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Chapter Sixty Three
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2024-10-29 19:42:56She leaned her forehead against his. His onslaught was relentless and he didn’t play fair.
“I’m afraid,” she whispered.
“So am I.”
Surprised by his admission, she retreated a few inches and flicked her gaze up and down, searching for the truth in his eyes.
“Don’t look at me like that. You aren’t the only one hurting. I… Damn it, I promised we wouldn’t bring the past up. I’m not going to. But you aren’t the only one who got hurt in all this. I cared about you. I wanted to marry you. I…”
He paused and dragged a hand through his hair. He suddenly looked haggard and tired, worn down by the dark emotion that flowed between the two of them.
“I still want to marry you,” he quietly admitted.
The admission was stark, so plainly and painfully laid out. Almost as if he wasn’t happy with the truth of the words but said them all the same. He stared at her, his discom
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He settled beside her and they began to eat.Savannah stared out over the water as she munched on one of the tasty little confections whose name escaped her. It had cheese and shrimp. She wasn’t sure of the other ingredients, but it was good and she was starving.The sky had started to soften. Wispy pastel tendrils flirted across the horizon as the sun sank lower. She closed her eyes and allowed the breeze to soothe her fried nerves.She’d expended more emotional energy over the past months than she had in a lifetime. She was tired and wanted to exist free of distress. Just for a little while. She wanted to forget the nights she’d been unable to sleep for crying or the nights she’d lain awake hurting so much that she’d wondered if it would ever stop.Here she just wanted to be. Here she could at least pretend that the past year hadn’t happened. This could very well have been her
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Tess stretched lazily beside the pool. Rhythmic splashing told her without having to look that Dash's sister was still swimming laps. Elena was a sweet girl. Two years Tess’s junior, she was a lot like Dash in some ways, but more easy going.She didn’t defer to her brother as if he were a deity and she had no desire to marry a man solely to secure her future. Tess admired and liked her lot as they had a lot in common.Smart and independent, Elena had made life in the Black household bearable for Tess. Not that Dash's mother was unbearable. Quite the opposite. She was kindness itself, but she took the marriage of her son and his girlfriend as a foregone conclusion. Just yesterday she had completely unnerved Tess by insisting she be measured for a wedding gown.When Tess had mentioned this to Dash, he had merely smiled and complimented his mother on her forward thinking. Evidently, neither he nor his mother had any doubt a
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“Wow, Tess, if I had known that the swimsuit was so revealing I would have bought another one.” Dash said.They both turned.“Hey, I think Tess looks smashing in the bikini, but you’re right. It shows a lot more of her than the one-piece she brought with her.” Elena said.Tess looked up at Dash and smiled. “You’re both being silly. It’s very conservative for a bikini.” she said.And it was. The tank style top showed the barest hint of her cleavage and the hip-hugging short bottoms didn’t reveal anything like the thongs she’d seen on the local beaches, or even the high-cut brief bottoms. On her figure, it was perfectly decent.“Not conservative enough,” Dash muttered in a driven undertone.“If it bothers you so much—” Tess began to say.“Don’t offer to change it. You must start as you mean to go on,” Elena exclaimed. “If you let him dictate yo
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Tess chewed on her lower lip, tasting blood and her own jealousy. A most unenviable emotion.“I guess Stefan invited her.” Tess said.“You’re right of course, but you’d think she would have enough tact not to come.” Elena said. She turned to face her, dark brown eyes snapping with indignation.“Everyone knows you’re Dash’s new girlfriend.” she said.“Do they? Maybe she’s out of the loop.” Tess replied. She was watching Olivia's progress toward their host and Dash with a sinking feeling in her heart.Stefan greeted Olivia with a kiss on each cheek. Dash started to do the same, but the model turned her head and caught his lips.The kiss didn’t last long and Dash pulled back with a laugh and said something Tess could not hear from her position on the other side of the pool. The greeting was a throwaway gesture, nothing all that intimate for a guy, but after being trea
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“Yes. I have a friend with a passion for the game. I will locate a deck of cards to amuse you if you like.” Dean said.She took another sip of champagne. “I’d like that. If you play gin rummy with me, I’ll play poker with you,” she promised.“So, we will both indulge our vices.” he replied.That sounded good to her. She wasn’t indulging any vices with Dash.Dean was back within a minute, a deck of cards in his hand. While he amused her with stories of Dash’s friends, they played a game of gin rummy.They had only played a couple of hands when it became apparent she would win. On her second glass of champagne, she was feeling warm and benevolent when she went out for the last time.So, although she would much rather have played another game of rummy, when Dean's frown told her he did
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“He touched you?” Dash asked.The deadly softness of his voice warned her that she had phrased that very badly. She spun in her chair to face him and regretted the action at once. First and foremost because it made her dizzy, but secondly because his expression was frightening. He looked like he wanted to kill someone and she thought that person might be Dean. She didn’t want to cause any problems between the two men, especially when the younger one had been so nice to her.She glared at Dash. “Not like that. I’m not like your other girlfriend, Olivia. I don’t go about kissing men in public places.” She said.Dash ignored the reference to Olivia. “How did he touch you, Tess? Tell me.” His voice was deadly soft.“He kissed my hand and he called me beautiful. If you want the truth, it made me feel nice.” She replied.A lot nicer than having Dash dump the suntan lotion in his sister’s
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Shadows played across Tess's closed eyelids as the sounds of the party faded completely from her hearing. Then there was the sound of a door closing behind them. But still he didn’t lift his mouth from hers and she didn’t open her eyes.Awash with sensation, her sensory receptors were inundated with pleasure.The solid feel of a bed beneath her told her he had brought her into a guest room. The feel of his more than solid body on top of hers told her he intended to stay. Her legs instinctively parted, making room for him against her most sensitive flesh. Wearing only their swimsuits, masculine hair covered limbs slid against feminine softness. The sensitive flesh of her inner thighs thrilled to the press of hard, sculpted muscles.The hands she’d so desperately wanted to touch her were all over her skin, leaving a trail of hot desire in their wake.She moaned and arched up toward him, pressing he
SILENT DESIRES Chapter Seventy One
She sat up, curling her knees into her chest and effecting as much modesty as possible without her clothes on. His hardness had not abated, but his breathing was growing calmer. She looked away, embarrassed by the intimacy of seeing him like this. She wanted to know the miracle of being connected to him in the most personal way any woman could know a man, but she didn’t doubt he would stand by his ultimatum.Marriage, or nothing.“Dash,” she said tentatively.“Yes?” he replied.“Um…” How did a woman ask this kind of question? “Do you believe in fidelity?” she asked.He sat up and glared at her, supremely unconcerned by his nudity. “Once we are married, there will be no other man.” he said.Was he really that dense? “I meant you. If I marry you, will I have to worry about you taking a mistress?”“No.” he replied. There was a rock-solid certainty in
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His hold was almost bruising now. “I know you have stopped loving me. I deserve it, but I love you, baby. You are the air that I breathe. The only music my heart wants to hear. The other half of my soul. I will make you love me again. I can do it. You still want me,” he said as one hand cupped her breast with its already tight peak.She turned her head and cupped his face between her palms so she could see into his eyes. “You love me?” she asked.“For a long time. Since before that party I think, but to admit it would have been to admit the end of my independence. Fool that I was, I thought that mattered. Without you all the freedom in the world would be a tiny cell in a prison of loneliness.”Her jaw dropped open. She couldn’t help it. Not only had he said he loved her, but he’d gotten positively poetic about it. “Those are pretty mushy sentiments.” She said.He shrugged, his nature showing stronger in that m
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Neal Patchett didn’t even sound sorry.“Because he doesn’t love me,” she fairly shouted into the phone.“No reason to yell, missy. I may be getting old, but I hear just fine. The man wants you and for him, that’s probably as close to love as any woman will ever get.”She curled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them. Could her father be right?“You should not have done it.” She said.“Tess, you wouldn’t take anything else from me.”“I didn’t want anything, just your love.” That was all she’d ever wanted from the two most important men in her life and the one thing she was destined not to get. “I’ve got to go.”“No, wait, child.”“What?” she asked with a lackluster voice.“I do love you.” he said.Four words she’d longed to hear since she was a child. They touched her now, healed some thin
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The rejection she felt was shattering.“I thought you cared about me. I knew it wasn’t love, but this thing between you and my father—it’s so demeaning. The knowledge that our marriage was the result of an arrangement between you and my father so you could get your company back…” Words failed her for several seconds as she struggled to keep the tears at bay.Finally, she swallowed. “I never would have suspected anything like that, but it explains so much.”He stepped toward her, his hand extended, “Tess, please, we can make this marriage of ours work.”She reared back, almost falling off the sofa. “Don’t come near me. I don’t want you touching me.” When she remembered how he had blackmailed her into marriage, using his body as the bait, she shuddered.His expression was that of a jaguar thwarted of its prey.“I want some time to think. Alone.” She said.He shook his head in sharp n
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She glared at him, anger and resentment boiling in a cauldron inside her that was ready to explode all over him. She jumped up and faced him, fury making her body rigid. “I don’t have to convince you of anything.” He was the one who’d been caught taking a shower while his former girlfriend lounged around answering his phone. “If you won’t tell me, I’ll call my father and ask him.”She turned to do just that, but his words stopped her.“Do not go. I will tell you.” Dash's complexion had gone gray. “You thought your father tried to get us together, but you did not realize the methods he used?”The methods had been pretty obvious, or at least she had thought so at the time. “He sent you to check on me in Athens.”“He sent me, yes, but not to check on you. I was under duress to convince you of marriage.” Dash said.That explained so much. Dash looked sick and she could imagine why. A proud m
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She leaned forward and kissed him, still holding his face in her hands. She stroked her hands through his hair and then over his cheeks again, smiling a tender smile all the while.“We make quite a pair, don’t we? We’ve made mistakes. But I like to think that we haven’t given up. And that maybe we’re stronger for it all. It makes me hurt that you’ve given up so much for me. Your family. The place you grew up in. And you gave it up, bought a beautiful house you knew I’d love all because you loved me. If I don’t forgive you then I’m denying myself that love and I don’t want to live without you, Matt. Or your love. Not anymore. The last months have been the worst of my life. I don’t ever want to relive that kind of agony again.”He pulled her into his arms, leaning forward so they didn’t tumble into the sand. He held her so tightly she couldn’t breathe, but she didn’t care. They were together. Finally. Without all the hurt and pain of the past. Without
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The flight and subsequent transportation to the villa on the beach was seamless. Matt had changed his mind about going back to the paradise villa as he didn't want his mom or Enzo showing up again and upsetting Savannah so they had gone to moon island instead,the place where David and Emily had gotten married.Matt had ensured that Savannah was given every consideration. She was endlessly pampered and waited on and when they arrived on the island, they were greeted not only by the physician who would be monitoring her care, but a personal nurse who would reside at the villa with her and Matt.When Savannah got her first look at the sprawling villa, it took her breath away. They drove through a gate and down a winding driveway that was lined with lush, gorgeous flowers. Just for a moment the driveway paralleled the beach before it ended in front of the main house.The house couldn’t be more than a few steps fr
SILENT DESIRES Chapter One Hundred and Three
The tacit agreement to her fears made Tess's knees give way and she sank onto the side of the bed. “Are you saying you spent the night with my husband?” she asked. Her voice trembled, but she couldn’t help it. She wanted to die.“Are you sure you want me to answer that question?” Olivia asked.“No,” Tess whispered, her vocal cords too constricted for normal conversation, “but I need you to.”Olivia hesitated. When she spoke, her voice had changed, become more tentative. “Perhaps you had better discuss this with Dash.”Tess didn’t answer. She just held the phone to her ear and stared at the far wall of the room she shared with Dash. Was this what death felt like? Your whole body going numb and your emotions imploding until there was nothing left?Another voice intruded on her blanked out mental state. “Tess? Is that you, honey?”And she realized she wasn’t numb. “Don’t call me
SILENT DESIRES Chapter One Hundred and Two
Dash called again at dinner that evening from Rome. She picked the call, feeling subdued and just plain not up to arguing with his mother or sister about taking the call. Then she stood up and left the table.“Hello, Dash. Was there something you wanted?” she asked in a voice that sounded dead to her own ears.“Yes, Tess, I want many things, but I called to apologize for my behavior when you told me about the baby.” He sounded tired. “I want our baby, honey. I am sorry I was less than enthusiastic when you told me.”She dismissed the apology as too little, too late. Perhaps if he hadn’t been treating her so hurtfully for days beforehand, it would have been enough. “Don’t call me honey. You don’t love me and I don't see any reason why you should. I don’t ever want you to use that word with me again.”“Tess, I…” He hesitated.Strange to hear her super-confident husband hesitant.
SILENT DESIRES Chapter One Hundred and One
Stepping out into the sunshine from the air-conditioned building, Tess asked herself where she could go. Looking up and down the busy street, she knew she wanted only to get away from the crush of people. An image of the grounds surrounding the Black villa rose in her mind like Valhalla to her ravaged state. She would take a taxi to the grounds and then when she was ready, she could walk home.Having a plan of action helped calm her churning emotions enough to wipe her tears away and wave down a cab.She had the driver drop her on the outskirts of the Black estate. Luckily, she remembered the code for the small gate in the far wall. She and Elena had used it once before on an afternoon walk.Once inside the estate’s walls, she walked only far enough to hide herself in the trees, then sank to the ground. Her back resting against the trunk of one of them, she let the tears fall freely. It hurt so much.
