The Seduction of Destiny Rhode [The Seduction 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage and More) (2 page)

He stood there looking smug like he’d won some point, completely unaware how she detested every single one of the activities that for decades she’d willingly given her life’s blood for. There was a small part of her that took this opportunity for nothing more than a chance to start over and do something for herself for a change, but she knew Oscar would never understand that.

“I’m sure they’ll all get along just fine without me.” She deflected with, “Max, you’ve been awfully quiet.”

She was almost afraid of what he might say, because only Max and Austin really mattered to her out of all the people on the planet. His opinion really would impact what she did.

“I’m just thinking…”

Both boys were the best mix of her and Oscar. They got his thick dark, wavy hair, although Oscar always kept his cropped short so the waves never showed, but she remembered him back in high school and how she used to love to run her fingers through that hair. Her boys both had his analytical thinking as well, but they thankfully got her compassion and had a flair for the art and drama of life, too. They were good kids, and she loved them so much she couldn’t breathe sometimes thinking about it.

“That’s understandable.” Although what she wanted to say was,
Thinking about what?
and badger him until he told her.

“I cannot believe Aiden Grand bought you a hotel.” Oscar’s disgust rang loud and clear.

Destiny cringed. She thought perhaps she had somehow sidestepped this part. Aiden Grand had been a hot button in their marriage, and rightfully so. She really wished she could have somehow left him out of the telling of her resort entirely, but without making up some rich dead uncle, or something equally ridiculous, there really had been no way around it.

“He did not
buy
me a hotel! He cosigned a loan.” Though she still couldn’t understand why, she needed to defend this to Oscar somehow. “Oscar, I have no credit. The house was in your name. The credit cards were in your name. In fact, everything we ever bought or financed was in your name! And since the divorce…” She took a breath. “Since the divorce, you’ve been wonderful about support so I wouldn’t have to work and could stay home with the boys, but I couldn’t get a Target card on my own right now let alone buy real estate.”

Her fault. She should have stood up to him, should have made an issue about credit. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen all the shows, read all the books. He had such a patriarchal view of the world, though, and she had to take her share of the blame in light of her own submissive personality. It ran amok all over her life, allowing
everyone
—right down to the mailman—to walk all over her like she was a fine Persian rug.

His dominance and her submission should have somehow made their marriage work, but in actuality they were a bad fit from day one. If only she’d been smart enough to realize it back in high school, but back then his
I’m the man of this house
ways, seemed romantic and exactly what she wanted. Their marriage had never been what she imagined marriage to be like, though. She was still clueless as to why.

Even their divorce hadn’t changed anything, except she wasn’t expected to share a bed with him anymore. In nearly every practical way, they were still a married couple. He still ran her money, and she still waited on him hand and foot when he was in town. She still deferred to him on most decisions, but for the life of her, she didn’t understand why. It just was.

“Aiden knows hotels, so I called him.” She had to stay focused. “He saw the potential in the place, so he helped me get started. That’s all.”

“I just bet that’s all.” His tone dripped innuendo.

This was not a conversation she wanted to have in front of her boys. Her ill-advised affair with Aiden was not one of her prouder moments. If she lived to be five thousand years old she would regret the affair she had with him. She’d been
so
lonely, but that wasn’t an excuse. It was too late to take back what she’d done. All she could do now was what she’d been doing ever since it happened—punishing herself in every way possible.

“It’s not like that.” She defended Aiden, if not herself. “He’s
very
much in love with his wife!”

“Right. You call, the man travels across the country, leaving that wife he loves so, and a new baby, might I add, and it’s
not like that
.”

“How far are you from the ocean, Mom?”

Bless Max’s heart. His timing was impeccable whether he knew it or not.

“About an hour from the Atlantic and maybe two from the gulf?” She really wasn’t sure. She hadn’t been to the ocean on this trip.

“I’ll go then.” He still looked deep in thought, even if he was now participating in the conversation.

Now probably wasn’t the time, but she was a mom, and something was pushing her mom button that she wasn’t getting the full story here.

“I’m not trying to discourage you, but what does the ocean have to do with it?”

He shook his head, and it was like he finally became a part of the group for the first time. His eyes were clear and he was smiling.

“Mom, I’m proud of you. I don’t care how you got the place, this is
huge
! You’ve kinda inspired me. I mean, if you can buy an entire resort, my dream is nothing compared to that.”

“What dream?” Oscar asked darkly.

Max just shrugged and pushed his hand through his hair. “I want to be a scuba diver.”

“Holy Christ! The lot of you have gone mad!” Oscar slapped his palm to his forehead and turned away from them.

“I think it’s cool, Mom.” Austin beamed at her from nearly eye level now. It wouldn’t be much longer until he was taller than she was.

“So do I.” Max gave her a smile that said he understood better than she knew.

“Jesus, Max, you’ve never even
seen
an ocean! And what about school?” Oscar loosened the silk tie around his neck.

“They’ve got schools in Florida, Dad. It’s not a third world country or anything.”

Destiny bit back a smile. Of course she knew what Oscar did not. Max was
hating
school and not doing well in the formal setting. She hoped though he wasn’t using her rash decision as an escape from his own responsibilities. He was technically an adult though, and it was time for him to make his own mistakes and follow his own dreams. She wished she’d been that brave at his age.

By eighteen she’d already been engaged two months to Oscar and her mother had been planning the wedding of the century. Didn’t matter about her cold feet or indecision that followed, the wedding became an entity unto itself, and by nineteen she’d been pregnant with Max. Though she wouldn’t change her boys for anything in the world, in the end, the life she wandered into had swallowed her, and any dreams she may have dared to dream as well.

“What difference does it make if he’s ever seen an ocean before or not? That’s possibly the dumbest thing you’ve ever said. If he wants to scuba dive, then he should…at least once. Maybe he’ll hate it, or maybe he’ll go on to discover some great marine…” She couldn’t think of the right term and finished lamely with, “Thing.” She rolled her eyes at herself, but then continued, because Oscar could trash her dreams all he wanted to, but he wasn’t trashing their son’s. “He’s so young, he can do or be
anything,
and our job as good parents is to let him figure this all out.”

“No, our job as good parents is not to let our kids be morons. Scuba diving? Seriously? What kind of living is that?”

“Okay, first of all, I never said I wanted to make a living at it. I just said I wanted to do it. Both of you just back off. It’s my life, Dad. She’s right about that and I am an adult.”

“Well, my money stops here and now. I’ll still support Austin until he’s eighteen…”

“Because you’re legally obligated to,” Destiny muttered under her breath and instantly regretted the lapse into sheer pettiness. Oscar wasn’t a
bad
father, he was just so absent all the time, from their marriage, from his kids, from everything.

“That’s not fair, Des. I’ve given you all everything you ever wanted, but it was never enough for any of you, so then fuck it!”

“That’s because all any of us ever wanted was
you
!” She screamed at him, and tears began to well in her eyes as old pain rose to the surface.

She held herself back as years of memories and longing came flooding back to her. None of it mattered anymore, and she wasn’t doing this in front of Austin and Max.

“Look, Oscar you don’t have to approve. I don’t need your money. I’m going to Florida next week, and I’m making a go of this. You can support it or not. I really don’t give a rat’s ass at this point.”

“All right, Mom!” Max cheered her on.

She’d never stood up to Oscar like that, not in all the years they’d been together or been apart. She always felt like she owed him something. He had provided her and the boys with a good life. She hadn’t had to work outside the home and had been able to fulfill her dream of a stay-at-home mom, something she richly, deeply enjoyed, but her boys were nearly grown now, and she’d been feeling that tug that it was time to do something for herself.

It had never occurred to her to do something quite so grand as this. She thought maybe she’d join a gym, maybe get involved with the fine arts league, but something had happened to her in Florida that changed the trajectory of her life, and now here she was on a path utterly foreign. She was committed to it, though. Come hell or high water, she’d see it through. Even if she failed, at least she’d be able to say she tried. Her boys would know that she tried and that was all that really mattered to her.

“Nice, Destiny.”

“What
ever,
Oscar.”

She decided to leave the room before things spiraled into further juvenile territory and her sons had to be referees and the only adults in the room. She went onto the back porch and was relieved when she heard the front door slam and Oscar’s high octane engine rev in the driveway. She knew he wasn’t going to support her, but this wasn’t something she could have kept a secret from him either.

“Mom?”

She looked up to see Max’s head poking through the back door, questioning whether or not he should venture farther.

“Yeah, honey?”

He came the rest of the way out and took a spot on the brick planter beside her.

“You okay?”

She smiled at him and caressed his head as she had since he was a toddler. Kids weren’t supposed to be the ones who looked out for their parents, but she sometimes wondered if that wasn’t just the curse of divorce. It threw everyone into such turmoil that no one knew whose responsibility was what anymore.

“I’m fine.” She placed her hand on his leg and tapped it in a gesture she hoped was reassuring. “Please don’t worry about me.”

“I
always
worry about you. I
love
you.”

Now the tears did fall. Torn between pride at who her son was and guilt that she’d ever made him worry, she had no hope of keeping them back.

“Geez, Mom.” He moved a little farther away from her.

She grinned and pulled a dead fern leaf out of the planter, running the fronds between her fingers.

“I know, but I can’t help it!” She sniffled and caught a couple of the tears that tried to slip down her cheek, hoping she cut off black tracks of mascara before they started.

“Can I ask you something, Mom?”

She continued to catch renegade tears. “Of course.”

“What made you do this? I mean it’s so huge, and well…” He shrugged and left hanging the unspoken but obvious,
you’re not the type of person to take leaps of faith
. That was okay. He was right. She wasn’t, or hadn’t been, but maybe now she was.

“Don’t wait until you’re my age to follow your dreams, Max. Maybe I just never realized I could before. Maybe I just always felt like my dreams weren’t as important as everybody else’s needs. Maybe I just allowed myself to get sucked into a life that never really fit…well, except for you and Austin. I’d give up every dream I ever had for the two of you and I wouldn’t have one regret, but…” She searched herself internally. Everything had happened so fast, she honestly still wasn’t sure what had happened. It seemed like she’d been on the phone with Aiden one minute, and at a bank the next. “I think it’s fate, Max. I think it’s what I was always meant for. I guess I just think it’s my time. Probably doesn’t make sense, but…”

“It does, Mom, and I’m glad you’re doing it.”

He smiled at her, and she remembered that smile at three and five and eight and ten… It made her heart squeeze and terror rushed in. What if she couldn’t do this? What if she just tore through what was a solid, albeit boring existence and splashed a bucket of cold chaos all over their lives?

She swallowed back panic and closed her eyes. It was too late for second guessing, and what she told Max was true, something about that place had felt right. She felt so at home there—almost if the place was meant for her and her alone, like it needed her in some way. No one could know what the future held, but it looked as if her future was moving to Florida. Beyond that…who knew?