Forbidden: A Standalone
Page 41
“What about him?”
“I wouldn’t worry about him.” He’d always been so confident about his earned paternity, as if things being unimpeachably right in his world made them right everywhere. He was a believer in truth, and his one overarching truth was always that his family was whomever he claimed.
“How’s that?”
“I can take him in a fight.” He put his arms around me and put his lips to my forehead. “For my family, I’ll take him and a hundred like him.”
“Men,” I grumbled, putting my head on his chest. “Wait. I won the bet. Now that I admitted the real reason, she can go to Monterey next summer.”
“You don’t want her to, now that you’ve said the truth out loud.”
He was right as usual. Voicing my fear had taken the power from it. Amanda craved adventure and travel. I couldn’t hold her back much longer.
“What did I ever do to deserve you?” I asked.
“You let me love you.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes.”
I turned my back to him, and he wrapped his arms around me, burying his lips in my neck.
“Worth it,” I said.
Out on the flagstones, Antonio and Theresa danced. He held her, and when he looked up, our eyes met. He said something to Theresa and she protested, but he pushed her away and bounded up the steps and through the crowd to the sliding kitchen doors.
“You don’t drink wine?” he asked through the screen, as if being dry at a wedding was an impossible concept.
“Sixteen years sober, Antonio. You didn’t notice? I’ve known you six months already.”
“Do you have any fun at all?”
“Yes,” Elliot answered. “That’s my wife’s job.”
Antonio cocked his head.
“I’m seen having fun,” I said. “Didn’t Theresa tell you anything?”
“I didn’t understand it, I admit.”
Elliot let me go, leaving a hand on my neck.
“I find designers. I invest in them. I take them out. People talk. We build a business.”
I couldn’t tell if he was impressed or doubtful anyone could make money doing something so silly.
“Do you dance?” he asked.
I had to think for a minute. It had been a while. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do dance.”
Antonio slapped open the screen door and addressed Elliot. “I will never get used to a priest having a wife. But, do you mind if yours dances with me?”
“Not at all.” He took his hand off my neck. “Be careful with her. She’s the most valuable thing I have.”
“I will treat her like a precious flower,” Antonio said when I took his arm. “But she may have to hold me up. I’ve had too much wine.”
Antonio walked me out to the clearing where a crowd danced under the setting sun. At the edge of the orchard I could see Jonathan kneel next to my son to show him how to hold a baseball, and my nephew pitched oranges against a tree trunk. To my right my daughter pouted because I hadn’t told her that yes, she could go to Africa next summer, and behind me, Elliot watched as I danced with my brother in-law. My sister danced in her wedding gown. Margie spoke urgently to my parents. My brother’s wife waddled to the bathroom.
We were connected. All of us. By the gestures of our hands and the tones of our voices. By our intentions, our actions, our loyalties, By our willingness to sacrifice for one another, we were joined by the ropes of our love and held fast by the knots of our hearts.
I was among my people, and I was worthy of them.
OTHER BOOKS
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The Corruption Series is available on Kindle Unlimited!
If you love hot Mafia men, check out my Corruption Series. Spin, Ruin and Rule are full length and ready.
Theresa Drazen wants to know one thing.
Is there something wrong with her?
Because from what she can see, she has money, brains, a body that does the job. Yet, she keeps getting shelved. Most recently, by her fiancé who happens to be the DA.
And she'll get over it, really. No problem. She'll just have a nice, short encounter with a mysterious Italian named Antonio who may or may not be involved with some kind of alleged criminal activity...blah blah...
Let's call a spade a spade.
He's a mobster.
Let's face a few more facts.
He's hot. He's smart. And if anyone breathes on her the wrong way, he's got no problem beating their head against a Porsche until they're willing to lick up their own vomit to make it stop.
Just about everything about that turns her on.
Yeah. There's something wrong with her.
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Spin, Ruin and Rule are full length and ready.
Have you read the Submission Series?
No?
Because Fiona’s brother, Jonathan has this whole thing happening with Monica, a singer with a short-circuiting mouth, and it’s all kinds of epic length.
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I never forgot her. Not for one minute. Not from the last time I saw her, at seventeen, to today. I measured all women against her and all women came up short. But being with her was unfeasible in high school, and it's taboo now. I see her sometimes, but I've never spoken to her. She runs, or I run. We're in the same town, on the same block, in the same building, and the gulf between us is just too wide to cross.
Until tonight.
***
He was my high school crush, back when I lived in a world that didn't want me. He was the perfect boy, and I was the outcast kid from the other side of town. And when he held my hand I thought I could fit in, just a little. I thought I could be his and he could be mine. Then he left, and my life fell apart. Now we are the king and queen of opposite sides of Hollywood. And we haven't spoken a word to each other.
Until tonight.
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Dash Wallace is a pro baseball player with a problem, and Vivian Foster is just the woman to make it worse.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I cannot describe to you how difficult I am to work with. I do everything by the seat of my pants and every person here not only understands and tolerates that, they make it their business to do their jobs under the worst circumstances (that worst circumstance being…me).
Angela Marshall Smith, Cassie Cox for editing the hell out of this thing when it was a mess, thank you.
Erik, my formatter is the balls. He actually pokes me and asks me if I’m done yet, then, after I act like he woke me from a deep sleep, turns around on a dime and hands me something perfect.
Sarah Hansen – thank you for the original covers. They were amazing and I loved them. I’m sorry about the prudes.
My Canaries and Goddesses, Tony, Diana, Dana, Kaylee, Jean, for tolerating weeks of silence while I finished, thank you.
Christy, I can get on the Dash Wallace website now I swear.
My friends at Fab Four, Kristy, Laura, Lauren, BGP, and the Erotica C
onsortium keep me together. It’s beautiful to have such a support system. I don’t know how anyone works without it.
Lisa Schilling Hintz and Jenn Watson for the PR and blasts and everything. I learn so much from you guys.
A big thank you to certain group at a certain company who cut me off promotions because I put a book where you didn’t want it. By keeping it “not personal” but only cutting me off, not any other authors for the same "transgression," you tacitly gave me permission to do this with other books and make money without guilt. You keep those lemons. I have enough lemonade.
A big thank you to the blogging community. I have no idea how you juggle it all.
I saved my fans for last. I’ve thanked you guys a hundred times for this and I’ll thank you a hundred more. You waited a long time for Fiona, and never complained while I did other things. I don’t know any other writer who has had such a long wait and never got a nastygram. You are the cream of the crop.
Note 1
[←1]
Now click the number and arrow to return to where you were.
Note 2
[←2]
She just got out of Westonwood, where she was raped anally by Warren Chilton an hour before release. Her sister, Margie came to get her and Elliot met her at the door, but she decided to go with Deacon because he felt safest after what just happened.
Note 3
[←3]
This is what Elliot asked her to do in Use – to be the first catalyst to changing who she was by changing the way she spoke to herself.
Note 4
[←4]
Maundy Street is where Fiona lived with Deacon. Number two was the private BDSM club.
Note 5
[←5]
These are the words Elliot said at the door as she was leaving Westonwood.