by Anne Calhoun
For a long second she didn’t respond at all. Then the elevator bell dinged and the doors opened. Without a word he stepped back and held out his hand, indicating she should precede him down the hallway. He watched her, tall and lean and swaying elegantly on her killer heels that sank into the carpet with every step. The muted lights caught her hair, raven black and gleaming. Once again he jerked from participant to observer. The color of her dress turned her eyes almost silver. She could have been a businesswoman returning to her hotel after a long day of meetings. She could have been an expensive call girl, the kind you could take to a cocktail party on the Upper East Side and fool everyone in the room. She could have been a yummy mummy, returning to her family after ducking out for some shopping.
She could have been his wife, gliding down the silent corridor to an anonymous hotel room. She could have been anything, anyone—virgin, fertility goddess—or she could have been exactly what she was. A woman. His wife.
As he reached past her to insert the key card into the lock, a wave of love washed through him. His wife. As mysterious as she was the day he met her, the day he married her. Once inside she set her tote by the dresser and looked around. Arrangements of white roses spilled from vases and containers on the dresser, nightstand, desk. Carefully dethorned single stems lay scattered on the king bed, which had been stripped to the bottom sheet. A bottle of champagne chilled in the bucket, next to two glasses. “You planned this,” she said when she saw her vintage Louis Vuitton overnight bag sitting on the luggage rack. Packing for Tilda was easy. She traveled light, never more than one bag, no matter the length of the trip or the destination. Sometimes he got the feeling she’d be perfectly happy to live out of a suitcase, always in the air.
“I did,” he said. “Happy birthday.”
She made a little noise, then drew back the curtains covering the view onto Park Avenue and peered out at Manhattan’s skyline. Hands in his pockets, he looked at her elegant profile washed clean by the city lights and felt his heart turn slow loops in his chest.
“It’s lovely,” she said finally.
The scent of white roses, clean and simple and pure, danced in the air molecules as he crossed the carpet, laid his hand alongside her jaw, and kissed her. She turned to him, her hands coming up to hold his lapels, her mouth soft and closed under his until he licked into it, coaxing it open. She bent her head and brushed her lips back and forth over his jaw, then to the spot where his pulse thumped above his collar. The move was so timid, so hesitant, so unlike her. A desire to protect her overwhelmed him.
“Shhhh,” he said without knowing why. “Come here. I’ve got you.”
He led her to the bed and unzipped her dress, slowly drawing the tab of the zipper down her back to reveal her spine, the bird’s wings of her shoulder blades bisected by a black lace bra. He unfastened the hooks and slipped both dress and bra forward, down her arms to pool on the floor at their feet, leaving her in a matching pair of black lace panties and her heels.
She once again tucked her hands together just under her chin and bent her head. “Daniel,” she said quietly.
The air hummed with something secretive, something deep and unspoken. “Lie down,” he whispered into her nape.
She knelt on the bed, turning and tucking her feet under her bottom as she turned to face him. Sitting among the scattered roses on white sheets, she glowed like an ember. Hair, eyes, cheeks flushed, lips, the tips of her nipples, the black lace panties, her black heels. The sheer beauty of her took his breath away, while the blood pumping to his cock reduced him to one primitive word. Mine.
As she watched he shucked his jacket and tossed it on a chair, loosened his tie, then knelt on the bed next to her. He picked up one of the roses and trailed it along her jaw to her mouth. She exhaled shakily, a darker shade of red staining her cheeks and throat. He followed the line of her throat to the notch between her collarbones, twirling the rose for a moment, then bent and kissed the skin. Her scent, uniquely Tilda, wafted into the air, dissipating the smell of the rose.
The tops of her breasts received the same treatment, as he carefully brushed the petals against the curves while her nipples tightened into hard peaks. She shifted restlessly, trying to bring the dark buds into contact with the rose, inhaling shakily when he drew the flower down the side of her breast to avoid the contact.
“Your skin is almost the same shade of white as the rose,” he said as he lifted the flower between her breasts, back to her mouth. Her lips parted and her tongue flicked out, but he pulled the flower back and down. This time he brushed the edges of the petals over each nipple before continuing down to tease the crux of her thighs.
She dropped back to her elbows and parted her legs. He brushed the flower over her mound again and again, until her head dropped back and she moaned. “Daniel,” she said.
“Shh. Let me give you this.”
She seemed to cycle through tension then relax back into the arousal he coaxed to the surface of her skin. When she lay all the way back, he dropped the rose beside her hip and retraced his steps with his mouth, from her forehead to her lips to her nipples to her abdomen. Her mouth tasted of dark coffee and rich chocolate, and her skin tasted faintly of sweat and musk. The scent of the flowers, the petal-soft texture of her skin, and he was drowning.
He kissed his way to the folds between her legs, but her hand in his hair stopped him. “No,” she said. “Please. Now.”
He sat back on his heels and unbuttoned his shirt, shrugging out of it, pulling his T-shirt over his head, then attacking his belt and zipper. She’d turned her head away. He followed her gaze to the mirror over the dresser, low enough to reflect everything on the bed. Her body, sprawled and flushed among the roses, wearing nothing but her wedding ring. Him on his knees beside her as he stripped.
Their eyes met. Her irises were pewter, fringed by her thick black lashes, and his heart knocked hard against his ribs. He tore his gaze away from the reflection to the woman underneath him as he aligned his cock with her opening and slid inside. Her body arched under his, seating him more firmly. Then he began to move. She was slick and tight and hot around him, burning in his arms, watching them in the mirror. He could feel her drawing tighter and tighter, clasping him inside and out, and risked a quick glance at the mirror. The sight nearly sent him over the edge, the sheer erotic thrill of seeing what he felt reflected back to him, burning into his brain. He saw each thrust in hips and buttocks, felt it glide along his cock and make heat pool in his balls. Tilda’s toes were curled tightly, and the faint gasps he heard made her breasts rise against his chest, before panting out between her parted lips.
He wanted more. He angled his head to capture her lips, turning her head and drawing her into that intimate secret that was making love. Complex sensations buffeted him, fingernails in his back, heels digging into his calves. Tilda gasped under him, tiny stifled sounds all the more powerful for being muffled. But it wasn’t like Tilda to hold back.
“I love you,” he growled in her ear. “Tilda. I love you.”
She lifted under him, her teeth clenched as she came. He slowed, thrusting through the contractions and fighting his own release until she shuddered and subsided under him. Only then did he drop into the abyss. Tilda panted under him, fingers trembling against his shoulders. Aftershocks burned through his muscles as he kissed her cheek, then her chin, then each of her closed eyelids.
“I love you, too,” she whispered, the words little more than a huff of air against his ear. Her eyes opened slowly, like a cat awakening from a long sleep. When they focused on him, the expression was haunted, hunted even. Then she blinked, and it was gone. “When did you do all of this?”
“Earlier today. I took a couple of hours off work.”
“Daniel, I don’t know what to say. It’s so much. You really didn’t need to do this.”
The complex sensations were still swirling in the air. He tri
ed to get a handle on what she was thinking, feeling. “It’s no bother. Or trouble. Or hassle.” Doing things for the people he loved wasn’t work. It was what made life worth living. He reached under the pillow for the towel he’d stashed there earlier in the day.
“Practical as well as romantic,” she said.
Tilda handled the awkward parts of sex as gracefully as she handled everything else. He exchanged the towel for her overnight bag, then made a quick stop in the bathroom. When he came back out, in his boxers, she was wearing the nightgown he’d swiped from her side of the dresser, a practical gray cotton thing. It surprised him. She was so elegant in every other area of her life, but slept in what was basically an oversized V-neck T-shirt washed to softness.
“Do you want to spend the night?” she asked.
“Hell, yes,” he said as he reached for his suit pants to hang them up. “It’s part of the experience. And now, for your present.”
She was rubbing the hotel’s lotion into her hands as he spoke, but she looked up at him, her eyes wide. He straightened his shirt and tie on the hanger, then added his jacket, and pulled the box from the pocket. He hid it behind his back and sat on the edge of the bed.
One glance over his shoulder, and her eyes went huge in her face.
Damn. He’d forgotten about the mirror. “Sorry,” he said and offered her the red leather box, embossed with gold, and the name Cartier. “I ruined the surprise.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did.”
“It’s too much.”
Probably. The thing cost an arm and a leg, but less than he would have spent on an engagement ring based on the two months’ salary formula, if they’d done anything so quotidian as buy an engagement ring.
“You can’t . . . you shouldn’t have. Cartier?” She pronounced it perfectly, the r and t rolling off her tongue into the softened French syllable at the end. “My God.”
“Tilda. It’s your birthday. It’s our first birthday together. We eloped, so I didn’t buy an engagement ring, and we don’t have a mortgage. You don’t even know what it is.”
“Daniel—”
“Open it.”
She took the box from him and fumbled the little gold button to release the lid. Her fingers were shaking.
“Half their retail sales must go to packaging alone,” he said, trying to lighten the mood.
The lid popped open. Tucked into the silk fold was a white gold bangle. She looked at it, then at him.
“It’s a LOVE bracelet,” he said.
“I know what it is,” she breathed.
Of course she did. Luxury goods were her trade. She wasn’t a bling person, but a simple bangle suited her down to the ground. The iconic bracelet symbolized eternal love. Celebrities wore them, grandparents bought them for their grandchildren, lovers bought them to mark anniversaries. He knew nothing about jewelry, but when he came across one during the course of an investigation, the memory got filed away in the back of his brain. That’s cool. That’s the kind of symbol I like.
The air conditioner ticked on, filling the room with a droning hum. He found the screwdriver that came with the bracelet and unfastened the two screws on either side of the bracelet. “May I?”
Without looking up she offered him her wrist. Without pinching her skin, he slid the slim metal tabs into the slots, then threaded the tiny screws and fastened the bracelet. It was perfect for her, elegant, simple, symbolic.
“It won’t slide off, so you can’t take it off at night or whenever,” he said. It was something she’d wear for the rest of her life, through the births of their children, anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, vacations, nights where the only chance they had to talk was over a glass of wine. He could see her, slim and elegant and vibrantly alive at seventy-five, sipping wine and wearing that bracelet. The thought made his entire body tighten with a possessiveness he’d never felt before. “It’s medieval, and of course if you hate it, I’ll exchange it for the removable cuff version. Whatever you want. But . . . I loved it. I love you. I wanted you to wear it,” he said as he lifted her wrist to his mouth and kissed the fine skin. The bracelet felt warm and heavy against his lips.
“I’m completely astonished. I don’t know what to say except thank you.” She leaned forward and kissed him, but her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“Happy birthday, Tilda,” he said quietly, and let her tuck her face into his shoulder. Let her hide.
—
Four weeks later, in an unemotional voice, she asked him for a divorce, then left for yet another trip. Daniel felt like she’d stepped over the cliffs, and this time there was no convenient hidden ledge keeping her from falling all the way to the ground.
– TWENTY-ONE –
Solstice
7:28 p.m.
Colin parked illegally next to a fire hydrant that also happened to be in the shade under the tree in front of Fifteen Perry Street, and switched on his hazard lights. “We can’t have your husband coming home and giving me a ticket.”
Tilda snapped from the past to the present. Colin’s car, outside her house, after a long morning at West Village Stationery, the bloody therapist’s appointment with Daniel, then an afternoon discussion on the luxury goods trade with Colin. In six hours she had to get on a plane and fly to London. This was the longest day of the year, and the longest day of her life.
“The FBI doesn’t write parking tickets,” Tilda said as she searched her clutch for her house keys, taking refuge in an ordinary task to avoid remembering the look on Daniel’s face when she threw those words at him. If you really knew me. There was no quicker way to wound Daniel than to imply he had misunderstood something.
He was trying so hard, and she didn’t want to hurt him, but hurting him was inevitable, and sooner was better than later, right? She should have known better than to get involved with him, did know better. There was a price to pay for taking what she wanted; however, asking Daniel to pay that price was her mistake.
Oh, God. What had she done?
Colin peered past her at the front door. “Is he home?”
She looked out the windshield at the town house, narrow red brick with black shutters, matching black double front door with leaded glass windows. The only light on was the lamp in the front window. He could be home, or he could be at a bar with friends, or on Long Island with his family, or running. Daniel could be at work, making his methodical way through reams and reams of documents, following the root of all evil—money—to the source of the wrongdoing.
Or he could be at home, in jeans and a T-shirt, a beer in hand, waiting for Tilda. When she left the divorce papers on the dining room table, under the paperweight, she wasn’t sure if she liked what she’d started, but she knew she had to do it. Despite her best hopes, they were incompatible. Now, outside their house, she was torn between two powerful emotions: stay, and run.
Eyebrows raised, Colin looked at her, obviously expecting an answer to his extraordinarily simple question. “He often works late at home.”
In circumstances known only to residents of a city where the demand for apartments far outweighed the supply, they were still living together but only because Daniel moved to the guest bedroom on the second floor, conceding the entire top floor to Tilda.
“So you’re not going to invite me in for a drink before our flight leaves.” Colin’s smile was flirtatious, expecting to be turned down, but charmingly hopeful.
“Best not, Colin,” she said.
He glanced at her left hand, bare of the wedding ring she’d worn for six months. She’d taken off both the ring and the bracelet the day she printed the paperwork for a uncontested divorce. “He’s still living with you?”
“The housing market in New York is as tight as London’s,” she said. “It will take some time for him to find another flat.”
“You’re a difficult woman to
read,” Colin said. “I can’t tell if I should offer you a shoulder to cry on or steal you away to a very posh hotel to celebrate your upcoming freedom.”
“I’m actually rather allergic to posh hotels, and I’m not divorced yet,” she said, more tartly than she’d intended. She’d never explained that particular allergy to Daniel. He knew she hated spinach, loved the sensation of fine fabric against her skin, and all but hibernated when it rained, but he didn’t know how she felt about posh hotels. Because she’d never told him. And he, acting like any sane man who wanted to show a woman that he loved her, bought her one of the most prestigious luxury items on the market, and took her to the nicest hotel in the city to celebrate her birthday.
Her response was to ask him for a divorce. The memory of his face, shocked into a stillness not even he managed most of the time, made shame crawl up her spine and settle at the nape of her neck. No one asked for a divorce after her husband orchestrated a night like that, but she had. She’d waited a couple of weeks, fighting her fear, but in the end, the bracelet was an unspoken, ever-present reminder of what he felt, and what they would both lose.
The text requesting that she meet him at a therapist’s office in Washington Square only confirmed what she should have known all along, and chose to ignore because this time she hoped things would be different. She would be different.
She owed him an explanation. That was the only question he asked when she handed him the paperwork. Why?
“Right,” Colin said, unaware of this train of thought. “You know you’re getting exactly what you want from Quality. West Village Stationery will have retail space in every luxury goods shopping hub in every major airport in the world, plus branches in London, Tokyo, and Dubai. They want you, Tilda. They really, really want you. Not Kate Spade. Not Tory Burch. You.”