His Bahamas Affair (The Albury Affairs) (22 page)

“Well, you are going to
be happy for a very long time because I plan on tucking my son into bed every
day of his life until he thinks
it’s so
not cool
.” They shared a smile over that. “But why hopeful?”

She pushed herself up
on her elbow, her eyes glassy with tears. “Because I want to spend forever with
you and seeing my two boys together gives me hope for a beautiful future.”

He buried his hand in
her hair and brought her down on his shoulder. “Ditto Crazy Lori.”

He felt her sigh
against his chest before she lifted her head, her lower lip trapped between her
teeth. “Do you think I’ll be a good mom?”

He pulled her to lie on
top on him. “You are already a great mom. Why are you so worried?”

Without responding, she
lay her head back down on his chest, her hands fisting in his shirt. Reno
rubbed her back, understanding her fear. Didn’t every parent go through a sense
of self-doubt at least once in their child’s life time?

“Tell me about your
mother?” Loraine whispered. “What was Cora like?”

Reno’s hands froze. He
was taken off balance by the question. Truth of the matter was he really didn’t
want to talk about his mother. “Has Riana told you about our mother?”

She lifted her head and
looked at her. “Yes, but I’m sure it wasn’t everything. The way she speaks of
your mom is like she was Wonder Woman and you…you are Superman to her. Now I
know you are human and I just want to know…”

She left the sentence
hanging and Reno knew what she was after. His chest felt like it was caving in
when he thought about his mother let alone speak about her but Loraine needed
this. She needed reassurance.

“My mom was perfect in
some ways but not in all ways. She loved us, sacrificed everything even her own
comfort, to see us happy. You know, when we were finally able to afford a two
room apartment, after ten years in a cardboard box apartment, she bought a sofa
bed. She wanted Riana and I to each have a room so that we could have our own
space and she would sleep in the living room.” He played with Loraine’s
chestnut curls as he spoke. It provided a decent distraction to the pain.

“I took over the living
room before she could and shared Riana’s closet. I was a man at fourteen,
supporting my mother and raising my little sister with my first after school
job washing dishes at a Mexican restaurant. I’d have to be home by seven with
dinner because my mother had to go off to her second job cleaning offices at
night for people who hired illegal immigrants because they were cheap labor
after cleaning houses she could only dream of all morning. While other kids
were out messing around I was taking care of my little sister and working to
put food on the table while my mother took care of all our other expenses.”

“Oh Reno…”

Reno pulled his lips in
a forced smile. “We tried to always have one of us be with Riana at night and
after she came from school but as we grew older and everything got more
expensive, she practically spent her teenage years alone. I would walk into the
apartment, exhausted and find my mother crying on the sofa all because Riana
cried herself to sleep. She blamed herself for everything and that would just
piss me off even more because it wasn’t her fault. What pissed me off even
more, she never held my father at fault; in fact she loved him till the day he
died.”

Loraine crossed her
hands on his chest and used them to support her chin. “Reno, you need to
understand he was ‘the one’ for her and that love only solidified when you and
Riana were born. It must have hurt her to be separated from him. Most women
would have been content with being his mistress but she left because she wanted
the two of you to have respect for her and yourselves. Being a mistress isn’t
exactly an example she wanted to set for her daughter and you, you would never
have respected women otherwise.”

Reno sighed knowing she
was right…but. “I just wish she’d spent less time crying over the bastard.”

“But that didn’t stop
her from being your mother. I’m sure you guys had a great time at least once.”

Reno nodded with a
smile. “We always took Sunday off no matter what. We’d spend most of it
sleeping because we were so exhausted from working all week and Riana would
take care of us that day.” He laughed at the memory of Riana standing on a
stool so she could reach the stove to cook. She would pamper them as they lazed
on the couch in front of the TV the entire day because they couldn’t afford to
go out.

He never realized how
hard she worked taking care of their little home. There was always something to
eat the few minutes they spent at home before jetting out to work. Their
laundry was always done and his sofa bed was always pulled out and ready for
him to fall into at the end of each day. She kept them moving, the heart of a
well-oiled engine and he’d never realized that until that moment.

“Riana made our guilt
lighter to bear and our lives easier. She never acted up, always kept her
grades up and took a job the moment she could. I didn’t like it because I
didn’t want her to go through what I did, balancing college and work but when
she told me she wasn’t going to college, I knew I had to do something. I
entered her art in a contest and she won the scholarship to NYU. Best day of
all our lives.”

Loraine kissed his
chin. “And you were afraid you wouldn’t make a good father.”

“Yeah, I know, I’m a
fool. Tell me about your parents.”

She hid her face then
and went silent. Reno wished she wouldn’t do that, hide from him when she was
uncomfortable, especially over something that wasn’t her fault.

“Come on Loraine, they
can’t be that bad.”

“Have you ever watched
one of those CSI episodes where the little rich girl gets arrested for murder
and when they asked why she did it she says it was the only way to get her
parents attention? Or one of those movies where she runs away because she was
tired of every minute of her day being controlled and she ends up living in a
trailer pregnant with an abusive druggie boyfriend?”

“What?”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t
kill anyone nor did I end up pregnant in a trailer. But I did come close to the
last bit.”

She wasn’t making any
sense. Reno sat up, lifting her into a sitting position between his legs. “What
is it you are trying to tell me?”

She tucked a loose curl
behind her ear, keeping her eyes downcast like she was ashamed. “I remember my
mom being obsessed with me when I was a little girl, and I was obsessed with
her. I did everything she did and that drove my grandparents—my dad’s
parents—crazy and later on my dad also became embarrassed by us. Soon, I was
spending more time with my nanny than I was with my mother until one day the
woman who I knew as my mom became someone else.”

“What do you mean? What
was your mom like?”

She lifted her head and
smiled so sweetly she looked like an excited six year old regaling him with
stories of her imaginary adventures.

“My mom was a bona fide
hippie! Gypsy skirts, flowers in her hair, vegetarian because animals were her
relatives and walking barefoot so that she could connect better with mother
earth, stuff like that. Hell, I did yoga before I could walk! I was her little
hippie and she was obsessed with me. I’ve never felt so loved in my life
since.” She shrugged, her smile slipping. “My dad used to find it cute until
his parents started excluding us from social events because they couldn’t stand
the way I was being raised—like a savage.” She bowed her head, hiding her face
for a moment before she looked up, a brave smile on her lips that didn’t reach
her tearing eyes.

“Then my dad started
being ashamed of us and my mom just withdrew into herself. I tried making her
do the things we used to but she would smile sadly shaking her head and my dad
would yell at me for making her that way. A few weeks later, a blue eyed woman
with her blonde hair held in a bun at the back of her head wearing a dark skirt
suit walked into my home with my gloating grandmother and I knew my mother was
gone. It felt like they took her from me and the mom I knew, was gone.”

“Oh Lori…” The pain in
her voice made Reno’s throat sting. He knew Loraine had gone through a lot of
pain in her life, but he never expected this. For her to feel like she lost her
mother that way, that must truly hurt. That kind of pain was strangling.

She quickly swiped her
tears away before they slid further down her cheeks. “With the main source of
rebellion taken care of, it was easy to conform me into their snobbish ways.
After all that, the loving parents I spent the first seven years of my lives
with became just like my grandparents, tolerant of each other. It felt like my
mom was punishing him for turning her into a high society wife by being just
like his mother and he had no idea how to bring her back. The woman my father
fell in love with was gone and I felt like that was justice because he stole
her from me first.”

Reno fought the urge to
pull her into his arms. But in a snap of a finger she’d gone from sad to angry.
Why try to change a person from who they are after marrying them knowing those
same qualities were the reason for loving them in the first place? It was a
recipe for disaster! He would never try to change Loraine because then she’d
stop being the crazy Lori he loved.

“Before the makeover
from the devil.” That earned him a smile and it made him glad, “What did she
look like?”

She pointed to herself.
“When I was a teenager I kept my hair long to the waist and in curls in honor
of the mother I used to know. My dad used to look at me with the saddest eyes
and say, ‘You look just like your mother the first time I saw her, the most
radiant smile on her face that lit up her violet eyes and she looked like a magical
creature sent to bewitch me. I knew she was my wife, the mother of my
children’.”

Then I would say, ‘Then
why did you change her into the ice queen’ and he would shake his head, tears
in his eyes and say ‘Don’t ever let anyone change you’. The last time he told
me that, my mom walked in snorted and mumbled under her breath and told me,
‘Wait ‘till your cotillion and see if he says the same thing’.”

Reno hated to ask but
he did. “Was she right?”

Loraine smiled sadly,
letting her tears flow freely. “Right on the money. My grandmother came and
decided she’d prepare me for my big coming out. She wanted to cut my hair and
turn me into a blonde Barbie doll and I said no. My dad threatened to keep me
from my school dance if I didn’t comply with everything she wanted me to do and
he ended up in the guestroom the same night.”

Reno stroked her hair,
loving the natural color even more after her story. “Let me guess, my Crazy
Lori took a stand and rebelled.”

She laughed through the
tears. “You bet your ass I did! Jeb, my bodyguard right from when I was a
toddler, told me if I didn’t start taking control of my life at sixteen I was
going to end up sad and destroyed like my mother. So I became their worst
nightmare without the drugs and the drinking.” She ducked, cuddling against his
chest her head under his chin. “But I made the worst mistake of my life.”

He wrapped his arms
around her hugging her tight against him sensing she needed to be held. “What
did you do, Lori?”

“I went to Paris
against my parents’ wishes and dated a man who ended up being my violent psycho
stalker.”

Chapter Ten

Loraine felt him
stiffen around her and she knew he was beyond shocked. She just hoped he
wouldn’t judge her; it was the reason she had never told her parents. She
didn’t want to take the risk of being judged, especially by her grandparents.
They would only blame it on her mother like they did everything else.

“What did you say?” he
whispered, a noticeable strain in his voice.

“We met in the hotel
lobby and started going out. It was great and I thought I was in love, my own
romance novel come true. But I wouldn’t go to bed with him. I was still a
virgin and I needed to be sure because that was one decision that shouldn’t be
taken lightly.” She shrugged. “I guess he got tired of waiting and you know the
rest. That night he was a complete stranger to me, not the guy my young heart
went pitter patter over.”

His arms tightened
around her, his breathing harsh as his chest heaved. He was furious with her.

“I’m sorry.” She tried
to pull away but he wouldn’t let her go.

“No!” he barked, making
her jump. He rubbed her back. “I’m not angry at you! I’m just mad that your
parents drove you into running off to another country and into the arms of a
sociopath!”

Loraine let out a sign
of relief. As long as he wasn’t mad with her she was cool with whomever he
wanted to be angry at.

“But I’m here now, safe
in your big strong arms.”

Reno sat her up and
held her head steady with his fingers on her chin, his eyes peering into her
own. “I have to ask, you can choose not to answer,- if you want.”

Loraine swallowed the
dread, wishing she could say no without hearing the question but if she
couldn’t confess her darkest secrets to the man she intended to make a family
with, they were wasting each other’s time.