Inconvenient Lover

by Cooper-Posey, Tracy

  The stem snapped in her fingers. Champagne and glass fell all over the table, along with a few spots of blood. She didn’t notice their fall except in a remote, detached sort of way. Her entire body had chilled and numbed, making the champagne in her stomach seem warm by comparison. Even her hearing had shut down and only a few muffled noises came through. She was in a cocoon, which for a few short moments was protecting her from the full flood of pain that would hit her as soon as the shock wore off and her nerves opened up to normal stimuli again. And while she was in that muffling invisible cocoon, she heard her mind whispering over and over again, He’s leaving. And he won’t be back. He’s leaving…

  She saw Hugh’s hand pick up hers where it lay lifelessly on the damp white tablecloth. He seemed to be moving in slow motion.

  Abruptly the cocoon was wiped away, sounds returned to normal and she gasped as the impact was finally delivered.

  “Anastasia!” Hugh said and his tone told her it wasn’t the first time he’d spoken her name.

  She blinked and looked up at him.

  “You’re not going to faint or anything, are you? All that champagne you’ve just knocked back…”

  She shook her head, then found her voice and pushed words past lips that felt dry, rubbery and uncooperative. “I’m going outside for some fresh air.”

  She forced her legs to bear her weight and move, to take her outside. She felt Hugh’s jacket slide off her shoulders but didn’t stop.

  Outside, the cold air barely registered on her skin. She looked up at the house, blazing with lights and buzzing with noise. Too many people. She turned to her left and followed the line of the marquee to the corner, where enough grass was left to form a narrow alley through to the lower terrace. She negotiated the tent pegs and ropes clumsily, tripping and grabbing at the lines for support but made it through to the brick shelf that marked the edge of the terrace.

  The steps were halfway along the terrace. She simply dropped to her knees and lowered herself over the edge and down to the lower terrace, her train in one hand.

  She began to walk, the rhythmic motion keeping in time with the chant in her head, while she cursed her own folly. Hugh had told her David would be returning in three weeks or less. She had actually celebrated the fact…then tucked it away so deeply that now she was suffering the consequences.

  Decide tonight, he had told her. But not why. And he hadn’t hidden the truth from her through any need to maintain control but to place that control firmly in her grasp. He wouldn’t use his departure as a bargaining chip. He had hidden it from her because he wanted her to decide without the influence of external concerns and pressures.

  “Oh, David,” she whispered. “Do you know how much harder you are making this for me?”

  She came to a stop when she felt wooden floorboards beneath her feet. The jetty. She stared out over the water. The moonlight danced across the gently moving surface of the river, making the water look clean, refreshing. Infinitely inviting.

  She looked behind her. The terrace was empty of people. Feeling her nerve endings tingling in anticipation of the feel of the water on her skin, she walked down to the end of the jetty, where the boathouse shielded her from all but very close scrutiny. With trembling fingers, she unzipped the dress and stepped out of it and laid it gently on the boards. Quickly, she shed the rest of her clothes. A vestigial cautionary sense made her leave her teddy on.

  Without another glance behind her, she rose up on her toes took a breath and dived.

  The water was surprisingly warm. The river at this point was a broad, slow moving channel. Anastasia felt her fingers touch the muddy bottom quickly, even though she had dived flat and shallow and she let herself rise up to the surface, trailing air bubbles behind her, stretching her body like a long slim arrow.

  That was when the pain hit her.

  Twin streaks of agony clamped into her side and her thigh, making her knees wrench themselves up toward her stomach, forcing her breath out at the pure unexpectedness of the physical pain.

  Fighting for breath now, she tried to continue her climb to the surface but as soon as she lifted her arms above her head to pull against the water, the pain in her side dug in with steel claws and she lost what little air remained in her lungs, expelled in an anguished groan.

  She clamped her jaws together tightly, fighting against the urge to breathe in more air, knowing that to succumb to the survival instinct would be fatal. Once she breathed in water, she would very quickly lose consciousness. Somehow she had to get to the surface. It wasn’t very deep here. Twelve feet at the most. All she had to do was let herself float up to the surface…except she had expelled any air that would float her up. There was a gentle upward tug at her hair that told her she was sinking downward, instead.

  Down to the bottom.

  Chapter Fifteen

  She was being lifted. Hands around her ribs, pulling her upward. Anastasia dragged herself out of the trance she had fallen into, realizing that help had arrived unheralded. She would survive.

  She fought off the need to breathe, now stronger than before, knowing she would have that chance in a few seconds. David would make it possible. For she had known the instant the hands had found her in the dark that it was David. He had come looking for her.

  They broke the surface and Anastasia threw her head back and gasped in lungfuls of air, knowing he would support her and keep her afloat. The bliss in being able to breathe! Gradually the heavy throb in her temples lessened and then died away, as the fresh oxygen circled through her body.

  She became aware of external considerations. The cramps were still severe, still keeping her curled up in a tight circle of flexed muscles but her head and shoulders were now riding on a warm cushion of flesh. David was towing her back to the jetty, one arm across her torso. His exertions were telegraphed through the back of her shoulders.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Cramps,” she said, between still-ragged breathing.

  “I know. I’ll fix that when I’ve got you on the jetty. Just hang on.”

  She fell silent, feeling her body rapidly recuperate.

  “Is she okay?” Hugh called from above them, on the jetty.

  “Better than either of you deserve,” David answered, grabbing the wooden ladder.

  Anastasia felt a weak impulse to protest but kept silent. The pain of the cramp was taking much of her attention. She felt herself being lifted and realized that David was climbing the ladder with one hand, carrying her. The strength needed to do that, to say nothing of the balance, left her awed.

  Hugh was waiting, holding David’s shirt and jacket. Shoes, tie and various other belongings littered the ground at his feet. David would have been moving fast.

  She was lowered to the wooden planking. His hard fingers probed her side. “Here?” David asked.

  “And leg,” she gasped.

  He went to work, kneading the muscles, forcing oxygen into them, relaxing them. The pain of the massage was far more acute than the cramp but over quickly. Gradually she felt her body relax.

  “Hugh, wrap your handkerchief around her hand. It’s bleeding.”

  She felt the soft dry cloth being bound around her fingers, to staunch the cut the champagne glass had given her when it had shattered. Aeons ago.

  “Can you sit up?” David asked.

  She slowly tried, feeling his hands around her shoulders, taking her weight. She was raised to a sitting position and she let her head drop to her bent knees. She felt very tired.

  “Give me my shirt,” David said to Hugh and she could hear a note of suppressed anger in his voice.

  So could Hugh. “You’re not blaming me for this, are you?” His voice was outraged. “I didn’t throw her in.”

  “No but you might as well have.” Her arm was lifted and something soft slid over it. His shirt. David continued speaking, his voice low, controlled, precise. “You two have been arguing between yourselves and you knew she had problems she
was trying to deal with from the way she skipped out of the office today. You saw the second half of a serious disagreement between her and Christopher and then you pour the better part of a bottle of champagne down her throat in the space of fifteen minutes.”

  He slid the shirt over her other arm and pulled her shoulders back to lean against the wall of his chest while he fastened the buttons. She could feel his fine body hair and his skin against hers, damp but warm.

  “You told her I was leaving for China tomorrow, didn’t you?” David accused.

  “Yes but—”

  “You’re an idiot, Hugh.” There was absolutely no concession in David’s voice. She shivered.

  “I didn’t know she would react this badly to the news.” Hugh’s voice was small.

  “She crushes a glass with her fingers and you’re not concerned?” There was a wealth of disgust in his words.

  “Well, yes but I hardly expected her to chuck herself off the jetty.”

  David’s black jacket was dropped over her shoulders and he slowly lowered her head forward to her knees again. She heard him stand, the boards creaking as he rose. Without looking, she knew he was facing Hugh and this time his fury was quite evident.

  “You yourself told me she’s been swimming every night at Numeralla. ‘Chasing demons away’ you called it. As soon as I saw you in the marquee, with the blood and the glass on the table, I knew where she had gone. Why didn’t you? You’re supposed to love her, Hugh! You’re supposed to know her.”

  Hugh finally fell back on the simple truth. “I thought I did.” Even Anastasia could discern the deep distress in his voice.

  There was a long silence. “She could have drowned.” David sounded tired, deflated. “If she hadn’t kept her head, if she’d panicked, she would have.”

  “I know.”

  Anastasia felt the boards creak and David’s arm beneath her knees and around her back. “Put your arms around my neck,” he told her, his voice soft in her ear. She complied and was hoisted up and he rose to his feet again.

  “Where are you taking her?” Hugh asked. “You can’t go back through the house like that.”

  “And give the rest of her family more to worry about?” David shook his head. “I’ll go around the side. You pick up all this stuff. You’d better get that dress to the cleaners first thing tomorrow. Just give me my keys and you take the rest. You have to go back and take Christopher’s car keys away from him. He’s trying to crawl into a bottle of whiskey. You make sure he and Benitta get home in one piece.”

  David stepped around Hugh and began walking across the lower terrace. Anastasia could feel the muscles beneath his skin working smoothly as he strode.

  She felt her eyes closing and her head nodding and tried to struggle awake again.

  “Sleep if you want,” David told her gently, his voice rumbling against her ribs.

  “I knew it was you,” she said. “In the water. I knew you’d find me.”

  David stopped walking and rested his forehead against hers. “I’m just glad I was close enough. I saw you go in but I only found you on my third dive. If I’d been further away, or slower to figure it out…” She felt a tremor run through him.

  She kissed the skin of his neck, where her cheek rested and for a moment the arms about her tightened. Then he began walking again. Some time very shortly after that she fell asleep.

  * * * * *

  David gently stripped the damp jacket and shirt from Anastasia’s body as she lay on his bed, trying to move fast so she didn’t lose any of the warmth she had gathered from the heater in the car. He had kept it blasting throughout the fast, furious drive back to his house, as much for his benefit as for hers.

  She had remained deeply asleep throughout the drive and even when he had carried her into the house she had only stirred a little, moving up through layers of sleep but not to full consciousness.

  He hesitated over removing the sodden teddy she wore beneath his clothes, then quickly removed that too and tucked her beneath the quilt. As he pulled it up over her, his fingers snagged in her hair and he felt a sharp stab in his flesh. He rolled her onto her side and saw that although her hair had come free of the elegant chignon, the roses that had adorned it clung tenaciously to her curls, crushed and bruised but still whole. There was a plethora of hair clips scattered through the long tresses too. David began untangling the roses and clips and dropping them on the side table.

  He wasn’t even remotely tempted by the opportunities having Anastasia in his bed might offer. Raging guilt killed any such inclinations before they were born.

  It was solely his fault that she had come to such a situation. No one could share the blame and David would willingly fight anyone who tried. He wouldn’t dodge the awful responsibility he carried for driving her to this extreme.

  The terrible fact was that he loved her and his love was hurting her.

  David removed the last rose from her hair and straightened up, holding it in his palm, while the bleak reality of the fact registered properly in his mind.

  It hurt, with a pain that had no origin but took hold of him and gnawed away at his soul in a stark relentlessness that he couldn’t ignore. He stared down at the rose lying in his hand and clenched his other fist against the raging hurt.

  He knew he had to take the reasoning one step further, to its proper conclusion.

  His love was hurting her, so he must let her go.

  In his mind, the emptiness of a future without Anastasia opened up. It was the yawning, empty chasm of his nightmares. David shut his eyes against the vision but it played out in his mind’s eye anyway.

  And in counterpoint, he saw again the moment when she had stood up to her father at the ball—the slim woman before the formidable force of Christopher Kirk’s anger. David allowed himself to feel the hot rush of tenderness and sheer admiration for her courage he had been forced to hide at the time. Her tenacity awed him. Even when it hurt, Anastasia refused to back down from defending what she believed in. She had stood there, knowing her father was about to strike her and David had seen the little lift of her chin. That tiny sign of spirit endeared her to him more than any other sweeping dramatic gesture she could have made.

  He knew he wasn’t ready to let her go yet but for Anastasia’s sake he had to.

  For endless moments he stood, coaxing himself to accept the lonely future that had, a few short weeks ago, been his only future. To do so meant he was overturning one of his deepest-set beliefs, that hard work and perseverance would always win out.

  He knew it was the toughest battle he had ever fought. In the end a simple realization won the struggle for him—sometimes the best thing to fight for is exactly what you don’t want. Winning that fight was better than settling for a compromise.

  After a long moment, David closed his fingers carefully over the rose and turned away from the bed.

  He had packing to do if he was to catch that flight in the morning.

  * * * * *

  Anastasia awoke to a dim gray day, the light barely strong enough to illuminate the room. A sheet and quilt covered her and the lingering scent told her whose bed this was. David’s.

  On the wall was the blurred outline of picture frames. The details weren’t clear but she remembered what they were. Oil paintings, not etchings. Beneath them was an ornately carved oriental cedarwood chest and resting on top of that, an open suitcase. A pile of folded clothes sat next to it, as if they had been put down there in the process of being packed. She felt her heart beat more heavily at the sight of the suitcase. He really was leaving, then. He was going back to China.

  A small movement caught her eye and she looked across to the window where it had come from. David stood there, holding back the light curtain so he could see out. It was raining. Shadows of water running down the panes danced across his bare chest. He had changed into jeans and his hair was tousled from a rough drying with a towel. She could see the towel draped across the arm of a chair that sat in the corner of the
room.

  “What time does your plane leave?” she asked and was a little shocked to find her voice was barely stronger than a whisper.

  David looked at her. He dropped the curtain and moved to the side of the bed, sinking down onto the edge of the mattress. “Just after midday.”

  She glanced at her wrist and found it bare.

  “It’s just after dawn…say seven o’clock,” he told her, interpreting her movement.

  Anastasia looked around the room again. “So…you finally got me into your bed,” she said lightly.

  A glimmer of a smile touched his lips but traveled no further. His eyes were the same brooding gray she had seen from across the dance floor, hours before.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  Anastasia stretched inside her warm burrow, feeling tendons and muscles pull easily and without pain and bones and joints move freely. “I feel wonderful.”

  “No headache?”

  “From the champagne? No.”

  “I meant from the lack of oxygen, actually. But you haven’t any hangover symptoms either?”

  “No.”

  He shook his head in mock amazement and this time he smiled properly. “Alcohol, stress and a cold October’s night and you go swimming. You’re luckier than you deserve.”

  “Thanks to you. But it was thanks to you I was in the water in the first place.”

  His smile faded. “I know.”

  Anastasia found her gaze drawn back to the open suitcase. She looked away again and up, to meet David’s steady scrutiny.

  “What did Aunt Benitta want to tell you?” she asked.

  He smiled, as if he knew that wasn’t what she had wanted to ask. “A warning about the confrontation between you and your father earlier in the day, and her fear that it wasn’t finished. And she was right, for she’d barely told me when I heard your father lifting his voice. And another warning regarding you—she thought you were under considerable pressure for some reason that she wouldn’t give and she thought I should watch you carefully. But that warning came too late. I already knew you were under stress and by the time I reached the marquee to look for you, you’d gone.”