“Whatever,” Leah continued, stubbornly. “Kate is insecure about getting married and I bet you have something to do with it.”
Clayton looked at Kate over his eyebrows.
She shifted nervously on her chair, trying to focus on her cup of coffee. She didn’t need to see him to know that he was drawing closer.
He leant towards Leah and kissed her head. “I love you sis, but it’s time you learnt that that’s none of your business. I’m sure what’s Kate’s feeling is nothing different from what every other girl feels before taking the plunge. After all, it is a big step for anyone to give up their freedom and commit to this one relationship which everyone expects to last a lifetime. Isn’t it, darling?” He leant and kissed her on the cheek.
It was a gesture that seemed to have a remarkably positive effect on the rest of the women. They were smiling, content now by Clayton’s words.
The color drained from Kate’s face, her palm clenched her cup tightly. Her heart ached from his lies. She wanted it to be real. But it wasn’t and she longed even more to run away and hide herself in a place where Clayton could never find her.
She closed her eyes as she felt his hands on her shoulders, caressing it. Despite her anger for him, he evoked in her warm feelings she couldn’t resist. Why did she react so much to him? A mere touch, a distant glance was all she needed to moist her core, desiring to be held and taken by him.
Perhaps, she hadn’t had a man in a long while. It was the only sane reason for her irascible reactions. The last man was Alan and even then she rarely had sex with him. And when she did, it wasn’t pleasurable or desirous as it was with Clayton. In fact, she knew nothing of her hidden orgasms until she met Clayton.
She bit her lip. She was comparing again. Clayton was nothing like Alan in bed. He was in fact the best she ever had. But outside of it, they were both the same. They had used her for their own needs.
She willed herself to be sensible, trying to ignore the growing wetness in her core as she felt his arms drape over her shoulders fondly.
“Go and wash up,” said Grandma. “Kate needs a proper breakfast. The poor child’s losing color again. That long travel really has had a nasty effect on her.”
Clayton lifted up her chin, frowning as he studied her. “You okay, baby?”
“I’m fine,” she replied curtly, trying to move his hand from her face but instead he caught her fingers, clenching her palm.
“Well, if you say so,” he shrugged. “Then you can probably wait until I’ve showered so we can have breakfast together.”
He moved swiftly towards the door leading into the hallway, dragging Kate with him.
“Clayton, where are you taking her?” called out his mother.
“Mother, you shouldn’t be asking questions you don’t want to know the answers to.”
Kate flushed. She had never been more embarrassed in her life.
*****
Clayton pulled her into his room, slamming the door behind them. Capturing her against the hard wooden oak door, his arms caging her on either side of her, he glared at her.
“I leave you for five minutes and you’re already on a mission to sow seeds of doubts about our relationship in my family,” he growled. “I thought I paid you enough to hold your tongue.”
Kate pushed against his arms and then immediately regretted it when he began tussling with her. He had pulled himself against her in their passionate wrestle, their bodies rubbing against each other. Her breasts grazed against his chest, her nipples peaked immediately upon his touch. And despite how angry she felt with him now, she wanted nothing more than to wrap her legs around him as he would plunge into her in an aching need to sate her hunger.
She could tell from the grating bulge in his groin that he was as much aroused as she was and she gave a small cry as he traced his hands down her sides only to take possession of her breasts.
“Kate,” he whimpered, kissing her at the base of her neck.
And then with a sudden move, he tangled his hands in her hair to pull her head roughly up so she could meet his blazing eyes.
“Don’t you ever try that again,” he warned.
Stunned, she stared at him speechless and questioningly, wondering wildly what he was referring to. A second ago, he had been heated with passion, while she had writhed unabashedly in his arms.
“Don’t do anything to cause my family to doubt our relationship. I love them too much for you to give them any reason to worry,” he continued, in his curt voice.
Kate flared. “But not enough to tell them the truth,” she spat back as she tried to unclench his hold on her hair.
She felt a sudden nausea rising up inside her, feeling disgusted of how she very easily gave herself up to him. How could she have been so stupid? She had never felt as big a fool as she did now. And it took just a touch from him to fall into his spell again. She was pathetic. She needed to have a better grasp on her emotions and her body.
He didn’t love her, she reminded herself. All he wanted was to possess her body and he had paid handsomely for it.
He tightened his hold and she grit her teeth to hide the pain he was causing her.
“That’s my problem. Leave that to my conscience,” he minced.
“I didn’t know you had a conscience,” she said, angrily.
He stared at her in such ire that for a brief moment, she thought he would swing her up to his hips and take her in that same rage against the door. She was crazy to even hope he would.
He let her go, stepping away from her.
“I’m going to have a shower,” he mumbled. “When I get back, I expect you to be here, waiting for me.”
“You’re not going to tell them, are you?” she persisted stubbornly.
An inner voice told her to drop the matter. He was right. It wasn’t any of her business. All she needed was the money which he had paid already. Now she needed to painstakingly survive the four remaining days and go home. She didn’t have to see him again. Ever.
But why then did it feel it was every bit her business that he lied to his family about them?
“They’re fine with what they’re told,” he said in a low voice as he pulled off his shirt.
“Because they think that’s the truth. That we’re a happily engaged couple, when you and I both know we’re anything but that. Hasn’t this deception gone too far? Do you have to act it out as well before them.”
He raised his head. “Act what out? Act that we’re in love? To hold you as if nothing else matters? That I’ve lied to my own family to be with you? To have you?”
She blushed, trying to avert her eyes. She longed for all he had said to be true. But this was reality and it would never be as she wanted it to be.
“I meant you didn’t have to tell them we were engaged or in love.”
He smirked as he picked up a towel. “And tell them you’re a professional escort? Come on, Kate. No man in his right mind takes a prostitute home to his family.”
She glared at him. “So you agree that you have lost your mind? Why have you brought me here, Clayton? Why take the risk? What makes you so sure it won’t be me spilling the beans on my whoring profession?”
He threw his towel onto the bed and in two swift steps, he was before her again. His fingers pinned painfully into the flesh of her arms, as he lifted her up to him so she could feel his raspy breath against her face.
“One word about this, and I swear Kate, I’ll make you regret it for the rest of your life. There are ways I can make your life so miserable, you’d be pleading for me to take you back and release you of its misery.”
He diced each word with such precision; she knew he would deliver upon it to the letter.
She bit her lips, trying to claw back the pain he was inflicting upon her. Strangely, his pinching fingers didn’t hurt as much as the ache she felt in her heart. How could she have been so daft to fall for a man like Clayton who traded hearts like he did old businesses?
His eyes narrowed,
suspiciously. “Are you trying to extort more money out of this?”
She blinked, dazed by her pain and his words. They somehow mingled in her mind, as she struggled to decipher its meaning. “What?”
He threw her back. “Are you trying to milk more money out of me, now that you know I am protective of my family? Well, well,” he muttered shaking his head. “You’re certainly a devious one, Kate Ripley. But let me tell you one thing, you’ve got the wrong man to tango with, because you’re not getting another dime from me. I paid you a price we both agreed to. So if you ever as speak of asking for more, I’ll take you back to New York myself and unleash a vengeance from hell on you.”
She lifted her jaw, stubbornly. “Somehow those words suit you, Clayton. I don’t expect anything less.”
He glared at her and then picked up his towel before striding majestically into the bathroom.
Only when he slammed the bathroom door shut, the impact of their bitter argument took a toll upon her, overwhelming her. She leant back against the bedroom door, hoping its strong, aged oak would support her. Instead she slid down it, her head gathered at her knees as she wept silently for her breaking heart.
Chapter 12
Kate heard the shower run in the bathroom. She picked herself up, determined more than ever to pull through the next four days. She checked herself in the mirror, neatening herself and salvaging what she could of her tear-stained face with face powder.
“I will get through this,” she meditated. “I will not fall in love. I deserve better. I am not in love with Clayton. I shall not fall in love.”
She held onto the dresser, shivering with her words. She did not know if she had the strength to follow through with them though. Clayton had somehow managed to touch her heart. But how? She had been careful. She had promised herself she would never fall into such traps. She gripped her foundation bottle hard in anger. She must be so weak that every time a man held her in his arms, her soul convinced her it was love. But how many men did ever hold her in their arms? Only two. Alan and Clayton. And it was the latter who hurt her more.
A knock sounded at the door breaking into her self-meditating trance.
“Kate?” It was Grandma Connie.
She pulled a smile before the mirror and tapped her face to release the blood back into it. Feeling satisfied with her feigned attempt of an elated self, she opened the door.
“Oh, Kate,” she mumbled. “Is Clayton still in the shower?”
“He is,” Kate replied. “He won’t be long, I’m sure.”
Grandma waved her hand in the air dismissively. “Let him take his time. Why don’t you join us in the veranda? We’ve got breakfast all laden out and I know you didn’t have much to eat when Clayton whisked you away so quickly. You must be hungry.”
Kate bit her lips. Clayton had specifically told her to wait for him.
“Come on, dear,” Grandma hooked her arm into hers. “Clayton knows where to find us. If you wait any longer, I’m just scared you might pass out on the rest of the day. And we have more guests coming. They might take you for a drunk.” She chuckled.
Kate smiled. She lifted her head defiantly and closed the door behind her. “You’re right Grandma. I’m famished. I could eat a horse right now.”
Grandma upturned her lips in deep thought. “Well, we do have a couple of old studs we want to get rid of. I’d be happy to feed them to you.”
Kate blinked at her in surprise and then burst out with a laugh. “Why not? I should make myself useful while I’m here, right?”
The two women giggled as Grandma Connie led Kate, arm in arm to the veranda.
Olivia and Leah were already seated in the beautiful dark wicker rattan chairs. Leah’s boys played about in the well-maintained grounds of the house. In the background, the mountainous terrain of the island was ornamented with evergreen and native trees while the waves of the Pacific Ocean lashed against the banks of the island in the distance. The view was all too surreal for Kate as she soaked in its magnificence.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered aloud, the words escaping her lips before she realized it. She blushed when she saw the other women smile at her. “I suppose you must be used to it.”
Olivia nodded her head and turned to the rugged mountains. “Yes, they are beautiful and yes, we are probably accustomed to the view. Ever so much that sometimes it is good to be reminded of how lucky we are to live in such a place.”
Leah leaned forward. “Do you know how we came to live on this island?” Her voice was dropped to a whisper as if she was disclosing a family secret.
Kate shook her head, keenly interested in her story.
“A long, long time ago,” she started. “Great, great, great grandfather, Victor Reid visited Russian America to take advantage of the then lucrative fur trade with the Alaskan natives. You must know that the so-called lord of Alaska, Alexander Baranov was strictly against non-Russian Europeans partaking in this business. Well, you don’t blame him, the Russians kick-started the entire fur trading in Alaska and it was their territory. But then they did not have access to the Canton market which was good business. The American hunters and trappers encroached into their territory despite the Russo-American Treaty of 1824 which declared that Russians had exclusive rights to the fur trade above a certain latitude, I can’t remember what, and the Americans below that line.
But Victor Reid was one of those business men that didn’t give a toss about declarations and treaties. He was aware that some of the best furs came from New Archangel, the then capital of Alaska and now city of Sitka. But because Baranov had issued strict guidelines on trading solely with the Shelekhov family who had won a monopoly on the fur trade from Tsar Paul I, Victor Reid had to invent ways in which he could get his hands on the fur from New Archangel.
It was then he happened to come into contact with twenty one year old Vasily Pasternack who had moved over to Alaska a little earlier with his family. They were simple peasants in Russia, hoping that the fur trade would help lift a little of their economic standards. They struggled in the beginning, only able to make ends meet.
But then one day when Victor Reid offered them a profitable sum for black marketing fur from New Archangel, Vasily Pasternack did not hesitate. It was either imprisonment or dying hungry in the cold roads of a new place, together with his wife and two young children in tow and he’d rather have preferred the former.
The deal worked out immensely well and Pasternack was soon rising through the ranks as an important business man in the Russian circles. He went on to have three more daughters and two sons. In the wake of his good luck, he also bought off this island from the Tlingits for a meager sum. The Tlingits saw little use of the land as the major business took place on the main land. But Pasternack envisioned much more. With an island of his own, he could further develop his black-marketing trade in the guise of some potential legitimate business.
But things did not quite happen as he wanted them to. Baranov retired in 1818 and despite the treaty, the Russians lost quite a lot of control on Alaska. The furs of the Russian territory became more accessible to the Americans and soon Pasternack was going through another bout of ill-luck as his black-marketing trade gradually began to recede.
On the brink of poverty again, he pleaded with his old acquaintance Victor Reid for help who then lent him a substantial sum of money to pull him out of his debts in return for quality fur. But it didn’t take Reid long to realize that he would never get his money back or the fur. It didn’t help that Vasily Pasternack died soon after.
Enraged, Victor Reid placed enormous pressure on his children to pay back their father’s debts and embroiled his son, Constantine into the battle as well. And so even when the older Reid passed away, Constantine continued to demand for the return of the money and used his hold on them to use the island as he pleased.
In 1867, the Russian government decided to get rid of the now cumbersome territory and sold it to America. Soon after the sale, General Jefferson Da
vis ordered the Russians out of their homes in Sitka to allow for his troops to occupy the land.
Fearing that now they would be left out of a home with no money, Vasily’s oldest son, Ivan Pasternack turned once again to the Reids. He was aware of Constantine’s love for the island and took advantage of it. He made him an offer that he knew he would never refuse. Marry off one of his three daughters to one of Constantine’s sons in return for a pardon of his debt and the title of the island to be passed on to his son-in-law. If Constantine dared decline, Ivan would threaten to sell the island to a competing American business man to pay off his debts. Unlike other Russians who were either returning to Russia or settling in other states of America, Pasternack knew how difficult life would be if he decided to leave the island with his large family. On the island, at least, there was some chance of survival and dignity.
As expected, Constantine jumped at the chance and sent over his hesitant older son, Henry to make his choice from the three young girls. Accompanying Henry, was his younger brother Willem who had only recently turned eighteen years. However upon reaching Sitka, Henry refused to travel further to the island, fearing he would be forced to marry a savage Russian lass who knew nothing of society and manners. Instead, he boarded poor Willem onto a boat and sent him over to the island with a message that he would rather face his father’s lashes than be burdened with one of the Pasternack maids.
Bewildered by the possibility of a murderous reception at the hands of Ivan Pasternack, Willem bit back the message on reaching the island. Instead Ivan Pasternack warmly welcomed him into his home in the mis-belief that it was Willem who was sent to marry one of his daughters. And there, on his first glance of fifteen year old Anya Pasternack with her long blonde hair and wide blue eyes, he knew he had fallen in love. And the rest is as you say is history.”
Kate blinked her eyes in wonderment. She slowly reverted her gaze to the rugged landscape beyond her, the entire story unfolding once more in her mind’s eye. She imagined the two young lovers in each other’s arms and under the trees that surrounded the property. Those trees must have bore witness to their kisses, their secret love sessions, and their declaration to remain forever together in love.
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