Star Promise

by G. J. Walker-Smith

  There was no need to for me keep my job on the pretence that it was temporary. If Charli decided to renew her contract at the gallery, life in New York could be ongoing for a while. And if that was to happen, I was determined to make sure I was the one who’d be spending afternoons in the park with my kid.

  I laid out my plans of quitting to Ryan over a cup of bad coffee in the waiting area. I expected him to be surprised, but he wasn’t.

  “Because of today?” he asked.

  “Partly. It was a wake-up call.”

  “Just take a bit of time off,” he suggested. “You might want to go back to it later.”

  “No, I won’t.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’m not a lawyer, Ryan.” I stared at the floor. “I just pretend to be. I freaking hate the job. I hate everything about it.” When he asked if I’d consider taking on the work at the club, I told him I’d think about it. The prospect of overseeing the renovations had been tempting me for a while. I just wasn’t prepared to commit to anything that night.

  First and foremost I needed to make sure Bridget was okay, and then I needed to talk to Charli – something we hadn’t really done for a while.

  There’s nothing sadder than missing someone you see every day. Little more than a month ago, the most important thing we had on our agenda was making a baby – and then Olivia’s poison trickled in. All talk of future babies and nonsensical conversations about sea dogs took a back seat.

  It was time to get back to basics.

  ***

  Bridget had been moved to a ward. I spoke to a doctor in the corridor, who gave me the good news that she was okay. “There’s a mild concussion, but there’s no reason why she can’t go home tomorrow,” he explained. I was so relieved that my voice faltered as I thanked him. He smiled and pointed toward the door. “Your family are waiting for you.”

  Walking into that room was the calmest moment I’d had all day. Bridget was asleep, and the room was so quiet that I when I leaned down to kiss her, I could hear her breathing.

  In an odd move that made no sense, Charli stood up and offered me her chair. I took her hand and pulled her back down. She lifted her head, looking up at me through weary brown eyes. “She’s been asking for you.”

  I crouched in front of her. “I’m here now,” I replied. “And someone’s going to be in shortly to have a look at your knee.”

  Charli outstretched her leg, checking out her bloody knee. “Impressive, right?”

  “I’m not sure.” I grinned. “Was a scraped knee on your never-done list?”

  She shook her head.

  I planted a kiss just above the scrape. “I love you, Charlotte,” I declared. “Just in case I haven’t told you that today.”

  Charli broke, throwing her arms around me with such force that I fell to my knees. I wasn’t trying to incite tears, but there was no consoling her. I asked her a hundred times what was wrong before she finally offered an explanation.

  “I didn’t have a meeting this morning.” Her voice was hoarse and small in my ear. “I lied to you.”

  I leaned back. “Where did you go?”

  It was a pointless question. Her distraught mood told me it had to have something to do with her mother.

  “I went to see Olivia. Please don’t be mad.”

  I brushed tears from her cheeks with my thumbs. “I thought we agreed that it was done.”

  “It’s definitely done now.” She sniffled. “I made sure of it.”

  I should’ve known that Charli wasn’t going to take Olivia’s treatment of Bridget lying down. But what I wasn’t expecting was such an elaborate act of settling the score.

  “I went to your mum this morning and asked her not to show up,” she explained. “I think she was relieved.”

  Even without knowing the family connection, my mother disliked Olivia. Any dealings she had with her would only ever have been as a favour to Charli.

  “The whole event was a sham,” she continued. “The only cause Olivia has is herself. She runs these bogus events and makes off with enough money to keep her non-existent ballet school ticking over until the next one. I shut her down.”

  Nothing about the revelation shocked me, but I was surprised that Charli had managed to keep it to herself for as long as she had.

  “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

  “Because I wanted to deal with it and I knew you’d try talking me out of it.”

  I wanted to yell at her, but I wanted to kiss her more. I leaned, tasting her tears as I pressed my lips against hers. “Please tell me it’s finished now,” I murmured.

  “I couldn’t take another second of knowing her,” she quietly replied. “Every dealing I’ve had with her has left me more beaten up than the last.”

  I kissed her again, utterly relieved.

  “She hates me, Adam.” I could feel her hands trembling on my neck. “Honestly despises me.”

  I wasn’t going to lie and tell her otherwise. I’d known it for a while. “It doesn’t matter,” I replied strongly. “Your dad picked up her slack. He loves you enough for both of them.”

  She hugged me even tighter. “I’m scared that I’m like her,” she whispered in my ear. “She’s a terrible mother.”

  “You’re nothing like her.” It frustrated me that she was even making the comparison. “And she’s no mother. There’s not a damn thing she could teach you about how to raise your daughter.”

  63. INVINCIBLE

  Charli

  I had a tendency to paint over the ugly parts where Olivia was concerned, but for the first time ever, I told Adam everything – including my concern over the damage she’d done to my relationship with Bridget.

  He didn’t seem surprised, which led me to think he already knew. “We’re going to get back on track, Charli,” he assured me.

  I nodded, which is where the lines of honesty blurred slightly. Getting back on track was going to be hard if we had a little non-believer in the mix. Whether he meant to or not, Ryan had snapped my strongest connection to my daughter. Without magic, I wasn’t sure where I stood.

  “I’m going to quit my job,” he said out of the blue.

  A sudden pain shot through my knee as I twisted to hold him tighter. It wasn’t up to Adam to fix the whole world, but giving up the things that made him unhappy was a great start. “What are you going to do instead?”

  He shrugged. “There’s a lot of work at the club to be done.”

  “Until the beach beckons,” I hinted.

  I wasn’t quite ready to throw in the towel and go home, but the reasons why were no longer work-related. Going home meant confronting Alex, and I had no plan for dealing with that just yet.

  Adam smiled. “Do you hear it, Coccinelle?”

  I shifted my hands to his face, settling my thumb in his dimpled cheek. “Today I do,” I whispered.

  ***

  I was tired, but Adam looked shattered. At least he was clean now. In an unexpected act of kindness, Ryan had swapped shirts with his brother. When I offered to find a cup of coffee, he didn’t protest. I left him sitting beside our little girl, patting her back the same way he used to when she was a baby. It was an absent gesture brought on by total exhaustion, just like old times.

  I ended up at a vending machine in the emergency waiting room. As soon as the cup started filling with coffee, I knew it wouldn’t be good. Just the smell of it reminded me of burnt wood. I forced a lid on it and picked it up anyway, unwilling to head back empty-handed.

  “Might I offer a better suggestion?” came a voice from behind.

  Of all the crazy events that day, seeing Jean-Luc standing in front of me when I turned around was the most shocking.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I heard they’re keeping my granddaughter overnight,” he replied. “I thought I’d stop by and check on her.”

  He hadn’t arrived empty-handed. In a gesture almost as grand as swapping shirts, he’d brought coffee.<
br />
  “Adam will be so thankful.” I pointed at his tray. “He’s getting all jittery from the withdrawals.”

  “I’m pleased to be of help.” He motioned to a row of chairs. “Can we sit for a minute?”

  I dumped the burnt wood coffee in a nearby bin and sat down. It was then that Jean-Luc noticed the cut on my knee. “Charli, what on earth happened?” He sounded aghast.

  “I fell over,” I replied, looking down at my knee. “That’s the last time I hit the bar in my lunch hour.”

  “I want it seen to,” he demanded, setting the Starbucks tray down on the empty seat beside him. “It looks painful.”

  I didn’t argue when he made his way to the triage desk. It made me feel special, and I was rarely made to feel special by the king. I didn’t hear the conversation, but when he turned and pointed at me, I figured he was making demands for band-aids and antiseptic.

  He wandered back. “They’re busy tonight,” he explained. “I told them we’d wait.”

  “Adam’s waiting for me.”

  “Adam can wait a bit longer.”

  I didn’t argue with that either. He was probably asleep in the chair anyway.

  Jean-Luc handed me a cup. “Earl Grey,” he announced.

  “You remembered I drink tea?” The only thing more embarrassing than my small voice was the fact that my eyes started welling with tears. It was such a simple detail, but at that moment it meant everything. My own mother didn’t know I liked tea. She’d never taken the time to learn a single thing about me.

  Tears didn’t rattle the king as much as I expected they would. He reached into his top pocket and handed me a handkerchief.

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled.

  “It’s been a hellacious day, Charlotte,” he replied. “There’s no need to put on a brave front.”

  I held my cup up to him. “Thanks for the tea.”

  “You’re welcome, my love.”

  I wasn’t just thanking him for the tea. In a rare moment, I was grateful for his company. Jean-Luc Décarie was everything you’d expect the patriarch an obscenely wealthy family to be. He was tough, rigid and extraordinarily unforgiving of anything he deemed unbecoming to his family. But very occasionally he’d do something nice, reminding me that he considered me part of the family he so fiercely protected.

  Tonight’s effort didn’t stop with tea. A woman sitting on the row of chairs in front of us took exception when a nurse approached us to tend to my knee. She turned around and let loose. “We’ve been here four hours,” she barked, pointing at the kid beside her.

  The nurse replied in a calm voice that probably took years to master, “Someone will be with you shortly, ma’am.” She turned back to me. “We’ll get this cleaned up.”

  Jean-Luc replied for me. “Thank you. We appreciate it.”

  “My child has been waiting for four hours,” interjected the furious woman.

  The nurse ignored her. “I’ll be back in a moment with a dressing,” she said, already walking away.

  Jean-Luc was having a harder time ignoring the woman, but I could tell he was trying. I almost felt sorry for her. She had no idea who she was up against. Her rude comments wouldn’t even come close to matching Jean-Luc’s if he decided to unload on her.

  “This is ridiculous,” she complained to no one in particular. The boy sitting beside her sank down in his chair, obviously wishing he was anywhere but there – sick or not.

  “Madam,” said Jean-Luc quietly. “I find you exceptionally rude.”

  She whipped her head around to glower at him. “I saw you arrive,” she accused, looking him up and down. “With your designer suit and your fancy schmancy coffee. You only just got here.”

  “Is it the suit or the beverages that bother you the most?” he asked calmly.

  “It’s the preferential treatment!” She pointed at her kid again. “My boy has been sitting here for hours.”

  “So you keep telling me,” he murmured, brushing invisible lint off the leg of his pants.

  It wasn’t the wait that was infuriating her now. It was the king’s tone.

  Her child let out a hacking cough that reminded me of a choking baby seal. Her response was to thump him on the back until he nearly coughed up a lung.

  “My child is coughing,” she snapped.

  Jean-Luc leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He spoke in a low and menacing voice befitting the king of Décarie land. “And my child is bleeding,” he retorted. “Now turn around and wait your turn.”

  I wasn’t surprised when she did as she was told, nor was I embarrassed by the obnoxious stand he’d taken. On a day when I was feeling most vulnerable, he’d stood up for me, protected me and reminded me that despite everything, I was the princess of his youngest prince.

  ***

  Bridget woke just before six. Her mood was questionable, but her physical state was good. As soon as we could find someone prepared to discharge her, we bolted.

  Her cranky mood was a strong sign that she needed more sleep, and because we got home before the sun was up, it was easy to trick her into going back to bed. I tucked her in while Adam searched for Treasure. Once reunited with the doll, Bridget gave up complaining and fell asleep.

  A hot shower trumped sleep for Adam. He’d been dreaming of it since the night before. I snuck into the bathroom and watched him like a creeper for a long time before saying anything. Oblivious, he stood letting hot water run over his head.

  “You remind me of a boy I used to know,” I said finally.

  Adam smiled but didn’t speak.

  “He was the first boy I ever saw naked,” I continued. “Well, the first that counted.”

  His lovely dark laugh echoed in the small room. “Lucky guy.”

  “I was the lucky one,” I corrected, keeping my eyes locked on his as I unbuttoned my top.

  “So what happened to him?”

  I shrugged off my shirt, letting it hit the wet floor. “I broke his heart,” I said casually. “Then he broke mine – a few times.”

  I must’ve been moving too slowly. Adam’s wet hands spun me around and unzipped my skirt.

  “He sounds like a dick,” he mused.

  “He used to be,” I agreed, kicking my skirt aside. “But he grew up, stopped breaking my heart and let me love him.” My whole body shuddered as a wet hand swept my hair out of the way and unhooked my bra. “And he’s very good with his hands.”

  His lips pressed against my shoulder – a move that changed the tempo of my breathing. “And his mouth?” he mumbled.

  “Very good with his mouth,” I confirmed shakily.

  I shimmied out of my underwear, stepped into the shower and melted into his waiting arms.

  Adam brushed the back of his hand down my cheek. “You kind of look like a girl I used to know too.” He frowned. “She was young – only seventeen – mad as a hatter.”

  I pretended to push him away. He held me tighter. “But she was special,” he said laughing. “Like no one I’d ever met before.”

  “Did you keep her?”

  He dipped his head, chasing my lips. “Of course I did,” he murmured against my mouth. “She loved me when I least deserved it.”

  We’d always belonged to each other, even when we couldn’t find a way to be together. There were no obstacles now. We were open, complete and ready for whatever the world threw at us, and after what we’d endured that day I knew there was nothing we couldn’t handle. Together we were invincible.

  I put my hands to his cheeks, inching his head back. Water streamed down, making him blink.

  “I’ve loved you my whole life,” I declared.

  His next words were said with his lips. My body was burning, and it had nothing to do with the temperature of the water. The blood coursing through my body was a fiery combination of true love and absolute desire.

  I broke free to whisper in his ear. “We have to get out.”

  “Why, Charlotte?” In a move that made my legs shaky, he touch
ed his lips to the side of my neck. “The water’s hot. You’re hot. What more do we need?”

  I put both hands on his chest to keep him at bay and looked at my knee. “I wasn’t supposed to get the dressing wet.”

  “Well, rebel, we can’t have you breaking the rules.”

  Changing my mind would’ve been simple, but Adam didn’t try. Before I knew it, I was bundled up in a towel and being carried across the hall.

  ***

  A morning in bed together was my plan but Adam had other ideas. I sat up, tucking the sheet under my arms. “You’re not seriously going to the office?” I grumbled. “Please come back to bed.”

  He continued raking through the closet looking for something to wear. “I won’t be gone long,” he promised. “I’m going to try and catch Dad at home before he leaves for work.”

  As much as I wished he’d take some time to sleep, I understood his mindset. Wanting to get the task of resigning over and done with quickly made sense.

  “Don’t let him change your mind,” I coached.

  Adam pulled on jeans and a T-shirt. “I won’t.”

  “And don’t take anything he says to heart,” I added. “He’s thoughtless when he’s angry.”

  He walked back to the bed, leaned down and kissed me. “Don’t worry about a thing. I can handle him.”

  I wished I’d warned Jean-Luc the night before. Perhaps with a little time to think things through, he’d be less likely to explode. As things stood, I had no choice but to stand back, let Adam walk out the door and wait for the fallout.

  64. HOBBY

  Adam

  I was relieved not to have to explain my early morning visit to my mother. Mrs Brown met me at the door. Her smile was wide, but nothing compared to the grin she gave me when I told her we didn’t need her babysitting prowess any more. She reached up and pinched my cheeks. “Wonderful, wonderful boy,” she exclaimed. “I’m delighted.”

  I couldn’t blame her. She’d been hoping for redundancy for a while. I thanked her again, making sure she understood how appreciative we were of all she’d done for us.