by Penny Jordan
“Theo, I don’t think you could hurt me or Zephyr even if you wanted to. If we needed a snakebite carved out of us, you probably couldn’t do it.”
His glance flickered toward her in acknowledgment, colored with ironic humor, but he moved to stand looking through the glass at the pool. He pushed his hands into his pockets, shoulders slumped.
“You’ve been so willing to listen to everything I’ve told you I let myself believe it didn’t matter, but of course it matters. Of course you have to take time to consider what it means and decide whether you can trust me.”
She was going to have to tell him. She could see his back tensed against the same kind of betrayal and injury he’d already suffered. She couldn’t leave him thinking something as far out of his control as his childhood abuse would cause her to fear him.
Still, her abdomen tightened as if clenching to accept a blow.
“Theo, it’s not you, it’s me.”
He barked out a laugh and sent an askance look over his shoulder. “Okay.”
Not in front of Zephyr, she thought, but their son had tipped onto his side and was contentedly chewing a finger and pedaling his feet. And wasn’t he the manifestation of the goodness that had come out of her bad experience? If she hadn’t been assaulted, she would have stayed in India and married under her uncle’s dictate. Instead, she’d left and wound up meeting Theo and he had changed her life profoundly, giving her this gift.
“I trust you, Theo. I wouldn’t have slept with you in Bali if I didn’t.”
“That’s different. One night is not a lifetime. A pair of lost souls finding comfort in physical pleasure is not marriage. It takes a lot more faith in a person to share every aspect of your life with him. I understand.”
“No, that’s not—” She sighed. “That’s not what Bali was for me. Not all it was.”
He came around a half step, body still in profile, his grave expression watchful. “What do you mean?”
She took a shaky breath. “The reason I left India...” She pinched her lip, trying to stay focused. “I should back up to explain. I’ve told you Saranya and I grew up very close? When I was six, my father had an accident on the tractor and was forced to sign our land over to my uncle. We moved in with them. Our mothers are twins. It’s a big house, not a bad arrangement except that my uncle is quite controlling. He has very traditional views where women are concerned.”
She set the jungle gym over Zephyr so he could swat at the dangling toys.
“Saranya grew up dreaming of being in Bollywood films. Uncle was fit to be tied. He was arranging a marriage for her when Quentin’s crew came into the next village. Saranya was convinced this was her break. In a way it was. They fell in love and she eloped with him.”
“And you were left with her angry, thwarted father.”
She nodded. “And her two brothers and my younger brother and sister. Uncle became more domineering than ever, dictating to my parents how we should behave. It was one of the reasons I was so resolved to get a job, to give my parents money so they wouldn’t be so dependent on him. He objected to me working, saying I should marry, but there were other young people going into call centers, bringing money home. A friend recommended me for a position and it was good work. I improved my English, used their lines to speak with Saranya,” she confessed with a sheepish grin. “Uncle had disowned her, but I missed her.”
“Are you trying to tell me you’re afraid I won’t let you work?”
“There is that, but no, that’s not where I’m going.” Rising to try to escape the cloying sense of helplessness that still managed to smother her at times, she paced across the room then halted, arms wrapped around herself.
What would he think of her? Would he blame her as her family had?
“The problem with my job was... There was a man there. My supervisor. He was older, in his forties. I wasn’t even twenty yet. He flirted with me, but it wasn’t flirting.”
“Sexual harassment,” Theo concluded flatly, his voice low and chill.
“One night, before I went home, it was sexual assault.” Her voice faded into a whisper, but she knew he heard her because the silence took on a thick, heavy quality.
She smoothed a hand over the glossy hardwood of a side table, accidentally lifting her eyes to the reflection in the mirror above it.
Theo was arrested, pale under his swarthy tan, lips tight and outlined with a white ring. When their gazes clashed in the pool of silver, he flinched his glance away.
She caught back a gasp of pain.
“I never should have pressured you that night,” he said from between his teeth.
“You didn’t. I wanted to,” she assured him, swinging around to face him even though her whole body suffused with self-conscious heat. Memories burned through her, sweet and hot. Hands knotting together at her navel, she said in a strained voice, “You know I enjoyed it.”
She was dying over here, embarrassed that she had to be so bald in her confession. It was incredibly hard to practically beg him to remember how uninhibited she’d been by the time she’d slipped naked from his bed and reluctantly dressed, but she had faced him proudly in the dawn light, enjoying his admiring gaze as he watched her dress.
“That night was the first time since it happened that I wanted to be with a man. To let anyone touch me,” she confided.
“I was your employer.”
“No, you weren’t. And remember how shocked I was that you were attracted to me? As an employee I never once felt threatened by you, especially sexually. I was as grateful for that as everything else. I mean, I started out in housekeeping because it was all women, even the supervisors. Moving to the front desk, night clerk, those were all huge risks that I took because I knew I had to move past what had happened to me if I wanted to advance, but I was able to do it because you had this quiet command of everything. I felt like no one would dare touch me because I could go to you. I didn’t have any recourse the first time.”
He frowned. “You didn’t tell your family? What about the police?”
Thick painful tears welled in her eyes and she had to look away to hold on to her composure. “My uncle was ashamed that I went to the police. He called me a slut and my parents weren’t in a position to argue in my defense. They wanted me to marry the man, but he was already married.”
Theo swore and started toward her only to bring himself up short. “Jaya...” His tone was one of deep shock and struggle.
She wished he’d make this easy and take her in his strong arms, but at the same time she could only stare at the floor feeling the tears drop from her eyes. The assault had been a nightmare, but the time afterward had been the darkest, most bleak and isolated of her life.
Forcing herself to remember it was over and she was safe, she swiped at her wet cheeks and lifted her head, lashes matted and eyes still bleary. Swallowing back the lump in her throat, she managed to say, “Fortunately I had Saranya.”
“She came for you?”
“Couriered her passport. My uncle had learned his lesson about leaving them where the children could find them. We’re only a year apart and always looked remarkably alike. People mistook us all the time. Quentin was filming in Malaysia so she sent me a ticket to Kuala Lumpur. She’d just had Bina. They took me in and she went with me for all the doctor checks... I look back and think it’s such a miracle I didn’t get pregnant, given you and I managed it in one go.” She gave a weak smile.
“I can’t believe you still send them money.”
“For my mother’s sake, and my sister’s. And even though Quentin is quite successful, I don’t want to be a burden. I lived too long on my uncle’s good graces. Earning my own keep is important to me so I applied at a few hotels, ones that overlooked my lack of paperwork. Having good English was an asset. I picked up Quentin’s German and a local dialect. When he b
egan filming in Bali, I got on at Makricosta’s. After, um, claiming to the Indian embassy that I’d lost my passport and needed it replaced.” She cleared her throat. “I know that was wrong—”
“Hell, Jaya, I’m not judging you. Your uncle, yeah, but not you.” He swore again and ran a hand down his face.
Zephyr squawked at that point and she realized he was probably hungry. It was a much-needed few minutes of distraction that allowed her to collect herself. Her hands shook as she moved around the kitchenette and she was aware of Theo standing in one spot the whole time, staring out to the pool.
The sense of being flayed raw stayed with her, making her attempts to be natural and smile at her baby feel forced. Her cheeks were stiff, her brow hooking and pulling. Everything in her wanted to move into Theo’s reach and hope he’d take her in his arms, so he might smooth away all the jagged edges and reassure her that what she’d told him hadn’t changed his view of her.
He didn’t even look her way, which choked her throat with a helpless ache.
The buzz of her phone, which was on vibrate, jangled her nerves. She thought, Work, and it was the most vile four-letter word right now.
Except it would also be a healthy retreat. It suddenly hit her that she could leave. Theo didn’t need her here. The babies were gone.
Oh. An even more profoundly bereft emotion enveloped her, but she needed distance from him. While her emotions were twining and growing around his return to her life, she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. That marriage idea of his certainly wasn’t being thrown at her any longer.
Against the ominous plane of his back, she said, “I’ll take Zephyr home after he finishes eating. A lot has piled up here. I need to get into my office downstairs.”
Theo turned and the withdrawal in him was almost frightening. He was the aloof man she’d first met, not dismissive, but giving the impression he didn’t see a woman at all. Just a fellow robot.
The shift crushed her with disappointment. No, something worse. She was devastated. It was like all the accord they’d developed had evaporated and she was a stranger to him. He would be polite, but really, he didn’t want to know her ugly secrets. She’d told him too much and now she felt small and soiled.
“Why don’t you leave him with me?” he said.
“Wh-what?”
“I’m not going anywhere. We’ll be close by if he needs you. You and I still have to figure out how we’re going to proceed. I’ve heard all you’ve said, I understand why you don’t want to marry me, but I’m not flying out of here to forget this ever happened. At some point word will get out beyond my siblings that I have a child. He’s every bit as vulnerable as Evie and Androu, security-wise. We have a lot to work out.”
He spoke from across the canyon that was the lounge, his words seeming to echo around her, but they weren’t quite as empty as she’d begun to fear. She stood on uncertain footing, but this connection he’d talked about, their interdependence, was real. It was a thin thread, delicate as a dew-covered string of spider silk, but she stayed very still, wanting it to stick and endure.
“Okay.” She had to clear huskiness from her throat and now her smile at Zephyr was soft and easy and relieved. She felt like she could breathe again. She would keep seeing Theo a little longer.
“If you don’t mind a late dinner, we could talk then,” she offered as she wiped Zephyr’s face and hands.
“Downstairs? That’s fine. What time shall I make the reservation?”
She had meant room service, but, “I can book it. I’ll text you.” Feeling gauche and self-conscious, she walked Zephyr across to Theo’s tense presence and escaped to gather her composure.
* * *
Theo closed his eyes as the door shut behind Jaya.
It wasn’t fair to look to an infant for comfort, but he snugged the boy close against him and pressed his unsteady lips against hair dark and silky smooth as his mother’s.
The surge of emotions in him was almost too much to bear, certainly near impossible to contain while Jaya had been in the room. Lovely Jaya who wouldn’t crush a spider, brutalized by a man she’d trusted. He hadn’t had the courage to ask for details. They only mattered if she felt a need to get them off her chest. He certainly didn’t want to hear them. As far as he was concerned, the fact it had happened at all was infuriating and heartbreaking enough, but to then not even be supported by her family...
It was unthinkable, blasting him to overflowing with a need to insist—demand—that she marry him and be forevermore under his protection. He wasn’t superhuman, but he had resources the average person couldn’t touch. The proverbial shields he could place around her were near bulletproof and his blood raced with the need to affix them. Now.
But she didn’t want to rely on him, didn’t want to marry him.
If her assailant had reached into his chest and clawed out his heart he couldn’t have stolen anything more vital to him than Jaya’s trust. Theo had suggested they eat in the public dining room because he was convinced she wouldn’t want to be alone with him, and she’d agreed. What did that say?
And here he’d been fantasizing—not taking for granted, only indulging himself—that the sexual attraction was still ripe and strong between them. That it could form the basis of a marriage that stood half a chance.
His fury at the injustice made him want to scream, but he had a child in his arms. A tiny boy who had somehow come to life after Jaya had suffered one of the worst types of betrayal.
He brought the boy up so they were eye to eye. Zephyr’s wide grin caused a crack to zigzag across his heart. Not one of damage, but as if the shell that encased it was breaking open. Tender hunger for more of those smiles, more time with Jaya, leaked out.
Never one to believe the Christmas present he wanted would actually be under the tree, he still let a nascent thought form: Maybe if he was very careful with her, there would be hope.
CHAPTER TEN
WHEN JAYA WAS called to the front desk because Bina was asking for her there, her first instinct was to send her cousin home. Quentin had sent the girl with her sitter to check up on her, acting like an interfering, if somewhat endearing, overbearing male relative.
But Bina had a genuine connection to Zephyr that helped the girl cope with the loss she was still grieving. Jaya didn’t have the heart to send her away without a visit with her cherished baby cousin. Plus, an uninterrupted conversation with Theo for the first time since she’d seen him again held a lot of appeal.
She texted him that Bina and her nanny were coming up to stay with Zephyr and she’d meet him at the bell desk to go for dinner. Then, in a minor fit of vanity, she visited one of the hotel’s boutiques, using her employee discount to buy a new dress and shoes.
Studying herself in the mirror of the staff washroom, she asked herself what she was trying to prove. Her hair was brushed, her makeup refreshed. The only pair of shoes she could find to go with this dress were much taller than she’d normally wear. They had bling. A line of sequins decorated the heel and a jazzy buckle drew attention to the toes Bina had painted a neon pink when they’d been having girls’ night a week ago.
The dress was more feminine than sexy with its ruffled layers of sheer red and orange and pink and fluttering split cut sleeves, but gave her a moment of sober second thought.
She refused to dress like a frump, though. Her confession this afternoon had been difficult. Part of her wanted to crawl into a cave now that her secret was revealed, but she knew better than to let her past cow her. She wouldn’t deny the fact she was a woman. She wouldn’t pretend to be ugly or asexual. That would only feed her shame and she had nothing to be ashamed of. Being pretty wasn’t a crime. Wanting to please the eye of a man wasn’t a broad invitation to be abused by all of them.
Still, it was an act of bravery to swipe a final layer of gloss onto her lips and take h
erself to the bell desk. The bellman was engaged and only Theo stood there.
He stared broodingly at the bobbing lights against the dark backdrop of water beyond the windows, his demeanor the quietly compelling man she’d so admired from afar in Bali. Pausing, she allowed herself a few seconds to take in his profile of statue stillness. He projected casual wealth with his gold watch and tailored shirt over crisp pants with their break in the cuff where they landed on his Italian loafers. Since he took these things for granted, he emanated power. And he was so attractive with his fit body and neat haircut and perfectly hewn, freshly shaved jaw.
She had always thought he had it all, had so much he was bored with the world, but she knew him so much better now. He held himself remote as a self-protective thing and that made her see him with new eyes. She realized he must be terribly lonely.
He glanced abstractly toward her, then started with a flash of surprised recognition. Maybe something else. She wasn’t sure what she saw between his raking gaze from her lashes to her fancy shoes. He quickly masked his expression.
“No uniform,” he commented.
No compliment, either.
“I didn’t want to start any rumors if the Makricosta CFO was recognized having dinner with our general manager. I made reservations across the road.”
He nodded without reaction and held the door for her as they walked across to La Fumée Blanche, The White Mist. She’d secretly wanted to try the dinner and dance restaurant forever, but it was a place for couples, not singles or a woman and her preadolescent niece.
They were shown through a dining room surrounding a small dance floor. On a dais, a trio played French jazz, filling the room with the Pink Panther sound of a brush against a cymbal. Their table had fresh roses, plush velvet chairs and a spectacular view of the Med.