A Million Different Ways To Lose You (The Horn Duet Book 2)

by P. Dangelico

  “The bed’s cold without you.” His gaze fell on the lid of the box I was holding. Uncrossing his arms, he walked over and stood next to me. “You’re going through your father’s stuff?” he asked, his fingers raking through my short hair.

  I didn’t think he expected an answer. I think he was just surprised I had finally gathered the courage to do it. My attention back on the contents of the box, I said, “It just doesn’t make sense…it has never made sense.”

  He exhaled deeply and lay down with his legs stretched out, his weight resting on his elbows.

  “Can you think of any reason why he would do this?”

  “Not one. He was never interested in anything remotely pecuniary. His hunger was always for knowledge.” One glance at Sebastian’s expression told me he wasn’t entirely convinced. “You don’t believe me? Of course you don’t,” I said, bitterness coating my tongue. “The man who owns a bank wouldn’t believe that some people aren’t motivated by money.”

  “Pump the brakes, darlin’” He grasped my chin and tilted it so we were eye to eye. “At least let me explain before you go judging my thoughts.”

  “Then it’s me you don’t believe––don’t trust?”

  “That’s not it either,” he corrected, shaking his head. “Did you ever wonder how he could afford a nanny and a private tutor imported from England?”

  The question rolled around my stomach like a lead marble, a question that had been slowly poisoning me for the past six years––and the only reason for me to ever doubt my father’s innocence.

  “We lived a very modest lifestyle. No vacations, one small car. The apartment was a small two bedroom.”

  “That’s a bit convenient, don’t you think? You’re a smart woman, Vera, do the math.”

  His words were arrows that hit the proverbial bull’s eye perfectly. The old wound gaped open. As the pain seared through me, I closed my eyes. Until I felt the warmth of his hands wrap around my face, felt the soft brush of his lips on my own. “He loved you. He wanted what was best for you.” His voice trailed off. I wiped at the tears threatening to slide down my cheeks.

  “What’s best for me?” I scoffed, disgust following on its heels. “I could’ve done without the high priced education, believe me.”

  “I always have,” he murmured. The sympathy on his face transformed to determination. “I want to show you something.” Taking my hand, he pulled us both up off the floor.

  “Not tonight, Sebastian,” I pleaded, shaking my head. “I’ve had enough for tonight.”

  “It won’t take long.”

  He dragged me out of the library and down the hall to a part of the estate I seldom visited. Most of the rooms in that wing were locked up, the furniture covered and the drapes drawn shut. He walked up to a panel of double doors that were beautifully decorated with etched glass. Pushing the doors open, he turned on the lights that revealed the beauty within. Mesmerized, I didn’t know where to look first.

  The ceiling was entirely covered in etched glass tiles. A gorgeous alfresco graced the walls, and an Olympic sized pool decorated with Italian hand painted tiles stretched from wall to wall.

  “Wow,” was all I could say as I took everything in. Sebastian walked over to a wrought iron lounge chair and sat down. “Why do you have this room closed up? Why is the pool drained?” I asked offhandedly.

  Sighing, he raked his fingers though his hair in a gesture I knew meant he was about to discuss a topic he didn’t want to. I walked over to him and smoothed his hair back into place while his eyes fluttered shut.

  “What is it, Lover?”

  Clasping my wrists, he brought my hands down and held them between us. “Remember when I told you that after my parents divorced I spent the summers here with my father?”

  “Yes,” I replied in a hesitant voice.

  “My father and I had nothing in common. Even when he wasn’t working, which wasn’t often, I barely saw him. Obviously there were no kids for me to play with so most games were out of the question… That’s why I started swimming. Out of boredom, at first. But then I got hooked––on the silence, on the single mindedness of it. Swimming focused my thoughts…kept the loneliness away.”

  The last words were barely a whisper. And yet they were spoken loud enough to crack my heart open and leave it bleeding. I bent down to kiss him, but he placed his fingers over my mouth and stopped me.

  “I have to get this out,” he said, his eyes holding mine. With a nod, I let him continue. “One day my father happened to be walking by and saw me. By then I had been training for months. I was already pretty good––for an eleven year old,” he clarified, adding a quick grin.

  “He never said anything. He just started showing up every day at the same time to watch me. I was so excited. My father had never shown any interest in me whatsoever––other than to make sure I was breathing.” Wincing, I laced my fingers through his and squeezed.

  “Then he started showing up with a stopwatch, timing me. Everything changed after that. At dinnertime, we talked. We started discussing different training methods, what strokes I needed to work on. He bought me videos of past Olympic meets. It was like we were finally speaking the same language.”

  “What happened?” I asked, my voice strained from a growing sense of dread. It was like watching a horror movie. I could see where this was leading, and yet I still couldn’t stop my stomach from clenching painfully.

  “I started winning. I would’ve killed myself to please him…I almost did,” he continued, his gaze falling to our joined hands. “After training with him that summer, I went back to Texas obsessed with being the best. By spring of the following year, I was ranked second in the U.S. for my age group. That summer I flew back and forth for my swim meets, but I couldn’t break through to number one. The title was held by a kid from California twice my height.”

  I held his gaze, willing him to continue. He sucked in a deep breath and exhaled.

  “We met for our usual training session. I hadn’t slept well the night before. At dinner we’d discussed the last meet, and he didn’t say much. He was still pissed about a meet that I’d lost badly. I was tired––I’d been training too hard. During sprints, I kept hearing him shouting, pushing me. So I kept going, way past my lactate threshold…and then I blacked out.

  “The next thing I remember was coughing up a shit load of water and my father standing over me, screaming something in German. His face was red and the vein between his eyebrows ready to explode… He left for London that day. Marianne said it had to do with work, but I didn’t believe that for a minute. When I found the doors to this room locked, I asked Bentifourt about it and he told me my father had the pool drained––that I was never to set foot inside again.”

  I hadn’t realized that my hands had moved to cover my mouth until he peeled them away and held them.

  “We never talked about swimming again. Not when I set a world record in my age group at sixteen, not when I won national championships…” His voice lost volume while his eyes remained on me.

  What could I possibly say? Any words would have either been an insult to his feelings, or an outright lie. So I crawled onto his lap and wrapped my arms around his neck, holding him tightly as I stroked the back of his head, comforting him the only way I knew how.

  “This is going to sound terrible…however, I’m glad he didn’t take an interest in you,” I whispered in his ear. “I’m afraid of what he may have molded you into if he had. And in case you don’t already know, I happen to think you’re perfect.”

  The last word was smothered by a passionate kiss. The intensity of his feelings were on the lips that met mine, on the fingertips cupping my face. He pulled back far enough that we were nose to nose.

  “Whatever your father did––” he said, shaking his head, “he did for your benefit, not for his own. You were everything to him. Give him a little credit for that.”

  In his eyes was a bottomless supply of love staring back at me, offering me c
omfort and understanding when he’d had so little of it in his own life. Tears of gratitude spilled down my face, tears I made no attempt to hide. And none were for my father.

  Chapter Twelve

  The next morning I woke up abruptly, just as the turn of the earth ushered in a new day. A persistent nagging at the back of my mind made it impossible to sleep. Next to me Sebastian didn’t stir. He was on his stomach, a muscular arm stretched out, his long fingers gripping my thigh possessively. Slowly, I pulled away and crept out of bed.

  In the box of my father’s things I searched for the flash drive I had seen the night before. Cross-legged on the chaise lounge, I opened my MacBook and inserted it. At least a hundred folders popped up. A shock of awareness hit my stomach, butterflies taking flight. There was no doubt in my mind this was a good omen. One by one I opened each of them and began reading.

  “What are you doing?”

  Glancing sideways, I found him leaning on an elbow, his hair disheveled, a sleepy grin on his face. He looked so happy and relaxed I wanted the moment to last forever. My excitement, however, had other plans; it could only be contained for so long.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” I said, jumping off the chair and into bed. I tilted the screen in his direction.

  “Manuscripts––at least thirty of them. It’s fiction. Pulpy thrillers…mystery and suspense. And they’re pretty good,” I said, finishing with a giggle. “My father’s name was Tyrone. See––” I said pointing. “This must be his pen name.” S. Tyrone was neatly typed on the cover page.

  Sebastian scanned the documents, the remnants of sleep wiped away by curiosity. “The publishing house is in Vienna. I’ll contact them today,” he said as he read. This new development made joy explode in my heart. Somehow I knew that we were onto something. “Did you know anything about this? These are old. Some of these date back over twenty years.” He waited expectantly for my answer, his gaze laser sharp.

  “Nothing––I knew nothing about this. He never mentioned it once.”

  “Then he had a tendency to be secretive,” he said softly.

  With that, the fragile thread of hope I was spinning snapped instantly. My eyes returned to the documents on the screen. “I guess…you’re right,” I agreed dejectedly. “I need to know, Sebastian. Either way, guilty or innocent, I need to know. Or it will haunt me forever.” I looked up into his sympathetic eyes––he, better than anyone, knew what it felt like to be denied closure.

  “We’ll get to the bottom of it. We’ll find out, either way,” he replied. And in that moment, hearing him use the pronoun we when in truth I couldn’t do a single thing to help, my love for him expanded until I could no longer see the boundaries of it.

  For two days Sebastian’s executive assistants tried to get in touch with the publishing company. No such luck. The paper trail led back to the owner, one Michael Kreitz, last know address, the outskirts of Vienna. Against Ben’s and Gideon’s fervent objections, we headed to Vienna in Sebastian’s private jet with an entire squadron of security in tow, a Bombardier Global he purchased because of the lowest emissions of its kind. I did my best not to roll my eyes when he proudly rattled off the specs of his toy.

  It was my first time on a plane, let alone a private jet, couple it with the fact that I was still acclimating to no longer being a fugitive from the law and to call me anxious would be putting it mildly.

  “You’re going to punch a hole through the floor of the cabin if you keep that up.”

  That was my lover’s voice, the one seated next to me––I think. I barely heard it through the rush of blood in my ears and the pounding of my heart. Of their own accord my toes kept pressing down like they were pushing on the brake pedal of a car.

  My gaze slid sideways where I found him focused on the screen of his cellphone, studiously avoiding my glare. His lips pulled between his teeth in a pathetic attempt not to laugh. “I’d offer you my hand, sweet love, but I already have a fucked up knee––can’t afford to lose a hand, too.” When I socked him on the shoulder, he grabbed by fist and kissed the knuckles. Bending closer, he murmured, “I know what’ll relax you,” his rasp, extra-raspy. Then he took said fist and rubbed it up and down the button fly of his well-worn jeans––where he was already hard. Of course.

  “That can’t be normal. You need to see a doctor about that,” I said, amusement replacing high anxiety for the moment.

  “I am seeing a doctor. She’s doing wonders for it,” the beast answered in a filthy tone. His wiggling eyebrows persisted until I could no longer contain the laughter.

  “I’m too anxious to read––or nap for that matter,” I admitted, fingers tapping on the armrests.

  My person was raked head to toe with a sulky look. “Ever hear of the mile high club?”

  “Is that an American thing? I don’t know how to ski. Besides, what does that have to do with how restless I am right now?”

  His brow wrinkled. “Skiing…what?” His voice drifted into nothing. Then too slow blinks and an explosion of laughter filled the cabin. Someone to the left of me cleared their throat and my head swung in that direction. Six large men, including Gideon, stared back at me. Suspicion crept in that this had nothing to do with skiing. I turned beet red. Funny thing though, I didn’t get anxious again until we landed. And on the flight back, I got very good demonstration of what that club was about.

  If Geneva is a grande dame, then Vienna is a sophisticated maiden. Against Gideon’s wishes I opened the tinted window of the car and hung out of it panting like a dog in shear awe of the architecture. The Schönbrunn Palace made me sigh, the Vienna State Opera made me oooh and aaah. After which, Sebastian pulled me by the waist onto his lap and kissed me until I was saying those things to him.

  The last known address of the publishing house was a modest building in a residential neighborhood. Kreitz Publishing was still penciled into the directory next to the call button. We were the beneficiaries of more than one suspicious glare by the locals. I’m certain it wasn’t every day that two carloads of armed men stood on the sidewalk loitering in that neighborhood. We were about to give up when a thin, middle-aged man clutching a small terrier under his arm walked out of the secured doorway.

  “Excuse me, are the offices of Kreitz Publishing still on the top floor?” Sebastian asked him in English.

  “Publisher has been closed for years,” replied the man with a thick German accent. The dejected look on all our faces must’ve prompted him to continue. “Michael moved to the third floor.”

  Sebastian’s gaze sharpened. “Michael Kreitz?”

  The brown and white terrier whined and yelped. “Yes, now if you’ll excuse me, Schatzie needs to do her business.” As the man stepped out of the way, Gideon moved swiftly, smoothly catching it in time before it closed. Single file, the three of us made our way to the third floor.

  “Ich komme!” The man on the other side of the steel door shouted after Gideon rang the doorbell at least a dozen times. The door cracked open, security latch still in place, to reveal an elderly man with thin white hair which had been swept from one side of his head to the other. He wore round eyeglasses on his pointy nose. If I actually believed in animal spirits this man’s would definitely have been a mole.

  “Micheal Kreitz?” Gideon inquired.

  The mole’s suspicious eyes darted back and forth over the three of us. I gave him my biggest, warmest smile to offset the expressions of the two harbingers on doom standing next to me.

  “Who are you?” Mr. Kreitz asked in English.

  “I’m Sebastian Horn, of Horn Investment Bank––” The arched eyebrow I gave him put a smile on his face. “And this is my wife, Vera Sava.” At the mention of that word my whole body turned to stone. Sebastian slapped an arm around me and pulled me tightly against him. Mr. Kreitz’s already small, blue eyes narrowed.

  “Sava?”

  Everything inside of me lit up at the sound of curiosity in his voice. “Yes, Sava,” I repeated with barely c
ontained enthusiasm. I think you knew my father, Tyrone Sava?”

  A slow smile grew on Mr. Kreitz’s face, brightening his features. “How is Tyrone?”

  My face fell. “May we come in?”

  The security latch came off immediately and the door opened. “Please, please,” he said, ushering us into the small apartment.

  Twenty minutes later we were seated in a room that could have served as the setting for a turn of the century movie about a destitute nobleman. All the walls were covered with walnut bookshelves filled with old leather bound books. The fine velvet which covered the winged back chairs was threadbare. Dust covered every square inch of the place.

  “He killed himself?” Mr. Kreitz repeated absently.

  “I’m afraid so.” When I nervously began picking on a hangnail, Sebastian gently took my hand in his. Large and warm, his comfort spread all the way to my bones.

  “Mr. Kreitz, I need to know about the manuscripts I found in my father’s personal items…you published them?”

  His eyebrows rose comically high. “Published them? He was my best selling author for close to a decade.”

  The news made me breathless, joy and excitement exploding in my chest. And then…my joy lost its shine. A thousand mixed emotions began to surface. Anger, suspicion, disappointment…anger. The look on my face must have said it all because his brow furrowed. “You didn’t know?”

  Automatically my eyes darted to Sebastian who was tightlipped and watching me closely. “No…he never said anything about it.”

  Mr. Kreitz frowned. “Quite odd.”

  “Yes. Quite. And I have no idea why he would keep it from me,” I reluctantly admitted, my frustration palpable.

  My eyes narrowed at the sunshine pouring in, highlighting the dust moats dancing in the air. When I was a child I was convinced it was invisible confetti that would only come out to play with the sun. His expression fathomless, Mr. Kreitz’s attention followed the shaft of sunlight out the window.