Ocean Between (eBook)

Francesca Knittel Bowyer (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
276 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-7947-3 (ISBN)

Infos

Michael's blessed life is shaken when he discovers his beautiful wife assaulted and killed, with the murderer unknown. His mother convinces him to start a new life in Portofino, where his envious cousin resides in his mother's villa. When Michael's mother meets a widowed young woman who seems perfect for her son. A supsensful read with a tryst of passion, murder, rape, and jealousy begins.

Francesca Knittel Bowyer is the only daughter of two-time Academy Award-winning actress Luise Rainer, who won back-to-back Oscars® for The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and The Good Earth (1937), and her father, well known publisher Robert Knittel, son of Swiss novelist John Knittel. She attended The Spence School in New York City, The Royal Ballet School in Great Britain, The French Lycée in London, Cours Maintenon in France, and Queen's College in Westminster. She learned to speak French, Italian, German and Spanish. Francesca worked her way through the worlds of fashion and literature. Francesca's father introduced her to famous authors including Sidney Sheldon, Ian Fleming, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. He encouraged Francesca, recognizing her talent as an author, which elevated her confidence and self-esteem to establish herself as a writer. Her first job as assistant beauty editor for Harper's Bazaar in London started her career as a freelance journalist for many years, achieving success in the publishing field. Bowyer's first book, a memoir, 'Seen From The Wings, Luise Rainer, My Mother, The Journey', received a multitude of glowing reviews, including praise from author Kitty Kelly, spurring her on to continue writing.

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Michael Preston is blessed. He's the handsome CEO of a large banking firm in Los Angeles, lives in a beautiful home on Malibu Beach, and is married to his stunning wife Christie, loved by all. Returning home one day, he discovers his wife has been brutally raped and murdered. Rage and despair force him to find the culprit. Police claim they discovered the perpetrator burned to death in a shack close by. But was he really the murderer?Following weeks of soul searching, Michael's mother convinces him to move and start a new life in Portofino, Italy where he still owns a large schooner, willed to him by his late father. Michael's cousin Dalton, a good-looking charmer and near-to-well playboy, also lives in Portofino in his mother's villa overlooking the Port. He has carried a jealous crutch for Michael since childhood. His one desire is to have Michael's life and all that goes with it, including Michael's wife. Destiny brings a young Monica Bracknell to have a chance encounter with Michael's mother, Sue, while sitting on the Malibu beach as she mourns the sudden, tragic death of her husband. They become friends. Upon hearing Monica's story, Sue plots. Successfully sending Monica for a needed getaway to Portofino, Monica finds herself in the grip of Dalton's charms until meeting Michael. Passion and discovery bring a whole tryst light. In a tryst of passion, murder, rape and jealousy, the reader travels from the beaches of Malibu to the exclusive resort of Portofino, Italy in a suspenseful read till the end.

Textauszug

Chapter 3
An Unwelcome Visit

Michael telephoned his mother to inquire about his cousin’s sudden visit.

“Be nice, Michael. He also took me by surprise. Strangely, Bonnie never told me about his trip here. We spoke about everything. Dalton just said it was time he came to see us and how we are doing here. He asked me if he could stay here. I just couldn’t refuse him”.

Sue never mentioned anything about giving him artworks from her house. Michael was struck with that old feeling of foreboding. “Now, please, be nice when he calls on you; he’s really a good chap.” She said before she hung up. Not a minute later, Dalton was on the phone.

“Mikie!” Dalton announced himself as though he was a welcome surprise. If Michael was a dog, he imagined he would have a mohawk up his back at the sound of his cousin’s voice. But he was a Preston, and he would try to reject the feeling of negativity.

After all, Dalton had never really done anything to him but for his apparent jealousy. Michael thought of him as a selfish weakling, good at storytelling his way out of anything. Under certain circumstances, there was a definite charm about him. It seemed he had also worked very hard at successfully managing Michael’s boat. ‘So, what was the problem?’ Michael continued to ponder.

“Hey, Dalton!” Mike ventured in as sincere a tone as he could muster. “Hope you’re all settled at Sue’s,” he said, referring to Dalton’s stay at his mother’s house. At least he and Christie would not have to be hosting him for a week. Michael knew he would have to spend the weekdays in L.A. at the office, leaving Christie tending to host Dalton alone for much of the time.

Dalton immediately jumped in. “Can’t wait to see you and meet Christie. I hear you really caught a prize there. Quite the beauty, too, from the photos I’ve seen.” Michael bristled at the comment but remained silent. Surely, Dalton would not be jealous of Michael’s wife. He knew there was going to be more.

“Say, how ‘bout we have dinner tomorrow night?” Dalton continued without leaving time for Michael to speak. “Maybe I could come over, have a drink, and I could take you both out for dinner someplace nice. Let’s say Jeoffrey’s?” It was one of Malibu’s finest eateries, high on a cliff with a spectacular view down the coast and spectacular sunsets. “We can go early enough to see the sunset” There was a pause. Michael looked over at Christie, already dressed, sitting opposite him, her long tan legs dangling from the raised high bed she had just finished straightening out. She was now in jean cut- offs and an open man’s shirt, unbuttoned just low enough to tease a hint of her perfectly shaped bare breasts. No matter what she wore, she still looked like she was modeling for Chanel couture, where she had worked following her two-year course at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Michael had met Christie at one of those high-profile business gatherings while on a business trip to Paris. It had been decorated with a plethora of beautiful women, and then there was one who caught his eye like a centered diamond among a cluster of others.

She was twenty-three, and he was already thirty. He was in Paris to underwrite a small company he believed to have great promise. With one breath and a blink of an eye, he knew she was the one he would woo into becoming his wife. It was like fate.

When he approached her, asking her to have dinner with him, she gave him a shy smile, looking out from half-lowered lids, and her head slightly turned as he guided her chin gently to focus on him. That’s when Christie felt the shock in her stomach, and she instinctively knew, too. It was as though an angel had lowered him in front of her.

Following were two weeks of lunches, dinners, endless walks along the Seine, over bridges, resting on benches in quaint squares, and then that last magical night spent in his hotel. Michael convinced Christie to leave Paris and her arduous job modeling at the couture house to be his love and wife, to be cherished and showered with all she could wish for. Fairy tales don’t happen often.

Christie was smiling as she listened to the deep booming voice of Michael’s cousin coming through the phone. Michael smiled back, marveling at her welcoming attitude. There was not a bad bone in her body. To her, everyone had a heart as good as a new puppy.

Michael wanted to pull her in his arms right then, but the voice on the other end of the phone just forged through like a plow in a field of flowers. ‘What had he done so right to be so blessed?’ he mused for an instant, not hearing the words of his cousin Dalton.

Dalton appeared, punctual as he had been raised to be, at the door with a Lalique vase Michael recognized as one belonging to his Aunt Sue. It was filled with flowers which must have been picked from Sue’s garden. Dalton never went far out of his way to get something he needed or wanted.

“One of the vases I bought from Sue.” Dalton acknowledged, reading Michael’s mind. ‘Tm taking some of the things that Aunt Sue wants to get rid of and sending them to Portofino. She seems to want to lighten her load of collections,” he added with a careless grin.

‘Like taking from Paul to pay Peter,’ Michael thought, wondering how little he had offered Sue for the precious crystal vase. A cloud of darkness shadowed Michael as he watched his cousin’s eyes move to Christie, from her beautiful, carelessly coiffed blond hair down her body to her beautiful sandaled feet. It was almost as though Dalton had undressed her at first sight.

Michael dismissed the urge to push Dalton back to the wall, instead owning what was his, graciously allowing Dalton to pass Michael with a handshake and present Christie with the precious vase filled with the roses Sue had grown in her garden with such pride. “You are even more beautiful than your photos, Christie,” Dalton gushed, resisting the urge to slide his fingers through her thick, blond hair.

Dinner, with a spectacular sunset followed by a star-studded sky, along with the balmy salt air of an unusually warm summer night, made one almost forget the delicacies of the gourmet dishes served. The evening went cordially with an exchange of childhood memories, the odd stories, jokes that brought laughter to Christie’s lips and, of course, some business of the activities of the schooner in Portofino.

Occasionally, Dalton would stroke Christie’s hand, once brushing a breeze-blown strand of hair from her face, bringing a stern stare from Michael that said, in no uncertain terms, ‘hands-off.’ Dalton was oozing his charms like molten chocolate. The dinner finished with a feeling of minimal tolerance towards Michael, who knew there was an ulterior motive to all of this.

Then, it came straight from the horse’s mouth. “Michael!” Dalton left a pregnant pause as loud as a drum roll before his next words. “I want to buy the “Sea Queen.” Michael merely shrugged a chuckle, throwing his head to one side and his eyes to the skies above. There it was. He knew that Dalton wanted something Michael had.

“Not a chance!” Michael answered flatly. Dalton’s face became hard as stone, painted with a charming smirk. “Michael,” he countered, ‘’I’ve been managing that boat for years now, and I know it like I own it.” “Yes,” Michael shot back, “but you don’t own it, and I have been paying you handsomely to take care of it... quite apart from the fact that you can’t afford it.”

“And what do you know about what I can and cannot afford?” The tone was now growing tenuous. “For your information, the money earned leasing the schooner has made us quite a lot of money. Something else you may not be aware of: I started a company for luxury vacations....” What he failed to tell Michael was that it was Dalton’s mother, Bonnie, who had started and owned the lucrative travel company at the suggestion of one of her friends, putting Dalton in charge of sales.

Dalton was on a roll, changing his tenure from demanding to reasoning to bargaining with the charm of a traveling salesman. Dalton wanted this. He had the charm and looks, but he was not an innovator, and he knew it from the back of his scheming mind. He was sick of being second in command to everyone around him.

“No!” Michael said with a firmness Christie had never witnessed. “The boat was handed down in trust to me from my father. No way I am going to let it go.” Those family-inherited indigo eyes now turned to stone. Michael got up; Christie looked up at him as if getting the message, while Dalton rose, trying to match Michael’s size.

The tension was relieved as they returned home, and Christie fabricated some easy small talk. If only some fraction of peace could be built between these two cousins. Dalton’s jealousy of Michael seemed to become more and more apparent as she witnessed the conversation throughout the evening.

The subject of Michael’s boat was not raised again. This was a battle that Dalton did not want to lose but feared he might. Dalton looked at Christie sitting shotgun. He would find a way to have a piece of what Michael had. After all, he was entitled to the same success in pursuit of happiness. A sudden desire welled within Dalton as he watched from the back seat, gold strands of Christie’s hair blowing in the air that came through the open window of the car.

Michael Preston would leave for...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 23.11.2024
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-7947-3 / 9798350979473