All the Pretty Poses (Pretty 2)

“Better judgment?” I ask, biting my tongue and keeping to myself all the other things I’d like to say. I would never disrespect my uncle by making a scene at his viewing.

“Yes, than to come back here,” he sneers, his disdain for Bellano clear. He stopped thinking of it as his home place the day Malcolm moved back in.

“Not all of us hated it here,” I tell him, forcing my lips into a tight smile so that no one else can see the strain between us.

“Not all of us were ignorant children.”

With great effort, I hold my smile in place, nodding formally to him before I give him my polite response. “If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go pay my respects.”

I don’t give him a chance to answer. I simply continue on my way as though he never stopped me.

I make my way to the front of the room, to the coffin. I feel a pang of regret that there’s no one standing in a receiving line in front of it. My uncle was a widower with no children. It was just him and Tanny. And me. Until I left him all those years ago.

As always when I think of it, bitterness burns in my gut. Bitterness toward my controlling father who took advantage of the impressionable boy he could push around. I only wish I’d grown my iron backbone a few years sooner. Maybe my uncle wouldn’t have died alone.

A vase full of roses sits on a small, round table at the end of the coffin stand. I take one and walk to my uncle’s side, laying the rose upon his chest alongside the few others. He loved roses. For years after his wife, my aunt Mary, died, he kept up her rose garden, made sure that it flourished when nothing else did. I’m sure the roses here came from that garden. He’d have wanted nothing less.

As I withdraw my hand, my fingers brush his. They’re cold and stiff. Lifeless. Like my uncle is now. I glance up at his still face, the angles and planes of it so familiar to me, so much like my father’s. Only softer. Less rigid. Much like Malcolm. He was the “human” Spencer brother. My father…wasn’t.

Still isn’t.

I feel a gentle hand in the center of my back. I see a slight woman with short, light brown hair appear at my left. It’s Mrs. Tannenbaum, my uncle’s housekeeper and his only real companion since Mary died. She raises watery, soft blue eyes to mine and does her best to smile. As it is, it’s not much more than a shaky spread of the alabaster skin around her mouth.

I bend to hug her delicate frame. The feel of her arms coming around me is immediately comforting. Just like it always was, all those years ago. “Tanny.”

“Harrison,” she replies warmly, squeezing me. When she leans back, she reaches up to cup my cheek and pat it gently. “I’m so glad you came.” Tears fill her eyes and I feel another pang of guilt.

“Of course I came.” Her smile says she wasn’t so sure I would, which makes me feel even worse. I clear my throat. “How are you?”

“I’m hanging in there. How are you?”

“I’m well,” I say, examining her face. While she’s an attractive older woman with her perfectly coiffed hair and cornflower blue eyes, she seems to have aged a hundred years since last I saw her. I knew Malcolm’s death would be hard for her.

“It’s been so long. And it’s so good to see you,” she declares, her expression flooded with sincerity. “Malcolm and I missed you so much around here. How have you been? Have you put on weight?” she asks, backing up to assess me.

I can’t help but grin. “Since I was nineteen? I’m sure I’ve gained a pound or two.”

“You needed to. You were so thin back then.”

“I wasn’t that thin, Tanny. I was just active.”

“Well, you look healthy and hale now. I’m glad to see you’re eating well. And still so handsome. Have you married yet?”

“No, still not married.”

She rubs my arm and winks as if to reassure me. “Don’t you worry about that, my sweet. The right girl is out there somewhere. Don’t rush it. Just wait for her.”

“Oh, I’m not rushing anything,” I tell her honestly.

“Good. Some mistakes can haunt you for the rest of your life.”

Something in her eyes tells me she has some personal experience with ghosts, but I have no idea what they might be. It occurs to me that, as well as I know Tanny, I don’t really know her at all. I make a silent resolution right here and now to visit her more often. Provided that she still has a job when all is said and done.

The thought of my father firing her when he takes over the house makes my insides roil with rage. But, for Tanny, I hide my anger behind a pleasant smile.

“I do my best not to make mistakes.”

Tanny’s expression falls into one of mild disapproval. “That sounds like something your father would say.”

I don’t have a chance to respond before Tanny sees someone over my shoulder and her face lights up again.

“Oh, it’s my beautiful girl,” she says, moving past me, arms spread in preparation for another hug.

I turn, ready with a pleasant smile, but it’s wiped from my face the instant I see who Tanny is hugging.

It’s Kennedy.

Today, she looks more like what I remember, like what I would’ve expected to see, even after all these years. Her chestnut hair hangs in a smooth, gleaming sheet to the middle of her back, her face is bare of makeup because she really doesn’t need it, and her slender body is concealed beneath a plain black dress that falls to just below the knee.

But none of that can rid my mind of the way she looked last night.

A series of emotions flood me, desire first and foremost. Now I have memories of her seductive dance to add to those from my youth, ones of tasting her sweet skin on a bed of soft grass in the forest no more than a few hundred yards from where I’m standing. The other emotions are secondary, but no less potent.

Frustration because, still, I would like nothing more than to sink between those long, long legs and lose myself for at least a day. Anger because she is far too innocent to be dancing at one of my clubs the way she was. More frustration because I loved it. And more anger because other men got to see it.

It’s that anger that propels me forward. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t the tiny dancer.” My tone is cold and bitter even to my own ears. Just like my father’s.

Kennedy straightens from Tanny’s arms, her expression stung, her cheeks pink. She tucks her chin and glances left and right, as though she’s checking to see if anyone else is listening. Finally, she returns her attention to me. Her smile is tight, but polite.

“Reese, it’s been a long time.”

“Yes, it has. Seems like a lot has changed since I left.”

Her smile falters. “That happens when people leave without a word and don’t come back for almost two decades,” she grinds out from between her gritted teeth.

I deserved that, but I’m not in the habit of being derailed by something as simple as guilt. That’s one reason I decided to stop feeling it. It’s a weak feeling for weak people.

The perfect clone of the perfect bastard, I think for a moment before I push the thought aside and return to my anger.

“I don’t have time for this,” I snap, stepping forward to take Kennedy by the arm and tug her along with me as I stride across the room to the door that leads to the conservatory just off the library.

“What the hell is the matter with you?” Kennedy hisses when the door shuts behind us and we are out of view of the people in the library. She wrenches her arm free.

“I’m the one asking questions. Now would you like to tell me what you are doing dancing in one of my clubs?”

She raises her chin defiantly. “I didn’t know it was your club until last night when you accosted one of the waitresses in the men’s room. Word got around pretty fast after that,” she spits in disgust.

I grind my back teeth together. I don’t know why I care that she knows about that. Even though she did little more than lick my dick before I stopped her, it still pisses me off. “Don’t change the subject. Why are you dancing in a place like that?”

Kennedy narrows her eyes on me. “What’s the matter? Feeling a little ashamed of the type of businessman you’ve become, Reese?”

“I’m not ashamed of anything. My clubs are some of the best in the world. They’re just no place for a girl like you.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean? Just what kind of girl am I?”

“You used to be a nice one.”

“Just because I do what I love in a club like yours doesn’t mean I’m not a nice girl. It’s not a strip club, for god’s sake.”

“It’s still not a place for someone like you.”

Kennedy’s laugh is bitter and so is her expression. “I hate to break it to you, Reese, but most of the world has to work for a living. And, just in case you didn’t realize it, your clubs pay very, very well.”

I stare at her and she stares at me. I want to yell until she hears me, to grab her and make her promise she won’t ever return there, but I also am suddenly overcome with the desire to help her. She’s just working a job to pay the bills, like ninety-nine percent of the population. But knowing that she’s forced to dance for the pleasure of men hits me in a soft place that I didn’t even realize I had.

“Then let me get you a job in the administrative offices. There are dozens of other positions I could put you in with the company.”

“I’m sure that’s your way of trying to be nice, but I don’t need your charity, Reese. I’ve done just fine on my own all this time. Besides, dancing is what I love. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do. Your club is just a stepping stone. Trust me, Reese, I have dreams far beyond dancing in your club.”

“And what are those?”

“Why do you care?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I just do.”

A frown wrinkles Kennedy’s brow. Her sea foam eyes search mine as though she’s discerning whether or not I’m genuinely interested or if there’s a trap somewhere ahead.

“You really want to know?”

“I do.” And that’s no lie. Just as when we were kids, I find that I’m unusually interested in Kennedy.

“Ultimately, I’d love to dance with an amazing troupe like Altman American Dance Theater. But since that’s not very likely, I’d settle for small theater dance. My dream is just to dance. Really dance.”

Her voice is quiet. Sincere.

And for reasons I’ll never know, I do something incredibly stupid.

“Come work the summer for me, then. On my boat. Then I’ll get you an audition with Chance Altman.”

CHAPTER SIX - Kennedy

“What? A-are you serious?” I stutter.

“Deadly,” Reese replies flatly.

“Work for you. Doing what?”

One dark brow arches suggestively, sending a little shiver through me, but then it falls back down before he answers. “Nothing you haven’t done before.” When I open my mouth to take exception to such a vague description, he continues. “Some dancing, socializing. Maybe serving some drinks. Nothing too taxing.”

“And for that, you’ll get me an audition. With Altman. How?”

“Very easily. I’ve had the pleasure of Chance’s company on one of my boats before. As well as in a few of my clubs. Let’s just say he owes me.”

“I just…I can’t…And all I’d have to do is work for you. On a boat. For the summer.”

Reese smiles. That smile that turned my world upside down. And then left it in a smoldering heap of burned ruin.

I am so overcome with emotion right now, I’m finding it hard to keep a grip on rational thought.

Seeing Reese last night was like a bullet to the heart. Feeling those aqua eyes on me brought back everything in one mind-numbing rush.

The draw, like gravity.

The desire, like obsession.

The pain, like annihilation.

I thought I was over him. For years, I’ve thought I was over him, but seeing him again…even for three minutes…right out of the blue…God, it was like being hit by a car going ninety miles an hour. All over again. The instant I saw him, everything I ever felt for him came crashing back down on me, like an avalanche. One that it took me half my life to crawl out from under.

But then, finding out what he did with Pandora just a few minutes after our eyes locked… it was like losing him all over again. The disappointment was devastating. I spent the night holding back tears, both old and new, reminding myself that I left Reese behind a long, long time ago. As I finally drifted off to sleep, I kept reminding myself that I have to leave him in my past, not let him touch my now in the tiniest way.

Yet here I am, listening to his proposition, actually considering it, because he’s dangling the one carrot that could make me question whether or not I should turn around and walk away. For good. Forever.

“What if I’m married? Did you ever think of that?”

For the blink of an eye, I see his nostrils flare in anger, but then Reese surprises me by giving me a half-grin, his sparkling eyes intense as they shine down into mine.

“You’re not married.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Because if you were mine, I would never, ever let you dance like that.” Reese takes another step closer to me, reaching up to touch my cheek with the very tip of one finger. “Unless it was just for me.”

I’m breathless. I shouldn’t be. But I am. “Maybe he just likes to watch me dance,” I say, struggling to keep from falling under the spell of his closeness.