Covet Me

by Geneva Lee

“Yes, we do.” Now we were coming to the point. Samantha had always considered Georgia and I her adopted children, and in reality, she’d been the nearest thing to a mother I’d had for a very long time. Even as my own mother faded from this earth, she was there. She’d tried to protect us when she realized that the intentions of her husband were far from paternally motivated. But, in the end, she’d ran as we all did. She’d been the only one to ever successfully do it.

  Her eyes snapped shut and when they opened they flashed. “She should have stayed.”

  “I shouldn’t have taken her back.” It was the closest I’d ever come to apologizing for my naivety.

  “You were young.” Samantha dismissed my confession. “God knows what Hammond told you was happening to her here.”

  He had sold me lies and I had swallowed them, choosing to believe that I was the hero sent to deliver my helpless sister from the dangerous chameleon that had deceived us all. I’d flown to New York and lured her home, delivering her into the hands of the true predator.

  “In so many ways I broke her as much as he did,” I said softly, recalling how readily she’d sank to her knees at Velvet before the cane.

  “She’s not broken. It would be a mistake to ignore the obvious fact that she is naturally submissive,” Samantha advised. “Despite that, his actions were unforgivable.”

  “You took her for a reason and it never occurred to me to consider that.”

  “Have you ever considered that she wanted to go back?” Samantha asked in a soft voice that highlighted the trace of Scottish burr that we both shared.

  Yes. I had come to understand that Georgia had chosen to return to England and to Hammond’s bed. Just as she had chosen to continue this charade. But with age had come a rationality that had saved her, in part, from herself. There was an intentionality to her decisions that had been absent then. “She was too young to make that choice.”

  “But now she’s made another?” Samantha guessed. “Or have you come to see my show and play?”

  “Both, I suppose. If you have tickets available.”

  “For you and?” She trailed away, the question hanging in the air between us.

  “A woman.”

  “That I suspected,” she said dryly.

  “And yet you asked,” I countered. “My girlfriend is with me on this trip.”

  “She must be important to bring her here—or perhaps she is understanding?”

  “We’ll come for the show.” My message was clear. Belle could appreciate Samantha’s delicate, provocative theatre, but I wasn’t about to descend with her to Wonderland, not after what had happened with Velvet.

  “It’s a pity that you two don’t see eye to eye on such matters.”

  I hadn’t come to explain the intricacies of my sex life with her. “I’m afraid there’s a bit more to it than that.”

  “You’ll bring her then. I’d like to meet the woman who captured your interest so entirely.”

  “Perhaps.” Given what we had to discuss it was possible her invitation would be rescinded. Time and distance might undermine the sense of betrayal she’d once felt. She had remained married to Hammond through the years.

  “I suppose there’s no sense avoiding this business any longer.” Her arm stretched toward a weathered side table for a crystal decanter. Samantha poured us each a drink.

  “You still have a penchant for gin.” I set my glass to the side.

  “I see you don’t.”

  The truth was I didn’t have the stomach for drinking today. “There’s been some developments at home.”

  Samantha downed her drink in one long swig. “And you’re here to do what exactly? Drag me home or warn me to stay put?”

  “I’m here as a courtesy.”

  “To whom?” she asked.

  “To you.” This was my calculated risk. Telling Samantha was a gamble, because her loyalty to Hammond was questionable. To my knowledge the two hadn’t spoken for years but they also hadn’t divorced.

  “I have a feeling I’m going to need another drink.” She filled her glass again but she didn’t gulp it down. Instead she caressed the rim with her index finger, her eyes staring straight through me to a place beyond this room.

  “Hammond is under investigation.” The trick to cluing her in was to only give herself enough warning to prepare her own affairs.

  “Does he know this?”

  It was the one question I’d hoped she wouldn’t ask. If I lied and said he did, I ran the risk of her innocently revealing it to him. If I told her the truth, I gave her the rope to hang me.

  Samantha’s head tilted so that her gaze refocused on me. “You don’t have to answer that.”

  My silence already had, and my hesitation had told her something else.

  “I don’t blame you,” she said after a few moments of heavy silence. “He’s done unforgivable things….”

  “But?” I sensed the qualification without her making the excuse for him.

  “No but.” She smiled wanly and took a drink. It slid down her throat with an audible gulp. “As his lawyer you know we’re still married. What happens if…if he’s arrested? Am I in danger?”

  “There’s no longer an if, Samantha. The arrest is coming.”

  She didn’t ask how I knew that. She’d already guessed I had a role in what was to come. “Will I be extradited?”

  “That’s highly unlikely.”

  “But not impossible.” She didn’t wait for me to answer. “It’s no matter. My affairs have been separate from his for years.”

  “That was a judicious move,” I reassured her. It was entirely possible that she would be sought out by the courts, but more than likely as a witness against her husband’s crimes. That she had fled the country so many years before indicated that she too feared his reach. But giving the mounting evidence we’d collected and turned over to the authorities, her testimony was mostly unnecessary.

  There was little more I could do to reassure her. I’d accomplished what I came to do. “I should be going. I’m certain you have things to attend to before this evening’s performance.”

  “I appreciate you coming here to warn me,” Samantha said as she walked me leisurely toward the door. “It’s best not be caught off-guard by hearing it from the paper, I suppose.”

  “You did your best to protect us. You tried to help Georgia.” I lowered my voice. “You genuinely cared when so few people did.”

  Samantha took my chin in her papery hand and studied me before sighing. “But did I do enough?”

  “You did more than anyone else.” I wrapped my arms around her lithe frame and hugged her tightly. She had tried and although I’d once blamed her for abandoning us. I understood now. Some choices were between life and death. Living with Hammond—living with his toxic deceit—was a slow death. I couldn’t begrudge her flight from that agony.

  “Bring this woman to my show.” Samantha’s eyes narrowed into slits as she poked a finger into my chest. This time it was an order. “I’d like to meet her and perhaps you’ll show her other things as well.”

  I clenched my jaw, trying to hold back what could be misinterpreted as an insult. “She struggled with Velvet.”

  “Velvet has its own ghosts,” she said wisely. “You’re unmatched there. You have too much history with that place.”

  She was right. There could never be a true exchange of power there. Not while I clung so tightly to my control whenever I entered its door.

  “I’ll consider it,” I reiterated, still unwilling to commit.

  “Don’t hide who you are from her, Smith.” The sharp edge of warning ran through her words.

  “She’s seen the beast inside me.” I spoke so softly I wasn’t certain she could hear me.

  “There is no beast,” Samantha admonished, ruffling my hair. “Only a man.”

  I wanted to believe her, but she saw me through a mother’s eyes, and although she had some sense of the depths of my depravity, our relationship had never crossed the lin
es that Hammond’s had with Georgia. “If only that were true.”

  “All humans are creatures subject to our basest needs.”

  I didn’t bother to correct her again. I’d given Belle a choice. I’d hinted at who I was. I’d given her a taste. She’d chosen to stay with me. She’d also chosen to walk away. The woman was subject to nothing. She was the one in control. That made her the only light shining in the darkness of my world.

  It made her the only one capable of saving my soul.

  I wandered the streets for a few hours as I contemplated my next move. Decisions had to be made. When I finally returned to the hotel, I nearly stumbled on the leopard print heels that had been left in the entry. She’d made it as far as the suite’s dining room table. I watched her from the doorway, not wanting to disturb her as she worked. The purple glow of twilight lit across her fair features, turning her porcelain complexion rosy. Belle was always lovely, but today haloed in the late afternoon light she looked like an angel—a fucking brilliant, sexy as sin angel. Her brows knitted together as she typed furiously. Withdrawing my mobile I snapped a photo of the unguarded moment. The shutter sound broke her concentration and she glanced up, a smile spreading slowly across her face.

  “I hope you got my good side,” she muttered in mock annoyance.

  I laughed as I selected the picture and set it as my mobile background. “They’re all good sides.”

  “You’re too easy on me.” She leaned back in her seat, revealing more notes strewn around her.

  That was because being with her was easy. It hadn’t always been. Not when we had been caught up in trying to deny our attraction to one another. Since we’d given in the outside world had gotten more complicated but us—the us that existed in private—was simple.

  “How was your meeting?” I crossed to her and began to knead her shoulders. Belle shifted back, allowing me a glimpse of her pale, creamy throat.

  She sighed before answering in a tired voice, “Terrible.”

  “Oh?” I had to restrain myself from loosing my temper. The idea that things had gone poorly—that she was upset—lit a slow, simmering rage at my core.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Her hand caught mine and squeezed, instantly soothing the fury building inside me. “I don’t know what I expected, but the editor was a bitch.”

  I made a mental note to look into this editor. “I’m sorry.”

  It was the most comfort I could offer at the moment.

  “I’m over it. Really,” she said when I shot her a dubious look.

  “Dinner?” I said. I didn’t believe for one second that she’d written off whatever had transpired this afternoon. Perhaps a little wine would ease the story out of her.

  She bit her lip, glancing quickly to her laptop. “I have a few more emails to return.”

  “Isn’t the lawyer supposed to be the workaholic?”

  “I know, right?” She pulled gently out of my grasp. “Give me an hour?”

  “That will be perfect, beautiful.” I pressed a kiss to her forehead before excusing myself to attend my own business. An hour would also give me time to prepare for the evening.

  Georgia didn’t answer her private line, not shocking given the time difference between London and New York. No doubt she was preoccupied with matters at the club. I’d seen to most of my other affairs before I’d left which gave me to time to arrange dinner. An hour later, I pried Belle from her work and led her onto the suite’s private terrace with my hands clapped over her eyes. Only a pink sliver of sunset remained over the horizon. The city was covered in a dusky haze that sketched buildings into shapes and the trees of Central Park into bare limbs against the twinkling lights of distant skyscrapers. Autumn in New York was a magical time, when the bustling city contracted in preparation for winter.

  I released her when we reached the table that Geoffrey had set up in the middle of the patio. A half dozen candles illuminated the simple spread of pasta I’d asked him to procure from Garazzo’s, one of the few establishments that had survived since the first time I’d visited the ever-changing metropolis. There was a certain elegant rustic quality to classic Italian home cooking, and Belle’s gasp of delight rewarded the effort I’d put into arranging the dinner.

  I pulled out the chair, my hand remaining on its back until her napkin was tucked into her lap.

  “This looks amazing,” she said, ladling a massive helping of pasta onto her plate. “I just realized I skipped lunch.”

  “So your meeting was terrible but you still felt the need to work all afternoon?” I couldn’t quite figure out if she was working through disappointment or trying to keep herself busy to avoid feeling it.

  “It was,” she admitted. She swirled her fork around the noodles and took a large bite.

  “I’d like to hear about it.”

  She paused as if to consider my request before she related the events of her interview with Abigail Summers. When she finished I was barely controlling the seething anger about to boil over.

  “You’re mad,” she noted when she finally finished.

  “It was disrespectful,” I said in a low voice. I could think of a few more choice terms to describe Summers’s behavior but I kept them to myself. I

  “Yes,” she said, “but Abigail Summers gets to be disrespectful. Honestly, I’m over it.”

  “You?” I repeated pointedly.

  “Apparently,” she said, dropping her napkin onto the table and creeping over to my lap, “I deal quite well with rejection these days.”

  “Don’t look at me, beautiful. I’m not about to test your theory.” My arms circled around her trim waist. “I only want you closer.”

  We stayed like that under a black painted sky. The noise of the city dying away until the only sound I processed was her faint breathy inhalations.

  “Up here you can almost see the stars.” She gazed into the darkness, searching for their glittering presence. “It was one of my favorite things about my family’s estate.”

  She spoke of her family home as if it was already lost. I knew otherwise, although I’d chosen not to get involved until she asked me—or the situation became dire.

  “I hardly remember the stars,” I admitted.

  “We should go somewhere quiet where they aren’t hidden by the city,” she murmured.

  “Of course, beautiful.”

  “I want it to be like this forever,” she whispered. “Just us.”

  Us. The subject had been on my mind perpetually since she had arrived in my suite yesterday. If I was being honest I’d thinking about us since long before then. Here, high above the chaotic city, we seemed possible once more. I hadn’t been able to figure out how to make it work in London. I had forced her to face me so that I could explain. My orchestrated betrayal had burrowed like a deeply imbedded thorn, and I’d been certain that the only way to remove it was to tell her the truth. Or as much of it as I dared to share. “We could if we stayed here, beautiful.”

  She laughed lightly but the bell-like sound ceased when her eyes met mine. “You’re serious?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked her. “You’re the only thing tying me to London and now you’re here.”

  Belle tilted her gorgeous face up to stare at me. I already knew here answer. “I have a life in London.”

  “I know. I wan’t serious,” I said dismissively.

  “You were serious,” she said, her voice growing softer as she continued, “I wish I could be, too, but I have Clara and the new baby. My aunt. Edward.”

  I had to remind myself that the ties that bound her to London weren’t the shackles that held me captive. Belle had people that she loved, something that I didn’t, holding her there. Each name she spoke was a reminder that I wasn’t her entire world.

  “You look jealous,” she accused.

  “You can’t blame me for wanting you all to myself.” She could, in fact. It was selfish and short-sided. Those people had made her who she was, transforming her into the woman I loved, and
if I could, I would take her away from all of them. Samantha had been wrong. I was a beast, a primitive creature that knew nothing beyond my own wants. And right now, I would trap Belle if I could. Back her into a corner. Scare her into staying. And not an ounce of me felt guilty for that.

  “You’re going to have to learn to share,” she teased, trailing her index finger across my palm.

  “I don’t share, beautiful,” I reminded her. “You belong to me.”

  This silenced her. When she finally spoke, her words came out in halting and half-formed. “I do. But…Smith, I want….more.”

  “More that me?” I swallowed hard on this revelation.

  “Yes, and no,” she tacked on swiftly. “If I have to choose, I’ll choose you. Every time. At any cost. I just wish it wasn’t the case.”

  “I do, too, beautiful.”

  This time I spotted the slide of her throat. “Then we’ll move to New York. It would be good for Bless.”

  She was willing to give it all up. Uproot her existence and fore sake all others. It was what I needed to know. “No,” I said firmly. “Birds of a feather, remember?”

  “I don’t want to go home if its going to be dangerous for you,” she murmured, finally giving words to the fear that had driven her to such a desperate agreement.

  How could I tell her that I wanted to keep her here for that reason? That returning to London together was akin to painting a bullseye on her back? “I don’t want to give you up.”

  The thoughtless words slipped from my mouth and lodged between us.

  “What happened to facing the storm together?”

  I turned away from her, searching for her answer in the dark, moonless night. She grabbed my face, her nails digging into my jaw.

  “Don’t you dare.” A hysterical edge seeped into her voice. “You were right. I can live without you, but I don’t want to. I am strong, but I’m stronger with you. We’re stronger.”

  But we aren’t invincible. I kept the thought to myself. “I’m stronger with you, too.”

  And yet, she was my greatest weakness. She had made me vulnerable. If Hammond made a move, if he placed stock in suspicion, it was no longer a simple matter of killing me.