Lale rolled her eyes. “Yes, go on. What about Elle?”
“They had to do an emergency operation. Elle’s blood pressure had shot up, and she had been having chest pains in the night.”
“When?” She winced, hearing the high squeak of panic in her voice.
“Monday night.” She calculated the three-day lag. Why were they only just now getting this news?
“Emre has been busy at the hospital. He called a couple of hours ago. Elle is stable but still in intensive care. Her heart stopped while they were taking the baby out. They had to revive her.”
Lale put her hand over her mouth and closed her eyes. Images of the lovely, strong American woman her brother had married flitted through her brain. Nearly forty-five now, she’d brushed off everyone’s obsessive concern that the baby would have problems. Apparently, they had all worried about the wrong person.
“The baby, he is…okay?”
Her mother smiled. “He is perfect. So beautiful. Come see the picture on the computer.” But Lale slumped back on the leather couch. Her heart pounded as the room started to spin. As always, her eyes fell on the large image of her with Tarkan and his lover, Caleb. Tarkan and Emre were identical twins, but two men could not have been more different in temperament. Tarkan had been calm, quiet, a better listener. Emre had been the “in charge” sibling from the start, bossy, demanding and authoritative. She walked over to the shelf that held all of the wedding memories. Tears slipped from her eyes as she touched the image of her beloved dead brother.
Her grandmother laid a hand on her shoulder. Lale wiped the tears away, anger replacing the horrible sadness she lived with daily.
“Oh, my darling girl,” the ancient woman croaked in Turkish. “He is never far from us, our Tarkan.” The woman plucked the photo from the shelf and held it to her bosom. “As long as we continue to love him, he is here, with us.”
Lale stalked over to the tea set on the sideboard. She poured herself a small glass and gulped it down. The bitter liquid scorched her throat. “
Buyuk anne
,” she said, again using the formal Turkish for Grandmother. “Tarkan is dead. He’s gone. He used to be the best fucking thing about this family until he decided to play soldier. Now he will never come back.”
The old woman leveled wide blue eyes at her. Nothing made Lale feel as small as that stare could.
“Young lady, you will not use that language in my house. Our Tarkan did his duty, served his country, a brave soldier.”
Lale scoffed, throwing off the grandmother guilt like a discarded sweater. Her father walked in and poured himself a glass of the tea, and one for his mother. He glared at her. She stuck out her tongue at him, and he looked his full sixty years as he eased into a large chair.
“Daughter.” His gravelly voice made her squirm, knowing what had to come next. “
Buyuk anne
is right. Watch your foul tongue.”
Her mother returned with printouts of the new little Deniz family member. Lale tried not to like him. She failed. His small, newborn face was beautiful, like her mother had said. His hands were clenched in fists, his legs drawn up as if he were still squished inside Elle’s belly. His amazing blue eyes stared right at the camera. All babies started out with blue eyes, but his would likely fade to green, like his sister’s, like Elle’s. The sob that burst from her frightened everyone in the room, including herself.
Her mother sat and held her close, crooning Turkish nonsense words. Like she’d done the day Lale had come in from school to the news that Tarkan had been killed in a burst of senseless violence. She clutched her mother’s arm and let everything go, cried like a child for several minutes. By the time the outburst reduced to sniffles and hiccups, rage had settled around her heart once again.
She twisted out of her mother’s embrace and stomped into the kitchen, seeking the whiskey always hidden in a cabinet. The family held enough of her mother’s American heritage not to ban alcohol from the house like many did. She found it, poured all four of them a shot, and brought them back into the living room. They took the small glasses without a word. She gulped hers and plunked the glass down.
“So, what now?”
Her parents gave each other a look. Lale crossed her arms, prepared for whatever huge announcement she sensed on the Deniz family horizon.
“Elle is going to be in the hospital for at least another two weeks, and may have to undergo more surgery. They will either install a pacemaker or something else equally drastic.” Her mother passed a shaking hand over her eyes. Lale winced. The woman may be the bane of her existence lately, but she’d been through a lot in the last six years. One son admits he is gay and is ‘married’ to his American lover. The other one falls in love with a woman fifteen years his senior, marries her in a lavish ceremony at their family’s home down in Antalya, and moves to California.
Then the gay son joins the military in order to do their family’s duty to the Turkish Republic as required. Within weeks of his release and a planned moved to America with his partner, he was blown to smithereens in the line of duty. They had buried a mostly empty box where his body should have been. Some would say “payback is hell” with regard to her parent’s own famously star-crossed history. But Lale put no stock in such sappy romanticism.
With Tarkan gone and Caleb out of their lives, her own dream of moving to California for college shattered into a million pieces. No way were her parents going to let her move. So she stayed here, miserable, just getting by at Istanbul University.
She’d responded by cutting her hair short, getting two tattoos, three piercings, partying like every night could be her last, and fucking every thing with a cock and a decent body. And now…this.
Sliding down the wall, she rested her head on her arms. She already had the beginnings of what promised to be a stellar hangover. Her mother had come to stand at her father’s shoulder. Lale glared at them through the tangle of her dark hair.
Their relationship had sustained so much for so long. Lale wondered how they had managed to stick it out for nearly thirty years. Her parents had met as children, or in her father’s case, a young teenage boy, when her mother’s father had been stationed in Istanbul for the first time as a minor government flunkie. They’d gotten into all sorts of trouble together. The kind Lale could relate to. The kind she wished her mother would remember every now and then when she tsked over Lale’s behavior.
Ten years later they met again, after her mother had returned to Istanbul to live with her father and his new wife and son. Apparently, it had been an epic case of love at second sight. They’d overcome objections of parents, cultures and class, and married. And, if Lale counted right, he’d knocked her mother up a little bit before the actual ceremony, resulting in the twin boys. Of which now, there lived only one. She sighed and started to stand.
Her father’s next words shot straight to her soul.
“You are going there, my dear.” He stared at her from his patriarch’s chair.
“I’m what?”
“In a few weeks, you will go to California, stay and help with the children. Emre has a nanny, but he wants some family around. He asked for you.”
Lale stared at him, then at her mother. Their faces were grim. They didn’t want this at all, but would bow to their one remaining son’s request. She leapt to her feet. Why in the hell hadn’t she thought of this before? She ran a hand through her hair and tried not to whoop with joy.
Her grandmother made the sign of the evil eye. “Don’t talk to any Greeks.” She spat, in the traditional response to the word. “America is full of the filthy goats.”
Lale rolled her eyes, planted kisses on each adult in the room and ran upstairs. She had some serious packing to do.
Chapter Two
Andreas heaved a sigh and hit the delete button on his computer, consigning the latest bad publicity for his university’s athletic program to the trash bin.
If only it were as easy to make it really go away
. He leaned back in his huge leather chair, enjoying a moment’s peace before his assistant barreled in with the latest crisis. Stretching his long legs out in front of him, he glanced at his inbox. The long unread list held an item at the top that wouldn’t be ignored.
His ex-wife’s attorney had angled in for more alimony. He’d told his lawyer in no uncertain terms she could go fuck herself, a stunt he wouldn’t put past her. They were duking it out now, but he would win. Her lifestyle had spiraled out of control in the last couple of years. A couple of drug possession arrests and public intoxication citations were not going to be viewed kindly by any court. For the thousandth time, he thanked God they’d never had kids.
Practically still a kid herself, they’d met at a party right after he’d graduated from college and headed straight for the NFL draft. He’d been already deep into his role as a Master. He frequented BDSM clubs and parties and within minutes, would have potential subs and slaves following him around, begging for his orders. It was a world he kept strictly separate from football, his family, and his teammates. Because sports and school took so much time, he didn’t get to participate in his preferred lifestyle as much as he liked, but when he did, he always guaranteed an epic experience for himself and his partner. By the time he met Shelley, nearly ten years his junior, he’d ached for his own sub, and she’d fit the bill nicely.
His trip down memory lane came to a halt when his assistant appeared. The older woman was nothing if not predictable.
“Okay, Andreas, you have a press conference at ten then you are to attend the kick-off dinner for the soccer team tonight. In between, I need you to....”
He shut her voice out. He gazed at the photos of him in his glory at Arizona University then later, playing in Miami for the Dolphins. Luckily, as one of the exceptions to the student athlete rule, he’d actually graduated with a legit degree, figuring the whole professional football career thing offered a precarious career proposition. He’d been correct.
He sucked down the dregs from his coffee cup and focused on the little woman who ran his life as Athletic Director for the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Not his dream job, especially since the football program had suffered the ultimate sanction, receiving the death penalty from the NCAA for major recruiting infractions. But it kept him in the realm he loved, the business of sports.
By the time his stomach rumbled and reminded him his paltry lunch of banana and more coffee would not sustain him much longer, he heard the distinct blip of an incoming Skype message. He sighed. His sister, Connie, with her infernal meddling.
Hey, brother. What’s up?
Her words popped up next to a small icon of her favorite football team, the Dolphins. They usually didn’t bother with video when they chatted.
Hey, yourself. Busy. Trying to sustain a legit athletic department in a town called Sin City is no easy task.
Yeah, you’re up to it though. Gotta be better than getting smacked down by three hundred pound dudes, right?
I did the smacking, remember? ‘Defensive Line?’
Oh, yeah. Sorry
.
She went silent for a while. The mere calm before the proverbial sisterly storm. He kept studying the graduation rate sheets he’d printed from the NCAA, trying to figure out how to improve his. Deciding the simple matter of only signing athletes who had a snowball’s chance in hell of actually obtaining a degree would hold no water with his greedy alumni, he sighed.
So, did you do it?
He frowned at the screen when he realized what she meant.
No. I do not need a blind date, especially one called ‘One Night Stand’. Jesus, Con, do I seem that desperate?
Of course not. I think it would be fun. One of the teachers here did it and met the love of her life, so she claims. And everybody is talking about it. It’s legit!
Whatever. No.
C’mon
, o adelfós mou…
for me?
No.
You’re such an ass. But I still love you. I’ll talk to you tomorrow
.
Andreas rolled his eyes, but smiled at his sister’s predictability.
The answer will still be no.
At six-thirty when he strolled out and waved good-bye, the interns were still scurrying around, preparing press kits for the upcoming fall season. He gunned his Harley into Vegas traffic, hitting all his usual shortcuts to head out to the suburbs.
Funny how you could completely avoid the strip every single day if you tried.
America’s playground to him was merely another city, another job. He did a mental flip through his contacts list. It had been a month since he’d had a date. Longer than that since he’d had a solid fuck. He sighed, remembering the NFL days when he rarely went without two hours between said solid activity.
Deciding not to skip the hassle at this point, he turned into the covered driveway, unlocked his door, and let Shelley’s stupid dog out. How he’d been granted custody of the damn mutt, he had no idea. But he liked to take care of things, so he took care of Rodney, the stupid Yorkshire terrier. He threw his keys on the table.
Grabbing a beer from the fridge, he wandered down the hall toward his room, lingering by a locked door. He stopped, went back and got his keys. Driven by a strange compulsion that hadn’t struck him in years, he unlocked it, pushed the door open and flipped on the subtle lights that brought his dungeon into sharp focus.
Holding the brown bottle between his fingers, he sipped while he walked around the St. Andrews Cross, the large bed with pre-installed cuffs at each corner. He ran a hand over the silky cover. The place smelled like leather, wax and light incense. The ghostly memory of sex wafted through the dark space. Andreas moaned when he realized his cock had grown instantly hard. He set the bottle down and lay back on the bed. It had been constructed to his exact specifications. Although the immature bitch had only lived there with him less than a year, they spent a lot of time there. She had earned lots of punishments with all the bullshit pouting about moving away from the glam life as the wife of an NFL star.