Forever Shade

by Shayne Ford

  FOREVER SHADE

  A Golden Heir Novel

  Shayne Ford

  Copyright © 2017 by Shayne Ford

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, organizations and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Any trademarks, service marks, product names or named features mentioned in this book are the property of their respective owners and have been used without permission and in an editorial fashion only, with no implied endorsement.

  The publication/use of these trademarks is not associated with, approved of or sponsored by the trademarks owners.

  This book is for entertainment purposes only. The author and publisher disclaim any and all responsibility for any liability, loss, or risk, personal or otherwise, incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly in relation to this book.

  This book is intended for mature audiences only.

  Written by Shayne Ford

  www.shayneford.com

  Twitter:@ShayneFordBooks

  Cover design by Shayne Ford

  The image on the cover is a licensed stock photo, and it is used for illustrative purposes, any person who may be depicted on, is a model.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Also by Shayne Ford

  About the Author

  1

  A YEAR LATER

  TARA

  “Isn’t she adorable? She has Josh’s eyes,” Maya says as Sabrina fusses in my arms, splaying her tiny fingers over my cheeks.

  Swaying her head side to side, the little girl starts giggling amused, her fingers tearing away from my face, playing with Maya’s hand instead.

  “It’s hard to believe,” Maya mutters, her eyes filtering a nostalgic smile as Sabrina claps her hands, delighted.

  She starts baby talking to her, and for a few moments, my focus shifts away from them.

  It’s a breezy summer afternoon with a lot of sunlight. The tree branches are swaying in the wind, a scent of roses drifting from nearby.

  The house is open to the backyard where the party unfolds. Drinks in hands, the guests slowly migrate outside, many young couples with children–– most kids older than Sabrina.

  Chased away by the wind, colorful balloons litter the lawn, occasionally lifting from the ground and floating in the air.

  The women fashion floral summer dresses while the men fashion linen pants and cotton shirts.

  Maya’s eyes brighten with a smile as Sabrina starts to giggle.

  The sun tumbles in Maya’s hair, casting a glow over her face, highlighting her features.

  The strapless blue dress she wears closely follows the contour of her body, setting off her beautiful silhouette. Her long blonde hair drapes over her back, almost reaching her waist.

  “Josh has a daughter,” she mutters, staring blankly for a moment, grappling with disbelief. “It’s so hard to believe, “ she adds, her eyes going blank for a second.

  A rustle echoes behind me.

  “Speaking of the devil,” she says, shifting her gaze and looking over my shoulder.

  I spin around.

  Leaner than he used to be, clad in a dark, gauzy shirt and tailored pants, Josh ambles to us. A smile curves his lips as he drinks Sabrina in.

  He gives me a soft kiss on my cheek before he wraps his arms around his daughter and takes her from me.

  “Daddy, daddy...”

  The girl’s gleeful voice garner a smile from all of us.

  “Thank you so much. I’m surprised she behaved. She must have really liked you if she stayed quiet all this time,” he says, quickly shifting his focus to Sabrina.

  “Who’s been a good girl?” he says, lifting her up and nuzzling her belly.

  Giggling, she struggles to grab his hair. He plays with her a few more moments as Maya, and I, watch them, entertained.

  Sadness rolls onto Maya’s face.

  “Okay ladies, dinner will be ready in a few minutes,” he says, swinging his gaze back to us.

  “Do you need any help?”

  “No, no. Everything is ready. Besides, you’ve helped us a lot, taking care of Sabrina. Now, if you’ll excuse us,” he says with a different voice, “we need to go to sleep.”

  Sabrina’s eyes twinkle with a smile as he swivels his head back to her, showering her with his attention.

  Running her hands over his face, she grabs his nose and pulls his ears.

  He starts laughing, and she does the same before they say goodbye to us. He turns around and takes her to the house.

  Maya watches them all the way to the doors where they vanish inside the house.

  We share a few moments of silence.

  “Have you had the chance to speak with Matt?” I ask with a quiet voice, my eyes trained on him and his new wife.

  “What?” she throws at me, distracted.

  “Matt,” I say, motioning to the couple sitting at the table.

  Jolting out of her reverie, she shoots me a glance.

  “Yes,” she murmurs, running trembling fingers through her hair. “His wife is actually very sweet.”

  Sadness flashes through her eyes the moment she takes them in.

  “Life is so weird sometimes…” she says, her gaze lingering on them. “Who knew things would turn out this way?”

  Agatha–– the woman Matt left Maya for, is long gone. Her interest in him fizzled out the moment he became a free man.

  The whole soulmate thing vanished in the blink of an eye once she faced the possibility of getting hooked with him for good.

  As I suspected at that time, Matt was nothing more than payback, a way of getting back at her husband.

  For once in my life I was right. I wish I were wrong.

  Once she grew bored of Matt, she kicked him to the curb. He didn’t stay single for long, and soon after, he found the next love of his life, his current wife, Francesca.

  She’s closer to his age, and half-Italian. As sweet as she is, she put a short leash on him. Apparently, that was his problem, to begin with.

  They’re expecting their first child now.

  We take a few steps to the side and claim a couple of seats on a small bench next to a lilac tree.

  She retrieves a cigarette from her purse and lights it up. My eyes stay on her long-fingered hand and red nails as she takes a drag on it and tears it away from her lips.

  A soft stream of smoke lifts in the air.

  “Hey. At least he’s no longer busting your balls for smoking,” I say, my joke bringing a faint smile to her lips. “You’re not missing him, are you?” I ask, a bit baffled by her silence.

  She never said she was. But I know she misses something.

  We both do.

  She shifts her gaze to me.

  Her face glows, brushed by the golden light, her eyes sparkling faintly w
ith a smile.

  “Missing who?” she asks, distracted again.

  “Matt.”

  She pauses, and flicks her gaze away, slowly taking another drag off her cigarette.

  The smoke tears off her lips, dispersing through the air.

  “No, no. I am happy for him,” she says sincerely, her voice soft and smooth.

  “Why are you sad, then?”

  Her perfectly manicured nails catch my eye again.

  “Why does it always have to be a trade-off?” she asks, looking down briefly, pondering over something.

  “What do you mean?”

  She raises her gaze.

  We lock eyes for a moment as she studies my expression.

  “Do you remember that night? It was a while ago when you brought it up.”

  A chill goes down my back.

  “Yeah... I do.”

  She pins a blank stare on me as she relives that moment.

  “I was still married to Matt, and you were with Josh. None of us were happy,” she says softly. “The funny thing is...We didn’t even know how bad it was and how unhappy we were until you met Shade that night. With a few words, he made you question everything. He turned your life upside down and crushed your long-held beliefs.”

  “I know,” I say, glancing away briefly, trying to hide my emotion.

  “We were so clueless,” she says, slowly shaking her head. “I was worse than you. At least you knew Josh was a compromise. Perhaps you didn’t want to admit it to yourself, but you knew. I, on the other hand, was so blind and stuck with that belief that there was nothing better for me out there, I didn’t even realize how screwed up my marriage was.”

  She looks in Matt’s direction.

  “He must’ve been unhappy as well,” she says.

  “He could’ve said something to you.”

  “People are not that courageous when it comes to admitting this kind of stuff.”

  She puts the cigarette out.

  “Clearly, we weren’t a good match,” she says as I run my gaze on Matt as well.

  Smiling, Francesca leans closer to him. A soft cotton dress with a delicate floral print hugs her petite silhouette.

  He whispers something in her ear while she laughs, charmed by his words.

  The sun begins to set, the golden light getting caught in Francesca’s curls, making her blue eyes shine brightly.

  He loops an arm around her shoulders, his tenderness making me feel hollow inside. He’s never had that for Maya.

  She watches them in silence.

  “I wasn’t the right woman for him,” she says, a sad smile brushing her lips. “And he wasn’t the man for me.”

  She flicks her gaze away from them and back to me, a brighter grin curling her lips as if she just had a revelation.

  “I don’t miss him. I really don’t... What makes me sad is that sense of loss I still have after all this time and the fact that I’ve wasted so many years with him, living an illusion. And then, there was the pain I felt when it all ended. His betrayal was humiliating. With one strike he wiped away everything I thought was good between us. All the time we spent together turned out to be a lie. The thing is, I didn’t even like who I was back then, so in a way, I’m happy that the whole thing crumbled. That way I was able to find myself. I’m thrilled with who I am today. But now the question is, who is the right man for me?” she asks softly, and my eyes get caught in the sparkle of a tear rolling on her lashes.

  Silence sits with us for a moment.

  “How ironic... These were our men,” she says, motioning toward the house. “For some reason, we weren’t good enough for them,” she says, smiling, and then a dark shadow flits across her face. “And yet, that’s what I regret the least.”

  She looks at me, her lips curved into a bitter grin.

  “Who are the right men for us, Tara?”

  “I guess, we’ll find out. One day, perhaps.”

  2

  TARA

  “Good morning, Miss Hart.”

  Smiling, I nod a greeting to my driver who holds the door open for me as I slip inside the car.

  I set the purse next to me on the back bench and turn my phone on. All sorts of notifications pop on the screen, all business-related. I scan them quickly.

  The front door closes with a muffled sound as the driver slides into his seat.

  “Any stops before the office?”

  I flick my gaze up. His eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror.

  “The usual,” I say, smiling.

  A small grin lights up his eyes.

  “Yes, ma'am,” he says before he smoothly veers the car away.

  Fifteen minutes later, we make a quick stop in front of a coffee shop. He leaves the engine running and rushes inside.

  I roll the window down.

  The girl behind the counter waves at me while handing him my Latte Machiatto.

  A few large strides bring him back to the car.

  The first sip of coffee coats my mouth with the aroma of espresso mixed with milk.

  “Mmmm... I needed this,” I mutter, gingerly dabbing my lips with a napkin.

  Silently, the driver observes me in the mirror.

  “What about some breakfast?” he asks after a moment, his eyes narrowing with a smile.

  “You know the story, Frank,” I say.

  Shaking his head, he chuckles.

  “City girls don’t eat breakfast,” he mutters, swinging his gaze back to the road.

  “Exactly.”

  “As you say, ma'am,” he says politely as he runs his hand through his silver hair.

  He’s older than my father–– had he been alive, but his personality is so much different than my dad’s.

  In his mid-sixties, the man has seen a lot of good and bad in this life.

  He’s been to war as a military man, and had to change careers several times when he came home. Once he retired, he became restless so he headed back to work.

  ‘Life is meant to be fully lived,’ he once said to me when I asked him how he had managed to keep his spirits high. ‘Things come, and things go,’ he said. ‘Good or bad we can’t control them.’

  Once he embraced that morsel of wisdom, he kicked back and rolled with whatever life had thrown at him.

  He taught me more that day than my father in all those years when he used to grill me for every little mistake that I made.

  It’s nine o’clock sharp, when I cruise down the corridor , heading for my office.

  This is the third space we’ve rented––and the biggest one, in the last twelve months. The company occupies an entire floor in a brand new building that overlooks downtown LA.

  The sound of my heels hitting the floor echoes all the way to the end of the hallway where my office sprawls on the corner of the space.

  Heads tilt up as my employees––men and women in their twenties, raise their eyes and glance in my direction.

  More than thirty people work on the floor, just about as many telecommuting, not to mention those who fill the orders in our warehouse.

  Cage is a web-based clothing company that I’ve built from the ground up with Maya’s help and Shade’s money.

  It’s one of the newest web clothing retailers and the most successful one.

  Taking the retailing space by storm, the start-up registers a record growth.

  Maya’s management and analytical skills have finally been put to good use.

  But what really makes the difference in this business is my team. The passion, effervescence, and energy of my crew are quintessential to my company’s success.

  People who work at Cage love the culture of the place, embrace our philosophy and love the brand, so much so they want to be identified with it.

  Because this is more than a fashion company.

  It’s a life expressed in fabrics, cuts, and accessories as well as our exotic, non-conformist editorials.

  It’s a full-fledged lifestyle, and that was the whole idea from the get-go.

>   The moment I reach the far end of the corridor, I take a left and enter my office. It’s a large space with a wall made of floor-to-ceiling windows and modern furniture. A couple of couches sit across from my desk.

  Lush plants give the room a welcoming, cozy feeling, the vintage photography hanging on the wall bringing front and center a bohemian world.

  The sound of chattering, and laughter mixed with music comes from a room located across my office.

  Models and stylists greet each other as they get ready for the photo shoot.

  I set my purse on my desk, run my hand on my knee-length, pencil skirt and sink into my chair.

  Sipping coffee, I gaze at the people working in the studio.

  The photographer sets the lights and the equipment while his assistants roll down the white background.

  The models snack on fruit, and gulp water, or have their eyes trained on their phones.

  The soft sound of paws tapping the floor draws my eyes to the open door. A small, chocolate brown miniature poodle, veers off the hallway and enters my office.

  “Hey, sweetie,” I say.

  His eyes light up.

  He wags his tail as he runs to me.

  I shift in my seat and bend at my waist, ready to pick him up.

  Faster than me, he jumps into my arms.

  “You ran away again, didn’t you?”

  I place a kiss on his head and pet his silky coat, pushing out of my chair.

  Holding him against my chest, I exit my office and stroll down the corridor until I reach Danielle’s cubicle.

  I turn left and walk in.

  “Here’s your boy,” I say as she swings her gaze away from her computer and looks at me.

  Her eyes widen with surprise when she sets her eyes on him.

  “When did he sneak out? He was here a minute ago,” she says, smiling. ”I’m sorry,” she mutters, scooping him out of my arms.