Behind the Curtain

by BETH KERY

  “Let go, Asher.”

  He clamped his eyes tight and let out an agonized groan. A knocking sound penetrated her dazed awareness. At first she thought it was the headboard against the wall, but then she realized it was another, discordant sound.

  “Asher.”

  She started at the male voice, gasping. Someone was at the door, knocking. Asher withdrew from her abruptly. He came down next to her on his hip. His hand moved between his thighs. He cursed fiercely under his breath. He tensed and shuddered.

  Laila sat up partially, disoriented by their abrupt separation. She realized he was climaxing. No, it shouldn’t have been this way. They should have been joined. The knowledge pierced her.

  “Asher. I have your phone, man.”

  Asher lifted his head. He looked so disbelieving, he seemed crazed. “Get the fuck out of here, Eric!” he bellowed so loudly, Laila jumped.

  There was a pause.

  “I’ll leave it down on the kitchen counter. You can get it when you’re finished,” Eric said knowingly through the door.

  Asher hissed and jerked, his hand falling away from his cock. She grabbed his arm when he started to roll off the bed.

  “Asher.”

  He looked around at the sound of her voice, his blazing gaze landing on her.

  “Jesus. I’m sorry, Laila. I’m going to kill him—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said, reaching for him with her hands on his shoulders. He resisted at first but rolled against her at her insistent urging. “It doesn’t matter,” she repeated intently, running her lips against his whiskered jaw while she rubbed some of the tension out of his back muscles. Their mouths brushed together.

  “It was amazing. Don’t let him ruin it. What is Eric, compared to this?” she whispered. He lifted his head slowly. “Don’t let anything ruin it, let alone him. Our world, remember?”

  She saw the hard glitter in his eyes. He was still angry at Eric’s interruption, she could tell. Agitated. Worried? But then she saw his sharp focus return as his gaze moved over her face.

  He leaned down and kissed her mouth tenderly. She felt the frayed filaments of their connection reweaving.

  “Our world,” he swore next to her lips.

  Chapter Fourteen

  They succeeded in blocking out the rest of the world, at least for the next three and a half hours. It wasn’t hard, when Asher’s skin was pressed tight next to hers, when she was looking into his eyes and listening to his deep voice . . . when he was making love to her again and she was spiraling in bliss.

  He walked her out to Zara’s car at four fifteen a.m. She shivered in the damp night air. He wrapped his arms around her.

  “Do you feel okay?” he murmured.

  “I’d give anything to stay,” she whispered, clutching him close, as if she thought his hard body could staunch the ache mounting inside her at the idea of separating from him after the most special night of her life.

  “I’d give anything to have you stay,” he said, pressing his mouth to her temple. “But I didn’t mean that. I meant are you okay, physically. You said you threw up earlier. And then . . .” He nodded at the upstairs of the house, and she understood. He meant was she in any discomfort. From her first time.

  And the second.

  She pressed her warm cheek to his chest.

  “I’m fine,” she said honestly. True, there was a little discomfort. But she strangely welcomed the sensation. It was a reminder of what it had been like, to be fused so tight with him, the boundaries between them evaporated.

  He nuzzled her cheek. “What if I got a job at a Detroit paper?”

  She started and leaned back, examining his face to see if he was serious.

  “You would do that?” she asked, incredulous.

  “We could see each other that way.”

  “But you told me you did an internship in L.A., and know the editor. He thinks if you work hard, he can get you a foreign affairs post within a year or two. If you came to Detroit, you’d be giving up your dream.”

  “Maybe not giving it up. Just postponing it a little. What, Laila?” he asked, his brow creasing. He’d noticed her anxiety.

  “I can’t ask you to do that, Asher. Postpone your dream? And for what? It would be just as hard for me to get away in Detroit as it is here,” she said miserably.

  “You’re getting older, Laila. You’re not going to be at your mother’s beck and call forever.”

  “I’m not at her beck and call. You don’t understand. I know she can be a pain sometimes, but I love her—”

  “Okay,” he said, cutting her off by kissing her mouth. “Maybe that’s not the solution. We said we’d keep trying to hang on. That’s all I was doing. Brainstorming.”

  “I know. I know you were. Asher, it means so much to me. Thank you. You’re right. I’ll try to come up with some ideas too,” she said, smiling up at him brightly. Inside, she was cringing a little. It dismayed her because she couldn’t imagine a scenario where they could be together.

  He reached to open the car door. “You better get going,” he said. “Everyone’s going to panic if they find out you’re gone.”

  When she was seated, she glanced up and saw him through the opened door. He was peering fixedly at the driveway.

  “Asher? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he said distractedly, dragging his gaze back to her. She looked at where he’d been staring.

  “What is it?” she repeated, nothing about the darkened driveway standing out to her as significant.

  “Eric’s car is gone,” he replied in a flat tone. He leaned down to kiss her once more, but she noticed the tension had returned to his face.

  • • •

  She parked Zara’s car in the predawn darkness and came around the front of the cottage. Relief swept through her when she noticed no lights anywhere. She hadn’t been caught, it would seem. When she reached to push open the screen door, it flew away from her hand. Someone grabbed her forearm and pulled her inside.

  “Tahi?” she whispered, brushing past her cousin while Tahi silently shut the door. Something about her tense actions sent an alarm going off in Laila’s head. The alarm started blaring when she saw Zara sitting up on her sleeping bag, her posture tense.

  “Thank God you’re here,” Zara whispered.

  “Why? What’s happened?” Laila asked, going down on her knees on her sleeping bag.

  “Did you see your dad’s car on the way in?” Tahi asked, lowering to her air mattress.

  Shivers poured down Laila’s arms. “What? No. There wasn’t a car on the entry road.”

  “You must have just missed them,” Tahi muttered.

  “They just left here three or four minutes ago,” Zara added.

  “Who? My father?” Laila asked, straining not to shout in her rising panic. Had she been caught after all, and her father had left to go looking for her?

  “Calm down,” Tahi shushed. “We covered for you. We said you were in the bathroom. Your dad was in such a hurry, he didn’t seem to notice there wasn’t a light on under the door,” she said, pointing to the distant closed bathroom door.

  “Why was he in a hurry? What’s wrong?” Laila demanded.

  “It’s Mamma Sophia,” Tahi whispered, her face looking wan and tight in the dim light. “She was having chest pains. Your father came over to tell us that he and your mom were taking her over to the emergency room in Grand Haven. He wanted us to tell you what was happening, and for all of us to let everyone know in the morning when they wake up. Your mom was over at our cabin, waking up my mom. The four of them just pulled out minutes before you got here.”

  “Oh my God,” Laila said. A trembling had started up in her limbs and she couldn’t seem to control her shaking hands. “Did you see Mamma Sophia?”

  “Tahi did,” Zara whispered. “Sh
e went out and saw them taking her to the car.”

  “Was she conscious?”

  Tahi nodded. “It didn’t seem that bad, Laila. She was walking, with your mom’s help. Mamma Sophia told your mom and dad she’d refuse to get an ambulance if they called it. Then Amu Anass insisted they drive over to the emergency room, if she wouldn’t go with the ambulance. You know how stubborn Mamma Sophia can be when it comes to her health.”

  Laila started to stand. “Let’s go. Let’s drive over to the hospital.”

  “No, Amu Anass says we should stay here. He’ll text us as soon as they know anything,” Tahi exclaimed in a hushed tone, grabbing Laila’s arm again and halting her. “Hurry up, and get changed back into your pajamas before someone wakes up. You barely missed being caught the first time; you don’t want to chance it again.”

  Laila collapsed back onto her sleeping bag, feeling like the power plug had just been pulled on all her muscles. From the moment Tahi had mentioned Mamma Sophia, she’d forgotten how close she’d been to being discovered. The concept of being “caught” seemed utterly empty. Irrelevant. The only thing she could think of was Mamma Sophia waking up alone and in pain in the room they shared, while Laila had been miles away in Asher’s arms.

  • • •

  At around ten the next morning, Rudy paused in the action of shoveling some Captain Crunch in his mouth with a spoon when Asher entered the breakfast nook. Jimmy glanced around his newspaper.

  “What’s wrong?” Jimmy asked, noticing Asher holding up a key and a piece of paper. Or maybe he saw Asher’s angry expression.

  “He’s gone,” Asher said bitterly, tossing the key and note onto the wood table. “I found those and my cell phone”—he placed his cell phone facedown next to the key—“on his bedside table.”

  “Eric, you mean? He had your phone?” Rudy asked before he swallowed. He picked up the piece of paper. “This says he had to drive over to Chicago for business. But he’s probably not gone for good, is he? Maybe he just drove over for a few days—”

  “He’s in Chicago on business,” Asher grated out.

  Rudy and Jimmy shared a bemused glance at his intensity.

  “He took my damn phone!” Asher told them, giving Jimmy a half-panicked, half-furious glance. “He must have taken it last night on the terrace. He’s been reading my messages. That means he knows about my job at the Times,” Asher bellowed. “He knows about—” He cut himself off with a curse, wincing. The very idea of Eric going through his private texts with Laila made him want to punch something. Since it was Eric he wanted to pound the most, and that snake had slithered away in the night, there was nowhere to put his fury.

  “You don’t think he’d go and . . .”

  “What?” Rudy asked when Jimmy faded off.

  “That’s exactly what I think,” Asher fumed, reading Jimmy’s mind. “He’s going to get back at me for going after him last night. He’s going to go and tell my father I’m not working for GGM before I ever get a chance to.”

  “Fuuuck,” Rudy muttered, looking floored. “He’d really do that?”

  “Yeah. I think he would,” Jimmy said quietly.

  “He really is every bit of the asshole you said he was from the start,” Rudy told Asher.

  “What are you going to do?” Jimmy asked.

  Asher unclenched his grinding teeth. Damn that stupid, interfering fuck. It was bad enough that he had plotted to further damage Asher and his parents’ already shaky relationship. But because of Eric, Asher was going to have to cancel his meeting with Laila at the secret lake this afternoon. It was that, as much as anything, that had him ready to explode.

  “I’m going to have to drive to Chicago and either try to stop him . . . or mop up the mess he’s already made with my parents,” he said to Jimmy and Rudy. “It sounds like Eric is going to try to ambush my dad at his office downtown, but my dad has been away on business in Boston. He called me from there a few nights ago. Maybe there’s a chance I can get to him before Eric does.”

  “Your dad should be back already . . . or back soon,” Jimmy said, standing up and looking worried.

  “What makes you say that?” Asher asked.

  “The Summer Soiree at the Blackhawk Country Club. I heard my mom mention last week that our parents were all going together, and that’s tomorrow night.”

  Asher cursed. “You two just stay here and try to enjoy yourself. It’s only a three-hour drive to Chicago, four to Winnetka. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  He felt his phone vibrate as he turned to leave in order to throw a change of clothes in a bag. He glanced at the screen and saw that the message was from Laila. Pausing, he read it, and then picked up his pace.

  It wasn’t enough for it to just rain trouble. Fate just had to pour it down like a shitstorm.

  • • •

  She was waiting for him when he arrived at the secret lake just twenty minutes later. It was strange—a little jarring—to see Laila there not wearing a swimsuit or beachwear. Instead, she perched stiffly on the big rock, wearing a pair of jeans that were rolled up at the bottom, sandals and a loose short-sleeved light blue top that highlighted her even tan and smooth skin. Her long hair spilled around her shoulders, but the front had been pinned back. Her face looked tight with worry, but it lightened some when she saw him walk onto the beach.

  She stood to greet him. “Thank you for coming as soon as I texted,” she said as he approached her and tossed his backpack onto the beach. She looked so earnest . . . so scared, it made him feel like something had been rubbed raw inside his chest.

  “Of course I’d come,” he said, putting out his arms. She came into his embrace, squeezing him tight. For a few seconds, he nuzzled her fragrant hair and absorbed the feeling of her in his arms. “Have you had any more news? How’s your grandmother?”

  “She was resting when I left the hospital,” Laila said, moving back in his arms a little but keeping in contact with his body. “My mom and dad, and Aunt Nora and Uncle Taha stayed, but they said we should all go home. Knowing all her grandkids were around would likely keep Mamma Sophia awake. We’re all going back at one thirty, so that’s why I asked if we could meet early. Mamma Sophia’s blood pressure is still high, so the doctor doesn’t want her to be discharged until they can get it under control.”

  “And it was definitely a heart attack?”

  She nodded. “Not a bad one. Not a mild one either, though. My dad told me the doctor reported she responded well to the emergency room therapies. She should be fine, once they get her blood pressure down.” She blinked back some tears.

  “What?” he asked, rubbing her back, sensing her spiking unrest.

  “They could have given her aspirin and oxygen therapy right away if she’d been in an ambulance, but Mamma Sophia refused to get in one. My parents and Khal-ti Nora had to drive her to the hospital. They called at around seven this morning and said she’d been admitted, so we all drove over.” She glanced up at him, and he saw her misery in her clear green eyes. “I sleep in the same room as Mamma Sophia while we’re here on vacation. If I’d been there, I might have been able to convince her to take an ambulance. We’re really close. I can talk her into things sometimes, when Mamma and Baba can’t. Things might have gone better for her.”

  “Don’t blame yourself. You told me it’s normal operating procedure for Tahi, Zara and you to sleep on the porch on hot nights . . .”

  “But I wasn’t there at all,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “If I’d been on the porch, I could have run over when Baba came to tell us what had happened before they left for the hospital. As it was, Tahi and Zara had to lie and say I was in the bathroom. Baba never noticed anything different, because he was so distracted about Mamma Sophia. But all the while, I was with you—”

  He pulled her tighter to him, his hands at the curve of her back. “You don’t know that you could h
ave changed your grandmother’s mind if you were there, or that the earlier treatments would have made that big a difference.” She looked up at him uncertainly through thick, damp lashes. He brushed his mouth against her eyebrows. She closed her eyelids. He kissed her, his lips coming away damp with the tears on her lashes. He lowered his face, pressing their foreheads together. “It’s natural in a crisis to wonder what you could have done differently, to imagine what things would have been like if you’d done this or that,” he said quietly. “But stuff just happens, Laila. All we can do is deal with it the best we can when it does.”

  “You’re right. I’m just so worried about her. Mamma Sophia has always been a part of my life. I can’t imagine things without her—”

  “Shhh. You don’t have to worry about that. Not yet,” he said, kissing her mouth. “From what the doctor said to your dad, her prognosis sounds good.”

  She swallowed thickly and nodded. A tiny smile flickered across her lips. “Thanks.”

  “I only say it because it’s true.”

  Her smile widened. He nipped at her lips. He couldn’t help it. Her smile after seeing her fear was like watching the dawn breaking after a stormy night.

  “Not just for that. Thank you for dropping everything and coming so quickly. I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

  “Nothing at all. I told you before I’d come, anytime you wanted to see me.”

  “It’s all I could think about, once I saw Mamma Sophia and heard she was going to be okay.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Seeing you,” she whispered. “Having you hold me.”

  There was something about the way she was looking up at him that made his head automatically dip in preparation to kiss her. Sink into her. He felt his body harden at the mere flashing, vivid thought. Now that he knew what it was like to be inside her, it was like he’d been programmed—hardwired somehow—with a mandate to get back there. He stepped back, feeling extremely guilty about his uncontrollable reaction in this situation. Laila needed his support right now, not for him to jump her while she was vulnerable.