Before Daylight. Andie J. Christopher

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СКАЧАТЬ was no way she was going to end up tethered to someone like her father. Unlike her father, Charlie had a sense of humor, but he had the same charisma that her father used to try to control everyone around him. No way she was about to give herself no escape but the bottom of a pill bottle. Even though Charlie wasn’t an emotionally abusive dick bag, he would end up trying to control her—he would want more of her than she could give.

      How many Mai Tais—and how much tequila—had she had to drink? The only way she would have gotten married was if she’d been bombed out of her mind—or if he’d tied her up and dragged her down the aisle. But that would have left a mark.

      If she had been on her guard, acting like herself, this never would have happened.

      Images of a pink beach and matching pink drinks flooded her consciousness. The soft caress of the Indonesian breeze, the fuzzy joy at seeing her cousin, Carla, joyfully happy on her wedding day, and her disquiet at how much she didn’t miss dancing during the three months she was out of commission from a groin injury slammed into her mind from the recesses of her memory. Since returning to the ballet, she’d stuffed thoughts of that night down so far that they exploded back like matter packed too densely in space.

      But, every so often, her mind drifted to kissing Charlie at sunset, away from the crowd. It was the craziest thing she’d ever done—kissing a stranger. She couldn’t get the feeling of his lips on hers out of her head. It was as though he’d stamped an impression on her, an invisible tattoo of his effect on her. Her entire life up until that point had been about discipline, training, dieting, and taking in criticism. She’d been a changeling at the behest of everyone in her life, and she knew that she could never let anyone know what was underneath her exterior. But there was something about the way he’d looked at her that had penetrated the wall she’d built around herself to avoid the pain of feeling she was never quite good enough, never quite the best. The feeling of his gaze on her skin—the feeling of him really looking at her—lingered along with the imprint of his mouth.

      Either that, or she’d been so addled from the champagne toasts and tropical drinks that she’d lost her ever-loving mind. Crazy was the only thing that could explain how she ended up married to a sleazy reality TV producer who was once taped railing drunkenly about “bitches always breaking his heart.” She didn’t care that he was friends with her cousin and her cousin’s husband. Well, technically, their employer—he produced an apparently non-sleazy reality travel show featuring her cousin, Carla, and Carla’s new husband.

      And he hadn’t seemed like a slime ball at all when she’d seen him at the bar. But she’d married him. What the fuck was wrong with her?

      Laura stood up and paced her dressing room, trying to figure out how to get out of this mess. She clenched her jaw. No one could find out she was married. If they did—if there was any hint that she was settling down—rumors would start flying that she was about to retire. Every time a principal dancer got married or pregnant, glee was a palpable thing in the rest of the company. Inevitably, a family and a serious career in ballet were untenable. At 28, she really should start considering leaving. The aches and pains that had annoyed her at 18 were nearly debilitating now. Most mornings, she had a hard time getting out of bed.

      Nothing like waking up with Charlie—there she was warm and content. A totally foreign sensation.

      An image of waking up in Charlie’s arms, fully clothed, and cocooned in his warmth and the tropical breeze sent a shiver down her spine. And, even intensely hung over, she’d liked it. She shook her head.

      If anyone in the ballet found out she had gotten married, the piranhas in the corps de ballet would start circling for her principal dancer position. And her chance to move to the New York City Ballet—to get a few years in the brightest spotlight in the world before retiring—would evaporate before they even came close to fruition.

      “You can’t tell anyone.”

      Her grandfather shook his head, not meeting her gaze. “Of course not.” He would keep his promise because her getting married while drunk on tropical beverages and the romance of Carla’s wedding to himself because it was embarrassing to the whole family.

      He didn’t say anything else, but his cheek twitched. Although he’d been around her a lot growing up, her grandfather was a cipher. She had very little idea of what went on in his head, or in his personal life. Her grandfather expressing an emotion would be almost as shocking as her father telling her he was proud of her or showing up to her parents’ house and finding her mother sober.

      Rogelio had moved to Florida with his two kids thirty-five years ago and rarely spoke of the wife he’d left behind. Since her Grandma Lola had moved to the States, she could see why her grandfather had never moved on. Lola was a force of nature who changed everything she touched.

      She could tell that this situation was awkward for him. He’d seemed to inch toward the door after delivering the news. And all she had were feelings right now; disgust at herself, anger at the situation, and most of all—fear. “Seriously, no one.”

      “I’m required by law to keep our conversations confidential.” Always the rule-follower, her grandfather. She got that from him, thriving on rules and routines rather than transient things like love. Though she’d been worried the return of her Grandma Lola would throw off the carefully balanced silence her family had come to over the years, apparently his ex-wife’s return hadn’t affected him at all.

      “That’s good.” She turned away from himself. “Well, I guess you should file for an extension, abuelo.”

      * * * *

      Charlie’s back ached and his eyes burned. He’d spent over twelve hours in the editing room, making sure that the footage from Jonah and Carla’s wedding looked just right.

      Officially, they hadn’t shot any of the intimate moments—the actual ceremony or the preparations, but they’d tied in part of the wedding to the shoot they were doing on different parts of the island.

      But, for most of the night, until he’d gotten swept up with some very potent tropical drinks and Carla’s fetching cousin, he’d gotten some footage of the whole family celebrating his best friend and his lovely bride. Carla and Jonah hadn’t planned to have the whole family at their wedding; they’d planned to elope. But Charlie had not-so-accidentally let the cat out of the bag to Carla’s great aunt, Lola, who had informed the entire Hernandez clan, which immediately threw them into action.

      Carla and Jonah hadn’t wanted to deal with the fuss of a big wedding, but now that his friend was finally happy, they deserved to have their family with them for their wedding. Charlie imagined that some military campaigns weren’t carried out with the same precision as Molly Hernandez’s wedding plans.

      Charlie wasn’t a stranger to big families—he had five brothers—but the Hernandez extended family made him feel alone even as they’d sort of folded him into the group. All of his brothers seemed happy doing their parts in the family business—television—enjoying all the wealth that came with it. They enjoyed the approval of their father.

      Unlike him.

      During his twenties, he and his father had butted heads so often over the shows Charlie brought into the network that every day had felt like a battle. And then, right after his very short marriage to his college girlfriend—which was an anathema in his family—had ended in her telling TMZ and the world that she’d left him because he was terrible in bed. Depressed, he’d posted a YouTube video of himself talking about how all women sucked. The video had gone viral, and he’d embarrassed his family. СКАЧАТЬ