“Daniel wants that for another boat—a new yacht.”
“Ah, of course. I see why you would approve of that. You want a ship to be as beautiful as you if it is to carry your name.”
This made Kris laugh. “You are a charmer, Guilherme. Thank heavens I’m a married woman, or you’d quite sweep me off my feet.”
Guilherme raised an eyebrow at this and his smile widened somewhat cheekily. “The honour would be all mine.”
“Anyway,” Kris added quickly, teasing him away from his flirtation for all the pleasure it gave her, “to be honest I think the yacht is another of Daniel’s toys rather than mine. He has become obsessed with boats and ships in all their forms. In any case, I don’t think I trust Sofia as a sailor just yet.” She squeezed her daughter playfully in her arms and Sofia giggled at the attention.
Nodding indulgently, Guilherme returned his gaze to the vessel which was now passing beneath the red bridge, slowly manoeuvring into the centre of the river.
“But she is a beauty,” he sighed to himself. “And the Braganza is a fine name. Your choice, Senhor Logan tells me.”
Kris nodded but added no more. The significance of the name was a private joke between her and Daniel.
Her own pleasure was increased a few moments later when Daniel himself came towards them, moving away from the docks where knots of people still gathered together to watch the ship as it sailed away. He was dressed simply and casually, in dark trousers and a light shirt, sleeves rolled up at the waist and open at the neck. He towered over most of the other Portuguese and was instantly recognisable wherever he went—a fact that had made him something of a minor local celebrity, much to his chagrin.
As he walked steadily towards the trio, his face was serious but vibrant. As so often, he was thoughtful but the truth was that Kris had almost never seen him so alive before they had moved permanently to Lisbon. He would often talk to her in the evening of the cares of the day, the work that he was involved in dragging Chiado into the twenty-first century, but the anxiety and worries of his final days at Stone Enterprises had almost entirely faded away.
“This is real,” he had told her once. “Before... before I was caught up in abstractions.”
“And was I an abstraction?” she had asked him.
He had shaken his head and looked at her and their daughter a little sadly. “No. You were the reminder of everything I was in danger of losing.” He had paused after this and frowned slightly. “Mind you, things would be a damn sight easier if I had all the resources of Stone Enterprises at my fingertips still. I could turn this place around in the twinkling of an eye.”
“You’re still a rich man—a very rich man, Daniel Logan.”
And with this, he had kissed both her and his daughter softly on their brows.
These thoughts passed through Kris’s memory as she watched Daniel come closer. His hair, slightly greying at the sides but still thick and dark on his head, was now matched by a neat beard. He had not returned to the rough hermit she had first encountered at Comrie, but nor did he wish to remind himself of the too-suave founder of Stone Enterprises. Kris adored the look, as well as the fact that the hardness of body that he had rediscovered in the San Francisco jail had never departed. For her own part, shedding the weight that she had gained in the final weeks of Sofia’s pregnancy had proved more difficult, particularly as Daniel had if anything become even more fruity with her.
“I like something to grab hold of,” he had growled at her more than once, followed by play that proved motherhood had done nothing to reduce her appeal to him.
At the memory of this, Kris felt herself suddenly become moist and hot and she burst out laughing, her cheeks flushing red as Daniel came to a halt before them.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, smiling back at her now and extending one hand towards Sofia. The young girl took hold of his finger and greedily pulled it towards her mouth, replacing her mother’s hair with her father’s digit.
“Nothing, nothing at all,” she replied. “It’s just a good day.”
Daniel looked towards Guilherme. “You’ve done well, Guilherme,” he said in Portuguese. “You and everyone else. Our first new ship.”
“And may there be plenty more!” Guilherme replied, raising his hand in an imaginary toast. “And speaking of everyone else, I should check that they are going about their duties.”
“Yes indeed,” Daniel agreed. As the manager moved away, however, he grumbled slightly in English: “But you and your crew better pull your fingers out.”
“I thought you said they’d done well!” Kris said, frowning slightly and looking up at him.
Daniel laughed. “Yes, yes, they have. I guess I just want more—my nature, I suppose.”
“Well,” Kris told him, one eyebrow arched. “Don’t push them too hard. I’m the one who should benefit from the infamous Logan discipline, remember.”
“Mmm.” Extracting his finger from Sofia’s mouth, he slid his arm around Kris’s waist and squeezed her buttocks. “I do keep forgetting that. In my opinion, we should be exercising ourselves to the utmost to provide another sibling for Sofia here. Or two. Or three.”
“I await your instructions, Mister Logan,” Kris replied delightedly, then gave a mock frown. “Though it’s a bit disconcerting that you keep wanting to get me pregnant. I didn’t really think you had a thing for fat women.”
“Not fat,” Daniel replied in a low voice as he bent down to kiss her behind her ear. “Glowing. Oh, Christ,” he said, glancing downwards at his trousers and the bulge that was appearing there. “We better stop this, not in front of the child.”
“Don’t you worry,” Kris told him. “The nurse will be looking after her for the rest of today. We can get on with our practice for as long as you want. Until then, however,” she said, handing Sofia to her husband, “you can take care of your daughter.”
Daniel’s face lit up as he took Sofia in his hands, which were so large but also so gentle as he cradled her softly, his arms crooked slightly so that he could lift her to his face. His daughter’s almost constant happiness never ceased to amaze him: “You know,” he had once said to Kris as the two of them lay in bed, the young girl resting between them, playing with their hands as they dandled them above her, “I think we may be able to actually do this without screwing up.”
“Don’t count on it,” Kris had told him, kissing him on cheek then letting her head fall to his chest. “‘They fuck you up, your mom and dad’, as they say. But at least let’s give her a better start than we had.”
Carefully shifting Sofia into his shoulder, Daniel placed his other arm around Kris and turned to get a clearer view of the ship as it began to recede towards the horizon.
“Have you heard back from Melinda Bartok?” he asked after a while. “About the exhibition?”
“Yes,” Kris replied. “I think I have enough work ready for an exhibition in the autumn—well, I will have enough drawings, though I need to start painting more.” He glanced at her as she said this, but she continued: “By the way, I forgot to say: your Portuguese is coming along really well. Barely any trace of an accent anymore.”
“And thank you for being so patronizing,” Daniel smirked. Then his face became more serious as he watched the departing ship. “I’m a quick learner when I put my mind to it, and it’s going to be useful in the Brazilian market.”
“Ever the businessman,” Kris said, snuggling her head closer to his chest. She too watched the vessel as it sailed away: she knew just how much of Daniel’s future hopes rested in that ship as well as her and their daughter.
“Do you remember why I asked you to call it Braganza?” she said, quietly.
He nodded. “Your safe word.”
She squeezed him gently. “Yes, back in the days when I needed some protection from you.”
“I can’t actually remember the last time you used it,” he said, thoughtfully.
“I can’t remember the last time you did something I didn’t
like,” she replied. “No, that name’s not there for me. It’s for the people of Lisbon. I know what Daniel Stone would have done to a place like this at one time. I’m hoping that every time Daniel Logan sees that name he’ll remember to exercise some restraint.”
As she lifted her face towards him, he gazed down at her silently for a few moments. His hazel eyes, so strange and asymmetrical with one pupil dilated, always fascinated her. There were worlds in those eyes, and for a moment he looked so sad and serious that she thought her heart would burst. He nodded, without speaking and returned his attention to the distant ship.
At last she squeezed him harder round the waist then raised her hands to Sofia, tickling her daughter until the young girl laughed and squealed. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get this young lady back to her nanny, then we can enjoy the afternoon together.”
“We should really find somewhere else,” he told her, letting her take Sofia from his arms. “I don’t think I intended that apartment of yours in Alfama for a family.”
“Neither of us did,” she agreed. “But I like it. There’s no rush, is there? I mean, we have the rest of our lives to try everything, don’t we?” For a second, her voice contained a seed of hesitation, of doubt. Daniel glanced at her, a little sharply. Don’t be pathetic, his eyes seemed to warn for a second but almost immediately they warned.
“Okay,” he said with a growl as he pinched her buttocks once more. “Let’s go make babies.”
“Is that all I am to you?” she asked in mock despair. “Your broodmare?”
“Actually,” he replied, letting his arm move across her shoulder and Sofia as he pulled them both gently into him, “much as I love our sweet baby, it’s the practice that I look forward to most.”
As he spoke and bent his head to hers, their lips meeting and the soft, warm creatures of their mouths joining blissfully, his eyes glittered and shone, brighter for a moment than the sun that shone like a crystal, whole and complete in the sky.
Fractured Crystal: Sapphires and Submission
M. J. Lawless
The first part of the Crystal Fragments trilogy.
What was broken can be made whole.
Somewhere along the way, Kris Avelar’s life has taken a wrong turn. The promises she made to herself as a young artist have all been unfulfilled and, after yet another disastrous love affair, she has run away to find herself, and perhaps her ability to create, in isolation far from the city.
Her desire to be alone, however, is nothing compared to that of the stranger she meets: Daniel Logan. Tall, handsome, but also scarred by more than the marks which line his face, his attempts to push her away only inspire her to greater curiosity about him - a curiosity that will lead to dark and forbidden desires as she enters his private world.
When he suddenly disappears she is left feeling that perhaps she is destined to always be alone. Then she discovers that Daniel Logan is also the urbane, charming founder of Stone Enterprises - and that his own plans for this young woman will involve her complete submission to all of his appetites and ardour.
Fragile Crystal: Rubies and Rivalries
M. J. Lawless
The second part of the Crystal Fragments trilogy.
Jealousy is a dangerous addiction.
After the torrid beginning of their affair, Kris Avelar has achieved a degree of freedom that will allow her not merely to withstand the demands of her lover, Daniel Stone, but also rise up to the challenges that they place upon her body and soul. If he is her demon lover—a troubled, wealthy man with his own dark secrets—then she is an artist who can transform those secrets into something brilliant, shining and beautiful.
But if Kris is the most perfect lover that Daniel has known since the death of his wife, she is not the first. And so, when she encounters the lawyer, Maria Gosselin, she understands for the first time just how all-consuming her jealousy can be, especially when when Maria makes it clear that she believes there is unfinished business between her and the rich founder of Stone Enterprises.
Seeking at first only to understand more about Daniel’s past, and to uncover the motives behind Maria’s actions, Kris begins to pursue the woman. It comes as a shock to her, then, to discover that her own attraction to this strong, clever rival threatens to overwhelm her own senses—and that Maria is more than happy to use this to get everything that she wants, even if it means destroying whatever fragile happiness Kris and Daniel have achieved.
The Long Last Summer
M. J. Lawless
The new novel by M. J. Lawless to be published Spring 2013.
For even the longest summer must come to an end.
At the beginning of the long, hot summer of 1976, two young boys—Jake and Mark—are riding out into the fields that lie beyond the small mining town which is all they have known for their brief lives. The eldest of the two, Jake, wishes to show his brother something of the innocent pleasure that he has begun to discover in the wider world.
For their young mother, Kitty, such pleasures are tinged with the bitterest experience that for one of them this may be the last summer that he will ever know. As doctors struggle to combat the disease that also took Mark’s father, so Kitty also struggles as a single woman to raise her children in a provincial town where the close embrace of a community also represses all her desires to better herself.
For Doctor Reuben Heppner, the struggle to cure a young boy is a means to leave behind the messy chaos of his own divorce and redeem himself, but with Kitty Donahue he also starts to believe that her happiness will be the key to both their salvation. And yet as the summer burns on so tempers and desires begin to blaze with a heat that threatens to destroy everything.
To be published in Spring 2013.
Refracted Crystal: Diamonds and Desire Page 25