Forgotten Love (Derrien Island Trilogy) (20 page)

Marcus could scarcely breathe, at last for the first time in months something was going in his favour. She was
right; ever since Natasha stopped working at Sands he avoided being there as much as possible.

“Sold,” he replied.

“You did the right thing Natasha by sending Marcus those divorce papers this week. It really was the best thing you could have done to make sure you are at your best,” replied Lucas tapping his fingers impatiently on the desk. Natasha had called him on the phone to let him know that she would be out of town for the next three days in Burbank, California. He was so close to having her finally free of her marriage and here she was once again having doubts. He swallowed a groan of frustration at what her wavering was doing to him mentally.

“Lucas, I know you explained that it would be best for me to get it over with before the album launch to avoid any
contract problems or negative publicity that would be caused if he contested it but I don’t think he will. Marcus is not the type of person who would want to cause me any public shame. I would have preferred to speak to him first before those papers arrive in the mail,” replied Natasha.

This was one of the problems
Lucas faced by saying he would be her friend. He had to listen to her frequent references to her life on Derrien Island when she was with Marcus and to see how her eyes would still light up when she said his name or recalled something memorable that they did. He had thought that by now she would be getting over him and looking toward starting a new relationship with him. But instead Marcus remained an invisible force keeping them apart.

Convincing her to go ahead and start the divorce proceedings h
ad not been easy. He could not advise her from the angle of a jealous want to be lover so he used the business and publicity angles which were going to be very important as she launched her career worldwide. Some might say that it was an underhanded move but Natasha had grown to trust his advice and all was fair in love and war, not to mention business.

“Natasha, I think Marcus is just as ready as you are to take your relationship out of the state of limbo that it has been in for
these few months. He hasn’t called you or tried to contact you in any way since he visited you four months ago,” Lucas pointed out.

“
I know, but I just think that this approach was too cold and impersonal after all the years I have known him. This whole situation is really depressing me.”

Lucas could
hear that Natasha’s resolve to end her marriage permanently was wavering by the day and he was beginning to run out of reasons why she shouldn’t call Marcus, and to let him be the one to call her.

“Look if you don’t leave your place soon you will get caught in traffic and miss your
flight and I know that you don’t want that to happen,” Lucas warned.

“Oh no, you a
re right it is getting late. I will give you a call to let you know that I made it safely okay!” she replied before hanging up quickly.

Natasha made the last minute checks to make sure that her home was secure before turning off the lights. She was on her way to tape an interview with none other than one of TV’s
most popular talk show hosts, Ellen. Her first two singles had done extremely well and now she was a two months away from releasing her first album. Her life was completely different now. It was a whirlwind of publicity events planned by her team, hours spent in the studio recording her new album, singing and shooting music videos. But the long sleepless nights had been all been worth it when she listened to the music she was currently recording. She could scarcely believe that she was listening to her own voice sometimes.

Her public life was
extremely fast-paced, meeting all those celebrities, enjoying the high fashion and finally doing something she loved. The only thing that she wanted less of was her managers trying to portray her as some kind of sex symbol. More than once they had a few clashes on the set about what she was willing to do and sometimes she found the terms of her contract being thrown in her face. She had signed away full artistic final decisions to the record label. So some of the themes and clothing she’d worn on the video left her feeling bare and exposed to the world. That part was not what she wanted at all. Pushing those thoughts to the back of her mind she got ready to leave.

As she was about to
do so, her door bell rang. Checking the video monitor she saw a delivery man with a small yellow envelope in his hand looking upward at the camera. She decided that she would sign for whatever it was on her way out in order to be downstairs in time to meet her transportation at the curb. She told him to wait and that she would open the door shortly. When she opened the door, the man asked,

“Delivery for Natasha Nicholls?”
and extended to her a package and clipboard.

She signed for the package quickly and rolled her suitcase out of the complex
and into the town car waiting for her at the curb. Once seated, she allowed herself to check the package in her hands. Ripping open the envelope a letter and a book fell into her lap. Natasha picked up the book and looked at the cover and saw that it was a copy of Marcus’ latest novel, “
Hard Decisions
”. Ever since he had last visited her, they had not communicated with each other much at all. She wanted to call him so many times during the last four months to see how he was doing, to hear his voice and just to connect. She missed him so much and that was the part of this entire experience that she wished desperately that she could change. But she had already said so many unthinkable things to him and committed herself to her contract and to her career. She had already pushed him away!

It was funny how getting what she thought she wanted opened her eyes to
the fact that she’d seen her life through a tinted lens before. The more she thought back to her previous life, she realized that Marcus had been more than good to her. He had even in the last year suggested that she need not work anymore at the school because he could more than afford to support them and she could just focus on singing at Sands. But the words of her parents and her own ambitions caused her to lash out at his gesture instead of seeing it for what it really was.

He loved her then and she messed that up forever. That realization had become harder to accept than she thought. He deserved to be free to start a new life again with someone who could appreciate all he had to offer them.

It was all so clear now that her world had become so much larger and so much more impersonal. Finding someone to connect with and to trust was very hard, especially in this industry where it was easy to be taken advantage of. She was sure that after their last conversation that he had moved on with his life by now. After all he was a very attractive and successful man. That thought twisted her gut in knots!

“Natasha, there really is no point going over this now, you made your decision and you are going to have to live with it,” she whispered to herself softly.

Opening the front of the novel she read the dedication page and gasped in surprise. It read,

‘
To Natasha, you are still the love of my life and my heart is forever tied to yours
!’

The book fell to her lap and the front page closed slowly, as Natasha stared at it like a hot potato.
After all these months Marcus still loved her? After all she’d said to him? How could that be? Natasha stared at those words incredulously. She did not dare hope that they could be true. Shaking with disbelief, she checked the publication date and confirmed that it was his most current book which meant he’d published it since he was last here in Georgia and they had the fight that reduced her to a puddle of tears and depression for a whole week. 

Being alone these past few months and thinking back on Marcus’ last words to her
about his willingness to relocate and even his generous gift of Lucinda’s, she often wondered if she had not been too hasty in telling him to leave.  As much as she prized her success she was realizing that she loved Marcus a lot more than she realized and that truth caused her to become more and more agitated as the months passed without him. The truth was that it was driving her crazy and was causing her to lose focus during studio recording time or more than one occasion. Nothing was more telling than her recently concluded recording session with Graham Chaucer for “Fire Heart”. Only after she fantasized about Marcus to complete her shoot did he muster a grudging nod in her direction at the end of the project as his sign that she’d done well to redeem herself. By all reports even that nod was a stretch for him so she was still counting her blessings that the rug hadn’t been pulled out from beneath her as yet.

Lucas
kept looking out for her by suggesting and reminding her that she needed to bring closure to her marriage in order to regain her focus and to produce her best work and keep her contract. Sure she had managed to record her songs in fine voice but more and more she knew that the things she said and did to force Marcus to let her go would have driven any sane man away by now.

Suddenly r
emembering that there was also an envelope inside the package, she drew it out and opened it. As soon as the flap was raised she could see the cursive imprint of Marcus’ handwriting.

“
Natasha my love,

These w
ords simply cannot express how much I miss you and how empty my life feels without you here. I know you made your decision very clear to me so I will continue to respect your request for space while you pursue your career.

I want to say that it was never my intention to st
and in the way of you fulfilling your dreams. I just wanted to love you and give you a quality of life I thought you deserved. I never wanted you to have to worry about working. But I know you were trying to keep the peace with your parents by not becoming dependent on me. I realize that my chance of having you as my wife may be over but I cannot get you out of my mind or my heart.

I don’t want to either.

That may seem like a stubborn or
even foolish position to take but it is the only one I can live with. I have dedicated my latest novel ‘Hard Decisions’ to you. I want you to read it because we are the hero and the heroine and it is a story of all I would have done differently had I only known how to make you happy. You will forever be the one my heart loves.

Marcus.
”

Natasha was broken and in tears by the time she reached the end of the letter. She felt so awful because she had tried to take her happiness at her husband’s expense. Where she was unfaithful he remained faithful. Yes
, she had her dream of singing and being recognized for something other than as Marcus’ wife but more and more she wished she could at least have that honour once again, if only for a moment.

She had finally got the life she dreamed about but
cast aside the man she always wanted to share it with in the process and she had no one else to blame but herself. The terrible thing was that she was not even enjoying the experience like she thought she would. Life was not just about achievements but about relationships and now that she had disconnected from so many of the one’s that mattered to her, just for a dream, she was now battling feelings of regret.

“Miss, we are her
e at the airport,” said her driver before getting out and opening her door.

Natasha knew that she probably looked like a wreck and frankly she did
n’t care. The irony of the situation suddenly occurred to her. She’d just sent off the divorce papers to Marcus’ while he’d had been sending this profession of love to her. This would surely be the last straw that Marcus’ could possibly take. It would be ridiculous if he did sign them considering that she was yet to sign her copy too. What was she going to do? She was scheduled to appear on TV tomorrow in the biggest interview of her career to date and her life was in total shambles all around her.

Taking out her cell phone, she made a call before she could even think through all that it would mean. A voice answered the call after just two rings.

“Lucas? I really need a friend right now.”

Burbank, California

“And now we have here with us the newest singing sensation capturing the hearts of music lovers all over the country, Natasha! Give her a warm welcome everybody!” said Ellen enthusiastically.

Natasha walked out onto the stage amidst thunderous applause. Her single “
Fire Heart
” had gone straight to the top of the billboard charts and had held that position for the past three weeks. Her second song ‘
Jewels
’ was also popular and was currently trending at number 8 on the charts. As she waved to the audience she felt a bittersweet mixture of happiness and hard-fought accomplishment. Being featured on this show was a major achievement especially for someone so new in the music industry. This was exposure and publicity that could launch her career to another dimension.

Despite knowing this,
live TV was the last place Natasha wanted to be right now but she had to face the world with a smile on her face nonetheless. Outside she dressed the part and had been coached on how to be a star but inside she felt like a fraud. Although she finally had her ‘dream life’, it felt incomplete and she knew why. Taking several deep slow breaths Natasha tried to calm her nerves for the start of the interview and hoped her voice would sound clear and steady.