by A. C. Arthur
“You start by telling Mark the wedding’s off. Then we move on with our lives. It’s simple.”
“It’s simple for you, you’re Dion Donovan! The world is your oyster, you can and usually do whatever you want, no questions asked.”
He didn’t like the way this conversation was going, or the way he was feeling each time she spoke. He’d thought he knew Lyra as well as he knew himself, but Dion had no idea she felt like she owed his family something. Or that he was above any kind of rules or standards.
“Okay, before this gets out of hand, let’s take a deep breath.” She looked at him like that was the absolute last thing she wanted to do, but she didn’t move.
“Why don’t we both just go to work and think about this for a couple of hours. We can have dinner tonight and talk about it some more.”
She was shaking her head negatively before he even finished speaking.
“I’m having dinner with Mark.”
Dion wanted to tell her she was doing no such thing. He wanted to demand she stop seeing Mark immediately. But he knew that wasn’t the way to deal with Lyra, especially not in the state she was currently in. Instead he took another deep breath and said, “That’s probably a good idea. You take care of your business first, then we’ll talk.”
“Fine,” she said, pulling away from him. “I have to go.”
“Wait a second, let me slip something on and I’ll walk you out.”
She was already fiddling with the locks and pulling the door open. “I’m fine by myself.”
With one last look at him Lyra moved into the hallway and was already walking away while Dion stood at the door watching her go. He couldn’t very well run after her in the buff, but damn if he didn’t want to.
This was not the way he’d envisioned their first morning together, not at all.
* * *
This was so bad.
Two nights ago, when she’d only kissed Dion, Lyra had thought guilt was going to devour her. Now, after she’d slept with him, she was sure the betrayal was spray-painted across her forehead. Pulling the covers over her head, she wanted to stay in the bed, in this room, for the rest of her natural life.
But life being what it is wouldn’t allow that.
She had lunch with Regan today and dinner with Mark tonight. Two people Lyra definitely did not want to see. Regan would know something was going on and Mark would certainly suspect. Lately, Mark had been suspecting a lot. Lyra got the impression he might be a little jealous of Dion and the Donovans and she’d been trying really hard to be patient with him about it, but he really needed to get over it. Dion and the Donovans were like family, it was that simple. Okay, maybe Dion wasn’t like family any longer, since she’d slept with him.
And boy did she sleep with him.
Her body warmed as she remembered the things they’d done last night. Things she hadn’t even considered doing with Mark. Things that even now made her hungry for more.
Crap. How was she going to face anyone today?
Her cell phone rang and Lyra groaned. Who would be calling her at the crack of dawn?
“Hello?” she answered, when she’d finally pushed the blankets off her face and rolled over close enough to the nightstand to grab the phone.
“Ms. Anderson?”
“Yes?”
“This is Dr. Svanna from Cedars Hospital. I’m calling to let you know that your mother checked herself out of the hospital AMA this morning.”
“What?”
“Against medical advice. She had breakfast, said she was feeling better and left.”
“But what about the poisoning?”
“Turns out the drugs she’d taken were bad, laced with something the lab couldn’t figure out. She didn’t get much of it, that’s why it only made her sick and didn’t do any permanent damage. But the plan was to get her into rehab later today. I guess she didn’t like that idea,” Dr. Svanna said with a touch of hopelessness.
Lyra sighed. “I guess not.”
“You know rehabilitation is only going to work when it’s what she wants. I’ve seen this scenario too many times to count. You wanting her to get better isn’t going to make it happen.”
“I know,” Lyra said, because she’d heard this all before. “Thanks for calling, doctor. I appreciate it.”
“No problem.”
Disconnecting the call, Lyra fell back onto her pillows, arm draped over her eyes. When would she learn? And when would the pain of being helpless subside? Never seemed like the best answer. But she didn’t have time to dwell on this part of her life. It wasn’t going to change unless she changed it.
Getting out of bed was the first step. Standing beneath the brutally hot spray of the shower was the next. When she was dressed and finally ready to face the world, Lyra decided to be bold and went into the kitchen instead of sneaking out the front door as she’d considered doing.
“Well, hello, stranger.” Mr. Bruce looked up from his newspaper as she walked in.
“Good morning,” she said reaching for as normal a tone as possible.
“Heading to work?” he asked.
Lyra had opened the refrigerator, finding the container of orange juice, and now searched for a glass. “I sure am. No late mornings for the newbies,” she joked.
“You’re no newbie. I hear you’re doing a great job.”
Lyra sipped the juice she’d just poured in her glass. “I’m trying.”
Bruce put the paper down. “You’re trying to do a lot of things, I hear.”
“What?”
“Trying to get married, making me feel like an old man.” He chuckled.
“You’ll never be an old man, Mr. Bruce.” And she meant that. At fifty-nine, Bruce Donovan still went into the office every day, sometimes ten to twelve hours a day. He played golf, traveled extensively with his wife and still managed to be at Sunday dinners with his family.
“Sit down for a minute. I haven’t had time to look at you,” he said, pulling out the chair next to him.
She should have headed out the front door, Lyra thought as she put her glass on the counter and went to the table to obediently take a seat.
“I look the same as I’ve always looked,” she said trying to keep the mood light.
Bruce shook his head. Behind him the blinds were lifted from the set of six windows, the sunlight glistening off the water poured into the room reminding everyone who entered how beautiful the morning truly was.
“No. You look a little tired.”
Lyra drummed her fingers on the table. “Maybe it’s the move.”
Bruce put his hands over hers. “Maybe you’re trying to do too much.”
Inhaling deeply, Lyra realized she’d never lied to this man. In the years she’d lived in this house with him she’d always done her best to respect him and his wishes. Lying wasn’t something the Donovans condoned. She wasn’t going to start now.
“Maybe,” she admitted quietly.
“You want to tell me why?”
She really didn’t. But she would because it was Mr. Bruce, the only father figure she’d ever known.
“Because I feel like I have to prove something. I have to show you and Ms. Janean that bringing me into your home wasn’t a waste of time.”
When she looked up at him again he was shaking his head. “You always were older than your time. I used to tell Janean you carried the worries of an adult on your child’s shoulders. Now you’re an adult and you’re still carrying the issues of others with you like baggage.”
She shrugged because she didn’t really know what to say to that. It wasn’t exactly a lie.
“Dion called this morning to check on you. He told me about Paula and her scare last night.”
“He shouldn’t have,” she said, trying to pul
l her hands away from his. “You’ve done enough to try and help her. It’s my problem now.”
Bruce shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong, Lyra. It’s not your problem. Paula is not your problem. She’s known what she was doing to herself for years now. There’s nothing you can do that we haven’t already tried for your sake. Now you just have to let her walk her own path.”
“She’s going to kill herself,” Lyra said, tears stinging her eyes. She didn’t want them to fall, didn’t want to sit here and cry to Mr. Bruce about her mother. Again.
“Then that’s her choice. There’s nothing you can do if that’s what she wants. You’re killing yourself trying to save her.”
“What else am I supposed to do? She’s my mother!” Lyra shouted because that felt better than crying.
“You’re supposed to live your life. Deep down that’s what Paula really wants for you. She wants you to have the life she couldn’t give you, the one she didn’t have. That’s why she never took you from us.”
“She never let you adopt me, either.”
“No. Because she needed to stay connected to you. I think that’s what’s kept her alive all this time. But Paula knows what she hasn’t been to you. She knows you were better off here with us. Now it’s your turn to do what’s best for you.”
“I’m trying.”
“Are you? Is this Mark person the man you really want to marry?”
There was something about this question, something about the way Mr. Bruce had said it, that had Lyra looking at him, wondering.
“Mark has been good to me over the years.”
“That’s something you’d say about a puppy, not a man you’re about to commit the rest of your life to.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know what else to say.”
“And that alone should have you questioning your decision.”
Lyra lifted her hands to cover her face, afraid the torrent of tears she was holding back were going to burst free at any moment. “I feel like I’m making a mess of things, but that’s not my intention.”
“You know what your problem is, Lyra? You think too much,” Bruce said, tapping at her temple until she looked up at him again.
“Stop analyzing and figuring everything you do has a purpose and that purpose has to be known. For once, I think you should follow your heart. Do what you feel is best inside, for you. You might be surprised how good that feels.”
He leaned forward, kissing her forehead before he got up to get himself another cup of coffee. “Have a good day at work,” he said to her on his way out of the kitchen.
Lyra didn’t move. Through blurry eyes she sat looking out the window, replaying the words Mr. Bruce had said to her, noting just how many of them were true.
Chapter 14
Dion had called Lyra twice already. She was ignoring him, of that he was sure. The question was what he planned to do about it. Before he could contemplate that any longer, the door to his office swung open.
In came Katrina in a flurry of long, dark, curly hair, eyelashes and the glitter of diamonds. Her dark eyes fixated on him as high heels and legs that seemed to go on for days marched toward his desk. Behind her a frazzled Jennifer, his assistant, looked ready to kill.
“I can call security, Mr. Donovan,” Jennifer said with another glare toward Katrina.
“Don’t waste your time,” Katrina said without looking back at the other woman. “He’s not going to cause a scene by having me thrown out of the building. Are you, Dion baby?”
With a nod Dion sent Jennifer away. When the door was closed he glared at Katrina Saldana himself, wondering what had ever possessed him to get involved with the gold-digging tramp. Generally, he had better taste than her, but she’d caught him at a weak moment. The night he’d visited the club where she danced was the same night Lyra had emailed him that Mark had proposed to her. Everything inside Dion had spun out of control as he read those words, and he’d been supremely grateful that this time Lyra had decided to tell him her news through email, when all other times it had been via a personal telephone call. Maybe she’d known he wouldn’t take the news well. And he hadn’t.
He’d spent the night with Katrina, sleeping with her to dull the pain that throbbed in his chest every time he thought of Lyra with Mark. It hadn’t really worked. And it wasn’t until the next morning that he realized his mistake with Katrina. She was a clinger and she thought she had her hooks in him, a Donovan. He’d known her game that morning and had vowed she’d learn a hard lesson from him. But he’d continued to see her, because truth be told, the vivacious beauty had been good at keeping his mind off Lyra, the woman he thought he’d never have.
Still, the distraction didn’t last long. What he felt for Lyra was too deep for even Katrina and all her talents to make disappear.
“What do you want, Katrina?” he said with the impatience he felt. He didn’t really have time to deal with her right now. He wanted to talk to Lyra, to make sure they were both on the same page about what happened last night.
Katrina had already taken a seat, crossing her long legs so the short royal blue skirt she wore rode even higher up her thigh. Her blouse was a lighter shade of the color, silk, expensive, just like the jewelry she wore. Dion wondered what man she was swindling money out of now to support her lavish lifestyle. That was one thing he did not do. While he may have enjoyed Katrina’s voracious sexual appetite, he’d never promised her any commitment and he’d never, ever given her any money.
“I don’t like to be ignored, Dion,” she said with her glossed pouting lips. “I just want to talk to you.”
“There’s nothing else for us to talk about. I told you weeks ago it was over. Case closed.”
“Case closed for whom? I have feelings for you, Dion. Are you really going to just toss that out the door? Are you that cruel?”
She batted those fake eyelashes at him as if she really thought it would change his mind. He suspected for some men, it probably worked. But he wasn’t some man.
“We had fun and now it’s finished. I’m sure you know what that means.”
His words struck a chord. He could see the flicker in her eyes, the minute she adjusted the way she sat in the chair and her game plan all at the same time. “What if I’m not finished with you?”
“I don’t give a damn,” he replied simply.
She let a hand fall to her exposed knee, then slide back up her thigh. He knew the motion, knew what it was supposed to do, but looked back into her eyes without another word. She was a beautiful Colombian woman with a fiery personality and a sultry demeanor. But she wasn’t the woman for him.
“Really?” She sat straight up in the chair and glared back at him. “What would Daddy say if he found out you’d slept with a stripper?”
Dion didn’t even blink. “My sex life is my business. There’s no threat in telling my father anything, Katrina. Try again.”
“No, Dion,” she said, standing. “I don’t think I’ll give you the pleasure just yet.” Digging into her purse she pulled out a picture that she tossed in Dion’s direction as she made her way to the door. “A picture’s worth a thousand words, don’t you think?”
By the time Dion picked up the picture Katrina was already leaving his office. He didn’t curse, didn’t yell for Jennifer to send security to grab that bitch regardless of the scene she’d likely cause. No, Dion only sat back in his chair staring at the picture of Lyra leaving his house last night—or should he say very early this morning. What was Katrina up to?
Chapter 15
Mark canceled dinner, to Lyra’s elation. Instead she’d had a nice dinner with Bruce and Janean in the same kitchen where she’d sat crying in the morning.
Her day had been long and grueling. The retake photo session with Vina had gone well, if she didn’t count Vina’s glaring b
oyfriend and the snide remarks from other members of her entourage. Vina had been surprisingly sober and offered a much better representation of herself than she had earlier in the week. They’d definitely get a good cover shot from this batch of photos.
Lunch with Regan had been just as she’d suspected—a question-and-answer session in which Regan pumped her for as much information as she could get about her upcoming nuptials.
“What perplexes me is why you aren’t more excited,” Regan had said when they sat on the balcony of Spaga, a new, trendy restaurant that sold the chicken tacos Lyra loved. Regan said she knew the owner but despised him. Still, patronizing his establishment looked good for the Donovans overall, since they planned to feature the African-American owner in Infinity in the upcoming months.
“More excited about what? You know I’m not into picking out clothes and matching colors. Catering and flowers and all that other stuff bothers me just as much. I’d be content heading to the courthouse and saying I do,” Lyra said flippantly.
“Liar,” Regan accused. “You know you want the whole fairy-tale wedding. You’re just downplaying it now that it’s really here. You remember when we planned our weddings?”
She remembered and wasn’t at all shocked that Regan had, too. “That seems like forever ago.”
“Yeah, I know. But we were both sure of what we wanted. You said black and white everything. You’d wear a full dress, strapless, lots of lace. I wanted more sparkle and a dress that smoothed over every curve and lots of color. We both wanted to be married outside. Me in a huge park with lots of trees and flowers.”
Lyra couldn’t help but smile. “I wanted to be married right on the pier in back of the Big House. We’d look out onto the water as we said our vows. Simple, yet touching.”
“See, I knew you remembered.”
“Sure I remember, but that was long ago. It was the dream of two young girls. We’re not those girls anymore.”
“Speak for yourself,” Regan said with a smile. She was so pretty with her feisty haircut and alluringly slanted eyes. Lyra knew without a doubt that Regan Donovan would have her dream wedding with all that she’d ever wanted someday. While she, on the other hand, would settle for only what was necessary.