by Sun Chara
“I see.” He nodded, but his shoulders tensed. “And this is it?” He waved a hand to encompass the matchbox-size living quarters. “This is what you want now?”
“I-I.” She sank onto the sofa and clasped her hands in her lap. “It has nothing to do with you.”
“It most certainly does.”
“Why?”
“You’re my wife. I will not have you—”
“Nothing has changed has it?” She scrambled to her feet, hands clenched into fists at her side. “It’s what you decide I need or want, instead of asking me what I think…feel…want.”
“Not true.”
“Really?”
“Would I be standing here otherwise?”
“If it served your purpose,” she said, her voice sounding snarky, and so unlike her. But then he always could bring out the worst in her…and the best. But she didn’t want to dwell on the latter, not if she intended to keep her resolve
…her resolve to get him to see her as more than his bedroom playmate.
He met her icy look with a frown. “What’s my purpose, Ellie?”“To…uh…” She wrinkled a well-defined eyebrow and bit her bottom lip, which was now devoid of color. Had she misjudged him? Peering at him from beneath her lashes, doubts shot through her mind.
“You don’t know.” He met and held her gaze, his words blunt.
She swallowed.
Thoughtfully, he rubbed a hand across his unshaven jaw.
She turned and glanced out the window, fracturing the fragile connection between them.
Christmas lights were strung across the street, twinkling in the night, but she barely noticed.
The earlier drizzle had turned into a steady downpour, the wind smacking rain against the windowpane. It was odd weather for the usually sunny Los Angeles area, but she smirked wistfully. Even the weather reflected her dour mood.
“Did you ever wonder why I worked so hard to make a good home for you…us?”
“A showplace—”
“So you can have everything you want—”
“Loathe.”
“Is that right?” he challenged.
“Yes,” she flared back. But, unable to look him in the eye, Ellie glanced back outside at the shimmering lights.
The maple tree’s branches scratched against the building, grating on her nerves. There was a sudden lull in the wind; and the silence was broken only by the squeal of tires … a horn beeping…from the traffic on the street.
“Then there’s nothing else to say, except—” He took a pace nearer, so close that his thighs brushed hers. “This.” He hauled her hard against his chest, and lowering his mouth, captured her lips in a kiss that rocked her to her toes…but then he always could do that. And he knew it. And she wanted it…wanted him.
But she had to resist, even if her heart shattered; otherwise, they’d have no future together. And that would destroy her.
She wriggled in his arms, but his mouth created magic on hers. His tongue slipped between her lips, teasing her senses to high fervor and she held onto him by the lapels of his coat. She kissed him back, and he pulled her closer, intensifying the pressure of his mouth, his tongue waltzing with hers.
“All I want for Christmas…” played on the radio, penetrating through their passion, and she froze in his embrace.
“N-o-o.” She twisted her mouth away from his, her breath pumping from her and mingling with his.
“You could’ve fooled me.” He let her go so abruptly, she stumbled backward, her jellied legs nearly buckling beneath her. Groping behind her, she grabbed onto the couch for support.
‘I-I’m not a sex object, Peter.” She sucked in mouthfuls of air. “Someone to warm your bed on your call.”
“Woman,” he said, exasperated. “If that’s all you were, I wouldn’t have put a ring on your finger.”
“Wh-why did you?” she asked, her words so soft, he had to strain to hear.
Taciturn, he stepped to the window. A brooding look brushed across his features, and he glanced outside, then turned and propped his hip on the window ledge. “Ellie, you can’t be serious about living in this place.” He scoped her digs with his sharp gaze. “You have no money, no job, and no options.”
His words echoed her earlier thoughts, and she laughed. A soft tinkle of sound at first, then it morphed into a high pitch, jarring her nerves.
“Stop it.” He stood, and in one step bridged the distance between them. Gripping her shoulders, he gave her a gentle shake. “What’s wrong?”
She gulped, and the sound downsized to a whimper in her throat. “No-othing.” Everything, she thought to herself.
“Then come home…with me.”
“Home? With you?” She cast him a scathing glance. “I have no home with you, Peter.”
CHAPTER THREE
He winced. “Is that so?”
She didn’t speak, biting down on her molars to keep her teeth from chattering, more from an emotional reaction than the frigid air in the room.
Seeing her like this, Peter longed to reach out and touch her downcast head and slide his fingers through her silken hair, but with a hiss of a breath, he stopped himself. “Let me help you…put some money in your account…for rent, food.”
“No.” Her head snapped up, but at the disconcerted look on his features, she amended. “No-o, thank you.”
“You’re being stubborn.”
“And you’re being arrogant, bossy…controlling.”
An incredulous look flittered across his face, then he laughed. “Ellie, what’re you talking about?”
She didn’t answer, instead going into attack mode. “I don’t want anything from you. Just leave me alone. I want my freedom.”
“Freedom?” His laugh, now threaded with cynicism, chilled her flesh even more, if that was possible.
Peter couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Throughout their marriage, he’d worked to give Ellie the life she deserved, the freedom to do what she wanted and never have to struggle like he had.
He’d been the eldest of a brood of seven kids, his mother spending twelve hours a day cleaning houses to help feed and clothe them. His father, an immigrant with barely a handle on the English language slaved
away washing dishes at posh bistros to keep a roof over their heads.
Even way back then, he had vowed to opt out of that life and do something that’d help give his family a better life. Never again having to go to sleep clutching a growling stomach. Never to feel the stigma of being a foreigner and wearing second hand clothes. Never to have others look at him with pity because of his background or the sound of his name.
“Do you think living a pauper’s life is going to make you free?” he said, his words turning into a snarl.
“Of you!” she fired back, her words a dart to his heart.
“Think again, Ellie.”
At nine years of age, he’d begun clawing his way from the alleys of Little Italy in New York. Before school, he managed a paper route, and after school, he delivered groceries. By the time he was sixteen, he was bussing tables for tips.
Temptations to make fast cash were rampant, but he’d never succumbed…must’ve been his parents instilling in him a Christian work ethic. The honest work allowed him to look at himself in the mirror and to sleep at night.
What few pennies remained after he helped with the bills, he saved for his dream…studying medicine.
A scholarship gave him the extra push off the streets and into the halls of academia. He hadn’t looked back since.
“Don’t glamorize poverty,” he said, his words terse. “You don’t want to be poor, Ellie.”
“I’d rather be poor and free, than a rich prisoner.”
“Do you even know what you’re saying?”
He’d given her everything money could buy. Protected her, pampered her, loved her…and here she was tossing it all back at his feet, preferring to live in this hovel than with him.
“I guarantee poverty is not a picnic yo
u’d want to partake of.” His heart thrashed against his ribs. She was slipping away from him. And he had to change his tactics if they were to stand a chance of mending their marital woes…to have any future.
“How would you know?”
He shot her such a piercing look that she tottered back a step. Good. Time he scored a point or two. “How would I know indeed?”
“I’d rather be poor and happy than—”
“And how many poor but happy people do you know?” he asked, cynicism lacing his words.
“I haven’t counted—”
He guffawed, a dry humorless sound vibrating around her.
“And you have no idea either, with you living the good life—” Ellie cut through his laughter.
“And sharing it with you.” He winked, attempting to lighten the mood between them. But she was having none of it.
“You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, you can’t relate to what I’m saying.” With her legs about to buckle beneath her, she wobbled backward and fell onto the sofa.
His laughter took on an eerie sound, and blended with the upswing in the wind shaking the windowpane. He hadn’t seen a silver spoon until he was twenty-five, and then it hadn’t been his; a colleague had been hosting a posh publicity bash— Abruptly he curbed his thoughts. “Where did you get your facts?”
“I thought…assumed—” A line marred her forehead, and she blinked. “You—”
“You thought wrong.” He paced the miniature floor space twice. “There’s plenty you don’t know about my life.”
Her eyes flashed at him. “Obviously you wanted it that way.” She allowed her gaze to roam over him, payback for his doing the same to her earlier. A shift in his stance, and he stuffed his hands in his pockets. She hid a smile. She could still make him blush, just a tint. “You don’t look like you’ve had a hard day in your life.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
“Am I?”
Peter shrugged. By the time he’d met her, he was living a different life, his childhood didn’t matter so he hadn’t confided in her—hadn’t told her that his life hadn’t always been about chauffeurs and money. With his taxing work schedule, when he got home, he didn’t want to talk, only hold her, love her. Apparently it…he hadn’t been enough for her.
He straightened the lapels of his coat, still refraining from letting her see into his soul…his past. Maybe he wanted her to take him at his word. Wanted her to think of him as more than the shallow, controlling bastard she’d coined him as being.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, weariness in her voice.
“No?”
“No, yes…I don’t know,” she snapped. “I’d rather live in this mouse hole and be free than trapped in your gilded cage.”
He had a stunned look on his face. But she didn’t care, and finally let it rip.
“Doing what you order. What a good doctor’s wife should do, behaving like a model wife.” She sucked in a breath and exhaled a storm, resentment fueling her words. “Always charming at charity luncheons, elaborate dinners, society events…smiling, but oh so hating it.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“I did, Peter.” A muted cry erupted from deep in her chest. “You never listened.’
Her heart faltered. So often he came home weary, tossing his coat and briefcase aside and hauling her into his arms, kissing her, caressing her cheek with his stubbly one, and then falling asleep in her arms. “I tried.”
He sat down beside her, the cushions depressing beneath his weight, his cologne tingling her senses. “I’m listening now.”
“It’s too late, Peter.”
“Nothing is ever too late,” he said, the rough edge to his words grazing her skin. “Unless that’s what you want.”
A tremor ripped through her, and she glanced down at her hands in her lap. “That’s the way I want it,” she said fiercely, but the emptiness of her words triggered a deeper sadness.
He placed his index finger beneath her chin and lifting it, looked into the depth of her eyes. Her pulse meandered off beat. What was she doing?
Was she nuts? But words locked in her throat…perhaps the hurt kept them sealed.
“How will you live? What will you do?”
Her pride kicked in. “I’ll get a job. Should be easy with the after Christmas sales in a few days—”
“Minimum wage won’t afford you a decent liv—”
“I’ll take a night class and learn—”
“Takes money.”
“I have—”
He raised a quizzical brow.
“I’ll find something…in one of the department stores,” she amended.
“Until then?”
“I’ll manage.”
“How?”
“I’ll marry money.” She taunted, exasperated at his inquisition. But as soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them.
He chuckled, a dry sound, and pushed himself up from beside her, his absence making the cold even more acute on her skin. “Like you did with me.”
“Peter…” she began, but he was in no mood to listen.
“You didn’t marry me, Ellie.” He grew silent, and flexed his hands,
his features seeming more angular, his words crackling with accusation. “You hooked up with my bank account.”
The bouncy tempo of “Deck the Halls…” cut through the atmosphere in the room.
“No.” She stood up on jello legs and reached for him, but he twisted away, shaking his head. She hadn’t meant those words, had said them to annoy him, because it hurt being so close to him and yet not able to reach him, make him understand. She didn’t want his money. She wanted…needed…him.
But she couldn’t go back to him this way…swallowed by him, his life, his career.
“Ellie.” His voice seemed to crack, and then he mocked a cough to cover his vulnerability. A step nearer, so close her breath fanned his cheek, he drilled her with a look so intense it bore into her breast. “Why did you marry me, Ellie?”
She lowered her eyes a fraction and swallowed her confusion, her pain. “Same reason you married me.”
“And that is?”
‘I-I…” The words jumbled on her tongue, and she cleared her throat,
inching away from him.
“It’s time to find out, don’t you think?”
“Wha-at do you mean?”
He stretched out a hand and cupped her cheek, his thumb outlining her bottom lip, his eyes narrowing a fraction. “Goodbye, Ellie.”
CHAPTER FOUR
She stood in the middle of the floor, her nerves numb and her heart racing, watching him turn his back and walk out of her life. “Goodbye, Peter.”
She crunched down the cry which was building in her chest, her fingernails pressing indentations in her palms. It was what she wanted, right? Then, why was she splintering inside, her breath jamming in her lungs, perspiration springing from her pores, while tremors assaulted her?
The slamming of the door echoed, crushing any sliver of hope she’d kept in her heart. She collapsed on the moth-eaten couch and burst into tears.
Five years ago, she’d caught the most eligible intern on campus, Peter Medeci, and now she’d lost him…
It had been a stormy November night, and she’d just entered the last book return in the library computer.
“Hello, Miss.” She heard his voice, deep and mellow drift to her and furrowed her forehead, busily stacking books on the trolley.
“Sorry, we’re closed,” she said without looking his way.
“This’ll take just a sec.” He rapped his fingers on the counter. “Do you have the medical journal by … ”
She tapped her toe in impatience and glanced up, to be immediately sucked into his midnight blue eyes.
“ … Kagen and Kagen?”
“Wha-at?” She swallowed the rest of her words, and her pulse rocketed at the sight of him.
“Do you have—”
“Oh
, I think so.” She smiled at him. Hey, it wasn’t everyday a pinup boy strolled onto her turf. And, a continental type to boot. She’d bet her meager paycheck, that with his Italian good looks and sexy eyes, he had more than one female head turning his way. But it seemed he was focused only on his errand.
“Where is it?” he asked, oblivious of the direction of her thoughts.
“Yes, of course…the journal.” Her fantasies shattered, tinkling to the ground around her feet like a glass slipper. In looks, wealth, and station, this guy was light years from her sphere, with his designer shirt, and gold watch strapped to his wrist. And he looked only about twenty-eight.
At twenty-three, she shopped at the local Goodwill store, and had to stretch her minimum wage salary to last the month, for both her and her parents. Due to the economic downturn in the country, she was the only one bringing home any cash, and with the house in jeopardy, she had to cut costs where she could; which had included her studies. But she’d never given up on her dream of one day getting a degree in fashion design and marketing.
Unbelievable, but just for a second, she forgot about this hunk in front of her, until he cleared his throat and commanded her attention once more.
“Oh, yes, the book.” She smiled at pinup boy numero uno, and her hands trembled. Yep, no princess she, but here was Prince Charming in the flesh.
A sigh filtered from her mouth, and he squinted at her.
Snap out of it, Ellie.
“Two aisles down on your left, near the back workstation.” She pointed the way, and pressed the stack of books to her bosom. Daydreams were a distraction, and she nipped them from the get go. She couldn’t afford to get distracted by him, no matter his perfect ten packaging. She had to concentrate on her work…the job that paid the bills.
He brushed a hand across his chin. “I don’t have time to scout for it.”
“What are you doing here then?”
A flitter of impatience crossed his features, then he flashed her his sexy smile, his dimple making her heart skip. “Would you find it for me?”
Okay, she’d play along. “What’s it worth to you?” She fluttered her eyelashes at him.
You’re going to get burnt, girl.
She ignored the warnings bombarding her brain. She’d enjoy this rich playboy’s company for a few minutes to break the monotony of her life. The chances were, she’d never bump into him again, so there was no danger.