Natural Love

by S. Celi

  * * * *

  Natural Love

  Copyright © 2014 by S. Celi

  Published by Lowe Interactive Media, LLC

  For more information on S. Celi and to stay up to date on her future works, join her mailing list, The Celi Circle. Subscribers can participate in exclusive giveaways and events.

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products, bands, and/or restaurants referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Title Page

  Dedication

  July 4

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  For Lisa

  “Don’t write this one,” she said.

  I didn’t listen.

  “YOU LOOK BEAUTIFUL tonight,” I said.

  “Thank you. I hoped you’d like this dress.”

  We stopped walking just under the trellis, next to a corner of the house. From here, we couldn’t see the rest of the party, but we could hear everything. Hundreds of people stood just a few feet away from us, and they’d come looking for us soon. We had commitments and expectations to fulfill, but at that moment, my eyes and my attention were on her.

  Only her.

  “Did you wear it just for me?”

  “Yes,” she said under her breath. “Just for you. I do everything just for you.”

  My mouth covered hers in a rough, intense kiss. I gripped her face with one hand and the small of her back with the other, crushing her to me in a split second of passion that didn’t have any boundaries, a passion that broke every rule and defied everything that made sense in my life. My tongue twisted and shoved against hers, and she opened her body beneath me as our kisses deepened. Before long, I forced us against the ivy wall of the house, and there we were, locked together in a moment that somehow we’d claimed as ours and ours alone.

  I only broke the kiss when she moaned against my mouth. Something about the sound made me remember where we were. Who I was. What we were doing. How wrong it all was from the standpoint of everything I had ever been taught.

  No. We couldn’t do this. No. No. No.

  Someone might see.

  Above us, inside the house, a light in the study flipped on and I heard two voices. Had they seen us already?

  “I’m sorry,” I said as I forced our lips apart. I took an immediate step away from her, but it did little to calm us both. Her breath came out hard and fast, a series of quick pants, as if she hadn’t wanted to breathe while we kissed.

  And I don’t know what unsettled me more: the kissing, or the look of extreme pleasure she had on her face.

  “I am . . . I’m . . . I should go.” I said.

  Without another word, I turned and disappeared down the pathway, leaving her alone against the ivy.

  THE HOUSE WHERE I grew up sat at the end of a long, gravel driveway.

  Chadwick Gardens had an iron gate at the entrance to the property, a large nameplate, and two long rows of hedges that guided cars up the road and to a circular drive that wrapped around a large fountain. Behind the fountain stood one of the largest homes in Hamilton County. A home that, over the years, had reminded every photographer who came to the house of a large estate somewhere on the moors of England, not a mansion on the outskirts of a mid-size Midwestern city like Cincinnati.

  Money. My family had money. A lot of it.

  We’d never lacked for material things, and the house always proved that to everyone. The land alone cost one million. In Cincinnati, the Chadwick name came decorated in cash, real estate, access, club memberships, exclusive invitations, and antiques. That summer, I stood poised to make my first of many claims to the fortune. After 24 years of just living in the shadows of Chadwick Gardens, the time had come to take a piece of what I had always known would be mine.

  I just needed to hold it together long enough to prove to everyone in the family that I could handle it. I knew I could. Would. I would hold it together, get my hands on the fortune, and not let anything—or anyone—stop that.

  “Here we are, Mr. Chadwick,” said Henry, our longtime house manager. He sat in the driver’s seat of my father’s 1990 vintage Mercedes, and his clammy, liver-spotted hands gripped the wheel as he carried the worry he’d return it to the garage with a scratch or, worse, a dent. After all this time, that car had only 15,000 miles on it, and the interior leather had never cracked. My father only allowed it to come out for special occasions; he loved that car more than he loved his children.

  “We’re home.”

  “Home,” I said from the back seat. “Home, sweet home.”

  Chadwick Gardens never failed to impress as the piece de resistance of a family fortune that hit $175 million in the last decade. People who drove to the front of the house for the first time always had the same expression when they saw it—open mouths and wide eyes. Some of them struggled with what to say. Plenty of homes in Greater Cincinnati qualified as mansions, but few could be called “estates.” Chadwick Gardens left no doubt about its rightful place. And without a doubt, my dad loved playin
g Lord of the Manor on this expansive property. Dad relished the idea of a dynasty, and he let everyone know that Chadwick Gardens was the right place to grow one.

  Now that I had returned home, I could resume my role as Crown Prince. As long as things went my way.

  They would. There was no other way.

  “We’re happy to have you back,” Henry said. He still had his hands on the steering wheel.

  “You are?” I glanced at the clock on my iPhone. 5:33PM. Saturday. June 15th. Back on U.S. soil for the first time in 24 months, and back home after a day and a half of travel. Whatever home meant now, of course.

  “Yes, we are. Thrilled, really. It’s been so long since you’ve been here.” He swallowed, considering his words. “I know Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick were sorry they’re still in Europe for your big homecoming.”

  I scoffed. “They’re in Tuscany still, right?”

  They’d emailed me an itinerary, but like most emails from them over the last couple of years, I had only skimmed it.

  “Yes, they’re in Tuscany until tomorrow. Then on to Lake Como. And Mrs. Chadwick says they miss you.”

  I caught Henry’s eyes in the reflection of the rearview mirror as the car pulled into the circle of the drive. “We both know they don’t miss me, Henry.”

  “Mrs. Chadwick does. She told me last night over the phone.”

  “But not my father. He hasn’t missed me a day in his life. And certainly not for the last few years.”

  Henry sighed. “You know how your father is. He’s very particular.”

  “That’s an understatement,” I said as Henry parked the Mercedes. “More like unforgiving.”

  “He’ll come around, son.” Henry pushed open his car door and I opened mine. “I promise. He’ll come around. Two years is long enough for things to change.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  “You could have come home some and tried to talk to him,” Henry said, once we both got out of the car and slammed shut the doors.

  I shook my head. “Wouldn’t have worked.”

  “But traveling around Europe on your off-time from the Peace Corps did?”

  “It was only a few weeks,” I said, flinching. “Amsterdam, in particular, was very helpful.”

  Henry chose to not press me on the implications of that comment, which would have launched me into a couple of watered-down stories about the Venice of the North that didn’t include the red light district or the sweet taste of pot.

  “You could have timed your return so that Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick wouldn’t have been out of town.”

  “No, I couldn’t have,” I said. “Too much at once.”

  I tasted disgust in the back of my mouth. If I wanted to succeed, then I had to reenter life at Chadwick Gardens on my terms, and not my father’s. I’d only win this poker game by keeping my cards against my chest.

  “But I still think—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” I folded my arms across my chest. Conversation over.

  “You know, I’ve been with this family for twenty years. And I see things.”

  “This is the way I wanted it,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “Have it your way, son.” Henry sounded defeated.

  Good. Maybe he’d realize just how I’d felt during the last few years. Time might have moved on, but I hadn’t. Grudges had always been my strength, and during the last 24 months, I had nursed one the size of a boulder.

  Henry opened the trunk.

  “I know,” I said. “Not much to show for my life, huh?”

  Banishment to a life with the Peace Corps hadn’t left me with much. Two years in South Africa gave me one large bag, one small one, and two suitcases. All the stuff inside added up to less than $500 in value, and I wouldn’t have cared if I had lost it all. In the Peace Corps, I’d had a life with meaning but few material possessions, a life that differed in every way from being an undergrad at Wharton. At college, I lived in a house with three other guys, and my greatest challenge was figuring out how to balance an expensive vodka habit, an endless parade of college girls and the desire to get straight A’s so my father would keep paying for my education.

  “Let me get that, Mr. Chadwick,” Henry said when I picked up my green soft-shell bag that doubled as a backpack.

  “No. Please don’t.” I eyed him. Two years hadn’t been kind to Henry. Deep wrinkles and a sallow complexion told me that. “This is heavy. It’ll hurt your back.”

  “This is my job.”

  “No, it isn’t,” I said, and hoisted the bag over my own shoulders. “You’ve always done too much, Henry.”

  “This is my job.”

  I shifted the bag so the weight distributed across my back. “It’s okay. I’ve got it.”

  Still, he stared at me with a funny look I couldn’t place. “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.” I grabbed for one of the suitcases in the trunk and pulled it out. “Why do you sound so surprised?”

  “You just . . . back before you left . . . you never did things around here, Mr. Chadwick. You let everyone else do it.”

  “People change.” I grinned at him. “And please, stop calling me Mr. Chadwick. I’m Spencer. I was Spencer when I left. I’m still Spencer. I’ll be Spencer until I die.”

  He laughed.

  “I mean that, Henry,” I said. “You’ve known me since I was ten.”

  “That’s true.”

  “You used to take care of me when I got sick, and one time I threw up on you.”

  He smiled at the memory. “I’ll never forget that stomach bug. Hit this whole house.”

  “So stop calling me Mr. Chadwick, okay?”

  “If you say so.”

  “Thank you.”

  Henry took the handle of my black roller board suitcase. I only let him do it because it had wheels. Then I pulled out the small bag and he slammed the trunk shut.

  “And since we’re talking about it,” I said. “What else has changed?”

  “PLENTY,” HENRY SAID as he walked up the slate steps to the dark wood double door with a lion’s head knocker. He pushed it open and I followed him into the house that my father treated as the crown jewel of his fortune. He had a good reason for this. For all the beauty of its exterior, Chadwick Gardens had twice that elegance on the inside.

  The foyer of Chadwick Gardens opened out into two wings of the house. On the left, a few doors and twisted hallways led to a study, library, den, master’s suite, and ancient ballroom we never used. On the right, a dining room that seated sixteen backed up to a butler’s pantry, kitchen, breakfast nook, and basement entrance. Next to the entrance for the dining room, a grand staircase carpeted in maroon brocade opened to a catwalk, office, and five bedroom suites, including mine.

  And at the top of those stairs stood my luminous, effervescent, and stunning stepsister, Avery Jackson.

  “Spencer!” she called to me. “You’re finally home!”

  I eyed her for a second, looking for clues. Had she lost weight? Did she get enough sleep these days? Did the past still haunt her? What about the scars and the cuts?

  “Hello Avery,” I said.

  She bounded down the long staircase and came toward me, a tall vision in white jean shorts and a black, knit, vintage-looking V-neck top. When it came to Avery, I always noticed the little things. She had blue nail polish on her toenails, blue and red on her fingernails, and the messy ponytail that held her blonde hair threatened to come undone at any moment. When she crashed into me for a hug, she knocked me off balance, and the backpack swung off my shoulders.

  “Asshole,” she whispered in my ear.

  “Nice to see you, too, dear stepsister.”

  A few days before, I’d told her not to come to the airport when the plane arrived. I didn’t want the first time I saw her after so long to happen in the clinical, cavernous baggage claim terminal of CVG. That wouldn’t be right—not warm enough. She’d argued with me, I’d insisted, and for once I won the fight.


  And as she hugged me, I knew I’d made the right decision about our reunion.

  “You’re too thin,” she said after we broke away from each other. “Didn’t they feed you there?”

  “Have they been feeding you here?”

  She sighed. “Already?”

  My eyes fell on her collarbone, visible underneath the neckline of her shirt. “Yes. Already.”

  “I’m eating,” she said in a low voice. “I’m just fine.”

  “Are you—?”

  “It’s nothing, okay? You’ve been gone for two years,” my 21-year-old stepsister said, still so close to me that I smelled her expensive perfume. “Things change. Hopefully.”

  I knew just what she meant. God willing, things had changed. Me. Her. Our life. This family. And the secrets.

  Guess I was about to find out.

  “You could have kept in touch better,” she said, poking me in the chest.

  “We both know I couldn’t do that.”

  “Yes, I know. I know all too well.” She sighed. “But it’s nice to see you. More than nice.”

  “You’re telling me,” I said, still admiring her. God, she was hot. Not just hot. Gorgeous. Maybe the most beautiful person I knew.

  Stop it, Spencer. Stop. You can’t think that way about her. You know this.

  Stop.

  Everyone knows you can’t fuck your stepsister. Everyone.

  Back before I left for South Africa, people at cocktail parties used to tell Linda and my dad all the time that they thought Avery should go to Hollywood as an actress or New York City as a model. Our parents always dismissed this, saying Avery needed an education more than she needed fame. But now, two years later, Avery’s beauty had amplified. It radiated. It made me speechless.

  You can’t think that way, Spencer.

  “Wow,” I managed. “Two years. Longer than I thought.”

  “Your old room’s still the same, though.” She hooked her arm through mine and pulled me up the stairs. “Come on. Let me show you.”

  MY BEDROOM STILL had the same green plaid wallpaper and blue comforter. Spotless, dusted and stale, nothing about it was different, from the pictures on the shelf above my desk to the light blue towels on the rack in my bathroom. Even the toothpaste looked like the same tube I’d used when I’d visited Chadwick Gardens for the last time, right after graduation from Wharton.