by P. Dangelico
“Marianne?”
“In the garden,” Bear answered.
I found her fondling the tomatoes, fat, ruby red ones hanging low on the delicate green stalks which sagged under their weight. She heard me approaching and an affectionate smile spread across her face, her bright blue eyes crinkling on the ends. Seeing that gap between her front teeth lifted my spirits.
“Do you have a moment?” I asked, my eyes falling on the bounty of vegetables overgrowing the fencing.
“Anything for you.”
I truly love this woman. The words rang loudly not just in my mind, but also my heart. My eyes timidly met hers. I didn’t know how to begin. Marianne was as close to a mother as Sebastian had––if anyone knew how to get through to him it was she––though discussing your lover with the person who raised him was awkward business.
“I don’t know what to do with him,” I announced, shifting nervously from foot to foot. “He’s keeping me at arm’s length.”
Plucking one by one off the vine, she placed the last of the ripened tomatoes in a basket. “He was besides himself when you went missing. And when you were in a coma…” Her words faded away, her lips pursed tightly. After a headshake, she continued. “God knows what would’ve happened if you didn’t come out of it.”
My knees weakened under the weight of all the guilt I carried around. I knew the burden of responsibility for his mental state shouldn’t be mine, and yet wasn’t the most important rule of loving someone as thoroughly as I loved this man, ‘first do no harm’?
“I’m not telling you to make you feel worse, chérie. Give him time to sort out his feelings. Just don’t let him push you away. He’s very good at that––shutting people out. It will only get harder if you let him.”
I had a pretty good idea of what that looked like.
“He didn’t speak to me for three months after his wife died. Did I ever tell you that?” All I could manage was a headshake. “I was besides myself. I was terrified of leaving him alone.” With a sideways glance, she said, “He did eventually hurt himself––he just did it slowly.” I thought of the state I found him when we met. The drinking, the oxycodone––he had been killing himself slowly.
Turning sharply to meet her steady gaze, the gravity of her confession hit me hard, my concern growing by the minute. Because I was armed with the knowledge that he had never been in love before. And if guilt could drive him over the edge of sanity and put his life at risk for India and the child he lost, what would the near loss of the person he was in love do to him?
“Diana came to the hospital,” I announced. Her bright blue eyes met mine, swimming in disapproval.
“He told me.” Grabbing a cotton towel, she wiped her dirt covered hands. “That woman leaves a wake of destruction everywhere she goes…but I’m afraid none of this will ever be resolved until he makes peace with it.”
I nodded in agreement as I stared out at the horizon where perfectly sheared grass met the quilted, dove gray sky. That truth had been needling my conscious since the scene at the hospital.
“I don’t think she sets out to harm him. She’s just selfish, and self-absorbed. She’s never been there for him––not once that I can recall.” The more Marianne spoke the more powerless I felt in the face of this seemingly insurmountable task. I was losing hope.
“How do I get him back?” I asked, shear desperation in my voice.
Marianne glanced up from the basket she was arranging. “Do what no other woman has ever done for him, chérie. Be there for him––no matter how hard he tries to push you away, no matter what.”
“I need a haircut,” I announced as I entered the kitchen some time later. What is it they say about idle hands being the devil’s plaything? Well, the more free time I had, the more I fretted about Sebastian. I needed to keep busy. One way, or another.
Bear and Justin stared back at me with matching blank expressions, the guns they were busy cleaning all but forgotten in their hands. Justin’s hand crept up and rubbed his scruff covered chin, all that chiseled handsomeness looking very thoughtful.
“I’ve never done it before, but I’m willing to try,” he earnestly offered––to my everlasting amusement. I couldn’t keep the corners of my mouth from lifting.
“I meant I need a ride into town so I can look for a hairdresser.”
Bear nodded his big, bald head and breathed out a sigh of relief. “Sure thing. I’ll get the car.”
The silence in the car wasn’t exactly comfortable. Every time we set foot off the property the risk increased. It had everyone’s nerves balancing on the edge of a razorblade. But what was the alternative––become a shut it? Two, black SUVs shadowed us. No doubt the people who dwelled in the tiny village would find it interesting.
Bear had made some phone calls and found a tiny shop that agreed to do the deed. My head was a misshapen mess. No amount of hair product could mold it into something presentable. Therefore the choice was either a pixie cut or––a pixie cut. The hairdresser was a snobby Parisian that feigned speaking no English rather poorly. Frankly, I didn’t care. It wasn’t his language skills or his manners I was interested in, and I was pleased to find his haircutting skill were impeccable. With the little he had to work with, he worked wonders.
While I was thanking him profusely in French, the door chimed and Isabelle enter the shop. Her eyes, chastened and submissive, immediately met mine in the mirror. Her attention shifted to Bear, who quietly murmured something in her ear. Then Bear walked over to where I sat.
“She wants to apologize,” Bear said in a low voice, his expression uncomfortable. My gaze slid to Isabelle once again. She wore an anxious look on her face and clutched her purse with both hands, strangling it to death.
“Okay,” I replied because after everything that had transpired, I couldn’t muster up the energy to stay mad anymore. Right after Bear gave her the nod, she approached slowly while he took a step back and hovered. Her grey eyes darted around, looking for courage. Her lips suffered from repeated bites before she opened them to speak. “I know nothing I say can undo what’s been done,” she mumbled quietly and slowly. A paused followed––no doubt waiting for me to assuage her guilt. However, I wasn’t about to make it that easy for her. “You must really hate me,” she continued, shifting from foot to foot. Again I remained silent. “I just want to say that I am very sorry. I never meant for things to get out of hand like they did…and…well, Mrs. Redman, Paisley not Diana, she scared me.”
That peaked my interest. “How?”
“At first, she was all friendly like. And then, when I had nothing else to tell her, she started threatening me, telling me she would have me arrested for stealing.” Isabelle’s voice gained volume. “I never stole anything in my life!”
“Isabelle slow down––”
“She a fucking putain!”
“Okay––easy,” I said, putting the breaks on where that train was headed.
“She got what she deserved,” she said, finishing in a huff. Then she crossed her arms under her ample breasts.
Got what she deserved? Glancing sideways at Bear, I found him suddenly inspecting his shoes in total fascination.
“What do you mean by got what she deserved?”
The handwringing started all over again. Isabelle’s gray eyes went wide, darting back to Bear, who gave his consent with a slight nod. It seemed I was the only one out of the loop.
“She was arrested.”
“For what?” I unintentionally shouted, shock getting the better of me.
This time it was Bear that answered in that deep, deep voice of his, “Possession of a controlled substance and driving under the influence.” There was more to this story––call it intuition. The implied question was in my eyes. After a roll of his, he added, “Substantial quantities of cocaine and ecstasy were found in her car while she was on her way home from a party.”
“Is that the script all of you are following?”
While he considered my cla
im, Bear scratched his goatee, the letters r-e-l-a-x tattooed on the back of his fingers taunting me. It would’ve been ridiculously funny if it weren’t for the fact that I suspected the man I loved sought his vengeance by planting evidence.
“No. But if you have any more questions, you should speak to him about it.”
Whatever had happened to Paisley would have to wait. I had more pressing issues to deal with, first and foremost to close the ever widening gap between Sebastian and me. I was anxious to see him. All day I had been glancing at the clock, counting the minutes until he came home. It was already late when he texted that he wouldn’t make it in time for dinner. After that, I lost my appetite completely. Reading was out of the question––it was impossible to concentrate––so in a desperate effort to relax, I took a bath.
The tub in the master bathroom was so big it took an eternity to fill––along with half a bottle of scented Epson salts. After dimming the lights, I turned on the sound system that was wired throughout most of the house and slid into the water up to my chin. Gnossiennes No. 1 Lent, the sweet sound of Satie, filtered through the air, dominating my attention and easing my worries for the moment. My head fell back on the beveled edge and my eyes fluttered shut as the music cast its spell on me.
Slowly but surely the heat leeched away the stiffness in my muscles. It also loosened the steel grip I had on my emotions. All alone, with only the sound of my thoughts to keep me company, everything I was trying to keep at bay surged forward. The pain it evoked seared my throat and stung my eyes.
“Hey,” a sexy, gravelly voice called out.
My eyes popped open to find him standing next to the tub, yanking on his tie. The expression on his face was unguarded, reaching out to me. Hope blossomed in my heart that he was ready to let me behind the walls of his fortress once again. Moving closer, he ran his fingers through my hair.
“You got a haircut?”
All I could do was nod. The power he had over me was frightening. He could enslave me with a mere touch. My eyelids grew heavy as he ran his fingers along my jawline and down my neck. When he stepped away to undress, my skin turned cold and hypersensitive where his warmth had been. One piece at a time, he discarded his clothing carelessly. It pooled at his feet.
My loving eyes drank in every square inch of tan skin he revealed, the long, graceful lines of his body––the scars. A reminder of all he’d suffered and overcome…a reminder of what an amazing man he was. I tucked the image away in the deepest reaches of my mind to treasure forever.
He stepped into the water and sat down facing me. His long legs stretched out, surrounding my body. My knees came up to give him more room. Without thought, my hand idly stroked his injured knee. If he was within reach it was imperative that I touch him, compelled by some magnetic force I was powerless to resist. I drew circles around the kneecap and watched the tight line of his full mouth go slack at the sensation.
The air between us felt pregnant with truths and omissions that hadn’t been revealed yet, with words that hadn’t been spoken. I didn’t know how to begin. I was a coward, a fraud. My entire life I’d prided myself on my strength of will, and yet when I needed it most, it had deserted me.
Paralyzed by indecision, I placed my chin on top of my knees and watched him slowly sink below the water. A beat later, like some mythical sea creature, he broke the surface for air and slicked his wet hair back. Sometimes I wondered if he understood the measure of his appeal. It certainly didn’t seem that way.
Droplets of water collected on his long lashes. The path they took as they slid down his cheeks and caught on his sensual lips held me captive. An urge to lick them away came over me. Leaning in, I traced his lips with my tongue, nibbled on his full bottom one, and kissed him gently. When I pulled back there was no doubt, no question of what he was thinking––it was all there in those bottomless pools of amber. So expressive…those eyes. I wanted to dive in and lose myself in them, disappear altogether to a place where I wasn’t haunted by the mistakes I’d made.
Everything I was fighting to keep tightly locked down finally broke loose. “It’s my fault,” I whispered, my lips barely moving, my jaw quivering from the pressure. “I didn’t want the baby…not at first.” I began regurgitating words. Like sour milk, they couldn’t stay down a second longer; they were making me ill. More than anything, I needed him to assuage my battered soul. I needed his absolution.
Closing the distance between us swiftly, he pulled me onto his lap and crushed me to him. I threw my legs over his, straddling him. Only then did I realize how violently I was shaking. As always Sebastian seemed to know what I needed before I did. He cocooned me in comfort, curving his much larger body around my lesser one. I pressed my face into his throat––and buried my shame along with it. A river of tears slid down my temple and blended with the drops of water on his damp skin. “What if…my body rejected the baby because I didn’t want him?” I forced out between hiccups and sobs. Since that day in the grocery store, while I was on the run, that little boy’s face, with his large amber eyes and dark hair, had been haunting me. Would our child have looked similar? I couldn’t scrub the image from my memory.
“You know better than to say stupid shit like that.” A large hand rubbed slowly up and down my back, lending me the strength to confess everything.
“And now I do want him…I did this. I did this to us,” I spewed, my voice breaking as the emotion wrapped its fingers around my throat and squeezed.
“Shhhhh. It’s not your fault.” Holding me even closer, he murmured words of love and encouragement in my ear. “We can try again as soon as you’re ready,” he added in the end.
That made me cry even harder.
“I need you to forgive me––I can’t lose you. I can’t.”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” he practically growled. “It pisses me off that you…” His words stopped short, his frustration palpable. Grabbing my shoulders, he shook me. “Fuck, Vera, you’re everything to me. I’m in it for the long haul and you as sure as fuck better be, too.”
In the midst of all the pain and suffering, he made me laugh, this complicated, wonderful man who gave everything and asked for nothing in return. He wiped my reddened, swollen face of the leftover tears running down my cheeks.
“Don’t I get a choice?” I said, giggling.
His head cocked slightly. He studied me thoughtfully. “From the moment we met, neither one of us had a choice.”
My expression sobered. “You really believe that?”
“No,” he answered. How could one small word hurt so much? Until he added, “I know it.” Absolute certainty resonated in his voice. “You’re mine forever and that’s the end of it.”
Biting my lip, I asked the question that was burning a hole in my gut. “Do you want children?”
I didn’t think his eyes could get any softer, but he proved me wrong. “I want us. I want them with you.” His arms tightened around me until there was less than zero space between us. Chest to chest, I felt the heavy thumping of his heart next to mine. I knew then that together we would get through this. We would be okay…no matter what.
The din woke me. Drifting up from the ground floor, a collection of voices entered through the front door, the ancient stone walls amplifying every sound. “What time is it?” I groggily asked Sebastian while he quickly shoved on a pair of sweatpants. He planted a tender kiss on my lips, and was half way to the door when he answered, “Four. Go back to sleep.”
There was no way that was happening. I grabbed a pair of leggings, a long sleeved top, and dressed in a hurry. Down the marble steps, I followed the breadcrumb trail of voices into the den, a room seldom used. It had a decadent, masculine feel to it. Large, comfortable couches in midnight blue velvet and heavy silk drapes with a faint fleur de lis pattern complemented the ornate, antique billiard table that sat in the middle. The vaulted ceiling was decorated with plasterwork worthy of a fourteenth century church. It was definitely one of the more grand roo
ms in the house, and I suspected that had something to do with Sebastian’s father.
I pushed open the walnut double doors and scanned the area, taking note of who was present. Everyone fell silent as I entered. Ben and his men––Justin, Bear, and two others whose names escaped me––lounged back on the couches. Some with beers in hand, some loading bullets into the clips of their guns.
Hmmm, interesting combination, that.
Gideon and Sebastian studied the screen of an open laptop resting on the pool table. Shay stood at the bar with her back to me. Dressed casually, casual for her that is, in dark designer jeans and a deep purple silk shirt, she was busy filling a cut crystal tumbler with liquor. At the silence, she glanced over her shoulder and our eyes met, hers widening. That’s when I noticed the worn-out look on her face, and how disheveled her shoulder length auburn hair was.
“Vera––shit, it’s so good to see you!” She covered the ground between us in a couple of long-legged strides and engulfed me in a tight, almost suffocating hug. “We just got back from Panama and we had to see Bash.”
Bash?
“I’m so sorry if we woke you.”
“No, no. Don’t worry. This is important,” I rushed to reassure her.
“Yes, unfortunately,” she agreed, her expression troubled. My gaze slid to Sebastian and Gideon, who were following the conversation. Gideon’s dark, exotic eyes met mine briefly. He greeted me with a short nod.
“Did you get any answers?” The eagerness in my voice rang loud and clear. I was anxious for this to be over, for Sebastian to be safe.
With the audit by the American Department of Justice hanging overhead, Gideon and Shay had flown down to Panama to see if they could get any information about a bank account that had been wiring large sums of cash to Horn & Cie. Everyone agreed that something nefarious was in play. After repeated attempts to reach them by phone, to no avail, Shay had decided to take matters in hand.