By the time she’d had her solitary dinner that evening and realized it was the last time she’d sit in the lovely dining room of the Van Ness home, Annette could feel tension gripping her. She had to leave, even though it was bittersweet to do so. As she packed her clothes in the beautiful bedroom that was now indefinably hers, the richness of the roses still filling the air with their sweet fragrance and making it impossible for her to forget, her eyes were ever drawn to the silky bedcovers beneath which she and Pieter had found their own private heaven.
She slept badly, and her eyes were moist when she hugged Luykey good-bye. The housekeeper was visibly upset at her leaving, and Annette found herself assuring her it wouldn’t be forever. In her own mind, she vowed that it would, and with one last wave to Luykey and no looking back, it was over.
“You know I think you’re absolutely mad!” Margaret told her when the excitement of meeting was over and the girls in the shop left to get on with their work in the quiet of Monday morning. Annette and Margaret sat in the flat above, drinking coffee. Everything was as it had always been, even to the splendid array of yellow tulips and green foliage Margaret had arranged to welcome her home. Very appropriate, Annette had thought wryly, remembering Gerda’s eager little voice. Tulips were for unrequited love. But since Margaret had no idea of what had driven her back home, she forced an amused smile to her face.
“And you’re a scheming matchmaker! Did you really think I’d get all starry-eyed over a Dutchman in a few short weeks in Amsterdam?”
“I thought you’d fall for one Dutchman,” Margaret said bluntly. “It was obvious you two were made for each other, and how you could run out on him now beats me. With your friend off in Tenerife on her honeymoon, you had it all going for you, didn’t you? I bet he wasn’t put off by your standoffishness!”
If Margaret had seen the abandoned way she had lain in Pieter’s arms two nights before, she’d never have used such a word to describe her.
“I went to do a job,” Annette said crossly.
“All right. Tell me about Amsterdam, then.” Margaret changed the subject quickly, having her own ideas about Annette’s heightened color and brittle retorts. She could see Annette relax a little.
“Oh, it’s beautiful. Red-brick houses and endless little side streets with basement antique shops” – and Pieter – “cobbled squares and masses of bicycles and flower sellers’ carts everywhere” – and Pieter, and Pieter – “lovely old buildings with fascinating gables on the roofs... She paused, seeing the grin on Margaret’s face. She hadn’t actually said his name, had she?
“Okay. It’s not hard to see you fell in love with something, anyway, even if it was only a city. Weren’t you tempted to stay?”
Annette laughed. “Gerrit Campen tried to tempt me, even offered me a partnership. I didn’t seriously consider it, though I wondered what your reaction would be if I offered to sell out to you. The shop seems to be flourishing very well under your hands!”
“Thanks. And if you ever decide to sell, don’t go looking anywhere else for a buyer. You know I’d jump at it.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.” She wasn’t sure if she meant the offer to sell, but now that it was in her head, she couldn’t dismiss it. Particularly as the work seemed to have lost much of its charm for her since she’d returned. As that long week progressed, Annette forced herself to stand back and take a long look at herself. What had she really achieved in eight years?
Success, fame, financial rewards – all her ambition in those areas had been as some kind of compensation for the shock of losing Tony. She had won the battle of survival more victoriously than she had ever dreamed possible, but now she seemed at yet another crossroad in her life. Was she really, as Pieter had said, so afraid to take a second chance on love? But what had he really been offering? A casual relationship for the duration of her stay in Amsterdam? Or perhaps an invitation to create the flowers for his own wedding to Helga at some future date?
The emptiness the thought gave her was almost painful. In the days since she’d been home, he hadn’t phoned or written or tried to contact her in any way. She’d never have taken Pieter for the immature type of man who’d take umbrage at her hasty departure, but maybe he hadn’t. The depressing thought struck her: maybe it hadn’t mattered that much to him at all. He might have been secretly relieved to get the irritating Englishwoman out of his life for good, and turned to Helga, his countrywoman who was so willing to take him into her arms.
Annette knew she was only torturing herself. At night she couldn’t sleep for fretting over all that had happened. When she finally did sleep, it was to dream of Pieter, his rugged face softened with love for her, and the little laughter lines she found so appealing deepening as his eyes lit up at the sight of her. She hadn’t imagined all the love, she thought tremulously. Surely he had meant just a little of it? Surely he couldn’t be so unfeeling as to have forgotten her existence? She almost willed the phone to ring, for the perverse pleasure of intending to be cool and distant, and secretly wondering if she would ever be able to go through with it. But the phone remained silent, and when she closed the shop on Saturday afternoon and the assistants had all gone home, she wandered through her own domain, seeking the uplift the masses of fragrant blooms always brought her.
But not tonight. Perfect and beautiful though they were, in a little while they all faded and died. The sculptured roses, the delicate purple violets, the bell like lilies of the valley – nothing lasted. Nothing compared with the living, breathing love of a man for a woman and the sharing of body and soul. Twice in a lifetime she’d thought she’d found it, and twice it had been taken away from her.
She snapped out the shop lights and went upstairs to the flat. She was getting maudlin, and she’d never been one to wallow in her own tears. Pieter didn’t want her, so she wouldn’t want him. She repeated the words silently to herself like a prayer, knowing how futile it was. She needed company. Saturday nights should be spent with friends, only she’d been away so long, and everyone she rang had already made other plans, not knowing she was back. Frustrated, Annette almost slammed the receiver down on the last call she made.
The doorbell rang downstairs, and she flew down to answer it. Even if it was a door-to-door salesman, in her present mood she would welcome him in. She threw open the door, and a tall dark figure stood outside, a small traveling bag at his feet. His face was dark and unsmiling in the dusk.
“Pieter!” she stammered inanely, all the blood rushing to her face in the shock of seeing him, her heart suddenly racing erratically. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“Are you going to ask me in, or do we have to conduct our discussion on the doorstep?” He was curt and correct, in the way that could make her wilt. But wilt she would not! What right did he have to storm in and out of her life and turn her into a trembling, love-struck adolescent? Annette forced her limbs to stay taut as the indignation took over.
“I wasn’t aware we had anything to discuss, but if you’ve come all the way from Amsterdam to talk to me, then of course you must come in!”
She led the way upstairs to the flat, very conscious of the traveling bag. If he had any ideas of moving in, he could forget them. Once inside the lounge, Pieter tossed the bag on the floor and leaned against the door, his arms folded, his eyes watching her keenly. The intensity of his gaze made her nervous.
“Are you going to stand there all evening? I do have chairs...” she began. She might as well not have spoken. He continued to look at her, his gaze wandering over her in minute detail, until she began to wonder if she was wearing anything at all, since it was a look that seemed to strip her naked.
“Pieter, please,” she was suddenly whispering, and hating herself for it. “You said we had something to discuss, though I can’t think what it is.”
His laugh was mirthless. “My darling Annette, you are the most unusual woman I’ve ever met! You turn my life inside out with your on-off reactions, and then, after allowing me
to make love to you last Saturday night, you think we have nothing left to say to each other! Do you take me for the kind of man who would be happy to take a woman on those terms?”
She was ready to explode with rage. “You’re not taking me at all, as you so quaintly put it! And I prefer to forget last Saturday night!” she snapped.
He was across the room in an instant, his hands on her shoulders, his gray eyes looking piercingly into hers. She could feel the tension in him, and see the lines of anger around his mouth.
“But you can’t, can you, Annette? Any more than I can. And why should either of us forget something so beautiful?”
Annette could feel herself trembling again as the force of his personality overwhelmed her. Her lips shook as she began to speak, but before she could say a word Pieter’s mouth had suddenly claimed hers, his arms crushing her to him, and for an instant she felt herself yield to his embrace, melting against him. Then she was struggling to free herself. His arms still imprisoned her to him, but she twisted her face away from his demanding kisses, cheeks flushed, eyes bright with anger and all the pent-up emotions he stirred in her so effortlessly.
“Is it so important to you to add me to your list of women?” she said bitterly. “I remember you made certain I knew your life had not been spent without them! Why should you care about one more?”
He was shaking her so hard she felt her teeth knock together.
“I thought you were worthy of the name, Annette, but I’m beginning to see you as more of a child than a woman. And my list of women’ that you refer to so scathingly, only exists in your imagination, my sweet. There’s only one woman I care about...”
Annette’s eyes moved past him to the small traveling bag on the floor. She didn’t heed his words. His arrival spoke for itself.
“That’s why you’ve come here, expecting to move in, is it?” she said bitterly. Her heart still raced painfully. How could he be so cruel, when she had always thought him so caring and so much more of a man than any other she had ever known? His fingers came up to her chin, holding it firmly, and forcing her to look at him.
“I gave you the option once before.” He spoke gently. “If you want me to go, I’ll go. Contrary to what you’re obviously thinking, I had intended booking into a hotel for a few days. I came straight here from the airport. But it’s up to you, Annette. Shall I go, for good?”
Her face was mirrored in his eyes, and her own were darkly blue, misty and uncertain of anything but the warmth of Pieter’s arms around her and his breath, soft on her cheek.
“How can you ask me, when there’s Helga...?” she said chokingly. “She’s the woman you should be saying all these things to, not me!”
She was aware of a stillness in him now, and with a small shock she registered the fact that he wasn’t angry or shamefaced or impatient at her words, merely taken aback.
“What has Helga to do with you and me?” he demanded.
“Everything, I should have thought!” She was starting to sound hysterical now. She fought back the tears, but her eyes were mirror-bright. “She’s the one you’re going to marry, isn’t she?”
Pieter gave a soft laugh. “Not to my knowledge, she isn’t! Have I ever let you believe that I was in love with Helga?”
“No,” she whispered, hope suddenly leaping in her chest. “But Helga has, and Elena was anxious about it.”
“And you?” He was aggressively masculine now, denying nothing for the moment. Wanting her to admit it, demanding it of her, and suddenly it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but that they were here together. “Was I so wrong to think you meant it when you said you loved me, my beautiful Annette?”
“No,” she said softly again. “I love you, Pieter.”
She leaned her head against his chest, where she could feel the rhythmic beat of his heart, as rapid as her own. She felt she had traveled a long, long distance to arrive there, and if it all ended in heartbreak after all, she was helpless to stop it.
“And I love you, darling Mrs. Granger.” His voice was husky against her cheek now. “I’ve loved you from the first moment I saw you. Loved you and wanted you, and if Helga thought I was ever going to marry her, she was fantasizing the way she dreams about every man in her audience. I was just one more, and never wanted to be anything else. Do you believe me?”
“Oh, I want to, so much –”
“Didn’t the roses tell you of my love, my romantic little Annette? I thought you would have been able to read their significance as if the words had been written in letters a mile high.”
Annette’s throat thickened. Her arms were holding him close to her now, as if she could never bear to let him go; it was as if her legs would buckle beneath her if his arms weren’t supporting her so lovingly, his tiny kisses trailing over her cheeks and her mouth as he spoke, the slight roughness of his chin making her tingle. She thought she would die of love for him, except that she wanted no more thoughts of dying. Her spirits soared, and she wanted to live, because now she had something to live for.
“Will you come back to Amsterdam, Annette?” Pieter said softly. She could sense the passion in him now, and knew he was remembering their delight in each other, and the magic held them both, but she teased him for a moment longer.
“Well, Gerrit has offered me a partnership. –”
His kiss was masterful and put any such ideas right out of her mind, just as he intended. She looked at his beloved face, all the love she felt for him echoed there. She touched the deep-etched grooves at the side of his mouth, and knew the time for teasing was past.
“I’m offering you a permanent partnership, my darling,” he murmured against her mouth. “Will you come to Amsterdam and be my wife? If you refuse me, I shall just have to stay put in some lonely hotel in London until I can persuade you to change your mind. Or until you tell me to go.”
“Don’t go, Pieter. Don’t ever go away from me again.”
She needed to give him no other answer, nor could she, for the fever of his kisses was filling her with a burning hunger that matched his. Together they could touch the stars, he had once told her, but Annette was already there as their need for each other overcame all else. They had already been apart too long, and now, with the mutual ecstatic pleasure of finding each other again was the added joy of knowing she would soon be Mrs. Van Ness. The thought ran like music through her head, heady and dizzying, as if the perfume of roses filled the room. None were there, but the sentiments they conveyed were as tangible as the man holding her so close, the man she loved, who was proving so rapturously that he loved her too, now and for all time.
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