Sudden Legacy Read online

  Text copyright © 2015 Kristy Phillips

  All rights reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  I looked up from my paint palate and turned down my iPod. Yeah, it was the doorbell. Why would Nan and Pops be ringing the bell? I hadn’t locked the door... Wiping my paint-smeared hands on a rag, I stuffed it in the back pocket of my trusty painting overalls and headed through the hall to the main house.

  I caught sight of an unfamiliar car in the drive as I passed the bank of windows at the front of the house. Our place was well enough off the beaten path that visitors were rare. Who could this be? Opening the door I came face to face with the most gorgeous man I had ever seen. He was tall and had broad shoulders, but he was lean. His piercing green eyes, almost the exact same color as my own, were made even more dramatic by his thick dark eyelashes. His black hair was just this side of too long to look professional, which was just as well, because it helped to take the focus off his full, pouty lips, and strong jaw line.

  My mouth popped open into a surprised “o”, and before I could stop myself, I drew back my fist and punched him as hard as I could in his beautifully shaped nose. I heard a crunching sound and pain exploded in my knuckles. I clutched my wounded paw to my chest and sucked air through my teeth.

  “Ouch! You sonofabitch. I think I broke my hand.”

  He let out a few choice words of his own. “Porca puttana Lara! What’s all this?” He gingerly felt his left cheekbone and blinked back stinging tears in surprise.

  I gave him my iciest glare, reserved for pedophiles and politicians. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  He gaped at me in confusion. “Well, I came to see you, naturally. Though to be honest, this isn’t the reception I was expecting.”

  My traitorous body responded to his innuendo, even as my brain was struggling to decide whether to punch him again and risk my left hand too, or to settle for spitting in his face. “I don’t know what you were thinking to accomplish by coming here unannounced, Julien, but you can turn right back around. You can’t see him.”

  His brow furrowed in confusion. “See whom?” then a realization flashed in his eyes. “Oh. You have someone. But of course you do. It was foolish of me to have assumed otherwise... A man can dream, no?” His flirty smile and sheepish shrug brought me back to our time together in the Mediterranean. For just a second I forgot to hate him, but only just a second.

  “I have someone? Yes I have someone, you stupid man. Was that supposed to be funny?” Julien just stood there as if watching a crazy person muttering to an empty room. I sighed in sad frustration. “Just go, Julien. If you want visitation then take it up with my lawyer.” I wanted him gone. It was sweet torture looking into his deceptively beautiful face, and I didn’t want to explain his presence to my grandparents who were going to be home any minute.

  “Visitation? Chérie, I don’t understand your anger. I thought we had left each other on good terms...”

  I snorted with derision. “Good terms? You mean the money? Yeah. I certainly appreciate the money, but if you think it in any way serves as a substitution for being a-” my rant was cut short by the crunch of my grandparents’ tires on the gravel drive. Shit. They were home. There would be no getting around this. They’d know who he was even before he opened his damned French-Italian mouth.

  They parked near the garage. My Nan hopped out of the passenger side with the energy of a woman half her age, no doubt eager to greet our unexpected visitor. Pops was on the far side from us, and much slower to come around the car as he was unbuckling Alex from his car seat.

  Nan gasped as Julien turned to greet her. “Sweet Lord! It’s like looking into the future. Why, if Alex isn’t a carbon copy. Oh, and look at those eyes. You know, I always thought he had your eyes, Lara, but now I see I was mistaken.” Nan had the tenacity of a terrier. Julien stood politely by with a look of mild amusement on his face as Nan poured over him like a farmer inspecting livestock. “Daniel!” she called to my grandfather. “Hurry with that, and come get a look at this man. Tell me he isn’t the very image of our Alex!”

  Julien was starting to look uncomfortable. He shifted his weight and turned back to me. “Alex?”

  I stared stoically back at him. I could feel bright patches of heat high on my cheeks, and knew I was doing a terrible job of masking my inner turmoil. “Your son.”

  As I spoke the quiet words, the son in question came careening around the car and bounding into my arms. “Mama! Good morning!” he said, even though it was late afternoon.

  Julien blanched. I had heard of people turning green around the gills before, but had never seen it first hand until now. He looked from Alex back to me and started speaking in rapid Italian. I put a restraining hand on his arm to shut him up. “Nan? Could you take Alex inside for a minute, please? I need a few more moments alone with Julien here.”

  My Nan and Pops collected Alex and filed into the house. As exuberant as my grandmother was, she knew when to give a situation the necessary space. I could see her curiosity bubbling in her face as she passed me. Pops was more reserved. He paused briefly to take in Julien up close, then closed the door gently behind them to give us privacy.

  The second the door closed Julien started up again, this time in English, but he reverted back to Italian almost immediately. He was obviously very agitated. “My son? You’re telling me I have a son? Oh dio mio. What story is this? Come può essere? Perché dovresti tenere questo da me?”

  As good as an actor as I knew he could be, he wasn’t acting now. It was abundantly clear to me that he was only this moment learning of Alex. I began to feel a bit light-headed. Suddenly everything I thought I knew to be the truth in my life was being called into question. How could this be? I had told him myself of my pregnancy. He had made his feelings on the matter quite clear when he had demanded I get an abortion, and when he had finally accepted the fact that I intended to keep the baby, he had faithfully wired money into my account every month, never so much as a day late, but adamantly refused to be otherwise involved in either Alex’s or my life.

  We stood there on my porch, both of us shocked and confused for very different reasons. Shakily, he ran a hand through his tousled hair. “Lara, forgive me, but I must ask you... You’re sure he is mine?”

  It took me a minute to muster the appropriate amount of indignation at his question. I squared my shoulders and fixed him with another glare. “Positive. Aside from the fact that he is quite obviously a clone of you, you are the only man I have ever been with.”

  I could see this information slowly penetrating his very flustered psyche. I blushed crimson, but refused to break eye contact with him as he gave a small gasp, no doubt remembering our first time together; my first time ever.

  I was wearing a borrowed, scandalously short, strappy sequined dress in a nightclub in Cassis France. Having never been to a club in the states before, I had nothing with which to compare this one. It was loud, and the crowd was boisterous. Svetlana, a traveling party girl I had met at the hostel, and I had been enjoying cocktails courtesy of the sweaty man near the bar. Feeling our groove, we hit the dance floor, determined to work up a sweat of our own.

  There was no rhyme or reason to the music. It would flow from a drum and bass song to a current one hit wonder. I didn’t care. I just let my body flow to whatever came on. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirrored ceiling. My hair was tousled and my eyes were bright and wild. Who was this girl?

  The music changed again. Now it was a salsa beat. He came up behind me, seam
lessly molding himself to my back while keeping in perfect time to the music. I could feel his hands on my hips and his breath on my neck. This man could move. Grabbing my hand, he spun me to face him. The crowd made a small clearing around us as we danced against each other in a sexy, violent, rhythmic trance.

  The music pulsed around us and I became aware of a shift in my consciousness. My body was responding to his of its own accord. It was as if we were two bodies being controlled by one brain. I knew where he was going to move before it happened. When the song ended, we kept dancing, changing our pace to match the following song. We went on like that for several songs. I lost count after four. I was exhausted and exhilarated at the same time. He seemed to sense I was growing fatigued. When the current song ended he put his hand on the small of my back and led me back to where I had been sitting at the bar.

  As he gave instructions to the bartender, I realized what it was about him that seemed out of place. He was wearing a tux. His jacket and bow tie were missing, his sleeves rolled up and his collar undone, but the shirt and pants were definitely those of a tuxedo. He turned back to me and pressed a cold glass into my hand while positioning his mouth right next to my ear so I could hear him over the music.

  “Drink, bella.” His voice was smooth and authoritative. I took a large swallow of the proffered beverage. It was minty, and I couldn’t taste any alcohol. I wasn’t so naive as to assume that there was no alcohol in it, but the mint masked it completely.

  “You speak English.” I spoke as loudly as I could without actually yelling.

  He smiled a lazy, sexy smile that curled the edge of his full lips. My stomach flopped at the glint in his eye, and my heartbeat sped up as he leaned in to be heard again. “I find it the easiest way to be understood by pretty American girls.” I could feel him take a deep breath in before pulling away again.

  Wow. Well played, sir.

  I was emboldened by his obvious interest in me. This time, I leaned in. “Is it so obvious that I’m American?”

  He cradled my jaw with his hand, keeping my head in place as he turned the slightest bit so he was speaking near my ear again. “A lucky guess, ma chérie. Je pourrais tout aussi bien pu ai dit en français.”

  I spoke very little French, and was distracted by his thumb slowly rubbing against my earlobe. “I have no idea what you just said.” My voice was so soft I was surprised he had heard me, but clearly he had, because he chuckled and answered, “Which is why I said it in English.”

  My breath caught in my throat as his tongue flicked against my other earlobe. My drink was starting to catch up with me and I leaned my head back the slightest bit. He took this as an invitation to continue. I shivered as I felt his tongue on the column of my neck. He pulled away far enough to read my eyes, then his lips were on mine and my world was spinning.

  He kissed as well as he danced. I did my best to return the kiss with a modicum of finesse. I could feel his tongue gliding gently along my lower lip, requesting entrance. I parted my lips and thrilled at the feel of his tongue against mine. He tasted minty like the drink, but twice as intoxicating.

  Suddenly he broke the kiss and stood. We were both panting and glassy eyed. “Why don’t we get some air?” he said while cocking his head toward a back exit. I stood too quickly, knocking my purse from the counter, its contents spilling half out when it hit the floor. He stooped smoothly to the rescue and I about died of embarrassment as his long, graceful fingers wrapped around my oval compact of birth control pills. He paid it no more attention than the tube of lipstick or the hair comb that had also escaped the interior of my clutch. He gave me my purse and I gave him my hand. The heat flashed between us again, my momentary embarrassment forgotten, and I followed him outside like a puppy.

  The exit led to the service alley between the club and the next bank of buildings. There was a mild breeze and we were close enough to the beach that I could hear the waves hitting the shore in the distance. The night air felt good against my flushed face and in my hair. He was about to say something when our eyes locked and electricity sang between us once more. I don’t know which one of us made the first move, but there we were, wrapped around each other like a second skin, my purse dropped carelessly at our feet. His hands were everywhere at once - tangled in my hair, caressing my thigh, fondling my breast. All the while he was murmuring unintelligible pieces of French between kisses. It was deliciously overwhelming.

  My borrowed dress was little more than a sequined sack, much like the shapeless dresses the flappers wore in the twenties, only shorter. One of my straps slipped off my shoulder and he hooked a finger into the compromised neckline and freed my breast to the night air. I was shocked at the action, and then more shocked at my reaction, which was to silently beg him not to stop. The feel of his expert mouth on my nipple sent fire shooting from my breast to my very core. I pressed my body against him; my hands grabbed tight fists of his hair for both physical support and encouragement.

  His mouth returned to my lips, and his hand skimmed up my thigh, pushing the scratchy material of my dress out of the way as it went. In one motion he had slipped past my panties, and was cupping my femininity. “Mon Dieu, tu es excitée! You are so wet.” I just moaned in response, and pushed against his palm. He slipped a finger inside of me and I convulsed, my legs beginning to quake. “You are so ready, Chérie. You are driving me mad.” His finger seemed to magnify my feelings of hollowness down there. I was becoming agitated and confused.

  I pulled his lips back to mine, and delved my tongue into his mouth. He broke the kiss once again. “You’re sure?” he asked with frenzied hope. I gripped his shoulders, not trusting my weakening knees. “Don’t stop!” I was panting. “My God, don’t stop.”

  I didn’t even register his ripping through my panties. I gave considerably more notice to his ripping through my virginity, but rather than the dramatic pain I had read about feeling when one loses one’s virginity, I felt only a moment of discomfort before I sagged in relief against his fullness. This is what I had been waiting for, wanting, without even knowing it. My contentedness was short lived, however. As he began to move against me I started to feel another building need. It was as if a small storm was manifesting itself in my core, growing from a cloudy day, to a thunderstorm, to a tornado.

  He was holding one of my legs over his hip, and I was depending on him and the wall behind me to support most of my weight, because I was long past having the sense or ability to keep myself upright. His pace was quickening, as was my pulse. Suddenly it was all too much to bear, and I shattered from the inside out. My entire body turned to liquid, and just as I was about to evaporate into mist, he gave an ecstatic moan and muttered into my ear what I assumed to be soft endearments, and just like that he melted too.

  We both slowly returned to earth. He released my leg as he pulled out from inside of me. I gasped at the unwelcome feel of his absence. He held me steady until he was sure I could handle standing without assistance, and then he adjusted himself and buttoned his pants. Cupping my cheek, he ran his thumb over my bottom lip, and then gently pulled my dress strap back up onto my shoulder, more or less returning me to the condition in which he found me, assuming one could overlook the whole virginity thing. He bent and retrieved the tattered remnants of my panties. He smiled apologetically, “I’m afraid these aren’t salvageable... un victim de la passion.”

  I smiled back suddenly shy. What did I just do? My God, I just lost my virginity to a complete stranger in some dark alley - without using protection. I was fairly confident that my mother was spinning in her grave. I blushed crimson and blurted out, “I don’t even know your name!”

  He smiled warmly in understanding as if he found himself in this situation all the time. For all I knew, he did. “Forgive me, ma chérie. I am Julien Alexandre Diotallevi of the Terni Diotallevis. At your service.” He made a very believable courtly bow, and raised my fingers to his lips.

  “Diotallevi. You’re Italian?”

  “Sí. On
my father’s side. French on my mother’s.”

  “I thought some of your French sounded rather Italian...” was all I could come up with to say.

  “Good ear, Che bella, Americana. Italian is my first language, and I tend to slip into it when I am caught off guard, so to speak.”

  Drunken revelers passed by the far end of the ally, bringing me back to the mortifying reality of my current situation. He still held my fingers in his warm hand. He gave them a gentle squeeze to get my attention. “And your name, mademoiselle?”

  “Lara. Lara Divoll of the Sonora Divolls.” I smiled half-heartedly at my attempt at a joke.

  “Lara. A beautiful name for a beautiful girl.”

  I snorted with mirth over his cliché response. I could feel dampness on my thigh and thought it prudent to excuse myself to the ladies room and clean myself up. “Um, my friend is probably looking for me...” I said while carefully bending to pick up my clutch.

  My attempt at leaving seemed to startle him. “You wish to go?” he asked in confusion.

  I was quick to assuage his worry. “No, it’s not that. I mean, she probably is wondering where I am, but I also need to use the ladies room...”

  Understanding dawned bright and clear across his handsome face. “Ah, but of course. Excuse my density. It’s back inside just the other side of the back hall.” He offered me his elbow, and I took it, grateful for the support as my joints still felt as if they were made of rubber.

  As we reentered the club a woman in an evening dress caught my eye. She saw me too. She noted my hold on Julien’s arm and commented apathetically to her tablemate. I made it to the ladies room, but it was occupied. Julien didn’t miss a beat. He took my elbow and steered me toward a door that said réservé aux employés. Employees only. “This way, Chérie.” I hesitated briefly at the door, but he pushed it open and shepherded me through. “Don’t worry, I know the owner. She won’t mind.” We went up a narrow staircase and found ourselves in a dimly lit office lounge area. Julien indicated a door. “Right through there.”