The Proviso

by Moriah Jovan

  “I wanted to get her through her receivership as fast as possible so I could seduce her. I couldn’t do that while I was her trustee and fixing things invisibly, waiting for the epiphany, is a very long process. She didn’t need an epiphany. She just needed a third party to help her get the looters off her back.”

  “And now?”

  “I can’t even bear to look at her because I want her so badly and I know I can’t touch her. The Ford thing’s always been holding me back and now she’s ashamed she betrayed what to her was already a dead relationship.”

  “Did you ever ask her what she wanted or did you just assume she’d prefer Ford over Sebastian because Sebastian can barely get a date, much less a lover? Did you talk to her? Tell her what you wanted? That you wanted a relationship with her and would she please be so kind as to forget Ford and concentrate on Sebastian?”

  He groaned and dropped his face back in his hands.

  “Oh, I see. And you got in my face for being a coward for running away from Bryce. Congratulations. You’re as fucked up as the rest of us.”

  He could say nothing for a long while as he thought back, all the times he’d gotten angry with Eilis because he couldn’t see past his fixation with Ford, a man he hadn’t set out to become and couldn’t seem to get rid of.

  “Tell me what to do, Giz,” he whispered.

  “Act like nothing happened. Act like Sebastian Taight, HRP’s trustee, who doesn’t know that she loves him, who doesn’t know this happened tonight, who’s still trying to get her through her receivership for the same reason. Act the way you have always acted with her before you left her at Christie’s. You have to tell her who you are, but wait until you’re on equal footing again.”

  “How can I face her with the truth? I’ve betrayed her more than she thinks she’s betrayed me. She’s never made a secret of the fact she wanted Ford, but she has no clue I am Ford. I’ve left her hints, I’ve dropped her clues. She doesn’t even know there’s a crumb trail, much less that it leads straight to me. At the very least, I expected her to recognize you from my sketchbook and put it together on the way here. I wanted her to figure it out and she never did. She never will. He was too much of a fantasy for her to connect to a real man.”

  “Talk to her, Sebastian!” she shrieked. “You should have told her. You have to— Quit hiding behind Ford.” She stopped, took a breath. “You have to cut open your soul. Take it from a woman whose man hides his soul from her.”

  He choked.

  “Do you remember what you told me when I was ashamed for deceiving Bryce?”

  “No.”

  “You said, ‘So? It’s not like you pulled off some elaborate scam and made a fool of him.’ On a scale of one to ten, this is about a five. It’s recoverable. Just be patient and let her work through it at her own pace—and help her do that. As you. She loves you, Sebastian. She chose you over Ford. Don’t throw that back in her face.”

  * * * * *

  51: MOTHER’S DAY

  The Virgin was so kind, Eilis thought as she wrapped the blindfold around her head. Too choked up to speak, Eilis couldn’t protest and she didn’t want to see. She didn’t want to know where she had sunk so low, to know the shame of a betrayer. If she knew where she was, every time she drove past or heard the name of the suburb or neighborhood, it would remind her of this night.

  The Virgin helped Eilis down into the same soft, cradling bucket seat she’d sat in so expectantly on the journey here. Once the car was started and they were moving, the rich voices of Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli floated to her ears, but it only made her cry more.

  “I’m sorry,” the Virgin whispered and turned the music off. She stopped at a drive-through and got her a drink. She didn’t bother asking if Eilis wanted food, which meant Eilis didn’t have to speak or explain that food was the last thing she wanted. She sipped her diet cherry limeade in the silent darkness.

  A numb peace settled over Eilis during the long drive, then:

  “Okay, we’re here. You can take your blindfold off.”

  She did. Once the gate opened, the Virgin drove in, parked, then turned off the motor while the gate slid closed behind them. But she just sat there, unwilling to move, staring ahead, tears rolling down her face.

  The Virgin opened her door, and tugged on her arm until she could maneuver her out of the car. Eilis went with her, all too willing to be cared for by this small woman with the strength of a man.

  She took Eilis in, up the stairs to her room, undressed her, and tucked her in bed. She even brought her a drink of water.

  “Eilis,” she said softly, “I’m going to take down your painting. Where would you like me to put it?”

  Eilis couldn’t speak, couldn’t fathom a moment when that painting wouldn’t hang on her wall where she could see it the minute she opened her eyes in the morning.

  “Well,” said the Virgin after a while. “I’ll just put it on the floor then.”

  Eilis heard her take it down, turn it around, and lean it against the wall. Then she felt the Virgin over her, felt the soft kiss on her temple, the hand smoothing her hair.

  “I’m sorry, Eilis. I’m so sorry,” she whispered, and Eilis felt her tears drop on her face, the shift of the bed where she sat, and fell asleep with her mother’s soft hand stroking her hair.

  * * * * *

  Eilis awoke, unable to tell the time of day because her heavy drapes—the ones she never used—were drawn. Her clock had disappeared. Morning in Bed stood on the floor, face to the wall, and for that, she was glad. She arose, wrapped a thin robe around her so she couldn’t see her body in the mirror, and went downstairs to do . . . something.

  She wasn’t quite sure what.

  Startled when she heard sounds coming from her kitchen, her heart began to race. There were people in her house!

  “Thank you, Ares,” she heard from where she stood on the landing, out of sight but not out of earshot, a woman’s voice. The Virgin. Why was she still here? “Will you come back tonight?”

  “If you’re here, I will,” said a male voice, hoarse, raspy, much deeper, more damaged, than Ford’s. “I won’t sleep alone again.”

  “It was rough on me, too.”

  Long silence, and Eilis peeked around the corner to see the Virgin’s legs and arms wrapped around a very tall, very broad and well-dressed man with black hair and fair yet olive-tinted skin, who kissed her hungrily.

  She was married, Eilis realized in wonder. Yes, she wore a wedding ring, Eilis remembered now.

  Their kiss softened and deepened, and the Virgin whispered, “I don’t want you to go.”

  “I don’t want to go.” Not long after that, he let her slide slowly down his body and set her on her feet. “See you tonight. Have a good rest of the day.”

  “I’ll call you.”

  He left. Eilis watched as the Virgin watched her husband until his SUV was out the gate then activate the switch to close the gate behind him. She turned, her fingers to her mouth and a soft, dreamy smile on her face, then went back into the kitchen, out of sight.

  Eilis walked down the rest of the stairs, suddenly feeling bereft. Again. Ashamed. Guilty. For what she had done to Sebastian, what she had done to herself, what she’d not be able to have with Sebastian now. She reached the kitchen and saw that it was one o’clock in the afternoon. The Virgin stood over a double boiler, whisking the contents half to death. Curious, Eilis approached slowly to look over her shoulder.

  “Good morning, Eilis,” said the Virgin softly as she whisked.

  Eilis sniffled. “What’s that?”

  “Hollandaise sauce. For the steak and eggs. How are you feeling?”

  “Not well,” she whispered, a catch in her voice and her heart because of the gentleness and kindness of this woman whom she did not know. “My soul hurts.”

  Eilis didn’t know where that came from but the Virgin stopped whisking and looked at her, solemn, her eyes glittering with moisture. She swallowed. “What’s your
name?” Eilis whispered.

  The Virgin hesitated for a moment, went back to whisking, and then said, “You don’t need to know that.”

  “Why are you still here?”

  “I thought you could use someone to take care of you for a while. I— I, um— I can go if you don’t want me here . . . ”

  At the thought of that, someone to take care of her, Eilis shook her head and began to cry. Lunch was forgotten.

  The Virgin took her to the living room sofa and sat with her. She rocked Eilis and sang lullabies to her, stroked the hair that had stayed in its braid all night. This woman, the Virgin who wasn’t, was her mother yet again.

  And Eilis needed a mother so very badly. She began to pour out her soul to her mother. Her life, her history, the things she’d never told anyone, the things she could never tell Sebastian—would never have the chance to tell Sebastian. She didn’t refer to her biological parents by name because she hated them too much to validate their existence by speaking their names aloud.

  She kept talking, telling her everything that she had experienced and done, what had been forced upon her, even the most shameful of things that no one should ever know about her, the things no one did know. She told everything to her mother who had no name, who was here to take care of her and for no other reason, who would stay with her until she was stronger.

  Her mother cried with her and for her and over her, all through Eilis’s tale and when she was through, she said,

  “Sebastian fixed me.”

  The Virgin hiccuped. Sighed. Hiccuped again. Finally her mother said, “Do you love this man, Sebastian?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Because he fixed you?”

  “No. Because he brings me hope and joy. He brings me peace and quiet. He makes me believe that pain and failure don’t exist, that anything’s possible. He makes my past irrelevant to me.”

  “What do you do for him?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing, I guess,” Eilis said and began to cry again. “I’m too needy, too— I betrayed him. I can never look at him again. I’m so ashamed. I bring him nothing but anger and distrust, and he’s right to be angry and distrustful. I should have abandoned my fantasy when I had the chance and now it’s too late.”

  “I think you should not underestimate this man’s feelings for you, Eilis.”

  “I could never tell him what I’ve told you today. He would hate me.”

  The Virgin took a long, shuddering breath. “You don’t know that,” she said with a surety that struck Eilis as odd. “He fixed you; why would you think any of this would change his feelings for you?”

  “Because it’s horrible.”

  “And mostly none of your doing.”

  “I’m—” Eilis choked, “damaged.”

  “Everyone is damaged. He may have secrets he’s keeping from you. You don’t know.”

  Eilis had nothing to say to that.

  The Virgin sat quiet for a long time, except for the sniffles and an occasional hiccup. Then she said, “Eilis, I want to tell you a story. About when I deceived a man. When I hid from him for eight months because of my shame. And I ached over him, the way you ache now. I thought he would never, ever forgive me for the wrong that I had done him. And I waited eight months because of my shame. I went to him because my brothers said I should, and I confessed to him. I thought he would yell at me and tell me what a horrible person I was and look at me with contempt and walk away from me, but he didn’t.”

  “What did he do?” whispered Eilis, entranced.

  “He married me.”

  * * * * *

  Eilis and the Virgin sat at the table doing a jigsaw puzzle together, not a word between them, when that man, her husband she’d called Ares, called at the gate and Eilis let him in. She had never seen an uglier man in her life, the left side of his face and his left hand all scarred and twisted; the Man Without a Face. Pain radiated from those scars and Eilis felt it in her own skin. She wondered if his entire left side had been burnt. What an extraordinarily handsome man he must have been before . . .

  But there was kindness in that face, a peace that put her immediately at ease in spite of the name the Virgin had called him. She could see no war in him. She saw nothing but empathy and generosity of spirit.

  Eilis left the room because he lifted the Virgin up into his arms; she wrapped herself around him in greeting and they kissed. Long. Passionately. But she watched around the corner of the staircase landing with the kind of envy that is wistful and bittersweet.

  “I missed you,” the Virgin whispered to Ares, and Eilis eavesdropped shamelessly because she had never known married people who loved each other and were in love with each other. She didn’t know what it looked like.

  Until now.

  “I missed you back,” he said, his voice raspier and more hoarse than it had been earlier, though so full of fire and desire she could hear it across the distance. Love, lust, a whole host of things said in four little words: I missed you back.

  “How is she?” he asked quietly, still holding her wrapped around him.

  “A wreck. And now I am, too. I love her and I don’t even know her.”

  “That’s the way it is with you. You love everyone you protect.”

  I love her.

  You love everyone you protect.

  Eilis went to her room and lay down to cry. After a while, the Virgin came bringing her food and drink on a tray.

  “Eilis? Do you want me to sit with you?”

  “No,” she replied, sniffling. “I need to think.”

  “All right.”

  The Virgin stayed for a week, Ares coming every night to sleep with her, though not speaking much to Eilis. It was as if he thought if he spoke to her, she would break. Once, she tiptoed out of her room to listen to them make love because she needed to know that married people did that and it didn’t hurt and it wasn’t a chore and it could be pleasurable.

  But when she heard Ares’s harsh, cruel voice, it startled her and distressed her, frightened her, even; it triggered horrible feelings in her she never wanted to feel again.

  Go get my tie.

  Turn around and put your hands behind your back.

  Get on your knees.

  Suck my cock. Harder.

  Stand up. Bend over the bed. Open your legs so I can see your pussy. Wider. Wider.

  I’m fucking you so you’ll stay fucked.

  The Virgin burst out laughing. “You had to break out the Henry Miller, didn’t you?”

  Ares chuckled warmly. “Yeah. Haven’t finished the Story of O yet.”

  “I’ve corrupted you.”

  “Not completely. Come to bed, Wife.”

  And though Eilis could clearly hear that the man was smitten with his wife, and she with her husband, she hated their way and it gave her no peace.

  She tiptoed back to her room.

  I went to him because my brothers said I should, and I confessed to him.

  What did he do?

  He married me.

  * * * * *

  52: FULL DISCLOSURE

  MAY 2007

  Giselle finally graduated from law school—not with honors, but she didn’t care about such things. It was more important that, except for her last two semesters, she’d worked her way through without using student loan money to live on. Now, today, it was enough that she had become an attorney and could practice once she passed the bar. Though she still occasionally mourned her bookstore, she had a job waiting for her in two months and a long-term goal.

  Justice McKinley graduated summa cum laude with the name she’d made for herself in political circles. She’d probably head out to Washington to play pundit on TV or conservative talk radio. Giselle smiled to herself, knowing that once Knox’s birthday passed in a year and a half, that girl would open her door the next day and find him on her stoop. Then all would be right in her world.

  And his.

  When Giselle pointed her out to Bryce, he thought Knox had lost his m
ind. “Not that I have room to talk, mind.”

  “Remember,” she said, “I told you Knox falls in love with souls. He probably hasn’t noticed what she looks like at all other than the red hair. Trust me, there’s a faery princess underneath all that frizz and bad fashion.”

  Giselle’s entire family, save Fen and Trudy, appropriated a large section of the bleachers to see her graduate. “Trudy won’t show up on Knox’s turf,” Giselle told Bryce. “UMKC is the only place in town he can come and socialize and be treated well.”

  Knox stood on the stage with the other professors, resplendent in full academic regalia. When Giselle crossed the stage to get her diploma, he grabbed her to give her a bear hug and a loud smack on the cheek. He laughed at her shock, and the rest of the graduates hooted and whistled, the strange hostilities between Professor Hilliard and Giselle Cox apparently over.

  Bryce’s presence in the audience, along with Sebastian’s, Morgan’s, and Étienne’s, was duly noted. Sebastian kept people away from him with his trademark scowl, substantially more threatening than usual. Morgan glad-handed anybody who walked by and chatted at people with great enthusiasm. Étienne argued vehemently with a professor who dabbled in “making stuff,” and Giselle shook her head at the man’s foolishness. Bryce cast baleful glances at her across the auditorium when he found himself surrounded by professors and graduates clamoring for his attention. She smiled at him and blew him a kiss.

  “He had no idea he was so popular around here, did he?” Knox said, appearing beside her to watch.

  “I told him. He didn’t believe me.”

  “Good job, Giselle. I’m proud of you.”

  “No thanks to you,” she groused.

  He let loose a wicked laugh. “I love poking at you, especially in public. Priceless!”

  She huffed, but when he abruptly stopped laughing, she looked up at him. His mouth tight, he stared into the crowd and she followed his line of sight. There, summa cum laude Justice, alone and unnoticed, walked out of the auditorium, her head bowed. She felt Knox’s fist clench and unclench against her and tension radiated from his body. She stopped him with a hand on his forearm when he took a step to follow her out.