Three Wishes(91)
Author: Kristen Ashley

Victor shook his head.

“Does Tash know you’re a genie?” Victor asked.

Fazire nodded.

“Does Nathaniel know you’re a genie?” Victor went on.

Fazire shook his head.

“Fucking hell,” Victor breathed.

“You really shouldn’t use that kind of language, especially with a youngster in the house,” Fazire admonished.

Victor just kept staring at him.

“Tell me about Nathaniel,” Fazire prompted.

Finally Victor relented. “I’ll tell you about Nathaniel but you have to give him time. And Lily time. If they don’t seem to be working it out on their own –”

“I’ll give them time,” Fazire interrupted.

“You can’t tell Lily right away,” Victor pressed.

“I won’t tell her right away.” Finally in exasperation Fazire snapped, “I’m a genie! I know what I’m doing.”

Really, what could be so bad about Nathaniel? It was obvious to anyone he was a good man. Fazire even wanted to dislike him and he couldn’t hold out for more than a few weeks and Fazire was really good at holding a grudge. He once went three hundred years holding a grudge against another genie. He was famous for it.

Victor interrupted his thoughts and started talking. While listening to the terrible tale, Fazire stopped thinking.

When Victor stopped talking, Fazire said immediately, “I must tell Lily.”

“You tell her, I’ll have to kill you,” Victor threatened and even though Fazire was immortal, he still felt a thrill of fear.

“Why would he…?” Fazire started.

“I’ve no idea,” Victor cut in.

“But it’s nothing to be ashamed –” Fazire continued.

“I know,” Victor interrupted again.

“I can’t fix that,” Fazire admitted and it was true. He couldn’t. No one could fix that.

Except but one person.

“Lily can,” both Fazire and Victor said in unison.

* * * * *

Nate was lying in bed, covers to his waist some papers in his hands he should have gone through that evening rather than taking his daughter and Lily on motorcycle rides.

Instead of reading them, he was thinking about the rides, Tash’s excited babble in is ear, Lily’s body pressed against his.

He was also thinking about the only present he’d ever received from anyone outside his adopted family. A present from Lily. She hadn’t bought him a tie or a watch; she’d bought him a motorcycle. No half measures for Lily, he was discovering.

Lastly, he was wondering if there were blind nuns in the Pyrenees who made tailored shirts out of rare silk and he was hoping Lily didn’t have their phone number.

Lily walked out of the bathroom wearing another pair of short drawstring pyjama shorts, these were light blue with green polka-dots and they were topped by a fitted green camisole. She was rubbing lotion into her hands and arms that made the room smell of almonds. He noticed, and was pleased to see, that she’d gained some weight in the past weeks, her too-thin body filling out into the lush curves he was more familiar with and he vastly preferred.

He watched her walk toward the bed, graceful and unaffected, having no idea that even in her pyjamas, she was more elegant than any woman he’d ever met.

She jumped up and landed on her knees at the end of the bed, sitting on her calves. Her eyes found his and she smiled at him but Nate noticed her smile was warm but guarded.

He gave up all pretence of reading and tossed the papers on the bedside table.

“What’s on your mind?” he asked, correctly reading her face.

Her eyes lit with a knowing look, not surprised he surmised her troubled thoughts and asked about them. To Nate’s way of thinking, time was too precious not to cut to the chase immediately, most especially any time with Lily.

She tilted her head to the side and bit her lip.

Then, releasing it, she said, “Promise you won’t get mad?”

Nate wanted to laugh but he didn’t. Lily on the end of their bed smiling at him, however guarded, Tash downstairs asleep and exhausted from an exciting day that centred around Lily’s generosity, his parents in Lily’s old room, now the guest bedroom, with all that, there was practically no way he could get mad.

Of course, after what he expected she considered his irrational response to her giving him a present, a response he knew wasn’t at all irrational, he could understand her concern.

“I won’t get mad,” he assured her softly then, deciding she was too far away, he commanded in an even softer voice, “Come here.”

She shook her head, her smile fading and he felt something constrict in his chest as he witnessed its loss.

“I need to tell you something and I think I better do it from here.”

He kept silent and felt his shields go up as he watched her warily.

She took a deep breath.

“It’s all my fault,” she declared.

He stayed silent at her strange declaration.

She hesitated and then spoke again. “Everything that’s happened to us, it’s all my fault.”

He still didn’t speak, this time because he could not imagine how Lily had turned things around in her head to think that anything she’d done could make what had happened to them her fault.

“You see,” she went on, “these past eight years, I knew I should, I wanted to but something always got in the way but I always knew I should go to Victor and Laura and I didn’t.”

Finally he understood her worry. His shields went down and he broke his silence. “Lily, darling, come here.”

She shook her head again, her red-gold hair brushing her shoulder.

“I need you to know, to say this. Nate, I couldn’t afford it. I could have called them but what do you say? I was ill, at first, but that’s no excuse. I mean, I got better then it was years –”

“Lily –” he interrupted but she was on a roll and getting agitated. He knew this because she jumped off the bed and began pacing.

“I wrote them letters, dozens of them, trying to explain. I thought I could do it better by writing it. I’m a good writer, a long time ago, I even won awards. I never told you that.” She stopped and looked at him as if shy of this admission then she brought up her hands and her fingers started to fidget, clenching and unclenching. “If I’d gone to them, if I’d called, just sent one letter, I can’t even understand myself why I didn’t send –”

Nate decided this was enough. He threw off the covers, knifed off the bed and advanced on her. He was not about to allow her to berate herself for Danielle and Jeffrey’s deception, not after what she’d been through.