Breathing Room

by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

  In the mirror she saw him blink behind the lenses of his glasses. He hadn’t expected that. She noticed that he’d found time to shave. She loved the smell of his skin in the morning, and she yearned to bury her face in his neck.

  “All right,” he said slowly.

  In a fit of sadomasochism she laid down her toothbrush and cupped her belly. “Except this one. We agree. As soon as this one’s born, it’s all mine.”

  For the first time he couldn’t meet her eyes. “I’m—I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “Apology not accepted.” She spat in the sink and rinsed. “I think I’ll take back my maiden name—for me and for the baby.”

  “You hate your maiden name.”

  “You’re right. Vastermeen is a terrible name.” He followed her from the bathroom to the bedroom, giving her a chance to devastate him as he’d devastated her. “I’ll go back to Gage. I always liked the sound of Tracy Gage.” She shoved a suitcase out of her way. “I hope the baby’s a boy so I can name him Jake. Jake Gage. You can’t get much stronger than that.”

  “Like hell.”

  She’d finally managed to pierce his wall of indifference, but the fact that she was hurting him didn’t give her satisfaction. Instead, she felt like crying. “What difference does it make? This is the baby you don’t want, remember?”

  “Just because I’m not happy about this pregnancy doesn’t mean I won’t accept the baby.”

  “Am I supposed to be grateful?”

  “I’m not going to apologize for my feelings. Damn it, Tracy, you’re always accusing me of being out of touch with my emotions, but the only emotions you want me in touch with are the ones you like.” She thought he was finally going to lose a little of that self-control, but then he reverted to the cool, unemotional tone that drove her wild. “I didn’t want Connor either, but now I can’t imagine life without him. Logic says I’ll feel the same way about the new one.”

  “And thank God for logic.” She snatched her swimsuit from a pile on the floor.

  “Stop being so childish. The real reason you’re upset is that you haven’t been getting enough attention, and God knows you like attention.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “You knew before we left Connecticut that I’d be working most of the time.”

  “But you neglected to mention that you’d also be screwing around on me.”

  “I wasn’t screwing around.”

  The overly patient note in his voice set her teeth on edge. “Did you explain that to your little hottie at the restaurant?”

  “Tracy . . .”

  “I saw you with her! The two of you cuddled up in that corner booth. She was kissing you!”

  He had the gall to look annoyed. “Why didn’t you come rescue me instead of leaving me with her? You know I’m not good in awkward social situations.”

  “Oh, yeah . . . it looked real awkward.” She grabbed her sandals.

  “Come off it, Tracy. Your drama-queen routine’s getting old. She’s the new VP for Worldbridge, and she drinks way too much.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “Stop being a spoiled brat. You know I’m the last man on earth who’d have an affair, but you had to invent a Greek tragedy out of a drunken woman’s slobbering because you’ve been feeling neglected.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. I’m just having a little sulk here.” Somehow it had been easier to deal with the idea of infidelity than his devastating emotional abandonment, but she’d probably known all along he hadn’t been having an affair. “The truth is, Harry, you started freezing me out months before we left home. The truth is, Harry . . . you’ve bailed out on our marriage, and you’ve bailed out on me.”

  She wanted him to deny it, but he didn’t. “You’re the one who left, and you’re not turning this on me. And where did you go running? Right to your party-boy ex-husband.”

  Tracy’s relationship with Ren was Harry’s only insecurity. For twelve years he’d dodged meeting him, and he got frosty when she talked to him on the phone. It was so unlike him.

  “I ran to Ren because I knew I could count on him.”

  “Is that so? Well, he didn’t look like he was all that happy to see you.”

  “You couldn’t understand what Ren Gage is feeling in a million years.”

  She finally had him at a disadvantage, so he naturally decided to change the subject. “You’re the one who insisted I take the job in Zurich. And you also insisted on coming with me.”

  “Because I knew how much it meant to you, and I wasn’t going to have it thrown back in my face that I’d sabotaged your career because I got pregnant again.”

  “When have I ever thrown anything back at you?”

  Never. He could have blasted her with a long list of grievances from the early days of their marriage, when she was still figuring out how to love someone, but he’d never done it. Until she’d gotten pregnant with Connor, he’d always been so patient with her. She desperately wanted that patience back. Patience, reassurance, and, most of all, the love she’d always thought was unconditional.

  “That’s right,” she said bitterly. “I’m the one who holds grudges. You’re perfect, which is why it’s a shame you got stuck with such an imperfect wife.” She threw her swimsuit over her shoulder, grabbed her cover-up, and fled to the bathroom. When she came out, he’d disappeared, but as she headed for the kitchen to check on the children, she heard him call out to Jeremy in the garden. They were playing catch.

  Just for a moment she let herself pretend that everything was all right.

  “You saw a what?”

  “A ghost.” Isabel took in Ren’s sweat-soaked T-shirt. It was a deep navy, and it turned his eyes a particularly ominous shade of silver. She gazed at him for a moment too long before she began putting away the plates Marta had left on the drainboard after she’d come down from the villa to clean up. “Definitely a ghost. How can you run in this heat?”

  “Because I got up too late to run when it was still cool. What kind of ghost?”

  “The kind that throws pebbles at my window and runs around in the olive trees wearing a white sheet. I waved.”

  He wasn’t amused. “This has gone on long enough.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Before I went running, I called Anna and told her you and I were going to Siena today. That should give everybody plenty of warning that the house’ll be empty.” He grabbed the glass of freshly squeezed orange juice she’d foolishly left unguarded, downed it, and headed for the stairs. “I need ten minutes to shower, and then I’ll be ready to leave.”

  Twenty minutes later he returned in jeans, a black T-shirt, and his Lakers cap. He stared suspiciously at her gray drawstring knit pants, sneakers, and the charcoal T-shirt she’d reluctantly filched from him. “You don’t look like you’re dressed for sight-seeing.”

  “Camouflage.” She grabbed her sunglasses and headed for her car. “I changed my mind and decided to go on the stakeout with you.”

  “I don’t want you with me.”

  “I’m going anyway. Otherwise you’ll fall asleep and miss something important.” She opened the driver’s door. “Or you’ll get bored and start pulling the legs off a grasshopper or setting butterflies on fire or—what was that thing you did in Carrion Way?”

  “I have no idea.” He moved her aside and climbed behind the wheel himself. “This car’s a disgrace.”

  “Not all of us can afford a Maserati.” She walked around to the other side and slid in. The incident with the pseudoghost last night indicated an uncomfortable degree of desperation, and she had to see this through, even if it meant being alone with him in a place where those mind-shattering kisses wouldn’t be interrupted by grape growers, children, or housekeepers.

  Only the two of them. Just thinking about it made her blood pound. She was ready—more than ready—but first they needed to have a serious conversation. Regardless of what her body was saying, her brain knew she had to set limits. “I brought some things for a n
ice picnic. They’re in the trunk.”

  He shot her a disgusted look. “Nobody but girls brings a picnic to a stakeout.”

  “What should I have brought?”

  “I don’t know. Stakeout food. Cheap doughnuts, a thermos of hot coffee, and an empty bottle to pee in.”

  “Silly me.”

  “Not a pop bottle either. A big bottle.”

  “I’m going to try to forget that I’m a psychologist.”

  Ren waved to Massimo as he pulled up the drive, then swung toward the villa. “I need to see if the script’s arrived yet from Jenks. I’ll also make our pending absence known.”

  She smiled as she watched him disappear into the house. She’d laughed more in these few days with Ren Gage than in all three years she’d spent with Michael. Her smile faded as she poked at the leftover wounds from her broken engagement. They hadn’t healed yet, but they hurt in a different way. It wasn’t the hurt of a broken heart, but the hurt of wasting so much time on something that had never been right from the beginning.

  Her relationship with Michael had been like a pool of stagnant water. Never any churn or hidden eddies, no rocks jutting up to force either of them to change direction or move in new ways. They’d never quarreled, never challenged each other. There’d been no excitement and—Michael was right—no passion either.

  With Ren it would all be passion . . . passion churning through an ocean full of rocks. But just because the rocks were there didn’t mean she had to let herself run into any of them.

  He returned to the car looking luscious and harried. “The little nudist found my shaving cream and squirted herself a bikini.”

  “Inventive. Was the script there?”

  “No, damn it. And I think I have a broken toe. Jeremy found my hand weights and left one on the stairs. I don’t know how Tracy puts up with them.”

  “I think it’s different when they’re your own.” She tried to imagine Ren with children and saw gorgeous little demons who’d tie up baby-sitters, set off stink bombs, and prank-call the elderly. Not a pretty picture.

  She gazed over at him. “Remember that you weren’t any prize as a kid.”

  “True. The shrink my father sent me to when I was eleven explained that the only way I could get either of my parents’ attention was by acting up. I perfected misbehavior early on to keep myself in the spotlight.”

  “And you carried that same philosophy into your career.”

  “Hey, it worked for me as a kid. Everybody remembers the villain.”

  This wasn’t the time to talk about their relationship, but it might be a good time to put a gentle rock in his path—not to capsize him, merely to make him more aware. “You understand, don’t you, that we develop dysfunctions as children because we see them as essential to our survival?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Part of our maturity process is getting past that. Of course, the need for attention seems to be a common factor with most great actors, so in this case your dysfunction became highly functional.”

  “You think I’m a great actor?”

  “I think you have the potential, but you can’t be truly great as long as you keep playing the same part.”

  “That’s bull. Every part has its own nuance, so don’t tell me they’re all the same. And actors have always loved playing villains. It gives them a chance to pull out the stops.”

  “We’re not talking about actors in general. We’re talking about you and the fact that you’re not willing to play any other kind of part. Why is that?”

  “I already told you, and it’s too early in the morning for this discussion.”

  “Because you grew up with a distorted view of yourself. You were emotionally abused as a child, and now you need to be very clear about your motivation for choosing those parts.” Another small rock to toss in his direction, and then she’d leave him alone. “Are you doing it because you love playing those sadists or because on some level you don’t feel worthy to play the hero?”

  He slammed his fist against the steering wheel. “As God is my witness, this is the last time I am ever dating a fucking shrink.”

  She smiled to herself. “We’re not dating. And you’re speeding.”

  “Shut up.”

  She made a mental note to give him a list of the Healthy Relationship Rules of Fair Combat, not one of which advocated yelling “shut up.”

  They’d reached town, and as they drove past the piazza, she noticed a few heads turning to watch. “I don’t get it. Despite all your disguises, some of these people must know by now who you are, but they haven’t been pestering you for autographs. Don’t you think that’s odd?”

  “I told Anna I’d buy some new playground equipment for the local school if everybody left me alone.”

  “Considering the way you cultivate attention, hiding out must feel odd.”

  “Did you wake up this morning planning to irritate the hell out of me, or did it just happen?”

  “Speeding again.”

  He sighed.

  They left the town behind, and after another few kilometers they turned off the main road onto a much narrower one, where he finally condescended to speak to her again. “This leads to the abandoned castle on the hill above the house. We should have a decent view from there.”

  The road grew more rutted as they got closer. Finally it ended at the mouth of a trail, where Ren pulled off. As they began the climb through the trees, he grabbed the grocery sacks from her. “At least you didn’t bring one of those sissy picnic baskets.”

  “I do know a few things about covert operations.”

  He snorted.

  When they reached the clearing at the top, he stopped to read a battered historical marker at the edge of the site. She began to explore and discovered that the castle ruins weren’t just those of a single building but a fortification that had once held many buildings. Vines curled over the crumbling walls and climbed up the remains of the old watchtower. Trees grew through fragments of arches, and wildflowers poked through what might once have been the foundation stones of a stable or a granary.

  Ren abandoned the historical marker and joined her as she gazed over the vista of fields and woods. “This was an Etruscan burial site before the castle was built here,” he said.

  “A ruin on top of a ruin.” Even with the naked eye she could make out the farmhouse below, but both the garden and olive grove were empty. “Nothing’s happening.”

  He peered through the binoculars he’d brought. “We haven’t been gone long enough. This is Italy. They need time to get organized.”

  A bird flew from its nest in the wall behind them. Standing so close disturbed the peace of this place, and she moved away. Her feet crushed some wild mint. The sweet scent enveloped her.

  She noticed a section of wall with a domed niche. As she moved closer, she saw that it was the apse of what must have been a chapel. Faint traces of color were still visible in what was left of the dome—a russet that might once have been crimson, dusty shadows of blue, faded ocher. “Everything is so peaceful. I wonder why they left.”

  “The sign mentioned a plague in the fifteenth century combined with overtaxing by the neighborhood bishops. Or maybe they were driven away by the ghosts of the Etruscans buried here.”

  He sounded irritable again. She turned her back on him and gazed up into the dome. Churches generally calmed her, but Ren was too close. She smelled smoke and spun around to see him light a cigarette.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I only smoke one a day.”

  “Could you do it when I’m not around to watch?”

  He ignored her and took a deep drag, then wandered toward one of the portals. As he leaned against the stone, he looked moody and withdrawn. Maybe she shouldn’t have forced him to poke around in his childhood.

  “You’re wrong,” he said abruptly. “I’m perfectly capable of separating real life from the screen.”

  “I never said you weren’t.” She sat down on a secti
on of wall and studied his profile, so well proportioned and exquisitely carved. “I was only suggesting that the view of yourself you formed in childhood, when you were seeing and doing things no child should be exposed to, might not fit the man you’ve become.”

  “Don’t you read the papers?”

  She finally understood what was really bothering him. “You can’t stop brooding about what happened with Karli, can you?”

  He inhaled, not saying anything.

  “Why don’t you hold a press conference and tell the truth?” She plucked a stem of wild mint and crushed it between her fingers.

  “People are jaded. They’ll believe what they want to.”

  “You cared about her, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah. She was a sweet kid . . . and, God, so talented. It was hard watching all that go to waste.”

  She wrapped her arms around her knees. “How long were you together?”

  “Only a couple of months before I figured out how bad her drug problem was. Then I got suckered into a rescue fantasy and spent another few months trying to help her.” He flicked an ash, took another drag. “I arranged an intervention. Tried to talk her into rehab. Nothing worked, so I finally walked.”

  “I see.”

  He shot her a dark look. “What?”

  “Nothing.” She lifted the mint to her nose and wished she could let people be themselves without trying to fix them, especially when it was becoming increasingly obvious that the person who needed the most fixing was herself.

  “What’s that ‘I see’ crap? Say what you’re thinking. God knows that shouldn’t be hard for you.”

  “What do you think I’m thinking?”

  Smoke curled from his nostrils. “Suppose you tell me.”

  “I’m not your psychiatrist, Ren.”

  “I’ll write you a check. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

  “What’s on my mind isn’t important. It’s what’s on yours that counts.”

  “It sounds like you’re judging me.” He bristled with hostility. “It sounds like you think I could have done something to save her, and I don’t like it.”