Besotted (10 page)

I indicate the divan and we sit next to each other. Tia, my solid chocolate Persian, poses on her chair across from us. My eyes graze the thigh next to mine. Under the fine wool it is sculptured with hard muscles. I have seen the photographs. I grasp the teapot and pour tea into two cups. I know exactly how he likes his—black, two sugars.

‘Milk?’ I ask.

‘Black.’

‘Sugar?’

‘Two please.’

He watches me as I drop two sugar cubes into his tea. I hold it out to him. I am dying to touch the shapely, masculine fingers, but I don’t. He takes the saucer by its lip, far away from my fingers. I raise my eyes towards him and take a small sip of my tea—milk, no sugar.

‘I’m sorry about your father. He was a good man.’ I smile sadly at him. I don’t have to pretend sorrow. The death of his father is a great, great blow to me. He was an ally, a very powerful ally. A friend I could trust with my back. One who shared the same goal. But he is gone now.

‘Thank you.’ His voice is far away.

‘And now you are the head of the Barrington fortune.’

He frowns. It makes him look commanding.

I reach for a gold-rimmed plate of fruitcake. Since he was a boy he never could resist fruitcake. I had these specially ordered from my father’s chef. ‘Would you like a slice?’

‘Thank you.’

I watch him bite into it. He is perfect. From the bold, hard slash of his mouth to the taut cheekbones to his naturally bronze coloring, to the dark hair, he is perfect. He is my heart. He is mine. The thought is fiercely possessive and feels right. I must have him or I will die.

I reach under the white muslin for a scone. It is still warm. I butter it, spread a thin layer of jam, bring it to my mouth, and realize I will be sick if it passes my lips. But he is watching me with the narrowed eyes of a predator. Narrowed and assessing. What is he thinking? I have photos of him when he is with that ridiculous woman, when his eyes are caressing and infinitely tender. I take a small bite, chew until I can no longer bear it in my mouth, and swallow. A mouthful of tea makes it go down.

‘Look, I might as well come clean right away. I’ve fallen in love with Lana,’ he announces abruptly.

Fourteen

I
think my eyes widen. From the moment I met his cold, dead eyes at the front door I had been expecting such a declaration, but my reaction was involuntary. Simply couldn’t help it. Hearing the harshness of his words. No ‘Sorry I wasted your fucking time. Sorry I led you on a merry dance all these years. Sorry I irreparably shattered your heart into a thousand sharp shards.’ Nothing. Just that arrow right into my heart. A sick fury rises inside me. The fury of being denied, deprived. When I was two I didn’t throw myself on the ground in a tantrum, I used to run to the servants and kick and punch them hard. Until the fury was appeased and abated. I cannot show him that rage. I lower my eyes quickly.

‘I’m really sorry,’ he says.

His voice is gentle, but when I look up at him, his eyes are watchful, utterly, utterly unrepentant and full of the realization of how foolish the idea of marrying me was. How could he ever have thought he could marry me and play house?

‘She doesn’t understand our ways. She won’t have the stomach to do the
necessary
things.’

A veil comes over his eyes. ‘I don’t want her to do any of those things. I want to keep her out of all that. We will be a normal family.’

‘But you have taken the vow.’

‘The only vow I have taken is silence. And I won’t break that.’

‘From the path thou shall not stray.’

‘I already have.’

I frown. ‘You’d give up ultimate power for her?’

He smiles sadly. ‘Oh, Victoria. How little you know me. I was not even going to ask you to do those things. I don’t want the power. I detest what we are doing. I went along because I didn’t know any better. Let the others fight it out for the ultimate power. The only reason I remain is because leaving is not an option.’

I reach out a hand and touch his sleeve and… He recoils. Imperceptibly, but it is there. An inhuman claw inside my chest squeezes tighter and tighter until I feel I almost cannot breathe at all. So this also is love, I reflect with wonder. No one can imagine just how poisonous is the hate in my heart for that beastly woman who stole my man.

Lana fucking Bloom.

She had no right. I rock with helpless pain.

Instantly, he reaches for my hand. It is satiny soft, but icy and quite lifeless.

‘Are you all right?’ His voice seems muffled, as if he is talking to me while I am under water.

I nod. I must gather myself. I can still turn this around. I take a deep breath, stop rocking, and, dry-eyed, turn to look at him.

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ he repeats.

I fix a bright smile on my lips. ‘Of course.’

‘You deserve to find someone who will love you. We didn’t love each other. We were marrying for all the wrong reasons. I know that now,’ he says with breathtaking masculine selfishness.

Yes, you found your slut and now you just want to push me away. I recall again how I had decided to offer myself to him when he called me this morning. To show him how good we’d be together.

I nod. ‘You are right. This is probably for the best. We would probably have ended up in the divorce courts.’ I smile again. Conciliatory.

He reciprocates with a smile of his own. He thinks it is all over. Just like that he can wash his hands of me.

‘You have a son?’

Twin lights blossom in his eyes. If he takes out his wallet and shows me a picture of their blasted baby, I swear, I will scream, but he doesn’t.

‘He’s the joy of my life,’ he says simply.

In those few words I see a world I can never have. In my head a voice is sneering, ‘Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.’ Of their own accord my delicate fingers start drumming dangerously on the glass-topped coffee table. I see his eyes shift to my hand. I jerk it away and clasp it in my other hand. I need to do something quickly. He is fixing to leave. I swallow hard at the lump in my throat and stare at the glass surface. How insidiously smooth and unyielding it is. My vision takes in the edge of the plate with the uneaten scone, the butter knife… It is sheer madness, I could even put my eye out, but in a split second I make my decision.

I let my body pitch forward as if my bones have suddenly melted. The smooth hard glass, the knife’s gleaming blade, and sharp edge of the table rise up to meet my face. Anybody else would have halted their fall, saved themselves, given in to the instinct to protect themselves. I didn’t.

And what a good thing that I was brave.

I risked gouging out my eye and won. Just inches away from the pointed end of the knife, hard hands catch me by the arms. I am bodily lifted and held close to his body, the scent of him assailing my senses. God, I love this man so much. I keep my eyes closed, my body limp and floppy. My dress has ridden up my thighs.

‘Victoria,’ Blake calls urgently, but I allow my neck to droop over his arms, so my throat is bared to him and he can savor the vulnerability of my lifeless limbs in his arms. Let him feel masculine and strong and protective. The position is awkward and he stands lifting me up with him. It is unexpectedly and deliciously romantic, and I feel like one of those women on the jacket covers of the voluptuous romances my mother reads.

I wish he could hold me like this forever, but he lays me back on the divan. However, he is so gentle about it that I suddenly realize he must love me. He doesn’t know it, but it is I who am the one he truly loves. He must just use her for sex. It is me that he loves. Always me. He pulls my dress down over my thighs. What a gentleman. He could have taken advantage of me. Peeked at my sex. Or even had sex with my inert body.

That is a great fantasy of mine.

That I would lie on a table as if in a swoon and a total stranger, someone dark and dangerous, someone like Blake, would come and roughly thrust my thighs open, and fuck my plump little sex mercilessly, painfully. I would feel everything, but I would be unable to make a single sound of protest as his enormous organ would split me remorselessly.

But as the man realizes how hungry and wet I am for him, he understands that I crave the thorough use of my body. Then he becomes sublimely cruel. My own silence deafens me. I weep silently as he does terrible things to me. Until I am hardly human. Afterwards, he will leave even before I wake up.

Sometimes I would even fantasize that a group of men come, all colors and scents, to use my body while I am lying there. None of them would use condoms. They would use every orifice. They would speak of me as if I was nothing but a piece of meat.

Blake is sliding his hands away from under the backs of my knees and my neck and I sense him standing. Seconds later my head is lifted and a cushion placed under it. I hear him striding towards the bathroom. He returns with a cold face towel that he lays on my forehead. I moan softly and allow my eyelids to flutter slightly. He calls my name. I open my eyes and allow them to roll a little.

‘What happened?’ I ask weakly.

‘You fainted.’

I attempt to rise to my elbows, then pretend as if the effort is making me dizzy. My head sways unsteadily.

‘Take it easy. Lie back down.’

I let myself fall back with a sigh. I look up at him. He is frowning.

‘Does this happen often?’ he asks.

I shake my head. ‘I’ll be fine in a minute.’

‘Can I get you anything?’

‘I feel cold.’

He looks around and, seeing nothing with which to cover me, takes off his jacket and lays it on my upper body. The warmth of his body lingers and I just want to close my eyes and savor it. Oh, why, oh why did she come and steal him away from me? Everything was going fine until she came into the picture. He loves me really. We are not strangers. We have grown up together.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says softly.

I know he is. It is that filthy bitch who has him all tied up with sex. I should have slept with him, I would have him now. My heart is full of bitter regret that I never slept with him.

‘It’s not your fault,’ I whisper. Tears begin to flow from my eyes.

He kneels beside me.

‘Do you know what I regret the most?’

‘No.’

‘I regret that we never made love, even once. Can we? Just once. For old times sake?’ 

My tears dry as suddenly as they began. I look up at him through damp lashes. He is staring at me without revealing any emotion, but my heart and my eyes are full of hot, hungry craving for him. My whole being is on fire for him. Right then all I want is to feel his burning lips on my lips, face, throat, breasts, between my legs…until I am driven out of my mind. I snake my tongue out, run it along my lower lip.

‘Just this once.’ My voice is husky and thick, my eyes half-hooded.

He is still staring at me sans expression, so I bend my head so my hair parts and exposes the defenseless white curve that is the nape of my neck. For a moment Blake makes neither move nor response, until unexpectedly, in the downcast line of my vision, I see his leather shoes quietly turn away from me. And start to head towards the door. He is leaving. He is actually going.

The bastard!

For a precious few seconds I lie shocked, silent and paralyzed, the blood running cold in my veins. Even my brain refuses to think. It never, never occurred to me that he could simply walk away from me. What now?

Then I stand and call him.

He doesn’t stop.

My stomach lurches. ‘You can’t leave me.’

He stops and turns around to face me. His laughter rings hollow, rasping and devoid of humor. ‘You see something you want, you just reach out and take it, don’t you?’

‘You’re a fine one to talk,’ I retort. Shit I shouldn’t have said that. I stare at him in a panic. It has all gone so wrong.

‘You’re so fucking spoilt.’ His words do not match his eyes, though. They are weary, the eyes of a man who has had enough. He shakes his head and starts walking away from me. He is already at the door. His hand is reaching for the handle. And suddenly I know. I know exactly how to stop him in his tracks. And I know how to make it convincing, too. I take a rush of air into my lungs.

‘I know what it tastes like. I’ve taken part,’ I cry out. My voice is like a bell in the silent room.

His hand freezes. He turns slowly. ‘What?’

Fifteen

H
is expression is one of great shock. My father is not a lowly member to offer his daughter in such a way. There is a seed of distrust in his eyes, and yet there is compassion and softness. She has changed him. I have never seen this look in his eyes.

‘I was just a child. I never made a sound. I never saw their faces. They took turns. I can never forget,’ I whisper. I am a convincing actress.

He strides over to me and puts his arms around me. ‘I’m sorry, Victoria. So sorry. I didn’t know. He should have protected you.’

‘It doesn’t matter now. I just wanted you to know that I’ve suffered too.’