“Separately?” She nodded, anxious to change the subject back to work again. She didn't want to talk to him about this. Not to him or anyone. “How terrible. In accidents?” She nodded noncommittally and finished her champagne at one gulp. “Were you an only child?”
She looked him in the eye then with something cold and hard he didn't understand and nodded at him. “Yes, I was.”
“It doesn't sound like much fun.” He felt sorry for her and she hated that too. She didn't want pity from him or from anyone. She tried to smile at him to lighten the mood, but he was looking so intensely at her, it made her nervous.
“Maybe that's why I love my work so much. It's home to me.” That seemed pathetic to him, but he didn't say so.
“Where'd you go to school?”
“N.Y.U.” But she didn't tell him she'd gone at night, while she was working.
He nodded. “Barb and I went to U.C. Berkeley.”
“That must have been fun.” She smiled and he reached out to her, not anxious to talk about his ex-wife anymore, but only about her.
“I'm glad we went out to dinner tonight. I've been wanting to talk to you for a long time. You do a hell of a job at the network.”
“I should.” She grinned. “I've been around CBA for long enough. Seven years.” Years of pushing and shoving her way up, until she was a producer. She had a right to be proud of herself and she was. It was a long, long way from the Jacksonville juvenile home, or the foster homes she'd been in, or even her life with Jack and Eileen in Boston.
“Do you think you'll stay?” he asked, and she stared at him.
“At CBA? Why would I go anywhere?”
“Because in this business people move around a lot.” He certainly had, and he wasn't unusual in their field.
She shook her head at him, with a look of determination in her eyes that startled him. “I'm not going anywhere, my friend. I've got my eye on an office wayyyy upstairs.” And he sensed that she meant it more than she had meant anything else she'd said that night.
“Why?” That kind of ambition puzzled him. He was successful, and he liked his job, but he had never aspired to great heights, and he couldn't imagine wanting that, particularly not if you were a beautiful young girl.
“Because it's important to me.” She was being honest with him. “It means security. And accomplishment. And it's something tangible I can take home with me at night.”
But he knew better than that. “Until they fire you and hire someone else. Don't hang everything on your job, Hilary. You'll end up alone one day, and disappointed.”
“That doesn't frighten me.” She'd been alone all her life. She was used to it. In fact, she liked it that way, no one could hurt her or let her down, or betray her that way.
She was an odd girl, he thought, and he had never known anyone as independent as she was. He took her home that night, and hoped she would invite him upstairs but she only shook his hand with a warm smile and thanked him for the evening. And he went home so horny for her, that as soon as he got upstairs, he called her. He didn't even care if he woke her up, and he doubted that she was asleep yet.
Her voice was husky when she picked up the phone, and he closed his eyes, listening to her. He was a nice guy, and he hated living alone. And she was so damn beautiful … he knew his boys would love her too … “Hello?”
“Hi, Hilary … I just wanted to tell you what a nice time I had tonight.”
She laughed softly at him, and he liked the sound of that too. “So did I. But don't you try to distract me at work, Mr. Kane. I'm not planning to lose my job over anyone. Not even you.”
“I got that. Want to have lunch sometime this week?”
“Sure. If I'm not too swamped.”
“Tomorrow sound okay?”
She laughed again, a delicious mixture of hot smoke and icy cool. “Why don't you relax, Adam. I told you, I'm not going anywhere.”
“Good. Then let's take advantage of it. I'll pick you up in your office at twelve-fifteen. Okay?” He sounded like a little kid, and she was smiling in the dark, lying in bed, and much as she hated to admit it, even to herself, he did something to her no other man had till then. And she trusted him. Maybe it was all right … just for a lunch or two … what harm could that do? She hadn't allowed herself anything more since coming to New York, and oddly enough she had never wanted anyone. Other people had boyfriends, and affairs, and broken hearts. And all Hilary wanted were promotions and raises and work. That was her lover, and so far it had treated her very well. “Twelve-fifteen?” he repeated in the face of silence from her.
“Fine.” Her voice flowed over the single word, and he felt as though he were floating when he hung up.
There was a single rose on her desk the next day, and they had lunch at the Veau d'Or and she didn't get back to her office till three o'clock.
“This is terrible, Adam. I never do things like this.” She threw the long black hair over her shoulder, and rolled up the sleeves of her shirt. It was a beautiful warm day and she didn't even feel like going back to work. “You're a miserable influence. I just got a promotion and now you're going to get me canned.”
“Good, then will you marry me? We can move to New Jersey and have ten kids.”
“How depressing.” She looked at him with her icy green eyes, and he felt something he never had before. She became a challenge. There was a wall around her he would have done anything to climb, but he still wasn't sure how far she'd let him go. They were still circling each other carefully, but he had so much to say to her and she was such intelligent company. And he appealed to her in a way no one had before. It was a dangerous combination, and at times it frightened her, particularly when he distracted her from her work, but after all he was her boss.
He invited her to dinner on Saturday, but she declined, and she turned down his next two invitations to lunch, but he looked so unhappy about it when he stopped to talk to her that she finally relented and agreed to go out with him the following Friday night. They went to P. J. Clarke's for a hamburger, and then a walk up Third Avenue to her new apartment on Fifty-ninth Street.
“Why do you keep such a distance between us?” He looked sincerely unhappy about it. He was crazy about her, and he was dying for her to let him get closer.
“I'm not sure it's such a good idea. It could make things awfully complicated at work. You're my boss, Adam.” She smiled up at him, and as attracted to him as she was, she was afraid of repercussions at the office.
And then he smiled at her regretfully. “Not for much longer, I'm afraid, if that makes any difference to you. I'm being transferred to sales in two weeks. I just heard about it today.”
“How do you feel about that?” She was concerned for him. It was kind of a sidestep, and in his shoes she'd have been crushed, but he didn't look too disturbed as he shrugged and smiled at her.
“No big deal. I might like it better than where I am … except for you, of course. Will you see me more often then?” It would certainly make things easier for her, but she still wasn't sure if she should get involved with him. Life was so much easier living as a celibate.
Celibacy had become a way of life to her, and giving it up meant risking a part of herself. “Hilary?” He was looking down at her as they walked, and he gently took her hand. He seemed very young as he smiled at her, and in some ways he still was. “I want to be with you … you mean a lot to me …”
“Adam, you don't even know who I am … I could be anyone … La femme aux yeux verts …” The words slipped out and she laughed.
“What does that mean?”
“It's French.” She had revived her French in college, and was surprised to find it was still there, dormant but not dead, a final gift from her mother. “It means the woman with green eyes.”
“How come you speak French?” He wanted to know everything about her, and there was so little she wanted to tell him.
“I spoke it a long time ago … when I was a little girl. And I picked it up a
gain in college.”
“Did your parents speak French?” She could have told him then, could have begun to open up, could have said something about Solange, but she decided it was safer not to.
“No, I just learned it at school, I guess.” He nodded, satisfied with the answer she'd given him, and when they reached her apartment, after a moment's hesitation, she invited him upstairs. They listened to Roberta Flack on her stereo, and talked for hours over a bottle of wine, and he stood up regretfully around one o'clock and looked down at her with a wistful smile.
“I'd like to spend the night with you, Hilary, but I get the feeling you're not ready for that … are you?” She shook her head, not sure she would ever be. People had tried to get close to her but she was not even remotely tempted. “Are you involved with anyone?” He had meant to ask before but he had put it off. She shook her head in answer, looking at him strangely.
“No, I'm not … I haven't been in … a long time….”
“For any particular reason?”
“A lot of them. Most of them too complicated to explain.” He sat on her couch and looked at her quietly.
“Why don't you try me?”
She shrugged again. She didn't want to tell him what she'd been through. That was nobody's business. She led a different life now, in another place, another world. She didn't want to drag those things with her, and yet she did, in spite of all her efforts to deny them. “I'm sorry, Adam … I can't….”
“Why not?” He reached out and took her hands in his. “Don't you trust me?”
“It's not that.” She felt her eyes fill with tears and she hated herself for it. “I don't want to talk about it … really….” She stood up and walked away, her. proud shoulders straightened against the world and all it had done to her. And without knowing it, she looked exactly like her mother.
“Hilary …” He walked up to her from behind and put his arms around her. “Why don't you let yourself go? I know how strong you are, I've seen it at work, but this is different … this is us … this isn't a war zone.”
Her voice was tired as she spoke to him with her head bowed. “Life is a war zone, Adam.”
“It doesn't have to be.” He was so gentle, and so innocent. She envied him his simple life. The most difficult thing that had ever happened to him was his wife's deciding she wanted to be free and no longer married. But he knew nothing of the agonies Hilary had endured. He couldn't even begin to understand them, “life can be so sweet … if you let it….”
“It's not as easy as that.” She sighed and looked at him. “I don't think you understand the kind of life I've led, and I don't think I could explain it.”
“Then why not go on from here? Isn't that possible, and leave the past behind you?”
“Maybe.” She wasn't sure it could be done, but she was willing to try it. He reached out and kissed her gently at first, and then suddenly with more passion. He had wanted her for weeks, months, since the first time he'd seen her, and now he couldn't hold back. He peeled her clothes from her and dropped his own, and carried her to her bed, where he began making love to her. But she lay distant and cold, and secretly frightened. Some of the things he did to her were the same things that Maida and Georgine had done … and some of the other things reminded her of the boys who had raped her the day after Maida and Georgine left. It was too much to overcome, even with a good man like Adam. And it didn't take him long to realize that she didn't want to go on. He pulled away, still throbbing with desire for her and unable to understand what had happened.
“What's wrong? …” His voice was hoarse, his eyes bleary with unspent passion. “I want you so much.”
“I'm sorry …” She whispered the words, and turned over on her side, staring at the far wall, wondering if she would ever be normal. Perhaps she would never overcome the past. She was twenty-five years old, and she was beginning to suspect that. There were too many people left that she hated … Arthur Patterson … Jack Jones … the boys who had raped her … Maida and Georgine … Eileen. the people at juvenile hall. and in the far distance, even her father. It was too big a burden to carry around and still allow her to function as a woman. “It's not you,” she tried to explain. “I just can't.”
“Why? You have to tell me.” He was trying to sit calmly at the edge of the bed, trying to reach out and understand her. And she sat up quietly and turned around. Maybe it was better to shock him than to hurt him.
“I was raped a long time ago….” She didn't want to say more, and hoped that would be enough, but of course it wasn't.
“How? … by whom?”
“It's a long story.” And which one should she tell him? Maida and Georgine, who were the first, or the boys who had come later? Or Jack who had done his best to precede them all and then had beaten her to within an inch of her life when he didn't get what he wanted. They were all possible candidates for the role, but she couldn't even imagine Adam able to withstand any truth she might tell him
“When was it?”
“When I was thirteen.” That much was true at least. They had all happened before her fourteenth birthday. She took a gulp of air. “And there hasn't been anyone since then. I guess I should have told you.”
“Christ.” He looked deeply shaken by what she'd said. “It certainly would have helped. How was I supposed to know something like that?”
“I didn't think it would matter.”
“Oh really? You were raped twelve years ago, haven't had relations with anyone since, and you actually thought it wouldn't make a difference? How can you do that to yourself, and to me, for chrissake? What about counseling? Have you had a lot of that since then?” He assumed she had, of course, everyone he knew was in therapy. He'd gone right back to his own shrink as soon as his wife left him.
“No.” She spoke very calmly, and got up to put on a bathrobe. She had a long, languid body and beautiful graceful legs that made him ache with wanting her again, but he tried to force himself not to think about it.
“What do you mean ‘no’? You got help after the rape, no? Yes? Right?”
She smiled at him. Hardly. “No. Wrong. I guess I didn't need it.”
“Are you crazy?”
“All right, let's say it wasn't available to me at the time.”
“Where were you? The North Pole? Where is there in the modern world that therapy isn't available?” Oh God, he understood nothing of what her life had been like. Therapy? Where? In Louise's home, or at juvie?
“I told you, Adam.” She was getting annoyed, but he was getting frantic. “I don't want to discuss it. It's too complicated.”
“Too complicated or too painful?” She averted her eyes, so he couldn't see the pain he had already inflicted.
“Why don't we just forget it?”
“What, the relationship? Why? You're not a quitter, Hilary.” Now he was sincerely angry. She would have done anything for her job, but not for him, or the relationship they might have, if she was willing.
“Why don't we just forget the problem, Adam. It'll go away by itself eventually.”
“Really? How long's it been now? Twelve years, you said, and I wouldn't exactly say you're cured. How long would you like to wait for it to ‘go away’? Thirty years maybe? Or how about fifty? You ought to feel a lot better by then, and Christ you'd only be sixty-three, you could have a great sex life, Hilary, be serious!” He took her by the hand and pulled her down on the bed beside him, but he wanted too much from her, and Hilary already knew she couldn't give it to him. He wanted everything, heart and soul, commitment and marriage and children. She could sense that in him, he wanted everything his wife had taken back and more. And she knew for a certainty that she didn't have it in her. She had nothing left to give him. All she could do was take, or maybe extend herself for a little while, if no one asked too much, but the rest was gone. All her love had been given too long ago, and all her energies were reserved for where she was going at the network. “I want you to go into therapy.” He sat staring a
t her, as though announcing he wanted her to have brain surgery, and she had no intention of obliging him. God only knew what they'd find there.
“I can't.”
“That's bullshit. Why not?”
“I don't have the time.”
“You're twenty-five years old and you have a problem.”
“It's not one I can't live with.”
“You're not living, you're existing.” But slowly, she was getting angry too. He had no right to make judgments on how she was living, just because she didn't want to make love with him.
“Maybe it'll get better.” But she didn't sound as though she really cared and that disturbed him.
“By itself?” She nodded. “I doubt it.”
“Give it time, Adam. This is only the first time.”
He sat silently for a long time, watching her. He saw more than she wanted. “There's a lot you're not telling me, isn't there?”
She smiled, sphinx-like. “It's not that important, Adam.”
“I don't believe you. I think you live your whole life behind a walled fortress.”
“I used to … a long time ago….”
“Why?”
“Because there used to be a lot of people out to hurt me.”
“And now?”
“I don't let them.”
He looked sorry for her, and leaned down to kiss her with a gentle hand on her shoulder, as they sat on the edge of her unmade bed, where their passion had been so unsuccessful. “I won't hurt you, Hil … I swear …” There were tears in his eyes, and she wished she could feel something for him, but she couldn't. She couldn't feel anything for anyone, and she knew that now, except perhaps if he awoke some unborn passion in her, but she couldn't imagine that either. “I love you …”
She had no answer to those words, and only looked at him sadly. And then he smiled at her and kissed her again. He understood, and that touched her. “It's okay … you don't have to say anything … just let me love you….” He lay her back against the pillows, and gently sculpted her body with one finger, drawing it close to her center, and then moving it away, drifting around her breasts and all the way down her belly, and then up again, touching her with his tongue and his heart and his fingers, but with nothing else, and after hours of it, she was writhing and begging him for something more, but he wouldn't do it. Instead, he let her feel him, and touched her gently with his throbbing organ. He ran it over her like a satin hand, and she bent down and began to kiss it, and touch him gently until he was writhing as she was, and then first with his lips, and then with his fingers, he touched her and felt her grow frightened and rigid.
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