I was tired of paying for my mistakes.
I was punishing my daughter in response to them too and something I knew heavily. I’d been punishing her since she’d made her way to me and even long before that. I had my fair place in the sadness, which had occurred in her life, the tragedies placed upon both her heart and mind. Her mom had a good grip on the responsibility of it, but I’d been the catalyst for what had ultimately ended up happening to our daughter when her mom abandoned her, the details of it…
As well as what we’d had to do in response.
We’d been running for a long time, my kid and me. It’d been necessary and something I hadn’t regretted in the slightest. Running kept us hidden, kept us safe, but the toll it took on my kid was undeniable. Her mental state did nothing to recover from what her mom had put her through when she initially abandoned her, the running only further burying her within herself. She closed off, clamped up even worse than when I found her.
Then when I literally found her, my little girl by herself.
I had no idea how long she’d been alone. I just knew after that day I never heard her voice. It’d been a day I established my responsibility in her life and role I had pushed on with to this very moment. I did what I had to do to protect my kid, but somehow in my crusade, my protection had the reverse affect. My mistakes were starting to punish Laura, my sheltering of her keeping her from experiencing life. She hadn’t been able to make friends or really do anything. At least not until this town.
My daughter had found something here against all odds and that went beyond that of her voice. She’d found happiness, true happiness within herself and she wasn’t the only one.
My thoughts peeled away to Alicia, my happiness so close to me. It wasn’t fair of me to love her, but I couldn’t stop myself.
I didn’t want to stop myself anymore.
“Since Laura’s in school now,” I started pushing my hand over Alicia’s cheek. Her smile sent my heart in places it shouldn’t be, but since it was, there was no more fighting it. It was time to take a look around and see what was reality.
It was time to wonderfully accept it.
Kissing her forehead, I told her about the jobs I was going to take on now that Laura was in school and I’d finished up with Josephine’s project. I was going to root myself and find my way here like my daughter seemed to have.
“And I’ll get Laura and me a house eventually,” I said to her, a house… A life. I never would have dreamed it in my best ones.
The heat in Alicia’s hand embedded within me and I only opened my eyes when I believed I missed what she said. She mentioned her aunt’s house.
And she mentioned me living there.
“You want to sell it to me?” I asked her, shaking my head. “You want to sell Josephine’s house to me?”
She stared at me long and hard. Taking back her hand, she rubbed it against my chest.
“You’d be the only one it would be for,” she said and the sadness in her voice I didn’t miss.
Her gaze reached me when I cupped her jaw and I took her lips between both hands.
“It’d only be for us,” I corrected her, pulling away. I scanned her eyes. “We are the only ones.”
She watched me, her eyes opening up in the most beautiful way. Her smile played with me when she reached forward, her hand touching my lips.
“We,” she started, the word in awe on her lips. Her eyes creased hard and she shook her head before saying, “I’d have to change so much, do so much to make… to make that happen.”
She would. She’d have to rearrange her entire life. I didn’t know exact details of her world, but I did know she’d have to change them. She’d have to give up who she’d been.
And choose who she was now.
It’d been a change I had to make as well, and though our journeys were different, I knew her struggle had to be just the same.
I didn’t want her to respond right away to what I proposed. I just wanted her to know it was there, an option.
“It’d be everything,” I told her, her hair brushing along my fingers against her cheek. “I’d make sure it was for you, for all three of us, I’d make sure of it.”
It was the first promise I’d ever truly made to anyone.
Including myself.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Alicia
Gray lingered by my door that night.
But not because he’d had a choice.
He’d made several weak attempts to leave my lips, our kiss, and each time he gave in, his hands on my hips and his mouth on mine.
Pressing me up against my door, he hummed, “Alicia,” against my mouth, his fingers bunching the material of my dress at my thighs.
“Alicia…” he repeated, a sigh this time on his lips as he smiled against mine. He pushed me back by the hips. “I have to go.”
He spent a lot of our time together resisting and I couldn’t rightly blame him. I had my hands all over him most of the time, unable to be helped.
He was just so powerful, all encompassing in the way he made love. He touched me like it would hurt him not to, then held me after like he never wanted to leave. The feeling was addicting and something I wasn’t used to. I’d made love to enough men to know what I felt with Grayden was different.
I pushed up on my tiptoes, my hands pulling down over his shoulders. He already told me he needed to leave, that he had to get Laura and wouldn’t be able to join me and the others tonight at Brown & Hobs. It was still early and he never drank anyway, but asking again would be futile. He’d want to go. He was just too responsible.
I adored him for that.
The exact reason he was leaving was why I couldn’t keep my hands off him, my arms around his neck allowing me to pull my body against his. He indulged me again, hands working my ass, but his hand pressing against the door told me he wouldn’t be doing so for long.
“Alicia…”
One final kiss from his lips and his mouth pulled away. Bruised and out of breath, he licked them, stepping forward in his boots one last time to touch an innocent kiss to my cheek. That was the way he always left me, his hand in mind before he put distance between us.
I lifted my hand, still feeling his though he’d made it to the porch steps.
“Give her a hug,” I said, pulling my arms around myself. I adjusted my shawl. “And a kiss for me too.”
He did every night, the two of us always parting eventually. They were always invited to stay here, both Laura and him but, eventually, I stopped asking. He told me once he didn’t want to confuse her about what all this was, what we were, and I got that.
Mostly because the two of us were the most confused.
I didn’t know what we were, just that I cared about him and he cared about me too. Sex… love had always been enough, and after this evening, I knew he wanted more. I think I wanted more too. In fact, I knew I did.
But this was all so very complicated.
His hand lifted on the stairs, his smile that of my heart. It created wings whenever I saw it, fluttering bright within me. This man was so very dashing, good and sometimes I wasn’t quite sure I deserved whenever he smiled at me. He looked at me like I was the only one, like I was everything.
“It’d be everything,” he told me. “I’d make sure it was for you, for all three of us…”
I knew he would. I knew he’d change my life.
If only I let him.
“Grayden?”
He faced me at the bottom of the stairs, one boot lifting to a step as if he’d return. Hesitating, he stood, waiting for me and I knew, I knew, he’d wait for me forever.
“I love you,” I told him, nodding with it. I loved him more than I could express.
He did come back then, and reaching, he folded his fingers behind my neck. He kissed me again, bringing me up on my toes.
“I love you,” he told me, his emphasis I felt in my soul. It’d been rough-edged, and his brow creased when he said it. I had a feeli
ng he didn’t tell that to a lot of people. I guess I’d just been lucky.
Pressing his mouth to mine one last time, he closed his eyes, squeezing me before pulling away. I watched him head toward his truck but didn’t stay to watch him drive away. I hated that part and didn’t want to see it. Instead, I chose to go inside, clean up and try to recover if not a little bit from the day. A lot had happened.
And a lot of decisions needed to be made.
I knew my love for Gray and his daughter wasn’t one of those, though. They were in my heart. They were there to stay, but what I was going to do with that became the ultimate question. Leaving this town, this home unscathed would be impossible. Everything that happened here would always be with me.
You knew that would happen, didn’t you?
I could feel my aunt’s spirit upon closing the door as I mentally spoke to her, shaking my head to myself. I intended to go upstairs and shower from the day, but shortly after I touched the stairs an engine’s rumble had me coming back, an automatic smile on my face.
He must have forgotten something.
The smile reserved on my face for him, I opened the door, but in the end, the expression didn’t last. Not many good things in my life did. I was always so busy, never had time to be happy.
That’s how Bastian had worked his way in.
He’d been easy, no time like me. We’d been… perfect for each other. Little did I know perfection came in a man who couldn’t ultimately commit. He’d casted me away and in that time, I tossed him in return.
It seemed he didn’t want to be tossed.
A CEO stood at my door, a man of power and prestige with his hand pushed inside a single side pocket. Pants dark and pressed, they hugged the slim build of his muscular thighs, the seams of the jacket he paired with it hitting the various dips and curves of his shoulders and biceps. He looked ready for a day at the office, a smoky button-up shirt beneath his suit jacket that brought out his dark eyes and the waxy shine of his black hair. It cut the evening when he lifted his head, blades of perfection he styled and parted to the side. Cheekbones high and lips full without even being pursed, I fell for this man, his looks not even being part of it. He’d exuded a power I enjoyed and found myself lost in at the time. I just wanted to be around it, his energy and drive I felt were always elements in myself. We’d been like-minded and passion-focused.
Bastian stepped into the light cast off by my porch light, his skin the glow of a natural tan. He was only half Japanese, but the Brazilian side caused him to be just as honeyed.
“Hello, Alicia,” he said and how I used to enjoy the depth in which he used to say my name, how rough and deep the timbre could get when he was really feeling it.
When he was really feeling me.
As good as it had been back then, as good as he made me feel, the previous effects of his voice couldn’t be created now. I didn’t feel good in his presence now.
If anything I felt naked. I felt vulnerable him being here and unannounced.
We hadn’t spoken in months.
He passed me a few texts after that last conversation we had, ones I responded to and let him know I was staying in Mayfield for an extended project. He had few questions for me, which let me know the truth about us even more than what he told me that sent me into a drinking binge. He was okay with me putting distance between us. He was okay with me doing my thing and him his. He was a busy man and he had plenty going on with himself outside of me.
Maybe I’d been wrong.
“Hey,” I said, creeping outside a little. I dampened my mouth. “You’re a long way from Chicago.”
A long, long way.
Dipping his head, he confirmed it, a smile on his face I used to love. He only made it when he was pleased, always so serious.
His gaze dashed left and right of my aunt’s porch, I could imagine taking it all in.
“Are you going to invite me inside?” he asked after a while and because I had no reason not to, I stepped back, holding the door open.
He crossed me with three steps and left a musky scent in his wake I also used to enjoy but now found overpowering. It could stand to be more natural, more Gray.
The thoughts had me closing my eyes as I shut the door behind him, the man really in my house.
“What brings you?” I asked him, knowing this was unusual. I’d invited him just that one time, but back then he expressed no interest. Even more so when our correspondence started to fade. I literally hadn’t spoken to him since that last conversation in which he let me know our reality as a couple, our texts few and far between after that. He knew I was here in Mayfield to see through a structural development project I started prior to the sale of my aunt’s property. He knew all that because he wondered why I hadn’t come home when I said I’d be there. It actually took me not being in town for him to realize he hadn’t spoken to me in weeks. Knowing I had to give him something, I told him the truth. I’d be gone for a while and because he was a business man he understood and respected that. He left me alone after that.
I guessed not quite.
“I wanted to see,” was all he said, standing in the living room now. Walls of fresh paint and polished lacquer set over hardwood floors took his vision, the home truly beautiful with all the work Gray did. Something of appreciation was in his eyes when he turned around and I hadn’t been surprised. He knew a project done well, in real estate himself.
“It’s a fine place, Alicia,” he said, the words actually meaning a lot from him. Like I said, he knew good work.
I was standing in the entryway at this point, my fist touching the arched wall.
“Thanks,” I told him. I moved my shawl around me. “We put a lot of work in.”
“I can see that,” he said, approaching me with his long strides. This man towered, a full head taller than me. Stopping in front of me, he touched the same wall my hand had been on, lengthy fingers moving down with an air of a caress.
“It’ll sell quite nicely,” he went on, speaking of things both of us knew he wasn’t involved in but that didn’t stop him. I could imagine he felt he had the right, his knowledge of property and business vast.
His knowledge of me extensive as well.
He knew I wouldn’t challenge him and I didn’t, standing there. A sound behind me had us both turning, the door opening for some reason. I thought at first I might not have closed it, but then I realized only two people just walked into my aunt’s house unannounced.
A flash of Grayden’s dusky hair pushed into the room and then Grayden, his focus on the door as he closed it behind himself.
“Alicia, you forgot your—”
My purse was in his hands, the chain wrapped around his thick digits. The chain un-looped itself, hanging from his fingers when he got inside the house.
“You left your purse in my truck,” he finished, picking it up and palming it. The sparkly bag looked so small in his hands and I often did forget my bag in his truck. He usually just waited until he saw me next to give it to me. He would have if this had been any other day.
The two men stood in my aunt’s entryway, myself the single body between them. That didn’t say much. I took up little space in comparison and with the small size of the foyer to my aunt’s home, they basically filled it up, two large mountains of never-ending male. Bastian wasn’t as big as Gray, but he was taller.
I could easily compare with them both being here and struck silent at first, I didn’t introduce them right away. It took Gray standing there, the bright blue of his eyes squinted on Bastian for me to get my thoughts back.
“Hey, this is Bastian. He’s from back home.”
He was from back home, so that’s how I introduced him.
The sharp crease in the sides of Gray’s eyes lifted after that, easing as if that was okay and, instinctually, he put out his hand.
“Grayden.” He introduced himself as Grayden when this whole town knew, I knew he was just Gray.
He squeezed his hand down on Bastian�
��s, the man’s hand lost in his if not for the length.
“Bastian,” he said, taking his hand back. He returned it to his pocket. “Alicia mentioned a Gray.”
“He headed the development,” I reminded him, remembering I had told him that too. He’d been so inquisitive in his few texts when they actually came, wondering why I needed to be here and for so long. I had to give him something, so again I told the truth.
“That’s right,” Bastian went on. He lifted his chin. “Tell me, Grayden. Have you ever seen yourself in Chicago? I feel like I’ve seen your face.”
His line of questioning placed a surprise in me, but not for Gray as it seemed.
His head tilted as he palmed my purse, his unruly locks cutting the air with the shift of his single headshake.
“Couldn’t have been me,” he said, lifting his head a little. “But I’m told sometimes I have one of those faces.”
“I suppose so,” Bastian went on. His eyes smiled as he slid the other hand into his pocket. “I interact with a lot of people on my day to day. I guess I just have you mixed up with someone else.”
The smile didn’t quite reach Gray’s eyes when he said this, and turning, he handed my purse to me.
“You forgot this,” he said, stepping back a little. “And I’ve changed my mind about Brown & Hobs. I’ll call Jasmine’s mother on the way. See if she can watch Laura a little longer. It’s still early. It’d be a shame to waste the rest of the evening considering how well everything went today with the house.”
He faced Bastian. “Alicia’s home has been proclaimed a recognized landmark. Friends are wanting to celebrate downtown with drinks. You should come.”
A lot was happening here I didn’t quite understand, Bastian coming here, Gray coming back, Gray referring to my aunt’s house as my home and, now, suddenly wanting to be social when he never wanted to be. It just didn’t feel right. Something was off about all this.
His Sweetest Song Page 17