by Anya Bast
Wilhem was a scholar, a gentle man with fluttering hands and a kind disposition. He was awful with women and awful in bed as well. But he was an easy client and Lilya felt that their arrangement was mutually beneficial. He paid her well, and she offered him the female companionship he seemed unable to procure for himself. It was so with all three of her clients.
She entered her apartment and Wilhem stood immediately from where he sat on her divan. “Lilya.” His hands jerked, his fingers threading, and his kind, homely face split into a smile.
“Wilhem.” She crossed the room with a bustle of her skirts, took his long, narrow hands, and kissed his dry lips. She smiled into his face. “I was not expecting you until the morning. Why have you come to me today?”
He blinked and fidgeted, then glanced at a bunch of beautiful flowers that had obviously been raised in a city greenhouse. “I came to bring you these. I think they’re as lovely as you are.”
“Oh,” she breathed, as though she didn’t receive flowers every day, and scooped them up from the table. “Wilhem, they’re gorgeous. Thank you so much.” She wouldn’t put them over by the two other bunches sitting in vases on a nearby table. No need to point out his weren’t the only ones she’d received lately.
He wrung his hands. “I think of you often, Lilya. Every day. Every night. I want you with m-me always.” He fidgeted again.
She struggled to keep a smile on her face. Oh, no. Here it came. She knew these lines in all their forms, and was more than familiar with the nervousness that preceded the declaration. If he spoke the words she assumed he was about to utter, it would probably be the end of their arrangement. What a pity.
“I think I love you.” He swallowed hard, his gaze darting away from her. “I had hoped you might consider making me more than just a client. I have money, you know. I could offer you a good life.”
Yes, they all thought they could do that, give her a “good” life. As though the life she had now wasn’t good. As though she hadn’t chosen it. As though she wasn’t a property owner with a considerable amount of money in the bank and didn’t have the ability to walk away when she chose.
As though she needed them.
He fumbled with something in his pocket. An offering ring, she was certain. She had an entire drawer filled with them. A fortune in offering jewels. She couldn’t bear to sell any of them, however, because of the sentiment in which they’d been given to her, and the men almost never took them back. Instead the rings lay in a jeweled and glittered heap in a drawer she tried to never open.
Before he could pull out the small ring box, she put her hand over his to stop him. “Wilhem, please sit down.”
She sank into the couch with the flowers in her lap. He sat next to her, his pale face flushing. He pushed his spectacles back up onto the ridge of his nose.
Swallowing, she pretended to choose her words carefully. In reality, they were the lines she always used. “I am very flattered that you think of me this way, but I am not the right woman for you.”
He started to protest and she set her fingers to his mouth. “Let me finish.” He fell silent and she let her hand drop into her lap. “I am happy here, doing what I do. You must accept that our relationship can be no more than what it is right now.” She paused and looked hopeful. “Can you?” There was always the chance the arrangement could be salvaged.
His gaze dropped into his lap and he pulled the small box from his pocket and opened it. Inside was a beautiful sapphire ring. “But I wish to marry you.”
Ah well.
She reached out and closed the box. “No, Wilhem. I care for you greatly, but these deeper feelings are ones I do not share. I cannot marry you.”
He sat for several long moments and she held her breath. Here was the moment where she would either lose Wilhem as a client or keep him under uncomfortable circumstances. She would not turn him away. The choice was his to make.
Finally he stood stiffly. “I cannot remain only a client to you, Lilya.”
Letting out the breath she’d been holding, she relaxed and stood. “I think that’s a very wise decision, Wilhem.”
“There’s no chance you will reconsider?”
She smiled kindly. “You are a wonderful man, but you are not the man for me.”
His face went wooden. “I want you to have this to remember me.” Without meeting her gaze, he pressed the ring box into her hand and hurried toward the door.
Lilya stood in the middle of the room with the box clasped loosely in her hand, watching the door close behind him. With a sigh, she walked over and carefully placed the box in the drawer that held so many more. Her heart felt heavy at the loss of Wilhem. He’d been a nice man and she wished him well. She hoped he wouldn’t be lonely.
A knock sounded at her door. Immediately she walked over and opened it, wondering if it was Wilhem, perhaps having decided he didn’t want to leave her. She hoped not. Under the circumstances, it was better he left. There was nothing worse than the uncomfortable relationship between two people when one knew the other didn’t love as much.
Ariana was on the other side. “There’s another man here to see you.”
She frowned. Goodness, she hadn’t even had a chance to take her coat off yet. “I’m not expecting anyone. Who is he?”
“I don’t know.” Ariana shrugged. “He showed up and asked for you. I gave him something to drink and put him in the blue receiving room. He’s not one of your regulars and doesn’t look like your type. Should I send him away?”
She chewed her lip and shrugged her coat off. Ariana had said he didn’t look like her type, yet perhaps he was a potential client. She was very selective in whom she agreed to see regularly, but she gave all men an equal chance. “No. I’ll go see what he wants. Thank you, Ariana.”
The Temple of Dreams was quiet this afternoon. Normally their clientele didn’t start arriving until the late afternoon or evening, though she had no appointments for the day. She reached the blue room and entered to find a large man sitting at the small table, seeming to dwarf it.
“Can I help you?”
He turned.
Her breath caught. It couldn’t be. She took a step closer, examining his face. “Byron?”
He smiled and her heart skipped. “Hello, Lilya.”
Two
She blinked and her face flushed, emotion rising to clog her throat. She was certain she’d never see him again. He was from another time, another life. “How did you know where to find me?”
“I left Milzyr, but you never left my mind. I have been inquiring about you over the years, so I knew right where to locate you.”
He’d been keeping tabs on her? Inquiring about her? She wasn’t sure what to do with any of that information. His very presence was more than she could process at the moment. Her legs shook as she walked into the room. “It’s been a long time.” Her voice sounded as shaky as her legs felt.
“Yes, and you look even more beautiful than before, Lilya. More sure of yourself. Confident. Happy. Healed?” He smiled again, and her whole body warmed. “It’s been six years.”
She sat down on a nearby chair and stared at him. “You disappeared. After you helped me, left me the deed to the house, you just . . . left. I didn’t know how to get in touch with you, then I discovered who you were and . . .” She trailed off. “Well, then I suppose I was too nervous to contact you.”
This man had been her salvation. He’d literally saved her life when she’d been young. He’d lifted her out of the mess she’d made of her existence, set her on the path to making her own decisions, controlling her fate, and then one day she’d woken up and he’d just been . . . gone.
He spread broad hands that she remembered fantasizing about when she was younger. He’d never touched her, though. Not sexually. Not more than a kiss. Not even when she’d wanted him to. One night, right before he’d left, she’d begged him to put those big, rough hands on her and he’d refused. She’d always wondered if that had been why he’d left. Had she scared him away?
“You made it plain you didn’t want anything of me but superficiality,” Byron said.
She looked down, controlling her emotions. Once she had them in check, she looked up at him. “Can you blame me after what I’d been through? It was not a good time. I wasn’t ready for any sort of deep emotion when I was simply dog-paddling to keep my head above water.”
“I know. How are you now?” He gestured at the room with his hand. “Are you happy with the decision you made? Knowing what I know of you, this is not a life I would have predicted you would make for yourself. I left you well off. You didn’t—”
She cut him off. “I’ve made a very good life for myself here. This was my choice and I don’t regret it.”
“Ah. Your choice.” His pupils darkened and he went silent for a long moment, considering her. “Maybe in time I’ll come to understand your motivations.”
“In time?” She frowned. What did that mean? She couldn’t imagine he would want to spend any time with her. Not now. She’d been a project of his long ago and, like any new project of a rich man, she’d assumed he’d eventually lost interest in her.
He ignored her query, his gaze skating over her, warming her from head to toe. “You look, as usual, beautiful.”
She felt herself flush. Men told her she was beautiful all day long, but this was one of the few who could bring color to her cheeks when he said it. “Thank you. You also look well. The years have treated you kindly.”
He studied her for a long moment, his dark blue eyes seeming to go even darker and bluer. “Such a polite thing to say, Lilya. I think we know each other fairly intimately. We don’t need to observe all the social niceties.”
“You’re right.” She smiled, studying him.
He was not a particularly handsome man, not in the classical sense. His features were a little too rough and craggy for that. His nose looked like it had been broken a couple of times. He appeared more like a thug than an heir to a fortune. His lips were full and sensual, though, and there was a whole ocean of emotion and keen intelligence in those blue eyes.
Byron Andropov was a mystery to her. A man who had found her in the worst part of her life and pulled her out of her misery with a single motion of his moneyed hand. He’d set her on the path to salvation back then and hadn’t taken advantage of her vulnerable state even though she’d begged him to. Then he’d disappeared one morning and she’d wondered about him ever since.
She swallowed hard, her brow knitting. She didn’t know what to do with her hands, so she threaded her fingers in front of her. Suddenly she realized she felt a little like Wilhem must have felt minutes ago. “Byron, why did you leave?”
“My father died,” he answered. “I had to return home to see to the arrangements and take care of his businesses. By the time I left I knew you were back on your feet and wouldn’t miss me.” He grinned. “Did you miss me?”
“Of course I did. I wondered for months where you’d gone. You never left a word. Never sent a letter—”
“Whole months?” His eyebrows rose. “Incredible.”
She smiled. “You know what I mean. You could have at least said good-bye. Of course I missed you. I owed—owe—my life to you.”
“No, you never owed me that. Your life is yours to live. I always admired your wildness and freedom. I guess I also thought that if I stuck around, I’d fall in love with you and you’d break my heart. Thus, I broke our relationship off clean.” He studied her for a long moment. “I guess maybe I couldn’t bring myself to say good-bye.”
That coaxed a smile from her. “You’re such a charmer. A man like you can have any woman he wants. I know better than to think you’d want me for more than just a couple nights. You’re probably married to a beautiful woman by now, with several children running around.”
“Ah, my Lilya, ever the jaded one. No, I’m not married. I never took a wife.” He grinned. “As far as I know, I’ve never sired any offspring.”
That was hard to believe. The man exuded potency from his very pores. No, he wasn’t handsome, but he was the kind of man that women fantasized about. “Now really, Byron, why are you here? Have you just come to visit? Catch up on old times?” She doubted that. Their “old times” hadn’t been very enjoyable, not until the very end of the year they’d spent together, anyway.
“No, I’m here on business of a sort. How many clients do you have right now?”
“Three. Well, two, as of five minutes ago.” She sat back and pressed her lips together, not wanting to give out more information before he did. Did he want to be her client? That didn’t sit right with her. Not Byron. She couldn’t do it. He was too different from the other men she took into her bed. Too . . . special.
“Only two?”
She nodded. “I see them about once a week, sometimes twice.”
He frowned. “I’d expected you to have more.”
“I choose my clients, not the other way around. These men suit me. They’re not cheating on their wives, they’re gentle, and they seem to need me.”
“Need you?” His voice held a note of insinuation.
“Sex isn’t always about the physical act, Byron. In fact, it very often isn’t about that at all. Oh, it’s nice, the orgasm, but it’s more about connecting with another person, feeling their smooth skin, the heat of their body, the sensation of their lips on yours. My clients are usually men who are socially awkward, incapable of procuring a wife. They’re lonely. For just a little while my clients feel less alone in the world. They feel as though someone cares about them, and I do care about them. Very much.”
“But you don’t love them.”
“Not in the classical sense. That sort of love would ruin me.”
“Of course, I can see why you would think that.” His voice came out a deep, gentle rumble that stroked over her skin and deep into places her mind didn’t like to travel. There was a world more in those words than the obvious.
She directed her gaze into her lap, suddenly unwilling to meet his eyes. This man knew more about her than anyone in the Temple of Dreams, more about her than anyone did. Of course she believed love would be her ruin when once it had been. Experience bred wisdom.
He rubbed his chin. “Only two clients. Are you taking more?”
Her blood turned icy for a moment at the implication. She couldn’t take Byron as a client for reasons that seemed impossible to examine at the moment. Having him pay for the privilege of being in her bed was something she couldn’t bear.
She shook her head, still unable to meet his gaze. “No. I don’t want or need to take on any more.”
“Are these three . . . two men in love with you, Lilya?”
She examined her hands clasped in her lap, thinking of Wilhem. “Some of them think they are, but they only need to see that I’m not the right woman for them. Some of them ask me to marry them. I have a whole drawer filled with ring boxes from their proposals.” She raised her gaze to him. “But my clients know my nature. They know not to expect . . . more. At least, they should know.”
“You have a cruel and dangerous nature.”
Her face twisted. “What did you say?” She leapt to her feet. “You haven’t seen me in six years! You don’t know me at all! How dare you come here and insult me—”
He stood, holding out his hand. “Please, Lilya, I didn’t mean to insult you, but you know what I’m saying is true. You weren’t born this way; you were made to be this way by what happened to you. You can’t help it.” He paused, clearly searching his mind for the right words to explain himself. “You’re dangerous in the way of a lion. Beautiful to look at, irresistible to touch, yet if someone gets too close, they’re going to get hurt. It’s simply your nature to draw men, let them fall in love with you, and never reciprocate. That’s why you have an entire drawer filled with rejected romantic dreams.”
She didn’t know how he knew so much about her inner workings, but he was right.
There was something broken in her.
It had started to
break when she’d been younger, when she’d been on the streets of Milzyr. Living on her own had made her hungry for love, protection, a companion to share her life with. When all that had come to her, or she’d thought it had come, she’d leapt at the opportunity, been betrayed, and her body and mind had shattered into pieces far too tiny to ever pick up. She might secretly wish to find someone to spend her life with and be just a little jealous of women who’d found it, but she lacked the ability to achieve it for herself.
It was simply not in her. Not anymore.
He continued. “It’s what I find so beautiful and fascinating about you. Woe be to the man who falls in love with you, and all of them do.”
“Maybe I should let all my clients go,” she snapped. Her voice held a note of scorn, hating that he’d told the truth about her. The truth hurt. The tone of her voice clearly said she had no intention of quitting, however.
He took a step forward. “Yes. Let them all go and come with me.”
She looked up at him, eyes wide. Something hot and painful momentarily caught in her chest. She supposed it was natural she cared about this man more than she might others, considering their past. He’d done so much for her. “What?”
“I want you to take myself and a friend on as clients. Come with me to my house in Ulstrat. It would just be for a couple weeks.”
She’d been hoping he wouldn’t ask. Now that he’d said the words she found they stung like nettles. Her heart shredding a little, she sat down with a thump. “That’s very irregular.” How could she decline him while masking the fact that his request cut her deeply.
Never could she sleep with this man as a business arrangement. Never could she share him with another woman either, not even if she were being paid.
He sat next to her. “Irregular to entertain two men at once? I would assume you would have that request frequently. In any case, I’m not asking for what you think I’m asking for.”
She let out a slow breath. When he’d mentioned his friend, she’d assumed it was a woman. Requests for her to join in threesomes with a man and another woman were very common. Requests for her to join two men were less common, but not infrequent. She very rarely said yes to either arrangement, instead passing them off to the women she knew enjoyed them more.