“You’re not going anywhere.” I stand in her way. She looks up at me and for the first time in my entire life I see the heartbreak, free of anger and resentment, in her eyes.
“I am not going to sit here and watch their reunion, Remington.” She’s speaking in a whisper, but her eyes are yelling at me.
“He doesn’t remember her,” I tell her.
“He will,” she says quietly, assuredly, brokenly.
“He won’t.” I insist.
“Please. I know I don’t deserve any kindness or any care. But please do not make me watch this. It’s more than I think I can bear.” She’s naked, but for her pain, right now.
And I hate it.
All of it.
She didn’t choose this. She married the love of her life only to discover she would never be his.
I swallow down a lump in my throat as I remember how I felt when Kal told me she was getting married. It had been a knife to my gut. I can’t imagine if she had been my wife first. I step out of her way.
“I’m going to call you when we’re done and we’re going to talk.”
She nods and starts out of the room.
“I’ll take you home, Mama.” Regan, who hasn’t looked up from her hands since Tyson left, stands up.
“You will?” My mother pauses and looks doubtfully at her daughter.
“Of course.” Regan links an arm through hers. She gives me a wan smile, and they walk out together.
I walk over to where Gigi is sitting, clutching Hayes’ hand and staring tearfully at the door. “You okay?”
She doesn’t say anything. She watches the door until, nearly ten minutes later, it opens and my father walks in.
Chapter 38
CERTAIN
KAL
* * *
My eyes open when the sheets of the bed are pulled back and Remi slips into bed beside me. I roll over and sit up.
“Wait, I want to see your face.” I reach over him to turn on the bedside lamp and he presses a kiss to my shoulder and then wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me over until I’m straddling him. He presses his cheek to my chest and hugs me to him.
My heart aches for him. It’s been a hellish twenty-four hours. After everyone left, Gigi and Lucas were left in the library talking.
Seeing her didn’t bring back his memories.
Well, except for one.
When he saw Gigi, his eyes filled with tears. He stared at her and said, “I know you.”
She nodded, tears running down her cheeks.
He said, “Can you tell me how? I’d really like to know.”
She’d looked at Hayes and then at Remi who nodded at her before she said, “I’d really like to tell you.”
We left them alone when it became clear, that for them, there was no one else in the room anyway.
Remi went back to his office with Hayes. I hadn’t heard from him since. I finally decided to go to bed at midnight. I didn’t expect that sunrise would bring an easier day with it, so I wanted to try and get some rest because I knew that there were still a lot of questions to be answered and I needed to tell him about the article.
“I’m so fucking glad I have you to come to home to tonight, Kal,” he whispers against my breast.
“I’m glad, too. Are you okay?” I hug him and stroke his head trying to soothe him. He’s radiating with energy, his skin on the edge of being hot and he’s tense.
“I don’t know. Everything that was certain is gone. Everything I thought I’d lost has found its way back to me. I’m so relieved, and so fucking drained.” And then as if to make his point, he sways a bit, and lets some of his weight rest on me.
“Oh, baby. I know. You should get some sleep.” I hold him and rock him.
“I love you, Kal. I’m scared to even imagine what you must think of me. I mean, my mother was so awful to you when we were kids. If I had a kid and someone treated her the way my mother treated you, I’d probably want to kill her.”
I can’t help but stiffen with surprise. I thought for sure he was going to talk about his parents. “Oh, yeah… your mother and I, we have a long way to go, I think. But, I’ve always been willing to try. Now that she might be, too, maybe it will be okay?” I actually want to cunt punch his mom, but I keep that to myself. Right now, I feel like I just need to make sure Remi knows that everything’s going to be okay.
“How are you feeling about your parents? Are you okay? I’ve been so worried about you.”
“I mean, honestly, I’ve been more worried about you,” he says surprising me again.
“Really? I’m not the one who had a bomb dropped on her life in the last two days.” That’s not exactly true, but this doesn’t seem like the time to bring up my custody woes.
“But…” He pulls back and looks at me. “I mean, he’s not your father. But he is mine. And we’re… us. So… it happened to you, too. I want to be here for you. You must have feelings about it too, right?”
“Right,” I say and my heart softens. Remi always finds a way to take something terrible and reshape it into something beautiful.
Like he did the night I met him.
And the summer I fell in love with him.
And over the lifetime I spent away from him.
“I’m okay. If you are. I just—love you so much. I always have. It was this dizzy love that made me want to change my entire life for you.”
His rumbling laugh is full of nostalgia. “But even a love like that has limits, right?”
I nod, sadly. I’m anxious about the conversation I know we’re going to have soon. But right now, I just want him to get a good night’s sleep.
“I just want to hold on to you. Unless you want to talk?”
He rubs his big hands in circles on my back. “I don’t want to talk. I want to make love to my woman and then fall asleep with her in my arms and be certain of one fucking thing,” he says and then pulls me down deeper into his lap and presses me against his rock-hard erection.
“Yeah, baby, we can do that,” I whisper and press a kiss to his neck and then another. His hands grab a hold of the huge T-shirt I’m wearing and pull it up and over my head. I’m completely naked and when he pulls the sheet off him, I find that he is, too.
His cock slides between the swollen lips of my pussy right away and he cups my neck and takes my lips in a kiss. His tongue teases my lips before it slips inside my mouth and kisses me deep and slow.
I rock back and forth on his cock, each time getting closer to my opening until I finally lower myself onto him.
This, the first breach, is always such an experience. A masterclass in the worthiness of a little pain. The pleasure I know is coming is like nothing I’ve ever known. He grabs my hip and pulls me down all the way and pulls us chest to chest.
I roll my hips, seat myself at just the right angle and then burrow into him. He cups my head and brings his lips to my ear. The soft hair on his chest rubs my nipples, his cock feels like it’s swelling inside of me and his tongue traces the shell of my ear in a slow back-and-forth sweep.
A rash of gooseflesh breaks out over my skin and I shiver.
“I love you,” I tell him in a husky voice and roll my hips again.
“Fuck, I needed to hear that. I love you so fucking much,” he says and thrusts up deep, but gentle.
Our love is expanding, gaining dimension, changing color. Becoming clearer every day.
“Your happy ending is with me.” I lift myself up and fall back down.
“Of course it is. Tell me who you are,” he asks.
So I tell him with each up and down of my hips that I hated my life without him in it.
I fuck him and tell him that I love him without limit.
When I come on his cock and with his name pouring from my throat, I tell him that I love him because he never stopped loving me.
When he comes inside of me, with his eyes holding mine, I know he never will.
Chapter 39
ALL LEGENDS ARE LIES
* * *
We’ve been curled up in bed binge watching Game of Thrones on her laptop all day. I’ve dozed off a dozen times and wake up when Kal shakes me awake. She’s lying on her side, cradling her head in her hand, her small naked body stretched out like a meal next to mine.
“Are you okay?” She stretches, the tips of her breasts get caught in the beam of sunlight that’s cutting through the window and my mouth waters.
“I’m okay,” I say and reach down and take her nipple in between my fingers. She winces and I let go. She grasps my retreating fingers.
“You sucked them raw last night.” She puts my open palm over her breast and I see the bruises my finger left last night.
“Shit, I’m sorry. I was too rough—” She presses a finger to my lips and shakes her head at me.
“Shhh. My body is yours. However you need it. But, I want to take a shower and eat. I’m starving.”
“Yeah, and we should probably go to the grocery store. I want you and Bianca to stay here at my house when she comes, but I have no food.”
Her smile falters. “Let’s talk about it, later. Okay?” She swings her legs over the side of the bed and is closing the bathroom door before I can respond.
“Okay,” I say to the back of the door as it closes. The water starts running and I sit back against the headboard. That was strange.
I minimize the screen on her computer and open her browser to check my email. Just as the browser opens, a document titled RWilde on her desktop catches my eye.
I close the browser and only hesitate for a second before I open the document.
It’s an essay of some sort, the bold title is underlined, The Legend and The Lie. By Kalilah Greer.
Remington Wilde is an enigma.
He’s made an art of being elusive. Who is the man behind The Legend? To know that, we must know the truth.
This is a journey into the amazing life story that’s bigger than one man… and that proves that all Legends are really just built on lies…
What follows is my life story, laid out in some sort of chronological outline. Written by Kal.
At first I’m confused. And then I replay the last ten days and it call comes clear.
She’s been skittish and anxious. I thought it had to do with her daughter’s upcoming visit. I haven’t had a minute to talk to her because I was dealing with work and my dad. We had only come together when I would collapse in bed with her every night. I assumed she’d been working during the day like me. I hadn’t asked her a single question that wasn’t related to my dad.
The shower stops and I close the document and open the browser. Maybe I’m wrong. She wouldn’t do this without telling me.
My pulse thuds in my ears, and cold dread settles in my gut. I drop my head into my hands. I get dressed, and then sit and wait for the woman who has stolen my heart, who owns its every beat, who my soul has fallen in love with, to come out of the bathroom and tell me that she’s been lying to me the entire time.
The bathroom door opens, floral scented steams filters out and she steps through it like the siren she is. “Hey, baby, I was thinking we could just order something in, I need to talk—”
She stops talking when she sees my expression. Her eyes widen with alarm and she rushes toward me.
“Remi, what’s wrong?” She bends over and cups my face; her worried eyes search mine.
“Are you writing an article about me?” I ask and she recoils, agony rushes into her eyes and a groan escapes her lips.
She drops her hands from my face like it’s a red hot piece of coal. She kneels in front of me and looks up at me.
Her eyes fill with tears. “I was going to tell you, Remi. I swear.”
My stomach drops to my toes.
Shit.
It’s true.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Damn every fucking thing to hell.
This is the woman my heart was made to worship. I love her so damn much.
Somehow though, we keep fucking it up.
I am sick to death of lies. I would rather die than to listen to another single one.
And I think one more lie from her lips might actually kill me. After yesterday, I feel as raw as I’ve ever felt. The one thing I thought was real has just proven to be more myth than fact.
I place a hand on her head, run it around the delicate curve of her skull, sift my fingers through her thick, damp hair. I drag them across her chest skimming the edge of the towel she’s wrapped herself in and stop when I get to her heart.
“Do you know how much I love you?”
She looks up at me and nods, her lips are trembling, her eyes leaking the evidence of her distress.
“I was going to tell you.” Those words, the admission of her deceit, the sorrow in her eyes, the damage she’s done, what it means for us all come rushing at me and I know I need to get away from her before I say something I don’t mean. Something I can’t take back.
I stand up and step around her. She scrambles to her feet and grabs my arm.
“Please don’t go. Please let me explain.”
I turn to face her and avert my gaze, because I’m not sure I can take that look in her eyes right now.
“Are you going to tell me that you’re not here to write a story about me and my family?”
“No, but—”
“I would like you to go.”
Her face crumbles. “Remi, you don’t mean that. I know this sounds bad, but—”
“Yeah, Kal, it sounds bad,” I say and I walk over to the door and open it.
“Leave, please.” I am struggling to keep my temper in check.
“If you want me to leave this bedroom, you will have to carry me out of here.” She tilts her chin at me, daring me to do it. Oh.
“I’ve treated you with the gentlest of kid gloves. But don’t forget who I am.” In the storm of my hurt and anger, I do the stupidest things I’ve ever done in my entire life.
I throw her over my shoulder and start toward the door.
“Remi, what are you doing?” she shrieks as I throw her over my shoulder. “You cannot put me out. Not without hearing me out.”
“I can. And I fucking will,” I grate out and open the door and set her on her feet in the hallway. And then, I see that she’s wet, barefoot, and in her towel. Her eyes are wide with terror. Her lips are trembling.
And I’m slammed backward in time to the night of the Annual Gala.
She had that same look on her face. I remember her dignity, and things that once said and done, can never be taken back.
Oh my God. My anger comes crashing down.
I made her look like that. Again. God, this is a nightmare.
Chapter 40
NOT ENOUGH
KAL
* * *
I watch as Remi comes to his senses. He steps aside and I walk past him stonily. I throw my towel on the bed and rush around the room throwing things haphazardly into my suitcase.
I tense, pause for a minute, but don’t look up when he comes to stand next to me. My heart is racing, my pulse beating at a million miles an hour. I’m so angry I can’t speak. I can’t believe what he just did.
“Will… shit. What are you doing?” His voice is a low groan. I can feel his eyes on my body, and I’m glad I didn’t cover myself. Let him look.
“I’m leaving. Like you asked,” I say through gritted teeth. I walk back to the small dresser where I’d put my underwear and pull things out.
He’s watching me silently. “I was angry. Hurt. I’m sorry.” His voice is gruff, but I can hear the contrition in it. I toss my underwear into my bag and turn to face him. And when I see his face, the completely exhausted eyes, the brackets of worry around his mouth and the way his shoulders are drooped in defeat, I sigh.
My anger loses its fervor. Right now, he’s the boy I met in the library and just like then, he’s in desperate need of a hug. I can’t imagine how much turmoil he’s in. My heart break
s watching him standing alone.
I put my feelings aside and put my arms around him.
His wrap around me immediately. He lifts me off my feet and squeezes me so tight that I wince. But I don’t let go. We stand there, and in each other’s arms, everything is suspended. I let him take some of my strength for himself. I know he needs it. I can show him the grace he denied me because I know he’s in pain.
“I love you, Kal.”
“Show me,” I whisper into this neck and he shudders. He lifts my thigh up to his waist and he presses against me.
“I don’t fucking deserve you,” he whispers into my neck before he takes my mouth in a kiss. It’s not a tender kiss, it’s hard, demanding, his tongue doesn’t dance with mine. He plunders my mouth, searching, and I let him get lost at the same time that I lose myself.
I’m not aware of us moving until he breaks our kiss and throws me onto the bed and crawls between my thighs.
“I want to eat this pussy so bad.” He plants his big hands on my inner thighs and spreads me open.
“Stay like that.” He lets go, slides one hand under my ass and parts the lips of my pussy with the other.
Then he lowers his head and licks me from my clit to my asshole. He dips his tongue inside and I gasp and tense.
“Shhh.” His lips brush my taint and his breath tickles me, but I relax. His mouth moves up and I grab his head and wind my hips, pressing myself into his mouth.
His thumb presses against my tight pucker and I bear down. He slips it inside of me just as he starts to suck my clit, hard. I scream and in what feels like seconds, I’m coming.
He slides up my body. “I fucking love your sweet little nipples, Kal,” he breathes before he licks one and then the next. I wrap my legs around him and reach between us.
We don’t speak. He’s silent when he thrusts into me. The only sound he makes is a loud hissing exhale before he starts to fuck me.
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