Denouement
Authors: M. O. Kenyan
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A
Secret Cravings Publishing Book
Sensual Romance
Denouement
Copyright © 2013 M. O. Kenyan
E-book ISBN:
978-1-61885-780-4
First E-book Publication: July 2013
Cover design by
Dawné
Dominique
Edited by Lori Paige
Proofread by Renee
Waring
All cover art and logo copyright © 2013 by Secret Cravings Publishing
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RESERVED
:
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literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
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PUBLISHER
Secret Cravings
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Dedication
In his eyes I see my reflection,
His face my parentage,
And in his skin, I see my heritage
And yet I feel no warmth in his arms,
No care in his touch,
And in his stone cold heart,
No love exists
He is as close to me as a man is to the moon,
As much a stranger as I am to myself,
Near yet far,
He is never here, but forever there
He is my sire
To my mom,
without you I wouldn’t exist, without you I wouldn’t persist bravely, honestly,
with dignity and grace in this journey called life. You are the queen of my
heart and I will forever love you
.
I would like to thank the whole SCP family, for
bringing my book to life, and my family for putting up with my insanity.
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DENOUEMENT
M. O. Kenyan
Copyright © 2013
Chapter One
“Hurry
up!”
She
couldn’t wait to get back home. Marietta had been away from her beautiful
husband for more than three weeks. She needed to feel his arms around her, his
warm breath on her neck as he kissed her and his caresses when they made love. Being
with him every single day was like a breath of fresh air, a step closer to
heaven.
When
they met, she thought they were too different to be together. His ivory skin
was a huge difference to her deep coffee
color.His
family fortune trumped the couple of dollars her mother left her when she died,
his father was a huge part of his life, while her father played best to parts
like,
Liar
Liar
and the
Invisible
Man
.Plus
he was a reformed playboy
while she had only dated one guy ever since kindergarten. He was an expert in
touch and go relationships while she only knew one way of being with a person,
the ever-after way.
Marietta
only broke up with her long-term boyfriend when they realized they were going
to colleges in different states, on different coasts. She wanted to study film,
and going to film school in New York was where it would start. Chris was more
interested in photography and his dream school was in Los Angeles. That was the
biggest relationship decision she ever made… until she met Tobias Harden. He
was the son of an Oscar winner and was desperately trying to make it on his own
without his father’s legacy looming behind him. He wanted to be an actor in his
own right. Toby was
beautiful.His
strong body left
her broken and willing. His strong jaw shadowed by a heartbreaking smile, and
his deep baritone voice was like a song in her ears.
They
had only been able to see each other twice in the past three months. Their
schedules wouldn’t allow it. Marietta was in the Middle East, overseeing the
production of her new movie. She came up with the storyline and wrote the
script. Because she and Toby didn’t have any children, each project was like
her baby and so far she was the mother of twenty successful children. Critics
praised her works and pinpointed that her dedication to personally oversee her
work was what made them great. In the past ten years she had overseen four
movies a year before she got married and then had to reduce to it two.
Marietta
and Tobias had been married for
three
years.They
had met on the set of Marietta’s movie, ‘Guns, Blood and Sex’, an action movie
that revolved around the world of drugs and the illegal arms trade. Toby played
a CIA agent, and as he played this hard role in front of the camera, he was a
sweet romantic with her. Sure she didn’t turn a blind eye when a female set
assistant, stylist or make-up artist disappeared and he was nowhere to be
found, but she liked him and second chances were her thing.
Tobias,
at first, was shocked that Marietta didn’t submit to his charms and even more
taken aback at her ultimatum. He had to choose, every single skirt he laid his
eyes on or her. Surprising to him it was a difficult choice. So after the movie
wrapped and everyone went their separate ways, he had found himself missing
Marietta. With the help of her assistant, he was able to track down Marietta in
Mexico, filming a love story. After a year of dating, they were walking down
the aisle, picking houses and trying to make babies.
They
were happy, even though they spent only three to six months together in a year.
They both understood the commitments of their careers and how time was a big
black hole. But they made it work, love was the glue to their relationship and
technology covered the distance between them.
Marietta
dragged her suitcase up the stairs, her assistant and a cameraman following
behind her. She had a surprise for him and she wanted to catch the genuine
moment on tape. Her assistant had a bottle of champagne and two chilled
glasses. Marietta was excited as her heart beat against its cage and her
breathing quickened. Just a few more doors down and she would be with the love
of her life.
“Are
you guys ready?” Marietta asked, “Make sure the camera is on.”
“I
know what I’m doing.” Sam the camera man said exasperated.
“Are
you ready?” She asked once more.
“Yes
we are. You need to stop asking us every single second. I get you are excited,
but you are getting annoying.” Jessie her assistant exclaimed.
“I
just want to make sure everything is perfect.” Marietta said as she took in a
deep breath.
She
stopped at her front door and fished in her purse for her keys and when she
didn’t find them immediately Marietta started to panic. She tossed the contents
of her bag to the ground and frantically searched. The other two stepped back
and watched her, amused looks on their face.
“They
were here,” she gasped.
Jessie
reached down and grabbed the ribbon around Marietta’s neck, “You put them around
your neck so that you wouldn’t forget them.”
“Oh...yeah.”
Marietta slowly put the things she littered on
the floor back into her bag. Standing up she took a deep breath before putting
the key in the key hole.
Turning
the key she looked at her back up making sure they were ready. Sam had the
camera hoisted on his shoulder and Jessie had the glasses and the bubbly in her
hands. She wasn’t sure whether or not Toby would be
in.She
hadn’t called to let him know she was arriving today. But his assistant had
made sure that his schedule was clear. Marietta took a deep breath and pushed
the door open. Sam was the first to go in. Genuine reaction was what they were
looking for. When they didn’t find him in the living room, Sam went straight
into the bedroom.
Marietta
rushed in after him. She was ready to shout surprise when she found something
else that surprised her.
* * * *
Four years earlier…
“I
don’t want him.”
Marietta pulled her braids off her neck and
into a ponytail. The sun was beginning to beat down on them. She wasn’t quite
convinced that the big orange ball of fire wasn’t heading straight for them,
crushing into Earth and disintegrating everyone. The sun was dropping out of
space and landing in down town Los Angeles. Her eyes darted at the little fan
trying to do what the air conditioner proved not to be able to. The little
engine that could,
spinning
round and round, and all
it blew out was a whisper of cool air.
She
loved making up stories in her mind and seeing them come to life on screen.
Marietta’s life had been a story, a living nightmare that turned out to be a
dream. She called it ‘the coming of age’ story. The characters were important
to her, their struggles and victories and how they all seemed to jell together.
A perfect story, in her words, was not carried on one man’s back. She sized the
man up, looked at his shoulders and wondered if he was just strong enough.
But
it wasn’t just the heat or the fan’s inability to cool down the room that was
bothering her. Marietta was staring at a five-foot-ten, well built, gorgeous,
dark-haired, warm brown- eyed man. He had everything going for him, his looks
and his acting ability. But that still didn’t manage to convince Marietta that
he was the right guy for the job.
She
leaned into the casting director hoping that the irritation in her voice wasn’t
more than a whisper, she said, “I don’t want him.”
“What
do you mean you don’t want him?” The bony woman pulled back and stared at
Marietta like she had just dropped in from a different planet, “Everyone wants
him. Every single woman and man, of a specific taste, wants him. He’s the best
collaboration that Britain and America have ever made.”
“Suzy,
I don’t care. I still don’t want him.” Marietta insisted.
“I
have been meaning to ask you something.” Suzy bit down on her lower lip. “I
understand being young in this business, not wanting to get distracted by
relationships and all that. But I have never seen you with a guy before. You
can’t be gay because I have never seen you with a chick either. “
“What’s
the question?”
“What
the hell is wrong with you?” Suzy’s tone was elevated, drawing everyone’s
attention, including the actor being judged in front of them.
“Nothing,”
Marietta snarled. “You can go now.” She waved the actor away and then turned to
Suzy. “I just don’t have the time to invest in trusting anyone who is going to
let me down. I don’t have the patience to get disappointed.”
Disappointment
when it came to men was all she knew. Her father wasn’t even in the business
but she knew him for his greatest roles, ‘Liar
Liar
’
and the ‘Invisible Man.’ He was never around. The deadbeat took off when she
was just a child. Marietta and her brother had to get jobs at the age of nine
and ten just to help their mother with the bills. They could barely make ends
meet so when her brother got sick, things went from bad to worse.
Marietta
could see herself sitting down on the front porch, Chris, her high school
boyfriend, holding her hand as the neighbors came to pay their respects. It
stung her that the old man couldn’t even show up to put his only son in the
ground. Her mother held on for a while, but Marietta always felt rushed to grow
up. She needed to get to a stable place so that her mother could stop holding
onto life as hard as she was. So as soon as Marietta graduated, her mother choked
back a bottle of sleeping pills and bathed in a pool of her own blood mixed
with jasmine scented shampoo. The wait was over.
Marietta
couldn’t hold it against her, the old girl had held on as long as she could.
Life had become tough when her father left, and after her brother died it was
unbearable for her
mother.Breathing
,
living had become more of a burden to her mother than it was
a gift. Yet again when Marietta buried her mother there was no sign of her
father, but Chris was there, holding her hand as usual.
Chris,
she
thought.
I
wonder if I should give him a call
.
“But
at least you are getting laid, right?”
The
sound of Suzy’s empathetic voice pulled her back to her latest problem, “Some.”
And by some she meant not since her first time with Chris, the night before she
left her small town in Minnesota, nine years ago.
Marietta
feigned a smile and went back to staring at the picture in front of her. Tobias
Harden was twenty six and doing some of his best work. He was a Hollywood
child, his father a great actor and his mother a British screenwriter. Two very
talented people had come together and created a gifted actor and handsome, talented
Lothario. This hadn’t been Marietta first casting encounter with the guy. The
first time he refused to take
a part in her movie, his exact
words were
, ‘I don’t do Indies, only box office, babe.’
Now,
ten scripts and an eighty percent success record later. Marietta had a box
office movie that he was dying to
have.An
action
thriller bigger than James Bond and Jason Bourne, big budget with incredible
set locations in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Her movie was like a hot
cake that half of young Hollywood wanted to sink their teeth into. She had
always pictured a six-foot-three guy with beautiful eyes, a genetic cross
between Jesse Williams and Chris Pine to play the lead role of the CIA agent
gone rogue. But they were taken. All she had left were fifty beautiful guys and
Tobias Harden.
She
wasn’t going to give it to him. She didn’t want to give it to him. The
directors, the studio and producers couldn’t overrule her. This was her vision
and only she could pick out the best guy for the job. It was pride that was
delaying the already made decision. She wanted him to grovel and apologize for
dismissing her and neglecting to see her creative greatness. But Marietta
couldn’t outright ask him to do that. Actually she could but her mother had raised
her better than that. The rest of the cast had already been signed and put to
work on their scripts and training regimen, she had to make a decision. Tobias
Harden was the best that they had seen in two solid weeks of auditioning the
known and unknown. It pained her but she had to face reality, he was it.
“Fine.”
Marietta mumbled under her breath in defeat.
“What
did you just say?” Suzy couldn’t help but gloat. She had been telling Marietta
to cast Tobias Harden ever since the movie idea came up.
“You
can call him back in.” Marietta tried to put her vindictive hat aside and put
on her creative one. She had to look at Tobias with different eyes. She had to
see him as Grayson, rogue CIA agent, fighting to take illegal guns off the
market and bring down the big fish. When Tobias Harden walked into the room,
she did just that. Mentally slapping on an imaginary suit and shades and
tusslinghis
slicked black hair a bit, she could see him
transform. And that, she promised herself, was how he was going to continue
seeing him.
Marietta
stood up from her chair, walked around the table and extended a welcome
handshake to the man. “Congratulations, welcome to ‘Guns, Blood and Sex’,” she
mumbled and then walked out.
“You
are going to be glad you picked him,” Suzy chanted.
“Picked
who?”
Marietta
sighed knowing her frustration level was going to increase. Jessie was just
another voice in her head telling her to give men a second chance. She couldn’t
wait to hear what her assistant would say about her not wanting to give Tobias Harden
the part. She quickened her pace and tried to run away from them as fast as she
could, without running.