Later in the afternoon, Mark and I stop by a specialty retail shop he favors, and he purchases a large selection of clothes, having brought a limited quantity in his suitcases. Aside from how intimate the shopping experience feels, it delivers a sense of security I don’t realize I need until I experience it. He’s filling the closet here with me, intending to stay in New York.
Too soon, it’s time to head to my apartment—our apartment—and change out of our jeans to something nicer for the family dinner. Mark dresses in black slacks and tailored white dress shirt, going sans jacket, while I choose a casual red dress to match his tie. The red had been Dana’s suggestion to bring us luck, which I fear we’re going to need tonight.
We arrive at my father’s penthouse suite overlooking Central Park at seven o’clock on the dot. “Should I ring the bell?” Mark asks, after I stare at it for a full sixty seconds.
I turn to him. “He’s going to be protective.”
He caresses my cheek. “A good father should be.”
The door opens and I jerk around guiltily, as if Mark and I are teenagers who just got caught kissing. My father and stepmother stand in the entryway, him looking his normal tall, elegant self in gray dress slacks and a white button-down, his salt-and-pepper hair slicked back. My stepmother, Anna, looks pretty and conservative in a long blue floral skirt with a light blue silk blouse, her raven hair tied at the nape.
“Mom and Dad,” I begin, “this is—”
“Mark Compton,” my father supplies, offering his hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Mark shakes his hand. “Not all good, I’m sure.”
My father tightens his grip and holds on, pinning Mark in a direct stare. “She’s in danger, and I don’t like it.”
Mark doesn’t miss a beat. “Neither do I, Mr. Smith, and I’d send her out of the country if she’d go.”
I groan and move forward to hug Anna, whispering, “Help! I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”
She laughs and I follow her down the short hallway, which is floored with the same gorgeous black African wood that runs through the house. Pausing as we reach the contemporary living room furnished in soft blues, I glance behind me. Mark and my father are huddled together, speaking softly.
Sighing, I turn back to Anna. “They’re either going to throttle each other, or plot my deportation.”
Evidently not worried about either possibility, she motions me forward. “Leave them to work it out. The boys are hanging out in the kitchen, ready to pounce on the lasagna when I take it out of the oven. It should be ready in about thirty minutes. Just enough time for everyone to chat and have a drink before we start.”
“The boys?” I tease at the reference to my two older brothers. “Daniel and Scottie are both in their thirties.”
“Scottie is barely thirty and Daniel is only thirty-two. That’s young.”
“Then I’m a baby.”
She wraps her arm around me. “Exactly,” she says, proving how much she feeds the overbearing macho male attitudes in this house. “That’s why they all want to take care of you.”
In the kitchen I find Daniel and Scottie leaning on the island that’s the centerpiece of the gray and white tiled room. They’d done exactly the same thing when I’d cooked for them years before.
“My two Twinkies,” I tease, noting they’re both wearing navy blue, Daniel in a sweater and Scottie in a button-down.
They straighten to their freakishly tall heights to greet me, both with wavy brown hair and green eyes. “We might look alike,” Daniel comments, “but I got all the brains.”
Scottie grimaces. “People who have to claim their own brilliance rarely possess it, and after what you put on her cake, I’d say ‘stupid’ fits. She’s going to make you pay.” He points to the giant chocolate cake sitting in the center of the island.
Anna holds her hand up and shakes her head. “I’ve already yelled.” She heads toward the oven. “Loudly,” she calls over her shoulder.
“Now I’m afraid to look.” I move to the island and grimace as I read, “Soon to be an Old Maid.”
I give my brothers a scathing look. “And you both wonder why I won’t work for you? I’d be taunted half the time, and bossed around the rest.”
“Hey now,” Scottie objects, holding up his hands. “I had nothing to do with this.”
“Oh, please. Daniel just thought of it first. And for both of your information, not every woman needs a man to take care of her. I hope you both end up with a strong woman who teaches you a lesson or ten.”
“I think I’m at about ten.”
The sound of Mark’s voice makes me turn. While his comment is a compliment, there’s an edge of possessiveness to his tone and the way his hand settles on my lower back. Like he doesn’t like something in the exchange. And of course he doesn’t. He’s as protective as they are.
“And apparently,” my father adds, “we won’t be convincing Crystal to come to work for us anytime soon. I’ve just been told that Riptide profits are up substantially under her management.”
“Little sis is kicking some ass,” Scottie says, always the positive one of the group, though still dominant. He just comes at people with a coaxing hand, while Daniel and my father give them a shove.
Daniel focuses a hard stare on Mark. “You must be the notorious media magnet.”
Mark takes the punch on the chin. “Not by choice. I prefer privacy for me and those around me, but it’s not been easy to manage these past few weeks.”
“Sex scandals tend to create problems, I imagine,” Daniel replies dryly, and it’s all I can do not to shake him.
If the flex of Mark’s fingers on my back is any indication, he feels the same. “Under the circumstances,” he says, his tone low and tight, “I really don’t give a damn about sex scandals. I care about the murdering bitch who created them and is now on the loose.”
The room is stunned into silence by the bold rebuttal, but bold and honest is everything my father has always preached. Scottie grins. “Mark Compton, I’m Scottie Smith. The younger, more forward-thinking brother. I hope that they catch the bitch in question—and as for the press, I hear ya, man. They’re like a one-night stand that just won’t go away.”
“Scottie!” Anna exclaims from behind him. “That’s inappropriate.”
Scottie grins and my father chuckles. “Well, he is right, Anna.” My father lifts his chin at Mark. “I’m sure Mark here agrees.”
“I plead the Fifth.” He glances at my father. “You’re going to get me in trouble, Hank.”
“Smart man you’ve got there, Crystal,” Anna says, glaring at my father before she turns to open the refrigerator.
I’m having a happy few moments, absorbing Mark being on a first-name basis with my father in record-breaking time, when Daniel pushes off the island and grumpily announces, “I think I’ll go have a drink.” He cuts behind us and disappears.
Scottie sighs. “He had a bad day in the stock market. I’ll go toss that drink down his throat.” He takes off after Daniel, and my father glances at Mark. “Welcome to my home, in all its colorful glory.”
Mark gives him an understanding look. “You don’t know colorful until you spend a few hours with my mother.”
Anna joins us. “Crystal has told us so much about Dana. How are her cancer treatments going?”
“Better, now that Mark is here.” I wrap my arm around him. “He’s totally turned her spirits around.”
Mark drapes an arm around my shoulder. “I want you both to know that Crystal has quite possibly kept my mother alive. Your daughter is special, and so is what she’s done for my family.”
My father’s eyes meet mine. “I know it is—and I know she is. Many years ago, she kept me alive.”
My heart squeezes and I go around the counter to hug my father. He buries his face in my hair and whispers, “I’m so damn proud of you.”
“Thank you, Daddy.”
He leans back, his expression going from soft
to hard as he releases me and focuses on Mark. “Hurt her, Compton, and I’ll hurt you.”
Approval fills Mark’s eyes, and it pleases me, as I know it will my father. “I’d expect nothing less.”
It’s a perfect answer, but my father quickly makes it known that he is not going to let Mark off that easily. “I still have questions.”
I pat my father’s chest. “Of course you do. You always have questions.” I flick a look between the two men. “I’ll let you two work it out.”
I move to the counter and face Anna. “What can I do?”
“I just need to make a salad. Can you slice the tomatoes?”
“Of course,” I say, moving to the fridge.
“You invest all that money you make?” my father asks Mark, as I set several vegetables on the counter and find a knife.
“How do you know I have money?” Mark counters, not missing a beat.
“I had you investigated a couple of weeks ago.”
I whirl around, the blade in my hand. “You did what?”
My father glances at the knife. “Easy there, baby.”
“I’m serious, Dad. You had him investigated?”
“Hell, yes. You work for him under unusual circumstances.”
“I’d do the same,” Mark comments.
I turn my full attention to Mark, the Master himself, and grimace. “Yes, you would. Yet I’m in love with you. Someone help me; I need a sanity pill.” I go back to my tomatoes.
Anna snickers, and Mark dives back into the verbal wrestling match with my father. “In answer to your question, yes, I invest.”
“Any tech stocks in your portfolio?” my father asks.
Anna and I exchange an eye roll at my father’s obvious baiting.
Mark throws the bait back in my dad’s bucket. “Are you asking if I invest in your company?”
“Exactly.”
“I did, but I sold it last year.”
“Why?”
“Better numbers elsewhere. I’m holding out for your next financial report to opt in again.”
Ouch! I glance over my shoulder at the same time my father looks in my direction. “He’s honest. You know I like honest.”
I let out a relieved breath. “Yes, I do.”
“And now I know why she has no filter,” Mark comments.
“I have a filter,” I argue. “And a brain to know when to use it. I just choose not to with you.”
“Don’t I know it,” he comments dryly.
“She had to learn to speak her mind to survive around here,” my father says. “And for the record, I’d really like to comment on the stock situation but I can’t. We can talk after the report.” Then he says, “Now, on to the most important topic of all.”
I hold my breath, waiting for what’s coming.
“Is your father going to go all the way to the championship this season?”
I smile and return to my chopping.
“If he doesn’t,” Mark replies, “my mother will get well just to kick his ass.”
“That’s the truth,” I mumble.
My father chuckles, something he rarely did before Anna came into his life. “You know,” he says, seeming to think out loud, “if anyone can convince Crystal to go to Paris, it’s her.”
“That’s it,” I say, abandoning my slicing duties to face both men, hands on my hips. “You two plotting against me is not the kind of bonding I was hoping for. It’s my pre-birthday celebration.”
Anna joins me, proving that her pride in being the keeper of family traditions will not be tested, even by a Smith and a Compton. “It’s her birthday party,” she states. “I’ve worked hard to make tonight special.”
My father, the man who taught Daniel how to be a hard-ass, softens instantly. He winks at Anna. “And you did a wonderful job. We’ll go join Daniel and Scottie for a drink so you can’t hear us talking.”
Mark gives me a wink of his own and follows my father.
Great. Now they’ve moved to another room, where I have zero control over where they go with this Paris conversation.
Anna steps to my side. “Mark sure won your father over quickly.”
I cast a suspicious glance at the doorway. “Yes, he did.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, the table is set and Anna sends me to round up the men for dinner. I walk out toward a double stairwell and head down to the level where the den—and the bar—is located. I’m on the final step, still hidden by the wall, when Daniel’s voice lifts.
“I’m protective and I won’t apologize for it,” he says. “She watched her damn father beat her mother to death. So I’m telling you, man: You hurt her, you’ll live to regret it.”
I suck in air and grab the railing, feeling like I’ve been kicked and betrayed. Damn you, Daniel! This isn’t how Mark was supposed to find out about my past!
I turn and run back up the stairs, desperate to get away before someone sees me. I reach the main level of the house and Anna is in my line of sight, headed my way. Needing a few minutes alone, I round the railing and begin climbing the stairs to the next level.
“Crystal!” Anna calls from behind me, but I keep climbing the stairs, fighting the same windstorm of emotions I felt often those few years when Daniel had lived with me. He’d shoved family down my throat, when I’d had one foster family after another take me in and throw me out. Even Angela, Hank’s first wife, had died before the adoption. I’d liked her, and wanted her to love me.
Back then, it seemed like everyone eventually left me. I wasn’t ready to open my heart to have it ripped to pieces all over again, certainly not because Daniel ordered it to happen.
I clear the final step, entering what my father calls the Observatory, where a glass wall and various telescopes offer a view to be envied. Walking to the glass, I press my hands to the surface, knowing that it’s hurricane-proof and I won’t fall. But as a teen I hadn’t known, and there were many times I leaned on it and hoped I’d fall.
Behind me there’s a soft sound and awareness rushes over me, telling me Mark is here. I feel this man in ways I’ve never felt another human being—and never wanted to. I didn’t want to need anyone and end up ripped to pieces again.
He steps behind me, but I can’t look at him yet. I think he knows and understands. He knows what hell feels like.
His hands come down on the glass beside mine, that spicy, masculine scent of him a soothing balm. “You okay?”
“I’m angry that Daniel told you.”
“He spat it out before I could stop him. I didn’t ask, Crystal. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
I turn and flatten my hands on the solid wall of his chest, his warmth radiating into my palms. “I know. Daniel gets in his fierce mode and tries to rule the world, and it’s always his way or no way.”
“Come sit,” he urges, drawing me by the hand.
I nod and he leads me to one of the four oversized chairs in the room, where we squeeze in, facing each other. Mark trails a finger down my cheek. “You didn’t answer my question. Are you okay?”
“I wasn’t ready for this. I’m still not ready.”
His hand rests on my hip. “This doesn’t mean I don’t touch you. We aren’t shut down by this.”
I want to believe him. More than he can possibly know. Cotton forms in my throat and I face forward, staring at the twinkling city lights in the ink-black night. “My father beat my mother often,” I force out, saying what I’ve never said out loud to anyone. “I’d hide in the closet. So . . .” I inhale and let it out, my eyes burning from just thinking about what I’m about to say. “My mother always acted like it didn’t happen the next day—until she couldn’t pretend anymore.” I look at him. “The night she died, he started beating her with a belt, and her screams were bloodcurdling. I was crying, and shouting her name. I think I knew on some level that he was different that night, angrier in some way.”
I face forward again. “My shouting got his attention and he came after me with the
belt. He’d never touched me before, but he intended to now. I saw it in his eyes. My mother must have, too, because when I ran and hid in the closet, she attacked him. He turned on her and”—my voice hitches—“he beat her until . . . she died.” Tears flow and I swipe at them. “Sorry. I haven’t let myself think about this in years. And I’ve never told the story to anyone.”
He takes my hand. “Don’t be sorry. Don’t ever be sorry.”
An old ache rips through me and my tears flow more freely. “She lay there limp and pale. And he turned to me and told me it was because of me. Then he left. Walked out of the door and never came back. I mean, they arrested him and he’s in jail, but he just . . . left her like that.”
Mark tilts my chin in his direction, wiping away my tears. “It wasn’t because of you. You know this, right?”
“Yes. But I didn’t know that as a child, or even a young teen. My first couple of foster homes were disasters. The first one, the husband and wife had a fight and I jumped on the husband. The second, pretty much the same story. After that, they wouldn’t let a couple have me. I ended up with an elderly woman for years. She was a sweetheart, but then she had health issues and I was back without a home.”
“Ah, sweetheart. I knew it was bad, but I had no idea how bad.”
I’m suddenly angry at the tears that are making him feel sorry for me. I straighten. “It was bad, but I’m blessed, Mark. I ended up with a wonderful family that many don’t have, and that includes Daniel. He’s a bulldozer but he means well. Even when I’m pissed as hell at him, I love him.”
“And they all love you—especially your father.”
“He likes you, too. How’d you manage that?”
“I’m fairly certain it was when I told him I love you enough to take a bullet for you.”
My eyes burn again. “You said that to my father?”
“Yes. And I meant it.” He brushes hair behind my ear, his look tender—and worried.
I grab his hand, worried about where his mind is going. “He never hit me. My counselor thinks it was the closet that causes my claustrophobia. You’re not going to be afraid to touch me, are you? I liked it when you spanked me.”