Moses stood before Quest then. “T’s right man-it’s a mistake to keep this. This is Mick we’re dealing with, you know?”
Smiling in a half-amused, half-dangerous manner, Quest stepped close to his cousin. “You’re telling me how to handle my wife now, Mo?”
Moses treaded carefully. Having often been accused of being the most unsettling Ramsey, he recognized the look of a more challenging opponent. While his looks gave him the aura of unsettling, Moses knew that the unsettling persona went all the way to Quest’s soul.
“Q, she’s already come to me for information on the man,” Moses warned gently. “She’ll get suspicious if I take too long to give her something. Not to mention Yvonne Wilson. If Nile can see a resemblance, what do you think Mick’s gonna do if she sees her?”
“You should listen to Moses, Q,” Taurus chimed softly. “Better for her to hear this now from you, than in some other messed up way.”
“Are we done here?” Quest asked watching his cousins sigh as if they’d accepted the fact that they would not change his mind.
Moses raised his hands and Quest left without a backward glance. In the dim hall outside the office, he lost strength to stand and leaned against the wall-head bowed, eyes closed.
***
A few evenings later, Nile ventured out with her bodyguards trailing. She headed to Charm Galleries hoping her pieces from the exhibit were still on display. Mel caught sight of Nile shortly after she’d arrived and scolded her for not saying anything about wanting to visit the gallery.
“We could’ve driven in together.” Mel said once she and Nile hugged.
“I just decided to come and I wanted to get here late-miss all that traffic.” Nile explained. “Taurus is going to meet me for dinner. I just needed to be around my stuff even if it’s not mine anymore. It calms me still.”
Melina rubbed her hand along the fuzzy gray cotton sleeve of Nile’s dress. “I understand and you take all the time you need. I’m on my way home unless you want me to stay til T gets here?”
Nile shook her head. “There’s no need, but thanks-the guards are here so…”
Mel’s slanting stare narrowed a bit more. “I can’t see anyone who looks like a guard.”
Nile bumped shoulders with Melina. “That’s the idea. They’re supposed to be keeping a low profile.”
“Ah….well I’ll leave you to it then. There’re a few last browsers but they shouldn’t get in your way. Now you’ve got the house number, right?” Mel inquired with a raised brow.
Nile patted her purse. “Programmed in my cell.”
“Good girl.” Mel whispered and pulled Nile into another hug. “I’m gonna stop and ask my guards to keep an eye on you as well-low profile of course.” She said with a wink.
Alone then, Nile hugged herself while strolling about the area that sheltered her work. Feeling instantly relaxed, she delighted in all that she had and all that she’d found. She heard her name and turned expecting to see Taurus. Finding Cufi Muhammad there instead, brought a noticeable chill to her expression.
“How’d you get in here?” She asked her father.
Cufi raised his hands slightly. “It’s a gallery love-many perspective buyers,” A tinge of regret darkened his brown eyes then. “I have many apologies to give, I guess.”
“Save them.” Nile spat in French. “They come too late and you have too many to give.”
Cufi bowed his head to acknowledge the truth in that fact. “I understand that you never want to see me again. I’m prepared to abide by that.”
“Once I give you the card keys?” Nile predicted watching as her father’s face shone with realization.
“I suppose your mother told you what they were?”
“Doesn’t matter now,” Nile confirmed with a quick shake of her head.
Cufi slipped both hands in the pockets of his tan trousers. “If she told you what they were, surely she told you how valuable they are.”
“And that’s why you’re here.”
“They’ll get me back on my feet.”
“Right…back to selling little girls.”
Cufi bristled. “You never have to be bothered by any of that. Ever. Just tell me where the keys are.”
“In the hands of the Ramseys,” Nile announced with relish shining on her oval face.
Whatever softness dwelled on Cufi’s face vanished as if it had never existed. “What did you do?” He asked, a vicious curl beginning to tug at his lip.
Nile planted her feet squarely. “What should’ve been done a long time ago.”
“You little idiot! You backstabbing little…to betray your own father-”
“A l’enfer avec vous!” To hell with you, she raged. You stand there and talk to me about betrayal after the horror you put me and all those kids through?”
“The things I did gave you… a lifestyle few could ever dream of.”
“Mmm oui Papa. It boggles my mind when I think of all the things afforded in my lifestyle with you.” Rolling her eyes, Nile turned her back. “Get out of my sight.” She ordered.
Cufi stood there unable to move but for the intermitted clenching and unclenching of his fists. Then as though all the frustrations and gravity of the dire situation were welling inside him, he let out a pained sound and charged for his daughter.
Nile turned stunned and unprepared to react as the distance closed between them.
“Cufi!” Yvonne Wilson cried her husband’s name seconds before the gun she carried fired six shots into his chest.
Somehow, Cufi remained standing his expression frozen in disbelief. Then, he crumpled to the gallery floor between his wife and daughter. Despite her anger towards him, Nile felt the loss shudder through her like a sickness.
Yvonne let her hands fall but held onto the gun. She raised a tearful gaze to Nile whose name she bellowed before anything more could be said.
Nile turned finding Taurus storming towards her. She ran to him without another glance at her parents.
“Drop the gun Ms. Wilson!” The guards ordered simultaneously and moved in much the same manner.
Yvonne obeyed without hesitation. Two guards took her by the arms and she was prepared to go willingly until she realized that they weren’t leading her toward Nile but in the opposite direction.
“My daughter-”
“Sorry Ms. Wilson we can’t allow that just yet.” The on-scene detective explained.
“I saved her.”
“That may be, but you have questions to answer.”
The sound of sirens in the distance triggered Yvonne’s panic and then she began to struggle heartily against the powerful holds on her arms.
“Nile!” She screamed as she was lead away. “Nile?! Nile!” her voice went hoarse as the cries intensified.
“Shh…” Taurus soothed squeezing his eyes shut tight and inhaling Nile’s scent.
“How’d you know…something was wrong?” Her voice shuddered uncontrollably.
Taurus pressed a kiss to her temple and uttered a quiet prayer. “We’d been watching from a distance. We hoped he’d feel comfortable enough to approach you eventually. God…” He kissed her temple again. “I should’ve suspected he’d turn on you. Damn I should’ve known…”
As he held her shuddering form, Nile gathered what strength she had and built the nerve to ask him.
“How?” Her voice was muffled against his neck. She pulled back as far as he’d allow. “How could you want to be with me- be a part of me, when I come from…from this?” She looked back at her father’s dead body. Wrenching away from Taurus then, she fixed him with a stern dark look. “Do you know what you’re getting into?” Her voice was a whisper.
“Why would you ask me that?” Taurus’ gaze narrowed as his temper stirred.
Nile looked back at Cufi. This time, Taurus took her chin in his hand and made her face him.
“Things change when a person has a chance to sleep on it,” she said, her voice wavering on the fear that she was about to
lose him. “You may feel differently in the morning.”
Taurus hissed a sudden curse and pulled her tight against him. “Let me tell you this, and I don’t expect to have to constantly repeat it,” he smoothed the hand that held her chin around to cup her face. “For at least the next sixty years, the only thing I plan to sleep on is you.”
“Taurus…”
“Believe me, believe me…” he chanted, pumping his hand around her cheek until she began to nod.
“Believe me,” he said once more before he jerked her into a hug of promise and devotion.
Nile shuddered and cuddled closer to Taurus. She absorbed the life and love radiating from his body and into hers. She held onto him tighter still while drifting farther away from the death and hate that moved into her past.
EPILOGUE
Near Invernesshire, Scotland~
Beneath overcast yet breathtaking skies, Taurus Ramsey and Nile Becquois were married. They stood on their favorite hillside surrounded by love and the family and friends who adored them.
Taurus felt his wife shudder in his arms and looked down to find her cheeks wet. “I hope those are happy tears?” He teased.
“Nothing but happiness,” she confirmed. “I thought I’d never see this place again. I never dreamed if I did we’d be getting married here.”
“A lot to take in.” Taurus acknowledged.
“A lot but never too much,” Nile vowed turning in her husband’s arms.
“Never?” he probed.
“Never.”
Brushing the back of his hand across her cheek, Taurus leaned in. He and Nile shared the sweetest kiss and whispered ‘I love you’ in unison.
***
Savannah, Georgia~
“Good work. Exceptional. I can’t say it enough.”
Brogue Tesano smiled and shrugged as though he was used to such ravings. “For the chance to take down Marc Ramsey and his brother I’d have done the job for nothing.”
“Is that right?” Carmen Ramsey’s thin arched brows raised a notch and her pen paused over the check she’d been writing.
“But please don’t stop your writing.” Brogue insisted with a chuckle. “The man’s taken a lot Ms. Ramsey.” He noted and sobered somewhat.
Carmen continued to write. “The man’s dished out a lot. Keep going.” She instructed.
Brogue’s probing blue stare narrowed. “What’s your plan here?” He asked.
Carmen slid the check across the gleaming cherry wood desk and stood. “My plan is simple. I want my brother’s life to pass very slowly in front of his eyes before it ends.”
This Ends A Lover’s Beauty
And Now:
A Lover’s Soul
A LOVER’S SOUL
THE RAMSEYS BOOK VII
~FIRST PROLOGUE~
Seattle, Washington- 2 ½ Years Ago….
Michaela Sellars Ramsey hissed a curse and made a quick notation on the pad set next to her on the sofa where she typed away diligently on her laptop. She paused to re-read the paragraph and nodded her satisfaction over the wording.
“Hey woman? We still on for dinner?”
Mick winced. “Shit.”
Quaysar Ramsey bristled playfully as a smirk sparked his right dimple. “Should I take that as a ‘no’?”
“Sorry,” Mick looked up, a weary smile playing around her mouth as she watched her brother-in-law drop down next to her on the sofa. She’d been working all afternoon and had completely forgotten about the weekly dinner date she and her husband held with his twin.
Quay leaned close, pressing a lingering kiss to Mick’s cheek before his pitch gaze narrowed toward her laptop. “Working…” he noted. “On?” He probed, the subtle lilt in his bass voice signaling that he already knew.
Mick humored him with a reply anyway. “The book,” She grabbed the pad and made another notation.
The book was an apt enough response. Like everyone else in his family, Quay knew Mick’s intention to pen a book chronicling the Ramsey history had caused more than a few unsettling moments. “You’re gonna invoke my brother’s wrath, you know?”
Mick grinned over the tease and shrugged. “I’m shaking.”
Quay was quiet for a beat, staring blankly at the words filling the laptop’s monitor. “Will you write about my curse?”
At last, Michaela set aside the pen she’d clutched for the better part of the overcast afternoon. “I think I’ll save that part of the story until I can include a happier ending.”
Quay shook his head while rubbing fingers through the close cut onyx waves of his hair. “I doubt a happy ending is in the cards for me and Tyke. I doubt one ever was.”
Mick turned and stroked the back of her hand across his molasses dark cheek. “There’s love there,” she reminded him softly.
Again, Quay shook his head. “Love and hurt-tons of it,” Shamefully long lashes fluttered as his anger set in. “She didn’t deserve that. She was an angel Mick. God doesn’t look too kindly on people who hurt his angels, you know?”
“You believe you did it for the best reasons- the best intentions.” The depth, to which he punished himself, tore at Mick’s heart. “I believe God will reward you for that. Why don’t you try believing it a little more, hmm?”
~~~
Quest Ramsey arrived in time to witness the hug between his wife and brother. “That’s too close,” he bellowed playfully after clearing his throat very loudly. Dropping keys to the message table just inside the den doorway, he closed the distance between them and knelt before Mick.
Unmindful of his twin’s woeful groans, Quest leaned across the laptop resting on Mick’s thighs and drew her into a kiss. She whimpered the instant his sweet peck turned heated. Slipping into the sensual abyss he could create with nothing more than a look, she eagerly participated. The laptop shifted on her thighs as she scooted closer, thrusting her tongue more intensely against his.
“Jeez,” Quay muttered, flopping back on the sofa and massaging his eyes.
With reluctance; and a slight fear that she and her husband were about to give Quaysar a show he’d not soon forget, Mick pulled out of the kiss. “I um,” she brushed away the scant moisture clinging to the curve of her mouth. “I should get dressed if we’re gonna make it out for dinner.” Hastily, she shut down the laptop, collected her things, scooted from the sofa and speed-walked from the room.
Quest’s hazy gaze didn’t veer from her until she’d rounded the corner and was out of sight. He took the spot she’d just vacated and slanted his brother a sly wink.
“You guys are killin’ me.” Quay groaned, still massaging his eyes.
Quest leaned back on the sofa and closed his eyes as well. “You’re always welcomed to bring a date along to dinner, you know?” He wasn’t surprised to hear Quay snort off the offer.
“No one I’m interested in inviting along to share my time with you guys.”
“No one but Ty,” Quest didn’t bother to open his eyes and glimpse Quay’s shaken reaction. “You know you haven’t been out with anyone since you saw her at our wedding?”
Quay’s fist clenched on his jean clad knee. “I know this.”
“Is that what the hugging scene I walked in on was about? Hell, why don’t you stop torturing yourself and go after her? You’ve been keeping tabs on her since the wedding. Might as well make use of it.”
“Mick’s gonna write that book, you know?” Quay blurted, ready for a subject change.
The easiness in Quest’s relaxed position on the sofa began to give way to a visible tension. “She knows how I feel about that.” His deep set grays were midnight black then. His words were delivered with a clear measure of effort.
Quay of course was unaffected by the obvious chilling of his brother’s mood. “She knows how you feel and you know how she feels.”
“I know my wife.” Quest sat up straight on the sofa.
“Do you really?” Quay challenged, pleased he’d succeeded in turning Quest’s mood as black as his ow
n had become. “Q, she’s not some society princess who was brought up to be demure and submissive to her husband or some sweet young lady out to snag a well to do life-complete with a white fence and a man who brings home the bacon.”
Quest left the sofa. “What are you tryin’ to say?”
Quay stood as well. Gone was the childish need to piss off his twin. He saw things heading down a disastrous path if his brother didn’t ease up on his aversion to Mick’s novel on their family.
Quest turned with a look that prompted his brother to offer a reply.
Quay shrugged. “I’m only saying that she was raised different from us-living by her wits, making up her own rules to survive every day of a shitty childhood…Hell Q, we didn’t know a damn thing about that as kids.”
The muscle flexed along Quest’s jaw as visions of what he’d assumed she’d lived through stoked his anger like a poker to fire. “That’s not who she is anymore.” His voice grated. “She doesn’t have to live like that anymore.” He gave a flip wave of his hand. “She made her way out of that shit long before she ever knew me.”
“And you think that her making it really changed who she is at the core?” The laugh Quay uttered then was brief and without humor. “Q, that strength; that toughness that pushed her to play by her own rules…that’s what you fell in love with, man.”
Quest gnawed his jaw for a few seconds longer and then turned. “Alright. You’re right and I agree, so what’s your point?”
Quay’s laughter that time held more humor. And they called him the stubborn one, he mused. “My point is that in spite of how cool she’s being your luscious wife intends to write that book and heaven help you if you try to stop her.”
~SECOND PROLOGUE~
Seattle, WA- Present
Quest Ramsey sat parked outside his cousin’s seemingly drab, unassuming office building. The key was in the Escalade’s ignition but had yet to be turned. He’d sat in silence outside Ramsey Bounty just shy of fifteen minutes. He’d replayed the events of the meeting and words of advice passed on from his three cousins.
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