46. Kiara
forty-six
Kiara
W e’re having coffee at his kitchen counter the next morning, and his question still haunts me. But if he’s still thinking about it, he doesn’t show it.
I can’t quite articulate why the idea of moving in with Colton terrorizes me. I’m torn between wanting this so bad it hurts, and feeling like the day we share a set of keys will set in motion the beginning of the end. Nothing can possibly be better than the state we’re in right now. If we mesh our lives deeper together, the untangling might hurt too much to bear.
I’m lost in these thoughts when my phone rings. Mom . Any other day, I would let it go to voicemail. But not this time.
Her voice has lost the bite that’s always been there since I exposed Dad. “Now that he’s gone, I feel I can tell you,” she says, after I ask her how she’s doing. I know she never got over him, her resentment over what I did proof of that.
“Tell me what?” Isn’t it bad enough that we were his second family?
Colton stops fussing over eggs to sit next to me.
“As long as you keep it to yourself,” she adds.
Really? This family has an obsession with secrets. I’m not promising to keep anything to myself. For one, I’m sharing everything with Colton. That thought fills me with more confidence than I’ve had in a long time. I don’t even feel rattled that there’s more that’s been kept from me. There’s a sort of distance between me and my blood family that doesn’t pain me anymore.
“The reason your dad disappeared from our lives,” Mom says when I stay silent.
“Okay?”
“He… he was married to… he had married into…” She’s so quiet I wonder if the call dropped.
“Hello?”
“Into a family that dealt in organized crime.”
I look at Colton. “Dad was in the Mafia ?!”
“Shhh. Kiara!” Mom says.
“Was he?”
“His wife ,” she says with spite, “she was what you would call…” she whispers, “a Mafia princess .” She breathes audibly. “Her father had financed your daddy’s car dealership, and he was tied to them in ways he couldn’t tell. Ours was supposed to be just an affair—I for sure didn’t know he was married. When I was pregnant, he came clean to me. He loved me, I know he loved me. He cried. But he stayed with me as best he could, helped raise you two. He managed to keep this hidden from them. But there was no way he could ever leave her. That would have been our death sentence, you understand? Literal death.”
My father’s two-timing suddenly takes another dimension. “Did he… was I the reason he disappeared? After…” After I exposed him.
It’s almost like I can feel the weight of the silence between us.
“Daddy was scared it might… it might get out. We were pretty private, obviously. Careful never to be seen in public. You never know. But he said you were hysterical, in Burlington. Yelling all sorts of things. Last thing he needed was the police involved, or anybody who might recognize him. He felt it was safer to just disappear.”
Was it safer, or was it the easy way out? Somehow this version of my father, this supposed explanation, doesn’t make it better for me. “How did he die?”
“Honey, I… we… there’s no way we can know or should dig into that.” Her voice is stranded—no— scared . She’s totally telling the truth, and a small shiver runs down my spine.
I’m not sure what to say, or even think—or feel, for that matter. It’s a lot to process when I’m still coming to terms with his death. Colton covers my free hand with his and strokes it. “Okay,” I say softly.
“Okay,” she whispers. “I’ll let you go.”
Colton gives my hand a soft squeeze.
“Mom? Thanks for calling.”
We hang up without saying goodbye, much less I love you . It’s too early for that, and frankly, it might never come. And that’s okay.
“You alright, sweets?” Colton asks. His facial expression tells me he heard the whole conversion.
I shake my head in disbelief. “I guess?” My voice is strained, my throat constricted.
He stands, starts on the eggs again, and pours me a hot coffee. “This calls for breakfast.”
“Does it?”
“Absolutely. Need to take care of you.”
Emotion overcomes me, and I round the kitchen island to wrap my arms around him. “Thank you,” I whisper.
He turns the range off to return my hug. “For what, sweets?” he whispers.
“For being you.”
“Mm,” he grunts.
Our mouths find each other, he reaches under my tee, and somehow, I find my legs wrapped around his hips.
“I love you,” I say from the depth of my soul. It’s never been so clear.
He tightens his embrace and answers, “I love you too.”
I smile against his mouth. “No but I think I love you more.”
“That’s impossible,” he growls, nibbling on my lower lip.
I wiggle against his midsection, trying to satisfy the fire in my center. “Not for me it’s not.”
He takes us to the couch, sets me flat on my back, gets us naked, then flips us so I’m on top of him. “Show me how you love me, sweets.” He tightens his grasp on my hips and his breathing becomes labored. There’s a mix of possessiveness and expectation in his gaze that’s easy to get addicted to. I suspect he’s doing this to get my mind off the shit I just heard, and he’s spot on. I’d do anything he asks, just so he looks at me this way. He’s all that counts right now, and the more that happens, the more my perspective on life in general shifts.
I dip my face to his neck, kiss his stubble, lick my way down his chest, kiss his happy trail, then take his cock in my mouth, settling between his legs. He groans, his hands on my head featherweight. “Like that?” I ask him. Colt has made me feel so comfortable about what I don’t know that I have zero inhibitions and no self-consciousness about asking how I’m doing.
He growls and hisses. I guess I’m doing well. If I’m being honest, the ridges of his cock against my tongue, the saltiness of his tip, the strength and softness of it all, is making me so wet and needy I start moaning with my mouth full.
He hisses again, fisting my hair. “Hell, baby, ride me. Ride me .” He pulls me up and I take him inside me, lifting up and down, his hooded eyelids as much a turn-on as the length that fills me. He strokes my breasts. “You’re just so perfect, you know that?” he whispers. I set a rhythm for us, getting worked up, but then he holds me still. “Reverse cowgirl now. Show me that ass.”
I turn around and take him back in, the position doing all sorts of new things to me. As I look over my shoulder to watch him watching me, it’s the absolute best. He’s coming into his orgasm, and I get to watch it for a second or two, until I give into my own pleasure and come, gripping the side of the couch.
“You’re so fucking beautiful, babe,” he says once I’m settled on his chest, spent. “I’m gonna put mirrors everywhere in our bedroom so you can watch yourself come on my cock. I promise you it’s the best.”
I stay silent for a bit, waiting for him to ask me again about moving in together, but he doesn’t.
“I know you got a lot on your mind right now, sweets,” he says, stroking my hair. “I shouldn’t have asked about moving in together last night. It wasn’t the right time, and it doesn’t really matter.”
Another stretch of silence and he adds, “I’ll love you wherever you are.” I know he’s not only talking about the apartment situation here in Emerald Creek. He’s thinking about me going to Paris, even if, as days go by, I’m more and more hopeful I can make it work here in Emerald Creek.
The reality is that in the days that follow, I come to understand why I never felt like I belonged anywhere. Dad’s betrayal cut deep, and I’m still trying to come to terms with it. I’m trying to not feel as if my whole life was built on a lie.
I see now why Colton was upset when I told him Emerald Creek was holding me back.
It wasn’t.
I was the one holding myself back, for reasons that are fast dissolving. After growing up all but idolizing him, believing the only reason he was “traveling” so much was to “make a better life for us” (Mom’s favorite lie), I thought he’d coldly turned his back on us.
The truth, as always, is way more complex. He had to leave to protect us. Even some of the horrible things my mother said to me at the time are beginning to make sense. When it comes down to it, my exposing my father was what ruined the fragile family life we had. I don’t regret what I did, but I can see where she was coming from. One day maybe, I’ll think through the sacrifice she had to make and begin to forgive her.
But now, I’m focusing on building the life I want for me. The life that’s so totally within my reach I can taste it. Starting with my business, in the cute little barn. Surely, I’ll get the variance. Surely, my business will thrive once I’m there.
Surely, once that’s secured, I’ll feel more comfortable moving in with Colton. There’s something about my own permanence that I need to figure out for myself first.