His Brand of Beautiful (28 page)

Tate closed the gap to the couch and sat beside her, lifted her legs to reposition them across his thighs. “Why would there be a story?” The sheen of tracksuit felt good as he stroked her shin.

She sat straighter. “Could you not, do that?”

He didn’t stop and she sighed and leaned back into the corner of the couch and after a few seconds prompted: “You were saying, about the house?”

“Jesus, you don’t give up.” He waved his hand over her thigh like it was no big deal but deep down his gut churned. “I bought this place because people I trusted said I needed somewhere to entertain clients away from the office. Dinners. Drinks. Stuff like that.” He tapped his fingers on Christina’s shin. “I sent Jolie the link and she said it looked like a washing machine.”

She chuckled. “I thought Laundromat too when I came here last Saturday. I thought I had the wrong house. And that fountain in the front yard? What’s
with
that?”

“Don’t get me started on the garden.” He moved her knee‐cap gently side to side.

“If you hate this place so much, why not sell it?”

“The market’s not right.”

“Not now, maybe, but it hasn’t been bad for six years. How much entertaining have you actually done here anyway?” It took him too long to come up with something convincing and she answered her own question, poking at his shoulder like a woodpecker.

“It’s none isn’t it? You can’t have a party when you haven’t even unpacked the glasses.”

“Give me a break.” He made a ring around her shin with his middle finger and thumb, and squeezed lightly.

“You’re allowed to be happy Tate.”

It rocked him. “I
am
happy.”

“This place is a shell. The chicken busted out a long time ago. There’s no soul here.”

Her eyes were solemn as a funeral. “You think you deserve this place because of what happened to Jolie. Because you signed the contract that day she flew to Harare instead of going out to meet her at the airport. It’s like you’re doing penance.”

“It’s just a house, Christina. Four walls and I can spit from here to the office. End of story.”

“Bullshit.” She crossed her arms. “It’s like a hot air balloon. Looks impressive but there’s nothing inside.”

He dropped his hand to her shoelace, pulled the long end so the bow fell to bits. The heel of her Nike came away in his hand.

“Don’t,” she said, between beats of the clock. “My feet must stink.”

He ignored her and unravelled the bow on the other shoe. “I’ll run you a bath.”

“It’s four o’clock in the afternoon, Tate. It’s too early for a bath.”

“I’m not fighting you every minute you’re here with me. If you want a bath at four in the afternoon, have a bath.” He eased her sock off and rubbed the ankle she tried to tug from his hand. At least he’d stopped her talking about the house.

“Okay. I’ll have a bath, just please don’t smell my feet.”

He scooped her up. Her arms flailed like a beetle on its back, an elbow collected his ribs. Christina’s pony‐tail swung in time with his steps and the peak of the baseball cap couldn’t hide the set of her chin, pink lips pressed tight.

“I can walk,” she said.

“This is faster.”

He jiggled her once when he turned the bend in the stairs because the tracksuit was slippery and he had to be sure of her weight. They passed a crimson slash of material that filled most of the stairwell.

“You hung my shawl.” She sounded stunned. Pleased.

Turning left off the landing toward the guest bathroom, he jiggled her again. A toe-poke opened the door and he placed her on her feet on grey slate. She stood there in her sheeny tracksuit, one sock on, one sock off, like a child.

He punched up forty‐five on the temperature control, turned the tap, slotted the plug in the drain then spread out a blue bathmat. Water slammed into the tub, echoed on cast iron. A handful of the salt crystals Lila Blu had left behind made the rising steam smell of the sea.

Christina hadn’t moved.

Rough now, because he needed a reaction, he knocked her cap from her head. She groped for it, caught it between their bodies before it fell. Loose tresses tumbled down her cheeks and the pony tail slid around her shoulder, the elastic almost gone.

When he caught the T‐shirt at her waist, a protest stuck in her throat.

“Let me,” he whispered, gentle again. “It’s not like I haven’t seen you before. Let me.

I want to.”

Lily Malone

Her cap fell from listless fingers. He pulled the shirt over her head and dropped it in a puddle of pink, then slid to his knees on the slate.

His hands found the indents either side of her waist and he pressed his cheek against the proud swell of belly prodding the air, closed his eyes and inhaled. He felt, more than heard, the breath float in and out of her lungs while water barrelled into the tub. When he turned his head to brush a kiss on her abdomen, he tasted the tang of sweat. That special rainforest flavour that would only ever be hers.

She let him slide the tracksuit pants down, stepped out of each leg, but stopped him when he tried to hook the waistband of her knickers.

“I’ll do it. Can you please turn around?” Her voice broke on the please.

He climbed from his knees, tipped her chin so he could see her eyes. “You’re carrying my child, Christina. I think your body is beautiful. Don’t be embarrassed.”

“I’m not embarrassed. It’s all just—” teeth cut at her lip and it trembled and the next words came in a rush “—it’s all too much. Why are you being so nice? You were so—” she hugged her arms across her stomach, “—angry at the way I tricked you. Cold when I came here last weekend. Now you’re being so sweet about everything, you’ll make me cry.”

He had his reaction now. He sensed she was just barely keeping it together. “Cry if you want, sweetheart. You can do anything now you’re here. I’ll go find you a towel. I’ll be back.”

When Christina was sure Tate had gone, she turned off the water. Silence rang absolute. Her insides felt liquid, sloppy, like jelly not yet set. Not a good feeling. Her body, motionless in bra and knickers and one ankle‐high sock, glimmered palely in the bathroom mirror.

She hurt inside. She hurt all over, and she couldn’t blame the City to Bay. This was a deeper, in‐your‐bones, kind of pain.

She didn’t want to look at the shape of her belly. She couldn’t look at herself. How Tate saw anything beautiful in her after everything she’d done, was a miracle. She wasn’t beautiful. She was ugly inside. Selfish. Manipulative. Lacy was right.

What type of mother would that make her?

Her thoughts bounced off the mirror, off the window, off the water—prisms without colour—over too many reflective surfaces that left her nowhere to hide. Not that she deserved to hide.

Behind a mirrored cabinet she found black bottles of shampoo and conditioner. She upended the shampoo beneath the chrome bath tap and switched the hot water faucet to full. Bubbles frothed like the base of a waterfall and when they filled the bath, she turned off the flow. In the ringing silence, she heard movement on the stairs.

Christina ripped off her underwear and let it slew over slate, stepped into the tub—

skin turning pink—and sank below the slippery foam. The back of her head kissed the bottom of the bath, her hair floated up around her face and her ears plugged with water so that all she could hear was her pulse: like a thousand boots stomping in time. She wished she could hold her breath forever.

There was a tap on the door. Christina sat up with a rush, lungs bursting.

Tate set a tumbler on a shelf near her head and folded the towel over the rail. The wet pop of a zillion bubbles filled the bathroom.

“No champagne huh?” She said, turning her shoulders to reach the orange juice.

“No champagne. Sorry. Dorm rules.”

On haunches, he laid his forearms on the edge of the bath and let foam lick the tips of his fingers. Sweat beaded his forehead, dripped between his shoulder blades.

“Where did you find bubble bath?”

“It’s shampoo. It was in the cabinet.”

Lila’s
. Tate rolled his shirt sleeves then dipped his right hand lower. He found her knee, slippery with suds. When he touched it, water sloshed against the side of the bath as she sat straight. The bubble shield around her shoulders parted long enough to let him glimpse a dark bud of violet nipple, a jutting swell of breast. It felt like someone used the base of his balls to strike a match.

“You’re losing your bubbles,” he said.

“Nothing lasts forever.” Her voice was quiet, tired. He thought she sounded sad.

His stroke angled to the inside of her thigh, dipped lower. “You wouldn’t know, Christina. You won’t give forever a try.”

“Please let’s not talk about it.” Her face twisted, and there was a raw edge to her voice that had him thinking she really might cry if he pushed her too hard. But in the heat and the steam and the silence, he felt that her barriers were weakened. He pressed a little more.

“You’re scared of marriage because you think you’ll let me down, I get that,” he said softly. “I’m a big boy, sweetheart. You’re not responsible for my happiness. You’re not your mother, Christina. If you disappoint me, I’ll deal with it. We’ll deal with it together.”

Glass clinked glass as she replaced the tumbler of juice on the shelf, her hand not quite steady. Bubbles ran down her arm, dripped from her elbow.

“Isn’t what we have enough?” She laid her head back. Her fingers gripped the edge of the bath as his touch moved lower still. Silky lashes drifted closed.

“And what is it you think we have?”

“You. Me...
Oh
. This...” She groaned because his fingers were working at her now, nudging the slippery folds. He heard her gasp, like the sigh of a soft‐drink bottle opening.

Her hips rose to meet him, legs softly thrashed at the water. He could make her come with his hand alone, just like this, if he wanted to. He knew it. She knew it too.

“It’s not enough for me,” he said, ignoring the ache in his cock and the bite where the edge of the bath pressed a button into his chest. Taking his hand away took all his willpower.

Her eyes opened, lids lazy.

“You give me your body without reservation, but you lock everything else away. In here,” he touched her temple, “and here,” he touched the layer of bubbles hiding her heart.

“The only time you let it free is when we make love. When I’m inside you, it’s like everything that frightens you gets stripped away.”

She stared at him with huge green eyes and it was as if all the punch and swagger that made her Christina Clay, fighting the world, drained away.

“I love you,” he said.

“I’m no good at love, Tate,” she whispered, almost as if he’d caused her physical pain. Her hand slipped into the water, opening a dark pocket in the bubbles to reveal the depths below.

“Right here,” he touched her heart again lightly then dragged his finger down to her belly. “That’s what I’m fighting for. That’s why I won’t give up. That’s our future right there.

Our family.”

Lily Malone

“Maybe,” she said, raising her hand to his forearm. “I don’t know. You were always the one who had the way with words.”

He thought of the Rubens’ cherub he’d seen stitched on the baby suit. “You don’t need words, Christina. You say more without opening your mouth than any woman I’ve ever known.”

“I can’t talk about it any more. Please?” She held out her hand.

He leaned over, took her hand and helped her up. She stepped out on to the bathmat, dripping water and bubbles like rivers. He wrapped her shoulders in the towel and held her close. It was a long time before he calmed her shakes.

“I think I’m dry now.” Christina took the towel from Tate and wrapped it under her armpits.

Water gurgled down the drain. She willed her body still and straight, willed her shoulders calm. She’d been caught in the fast, jarring shakes of a person pulled blue from the water. Adrenalin shakes, they were, she knew all about them. She’d had them in hospital after the miscarriage.

“You’re sleeping in the bedroom right across the hall,” he told her. “I’ll bring up the rest of your stuff from the car.”

She thought she’d misheard. “I’m not sleeping with you?”

“No,” he said simply. He touched a finger beneath her chin, tilted it up so she couldn’t evade his eyes. “I didn’t ask you to move in here because I want your body, no matter how tempting it is. I want all of you, Christina. When you can give me that, let me know. I’ll be there.”

When Tate left, Christina slumped to the edge of the bath, watched drops of condensation mist the mirror.

Minutes ticked by. The shakes didn’t return, nor did the tears. And as the cast‐iron edge of the bath grew cool beneath her thighs, she felt better. She felt the best she had in weeks. Oh, since that sweaty afternoon when she’d read him the scene from her book; before cattle bans and babies and brands got in the way.
Tate loved her.
Warts and all.

It was cooler out of the bathroom. Her feet left steamy prints on the floorboards as she stepped across the corridor. Her bedroom door scraped inwards over latte‐coloured wool carpet. Two paces into the room she stopped like she’d hit an invisible wall.

There wasn’t a brown cardboard box in sight.

Her queen‐size bed had been made, with hospital corners no less. The burgundy quilt spread without a crease, pillows plump and fluffed. In a corner, her hat‐stand stood like a scarecrow without its clothes.

Afternoon light streamed beneath white Roman blinds. Beyond the window, the neighbour’s twin chimneys raced cone‐shaped dark tips of pencil pines to the sky. The room smelled faintly of popcorn.

Built‐in‐robes, painted white, filled all of one wall and she padded to them, opened the double doors and stepped back.

Well that’s a bit weird.

She pulled out a pair of grey linen trousers, one of her favourite soft white long-sleeved shirts with a sweetheart neck and a purple‐patterned short tunic dress to go over the top.

Dressing quickly, she tried the next wardrobe door. Her eyes stuck on shelf after shelf of perfectly folded clothes: knickers, bras, socks, T‐shirts, leggings.