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She wiped at her cheeks.“He didn’t face any criminal charges, but he was fired and blacklisted, so I suppose that’s some kind of justice.”
“I wish there was a way I could change it all, to stop you from experiencing a single moment of that.” Brushing her hair back, I gazed into the face that had become more vital to me than the air in my lungs.“I still don’t understand why you would willingly go back to that life? Is it the paycheck? Because the distillery is making money now, you don’t need it. You can just be… happy.”With me.
She swiped another tear from her eye.“The distillery isn’t making money.”
“What?”
“It’s making money, but it isn’t enough.”
32
APRIL
Something in the Orange – Zach Bryan
“It’s making money, but it isn’t enough.” The words expelled from me like a great weight lifting from my shoulders. I watched his face change from pleading to confused, heavy lines creasing his usually smooth brow.
“I’m not following, princess.”
The truth will set you free.In this instance, the truth felt more like a hidden blade.“The distillery and the manor… they were never willed to me, Mal. I already owned them.”
I watched him process the information, like watching a grand clock tick away the time.“You mentioned Kier spiralling at my parent’s house, what did you mean by that?”
“Kier was in debt,a lotof debt. When things started going well for me, I would send him money here and there, the distillery wasn’t as busy as it used to be and he didn’t want to lay off staff. Then one day he phoned out of the blue, a complete mess as he confessed to a gambling problem. I had my then-accountant look over the finances. He owed so much the bank was on the verge of taking everything.”
“You bailed him out,” he guessed.
I nodded.“I paid off most of his debt and purchased the properties, but the distillery still needed a lot of investment just to keep it running, then Aaron happened… and I took every job I could get to keep our heads above water.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded.“I could have helped.”
“I was going to that very first day, but then you told me you’d been purchasing the distillery in instalments. Kier was taking money from your paycheck with no intention of ever selling, because he couldn’t. He was manipulating you, Mal, how could I forever change the man he was in your eyes? I thought if we could make a steady flow of income, it would all be okay and it could be yours someday without ever having to know the truth. This movie is the only way I can assure that.” That fierce look in his eyes transformed to pain and I saw the exact moment something inside him crumpled. I clutched him to me.“I’m sorry… I’m so so sorry.” He held me back and I felt him shaking, but it turned out to be me.
“Kier had flaws, like anyone else,” he eventually said against my cheek.“I always knew who he was. I felt his love for me, just as I felt his love for you. Thisdoesn’t change that.”
“How can you forgive him so easily?” How, when I feared a part of me never would?
“Because I’m doing it for me. I refuse to let every moment with him become a lie. Too many people in our lives have let us down, don’t let him become another one, April.” He was right. I’d made my peace with my mother because I’d stopped expecting things from her. I couldn’t do the same with Kier because he had always, always been there for me.
I leant back in his lap, letting his thick hair slide through my fingers. He bustled into my touch.“Are you going to apply this logic to your dad?”
“I’m going to try.” We held each other in silence for a moment until he finally said,“You need to do this movie.” He sounded weary. Defeated.
“I need to do this movie,” I agreed.
I expected him to say more, but he only swept an arm beneath my knees, pulling me into his chest.“Let’s go to bed.” He stood and crossed the room, laying me atop his mattress. He undressed me slowly, eyes holding mine as he slipped my sandals from my feet, then unzipped my dress, folding it neatly away in his drawer. My underwear followed and only when he had me fully naked did he scoop my hair into fists and kiss me, worshipping my mouth. It was a kiss that said what our words couldn’t.He loves me. He kissed the declaration on my lips, my eyelids, the skin over my heart. My lips on him said the same. On my knees, I watched him tumble into ecstasy, humming the words around his hot flesh as he cried out.
When he pushed inside me, I whimpered softly and he stilled.“What’s wrong?”
“I’m sore… so much sex.”
He started to pull out but I held him tight with my thighs, sweeping away the hair that had fallen into his eyes.“Don’t stop, I need you too badly, Mal.My Mal.”
“Yes, yours, princess.Always.” He switched our positions, making love to me slowly from behind, one hand petting me softly between my legs, the other clutching my breast, right where my heart raced.“Only ever yours.”
We never said the words aloud, and for the remainder of the night not a single word was spoken. Because we both knew; I needed to do this movie and I couldn’t leave him.
33
