The Proviso (32 page)

Nobody had ever figured that out on first glance
before and usually, not even second, third, or fourth. She liked it
that way; it allowed her a great deal of freedom she would not
otherwise have. Not even Fen Hilliard recognized her out of
costume.

Sebastian pursed his lips and looked down at the
floor, his hands behind his back. He rocked back on his heels. “How
are you going to find Ford?” he asked her. “No one else has ever
been able to.”

“I have
Morning in Bed
,” she replied, her
confidence gathering steam as she realized that he might point out
all the ways she would fail, but he wouldn’t make fun of her. “I’ve
found the clues that are embedded in it.”
What clues?
She’d
never found any clues, but saying she had might make her case
stronger.

“Ah.” He didn’t speak for a moment. Then, “Care to
share?”

“Certainly not. You’re obviously as much a Ford
aficionado as I am and I would never give you that kind of
leverage.”

“Is that what you think of me?”

“You have a reputation, Mr. Taight. You play by the
rules, but you interpret them liberally. You like having leverage
and you don’t cut anybody any slack. I would presume that this
would be one of those times that you’d take finding him first as
your due.”

He stared at her with that intense, incredibly
handsome face and again she felt shivers run up and down her spine.
He was taller than she by only a smidge, but a smidge was enough at
her height. He was well built and muscular, his body broad and much
bigger than hers, a man she wouldn’t smash to pieces if—

She swallowed and turned away from him then,
disturbed by the sudden visual of herself naked, straddling
Sebastian Taight’s naked hips, his huge hands wrapped around her
waist. He was King Midas, her enemy: Related to both Knox and Fen
Hilliard, having complete control of her company, taking away her
paintings—she shouldn’t dare think of King Midas that way.
Certainly, no one else did, so what was
her
problem?

Eilis felt his hand on her elbow, guiding her deeper
into the rest of the gallery and away from the Ford exhibit. They
walked in silence past many modern pieces, most of which she didn’t
like.

“I have trouble communicating with women,” he said
suddenly, startling her. “I— A while back— Uh, hmm. I’m not good
with—” He stopped. Swallowed. “Women are afraid of me.” He stopped
again, took a deep breath. “Ah, well, uh— So in trying not to scare
anybody, I don’t say the right things and then they’re not only
scared, they’re mad, too.”

He hadn’t had any trouble communicating with her
Thursday. Was she afraid? Yes, because of what he could do to her
company. Was she angry? Yes, because he’d picked her out so easily.
Neither had had anything to do with his communication skills.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I want to ask you something and I don’t
know if it’ll come out right. I’ll probably upset you and then
you’ll—”

Leave.
He bit it off, but it hung heavy in
the air.

“What do you want to ask me?”

He hesitated. She could sense his discomfort and
felt sorry for him. “May I kiss you?”

She blinked. Interesting. He’d asked permission. And
oh, how she was tempted! “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Mr.
Taight. You’re my trustee and I’m being punished for having made a
very bad decision in my personal life. I’m not sure my judgment in
men is all that good.”

“I see. You’re right, of course,” he said graciously
as they continued their stroll through the gallery.

* * * * *

30:
JASMINE IN MY MIND

The air was cool for an August Sunday in the middle
of the afternoon and the breeze blew Giselle’s hair all around her.
Bryce sat on a picnic table in Cancer Survivor’s Park, his legs
hanging off the edge. She sat on the table facing him.

Despite her soreness, she’d draped her left knee
over his thigh and stretched her right leg out behind him. The
inside of her thigh caressed his tight denim-clad ass and she was
about as close to him as she could get without being naked and on
top of him.

Neither spoke as they shared a dish of gourmet
cheeses until—

“I feel weird because I’m not at church right now,”
she murmured, “and why.”

“You go to church often enough that not going is an
event?”

She nodded. “Every Sunday. It’s a respite for me,
like meditating in front of the bodhisattva.”

He said nothing for a moment. Then, “I’ve only been
a few times since the fire. The last time I went was after I met
you at Hale’s.” She started. “I wanted to find some answers as to
how to deal with you.”

“Because you thought Knox and I were lovers.”

He nodded.

“So how’d that work out for you?”

He grimaced. “It didn’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. I’m here with you.”

She smiled, delight curling through her, but it
faltered.

“What?”

She sighed. “It’s— I don’t— We still don’t know each
other very well.”

“Yes, we do.” He tapped her sternum with a finger.
“We just don’t know details and time provides those.”

“You haven’t talked about your children or your wife
much. I know you loved your kids and didn’t like your wife and . .
. that’s about it.”

He grunted and pulled away a bit; he picked out
another piece of cheese. He stared blankly in front of him, his
mouth pursed. “Where to begin? My wife’s name was Michelle. She was
the most faithless, evil woman I’ve ever met.”

“How’d you end up married to her then?”

He took a deep breath. “I was trying to avoid women
like you,” he murmured without a shred of humor, and Giselle
shifted, surprised. “I’ve always loved women like you, dangerous,
strong. Educated women with edgy personalities. Women who like to
fuck. Hard. Nasty. I thought I was sinful just for wanting that and
Michelle was not that. She was sweet and demure, a little light in
the IQ department but not enough to be annoying. She talked exactly
the right Good-LDS-Girl talk and walked exactly the right
Good-LDS-Girl walk. In public. I envisioned our life together as
quiet and calm, which didn’t really excite me, but I thought she
would cure me of my nastiness.”

Bryce glanced at Giselle slyly and she smiled.

“She fooled me. Fooled my parents, my siblings. Knox
was the only person who told me I was making a mistake, but he was
the lone voice in the wilderness and his opinion was competing with
everyone else’s and my goal of—” He gestured in the air, searching
for words.

“Purification.”

He pointed at her and nodded. “That’s it. My father
hated Knox, thought he was a bad influence on me. They went
head-to-head on doctrine a couple of times and—”

“Knox knows doctrine like the back of his hand.”

“And he’s not shy about shining a bright light on
the church’s less-than-stellar history. My dad wouldn’t talk to
Knox after the second time he got trounced.”

Giselle said nothing for a bit. Then, “So . . . you
got married in the temple.”

“Yes, in San Diego. Michelle lied through her teeth
to get her temple recommend. It took maybe a week? two weeks? for
her to show her true colors. She . . . ” He took a deep breath.
“She
hated
me.”

Giselle’s mouth dropped open. “Why?” she breathed.
“Why did
she
marry
you
?”

He shrugged. “Her parents liked me and pressured her
into it. She went along with it because I was arm candy with money
potential. I was really naïve and she knew she’d be able to keep
partying because I wouldn’t suspect anything. Perfect trophy
husband, perfect cover, potentially unlimited funds.”

“Was she pretty?”

“She was a model. Blonde. Tall and thin, fragile.
Exactly what I wasn’t that attracted to. I figured that between not
really being attracted to her and her fragility, I wouldn’t be
tempted to indulge my, ah, kinks. Somewhere in the first six months
or so she must have figured out I
had
kinks because that’s
when she started to hate me. I was too big for her tastes.”

Giselle smirked. “Which part?”

He burst out laughing, then touched his nose to
hers. “Every. Inch. Of. Me,” he purred, but caught Giselle’s grin
in a kiss, brief but hot. They were still chuckling when he
continued. “Michelle needed physical control and she chose her
partners based on their size and willingness to submit and take
punishment.”

“So . . . what
did
you get from her?”

“Very little. I didn’t understand what she wanted,
why she didn’t like sex with me—well, hell, why
I
didn’t
like sex with her.”

“You’re lying there trying not to think about your
kink, because you thought even thinking about it’s sinful, and
she’s out indulging hers.”

He nodded. “I didn’t know any of this. I found her
fetish stash right after she got pregnant with my youngest and I’d
already started divorce proceedings. I didn’t know what it was,
told my divorce lawyer, and he sat me down and gave me the facts of
life.”

“Did that shock you?”

He grinned suddenly. “What shocked me was that the
things I’d been trying so hard
not
to fantasize about since
I hit puberty had a name and a lifestyle that went with it—and that
what I wanted was at the
vanilla
end of the spectrum.”

Giselle began to laugh. “She didn’t know you had a
little taste for that then?”

“I think she did,” Bryce returned. “I think she
didn’t want me to get any more of a taste for it than I already had
and that’s when my size became an issue for her.”

“Because she was afraid you’d top her.”

“Yes. And I would’ve. So she went elsewhere. Lots of
elsewheres.”

“Oh,” Giselle breathed, her eyes wide. “Um— Maybe
this is closing the barn door after the horse gets out, but—”

“No, Giselle,” he said wryly, “I don’t have any
diseases. I wouldn’t be here if I did.”

“It never even occurred to me to ask,” she said,
rolling her eyes. “Oh, so savvy.”

“By the time I started the divorce, I’d moved out of
the bedroom. I couldn’t live with her pathology anymore. Constant
manipulation. My oldest daughter didn’t know which end was up most
days after Michelle got through with her head. If she’d been a good
mother and it was just the adultery, I would have stayed with her
for the kids. I wouldn’t have liked that, either, but the sex
wasn’t enough to get mad about and I wasn’t missing anything.”

“So you were caught between enduring to the end or
saving your kids.”

“Yes. If I’d seen it earlier, I’d have done it a lot
sooner, but I was busy working and trying to make sure their basic
needs were met.”

“Basic needs?” Giselle asked warily. “What does that
mean? You weren’t poor.”

“It means,” he said, his face starting to harden as
he looked back off into the distance, “that Michelle wouldn’t take
care of them. I had to hire a live-in nanny to make sure they got
fed and clothed and to school on time. I gave the
nanny
a
credit card to buy them clothes and school supplies and whatever
else they needed. Gas for the car to take them where they needed to
go. I didn’t dare give one to my wife. How screwed up is that?”

“I’m not following. This had to have evolved over
time.”

“Michelle,” he said slowly, “controlled me by being
completely dependent. I had to leave her a to-do list every morning
or the kids wouldn’t get fed. That’s when I hired the nanny. Money.
I had to go shopping with her because she’d gotten me deep in debt
more than once when I trusted her with any—that was her game. When
I took money away from her, she wouldn’t do anything autonomously.
She’d call me for any decision, no matter how small, sometimes
four, five times a day. Before I got the nanny, she would
occasionally even refuse to pick up the kids for school because I
wasn’t there to drive her. That infuriated me and it was
exhausting.”

Giselle stared at him. “So she was topping from the
bottom. You didn’t understand that, either, I bet.”

“I thought it was your run-of-the-mill manipulation;
my lawyer had to explain that to me, too. But it wouldn’t have made
any difference because I had to protect my kids. So I decided to
start my own practice, you know, be at home, watch my kids. It was
a good decision, as it turned out. I’d already made a bit of a
reputation so I was ready to go out on my own, but basically, it
was so I could muzzle her and keep an eye on them. I decided she
had to go when I saw and heard what she was saying to them on a
sustained basis—messing with their heads—”

“Like?”

He pursed his lips and stared off into the distance.
“She’d tell my girls they were fat, dress them in clothes that were
too small, starve them and tell them they were on a diet. I didn’t
know about that until Andrea refused a cookie because she was on a
diet. She was five when that happened. Emme was nine at the time
and it might have been too late for her without some serious
therapy, I don’t know.”

Lilly, you let that girl eat whatever she wants; no
wonder she’s so damned fat. I don’t know how Knox can stand to
touch her, much less kiss her.

Trudy, you shut your mouth before I slap it
shut.

Giselle gulped.

“She’d have Luke, my eight-year-old, go get, say, an
expensive vase, take it to the front hall. The floor was marble and
she’d tell him to drop it and see what happened. He’d do it, it’d
shatter, and she’d scream at him for doing such a stupid thing,
make him clean it up. I don’t know how many times she did that
before I saw it for myself. And he was barefoot.”

Giselle didn’t know if she’d ever catch another
breath.

He raised an eyebrow at her. “More?”