by Maggie Marr
“I guess all that’s left is you, your dad, and me. The three amigos on the hunt for women throughout the world.” Webber raised his glass to toast us.
I glanced toward Dad. He stood in the center of the gallery with a blonde on one arm and a redhead on the other. He was single right now, but I wasn’t certain that he’d remain single. Since Mom’s death, marrying and divorcing seemed to be his latest hobby.
“Speaking of on-the-hunt,” Webber said, “I spy a lovely little brunette I’ve yet to meet. She looks like she needs help finding me.” Webber punched me in the arm. “Later.”
I tilted my glass of wine to my lips. Webber might never get married, and I was right behind him on that decision. I accepted that true love existed. I’d been witness to it, when I was little, between my parents, and with Dillon and Lane and Ryan and Amanda. I’d even experienced true love, once—but I’d been so young that to call it a romance was a bit of a stretch. A crush was probably more like it. Regardless, I wasn’t ever going down that road. Giving away your heart hurt. Why suffer the soul-crushing defeat of lost love when I could enjoy the hedonistic pleasure of a new girl every night? This was L.A. and I was a Legend. Let the ladies line up.
Amanda swept toward me and Ryan trailed in her wake. Webber was right, my sister was a knockout.
“So, what do you think?” she asked. She knotted her fingers together and raised her eyebrows.
My eyes swept over the giant space with high ceilings and great lighting to accentuate the art. The dark wood floors were varnished to perfection. Magnificent art adorned the walls. A hip and eclectic crowd filled with collectors and people with money to spend were here at the opening of Amanda’s new gallery.
“I think you’re a hit,” I said. I kissed my sister on the cheek. “You saw all the paparazzi outside?”
“That’s because of Daddy and Dillon and this guy,” Amanda hitched her thumb toward Ryan who stood beside her, “not my gallery.”
“Press is press, little sister. And with your eye,” I glanced at a giant piece that took up an entire wall, “I think you are in for much success.”
The Amanda Legend Gallery was opening with a bang. This event had become “red carpet” with the appearance of my father, his famous friends, and all the famous people Amanda and I had collected in our Hollywood life. I wasn’t certain how many sales she’d racked up in this first night, but I’d overheard a number of collectors mentioning that most of the paintings were sold.
“Thank you!” Amanda nearly burst with pride. The light shining through her eyes made me happy. She glanced from me to Ryan, and then toward our Dad. “I’m so lucky to share this with my three favorite guys.”
Ryan lifted her hand that he clasped tightly in his and kissed her fingers. The giant diamond he’d just given to her when they’d recently gone to Paris sparkled in the light. Another man down for the count. I nodded toward Ryan. He knew I would love him like a brother, but I also had big expectations when it came to the man who would marry my little sister.
Forgiving Ryan Sinclair for being a douchebag was easy because of the permanent smile affixed to my sister’s face. The guy hadn’t been my favorite in the beginning, but post rehab—the second time—and my sister was the happiest I’d seen her in the seven years since our mom had died.
“I have to go schmooze,” Amanda said. “I’ll see you later.” She leaned toward me. “Oh, by the way, that painting you’re ogling was done by someone you know. Very well.”
I crinkled my eyebrows. Amanda and Ryan escaped into the crowd. I turned back to the giant painting that had captured my attention. Who did I know that was an artist? I stood in front of the giant work. It was almost a mural. The bright colors grabbed me. My gut twisted in response to the images before me.
“Do you like it?”
My heart kicked against my ribcage. Was it . . . Could it be? The voice was familiar and yet, deeper, darker, older . . . sexier. Summertime memories of a beautiful girl flickered in my mind, memories of a girl who had nearly been a woman, and me nearly a man. A girl I loved. A girl I could have made a life with if I’d known, even known at the tender age of seventeen, what making a life with someone meant. A girl who’d disappeared and had taken my heart with her. I turned.
Rhiannon
My chest tightened. My breath caught in my lungs.
Rhiannon had been that girl.
Rhiannon stood in before me in a silky slip of a dress, tall and willowy with long lush white-blonde hair draped over her shoulders. Haunting green eyes stared out from atop cheekbones that looked sculpted from marble. She was so beautiful, so ethereal, that she didn’t even look real. Her lips turned upward into a smile.
“You’re looking very well,” she said.
I maintained my cool Legend exterior. Rhiannon had been a mere schoolboy crush. Hadn’t she?
“Rhiannon,” I said. I leaned forward and grasped her hand and pressed my lips to each of her cheeks. A scent rich and dark like cinnamon trailed her. The scent caused memories to pop in my mind. Memories of blankets, and beaches, and Malibu and first kisses.
Heat jolted me. Desire coiled thick in my gut. I forced a coolness into my face. I hadn’t touched Rhiannon since I was seventeen and yet, and yet, her skin, her hand in mine seemed familiar, natural.
“It’s been forever,” Rhiannon said.
My throat clutched. Never at a loss for words and yet, in this moment her ethereal beauty blinded me. I was barely able to put words together in my mind and form the syllables on my lips.
“It has,” I said. I cleared my throat. Recovered. I’d bedded the most beautiful women in the world; I could speak to Rhiannon Bliss. “Haven’t you been in Ireland and … London?”
“Good memory,” she said. She flipped her golden locks over her shoulder and glanced down at her wine. “The last four years I’ve been in Paris, and now I’m here.”
“And now you’re here.” My head spun with her words. Rhiannon was here. In Los Angeles. After nearly seven years away, seven years of silence, seven years of memories, Rhiannon Bliss was again standing next to me and having the same effect she’d had on me when I was seventeen.
“You never answered my question,” Rhiannon said. She nodded toward the painting behind me. “Do you like it?”
I glanced over my shoulder. The landscape was familiar and yet distant, rendered in a surreal manner. “I do,” I said. “It seems so familiar in an eerie way.”
“Ah, so you do remember that view,” Rhiannon said.
I cocked one eyebrow upward and my gaze locked onto those green eyes. Green eyes that I could fall into forever.
“It’s at my mom’s place, on the plateau.”
Heat grabbed my chest and pulsed through me. I knew that spot. We knew that spot. That spot in Malibu, on Gayle Bliss’s ranch, would forever hold a place in my life.
“You painted this?”
She nodded. Her eyes said so many things to me in this moment, things that words could never tell me. There were so many questions I wanted to ask. But pain, fear, and a broken heart stopped me. I had questions that only a man who needed answers, or who wanted to pursue a lost love, would ask. And I was definitely not that man. Love was not on my itinerary—not in this lifetime.
“It’s beautiful,” I said. I plastered the Legend look of nonchalance onto my face.
Rhiannon’s eyebrow cocked upward, and the smile widened across her face. “I see you’ve mastered the Legend facade,” she said. Her voice lilted and teased. My head jerked back; I was not used to anyone ever calling me on my shit. That didn’t happen in this town, not when you were a Legend.
I smiled. Why pretend there was no history, when Rhiannon was here to tell me otherwise. “You remember that?” I asked.
“How could I ever forget?” She glanced toward the giant painting. “You should buy it,” she said, “before someone else does.”
“Yes,” I said. “Maybe I should.”
My gaze swept the room as I sipped my win
e. I caught Webber’s eye across the room. He’d stopped chatting up the new brunette and stood with his palms up. He looked at me and shook his head. His pointed at me and then he drew a heart in the air. He shook his head, as though I was the next man down for the count.
The muscle in my jaw twitched. I was simply buying a gorgeous painting created by a girl I’d known when I was a kid. That was all. I was not asking anyone to marry me. What the hell did Webber know?
I turned back to Rhiannon. She was gone. Disappeared. My heart sped up. A chill chased through my spine. She’d disappeared once before, without a word, without a thought, without a good-bye. I pulled a deep breath into my lungs, tilted my drink to my lips, and my gaze skimmed over the crowd. Amanda now clasped Rhiannon in a hug. Why hadn’t my little sister informed me that Rhiannon would be one of the artists featured at the opening of her gallery?
“Your little sister did pretty damn good, didn’t she?” Dad stood beside me. He’d left the two gorgeous women behind, which was unusual, but I noticed that just behind him a couple of ladies were eyeing the great Steve Legend.
“She did.”
“Knew she would. The girl is meant for success. She’s got the Legend looks and charm, plus your mother’s earnestness. How could she fail?” He nodded his chin toward me. “You’ve got all those qualities, too. Plus, you’re a goddamned man. With all the benefits you’ve been given in life you ought to run the world, son.”
Heat surged in my chest. The muscles in my jaw tightened. I knew all about my father’s expectations, and how hard he’d worked to bust through in Hollywood. I was also acutely aware of just exactly how easy he believed my life was in comparison to his early struggles. Being the son of a Legend included big perks and opportunities, but it wasn’t always easy.
“That Rhiannon Bliss with your sister?” Dad asked.
“Yeah, it is.”
“Thought we’d lost her to Europe forever. Her father come back with her, too?”
“No.” The ease with which Amanda and Rhiannon interacted meant they’d been in close contact for years. Of course they had. The two of them had been, and seemed to remain, best friends even with Rhiannon’s absence. Our mothers had been best friends, too, and before Mom died the Bliss family and the Legend family had interacted like one big happy clan. Then everything changed. Mom died, then Rhiannon, her dad, and her little sister left for Ireland. I never asked Amanda about Rhiannon, but not because I didn’t want to know about Rhiannon and her new life. My head had wanted answers, but my heart didn’t want the pain.
Dad sighed. “Well, if there is one Bliss here, then there are probably two.” He looked around the room. My gaze followed his. His gaze landed on Gayle Bliss and his lips tightened. On the far side of the gallery, she sat on a sofa with her leg elevated. “Never did like that woman,” Dad said.
“I don’t remember her caring much for you either.”
“You got that right, my boy.”
Dad disliked Gayle Bliss and I had my suspicions as to why. She’d never fallen for the Steve Legend charm. She seemed immune to my father’s bullshit. That Dad had failed to get Gayle Bliss to ignore his bad behavior irritated the hell out of him. Plus she’d seen Dad at his absolute worst.
I ignored dad for a minute and my eyes followed Rhiannon. Her movements were smooth. She seemed to float across the room toward Gayle. Her long blonde hair swept down her back and a smile lit up her face as she sat in the chair across from her mother and clasped her hand.
“Have you seen Rhiannon since her parents shipped her away?” Dad asked, bringing me back to reality.
“Shipped her away?” I nodded at an executive who I knew from Summit Picture. “I thought she wanted to go live with her father in Dublin?”
“Right,” Dad said, “and I believe in Santa Claus. What a mess.” Dad paused, then said, “You, her, Gayle, Tom, your mother? The whole damn deal was a colossal mess.”
I turned toward Dad. “What are you talking about?”
Dad clasped his hand to my shoulder. “Son, why stir the shit now?”
Obfuscation and lies were another part of the Legend facade. When Dad said to drop it, we dropped it, and Dad with his “don’t stir up the shit now” speech was definitely telling me to leave the past alone. This was another reason I needed something of my own. Something that didn’t fall under the Steve Legend shadow. Another reason to make The Lady's Regret. Dad could make no claim to that script, or the film, once it was made.
“Hi, Steve, ready to get out of here?”
A blonde melded her over-enhanced body onto my father’s side.
“Sure, Doll,” Dad said. His hand clasped her ass. She leaned in and pressed closer. He shot me a wink. “See you tomorrow.”
Yeah. Steve Legend was a bit of a letch, as well as being my Dad.
Chapter 3
Rhiannon
A warm breeze rippled through the trees. The only sounds on the plateau were our heartbeats. Sterling’s body pressed against my back and his arms surrounded me. His breath was hot against my ear as he spooned me and his maleness pressed against me through our clothes. I could barely breathe when we were like this. The scent of him, earthy and strong. The desire I barely understood clutched between my legs.
“Rhiannon, do you believe in God?”
I turned in his arms.
“When I’m here with you, on the plateau, I do.”
His blue eyes flicked from my face to my breasts. My shirt hung open and the lace of my bra peeked out. With his look my nipples pebbled. I wanted Sterling to touch me, to kiss me, I wanted things … things at the tender age of fifteen I couldn’t even explain to him.
His arm tightened around me. We were so close. Our breath intermingled. His body against mine. His eyes were that hard crystal blue. His fingertips brushed across my cheek. My tongue flicked out over my bottom lip. He shifted closer and his lips captured mine.
My first kiss.
His lips parted and his tongue pressed along the seam of my lips. Heat rippled through me. My mouth opened and his tongue entered my mouth with a soft seeking. The intensity of the feelings consumed me and pulled me to an edge I didn’t know was there. Sterling's fingers drifted down my cheek, across my throat, and paused where the lace of my bra touched my skin.
A moan, a sound I’d never known I could make, pulsed from my throat. I pressed closer to him. His hardness, his maleness—I felt it through my clothes pressing against the vee between my legs. Throbbing pulsed there. Want pulsed there. Sterling’s lips pressed harder, became more needy. His hand slipped under my shirt and his thumb rubbed against the lace of my bra, across my nipple.
A gasp of air rushed over my lips and without any control my hips shoved forward.
“Rhiannon,” Sterling gasped out. He pulled away from me. A whimper came from me, a tiny whimper at the loss of his lips on mine. His forehead pressed to mine. “Rhiannon, we—”
I leaned in and touched my lips to his. I didn’t want his words; I wanted his touch, his lips, his body. I wanted more of this clutching feeling. Sterling’s fingertips slid under the lace of my bra and stroked over my breast. A deep sound of want, like a growl, came from him and with it an immediate response from me. I felt a hot wetness between my legs. I pressed forward and again Sterling pulled away from me.
“Rhiannon, we have to go, they’ll come looking for us.”
I closed my eyes. Sterling was right. We were expected at dinner. Our walk wouldn’t be suspicious as long as we returned on time. His fingertips again traced my cheekbone.
“I love you,” he said.
A smile pulled my lips upward. “I love you, too.”
Before returning to Malibu I had never indulged the memories of my past. The summer before I fled Los Angeles and Sterling for Dublin was a summer I didn’t let my mind wander to. I wasn’t that girl anymore. That girl enmeshed in the chaos of two families ripping apart. A girl who was desperate for the touch of a boy she’d been as good as raised with. I had been sur
prised by the overwhelming feeling that clutched at me when Sterling and I were alone, together, and he touched me for the first time. Simply putting his hand on my arm had caused within me, at fifteen, a desire so deep I nearly sank to my knees. After that, his ability to cause desire to course through me hadn’t waned.
At the gallery, when he’d leaned in and kissed each of my cheeks I’d fought an impulse to turn my face and let my lips slide onto his. A desire to see if our mouths fit as well as they once had. The scent of Sterling was the same; strong and earthy and male. His lips on my cheeks and his scent, plus the view that I’d painted—that same view from the plateau—had all combined into an intoxicating combination.
I’d fought the urge to press into his body, to look into his eyes, and to tell him of all the letters I’d started to him and then destroyed, all the thoughts of him, the desires, how they’d never waned but how, when I knew, when I found out what had caused the destruction of my family, I was uncertain that the love we had for each other could survive.
Sterling and Amanda still didn’t know. Of course Mama wouldn’t have told them. Their father wouldn’t have told them. The web of lies and secrets was thick enough to block out the light. It was not my place to tell them what had happened: why Papa had left, or to share all the details I knew about the Legends.
The terrace doors in Mom’s guesthouse were open and a breeze filtered into the room. The light in this house on the hill behind Mama’s house was perfect for painting. This quiet house with its paned windows and tile floors, giant bed, tiny kitchen and brilliant light was an ideal place for me to work while I was staying with Mama. I couldn’t stay here because Mama, with her cast, needed me, but I would spend a lot of time up here. The building was long. My canvases were big—I worked on a grand scale, and they physically fit in the space. I could get them through the doors, and the ceiling was high enough and the building long enough to accommodate my work.