by Maggie Marr
Sterling stood. “I need to get back to Los Angeles.” He thrust his hands into his back pockets. My heart fluttered with his sudden coldness. I felt both the physical and emotional distance he created in this instant. I pulled my knees closer to my chest. A need for him to wrap his arms around me and assure me that we would not pay for our parents’ indiscretion laid heavy in my chest.
“I have a meeting this afternoon. Do you want to stay here or go back to L.A.?”
“I want …” My heart longed for comfort from him. Confusion tore through me with Sterling’s sudden need to leave, the abrupt change of his tone, and the way he stood so far from me. “Are you angry? Sterling, is there—”
“No,” Sterling said. He reached out and his fingertips brushed my cheek. I pressed my face into his hand. “I want you to come with me. I want you to stay with me. I want you with me, always. I know what this place has done for your painting.”
My love for him was reflected in his eyes. “It’s not this place,” I said.
He tilted his head. His beautiful face so close to me. I could spend a lifetime examining and painting and staring into his eyes.
“This place is beautiful and magical and amazing,” I said. “But the yellow house is not the reason I’m painting again.” I grasped his hand and pressed his palm against my cheek. “You are the reason. You and me and my surrender to what I wanted and needed, but was so afraid to admit. I see everything so clearly now. I don’t want to ever be without you.”
“You won’t be,” Sterling said. “Not ever again. Stay with me. Paint at my house. At least for as long as Maeve is home. Or longer. However long you want. I’m yours, Rhiannon, I always have been.”
“And me yours, Sterling, forever and for always.”
*
After thanking Elizabeth and Jonathan, we drove back down the coast the way we’d come. The return trip seemed faster. There was a playfulness combined with the knowledge that Sterling and I had decided to be together. But as we drew closer to Mama’s and to Malibu, my belly grew tight. Telling Mama about our decision would cause displeasure and silence. Mama was terribly good at ignoring you when she was angry. We drove along the curves of the Pacific Coast Highway, the last few miles north of L.A. Sterling’s hand gripped mine. The warmth of his hand reminded me that we were in this together. I wouldn’t face Mama’s displeasure alone.
“How did your mother do it?” Sterling asked. “How did she take care of us after what happened that summer?”
“That’s a question for her.” We turned up the long gravel drive to Mama’s Malibu ranch. “She’s not perfect,” I said. “She has strong feelings when it comes to me being with you.”
“Such as?”
“The words the apple doesn’t fall from the tree have been used multiple times by both my parents since I was fifteen.”
“And by tree they mean my father.” His hand gripped the steering wheel and his knuckles whitened. “I suppose my teenage years and early twenties don’t help my cause.”
“I know nothing of you from when I was gone, other than tales I heard from Amanda on occasion.”
“Gayle saw it all. No wonder they shipped you away.” His eyes sparkled. “Of course they didn’t want you with me. They were terrified that I’d defile their little girl.”
“Defile? As though I was a chaste virgin to be kept pure?”
“Weren’t you chaste until me?” he asked. A nearly wicked gleam entered his eye. He seemed to revel in the fact that my body, while not untouched, had actually only been his.
He stopped in front of the house. I was nervous. A strange car was parked on the gravel drive in front of the house.
“That’s not Gayle’s car,” Sterling said. “If she has company maybe it will make this easier.”
“Make what easier? You think you’re coming in with me? That we’re doing this now?”
“Yes.” My hand was still clasped with his and he pressed my fingers to his lips. “We’ve waited a long time to be together,” he said. “I’m not waiting any longer.”
My intention was to stay with Sterling, perhaps even live with him in Venice. But now? Tell Mama about this now? Sterling’s look of determination indicated that hesitancy wasn’t an option.
“I’m not fifteen, Sterling. I’m not going to change my mind and run off to Europe,” I said. My attempt at levity fell flat. The sparkle in his eyes dimmed and a hint of fear entered his gaze.
“You can tell her whenever you want about moving in with me, but I refuse to hide what’s between us and sneak around. Pack some things and come back to Venice with me. At least while Maeve is here to help with your mom.”
I nodded. We had waited what seemed like forever to be together. We’d overcome obstacles, broken marriages, affairs, and narcissistic parents. We wouldn’t wait any longer. We wouldn’t hide our relationship. We held hands. I pushed open the front door and entered, my hand still clasped in Sterling’s.
I stopped. My eyes flicked from Mama. Papa stood from the couch in the living room.
“Papa?” I rushed across the foyer and threw my arms around him. His arms surrounded me in a tight hug.
“I thought I might have to drive to Montecito and bring you home myself.” His gaze drifted past me and his smile fell from his lips. His face tightened into a grim mask when he looked at Sterling.
“Tom,” Sterling said as he reached out his hand to my father, but my father would not take it. “Good to see you. I didn’t know you had a trip to Los Angeles planned.”
“I didn’t,” Papa said. His grip tightened around my shoulder. “I recently discovered that you’ve been spending time with Rhiannon. That the Legends were once again trying to steal things from me that I love.” His tone was hard. He looked at me. “That’s why I’m here, Sterling. To protect what is most dear to me. To protect Rhiannon from you.”
“Protect me? Daddy, I’m a grown woman, I—”
Sterling walked closer to Papa and interrupted me. “I know that our trip to the yellow house cleared up a lot of questions for me.”
My father’s grip slipped from my shoulder and Mama’s face blanched at hearing Sterling’s words. “I never knew that you were the reason for my parents’ separation or that my mother was the reason for yours and Gayle’s,” Sterling continued.
“Ha!” Papa’s laugh was a sharp sound like brittle shards of sharp glass. “I wasn’t the reason behind your parents’ separation,” Papa said. “I was a convenient excuse. You’d need to ask your father for the facts as to why his marriage to Joanne was so near failure.”
Sterling’s eyebrow rose.
“My infatuation with your mother was a grave mistake on my part. A mistake that Gayle saw and tried to warn me about, but that mistake shone such a bright light upon the flaws that persisted in our union”—Tom turned his head and met Mama’s eyes—“that even once I knew the error, there was nothing that could be done. Nothing to salvage. For that grave mistake I will always, always be sorry.” He turned his gaze back to Sterling and his tone hardened. “But it’s the Legend curse to ravage and wreck everyone that loves them.”
“First The Lady’s Regret is cursed and now I’m cursed simply for being a Legend?” Sterling’s lips curled into a bitter smile. “Aren’t you punishing the son for the father’s sins?”
“And what sins might those be?” Papa asked. “Do you even know the depth of your father’s depravity? His narcissism? His ability to tear people apart simply to indulge his own need for prurient pleasures?”
“I’ve produced five of Dad’s films. I have some idea,” Sterling said. “I’m the guy that fixes his life.”
“Ah, yes, the guy who fixes Steve’s life? Are you the guy who finds him drugs, and booze, and whores, and hides his messy secrets?” Papa’s face was filled with anger.
“What does that have to do with Rhiannon and me? Why do you assume that I am just like my father?”
“And you’re not?” Papa asked. “You’ve lived your life withou
t experiencing the temptations of Hollywood?”
Sterling shifted his weight from one foot to the next. “Of course not, no, but—”
“But, Rhiannon is different,” Papa finished Sterling’s sentence. “She is your lifelong love. She makes your heart sing an effortless song.” Papa turned to me and lifted a strand of my hair. “She is the princess and you are her knight.”
“Papa, please, you are being cruel—”
“Am I? He takes my daughter to a sexual retreat and she comes back smelling of him, his hands upon her, his lips and every other foul incarnation, and I am being cruel?”
“Papa, I’m twenty-two, I am a grown woman.”
“Those words, that she was different were the same words that Steve spoke of Joanne. Just before he proposed to her. But Steve was unable to contain his passions to one woman. Why, after being witness to the past, should I believe you?”
Sterling closed his eyes for a brief second. “I am aware of my father’s indiscretions, but they are not mine.”
“Really? Aware of them, are you? Then you’ve met your brothers and sisters?”
Sterling’s mouth dropped open. He looked as though he’d been punched in the gut. He stepped back from Papa. He looked at me, his gaze full of questions.
“What brothers and sisters? I have one sister, I don’t … I don’t …”
“Oh, but you do,” Papa said. He stepped closer to Sterling, seeking a kill shot on a wounded animal. “There are three that I know of, but I can nearly guarantee that with your father’s insatiable appetites there are more. Many, many more. Why do you think, after all those years of ignoring your father’s bad behavior, that your mother finally left? Finally took a lover? Finally wished to return to work? Sterling, what did finally push your mother over the edge?”
Sterling’s eyes glanced from Papa to me. I met his gaze and in that instant he saw that I knew. That I had kept this secret from him and hadn’t told him all that I had known about his family’s past.
“You … you know them? You’ve met them? My brother and sisters?”
“Ask your father about the house he keeps in Castaic. Perhaps you’ve met these siblings and didn’t even know your own brother and sisters. The way your father propagated his seed, I can’t believe that these three are the only unknown siblings that you and Amanda have.”
“Papa, no,” I said. “Please, stop—”
“Oh, my darling.” A mean smile cast upon my father’s face. “He has taken something so precious from me. Every Legend has stolen from this family. Now it’s my turn to take something from him.” Papa’s anger was so intense. I knew that he didn’t just mean me, or The Lady’s Regret—he blamed the destruction of our little family of four on the Legend clan.
“Go ask your father, Sterling, the man I’m so concerned that you’re so similar to. Ask him how many children other women bore for him while he was married to your mother. Then perhaps you’ll understand my fears, my worries when it comes to Rhiannon and your relationship with her.”
Papa looked at me. “I fell for it too, my darling. Joanne had me mesmerized with her promises of love and devotion. We had that for a while, she and I, but she could not stand to be without the Legend lifestyle. Once she grew ill, she wanted everything that being a Legend could provide.” Papa turned to face Sterling again. “You are not the man that I want for Rhiannon. Not now, and not ever.”
“This isn’t your decision,” Sterling said. “This is Rhiannon’s decision.”
“Sterling, please,” I said. I grasped his upper arm and steered him to the front door. I shut the door behind us.
“I need time to talk to Papa. He is righteous and indignant and he’s saying the most vile things.”
Sterling pulled back from my grasp. “You’re staying with him?” Sterling’s shock broke my heart.
“No. I mean yes. I just need some time, to talk to Papa. To make him understand, to be rational.”
Sterling’s eyes widened as though I’d struck him. “He said those things about me, about my family and you’re staying here with him, instead of leaving with me?”
Heat in my belly flooded through my chest. “He is my father,” I said. “I need to speak with him. This isn’t a you or him situation.”
“It isn’t?” Sterling seemed surprised, perplexed by my words. “It was before, wasn’t it? You left with him to go to Ireland instead of staying with me.”
“I was fifteen,” I said. “I did what my family thought was best. I did what I thought was best.”
“You wanted to leave? You believe all those things he said about my family? About my father? About me?”
“Sterling, those things about Steve are true. You do have three siblings and your mother and my father did have an affair, and I did leave, but it wasn’t because my parents made me.”
My gaze locked with his. I wanted Sterling to understand that I had chosen to leave out of fear, but that I now chose to stay because of love. At fifteen the idea of such an all-consuming love frightened me. “We needed this time apart. I couldn’t have become the person I am now if we’d been together for the past seven years. Neither could you. We needed to find our own identities and then be together.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me any of this,” Sterling said. His hands were planted on his hips.
“And I can’t believe that your father didn’t.” I crossed my arms over my chest. Anger split through my chest. Right now, Sterling reminded me of a petulant child who wanted everything his way. “My parents are overprotective and intrusive, but they are my parents. I need to speak with them about what I want. What we want. Alone.” I placed my hand on the doorknob and looked at Sterling. “Please understand.”
Sterling turned away from me and looked out toward to the horizon where the sun sank toward the ocean. “I waited for you once, Rhiannon, I’m not certain that I’m willing to do so again.”
Chapter 20
Sterling
“First you’re gone, and now you’re back? You call mom a whore and now you stand here and tell me she has six weeks to live? That she’s dying? What the hell, Dad? Who the hell do you think you are standing here and acting like you belong in this family? That you have a right to be in this house?” My fists clenched at my sides. There was no fear. He’d hit me once and I hadn’t hit back. Back then I’d turned and walked away, but this time, I would pound the old bastard if he threw a punch. My fists itched for him to take a step toward me, to say something mean and unkind. Let him call Mom a whore again, let him feel the pain that raged through my heart and wanted to come out through my fists.
“She’s dying, Sterling.” His eyes held pain. “She’s upstairs in bed. We just came from the oncologist. There’s nothing more they can do.”
“Bullshit,” I said. I opened my hands and clenched them again. “Mom can do anything. If she can live through you and your drinking and your whoring and your insane bellowing then she can fucking beat cancer.” My voice was low and my throat closed up around my words. My eyes filled with heat, a horrible heat. I didn’t want to cry in front of my father, this bastard who’d caused my mother to sob deep into the night. The bastard who regularly appeared on the front page of the tabloids because when he was on set, he screwed everything with tits. The bastard who made it impossible for anyone to get away from him. “You’re a liar!” I yelled. I started past him toward the stairs and his arms grabbed me and pulled me in. I pulled hard against him to get away.
“Son, I’m not lying. I may be a bastard and a womanizer and a huge ass, but I love your mother and I always have. I’m not lying—this is nothing to lie about. She’s leaving us, and soon.”
The sobs broke free. I hadn’t cried since I was in middle school and the sound that wrenched from my chest was unfamiliar. Giant tears rolled down my face, hot and angry. I wanted to throw up. Dad pulled me tighter.
“We’ll get through it,” he whispered in my ear. “Do you understand, son? We’ll make this the best fucking six
weeks she could ever have and we’ll get through it. The four of us, together.” His voice was thick with emotion. He pulled his head back and looked into my eyes as the tears rolled down his face.
His arms tightened around me and his giant hands patted my back. “Now go up there, don’t cry, and be happy to see your mother.”
I swallowed and wiped the tears from under my eyes. I looked at Dad. His face was stoic, but sadness etched his eyes. “Don’t let her see it son, don’t let her see the pain. Be happy to be with her now. Let’s hold off on missing her until she’s gone.”
I nodded. Dad was right. He was a bastard and an ass and a million other things, but he was my dad. And he would make this the best six weeks of Mom’s life and I would be there beside them. They would be the last few weeks that we would have as a family.
I burst into Dad’s house. I didn’t knock. I didn’t call. I didn’t pause at the doorway where his housekeeper stood in slack-jawed surprise as I blew past her and up the stairs to his room. There could be half a dozen starlets with him, but I didn’t care. Tonight I didn’t fucking care what I saw. I bounded up the stairs and rushed down the hall. I threw open the door.
Dad’s room was gigantic, bigger than the entire main floor of my house in Venice. Instead of the orgy I expected, my father sat in the center of his immense bed with reading glasses on, a script open on his lap, and the giant flat screen TV turned on, but on mute.
Not the hard-partying Legend lifestyle.
He jerked his head back when he saw me and pulled his glasses from his face. “This is a surprise. What is it, son?” His voice was always raspy and thick.
“Do I have a brother and two sisters?”
Nothing on Dad’s face twitched. Not one muscle moved. His gaze darted from me to a portrait of my mother that hung above the fireplace and then back to me. “You have a half-brother and two half-sisters.”
My gut twisted as though I’d been socked in the pit of my stomach. I hadn’t believed Tom; I hadn’t wanted to believe Tom Bliss. I wanted to believe that the things Tom said were the ramblings of an angry man and not legitimate statements of truth.