“What does your husband say when he sees those marks on you?”
Marks? What marks?
“He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t care. Marcus has his own thing going on.”
The curiosity was literally killing me. Or at least, he will once he catches you. The books were packed tightly on the shelves, obscuring my presence, thankfully, but also shielding them from me. I tugged out a skinny book wedged tightly in its place. Knowing how seriously I was courting danger, you could make an argument for temporary insanity.
As I spied through the narrow opening, I recognized the pale blond from the garden. She wore a red dress fitted closely to her slender body. I knew the designer (having lived in Milan for six years practically earned me a degree in high fashion). Azzedine Alaïa––outrageously expensive and extremely sexy.
She tossed her long hair over her shoulder and approached Horn, who was doing a great impression of a brooding male model with his arm resting on the fireplace mantle and his hip cocked. He stared into the vacant fireplace with his head tipped down. And although his posture was relaxed, there was an undercurrent of tension in his muscles that was evident to me. He began taping two finger absently on the mantle, the rhythm quickening as she drew closer.
“I like it when you put your hands on me,” she purred, “inside of me…when you leave your mark on my body, reminding me where you’ve been.” She placed her hands on his chest and began petting him roughly, up and down his tailored white shirt with an indifferent touch that made me want to smack her hands away. I wanted to explore every curve and dip slowly, carefully. I really need to have my head examined!
Shame and fascination and a hundred other conflicting emotions battled for first place in my mind. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him––as if he were true north and I was one of the many compasses that had no choice other than to be drawn to him.
Her one hand traveled lower until she was stroking the bulge that was steadily growing, straining the limits of his gray gabardine slacks. He ceased taping his fingers and squeezed the hand into an angry fist. The muscles of his jaw quivered from the strain of clenching it tightly. Ignoring the warning in his remote amber eyes, she continued to stroke him roughly. But when she cupped him, his hand finally shot out and snatched her wrist, stopping her.
“I don’t want you anymore. What part of that don’t you get? Go back to Marcus.”
“And how do you suppose I do that? Even if I wanted to…which I don’t,” she bit out.
His eyes held no humor as his lips lifted in an imitation of a smile. “Do what you always do, lie to him.”
I could see the wheels turning as she deliberated her next tactical maneuver. I knew exactly when she decided to change tack when her face softened. “Scout, we were made for each other,” she purred. “Who else is going to fuck you like I do? I know what you’re doing, you’re just trying to punish me for marrying Marcus but that’s history. We can be together now and––”
“Stop.”
Frustration shifted to anger in her expression. She ripped her wrist out of his grip. “What’s the matter, Scout? Can’t you get it up? Is that what’s bothering you?” Her perfect features contorted into an ugly sneer. “That you’re only half the man you were before the accident?”
His face was an unreadable mask. I knew what that expression meant. I almost screamed in fear for her. A loud crash rent the quiet of the room. The vase hit the stone floor and shattered into a million pieces, the bouquet scattering in every direction. It took me a while to realize that he had her pinned face down over the table with her legs spread apart, his large body pressed up against her buttocks. Her hair was coiled around his hand, snapping her head back in a punishing grip, while the other pushed down on the top of her spine, trapping her completely.
“Is this what you want you fucking bitch? I warned you never to call me that again.” His voice sounded hollow, almost inhuman. I watched a strange, demented smile grow on her face. She laughed at him, a joyless, malicious laugh. Spurred on, he flipped her short skirt up, reached under, and brutally ripped off her black thong.
Oh my God…they aren’t going to…
He hesitated for a moment. His face revealing a mix of clashing emotions: rage, lust, revulsion.
“Do it you spineless asshole!” Her scream earned her another violent jerk of her hair. Then his expression altered, became resolute. He fished a condom out of his back pocket and, without slackening the brutality of his grip on her, unzipped and unbuttoned his trousers. They fell to his ankles, revealing black boxer briefs and an enormous erection tenting the fabric…and then he pushed them down.
I covered my mouth and swallowed a gasp. I should’ve had the decency to give them some privacy but it was beyond me. I couldn’t look away if my life depended on it. I was mesmerized, entranced, and he was magnificent, built to scale and thrusting up powerfully.
A flood of sensation traveled from the tips of my toes to my hairline. I broke out in a full-blown sweat, a deep ache pooling between my thighs, every nerve ending painfully aware of him. I gripped my nightgown in a fist at the top of my thighs. Never in my life had I experienced such a visceral reaction to a man. It was as if he held some secret code to unlocking my body that I was unaware of.
Through a tight jaw, he hissed, “I never met a woman so eager to be treated like a piece of garbage.” A loud crack splintered the air, the sound reverberating off the stone walls. The cherry stain of his handprint was visible on the white cheek of her rear end. He ripped the wrapping off the condom with his teeth, shoved her harder onto the table when she squirmed, and rolled it on. “I want you to remember this pity fuck, Paisley––because I’ll cut my dick off before I ever touch you again.”
With conviction born of anger and resentment, he kicked her legs wider and slammed into her in one powerful thrust of his hips. The table lurched forward, scraping the limestone floor loudly. He began viciously pounding into her without an ounce of care, the slapping sound of their flesh drowning out her sensual whimpers and moans. As she climaxed, she screamed out a list of swear words that would’ve made a soldier blush while her short, red nails scraped the wood of the table.
His expression was pained, as if he was trying to deny himself. He didn’t make a single sound, not even a soft exhale, when he came. The only visible sign was the slackening of his body, his shoulders slumping in defeat.
Breathing heavily, he turned away to remove the condom. He didn’t even finish buttoning his pants. They barely caught on his lean hips, a wet stain visible on the front of his underwear. With his head hanging and his shoulders bent, he leaned against the mantle and rubbed his eyes and brow with his thumb and index finger.
The aura of defeat surrounding him could be felt from afar. He looked…diminished somehow. And for some absurd reason all I wanted to do was hold him, sift my fingers through his slightly too long, silky hair and tell him it would all be okay.
“Get the fuck out. We’re done.” His voice was low, weary.
She stared at his stony profile, stabbing him with her eyes. “You will always want me,” she declared, smoothing her tousled hair back into place with long, bony fingers. “You will always take me back––because I give you permission to do what no other woman will!” Snatching a compact out of her Chanel purse, she checked her work in the mirror. “We’re not done. We’re not even close to being done.”
Stark silence. Her words didn’t seem to warrant an acknowledgement from him. That sparked more outrage. Her blue eyes narrowed and her face reddened. She tossed the compact back into her purse and slammed it shut. And after an awkward moment spent waiting for an apology that never came, she stormed out of the room, heels clicking all the way down the hall.
He stood motionless for a long time afterwards, mastering his breathing, staring at the door with a faraway expression. As he tucked his shirt back into his pants, his large hands trembled, betraying his cool exterior. Then he took a small prescription bottle out of his poc
ket and tossed a pill into his mouth. I was lost in thought, speculating about the pills, when his head suddenly snapped up. Wearing an expression that vacillated between bewilderment and anger, his perceptive eyes scanned the area. I froze, anxiety and fear converging in my gut.
Please, please, please go away!
He took a step forward and my mouth went bone dry. The moment seemed to last forever but then, just as suddenly, he turned on his heels and stalked out of the room.
I sat there shaking for a full hour before I ran back upstairs and dove under the covers. It was impossible to sleep after that. All I could think about was the scene I had witnessed.
Who was that woman? The line for this man probably wrapped around the globe. So why was he sleeping with her? He threatened to cut off his privates for God’s sake! What pills was he taking? And why did he look so lost when he thought nobody was watching? I wanted to know all his secrets and he seemed to be hiding quite a few. And my reaction to him was troubling. I didn’t understand where this strange attraction was coming from. I wasn’t some stupid, empty-headed twit taken in easily by superficial attributes. Adding insult to injury, there was no question that I had a profoundly opposite effect on him. After spending the better part of the night analyzing it to death and still finding no answers, sleep finally claimed me sometime around dawn. Only later would I realize that I never did get those books.
Chapter Six
Being A new employee I was obligated to work on weekends and holidays. I didn’t mind––I never slept past six anyway. I never really slept well at all until arriving here. I pushed the linen curtain aside, opened the window, and was greeted by a carpet of anthracite grey clouds that threatened to wash the day away.
A chill blew in that made the delicate hairs on my arm stand up straight. The gaunt, waif look I had been wearing for weeks was slowly fading. I could finally look in the mirror without being horrified by the dark circles under my eyes and the sharpness of my cheekbones.
Mrs. Arnaud made it her personal crusade to fatten me up like an Easter lamb. Daily, she plied me with enough gastronomic masterpieces to make the most committed ascetic lose their religion. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it would be a miracle if I could gain just a couple of pounds, having been cursed with an overly ambitious metabolism that incinerated anything I placed in its path, nor did I want to dampen her enthusiasm to feed me.
I gathered my long, straight hair into a high ponytail, applied a little salve to my generous lips, and brushed the lint off of my navy uniform. Halfway down the stairs, I heard the low rumble of a familiar male voice and stopped in mid-step. He’s back.
The air in my lungs left me all at once. Mrs. Arnaud mentioned he had gone to London on a business trip. I hadn’t seen him since that night in the library, four days ago, but it hadn’t been long enough. I was still embarrassed at my reaction, flushed just thinking about it.
When his determined footsteps echoed out of the kitchen, I continued down. I found Mrs. Arnaud preparing a tray of paper-thin crêpes with fresh strawberry sauce, a few slices of honeydew melon, and a tall glass of the putrid, green drink. “Bon jour, did you sleep well?” she asked in her usual sunny timbre.
“Yes, madame.”
Isabelle walked into the kitchen flipping her long auburn hair over her shoulder. Her cool gaze traveled from the top of my head to my feet while her mobile mouth curved into an insincere smile.
“Isabelle, put your hair up. This isn’t a fashion show, chérie. It’s unsanitary,” Mrs. Arnaud ordered in a motherly tone. “Please take this tray to Mr. Horn. He’s in his office.” She looked straight at me. I was stunned for a moment, felt the pulse on the side of my neck skip a beat.
“I’ll do it,” Isabelle interjected, blocking me easily with her voluptuous figure. She bound her hair in a ponytail so quickly it almost made me laugh. Thank God for aggressive women. I had dodged a bullet…or something similarly unpleasant. I nodded, my pulse returning to normal.
“She can do it,” I said, cheerfully.
“Mr. Horn asked for Vera.”
Huh?? This was a troubling turn of events. Isabelle’s frosty gray eyes launched poison arrows. Not exactly how I meant to begin with her, but I couldn’t worry about that now––I had meaner dragons to slay. “Yes, of course, madame,” I replied, silencing my mind.
“Bon, hurry, before his frappe gets warm. It upsets him.” Heaven forbid. I pursed my lips, afraid the words would slip out. Taking the tray from her, I practically ran out of the kitchen. I would’ve rather been drawn and quartered than give him a reason to complain.
When I reached his office door, uninvited erotic images of him flashed before my eyes. I shook my head to be rid of them, shoving those wicked thoughts back into the dark recesses of my mind, then took a deep breath and knocked.
“Enter.” His deep, raspy voice echoed off the walls.
Once inside, the first thing that struck me was that the room was of a much smaller scale than the others. I hadn’t seen it yet, had been rather studiously avoiding it like the plague. On the wall behind me were flat screen televisions of various sizes. The low sound of news and financial channels hummed in the background. A wide, mid-century desk sat in front of a small fireplace. On either side of it, windows stretched from floor to ceiling. The sunlight pouring through them obscured my vision. All I could discern was the imposing silhouette seated behind the desk. I could feel him watching me.
“You plan on standing there all day?” That loose American accent broke through the paralysis. I had to give him credit, it was hard to spark my temper but he managed it without any effort. I stepped forward without making eye contact. After everything I had been through, I had somehow managed to survive with my pride intact. I wasn’t about to give him the opportunity to trample it for his personal amusement. I placed the tray on his desk and turned to leave.
“Where are you going?”
Turning slowly, I forced myself to meet his gaze for the first time in full daylight. Mistake. Big mistake. The beginnings of a slow flush prickled my collarbone. To stop its progress, I frantically searched for an image to distract myself with. Dead kittens? Dead kittens. Dead kittens!
“Did you say something?” he asked. The dismissive look on his face didn’t fool me. This was a battle of wills and I wasn’t about to be intimidated so easily.
“No.” And then a staring match ensued. It would’ve been funny had I been on the outside looking in, had his contempt for me not equaled my attraction to him.
My senses converged acutely, bringing every aspect of him in high definition. To call him handsome would be like describing the Mona Lisa as a painting of a lady. His face was a perfect balance of symmetry and proportion with enough whimsy thrown in to make him completely unique. Those thick, spiky lashes were darker than his hair and excessive on a man. They set off the color of his almond shaped eyes, amber needled with green closer to the iris. High cheekbones balanced his aristocratic, thoroughly masculine nose. His mouth was wide, not overly full. His jaw firm. And it all ended with a soft punctuation mark on his chin.
But it was so much more than the sum of the spectacular parts. What made him truly breath-catching beautiful lived beneath the surface. A smoldering pit of volatile emotion, an intense fire that blazed no matter how much he tried to cover it up. It was difficult to hold his gaze in the face of all that intensity.
His dark blonde hair was a bit too long. It curled up at his ears and collar and fell over his eye. When he brushed it away, I swallowed––and hated myself just a little bit more for not being able to control myself; I had a sick feeling that he had noticed. You don’t become the head of one of the oldest banks in Switzerland at thirty-two years of age by being only a little perceptive. My eyes drifted over his long fingers, on the tiny white scars on the back of his hand, as he picked up the drink off the silver tray. He absentmindedly tapped his index finger on a leather bound book. Tap, tap, tap. Pause. Tap, tap, tap. I could just make out the title…
Love in the Time of Cholera.
My stomach plummeted to my feet. I couldn’t feel my lips as anxiety escalated to an unbearable pitch. I waited for him to say something but he kept silent, torturing me by slow degrees.
“Marquez.” Huh? “Do you like him?” My mind was slow to respond, like running through deep snow. “I guess you don’t read. Do you speak?” he added––rudely. No, I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t make a sound if I tried. “Forget it. You can take the rest of this shit away,” he muttered and turned his attention to the televisions over my shoulder.
“I prefer One Hundred Years of Solitude.” His sharp gaze returned to me. Staring and blinking. Blinking and staring. I took up the tray and turned towards the door. Relief washed over me. Somehow I had just avoided a disaster.
* * *
When I returned to the kitchen with the food he had refused, Mrs. Arnaud pursed her lips. “He will waste away at this rate,” she said, more to herself than anyone else in the kitchen. I thought it best not to point out that he was in no danger of wasting away, and was in fact rather deliciously in perfect shape.
By noon Mrs. Arnaud and I had managed to outline a menu for every day of the house party to be held at the end of the month. We worked effectively together. She was the butterfly, her mind wandering in all directions, full of creative ideas, and I was the net keeping her on track and organized. She handed me a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, and sat back down at the trestle table where our strategic plans were laid out.
“Do you have a chère ami, Vera?”
The question took me by surprise. “No, madame.”
Her nurturing eyes searched my face. “Don’t let time pass you by.”
“I was engaged once…back in Albania.” I shrugged. “Anyway, it didn’t work out.” I hadn’t meant to confide so much, but her gentle, soothing manner had me singing like a canary.
“Are you still in love with him? Is that why you’re alone?”
A Million Different Ways (A Horn Novel Book 1) Page 6