Read Tempest Tossed: A Love Unexpected Novel Online
Authors: Alissa Adams
Tempest Tossed: A Love Unexpected Novel (35 page)
“It isn’t that major. As trustees of your mother’s portion of the estate, you are required to see to her welfare. That includes both of you personally visiting her once per quarter.”
“Absolutely not,” I said. “She can have her half. I’ll take mine and make do.”
“Oh Dylan, don’t be so juvenile,” Dawn exclaimed. “It won’t kill you to visit her.”
“It won’t kill me, but it might kill her. What if I can’t keep from strangling her?”
“I’ll go with you and hold your hand.”
“And I’ll hold the other one,” Rene added. “It might do you good. Closure and all that.”
“I thought we agreed you weren’t going to pull that psycho babble with me, Rene.” I meant to sound menacing but I think I came off as just plain petty.
Both of the women were looking at me with a mixture of pity and disgust. I backed off and changed the subject. “What about the hotels? Spencer seemed to think I was supposed to step up and take my place as heir apparent.”
“Nothing in my reading of Jackson’s will indicates any obligation on your part to participate in the company. You can sell your stock or simply hold it and continue to collect dividends. However—and this is not within my area of expertise—some decisions will have to be made about who is going to run the show. Your father was apparently a hands-on CEO . . .”
I muttered, “as opposed to being a hands-on dad,” and Dawn shot me a look. She was good at those looks. I smiled at her. I wanted to stick out my tongue but it didn’t seem like the time or the place.
“As majority share holders, you both will want to participate in the restructuring. My best advice is to meet with the Board of Directors at your earliest convenience after you decide whether you are going to actively participate in the business, sell or keep your stock. You are not, by the terms of the will, bound to agree on what course to take. Dawn, you can take one path and Dylan, you can choose another.”
“That’s good, because I can tell after less than twenty-four hours, my little sister is an ornery one. She’ll disagree with me just for the fun of it.” I was teasing her and she knew it. The relief of having Spencer’s bizarre false will out of the way had lightened our load considerably. We were free to know one another. I, for one, couldn’t wait.
“Do you have any idea what Spencer hoped to achieve? He couldn’t have imagined getting away with it, could he,” Dawn asked.
“Spencer has disappeared, so we’ll probably never know. I suspect that he had a number of disconnected schemes aimed at embezzling as much out of the estate as he could. There may have been a thread in his twisted quilt of lies that had something to do with your mother and her half of the fortune.”
“I think we’ll probably find a missing pound or two when all is said and done,” I added.
“I advise you to have a thorough audit of any and all books Spencer had access to. Once you make a case, you can pursue him.” Blake told us. “I am not trying to diminish the crime of fraud he’s already committed, but the more you have on him, the more serious the authorities will pursue him.”
“He needs to pay for the damage he’s done,” Dawn said angrily.
“Yes, but the damage could have been far greater. The longer his subterfuge went on, the more I expect he could have skimmed. For an educated man, he was astoundingly stupid.” Blake shook his head. And continued “In both of your packets, you have a sealed envelope addressed to each of you individually. These were part of your father’s papers that were over-nighted to me and arrived this morning.”
I looked at my name on the envelope. Dylan Jackson Cruz. It was my own name now. I looked at Rene sitting so quietly beside me and knew that before the day was through, I would ask her to share that name with me. I had a future now and I wanted her to be my partner in it.
Dawn opened her envelope and I opened mine.
My dear Dylan,
When you were born, I was the happiest man alive. I held my firstborn son on that Valentine’s Day and never loved anything or anyone as I loved you. I didn’t know for many years what a disaster I had created when I made a family with Francesca. And for many years after that, I refused to believe my own eyes. This is the first and most profound of many things I am sorry for.
I wasn’t much of a father to you. I didn’t know how to be. I hope you’ll do a better job with your children than I managed with mine. I’m sure by now, my deception about your sister has been revealed. I know you’re angry and I can’t blame you.
I loved Francesca with all my heart. She was my world. Someday you may understand how love can blind you to nearly anything, no matter how horrible. When I finally realized the depth of your mother’s illness, the truth nearly killed me. Just as your mother nearly killed you.
I separated you and Dawn because I couldn’t handle the thought of the two of you reliving the pain your mother inflicted on you, day after day, year after year. I reasoned that without each other, you’d be better able to move past the terrible past. When I realized how wrong I’d been, I didn’t know how to right it. I couldn’t bring you back from the dead and admit my lies. I was too much of a coward to face the two of you, together. As time went on, it was easier for me. You both needed me less as you grew into adulthood. Or, at least, that was the excuse I hid behind.
I kept you with me because I reasoned I would do a better job raising a son than a sensitive daughter like Dawn. I tried to see her as much as I could, but to tell you the truth, she reminded me so much of your mother that the visits got shorter and shorter and further apart as the years passed.
And you and I? Well, we know how that turned out. “The best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry.”I tried, but not nearly hard enough.
Your mother slipped further into the world of her madness after I put her away. She hardly seemed capable of the cruelty and abuse she’d put you through. She became fragile and vulnerable. Try to remember, when you see her, that she’s sick. She’s not evil, she’s simply a broken soul. Find whatever forgiveness you can for her, and for me.
Now you are free. No one can hurt you. Lay your troubles to rest as I have been laid to rest. Find a life and a love. Make mistakes, but make them the kind of mistakes that don’t cripple the ones you love. I left this life a lonely man, Dylan. Don’t let the same thing happen to you.
Your father,
Jackson Cruz.
I looked up at Dawn. She was weeping and her letter shook in her hands. I had no tears in me. My letter had changed nothing. I folded the paper, put it back in its sheath and slipped it back into the folder with the other documents. I couldn’t find the forgiveness my father asked for but I could at least take part of his advice.
I had found a love and I would have a life. I would
not
leave the world a lonely man. I looked over at Rene and simply said, “He wants me to lay my troubles to rest. It’s time.” I patted the folder. “Rest in peace old man. Your kids are going to be all right.”
Dawn looked at me and shook her head sadly. She squeezed her eyes tight as if to stem the last of her tears.
“Blake, let us know what the next steps are. You’re going to be hearing from my boat captain, Stephen Thornton. He’s my right hand guy and he’s handling the whole boat wreck and salvage situation for me.” Blake nodded and rose to escort us out.
Dawn didn’t look too steady on her feet. In fact she looked pale and panicked. “Right now, I think Dawn looks like she could use some rest. Finding me and finding out she’s an heiress is a lot for a kid to take in in a day.”
When we got back to the hotel, I got Dawn a room on the same floor as Rene and I. “You’re going to stay here tonight and maybe more. We’ve got a lot of talking to do.” Dawn nodded dully and got a glass of water. She took a vile out of her purse and popped a small blue pill.
“Xanax. I’ll be out for a bit. I need to relax. You may be Mr. Clean, but I’m not opposed to taking what is literally a ‘chill pill’.” She laughed. Obviously, my sister didn’t have the same aversion to all things pharmaceutical as I did. That and the fact that she had chosen to be a nurse was ample evidence that our childhood had influenced us in very different ways. I figured she knew what she was doing and left her to rest.
Rene was sitting by the window of our room waiting for me. Her welcoming smile and her open arms were all the encouragement I needed to sweep her up and carry her into the bedroom.
“Sex at a time like this?” she asked me.
“I can’t think of a better way to consummate these last incredible twenty-four hours than losing myself in your perfect body. We need make up sex, anyway, after last night.” I kissed her hard. “I don’t ever want that to happen again. Never. Do not
ever
assume when I get in a funk that I am leaving you or that I want you to leave me. Because it isn’t going to happen.”
Rene hung her head and hid her face against my chest. “I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice.
I undressed her and kissed every part of her flesh as I exposed it. “You,” I said into her bare skin, “are mine.” I leaned down and ran my mouth across her sweet belly. “I love you,” I said as I laid her gently on the bed.
My clothes landed next to hers on the floor. I drew her close. My hand placed hers over my heart. “Inside here, I’m completely yours, too.”
She traced her finger over my hook tattoo. “Hooked?”
“Mmm. Hmmm. Am I ever.
Taking her hand up to my head I added, “and in here too. There’s no part of me that doesn’t belong to you. Promise me you’ll never forget that again. No matter what. No matter how angry I seem or how crazy.”
She answered me with a kiss that sent glowing waves to every corner of my body and soul. Her lips were the softest things I’d ever known. How anything as small and light as a kiss could move me so, amazed and delighted me.
We wrapped around each other, trying to get as many square inches of skin as we could in contact. For a long time, we just stroked each other softly. When our bodies joined in earnest, it was with a reverent passion I’d never known before, not even with Rene.
Our bodies affirmed love and desire in the most sacred and profound consummation a man and woman can know. We completed each other.
No, I would not live a lonely life. Rene’s love had rescued me.
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Copyright © 2016 by Alissa Adams
No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced in any format, by any means, electronic or otherwise, without prior consent from the copyright owner and publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. This book is intended for adults only.
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Dear reader,
I also write highly explicit erotic versions of the Love Unexpected contemporary romance novels. My loyal readers have told me that my stories are compelling even without the extreme heat, hence my more traditional contemporary line was born because romance comes in all flavors.
If you would like to obtain a version of this story (with names changed to protect the innocent) that throws the bedroom door wide open please drop me a line at
[email protected]
and I will send you the original un-censored file of the first third of this story free of charge. Please understand that you will be receiving access to material suited for mature audiences only who enjoy a five-chili type of read.
You aren't allowed to say shame on me or wave your white lace hanky, either. If you ask for it, you are going to get it exactly as promised.
Love and kisses, Alissa
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART ONE
PART TWO