Page 167 of Cruelest Contract
I had the wrong idea about tears. They aren’t useless. They have the power to soothe, to cure. At least, this is how mine feel as they course down my cheeks when I stand to kiss my wife.
Getting to my feet must have jostled the remote in my pocket. Cecilia and I are still locked together in a passionate kiss when my mother’s happy voice joins the moment.
“Now where’s my gorgeous prince?” she says from a lost era. “I demand a dance.”
“I’m right here,” replies my father. “I’ll never be far from you, angel. You know that.”
“Promise?”
I’ve watched this scene from their wedding countless times. I know every frame the way most people could recite their favorite movie. Seconds later, when the music starts, I’m ready to sway back and forth with my bride, just as we did on our wedding day, and just like my parents did long before us.
Cecilia breathes out a happy sigh and lets her cheek rest on my chest while my arms surround her. As I stroke her hair and feel my heartbeat quicken, my parents share the moment in the background.
I’ve always been mistaken about something important. From an early age I observed my father’s agony and arrived at the unshakable conclusion that I never wanted to be in his shoes.
But all I chose to see was the pain.
My parents loved one another instantly and fiercely. They built a whole world out of their love, creating me and my brothers along the way. No tragedy can erase what they made together.
Even knowing the end of their story, the love was always worth having. The fact that we are here is proof that it endures, timeless and infinite.
My wife and I look into each other’s eyes as the last notes of our wedding song draw to a close. Wordlessly, we make our way upstairs to our bedroom and slowly undress each other.
Our lovemaking is careful now, but no less impassioned. My palms bookend her hips while she rides me. Cecilia’s beauty, enhanced by her full breasts and pregnant stomach, is beyond belief.
My queen and my muse. My fantasy and my lover.My wife.
“I love you,” I remind her once we’ve exhausted one another amid the tangled sheets.
She’s sleepy now, yawning as she raises her head from my chest. Her hair is magnificently messy and her cheeks are flushed with a sexy glow. “I love you too.”
Best words I’ve ever heard.
41
CECILIA
Alice can’t be talked out of cutting her trip to Scotland short.
“You planned this trip for a year,” I point out. “What will your grandmother say?”
“Probably ‘Hallelujah’. She’s been complaining since I got here. Apparently I curse too much and I take excessive showers. Like she can talk. She snores like a foghorn and twice I’ve caught her snooping through my luggage.”
“At least let me pay you for the ticket. I’m sure the flight change is costing you a fortune.”
“No need. Teaching fifth grade is unbelievably lucrative.”
A short burst of laughter feels foreign but not unpleasant. As Julian reminded me the other day, laughter is medicine.
“I really am all right,” I assure her. “You don’t need to drop everything and fly to Wyoming.”
“You’re my Cecilia,” she insists, her voice breaking. “And you’ve been through hell lately. Let me hug you for my own peace of mind if nothing else.”
“Won’t catch me turning down an Alice hug,” I sniff. “Let me know when your flight is supposed to get in. I’ll send some of the boys to pick you up from the airport.”
“That would be great,” she says. “But can I please request any chauffeur but Getty? I’m afraid I can’t be responsible for what will happen to him if he insists on getting on my nerves at a time like this.”
“I’ll see what I can do but I need to be careful how I respond. He’s listening.”
