by Sun Chara
This interval should whip by soon enough. Her heart jammed in her ribs and she fisted her hand, pulverizing the pretzels in her palm. She dragged herself off the sofa and stepped behind the bar, dumping the snacks in the trash bin. Dusting crumbs from her fingers, she walked back and settled on the couch to watch TV.
After a couple of hours, Ellie flicked off the remote and, yawning, walked from the room. She trudged up the stairs and paused at the top to glance back down at the light shining beneath his office door.
She’d been here less than a day and Peter had already locked himself behind closed doors. If that’s how he wanted it, fine by her. It’d save her the trouble of finding ways to avoid him. On the other hand, if this was a sample of things to be, she wouldn’t get to show him how self-reliant she’d become without him. So much for her plans.
*
Peter leaned back in his chair, raised his arms, and stretched. Time he called it a day, and went to see what Ellie was up to. He clicked off the desk lamp and opened the door to a dark house. A sigh pitched from him. After his eyes adjusted to the shadows, he crossed the foyer and lumbered upstairs to his room … their bedroom.
Once inside, the walls seemed to close in around him and, groaning, he strode to the window. He shoved aside the sheer curtains she’d chosen and glared up at the moonless sky. It matched his mood. He heard her moving in the adjoining bedroom and went rigid. She was so close, but untouchable.
When he’d left the kitchen to walk to his study, he’d caught a glimpse of her lounging in the den like she’d already dismissed their earlier confrontation—dismissed him. A low growl built in his throat. Only a few hours had passed since she’d come home with him and she’d already barricaded herself behind closed doors. If that’s how she wanted to play it, fine by him. At this rate, though, he wouldn’t get close enough to hold her hand, let alone—he slammed the brakes on the erotic images. So much for his plan to love her and leave her.
Peter released the double-layer curtain and rolled his shoulders, easing tension. Two steps took him to the bed. He tore off his clothes and fell upon it, the squeak of the mattress spring perforating the silence. Soon as his head hit the pillow, he was out.
After what seemed only moments, Peter blinked, and then kept his eyes closed. It couldn’t be morning already. His fatigued body rebelled at the thought. Then, he heard the sound that had awakened him.
Singing.
He must be dreaming. Of course he was. A melodious sound drifted up the stairs and into his room, wrapping around him like a warm hug. He cracked one eye open, then the other. All hell rushed into his mind. He groaned and hauled himself from bed; naked as the day he was born. He staggered into the bathroom and turned on the shower.
Within ten minutes, he slipped on a pair of jeans, a matching shirt, and, with socks and sneakers on his feet, bounded down the stairs.
He walked into the kitchen and came to an abrupt halt. “Goo-ood morning.”
Ellie turned, defusing a lilting tune on her lips to a hum. A frilly apron was tied around her waist, her signature black leggings hugged her long shapely legs, and a pink pullover sweater dipped low at her cleavage.
Black ankle boots covered her feet, the black rim of her socks folded over the edge of the faux leather.
He stroked his chin. When did she start dressing so provocatively? Must’ve been her stint in that nightclub, he surmised, and set his mouth in a straight line.
“It is a great morning, isn’t it?” She smiled and when she caught his surprised look, her smile widened.
After a sound sleep, Ellie had gauged her options and decided to make the most of each of the twenty remaining days in their agreement. She’d play the sweet wife to the hilt, bar intimacies. She’d show him what he was missing. When time was up, she’d leave, since he wanted it that way. Thought you wanted it that way, her mind mocked. I-I do. Sure thing. She dismissed the double-talk, but couldn’t do the same with her fluttering pulse.
He looked fresh and sexy in his jeans, with his shirt stretching taut across his chest. The damp curl falling over his brow tantalized and she took a step closer, but his next words halted her musings.
“It certainly is.” He took a whiff of the brew percolating in the coffee pot on the kitchen counter. “Smells great.”
She dropped rye bread in the toaster. “You want one or two eggs? Bacon?”
“Two.” He straddled the chair at the small table in the corner of the room, normally reserved for the staff. “Bacon slightly crisped.” He folded his arms across the back of the chair and focused on her curvy hips as she stood by the stove. “You don’t have to do that.”
A snooty lift of her chin. “I’m not helpless, Peter.” She touched her bandaged temple with the spatula in her hand. “This is healing very nicely. It might even be better long before three weeks.”
“You don’t say?” He swept his eyes over her, settling on her cleavage, his meaning unmistaken.
She held the utensil up like a protective shield. “We agreed …”
His eyes darkened. “So we did.” He drummed his fingers on the back of the chair. “Nothing said about looking.”
“You’re not looking. You’re … you’re …”
Amusement twitched the corner of his mouth, but he didn’t help her out.
“You’re ogling,” she said, a warm blush tinting her cheeks.
“You didn’t mind the sloshers at the club leering at you.”
“I was too busy keeping track of my orders to be aware of anything else.” She’d encased herself in a shell-shocked suit, served their drinks, and moved on to her next customer. The singing had been a lucky break when the regular chanteuse didn’t show up—and an opportunity to make extra tips.
He lifted a brow. “But you’re aware of me looking at you.”
Yes, she wanted to sling back, her body thrumming at his nearness.
She’d always been aware of him, sensed him even when he wasn’t in the same room. Aloud she said, “How could I not? You make it so obvious.”
“You parading in that sexy get-up is what’s obvious.”
She opened her mouth, shut it, and then opened it again. “What’re you insinuating?”
“Maybe you missed me?” He shuttered his gaze. “Missed …” A provocative pause and—he pointed to himself and to her.
“You’re delusional.”
He laughed and the deep timbre of his voice vibrated around the kitchen. “You’ll be asking me—”
She laughed and the sound tinkled in the air between them. “No.”
“—before three weeks are up.”
She tapped the spatula on the X on the calendar on the refrigerator. “Twenty days.”
“Counting already?”
“If anyone’s going to be on their knees, it’s going to be you.”
“I think not, mia cara.” He reached for the carton of orange juice and bumped the rose array on the table. He poured a glass. “Want some?” he offered, his words loaded with innuendo.
“No, thanks.” She scooped bacon onto a plate layered with paper towels to soak up excess oil. “I rescued them.” She inclined her head toward the flowers on the table.
He chuckled and gulped down half the juice in his glass.
She cracked two eggs in the frying pan and the oil sizzled. “You want to eat in the dining room?”
She hoped not. She practically had to squint to see him sitting at the opposite end of the table, let alone have a conversation. The coziness of the kitchen was more conducive to a pleasant meal, but she rarely had access to it because it was denoted servants’ turf.
“Naa.” He nipped a piece of crisp bacon from the plate she carried to the table. “This is fine.”
“Where are your manners?” She made to slap at his hand, but his reflexes were so fast, she missed.
“Gone out the window, when a man’s hungry.” He stuffed the strip in his mouth and rolled his eyes in appreciation.
She set a plate of eggs ov
er-easy in front of him and a plate of scrambled at her spot. Scrambled. Exactly how her nerves were behaving, with Peter gazing at her with that glint in his eye.
Nights could prove more challenging. She buttered a piece of toast and wrinkled her brow. On the other hand, if Peter kept true to form, by the time he slogged home, he’d be so tired, he’d fall into bed. By then, she’d make sure she was good and tucked under the covers and sleeping in her own bed. That way, she’d only come across him for a couple of hours in the morning. A cinch. She could taste victory. A twinge pierced her chest, but she ignored it.
She spread strawberry jam on the toast and repeated the ritual with three more pieces. Then she started piling bacon on her plate. “Keep busy” was her mantra.
“You gonna eat all that?”
“No.”
“May I have a piece?”
“You did already.”
“I want another.”
She passed him the plate; he took a piece and crunched it. “Mmm, good.”
Ellie leaned across the table for the salt-and-pepper shakers and her breasts nearly spilled from the confines of her sweater. Bacon bits turned to mush in his mouth. He gulped. They’d fit so perfectly in his palms right about now. Soft and silky to his touch, taste of ambrosia in his mouth … he always wanted more … of her. He released a cramped breath. “Need any help?”
“No, thank you.”
“You don’t have to do this anymore.” He picked up the coffee pitcher, went to fill her cup, but she declined. “I could recall the staff.” He poured himself a cup of black brew, steaming flavor swirling upward.
“No.” She smiled. “I can manage.” She sprinkled a few grains of salt on the eggs on her plate. “I won’t be here for that long.”
Not only counting the days, but she was prepping for a hasty exit.
A hard line marked his jaw. He raised the cup to his lips and took a long swig of the bittersweet liquid.
“They deserve some time off.” She poured ketchup over the food on her plate. “What … er … time will you be coming home tonight?”
“I’m here to stay.”
The knife clattered on her plate, but she recovered it quickly. “What do you mean?”
“I’m long overdue for a vacation.” He pierced a piece of egg with his fork. “Except for emergencies, I’m officially off duty.”
She shot him a puzzled frown. “What about the election?”
“What about it?”
“Don’t you have to be visible … at the hospital … make the rounds?”
“Nope.” He set his gaze steady on her face. “I never let a formidable opponent know my next move.” He clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Rattles ’em.”
“Element of surprise and—”
“Yep.”
“I see.”
“I wonder if you do, Ellie.” While he kept tabs on what went down in the medical community through his contacts, Peter did not intend to miss one day, one hour, one minute, one second with her. It could be the last they shared. He bit off a piece of toast, chewed, and wondered how he’d feel when he brought her to her knees. It might be to your knees, buster, the voice in his head challenged. Get lost.
Peter pulverized the food in his mouth. So many times he bent his knee for her—when he proposed, on their honeymoon, during the night alone in their bedroom trying to figure out what went wrong between them, and just the other day, cold and shivering, he’d slumped onto the couch, wondering if he’d ever find her.
She deserted him. And her stint in the club on the brink of this election could sabotage all he’d fought for these years. It could turn into a mud-slinging match unless he couped Louie’s collection before he auctioned it to the highest bidder. Peter shoved the food down his throat. He had no intention of going on bended knee again. This time she had to come to him.
Chapter 5
After breakfast, Peter strode to his study, murmuring something about his medical journals. That hadn’t surprised Ellie. What had knocked her for a loop was that he’d taken time off from the hospital for the three weeks.
Ellie strolled around the property, not sure what he was up to nor why, but certain it was more than it appeared. Scents of nature filled the air, mist fresh upon her face. A wobbly smile brushed her lips. Such a contrast from the traffic fumes and noise of her humble abode in North Hollywood.
During the time she’d been away, she’d lived from paycheck to paycheck, with no money left over even for a new lipstick. She had to admit she missed the comforts she’d known with Peter. But she was smart enough to know that resuming where they left off was not the solution to the woes of their marriage. She was a wife, not a bought woman.
She cringed. How could she not be ‘a bought woman’ in Peter’s eyes, when he had paid for her parents’ mortgage so they could keep their home, helped her father land a prestigious professorship, and lavished her with gowns, shoes, jewelry, and gifts galore. Is that why he treated her more like a mistress than a wife?
She bit her lip to stop its trembling. Had she been too naïve to realize that her innocent acquiescence, over time, would have ramifications that would spring a wedge between them? A sigh surged from inside her, and her shoulders slumped. A step, then another, and she paused, glancing about the luxuriant estate that was hers if she continued the role of the pampered woman. The trophy wife. Her heart balked. Never would she stoop to the level of gold digger, not even for her parents. And never would she sell herself to a man, even a man she adored, a man like Peter, whom she loved with every fiber of her being.
She squared her shoulders, tilted her chin in defiance and ambled on, the damp grass squelching beneath her boots. She brushed her fingers across the rose bushes, the scent a balm to her bruised spirit. A half-hearted giggle. Definitely, she’d have to set the man straight. And she knew how to do it.
But could she shake him from his complacency in three short weeks?
Compel him to see her as more than his sexual playmate? Or would he continue to be so absorbed in his profession, he’d remain impervious to her signals?
For certain, that would trigger the demise of their union.
She walked beneath a maple tree and a dewdrop fell smack on the tip of her nose, dispelling her troubling thoughts. Swiping the droplet with the tip of her finger, she licked it off, tasting freshness. She giggled and, twirling around, opened her arms wide, embracing all. For twenty more days, the fairy tale was hers for the taking and she’d play along. She set her mouth in a firm line. This time, she’d do it her way. As Ellie Ross Medeci and not simply as ‘the model wife’.
A quick glance behind her at the big house, then, with a bounce in her step, Ellie followed the cobblestone path to the back yard.
*
Peter stood at the bay window of his study with an unopened file in his hand and watched her. She licked something from her lips and then, with a skip in her step, she rounded the corner out of sight.
Would Ellie ever understand his passion, his need to excel? In striving for the pinnacle, he could not be a regular stay-at-home guy, treading a nine-to-five cycle. That high level of success took sacrifice, brutal sacrifice. Ellie? Could he sacrifice his marriage to Ellie for the greater good? His gut recoiled. It would destroy him, but the alternative would be worse.
Don’t be a noble fool. He shrugged the annoying words off.
He narrowed his eyes to laser-sharp slits. Maybe there was a way to have it all, including Ellie. A shadow flittered across his brain. But she’d have to want it as much as him and, for now, her actions signaled she was all for fleeing the ‘castle’ for good.
But he wouldn’t give up without a fight—this, perhaps, could be the greatest battle of his life. Ellie or his noble mission?
His back muscles stiffened, his breath exploding from his lungs.
This interlude could very well prove a prelude to the end of their marriage. The thought stabbed his gut and he turned away, tossing the folder on the desk. He followed a
nd plunked down in the swivel chair, rubbing the furrow between his brows with his thumb and forefinger.
He slapped the file open and drummed his fingers on the report, the furrow turning into a fully fledged scowl on his forehead. Would she ever look at him with that carefree gaze again?
The ringing of the telephone shattered his corrosive thoughts. “Medeci,” he spoke into the speaker. A heavy pause, then he bit out, “How much?” He slammed his fist on the mahogany. “Highway robbery.” He glanced out the window in the direction Ellie had disappeared behind the house. “Get ’em. And while you’re at it, buy him out.” A slow grin split his mouth. “Yeah, clean him out.”
He slammed the receiver down and vaulted from his chair. Dio mio! He’d forgotten to tell Ellie about—
Her scream shot through him like a bullet.
He sprinted through the house and out to the grounds, skidding to a stop when he found her. Breath burned his lungs. She was pressed against the brick wall, trembling from head to toe, her face ashen.
“Down boy, down.” Peter grabbed the Doberman Pincher by the collar and pulled him off her. The dog resisted and licked her hand, enjoying the taste of her. “King, down.” With a firm tug, Peter controlled the animal. Ellie slid down the wall and landed on her tush on the grass before he could catch her.
“Ellie, I-I,” Peter murmured, reaching out to touch her shoulder.
She flinched away from him and covered her face in her hands.
While the Doberman pranced around, vying for his attention, Peter kept his sights on Ellie. During an intimate moment early in their marriage, she confided to him that when she’d been eight years old, a thunderstorm spooked a neighbor’s dog and he bit her leg. Since that time, thunderstorms and dogs immobilized her.
“Go-o away,” she stammered.
He waited.
Slowly, she dropped her hands to her lap and shot him such a horrifying look of disbelief, he nearly stumbled back a step.
“Ellie, he’s a puppy dog.” Peter swallowed the constriction in his throat and patted the dog’s head. The animal leaped up and licked his face.