His heart skipped a beat, stopped a full, breath-stealing second, as if anticipating his death, before it began to thump again in his chest, hard enough to knot his stomach and build a throb in his head. He sucked in a burning rush of air, his lungs frantic for breath as his eyes widened, fixed on the source of the terror moving his way.
The crash of an ocean wave below echoed eerily through his home. An electric current raced over his skin the same moment the lightning of an impending storm lit the sky, reflected across the wall of windows in his great room, and blurred his view for a few lingering seconds. The heat of panic crawled over his neck as he waited for his vision to clear.
As he blinked his eyes in rapid succession, momentarily blinding himself, he hoped to eliminate what had to be an apparition of his drunken mind. Before he could stop it, a throaty burst of laughter escaped him as the need to move made his muscles jump despite the fact he remained frozen in place. If anyone paid him any mind, he didn't notice. His eyes focused in on the origin of his horror. Any attempt at false bravado dripped away like the sweat burning his neck, soaking the shirt on his back. He thought to take a large gulp of whiskey, desiring the curing of his dry mouth, erasing the unpleasant toxic taste left there. Only, he dared not move his trembling hand as he white-knuckled the glass in it, fearing it might slip from his clammy grip before reaching his quivering lips.
A California palm frond slammed against the window at his back, making his stiff body jump, his pulse tremble as he fought to catch his still sporadic breath. He stood rooted in place, couldn't move even if he wanted to. Still, his leg muscles tightened as if ready to run from the spectacular horror he faced, lied to himself that it must be a hallucination, drunken insanity bringing his past into the present. Healthy fear ignited all of his senses beyond the hissing sort of hum in his ears from his blood pressure, so high a heart attack imminently threatened his young, thirty-something, hours-spent-in-the-gym body. Clenching his free hand into a fist, he refused to let this split second in time be a measure of the man he knew himself to be. No man, no matter how powerful, how rich, how strong, and he was all of these things in spades, could endure such a terrifying experience.
"Why, Ciaran Byrne, you do look like you've seen a ghost."
Her voice, soft, yet deep for a woman, rushed over him, along with a measure of dark, unhealthy lust which fired from each nerve ending. He became acutely aware of every inch of the ethereal being standing before him. Of this world, not of this world, his senses still couldn't decipher which as his mind played tricks, attempted to dismiss the truth despite all facts and exquisite figures within his reach.
"Allanah Adams," he managed, the deep tone of his voice strangled, losing certain sounds almost completely as he'd struggled over her name. Though he sounded like a baffling idiot, he figured she knew her own damn name so he'd stop while he was ahead rather than humiliate himself further. Besides, embarrassment wasn't exactly familiar to him in any way. So, he had to swallow it down, crush it immediately, though the how-to on that remained as elusive as the next words he attempted to utter.
The smell of sweet vanilla and heady sandalwood, like an instantaneous aphrodisiac, intoxicated him more so than the whiskey ever could. The mix of her wildly colored curls framing the creamy skin of her face, set off by her deep, ruby-stained lips, and cat-green, shining emerald eyes, made his pupils dilate while sending his blood rushing in new directions that made his Dolce & Gabbana jeans tortuously tight. As he licked his lips, the taste of her came rushing back to him, a memory of the tongue if there were such a thing. Yet, when she dared put her hand on his arm, feather her long fingers over his sleeve onto bare skin, burning him, torturing him, he forgot that most feared him from his intimidating mix of money and muscles, brains and brawn if you will. Instead, he fell apart at a cellular level, as if his body could crumble right there before hers, smoking into a pile of ash like the demon inside him would in some sci-fi flick. While that wasn't possible, comparing his life at this moment to a B-grade horror movie seemed all too appropriate.
In fact, he could hear the distinctive, tenor voice narrating the simple plot of a great beast of a man literally brought to his knees, to a shell of the man he'd once been just seconds before. As this new monster came on the scene, the music would grow comically eerie, as it should be in this moment.
Only, Allanah stood there far from a monster, more an angel he couldn't have, as always. The only one he'd ever loved. The only one he'd ever lost. The only one, still, thanks to his curse, out of his reach. Although, at this moment, she stood dangerously close. He had to use all the energy he had in him to not pull her to him, crush her lithe body to his, take her against the wall behind him, the only thing holding him upright.
"Well, at least you remember my name," she murmured under her breath, her voice taut, tight as she turned her back to him, though she stayed right there, too damn close for comfort. Visions of slipping the straps of her dress off her shoulders to encourage its fall to the floor preoccupied his mind as memories of her naked before him flooded his system. Back. And. Front. Views. Memories.
"Love what you've done with the place. Not extreme or extravagant at all," she continued, the hostile distaste, heavy disapproval dripping from her tongue. Sarcasm deepened her tone to a bewitching husky. "Not that you were ever over the top or anything."
He looked around the room, which constituted exactly half of the main floor square footage. The space served well as a place to entertain guests with the other half of this floor the kitchen and dining areas, which led out to a deck overlooking the ocean. Sure, his trappings were lavish, maybe even over the top on a grandiose scale, but what else had he to do with all of his money? The funds he didn't hide away with impossible hopes and dreams that had always starred this woman before him, anyway. This lady he figured he'd never see again. Yet, here she stood, in all of her five-foot-six glory of lightly bronzed skin, glowing warm, inviting his brutal touch, which could escort her to where dark desire influenced by anxious waves of desperation took her to places she'd never been before, calling out his name, begging for more. A man, a beast, could hope, could dream.
"When my father died," he got out, redirecting his thoughts, as well as his blood flow before those thoughts became obvious in his tightening jeans, "and the place became mine—"
"The place? You mean this simple mansion on a cliff?" She interrupted him, gesturing eloquently to the area around them. At the same time she managed a glare over her shoulder, uncovered in her white, strappy dress flowing with layers of sheer floral patterned material edged with lace. Surely one of her originals, it suited her body, showed off the sensual curves of her breasts and hips, the long lines of her arms and legs.
He just couldn't let the memory slash fantasy of them entwined, heated, manic, go. He'd thought, literally hard and heavy, on it a million times in the years she'd been gone from his life. He'd enhanced the memory into one hell of a fantasy by now. Yet, here she stood before him after all of these years, and his stressed imagination worked in overdrive.
"How the hell did you end up with it anyway?"
"Well, my brothers didn't want it, so I bought out their portions. I don't know, I wanted to, maybe needed to... I needed to change something, so I started here in the house I grew up in. And, I felt the need to change it dramatically. I went out of my way to find a decorator known for her unique flair and told her to go crazy."
"Crazy. That describes it. You live on a cliff overlooking an ocean, and that wasn't enough water for you, you had to make the entire floor of this room a water feature?"
"You don't like it?" He inquired, not able to read her tight, maybe forced smile as to whether she liked the changes or hated them. She'd never cared for the extravagances of his family when she'd been young and poor, so he'd guess the latter, but things had changed for her in recent years. "I mean, you've earned enough money yourself now, run in close to the same crowds as I do these days, exist in the same tax bracket. Surely you're used to shows of wealth by now."
"I didn't say I didn't like it," she countered, taking a large gulp of what looked to be a mix of whiskey and ginger ale. His workaholic brain wondered if the light amber liquid were one of the newest blended whiskeys called the Mystics, premium blends of American and Irish whiskeys produced by his company, Old Alchemy Distillery.
"Usquebaugh?" he asked, referring to her drink with the Irish term for whiskey, meaning water of life, since they were on the subject of water it seemed.
"What else would one drink in the home of a Byrne?"
He left it at that. Didn't keep going for lack of anything to say that might calm the obvious ire he now read loud and clear in her strained voice. He didn't know how, in this moment, to make her see him as she once had so many years ago, as a man worthy of her love. He hadn't cherished it enough, her attentions, the fleeting moments they had spent together. Nor had he the strength, so young then still, to stand up to his family's distaste of his choice and the evil use of money his father threw out to tear them apart.
There'd been a time, forever ago, another life it seemed, where she'd maybe even been grateful to be with him. Not due to his wealth, of course, she'd never been one of those girls, just happy to be in love, and seemingly happy it was with him. In fact, way back then, they had been inseparable, their bodies connected like magnets if they were in the same room. The phantom memory of her body against his wrought equal measures of pain and pleasure as glimpses of her soft skin, bared for him, came rushing back again and again, yielding blinding flashes of heat to his blood.
They stood there, for a few silent moments, both looking over the crowded room. It had come out extreme. She hadn't been wrong. The entire base floor consisted of about four feet of water. You walked up a few steps to the room to walk on wooden floors that had been crafted to look like boardwalks, though highly polished versions. A structural glass floor system connected them to grant a view of the water without anyone falling in, or needing to watch where they were walking. Except for at the edge on the far left side of the room from where he stood. At that point in the room the glass and wood stopped at varying lengths to expose the water between the edges of the floor and a weeping wall water feature prominently housing a large fireplace in the middle of it.
He had a thing about fire and water: the opposing forces, destructive and impossible, like him, his life. From the wall flowing with water on either side of the fireplace, large, metal candle holders complete with thick, white towers of melting wax added to the whole elemental effect. It was stunning really, the mix of orange and yellow flames over patina ripples due to clear water flowing over metal and stone. Many evenings he sat here, whiskey in hand, a glass or whole bottle depending on his mood. He'd stare, mesmerized, thinking of her, of the life they could have together if he lived in another world, another time, another dimension, maybe. More to the point, if he'd been born to a different man, to a father rather than a hellish fiend, she'd have remained his, without question, and he'd never have been forced to leave the love of his life alone.
"Why are you here, Allanah?" he asked, wishing the thought hadn't fallen out of his mouth in such a fashion that he sounded like a defeated man.
It wasn't in his nature. Not ever. To lose. To want. Never had been. Except with her. Which was why he'd lost her, because he'd shown an inkling of weakness. In that instance being in love with someone had been seen by the family as beneath him, so his father had beat it out of him. No, weakness had never been an option except for that brief period in time when he'd had her in his arms, in his bed, thinking them unseen by the man, the dictator, the beast, he'd been forced to call father. Yet, the woman could bring even a man like him to his knees, begging. Even now, right this particular minute, he feared. Probably the reason his father ended it so quickly. She'd have been a distraction to the tyrant's creation of another monster to groom to run his company. The hate harbored over his imposed loss still brewed inside him to a lethal inferno with just a single thought.
As the muscles in his neck corded, his jaw clenched, he squared his shoulders, standing at the ready to battle the memory of a dead man as he squared off with the one loss he'd never recovered from. A mixture of lust and love whipped through him more violent than the storm-infuriated ocean battering the cliff outside his home. The rush of both would have made him stumble if he'd dared to attempt a single step.
"You want me to leave?" she voiced with a hint of disappointment, he thought, or wished, deepening the edges of her confident tone.
"No... No. I'm just surprised. Shocked as hell, actually. I haven't seen you since we were in high school. You haven't changed a bit either. Beautiful. Some, like me, may even say breathtaking. I would add bewitching."
"Interesting use of terms," she said with a shrug, still not looking at him directly.
He couldn't read her, and he slowly went mad with the need to. He wanted to touch a curl of her hair, maybe a chestnut brown one, or a golden blond one, or even one of the fiery red ones; the need to feel the silky locks drift though his fingers burrowed through him, so intense that he fisted his hands tighter until his nails cut into his palms, forcing himself to overcome the urge.
"My mother did a whole guilt trip inducing song and dance to get me here, if you must know," she continued when he faltered for anything else to say. "I was visiting. A surprise for her birthday, and she said she had this party to go to. When I found out it was yours, I refused, of course, not wanting to make anyone uncomfortable, including myself, honestly, but my arguments fell on deaf ears. She won in the end. Cheap mom tactics and all. I appreciate the fact you kept her on once your father passed away. I'm sorry for your loss. I really am. And, she would have been lost if she'd lost her job after he died."
She had to be a witch, he thought, to his own amusement, because she turned him inside out like no other woman—hell, human—could. Not that she knew of magic in this world like he did, or of the true evil lurking in his veins. That truth would have ended them anyway, and so when his father had threatened, he'd obeyed, let her go on at least thinking him just a human boy, rich, spoiled, and whatever else she'd once thought of him. Who the hell knew what she thought now with all the media attention his family had received over the years, even with the magic stuff, the worst of it all, still a family secret. While protected by financial means and power, his father had tarnished his family name with his ridiculous ways, his lavish lifestyle and severe, dictator-like rule.
"I honestly don't know how my father would have survived, let alone run the company without your mother. I'm well aware of all she did for him, the good, the bad, the ugly, not to mention the cover-ups when he fucked up yet again."
"She was indebted to the man. His money gave us our life, a way for her to support us both," she said, anger, disdain, building in her ever-deepening tone. Some words sounded forced out, too breathy. "I swear, she would have done probably just about anything for him."
"I never got why," he added, the same derision apparent in the choked quality of his timbre as he actively wished harm to a dead man. "Of course, one didn't ask my father questions, just obeyed his curt and direct orders. I'd no idea what he had over her. The only reason I could imagine a woman as sweet as your mother working for such a monster."
"He protected us, she would say, brought us to this country, gave us a way to survive... It's not my story to tell, though. Sorry, it's hers. I can only say she was young, made a mistake, and when she ran here, got a job, he found out, and he decided to use what he knew of her past to protect and insure his future."
"Okay, then. Sounds like my father, though I can't imagine what mistake your mother could have made that was bad enough to need my father's help. I'm not... I mean, I wasn't prying, just stating a fact. Your mother is an amazing woman, and she made mine, and my brother's transitions to our new roles into the company flawless. I couldn't have survived it all without her. She probably knew this company better than my father did. She definitely knew it better than I did when I inherited it all, along with my brothers."
"I did..." she went on, but yet hesitated, ignoring his comment or the sudden edge that had increased in his voice, making him feel more like himself again.
He shook off the initial effect she'd had on him, or at least attempted to. Seeing this woman he'd been forced to let go so long ago after all of these years could well be the worst torture he'd ever endured, and the bar had been set pretty high there thanks to his family. Truth be told, while he'd dated a lot since her, no one in all of that time had ever come close to measuring up to Allanah. And, she'd been the one he measured everyone up to, always on his mind, the memory of her forever taunting him with regrets.
"You did what?"
"I did try, many times, to talk her into quitting, especially once I started making good money, but she wouldn't hear of it. She more than deserves retirement," she finished, the regret clouding her voice though the frustration and anger remained obvious in the biting off the ends of certain words.
"Make good money, huh? That's what you call single-handedly designing a line of boho chic clothing, I believe they call it, and then taking yourself to millionaire status?"
"I came from money, somewhat, remember. Your father paid my mother, his secretary slash personal assistant, more than any doctor on this coast could hope to make in any given year. In addition to that, he funded my elaborate education, surely opening doors that otherwise would have been closed, all to the end of keeping me far away from you. She was forever indebted for that, too, given our meager beginnings.
"Anyway, though, I'd been around you and your family enough to know how the other half lived. Having money now, my own, hasn't felt entirely my achievement. He took that from me, the chance to know if I could have reached the same success on my own without his funding, his bribes or threats, or whatever he did to make it happen. It all worked to his advantage. I'm a success, which he thought would keep me from you. The idea that I was then worthy of you still wasn't there, though. Guess I had to be bred from money to gain that right. Your father took so much from me despite all he generously gave to his own ends. But, then, I suppose only you could understand that thin line between gratitude and outright loathing—no, seething hate for the man."
"Yeah. Well..." Had been all he managed, his own ire, for her, for him, choking him. His mind did flips trying for anything to say to make it right. Faltering, failing, he moved back to the conversation about her mother. "Us... Him... Anyway, your mother, she earned every penny and more managing his investment into whiskey, film, and airlines, just to name a few. And, that wasn't anything compared to how she managed his scandals and his lavish lifestyle."
"Like father, like son, I see. He was fond of throwing elaborate parties like this one."
"No!" His voice boomed, making her visually jump before she turned to him. Allanah had taken one step back, though only one to her credit. If others had looked their way, he hadn't noticed, caught in the darkening color of her eyes. "My father was fond of throwing lavish parties which were show stopping hymns to bad taste. I'm not like him, not in private or in public. I thought you, at least, knew that about me. No one else matters."
"I knew you years ago," she hissed, ignoring his last comment, though he'd watched something flash behind her eyes, the golden flecks within the darkening green more vibrant for a second as if they'd caught the light of the fire which remained at her back. "I'd heard differently since."
"Don't believe everything you read in the papers. My father hasn't quite been dead a whole year yet," he struggled on, trying to not stare at her.
The way the wind blew, due to the open air main floor when some walls were pushed back and windows opened like tonight, the thin material of her dress revealed the outline of a body he remembered all too well. In thirteen years she hadn't changed a bit it seemed.
"It's going to take me a while to get out from under his shadow, especially given the fact my brothers are just like him."
"I've heard that, too, about your brothers that is," she said, keeping her eyes on him, never backing down, holding his gaze, challenging him as she had so long ago to hang tough, be a better man, though due to family threats, fears for her safety, her future, he'd failed her in the end.
It still stung, how they'd given into their families blackmail and intimidation to keep them apart. She'd not been good enough for him, the daughter of his father's secretary slash personal assistant. Though, as she'd pointed out, Allanah's mother had done far more than that and had been paid excessively more than her job description required because of it. And according to Allanah, her mother had been just as insistent that her daughter would not get mixed up with such a family when not within earshot of anyone in the Byrne family.
The whole thing hadn't made a lot of sense, but with two families united in determination, him forced to stay and work for his, and her sent to another country to study fashion, strings he knew his father pulled and financed, they hadn't had a whole lot of say in the matter save running away penniless, which in the past decade had become a fantasy of his, too; to imagine how such a scenario could have gone for them. Maybe they'd have gone to the Caribbean, learned to bartend in a hut on a beach. He could have fished. She could have still made clothes, sold them. They wouldn't have needed much to survive. Only issue would have been his father hunting for him, forcing him back into the business through magical means unimaginable to the average human. Or, they could have disappeared, changed their looks. Hell, he'd give it all up, the money, the house, worked flipping hamburgers, to have been with her if he could have ensured her safety from the devil he'd called dad.
It all boiled over in his mind, the years of drowning under the dark cloud of his family. He'd wanted so many times to leave them behind and go to her, but they'd have come for him and ruined her. These facts remained unchanged. He knew all too well. There would have been nowhere for them to hide, not with the demon his father had placed within him shortly after she'd left always ready to tell, to expose, and to ruin him at his father's whim. He'd loved her enough to protect her from their wrath, the only thing that had made him go along with his families wishes. If you disobeyed, you paid the highest price, one usually beyond even his diabolically inspired imagination.
"It's widely known, now, that my father liked to throw gargantuan amounts of money into furthering his political agenda," he went on just to stop the train wreck of thoughts he had spiraled uncontrollably into. "He cut vital programs, stripped hard-working people of their mere middle class status, relegating them to struggling destitute. He literally funded nonsensical hysteria to further his own sick and demented desires, lining his own pocket, basically, screw his fellow man. My grandfather had been the same way, but given he'd started the company, earned his initial income in whiskey, he'd kept his downfalls hidden better. But, I have a choice now. I can continue to live that legacy or I can begin the lengthy, and often excruciating uphill battle to become my own person, whoever the hell that is."
"I'm sorry," she said genuinely, strength still in her voice, not backing down from the fire that had spewed forth in his tone during his speech.
It wasn't the shady business deals or the funding of untoward politics, unfortunately. He'd been left a legacy of magick, too, that ran through his veins, dating back generations, misused destructively for gain as well as allegiance. It slithered through him even at this moment. His skin flushed while muscles and veins strained under his crawling skin. Adrenaline rushed through his body as he tried in a jittery desperation to clamp down the desire for chaos and violence, to take this woman in the brutish manner his demon wanted to. Yet, he wouldn't let it win. He fought this battle daily, but with her here his body trembled uncontrollably as he vowed to the beast within to rip himself to shreds before he'd let that thing control him around her.
Allanah will never know your true darkness, he promised himself even as he warned the demon squirming inside him, delighted with the rush of turbulent emotions warring in him.
While he had gone along as a child, even as a young man, with his father and brothers, by the time he'd become a man in his own right, his family's ways had not been so ingrained in him he couldn't change. Yet, he'd known no way around the demon failsafe his father had planted inside him. Still, over a decade later, a sickness stormed within him daily that somewhere in him a better man lurked, one worthy of Allanah. At the age of thirty-two now, nearly thirty-three, his father's friends and associates looked to him and his brothers. The politicians swarmed at his doors for money. The coven hissed about him taking his father's place in the circle. While technically he did reign, his demon controlled all the others within the men in their coven, he'd not exactly warmed to the idea. At the same time, business associates threatened him to keep the business lucrative and the scandals secret.
As if all of this was not reason enough to keep his blood pressure high and his nights sleepless, into his world tonight had roamed the woman he'd once been forbidden to love. Allanah Adams. Just for self-torture sake, he ticked off the brief facts of their history together on fingers still clenched, impervious to the ache building. Daughter of his father's personal assistant, who had made herself a millionaire in her own right within the last decade. When he'd first taken a romantic interest in her thirteen years ago, his father had made sure he knew his place, which didn't allow for him to talk to Allanah. While her mother made more than most doctors did in a year to keep his father's dirty dealing secret, her status didn't hold any weight. He'd snuck to see Allanah, at first, fast and furiously falling in love with the spirited girl by the time they'd been caught and forced apart. By this time, his heart had been to the point of never recovering, never being able to let her go or love another. Yep, that summed up the nightmare of his time with her.
"Well, I should go find my mother again," Allanah offered, staring at him, probably sick of waiting for him to finally speak again as he tried to regain control over his wayward thoughts, ones stuck in an infinite loop of anger and despair.
He never had emotional outbursts like this, except when he thought of her. He never let his emotions rule, except when he thought of her. But seeing Allanah, here in the flesh, right before him, her scent washing over him, blanketing him in a severe lust, one built of love, something in him had snapped, disconnected, or reconnected, whatever the case may be. At this very moment, he feared himself out of control, reckless, and at this point the consequences of what he wanted to do, to her, with her, may be more evil than ever before. Regardless, he couldn't let her go, let her walk away from him again. He had to believe he had it in himself to protect her from what lurked within.
He fisted the back of his neck, tilted his head, and pursed his lips as he struggled to find the words that might make her stay. He moved his hand, his hot fingers rubbing his forehead as his mind raced over words and phrases while his chest tightened. His stomach fluttered only a second before the darkness within put a stop to that. In his wild mind right now, he saw the red-eyed demon, his black hand in a death clutch around a swarm of unmoving, mangled butterflies. Shaking his head to dislodge the horror, something in him laughed even as he seethed.
"Please don't. I've waited years hoping to see you again. Please, stay with me longer." Uncontrollable words tumbled from his mouth in a whimpering growl. "We can go somewhere more private. There are lots of little spots around the house. I have one in particular I like, just down a path. It has a fireplace and roof. It should keep us dry when the storm finally gives way."
"You've waited to see me?"
"Yes. Allanah, you have to know. Or, I guess I have to tell you, how heartbroken I was when you left. I couldn't come after you as much as I desperately wanted to, to protect you, though please don't ask me to explain that right now. Regardless, I'm not too much of a man to finally admit to a woman that no one else in my life has ever compared to her, which kept me a playboy. I've followed your career like an internet stalker, always wishing I could reach out to you. Planning to, in fact, once I got my act together, changed things here, so you would agree to see me again. Life brought you to me sooner. Please don't walk away. Give me at least a chance to show you who I really am apart from my inheritance and my horrid family legacy."
"I..." was all she said, looking around her.
"Please. Follow me. You can't be afraid to be alone with me," he challenged her, hoping that still was the way to best push her buttons into complying with what he wanted.
"I'm not afraid of you," she stated in a rush of words, proving him right.
"Then follow me."