Eternal (12 page)
Authors: London Saint James
“Both things worry me,” Cayden admitted.
“Then can you not see why I would be worried for
you?”
Cayden was quiet for a long moment. He brushed
his thumb across my temple. “Yes,” he replied.
“Maybe love, no matter how strong, no matter how
unbreakable maybe it is just not enough. Maybe my world and your world were
never meant to touch. Maybe I was never meant to be here. Maybe we are both
asking for pain.”
My tears ran down my cheeks.
Cayden’s angel face looked pained. “Never say
that and never think that. I know you are part of my world, and I am part of
yours. You are mine, Winter. I am yours. We are supposed to be together, and
you know it. Together we will make our own world. To be without you would be
more pain than I could take.” He was holding my face between the palms of his
hands. “Love is all that matters here.”
“Listen,”
ring. Let the press think I gave it to Winter, who cares at this point. Cayden
you have two more films to complete per your contracts. Finish them, when you
are done filming walk away. It is what you have always wanted to do. Marry
Winter. I know how much you love her. Move back to
doing and live your lives.”
“What?” I said, confused.
“Winter, you know I never intended to be an
actor forever.
inherited it from our parents. And you know we lived there with our aunt for
many years. I have always wanted to write or perhaps direct, and I have always
wanted to start a production company and move back to
can handle this craziness for a year, I will be done filming. One year, baby,
then I can announce my retirement. I won’t be as interesting when I leave the
spotlight, settle down, leave
There will be no more studio and no more worries about constant press coverage.
No more worry about your privacy and mine. No more worry about your safety or
mine. No more screaming crowds, no more cameras flashing. No more crazy hours,
long days away from you and no more of what I have never wanted, no more
spotlight. If I take myself out of the picture, sooner or later my name will
fade, and the press will leave us alone. We can get married, move, and live the
lives we were meant to live with each other.”
This all made sense to me, whether it was
because I desperately wanted it to, or because I needed to lie to myself I was
unsure, but the idea of leaving everything behind, moving to
life with Cayden was beyond tempting. I pictured it. I wanted it. I wanted
Cayden.
I would handle a year. Sneak
around, lie, and hide out if I needed to. Cayden loved me, and I loved him. It
was enough.
It had to be enough. Nothing else mattered. Not my fears,
not my own insecurities and not even my disbelief this could all be real
somehow.
“Winter,” Cayden whispered in my ear. “Please,
tell me what are you thinking about?”
“You, always you,” I muttered.
“Can you find a way to handle this for one year?
Can you?” Cayden asked, pain and questions breaking over his face as if he was
unsure or afraid of my answer.
“Yes,” I said quietly.
Cayden’s face changed, a smile finding its way
back to the corners of his perfect lips. “You will stay with me, marry me?”
“Yes.”
He pulled me up onto his lap, knocking back my
chair as he did so. “I love you. You are more than I deserve, more than I could
hope for and more than every dream I could have. I could not live without you,
Winter. You are the beating of my heart.”
Funny.
Cayden was describing how
I feel about him.
“Enough of the mushy stuff, I am going to lose
my appetite.”
“Now, I think I promised not to let you starve,
baby.” Cayden smiled then he pulled open a box, took the chopsticks into his
hands, and precariously picked up some noodles, placing them to my lips. “Open
those beautiful lips,” he instructed me. I opened for him. He winked, sliding
the noodles into my mouth. The oversized bite filled my mouth. Some sauce
dripped down my chin. “Oops.” Cayden leaned forward and licked the sauce from
my skin, making a low groan as he licked. “Good noodles.”
“What?” Cayden said, looking at his brother with
one eyebrow rising.
“I still cannot believe what you can get women
to do,”
tongue slobbering up their face while they are trying to eat. How totally
uncivilized.” His laugh filled the room.
Cayden gave his brother a rude gesture.
disappoint me. I thought you had better sense. Would you let me do that?”
I gave
“Uh, no,” I returned emphasizing the “no.”
“See what I mean. Only you could get away with
such behavior, Cayden. And where did such behavior come from? I know you were
raised with better manners than that.”
Cayden smiled an impish grin. “Sucks to be you,
another bite of noodles into my mouth, lifting one noodle from my lips with his
tongue then he sucked it from my mouth into his. “These are the best noodles I
have ever tasted.” Cayden looked back at his brother quite smugly. “And by the
way, my manners are fine.”
“Oh yeah, what would Aunt Elsbeth say?”
Cayden shrugged. “She's not here, so it's a moot
point.”
“Umm….” I
licked the sauce from Cayden’s chin. “You know I believe you are right.
These are really great noodles. Here, babe.”
I pulled some more noodles from the box with my fingers. “Open up.” Sauce
dripped from my fingertips. I placed the noodles to Cayden’s mouth. “Mmm…,” I
murmured when he sucked them free from my fingers.
“Yuck!”
he flung a spoon full of rice, hitting Cayden in the chest.
“Hey!” I protested, picking up a spoon full of
rice of my own, flinging it back toward
“Don’t pick on my man. I may have to kick your ass for that.”
Cayden laughed and touched the tip of my nose
with his fingertip. “Awe, thanks baby.”
I softly kissed his lips. “Anytime, babe.”
Cayden’s face was beaming with a large evil
grin. He placed his fingers into the sweet and sour sauce then rubbed it red
and sticky down my throat. “Oh sorry,” Cayden said, trying hard to keep a
straight face.
“Nice my brother,”
other a high five.
I looked at Cayden with a large smile breaking
across my face. Cayden smiled back. I placed my hand on my hip. We smirked at
each other. “Cayden, babe…you did not just do that?”
“Yes, Winter, I believe I did.”
“And after I was defending your honor,” I
replied, indignant.
I felt a large piece of something hit the side
of my cheek then heard
booming laugh. “I think you have some broccoli on your face, snowflake.”
I peeled the green sprouts from my cheek while
glaring at Cayden then at
“I see how it is. You are both pretty darn sure of yourselves thinking I can’t
kick both your asses cause I’m a girl.”
“A girly girl,”
“Oh, it’s on,” I said, smirking.
“Bring it on,” Cayden teased.
I stood up from his lap in time to join into an
all too childish, all too ridiculous, and all too major food fight between the
three of us.
Chapter Seven
Happiness
After some major destruction to the dining room,
a lot of elbow grease to clean it up, which included me perched upon a chair on
my tiptoes, stretching up while Cayden steadied me so I could peel noodles from
the chandelier, I finally made it into the shower. I was a soiled mess. It took
quite a long time to wash all the debris from my body and even longer to wash
it all out of my hair.
Once I was squeaky clean and dressed in my
nightclothes, I gathered up Cayden’s dirty clothes along with mine and took
them to the laundry room to wash. I passed
behind his glass topped mahogany desk, reading something.
“Hey,
I’m going to wash these clothes. If you give me yours, I’ll wash them for you.”
“Sure.”
loud he snorted. “Nice PJ’s, snowflake.”
I rolled my eyes and kept going. He was still
laughing when I entered the laundry room. I started on the clothing. They were
thoroughly grubby and more than likely ruined. I rummaged through a cabinet
until I found the stain remover and applied it to the numerous red splotches as
well as covering a plethora of greasy spots.
Cayden’s delicious cologne wafted in before he
did so I knew he’d found me.
“Looks like you got all the goop out of your
hair,” he commented. He leaned in behind me and sniffed. “I love how your hair
smells.” He rested his chin on my right shoulder.
“Thanks.” I set the shirt along with the stain
remover on the edge of the washer. “It looks like you got all the goop out of
your hair, too.” I combed my fingers through his silky strands. “Your shirt may
be ruined,” I said, dropping my hand and returning my attention back to it.
He brushed my hair back over my shoulder and
kissed my neck. “It’s just a shirt. Don’t worry about it, Winter.”
I threw the clothes into the washing machine,
dumped in some detergent, and put the lid down. “Yeah, but that was an
expensive shirt, and it looked good on you,” I complained.
Cayden let out his low even laugh. I twirled
around. Cayden’s blue-eyed gaze appraised me with a large smile stretched
across his face.
“Well, Hello Kitty.” He emphasized the hello
chuckling wickedly. “Come here, pretty kitty,” he said, crooking his finger at
me.
I was decked out in my Hello Kitty T-shirt and
matching shorts. I love my pink bowed kitty. She was adorable and holding a
teddy bear. I’d bought them on a whim while shopping with Q, actually. I
thought they were cute. Besides, until recently no one would have seen me or
cared what I wore to bed.
“Babe, are you making fun of me?”
“Me?” he
replied with mock innocence. “I want to pet my little kitty.”
I huffed off when Cayden scooped me up into his
arms, twirled me around so my back was tucked into his chest, and tickled me. I
may be older than Cayden, but he was much bigger than me. He overtook me in a
minute, not that I put up much of a fight. He had me almost helpless. His
poking fingers found all my hot spots. I jittered, wiggled, and squirmed,
laughing nonstop, trying to catch my breath.
“Stop.” I squeaked, still laughing. Cayden
knuckled my ribs then went for the more tender spots. “Cay….” I couldn’t even
finish speaking his name. I was squirming and giggling so hard I thought I might
pee my pants, but he held assured.
“What are you doing to her?”
squeaking. I had to see what the hell would cause her to make that noise. I
wondered if we had mice.”
“Don’t need your help, bro. I have things under
control,” Cayden said as he pinned my arms. In one quick move, he heaved me
over his shoulder, again.
“Very caveman of you, babe,” I said. I wiggled
one arm free and slapped his butt.