I Speak...Love (A Different Road #3) (14 page)

What I’m trying to tell her is, we’ve been seeing each other, I have strong feelings for him, and that I think I’m falling in love with him, but I can’t get it any of it out.

“Yes, I know all that.
Everyone
knows all that, but what did
he
do?” she asks, sitting down next to me.

“Wait?
Everyone
knows this?” I question.

“Well, now that you finally know it yourself, yes, I think everyone knows,” she says like a smart ass. “What did
he
do?” she asks again.

“He was . . . we were . . . then he was right there,” I say, motioning my hands over my breasts. “Then he abruptly stopped and ran out the front door like he just saw Freddy Krueger hiding under my bra. He gave me the dreaded,
it’s not you, it’s me
speech
,
then he said that he can’t do this, he’s not good for me and that he’ll only hurt me,” I tell her.

“That’s some straight up, smelly ass BULLshit! River tried telling Joss that same line of crap! Don’t fall for it, girl,” she says, then she gets up, takes my hand, and pulls me out the front door.

She closes the door behind me, takes the keys out of my hands and locks the front door. We get in her car, then I tell her turn-by-turn directions on how to get to the park.

At the park, I set up my camera on a tripod and test out the lighting by taking several test photographs.

“So, tell me how I can help you,” Nina says. I remove the two lenses from the backpack and tell her the names of each. I instruct her on a few positioning tips for the girls and how she can help me reposition their hair or clothing. “Got it,” she says. “Oh, here comes Courtney and the girls now,” she says, pointing to the street.

Courtney smiles as she walks up the grassy hill with one of the girls’ hands in each of hers. Both girls are beautiful and look just like their mother. I wonder if I look anything like my mother. Where do I get my red hair and green eyes from, my mother or my father?

“Maddy!” Courtney exclaims cheerfully. “It’s so nice to see you again. You’ve met Hartley,” she says, putting her hands on her daughter’s shoulders. “This right here is her twin sister, Hensley,” she says, removing one of her hands from Hartley and places it on Hensley’s shoulder.

“It’s nice to see you again, Hartley, and it’s so very nice to meet you, Hensley,” I tell them, placing my confident, business chameleon smile on my face. “Shall we get started?” I ask.

“You two listen to what Ms. Maddy says so we can give Daddy the perfect picture for his birthday. OK, girls?” she tells them.

Nina jumps right to work and starts to arrange the girls in different poses. She took my instruction and then perfected it. As I look through the camera lens at Hensley and Hartley, I find myself wondering if this is normal and if this is the life I missed out on. What did my mother’s face look like when she abandoned me. Was it an easy decision or a hard decision? Was she even upset? I pull my eye away from the lens, and I look at Courtney as she proudly looks at her daughters. It’s truly a beautiful sight to see.

“Now you get in there, Courtney,” I tell her, filled with the slightest tinge of jealousy.

“Oh, no, this is just for the girls,” she insists.

I look at her while her daughters plead with her in their cute little girl voices to take a few photos with them. It doesn’t take any more encouragement from me, and she willingly stands next to her beautiful daughters. After an hour, I have way more photos than I need. It was so much fun, and the girls were so well behaved. It’s going to take me hours to go through and edit all of the photos, but I seriously can’t wait to get started.

“I should pay you a deposit,” Courtney offers.

“You should?” I reply as a question.

“Yes, of course, I should. I never even asked, how much do you charge?” How much do I charge? That’s a really good question. “I tried looking it up online last night, but I couldn’t find your website.”

“My website?”

“She hasn’t launched her website just yet. I’m still putting the final touches on it, but it should be up and running within a week or two,” Nina says, standing next to me.

“It will be?” I question in shock, looking at her.

Courtney picks up her purse from the ground and removes her checkbook. She scribbles in it, then removes the check and hands it to me. First off, it’s completely surreal even seeing my name in the pay to section. Second, if I had water in my mouth, I would have spit it out of my mouth just now from the shock of the dollar amount. Is she for real right now? This is way more than I would have ever charged.

“That should cover the sitting fee. When you email me the proofs, can you let me know how much you charge for the different size packages?” she asks.

Wait? This is only for the last hour? She’s still going to pay me more for the prints? Forget the water, someone clear a spot on the ground. I think I might pass out. I normally don’t like people touching me, but Nina’s hand wraps around my arm, and I couldn’t be more grateful. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Nina raise her other hand in the air and wave at someone in the distance. I look to my left and see Kate walking up the hill toward us.

“Thank you for an amazing session! I can’t wait to see the proofs!” Courtney says. “Come on girls, let’s go get some ice cream,” she says.

The girls cheer with excitement, then follow their mother back to her car.

“How’d it go?” Kate asks excitedly.

“Go?” I question.

“Oh, I so know that look!” Kate says. “I had that same look the first day I saw the
Kate Mason Yoga
sign on my building,” she says, looping her arm through mine. Nina takes the camera out of my hand, then packs everything up.

“Forget ice cream,” Nina says. “This calls for a drink. My treat. A virgin one for me, of course,” she says, looking down at her belly, then she hands the backpack to Kate.

Kate hefts the bag over her other shoulder, then Nina loops her arm through my free arm again, and we all walk to Kate’s car. The entire drive to the restaurant I’m still on cloud nine from the photo shoot.

At the restaurant, while we wait for our drinks, the thought occurs to me that I should probably pay Nina for helping me today by being my assistant.

“Thank you for helping me today, Nina. I need to pay . . .” I start to say, but she quickly cuts me off.

“Don’t you
even
think about it. That’s what friends are for,” she says with a smile.

Friends? As in plural. I’ve been alone and shut off most of my life this honestly feels good . . . surreal, but good.

Before I knew what was happening Kate had made her way into my life and lodged herself smack dab in the middle of my tiny, frozen heart. I didn’t even realize that both Nina and Joss were also in there.

Saturday morning I lay in bed at three a.m. staring at the dark coffered, wooden ceiling thinking about Maddy. Selfishly, I want her in my life. All be damned the consequences it may bring her. I’m a fucking monster because I know I’ll only hurt her. I think about her supple breast in my hand, and I find myself wondering how many freckles she has on each breast. I didn’t get to see all of her tattoo, and I find myself wanting to run my finger over every surface of it. The limited view I had of her only added to her sexiness. She’s soft and warm, and I want to palm her ass in my hand while I make passionate love to her. My cock stirs in agreement.

But I can’t.

No, you can’t. You will destroy her beyond her capacity to pull through.

When I look at her, I see this beautiful creature that deserves the best of everything in life, and I know that can’t include me. I see her, and she makes me want to break every rule I’ve ever made for myself to protect people from the bastard that I am. She makes me want to say out loud the things she makes me feel on the inside. Things I swore, I would never say to another human being ever again.

I can’t allow myself to feel these things, knowing the secrets I hide and what happens to the people who get close to me. But what if I tell her the truth? What if I tell her the things I’ve done?

She’ll never look at you the same. She’ll finally see you for what you are. A terrible monster capable of only hurting people.

Before I can think of another thought, I drift back asleep.

Three hours later, I wake up confused. I’ve never slept this late even if it is only six in the morning. I hear Nelly downstairs in the kitchen, then I smell a fresh pot of coffee. I jump in the shower, then get dressed quickly knowing exactly what I’m going to do today.

I head downstairs and grab a cup of coffee, then I work in my office until late afternoon. I wrap up work, then I sit back in my chair and recall the
urgent
reason River wanted to see me in his office. I knew it was for some personal bullshit reason when I walked in because Josh immediately got up and left the room. River stood up from his immaculately clean desk and slapped a folder down on the surface toward me with a challenging look on his face. When I read Maddy’s name on the tab, I should have immediately got up and walked out of his office. Intrigued at what he could possibly have to say about her, I stayed.

He said he wanted me to see the sorted background of the person I was interested in pursuing a relationship with. Honestly, I didn’t and still don’t care about Maddy’s background. The file was thick and obviously River had concerns. I wonder what Joss would think about River if she knew he did the exact same thing to her, that he ran a background check on both her and Nina. I wonder what she would think of him if she ever got a glimpse at his unsealed, unexpunged police file. He wasn’t the model of youth either.

He didn’t say another word to me as I opened the file and read it. Page after page read much the same. Her sealed juvenile records read like a child’s worst nightmare. She was abandoned by her mother, then she bounced around in the foster care system until she aged out and was forced to fend for herself. She has several minor misdemeanor crimes, including a handful of petty theft, a simple assault charge, and a few trespassing charges all up until around the age of twenty, then her record is clean.

I think about my sister and the fact that she was adopted basically hours after she was born, while Maddy went her entire childhood life believing no one on this earth wanted her. As dysfunctional as my family was up until the accident, Kate grew up in a loving, safe home. I can’t imagine the type of homes Maddy grew up in. Maddy and Kate couldn’t be more opposite or more perfect for each other.

I left River’s office pissed off to no end, but not before I told him to mind is own goddamned business and
nothing
in that file meant anything. He said he was only looking out for me and the company, and he was sure Maddy would never tell me the truth about herself. He wanted me to know what I was getting myself into. Maddy didn’t tell me the truth . . . yet, she hasn’t exactly had the chance. I haven’t told her the truth about me either . . . yet, but that all changes tonight. River wasn’t looking out for me or the company, he was looking to be an arrogant asshole, and he was trying to ruin the first good thing to come into my life in decades.