It takes everything I am not to tear his hair out. I notice another flood of guilt on his face and he gets paler by the second.
“What?” I say.
“There’s something else,” he says, terrified to tell me.
I exhale trying to calm down. “All I can promise is that I won’t kill you.”
“I’m not sick,” Jack says.
“You don’t have MS?” I say through my teeth.
“That day I saw you with him I had come over to tell you I was going to be all right, that the tests were fine, but then I saw you with him and I lost it. The words came out of my mouth before I could stop them.”
“Jack?”
“Yes,” he says, generally frightened.
“I need you to get out of my sight before I make a scene.”
He nods and turns to go. “I’m so sorry.”
Stuck in place in complete shock I watch Jack leave the building. I think about visiting Taylor and checking on Ashley. Instead, I sprint out through the exit to chase after Jack.
“Jack!” I scream. “Jack, wait!”
He turns back in the early morning light. I walk to him. “I don’t hate you, Jack.”
A slight smile breaks out on his sad face. “You really should,” he says.
I smile now. “Listen, I need a favor.”
“Name it,” he says, getting serious.
“I need a ride to the police station.”
*
I hurry up the steps to enter the building and head straight for the reception.
“How can I help you?” the female officer behind the counter asks me.
“I’m looking for someone,” I say. “He came in to give a statement. His name is Nathan Henley.”
The officer raises an eyebrow. “You’ll have to take a seat.”
“So, he’s still here?”
“Mr. Blue Eyes? Oh yeah, he’s here,” she says, winking at me.
I’m a little thrown off by her comment, but manage to keep it together. “This is kind of important,” I say. “Could you tell him to come out? Or I could go back there for a minute?”
She studies me from head to toe. “I wish I could help you, but procedure leaves no room for romance.”
I’m trying to come up with my next argument, but then Nathan steps through a door on his way out.
“Did they call you in already?” he says, perplexed. “They’re relentless.”
Exhilaration runs through my veins. My feet feel light enough they could leave the ground. He’s standing there, staring at me, uncomprehending and painfully beautiful.
I raise my hand to show him my good luck ring hugging my finger.
His face becomes curious. I take two steps to be next to him. I reach out to run my fingers along his lips, tracing them, savoring them and then pulling him in for a kiss. He stays rigid and unresponsive for a moment and then he kisses me back with all that he has in his tortured heart.
His heart beats fast against me, chasing away any last bit of reason within me. I don’t care that we’re French-kissing in a police station or that I’m drenched in sweat and smell like a hospital.
I don’t care that I’m exhausted and pumped full of painkillers. All I care about are his lips and arms around me. He unglues his lips from my swollen mouth, letting his forehead rest against mine. “Why are you here?” he says.
“To tell you that I love you, you and only you, and that you’re a fool.”
As we smile madly for each other we hear people starting to clap.
We turn to find a rough looking guy sitting in the waiting area clapping. A chubby, gray-haired cop who has just entered the station claps while he pins files between his elbow and ribs. Even the gruff female cop at reception claps despite her procedure having no room for romance.
And now my feet truly do leave the ground. Nathan picks me up and we are spinning. I gaze down into his beautiful blue eyes. I realize that he is my only home on Earth. I bend my neck down and kiss him. I kiss him like I have never kissed anyone in my entire life.
I kiss him like his lips are sustenance for my starving soul.
Chapter 25
Some things are better told after a short nap or a day in the sun. A leisurely long walk through trees or a freshly baked meal. And then there are things that are best left untold. My mind trails off to thoughts that can’t be easily quantified as joy or sadness or melancholy. Maybe it’s the effect of the afternoon sun on my naked skin and half-closed eyes.
The pool water sparkles and glistens as a light breeze forms growing circles on its surface. We’re having a week of summer right before Christmas. One of the wonders of living so close to a desert.
I’m lying on a lounge chair in my bathing suit at the Henley estate. Nathan’s swimming and Taylor’s boiling in the hot tub. I’m just letting the sun lull my senses, enjoying the complete emptiness of my mind.
“I was wrong,” Tomas says, startling me.
I open my eyes under my sunglasses to glance at him. He’s standing over me holding a small cooler he has just brought from the house.
“What about?” I ask him.
He sits down on the lounge chair next to mine. He opens the cooler to offer me a bottle of water. “It turns out, you are all he needs,” he says, taking a sip out of a beer can.
“We all need many things,” I say lazily.
“You know what I mean,” he says. “You don’t have to be so obscure.”
I pull off my sunglasses and stare at him in shock. “Did you just call me obscure?” I slap his shoulder. “You’re the most obscure person I’ve ever met.”
He laughs. “Perhaps,” he says.
“Jesus,” I say. “You can’t help yourself.”
“All right,” he says. “Maybe it’s just the way we talk to each other.”
“I like the way we talk to each other,” I say and then sit up and kiss his cheek. I glance over to see Taylor smiling our way.
“It has its charm,” he admits.
I lie back down and put on my sunglasses. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” I say, “but I haven’t had the chance.”
“And what do we have here, but that very chance?”
I smile at his always inflated rhetoric. “How did you know we were in trouble at the aroma shop? I mean, I know you were following me, but how did you know you had to interfere right then?”
“I can’t believe you have to ask me,” he says. “Are you forgetting you started banging on the window like a lunatic?”
“You could have called the police instead of Nate and I’m not sure he had enough time to get there between the time I banged on the window and you two came in like raving golfer zombies.”
Tomas grins but only briefly. “I had already told him you were at the shop. Despite of what he said, he couldn’t stay away. He was already headed for the shopping center.”
“Why?”
“Sometimes he just needed to see you.”
“You always say the right thing,” I accuse him.
“It helps in my profession.”
“What is your profession?” I ask.
“Not having a profession is my profession,” he says with a wink.
“I imagine there are countries that won’t have you back,” I say.
He studies me a long time with what I think is respect. “Only a few.”
I turn to look at Nathan swimming laps in the pool, seemingly tireless. His powerful shoulders moving in circular motions produce controlled and even strokes that propel his body smoothly.
When I turn back to Tomas he is already moving toward Taylor with his cooler full of drinks. I smile, closing my eyes again. This house, that at first I found so over the top and pretentious, feels like a sanctuary.
Nora has the magic touch.
My eyes open again, this time to rest on Taylor who walks to me wrapped in a towel with Tomas trailing behind her. Even with the fading bruises she still looks like a vision with her blonde curly hair and her long
legs.
“It’s going to get a little bit cooler,” she says. “Maybe the weather will do us a favor and send some winter weather for Christmas next week.”
“What is it with women and white Christmas?” Tomas says. “It’s like you’re all obsessed with it.”
Taylor lies back on her chair playfully. “Don’t be a bore, Tomas.”
“Are you both really going to Greece?” I say. “I mean, who’s going to take care of the shop? Ashley?”
Taylor bats her eyelashes at me. “You of course.”
“Me? I told you I’m going back to college.”
“I’m sure you can handle both,” she says. “C’mon, you found your prince charming, now it’s my turn.”
“You don’t mean Tomas,” I say. Tomas barely listens to us.
Taylor laughs. “No, someone capable of human emotion.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere,” Tomas says indifferently.
“Romance or not,” I say. “The two of you belong together. I picture you both sitting by the seaside in like Monte Carlo or a James Bond movie.”
“Nice,” Taylor says.
“We belong together like arsenic and rich widows,” Tomas says.
I try not to laugh. “That was really fucking creepy, Tomas.”
Taylor rolls her eyes. “He’s so creepy and yet still hot.”
“He’s harmless,” Nathan says as he leans down for a kiss and joins us.
Taylor gets up and drops her towel right in front of Tomas whose cool demeanor fades as he can’t help but notice Taylor’s perfect figure. “Let’s swim,” she says.
Tomas clears his throat and regains his icy composure, following the swivel of her juicy backside to the pool. I watch Nathan smile as our friends jump into the water as gleefully as children.
“Come with me,” he says squeezing one of my thighs and then standing over me like a God. His wet body glistens in the sun accentuating the endless candy-scape of his delicious musculature.
His powerful biceps tense as he bends down and picks me up like a child.
“You’re a brute,” I say with a sexy damsel voice.
“Stop flirting,” he says.
“Never,” I say.
“Let’s tell Taylor now,” he says, getting serious.
“Do you think now’s the time?” I say, a bit concerned.
“Now is always the time,” he says, carrying me to the pool.
“Taylor, we have something to tell you,” I say, still in Nathan’s arms. “Set me down,” I say sternly to Nathan who promptly throws me into the pool.
“Asshole,” I say when I come back above the surface wiping water out of my eyes. “You tell her, you jerk!”
“What is it?” Taylor says confused.
“My parents would like to invest in the aromatherapy store if you’ll allow them,” he says. “My father is connected in the hospitality industry. He thinks little shops in many of his hotels would be a hit.
Taylor stares at me and then at Tomas stunned. “Is this for real?”
“His mother is an aroma junkie,” I add. “They are very serious.”
Taylor’s eyes rest on me lovingly. “By the way, I totally approve in your choice of boyfriend. He’s so fucking hot.”
I shake my head. “Let me translate for you boys,” I say. “That’s Taylor’s way of agreeing to the deal.”
“Works for me,” Nathan says.
“I bet it does,” I say and then jump on Taylor’s gorgeous head and push her underneath the water. I suddenly realize she’s not in that good of shape, yet, and help her back above water. “Oh my God, Taylor. I forgot about your injuries. I’m such a bully.”
She immediately jumps on my head and pushes me under the water. I guess she’s feeling better. I fight to get back to the surface.
“You bitch,” I say laughing and spitting water out of my mouth.
“I’m hungry,” Taylor changes the subject and swims to the ladder.
“Mother expects all of you for dinner,” Nathan says as he reaches down to lift me out of the pool effortlessly and take me away.
“Nathan, Grace, wait,” Taylor says wrapping her towel around her.
Nathan turns back but Taylor just stands there saying nothing. This might be the first time since we met in eighth grade that she’s speechless.
“What is it, Taylor?” I say to encourage her.
She smiles as sweet as a little girl. “Thank you,” she says.
“We love you,” I tell her. “You never have to thank us.”
Nathan and I enter the house through my favorite room, the library sanctuary that has a breathtaking limestone fireplace all lit and decorated for the holidays. Next to the fireplace a magnificent noble fir Christmas tree towers high above everything topped with a silver, sparkling star.
I’ve barely had a chance to get my hands on any of the thousands of books on the dark wood shelves but that’s going to happen soon.
We bump into Warren, Nathan’s father, on our way to the room that has been designated just for us whenever we visit. “Nora wants me to grill some chicken and veggie skewers,” he says.
“Hold off for a bit, Pops. I’ll give you a hand,” Nathan says as he squeezes his father’s shoulder and we walk down the wide hallway.
“Your dad’s adorable,” I say.
“He’s a good dude,” Nathan agrees.
It’s good to make it back to the room. I need to get out of my wet bikini and have a warm shower and maybe snuggle a bit before dinner. Nathan grabs me as soon as I slip out of my bikini. My nipples are so cold and hard and I know he can’t resist that. Not even a little.
He is a nice enough boy to massage my cold buns and warm my nipples with his sweet lips. I love to be spoiled by him.
As much as I love it my goose bumps are obvious and Nathan notices everything. He rises to give me a kiss before turning on the shower and setting us up with towels.
The Henley towels are so fluffy and soft. Rich people know things.
“Nathan,” I say softly. I’m not sure he even hears me. I wait for him but he does not come. A tear falls from my eye and my heart swells in my chest.
Suddenly he appears from the light of our bathroom and stops to stare at me, naked and cold with a single tear sliding down my cheek. He moves slowly toward me trying to understand.
“I love you, Nathan,” I say very quietly.
He is too concerned to smile. He reaches out and meets my tear as it’s about to drop from my jaw line. “What’s this?” he says.
Everything comes rushing back. My dad hugging my mom, whispering silly jokes that made her slap his hand. The way their arms made me warmer than any Sun ever could. The nights falling asleep to their voices.
Nathan’s fingers find my hair, his lips my forehead and his arms slowly wrap around my trembling body.
“It’s happiness,” I tell him.
Author Note
I hope you have enjoyed BEAUTIFUL RUIN. Join my mailing list to receive news on upcoming releases & promotions: Author Alison Foster
Coming this fall
MAGNIFICENT RUIN
a steamy, new adult novel by Alison Foster
Follow Taylor and Tomas on their adventure to the magnificent ruins of Greece.
About the Author
Alison Foster loves reading a good love story almost as much as she loves writing one. She spends her time dreaming up strong heroes and even stronger heroines and she enjoys finding unexpected strengths within her characters when they are in the most unexpected places.
She believes that passion makes the world go round and that a sexy grin is as sweet as candy. She loves interacting with readers, so feel free to drop her a line.
Blog: http://authoralisonfoster.wix.com/alisonfoster
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/alisonsreads
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