by L. B. Dunbar
“Ana,” I said drily.
“I thought you might be here.”
I pinched my brows at her as I frowned. “Why?”
“Because this is where all Arturo’s women come to hang their sorrows.”
“Ana,” Lace said in warning.
“Guinevere’s not just any woman, Mother; Arturo says so. He says she’s different.”
I’ll bet I’m different. One, I’m Leo DeGrance’s daughter. Two, I was a virgin. Oh God, I was a virgin and I gave in to the seduction of the infamous Arturo King.
“Arturo says he wants her,” Morte continued with no filter and definitely no understanding of the words he spoke.
“Well, you know how it is with rock stars,” Ana spoke to me. “They get what they want when they want it.”
I was slightly offended. She was implying I gave in quickly, but then again she was right. I had fallen into the deep abyss. I took his attention, his words, and his touch and claimed it as my own. I took it as something for me. About me. Only to now learn it had all been in the name of Leo DeGrance yet again.
Arturo
I didn’t fully understand what had just happened. I still didn’t understand why I awoke in my own bed minus Guinie. My heart raced with panic when I noticed it was more than just an absence from the bed but the apartment. She had a smattering of things there, but they were all removed. I immediately went to her father’s home.
The scene before me was surreal. Guinie was so pale and her blue eyes looked hollow. She looked like she hadn’t slept, but it was the presence of sheer horror on her face that frightened me. I felt like a fifteen-year-old as I stood there questioning why she wasn’t in our bed while her mouth hung open and her father asked me to leave.
Then she left instead.
It was like a flash and she was gone. Leo still stood with his hands braced on both the door of his office and the edge of the frame, his face stern but concerned. As he pushed the door open farther, I saw Kaye in the office and a sickening dawning arose.
“What did you two do?”
Kaye hung his head for a moment before he spoke to the floor. “How much did she hear?”
“How much did she hear of what?” I demanded before I realized he wasn’t speaking to me, but Leo. My anger rose.
“What did she hear?” I demanded a second time.
Kaye sighed and ran a hand through his blond hair, making it stand up in different directions.
“Leo and I were talking.”
I was beyond anger. I was pissed off.
“Obviously, Kaye. Cut the crap.”
“She heard us discussing your relationship with her and the benefit of it in securing Camelot Records,” Leo said in a firm business-like voice.
I slowly pivoted to face him, as he still stood behind me in the doorframe.
“What about her and securing Camelot Records?”
I waited as both men seemed to silently discuss with one another who would speak. Kaye gave a brief nod to Leo and spoke.
“I … we … believed that if you found interest in Guinevere, she might be able to help seal the deal, so to speak, in helping us obtain Camelot Records.”
“But you said handing over the company wasn’t what you wanted.” I narrowed my eyes at my foster brother. Kaye could be an arrogant asshole at times, and this was turning out to be one of them.
“I don’t want controlling interest. We want to split it three ways.”
“You want to split it three ways,” Leo interjected. “I just want to partake in the creation of something new. Watch it grow and bring some talent to success.”
Kaye shook his head as if disappointed in Leo.
“How does Guinie play into this?”
“She doesn’t,” Leo said firmly, but I was watching Kaye.
“I thought if you found interest in her, made a friendship with her, you would be more willing to give the company to Leo and I. Leo as her father.”
“What does she know about this?”
“Nothing,” Leo blurted forcefully.
“Until this morning,” Kaye added.
“So she thinks now that she was part of some business scheme. Without a thought from you that I might actually care about her.”
“Arturo,” Leo interrupted, “you did say you care about her, and you asked for her hand in marriage, but you didn’t mention love and I … we … thought that possibly you saw this as a business arrangement as well. You said she was your muse. You didn’t mention she was your heart.” Leo banged on his chest as he said the final statement. I wouldn’t have thought of him as a romantic man. Not ever knowing his wife, and Guinie not remembering her, I didn’t think of the fact that he was once married, and she might have been his whole world.
“I don’t wish to share my feelings about Guinevere with you before I’ve shared them with her. I made the mistake of talking to you before I talked to her about moving in together and she was very upset.”
“You didn’t say you wanted to move in together.”
“Yes, I did. When I said I wanted her to be my wife. I want her with me. In my home.”
Leo continued to stare at me, as if I was speaking a foreign language. “Why?”
I bit my lip. I would not tell him, if I had not told Guinie. I had my reasons for wanting her close to me, and I could not spell them out to her father.
“I won’t let my daughter be used as a pawn. I renege my interest in the company.”
“Leo, no,” Kaye admonished and stepped toward the older man. “I need you in this venture. Arturo needs you. Camelot Records needs you.”
I sighed deeply. Kaye was right, dammit. If I wanted that company to do anything, I needed Leo’s knowledge and guidance. Besides, I trusted Leo more than I trusted Kaye at the moment. Kaye might have just destroyed my one chance of happiness: Guinevere.
Arturo
When I got the text from Morte, I could have never imagined it would be my son who would return Guinie to me. I had given him a phone despite Ana’s protest. I assured it would be a way for us to communicate with one another better and I promised I would always answer if he called. I hadn’t answered at first. I didn’t want to get into a discussion about the possibilities of finding frogs in Central Park or the greatest piano players or what naughty words he knew in French. But when he texted me to say that he saw Guinevere at the Emerald Isle, I felt like he was a beacon in a dark storm.
I walked into the darkened bar to find a scene that brought back a wave of memories I tried to suppress for years.
It was Guinevere DeGrance’s eighteenth birthday party, but I didn’t really know her then. I was there only because the party was at Ingrid’s and it was one of the times she demanded my attendance. I was twenty-three at this point and thought I had learned all the secrets I needed to know about myself.
Until I met Ana LeFaye.
As I stood on the edge of the living room, downing my second drink and scoping the room for a good night lay, I noticed a raven-haired beauty staring at me. Her intense green eyes glowed in a way that made my skin crawl, and yet they looked vaguely familiar. As she continued to glare at me, I suddenly felt that I had done her wrong without knowing who she was. It was quite possible. I had been with too many women to count, and it was only getting worse as I grew older and the band grew more famous.
I was pulling the glass up to my lips for a final drop of the burning alcohol when my mother was suddenly at my elbow.
“Arturo, I’d like you to meet my step-daughter officially.” She placed her hand on my arm and nudged me forward. I could not have anticipated that the woman eying me was my intended introduction.
“Ana. May I introduce my son, Arturo King. Arturo, Ana LeFaye.”
She slipped her hand forward in a slow movement that could only be called snake-like and her cold skin was wrapped in mine for a moment too long. She held on and I had the strangest recognition in her touch.
“We’ve met.”
Shit.
I knew this could not be good. I would have remembered her. Long black hair, sharp green eyes, and a rocking body. Her body. It hit me. She might be older. She might be more shapely, and not in a bad way, but I did recognize her body.
“Did you … did you by chance go to Wellesley?”
“Yes. Yes, I did,” she said, seductively, as if she were responding to a lover.
Double shit.
“It’s nice to see you again,” I said to cover for my uncomfortable realization. My famous one-night stand. The one that had brought the band our first hit. Is. My. Step-sister.
“Would you excuse me?” I said immediately. I suddenly felt sick, and turned in the direction of my room, which wasn’t really my room, but a guest room assigned to me. I had just made it when I was pushed from behind through the open door. As I faced my attacker, I was confronted with cold lips on mine and firm breasts pressed into my chest. My lips and body responded quickly and then my brain kicked in.
“Ana?” I pushed her back, holding her at arm’s length.
“Arturo,” she said breathlessly. “Where have you been?”
I didn’t know how to respond.
“I’m so excited to see you,” she said as she slithered her hand up my abdomen. “I have some news for you.”
I didn’t recognize soon enough that the tone of her voice was anything but excitement. The sound in hindsight bordered on bitter sarcasm.
“You and I share a secret, Arturo.”
I thought she was referring to our night together and I was all for keeping it a secret. Before I could reply, she continued.
“We have a son.”
The room tilted and I had to brace my hand over Ana’s shoulder on the closed door at her back. She took this incorrectly as a sign of my enthusiasm and reached for my cheeks to pull me to her mouth again.
“Are you insane?” I said, pushing forcefully off the door. I took a step back and the motion pulled her toward me, as she still gripped my face.
“No, darling. Don’t you remember our night together? I do. I’ve had nothing but a daily reminder for five years.”
Her nails were beginning to dig into my jaw and those eyes that glowed bright emerald were shifting to laser beams of green energy. If she could have mortally wounded me with a glare, she would have.
“We had a son. I had a son. Alone. Because you were nowhere to be found after that night.”
“I was in high school.” It was the most ridiculous comment to make.
“I know that now,” she mocked.
The door behind her opened slowly and an innocent face peered around it. Caramel-colored eyes met mine and for the moment I felt like an angel had been sent to save me.
“Arturo? Your mother asked me to come check on you.”
Ana glared at me, but I kept my focus on the angel before me in her pearls and a tight-fitting pink shirt. I reached blindly for her as if I was expecting her and she came to me with a sheepish smile. I curled her under my arm, needing her for support, and she wrapped her small arm around my back.
“I think we need to finish our discussion some other time, Ana. It was so nice to see you again.”
The evil green in her eyes tried to stab me at the moment, but I had made my escape with the help of the girl in the pearls.
Seeing Lace Cardaugh and Ana LeFaye in the same room again after all this time was a bit surreal even if the surroundings were now a bar. I let Lace drown out my reunion with Ana later that night in the traditional mission style. I didn’t need rough and kinky, which would have only reminded me of Ana and my introduction to those maneuvers with the opposite sex. I needed pure vanilla and she was sweet. She held a crush for a while, but eventually moved on when she met someone else.
Adding to my tortured memory was the image of my future, looking torn and hurt with Morte sitting across from her. They were playing a game of chess at a table as Ana sat at the bar with Lace next to her. Regardless of my relations with Allora, Ana and Allora remained friends, and I could never be certain if they shared stories. I couldn’t imagine that Ana would admit to Allora I was the father of Morte, but she might have.
That was all in the past.
I ignored Ana after I nodded a hello at Lace and approached Guinie and Morte.
“Hey, little man. Can I speak to Guinie for a moment?”
“I don’t think she wants to talk to you,” Morte said in Guinie’s defense.
Guinevere looked up at Morte, who hadn’t taken his focus off the board in front of him. He moved a pawn and then turned in his seat to face me squarely. His green eyes matched his mother’s to some degree. He wasn’t trying to hurt me, but he was warning me as only eight-year-olds can do.
He slid out of the chair and walked around me to his mother. He stood at her side as she continued to talk to Lace.
“Hey,” I addressed Guinie.
“Hey.”
“Can I sit?”
“Sure.”
I took a deep breath, unsure where to start, when she spoke.
“I don’t think you were part of it. It doesn’t make sense to me. If my dad wanted the company and the first you heard of it was last week, you couldn’t have known, right?”
Her eyes begged me for assurance and my shoulders relaxed as I placed my elbows on the table and reached across for her hands. She didn’t pull them away from me, but she didn’t grip mine back.
“Guinie, I…”
“What I’m trying to understand is, how you could ask my father for permission to marry me after only a few weeks? And. How you could play it off like you hadn’t?”
She pinched her eyebrows as she stared at me. Her innocent eyes searched my face for answers I couldn’t explain.
“I think I need to go home, Arturo,” she said, suddenly looking confused.
She stood and I did too.
“Let me give you a ride?”
“I think I’d like to walk.”
“Let me walk with you.”
“I’d like to be alone.”
My heart broke. She looked so sad, defeated almost, and I didn’t know what the right words would be. My lyric-writing ability was escaping me and I watched her leave the bar without looking back at me.
Guinevere
It wasn’t medieval times, yet I felt centuries old. I didn’t understand how I could be sold as an alliance in order to obtain possessions, like a record company. Being a woman, I had never been raised to think I could not be independent, but now I could see that my independence was only based on what my father wanted for me, not what I wanted for me.
When I didn’t get the seat in Boston, he seemed relieved.
When I wasn’t moving to Boston, he was silently excited.
When I didn’t go to Julliard, he was casually supportive.
When I didn’t go to regular high school, he was thrilled.
I was lost again. Arturo seemed like he would be my center, but I also knew I needed to be my own center, and I knew what I needed to do.
When I got to my father’s house, I started packing.
“Where are you going?” my dad asked softly behind me.
“I’m not sure yet,” I lied.
“Are you moving in with Arturo?” he added slowly, holding his breath.
“No.” I turned to face my father, a man I loved, but didn’t understand at the moment.
“No, I’m not moving in with him. And I’m not marrying him, so I’m sorry if that ruins your plan, and you lose your company, but lucky you, you still have the Round Table.” I was shouting as I ended my rant with my arms rising in the air.
“Guinevere. This wasn’t my intention. None of it was my intention.”
He approached me and I stepped back, bumping into the case on the floor.
“Arturo King was not part of our plan. You were not part of this. Kaye and I have ideas, but Arturo is young and he’s unstable. We just wanted him to focus and make a sensible decision.”
“And I was the sensible decision?”
“No,” my father said and ran a hand over his head, then sighed heavily. He was lying.
“I saw the way he looked at you. The night of your graduation.”
“How did he look at me?”
“Arturo had his sights on you that night and I knew he wanted you.” My father swallowed hard as if he was choking on the words.
“He did not,” I admonished.
“I panicked. I didn’t want him to desire you. You’re my daughter,” he emphasized before he continued. “But Kaye noticed it too, and he decided that Arturo would need a little nudge to get to know you, not just want you.”
“Dad? What are you saying?”
He sighed and looked up at the ceiling, hesitating for a moment, before he spoke again.
“We wanted you two to be friends. Kaye knew you were grounded and he thought if you and Arturo became friends, it might help Arturo make a reasonable decision to let us run the company, but we didn’t anticipate what would happen.”
“And what happened, Dad?”
“Arturo took it to the extreme. You charmed him so much, he wants to marry you.” Here my dad snorted as if he couldn’t believe it.
I turned to continue packing, now throwing my things into my suitcase.
“Guinie, what are you doing?” he asked in dismay.
“Is it so impossible that Arturo King might be interested in me for more than a business arrangement? For more than one of his legendary women?” I was shouting again and my father approached me. I put my hand out to stop him again, but he spoke anyway.
“I want you to be happy. That’s all I ever wanted. You know that, right? I only wanted to keep you safe and happy.”
I took a moment to look at my father, really look at him. Salt-and-pepper hair that made him appear all the more attractive in his forties with his lean body that still showed muscle and determination in his face. He was a nice-looking man and he’d had a hard life. Losing his wife to raise a daughter who didn’t exactly fit into his world must have been difficult, but in the same breath, I knew he also kept me out of the rock world to encourage the social one instead. I hardly fit in either, and it made me think of the 4Gs again.