titles in the series that can be read as
standalone.
“Dude,
what is up with all these guys letting themselves get pussy-whipped?” Webber
shook his head and a look of disdain covered his face. He took a long drink of
cabernet.
My
gaze swept the room. This was opening night for The Amanda Legend Gallery and
the renovated space in Venice was packed with people.
“Look
over there,” Webber gestured. “Dillon MacAvoy, famous ladies’ man, is married,
guy, he’s friggin’ married. As in completely-off-the-market, one
pussy forever. Poor guy.”
Dillon
bent toward Lane, his wife and my sister’s best friend, and she whispered in
his ear. He leaned toward her and gave her a gentle kiss. The look on Dillon’s
face made it clear he didn’t think being married to Lane was a burden to bear.
“Then
there’s Ryan and your sister. No offense to her, I mean she’s a fucking hot
piece
of—”
My
eyebrows tightened and I turned my head. “Webber, you’re talking about my sister.”
“Oh,
right, man, sorry,” he tapped me on the arm and rolled his eyes upward as if to
say what-the-hell-was-I-thinking. “She’s hot and I get that they’re in love,
but married? Ryan and Amanda are going to get married? What is the
world coming to? Even Choo!” Webber swung his arm out and pointed toward Choo
MacAvoy, Dillon’s little brother, who was standing with his boyfriend Jackson.
“Even he’s paired off.” Webber shook his head and took another
gulp from his wineglass.
“I
guess all that’s left is you, your dad, and me. The three amigos on the hunt
for women throughout the world.” Webber raised his glass to toast us.
I
glanced toward Dad. He stood in the center of the gallery with a blonde on one
arm and a redhead on the other. He was single right now, but I wasn’t certain
that he’d remain single. Since Mom’s death, marrying and divorcing seemed to be
his latest hobby.
“Speaking
of on-the-hunt,” Webber said, “I spy a lovely little brunette I’ve yet to meet.
She looks like she needs help finding me.” Webber punched me in the arm.
“Later.”
I
tilted my glass of wine to my lips. Webber might never get married, and I was
right behind him on that decision. I accepted that true love existed. I’d been
witness to it, when I was little, between my parents, and with Dillon and Lane
and Ryan and Amanda. I’d even experienced true love, once—but I’d been so young
that to call it a romance was a bit of a stretch. A crush was probably more
like it. Regardless, I wasn’t ever going down that road. Giving away your heart
hurt. Why suffer the soul-crushing defeat of lost love when I could enjoy the
hedonistic pleasure of a new girl every night? This was L.A. and I was a
Legend. Let the ladies line up.
Amanda
swept toward me and Ryan trailed in her wake. Webber was right, my sister was a
knockout.
“So,
what do you think?” she asked. She knotted her fingers together and raised her
eyebrows.
My
eyes swept over the giant space with high ceilings and great lighting to
accentuate the art. The dark wood floors were varnished to perfection.
Magnificent art adorned the walls. A hip and eclectic crowd filled with
collectors and people with money to spend were here at the opening of Amanda’s
new gallery.
“I
think you’re a hit,” I said. I kissed my sister on the cheek. “You saw all the
paparazzi outside?”
“That’s
because of Daddy and Dillon and this guy,” Amanda hitched her thumb toward Ryan
who stood beside her, “not my gallery.”
“Press
is press, little sister. And with your eye,” I glanced at a giant piece that
took up an entire wall, “I think you are in for much success.”
The
Amanda Legend Gallery was opening with a bang. This event had become “red carpet”
with the appearance of my father, his famous friends, and all the famous people
Amanda and I had collected in our Hollywood life. I wasn’t certain how many
sales she’d racked up in this first night, but I’d overheard a number of
collectors mentioning that most of the paintings were sold.
“Thank
you!” Amanda nearly burst with pride. The light shining through her eyes made
me happy. She glanced from me to Ryan, and then toward our Dad. “I’m so lucky
to share this with my three favorite guys.”
Ryan
lifted her hand that he clasped tightly in his and kissed her fingers. The
giant diamond he’d just given to her when they’d recently gone to Paris
sparkled in the light. Another man down for the count. I nodded toward Ryan. He
knew I would love him like a brother, but I also had big expectations when it
came to the man who would marry my little sister.
Forgiving
Ryan Sinclair for being a douchebag was easy because of the permanent smile
affixed to my sister’s face. The guy hadn’t been my favorite in the beginning,
but post rehab—the second time—and my sister was the happiest I’d seen her in
the seven years since our mom had died.
“I
have to go schmooze,” Amanda said. “I’ll see you later.” She leaned toward me.
“Oh, by the way, that painting you’re ogling was done by someone you know. Very
well.”
I
crinkled my eyebrows. Amanda and Ryan escaped into the crowd. I turned back to
the giant painting that had captured my attention. Who did I know that was an
artist? I stood in front of the giant work. It was almost a mural. The bright
colors grabbed me. My gut twisted in response to the images before me.
“Do
you like it?”
My
heart kicked against my ribcage. Was it . . . Could it be? The voice was
familiar and yet, deeper, darker, older . . . sexier. Summertime memories of a
beautiful girl flickered in my mind, memories of a girl who had nearly been a
woman, and me nearly a man. A girl I loved. A girl I could have made a life
with if I’d known, even known at the tender age of seventeen, what making a
life with someone meant. A girl who’d disappeared and had taken my heart with
her. I turned.
Rhiannon.
My
chest tightened. My breath caught in my lungs.
Rhiannon
had been that girl.
Rhiannon
stood in before me in a silky slip of a dress, tall and willowy with long lush
white-blonde hair draped over her shoulders. Haunting green eyes stared out
from atop cheekbones that looked sculpted from marble. She was so beautiful, so
ethereal, that she didn’t even look real. Her lips turned upward into a smile.
“You’re
looking very well,” she said.
I
maintained my cool Legend exterior. Rhiannon had been a mere schoolboy crush.
Hadn’t she?
“Rhiannon,”
I said. I leaned forward and grasped her hand and pressed my lips to each of
her cheeks. A scent rich and dark like cinnamon trailed her. The scent caused
memories to pop in my mind. Memories of blankets, and beaches, and Malibu and first
kisses.
Heat
jolted me. Desire coiled thick in my gut. I forced a coolness into my face. I
hadn’t touched Rhiannon since I was seventeen and yet, and yet, her skin, her
hand in mine seemed familiar, natural.
“It’s
been forever,” Rhiannon said.
My
throat clutched. Never at a loss for words and yet, in this moment her ethereal
beauty blinded me. I was barely able to put words together in my mind and form
the syllables on my lips.
“It
has,” I said. I cleared my throat. Recovered. I’d bedded the most beautiful
women in the world; I could speak to Rhiannon Bliss. “Haven’t you been in
Ireland and … London?”
“Good
memory,” she said. She flipped her golden locks over her shoulder and glanced
down at her wine. “The last four years I’ve been in Paris, and now I’m here.”
“And
now you’re here.” My head spun with her words. Rhiannon was here. In Los
Angeles. After nearly seven years away, seven years of silence, seven years of
memories, Rhiannon Bliss was again standing next to me and having the same
effect she’d had on me when I was seventeen.
“You
never answered my question,” Rhiannon said. She nodded toward the painting
behind me. “Do you like it?”
I
glanced over my shoulder. The landscape was familiar and yet distant, rendered
in a surreal manner. “I do,” I said. “It seems so familiar in an eerie way.”
“Ah,
so you do remember that view,” Rhiannon said.
I
cocked one eyebrow upward and my gaze locked onto those green eyes. Green eyes
that I could fall into forever.
“It’s
at my mom’s place, on the plateau.”
Heat
grabbed my chest and pulsed through me. I knew that spot. We knew
that spot. That spot in Malibu, on Gayle Bliss’s ranch, would forever hold a
place in my life.
“You
painted this?”
She
nodded. Her eyes said so many things to me in this moment, things that words
could never tell me. There were so many questions I wanted to ask. But pain,
fear, and a broken heart stopped me. I had questions that only a man who needed
answers, or who wanted to pursue a lost love, would ask. And I was definitely
not that man. Love was not on my itinerary—not in this lifetime.
“It’s
beautiful,” I said. I plastered the Legend look of nonchalance onto my face.
Rhiannon’s
eyebrow cocked upward, and the smile widened across her face. “I see you’ve
mastered the Legend facade,” she said. Her voice lilted and teased. My head
jerked back; I was not used to anyone ever calling me on my shit. That didn’t
happen in this town, not when you were a Legend.
I
smiled. Why pretend there was no history, when Rhiannon was here to tell me
otherwise. “You remember that?” I asked.
“How
could I ever forget?” She glanced toward the giant painting. “You should buy
it,” she said, “before someone else does.”
“Yes,”
I said. “Maybe I should.”
My
gaze swept the room as I sipped my wine. I caught Webber’s eye across the room.
He’d stopped chatting up the new brunette and stood with his palms up. He
looked at me and shook his head. His pointed at me and then he drew a heart in
the air. He shook his head, as though I was the next man down for the
count.
