Marbella Twist

by Camille Oster

  Dominic turned to her, astounded at the insight. He wouldn’t have thought Cheyenne understood anyone’s motives other than her own.

  “What?” she said. “You pick up these things when your existence depends on men.”

  “I wouldn’t think your existence depended on anyone.”

  “Not anymore,” she said with a sly smile. “Girl of independent means.” She turned her attention back to Roan. It felt like they were the exes spying on their former other halves moving on and being deliriously happy. Not that Cheryl had ever been his ex. “He would go for someone like that. Wants someone to take care of him—lazy weekends, homecooked meals, rugrats.” He could have sworn he saw Cheyenne shudder and he smiled. Cheyenne was and always would be a predator.

  “He wants love, I guess,” Cheyenne continued. “I suppose we can’t blame him for that. She seems a bit of a trashy choice, though.”

  Dominic clenched his teeth, but it only confirmed what he knew people thought of her. In a sense, he wanted to protect her from it, but also knew she did not in any way want to change. Cheryl was happy with who she was, and that counted for something, irrespective of what the illustrious bitches thought.

  “Then again. If it is love, it wouldn’t matter, would it? Who of us wouldn’t truly give up everything for it?” Cheyenne said.

  “I doubt you would.”

  “I don’t know,” she said, surveying the distant couple again. “If it truly was love… I don’t know what I would do. It probably won’t shock you, but I’ve fought long and hard to get where I am, but you have to ask yourself what’s worth fighting for. Maybe I would give everything if I totally adored some guy.” She snorted. “Poor thing probably wouldn’t stand a chance. I’ve never had that, though.”

  “Would you like to?” Somehow it felt like an important question. He understood the question. His aim had always been for an easy relationship, one where his participation wasn’t always required. Perhaps that was where things had gone wrong with Sophie. Sophie had been utterly dependable and it had been a quality high on his list when he’d considered marrying her.

  The sad truth was that he wasn’t really sure he had ever loved her. His love had been the company, and for growing it. It wasn’t until the kids had come along that actual love had entered the picture, and truthfully, it had been an emotion he had been uncomfortable with. He’d stayed away from them for most of their years as well, leaving Sophie to take care of it.

  “Hell if I know,” Cheyenne said with a shrug, but he did see a sadness in her eyes that surprised him. Ambition had been Cheyenne’s only driving motivation. He hadn’t actually thought her capable of anything else. Maybe there was more to her than even she gave herself credit for.

  He could hear Cheryl’s tinkling laugh. In the time he’d known her, he’d never made her laugh and that hurt. The actor had the easy-going nature of an American and had no qualms about simply moving in on her. For Dominic, it had been caution. In all honesty, worry about her fitting in was a misnomer, though, if he was completely truthful. He didn’t give a damn about her fitting in, or what any of these people thought. They were nothing in the scheme of things. That had been an excuse.

  The real objection he had was much more troublesome, and it was only just now coming to light. Cheryl would never accept being left alone; she wanted it all and would accept nothing less. She couldn’t be distracted by gifts and trifles. She wouldn’t accept serving the wife role—the stylish hostess, the homemaker and the support system that took care of the things he didn’t want to deal with. That wasn’t her. With Cheryl, it was her way and it was all the way. A distant husband would never be acceptable. A husband who didn’t love her would never be acceptable. She would fight; she would demand; and she would love.

  And it had scared him away. The unbreakable and powerful Dominic Dunbury, captain of industry, successful beyond anyone’s hopes, had been too scared of the deep bond she required, and he’d pushed her away for it. Really, did that make him any better than Cheyenne? And sadly, Cheyenne had actually been more honest about the fact than he had.

  Chapter 58

  There wasn’t actually much to pack. Books mostly. Inns had bought no clothes, although it was probably time to upgrade his wardrobe a little. The boys, when they had visited, had shown him he was perhaps a little too blasé about it. Not that he would do so here with their gaudy designers and nouveau riche tastes. There were more acceptable stores which understood how to guide him as to the right type of clothes.

  There was still plenty of money left over from the money his parents diligently placed in his bank account every month. What had they expected him to do with it? Well, he had spent some on Esme. He had bought her a few things, as was expected for a woman one was intimate with—a mistress.

  She would have been claws in his eyes if he’d ever called her that, but it was what she had been. People didn’t always like the roles they served, but it didn’t change it. And it wasn’t out of the realm that men cared about their mistresses—or leaving them, but that was how it was.

  It was time to return to the fold and it was ludicrous now to be maudlin about it. Having a mistress had a price and it was time to pay, time to do what was required.

  His bags were neatly packed, his computer packed away in its leather bag. The bed was made and the room looked bare. He’d slept with her in that bed, they’d explored each other, held each other. It could never have been anything more; she had to understand that.

  It was time to go and he grabbed his bags to head downstairs. His uncle was driving him to the airport in Malaga and he would be leaving this horrid place behind. Even now, he knew he never wanted to return, didn’t want to chance running into her.

  If she thought he felt nothing in all this, she was wrong. This wasn’t a choice. It was always going to be this way, but he also knew that she didn’t fully understand. According to her, he could just choose to stay. She didn’t understand that it wasn’t an option. There was a good chance she would hate him and maybe that was for the better.

  “Ready to go?” his uncle said pleasantly. “We should have plenty of time to beat the traffic.” Traffic was always an unparalleled concern for his uncle, no matter where they were going. It was irresponsible and inexcusable to miss a flight. Only people who didn’t have their act together missed flights.

  “Of course,” Inns said, relenting to Cassandra’s embrace. “I’ll give mother your regards.”

  “And give us a call when you get home so we know you’ve arrived safely.”

  Inns nodded. His aunt and uncle were good people, although his own father saw them as misguided, and it was hard to argue.

  Aggie stood back a bit. Their relationship hadn’t necessarily improved with familiarity. Things had always been awkward with them, and that hadn’t changed.

  “Are you going to say goodbye to Esme?” she asked when her father had taken his bags out to the car.

  “No,” he said. He could have lied and said he’d run out of time, but the truth was he’d decided against contacting her, felt it was better to just cut it off.

  “You’re a coward, Inns,” she said.

  “I understand you think so.” Predominantly this wasn’t cowardice.

  “Leaving town without so much as a phone call to your girlfriend is pretty shit.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  “Yeah? If it quacks like a duck and all that.”

  Aggie would slap him if he said Esme was his mistress. Aggie despised the traditions that his crowd made a point of defending. Okay, so not everyone would actually call women they slept with mistresses, but that didn’t change what they were. And as for ducks, sometimes you needed to call a kettle black.

  They didn’t embrace like Cassandra insisted on. Aggie’s opinion of him was far lower and he knew it. It all related back to their fundamental disagreement about how one should be in the world. Aggie rejected everything about them and would accept nothing but her way. Her parents tried t
o thread some line in-between. It wasn’t perhaps a unique issue in stately families across Britain.

  Inns walked out without looking back. It was time to put this sorry episode behind him. Sorry might be a bit strong. There had been Esme and he would always be grateful to her. He would miss her and he knew it. She had cared about him in a way no one else had, probably never would again. The fucking heat he could do without.

  Marbella quickly sped away round him and they were soon on the motorway heading up the coast. He couldn’t wait to breathe British air, feel the cold, even the damp of Bennington Hall. He’d quite happily never see anything glittering or shiny again.

  Esme was back there, probably angry with him. She had been angry for some time now. When his acceptance letter had arrived, he’d wanted to celebrate, but knew she didn’t understand what it meant, or why it should be celebrated. It wasn’t about her. He’d tried to explain that to her, but it didn’t seem to sink in. According to her, he could just stay, at least finish out the year. If he did that, this stint in Marbella would have been a permanent thing. If he went back now, he would finish out his first year at Oxford. It made a difference. He’d done enough damage to himself and his reputation as it was. Leave it too long and the opportunity of getting back in with the boys would slip away. Being a social pariah wasn’t actually fun and that status stuck. The rest of his life was on the line and the means for undoing all the damage was within reach, but Esme didn’t see that.

  His father had booked him a business class ticket on BA and they welcomed him warmly as he stood waiting when the check-in opened. No more seeing Spanish signs everywhere, hearing it all around him. It was time to go home.

  As he sat in the lounge, he fought an urge to all Esme, to try to explain, but he didn’t. It was best to do this like a bandage—just rip if off. She would get over him quickly, probably forget about him completely in six months. He would never forget, and she probably wouldn’t even remember him. Hopefully, things would go well with that little business venture she was so excited about. She just bounded from one thing to another, completely without an anchor.

  He’d been told once not to get involved with girls who didn’t understand and he knew why now—because it ended badly and it ended painfully. God, could they not get away now? He looked up at the departure information on a TV screen and boarding still hadn’t started. This waiting was killing him.

  Chapter 59

  Roan sat on Cheryl’s couch. She was standing by the kitchen bench, preparing lunch. Apparently, the guy who owned the building her salon had been in had told her that she could move back in and pay rent when she got back on her feet. Every detail of what she needed to do was being planned. It seemed Cheryl was going to stay in Marbella. Roan knew that was a load off her mind.

  For himself, he couldn’t stop thinking about Lauren. They’d been chatting almost every day when she got back from work.

  Who would have thought he’d be in a position where he would be waiting for someone to come home from work every day just so he could talk to them? He was normally the one people waited on, but the tables were completely turned.

  Cheryl was chattering away and Roan was only half listening. It was hard to care about her salon stuff. It was great that things had worked out so well, but there was little he could add to this. Planning wasn’t exactly his gig. Neither were salons, or anything about how they were run.

  It would be so easy to just stay here. Cheryl trusted him—enough perhaps to take the next step. She knew about his communication with Lauren and supported it. She’d said that he needed to know if there was still something there. It was even Cheryl who had put the thought in his head that there was something there. Lauren had always been this ache in his chest, one he refused to acknowledge. Ignoring it long enough, he’d just forgotten it. Cheryl had dug it out.

  He wasn’t over Lauren and Cheryl had seen it, and now he had two best friends who were both women, and he needed to pick the one he wanted to love.

  “I think I have to go see her,” he said, taking a deep breath. This had been preying on his mind, even as he’d only just managed to figure out what it was.

  “Who?”

  “Lauren.”

  Cheryl wiped her hands on a cloth and came over to where he was sitting. Her eyes were piercing. There was no hiding things from Cheryl, and that had been quite uncomfortable at first. Now he was actually seeing the benefit of opening up about his feelings. It was therapeutic and slowly he was untangling the jumbled mess of emotion that had driven him out of LA. It had taken Cheryl to achieve that.

  “You have to do what you have to do,” she said.

  Was this real, though? Was he running back to a past that wasn’t there anymore? Lauren was the life he would have had if he’d never left Wisconsin. They would have ended up together, probably married right after college, would have had teenage kids by now, and he would have done some stupid, mundane job. “I don’t know if this is the right thing to do, or if I’m just fooling myself.”

  “You’ll never know unless you go.”

  “If I go, I won’t come back.”

  “I think you already know this is the right thing to do.”

  Roan frowned. This chatting with Lauren had been extensive and he’d gotten to know the woman as opposed to the girl. If he went he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from getting with her. He knew this. This wasn’t some ‘let’s go and see’. If he went, he would be sleeping with her, if not the night he arrived, then shortly after. It would be an instant relationship, and it had been the one thing keeping him from getting on a flight.

  “Fucking Wisconsin. Do you know how cold it is there?”

  “I’m sure you can think of someone to keep you warm,” Cheryl teased.

  “You’re a better friend than I deserve.”

  He just had to gather the guts to actually do it. This was a big fucking leap, straight into Lauren’s arms. “I’m not just fooling myself and being nostalgic?”

  “You’re the one who’s been talking to her. Are you seeing some eighteen-year-old girl when you do?”

  “No,” he admitted. The real Lauren, the woman had taken her place. They’d talked about everything—her divorce, her kids, her job with the local education department. “How can I be an actor and live in Wisconsin?”

  “It’s been done. Not all actors live in LA,” Cheryl said. That was true. “You’re thinking of excuses.”

  “You’re right.”

  “What if it all goes tits up?”

  “There is always that risk.”

  “What would you do?”

  “I’d have to go. You can’t not give it a try, can you? Are you really going to be able to move on from this if you don’t go? Or are you just dragging your feet on the inevitable?”

  “Yes, damn it,” he admitted. He was trapped in this whether he wanted to be or not. Lauren was in his mind and she wouldn’t budge even if he chose to delve into another film at this point. He would only be delaying finding out. “I have to go.”

  “Then go. I’ll drive you to the airport.”

  “I’ll leave you my car.”

  Cheryl’s mouth dropped over. “You can’t leave me your car. It cost a fortune. What am I going to do with a testosterone fuelled car? I have a family; it’s supremely impractical.”

  “The point of a Fisker Karma isn’t practicality. It’s about making a statement. What are the bitches of Marbella going to say if you arrive to work in one of these every day?”

  Cheryl laughed. “They would think I am ridiculous.”

  “This is a ridiculous place. This is the place for a fucking Fisker Karma. Or sell it; I don’t care. Buy something supremely reasonable and boring. Or drive the fucking Fisker Karma. Boom. Take that, bitches. What do you think of me now?”

  “You should sell it.”

  “Nope, I am giving it to you, and I would be disappointed if you don’t drive it around, at least for a good six months. For now, you can drive me to the airport.”


  “Now?”

  “What’s the point in waiting?” Then he was more honest. “Or I might chicken out.”

  He would be sorry not to hang out with Cheryl every day, but this felt right. Marbella had been a transition place and it was time to move on. Lauren was there and he could simply go to her. It would be easy; he just had to get over his own fears. In his gut, this felt right and he hadn’t felt like he’d had a solid direction in a while.

  Lauren had a kid and he would be a step dad. The idea wasn’t what scared him. It was the idea that it wouldn’t work that scared the shit out of him. What if he wanted this so badly and it didn’t work? Then what? The problem with this was that there was real risk involved. But there was upside, too. Lauren. He couldn’t wait to take her in his arms, hold her tightly to him and to nestle his face in the crook of her neck. He’d always loved the way she smelled.

  They were grownups now. Things would be different, and a part of him couldn’t wait. All of a sudden, he had no idea why he’d been dragging his feet. Seeing Lauren was the only thing he wanted right now.

  Saying goodbye to Cheryl would suck. There was something there, something that could have developed into more, but Lauren already had his heart, and he hadn’t known it. Cheryl had seen it, though.

  Chapter 60

  The actor’s ridiculous car was in Cheryl’s driveway and for a moment Dominic wondered if he should leave. Technically, it wasn’t as if he should be there, but Cheryl had been on his mind for days now, interrupting his sleep. He felt completely out of kilter and knew this feeling would not be resolved until he addressed this—whatever it was. The answer was clear, however, that it had to do with her and the fact that there had been some degree of cowardice on his part when dealing with her.