Authors: Susan Fox

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Sweet Indulgences 1 (3 page)

BOOK: Sweet Indulgences 1

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Again, no-one ever said it but I knew, in my heart, that if they’d been able to change history they would have chosen for me to die, not Mom.

The Voice is quiet. She makes no denial.

I become aware that Antonio is frowning at me. And fresh glasses of wine have arrived without me noticing.

He reaches across the table and takes my hand, sandwiching it protectively between his. He’s got wonderful hands, brown and warm, with long elegant fingers and perfectly-shaped fingernails. “Leslie? You’re really upset about this, aren’t you?” His voice is as careful and gentle as his touch.

Now’s the moment. I can make a joke, or I can forge ahead. His face is all concerned attention.

I take a deep breath and try to explain about my mother’s death, and the aftermath. Even though I make a poor job of it, I can see that Antonio grasps what I’m saying. His gorgeous brown eyes are soft and troubled. When I finish, he says the right words back. All of them. He ends by telling me that he would be desolate if it had been me, not my mother. He actually uses the word “desolate.” He’s so much more expressive than the WASP guys I used to date.

I smile at him. “You’re the greatest. Have I ever told you?”

He smiles back, a crooked grin that shows a glint of white teeth. His eyes search my face then he says, “You don’t feel better though, do you?”

I glance away, then back. We might have a future, I tell myself. I owe honesty, to him and to me.

“I know—I mean, my brain knows—all those things you told me. I went to a therapist for a year when I was twenty-five, and we worked through my issues and I really thought I’d come to terms with it. I understood that I had to live my life for me, not for Dad, or my dead Mom, or anyone else. I was doing okay.”

“And then she showed up. Your ghost.”

“Exactly.”

“What does she do? Does she scold, or lecture, or what?”

“She’s got that reasonable voice that parents put on when they think you’re being immature. It’s a ‘for your own good’ approach. She doesn’t say I’m bad, she says she’s disappointed. You know how it goes.”

He nods sympathetically, though I can’t imagine his mother, the volatile Gianetta, ever speaking in the tone The Voice has perfected.

“It’s like I can never measure up, not in her eyes. She gave her life for me, and I’m…a disappointment.”

His eyes flash. “No! Leslie, you can’t think that way. You can’t let her make you feel that way. You’re a marvelous woman, warm and loving, bright, funny, generous. Not to mention beautiful.” He has released my hand so he can use his own to gesture. Sometimes he has trouble expressing himself without using his hands. Now they are thrust forward in a bold, pushing-away gesture.

My heart fills. “I do adore you, Antonio. I love it that you see me that way.”

“Anyone who doesn’t is a fool. If your mother was alive, she’d see you that way too.” His eyes squint for a moment as he works something through, then he says firmly, “That voice, your ghost, that’s not your mother. You’ve constructed it, based on all those feelings of inadequacy you experienced in your childhood.”

“But I worked through that in therapy.”

He shakes his head vigorously, black curls flying. “You think you did. Maybe you did, at the time. But the fears came back. They just went underground, or got projected, or whatever a therapist would call it, so they got embodied in the mother-ghost.”

“Hmm.” Can he be right? If he is, why wasn’t I smart enough to realize what I was doing? “I’ve just always figured it had to be her, ever since she started talking to me,” I say hesitantly.

“Why, Leslie?” He leans forward, encouraging rather than demanding. “Do you recognize her voice, or the kinds of things she says? Was your mother always doing that ‘I’m disappointed in you’ routine when she was alive?”

“I don’t really remember her. I was too young.” That’s not exactly true. I might remember if I tried. But, given all the trauma about the way she died, remembering always brought so much guilt and pain that I learned, long ago, not to do it.

“Try, darling. It might help us get this sorted out.”

The word “us” rings in my head. Antonio’s expression and voice are caring and earnest. I can’t say no.

I frame my face with my hands and sink into their support as I try to remember. I close my eyes, strive to shut out the presence of noisy strangers, to summon memories. True memories, not visions of the ghost-mother preaching at me.

As from a distance, Antonio’s voice comes, low and almost hypnotic. “Was she tall or short? What color hair? What did she like to do? Did she wear jeans or dresses? Did she play with you, read to you?”

I do my best to not resist the memories and to let his voice guide me. Now there’s a scent in my nostrils, elusive, like the image that is floating just out of reach. I concentrate harder. Antonio must see it on my face because he goes quiet. I inhale more deeply, and once I realize it’s perfume I’m smelling, the whole scene pops into my mind, sharp and fresh. I am both observing the curly-headed little girl and being her, being inside her as she watches her mother get ready to go out for the evening.

Both the Leslies, child and adult, are spellbound.

I don’t know how long it is before the memory-pictures fade gently to black, leaving me with tears rolling unchecked down my face. I open drenched eyes and stare at Antonio.

He meets my gaze and waits, silently. He is one of the rare men who isn’t uncomfortable with tears.

I find a tissue in the pocket of my skirt, blot runny mascara, and blow my nose. Then I reach for his hand. For a moment I just savor the firm, warm grip, the comfort and affection that he transmits.

“The Christmas before she died, Dad gave her perfume. Not one big bottle, but a lovely little padded box filled with tiny glass vials. Each vial held a different perfume and they had colored beads at each end. There was a key to identifying them—you know, like inside boxes of chocolates? The names were magic. They conjured up exotic, sophisticated images. Who could resist an ‘Evening in Paris’?”

He smiles appreciatively but doesn’t speak.

“She and I both loved those miniature perfumes. When she and Dad were going some place special—out dancing, or for dinner—she’d ask me to help her dress. She did it all, all those womanly things. Painted her fingernails and toenails, painted mine too, fussed with her hair, put on real silk stockings and pretty dresses. She’d put on her lipstick really carefully then blot it on a tissue and ceremoniously present me with that one, perfect kiss.

“The very last thing was the perfume. We’d debate the choices then she’d let me break off the bright glass bead. She’d put her finger to the end of the vial then touch her pulse points, even the backs of her knees—isn’t that sexy? Then she’d dab a little on my wrists and behind my ears. I’d be sitting on the end of my parents’ bed in my flannelette jammies, with my stubby nails painted, smelling like a sophisticated woman.”

Antonio’s expression tells me he’s captivated.

“She wasn’t an old-fashioned woman,” I say. “She was liberated and all that, but she believed you could have a little romance, a little excitement, in the middle of your busy, ordinary life. I remember now. That was her special talent. She made those magic moments happen. Not just for herself, but for me, and Dad, and everyone she cared about.”

I stare at him, as realization sinks in. “She was like you. You do that too.”

He smiles delightedly. “Thank you, Leslie. That’s the best compliment I’ve ever had.”

He’s right. My mother would never have said the things The Voice does. She loved me unconditionally, as Antonio does. To her, I was her perfect little girl, and I just know that if she were alive now, she’d be proud of me.

I know what I want to say to Antonio. It’s there in my heart. I know how I feel, but I’ve been scared to tell him. Scared to take the risk that he’d find me inadequate, only second-best. In my words and actions I’ve walked the tightrope of caution, flirting at the edges sometimes but always returning to toe its narrow line. Afraid he’d reject me.

But this is Antonio. I’ve chosen a man who, in the important ways, resembles my mother. I’ve chosen a man who helped me find my mother again, and now I have a treasure trove of loving memories to draw out, one by one, for examination.

But this isn’t the time for the past. Now it’s my future that’s on my mind.

I hold my breath, waiting for The Voice to tell me what to do. I hear only silence, but it’s a warm, enveloping silence, throbbing with a sense of expectancy.

And suddenly I’m sure. I smile across at him. “Antonio, I love you.”

It takes him a moment to react and I hold my breath. Was I wrong, after all? But then he begins to smile. That smile takes over his entire face. His eyes sparkle and crinkle at the corners, his mouth grins wider and wider. Then he’s out of his chair, coming around the table. “Ah, Leslie, my darling. How long I’ve waited for you to say it. To realize it.”

As he embraces me I hug him back. “I’ve been a fool.”

“No, no, my love. You just needed your mother’s blessing.”

* * * * *

If you enjoyed these stories and if you have the time, please consider posting a short review on
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Look for the other volumes of
Sweet Indulgence
s, which will be issued each month through 2014.

Author Bio

Award-winning author Susan Fox, who also writes as Savanna Fox and Susan Lyons, writes “emotionally compelling, sexy contemporary romance” (
Publishers Weekly
).

She is published by Berkley (Penguin) Heat and Kensington’s Zebra, Brava, and Aphrodisia lines. Her books have won the HOLT Medallion, the Booksellers Best Award, the Book Buyers Best, the Aspen Gold, the Golden Quill, the More Than Magic, the Lories, the Beacon, and the Laurel Wreath, and she was nominated for the RT Reviewers Choice Award.
Publishers Weekly
gave
His, Unexpectedly
a starred review and ranked it as a Top 10 Romance.
Sex Drive
was a
Cosmopolitan
Red-Hot Read.

Her short stories have been published in women’s magazines in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, and by Harlequin, The Wild Rose Press, Quarry Press, and Freya’s Bower.

Susan is a Pacific Northwester with homes in Victoria and Vancouver, British Columbia. She has degrees in law and psychology, and has had a variety of careers, including perennial student, computer consultant, and legal editor. Fiction writer is by far her favorite, giving her an outlet to demonstrate her belief in the power of love, friendship, and a sense of humor.

Visit Susan’s
website
at
susanlyons.ca
for excerpts, behind-the-scenes notes, discussion guides, recipes, articles, newsletter sign-up, contests, and give-aways.

Find Susan on
Facebook
at
facebook.com/SusanLyonsFox
.

Contact
Susan through the
Contact
page on her website.

Subscribe to Susan’s
e-newsletter
,
Champagne News
.

Other Titles by Susan

(writing as Susan Fox, Savanna Fox, and Susan Lyons)

NOVELS

Finding Isadora

He’s the worst man in the world for her. So why can’t she resist him?

Finding Isadora
by Susan Fox; Susan Lyons Books

Caribou Crossing Series

Welcome to Caribou Crossing, a western community made for love, adventure, and second chances.

1.
Caribou Crossing
by Susan Fox; Kensington Zebra

2.
Home on the Range
by Susan Fox; Kensington Zebra

3.
Gentle on my Mind
by Susan Fox; Kensington Zebra

Dirty Girls Book Club Series

Don’t you wish your book club read “dirty” books? Each time this club does, one of the members embarks on a sexy romance that in some ways parallels the one in the book.

1.
The Dirty Girls Book Club
by Savanna Fox; Berkley Heat

2.
Dare to be Dirty
by Savanna Fox; Berkley Heat

3.
Bound to be Dirty
by Savanna Fox; Berkley Heat

Classic Bodies Series

Because sometimes reality can be even better than your wildest fantasies!

1.
Body Heat
by Susan Fox; Kensington Brava

Wild Ride to Love Series

A sexy “planes, trains, automobiles, and a cruise ship” series. Three older sisters travel home for their baby sister’s wedding, and each of their journeys is a wild ride to love!

1.
Sex Drive
by Susan Lyons (planes); Kensington Aphrodisia

2.
Love, Unexpectedly
by Susan Fox (trains); Kensington Brava

3.
His, Unexpectedly
by Susan Fox (automobiles); Kensington Brava

4.
Yours, Unexpectedly
by Susan Fox (cruise ship); Kensington Brava

Destination Wedding Series

At exotic destination weddings, it’s not only the brides and grooms who find the love of their lives!

1.
Sex on the Beach
by Susan Lyons (Belize); Berkley Heat

2.
Sex on the Slopes
by Susan Lyons (Whistler); Berkley Heat

3.
Heat Waves
by Susan Lyons (Greek islands); Berkley Heat

Awesome Foursome Series

Four girlfriends laugh, cry, bond—and find their own very sexy romances! Think Sex And The City, set in Vancouver, BC.

1.
Champagne Rules
by Susan Lyons; Kensington Aphrodisia