Page 18 of Buck Baxter and the Mysteries of Love

Then I tossed and turned all night.

I shuffled this way on Harry’s silk sheets. I turned that way. I tried hard not to disturb him until eventually I caved in to my restlessness and got up.

My chest was tight, my stomach knotted.

Naked, I walked through the dark shadows of his penthouse and out onto the moonlit terrace. The night was cool but not uncomfortably so. The stars above sparkled, and the night lights of the city twinkled, but I was having trouble seeing the beauty in anything. Quietly, I stepped up to the edge of the terrace, leaned against the waist-high stacked granite wall between two potted conifers and stared up at the moon.

I couldn’t get Madame Chang’s words out of my head, the notion that Harry was under my skin, but did that make him a poison or the antidote to my pain and loneliness? He wasn’t the only one under my skin at that moment. The reality of having a mobster for a dad was also crawling beneath my flesh like a nasty case of scabies, as was the idea that his trigger-happy ex-wife might well be—

“Don’t even say it out loud,” I muttered to the night breeze, for fear of making it true.

Could my real mamma really be Mamma Marlow?

Could I seriously be the offspring of the two most violent gangsters in the city’s history?

Was this one of the great mysteries of love about to be revealed… or was cracking the case of my parents’ identities simply going to create a whole new world of problems to solve?

“You do know you’re talking to yourself, don’t you?”

I turned, and there was Harry standing in the open French doors that led out onto the terrace. He was wearing his white bathrobe and had an inquisitive look on his face.

“I was?”

“Well, ‘talking’ is perhaps a little too generous a description. It was more like mumbling or a manic kind of uttering, like your thoughts were escaping in one long desperate jailbreak. You’re not going insane on me, are you?” he joked.

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I hope not.”

“Good,” he smiled, stepping up to me. “Because the only thing I’m crazy about… is you.”

And there he was again, the Harry I loved.

The Harry I adored.

The Harry I’d smash mountains to smithereens for, just to hold him in my arms.

I reached out for his forearm and pulled him close, and he stumbled against me, still grinning.

I felt my cock harden against his robe as I planted a kiss on his lips.

When our mouths parted, he ran his thumb over the crow’s feet that were beginning to show around my eyes. “You’re getting wrinkles. You’re far too young for that. Maybe the stress of everything is getting to us both. This case, my father’s business, my mother’s indiscretions… maybe when things settle down, you and I should take a vacation.”

“A vacation?” My voice faltered. I’d never taken a vacation in my life. Frankly, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.

Harry chuckled. “Yes, a vacation. Somewhere far from the world we know, like Mexico or Paris or a cruise down the Nile. I hear Egypt is to die for.”

I sighed, the idea of a trip abroad the furthest thing from my mind. Before I knew it, I heard myself ask him—“Where do you go?”

He pinched his face quizzically. “What do you mean, ‘Where do I go?’ Buck, I’m talking about whereweshould go. Together. I think a cruise along the Nile would be dreamy, don’t you?”

“I’m not talking about a vacation. I’m talking about the way you sometimes disappear. Where do you go when that happens?”

He laughed, this time less amused. “You’re asking me whereIgo?You’rethe one standing out on the terrace in the dead of night.”

“You’re not listening to me. I’m talking about every time your father’s around. TheyouI know—myHarry—he vanishes into thin air and all I see is the son of Howard Hart.”

“Because that’s who I am. Buck, I’m the heir to a fortune, and my father expects me to step up if I’m going to step into his shoes one day.” His brow creased. “Honestly, I’m not interested in fighting over this. I know you don’t get it. I know you don’t know what it’s like to have parents. There are so many days when I wished another couple had picked me, someone with no expectations, just an undying love for their son. Then I think about you in that orphanage, alone for all those years, and I have to be grateful I had parents at all.” He looked at me, and I couldn’t tell if he was feeling annoyance or compassion. “I’m sorry you’ll never know how that feels.”

Madame Chang’s voice floated through my head once again, her words like a warning on the wind—“The secret to true love is never keeping secrets from the one who loves you.”

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