Intimate Strangers

by Denise Mathews

  Emotionless, tired of struggling to hold on to her hopeless love, she knew she had to take the initiative and end this impasse. She knew she had to convince Roarke she was resolute in her decision to leave him.

  "I don't want to be near you anymore. I don't want to share your life. All I want is a place to stay, by myself, for a little while. Once I decide what I want to do, where I want to go, I'll be out of your life forever. I think we made a wise decision two years ago when we separated. Even though I can't remember the reason for our separation, I know going back together is a mistake."

  Glancing over her shoulder at Roarke, she thought she saw him wince. "If that's how you feel, then I'll make arrangements for you to be on your own." He rose stiffly from the bed and walked out of the room.

  Sara rolled over, faced the window, and began to cry. She put her face into the pillow, hoping it would muffle the sound of her agony. She knew she had done the right thing, but the knowledge didn't ease the pain.

  As her sobs eased she drifted into a dreamless sleep. When she woke again, the room was dark and the apartment was silent. Getting out of bed, her legs rubbery, she shakily tiptoed out of the bedroom into the living room and was surprised to see Roarke sitting in a chair. His elbows were resting on his knees and his face was lowered into the palms of his hands, the picture of exhaustion. Slowly he raised his head as he sensed she was standing there and looked up at her. If it were possible, he looked even more tired and haggard than he had earlier.

  Roarke sighed audibly and in a strained voice said, "I've made arrangements for you to stay here. You can have Martha come and help you out when you need her or she can stay here with you, if you want. No one will bother you and you can make your plans however you want. The only thing I ask is that when you decide what you're going to do, I want to know. I want you to call me at my office and tell me your decision." He got up slowly and stood in front of Sara. She took the piece of paper he handed her and noticed there were a couple of telephone numbers written on it. He pointed to a number on the bottom of the paper. "This is my private number at the office if you need m… help. You can reach me without going through my secretary. Sara, I . ." He reached out his hand as though to touch her face but changed his mind and dropped his hand to his side. He handed her the keys to the apartment. "Good-bye, Sara," he whispered, opened the door and walked out of the apartment without looking back.

  She was alone, really alone. There was no more Roarke for her around any corner. She could stay here and not be disturbed. Suzanne must have hated giving up the apartment, even for the short time Sara would be using it. Sara wondered what Roarke had to promise her in order to persuade her to let Sara stay here. Maybe a speedy divorce and an early marriage to Suzanne was the inducement!

  Walking into the kitchen, aimlessly looking around, she saw that Roarke had brewed a fresh pot of coffee. Opening the door of the refrigerator, she found a plate of sandwiches. His show of concern touched her, but she knew it was just one more sign of his feeling of responsibility.

  Sara ate a sandwich and drank a cup of coffee. She wept as she ate and let the tears roll down her pale cheeks unchecked. When she thought of how silly she must look, eating and crying at the same time, she started giggling. It wasn't from amusement, it was because she felt on the edge of hysteria. She had to stop this nonsense! If she didn't, Roarke would probably somehow force her to move back to the house, reasoning with her that she was unfit to take care of herself.

  She restlessly roamed the apartment, wondering what would make her feel better. When she flicked the light on in the bathroom, she stared at her image in the mirror. Horrified to see how filthy she was, she decided to soak in a bath. She turned on the tap and filled the tub with hot water. She stripped off her clothes and lowered her body into the soothing white bubbles and hot water and slowly relaxed.

  Lying back in the steamy heat, she swished the bubbles up across her breasts and found her mind drifting back to Roarke's touch on her sensitive skin. Their lovemaking had been so spontaneous, so passionate. The warmth of the water rippling over her skin reminded her of the sun striking her body as they lay together under the blossom-laden trees. How could two people thrill to each other's touch and not be able to be happy out of bed? Somewhere the answer lay in the forgotten past.

  The indisputable facts nudged the fantasy from her thoughts and she stood up, the rivulets of water running down her legs. She got out of the tub and wrapped herself in a towel. Why did their lives have to be this way? Her shoulders slumped from the burden of knowing she would never feel his closeness again, his body caressing hers. She would never know what it was like to be loved by him.

  Sara rummaged through the closet, surprised by the clothes she found there and had found in the dresser drawers. They didn't seem to be the type Suzanne would wear. These clothes were more to Sara's taste. They were cool pastel colors, and the couple of times Sara had seen Suzanne, she had been wearing something flamboyant. With complete indifference she took a pink robe from a hanger and was putting it on when she noticed two cardboard boxes on the floor far back in the corner.

  Curious, she plunged deeper into the closet and was startled to see her name printed on the boxes. She pulled and tugged and managed to get them into the living room. They must have been stored in the closet when Suzanne moved in, she thought.

  Sara poured herself another cup of coffee and curled up on the sofa with her feet tucked under the pink robe, opened one of the boxes, and reached for some photos that were laying on top.

  A few were pictures of her wedding. Roarke looked so young and so handsome and she looked like an ethereal child. Roarke wore a black tuxedo and a ruffled white shirt and she wore a long cream-colored gown and a wide-brimmed hat. The date printed on the back of the wedding pictures was June 24, 1974. They had been married over eight years and, with a pang, she realized their ninth wedding anniversary was only a few weeks away.

  Running her hand lovingly over Roarke's handsome, smiling face, she laid the pictures on the sofa beside her. The next few photos could only be of her graduation from high school. She was in a cap and gown, standing between Roarke and a frail-looking, gray-haired lady that she knew was her grandmother. The date on this picture was May 1974. She had married Roarke when she was only eighteen years old. How long had she known him? I must have been wildly in love with him to have married him as soon as I graduated from school, she mused. I didn't even give myself a chance to grow up!

  She studied her grandmother's face. The woman looked ill. Not only was she frail, but her face, was drawn and pinched. There was a smile on the wrinkled face, but a look of pain seemed half-concealed in her eyes. Martha had told her that her grandmother had died about a year after she and Roarke had married. She wondered if her grandmother had been ill a long time.

  Perplexed, she shook her head and dug deeper into the box. Her hand found a small book, and when she brought it out to the surface, she found she was holding a diary. Her heart pounded against her rib cage. Maybe this would hold some answers for her.

  Sara flipped through the pages, reading entries at random, musing over some of her day-to-day activities. As she read, several things became clear. She depended on Martha for parental love, and she had been jealous of Roarke's activities that took him away from her so much of the time. In the diary the excuse she had used for their increased fighting was that she loved him but he constantly treated her like a child. Toward the end of the diary, Sara read the pages more carefully. Suzanne's name seemed to be coming up more frequently.

  That woman was here again today, looking for Roarke! She came on the pretext of dropping off some plans that her father wanted Roarke to see. The day Roarke accepted the contract on her father's new office complex was the day he gave her carte blanche to interfere in our lives. Suzanne has made it quite clear over the past several months that she thinks I'm a spoiled brat and not good enough for Roarke. Today when she demanded to see Roarke, and I told her he wasn't home, she became nast
y. She told me she was going to take Roarke away from me and that there wasn't a thing I can do to stop her. I can't warn Roarke, he'll think I'm just behaving childishly again. I wish I knew how to get Suzanne out of our lives.

  The last entry was dated about two years ago and was three pages long.

  Today I went to Roarke's office to meet him for lunch. Roarke wasn't there, so I waited in his private office rather than sit in the reception room. I noticed that a small file cabinet in the back corner of the office had the drawer opened partway. When I went to close it, my eye caught the name on a file folder that was pulled up above the others. It was my name! Curious, I took the folder out and opened it and found it was filled with papers and newspaper clippings.

  There were legal papers and some letters. One letter I read was from my grandma to Roarke, who was in London at the time. It was dated the year I was a senior in high school. She told Roarke she was dying and asked if he would take care of me afterward. A later letter from Grandma was filled with gratitude that Roarke had consented to take over my guardianship. Consented! Guardianship!

  He doesn't love me, he never loved me! He married me to solve Grandma's problem. I'm going to leave him. I won't force him to go through this farce anymore. This "problem" is going to solve itself!

  Sara threw the diary across the room and whimpered in agony. She remembered all of it! She knew who she was, where she'd been. All the joy, all the pain were hers once more. In her mind she could see her parents' faces and she could see the house she had lived in with Grandma. She could remember her happiness when Roarke started dating her. She had always had a crush on him. The first time she had gone out with him, she had felt so flattered. The day of her marriage had been the happiest day in her life, but she was still in awe of Roarke.

  Now she understood so many things. She had worshipped Roarke as a god; she hadn't loved him like a man. When he didn't… or couldn't… live up to her expectation of how a god should behave, she had felt somehow cheated.

  She had accused him of being unfaithful because she was insecure. Her immature reasoning was such that why should he want to remain faithful to her when there were so many beautiful women just waiting for Roarke to notice them? Now she knew that she instigated the fights with Roarke because, when they were fighting, she had his undivided attention. When he was angry with her, he wasn't thinking about work or anything else—he was thinking only of her.

  Sara realized now that all the antics she had performed were to get Roarke's attention. Roarke had been busy building his business; he didn't have as much time for Sara as she thought he should have, so she did outrageous things to make him notice her.

  Finding the letters in Roarke's office had been a terrible shock, the final blow. When Roarke had walked into his office with Suzanne in tow, Sara's hurt and confusion turned to fury. She had screamed at them, accusing them of everything she could think of.

  She had waved one of her grandmother's letters in his face. "How dare you, you lying cheat, how dare you pull this on me. Our entire marriage has been a farce. This is the last straw!" she screamed.

  Roarke grabbed her wrist and his fingers bit into her flesh. "What in the hell are you talking about, Sara? What is this you have in your hand?" He grabbed at the letter with his other hand and tore it from her grasp.

  "Roarke, I've often wondered why you married me, and now I know. You did it because you promised my grandmother to take care of me. And how long do you think I'd be so stupid to believe you married me for love, not the business? What better way to gain control of the business than to marry your dead partner's daughter? I'd say I've been stupid long enough. I've lived in ignorance for all these years but no longer."

  "Sara, for God's sake listen to me! I love you, always have—"

  Turning on her heel, Sara stomped to the office door and with her hand on the knob, she turned, her wrath glittering in her amber eyes, turning them to golden sparks of light. "I'm leaving you, Roarke. When you get home, I won't be there, and there will be no reconciliation this time, believe me." The glittering cold gold eyes swept over Suzanne. "You don't need me anyway. You have your new playmate." She opened the door and swept through the opening but not before she caught the sight of Suzanne's face with a knowing smile on it, the smile telling Sara that Suzanne knew she was destroying herself with her own words.

  After she moved into their apartment in Washington, D.C., she spent a lot of time alone, trying to relieve her misery with her painting. But when she was invited to a party, she was escorted by a different man each time, she made sure of that. Sara had hoped that by flaunting her numerous escorts she would rouse Roarke's jealousy. However, she didn't become involved with any of them, even though several had fallen in love with her.

  Her separation from Roarke had given her time to think about him and her feelings for him. She loved Roarke and her love was going through a miraculous change. She was beginning to grow up. The time she spent alone was spent examining herself, getting to know herself. She was beginning to love Roarke with a new maturity, learning that real love, true love, was not selfish, was not taking all, giving nothing in return. Real love, mature love was giving, sharing, wanting the other person's happiness as much as your own, if not more. She had lain awake many nights and cried, tempted to call Roarke, to beg his forgiveness, to tell him she had at last grown up. She ached to tell him how much she loved him, ached with a longing for him that was overwhelming. But the letter she had seen in his office would come back into her mind and she just couldn't call him. She couldn't become his responsibility, his obligation, again.

  Wearily Sara stood up, went into the bathroom, and looked into the mirror. She was whole again. Physically she was still the same, but the lost look was gone from her eyes, replaced by recognition. What couldn't be reflected in the mirror was the way she felt. She knew she was no longer the immature young girl Roarke had known.

  Sara's face flamed in humiliation, remembering the stupid, childish things she had done to Roarke. Many nights when Roarke had done something that didn't please her, she had slept in the guest room with the door locked. This little ploy had worked for a while, but Roarke soon tired of that game. Later, on the nights she had spent in the guest room, Roarke had slammed out of the house and stayed out all night.

  It soon became a vicious circle that Sara didn't know how to break. She started playing more games. She had flowers sent to the house with unsigned cards in them, hoping Roarke would assume they were from some unnamed admirer. Their fighting increased and rarely did they have any peace between them. It culminated that day in Roarke's office when she read the letters in the file.

  Sara realized she was gripping the edge of the bathroom basin so hard that her hands were numb. Her neck was hurting from holding her head rigidly as she gazed into the mirror, hypnotized by memories that were flowing like a torrent through her brain.

  She walked out of the bathroom dejectedly and threw herself onto the bed. Reaching out, she turned off the bedside light and stared into the dark space of the room. Memories flowed unchecked, and some of them were agonizing. She wondered how Roarke had put up with her juvenile behavior for so long. But, she thought, that just proves he really didn't love me. If he had loved me, he would have tried to understand me and help me grow up but instead, when we weren't fighting, he indulged my every whim.

  If he would have just once treated me like an adult, maybe I would have responded like one. The only time he did respond to me as a woman was when we were in bed. If only once he would have told me to grow up, that he needed me as a woman, it might have made a difference. Her hands flew over her eyes. But would it have?

  She could see their marriage was doomed from the beginning. She had worshipped him like a hero and he had been her babysitter. Instead of changing as they grew older, they had viewed each other as the same undeveloped person they had married, so the marriage never matured. Roarke almost acted as though she were too stupid to understand the intricacies of his business, so
he never shared any of his problems with her, and she had felt left out. They had trapped each other in the mold that had formed them years before.

  Sara rolled onto her stomach and put her hands over the edge of the bed. She unconsciously ran her fingers through the thick carpeting. Roarke had seen their marriage as a solution to a problem and an answer that had soothed a dying woman.

  Poor Grandma. I wonder if she knows what has happened to her happy solution, Sara thought. Her grandmother had never told Sara that she was dying, although she had known her grandmother was ill. Sara would ask her repeatedly what was wrong, and she would tell her that it was an old complaint that bothered her occasionally. Sara was always reassured by that answer, therefore she was stricken and heartbroken when her grandmother died.

  Roarke had been very gentle and loving with her. He stayed by her side throughout the funeral. After the services they'd driven to Annapolis and Sara had immediately fallen in love with its old-world charm and beauty. Sara smiled to herself in the dark, thinking of how she and Roarke had loved Annapolis and the fun they had had there.

  On their second anniversary Roarke took a long weekend and they had gone to Annapolis to celebrate. When they arrived, they had driven passed the hotel where they usually stayed. Sara had been surprised and protested, but her protests died in her throat when he had presented her with the keys to the town house. "Happy anniversary, Sara, this is yours, the deed is in your name. It's your retreat when the world becomes too much." He had placed the keys in her hand.

  They had spent the night there in sleeping bags. The next day they had gone shopping and she selected all the furniture for her new home. It was really hers! She had laughed and clapped her hands together, delighted that she had her own hideaway, like a child with a new dollhouse. Sometimes when Roarke would go away on a business trip, Sara would go to Annapolis by herself. At night she sat on the balcony off her bedroom and watched the lights of the distant boats bobbing out on the bay. She had made the town house her home away from home.