Chapter 21

Finn

I had been with my share of women over the years. Each had brought with them a different motivation, as had I. The one-night, when-the-bar-closed sleep-overs were predominant. They had seemed a good idea at the time, but when the liquor wore off and their lipstick had ruined my imported white cotton pillow case, they lost their appeal. No matter how drunk I was or how provocative they’d been to lure me to beds, I’d always used a condom. It was an insurance against their morning-after claims, as well as my own regrets. I hadn’t done that with Elspeth. What was worse, I intentionally overlooked that personal integrity.

I was being unabashedly greedy. I didn’t just want sex; that could be had day or night with a phone call. Her body, while adorably attractive to me, wasn’t entirely unique. After lunch at the fun kid’s table, I couldn’t say she was coolly sophisticated. She was totally unlike any woman I’d been around before and that was, perhaps, her signature. She was entirely unique. Not to mention mysterious.

I asked myself whether I was being an asshole. Did I have the right to assess her qualities as though inspecting breeding stock? What made me think I could use my sheer will to permanently erase her past? I felt a need for her to be pure and virginal, and yet I didn’t.

My ego wanted to believe she was there with me because she wanted to be, when in truth she literally had nowhere else to go. She was Botticelli’s Venus, risen from the sea encased in a shell that, when opened, revealed a fully-grown, voluptuous woman who was unclothed and untouched. I wanted to believe that Venus had arisen for me. Not for just any traveler along the road who happened to have enough curiosity to check out a burning shack. Was she nothing more than my reward for being a good, conscientious citizen? Why did I need it to be more than that?

I did, though, and that’s where my ego and track record of success gave my mental meanderings a sturdy base from which to work. She was the jigsaw puzzle you’d stay up all weekend to complete, acknowledging the entire time that you were robbing yourself of the refreshing sleep you’d thought you wanted more.

I was willingly altering my life to be with her, and that was the part I didn’t understand. I had never been one to leave things to chance. I was deliberate and strategic and yet, here I was, lounging at a lakeside retreat in the dead of winter. My business was on auto-pilot and there hung over me the shadow of a possible contribution to the death of one of the people closest to me. What the hell kind of spell was this?

She’d fallen asleep, her face nested on my chest and my penis pressed against her pussy. Her mass of gorgeous hair covered us both. She breathed lightly through the pouty lips that purported innocence while her woman’s body screamed otherwise. I had an intense need to shelter her, to protect her from the realities of the world and keep her to myself. As impractical, if not cruel, as that would be, it was more than a challenge to me. It was my destiny. One cannot fight destiny; this I’d learned. If you did, you’d lose the battle and the prize. Destiny was the result of a formula that included the inclinations of your heart and mind, multiplied by the opportunities you allowed yourself. She was mine, and just perhaps, I was hers.

I managed to snag an afghan lying on a chair next to the bed and eased its warmth over the two of us. It gave me the most romantic notion that she and I weren’t separate individuals, but layers of a single entity that breathed as one. I began to plan our time together—the places I’d take her, the things we’d share.

I let myself doze in between these pleasant thoughts and each time, I’d awaken with a start and a dread that she was gone. She was always there, though. Although she was half my size, she seemed the most warming, overwhelmingly luxurious comforter, made for my body alone. We just fit.

I had business to attend to. The world was ongoing beyond those frost-framed windows and the longer I languished here, the further I’d have to fly to catch up. But for now, I could lie there with Elspeth draped over me and be permanently content.

Somewhere, beneath my arrogant, careless exterior, lay a romantic. That was when I realized that this retreat had little to do with discovering who she was. It was about discovering myself. Imagine my acknowledgement that the true discovery wasn’t about myself, or her, but about the us we’d created.

* * *

When I awakened the next time, I realized it was much later than I’d anticipated. The blue light had faded and invited in the darkness of a late winter afternoon. Elspeth was gone, and I could smell the scent of fresh soap and moisture. I knew she’d left me; showered, dressed, and was off to some other part of the house. I lay in the darkness, thinking—a luxury I seldom permitted myself.

When I finally rolled to my feet and retrieved the terry shorts I’d thrown on after the workout shower, I went back to my room and showered quickly again. This time, I pulled on a pair of jeans and a thick, maroon sweater. I pushed the sleeves up to my elbows, ran my fingers through my damp hair, and went in search of Elspeth.

There was the scent of cooking food in the air. With the faintest dread, I headed to my study and logged back on to the computer. I began my personal research of Traxton. I began to understand why Marty had been so fascinated with them. There was very little information available, which made me think he knew something he hadn’t told me, and now I’d never hear.

I wanted to buy them because they already owned warehousing at several of the largest ports and had the equipment to move the large shipping containers from the dock onto a cargo ship and off again. They also had agreements with major distributors around the world. I could get all this myself, but it would take time. There was some word out that Traxton was in financial trouble and the CEO had money issues. This made them the perfect acquisition. Had I been out-maneuvered?

I found Google’s image search page and my fingers were suspended over the keyboard as I contemplated uploading a picture of Elspeth. Maybe she was being sought by an anxious husband, parents, or perhaps had a child of her own. Did I really want to know? I knew I didn’t, so I quickly clicked the window shut and busied myself organizing the desk drawer.

Elspeth tapped on the door, and I went to meet her, giving her a hug with a deep kiss.

“Dinner is ready,” she piped up, smiling.

I nodded cheerfully. It was one of my better acting performances, I had to admit.

“You look nice,” she complimented me.

I noticed she, too, was wearing a skirt and sweater that emphasized her beautiful legs. The soft, fuzzy yarn of her sweater made her look like a cheerleader I’d once sampled in the back seat of a car years before. The comparison ended there, however. Elspeth was much, much more than a backseat fuck.

I rounded the corner into the dining area and was wowed by the ambiance she’d set up. It was snowing outside but floodlights glittered off the flakes and created a tableau like a snow globe. She’d lit a candelabra for the table and white roses in a crystal, square vase sat at its base. White linen decorated the table and this time, the full set of china was in use—from bread plate to demitasse cups, silver cutlery to crystal water goblets.

I think my mouth dropped open because she smiled gently and motioned for me to sit down. She was holding a glass pitcher and filled our water goblets, disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a platter of hors d’ oeuvres of the finest quality caviar on toast points, a selection of cheeses and fresh, beautifully arranged fruit in artistic slices. She handed me a bottle of vintage wine, wrapped in a linen napkin and asked me to pour. It was a rare and highly desirable selection, and I sampled it quickly before filling our goblets.

There was a cream of asparagus soup, obviously freshly made, a small dinner salad with tomato rosettes and when she brought in the main course, Beef Wellington with piped whipped potatoes, I knew I’d been had.

“Anything wrong?” she asked meekly, her eyes glittering as I took in the perfectly executed dinner before us.

“You set me up.”

“I did, indeed.”

“Why?”

“To teach you not to be judgmental. Every day, I see the look in your eyes and hear the doubt in your questions. You’ve drawn a conclusion about me, my dear friend, and needed to learn to be patient. I am who I am, Finn. I can’t make up a past, or a future, for that matter. Take me as I am, today, right here and now. That’s all I can give you,” she finished, holding up her wine to toast mine.

“Well played,” I complimented her. I realized I’d just seen a new prism in my petite companion. Was it still possible she was a player in some monstrously elaborate game and I, the fly caught in the web?