Stripped Down

by Eden Butler

  “Did I hear you right earlier?” she asked, her soft voice breaking the silence like the rhythm of a tree branch thumping against the ground in a storm. “Did you say you…love me?”

  She’d stopped moving her finger over my skin as she waited for me to answer, likely nervous what I’d say. The thought had me grinning. Samantha Nicola, the most beautiful woman on the planet, was scared of rejection. Fucking ridiculous.

  “I said I knew you loved me as much as I love you. So, yeah, bella. I suppose I did say that.”

  “Oh.” She moved her finger to tease my rib again, a lazy, soothing motion. “Since when?”

  Sammy was a smart woman. She’d been a smart girl. I’d spent a lot of years hoping she hadn’t been. From the first kiss, she would have known the effect she had on me. Each touch did something to me. Every look, every stolen promise, changed me. I’d wrecked it all, but she was smart. She could see through my lies. It had to be the reason it had taken her so long to let go.

  She didn’t complain when I turned, positioning her on her back, or when I moved on top of her, needing to see her expression when I made my confession. “Since that first kiss, bella, and every kiss after that.”

  “But you told me…”

  “And every day from that first day,” I said, covering her mouth with a kiss when she tried to interrupt me. She let me silence her again, taking my tongue until the questions and confusion became too much and she pushed me away.

  “You told me you never… You said…”

  “I lied. Every single time I told you that, I lied, and I’m sorry, Samantha. I loved you. I still love you. I’ve always loved you.”

  Eyes wide, Sammy rubbed the moisture from her lashes, fighting hard to keep herself from crying.

  I moved closer, kissing away each tear when it fell. “I’m sorry,” I told her, kissing her cheek, tasting the salt from her tears. “I’m so sorry, amore mia.” I took her mouth, my thumb stroking over her cheekbone as I stared down at her. “I’ll go to my grave protecting you. I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure you know how sorry I am that I ever lied to you.”

  Maybe it was the time we’d spent apart or the lies I’d told that kept us apart. Maybe it was the happiness in that moment of what we might find in the future. But right then, Sammy’s tears came quicker, streaming down her face as if from a faucet. She didn’t tell me to stop kissing her, and I didn’t ask her why she cried. I just leaned over her, taking her mouth, doing my best to show her with my lips and tongue, with every part of my body, that I was hers and I’d never let anything or anyone ever change that again.

  10

  Sammy

  Fairy tales weren’t real.

  There were no dragons.

  No knights coming to rescue the damsel.

  I was fine with that. I’d never needed a rescue.

  On the day Betta was born, I promised her we’d rescue each other. And we had. Uncle Pat had done what he could, but I had disappointed him. I had shattered all the plans we’d made for my life since I was a little girl because I fell in love and in bed with Johnny Carelli.

  But for once, for the smallest moment, I wanted to pretend that the fairy tale could be mine.

  Johnny took me to the Hamptons, a magical place meant for only the fantastically wealthy or the fantastically well connected. I’d never been either of those things. Johnny was both.

  His family owned a mansion with an oceanfront view, miles from the common tourist traps, with exclusive beach access that promised no one would bother us. There, we would be alone and pretend there wasn’t a life and the weight of too much responsibility waiting for us in Manhattan.

  At least for a few days.

  “Here, there’s more pineapple.”

  “I’m stuffed,” I told him, warding off the last few decadent slices of fresh fruit he shoved in my face. He’d spent most of the past hour grilling asparagus and salmon out on the deck while feeding me fruits I’d only seen in magazines and heard about on cable cooking shows.

  “Where’d all this come from?” I asked.

  He knelt in front of me, lifting the last pineapple chunk in front of my mouth.

  I opened wide, laughing when Johnny licked the trickle of juice that slipped down my chin. “Hmm…”

  “You’d be surprised…” he started, abandoning the food to inch closer to me. His mouth drifted from my chin and down my neck. “…what you can have ordered last-minute…”

  I stifled a moan, still not convinced we were completely alone in this massive home, or utterly secluded from the world despite the private beach being empty.

  “…when you’ve got enough cash.”

  “Oh.”

  When Johnny circled my bare nipple with his mouth, I stopped caring about where all the food came from or how private this mansion was and let him divest me of the terry cloth robe. My skin was still pink from a day in the ocean. I was pretty sure I’d never be completely free of sand from between my toes, but Johnny’s mouth and tongue and clever, talented fingers were distraction enough that I didn’t care about anything but how he made me feel and the small fairy tale we were creating underneath the stars.

  It was after midnight when my cell phone rang, and I grabbed it, the fear over Betta gripping me before I realized where I was or who lay next to me naked in this massive bed.

  “Hello?”

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Samantha. I’ve been calling you for two days!”

  My skin chilled, and I slipped from the covers, grabbing Johnny’s button-up to wrap around my body before I stepped out onto the balcony, not wanting him to hear my uncle screaming at me in the dead of night.

  “Uncle Pat,” I said once I walked out of the room, realizing the ocean’s waves wouldn’t do anything to calm me. “Why are you calling so late?”

  “Because you damn well wouldn’t return my calls. Where the hell are you? Did you give Johnny the check? Have you severed ties with him?”

  “Listen…” I started, wincing when I heard the old man’s amazed cursing under his breath.

  “Have you lost hold of your senses? Dear God, you haven’t—” He stopped speaking.

  I glanced over my shoulder, frowning when I spotted Johnny sitting up in bed, his arms on his knees as he watched me.

  On the other end of the phone, my uncle muttered low, rapid-fire prayers to himself, as though he needed some divine intervention to keep from losing even the smallest grip on his patience. “Did you tell him about the child?”

  “What? No, of course not,” I said, turning back around and away from Johnny as though he could hear my uncle’s question. “You have to let me handle this in my own way and in my own time. Johnny wouldn’t take the check. I couldn’t force him, and you can’t make him sell you the building. It’s not that simple.”

  “Then you’ll have to choose another building.” Pat’s voice was firm and final, as though he’d spoken all he would of the situation and expected me not to argue.

  “No,” I said finally, ignoring his grunting sigh. “I’m not discussing this with you right now. It’s after midnight, and we both need to rest. Stop drinking that whiskey and go to sleep.”

  “I am not…”

  “Priests shouldn’t lie, Uncle. Now go to sleep.”

  I hung up before he could continue arguing, but I couldn’t move. Instead, I stared down at the screen, squeezing my phone between my fingers as though that might help relieve some of my anger. It didn’t work, and neither did looking out into that low-tide moon. There were too many obstacles laid out before me. Too many hurdles that kept being set higher and higher, and I knew I’d never be able to clear them.

  It was all so overwhelming.

  Then the balcony door opened, and Johnny slipped out behind me, pulling me to his chest with his chin on the top of my head.

  “He’s always going to hate me, isn’t he?”

  “I’m afraid so,” I said, figuring there was no reason to sugarcoat anything.

  “I�
��ll speak to him when we get back.”

  I turned, leaning against the railing because I wanted to see his laugh when it came. But Johnny wasn’t making a joke.

  “What’s that look?” he asked, angling his head to the side when I continued to stare at him blankly.

  “That would be an exceedingly bad idea.”

  “Because he hates me?”

  I nodded.

  Johnny shrugged. “Not for nothing, bella, but I think I can handle an old man screaming at me.”

  “You want to get on his good side? Then stay the hell away from him.”

  Johnny drew his eyebrows together and tightened his mouth, bringing his lips into a hard line. “I can’t do that, Sammy.”

  “Why?”

  “Because.” He stepped toward me, resting his hands at either side of my hips on the railing. “You love him, and I love you. Because I want to build a life with you, and he’s already in your life. We can’t have bad blood between our families. We have to forgive the past if we want a future together.”

  I felt sick. Something thick and weighted felt like it had taken root in my stomach and settled its claws deep inside me. Now was the time. There would be no better moment. I had to tell him. He had to know the truth.

  “Listen—”

  “Samantha, I’d do anything for you,” he said, interrupting me with his hand on my cheek and his forehead against mine. “I’d kill anyone trying to hurt you. I’d give up every penny I had just to see you smile and, yeah, I’d go crawling to your mean bastard of an uncle, begging his forgiveness for taking your innocence all those years ago. There isn’t much I wouldn’t do for you.”

  The phrase struck me as funny. “Isn’t much?” I asked, curious.

  “Well, I mean, I think I can handle anything but disloyalty. But I don’t worry about that with you, Sammy.” Johnny straightened, pulling me close. “You’d never hurt me, I know that.” I closed my eyes when he slid his fingers through my hair, shifting my bangs from my forehead and away from my lashes. “I want a life with you. Children…lots of children one day—not now, but one day.” That weighted root dug in further, wrapping around my heart and squeezing as Johnny continued. “Smoke, he can take over for me. We’ve discussed it before. I don’t want this life forever, and he doesn’t have any ties. When he does, me and you, Sammy, we could make this all…official. We could have everything we wanted. All the things we talked about having when we were kids.”

  I leaned against his chest, letting the fairy tale wrap around me, already sad because I knew how temporary it would be. “That was a long time ago. Those were big, big dreams, Johnny.”

  “They were still ours.”

  They were, but sometimes the dreams we have aren’t meant to come true. Sometimes, the dreams of the past are meant to show us the work that must be done in the future. And not everyone is up to the task.

  11

  Johnny

  Father Patrick Nicola used his office for intimidation. It was a mammoth, ornate space with gothic adornments anyone would expect a priest to surround himself with.

  But the old priest had gone a step further, some twenty years back, asking my father to acquire a perfect replica of Hunt’s The Light of the World, all dark reds and black, with the Christ from Revelation looking menacing and ominous, to hang above his desk. It was an imposing, morose piece, instantly filling whoever looked at it with a swell of guilt and shame that would likely have them itching for a confession.

  But I wasn’t easily bullied.

  No matter that I’d been in this office over a decade before as a punk kid, just discovered naked in Sammy’s bed, unable to look at the old priest for fear I’d be struck dead just by sheer force of his rage for not agreeing to marry her on the spot.

  Even back then, though the guilt had been palpable and had lingered ever since, I hadn’t allowed the man, or this place, to intimidate me.

  I wouldn’t today.

  “Father Nicola will be with you in just a moment,” Sister Dominque said, motioning me to the bench just outside the old man’s office. There was a transom above the huge mahogany door, and from the leaded glass, I could make out the gray-green night sky and gold halo of the painting. I heard the irritation in the priest’s tone as he yelled at whoever had the misfortune to call him just before he’d been notified that I sat out here waiting for him. Sister Dominque’s smile, which was ever-present, faltered only slightly when she heard Nicola’s curse after she announced me, but then she shrugged, shot me a wink, and went back to her filing as though the old man’s anger wasn’t her fault.

  And it wasn’t. It was mine.

  The door flew open just after the sound of a phone receiver rattling against its base reached me, the old priest’s face, drawn and wrinkled, hardening as he held open the door and glared down at me. His eyes were sharp and blue, but edged with red, as though he hadn’t gotten much sleep as of late. There were bags under his eyes, more than I remembered seeing at my father’s funeral a few weeks back.

  He didn’t acknowledge me, other than to jerk his head back toward his office, stepping out of the way before he cleared his throat, addressing Sister Dominque. “No calls, please.”

  “Yes, Father.” I heard as I walked inside.

  I had sense enough to wait for an invitation to sit, which came in the form of a hurried, “Sit,” before he moved to his leather chair behind the massive wooden desk.

  There were floor-to-ceiling bookshelves surrounding the room and a large fireplace encased in marble and yet another huge religious painting I didn’t pay enough attention to identify. Then Sammy’s uncle cleared his throat again, bringing my attention back to his desk and the disappointed look on his weathered face.

  “Samantha warned me you might be foolish enough to ask to speak with me.”

  I nodded, weighing my answer and the old man’s mood before I spoke. “She advised me not to bother.”

  “You should listen to my niece. She is remarkably intelligent.”

  “I know this, Father.”

  Nicola cringed, but he recovered the expression by opening his bottom desk drawer and pulling out a nearly empty bottle of whiskey, which he didn’t offer to share. “She’s much more intelligent than you.”

  “Again,” I said, giving him another nod, “this isn’t news to me.”

  “And yet you don’t heed her warning and take it upon yourself to darken my door when you know you’re not welcome. Why is that, Mr. Carelli?”

  I sat forward, pressing my lips together as I watched him pour two fingers of whiskey into a tumbler. “Because there is bad blood between us that I want to resolve.”

  The priest nearly choked on his drink as he sipped, seeming genuinely amused by my admission. “There is no resolving our bad blood. The wounds run too deep.”

  “They are old wounds, Father.”

  “Not to me,” he said, humor gone now, pointing at me with his tumbler, one skinny index finger extended. “You were a vile, opportunistic punk who took advantage of my innocent niece, and when I discovered what you’d done, what you destroyed, you shamed her further by refusing to marry her.”

  “Father…”

  “I am not your father, Carelli, or your priest.”

  We stared at each other for more than a minute. The room crackled with tension, and I fought the impulse to knock the tumbler out of his hand and grab the bottle from his desk. I needed a drink and fought the nagging urge to clock the old asshole for dredging up the past, something I’d never be able to change. Something I’d never be able to forgive myself for, no matter what I did.

  “What would you have me do?” I asked him, knowing the answer before he spoke it.

  “Let her be.” He sat back, abandoning his glass for the bottle. “If you really love her, then walk away and let her find someone who will be good for her. Someone who will care for her.” He pushed the bottle at me, looking half drunk, half enraged.

  “No one can do those things for her like me.” I meant
it.

  One glance my way from him and I understood that the old man knew I was serious. The glare on his face gave him away. He leaned back, one arm flung over his armrest, the other scrubbing over his mouth before he finished the whiskey in one long pull from the bottle.

  “Samantha will never marry you without my blessing. And, Carelli, I will never consent to blessing any union between you and my niece.” He threw the empty bottle into the trash and leaned back in his chair. “Not ever.”

  I stood, knowing a losing battle when I was in the thick of one, intent on walking away without a backward glance, until the old man called my name, and my curiosity and some still-flickering hope inside my head had me turning to face him.

  “Understand me plainly. If you don’t leave Samantha alone, I will make certain there is someone else occupying her time. And make no mistake, she will listen if I suggest they are a better match for her.” The priest left his desk, stepping up to me, like he didn’t care that I could knock him out with one punch to the jaw. But I was no animal. No matter what he said to me, that he was trying to keep Sammy from me, Nicola was still a priest, and on my worst days, I was still my mother’s son and a Catholic. I stuffed my hands into my pockets and repressed the urge to knock the smirk off his face. “Sammy is stubborn, but you know if she is anything at all, it’s a loyal, dutiful niece. She will listen to me.”

  I turned, leaving the old man’s office while I still held on to my control, trying to remind myself, given the choice, Sammy’s loyalty would be with the man she swore she’d always loved. Problem was, I wasn’t sure if that was me or her uncle.

  12

  Sammy