Trusting My Bad Boy
“That guy is watching you,” Darlene said. She couldn’t have imagined that something intended as an innocent joke would have sent a cold chill down Sophia’s spine.
“What does he look like?” she asked, trying to stay calm.
“Cute. About five ten or so. Sandy hair. Can’t see his eyes in this light.”
“They’re brown,” Sophia said.
“Oh, you know him?” Darlene smiled past her shoulder and started to raise her hand but Sophia stopped her.
“Don’t wave at him, don’t even look at him,” she said between gritted teeth.
But it was too late. She could feel Phil draw close. “Hello, Sophie.”
She sighed. “Hello, Phil.” She didn’t look up at him.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
Not your business. Never your business. Leave me alone. “Out with friends.”
“Hi, I’m Darlene.” She extended her hand but Phil ignored her.
“Female friends?” he asked.
Darlene said, “Cold in here. I need another drink.” When she got up and left, Phil slid into her chair.
“You have another man in your life now?” he asked softly. His quiet voice was his dangerous voice.
“Phil, you need to leave me alone. We’re not together anymore and I don’t answer to you.”
“I’m just concerned for your well-being,” he said as he brushed a tendril of blonde hair back from her face. “I’ll always think of us as belonging to each other.”
“I don’t belong to you!” she told him, finally turning to look at him, trying not to shiver when she saw that look in his eyes.
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that. Don’t I know everything there is to know about you? If that isn’t ownership—”
“It’s not. Now go away. I mean it.”
He got up. “I’m watching you, Sophie.”
“Sophia.”
“Sophie,” he repeated, and faded into the crowd.
She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She was terrified, angry, despairing of ever having a life where she wasn’t looking over her shoulder for fear that Phil would be standing there.
They had been together for two-and-a-half years. The last year they’d lived together, and it had been the worst, most harrowing time of Sophia’s life. He’d been so attentive when they met, so kind and thoughtful. He always remembered her birthday, what kind of flowers she liked, how she took her coffee. He always remembered what was on her calendar so he could remind her, he said.
But the truth was that little-by-little, he’d tried to own her. Knowing everything about her was like laying claim to her very soul. And the calendar thing? That was so he always knew what she was doing when she wasn’t nearby. She hadn’t even realized it until he began to question her about her business meetings.
“Thought maybe you could use this.” Darlene was back. She set a vodka gimlet in front of Sophia. “So who was that?”
“My ex.” She didn’t elaborate.
“Cute, but no social skills, huh?”
Sophia sighed. “You could say that, I guess.”
“So, does he want to get back together again?”
She shrugged.
“You thinking about it?”
The question, though innocent, set Sophia off. “I would rather eat ground glass,” she said. “And now I’m going to stop talking about him.”
“Wow, okay, touchy much?”
“Look, if talking about Phil is the price of this drink, you can keep it.” She shoved the glass at Darlene. “He made my life miserable. I don’t want to talk about him.”
“Jeez, okay, okay. Just keep the drink.” She got up and wandered off.
No one there knew her story. She hadn’t talked much about her life with Phil with anyone from work because it was embarrassing and not their business even though Phil’s behavior in that last year started to make it their business. He would obsess about her work life and what was going on in her office.
Sometimes he’d show up unexpectedly, to take her to lunch, he’d say. Or to bring her something she’d left at home (something he’d taken out of her purse when she wasn’t looking, she was sure of it.) Then he’d hang around and watch the people nearby. When she got home, he would grill her about the men in her office.
“Who’s the guy in the next cubicle?” he’d ask her. “What was his name? Erik? Has he ever tried to touch you? What about your boss? He’s never made a pass at you, has he? Has he ever tried to touch you?”
The touching thing was weird. At first she assumed he was perhaps being over-protective. She told herself that perhaps he had family or a friend who had been molested and he was sensitive to that kind of thing. But she began to realize that he obsessed about men trying to touch her. He’d told men in clubs to keep their distance from her, and once in an elevator, he’d gotten into a fight with a man who, he said, had been deliberately standing too close to Sophia so he could touch her. Predictably the man took offense and it came to blows. The police were called and Phil got arrested, but not until one of the cops had asked Sophia what she’d done to provoke the fight.
The unfairness of men sometimes boggled her mind, especially since Phil blamed her too. “You were leading him on,” he’d accused on the way home from the police station.
“I got in an elevator with him. Should I have waited for an empty one?” she’d asked.
“I’d have preferred it, since you’re always coming on to other guys.”
That night was the beginning of the end. Phil’s possessiveness grew worse as Sophia’s tolerance stretched to the limit and then broke. The day she left, she’d met him at the door with her coat on and her packed bags ready.
“I’m going to stay with my folks for a while,” she told him. “I can’t stand dealing with your jealousy and control anymore.”
He’d been angrier than she’d ever seen him, but when he stepped toward her with his hand raised, she was ready. She pulled a can of pepper spray out of her pocket and aimed it at his eyes.
“I won’t hesitate,” she told him.
“I will take that away from you and make you eat it.”
Somehow his anger made her calmer. “Phil, you may be able to hurt me, but believe me when I tell you that I will hurt you too. I’m prepared to kill you if I have to. I’ve thought about that a lot, and I know I can do it. I even put a knife in my pocket in case you forced me into defending myself. So you make your choice. I walk out of here now, or we will both end up injured.”
The thing about Phil: He was a coward. Something in her voice must have convinced him because he backed off. He shouted insults at her from the window as she got into her cab, but he never lifted a finger to her again.
That didn’t stop him from showing up unexpectedly, phoning her at odd times to ask her what she was doing or who she was with. He kept just enough distance that she found it difficult to explain to anyone why it upset her. It wasn’t technically stalking, at least not according to the police, but it felt like it.
It was all too much. She took a couple of gulps of the gimlet and got up to join a group of women on the dance floor who were bouncing around to Holding Out for a Hero. That’s how she felt sometimes. She thought she should be able to get rid of Phil on her own and not look for some outside agency to help her, but what could she do? He stayed on the sidelines of her life, pushed at the boundaries, but never actually did anything illegal or dangerous. He was always vaguely scary, but never more than that.
Where was Captain America when you needed him?
She got out on the dance floor and let herself go, moving to the music, dancing all the anger and aggression she was feeling. She threw her head back and danced for her very life.
And then she felt Phil’s hand close around her arm. She tried to pull away but he held her tightly, and his eyes were filled with something that looked like hate. “You won’t stop acting like a slut, will you?” he shouted at her.
“Let go!” She yanked her arm away hard and his fingernails left bloody ridges on her arm. He lunged at her and nearly got his arms around her waist, but then he was gone. Sophia whipped around and found herself facing a broad leather-clad back.
Phil was shouting, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying. The man between them said, “You need to calm down, man, and get off this dance floor.”
“Or what?”
“Or I will escort you off.”
The dancing had all but stopped even though the music was still throbbing around them. Phil’s face was contorted with anger.
“You get away from my girlfriend.”
“She doesn’t look like your girlfriend.”
“She’s my fiancée!” Phil insisted, upping the ante.
The guy in leather half turned to Sophia. “Is that true?”
“No it isn’t,” she said just as Phil tried to sucker punch the guy and got elbowed hard in the face. He went down like a bag of rocks.
“Good, then I don’t feel I have to apologize to you for hitting him like that.”
“Not at all.”
By then the bouncers had gotten to the dance floor. For a moment it looked like they were going to throw all three of them out but her leather-clad hero spoke to them for a few moments, and they picked Phil up and dragged him off.
The music stopped and the dancers faded away. Most of them were staring at Sophia as if what happened was her fault.
“You look a little unsteady. Why don’t you come and sit down?”
He escorted her back to her table, held her chair for her, and sat down beside her. “Do you need a drink?” he asked as he shucked his leather jacket and slung it over the back of his chair. It was hard to avoid noticing how handsome he was with his dark, curly hair, pale blue eyes rimmed with thick black lashes, and a mouth that was absolutely sinful. That she could think that way at all after what had just happened rattled her.
“No. I have one.” She reached for the gimlet but he stopped her.
“You don’t want to drink that. He was hanging around the table before he went onto the floor to bother you. I’m not saying he doctored it, but I can’t say for sure.”
It took a moment to sink in. Horrified, Sophia pushed the glass away. “I think I need to go home,” she murmured.
“Do you need a lift?”
“No!” As if she was going to trust a total stranger alone in his car, especially one who looked like a thug with his leather jacket, tattoos and beard stubble. Then she realized how ungrateful she sounded. “I mean—”
“From what I can see you have every right to be suspicious of men. I can call you a cab.”
“I can do it.” She pulled out her phone and used the taxi app to book a cab. “Fifteen or twenty minutes,” she said with a sigh. “Maybe I could use a drink. Do you mind?”
“Not at all. Happy to,” he told her. “Be right back.”
As soon as he had faded into the crowd around the bar, Sophia grabbed her purse and fled. Even if he was completely harmless, the last thing she wanted was to deal with another man that night. She was less-than-thrilled about men in general just then.
She’d lied to him about the cab in order to get away. The estimate had been five minutes, and the cab was pulling up to the curb as she left the club. She got in and said “Go!” and the driver peeled away from the curb. Sophia looked out the back window a couple of times to make sure no one was following, and thought, Damn Phil for making me so paranoid.
She’d never been that way. Before Phil, Sophia had been placid, carefree. She’d had a pleasant suburban childhood, and her first love had, quite literally, been the boy next door. She and Greg had talked about marriage. They’d planned to marry right after high school, but then he got a scholarship to MIT and they decided to put it off until he graduated.
Over the years they’d grown apart, their relationship couldn’t withstand the distance between them. The break-up had been amicable, and they remained friendly, but there wasn’t much more than nostalgia to that friendship now. Greg had recently taken a job at a big tech company in one of the south suburbs, and they hadn’t even seen each other yet, though they had exchanged emails that said, “We have to get together soon.”
But now, every time she met a man she wondered if he was hiding any ugly secrets. She supposed she was angrier with Phil for making her feel that way than for anything else he’d ever done to her.
Once she was home, she took a long, hot shower and crawled into bed with a glass of brandy and her library book. Reading was one of the few things that took her mind off of her problems. She read herself to sleep, waking just before dawn to find her nightstand light still on and the book lying on her chest. Moments like that were always so satisfying.
The next morning she was making coffee when her doorbell rang.
“Yes?”
“Um, hi. It’s the guy from the club. The one you left holding a fresh drink?”
Sophia’s gut clenched. “What do you want?”
“I want to return your phone. You left it on the table.”
“Oh. Okay, thank you.” She buzzed him in, and opened the door, but left it on the chain.
In the cold light of day he was, if anything, even more handsome than he’d been at the club. Unnervingly so. He was standing in the hallway in a black tee shirt and worn jeans, looking like someone’s birthday cake. He held the phone out and she reached through the gap and took it.
“Thank you.”
“Two things,” he told her, “and then I’ll go. First, I put my name and number in there in case you ever need help. This isn’t a come-on, it’s genuine. My sister had a stalker and it shattered her peace of mind for years. If I can help, I will. Otherwise you can ignore it; no harm, no foul.”
She didn’t reply.
“Second. Please consider talking to someone. I also put the name and number of my sister’s counselor in there. Again, there’s nothing attached to it. But she helped Joanie.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
He frowned and pitched his voice low. “Are you okay right now?” he asked. It took her a moment to get his meaning.
“You mean is he here? No, he’s not. I’m sorry if I gave you that impression.” Sophia was embarrassed. “Just a minute.” She closed the door and unchained it. “I’m sorry. I’m still rattled about last night. I shouldn’t be; he still shows up where he’s not welcome. Would you like to come in?”
“No. I’m not going to intrude. That wasn’t my intention.”
“I just made a fresh pot of coffee. You’re welcome. Really.” She was so ashamed at having behaved as if this guy was the enemy when the truth was that he was the only person who had ever unreservedly stood between her and Phil. Everyone else, even her family, had been ambivalent about the situation at least occasionally.
“If you’re sure. I don’t want to be part of the problem.”
“You’re not. I don’t think I ever thanked you properly for what you did. You had no way of knowing how violent he might have been, but you stepped up. I really appreciated that. Please come in.”
“Thanks.” He followed her to the kitchen. “I’m Daniel, by the way. Daniel Buchanan.”
“Sophia Eklund. But you know that. Silly of me. Please sit down. I got up early and went to the bakery on the corner, so there’s a pecan coffee cake. I hope you like them.”
“Love ‘em,” he said.
She poured two cups of coffee and set the coffee cake on the table. There was an uncomfortable silence as they whitened their coffee and Sophia cut slices of coffee cake, but then they both started talking at once.
“I’m sorry. You first,” he said with a laugh.
“No, guests first.”
“I was going to ask if you’re comfortable talking about that guy. If not, it’s okay, that’s your business. But if you did…” He let the thought trail off.
Her first instinct was to say no, she wasn’t particularly comfortable. But again she was reminded that he had done for her what no one else had ever done. Maybe she owed him an explanation.
“I met him about four years ago,” she began. “He was a blind date. We hit it off, seemed to like the same things. But later I began to realize that he’d been lying about the things he liked just so we’d have things in common.”
Daniel was nodding as he listened. “And once you were hooked, he tried to make you change and like his stuff, right?”
“Yes! Oh my gosh, is that what happened to your sister?”
“Yeah. It’s a control thing, I guess. I don’t get it, really, but I gather it’s not uncommon.”
“He made me think that everything I liked was shit, that I had no taste, no intellect. Sometimes I’m no even sure what it is I do like anymore. I haven’t listened to music in months.”
“What did you listen to before you met him?”
“I liked oldies.”
“Like how old?”
“Forties, fifties, sixties.”
“Beatles?”
“Oh yeah!”
“Good. You need to listen to them again. They’ll remind you of who you are.”
“I got rid of all my CDs when we lived together. But I can buy some new ones. That’s a good idea,” she said, feeling more hopeful. “So what do you like to listen to?” she asked, figuring he’d say country rock, or metal, or maybe electronic music.”
“Mostly classical these days. You look surprised. Did you think I’d say ZZ Top or something?”
Sophia laughed. “I didn’t know what to think. I’ve never actually met anyone like you.”
“Oh, the tatts and all?”
She nodded. “It’s a little scary.”
“Yeah, I guess. Souvenirs of my misspent youth.”
“Were you a reform school boy?”
That made him laugh. He threw back his head and laughed out loud. His teeth were strong and white. Sophia had never seen anyone with sexy teeth before.
“I was a prep school boy. This is all in reaction to a very conservative upbringing.”
“Prep school? Private?”
“Yup. Andover and then Cambridge. My folks wanted me to go to Yale, but I dug my heels in and held out for another country.”
“You are just full of surprises.”
“You know what they say about books and covers,” he reminded her.
“Let me get you some more coffee.” As she poured she said, “So what do you do? Lawyer? Doctor?”
“Lord no. I own a tech company.”
“Not Buchanan BioTech?”
“The same. You’ve heard of it? I’m surprised.”
“The company I work for insures it. You’re pretty diversified if I remember correctly.”
“You do,” he told her. New stuff is like candy to me. Right now we’re working on 3D medical printing, and it’s fantastically exciting. We can print new skin for burn victims. It’s like science fiction, but my company is doing it.” As he spoke about it, his eyes lit up and it was clear that he believed passionately in what his company was going. Listening to him was exciting.
Finally he said, “I’m sorry, I get wound up about these things. I don’t mean to go on and on.”
“No, honestly, it’s so interesting. I had no idea.”
He shifted the conversation over to her job which, by comparison seemed humdrum, yet he listened with the same rapt attention she’d felt while listening to him. She hoped he wasn’t faking it. And as she wondered that, she began to feel uneasy again.
He must have seen it in her eyes, seen her withdraw a little from the conversation. “I’m sorry, is there a problem?”
“My life isn’t all that interesting. Not by comparison.”
“Why compare it?”
“You can’t possibly be interested in what I’m saying.” She meant it to end the conversation, but it came out as an accusation, and he caught it.
“I should go. I’m making you uneasy, and that’s the last thing I want to do.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just… I don’t know what’s real with people anymore.”
He nodded. “The odd thing is that if you’re very rich, or very famous, it’s the same. You never really know what people want from you. You take care, Sophia. Remember, if you need any help, I’m here, and so is Doctor Forster.” He tapped her phone, grabbed one last slice of coffee cake, and strode to the door.
Sophia was transfixed by his sweet, round backside, a feeling that was utterly at odds with her anxiety, and it made her laugh out loud.
He half turned. “What? Did I sit in something?”
“No. I’m sorry. It would be difficult to explain.” At least without turning about fifteen shades of crimson. She jumped up and followed him to the door. “I appreciate what you’ve done.”
“You’re welcome. See you.” He slipped out and was gone before she could say what she really wanted to say which was, “Stay. You turn me on. You confuse me. Go. But stay.” And, “I want you.”
Thank goodness he moved quickly. She shut the door and leaned against it, a big, goofy smile on her face. She didn’t want to feel this way about any man right now, but it felt a little sweet at the same time.
Daniel had entered his name in her phone with “ICE” next to it. ICE? She had to look it up on the Internet, and discovered that it meant “In Case of Emergency.” It was what some people did when they made entries in their contact list. ICE meant that those were the people to be called if something bad happened to the phone’s owner.
She sat down and added ICE to her parents’ entry, and to the one for her aunt Elaine, who lived in San Francisco. Then she looked Daniel up and found that he had a Wikipedia entry. She’d never known anyone who had a Wikipedia entry.
Daniel Gavin Mathieson Buchanan was thirty-four years old. He had a distinguished pedigree, being the son of Thomas Stewart Buchanan, a real estate tycoon descended from the Earls of Buchanan in Scotland, and Carolina Mathieson, the daughter of actress Philippa Paige and producer George Mathieson. He had one sister, Joan Mary Buchanan Roth.
Daniel had been married at seventeen to an Irish girl he met at Cambridge, much to the dismay of both families, but the marriage, which was, by all accounts, very happy, ended tragically when Siobhan Buchanan died in a riding accident less than two years later.
“Oh how sad,” Sophia murmured.
Daniel threw himself into work, founding a medical research lab named Drake Scientific where they did research on brain injuries and how to prevent and treat them. Five years later, the company was bought by a huge biotech company, and Daniel rolled the money over into Buchanan BioTech. It was estimated that by age thirty, Daniel Buchanan had been worth a billion dollars in his own right.
“Holy shit,” Sophia said. “Holy shit.”
She read about his family life, including a terse version of his sister’s stalker incident, as the author of the page called it. It made her sick to read that after several years of harassment, Joan’s stalker tried to kill her in a knife attack at the family home in Martha’s Vineyard, but Daniel and his father stopped the man who was now behind bars.
She wished she hadn’t read that part.
Daniel’s hobbies were racing cars, classical music (he was an accomplished pianist!), martial arts, and sailing. He’d been the producer for his grandmother’s last film, Stars of the Southern Cross, a film about a woman who had been sent to a penal colony in Australia in the late eighteenth century, and who had lived to be nearly one hundred and had fought for aboriginal rights. Ms Paige had died only days after the film was greeted with critical praise at Cannes. Daniel was noted for being, not precisely reclusive, but very reserved, and disinclined to speak to the press unless he had something to promote.
He was a romantic figure; Sophia could feel it about him. She had the sense that women, and probably some men, threw themselves at his feet regularly. Then she remembered what he’d said about how, when you’re rich or famous, you never know what people really want from you, and she realized that, kind as he had been to her, he probably only wanted to extend aid and support to a woman who had suffered the same sort of trauma as his sister.
In short, he was being a nice guy. She shouldn’t read any more into it. And that, she thought, was a shame.
Several weeks passed uneventfully. Phil seemed to have disappeared, for which Sophia was grateful. She knew though that at the end of the month he’d probably try to intrude on her life again. Her birthday was the twenty-seventh of May, and Phil had never forgotten about it when they were together. She had more than enough reason to believe that he would try to contact her under the guise of wishing her a happy birthday. But rather than sitting at home fretting about what form his intrusion would take — she had not forgotten Joan Buchanan’s stalker — she decided to be proactive. She phoned Daniel.
“I feel very odd calling you, but the thing is that next Friday is my birthday, and I believe Phil is going to try to make contact. I don’t want to stay home alone, but if I go out somewhere I’m afraid he’ll follow me. I’m not sure what to do, and I thought maybe you’d have some suggestions?”
“I do. Why don’t we go to dinner together? I’ll happily run interference for you. Please invite your parents too, and make it a party. He’ll be more intimidated by their presence since he probably still wants their approval.”
It was a good idea, disappointing only in that a small part of Sophia had hoped to be alone with Daniel. But he was right. “I’ll do that. Where shall I have them meet us?”
“I’ll come and pick you up, so have them come to your place.”
“I really am sorry to impose.”
“It’s not a problem, he promised. “I’m happy to do it.”
She phoned her parents and told them the plan, omitting the part about Daniel being a billionaire. She didn’t want to deal with that reaction.
But Daniel didn’t make it easy to be low profile. When he came to the door, and escorted them out to his car, it was a limo waiting for them. The restaurant he took them to was one of the most expensive and exclusive in the city, and he’d arranged for champagne and a special birthday cake for her as well as a big bouquet of pale pink roses.
“This is too much,” she whispered to him as they sat down. “I didn’t expect—”
“I know. I just thought you deserved a carefree birthday, and something special.”
“I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”
“You can always pay kindness forward,” he told her. “That keeps it going.”
He was a good host, too, charming her parents, telling funny stories, asking them about the things that were important in their lives. He was a genuinely nice guy, and Sophia felt blessed that he had taken the time and effort to be nice to her.
On the way out, though, after a perfectly lovely evening, things took a turn that was less lovely. As they exited the restaurant, Phil appeared, pretending to be passing by. “What a coincidence. Hello Vicky, Harold.”
“Phil, how nice,” her mother said as Phil gave her a kiss on the cheek. “How have you been?”
He shrugged. “Missing our girl,” he told her.
“Let’s go, Mom.”
“But Sophia…”
“Seriously, Mom, the car is here. Let’s go.” She grabbed her mother’s arm and propelled her toward the limo.
Phil just stared.
In the car, Sophia’s mother said, “That was not very nice, Sophia. I thought we raised you better than that.”
“Mom, he’s stalking me. How can you ask me to be nice to him?” she demanded.
“Oh honey, if you’d just be more patient with him—”
“No.”
Everyone turned to Daniel. “No, he hasn’t earned patience, Mrs. Eklund. My sister had a stalker like that. People told her she should be nicer to him, more patient, that she should have tried harder to make the relationship work. In the end, he attacked and nearly killed her. She was in the hospital for a month with savage knife wounds.”
“Oh my goodness, is she all right?”
“She’s married and he’s in prison, but one day he’ll be out and she lives in fear of that day. Don’t ever fault Sophia for the way she’s treated that man. She doesn’t deserve to be terrorized by him.”
Sophia’s parents exchanged looks, but said nothing more.
They said good-bye at her door, and drove back to their suburb still thinking that Sophia had traded up.
“Thank you. For everything.”
“Let me see you to your door.”
“You’re the genuine article, aren’t you?” she asked as they walked up the stairs.
“What d’you mean?”
“A gentleman.”
He smiled. “Approximately. I know the forms.”
“You’re good at them.”
“Well thank you. My parents and my school will take that as a vote of confidence.”
“What about you?”
“There’s more to being a true gentleman than the forms.”
“I think you’re pretty good at that too,” she told him. “Your kindness has made me feel hopeful again.”
“Truly?” he asked as they reached her door. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“One of the hardest things about this whole situation was dealing with what everyone else thought. They never saw Phil the controlling jerk, or the terrifying stalker, so they thought I was at least partly at fault. But you believed me. I think that made more of a difference even than you stepping between us on the dance floor.”
“I’m glad,” he said again. “It’s gratifying.”
“I wanted you to know that I’ve made an appointment with Dr. Forster.”
He looked genuinely relieved. “I’m so glad, Sophia. I think it will do you the world of good. She’s so good at helping with coping mechanisms.”
Sophia nodded. “Why don’t you come in and have a nightcap?”
“I should let you get some rest.”
She looked up at him, put her hand on his shoulder, and stood on tiptoe to kiss him softly. “I’d like it if you came in,” she whispered.
Where she’d gotten the nerve from, Sophia didn’t know, but she wanted him. More than that, even, she wanted to feel free and in charge of her own life again.
“I want to make my own choices,” she told him and he looked into her eyes and nodded as if he understood.
She led him into her bedroom and undressed him, taking her time, unwrapping him as if he was the best birthday gift ever.
She gasped when she saw the scar, an ugly, jagged slash that ran from just above his left nipple to his shoulder. “What is that?”
“My disagreement with Joanie’s stalker.”
She realized then that his sister hadn’t been the only one injured in that incident. Sophia kissed the scar gently, and felt his hand caress her hair. “Lie down,” she told him, and he did as she asked, stretching out on the bed, arms behind his head, watching her undress herself.
When she stepped out of her party dress he said, “You’re beautiful, Sophia.”
Was she? It was so hard to tell now, since Phil had made her feel that she was unattractive to other men. Daniel must have seen that in her eyes because he reached out to her and pulled her into his arms.
“I have been all around the world and met thousands of women, many of them among the most beautiful in the world. I can tell you honestly that you are beautiful by any objective standard, and by my own wholly subjective one. Please don’t ever doubt it. That would break my heart.”
Their lips met. Sophia rested her hands on Daniel’s shoulders and felt the ridge of his scar under her palm. His hands cradled her hips, holding her gently but firmly, his fingers slipping under her panties, to slide them downward.
He pivoted and Sophia fell onto the bed. Daniel pushed her legs apart and licked his lips before he went down on his knees between them.
Nothing had ever prepared her for this moment of utter, mindless pleasure. Nothing. Daniel’s fingers, his tongue, lips, teeth drew her into a kind of sensory overload, and she found herself dizzy with it, with the aching throb of joy deep inside her, the sheer physical pleasure he roused in her.
No one had ever made her feel more alive, more like a woman and a desirable one, than Daniel did that night.
She woke, cradled in his arms in the early hours when the sun was still pale and milky in the sky. Daniel was still asleep, and she took the opportunity to watch him for a while, to memorize the curves, and planes, and angles of his face.
He had the face of an angel, something you’d see in a portrait by an old master. At rest, his face softened slightly, and he looked more boyish. She liked seeing sleep smooth out some of the worry lines. She wished she could do that for him.
His impossibly long eyelashes fluttered. He opened his eyes and yawned hugely. “What time is it?”
“Around six-thirty.”
“Tell me I sent my driver home before we fell asleep.”
“You did.”
“That’s a relief. I was worried that the meter was still running.”
“Do you want some coffee, or—”
He tightened his embrace. “Let’s just doze for a while. I don’t often have the pleasure of sleeping with someone. Feels good to wake up to someone warm and friendly.”
His words surprised her. She’d assumed that he had an active and varied sex life.
“You’ll have to tell me about the tattoos.”
He looked down at himself and smiled almost reminiscently. “They all mean something.”
“I hoped they would.”
“You did? Why?”
“I didn’t want them to be whims. I wanted them to be on your body because they were things you wanted to say about your life.”
He looked at her as if he was seeing her for the first time. “You get it,” he said. “Not many people do.”
“The dragon?”
He sighed and moved away from her on the bed. Sophia was afraid that she’d asked the wrong question and was momentarily frozen with the fear of upsetting him. He must have seen it because he said, “It was a long time ago, but it’s still hard to talk about. I was married once. She died and I was almost insane with grief. My great-grandmother Buchanan took me up to her home in the highlands and told me that grief would transform me into who I would be for the rest of my life. She said it would make or break me.” His gaze seemed to fix on something far away in both time and space.
“Her family crest is a dragon, and it was common to see dragons in many forms all over her house, almost like talismans. I remember thinking that if I could let my grief turn me into a dragon, fierce and dangerous, I was all for it. So I concentrated on my internal dragon.” He rubbed his face with both hands and laughed. “I was so young. But it helped. I stopped grieving and started being angry, which was a good first step. And then my grandmother taught me about the wisdom of dragons. I got the tatt to remind me that life is complicated, but strength and intelligence can help you through anything.”
“That’s a sad and amazing story,” Sophia told him. “I never thought much about dragons before. Is that why your first company was Drake Scientific?”
He gave her a look of surprise. “You’ve been studying me,” he accused.
“Guilty. I felt the need to know more about you.”
“That’s wise, though being a public figure doesn’t make me safe. If anything, it gives me more scope for crazy behavior.”
“Don’t scare me.”
He hugged her close. “I don’t mean to. This is a nice room,” he said, looking around. I like the way it feels.”
“What’s your home like?” she asked, imagining something opulent and way out of her league.
“Oh, it’s just a condo. Living room, bedroom, bath, efficiency kitchen with a breakfast bar. I bought it because I didn’t feel like renting, but I haven’t done anything with it.
“Does it have a wonderful view?” she asked, imagining a panoramic view of the lakefront.
“No, it overlooks the railroad tracks. Really, it’s nothing special. It’s still the standard builders’ white with brown wall-to-wall carpeting.”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
He shrugged. Nothing feels like home, really. Not enough to make the effort.” He must have noticed her expression of non-comprehension because he said, “I grew up in boarding school, then went to Cambridge, so home was an abstract to me. The only place that ever really felt like home was the little apartment Siobhan and I shared. It was only a couple of rooms, but she made it beautiful. Nothing else has ever felt right to me.”
Sophia propped herself up on one elbow and stared down at him. “You know what? We’re going to decorate.”
“Nah.”
“Yes. We’re going to make your condo feel like home to you because you deserve that much. Look, you’ve been so good to me, let me repay you by pulling something together for you. I’d enjoy it, and once we’re finished, so will you.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m positive.” It felt like the least she could do for him.
That afternoon they went over to look at his condo, and Sophia had to admit that it was tragically dull. “First thing, we pick out colors,” she told him. She dug her fan deck out of her purse and put it on the breakfast bar. “This is one of my most prized possessions. Pick out colors you like.”
“I don’t know,” he said as he made a pot of coffee.”
“All right then, we’ll start with blues. Everyone likes blue.”
But it was like pulling teeth until she got him to commit to one beautiful shade of teal, a rich, dark blue-green that made him smile. “I can work with this,” she told him.
They went out and picked up a few gallons of paint, and by dinner time, the living room was a beautiful semi-gloss peacock color.
“I don’t know about this,” he said, looking around.
“That’s because we’ve only just started. Tomorrow we buy drapes, lamps, a rug, and some chairs. Your sofa is fine.” It was a dark chocolate leather. Sophia wondered why men liked leather furniture so much, but at least it was a good color.
Once she’d begun to add in the other colors — orange-red, gold, dark brown — Daniel began to get the feel of the process, and started to pick out things he liked. He found a beautiful stained glass table lamp in shades of blue green and amber, and picked out a red-lacquered chest that worked as an end table.
The process took several weeks, during which time, Daniel took a lively interest in the way the room was starting to look. He even cadged a few antique pieces out of his parents and moved things around to accommodate them. He proved to have a good eye, and she complimented him on it every day.
And at night, they slept in his builders’ white bedroom, learning each other in ways Sophia had never imagined she could know another human being. Nothing was ever said about the future, but for the present, things were good, better than she’d ever thought they could be.
She told herself this was temporary, that they were enjoying each other’s company, but in the end, she and Daniel belonged to different worlds. One day they would simply stop being lovers. Perhaps they would stay friends, she hoped that would be the case, but if they didn’t, she knew she’d always remember this time as a happy one.
She was seeing Doctor Forster on a regular basis, and the specter of Phil was beginning to lose some of its power over her. She learned that she was far from alone in all this, that lots of people had controlling partners or stalkers, or abusers, but that there was help available. She began to sort out all the lies he’d told her, and eventually she began to understand that she was actually worthy of being loved by someone good and honest.
She wished it could be Daniel, but knew that if she put too much hope into their relationship, when it went south she would be devastated.
They had finished decorating the bathroom in the condo; Sophia had allowed her sense of whimsy to guide here there, and with Daniel’s permission she decorated the tub and walls with flat-backed glass stones in blues and greens, and painted the walls a beautiful ultramarine blue. It made the room dark, but she covered every inch of available space with remote-controlled candles so with one click of the remote, the room was filled with warm, golden light.
Bathing in there together was a delight, soaking in the hot water, listening to music on the bluetooth speakers she installed.
She had just begun to pick out the colors and the tile for the kitchen remodel when her hard-won peace of mind was shattered. She arrived at the condo one afternoon to find Phil waiting for her in the vestibule.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “You’re not welcome.”
“I know that, but I can’t let that stop me from warning you.”
“You have nothing to say to me.” She tried to push past him but he grabbed her arm.
“He’s using you, Sophie. Guys like that can have any woman in the world, beautiful, talented women. What do you think he wants you for?”
“Let go of me. I mean it.” She tried to sound firm, but inside the tiny voice of her insecurity was starting to whisper to her and she knew she had to make the right choice or all her hard work would be for nothing.
“You’re temporary. You’re just for bed while he goes about his business.”
“Stop that. You’re vile.”
“What do you think he could possibly see in you? I love you, so it doesn’t matter to me that you’re dull and not really beautiful. It’s what’s inside that counts with me. He’s laughing at you, Sophie.”
She stared at him, at his face, contorted and ugly with rage and jealousy, and spoke the truth, knowing that it might cost her dearly. “You don’t love me. You never did. You just want someone you can control.”
“I do. You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved. Sophie, come back to me. I’ll do better. I swear I will”
“No. Go away, Phil.” She gave him a shove and he stumbled backwards a few steps, and pulled something out of his pocket. It was a gun.
“I mean it,” he said. “I’d rather see us both dead than see you throw yourself away on him.”
She should have been more frightened, but it all felt like a dream to her. “No,” she said quietly. “You’re not going to frighten me anymore. I don’t believe a word you say, Phil. Not one. I’m not stupid or ugly, I have talents. I have friends who care about me. You can’t make me feel like nothing anymore. I won’t give you that power again.”
“I mean it,” he said, but his voice was shaking, and so was his hand.
“Put the gun down, Phil. You won’t shoot me. You certainly won’t shoot yourself.”
“You think I won’t?” he demanded, his voice becoming shrill. “You think I won’t?” And he lifted the gun, brought it up fast to point it at his head.
Whether he meant to shoot, or whether it was accidental, Sophia would never know, but there was a terrible, echoing report, and Phil crumpled, leaving a spray of blood on the glass behind him.
Sophia, rooted to the spot, could not even scream. She stood there and stared as the pool of blood spread out underneath Phil’s head, stared as people began to crowd into the vestibule, and the police were called.
“Are you all right?” someone asked, and Sophia could not even speak.
Once Daniel arrived, he sat with her, holding her hand while she spoke to the police. She said that she didn’t think Phil meant to pull the trigger, that he had never had a gun as far as she knew, and probably didn’t understand basic gun safety. “I think he meant to prove a point and his finger slipped.”
She told them what he’d said, what she’d said, and she expected them to give her that look that said she was responsible for this as surely as if she’d pulled the trigger. That she should have been nicer to Phil. But surprisingly, the two officers seemed sympathetic.
“You’ll take care of her?” the female officer asked Daniel, and he nodded.
He took her upstairs and poured her a glass of brandy. “Get yourself around this.”
“It’s okay,” she said.
“Something like this isn’t really okay, Sophia, it just gets further away with time.” He drew her a hot bath, and afterward put her to bed.
When she woke after hearing the sound of the gunshot in a dream, he was sleeping beside her, curled up against her back, one arm thrown over her waist. It made the bad things fade away enough for her to fall asleep again.
The next morning, she woke to the smell of coffee. She threw on her robe and padded out to the kitchen where Daniel was making toast. “You’re up! How you feeling?” he asked.
“I don’t know, really. A little uneasy, but not as rattled as I’d have imagined. The weirdest thing: When I woke up just now, I lay there in bed thinking about decorating the bedroom. Isn’t that strange?” She rubbed her forehead.
“Headache?”
“No, just a bit tense.” The memory of that pool of blood rushed back and she jumped off the stool and raced for the bathroom where she threw up.
Daniel came and held her hair back, and gave her cold water to rinse her mouth.
“I thought about… I don’t want to talk about it, but, what happened, it’s like a movie that plays inside my head at weird moments.” Her hands were shaking.
“Come and have some coffee and toast.”
“Make it tea with dry toast and I’m there,” she joked.
“Whatever you need.” He got her settled on the couch, under an afghan and brought her a cup of tea and a plate of unbuttered toast which she devoured.
“Better?” he asked.
“Much. I was starving.”
“You didn’t eat dinner last night, so it’s not a huge surprise.”
“No.”
“Feel like talking about it?”
She wasn’t sure she wanted to tell Daniel about what Phil had said to her. So much of it had been about him.
“I know what he said to me was about him, not me or you, but I have to say this. I’ve been wanting to say it for a while now and I think it’s time.”
“Okay.”
“I think we both recognize that this isn’t a forever thing between us. No, let me finish, please? This is hard for me.”
He nodded, but he looked uneasy.
“I’m happy. Being with you has been one of the best things that ever happened to me, and no matter when it ends, that won’t change. I love you for your kindness and your thoughtfulness, and I love you for you. I hope that even when we’re not together anymore, we can stay friends. Okay, that’s it.”
Daniel’s expression was strange, unreadable. “Okay,” he echoed. “Yeah, of course we’ll be friends. Let me get you another cup of tea.”
Had she said something wrong? Maybe it wasn’t the best time to approach the subject after all. Maybe obsessing about what Phil had said to her had pushed Sophia into talking about things that Daniel didn’t want to deal with.
When he brought her mug back to her, she said, “You know what I’d like to do today? I’d like to pick out colors for the bedroom and get the process started. What do you think?”
“I’d like that,” he said, but the wariness was still there in his eyes.
She sipped her tea and decided that what would happen would happen. She couldn’t spend her life worrying about it. She had to do something to begin to push the memory of Phil’s death out of her consciousness.
They managed to pick out the paint for the bedroom, but while they were choosing a new bed for Daniel (the old one being one he brought from his old bedroom at his parents’ home) Sophia was hit with a wave of fatigue the like of which she’d never felt before.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she said. “I’m just so tired all of a sudden.”
“We’ll go home. We’ve done enough for today. You’ve been through too much.” Daniel was always so good to her.
“Have I told you lately how much I appreciate you?” she asked when they got back to his condo.
“Yes, but I can always stand to hear it.”
“You look like such a tough guy… and you are, where it counts,” she told him. “But you’re so kind.”
“I’m not, you know. Do you want to take a nap, sweetheart?”
“No. I mean yes, but I’d rather do it on the couch. Let’s watch a movie or something.”
She dozed through Key Largo, and when she woke she had a craving for Thai food, so they ordered dinner and sat on the couch eating spring rolls and watching Casablanca.
When they finally retired, Sophia found that she felt more at ease. The memory of Phil’s death had become less vivid, less intrusive. Along with a sense of relief that he was out of her life, something she would never have talked about, she felt a little sad for him.
She also found that she was craving Daniel. She lay in bed and watched him undress, and the heat of her desire grew so hot that she felt as if she would burst into flame. She pulled the sheet up to her chin and slithered out of her night clothes, so that when Daniel came to bed, probably assuming that they’d be curling up chastely that night, she surprised him by pulling him into her embrace.
She giggled at his confusion, shivered as he began to touch her with careful hands, and said, “More. Harder. I want to feel you.” She needed this. It wasn’t just a final exorcism of Phil’s control over her, or a desire to know that Daniel found her desirable. It was something bone deep, something awakening in her. It was a hunger that she couldn’t control.
She urged him on, whispering at first, then speaking aloud what she wanted, arousing him with her words, and the sounds of passion that were no longer quiet and ladylike. For the first time, she truly gave voice to the pleasure he gave her, and she could feel how he responded, how his body responded.
It was like madness, and it left her sated, so drained that she could barely move when they finally finished. Only when she grew cold, did she manage to stir herself to tug at the covers. As she pulled them up she rolled onto her side and found Daniel lying there, already half asleep. She pulled the duvet over both of them, and whispered, “I love you.”
Daniel’s eyelashes fluttered and for a few moments he stared at her and said, “And I love you.”
Sophia didn’t bother to try to analyze or parse his meaning. It was enough that he’d said it.
She’d made an appointment with Doctor Forster to talk about what had happened. It was an early appointment, the only one the doctor had open, and she came close to canceling because she felt so dragged out, and a bit queasy.
“I’m easier in my mind,” she said, when the doctor asked how she was feeling. “But it’s had a profound effect on my physically.”
“How so?”
“I’m exhausted all the time.”
“Understandable.”
“And I’m often nauseated.”
“Really? Any shortness of breath? Dizziness?”
“No, just sometimes in the morning I’ll feel… Oh.”
“Sophia?” the doctor said gently.
“I think it’s not what happened with Phil. Or maybe only partly,” she admitted.
“Could you be pregnant?”
“It’s not impossible,” she said. “We’ve been careful. Mostly.”
“You need to find out,” Forster counseled. “Sooner rather than later.”
She didn’t know what to think. She tried to talk about Phil’s suicide, but the idea of pregnancy wouldn’t let go of her, and she ended up talking about her relationship with Daniel and how she knew it would end, and she was trying to be adult about it, but how she thought losing him might kill her.
“I don’t want to be a female Phil,” she told the doctor. “I want to accept things as they are, not try to make them what I think they should be.”
“Have you spoken to him about this?”
“Yes, and he agrees that we should stay friends. I just…” Oh God, it hurt so much. She started to cry. “I don’t want to lose him even though I know it has to happen. How will I survive that?”
By the time her session was over, she had managed to pull herself together. She thanked the doctor, then went downstairs and stopped at the pharmacy to buy a pregnancy test. Better to know sooner rather than later.
When she stepped out of the building, Daniel was waiting for her. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I thought maybe your session would be rough, and I wanted to be here for you.”
It made her cry. Again.
“Oh God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“No, sweetheart, no, it’s okay,” he told her, holding her close. “I understand.”
“You don’t.”
“My sister was—”
“It’s not about Phil. It’s about us.” She could feel him stiffen. “Let’s talk in the car, not out here in public.”
“Daniel…” She didn’t know how to start. There was so much to be said, but where to begin? She handed him the bag from the pharmacy and watched as he opened it and realized what she’d bought.
“Are you—”
“I don’t know. I think I might be. I don’t know what to do.”
He closed the bag. “We should get married.”
That made her laugh. “We should wait to see what the test says.”
“No. No, Sophia, no. I don’t want us to think we had to get married. I want us to want to be married. You’ve talked about our relationship as if it’s temporary, and I don’t understand that. This feels like the most permanent part of my life. You say you love me but you talk about being friends.”
“I just didn’t want to lose you.”
“The only way you can lose me is by leaving me.”
“You want…” She made a helpless gesture. “I thought you were with me because you felt sorry for me.”
“What? No. Sophia, I love you. I haven’t loved like this for years. I didn’t think I ever could again. I want to marry you and have a family with you. I want us to be forever. I don’t want us to be about this,” he said shaking the bag and throwing it on he back seat. “Damn Phil to Hell,” he muttered, and turned away.
She wanted to believe. She needed to. She reached out and cradled his cheek with her hand.
“It’s not about Phil anymore.” Half question, half affirmation.
“No.”
“Then yes, I want it to be permanent too. I want to be a family. Two, three… ten…”
Daniel began to laugh. “Fifty,” he said.
“I’m not sure I’d survive fifty,” she said, but she was grinning.
“Grandchildren. Great grandchildren. Everywhere we look, babies,” he said before he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
There was a moment, just a split second, when the voice of her insecurity cleared its throat and said, “What is it he really wants?” Except it wasn’t her voice, not really. It was Phil’s. And Phil was dead and gone from her life. His voice needed to be silenced too.
He wants me, she thought. He loves me.
To which there was no reply, nor could there ever be to a truth so deep. It was love, not pity, or simple kindness. It was something they’d both earned. And it was something Sophia was determined to take joy in.
“Let’s go home,” she said. “We have work to do.” They’d have to make over the second, smaller bedroom as a nursery, she supposed. She hoped. It was time to break out the fan deck and choose colors again. Something warm and pretty. Yellow, perhaps. Good for a boy or a girl.
“It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?” she said as they drove along the lakefront towards home.
“The best,” Daniel agreed. “You feel up to painting when we get back?”
“Of course! Always.”
What she didn’t say, what he’d find out when they got there, was that before the painting, she had something else in mind. Something much more exciting.
She smiled and laid her hand on her still-flat belly.
THE END