Until I'm Yours (18 page)

As our eyes lock across the table, I realize for the first time that my mother is not an ally; I know that I was right on both counts. This isn’t normal. A daughter tells her mother she was raped, and there should be tears. There should be hugs. There should at least be questions, but my mother acts like she already has all the answers.

“You knew.”

Nothing on her face gives her away, but she blinks twice, a quick succession of reflexes. The only uncontrolled things about her.

“Sofie, listen to me.”

“Daddy told you.” Hurt climbs the walls of my belly, scaling my insides until it swells in my throat. “You’ve known for weeks and never even asked me about it.”

“Your father did mention that you were confused about some events from the past with Kyle, yes.”

“And you didn’t even call me?” My voice rises, cracking the serenity my mother cultivates in this room for her morning meal. “You didn’t even check to see if I’m okay? Or to hear my side of the story?”

“Sofie, things have been so hectic with the ballet and opera fund-raisers, and—”

“Just stop.” I blink until the tears recede. “Don’t pretend this is normal. That we’re normal. We are not typical. This isn’t right.”

“Sofie, Kyle is a very powerful man, and you know he and your father have extremely important dealings right now.”

“Kyle Manchester is a rapist, and I’m not the only woman he’s done this to.”

“But you’re the only one who’s talking about it, aren’t you?” All civility drops away, and I realize my mother is angry with me.

“Be straight with me, Mother.” I bounce her stony expression right back at her. “What’s going on?”

“Whatever happened fifteen years ago is long over, Sofie, but what your father and Kyle are working on is right now. It may be the most important thing he’s done. It’s crucial to our future.”

What the hell is going on? I prop my elbows on the table, dropping my forehead into my hands, trying to wrap my mind around this insanity.

“We can get you some help, a counselor, or—”

“I had help.” I sit back in my seat and cross my legs. “I saw a therapist for two years after it happened.”

“A therapist?” Her forehead pinches. “Who was this therapist? Where?”

“In Milan. I started seeing her while I was in Milan. She specialized in helping rape survivors.”

“Sofie, you have to stop saying ‘rape.’ And you need to drop this. Boys lose their heads. Girls lead boys on. It’s what happens in high school, but we can’t afford to dredge up ancient history right now. I’m sure Kyle is sorry for what happened.”

“Is that why he raped another woman? Because he was so sorry after the first time?” I lean forward, trapping my mother’s eyes with my own, refusing to let her go. “He raped Shaunti Miller, too, Mother. And there’s no telling who else.”

“There’s no telling because no one
is
telling, Sofie.” My mother leans into our stare, her eyes hard and glinting like quartz. “And neither will you.”

“You’re crazy.” I stand, bumping the back of my knees on the chair in my haste to get out of this house of horrors. I grab my bag and head toward the door.

“Sofie, this will be a circus, and you’ll be the freak show.” She picks up her serrated spoon and goes back to her grapefruit. “Not Kyle.”

I’m almost at the door when I turn to look back at the woman I’ve longed to be close to all my life, but never found a way.

“I thought it was me.” I shake my head, the breath bitter on my lips. “I thought I was broken, too much like Daddy for you to love me.”

“Oh, God. Spare me the melodrama, Sofie.” Mother sprinkles Stevia on her grapefruit.

“But it’s you. You’re the broken one.” My lip quivers, but I get it under control. I won’t give this woman any more weakness to use against me. “You’re just like him.”

“And so are you, little girl.” Her eyes blaze in a face otherwise cold. “Don’t get on a high horse now. Don’t fool yourself that you’re any different from us.”

“Oh, I am different, Mother. I’ve learned that I have the capacity to actually care about other people, a secret I probably kept from myself to survive life with the two of you.”

“You may have just started caring about people, Sofie, but no one cares about you. You’re just a famous face and an overexposed body.” She slices into her omelet, raising her fork to her mouth and her eyes to me.

“You’ve spent the last fifteen years being one thing. Don’t expect people to all of a sudden think you’re something else. Start telling this story about Kyle if you want. It’ll be a bloodbath.”

“Oh, I have no doubt there will be blood, Mother, but it won’t be just mine. I’m going to bleed Kyle dry, and since you seem to be on his side, you might bleed, too.”

I rush past Millie, hovering with her teapot, through the foyer with the sweeping staircase that leads to my childhood bedroom. I pull at the heavy door, letting in the light from outside. The fresh autumn air does nothing to clear my head, nothing to soothe my soul. I stumble into the backseat of the car waiting at the curb, tears stinging my eyes.

“Everything all right, Ms. B?” Baker asks from the front seat, his eyes seeking mine in the rearview mirror.

“Yes, I…” I don’t know what lie I can come up with to cover this wound in my heart, bleeding out my illusions, an unstoppable flow, black with hurt and rejection.

My mother doesn’t care that a man raped me. She offered no words of comfort. No horror that she never knew. I catch Baker’s glance again in the rearview mirror, unsure what to say or how to explain that my mother doesn’t love me, but his waiting eyes are soft with sympathy.

And I realize he knows. He’s always known.

I
’ve always enjoyed training alone. Things that make no sense in a room full of people, in a world filled with noise, crystallize in solitude. A way that seemed uncertain becomes straight as I’m pushing myself through water, meeting its resistance with my persistence, its force with my strength. On a morning like this with so many problems—the Collective scandal, the Deutimus sale, Sofie’s revelation about that douche bag Kyle Manchester—it would be ideal to be alone. But as I touch the wall, coming out of the water to find Sofie already seated on its edge in her black bikini, her bright hair water-darkened, her lashes spiky, somehow I’m okay with not being by myself this morning.

“You cheated.” I fold my arms on the side of the pool and match her grin. “There’s no way you beat me.”

“Why?” It’s good to see those green eyes, so sober yesterday after her meeting with her mother, smiling back at me. “Because I’m a girl?”

“No, because while you’re doing your squats and pliés or whatever the hell they are at the barre every morning, I’m here swimming. This is
my
thing.”

“And since I beat you at
your
thing, you automatically conclude I must have cheated?” She leans back, arms straight and palms pressed to the concrete behind her. “That’s some ego you’ve got there, Bishop. I beat you fair and square.”

“How?” I’m too competitive not to frown. “I’m stronger.”

“I’m faster.” She sits forward to poke my shoulder. “And have less bulk.”

“Bulk?” A laugh sputters on my lips. “Is that what I have?”

“Just saying maybe some of that muscle slowed you down in the water.” She shrugs and points to herself. “Also, swimming scholarship.”

“You were on the swim team?”

“And the rowing team. Two state championships.” Her husky laugh bounces off the walls of the otherwise empty room. “The coach from UCLA? You should have seen his face when he realized he’d offered a scholarship to the daughter of Ernest Baston.”

She kicks her feet in the water.

“I actually loved that he didn’t realize who I was, and that I got that offer on the merits of what he’d seen me do.”

I float into the canal between those long, slim legs, sliding my palms down her slippery calves.

“So you’re saying you didn’t cheat?”

Her lips, full and free of lipstick, tweak at the edges. She presses them against the laugher I see bubbling in her eyes. Finally, she flings her head back, howling with a laugh that comes from some part of herself she’s quarantining from all the drama unfolding in her life.

“You little cheat!”

I drag her by her ankles until she’s at the lip of the pool, then lean into her stomach, hauling her over my shoulder and wading back into the water.

“No! Bishop, no!” She beats my back with her fists, her laugh vibrating through my skin.

“You better hold your breath,” I warn her.

“No, I…you…Bishop, don’t you—”

I take us under, the water closing over our heads, sealing out the world above. I wish we had fins so we could stay under for hours, just us, breathing in the underwater utopia. Peaceful, as if a garish spotlight isn’t about to turn on Sofie’s every move. On her past. Our heads break the water’s surface at the same time, both of us coming up gasping and laughing. Our eyes catch and hold until the air between us shifts, and even the cold water can’t dampen the heat flaring between our eyes, between our bodies.

I find her in the water, sliding my hands over her hips to caress her thighs. A breath separates her lips as her hands climb my chest and slip into my hair. There’s no one else here, but if there were, I’d have to say fuck it. This woman has had me tied in knots since she stared me down from a billboard, her face bare and her soul cloaked. And the more of herself she shows me, the more I want.

I plunge into her mouth, a treasure seeker. There’s a moan, mine or hers, I can’t tell, because I’m so busy making it happen again. Pressing into her, my hands lapping like water at her thighs, at her back, at her ass. She’s so much of everything I want.

My hands slip under her bikini bra. I knead her breasts until her lashes drop, her head falls back, and nails dig into my scalp. She reaches around to unhook the bra so it falls away. I go down on my knees in the water, pressing my mouth to her breasts, nuzzling and suckling, pulling hard on her with my desperation to get as much as I can.

“Bishop, we should stop.” Her words reach me on a ragged breath.

She’s right. Anyone could come in, but my control is barreling downhill with no brakes. Hands gripping her butt, fingers sliding under the fabric of her suit until it’s skin on skin. Tongue licking under the full curve of her breasts. Her skin, cool. My mouth, hot against her.

I don’t want to stop, but I do when a noise catches my attention, the door opening. I’m instantly up and clutching her to my chest to cover her. I catch sight of her black bikini top floating just out of reach.

“Stay still, Sof. Don’t move, darlin’.” My voice is hoarse, and in my head I’m cursing myself for exposing her like this.

“Um, Bishop?” Harold asks from poolside. “You might wanna…”

“Got it,” I snap, not bothering to look at him before he darts back out the way he came.

Her head drops to my chest, the deep breath she draws brushing her nipples against me.

That’s not helping.

“That dude’s such a cock blocker,” she whispers.

We both laugh, loosening the passion that held us so tight moments before.

“I’m sorry.” I pull back just enough to study her face. “I shouldn’t have let it go that far in here.”

She’s not even blushing, the minx. She grins wide, pulling all the way back until she floats out of my arms. She faces me, topless for a moment, her nipples high and tight, before letting go of a lusty laugh, plunging underwater, and swimming over to retrieve her bikini top.

I run my hands over my hair and face, grappling for control and composure, when really I just want to take her under and make love to her on the pool floor. We might both drown, but what a way to go.

“For the record,” she says, hauling herself to the lip of the pool, giving me a great view of the round, firm cheeks not completely covered by her bikini. “I did beat you fair and square.”

She sits on the edge, long legs floating in the water. I swim over to stand in front of her, and we’re back where we started, only my dick is a lot harder now.

“I’m not sure I can trust you,” I say, cocking a brow.

Her smile fades until she’s biting her bottom lip, lashes down to cover her eyes.

“You can.”

I lean forward, lifting her chin with a finger until I have her eyes again.

“Goes both ways,” I say. “You can trust me, too.”

She still hasn’t told me what happened with her mother, but I know it wasn’t good. When she didn’t call me, I called her. I could tell immediately that things had gone badly, but I didn’t press. All through dinner at her apartment last night, I didn’t press. And I won’t. I have to believe she’ll trust me. Is that what I’m actually waiting for? Looking for before we take this thing to the next level?

“I know I can trust you.” She bends to trail her fingers through the water.

“I want to be there for you, Sofie.” I catch her hand in the water and hold her eyes. “Let me.”

“Okay.” She nods, licking her bottom lip before looking at me squarely. “Will you come with me tomorrow to talk to Shaunti Miller’s lawyer?”

“Yes.” I’m flying to South Africa tomorrow, and I don’t even know what time this meeting will happen. I’ll rearrange the flight if I have to. “What time?”

“It’s at ten o’clock tomorrow morning, but if you can’t make it—”

“I can.” I reach up to brush my thumb across her soft lips, brushing away any more protests. “I will.”

She smiles, turning her head to kiss my palm.

“I do have a flight to catch.” I drop our hands, clasped, to her knee. “But it’s not until evening, I think.”

She doesn’t shutter her expression quickly enough to hide her disappointment.

“The Collective meeting in South Africa?”

“Yeah.” I release a heavy breath. “Unfortunately.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“We leave tomorrow, and come back sometime late next week.”

She nods, eyes on the water.

“Hey.” I tip up her chin until she can’t look away. “I’ll miss you while I’m gone.”

Her smile is my reward, and despite the embers, still hot from our last kiss, I initiate another one. This one softer and slower, but still telling her that I can’t wait much longer to have her. That I don’t want to.

“Come out with me tonight,” I whisper against her lips, still pressing soft kisses to her mouth.

“Are we really going to try that again?” She leans down, her fingers wandering to the back of my neck, pressing me in to deepen a kiss.

I pull back to answer her.

“Yeah. Come with me tonight.”

She looks like she might turn me down, but I’m not having it.

“Say yes. It’s important to me.” I didn’t want to play this card, but I will to get her to come. “I’m being honored, and I’d love for you to be with me.”

“You’re being honored?” Her eyes widen, a smile starting small and spreading over her mouth. “For what?”

“For my work with developing nations. Does it matter? I want you with me; now, are you coming or what?”

“Well I guess I am.” Her smile melts, leaving concern behind. “And you’re coming with me? Tomorrow, I mean?”

“I’m here for you, Sof. Nothing will shake me loose. Not lies or hearsay or scandal.”

“What about the truth?” Her lips barely part to let the words out. “When it’s not lies, but it’s the nasty truth about something stupid I did a decade ago. Would that shake you loose? Because I wouldn’t blame you. Wouldn’t think any less of you if you want to get out of this now before it goes too far.”

I pull her down from the lip of the pool, turning in the water and hooking her ankles behind me. I slip my hands under her butt to keep her floating with me, around me.

“This thing between us, Sofie.” I dot kisses across her lips, under her chin, and over the long column of her neck. “Not only has it already gone too far…”

I pull back so she can see my eyes and know exactly what my next words mean to me.

“But I’m too far gone.”

For a moment, I wonder if I’ve said too much, pushed too hard. But then she lifts those lashes, her green eyes soft and settled on mine. Her next words make me want her more, and make me so glad I waited to hear them.

“So am I, Bishop.”