Promises

by Aleatha Romig

  “Me?”

  Eclectic, a bit hipster chic, and at the same time homey.

  I stood at the doorway, taking in the large living room that connected to the dining area of her kitchen. The wall to the right and the far wall were made of all glass, the same tall windows as upstairs. The living room was sleek with colorful paintings, many like the ones in Sterling’s office. The gray sofas and chairs were littered with accent pillows and throws in varying colors matching the paintings.

  I took a step toward one of the paintings on the wall. The signature was from Jean-Michel Basquiat. “Sterling has one of these in his office.”

  She nodded. “I liked his, so Reid surprised me with this one. I can’t believe we own something that is similar to what they hang in museums. He’s good at picking up on what I like and don’t like.”

  “Like chess?”

  Her smile broadened. “Hmm.”

  “I guess it’s easier to think about that than being left alone for five days,” I said wistfully, hoping and praying it wouldn’t be five days. Five hours had been unbearable enough.

  Lorna turned on lights, and hitting another button, she brought their fireplace roaring to life. “I know it’s summer, but when I’m upset a fire with wine makes me feel better.”

  I watched the flames for a moment, trying to comprehend that it was now Sunday morning and only twenty-four hours ago, Sterling and I were on a yacht on Lake Michigan, and now, Lorna and I were in some strange reality where something called lockdowns not only existed but removed us from the real world.

  I pulled myself away from the flames and trailed after her to the kitchen. “I like the fire. It’s a good idea.” When I turned from the dining area, I stopped and took in Lorna’s kitchen. While not as large as the one upstairs, it held all the same fancy appliances and hard-surface counters. One difference was the backsplash. It was colorful tile that brought sparks of red, yellow, and orange to the walls. When she hit another switch, LED lights made the tile glow, as if like the fireplace, they were made of real fire. Hanging from cords over the island were more lights. These were shaped like flames with bulbs within them that gently flickered.

  “You like fire,” I said.

  “I like warmth. I hate being cold.”

  “Do you cook in here too?”

  “Sometimes. It depends. One day I’ll only cook here and take the food upstairs. Another day, the opposite.” She shrugged. “Depends on my mood and it changes things up.” Turning, she opened a wine refrigerator built into the cabinet and asked me what I’d like.

  “Moscato, white if you have it.”

  Lorna grinned. “Like I said, I do the shopping. I keep us well stocked.”

  I looked at the size of the wine refrigerator. “If this is going to last for five days, we may run short.”

  “Oh, there’s plenty upstairs, too.”

  After I helped Lorna slice some different cheeses and took the plate to the living room, I grabbed the bottle of moscato and a stemmed glass and went back to one of the sofas. As I sat down, I again took my phone from my pocket and laid it on the table.

  On the screen I saw the icon indicating I’d missed a call.

  STERLING on the screen.

  “Oh my God. How did I miss it?”

  “What?” Lorna asked, coming from the kitchen with her own bottle of wine and a glass.

  My hands shook as I lifted the phone. It was after two in the morning now, and I wasn’t sure I could listen to a message. I didn’t know if I could handle the news. What if it was bad?

  Sterling had promised me that he’d be with me when I learned good or bad. He’d made that promise about my family, but damn, Louisa qualified as family. For years, the Nelsons had been all I knew.

  “What?” Lorna asked again.

  I pointed at the phone on the table. “I-I missed a call from Sterling.”

  “How? You’ve had your phone with you the whole time.” When I only looked wide-eyed at her and back to the phone, she went on, “Did he leave a message? Are you going to listen to it?”

  I tried to swallow. “I’m so scared. I wish he were here.” I looked up at Lorna as she sat beside me. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m pissed as hell at him. I want to scream at him, call him every name I can conjure up, cuss like a sailor, and beat my fists against his fucking chest.”

  Lorna nodded. “And then you want him to wrap you in his arms and tell you it’s all right. Your friend, her husband, and their baby are all safe and healthy. You want him to tell you that he, Patrick, and Reid are all home and safe. You want him to tell you that life will go on.”

  Tears were again raining down my cheeks. “Yes. I want all of that.”

  “Hey, while you’re making demands, don’t forget about your hand on the sensor. I have ten dollars riding on that.”

  The throbbing in my temples resumed. “I need to listen to his message.”

  I lifted the phone as if it were a snake capable of injecting venom, and I swiped the screen.

  “How long ago did he call?” she asked.

  “Just five minutes ago. I don’t understand how I missed it.” I checked the ringer. “It doesn’t make sense. The ringer is on and it should have vibrated.”

  “It’s 2:22 here,” Lorna said, opening the wine bottles. “Boulder is only one hour behind, right?”

  I nodded as my heart beat wildly like a drum vibrating in my chest, the pulsations reverberating to my hands and making them shaky. Taking aim, I touched the voicemail icon and lifted the phone to my ear.

  Sterling’s deep voice came through the phone. “I hope you’re asleep. We’ll be on our way home in another hour. I know I promised to be with you when I gave you news.”

  More tears formed at the sound of his voice.

  “I know you’re upset with me, but our plan worked.”

  Worked? What does that mean?

  “I think that just this once, I can break my promise. I think you need to know sooner rather than later. And if you wake and see this message, I don’t want you to worry any longer. Louisa and Jason are safe. She’s on her way to the Lutheran Medical Center outside of Denver, by ambulance. Not because it’s an emergency. That hospital is where they have the top NICU department on-site. She’s not in labor. This is strictly for prevention. I’ll tell you more in the morning. Not only are they safe, but we’re also arranging around-the-clock individual surveillance until this thing is settled.”

  What needs to be settled?

  “I need to go. We have a few things to wrap up.

  “Sunshine, you can hate me, but I needed to concentrate on Louisa and know you were safe. You can hate me, but it won’t stop me from loving you.”

  The voicemail ended.

  My cheeks were covered in tears and my nose was running. I was as far as one could be from the picture of regality Sterling had told me to be at the club what seemed like a million years ago. Laying my phone in my lap, I turned to Lorna. “She’s safe. They did it.”

  She leaned forward and gave me another hug. “Praise be.”

  I nodded. “I’m still mad at him.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  “But I guess I understand.”

  Lorna poured moscato in my glass and then something red in her own. After handing mine to me, she lifted hers and said, “To Louisa.”

  Our glasses clinked before we each took a sip.

  “Do you think it would still be all right for me to do all the things I said?”

  “The yelling, hitting, cursing...? That stuff?” Lorna asked.

  I nodded, taking another longer sip.

  “I would, after you wrap your arms around him and tell him how grateful you are that Louisa and the baby are safe.”

  I shrugged. “It seems like the wrong order.”

  Lorna winked. “It will keep him on his toes.”

  Araneae

  At a little after three in the morning, Lorna rode up the elevator with me to the first floor of Sterling’s and my apartment.
When the doors opened, she smiled. “It will be better in the morning.”

  “Now that I know Louisa is safe, I want to do that,” I said, pointing at the sensor.

  “Ten dollars on you.”

  The elevator doors shut, leaving me alone in the vastness of the penthouse. My stocking feet slid on the marble floor as I made my way to the stairs. With my hand on the banister I stopped and turned toward the archways to the sitting and the living rooms. With the only illumination the moon’s glow coming from the windows, the apartment took on a silver hue.

  Although nothing about the penthouse had changed since going down to Lorna and Reid’s apartment, it felt different—in a good way.

  I still couldn’t make the elevator work, but I knew I was safe. I knew Louisa and Jason were safe. As wrong as the world and my life might be, it was right.

  I was home.

  Walking up the stairs toward our bedroom, I smiled, recalling Reid and Lorna’s conversation. It occurred minutes after I’d listened to Sterling’s message. Not only had Reid given Lorna the same information, he let her know that lockdown should be over after Patrick and Sterling returned. The part that made me smile was when he also mentioned that he knew I was in their apartment. Lorna just laughed. When she hung up, she repeated what he’d said and reminded me again that when it came to those three, I should accept that they will always know our whereabouts.

  It seemed overwhelming, overbearing, and even overkill, yet knowing that I wasn’t alone, that Reid was the same way with Lorna, somehow gave me the willingness to accept it for what it was. Sterling said over and over that the world he’d brought me into—the one I’d been born into—was dangerous. As long as he and Patrick and Reid were able to save Louisa, my momentary internment in the gilded cage seemed less upsetting.

  Our bedroom was quiet as I switched on a few lights turning the giant windows into mirrors. Like the apartment as a whole, the bedroom no longer felt like a prison cell. It was where I wanted to be until Sterling returned and I learned more about Louisa and Jason.

  In Sterling’s message, he’d said I could hate him but he’d keep loving me. That sentiment played on repeat in my head as I readied for bed, washing my face and brushing my teeth. As I pulled a long satin nightgown over my head and it slid down my body, I decided that I could do both. I had. I’d been upset—irate. I’d hated him in that moment and the moments that followed. That didn’t mean that I’d stopped loving him.

  I’d heard once that love and hate were the flip sides of the same coin, so closely related that you couldn’t experience one without the other.

  Climbing into our big bed, I settled with a sense of contentment that a few hours earlier I never imagined having. Pulling Sterling’s pillow to my chest, I inhaled his lingering scent, the combination of clean bodywash and his cologne. The realization that my coin had flipped came as his aroma comforted me. Before I could give it more thought, sleep quickly took over.

  I woke to the rhythm of Sterling’s breathing, his warm, hard body wrapped around mine, my back to his front, secure in his embrace. I hadn’t heard him enter the room or the bed. Blinking, I focused on the bedroom filled with sunlight, having no idea what time of day it was or how long I’d slept. The sky beyond the large windows was blue with large fluffy white clouds in the distance. As I started to move, his embrace tightened, pulling me closer.

  “I’m not letting you go.” The gravelliness of sleep infiltrated his deep tenor as his warm breath skirted over my hair.

  I remembered all the things I wanted to say, the way I wanted to fight back for what he’d done, yet for some reason, none of that came out. Instead, I marveled that he was here, still sleeping with me when I woke. As I settled against him, my emotions came out in salty tears.

  Sterling rolled me toward him, my front to his, as he gently wiped a tear from my cheek. “She’s safe. No more crying.”

  I nodded, letting my forehead fall against his chest, yet the tears continued. My voice was muffled as I swallowed the tears. “Thank you for what you did for her.”

  “Patrick and Reid should get most of the credit.”

  I peered upward to his gaze. “I want to go to her, to see her and Winnie. I can’t imagine what they went through.”

  “Winnie saw it from the outside. She understands what happened and the importance of keeping quiet. Jason doesn’t recall a thing. Louisa knows that she was taken, but she never saw her captor. She has no idea why it happened. We convinced them to keep the police out of it. After we got Louisa to Winnie’s house we called the ambulance and had her taken to the Lutheran Medical Center just outside of Denver to be checked out. She told the EMTs that she wasn’t feeling well. They’re going to keep her for observation. If all is fine today, she’ll probably go home.”

  “Sterling, I want to see her—in person.”

  He nodded. “I know. You will.”

  “Is she safe?”

  “I’ll be completely honest with you. This isn’t over. That’s why we have Sparrows watching everyone. Before, it was one watching Jason, Louisa, and her parents.” He shook his head. “Now they all have one, including Lindsey in Boston.”

  “Do they know?” I asked.

  “Louisa and Jason do. She asked that the ones watching her parents and sister stay low. She was afraid it would upset her mother. Lindsey’s isn’t new. He’s been there for a while.”

  I nodded. “Will it end?”

  “I believe it will. You have to trust me, trust us.”

  Finally, I lifted my chin, searching for the reassurance of his dark stare. I did trust him, yet I too needed to be honest. “What you did hurt me.”

  He nodded, pulling me close. “What we do isn’t something I want you to see, to know.”

  “But this wasn’t a random situation. This was my best friend.”

  “Which, if it hadn’t gone well, would have made it worse.” He caressed my cheek. “I won’t stand by and allow the sunshine in your eyes to fade. Always know that whatever I do is for your safety.”

  Before I could respond, he placed his finger over my lips and continued, “I’m certain you’re tired of hearing that, but I won’t stop saying it. Araneae, you are mine. Keeping you safe, protecting you...it will always be my first priority, always.”

  “I’m not a child. I need to be informed and consulted. I’m not saying that I won’t be mad. I probably will.” My fist came to his shoulder though my punch was nothing like I’d envisioned—a tap against the bulk of his hard muscle. “Don’t do that again. If I need to be on lockdown ever again, be man enough to tell me to my face. I don’t want to go through the emotions I had last night ever again. I thought I was going with you.”

  Lifting my chin with his thumb, he watched my eyes. In his brown orbs I saw a million emotions battling for supremacy, for the right to be said and the right to be heard. I’d come to know that Sterling Sparrow would only voice the one that won.

  Finally, he replied, “I don’t make promises that I can’t keep. Last night, I broke one, and I won’t make another that may need to be broken.”

  I leaned away. “So you’re saying that you won’t promise not to leave me here against my will?”

  “Araneae, tell me. Are you here against your will? In our apartment? In our bed? In my arms? Are you here unwillingly?”

  I sighed. “No.”

  “I can’t make the promise you want to hear because things happen that are beyond my control. I will promise that if it’s possible for me to tell you in person, I will.” His head shook. “You’re right about yesterday. I should have told you; however, I never said you were coming. You assumed that.”

  “And you let me.”

  “I did because I didn’t want to fight with you. I needed to learn what Patrick and Reid knew. Louisa had already been gone for too long. I had to jump into the situation with both feet. I can do many things, but with you it’s different.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “You’ve made me want what I’ve
never before wanted. I never gave a shit about what people thought...” His shoulder shrugged. “...with the exception of the people in this apartment. That being said, I make decisions based on what is best for Sparrow and for Sparrow Enterprises. I learn the facts and move from there. It’s not about emotion. Emotion is a weakness in my world that I can’t afford. Emotion changes things and blurs the goal. Cold hard facts, gut intuitions—that’s what fosters success. Once my decisions are made, they’re carried out. I don’t wallow in the consequences. I move on.

  “With you, I fucking care what you think. I don’t want you to see the side of me that went into action last night. I want you to see a man who loves you and for you to look at me like you are now.” His finger again moved over my cheek. “I want those fucking gorgeous, light-chocolate eyes of yours to see a man who will do anything in the world for you, not to see what that means.”

  “I see that man. Last night...” I searched for the right words. “...what you did...I can understand it, but I was beyond angry. I don’t like feeling out of control or like a child who’s been punished. I love you. That didn’t stop even when I was hating you. One day, when this is settled, I need you to promise you will allow me more control.”

  “There will always be dangers.”

  “Yes, that’s why I need to have some control.”

  “When this is over,” he said. “I promise.”

  I sighed, melting against him, my softness against his hardness. We were opposites in so many ways, yet we fit together perfectly as our hearts beat as one.

  Araneae

  Sterling’s large hands splayed across my lower back, moving downward over my behind as he pulled me closer. My nipples grew tight beneath the satin of my nightgown, and his growing erection probed against my tummy.

  A soft moan escaped my lips as he bunched my nightgown, his fingers trailing over my skin, pulling the material higher until I wiggled, allowing him to bring it over my head and leaving me bare.