Page 4 of Crave
Chapter Two
Bryn Christmas
The airplane soared steadily through the sky after a bumpy start. I was seated next to a girl who was about eleven or twelve years old. The last time her cell phone had been out of her hands was right before takeoff. She had sat her device on top of the bin between our seats to scarf down two complimentary preflight hot chocolate chip cookies. Once we reached cruising altitude, her eyes were fixed on the screen. I loved sitting next to kids on airplanes, but she was obviously not in the mood for conversation, so I sparked up my laptop, hooked into the secure onboard network, and tried to do some work. Unfortunately, I couldn’t shake thoughts of Jamison Cox. It was strange how being in his presence was like being swaddled in a warm, soft blanket. I let the possibility of us being soul mates sit in my mind just so that I could deconstruct it.
After Jamison had been exposed as a conspirator against my brother’s political campaign, he never got in touch with me. Granted, I’d lost my cell phone while vacationing in Borneo, but I still had email, and the address was on the contact sheet. My ex-boyfriend, Dale Rumor, had torched my heart by being a selfish prick. But although I’d been with Dale longer, the break between me and Jamison hurt more.
Jamison was supposed to be the good guy, my first healthy pick. And that one night he and I spent together had been out-of-this-world amazing. I’d put a lot of effort into trying to forget the details of our lovemaking. My breasts tingled as I recalled how his wet, warm tongue rubbed the tips of my nipples. Jamison wasn’t an overeager or coarse lover. His mouth, body, and movements had been soft and sensual. I recalled how he savored his way down from my mouth to my ribs then sank his tongue into my belly button. My back had curled, my body tense with novel sexual pleasure, and I nearly fainted when his wet, warm mouth devoured my pussy, bringing me to the most potent orgasm I’d ever experienced. Dale hadn’t known how to eat pussy. Jamison had.
Gosh, he was good in bed.Or maybe it was our chemistry that took our lovemaking to a level that was beyond our universe. Sexual attraction wasn’t our only bond, though we weren’t an obvious match. I was carefree, and he was conservative, at least in appearance. Our connection was emotional. On the one and only night we made love, when he wasn’t inside me, we lay shoulder to shoulder and talked.
“What makes you tick?” he asked. “I’ve been trying to figure that out from the day we met.”
I chuckled, feeling buoyant. “Are you referring to the day we formally met?”
“When did we informally meet?”
“On your wedding day.” Then I twisted my mouth thoughtfully. “I guess I met you. You didn’t meet me.”
He chortled. “Then yes, I meant when we met at the restaurant, which might be the best day of my life.”
We stared into each other’s eyes again. I agreed. That had probably been one of the best days of my life too. Lighthearted, I pondered his question.What makes me tick?
“In regard to your initial question, I’m still trying to figure that out,” I said.
After a long pause, he whispered, “Me too.”
Our confessions were our first dive into the well of emotional trust. We talked about money and how having a lot of it had never brought either of us true happiness. I revealed how lonely I’d felt growing up with Amelia Christmas as a mother. He shared that after all these years, he was trying to figure out what sort of person his mother truly was, but he never said more than that about her. I talked about all the schools I’d been kicked out of. He was a straight-A student and high school valedictorian. I shared that when my father would dispatch me to do my Christmas-daughter duties by showing up to some silly event attended by ladies and daughters who lunched, I would pretend to have an accent that came from no particular country. Jamison found that very funny. As night turned to morning, we made love once more. When he left, we planned on seeing each other soon at the campaign office. Of course, that had never happened. But even after learning of Jamison’s betrayal, I’d wondered if he was the soul mate who got away.
“Hi,” the flight attendant said cheerily.
I opened my eyes and stopped smiling as if I was high on good drugs. “Um, yes.” I shifted in my seat. I must have looked ridiculous.
He served me the cappuccino I’d ordered before takeoff and gave the girl next to me, who hadn’t taken her eyes off her phone, another Coke.
After a quiet sigh, I decided not to think about Jamison Cox ever again. Instead, I focused on the lovely wedding weekend that had just passed. My twin brother, Asher, was now the husband of intimidatingly sexy Dr. Penina Ross. I never could picture him having a wife. I couldn't picture myself as any man’s blushing bride either. Despite trying so hard to have healthier relationships, I couldn’t shake the belief that I was too damaged to enter a partnership that was built to last a lifetime.
But maybe I wasn’t too damaged. Maybe I just didn’t know how to go about the business of meeting and mating forever and ever. Regardless, the redesign of our childhood home was a hit with my family. A house that carried the energy of a castle torture chamber and imprisoned the meanest, dirtiest, angriest ghosts had been torn down. The historical society wanted off with my head for demolishing the structure without their permission. The old white stone Christmas mansion had been built during the Gilded Age, and many sightseeing tour buses would pause outside the iron gates to get a look at it while listening to an account of our family’s lineage that started out palatable but ended with the guide mentioning my sister-in-law Holly’s book,The Dark Christmases. Fortunately, Jasper got the history police off my back. I respected historical relics, but not in the case of our personal hell on earth that was the mansion we’d grown up in. I never asked what Jasper had done to make my problems go away, and frankly, I didn’t care.
I hired Rina Ito, an architect who married East Asian and Scandinavian contemporary styles, to redesign our home. The new mansion had three levels, each separated by hip and gable roofs like Shinto shrines. The new home felt light and open, a stark difference from the bulky old colonial structure.
It took four months for the frame, walls, windows, and flooring to be erected. The builders worked long hours to get it done. The final seven months were spent on the interior. My goal was to make sure those who entered couldn’t experience a stitch of what it used to feel like to walk inside the Christmas manor. For inspiration, I took a trip with Rina and her friend Yana to Greyson Highland State Park in Virginia. Rina had suggested the excursion. As we strode along the pathways through meadows and emerald forests, we spoke very little. I remembered everything I could about each of my brothers—who they’d been when we were younger and the men they’d become after Randolph passed.
Truthfully, none of us had liked who we were when Randolph was alive. We were like lab rats, always racing in multiple directions with nowhere to go and always part of a furtive lab experiment. What happened when the rats were set free? They scattered, and that was exactly what we’d done. When we came back together again, we were all different. We had evolved.
When designing the interior, my goal was to convey our transformations. We used to be bloodred, black soot, and shadowy gray. With Randolph out of the picture, we’d become precious metal for strength, softened by fire and molded into fine human beings.
So I hired Mendes Lee, an LA-based artist famous for her metalwork. Mendes flew up to Newport and stayed with me in the guesthouse for two months. Together, we moved from the bottom to the top floors, crafting with our theme in mind. Thoughtful design went into the tiniest details—knobs, handles, lightbulbs, types of glass and wood. We even considered the light flowing in from the sun, moon, and stars when selecting window frames, paint, wall art, and other design features. In the end, we had an ultramodern and stylish yet comfortable place to live. Gone were the depravities of the past, all replaced by hope for the future.
Mendes was so proud of the scope of what we’d been able to accomplish that she contacted two of the most popular art-and-design publications in the world. After Mendes had hosted house tours with several journalists, the story “The Monstrous Mansion Reformed” caught on like wildfire.
Mendes never failed to give me most of the credit for the majority of the interior design concepts. “Bryn Christmas was very detail oriented,” she would say. “Bryn was thoughtful about how art merged with use in every part of the house, from the windows down to the bathroom medicine cabinets.”
I hadn’t realized I’d been so immersed in the project until she mentioned it. What I liked most about the renovation was the idea of destroying the old and ushering in the new.
Then, one day, Mendes called and asked if she could hire me to help with the design of her London flat. The theme would beStanding firm against the raging wind. I already knew a lot about Mendes from the days we spent living in the guesthouse. That job led to another and then another, each as enjoyable as the last. When I became certain I wanted to make interior design a career, I went to see Jasper at the CFI—Christmas Family Industries—office in Lower Manhattan to seek his assistance for coming up with a solid business plan. Jasper listened to me attentively, asked questions about my goals, and wanted to know about the challenges I’d faced during some of my past projects. His expression remained stern as I gave my answers. After a final brisk nod, he typed feverishly on his keyboard. Seconds later, his secretary entered his office with a complete business plan. He went over it with me. It was amazing how he could come up with a solid blueprint in a matter of minutes.
“Then you want to implement it?” he asked.
