He held his hand out. “There’s hot water and a clothes dryer. I’ll find something you can wear.”
She stumbled forward and they entered the foyer together. With its big glass dome ceiling, there was enough light despite the grey skies.
“Who owns this place?”
“A guy I used to know.”
“Used to know. Have we just broken into to someone’s house? Hell, I don’t care, I’m freezing. Where’s the bathroom?”
He’d broken a rule bringing her here. He could show her to the shower in the downstairs laundry room, the one he used, or he could send her upstairs, but he couldn’t remember which of the bathrooms was best stocked. She was incredibly pale and shivering, huddled in on herself. The rules could bend. He took her upstairs, trying to recall what was left, if he could find her a robe to wear while he dried her clothes. He took her to the ensuite in the master bedroom.
She took off her coat and dumped it in the big bath. “This place is amazing.” She bent to deal with her boots and staggered, knocking her shoulder into the vanity. Almost out the door, he wasn’t close enough to grab her and she slid to the floor.
“I don’t feel very well.”
He went to his knees in front of her and undid the zipper of her boot and eased it off. “You’ll feel better when you’re warm and dry.”
She shook her head. “It’s not that. It’s something I ate from one of the vendors at the ice rink. Been making me feel off all afternoon.”
He took her other boot and both her socks off. “Bath or shower? Then I’ll put you to bed.”
“Thank you.” She touched his hair. She looked miserable.
He fixed the shower for her, found soap, shampoo and conditioner. Showed her where the towels were and brought a robe from the bedroom. She sat on the closed toilet seat, her arms wrapped around her middle. He didn’t know if he should help her undress further; she solved the problem.
She stood. “I’ll be fine.” She made a shoo movement with both hands and he picked up her coat, boots and socks.
He’d closed the door when she vomited. He hesitated, then called, “Are you all right?”
He got no response so he dumped her gear and opened the door. She was hunched over the toilet. “Go away.”
He wasn’t leaving her. He turned the shower off, got her a glass of water and sat on the marble floor beside her. She drank and vomited again, while making a valiant attempt of pushing him away.
“I’m not leaving you.”
She sat back, her eyes wet, her mouth trembling, face pinched with illness. “This is ridiculous. I know how to be sick all by myself. I don’t …”
She would’ve said she didn’t need him, but she leaned forward and threw up again. He sat with her till her stomach stopped rebelling, then helped her stand. She looked exhausted, but she clearly wanted him gone. He found her a toothbrush still in its packet, and paste, and left her.
Back in the bedroom, he contemplated the bed. Hopefully there’d be sheets and bedding somewhere. He found them, but he was too wet to make the bed without getting everything else wet. He went to the wardrobe and while the shower ran he found a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt, and ditched his wet gear in place of them. They were surprisingly tight across his chest and legs.
He’d made up the bed, complete with a heavy silk quilt, when she appeared, swamped in the robe, her hair in a towel.
There was a hairdryer but she looked too tired to be bothered with it. He pointed at a low couch and she sat. He got the dryer, plugged it into the wall behind her and dried her hair. She didn’t protest. She could barely hold her head up.
She stumbled to the bed and lay across it, but he roused her and made her slide under the quilt. He sat on the couch across from her and waited till she slept, then he gathered all their wet things and went downstairs to the laundry to dry them. He used the facilities in the laundry to clean himself up, warm himself up, to shave for the first time in a long while, then he sat at the top of the stairs as she slept, as the storm raged, as night closed them in and slipped into early morning. He was awake still when she called.
The room was dark. No lamps. He went to the window and pulled the curtain open, not much light outside either, but enough of a glow from a streetlamp to see her by. She was sitting up against the padded headboard.
“How do you feel?”
“Better.”
“Can I get you anything?”
She laughed softly. “You got me all this, Patrick.”
Ah, yeah. He wasn’t off the hook yet, in fact he’d opened the whole tackle box by bringing her here.
“We really didn’t break in, did we?”
“No.”
She gestured to the end of the bed. “I can’t see you, come and sit.”
He chose the far corner of the bed and sat. It was an oversized bed, she was a suburb made of fine thread cotton and silk away.
“What’s the deal here? Is this where you came during the sculpture walk?”
He nodded.
“I don’t understand. You have access to this and you stay at the cave.”
“I have access. There are rules.”
“What rules?”
So many, finely constructed, but necessary. “I stay downstairs. There’s a bathroom, the laundry, the entrance area, the garage.”
“But there are beds up here. You don’t sleep in the beds.”
He had a mattress downstairs, it was enough.
She patted the quilt. “Is it a problem, this, me, here?”
“No. It’s fine. And it’s late. You should sleep.”
“I should go.”
“It’s still stormy out there and you’re warm and safe.” He didn’t want her driving in the storm, driving while she felt unwell. “There’s no reason to go.”
“I’ll only stay if you talk to me.” She touched her face. “I like this.”
Ah, she meant his hair-free face. He sighed. She moved, threw the covers back and swung her legs around.
She would go unless he stopped her. “I am very different to what I was.” That point reinforced by the fact he was a good size bigger than he’d been. She stilled, her back to him. “Get back under the covers, it’s cold in here.”
“You have bare feet. You get under the covers.”
He grunted, he’d already broken a bunch of rules that allowed him to be here, but his feet were freezing. He pulled the quilt from the bottom of the bed and drew it over his legs.
She got back in the bed. “Go on.”
“Alan was a chemist. Smart about money. We were well off. I went to the best schools, the best universities, Sydney, London.”
“Alan?”
“My father. I stopped calling him Dad when Mum died.”
She folded her arm. “Keep talking.”
“We built a business.” He’d made it sound like a simple thing. It was anything but simple. “Alan was the science, I was everything else. But we argued, we fell out, and I lost it.”
“Lost, as in put it somewhere and can’t remember?”
He shook his head. Not a kind of lost he could explain to her. “I don’t have amnesia, Foley. I’m not a man you should romanticise. There won’t ever be a happy ending here.”
He said it and realised that’s probably what she was doing, playing beauty to his beast. He pushed the quilt off and stood. He went to the window. He should never have brought her here, told her his name. He should never have kissed her because now that’s all he wanted to do, crawl up that bed to her side and hold her, feel her skin on his, trace her jaw with his lips and nose, with his cheek, put his hands on her and know she wanted hers on him. She’d be naked under that cashmere. He’d showered, he’d shaved. He’d done that for her. No. No. No.
The storm of her was still in his body, still in his heart and he had no right to it. Outside the wind crashed through the tops of trees and moaned and he was trapped here with another of his bad decisions.
“Talk to me.”
“No.”
“That’s not an answer I want.”
“I don’t answer to you.”
He stepped around her. He had to leave, go back downstairs where he was allowed to be, this room, this house, too many mistakes, itching at his brain.
“What did you lose?”
He made it to the door. He’d lost too much. Colleen Adderton, Harold Ameden, Swen Aslog, too many people hurt, too much money at stake. Too many careers and egos, and he’d made it all happen, it still happened, he couldn’t stop it then, he couldn’t now. The only thing he could do was walk away before it destroyed him too.
It came out of him in a ragged whisper. “It was my ambition, my fault.”
Her arms wrapped around him from behind. “You can tell me.”
He couldn’t tell her. He’d dirty her too. She’d hate him like the victims and their families did. She’d be right to. He tried to step out of her hold, but he was so tired of the guilt, of his powerlessness, of fighting his need for her.
“You have to get away from me.”
“I’m not frightened of you. I don’t believe you’re a bad person. Something bad happened to you, but we can fix it.”
He’d tried to fix it. Spent millions of dollars trying to fix it. Lawyers and courts, action group, campaigns. “What the fuck can you do about it?” He broke her hold and turned to face her. “You can’t fix anything. You can’t cure me. You have no idea what I’ve done.”
“Then tell me.”
Why wasn’t she frightened of him? Why didn’t he tell her, tell her all of it? The research, the experiments, the trials, the industry, statutory and government approvals, the runaway success of the drug. Then the accolades, the money, the streaming, raging, never-ending river of it that put the world at his fingertips, before time showed how wrong, how corrupt it all was.
If he told her that, he’d never see her again. If he told her, he might as well die. He did what he was good at. He walked away.
21: Attacked
Foley found him at the bottom of the sweeping Gone With The Wind staircase. Drum, Patrick, Trick. She didn’t know what to call him, what to make of him, this enormous half-empty house, his care of her when she was sick, the way he wrestled with his emotions, with whatever guilt, fault, horror he thought he’d unleashed.
He was sitting on the last step, head in his hands. She went down and sat on the step behind and adjacent him, and he registered her presence with a ripple of muscles across his shoulders.
As a kid she’d had a sixth sense about bullies, about people who weren’t nice, had less than honourable intentions. The kind of kids who’d nick someone’s lunch, dob you in for a minor crime, make up nasty stories about you, embarrass you on purpose. That’s how she’d picked Gabriella, with her nice suits and pleasant ways and her self-serving agendas.
It wasn’t an easy skill to acknowledge, to trust, because it meant believing the worst in people. She hadn’t trusted it with Jon, she’d had a sense of his duplicity, but was so tied up in the life less ordinary of him, in the extravagant sex, she’d ignored it, until it kicked her butt and put a whale-sized dent in her confidence.
She had no sense of anything threatening about Drum, not at first, not beyond the time she’d challenged him, and not now that his complications were more in her face. While the weather raged, she gave up second-guessing. She would trust in him.
She touched his shoulder. “I’m here if you want to talk. But I’m here if you don’t, too.” He didn’t react so she slid down the smooth step to sit beside him. “I’m not giving up on you.” She had so many questions but she forced them to queue behind his needs. His hand was on the step, close enough to hers that if she spread her fingers their little fingers would touch.
He turned his head. “It’s cold, it’s late, early, whatever. You have to work. Go to bed, Foley.”
It was cold, her feet were going numb and despite the robe, made out of something lightweight but beautifully soft and warm, she had a case of shivers. He was cold too, but in a different way, he was intent on freezing her out.
“What will you do?”
“I have a mattress, I use it down here.” He nodded at the space between the front door and the staircase. It would be cold, drafty, and hideously uncomfortable.
She wanted to curl up with him, defrost him. “I’ll stay here with you.”
“No.”
So quick. No room for debate. He’d shaved and the temptation to touch his face, to learn him cheek to cheek and use her lips to taste the smoothness of him was ridiculously primitive, like gluttony after long starvation. She separated her fingers and pressed the edge of her little finger against the side of his.
He whipped his head around to face her. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I do. I want to be with you.” First, now, in this moment, but beyond that, to take this extraordinary connection, give it sunshine and water it into life.
He didn’t move his hand, but his whole posture went on the defensive. “That’s meaningless.”
“It means something to me.”
“What could it possibly mean to you?”
Things too difficult to contemplate; surprising things, like stimulating conversation and unrestrained laughter, like contented silences and something shaped more like admiration than compassion. She moved her hand till it covered his. “Comfort.” It was what he needed.
His eyes went to their hands. “Do you need another blanket?”
“I need you.”
He flipped his hand and captured hers, threading their fingers together, but said nothing. The tension in his jaw, at his eye, showed her his agony of indecision. He wanted, he wanted and he would not take.
She slid across the step till her hip was against his. She waited for him to react, and when he accepted her closeness with a long exhale and a softening of his spine, she laid her head on his shoulder. Her stomach was full of grumbles and twinges and she needed to sleep, but she was so aware of him, soap and water clean and strong, she felt wide awake and perfectly well.
He brushed his cheek on the top of her head. “You don’t need anyone and that bed upstairs would be more comfortable.”
“Not possible.”
“It doesn’t matter if I sleep, but you must.”
“I want you. I’ll sleep here with you.”
It was provocative and she knew it. She felt the invitation of it, the illicit want of it in the hardening of this thigh muscle, in the way he sucked in his next breath. He moved his shoulder and she lifted her head, their eyes met, his so full of confused lust they shocked her, they caused a coil of sensation low in her belly to ring with greed. He didn’t need to be confused about wanting her.
She put her hand to his head, pulled it to hers and kissed him, light like that very first time, poised to see if he’d reject it. He murmured her name, but he didn’t pull away, so she took his lips again and made a seal from his trembling confidence and her carnal hesitancy. The mix ignited.
“There be dragons,” he whispered, when she licked across his top lip and sunk into the kiss again. She saw them; terrifying scales and tearing claws, fire in their eyes and destruction on their breath. She ignored the warning; how could she heed it when every touch of his lips to hers proved the scorch, and made her a connoisseur for the thrill.
He hauled her into his lap and all his restraint, denial and discipline burned away. He kissed her back, his tongue pressing hers, one hand on her face, an arm strapping her to his chest like armour against the onslaught. Her pulse went hyper-drive, her throat tightened, her stomach contracted, but all the aches were pleasure, anticipation and sweet, sweet need. His fingers were bruising, his kisses were demanding, t
hey swooped subterranean, all the way to her soul. There was nothing comfortable about this; it was incendiary and irresponsible and gloriously messy and he threw himself at it and she never wanted it to end.
He attacked her neck with a warfront of kisses, from the underside of her jaw to her collarbone, then down the centre of her sternum, an advance that left her twisting and squirming, arching into him, nonsense sounds forced from her mouth, utterly captive to his fire-branding.
He pushed the robe from her shoulder and ran his palm across her throat, around her neck to cup her head, the groan coming from him winning an answering whimper from her, before more kisses, more hands, more pushing and flexing against each other, the intensity building to rival the whip and wail of the wind outside, the weight of the downpour.
Every moment they lit against each other was another step further from the lines drawn and barriers peered over. Now it would all crash down and leave them finally heart to heart.
Drum lifted her before she thought to fear his steadiness on the stairs. She held onto his neck, her face tucked in the hollow between his jaw and shoulder and he carried her up, along the corridor and into the bedroom.
No man had ever carried her anywhere. She wasn’t one of those doll-like girls, nor did the idea of being babied turn her on, but he made it feel easy and right.
There was less light in the bedroom than on the stairs, and though he put her feet to the thick carpet, he was reluctant to let go, as if the change of location had knocked him off balance again. She would’ve happily stayed suckered against his body, attached to him at hip, at hand, at lip, but she felt him cool.
She tried to kiss that temperature change away like rubbing a soot smudge on a white shirt out and he didn’t protest, but he didn’t follow her heat either. He walked her backwards to the edge of the bed and placed her on it, making a distressed groan and going to his knees, wrapping his arms around her legs.
She dragged her hand through his hair. “Don’t go.”
His answer was a shudder.
“I want this. Us. It’s going to be all right.”
He sat back on his heels and it was too dim to read his expression but his posture was a composition of go and stop and gruesome vacillation. It put tension in his arms and the line of his shoulders.
Inconsolable Page 18