The Rose

by Tiffany Reisz

  “What?” Lia asked, panicking again.

  “A police officer showed up and arrested David.”

  “Arrested David?” She nearly shouted the words.

  “I know.” Her mother raised her hands in surrender to fate. “Insane. Said David hadn’t paid his taxes on some paintings he sold a few years ago.”

  “A police officer. Tonight. Arrested David. For evading tax.”

  “That. Is. Correct.”

  God, her mother was a wisearse.

  “You didn’t get the cop’s name, did you?” Lia asked.

  “Officer Arren, I think. Officer Ariss? Something like that. Why?”

  “No reason.”

  Arren? Ariss?

  Ares?

  “I guess we won’t be going to his art show tomorrow night,” her mother said.

  “I didn’t really want to go, anyway. His new work looks like a bunch of wank.”

  Mum laughed, nodded. “It really does. Past his prime already. My mural was his best work.”

  “And it wasn’t even his idea. It was mine.”

  Lia hoped it would stay like this, just casual conversation, nothing deep, nothing serious. But she should have known better.

  Her mother suddenly reached for her and pulled her into an embrace.

  “Why didn’t you tell me, sweetheart?” she asked, holding Lia so tight it almost hurt. “You know you can tell me anything.”

  “Because I love you?” Lia said. “And I know you. I know you’d blame yourself. I know you’d... I know it would have broken your heart to know you and David broke my heart. I guess there were enough broken hearts lying around.”

  “It does break my heart,” her mother said. “If I had thought for one single second... I mean, he was old enough to be your father... Never occurred to me you’d have feelings for him. I should have known. I should have asked you. I should have—”

  “Been psychic?” Lia pulled back to face her. “See? You’re doing it. You’re blaming yourself when none of it’s your fault. Even when I was angry at you I knew I shouldn’t be. All David had to do was not come to my room. Or tell me to back off. Or tell you I’d been flirting with him when you and Daddy weren’t looking and you all needed to have a talk with me. But there you are, standing there, blaming yourself, and this is exactly why I didn’t tell you.”

  “I’m a mother. This is what we do. We blame ourselves. You could trip over Gogo tonight on your way to the toilet and break your nose, and I’d tell myself it was my fault for letting you have a dog.”

  “If I couldn’t have Gogo, I would have moved out of the house and lived with him on the street and then you would blame yourself when I got myself murdered in a knife fight. ‘Damn. That’s what I get for not letting Lia have a dog.’”

  There. Her mother laughed a genuine laugh. Finally.

  “He told me I was crap in bed,” Lia said. Now that she’d confessed a little, she needed to get it all out. “And you were a goddess in comparison.”

  Her mother took her by the shoulders and stared at her.

  “David didn’t care about me. He used me for your father’s money and connections. You have to know that.”

  “He did?” Lia asked in a small hopeful voice.

  “He said as much downstairs. I knew it then and I know it now. I just didn’t care.” Her mother exhaled heavily. “Please don’t believe his lies for another second. Please?”

  “Okay,” Lia said, smiling through tears. “August told me to tell you a week ago. I should have listened to him.”

  “Why didn’t you? And don’t say it’s because you didn’t want to hurt me. You know there’s more than that to it.”

  “I...” Lia looked down at the floor. “I never told anybody. Not until August. It was just too humiliating.”

  “My poor baby.”

  She collapsed into her mother’s arms and cried.

  Mum stroked Lia’s hair like she had a million times before. The daughter did the crying-her-heart-out and the mother did the comforting-with-all-her-might. The whole thing was horrible and awful and sad, but Lia thought it was almost worth it. She’d told her mother all her secrets and when Mum now said, “I love you, my darling,” Lia could believe—because now her mother knew the real her. And Lia knew who her mother was, too. A weird, half-wild, wonderful woman.

  “I love you, too, Mummy.”

  “You forgive me?” she asked.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong,” Lia said.

  “You forgive me, anyway?”

  “Yes,” she said. “If you’ll forgive me.”

  “For what? Not telling me when you should have four years ago? Or running an escort agency with your friends under our noses?”

  “Um...both.”

  “All right,” her mother said softly. “I will, however, have to ask you to kindly cease and desist all illegal activities. If you end up in prison for pandering, I’m going to age very quickly overnight, and then I really will never forgive you.”

  Lia laughed between her sobs.

  “No more crying now,” her mother said. “David’s not worth it.”

  “He was crap in bed, wasn’t he?”

  “Total crap. Or are these tears for August?”

  “August,” Lia whispered.

  “What happened? He seemed mad about you.”

  “He’s, ah, going back to Greece.”

  “That’s what planes are for.”

  “It’s family stuff,” she said. “I can’t be part of it. He’s gone for good.”

  “I’m so sorry, my darling,” Mum said, wiping the tears off Lia’s face with her own bare hands.

  “Now, that’s what I want to see.” Those words were spoken by her father, standing in the doorway of Lia’s suite. “Genuine remorse and tearful contrition. Ashes and sackcloth would also be appreciated.”

  Gogo trotted into her room then and sat at Lia’s feet. He didn’t care if she was in trouble. He knew who put the kibble in his bowl every day.

  “Sorry, Daddy,” Lia said.

  “Sorry? You’re saying sorry? You’ve been running an escort agency with your friends for the past three years and I get a ‘sorry’?”

  “I’m very sorry?”

  “When I said there was nothing you could do to disappoint me but die, did you have to take me literally?” he asked. He pulled her pink business card with her tennis racquet and rose logo out and tossed it on the coffee table. “Young Ladies’ Gardening & Tennis Club, my arse. I should have known when you never played any bloody tennis.”

  “A little suspicious, I admit,” Lia said.

  “I thought it was a drinking club,” her mother said.

  “What?” Lia asked. Where on earth had Mum gotten that idea?

  “Gardening & Tennis? G&T? Gin & Tonic?”

  “Close,” Lia said. “But no cigar.”

  Her father pointed at her face. “No more gardening. No more tennis. You understand me?”

  “Yes,” Lia said.

  He pointed at her bedroom.

  “Bedroom, madam. Stay there. Forever,” he said. “At least a week. Meals will be brought to you. Otherwise do not step foot one out of your suite until we’ve figured out what to do with you. I don’t care if you’re an adult. You still live under my roof, and I will send you to your room if I want.”

  A week?

  “Mum?”

  “Don’t look at me,” her mother said. “He sends me to my bedroom all the time, whether I’m in trouble or not.”

  “Mother, now is not the time for that.”

  “Do as your father says. And don’t worry. It’s going to be all right. We won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “I know,” Lia said.

  “Are you all right, darling?” her father asked, anger momentarily put away
. She gave him a small smile, a little nod.

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  Mum kissed her forehead and patted her cheek. “Get some sleep.” Her mother crooked her finger at her father. “Take me to bed, spouse. I was very impressed with how you handled that asshole painter.”

  “You liked that, did you?” He wagged his eyebrows at her.

  “Parents, go away, please.”

  “Ungrateful child,” her father said. But her mother blew her a kiss. He put an arm around her mum’s waist and ushered her into the hallway. As they left Lia heard Daddy saying, “She takes after her great-grandfather.”

  Her mother replied with unconcealed pride, “No, darling, she takes after me.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Lia took a long shower and put on her pink cotton nightie and got into bed. By the time her head hit the pillow she had convinced herself the whole thing with Aphrodite had simply been a temporary break with reality caused by overwhelming stress, the lingering effects of whatever hallucinogenic substance coated the Rose Kylix or a combination of both. Lia certainly would never break her great-grandfather’s Aphrodite statue. Proof—there it was, sitting on her mantel like always, in perfect condition.

  As for David? Well, you had to pay tax. Odd that the arresting officer had come to Wingthorn to haul in David, though. How had he known David was here? At least it seemed August’s mother had kept her end of their devil’s bargain and called in the necessary favors to get David out of Lia’s hair. He’d probably get deported by Monday morning. Or August’s mother would offer him a deal—she’d make his legal troubles go away if he promised to keep his mouth shut. Either way, it was done. Lia knew in her heart her troubles with David Bell were over for good.

  So why couldn’t she be happy?

  Because August was gone, that was why. He was gone and she would never see him again.

  Lia patted the bed so Gogo would join her, but for some reason he didn’t want to leave his dog bed. Ah, fine. Be that way, stubborn puppy. She’d sleep alone. She’d done it for most of her life. Wasn’t so bad. Wasn’t so bad at all.

  She turned the light off and pulled the covers to her chin—the covers that still smelled like August, like cypress trees and his skin. Lia ignored the tears that streamed from her eyes and onto her pillow as she willed herself to sleep. She’d be doing a lot of sleeping the next week while she was a prisoner in her own bedroom.

  Like poor Danaë, the daughter of a king who locked her up to prevent her from falling in love and getting pregnant with the son who was prophesied to kill him. Locking his daughter up didn’t work, of course. Never did. Lock up a girl in a tower or a dungeon and it was like catnip to the gods, Lia knew. Might as well hang a sign over the house that said Get It Here, Gods!

  That thought made Lia smile. Or maybe it was exhaustion making her loopy.

  But something was definitely wrong with her.

  Why was she hearing...bird noises?

  Was that it? Bird noises? Not birdsong or crows cawing, but she knew she’d heard the fluttering of wings. Wings?

  Lia rolled up and turned on her lamp.

  August stood by the foot of her bed.

  “August!” She stared at him in gobsmacked wonder, her lips parted and her eyes wide as the sky. “You’re here. And...naked.”

  “Did you miss me?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But you can’t be here. Or naked. You’re getting married. Go away. Put clothes on, too. Not in that order.”

  He laughed and climbed on the bed. He crawled to her and loomed over her on his hands and knees.

  “What are you doing here?” she rasped. “I’m under house arrest. You’re going to get me murdered. And you...you’re supposed to be in Greece getting married to a cloud or something.”

  “I’m free,” he said. “My mother let me go.”

  “She did? Oh...” Lia was so happy she could do nothing but reach for him to hold him and never let him go.

  But he stopped her. He took her wrists in his hands and pressed them down into the pillow at either side of her head.

  This she did not mind.

  “Do me a favor, Lia,” he said. She lay under him, pinned down and basking in her joy. “Don’t scream.”

  “Scream?”

  Two massive white wings sprouted from August’s back and filled the room wall to wall.

  Lia started to scream. August slapped a hand over her mouth.

  “You are very bad at following instructions.”

  He took his hand off her mouth.

  She stared up at him, at his strange changeable gray eyes and his dark waving hair falling over his forehead and his smile nearly as wicked as he was, and she knew him, she knew who he was. August Bowman. Her love and her lover.

  “You have wings.”

  “You like them?”

  “Where did you get them?”

  “Born with them. Weird, aren’t they? You just never know what’ll happen when two gods make a new god.”

  “You cannot be a god,” she said, gazing at his wings. They certainly looked real enough, though they could just be clever props.

  “You still don’t believe me?” he asked.

  “I’m struggling,” she said. “Though trying to maintain an open mind.”

  “Don’t care if your mind is open,” he said as he put his very human knees between her thighs and pushed them apart. “As long as your legs are.”

  “No, stop. We have to discuss this,” she said. “The wings for starters. Start with those.”

  He kissed her. All was forgotten. The kiss set her heart to throbbing and her heart set her lips to kissing. She wrapped her arms around his strong neck and he wrapped his arms around her back, raising her from the bed and against him to kiss her even more, to kiss her until her skin flushed pink as a rose in spring.

  August released her from the kiss and she lay breathless beneath him.

  “Okay, so what about the wings?” she asked.

  “I am done with your doubting Thomas ways,” he said. “I’m going to prove to you once and for all who and what I am. And you’re going to like it, young lady.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” she said. Or she’d planned to say that. The words were on the tip of her tongue when August simply disappeared in a flutter of feathers.

  The room seemed empty, terribly empty, and Lia sat up and glanced around, looking for any trace of him. She found nothing but one white feather on her bed. And even that was no definitive proof. She slept on feather pillows.

  Except the feather was softer than silk and smelled like the purest water from the highest mountain stream.

  “August?” she called out softly. She wanted him back so badly she’d believe anything he said. She’d believe he was a king or the pope or the prime minister of Canada if that was what it took to get him back and keep him back.

  “August?” she called out again, a little louder this time.

  Then she saw something sliding in through her window and snaking up the ceiling. Lia narrowed her eyes at it and saw it seemed to be...gold. Liquid gold. It oozed across the ceiling, shimmering in the lamplight.

  “August?” she whispered. She held out her hand and one drop of pure liquid gold landed in her palm.

  No...he wouldn’t...would he?

  But she already knew he would.

  Another drop fell from the ceiling. Then another and another. They landed on the bed all around Lia. Drop. Drop. Drop. Like pennies from heaven. The drops kept coming and coming, and as they fell, they found each other and formed puddles of gold, shining gold, glimmering gold...

  One puddle slid across the sheets toward Lia. Her chest heaved in fascinated horror as it approached. She held out her hand to it and touched it as gently as she’d ever touched a soap bubble blown in summer on the lawn. The liquid gold puddle was warm
but not hot, and satiny to the touch. She plunged her fingers into it and laughed as it formed a ball in her hand before dropping back down to the sheets.

  More drops fell from the ceiling onto the bed and created more shimmering, glimmering golden puddles. One oozed its shining way to her thigh and Lia let it crawl—if that was the verb—onto her leg. It felt heavy, solid, but it didn’t hurt. And she wasn’t afraid. Either this was August doing something wonderful and bizarre to her and for her or she had simply gone mad. Either was acceptable to her after the day she’d had.

  The puddle on her thigh slid up her body, up her hip and over her stomach...and it was heavy enough that Lia had to lie down on her bed. It slid through the valley between her breasts, and one golden tendril extended like a long finger to stroke her cheek and brush her lips, as if in a kiss. Lia murmured a soft sound of pleasure. It felt so solid on her, so heavy and so strange but sensuous, too. Her skin tingled everywhere the gold touched.

  She had her little pink nightie on, but the magical golden puddle didn’t seem to mind. It slipped under the bodice of her gown and covered her breast with a thin layer of gold. Lia closed her eyes as gentle heat seeped deep into her skin. Her nipples hardened, and she could swear it felt like heavy hands held her breasts, squeezing the nipples, pulling and pinching them.

  Her hands grasped at the sheets as two more of the gold slicks slid across the bed and onto her legs. Now it felt like six large hands on her body—two on her breasts, two on her thighs, one on her belly, one on her chest. The golden hands explored her skin, every inch of it. They eased up and down her legs, over her feet and even between her toes and up again to ring her ankles. They glided over her throat and around her neck, up and around her ears and across her lips, then down her shoulders, down her arms, down to her hands where they tickled all ten of her fingers.

  More golden drops fell from the ceiling and the golden hands on her grew more solid, larger, heavier and even more intent on exploring every part of her body. Lia went limp, overcome with the pleasure that was beyond words and reason. The golden hands lifted her, pushing her gown off her body and her underwear down her legs. There were ten golden hands now on her body, twelve. Too many to count. They turned her onto her stomach and flowed all over her from her neck to her back, over her bottom and thighs and calves, and kissed the very bottoms of her feet. Lia gasped and panted, panted and gasped, as those sinuous golden hands poured over her body like water.