Then I called her Mama and she finally turned around.” My gaze widened, my breath coming in short pants, my eyes racing back and forth.
“What is it?” Dante leaned closer, peering down at me.
I quickly sat up, staring straight ahead as that face flashed before me. It didn’t make sense.
“It wasn’t my mother.”
“Who was it?”
I opened my mouth, my brows gathering in. Then I looked at Dante. “Cynthia Edelman.”
His eyes widened and he bolted up, his face inches from mine. “Cynthia Edelman?” he repeated. “How do you know what she looks like?”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek, unsure of what to say. We’d yet to discuss anything involving Lilly’s death and the possibility of my father’s role in it. I didn’t even know where to begin with this whole mess.
“Eleanor,” he pushed, his stare intense, worried, scared.
Hesitating, I opened my mouth, then told him the only thing I could…the truth. At least part of the truth. Something about the combination of eagerness and suspicion in his gaze prevented me from wanting to tell him everything I’d uncovered. I could hear Mila’s voice in the back of my head urging me to trust him, to let him in. But I knew how to read people. If I learned one thing from working as a lawyer and being around politicians my entire life it was how to tell when people weren’t being completely honest. And I couldn’t shake the feeling in my gut that Dante was hiding something from me.
“You probably figured out by now that I overheard your conversation with Bradley that day back in Italy, about the emails my father sent Cynthia.”
He nodded.
“But what you don’t know is, the past several months, I’ve been looking into him.”
“You what?” His face reddened and he gripped my biceps, his chest heaving. “Why?”
“Because I couldn’t not do something, especially once…” I trailed off, avoiding his stare.
“Once what?” He grabbed my chin, forcing my eyes back to his.
“Once I sort of found a folder at Brock’s.”
“Brock’s?” He furrowed his brow, then looked away, as if trying to put the pieces together in his mind.
I slowly nodded. “When I went to move my things out. He’s a germaphobe and I wanted to mess with him, so I went into his office with the intention of leaving fingerprints all over his precious desk. That’s when I noticed the drawer was open.”
“What did you find?” His eyes floated back to mine.
“Background checks on a bunch of people, as well as surveillance photos of my father meeting with these same people. Toward the end of the file, there was background information on Cynthia Edelman. I also found surveillance photos of my father walking into Barnes Pharmaceuticals just after eight on the night you were supposed to meet with her, then leaving twenty minutes later, which also happened to be around the same time the medical examiner estimated to be her time of death.”
He ran his hand over his face, blowing out a long breath. I wasn’t sure whether it was due to what I’d told him or the fact that I knew this information, which I had a feeling he didn’t want me to know. “So you think…”
“I didn’t know what to think at that time. Then one night, a few blocks from my office, I noticed him slink into a dive bar, which I thought to be rather suspicious, so I followed him inside. He met with Brian Edelman, Cynthia’s ex-husband. After Brian threatened to go public with everything, my father revealed she wasn’t dead, that he had her fake her death to save her. He claimed there were too many suspicious events in the weeks leading up to her supposed death that he had no choice. He insisted someone must have figured out she was going to talk to you and blow the lid off whatever this was so they tried to silence her.”
“Do you believe him?”
I pulled my legs toward me, sighing. “I don’t know what to believe. I asked him where Cynthia was. All he had to do to back up his claims was tell me. Problem solved. Yet he refused on the grounds that it wasn’t safe, which seemed a little convenient, if you ask me. My father said she had been blackmailed over something and he was trying to help her. If that were the case, why would he send those emails Bradley found? Maybe my father planned all the events leading up to her death as part of some sort of elaborate scheme. Maybe he was the one blackmailing her and killed her to stop her from going public with everything. Maybe he told Brian she was still alive to stop him from looking into her death and uncovering the truth.”
I looked at Dante as he stared at the moonlight shining into my small apartment, wondering if he could tell I wasn’t being completely upfront with him, that I’d left a few things out, things that could turn the tables on what was truly going on. Part of me wanted to tell him about his father’s connection to her, but something stopped me from doing so, as if an outside force was at play, rendering me incapable of saying anything more.
“What do you think?” I pressed when he remained silent, deep in thought.
“I think…” He rubbed his temples, then released a long sigh, returning his eyes to mine. “I think you need to stay as far away from this as possible. Stop looking into it. Into your father. Into Cynthia Edelman.”
I squinted at him, confused. “Why?”
“It’s too dangerous,” he urged, a frenzied air about him. “Regardless of whether or not your father is involved, someone was after Cynthia because she knew too much. I’m not going to let the same thing happen to you. It’s not worth it.”
“Don’t you want answers? Don’t you want to finally be able to make peace with Lilly’s death?”
He stared at me, swallowing hard, then licked his lips. I couldn’t help but think he was floundering to come up with a compelling reason, something, anything, to get me to walk away. Then his expression softened, a sort of serenity washing over it.
“Remember everything you went through on the night I was giving that talk at USC? How you pushed fate and she pushed back?”
I nodded.
“I have to believe that’s what has been going on here. I’ve been pushing fate, trying to get answers about Lilly, instead of allowing the universe to show me those answers when it’s ready. When you first walked into my life, I honestly believed fate dropped you into my lap so I could finally get those answers.” His lips turned up in the corners as he closed the distance between our mouths, pulling my body toward his. “I was wrong. Our paths didn’t cross so I could get answers. You were the answer, fate’s way of reminding me to stop living in the past, to only live for a future. You’re my future. And I want to be your future, too. Not anything your father may or may not have been involved in. I truly believe karma will eventually come to get him.” He gripped my hips, bringing me on top of his lap, forcing my legs to straddle him. “So please. Stop looking into this. For me. For us. For our future.”
I opened my mouth to tell him we’d never have a future if he didn’t get the answers he’d been searching for, but he covered my mouth with his, stealing my protest. He wrapped a hand in my hair as his other hand kept me glued to him.
He pulled back. “Promise me, Eleanor.” His voice was almost a growl.
When I remained mute, he tugged on my hair, forcing a jolt of need to burn deep inside me.
“Yes, Dante.” The way he touched me, held me, consumed me made me forget about anything but needing more.
“Everything I’ve done has been
for you,” he crooned in a seductive voice as he slowly lifted my t-shirt over my head, his mouth traveling down my sternum.
A minute ago, having sex with Dante was the last thing on my mind. Now it was all I could think about. A tiny voice in the back of my head considered whether Dante knew this, whether he was using it to distract me, to get me to agree to stop looking into my father and Cynthia. But as his tongue found my nipple, tugging and sucking, that voice was immediately quieted, the only sound that of my carnal need to have this man right now.
“Every decision I’ve made has been to keep you safe.”
He continued his exploration of my body. I wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but when he clamped his teeth harder on my nipple, the pleasurable pain of his unexpected assault forced any question into oblivion.
“And any decision I make in the future will be with that same goal in mind. Everything I do is for you, Eleanor.” He swiftly flipped me onto my back, sliding my panties down my legs before sinking into me. “For you.”
“For me,” I murmured, losing myself in him once more.
“For you.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“PUT ME DOWN!” I squealed when Dante swooped me into his arms unexpectedly after helping me out of his car on the last Saturday in October. There was a slight breeze in the air, the temperatures finally beginning to drop now that it was officially fall.
“Not a chance in hell. You only get to walk into your new house for the first time once. I need to make it something you’ll never forget.” He smiled wider as he carried me up the brick path toward the front door of what was now our home. We’d closed on it in less than a week. A benefit of paying cash, as Dante reminded me. I still had trouble wrapping my head around anyone being able to pay cash for a house in the Malibu Hills.
Immediately after we got the keys, the place was overrun with contractors, all hired by Beatrice to make it into what she envisioned. She even came to California in order to oversee the project. Now, less than a month after I told Dante I’d move to Italy with him, I was about to see the house he bought me in Malibu so I would always have roots here, although with each passing day, my ties to this place became more frayed and disjointed.
