My Beloved: A Thin Love Novella(19)
Keira had spent years trying to forget that her artistic, free-spirited father had loved her mother, that there had been something about her that he’d found irresistible once. That love hadn’t ever left her mother, not really. It had become displaced, hidden by expectation and ignorance, but it still lived in her and in a small, undeniable way, had been reserved for her daughter.
Keira had never forgiven her mother for all those years of criticism, for the abuse, the pain she had caused. She had never even told her mother goodbye when she walked out to start a life on her own with her unborn baby. So she sat in that attic that day with those scrapbooks around her and for the first time in sixteen years, Keira cried out for her mother. She’d told her she loved her, no matter what a vicious, entitled, racist woman she was, that Keira couldn’t help but love her. And she realized, with shocking clarity, that’s what real love is; loving blindly, loving despite flaws, despite the horrible things we all do to each other. Keira hated everything her mother believed in, she’d hated it so much that she’d purposefully run from it. Still, that drunk, ignorant woman had been her mother. She’d given Keira life. She’d made Keira the stubborn, determined woman she had become.
She didn’t want Kona to have to live with that same regret for his manipulative mother. Keira certainly wasn’t ready to hug Lalei Alana and tell her all was forgiven; in fact, she doubted her hatred for the woman would ever cool, but Lalei was Kona’s mother, he needed to tell her goodbye while she was around to hear it. Maybe after the wedding, once they returned to the mainland, they could make one last visit to his mother and make some kind of peace.
Keira relaxed against a plush patio chair, her feet reclined on a cold fire pit as she watched the empty beach in front of her through the spaces in the brick privacy fence. She would marry Kona in a few hours. Finally, they’d be always officially and that thought made her smile, had her pushing back the news about his mother, the memory of the heartache her own mother had caused her. She closed her eyes, smiling at the thought of Kona’s body over hers the night before, how hard he took her, how desperate he’d been to touch her.
The sudden sound of a rapid fire shutter clicking had Keira jerking alert, heart pounding, as she reactively pulled her robe closer together and let Mark stand in front of her when he stormed out onto the patio. Behind the bushes just a few yards beyond the patio, a lone photographer was snapping shot after shot.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” Mark screamed, pulling Keira from her stunned silence. “Get the f*ck out of here you sick bastard!”
“You Keira’s f*ck buddy? Does Kona know?”
Mark picked up a glass vase from the console table by the door and flung toward the slick-haired photographer as he continued to shoot picture after picture, moving around the fence to get a better shot of Keira as she hid behind Mark’s back.
“Move, you *! Fucking parasite!”
“Hey man, I’m just trying to feed my family.”
“No, motherf*cker,” he said, pushing Keira further back, “you’re leeching off people who’ve actually done something with their lives. Get out of here!”
Mark slammed the glass door behind them, darting to the spa workers as they hurried toward his shouting voice. “Where the hell is the damn security your people said she’d have?”
Keira flinched as two small spa workers stepped back from her best friend as though his head might explode. “Sir, I’m sorry…” one started, but then pressed her lips together tight when Mark shot her a glare.
“This is the worst place…”
“Mark, that’s enough,” Keira said, pulling on his elbow. “Calm down.” To the workers at her side, Keira smiled, tilted her head when they didn’t return the gesture. “You’ll have to forgive my friend. He’s a little overprotective and has been without his boyfriend for a few weeks now.” That well timed nugget of information earned a grin and a small laugh from the workers and they nodded, moving behind Mark to close the curtains and lock the patio door.
When Keira had returned to the main spa room where the cousins and aunties and Leann were all sitting around getting their hair flat ironed or curled and their faces made up, Mark was at her heels, pulling her back. “Kona promised me this shit wasn’t going to happen again.”
“When did he say that?”
The sharp malice that bunched up Mark’s face eased and Keira folded her arms, cocking an eyebrow at her friend when she realized he and Kona had been plotting behind her back. She didn’t need to say anything to Mark. A small curl of her lip and the man rubbed the back of his neck and stared down at the floor, looking like he was trying to think of something to say that wouldn’t piss Keira off.
“Um, last night, after you took off. I, ah, yelled at him for abandoning you all day and for whatever he did to piss you off last night.”
“Mark…”
“I know. I know it’s none of my business and you don’t want me getting between you and that damn gorilla when you’re fighting.”
“No. I don’t and do not call him that.”
Mark’s shoulders lowered and he pulled Keira further away from those prying bridesmaids. The loud conversation and cackling laughter had quieted as Keira and Mark’s little tiff continued. “You’re my oldest friend, Keira and I know when you’re worried and stressed. I see it written all over your face. You’re anxious. All this shit,” he waved a hand around the room, “it’s not you. Why haven’t you told Kona that? Why have you just let this damn train wreck keep pushing forward?”