Jon gestured back toward the plane. “Look, Baby, I brought some people to see you. Go say hello.”
Her parents. She was stunned.
“What did you do? What have you been up to, Jon?”
He grinned easily. “You were unhappy, and I didn’t like to see you unhappy. So I went to meet your parents and talk to them, and I think they’re relieved to realize I’m not the monster they thought. Oh yes, I also bought you that bracelet you wanted.” His hands were still on her waist, holding her firmly.
“You are truly and completely insane.” Naomi peered around his shoulder. “You can’t have been to Geneva and back in this time. What did my parents say when you walked in on them? Oh Jon, the terrible things you do.”
“Well, I told you all about the jet thing when I first came to you, remember? It’s easy, really. And darling, don’t fret. Everything is fine.”
How could it be, she wanted to reply, seeing her father’s stern face and the silence in her mother’s eyes, receiving a cool greeting from them in reply to her softly spoken welcome.
He led them to a table in a far corner of the restaurant, close to the large bay window and well away from any listeners, dismissing Russ and Sal with a small wave of his hand.
“I’m only going to discuss this once,” Jon said when coffee had been served and he had made Naomi sit down beside him. “Your parents have to realize how serious I am about you.”
Her father nodded without looking at her, his hands folded on the tabletop, and her mother stared out at the post ship as it came into the harbor. Unhappiness was painted on her face, and a sad compliance.
“Part of yesterday we spent at a Swiss lawyer’s office,” Jon went on, “to set a few things in order. I won’t go into details now, but Joshua’s set financially, and so are you. I’ve also put my will in order. Your parents are satisfied with the arrangements.”
Naomi jumped from her chair and retreated from them, afraid of what was to come next.
“Sit down, you silly girl.” Jon smiled at her fondly. “It’s time you came to terms with the hard facts of life.”
“No.” Adamantly now, and with a swift step away when he tried to reach for her, “If you people think it is necessary to haggle, then fine. I’m not going to be part of this. I don’t want your money, and I don’t need any contracts. It’s you who wants to get married so badly. Loving you has nothing to do with your wealth, and you know it. Take care of our son all you like, but leave me out of it.”
They stared after her as she walked away, coffee cup in hand.
“Naomi, come back here,” Jon called, but she did not return.
Andrea was in a deep discussion with the other cooks when she walked in and sat down on one of the kitchen stools.
“Bastard,” she hissed under her breath, “Thinks he owns me body and soul and pulls these incredible stunts and then expects me to fall into his arms with happiness. Thinks he can have everything with those dangerous eyes of his and his music, but not me, oh no.”
With a shake of her head Andrea dismissed the others.
“Thinks it’s a grand idea to go to Geneva and pluck up my parents to bring them here, and not even tell me. Thinks he can bring back a few diamonds and get me to—”
“Go on, I want to hear you finish that sentence.” Jon threw open the swinging door with verve. “Say it out loud, Baby.”
“You!” She rounded on him. “I’m not going to finish it! Make me if you can! You run off like that and come striding back in my door and tell me how much I’m worth to you?”
He was in a fine mood. Without much a word he grabbed Naomi’s hand and pulled her with him before she could protest. Back in the apartment, when the door had fallen into the lock, he pushed her against the wood and demanded: “Go on. I want to hear the rest of that sentence.”
His hands were on her body, holding her firmly and touching her in an incredibly arousing way. Naomi struggled against both him and her rising lust.
“No. I won’t. Make me if you want to hear it.”
“Oh, I will.” Jon moved against her until she gasped. “And I get the feeling you’ll love it, my little beast. God, but you drive me crazy. I want you so when you get like this. Come on, tell me. What was it with the diamonds?”
When there was no answer he kissed her, his tongue moving in her mouth in a slow, suggestive way that made her knees buckle.
“Finish that sentence now?”
She was furious. “Oh, alright! Here you are! You think you’ll get me to lay myself down on your bed naked again.”
His breath quickened and his grip grew tighter..
“You think you’ll get me to yearn for your kisses and touches and your soft song when you know I am at your mercy and delirious and weak and aching for you. You want me to beg you to never stop and to never let me go and and please, never let the light of dawn inside the room again so the night might never end. You’ll get me to tell you how I love you and how I long for you all the time, and you’ll make me tell you all my secret dreams.”
Here, with him breathing hard, his body straining toward hers, Naomi pushed him away and said firmly: “But that’s not how it works. You’ll never get me to sign contracts and accept money or your obscure transactions. Forget it, my friend.”
He laughed in surprise and frustration.
Seriously, and a lot calmer, Naomi went on: “I don’t want any money from you. Take me for what I am, don’t buy me. We were happy together before Sal showed up. Please don’t make the world think I’ve brought you to your knees and bled you out. I know I’ll get anything I could possibly desire from you and probably more, but don’t do this.” After a brief pause, she added, “It might make me run off with Sean, you know, to experience the true sense of music, without all your commercial bullshit.”
“In a minute,” his voice raspy with passion, “I’ll have you flat on that table over there, and this time, my dove, there’ll be no mercy. I’ll drive this Sean talk right out of you if there is no other way to stop you.”
“No. In a minute we’ll be back upstairs to explain to my parents why we vanished all of a sudden, and you, my love, will be on your best behavior. No more sex talk once we’re back with the adults. And nothing more until bedtime either.”
He drew a very deep breath, watching her carefully as she put her clothes back in order and redid her braid. “I don’t know how I survived without you. How could I have forgotten? You could always do this to me. Make me want you so bad it hurts, make me want to possess you and have you close all the time.”
“Let’s go,” Naomi said. “I don’t want my father to get the wrong impression. Besides, if we keep this up much longer, I’ll take you up on your offer. You know, the Sean talk, and the table, and so on. And by the way, you’ve tried that before, and it didn’t work. Guess you’ll have to try a little harder next time.”
Jon tried to catch her, but she was gone.
When they sat down again with her parents, Sean came over with the lyrics she had given him only that morning and laid them down before Jon, who read them briefly.
“Listen,” Sean offered, “I’ve been over these, and I’ve come up with a nifty little melody. I’d like to give it a try, if it’s okay with you, Jon?”
“Oh, if Naomi gave them to you I expect she wants you to work with them, and not I. Sal handles her contracts, so check it out with him.”
Which caused her father to raise his eyebrows.
“We see to it that everyone gets his or her share, here in our little group. Naomi has received every penny she made for her work.” Jon paused for a sip of coffee, clearly savoring the moment.
“Of course, if I had known earlier where she was, there would have been no need for her to wait so long for it.”
Naomi was on the point of walking off again, but this time he was ready and held on to her. There was a tinge of bitterness in his words and in the way he clasped her fingers, the sorrow for all the misspent time welling up again.
>
“You see, I really would have preferred to take care of Naomi rather than just take care of her money. I know I failed her badly, but I never got a second chance. You are a very unforgiving family. I’m glad you can find it in your heart to accept me now, because I can’t give up your daughter. There never was another.”
“That’s really hard to believe.” There was a small, doubtful smile on Lucia’s lips.“There must be a huge choice for you.”
“Yes, there is.” He shrugged. “But it’s a choice that I made long ago. I, for my part, don’t have to reconsider.”
“So how much did you make with your songwriting?” Her father turned to Naomi, which made her wilt where she sat. “You know I love to talk about money, and your man here is rather good at it.”
She shook her head, refusing an answer, but beckoned to Sal who had entered with Russ.
“My father wants to talk business. You do it. I’m sick of it. First you come and dump those papers in my lap, and then you let yourself be dragged across the continent to help buy me off my family. So finish it. Close the deal, and then tell me how much I’m worth to the Master.”
“Oh, he didn’t tell you?” Sal took her seat when she rose. “You’re getting half of his property, the romantic fool. On the day you become his wife you’ll be filthy rich. You’ll own something like a quarter of a billion.”
He wanted to go after her, but Sal held him back. They stood in the lobby, Sal holding his arm, Jon angry because he wouldn’t let go.
“I told you,” Sal said. “I told you it would be a mistake. You don’t understand her as well as you think, my friend. You refuse to see the purity in her, the uncompromising love she holds for you. All this, it means nothing to her. You may think it’s great fun to spoil her and shower her with gifts, but it’s not what she needs. Open your eyes and look at what you’ve got, Jon. Don’t ruin it. You’re pushing her to her limits.” He shook his head. “All the sex in the world or soft, sweet songs won’t stop her from running if she can’t take the rest. You should know better.”
Surprise washed over Jon. He looked at Sal for a good long while, but Sal did not budge. “I won’t let you ruin her life again.”
“Maybe,” Jon said slowly, “Maybe Naomi is looking to the wrong man, Sal? Could your heart be in this a little deeper than it should be?”
“My heart is my own, and only for me to know. I don’t go for complicated women, as you should well know.” Sal let go of him and took a step back. “But I won’t let you destroy the best thing you’ve ever had, in every respect. She makes a better person of you, and we all know it. You pined for her for seventeen years, and you’re putting it all on the line.”
“I meant well.” Jon knew he sounded defensive and petulant. “I thought it would please her if I got her parents to accept me.”
“Yes, and the gesture was truly grand. For her father. But not for Naomi.”
Sean came out of the restaurant, Lucia a few steps behind them.
“Problem?”
“Oh, Jon messed up again.” Sal lit a cigarette. “Our girl is out there being miserable, and he hasn’t a clue what he did this time.”
Jon turned on him, but Sal only shrugged, unimpressed. “Go write a song, for God’s sake. That’s something that nearly always turns out right. Or go sing something to the hills, maybe they’ll understand what you want. But otherwise, shut up. Let other people repair what you messed up.”
Sean sighed and began to move toward the door, but Lucia held him back.
“I’ll go. I think this calls for a mother-daughter talk.”
Naomi was looking at her ring when her mother sat down next to her on the pier wall, turning it on her finger so the beautiful stone caught the light and sparkled with all the colors of the rainbow.
“I never liked it here.” Lucia looked out over the water toward the ocean. “Sometimes even Geneva seems too cold for me. Why you chose to come here I will never understand.”
There was no reply.
“You know,” Lucia went on, “when you came home all those years ago, so torn and hurt, we thought he had done something truly terrible to you and you had fled from Jon. I hated that man and his voice on the radio whenever I heard him sing.”
“Mama, stop, please.”
“He came to your father yesterday and laid down all those documents to show him how very, very serious he was about you. He asked our forgiveness, and he asked for you as his wife. He was very solemn about it, and all he wanted in return was for us to be present at your wedding. That is all. It was a compelling gesture, and it softened even your father. You can always impress Olaf with money.” She smiled wryly. “But that’s not important. It was meant to overwhelm your parents and bring them around to the idea of their daughter marrying the man they held responsible for her sad and secluded life up here in the cold.” She took a deep breath before she went on. “Does he know at all who you are, Naomi? Does he know what he is getting by marrying you? Have you told him?”
A small, stubborn shake of her head.
“Child, you can’t let him walk into your life blindly like that. It is utterly unfair to him. He needs to know. You have to tell him. He thinks you are virtually penniless, when nothing could be further from the truth. Why do you keep your real life from him like that? It’s not as if we were criminals, Naomi.”
Naomi, her lips pressed together tightly, watched a couple of tourists walk by.
“You need to relent, Naomi. Do not throw away what fate has given you. You are getting a second chance. If throwing all that money at you will make your father accept you marrying Jon, then that is a small price to pay. It is only your pride that has been hurt.” Her mother gave her a gentle push. “Go, dear. He is desperate because he cannot fathom what he did wrong. He so wanted to please you.”
When she returned to the hotel lobby, she got the strongest feeling of being thrown back in time, but this time she walked right up to him and into his arms, the way she had wanted to back then, in Geneva.
“Right, then,” she said. “Take me away to your concert, and then convince me to go to your hotel room with you again. Find another dark and empty hallway to do it, too.”
“So will you come this time?” he asked, folding her into his embrace.
“You need to tell him,” Lucia had said, and Naomi knew she was right.
Sean and Jon would make some music tonight, like the old days, a small, private concert for family and friends meant to show her parents who they were.
Jon had retreated to Joshua’s room for some practice after lunch. When he opened the door to her knock, she had the weirdest sense of deja vu, as if she had been transported back to another place altogether. This could have been any hotel room in any city in the world, right before a concert, with him preparing for the performance. He stood before her with his guitar in his hand, a deep line of concentration on his brow and a faraway look in his eyes, but his face lit up when he saw her.
“My love. What a nice distraction.”
Naomi gazed at him through the open doorway, mesmerized by the moment. She had geared herself up to talk to him about her family, but seeing him like this blew it conveniently out of her mind.
“What’s wrong?” Her silence disturbed him. “Has something happened? Talk to me.”
Spellbound, that was the word for it, far out of time and place, somewhere else altogether. For an instant she had seen him as the public perceived him. The star, so far removed from everyday concerns that he never appeared to be truly real, but remained a vision and an object of desire. An icon.
“I know why I love you. But why do you love me? What do you see in me? Why am I that special to you? You could have any woman in the whole wide world, but you want me. Why?” She blushed at her own words and the way she said them, like a star-struck teenager.
He smiled softly. “Well, not every woman. There are those who prefer Robbie Williams or even Mick, though I could never understand what anyone sees in him.”
Jon put his guitar aside and pulled her into the room. “Don’t stand out there as if you had no right to be here. What’s wrong with you?”
“Why me?”
“Baby, what do you need to hear? You know you are my one true love. Come here.” He laughed in surprise.
The door closed behind her, and she looked around. There were music sheets on the bed, a half-empty water bottle and an ashtray with a cold cigar in it on the table right next to his glasses. Naomi picked up the papers on the bedcover and laid them aside so she could sit.
“I stood in the doorway and looked at you and saw what all the others see. It was the weirdest moment. For an instant you were that strange, faraway star who has no place in a normal girl’s life and who has no time for a normal girl in his life because he can have his pick of movie stars and models.”
“Ah.” Jon sat down beside her. “That. Honestly? I don’t know. So many women think they’re in love with me because they see me on stage or listen to my songs, but they don’t know me at all. They see the illusion created by Sal’s maneuvering, the lighting technicians, and the band’s music, and, my dear, the shirts you deplore so much. It’s true that many would like to get closer…but I think they would be rather disappointed, don’t you agree? Besides, who said you were a normal girl?”
He picked up his guitar as Naomi settled back against the headboard. She watched as he played, his back to her, head bent to listen to his melodies, singing in an undertone. A pleasant drowsiness crept up on her as she listened to his voice, its perfect modulation, the dark timbre, the compelling sound of it.
He seemed lost in thought, but Naomi was content to wait and push the dreaded truths her mother insisted she tell him far away, as far as she could, and let time solve her problems for her.
He would not mind. He would not turn from her.
“I loved your lips first,” Jon said suddenly, “and the way you looked at me. Sweet, trembling, soft lips and a cool challenge in your eyes. God, what a mixture. Your lips, begging to be kissed, while you sized me up to see if I was worthy of you. You were so reticent and cruel that day. Such a lofty, cool way of putting me in my place you had. ‘That’s not how it works,” you said to me, just like you did this morning, you fiend. I remember I wanted the ground to open up beneath my feet and swallow me, I was that ashamed.”
The Distant Shore (Stone Trilogy) Page 11