Uncovering You 11: The Lost Chapter (2 page)

Still. Things are not so bad, and there are other… ways… of him getting pleasure. At the end, he pushes me to my knees and thrusts his hard length into my open mouth. I use my teeth a bit, scratching him, melding his pleasure with the lightest bit of pain, and showing him that even when he takes control, I don’t take it lying down.

And then we emerge from the bedroom and are greeted by Manuela and her family. The kids have grown so much since I last saw them. They absolutely shine when they meet me. Manuela admonishes Jeremy for staying away for so long, and for not bringing me to the island paradise more often.

Of course, they don’t know the true reason for our absence.

I lounge on the beach for most of the day with my head in Jeremy’s lap. He’s been engrossed in a book for hours. I ask him about it.

“I like the act more than the story,” he tells me. “It’s not often I get the chance to simply read. Not like this, not since I was still in school.”

“Do you miss it?” I ask. “Stonehart Industries? Running it, keeping it alive, watching it prosper?”

He shakes his head. “My life, Lilly, is only you.”

It’s a standard response, a variation of every single other he’s given in answer to such questions before.

But today, it doesn’t feel sufficient. I want to push the envelope.

I sit up. “But that can’t be enough,” I say. “Aren’t you bored? Don’t you get tired of doing nothing?”

“No.”

I wait for him to continue.

He does not.

I sigh. I reach up for his head and run my fingers through his hair. “I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on up here,” I say. “A man like you can’t go from running a multi-billion dollar company and then just do…” I look around, “…nothing.”

He takes my hand and brings it to his lips. He kisses my palm. “I’m not doing
nothing
, Lilly,” he stresses. “I am enjoying every minute I get to spend with you.”

Again, that sense of unease creeps up inside me. It wrinkles my skin and makes me feel flawed. That can’t be the truth. I know Jeremy better than that. But for the moment, it looks like it’s all the answer I’m going to get.

“I just don’t want me to take away from you…being you,” I confide in a small voice.

Jeremy smiles down at me. “That, sweet Lilly,” he assures me, “is never going to be a problem.”

***

A week later, at dinner, we have our first fight.

Jeremy’s been growing restless on the island. With nothing to occupy his time, he’s understandably more irritable.

I’ve stayed busy with my continuing physical therapy program, and painting.
Like father like daughter,
I think with a touch of sadness.

Still. It’s given
me
something to do. Mixing watercolors on an empty canvas is surprisingly calming. I can get absorbed for hours, focusing on the strokes of my brush and getting lost in replicating the things I see before me on paper. Jeremy’s island is a natural paradise, and the scenery is absolutely perfect for creating art.

Now, I don’t claim to be proficient by any stretch. But I’ve been getting better. And painting is one of the few things I can do without tiring myself out.

Jeremy, on the other hand? He has nothing. For a man who was so single-minded in his purpose since he hit his twenties, for a man who
always
had something that demanded his attention, the change has to be jarring.

He’s been getting back in shape, too. Swimming, jogging, doing bodyweight exercises on the beach and inland. Exercising take up a few of his hours each day. His body’s responding, and he’s looking more robust, and more like himself again—after the state he fell into when my fate was uncertain.

I enjoy watching him. There’s something very soothing about seeing such a masculine man train shirtless before me.

And since I can’t have sex more than once,
maybe
twice, a day, there’s a lot of downtime here.

“When can I see what you’re working on?” Jeremy asks, slicing into some type of fish that Manuela prepared for us.

“When it’s finished,” I tell him. Truth be told, I’d prefer not to show my art to anyone ever—I’m little more than a tyro at this point—but I
definitely
don’t feel comfortable showing paintings in progress.

He grunts in response.

It’s not a comforting sound.

“What about you?” I ask. “When are you going to tell me what you’re planning when all this,” I gesture around us, “is over?”

He shoots me a hard look. “Over? What do you mean, ‘over’?”

“We can’t stay here forever,” I tell him. “When we go back to America, what are you going to do?”

“Why do you think we’re going back to America?” he grumbles. “This is what you want, isn’t it? Peace. Happiness.” He looks up at the clear blue sky, a hint of a smirk on his lips. “Limitless sunshine.”

“This isn’t real, Jeremy,” I tell him softly. I look down at my food. “We’re living in a fantasy. What happens when the clock strikes twelve?”

“There is no clock, Lilly,” he says. “This isn’t fantasy. It’s real life. It’s what I wanted. To be here, like this…” he reaches across the table and touches my hand, “with you.”

I pull away. “It’s not enough,” I mutter.

His voice turns icy. “What?”

“It can’t be enough!” I tell him, glaring across the table. “Why do you always keep me in the dark, Jeremy? Why don’t you tell me what you’re really thinking?”

“You know what I’m thinking, dammit,” he snaps. “Why must you accuse me of keeping secrets? I have none, from you. I gave up everything for you!”

“Yeah, well I never asked you to!” I holler back. I don’t know where my irritation is coming from, but it’s there now, in full force. “I never told you to give up your company, to give away everything, just to be with me!”

“
Enough
!” Jeremy roars. He slams his fist on the table, making the dishware jump. “Enough, Lilly. What’s gotten into you, dammit? It’s like you’re saying you don’t want me.”

“Of course I want you,” I begin, but Jeremy cuts me off with a scathing look.

“Just don’t,” he warns. He takes a deep breath. I can see him fighting the rage that tries to consume him. I see him fighting the
Stonehart
persona that threatens to emerge. “Don’t—test me, Lilly. Not now. it would not—“ he takes another deep breath, “—be an intelligent thing to do.”

“Just tell me what you’re thinking!” I plead. “Just share something with me, Jeremy, please. I want to know what goes on behind those brilliant eyes of yours.”

“
Nothing
!” he barks, and the single word feels like a reprimand.

He gets up. “This is not—we should not—share the same roof tonight.” He turns away.

“Jeremy, wait—“

“No.” He does not look back. “Leave me be, Lilly, for your own sake.”

And with that, he stalks out into the evening air.

***

I find Jeremy sitting alone on the beach late at night, staring out into the sea.

I come up quietly behind him and put my arms around his neck. He stiffens.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. I nuzzle my face into the space between his shoulder and his neck. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

He places his hands over mine but doesn’t speak. We stay like that, together, for a very long time. The only sound aside from our steady breathing comes from the calm waves breaking against the shore.

Finally, Jeremy stirs.

“Of course I miss it,” he says in a hushed, scratchy voice. “I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t. I think about Stonehart Industries every day. I read the news, I stay up to date. I see acquisitions I would make, companies I would love to take over and turn around to make a miraculous profit. I can’t just shut that part of my brain off, Lilly. Before you…” he kisses my hand, “…that’s all I knew.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “That you gave it up for me.”

“
Don’t
say that,” he rumbles. His grip tightens over mine. “I am not. You are the most important piece of my life. I love you, Lilly. The other things…they’re all a distant second compared to you.”

“I know,” I whisper. “And I love you for it. I just don’t want to be the cause of you becoming lost. You were—you are—so driven. I can’t imagine a man like you without a purpose.”

“
You
are my purpose,” he whispers.

I smile into him. “Thank you. But Jeremy, please—don’t make me your single one.”

He nods, deep in thought. I unwrap my arms and let him be.

***

Jeremy comes to me in the early morning and we make love.

***

Another week passes. Then two. Then three.

Life is slow here. Nothing is hurried. It’s the best type of place to recover.

Jeremy and I have no more flare-ups. We spend time tranquilly.

I continue painting. Every time I do, a little niggling bit of doubt tries to come to the forefront. It’s there every time I think of my father. It’s something I haven’t told Jeremy, but that has been perpetually bothering me:

Paul’s innocence.

Jeremy and I don’t speak of what happened when I was kidnapped by Hugh. It’s all in the past, it’s all forgotten. None of those demons can touch us. And I don’t want to hearken back to it, and yet…

And yet I still feel uncomfortable with Jeremy believing that my father was responsible for his mother’s death.

Does it really matter? I wish I could say “no”… but I feel a very real need to clear my father’s name.

The reason I haven’t yet, so far? Jeremy’s guilt. I don’t want to add to it. He did all those awful things to me, when he was still Stonehart, because he thought my father was responsible. If I reveal to him now that he wasn’t…well, I doubt it would make Jeremy feel any better about our past.

Besides. The skeletons are buried. Those things shouldn’t matter.

Except to me, they do. And I can’t feel fully at peace until my father’s memory has justice done.

Jeremy looks up at me from behind his laptop screen. “You’re awfully quiet,” he says. “What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” I lie. I smile at him and take his hand. “Let’s go for a swim. The water’s wonderful.

***

I’ve been working on the same painting for the last month. It’s coming together better than I could have expected. Still, I haven’t shown Jeremy.

He leaves me be when I hit one of my trances. I can paint for hours without noticing time go by.

I feel stronger and stronger with each passing day. I still have some lapses of sudden weakness, but their frequency is decreasing.

I can make love to Jeremy more than twice a day now.

***

Almost two months into our stay, Jeremy makes an announcement.

“I have a surprise coming at the end of the week, Lilly,” he tells me. “I’m quite sure you’re going to love it.”

I press him on what it is, but he won’t say. He just smiles, his eyes sparkling, and kisses my insistence away.

***

Days pass as I await my surprise. A mix of excitement and trepidation fills me. Excitement because surprises mean something new… trepidation because “something new” leads to uncertainty.

The one thing I’ve come to depend on most throughout my recovery is certainty.

Still, Jeremy is infuriatingly mum on what it’ll be.

One evening, as we’re having another spectacular dinner prepared by Manuela, I hear an odd rumbling in the distance. I don’t pay much attention to it at first, but as it grows louder, I start to get alarmed.

“Jeremy?” I ask. “Do you hear that? What is it?”

He dabs his lips with a napkin and smiles. “I do. But I’m not going to say what it is until…” he leans back in his seat and casually points to the sky. “Look there.”

I twist in my seat, and discover a helicopter throttling toward the island.

My nerves kick in. Last time I was in a helicopter, I’d been rescued by Jeremy from Esteban and Hugh. I fight the instinctive urge to be afraid.

“Who is that?” I ask. A bit of panic seeps into my voice. “Why are they coming?”

“They’re coming at my invitation, of course,” Jeremy says. He stands up and holds out his elbow. “We should go greet them.”

“Who’s on the helicopter, Jeremy?” I ask him, the urgency in my voice increasing. “Tell me! I thought it was just supposed to be me and you.”

“Tell you, and ruin the surprise?” Jeremy chuckles. “I think not. Come, Lilly. There’s nothing to be frightened of.”

I push myself up, eyeing him warily. He just smiles and nods to his arm.

I take it. He leads me out to a clearing along the beach. The helicopter hovers overhead. Jeremy gives the signal, and slowly, it descends.