The Solitude of Passion Read online

  THE SOLITUDE OF PASSION

  A Novel

  Addison Moore

  Copyright © 2013 by Addison Moore

  http://addisonmoorewrites.blogspot.com/

  Edited by: Sarah Freese

  Cover design by: Sarah Hansen at Okay Creations

  This novel is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to peoples either living or deceased is purely coincidental. Names, places, and characters are figments of the author’s imagination. The author holds all rights to this work. It is illegal to reproduce this novel without written expressed consent from the author herself.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Books by Addison Moore

  New Adult

  Someone to Love (Someone to Love 1)

  Someone Like You (Someone to Love 2) Coming January 2014

  3:AM Kisses (Coming September 17th 2013)

  Contemporary Romance

  The Solitude of Passion

  Young Adult Paranormal Romance

  Ethereal (Celestra Series Book 1)

  Tremble (Celestra Series Book 2)

  Burn (Celestra Series Book 3)

  Wicked (Celestra Series Book 4)

  Vex (Celestra Series Book 5)

  Expel (Celestra Series Book 6)

  Toxic Part One (Celestra Series Book 7)

  Toxic Part Two (Celestra Series Book 7.5)

  Elysian (Celestra Series Book 8)

  Ethereal Knights (Celestra Knights)

  Ephemeral (The Countenance Trilogy 1)

  Evanescent (The Countenance Trilogy 2)

  Entropy (The Countenance Trilogy 3) Coming late 2013

  When old love and new love collide—impossibility is born.

  Prologue

  It’s hard to know what’s real and what isn’t when you’re trying to pick the pieces of your heart off the ground. But the order of the universe reversed itself—it took my heartbreak and exchanged it for something far more palatable. I swallowed the delusion whole and traded agony for this strange new reality. Now, there was a choice to be made—a decision that would prove impossible.

  I was walking barefoot on the edge of a very sharp knife, the blade already slicing me to ribbons, but I was oblivious to its infliction. The pain was sublime. I was the lucky one, even when the torment shaved me to the bone.

  It was a season in my life, born of confusion, all consuming lust, passion that could fuel jet planes—intoxicating, rich and heated as lava.

  A fire brewed in my heart, too magnificent to ignore, I could never deny it, never insist it disappear. I want to drink it down, let it erode me from the inside like a white-hot flame—intoxicating myself with ecstasy—ignoring the misery. A dream had materialized from the darkest part of my being. I had pulled everyone into my fantasy, and it was only fair that no one suffer but me.

  Mitch gazes at me with those hungry eyes, his body glowing like burnished bronze.

  “Lee,” my name streams from his lips like a poem. Mitch meets me with his mouth, diving over me with a kiss that tastes like eternity branding itself from his soul to mine. “I’m going to love you,” he whispers, gliding down my body and burying a string of kisses over my stomach, trailing lower until he presses my knees apart.

  Mitch peels off his jeans and rises above me like a phoenix. He crashes his lips over mine and kisses me through a lust-driven smile. I open up for him like a flower—Mitch is the sun I’ve craved for so long. He pushes into me with a pronounced thrust, and a small cry escapes me that’s been building for the last five years. Mitch pushes in, deeper still and fills me with all of his carnal affection—a hard-won groan wrenches from his gut.

  “God, I love you,” he pants hot into my ear.

  “I love you, too, Mitch.”

  There’s not another person in the universe who exists right now.

  It’s just Mitch and me, lost in our love as his body moves in rhythm to mine.

  But Max hovers over us like a ghost.

  And, now, nothing will ever be the same.

  1

  The Departure

  Lee

  It’s a dangerous game when nobody knows how to surrender. If only it were a simple game.

  The ground quakes beneath them. You could hear their primal grunting, feel the wind of their bodies cutting across the court. This was no ordinary match, no friendly round of balls—it was a battering. They want to beat each other, cross the net, and shove the optic yellow sphere down one another’s throats. This is years’ worth of pent-up aggression—the I’ll-see-you-in-hell kind of drama played out in fields of war, gang infested alleyways—prison.

  Katrice and I huddle on a bench under the eaves and watch Mitch and Max play tennis in a warlike fashion. The California sun scorches across the sky, searing down over the four of us as if there could be casualties. My eyes wander to a bone-dry acacia that threatens to ignite like a birthday candle under the oppressive heat.

  A night from long ago hedges in my mind, and I can’t fight it. I can still feel Max’s strong body pressing into mine, still see the flexing of his chest—hear his steady groans.

  “You ever think of that party back in high school?” Kat asks. She doesn’t even know she’s chiding me, that it feels more like a taunt than something genuinely inquisitive.

  I slept with Max—just once, that night at the party.

  Katrice bows her lashes, trying to hide a smile. She’s the only living soul that knows what happened that night. Not even Mitch knows about that explosive night I shared with his self-proclaimed enemy. Of course, back then they were anything but—they were the best of friends.

  “You ever tell Mitch?” she whispers.

  “I’d die before I told him.”

  Those two were closer than brothers until Mitch’s father and Max’s mother flaunted their infidelity for the world to see. It was treason in both the bedroom and boardroom. It split two families in half and reduced their friendship to cinders.

  “Lee,” Max shouts, waving his racket. His black hair gleams in the light. He’s so cuttingly handsome, but it’s Mitch who’s my golden Adonis. “You see that? Your husband cheats!”

  I wasn’t paying attention, so I just shake my head and round my hand over the curve of my swollen belly. I’m hardly five months, and already I’ve lost my toned stomach, exchanged it for a beautiful bump, oval and hard as stone.

  “Leave him.” Max grins before serving the ball with bionic force. “I’ll help you raise the baby.”

  “Leave him?” Kat whispers. Her face pricks with mockery. “I’ll help you raise the baby? He is so still in love with you.”

  “Shut up. He’s not in love with me. He’s in love with making Mitch miserable.”

  “Heard his divorce is final,” Kat practically sings the words. I can tell she’s enjoying this.

  He was married less than six months to Vivienne—Viv. A girl he’s dated on and off forever.

  “Well, I’m never getting divorced, so he’s out of luck.” I hold out my wedding ring and examine the stones as they shimmer under the harsh supervision of the sun. One of the diamonds pierces me with a glare—its brilliance lingers in my mind long after I put my hand down. It’s been a year for Mitch and me. Our baby is due in October.

  A biplane gets my attention as it whirs in the sky. It heads off toward the beach, hauling a tattered sign with a picture of a faded beer can. Living on the coast you see a lot of these. You lose interest in what they’re trying to sell and just enjoy it for the spectacle it is. Mono Bay magic—that’s what the tourists call it. Mono Bay, where the vineyards reach the shore. Not quite, but what do tourists know? Mono is famous for its vineyards with two of the most prominent belonging to the gladiators on the tennis court.

  My stomach so
urs as the biplane purrs toward the horizon.

  God—Mitch is going on an impromptu trip overseas, and I hate the thought of it. I hate the thought of him being away from me for one second, especially now with the baby. He wouldn’t be going anywhere if it wasn’t for Colton and his hidden talent of rolling off rooftops.

  “So, Colt broke his leg,” I whisper. Kat already knows this, but I’ll say anything to change the subject from my one-night stand with Max, so I go with it. “They really need a general contractor, someone who knows what they’re doing.” A tight knot builds in my throat, choking off the rest of the words.

  Colton. I’m so pissed he broke his leg. I’d like to break the other one, too—hell, all four limbs.

  “Don’t tell me Mitch is going in his place?” Kat’s features harden. “So it’s official? It’s his job to keep bailing out his loser brother?” Her hair whips around her face and conforms to her sarcastic smile like parentheses.

  “Bailing out Colt is Mitch’s third job.” Right after the vineyard and his new side business of construction.

  I push into Kat playfully with my shoulder. Our matching long hair is straight as bones and pale as paper. You can tell we’re sisters in so many other ways, but it’s the hair that confuses people, makes us look more like twins even though Kat likes to remind me I’m older—twenty-four to her twenty-three. My mother called us her Irish twins until the day she died.

  “Besides, he’ll be in and out,” I say, trying to believe it myself. The truth is, it’s going to be two long weeks in China. They had a team of six people, and three have already bailed. If it wasn’t a community outreach, he’d probably reconsider. It should be great PR for Townsend Construction, the company Mitch and Colt started once the vineyard tanked, but I’m not sure it’ll do anything to drum up business. “Colton volunteered to cover material expenses and promised to heft the bulk of the responsibility.” I make a face at my sister because we both know damn well that Colt is allergic to responsibility.

  “And the real story?” Kat is the last to buy Colt’s special brand of bullshit.

  “Apparently, a hot brunette committed to go, and Colt’s dick wanted to salute the effort.” A small groan escapes me because now it’s my handsome husband who’s stuck traveling abroad with a hot brunette. “Anyway, so much for altruism. Mitch is going to supervise construction, so he’s pretty crucial to the team. They’d have to cancel the trip without him.”

  “And the vineyard?” Kat lends her gaze to the battlefield as two gorgeous men swelter in the citrine sun—even though I’d never admit it, I could watch this twenty-four seven. The truth is, I miss Max in our lives. We grew up together. I knew what each of his smiles meant. I miss those infectious dimples that would greet me, those cobalt eyes that washed the day anew with their glory. But, once the divorce bombs went off between their parents, lines were drawn, and I was already with Mitch at that point. Although, unlike Mitch, I never considered Max an enemy, not by a long shot.

  “The vineyard?” I consider Kat’s question. “Colt has two weeks to run it into the ground.” I give a wry smile. “Considering he doesn’t have far to go, I’d say he can do it in one.” It’s the truth. Kat and I both know it.

  Unfortunately the Townsend label doesn’t have great distribution, so the construction business helps keep the financial cogs spinning. Max, on the other hand, has turned his father’s vineyard into a global conglomerate. You’d think they were selling the fountain of youth the way bottles of Shepherd wine fly off the shelves. It’s been served to royalty. And, poor Mitch—nine out of ten derelicts prefer Townsend wine across the country.

  “Weird they’re playing together,” Kat muses, never taking her eyes off the sultans of soon-to-be third degree sunburns.

  “So strange,” I whisper. Max wasn’t even invited to our wedding.

  It was me who was playing with Mitch before I started to sway in the heat. Kat works at the club, so she brought me lemonade. Max came out with her and challenged Mitch to a quick match. “Wouldn’t it be great if they could be friends again?”

  “Mitch-the-Bitch and Maxi-Pad?” She balks at the insanity of it all.

  Clearly I’ve stunned her.

  Those were the monikers of choice they used for one another in school after the “incident.”

  Maxi-Pad. That’s what Mitch called him for years, still does sometimes. It’s hard to let go of all that misplaced anger. It was his dad he really wanted to strangle for having the affair with Max’s town-harlot of a mother. But, both of their fathers are long since dead. You’d think it would have brought them closer together, but under the circumstances it created a division as wide as the sea and made them captains of industry far too soon. It set them up at the helm their fathers abandoned and led them to turn their livelihoods into a bitter rivalry.

  “Mitch feels like he’s always on the losing end of the stick.” It’s an unmitigated truth never before spoken, but it hangs in the air like a ghost every time we read of another Shepherd victory.

  “He said that?” Kat’s mouth rounds out as if I’ve just dispensed a juicy bit of Mono gossip.

  “Not those exact words, but it comes out in other ways.”

  “Oh, come on.” Kat’s eyes roll back a moment. “He’s got you, Lee. He won the war. Who cares about battles fought with toothpicks when he’s already holding the gilded trophy?”

  I look over at Kat. Her play on words amuse me. Ironic if you think about it. Mitch and Max, those hardwired rackets nothing more than glorified toothpicks. What are they fighting for so ferociously, anyway?

  A dull laugh settles in my chest.

  Mitch really wants the win, and Max doesn’t know how to lose.

  Max catches the ball with his bare hand and howls out a laugh. He belts the ball into the sky as if it were Mitch himself.

  “You suck, Townsend,” he shouts, rounding out the gate and blowing me a kiss.

  Mitch tosses his racket across the empty court like a machete, and it fractures into a thousand splintered shards.

  So many pieces to pick up after those two.

  I don’t know why this always surprises me.

  Mitch drives us past the vineyard on the way home, and I roll down the window, inhaling the sharp bite of soil. Up ahead, a tall wooden arch rises into the pristine sky with a crooked sign reading, Townsend Fields.

  “I’ve been meaning to fix that.” Mitch presses his lips together and eyes the sign as if it might crash over the roof of the car as we drive beneath it.

  I gaze out at the fields with the earth plowed in rows of deep russet-colored soil. The flat leaves of the vines are as wide as my hand, and the grapes gleam, hidden in the branches like tiny black gemstones.

  Mitch and I get out of the car and walk over to the ridge, an overlook where you can see the entire vineyard, acre after luscious acre, nothing but rolling rows of verdant beauty.

  “I’m going to turn this ship around.” Mitch wraps his arm around my waist and presses a kiss into my neck as he leads us down into the field.

  “I know you will.” I give a peck to his cheek and rub my lips over the sandpaper like stubble. “I’m proud of how you handled yourself out there today, you know, with Max.” Strange, his name hasn’t passed through my lips in so long that it actually sounds foreign, downright illegal.

  Mitch pulls back a dull smile. He’s so unreasonably handsome with his chiseled features, his glowing jade eyes. He still makes my stomach squeeze tight with nothing more than a stolen glance.

  “Shepherd has balls to talk to you the way he did.”

  “What?” I pull him in by the arm and hug him. “You’re hysterical, Townsend. He was kidding. Only in his wildest dreams would I ever leave you and let him raise the baby.” I brand a kiss over his lips and linger. “Besides, it’s too late.” I stop him from moving ahead and wrap my arms secure over his waist. “I love you. You’re my husband. The only one I’d ever want.” I push another kiss off his lips. “You’re my everything. You’
re perfect.”

  Mitch presses out a gentle smile, never taking those lawn-green eyes off me. He reaches over and plucks a grape off the vine and sets it in his teeth before feeding it to me by way of his mouth. He cups my face as we share the sharp bite of fruit with his sweet tongue dancing over mine. Mitch is a master of achingly soft kisses—kisses that wrench a cry from the deepest part of me, kisses that give birth to moans that have the ability to stretch out for weeks. My hands ride into the lip of his jeans, and I pull him in until his body is pressed against mine. The baby protrudes just enough to create a barrier.

  He trails his mouth up to my neck and bites down gently over my earlobe.

  “You’re my perfect wife, Lee. And nobody, not even Max Shepherd, can take you away from me. I’d move heaven and earth to make sure that didn’t happen. In fact, I already did.” He gives my ribs a quick tickle, and my elbows swoop to my sides as I give a violent laugh.

  “Oh”—I reach down and scoop a handful of clay—“tickling, huh? So you want to play dirty?”

  “Is that where this is going?” He tilts his head with that wicked gleam in his eye, looking hotter than hell in the process. “Because it looks like you’re the one who wants to play dirty.” Mitch takes a slow step in, and I jump back, laughing. “Come here and nobody gets hurt,” he gravels it out sultry and demanding.

  “Oh, no, you don’t.” I try to make a break for it, but Mitch scoops me up in his arms and lands us both in a soft pile of Townsend soil, laying my head to rest in an orange cloud. “Thanks a lot,” I tease. “I’ll be washing dirt out of my hair for weeks.”

  His brows twitch. Then, quick as it came, his playful demeanor dissipates. His eyes grow serious as death as he takes me in.

  “God, you’re so beautiful, Lee.” He swallows hard as he runs his gaze over my features. “I always want to remember you like this.”