Chapter Six
Ashon
By silent mutual agreement, probably prompted by that poor excuse for an apology on my part, we settled into an uneasy truce. One day blends into two. Tensions don’t ease but they don’t exactly strangle.
The sea’s gone molten gold under the late afternoon sun, turning everything it touches into cinematic perfection.
And a memory.
I stand at the edge of the terrace, a drink untouched in my hand, watching her, and oh yes, mocking that ever-increasing inability to take my eyes off her.
But I am a red-blooded male, after all, and in that white bikini, her wet hair slicked back, droplets racing over her skin and drifting across my pool like without a care seeming care in the world? It’s…mesmerising.
My gaze lingers on her flat belly as my other hand slips into my pocket.
My fingers find the ultrasound photo. Crumpled at the corners now.
In just three days, I’ve memorised every grainy inch of it.
That tiny curve. The ghost of a spine. A pulse that sounded like salvation and the heaviest gauntlet to do better wrapped into one.
I should be working. I should be planning.
But instead, I’m remembering.
Cap Ferrat was the last place I came with my father before everything changed. Before the last crutch I wasn’t even aware I needed was ripped away.
I didn’t understand then but I’m starting to.
The sliding door opens behind me. Bare feet pad across the stone tiles.
Cilla.
She moves like the tide—inevitable, elemental.
I strive to rip myself from the harrowing memories.
The impotency of knowing I could do nothing to save the man who gave up everything from me, a man ripped from my life far too soon.
The good die young had never felt so real as it did then, knowing the best thing to happen to a floundering man who needed guidance was watching the epitome of that goodness lose his battle with life.
Bitterness and the injustice of it all rises in my throat but I strive to push it away.
To put the game face on that terrifies producers and studio executives alike.
‘Do you have a preference on what you want to do tomorrow?’
Her laugh is soft, a deflection before it forms. ‘You know, Renée left me a whole list of activities. Wine tastings, even though that’s off the table for at least nine months. Helicopter rides. Something about a private art exhibit.’
I turn. She’s radiant from the swim, a flush high in her cheeks, lashes wet and sticking together. But her voice has that edge again. Jealousy or pride—I can’t tell which. Probably both.
I set my drink down, draw my hand from the picture in my pocket and grab a towel from the chair. I walk to her, shaking it out with a snap. ‘Careful there, I see the claws coming out again,’ I say, draping the towel around her shoulders. ‘Put them away, wife. There’s no need for jealousy.’
‘I’m not jealous,’ she says tartly, tucking the towel tighter. ‘I’m just—’
‘Let’s not do this tonight, hmm?’ I cut in, softer than I mean to be. ‘It’s a beautiful sunset. Let’s not spoil it with biting or games.’
She looks up at me. Eyes dark and wary. ‘Are you calling me a shrew?’
‘I would never be so uncouth.’
She keeps staring, then a sigh escapes. ‘I just thought you brought me here to perform again.’
‘I brought you here,’ I say, carefully, ‘because it mattered.’
‘To your father? Renée mentioned something…’
She knows.
I pause. Then nod. ‘Yes, but to me too.’
That stills her.
She opens her mouth, then closes it. Her hand lifts for a second as if to touch my chest, but she stops short.
And maybe it’s that slight hesitation that cracks my doors open.
That reminds me far too brutally of sublime hours we spent two months ago before the bitter echoes of history repeating itself reared its ugly head.
Because whichever way you cut it, she had proved that she did want something.
And while I slot that lesser sin under the heading of label of family and legacy, two things I understand, it didn’t negate the fact that I was lonely—no!
Alone. Yes. A formidable island that was the envy of a great many? Indeed.
But lonely? Fuck no.
Then why do you crave her touch? And not even entirely sexually? Why do you wish for her to lay that comforting hand on you the way she did that night.
Enough!
I plunge into the story just to get away from the mocking voice echoing relentlessly at the back of my head.
‘We were scouting a location. He wasn’t well, though he tried to hide it.
And then one night, he just collapsed. The diagnosis followed.
It was…dire. I wanted us to leave, go back to the States for proper treatment, but he wouldn’t.
He insisted I stay here, finish my work.
So what that his own father was back home, calling him a disappointment because he supported his own son.
’ My short laugh is caustic, searing. ‘We drank wine, watched old movies. He asked me once what I’d do if I had a son.
I gave him some arrogant answer. He just smiled and said, “You’ll see.
Family, whatever form it comes in, is a blessing.
Don’t forget that”.’ I glance at her, half-cursing my runaway tongue but also daring her to judge me for this rare crumbling.
This diatribe that’s tantamount to a third-act breakdown—the kind where the hero, bruised and unravelling, finally confesses everything in the rain and risks it all for the one thing he swore he didn’t need.
‘But now I guess I do. Because no matter what comes, Cilla, know this. I will claim my child with my last breath.’
She looks at me then, eyes luminous in the gathering dusk. Her breath catches, holds. And, dammit, I feel mine follow, my insides braced to resume our skirmish.
‘I believe you,’ she says instead, her voice soft but steady.
And I’m nonplussed enough that I can’t think of what to say to that.
So I’m silent when she adds, ‘And I think he’d be proud of you and what you’ve achieved.’
Not a platitude or a performance or even a blunted barb. And yet it lands harder than any blow, because for the first time in a long time, I almost believe it.
Silence folds between us again, heavy and full.
Maybe she sways towards me or I do. Whatever it is, it feels instinctual and inevitable as a moon’s tide—this draw between us, always pulsing just under the surface.
But we both pull back before contact.
Her breath stutters.
My jaw clenches.
‘I… I need to go and change before dinner,’ she stammers and turns.
She doesn’t see the hand I lift to catch her wrist. To make her stay and just be with me—a man who could’ve sworn only a month ago that he knew himself thoroughly inside and out but now finds his new label of husband a wholly unfamiliar fit, and a wife who never asked for the label at all.
I might have mastered the art of make-believe but my forays into reality have only unearthed gold diggers, sycophants and women who loved the myth of me more than the man beneath it.
Even my wife, who at this very moment, waits for me to sign on dotted lines that might hasten the end of this…association.
Is that why you’re stalling?
I release the growl building in my throat but it does nothing to curb my churning emotions.
And I tell myself that being on my guard and, yes, stalling a while is a good thing as I turn and walk in the opposite direction.
But the air we leave behind feels scorched. And I know—without a doubt—we’re toeing some invisible line we won’t come back from once crossed.
The yacht glides through the cobalt sea, a masterpiece of polished teak and indulgence.
Beneath us, the Mediterranean gleams, infinite and deceptive—so beautiful you forget it can drown you with a flippant undercurrent.
The breeze is warm against my skin, scented with salt and luxury, and yet I feel like I’m standing on a precipice.
Cilla is at the edge of the deck, her silhouette a study in restraint and rebellion.
That white kaftan floats around her like mist and when the sun catches her braids, it looks like the gods themselves threaded gold through them.
She hasn’t seen me yet. Or maybe she has and she’s ignoring me—a specialty she probably has no idea works far better than she knows.
And it has been disarming to examine my recent past, then be forced even further back, to discover I don’t recall a time I was so actively ignored by a woman.
Power and influence has a way of dispensing with every pesky dislike and bad attitude.
And yes, even those of women who fool themselves into thinking playing hard to get would spark keener interest when I prefer the cards on the table upfront method.
I slip beside her and let my hand rest lightly on the small of her back.
She tenses, just for a second, but doesn’t move.
I smile intending it to be mocking but it misses the mark and settles on…
satisfaction…ease even. I tell myself it’s okay, this pretending just for a moment that we’re just lovers on a yacht, not actors in a slow-burning war.
‘How long does this go on for?’ she asks, her grip tight on the railing and on her determination not to look at me. ‘The yacht. The touching. The pretending. When does Nana sign over your empire?’
So we can be done with this.
Her voice is flint, striking a spark across the moment. I want to ignore the question. I want to keep looking at her like this, bathed in sunlight, defiant and fucking radiant.
‘I don’t want to talk about my grandfather right now,’ I say, cursing the descent into tension once more.
‘Why not?’ she murmurs. ‘He’s the reason we’re both here.’
She’s right. But it chafes to hear it.
‘What would you like?’ I say, sarcasm slipping in. ‘A midnight confession? Should I bare my soul some more for the sake of ambiance?’