CHAPTER THREE
Olivia
MY HUSBAND DOESN’T JUST LOVE ME. He knows how to love me. He knows what I need and when I need it, sometimes even better than I do. He knows how to unfold all the tight, rough parts of me and smooth them out with one glide of his hand. He knows how to prove that he—and only he—understands every crevice of my soul. He knows how to remind me that I am forever safe within his heart.
And all of this has never been more apparent to me than it is now, as Dean continues wooing me under the precepts of his own version of courtly love.
I know. Could not be more dorky. And yet, after all we’ve been through, for us it is also intensely personal and beautiful.
Over the next week, Dean sends me emails at least three times a day with poems and quotes:
TO: Olivia West (aka exalted mistress)
FR: Dean West (aka lowly servant)
Miss you.
Want to kiss you.
(for the record, Mrs. West, I wrote this one myself)
He attaches Internet pictures of smiling cartoon hearts and fluffy, big-eyed animals snuggling with each other. These adorable images are often followed by notes about the archeological discovery of a post-medieval building north of the transept wall or the aboveground structural analysis of a church.
Our messages never fail to make me smile, and the warm feeling lasts all day as I run errands, take walks along the lake pathways, and work at the library, bookstore, and museum.
One morning almost three weeks after his departure, I return home for lunch, taking a few letters and bills from the mailbox. There’s a small box outside our apartment door with a printed label reading: Mrs. Olivia West.
I go inside and open the package, which contains a slender gold ring with a ruby embedded in the band. The accompanying note instructs me to wear the ring on the little finger of my left hand with the stone turned toward my palm, symbolic of our intense, secret love.
I glance at the clock and calculate that it’s about nine p.m. in Tuscany. Picking up the phone, I dial Dean’s cell number. He answers on the second ring.
“Good one, professor,” I say.
“You like it?” He sounds pleased.
“I love it. Thank you.”
“Are you wearing it?”
“Just like you told me to.” I spread out my hand to admire the gold band. “It fits perfectly. How did you know the size of my little finger?”
“I know exactly how you fit into things and what fits into you.”
Warmth floods my chest at the faint huskiness of his voice. “Oh.”
He gives a muffled laugh. “Gotta be at a review meeting in five minutes. I’ll call you later tonight.”
“Tease.”
“Just trying to prove my adoration for my lady.”
“You proved that years ago.”
And every day since.
After we hang up, I enjoy the warm fuzzies for a few minutes before I gather the mail I’d left on the foyer table.
There’s an official-looking envelope addressed to me at the bottom of the stack. The return address is Sinclair and Watson Law Offices, based in Phoenix, Arizona.
My stomach tightens. Maggie Hamilton’s father is a lawyer, but he’s based in Chicago. I can’t think of any reason a lawyer in Arizona would want to contact me.
I tear open the envelope and unfold a piece of paper imprinted with the law office’s letterhead.
Dear Mrs. West,
I am writing to formally notify you of the recent death of Mrs. Elizabeth Winter and my role as the executor of her estate. You are named as a beneficiary in her will and trust. Under the terms of the document, the will and trust are now irrevocable, and we are required to distribute assets accordingly.
All debts have been paid, and you are entitled to receive the sum of fifty thousand ($50,000.00) dollars which Mrs. Winter bequeathed to you as part of the distribution of her estate…
The words blur in front of my eyes. For an instant, I can’t make sense of them, can’t process the name Mrs. Elizabeth Winter.
I take a breath and keep reading the letter, which informs me that as soon as I supply my social security number and sign the enclosed forms, I’ll receive a check for fifty thousand dollars via certified courier.
I drop the letter onto the table. I want to think this is a scam or a bad joke. But the name Mrs. Elizabeth Winter is embedded in my memories.
My mother’s mother.
My grandmother, whom I saw once from a distance when I was seven years old. A woman I never spoke to, never even knew. I grab the phone and dial my aunt Stella’s number in Castleford. Stella is my father’s sister and—before Dean—my only family outside of my mother.
Trying to keep my voice from shaking, I ask her if she knows anything about Elizabeth Winter.
“A lawyer called a few weeks ago to ask if I knew your address,” Stella says. “He didn’t tell me anything except that she’d died. I had no contact with her, of course.”
“Did my mother ever talk to you about her?” I ask. “Or even mention her?”
“No. I didn’t even know your grandmother was still alive.”
Neither did I.
I thank Stella and tell her I’ll call her again soon. I start to dial Dean’s number, then stop. I need time to figure this out first. Instead, I call the lawyer’s number.
“Yes, Mrs. Winter named you as a beneficiary of her estate,” Mr. Thomas Sinclair explains. “I’m sorry to tell you that she died of cancer in January. She’d finalized her will and trust last year, after her doctors told her that her illness was no longer treatable.”
I swallow past a sudden tightness in my throat. “I’m… did she ever try to contact me?”
“I don’t know, Mrs. West. I had to track down your married name and address, though, which leads me to believe that Mrs. Winter didn’t know you were married or where you live.”
“Was Elizabeth Winter in touch with my mother? Crystal Winter?”
“I don’t know that either. I did write a letter to Crystal Winter informing her of Mrs. Winter’s death.”
“You have my mother’s address?”
“I had the letter sent to her last known address. Would you like a copy of Mrs. Winter’s will and trust? All beneficiaries are entitled to a copy.”
“No, that’s not necessary.”
“I’ll have your check processed and sent as soon as I receive the signed forms.”
I thank him and slowly put the phone down. I reread the letter. Fifty thousand dollars, from the grandmother I never knew. The woman I saw once.
My mother was twenty-four when she took me from my father. Tall and slender, she wore long skirts and costume jewelry. She had delicate features, blue eyes, pale skin, and thick, wheat-colored hair that spilled like a waterfall down her back.
When we left Indiana behind, she drove a circuitous route west, as if Los Angeles were a magnet pulling her through a maze. She drove fast, without a seatbelt, windows rolled all the way down. The wind pulled at her hair. Her round sunglasses concealed her eyes. Her mouth was pearly pink and shiny.
Until a few hours prior, we’d been living in a two-bedroom apartment with my father. He and my mother had had a huge fight—yelling, sounds of things crashing, crying. I’d hidden in my bedroom, underneath the covers.
My mother woke me when it was still dark and told me to pack my suitcase, the one with the wheels and pink flowers. She dragged her own big, black suitcase from her room. I’d packed my stuffed animals and two hairbands before she returned.
“Not those,” she snapped. “Clothes, Liv. Underwear. Hurry.”
Her car was an old Chevrolet with vinyl bench seats. She hefted our suitcases into the trunk, told me to get in the backseat, and tossed a quilt over me. Then she got in the car and started to drive.
Hours passed. We ate fast food. Listened to Madonna, Duran Duran, Neneh Cherry. I don’t remember a lot of the places I lived with my mother, but I remember the first place we stopped was a huge, two-story house at the end of tree-lined cul-de-sac.
I had no idea where we were. My mother told me to wait in the car, then she walked up the driveway to the front door and rang the bell.
The sun was high by then, burning a hole in the sky. I got to my knees and peered out the window. A tall, elegant-looking woman with sleek blond hair answered the door. She stared at my mother, then shook her head.
My mother put her hand on the door like she wanted to stop it from closing. They seemed to be arguing. My mother gestured to the car.
The woman looked toward me. I don’t know if she saw me. She shook her head again. Closed the door so hard I heard the snap from inside the car.
My mother stood there for a second, then spun on her heel and stalked back down the driveway. I could tell by her tight expression, the way she slammed the car door, that she was really mad.
“Bitch,” she muttered. The tires squealed.
I buried myself under the quilt. Madonna’s voice drifted through the car.
Feels like home.
Home.
I can’t even remember how long it took me to realize the blonde woman was my grandmother.
Dean calls at our usual time tonight. He listens as I read him the letter, the words sounding dusty and dry. There’s a knot in my chest. My brain can’t stop shuffling through old, unpleasant memories. Part of me thinks I should be ecstatic—who wouldn’t want to receive an inheritance of this magnitude?—but instead I feel numb.
“What should I do?” I ask Dean.
“Be grateful,” he suggests.
“Why do you think she put me in her will?”
“Maybe she felt guilty for not being there for you.”
“If that was it, then I wish she’d tried to find me. I didn’t even know where she lived, much less that she remembered me. I hardly remembered her.”
I stare at the letter again, the evidence that my own grandmother knew I existed and yet never contacted me. Until she left me fifty thousand dollars.
“What should I do with the money?” I ask.
“Whatever you want. It’s yours.”
“It’s ours.”
“No, Liv. You do what you want with it.”
I wish I knew what that was.
After I hang up the phone and Dean’s warm, deep voice is only an echo, an unexpected wave of loneliness hits me. I reach for the phone again, then stop. I don’t want to indulge in hot talk with my husband, not when there are five thousand miles between us.
I want him here, with me, right now. My whole body aches with the need to feel his arms around me, to press my face against his chest and remind myself that he is my home now. He’s the only real home I’ve ever had.
I press a hand to my chest, picturing him stretched out on his bed in the rustic, old inn where the archeological team is housed. Dean told me his room has whitewashed walls, worn oak floors, a wrought-iron bed, and a window that overlooks a little courtyard.
I close my eyes and surrender to the image. I can see him lying there, his T-shirt ridden up to expose a few inches of his flat, hard stomach, his long legs stretched out on the bed. I can see his disheveled hair, his whiskered jaw, his gaze looking out the window at the Tuscan sky streaked with dawn light.
I wonder if he fantasized about us today. Just the thought of him stroking his cock while thinking about me sends my heart rate soaring. I lean my head against the back of the chair, pulling my legs up beneath Dean’s oversized T-shirt. I can feel a gentle pulsing between my thighs.
After a few more minutes of imagining, I go into the bedroom. I tumble on the bed with a soft groan and roll onto my stomach, pressing my face into Dean’s pillow that still holds his masculine scent. His T-shirt envelops me, draping over my hips and thighs. The pulsing between my legs intensifies.
I squeeze my eyes shut and picture Dean’s gorgeous body, his firm skin and sculpted muscles. I love smoothing my hands over the curves of his shoulders to his chest. I love the way I can trace the line running down the center of his torso, bisecting the ridges of his abdomen. His skin is always so warm and taut beneath my hand.
His body tenses with arousal when I press my mouth against his chest, trailing a line of kisses down that center line to where his muscles form a perfect V shape near his hips. I rest my hands on either side of his abdomen and move lower, kissing his flat stomach, the circle of his navel, lower still to where his cock is already half-hard.
He tangles a hand in my hair when I wrap my fingers around his shaft and guide him into my mouth. My blood fires with heat at the salty, male taste of him, the warm throb against my tongue.
It wasn’t always like this for me, wasn’t easy to learn how to pleasure him this way after my first sexual experience had been so horribly shaming. Even with Dean, it wasn’t easy for me to understand that I could enjoy it too. That I could even learn how to love it, to crave the feel and taste of him.
I do now, longing for the way my husband’s large cock slides past my lips, the way he pushes his hips upward to fuck my mouth. I love the way his fingers tighten in my hair, the groans and soft curses that escape him as hot tension rolls through his body.
Explicit images of us flash behind my closed eyelids. I moan and press my face deeper into the pillow. I shift around, rubbing the cotton T-shirt against my stiff nipples. I inhale, drinking in the scent of Dean, then hitch the shirt over my hips up to my waist. I slither out of my panties, grab another pillow and push it between my legs. Cool air brushes against my naked ass.
In this moment, I lose all sight of the reasons Dean needs to be away from me right now. None of them matter anymore. Not now. I just desperately want him here. I want him to walk into the room and see me half-naked on the bed with my bottom bare and a pillow shoved between my legs.
I want him to stand there, hot and hard as he watches me writhe against the pillow. I imagine his gaze burning into me as my blood flares. Desperate to ease the ache blooming through my entire body, I circle my hips and grind my clit into the pillow.
I push one hand beneath the shirt to fondle my breasts and twist my nipples. It’s an erotic shock, this sudden onslaught of sensation. I press harder, imagining Dean climbing onto the bed behind me, stroking his hand over my ass, pushing my shirt up even farther. I moan again and spread my legs, empty and aching, squirming frantically against the pillow to create more sensual friction.
It’s not enough. The material is too soft, too giving. With a muffled groan, I shove the pillow aside and press my hand between my legs. I keep the material of Dean’s T-shirt between my fingers and my sex, as if that will somehow bring him closer to me. I rub the cotton against my clit and gasp as a wave of electricity jolts my nerves.
I close my eyes again, and there he is behind me, gazing at my ass. He’s only wearing his boxers, and he shoves them off to grasp his erection. I can see it, the thick shaft pulsing in his hand, the way he strokes himself with such slick ease from the base to the head.
My body fills with urgency. He grips my hips, pulling me upward so he can push the pillow beneath my stomach. He puts his hands between my thighs to spread me open, then trails one long finger over my folds.
I twitch and moan, pressing my own finger into my body. Dean positions himself behind me, his knees pushing my legs wider. He puts one hand flat on my lower back as he rubs the head of his cock over my slit. I gasp, every part of me aflame, aching for him to impale me with one fierce thrust.
Instead, he teases me, sliding the tight knob in and out of me and over my throbbing clit. I hear his breathing, heavy and deep, feel the tension radiating from his muscular body.
“Dean!”
With a half-laugh, half-groan, he sinks into me, filling me, stretching me. I let out a cry of pleasure and shove my hips upward so he can thrust even deeper. I bury my face into the pillow and surrender, letting him stroke his cock in and out of me, his thighs pushing my legs apart, his flat stomach slamming against my ass. It’s raw and hard, a fuck stripped of tenderness in the drive toward release.
I work my hand frantically between my legs, my mind filling with images of Dean sweaty and hot behind me. The intense pressure snaps the second I imagine him grabbing my hips and plunging so deep my entire body trembles.
He groans and comes inside me, the flood of semen slick and warm. Explosions fire through my blood, and I bite down on a corner of the pillow as the vibrations peak and surge.
With a gasp, I sink onto my stomach. It’s a few minutes before the images begin to fade, and I become aware that I’m lying half-naked on the bed with my hand still between my legs. I push the T-shirt over my hips to cover myself and stumble to the bathroom.
I stare at myself in the mirror. My hair is a mess and my eyes look too dark, almost haunted, my skin too pale.
I splash water on my face and crawl back into bed, pulling Dean’s pillow against my body. I don’t sleep well, my dreams snarled and chaotic with memories of my childhood and the ever-present longing for my husband.
After I wake from my broken sleep, the dreams fade. I take a shower and let the hot water wash away the lingering threads of unpleasantness as I think about what I’m going to do with the money.
A sudden decision spins through me, diluting the fear and uncertainty of the previous night. I call Allie and ask her to come over before the Happy Booker opens.
I get an old VCR out of our apartment storage closet and hook it up to the TV just before Allie arrives with a bag of croissants. She pours herself a cup of coffee while I get a VHS tape from a box in the closet. I’m both nervous and excited.
“You okay?” Allie takes a sip of coffee and eyes me over the rim of the mug. “You seem a little weird.”
“I want to show you something.” I push the tape into the VCR and hit the play button.
A fuzzy image appears onscreen of a young girl with straight dark hair tied into red ribbons. There’s a Christmas tree in the background. A woman appears in the frame—long, blond hair; fine, elegant features. She adjusts one of the girl’s crooked ribbons, then smiles and waves at the camera.
I can feel Allie looking at me.
“That’s you?” she asks.
“And my mother. That was… that was the Christmas before we left my dad. I was six.”
“Oh.”
The scene shifts to a birthday party, my seventh. I’m wearing a pink party hat and eating cake. My mother is standing beside me, waving at the camera. We would be gone two months later.
“You were a really cute kid,” Allie offers.
I fast-forward to the part of the tape I’d been looking for. A grainy image appears of a cherubic blonde girl sitting at a table with a bowl and spoon, a cereal box prominently displayed beside her. The kitchen is spotless and generic. A male voice booms over the scene.
“For a great start to your child’s day, serve Honey Puffs cereal all the way! These crunchy puffs are packed with vitamins and dipped in honey for a breakfast that’s both nutritious and deeeelicious! Amy, how do you like your Honey Puffs cereal?”
The girl picks up her spoon, takes a bite of cereal, then gives the camera a big smile and a thumbs-up.
Jingly music filters from the speakers along with a chorus of, “Honey Puffs cereal, crispy and sweet, full of vitamins and a tasty treat!”
There’s another shot of Amy enthusiastically eating more cereal as the camera fades into a full-screen image of the Honey Puffs cereal box.
I switch off the TV.
“Honey Puffs cereal?” Allie asks.
“That was my mother, Crystal, when she was five years old.”
“Really?” Allie glances at the TV and back to me again. “That’s pretty cool. She was the Honey Puffs cereal girl?”
“Just for that one commercial.” I toss the remote onto the coffee table. “Apparently they offered to contract her for more, but her mother wanted more money and the producers wouldn’t negotiate. I guess there was a big fight about it, and in the end they withdrew the offer.” I shrug. “So that was the end of her Honey Puffs cereal career.”
“Too bad.” Allie seems a little confused. “So… is she still in show business?”
“No. Rumors about her mother spread… you know, stage mother, difficult to work with. Crystal still auditioned a lot, but didn’t get any other big offers. She was in a lot of local theater productions and beauty pageants, school plays, that kind of thing. Then she got pregnant with me when she was seventeen.”
“Oh.”
“Her parents were furious… their perfect little girl, pregnant. They disowned her, kicked her out, so she had to drop out of high school and move in with her boyfriend.”
“Wow. Harsh.”
“Yeah.”
I’ve gone through all this with two therapists, so I understand it—the compliments heaped on my mother as a child, her parents’ high expectations for her to succeed, the constant praise of her beauty and talent. All of that was ripped away when she got pregnant with me.
Replaced by a bad relationship. Fighting. Regrets. Then when Crystal was rejected for another woman, she retaliated by taking me away from my father.
She’s spent all these years searching for the approval she had as a child—through sexual relationships with men and a twisted relationship with me. I was the one who had to give her the right praise and approval, to validate her, while she never stopped resenting me for being the cause of her downfall.
I get it on an intellectual, psychological level.
Emotionally, it still hurts like a bad burn.
“I haven’t watched that video in ages,” I admit. “But I wanted you to see it so you’ll understand where this is all coming from. I’ve always felt that my life has been shadowed by my mother, even though she hasn’t been part of my life since I was thirteen.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“Right after I married Dean.” I glance at Allie. “My father died when I was eleven. I’ve never known my mother’s parents or any of her family. But yesterday, I got a letter from a lawyer who told me my grandmother died and he’s handling the distribution of her estate.”
I tell her the whole story, ending with, “So I want to invest the money in the bookstore.”
Allie’s eyes widen behind her purple-framed glasses. “Oh, Liv.”
“You know I’ve been wanting to help you, to be a partner.” Excitement rises inside me. “Now I can, Allie. I actually have the money to do it. We don’t need to take out a loan anymore or worry about borrowing the money from Dean or your father.”
I jump up and start to pace. “I mean, I don’t have the check yet, but I’m signing the paperwork, and the lawyer is going to send it via courier next week. That gives us a few days to talk to the landlord and distributors, see if we can work out a payment schedule for—”
“Liv, no.”
“What?”
Allie shakes her head, looking dismayed. “You’re not investing your inheritance in the bookstore.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want you to.”
I stare at her. “But you said you’d love for me to be a partner.”
“I would, but not like this. I don’t want you to use your money to save a business that’ll probably still fail anyway.”
“You were fine with me applying for a business loan.”
“Because I was doing it with you, Liv. And because then, there was still a chance we could succeed. But with the rent hike on the building and losing our lease…” She shakes her head again. “The business is gone. It would be a waste of money to try and salvage it now.”
“But we can come up with a whole new business plan.” I spread my hands out. “We’ve talked about adding a café, establishing a membership, holding workshops. Now we have the capital to actually implement all of that.”
“I don’t want to, Liv.”
I can only look at her in disbelief. “Allie, we can save the bookstore.”
“No. We can try to save the bookstore, but it would be a huge risk. I don’t want you to lose your money, Liv. No way.”
This is so not the reaction I expected that I don’t know what to do. “But—”
“Liv, I love you to death. I’m so touched that you’d want to do this, but I just can’t let you. And honestly, I’m done with the bookstore anyway. It’s been such a struggle these past couple of years. It’s time for me to do something else.”
To my utter shock, tears sting my eyes. I hadn’t known until this moment how much I’d been looking forward to this—not only finally being able to help a friend, but also becoming a legitimate business owner.
“Don’t be upset, Liv.” Allie leaps off the sofa and hurries over to hug me. “There are so many other things you can do with the money.”
“I love the bookstore, Allie. You love the bookstore. How can you just give up?”
“I’m not giving up. Sometimes things have to end.”
My stomach tightens. “What if you don’t want them to end?”
“Then you try and start again,” Allie says. “Fall seven times, get up eight, right?”
“But you don’t even know what you’re going to do next.”
“I’ll find something.” She squeezes my arm. “You will too. Thank you for the offer, really. It means the world to me that you’d even consider doing such a thing. And you know I’d do anything for you, too.”
She blows me a kiss and heads out the door. I take the tape out of the VCR and toss it onto a table, then go to finish getting ready for the day. I walk to the Historical Museum, battling back the disappointment over Allie’s refusal.
Now what?
I can invest all the money in mutual funds, but even that wouldn’t put me on a path toward actually working for something of my own.
I glance at my watch, quickening my pace when I realize I’m almost late for my shift. As I turn on Emerald Street the door of a coffeehouse opens and a woman steps onto the sidewalk.
I stop. So does she. We stare at each other.
Then rage floods my chest. I tighten my hands into fists to prevent myself from clawing her eyes out.
She ducks her head and turns away.
“Maggie.” My voice is like barbed wire.
She hesitates, then turns to face me again. Even through my anger, I’m struck by how she looks both young and old at the same time—her hair is thick and curly, her skin unlined, but there’s an ancient weariness in her eyes, as if life has already stripped her of youth and innocence.
My fingernails dig into my palms. “Why?”
She averts her gaze. “I’m telling the truth.”
“You’re not. You’re lying. We both know it.”
“Look, Mrs. West, you don’t know what’s been going on.” Maggie lifts her chin, her eyes hardening. “I won’t let your husband get away with ruining my life anymore.”
“So you’re going to try and ruin his by threatening him with a false charge?”
“A false charge?” she snaps. “You, of all people, should know it’s not false.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Think about it,” she retorts. “I’m not supposed to talk to you about this.”
“Why not? What am I going to do—run to the Office of Judicial Affairs and tell them you’re lying? My husband has been telling them that since we first heard about this. How do you think screwing up his life is going to help you?”
Her jaw clenches. “By getting me out of King’s University. Either the administration will accelerate my graduation to avoid a scandal, or I’ll sue them for not protecting me from a lecherous professor. Either way, I’ll get out and be done with it all.”
“And you’ll still have your father’s money.”
“You don’t know what my father is like,” Maggie snaps. “But you should have helped me when I asked you to talk to your husband about my thesis. Now it’s too late.”
“It’s not too late for you to do the right thing.”
She shakes her head, her shoulders hunching as she hurries away.
I watch her go, not knowing if I just made things worse.