by Metsy Hingle
“Edward. We agreed no foul language,” her sister-in-law reminded him. “Have you forgotten being called to school last week after Eddie, Jr., started repeating in his Pre-K class that last little gem you’re so fond of using?”
Her brother clamped his mouth closed; a dull flush colored his cheeks. He turned back to his sister. “You made a mistake not telling the man three years ago when you got pregnant. You’re making another one now by not telling him he has a son.”
“Maybe so. But it’s my mistake to make, Edward. Not yours.”
Her brother fumed and paced the length of her living room like a caged tiger. Five years her senior, Edward had been every bit as much a ladies’ man as Jacques, before he’d fallen hard for her sister-in-law. Now that he’d married, he’d put all of that energy and passion he’d once expended in playing the male-versus-female game into being a good husband. The man who once claimed he’d remain a bachelor forever now extolled the virtues of matrimony. And evidently, matrimony is what he wanted for his sister.
“Believe me, if Elise had had my child, I’d certainly want to know about it.”
“I did have your child, darling. Both of them,” Elise reminded him.
“Yeah. But not until after we were married.” Arms folded across his chest, Edward stopped in front of the chair where Liza was sitting and glared down at her. “A man has a right to know he’s a father, to know he has a son.”
“Helping to make a baby doesn’t necessarily make a man a father,” she retorted. And it certainly didn’t make a man love the child he’d help to create.
“No. But he at least deserves a chance to decide if he wants to be one.”
Her brother was right. Jacques did deserve a chance to decide if he wanted to be a father, Liza admitted silently. Only she was desperately afraid to give him that chance and risk his rejection of their son.
The next afternoon, when she closed the door after her brother and his family’s departure, Liza leaned against it. Her brother’s words continued to play in her head.
Jacques did deserve to know, she told herself again. And she’d almost told him, too, that night after the patron party. She blinked back tears as she thought of that dreadful night again and how foolish she had been in thinking Jacques might actually love her. Armed with his love, she would have faced all his ghosts with him, helped him to fight them. But he didn’t love her. She’d had to face the fact that night.
Feeling that sharp painful jab near her heart again, Liza pushed away from the door and went to her son’s room. She picked up the teddy bear from the floor and placed it next to her sleeping child. Her heart swelled with pride and love as she smoothed back the blond curls from his forehead to gently kiss him. She’d made the right choice, Liza told herself as she readjusted his covers. While she might risk her own heart, she could never risk her son’s.
In the distance she heard the telephone ring. Swiping her eyes, she tiptoed out of the room and raced into the kitchen. “Hello,” Liza said, grabbing the phone on its fifth ring.
“Liza, it’s Aimee.”
“Aimee! How are you?”
“I’m fine. Fat, but fine. I look like I swallowed a basketball.”
Liza laughed, unable not to respond to the happiness in her friend’s voice. “Pregnant women are supposed to look that way.”
Her friend gave an inelegant snort. “That’s what that old witch-doctor-specialist Peter insisted I go to says, too.”
“And how is the beast?” she asked, using the name she’d tagged Aimee’s husband with years ago.
“Beastly because the witch doctor agreed with me and says I can travel. I’m only in my fifth month, so I’m not too far along for us to make the trip. Besides, I want Sarah to have a white Christmas.”
Liza could just imagine Peter Gallagher fussing and fretting over her friend. And going right along with her plans. For a man who was so large and powerful in business, he was putty in his wife’s hands. “So where are you guys going?”
“To Chicago.”
“Chicago?” Liza repeated in surprise.
“Yes. My doctor says it’s okay. In fact, we’re coming early. So Peter and I will be joining you for the gala.”
“Aimee, mon amie. It is good to hear from you. How are you?”
“Forget the small talk, Gaston. What have you done to my best friend?”
Jacques wiped his hands on a towel and surveyed the finished bust of Aimee’s daughter. After witnessing Liza with the other man and his child, he’d come back to the apartment and literally buried himself in his work. Not that it had done much good, he admitted. The ache inside him was as deep and dark as a bottomless sea and just as impossible to escape. “I take it you are referring to Liza.”
“Of course, I’m talking about Liza. Jacques, what’s going on? Once I got past that smoke screen of cheerful prattle she was giving me about the gala and how well ticket sales are going, I could tell she’s miserable.”
He moved to the window and looked out, as snow continued to fall on the city. The barren branches of a tree shuddered under a sudden gust of wind, and Jacques was struck by the thought of how much the tree reminded him of himself. Of the way he felt. Cold. Alone. Empty.
“She sounded lower than the belly of a snake.”
Turning away from the window, he moved to stand in front of the blaze in the fireplace. “A snake?” he repeated the word, trying to translate it from English to French in his head.
“Yes. A snake. You know, one of those slithery things that goes sssss and slides around on the ground.”
“Ah, you mean a serpent.”
“Right. A serpent,” she agreed. “Jacques, what happened? I had hoped that with you and Liza working together you would, you know, both finally realize how you felt about each other.”
That was just it. He did finally realize that what he felt for Liza was more than he should, more than was safe for him to feel. He would have seen the danger long ago, if he had only allowed himself to look past his own desire and need for revenge. And because he did care for her, he could never ask her to share his life. Even if it weren’t for the other man, he’d seen her face when she’d been with the man’s son. Liza wanted children, and having children was something he would never risk.
“I don’t know why you’re both so stubborn. You know what your problem is, Gaston?” She didn’t wait for him to answer, but continued, “You’re afraid to grow up. Well let me tell you, your gigolo act is wearing thin. Someday you’re going to wake up and find yourself all alone. It’s time you gave some serious thought to settling down.”
“And do what, Aimee?” Jacques demanded, feeling his temper spark, then catch. Not because of Aimee’s lecture. They’d been friends too long for him not to be used to her lectures. What set him off was the truth in her assessment of him ending up alone. Because alone was how he’d been his entire life. It was how he was right now, and it was how his life stretched out before him—alone, cold, empty. Just like that tree. He strangled the telephone receiver in his fist. “You think I should get married? Have a couple of kids like you and Peter did?”
“Yes. As a matter of fact, I do.”
“Then you do not know me as well as you think you do. And you are going to be disappointed, Aimee. Because I have no intention of ever doing either. Liza knows that. That is the reason she has, as you Americans say, decided to move on.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone for one heartbeat, then two. “Jacques, I—”
“Your housekeeper Mrs. Gunnerson tells me you and Peter will be arriving on Saturday evening for the gala. Do you want me to pick you up at the airport?”
“No. That’s all right. We’ll take a taxi. And you can stay in the master bedroom. I’ve told Mrs. Gunnerson we’ll take one of the guest rooms.”
“All right,” Jacques told her, but he had no intention of following her instructions. He would be the one to move into the guest room.
“Jacques, there’s something else you should know.�
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Picking up the poker, Jacques stabbed at the burning logs and waited for Aimee to continue.
“Liza will be spending the night at the apartment, too.”
Liza’s gloved fingers gripped the steering wheel of her car. Easing her foot off the accelerator, she began applying the brakes as she took another turn in the road. She leaned forward, strained to peer at the road ahead between the swish of her windshield wipers as they battled the steadily falling snow.
Dam it, she thought, looking at a sky already growing dark as the afternoon faded. The snow showed no signs of letting up anytime soon. At the rate she was going, she’d be lucky to get to Chicago in time to get ready for the gala, let alone have any time to visit with Aimee at the apartment.
Another blast of snow sideswiped her compact and Liza tightened her grip on the steering wheel. The wind screamed outside, rattling her car’s windows, reminding her just how cold it was. Liza shivered and kicked up the thermostat on the car’s heater.
Look on the bright side, she told herself. At least she didn’t have to worry about driving home in this mess tonight. In truth, she had been dreading the long drive back to St. Charles after the gala. And while the fund-raising committee would have paid for a hotel room for her, she didn’t feel right using the money that would otherwise go toward the summer camp. But now that Aimee and Peter had decided to come for the affair, she would be able to stay at the apartment without the awkwardness or, she admitted, the temptation, of finding herself alone with Jacques.
And after tonight she would probably never see him again. A lump rose in Liza’s throat at the realization. The piercing ache in her chest that had been a part of her since the night of the patron party, seemed to explode inside her. Liza pressed her fist to her heart, feeling the sting of tears behind her eyes. If only...
No. She screamed the word silently and blinked back the tears. She wouldn’t do this to herself. She wouldn’t play that dangerous game again of “if only.” Straightening her shoulders, she pushed thoughts of Jacques aside.
The wind howled angrily and sent snow whipping across the road. Another chill zipped through Liza’s body, causing her to shudder. She shot a glance at the heater and frowned. She shouldn’t be this cold. Pulling off one of her gloves, she held her fingers up to the air vent. Cold air kissed her already-icy fingertips.
“Great,” Liza muttered, flipping off the heater’s switch. She gave the steering wheel a thump. Just what she needed. A near blizzard snowstorm, no heat in her car and an evening in Jacques’s company in which she would have to smile and pretend to be happy when inside she was miserable. What else could possibly go wrong?
A five-car pileup on the Chicago loop was what could go wrong, Liza decided, as she retrieved her overnight bag from the trunk of her car an hour and a half later. Walking over to the elevator, she stepped inside and pushed the button marked Penthouse.
Another shiver raced over her as the elevator shot up. God, she couldn’t ever remember feeling this cold, Liza thought, leaning her head back against the wall. She couldn’t wait to sink her body into a nice hot bath.
The elevator pinged and Liza shifted the bag on her shoulder and pulled out the key Aimee had given her the previous year. The melancholy strains of Mahler’s Symphony no. 5 greeted her as she entered the apartment. Her gaze strayed from the CD player to the picture window, and she remembered standing there not long ago, with Jacques’s hands cupping her shoulders, his warm mouth pressing hot kisses to her neck.
Shaking her head to clear the memory, Liza stepped inside the apartment. “Aimee? Peter?” she called out. “Anybody here?” After hanging up her coat, she went to the master bedroom and tapped on the door. When no one answered, she stuck her head inside. “Aimee?”
At the sound of water running in the shower, she pulled the door shut. Good idea, she decided as she headed toward the other side of the apartment to the guest room she usually occupied when she visited. A hot bath was just what she needed. After dumping her bag and purse beside the closet, Liza all but raced to the bathroom.
The moment she stepped onto the sea-foam-colored tile floor, she smiled. The room was almost as large as the bedroom, Liza mused, not for the first time. How many times had she teased Aimee that a family of four could live in a room this size? It was an exaggeration, true, but the room was magnificent. A mirrored vanity with gleaming pewter trim lined the wall opposite the tub. An onyx statue of lovers embracing rested on a marble base in one corner. An exquisite ivory nude carving of a woman’s body that Aimee had framed in a glass-and-pewter box rested on one wall. But it was the huge jade marble tub positioned beneath a skylight that dominated the room.
And it was that tub that she couldn’t wait to get into. Liza kicked off her shoes and moved across the room. Turning on the taps full blast, she dumped in a generous amount of the gardenia scented bubble bath from the jar beside the tub. Eager to sink her chilled body into the warm water, she pinned her hair up on top of her head and quickly stripped off her clothes. On impulse, she dimmed the light switches and lit the candles scattered around the tub and vanity. The gleaming pewter-and-glass fixtures winked at her in the flickering light.
Moments later when Liza eased her body into the steaming scented water, she sighed. She flipped on the whirlpool jets. Leaning her head back against the rim of the tub, she closed her eyes and allowed the soothing heated water to swirl around her, wondering if she would ever feel warm again.
Exiting the shower, Jacques grabbed the towel from the rack and briskly rubbed it over his body. He then wrapped the towel around his waist and moved to the mirror in front of the bathroom counter. After combing his hair away from his face, he stroked his jaw, noting the dark stubble. He reached for his electric razor and, not seeing it, he rummaged through his shaving kit, then frowned.
“Damn,” he muttered. He must have moved it into the guest bathroom earlier in anticipation of Aimee and Peter’s arrival. And evidently, he’d forgotten to move it back when Aimee called to say they wouldn’t be coming after all.
As he moved through the living room, the CD player clicked to a new disc, filling the air with the melodious sound of Nat King Cole singing “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” Jacques paused outside of the door to the bedroom. Strange, he didn’t remember closing the door, Jacques thought, his brow wrinkling before he shrugged off the thought. Given his state of mind these past few days, he was lucky he remembered anything at all. Turning the knob, he pushed open the door and marched straight toward the bathroom.
It wasn’t until he stepped inside the room that he noted the pile of woman’s clothing lying on the floor, and then he heard the distinctive hum of the tub’s whirlpool jets. Jacques’s gaze darted to the tub.
He froze. His heart stopped, then started again as he looked at Liza. Lying in the tub, wearing only a veil of frothy bubbles, her head was tipped back, her eyes closed. The hint of a smile curved her lips.
Turn around, get out of here before she opens her eyes and sees you.
He heard his brain issue the command, but his body refused to obey it. He remained rooted inside the doorway, unable to move. The sweet fragrance of gardenias reached out to him, wrapping him in its tempting scent. He tried to swallow, but his throat felt as though it was lined with dust. He couldn’t think. For a moment he forgot how to breathe.
Then Liza shifted in the tub, sending the shawl of bubbles dipping past her shoulders to skim the tips of her breasts.
Desire ripped through him, sending the blood pumping hot and furiously through his veins. And Jacques found himself being hurled back in time—back to a steamy night in New Orleans three years before. Back to the night of an autumn rainstorm, to a tiny loft heavy with the scent of gardenias, to the woman who had tempted him to defy fate and risk more than he should.
As though sensing his presence, Liza opened her eyes. He heard her breath hitch, saw her eyes widen in shock. Then he watched that shock turn to awareness as her gaze slid down his naked chest
to the obvious bulge in his towel before racing back up to his face.
“Wh-what are you doing here?”
“I forgot my razor.” But he made no move to retrieve it.
“Then, get it and g-get out. Before... before Aimee and Peter find you here.” She shifted in the tub again, setting the bubbles dancing across the tips of her breasts.
A fresh wave of desire shot through him as his eyes darted to the dark rosy buds. His shaft nudged more insistently against the towel. Jacques squeezed his eyes shut. He curled his hands into fists to keep himself from going to her, from kneeling beside the tub, smoothing the bubbles away from her breasts and taking one of those nipples into his mouth. His body shuddered,as desire clawed at him like an angry beast. Wanting Liza was like a deadly fever, one he had contracted three years ago, and one for which there was no cure.
“Jacques, please.”
Opening his eyes, he stared at the fading bubbles, the petal-soft skin. Her face was flushed from the steaming water, her green eyes dark with sensual awareness.
“Please what, Liza?” he asked, angry that she could still make him feel this way.
“Please go before Aimee and Peter come,” she said. Turning her head away, she reached for the bar of soap and began to lather it on a cloth.
Damn if he didn’t even find that snooty way she tilted her nose in the air arousing. He would have laughed if it weren’t for the ache that seemed to be growing more painful by the minute. If he didn’t know better, he would have sworn his matchmaking friend Aimee had somehow engineered the weather to cooperate with her. “You do not have to worry about Aimee and Peter, Liza. They are not here.”
She lifted one leg and proceeded to soap it. His body tightened at the movement. “But they will be soon. It would be embarrassing for us both if they were to find you in here.”
It was too much. Like a match to dynamite. Her cool “duchess to peasant” tone, while he was breaking out in a sweat of desire simply watching her soap her leg, sent him over the edge. “Then you have nothing to worry about, chérie. Because Aimee and Peter are not coming.”