by Cherry Adair
There! “Coming!”
Suddenly she was hip-deep in viscous quicksand. Trapped. Barely able to move. Other than her own frenetic heartbeat throbbing in her ears, the forest was silent. The flutter of the leaves on the branches didn’t make a sound, yet, she felt the brush of the breeze on her cheeks. Warm. Damp. She shook her head, trying to clear her ears to the sound that had to be around her … it had to be there. Trying to step forward, her feet dragged heavily through the gluey sand and waist-deep water.
God. “I’ve got to get out of here.” She didn’t hear her own voice, only that awful animal scream from afar. She knew if she didn’t get out of the sucking earth beneath her feet, she’d die.
Frantically scanning the area immediately around her, Addison tried to reach a dark distant bank. But the more she tried to move toward it, the farther away it seemed to be … it was far, too damn far away … and getting farther as she inched slowly toward it. Her thighs burned with each dogged step.
Wake up!
Rydell? Help me!
From quicksand to her moonlit bedroom aboard the Tesoro Mio. From the sharp smell of pine trees and earthy loam to the soft scent of gardenias. The sounds of the ship’s powerful, vibrating engines as they sliced through calmer seas filled her head now.
Awake? She sucked in a shaky breath. Yes! Thank God.
Reaching for Ry, she needed the solid heat of his reality.
His side of the bed was empty. The rumpled sheets cold.
Gone. Again. Dear God. Did she never learn? Wrapping her arms tightly around her body, Addison shivered.
He’d gotten what he wanted. Didn’t he always? she thought, too hurt, too crushed to acknowledge that she’d gotten what she wanted tonight, too. Now, having had sex with her, he’d slunk off in the dead of night, leaving her alone. She didn’t know him anymore. Maybe she never had.
Her eyes burned. Pain crushed heavy on her chest, making it hard to drag air into her lungs.
Damn him. Damn him. Double damn him.
And double damn herself, for giving in when she should’ve resisted and told him to go to hell. Maybe she needed this final blow to be done with him once and for all. Now she knew what her subconscious dream mind understood before she did.
He always was competitive with Naveen and wanted to stake his claim on her first. Coldhearted son of a bitch. Did he have no feelings? No conscience? Apparently not. Her throat ached with tears she was damned if she’d shed.
Eyes squeezed shut, Addison sat up, letting the silky sheets fall to her waist and the cool air wash over her skin as she dropped her clammy forehead to her up-drawn knees.
She’d always had vivid dreams, but never nightmares. Not even after Sophia died. This one shook her to the core because the sounds and smells were so real, so immediate, it was hard to separate dream from reality. The pitiful awful animal screams must have been her own. The final death of her love for Rydell?
Sweaty forehead pressed on her knees, she waited for her erratic breathing, and the hard knock of her heartbeat, to return to normal.
Dreams were a manifestation of the sounds and images experienced during the day. God only knew, after an action-and tension-filled day it wasn’t surprising that her dreams were filled with all sorts of imagery. But she had no idea what this dream symbolized. Being trapped? Probably. The animal crying out in pain? She had no ide—
An anguished cry, vivid and clear, ripped through the moon-washed room. The same harsh cry that had filled her dream. Her head jerked up. Dear God. Not a dream. Real.
Flinging off the sheet, she sprang from the bed and followed the muffled sound to Sophia’s room. The room her baby had never occupied.
Decorated in anticipation for the life the three of them would share on board, she’d almost forgotten until she’d walked into the fully decorated nursery her first day on board. Seeing it, seeing the future, when the future was dead, almost killed her. Addison had removed the changing table, and the crib, but the walls were still covered with the white-and-pale-pink toile wallpaper, and she hadn’t been able to part with the velvet-covered glider hunched in the far corner. She’d never held her baby there, but when she needed to feel closer to Sophia, she came into the room and sat alone in the dark, Sophie’s baby blanket pressed to her face.
Losing a child was the loneliest, most desolate journey a woman could take. She was a mother without a child; grief was a constant sharp knife at her throat, her lungs, her heart. There was barely a moment in her waking hours that she didn’t think of her baby. And when, for those brief moments that she didn’t, she felt guilty as hell for forgetting her precious little girl for even those few seconds.
She always felt numb and cold. But tonight, Ry had made her feel heat and light and alive, again. It was all she’d get. It had to be enough. She had to make it enough.
Addison crossed the soft carpeted floor from shadow, through moonlight, back into shadow and soundlessly pushed open the door. It had been locked. How had Rydell gotten in?
On the outer edge of a swath of moonlight filtered through the large window, a naked Ry knelt in the shadows, his body bowed over his knees.
Oh, Ry—The harsh sound emanating from him ripped out Addison’s heart.
The room smelled of baby powder. Her imagination. Sometimes it brought her a small measure of comfort. But not tonight. Tonight she knew the soft, baby scent was a figment of her imagination. A lie.
Dry eyes burning with unshed tears, she dropped to her knees beside him, the lump of misery in her throat restricting her breathing. Her own pain was still so huge she couldn’t shed the tears constricting her lungs and heart. And Ry’s pain amplified her own unbearably. Addison stretched out a hand to touch his shaking shoulder, then withdrew it and clenched both hands on her knees.
Throat and chest impossibly tight, close enough to feel the heat of his body, she bowed her heavy head. And waited.
* * *
Ry knew the hideous wrenching sounds came from his own throat, but he was incapable of quieting them. Grief ripped up from the depth of his soul, so dark, so deep it bowed his body and ripped out his heart.
When he’d found out, three fucking months after her death, that Sophia had died of SIDS, he’d gone bloody apeshit, then dived headfirst into a dark pit.
Now, being in her room reminded him poignantly and painfully of the hours he and Addy had spent choosing the furniture, pondering the softness of the carpet for little crawling knees, researching the best brand of diapers. This was a reality that hadn’t hit him last year when he’d heard the news of his baby’s death thirdhand.
Now he knew he hadn’t succumbed to even a tenth of the iceberg that lay below the surface of the pain.
Now the loss of their baby was profound and far too real.
He’d thought he’d reached his lowest points this year. Coming into Sophia’s room was the topper. She’d never slept in this room they’d so carefully prepared for her, never crawled on the rug or taken her first shaky steps to her father’s outstretched hands. But the entire room was filled to brimming with the hopes and promises of her.
He wasn’t sure how long they sat there in the middle of the floor in the dappled moonlight. Minutes? Hours? Ry’s throat ached. Fuck, his entire body ached as though he’d been thoroughly beaten and left for dead.
Sitting back on his haunches, he looked at Addy. Her head was bowed, and her shoulders shook. But she wasn’t making a sound. Seeing her pain made him feel worse than shit. Her pain was the only thing that pulled him to the surface of his own misery. He focused on her, on soothing her pain.
With an agonized cry, Ry gathered her in his arms. Her naked breasts against his chest. Stroking her slender back, rocking her, murmuring against her hair as the tears on their cheeks mixed.
After what seemed like an eternity, he got to his feet, picked her up in the cradle of his arm, and strode back to the rumpled bed and set her down as if she’d break. Sitting across from her, he took her hands in his. Her fingers we
re ice-cold, clammy; his shook.
They stared into each other’s tear-drenched eyes.
Lost. Destroyed. Inconsolable.
“Jesus, love.” Ry’s voice sounded choked. “How the bloody hell did we get here?”
She shook her head, tears swimming, mouth trembling.
“We have to talk.”
“Y-yes.”
Not releasing her, he grabbed the box of tissues off her side of the bed. “Water?”
She shook her head, wiping at her wet cheeks with a handful of tissues.
“Wine? Whiskey?”
She shook her head again. Cheeks pale, nose pink, her lips slightly swollen, she’d never looked more beautiful. Her red-gold hair was a mess from his marauding fingers, still damp at her hairline from their energetic lovemaking earlier.
Ry crawled up the bed to sit directly in front of her. The lamp was on the desk across the room behind him. Illuminating parts of her beautiful body like a glorious, perfect jigsaw puzzle. The soft curve of her waist, the pink tip of her left breast, the slope of her shoulder. The sheen of tears on her flushed cheek.
They were still naked, and for a nanosecond he considered suggesting they grab some clothes and cover themselves. But so much had been hidden this past year, he figured their nudity was symbolic. Laid bare to each other at last.
Knees touched knees. Squeezing her hand, Ry said quietly, “It’s time to talk about Sophia, Addy. Past time. I’m not going to interrupt, although I suspect I’ll have to eat my tongue to resist. Get everything out. This wound needs to be debrided, the infected parts cut out so that it no longer festers. The way we’ve been going is killing both of us. We have to heal. Together.”
He brought their clasped hands to his mouth, then returned them to her thigh. “Want the light on or off?”
A small shake of her head. “I’ll ugly-cry. But I don’t want any more darkness between us.” She used her free hand to run the damp, balled-up tissue under her eyes. Ry took it from her and replaced it with a dry one.
“I don’t know where to start.”
“March eighteenth.”
“Her three-month-old birthday. Sophie was such a good baby. S-sweet. Happy. When I walked into her room that morning she actually rolled over onto her tummy and lifted her head. I captured the moment to send to you—I videoed her as she smiled and gurgled up at me, so proud of her new trick. I thought it would cheer you up when you were dealing with all that Cutter legal stuff in South Africa. I heard the stress in your voice every day about the trial, and knew seeing her sweet little face would help.”
Ry wanted to see that video now. Wanted a glimpse of his daughter. Later. He squeezed Addy’s hand, her fingers curled into his.
“We had breakfast, dressed, went up on deck. She gurgled and wrapped her little starfish hand around Mo’s, and spat up her breakfast on my mother’s new Galliano. Pissed off, Mother handed her back to me as if she were a bundle of dirty laundry. She’d only taken Sophie because Naveen had offered to feed her, and he handed her to the closest person when she was wet.”
“Your mother with a baby? Wet or otherwise. The mind boggles.” Ry’s lips twitched imagining Hollis holding a wet baby. She was the least maternal person he knew.
“Sophie had been a little cranky the night before, and neither of us had had much sleep. I took her down for a nap at two, brought her carry crib beside me so I could hear her if she got fussy … I can’t—”
“I need to hear this, Addy. All of it.”
She closed her eyes, her lashes a dark spiky reminder of her tears. For several moments she couldn’t speak. Seeming to gather herself, she opened her eyes. What Ry saw there, even in the semi-darkness, gouged another hole in his heart.
Pain. Agony. Doubt and fear. Worse, guilt.
“I woke up and it was six thirty-seven. She should’ve been crying for her dinner. For a moment I closed my eyes again and lay there, happy because I thought you’d come back from Cape Town and had sneaked in to take her so I could sleep a little longer. But—I-I looked, just to ch-check…”
Addy’s face crumpled and she buried it in her hands as her body shook with her sobs. Ry gathered her onto his lap, rocking her as she cried. The tears, wrenched up, seemed to come from her very soul. They wet his chest and arm, burning like the acid of recrimination.
He stroked her hair back where the strands stuck to her cheek, then rubbed a path from her shoulder to the small of her back with the flat of his hand. God, she felt deceptively fragile under his touch. Skin slick with perspiration, pebbled as if she was cold. He stroked and rocked, murmuring how much he loved her, how much he missed their baby, his own voice broken and thick.
After what felt like hours, or seconds, she lifted her head. Addy wasn’t a woman who looked beautiful and dewy when she cried. Her skin was red and blotchy, her eyes rid-rimmed and swollen. To him she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever laid eyes on.
Ry lay a gentle kiss on her damp, swollen mouth. “Need a break?”
Dragging in a ragged breath, she shook her head.
“Okay to hold you?”
“God, yes. Can you reach the tissues?”
Pulling her across his lap, Ry buried his face in her hair. Needing to hold her. Desperately needing to be held. He felt the hot soak of her tears against his throat, and his own throat closed as grief prickled behind his lids. Taking her face in both hands, he lifted it, died seeing the ravages of her grief, and brushed a gentle kiss to her swollen trembling lips.
Holding on to her, Ry leaned back so he could reach the box on her bedside table. He brought the whole container back as he steadied them back into position.
While she dried her face and blew her nose, he rearranged their limbs so that they were both comfortable, but still as close as they could get without being behind each other. “Whenever you’re ready.”
He felt her large, shuddering inhale against his chest before she resumed talking. “The rest is a blur of hysteria. My mother took charge, did what had to be done. She brought in a doctor because I was—frantic. He had to sedate me, against my wishes I might add. They took Sophie away. Mother made the arrangements.”
The only time in her life that Hollis did something for someone else, Ry thought, knowing how she’d always treated her daughter like a bloody designer accessory.
“Honestly, I couldn’t have m-managed any of it without her, I was inconsolable. Out of my mind with grief. And God. Self-accusations. Self-recriminations. Self-loathing. What had I done wrong? How could I have prevented it? If I hadn’t fallen asleep would I have been able to save her?
“What kind of mother lets her baby die?
“For once I was grateful Hollis was on board.
“The days passed in a blur. I wanted you desperately. You didn’t come. Days and nights blended into a massive swirling black nightmare.”
Addy looked down at their clasped hands, her words low and agonized. Just looking at her made Ry’s chest ache with empathy.
“Naveen comforted me, held me as I sobbed, looked after me when I slept. Encouraged me to eat and drink. He never left my side. We returned to port. I couldn’t handle being drugged and stupid anymore. The pain was almost welcome, because it meant I was alive and could mourn my precious girl.
“You didn’t come.” She mopped the tears pouring down her face, dripping off her chin, making her voice thick. “I l-left messages, but you never came. Never returned my calls. I had days when all I could do was sleep and cry. I took whatever the doctors prescribed. Nothing worked. I didn’t know how many times I called, or how many hysterical, raving lunatic messages I left. You never called me back. It was all a hideous blur. All I knew was that I wanted you, and you weren’t there.
“Everything faded to a dim gray existence where I stopped caring. Stopped feeling anything for anyone. Stopped wanting to live. So I stopped calling.”
A serrated, dull knife twisted in his heart, making it fucking impossible to breathe. Words dammed up in his throat,
unspoken.
Lashes, dark and spiky, lifted as Addy’s olive-green eyes rose to meet his. The knife pierced deeper. “I couldn’t live without Sophia, but I learned I could live without you and survive. Mother and I moved to Naveen’s villa in Paris. I got the p-papers. Then I weaned myself off the meds. Sea Dragon was my home. I lost my b-baby, my husband, and my home. My entire life fell apart. And all you did was expedite the divorce papers so that it went through uncontested.”
Ry waited several minutes to gather enough resources to speak. Throat and lungs constricted, it felt as though someone had poured acid in his eyeballs and ripped out his heart without an anesthetic.
“On March eighteenth,” he said in a rush, and without preamble. “I was sitting in the courtroom in Cape Town while the Cutters decimated my character, honor, and stole my salvage rights from under me. I was getting my ass handed to me on a platter, and my lawyers warned me that I could end up paying all their court costs as well as my own if I lost. They pretty much assured me I was going to lose my shirt.
“I left the courtroom while the jury was out for the night. The minute I hit the hotel I called you. The first officer told me the prince was with you and you’d asked not to be disturbed. It was fucking five a.m. I ordered him to go and knock on your door; maybe your phone was off the hook. Knowing you’d never bring that dick onto my ship considering our history. After half an hour of dropped calls, and being put on hold, your mother—yeah, your mother—came on and told me you’d instructed her that you didn’t want to talk to me. Now, I figured, knowing you as I do, you’d never have sex with His Highness. Hell no. Not in our home. In our bed. I was exhausted, stressed, scared shitless quite frankly, so maybe I wasn’t thinking as clearly as I could’ve.” He paused, gave breathing a shot, found he couldn’t manage more than a sip of air and kept going.
“I figured Sophie had kept you up, and you were so tired your mother was trying to protect you. After a week I dismissed that as bullshit because Hollis English-D’Marco-Payne-Smithe-Belcourt-Moubray had never done an altruistic thing in her selfish life, up to and including covering for her daughter.