The Devil's Storm Page 12

  It made this entire evening bittersweet. No matter how she interpreted the necklace, or if things got flirty, or if he couldn’t control his rampant thoughts, they shared one common thread —losing the people that had once meant the most to them. And spending time with someone who’d gone through the same, heartbreaking experience made him feel more at ease. She was just as damaged as he was.

  “Mama! Have you seen my earrings?” Emily shouted as she came treading down the stairs in the dress. He tried his best not to notice how her breasts bounced with every step, but he was only a man. His tux pants were feeling more constricting, but his mind took care of the problem for him. Adrian would know all about her tits, wouldn’t he? Knows all about Maddie’s too if he’s down there in Savannah working on getting her pregnant…

  His stomach was turning again. So many sensations within seconds…

  Time to be charming. The necklace had come with matching earrings. How convenient.

  “You could always wear these,” he suggested as he stood from her sofa.

  Emily stopped right on the bottom stair and their eyes met from across the room. She looked breathtaking, and with red lipstick that matched her crimson dress, her lips looked even poutier than usual. Jesus, she had a gorgeous mouth. Don’t even think about it, he warned himself. Lee then realized he’d probably been staring far longer than he should have as awkward tension set in.

  “Lee Atwood, you didn’t,” Emily began, clearing her throat and stepping down from the steps. Her voice didn’t contain the spunky bit of sass it normally would. Maybe he was reading it all wrong again, but he hoped that his thoughts weren’t all one-sided.

  He noticed she held a pair of strappy red satin heels with a bow at the back. Damn those would look good on her. He thought about her in nothing but the shoes and necklace as he ruined her red lipstick. Dear God…just let me get through tonight, Lee pleaded.

  “It’s nothing much, really, I just…you know since you’re going to have to put up with me all night,” he bumbled.

  Emily raised a brow and gave a flirty grin. “All night, huh?” she

  teased in a whisper as she walked past him.

  He tightened his jaw and threw her a glare, but Emily just grinned in response as he handed her the box. She plopped down on the couch in front of him like a little kid. “Harry Winston. Impressive. Feels like my birthday,” she gushed as she opened it.

  Then her eyes grew wide and her mouth fell.

  “Well I want to see,” her mother said, brushing past Lee to Emily’s side. “Oh my God…”

  “Lee, you got this on loan, right?” Emily asked. “You didn’t—”

  “You know, those loans are a pain in the ass. There’s so much paperwork, it’s just easier to buy the damned things,” he over-explained. “Do you at least like it?”

  Emily laughed and stared at him in disbelief. “You’re kidding, right? Who wouldn’t like it?”

  “I don’t know,” he shrugged. “You may have planned to wear something else. It might not have been your taste—”

  Before he prepared himself, Emily had stood and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I love it. Thank you. You shouldn’t have done it, but I can’t wait to wear it.”

  “Oh, well, speaking of,” he began, offering to take the box, “there are three different ways you can wear it.” Emily handed him the box, and Lee took out the necklace, trying to hold it the same way the lady in the store had. “You can wear it as a regular-length necklace, or…” he began, shifting the strand of diamonds, “a long one, a sautoir, was the fancy term for that, I think. Or, you can wear it as a backdrop pendant. Your call. Oh… and, not that it’ll matter now, but for future reference, the pendant is a secret locket.”

  He flipped the pendant over to show her the locket, and Emily gave a gasp of excitement as she opened it right there in his hands. Lee felt her fingers brushing against his palm and caught the scent of her perfume. This time, it was an intoxicating blend of peach, jasmine, and lavender —not the same perfume that Adrian had always bought her. Praise the Lord.

  “Mama, what do you think?” she asked. “I was thinking the back-drop.”

  “Yeah, the backdrop,” Annie responded in a dazed tone.

  “Since you’re the only one here who seems to have a clue how to operate that necklace, would you mind putting it on me?” Emily asked. It took Lee a few seconds before he even realized she was talking to him. He was too concentrated on the feeling of her fingertips to function at full capacity.

  “Of course,” he finally answered. Emily turned expectantly, moving her short hair to the side to accommodate. He opened the clasp and moved the necklace into place. When another shiver passed as his fingers moved across her skin, Lee wondered if her

  thoughts were running as rampant as his.

  Moving her short hair to the side, he slid the necklace around her neck and clasped it, then made quick work of moving the strands of diamonds into place.

  An instinctive smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he caught sight of her in the mirror above the mantle. Emily was smiling, too, her hand palming the main pendant, but she was looking at him. Their eyes met in the mirror, and then they both looked back at themselves. They looked good together.

  Too bad they’d be incredibly dysfunctional. But, dysfunction would be par for the course for him.

  “You look amazing,” he murmured quietly. Instinct governed that he say it with a light touch to her shoulder or arm, but he felt her mother’s eyes boring into him from across the room.

  Emily turned toward him, and Lee hadn’t realized how close he had been standing to her until she brushed up against him, causing his heart to pick up the pace and for blood to rush to his head. Self-control, he chanted in self-encouragement. You quit drinking, stopped sleeping around, you go to the gym religiously (almost)...You can do this.

  He cleared his throat. “Well then, we should get out of here.” He remembered Annie was still there. She was glowering at him in the corner, but the second Emily turned towards her to tell her goodbye, her face lifted into a smile.

  “You are so gorgeous,” her mother praised. “Here, we should take a picture before you leave.”

  Lee stepped out of the way for Emily’s mother to get a few shots. She didn’t offer to take one of both of them… not that Lee cared. By the end of the night, he’d be damned tired of photographers and flashbulbs striking like lightning, but he was no fool.

  Adrian had complained more than once that Emily’s family had never liked him. Lee had always laughed it off. After all, who wouldn’t like his brother? (Little did he know only a few years later, Lee wouldn’t like his brother one bit.) But now, he saw that Annie Parker didn't like him either, and he'd known her for all of ten minutes.

  “I forgot my bag. I better run up and get it. I'll be quick, Lee.”

  He snapped out of his thoughts. “Hey, you're the one who wanted to get there early. I'm fine.”

  Annie kept her smile plastered on until her daughter disappeared

  from sight up the stairs. Lee looked to her expectantly, knowing all too well she had something on her mind.

  “Okay, Lee, let’s get a couple of things straight here. I didn’t like your brother, and I especially don’t like you. Emily may insist your… past is behind you, but I don’t trust you for a minute. If you think buying her some ridiculous, gaudy necklace will win you any points—”

  “Listen, Annie—can I call you Annie?” Lee interrupted. “Trust me, if any of my children had lived, and if one of them was dating a guy like me, I’d worry, too. But, for one, I’m not dating your daughter, and I’m also not planning on it. You see, I’m gone on business every other week, and I’m pretty emotionally unavailable. After holding the record for being the world’s worst husband, I’m not looking forward to being the world’s worst boyfriend, especially to someone I care about. So you can get your panties out of a twist and chill out.”

  “She can’t take another Adrian situation.�
�

  Lee shrugged. “Lady, I don’t even think she actually likes me.”

  Annie Parker crossed her arms across her chest. “That makes it even worse. Apparently, you’re an idiot, too.”

  Lee scoffed. “You obviously don’t know your daughter. She can’t stand me. The most we can agree on is baseball and pizza.”

  Annie raised a brow, but then Emily came bounding down the stairs and into the foyer next to him.

  “Ready to go, Lee?”

  “Whenever you are, dear,” he answered as he placed his hand in the small of her back. Emily threw him an amused look while he thought Annie was going to blow a gasket. “It was a pleasure meeting you,” he lied. “Hopefully we'll see each other later.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “I've got to get back home. It’s a long drive back to Statesboro. Emily, before you go, we need to talk.”

  Emily rolled her eyes, but Lee was smart enough to excuse himself to start the car. With the air conditioning on full blast, he tried to sort out his thoughts. If he had discovered anything, it was that there had been something between him and Emily, even if he didn’t want to admit it. But as far as his heart was concerned, he was completely bankrupt. He had nothing to give her. Even if there was something between them, the best he could do was give her a hollow shell of a man. Emily’s mother had been correct; she deserved more

  than that; especially after losing Adrian.

  But it wouldn’t matter, anyway. He was going to keep control. Complete and utter control. Lee muttered it like a mantra until Emily flung open the passenger door and climbed inside.

  Without a word, she buckled her seat belt and stared forward, unusually grim-faced.

  Lee gave her a quizzical stare. “...everything ok?”

  “What did she say to you?”

  He shrugged and pretended to think. “Nothing much really. Standard get-to-know-you conversation.”

  “Liar. I heard the whole thing.”

  “If you knew then why did you ask?” Lee asked in an annoyed tone.

  “To see if you would tell the truth,” Emily said. It was silent for a moment, save for the sound of the air conditioning running full blast. “I'm sorry,” Emily finally said.

  “Sorry for what? For your mother being worried you're dating me? I don’t blame her. I don't have the greatest reputation.”

  Emily gave a pitying frown. He couldn’t stand it. The last thing he wanted was her pity. “She doesn't know you.”

  “You barely do.”

  “I know enough. Enough to know that you’re not the same as you were before. You really need to forgive yourself and move on.”

  Lee raised a brow. “And don’t you need to move on? Your voicemail recording still says Emily Atwood for God’s sake. You never even were Emily Atwood.”

  “You’re not wrong,” she admitted with a shake of her head. “I need to move on. Adrian didn’t love me. At least not like he loved Maddie. Even though it was the right thing to do, letting him go wasn’t easy."

  “Same,” he admitted in a sigh, staring straight ahead into the

  black asphalt street. “Letting go was easier than I thought, but getting over it? Not an hour goes by I still don’t think about her.”

  “That’s no way to live. For either of us. We’ve got to move on.”

  He meant what he’d told Annie — he didn’t have anything in common with Emily past agreeing that pineapple belongs on pizza and that they were both hardcore Braves fans. She was right…they both needed to move on. Maybe they could do it together.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Madeleine had quit trying to force words on paper. They were all dammed up somewhere in the recesses of her mind, unwilling to flow from brain to arm to hand to paper. She had a few chapters of the Victorian-era piece, but the characters seemed trope-y and flat, and the plot wasn’t much better. Some novels were just better left on a drive for a while. Maybe forever.

  So instead of writing, Madeleine was reading. Luckily, she had a new friend who was the proud owner of a bookstore and didn’t care if she sat there all day just lounging and reading. Madeleine insisted on buying each engrossing book, despite Freya’s opposition.

  “People sit and read in the shop all the time and never buy a copy,” Freya whined as Madeleine brought her third book of the day up to the checkout.

  “It’s the least I can do. Besides, I’ve got to pay for them. They’re serving as research.”

  “How do you research when you don’t have a plot in mind?” Freya asked. Her tone tinged with dryness, but Madeleine was figuring out her quirks. She was asking out of genuine curiosity.

  “Sometimes the research makes the plot. At least, I’m hoping it will this time around,” Madeleine sighed in response.

  “It’s not like you actually have to put out another book now. Why don’t you take a break?”

  “I've rolled out at least one new release a year since I was 23. That would just be so…so foreign to me. Not write? What else would I do?”

  “Um, well, you're kinda rich. You could travel, start a business, pick up a new hobby. You've got complete freedom right now and you're not taking advantage.”

  “I guess Adrian and I just aren't like that. I mean, he's waited out this non-compete clause for over a year and it's driving him crazy. He sits and tinkers with God-knows-what down in the basement and he’s designing something he won't tell me about”

  Freya gave a knowing smile. “I know what he’s working on,” she teased.

  “What? How do you know?” Madeleine laughed.

  “Because he showed me the other night at dinner when you were finishing up in the kitchen.”

  “So what is it? What’s he spending all this time working on?”

  “My lips are sealed. But… I’m pretty sure you’ll love it.”

  “Hmmm,” Madeleine began, possibilities racing through her mind. “Adrian's used to making things that fly. Think he’s planning on taking me to the moon?”

  “If you wanted to go to the moon, I'm sure he'd be working on a way to make it happen. He is so in love with you.”

  Madeleine felt herself blushing. Even after a year and a half of knowing full well that he loved her, it still made her heart sing an unspeakable joy to hear it. She scarcely believed the journey they’d been on. First, the burst of realization that this man, so wonderful and (nearly) perfect in every way could even fathom loving her in the first place, to the hell of knowing they would never be together, and now? Now they got to spend every day with each other. “You really think so?” she asked, cheeks growing hot.

  “Um, yeah. He just hangs on every word you say. And he constantly looks like he's gonna pounce on you.”

  “Well, that’s an astute observation because he did as soon as y'all left.”

  Freya laughed. “I figured as much.”

  The tinkling chime called out across the store as the door opened and a tiny old woman dressed like a 1970s Stevie Nicks whisked through the door, her lace shawl floating in the breeze behind her.

  “Hey there Beulah,” Freya called as the woman came floating through the store towards a new display of titles that Freya had spent most of the day arranging.

  “Afternoon. I figured I better find me a few good books to read before the power goes out,” Beulah answered in a raspy, smoker’s voice. Madeleine thanked God Adrian had given it up, although she suspected he snuck a cigarette occasionally.

  “Ah, it’s not gonna get that bad,” Freya denied. “You know those hurricanes always fizzle out before they get close.”

  Beulah shook her head as she picked up a copy of Madeleine’s newest book, which Freya had proudly displayed out in the very middle of the display. She said it was less depressing than the others. The ending had even ended on a hopeful note. Freya wondered if falling in love with Adrian had influenced the ending, which Madeleine didn’t know. But, it might explain why she was having a hard time writing. Maybe life wasn't depressing enough anymore to write what her rea
ders expected.

  “Listen, I’ve been living here since I was born. I can tell when a big one’s on its way. And this one, ladies, will be worse than David. Mark my words,” Beulah warned. Madeleine looked over to Freya, concerned. They had been tracking Hurricane Beatrice all week, but it was still just a category-one storm and had yet to make landfall in the Caribbean. Freya returned Madeleine’s fallen expression with a roll of her eyes, but Madeleine knew that she would hardly argue with a customer, much less one that would buy a few books.

  Beulah flipped opened the dust cover to read over the blurb. Madeleine narrowed her eyes and studied her as she read over the inside flap, wondering what she was thinking. Beulah was quick to make her opinion known. “Is this another sad one? I like this author, but I don’t know if I’ll be in the mood for sad historical drama during a hurricane.”

  Madeleine pursed her lips together in a tight smile to keep herself from laughing. Freya gave a knowing smile before answering, but Madeleine cut her off. “I hear it’s slightly less depressing than the others.”

  Beulah nodded as she considered it. “You know, I just may take it then. Freya, can you start me up a stack?”

  “Yes ma’am, I can.”

  Madeleine took the copy of the book from Beulah, who looked at her peculiarly in the eye when she gave her the copy. Maybe Beulah recognized her, or maybe she had something on her face. Madeleine wasn’t sure.

  The second Madeleine placed the book on the counter, Freya had already whipped up a lavender hold card with Beulah’s name in calligraphy.

  “Where’d you learn calligraphy?” Madeleine asked.

  Freya gave a short, amused laugh. “So, funny story, my dad’s a tattoo artist.”

  “No way,” Madeleine said, although looking at Freya, or considering her name, she might have guessed. In fact, if Madeleine hadn’t been an old family name that her father had insisted on, she was pretty sure her parents might have named her after a goddess or another 70s rock idol. Or an alcohol, given both parents’ proclivities. And in the same thought of alcohol, she couldn’t help but worry about Lee.