Avery accepted the hand Mrs. Jackson offered to draw her to her feet. “I think I’ll just stay out here awhile longer. I can’t quite believe she’s really here.”
The housekeeper went back inside the house, her tsking audible for most of the way back to the terrace, but Avery didn’t care. Her hands traced the lines of the angel’s wings, her flowing gown, her graceful slender arms.
“You’re back,” Avery whispered. “He found you and brought you back to me.”
It was easy to fall into old patterns and to settle at the foot of the angel and begin to open up her heart as she’d done so many times as a lonely child. And, as she did so, Avery could feel the weight upon her chest lifting.
“I miss him, I miss him so much. But I don’t know if I can ever trust him again,” she ended softly, after pouring her sorrow out from where it had been dammed up since she’d walked out on the only man she’d ever loved.
“Try, Avery. Please, will you give me another chance?”
She stiffened and turned, rising to her feet when she saw the man standing there. She blinked, as if she didn’t quite believe her eyes.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice strained.
Instead of answering her immediately, Marcus gave her a sheet of paper. She opened it, reading its contents in seconds.
“His wedding gift? What—?” Confusion made her mind spin. “This is from Ted? He gave us the statue as a wedding gift?”
“It seems weird, doesn’t it?” Marcus agreed. “I wish I could have been the one to find it for you, but I guess the most important thing is that she’s back where she belongs. She looks good there. As if she never left.”
“But…why? Why would he do this? And to call it a wedding gift?”
Marcus shrugged. “Maybe he thought we deserved another chance at this marriage of ours. I know I do. I want us to make this work, Avery.”
She half turned away, biting her lip. “I…I don’t know, Marcus. We rushed into everything, never thought any of it through. And I still feel used—lied to.”
“I know, and I’m so sorry. I wish I had been open with you right from the start. Told you everything up-front.” His voice broke, the wretched sound making her face him again.
“Avery, I love you. I love you more than anything or anyone else in the world. You are my everything and I don’t want to live the rest of my life regretting that I didn’t make more of an effort to convince you to take another chance on me. Please, give me, give us, another chance.”
“I’m scared,” she admitted. “You hurt me so badly. I don’t want to be that vulnerable again. Ever.”
“But isn’t that part of loving another person? Making yourself vulnerable to them? Don’t you think I feel vulnerable here, now, standing before you, knowing you hold my future happiness in your hands?”
He reached out, taking her hands in his and holding them to his chest. Beneath her palms Avery felt the warmth of his body seeping into her cooler skin, felt the beat of his heart and wanted to believe that it beat for her. Wanted it with a longing that reached to the depths of her soul.
“I do? Do I have that power over you?” she whispered.
“And more. I was a single-minded fool. And I was wrong when I told you that my past is not who I am. My past is everything about who I am now. It formed me, gave me a purpose. Everything. I just didn’t know, until it was too late, that sometimes you have to vary from the road you’ve carved out for yourself if you truly want to be happy.”
Marcus rested his forehead against hers briefly before continuing. “You know a bit about my background, about how my parents were junkies. For some crazy reason my mother loved my father enough to walk away from everything she’d ever known, from all the security my grandfather had worked hard to provide for her, and all to throw her life away on a man who let her take the fall for him when their apartment was raided. She was sent away, to serve a sentence that he should have been given. And he kept her supplied the whole time. When I was born, social services tracked down my grandfather who took me in. Until they knocked on his door he didn’t even know he had a grandson. I was two when the police notified him that my mother had died of an overdose—he was devastated. I think he’d hoped deep down, that if she knew he had me, that one day she’d come back home. Pick up her life again when she got out.
“But it seemed she couldn’t stand a life without my father. After Grampa had buried her, he thought that would be an end to it, but my father found him. He came to the house threatening to take me away. Grampa offered him money, a whole lot of money, if my father would walk away forever. My father accepted and that’s when Grampa sold Lovely Woman. He said it was worth it, but all my life I knew he’d done it because of me.”
“But, Marcus, that was his choice. He could have fought for your custody in court. No judge would ever have allowed your father to take you, given his background.”
“Grampa wasn’t prepared to take the risk. He had a friend who was a lawyer write up an agreement and he made my father sign it before handing over the money. I was twelve when Grampa told me the whole story, and I promised myself that day that when I was old enough I would buy Lovely Woman back for him. It was the only thing he had left of his mother and he’d let it go to keep me. I owed it to him.”
Avery felt tears burn her eyes for the passionate and determined boy Marcus had been. And for the passionate and determined man now standing before her.
“I understand,” she said softly.
His hands tightened on hers. “Do you? Do you see why I was so blind to everything else that I made the most stupid mistake of my life in trying to use you? Can you forgive me that mistake, Avery?”
She lifted one hand to cup his cheek and looked deep into his eyes. “I can, Marcus, and I do. I left you because I was afraid you were just like everyone else who ever used me in the past. Whether it was for money, or contacts, or just to say they knew me, people have walked all over me all my life. Yes, I’m lucky enough to have a handful of true friends, but it’s been a hard road finding those gems amongst the fakes. I was too quick to paint you with the same brush.”
“You were justified in doing so,” he said before turning his face so he could kiss the palm of her hand.
The heat of his lips sent a gentle thread of warmth to unfurl through her body—a warmth she realized she had been lacking since she’d left New York.
“Maybe so, but I didn’t want to listen to you in New York. I just wanted to leave, so I did.”
“You were right to go. I had been using you, I admit that, and I did realize that our assets became joint with our marriage. But that wasn’t why I married you. I asked you before I even realized it myself, but, Avery, you have to believe me. When I said my vows to you last Saturday, I was saying them from the heart. I love you with every breath in my body, every beat of my heart.”
“You were so distant after the wedding, I started to second guess everything. I worried that you’d married me just to get a hold of Lovely Woman and then when I saw Peter and he told me exactly who she was… Well, it all just made too much horrible sense.”
“I was a fool. I’d rushed you into getting married when we should have enjoyed taking our time toward planning the rest of our lives together. It would have given me a chance to show you how much I love you, to make you believe it, before we tied the knot.”
She gave a broken little laugh. “I didn’t exactly protest about our wedding being so soon, Marcus.”
He smiled back at her and she felt her heart swell with the knowledge it was genuine and just for her.
“No, you didn’t, did you?” Marcus bent and kissed her sweetly. “I’m glad. But I’m not letting you go. Not now I have you. You’ve taught me so much about love. I thought I knew it all. Grampa and I, we have a bond that nothing will break and I thought that was all that
love could be. Through you, though, I’ve learned that it can be so much more. I never knew what it was like to be truly loved by a woman, a life partner—someone who loves me wholly and unconditionally by choice, not by an accident of birth.
“We didn’t take time to get to know one another, but if you’re prepared to give us another try, give our love and our marriage another chance, then so am I.”
Avery reached up to pull his face down to hers. Against his lips she said, “I’d like that very much.”
Sixteen
It was late the next morning when Marcus awoke. For a moment, when he reached for Avery and found her gone from their bed where they’d made the sweetest love he’d ever experienced in his whole life, he felt a pang of fear and loss all over again. But almost as quickly as the alarm flooded his consciousness, she was there at the bedroom door.
“Come here, you,” he growled, patting the bed beside him.
“Not just yet.” She smiled. “Here, I have something for you. A belated wedding gift.”
He saw the wrapped rectangle and knew it instantly. It had to be the nude she’d completed of him before they’d gone to New York. Eager to see her expertise again, he ripped away the paper, but instead of the unframed canvas he’d been expecting, his hands unveiled the familiar and graceful form of his great-grandmother.
“I want you to have it,” she said in response to the unasked question that hovered on his lips.
“Avery, you didn’t have to do this,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “You’re the only lovely woman I need, now or ever.”
“Then give it to your Grampa. Seriously. I want him to have it if you won’t.”
He leaned the painting against the side of the bed and reached for her, wrapping her in his arms, and showed his thanks the most eloquent way he knew how.
The sun was almost at its zenith when they rose from their bed, as they did, Marcus noticed the painting had fallen from where he’d propped it earlier on. Cursing himself for his carelessness he reached to pick it up.
“Damn,” he muttered, noticing that the back of the painting appeared to have popped away from the frame slightly.
“What’s wrong?” Avery asked, dragging a robe around her naked body.
“I knocked this over and look—” he gestured to the back “—I’ve damaged it.”
“Here, let me see,” Avery answered, taking the picture from him. “That’s strange, it looks like there’s something in there, wedged between the canvas and the backing.”
She went to her dressing table and grabbed a pair of manicure scissors.
“What are you doing?”
“Don’t worry, we can get it repaired. I have contacts you know,” she teased gently. “But what is this—”
Marcus leaned forward as she pried the back loose. “It looks like an envelope.”
Avery picked up the yellow vellum packet and read the front, “Miss Kathleen O’Reilly. Do you think it’s from Baxter?”
“Only one way to find out.”
He slid his finger under the fold of the envelope, breaking the seal and then carefully extracted the thick sheaf of papers inside. “These look like stock certificates, and look, there’s a letter.”
“My dearest Kathleen,” Avery read. “It is with a saddened heart I forward this to you. I love you, my darling girl, I always will, but I cannot leave my wife—the scandal will destroy our children, our families. I was wrong to take advantage of you, wrong to let you love me, but I will always hold your love deep inside my heart, until my dying day. While I cannot be your husband, as I truly wish, I can at least provide for you and your family and I hope the stock certificates can make a difference for your life now, and for the future. –Yours, always, Baxter C.”
“He did love her,” Marcus said, struggling to believe what he’d just heard. “You know, I always thought he just used her then let his wife throw her out without giving her another thought, but he tried to make amends. He really did try. Now I know what the original note he sent with the painting meant. My grandfather still has it.”
“What did it say?” Avery asked, picking up the stock certificates and studying them carefully.
“It’s what’s inside that counts. Obviously the reference was too literal for Kathleen. She always told my grandfather that it had to do with the painting itself. She could have sold it at any time, but she always held on to it. Whether as a reminder of a love lost, or as a reminder of what her family called her biggest mistake, she couldn’t let it go. It’s part of what drove me so hard to get it back when I learned why Grampa sold it—knowing she could have made money from it all those years ago. Baxter Cullen was already well-known. If she’d sold it back then it would have given her family a financial boost they dearly needed.”
“I’d like to think she kept it because she loved him, and because in her heart she knew he loved her. But, Marcus—” Avery waved the stock certificates toward him “—if you want to talk about financial boosts, I think you should look at these. They’re worth millions now. I’m not kidding. Millions. Your grandfather is now a very wealthy man.”
Marcus took the certificates from her and pored over them. He couldn’t believe his eyes. All those years Kathleen had suffered and worked her fingers raw and she’d never known about the security that Baxter had given her. “If only she’d understood,” Marcus said softly.
Avery put her hand over his, squeezing his fingers reassuringly. “You know, I’m sorry that your family had life so hard through the years. It could all have been very different for you. All of you.”
“You know,” Marcus said, looking up at her, “I’m not sorry. Yes, life was hard, but if it hadn’t been I might never have met you, and never been able to tell you how much I love you.”
“Oh, Marcus,” she said, and he could see the shimmer of moisture in her eyes. “I love you, too. You’re the man of my dreams. Today, tomorrow and for always.”
* * * * *
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Barbara Dunlop.
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The Gold Heart, Part 3
Barbara Dunlop
Istanbul, One Year Ago
Kalila Khouri gaped in astonishment at her new British roommate, Alexis Payton. In their two-bed dorm room at Rushmore House on the campus of Rayard International School in Istanbul, the willowy, blond-haired, blue-eyed Alexis shimmied out of her silver-and-black spandex top to reveal a lacy purple bra.
“Is it true what they say?” asked Alexis, tossing the top onto one of the beds and snapping her bright green gum between her teeth. “Are you really a princess?”
Kalila nodded, quite literally speechless. Never mind the avant-garde clothing, nobody had ever undressed in front of her before.
“That’s so cool,” said Alexis. She rummaged through one of two matching plaid suitcases, retrieving another slinky top, this one bright pink. “My parents own factories in Birmingham. Well, also in China and India. But we brag more about Birmingham.”
She pulled the top over her head, adjusting the loose, scoped collar and cap sleeves. Then she tugged the fabric over her hips, unsnapping the top of her black jeans. She slid them off, and Kalila realized the pink garment was a dress, not a shirt.
The jeans followed the spandex top into a heap on the bed, and the hem of the dress settled high on Alexis’s thighs. Then, it got worse. Alexis unsnapped her bra, wriggling around until she tugged it out one of the sleeves, and discarded it with the rest of her clothes
.
“There,” she breathed, fluffing her wavy hair. “I’m set. So, what are you going to wear?”
Kalila glanced down at her sarong-style, mauve silk dress. It covered her arms to the wrists, and the skirt draped all the way to her ankles. The fabric was airy, the embroidery made it pretty and the wide sash at the waist was quite fashionable in her home country. “Is there something wrong with my dress?”
“No, no.” Alexis quickly rushed forward. “It’s very pretty. But…” Her lips pinched together. “The guys from Hamilton Hall are throwing a party at a neighborhood club. You know, a welcome to Istanbul and the Rayard school-year bash. You’ll…”
Kalila’s stomach clenched as Alexis obviously struggled for kind words.
“I’m afraid you’ll stand out, is all,” Alexis finished. “Because that gown makes you look…uh, so incredibly pretty.”
Despite her embarrassment, Kalila couldn’t help a grin. “Why do I get the sense that ‘pretty’ is a euphemism?”
Alexis gave a relieved smile in return. “Your English is better than mine.”
“I learned it as a child.”
Her uncle King Safwah had recognized English as the language of commerce, and he’d set about giving the royal princes an advantage in life. As a princess, Kalila had mostly been along for the ride.
“I didn’t mean to insult your dress.” There was genuine concern in Alexis’s eyes.
“You have me worried,” Kalila admitted, glancing down.
She didn’t want to stand out amongst her classmates. Though it was customary now for the male members of the Rayas royal family to take some of their education abroad, that option had never been open to the girls, until Kalila.
She wanted to make the most of her year, because, in June, she would be summoned back to the palace, where she would marry Ari Alber, the son of an important sheikh, a man twenty years older than her.
A Silken Seduction Page 16
