CHAPTER 29
One week left…
Zach sipped his coffee and grimaced.
“You know, you should really let me make the coffee, boss.” Mary entered his office holding a Starbucks cup. She passed it to him, and he took it with gratitude. “Yours is disgusting.”
“You’d think with a doctorate from Oxford I’d have learned how to make a proper cup of coffee somewhere along the way.”
“Some of us have the gift. Some don’t. Poor you, swilling gross coffee all your life.”
Zach grinned at her as she sat in the chair across his desk. “Grace always made our coffee. She had the gift apparently,” Zach said. “American coffee is vastly superior to English coffee anyway. She knew some little shop in London that carried the real beans. She got up early to brew it every morning.”
“She sounds like a keeper.” Mary smiled and then seemed to realize she’d said something she shouldn’t. “I’m sorry, Zach.”
“It’s all right. It’s apparently no secret that Grace and I fell apart. Even that arse Finley knows.”
Mary shuddered with revulsion. “I can’t believe he went to all that trouble, leaving all those dirty little presents, just to get under your skin. And then all that stuff he said about Nora…I never told you this, but I really like Nora’s books.”
“Mary, I had no idea you were of that persuasion.”
“I wouldn’t say I was of that persuasion, but I do love a good story. And she writes some torrid ones.”
“Her life is her most torrid story,” Zach said.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Mary, her books aren’t the only thing she sells.”
“Yeah, I heard she was the real thing. I can’t believe I’ve been working for someone who was working with a real live Dominatrix.”
“Not simply a Dominatrix. The Dominatrix apparently. I can’t have it. She’s just supposed to write about it. She’s not supposed to live it.”
“She doesn’t write murder stories, boss. She doesn’t kill people on paper and in real life. She just…”
“Beats them on paper and in real life,” Zach finished for her.
“But they like it. Slightly lower rung on the ladder of horror than murder and rape, don’t you think?”
“Mary, you don’t mind your husband had other lovers before he met you, do you?”
“Of course not. I had my fair share, too.”
“Now, would you mind if you found out these other lovers had paid him for sex?”
Mary laughed at the idea. “I see your point. But still—”
“I can accept it as a private practice between consenting adults. But to do it with strangers for money?”
Mary exhaled and rolled her eyes.
“Boss, do you really think her personal life means she doesn’t deserve to be published? That’s a little harsh, don’t you think? Is this really about her book?”
Zach looked at Mary.
“Please don’t share this with anyone—”
“Jesus, Zach, I’m not J.P. You can tell me anything.”
“Nora and I… It wasn’t strictly business.”
She nodded her head. “Well, obviously. Your mood definitely improved when you started working with her. Is that why you’re so pissed?”
“She lied to me. That’s what I can’t get over. I cared about her. For the first time since Grace and I separated I could vaguely imagine myself happy again. Or at least not miserable anymore.”
“Maybe she was imagining the same thing with you. Maybe that’s why she was afraid to tell you. Or maybe she just wanted you to see her as a writer and not as, I don’t know, a character.”
Zach sighed. He knew Mary had a point. He just didn’t want to admit it yet.
“Tell me something, boss. What do you think is the highest form of art?”
“Literature,” he answered without hesitation. “Painters and sculptors require elaborate supplies and tools. Dancers must have music. Musicians must have instruments. Literature needs nothing but a voice to speak it or sand to scrawl it in.”
Mary walked to his office bookshelf and pulled down three Royal House titles. She laid them facedown on top of his desk. She pointed one by one at the UPC barcodes on the back.
“Even the highest form of art is for sale, Zach. And you, editor extraordinaire, help up the price.”
Zach met her eyes. “You think I’m a prude.”
“Prude…ish. Poor J.P. was heartbroken when you told him it wasn’t going to work out with Nora.”
“I know. He looked like a boy whose puppy just died. But he kept his promise.”
“He trusts you. If you say the book shouldn’t be published, he won’t publish the book. Do you really think the book shouldn’t be published?”
Zach stared at Mary. Twenty-eight years old and she was far wiser than he. She was right. At least Nora deserved a chance to tell her side of the story.
“You deserve a raise.”
“For what? Bringing you coffee?”
“And telling me off. And coming in on a Sunday to help me clean house a little.”
“It’s Easter Sunday. You and I are both members of the tribe. Might as well. Besides, you’re the best boss I’ve ever had.”
“And you’re by far my best assistant ever. Here.” He dug in his messenger bag and pulled out Finley’s most recent gift to him. “Would you like to have these? Finley’s last gift. Earrings, I think.”
Mary opened the box and burst out laughing.
“What?” Zach asked.
“Nice nipple clamps, boss.”
Heat rushed to Zach’s face. “Nipple clamps? I should have known.”
“Well, they do look a lot like clip-on earrings,” she said.
“But you knew what they were immediately.” Zach raised his eyebrow at her.
Mary looked up to the heavens in feigned innocence. “I don’t know. Maybe I am of that persuasion.” She stood up and headed for the door.
“You think I should call Nora?” Zach asked. Mary turned around.
“I think you should think about it,” Mary said as she left his office.
He picked up the phone and dialed Nora’s house number, but there was no answer. He called her cell phone but it went directly to voice mail. He sent her an email that said only, Will you call me please? but got an automatically generated away message back from her. All it said was, To Whom It May Concern: Fuck off. I’m busy.
He sighed and gave up. He could only imagine what she was so busy doing. Even on Easter Sunday, a day that meant nothing to him but he knew was very important to Catholics, she was clearly hard at work at her other job.
He’d tried to call her. It just wasn’t meant to be. He considered calling Grace. He picked up the phone again, stared at it, then put it back down.
* * *
He sighed, knowing he was caught. It amused him to think that while he was ostensibly in charge of every aspect of her life, Caroline still believed she could control his choice of reading material. Her benign feminine disapproval trumped any act of dominance he could muster.
“In the effort to retain my status as the dominant partner in this relationship, consider the following a preemptive strike—I give you permission to criticize my book,” William said to Caroline as she knelt on the ground at his feet.
“Camus again? He’s so bleak and melancholy,” Caroline chided him. “You can’t really think there’s something noble about pushing a rock up a hill for all eternity, do you, sir?”
“It’s noble because Sisyphus is doing something more than nothing. He knows his task is meaningless and that the world is absurd, but he continues, refusing to surrender to the futility. It is both profound and noble.”
“It’s depressing. And Camus was an atheist, right?” she countered, resting her chin on his knee.
“He was, yes.”
“Then Sisyphus’s something is still nothing. Without God life has no ultimate meaning. Pushing the rock up the hill is no nobler than leaving it at the bottom and just killing yourself.”
William smiled down at her as he twisted his fingers into her hair. “My little Kierkegaard…if it were proved to me right now that heaven’s throne sat empty and at the center of all that exists nothing but a bleak and empty void…I would still make love to you tonight with the same ferocity as I made love to you last night. Is that not a better response than celibacy?”
She blushed like a new bride. “I think that’s a trick question, sir.”
“No trick at all.” He closed his book and set it aside. “And what are you reading now?”
“I found an old copy of some O. Henry short stories. We read The Gift of the Magi my freshman year in high school, but I don’t think I’ve read anything by him since.”
“Ah, yes. The young couple, desperately poor but deeply in love…she sells her only possession, her lustrous long hair to buy a chain for her husband’s pocket watch…and her husband sells his only possession, his pocket watch to buy his wife combs for her lustrous long hair. On the altar of love they sacrifice the only things they have of value.”
“They have each other,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper.
“Oh, yes, of course. They have each other.” William pulled his hand from her hair and picked up his book again. “And you say Camus is melancholy.”
“Hey, Sinner Still in Her PJ’s,” Wesley said, peeking into her office. “Can you afford a five-minute break?”
“I need a five-minute break.” Nora pushed away from her desk and looked at Wesley up and down. “A suit and a tie. Very GQ.”
He bowed at her.
“It’s Easter, Nora. Could you not even tear yourself away from your book long enough to go to church on Easter?”
“If I’d gone to church it would have been Sacred Heart.”
Wesley grimaced.
“Good point. How’s the book coming?” He sat in her armchair across from her desk.
“Okay. It’s harder not having the daily feedback. I’ve gotten used to that. But it’s progressing. I’m dreading the big scene, though.”
“What’s the problem?” Wesley loosened his tie.
Nora put her elbows on her desk and rubbed her temples.
“It’s a mess. It’s the most important scene in the book.”
“So it’s a sex scene.”
“Right. But it’s really difficult for me to write. My guy in the book is pure kink. My girl is vanilla but trying to be what he wants her to be. But this is the scene where he gives in and tries to be what she wants. It’s hard to write vanilla sex when you’ve never actually had vanilla sex.”
“Can I help?”
“You want to help me write a sex scene?”
Wesley shrugged. “I’ve helped you before.”
“Yeah, and you swore you’d never help me with a scene again after the last time. Which I thought was an overreaction on your part.”
“You left me hog-tied on the floor while you made yourself a sandwich.”
“I offered to share.”
“Suit yourself. I’m getting out of these clothes before I suffocate. Holler when you want lunch.” He got up and headed for the door.
Nora looked down at the morass of notes about the big scene.
“Wes?”
“Yes, ma’am?” He spun around in her doorway.
“You can help me. I need all the help I can get.”
“No comment. Tell me what to do.”
“Go change first. Meet me in my room when you’re done.”
Wesley bowed again and yanked his tie off on the way out of her office.
Nora printed off her most recent draft of the big scene. She’d have to be careful and not let Wesley see the pages or he might be upset by one or two things he read.
She entered her room and found Wesley already lounging against a mound of pillows piled against the headboard of her massive bed with one leg bent at the knee, his arm resting on it. He now was barefoot and wore only jeans and a white T-shirt. With the sunlight in his sandy-blond hair, Wesley looked even more enticing than usual, and for a moment Nora couldn’t quite think of what she was doing. He looked at her and didn’t smile but only raised his chin slightly as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. Had she seen that expression on the face of any other man she would have assumed it was a come-on.
“So what’s going on here?” Wesley asked as Nora hopped up on the bed next to him.
“It’s hard to explain completely unless you’ve read the whole book, which you haven’t.”
“You won’t let me.”
“You can read it when it’s done. Maybe.”
“You’ve let me read rough drafts before.”
“Are we going to argue or have pretend sex?”
Wesley exhaled. “Pretend sex, I guess. What am I doing?”
“Sleeping in bed. She’s sleeping on the floor.”
“He makes her sleep on the floor?”
“He gives her a blanket.”
“Very romantic.”
Nora glanced down at her pages, still warm from the printer. “Okay, I’m her. I wake up and have to have you because while I know we don’t belong together, that doesn’t change the fact that I love you and want to try to make it work.”
Wesley nodded.
“You pretend to be asleep,” Nora instructed. “Then I’ll wake you up. Then you’ll let me make love to you.”
Nora expected a laugh or a protest but Wesley only tilted his head just slightly and sank deeper into her pillows.
“Okay, Nora,” he said, his voice low and serious. “Make love to me then.”
Tremors rippled through Nora’s fingers as if her hands had fallen asleep and were just now beginning to awaken. To cover her sudden nervousness, she purposefully scanned her scene, looking for a good place to start.
Nora took a deep breath and reached out. Wesley was feigning sleep. His head was turned to the side and his eyes were closed. His blond eyelashes lay on his tan cheeks. She touched his face as gently as she could and his eyes fluttered open.
“What do I do?” he asked.
“He grabs her wrist. Hard but not viciously.”
Wesley raised his hand and clasped Nora’s wrist. She wondered if he could feel her pulse racing.
“Then what?” Wesley stroked her wrist with his thumb.
“He says to her, ‘You know that’s against the rules.’”
“And she says?”
Nora paused. The light in the room changed as a cloud swallowed the sun and everything was thrown into pale shadows. The darkening room seemed suddenly and dangerously intimate, but she didn’t dare stop. She knew how fragile, how easily shattered such a moment was. Her body tensed. The room held its breath.
“She says, ‘This isn’t about the game. It’s just me now. I want, just once, to be with just you.’”
“And he says?”
“He doesn’t say anything. They look at each other in the dark until she says…‘please.’”
Nora’s and Wesley’s eyes met.
“Please,” Wesley repeated. “Then what happens?”
“The big moment—he’s been in control the whole time, totally in charge. This is when he lets go and gives himself into her hands. He surrenders.”
Wesley nodded his head solemnly. “And she?”
“She kisses him.” Nora laid her hand on Wesley’s chest. “And he lets her.”
Nora leaned in even farther, expecting Wesley to stop her at any moment. When he didn’t she nearly stopped herself, but after the briefest hesitation she pressed her lips to his. Opening her mouth, she brushed his bottom lip with the tip of her tongue and his mouth opened to hers.
A million times perhaps Nora had imagined what it would be like to finally kiss him. But as they grew to be best friends she’d tried to stop thinking of him like that. Their friendship was too fragile—it rested on the edge of a knife’s blade. Her resolve to love him without making love to him wavered at times, but her profound respect for him kept dragging her wayward heart and body back in line. But as his untutored lips trembled under her lips, and his tongue tentatively sought hers, that resolve threw itself onto that blade, sliced itself in two, slid to the ground and died there, quiet and happy and without any further protest.
“What happens next?” Wesley whispered when Nora paused for a breath.
“She pulls the covers off him and kisses him from neck to hip.”
“She doesn’t take his pajamas off first?”
“He sleeps naked. So does she, of course.”
Wesley smiled at her and she saw desire in his eyes.
“Of course.”
Nora pulled back a little and watched Wesley. In the space between them hovered a question that only Wesley could answer.
He rose up and with that enviable masculine grace pulled his T-shirt off and threw it on the floor. But he’d been shirtless around her a thousand times. She waited.
Nora studied his hands for any sign of nervousness, but his fingers didn’t quiver at all as he gathered the fabric of her silk camisole in his hands and pulled it off her. She watched him study her naked curves. His gaze of innocent wonder was more erotic than any lascivious stare she’d ever received.
“Don’t look at me like that, Wes. You gave me a bath a few nights ago.”
“The bubbles were in the way.” Wesley tore his gaze from her breasts and met her eyes. “You’re so beautiful.”
“So are you.”
Nora fell into his arms again and their mouths met. This time the kiss wasn’t remotely tentative. Wesley’s lips sought hers again and again, his tongue found hers, his arms encircled her and pushed her onto her back. He gasped as her lips met his skin. He tilted his chin back to give her better access, access that she took eager advantage of caressing his shoulders, his chest and his collarbone with her mouth. She felt unleashed at last, finally free to touch every inch of him as she’d wanted for so long.
“How am I supposed to do this again?” he whispered in her ear.
“You just kiss her anywhere and everywhere you want to kiss her…” she said, remembering the first night she’d slept next to him, the first time she touched him.
“Anywhere and everywhere…” Wesley kissed his way from her neck to her breasts. He paused for a moment and looked at her before lowering his head and taking one of her nipples in his mouth. She arched underneath him and sighed with pleasure. He was eager but gentle. It was the strangest sensation. Her instincts told her to throw him on his back, tie him down and have her way with him. Lying there so passively while he touched and kissed her felt so unusual, as if he was making love to her in a foreign language, a beautiful language to hear, but one she didn’t understand.
Wesley brought his mouth to hers again and shifted so that his body was on top of hers, his full weight down on her, his hips pressing into hers. He pushed her arms over her head and she smiled—this she was used to. But instead of holding her down by her wrists, Wesley twined his fingers into hers. Something caught in her chest at the simple gesture of tenderness.
Pausing from the kiss, Wesley pulled back and looked down at her and searched her face as though he couldn’t believe she was real.
“Please tell me this means as much to you as it does to me,” he begged.
Nora swallowed a lump in her throat. “I’m terrified, Wes. I think it may even mean more to me.”
Shaking his head, he smiled. “Not possible.”
Wesley released her hands and pulled her into his arms. His body radiated warmth and she couldn’t seem to get enough of his skin. She wrapped a leg over his back and Wesley pressed his forehead to the center of her chest. Nora felt a flutter of fear when she remembered this was Wesley and he would never have sex with anyone he wasn’t in love with. The only person she’d ever had sex with who loved her was Søren. Søren…
“Wes, stop for a second.”
Wesley pulled away from her and she saw the fear in his eyes.
“I wasn’t hurting you, was I?”
She rolled up and pulled her legs to her chest.
“No, you weren’t hurting me at all. I just…” She panted a little. “I just need a second. I told you, I’ve never had vanilla sex before.”
Wesley laughed a little.
“Are you a virgin, too?”
She met his eyes and smiled.
“Guess so.”
Wesley reached out and ran his hand through her hair.
“Nora, I don’t think I can do what you do. I’ve never even had normal sex much less…you know.”
Nora took short breaths. “I know. I’ll try, too.”
She pulled Wesley to her again. She wasn’t sure how to do this, how to just let go and let him make love to her. They kissed and he pushed her onto her back. A strange panic set it. This wasn’t who she was. Nora Sutherlin didn’t have vanilla sex. She didn’t do missionary position. The last time she had sex on her back and face-to-face was with Søren, and she’d been in four-point restraints. She didn’t know the rules to this game. But she knew if this happened, if they made love right now, he would believe she loved him as much as he loved her. He wasn’t just giving her his body. He was giving her his heart.
“Talk to me, Wesley,” she begged. He grew more courageous with every kiss. His hands roamed over her arms, her breasts, and even slid between her legs and caressed her through the fabric of her silk pajamas. “Tell me what you want to do.”
Wesley placed a hand on the side of her face and caressed her cheekbone with his thumb.
“I want to be inside you.” He breathed the words.
She reached between them and unbuttoned his jeans.
“Nora—” She heard a note of panic in his voice.
“We can get under the covers. Would that help?” She hoped he would say yes. Maybe it would help her, too.
“I’m the guy. I’m the one who should be saying that,” Wesley said with a rueful smile.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m older and a slut. Let me handle it, okay?” Could she handle it? She wanted to stop, wanted to talk to him before they went any further. She hadn’t been nervous like this in years. The night she gave her virginity to Søren felt like destiny. This felt like fear.
Wesley laughed. “Okay. Yeah, I would feel much more comfortable under the covers.”
Nora scooted off one side of the bed as Wesley slid off the other. As they pulled the sheets back, the pages of her novel fell off the bed and to the floor. Wesley picked them up and glanced at them.
Nora crawled across the bed toward him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. But Wesley didn’t respond. He just kept reading.
“It’s just fiction.” Nora kissed his shoulder.
“William and Caroline?” Wesley finally tore his eyes from the page. “That’s your father’s name and my mother’s name. Is this about us?”
Nora shook her head. “No, not really.”
“Not really?” Wesley took a step away from her and grabbed his shirt off the floor. Feeling both defeated and relieved, Nora pulled her camisole back on and sat cross-legged on the bed.
“No, it isn’t our story. He’s not quite me. She’s not quite you. It’s just inspired by us, by things I’ve thought about because of our relationship. They’re lovers. We’re just friends. Or were. Jesus, Wes. Did you plan this?” Nora couldn’t quite finish the question; the enormity of what they’d almost done together finally hitting her as she surveyed her disheveled bed.
“You quit your other job. I thought now maybe it might mean as much to you—”
“God, Wesley, it does mean as much to me.”
“Or is this just about your book?” he asked, holding the pages in his hand. He glanced down and scanned them. “The Gift of the Magi. That’s my favorite short story.”
“I know. It’s what they’re talking about the evening before this scene happens, about what people have to give up when they’re together.”
“So what is his watch? My virginity? I was ready to give that to you.”
“Your innocence. So much more valuable and so much more traumatic to lose.”
“And her hair, what’s that? You’ve already given up your job with King.”
“But I haven’t stopped being who I am.”
“It isn’t who you are, Nora. It’s just what you do.”
“Even if I’m not doing it for money, it’s still who I am. And I can’t sell it, not even to buy you a watch chain. It’s what writes my books and makes me me. It’s the only thing I have of value. And even if you wanted to give me your innocence, wanted to come into my world with combs for my hair, I can’t let you do that. So where does that leave us? You tell me.”
“With no Christmas presents, I guess.”
“I guess not,” Nora said, suddenly exhausted.
Wesley weighed the pages in his hands, flipped through them and pressed them to his chest.
“Why did you write this? Write a book about us?”
“Because I guess I’ve always known you and I can’t be together. God, I thought I was going to faint a few minutes ago trying to have vanilla sex with you. I hate that we have this thing between us. It kills me a little bit every day. The book—I don’t know. I guess I thought at least we could be together on paper for a little while. It’s not much, but it’s something,” she said, trying and failing to smile.
“Let me read it. All of it.”
“You don’t want to read it, sweetheart.”
“You said it was us.”
Nora remained unmoved.
“Please,” Wesley said, and Nora heard the slight but desperate catch in his voice. Nodding, she slid off the bed and retreated to her office. She grabbed the binder that held her most recent copy of her novel and returned to her bedroom.
“It’s not done yet. I still have about eight or so chapters to write.”
“How does it end?”
“I don’t know,” she lied.
“The Consolation Prize.” He opened the binder and read the title out loud.
“Yeah, the consolation prize. You know, it’s what you get when you don’t win.”
“What do you want to win?” In his voice was a quiet promise that if he could give it to her he would.
“You, Wes. But I can’t win you without selling who I am to afford you.”
“And I can’t win you without selling my soul, right?” Wesley asked.
“Now you see why I said The Gift of the Magi was a horror story.”
Wesley only looked at her before turning his eyes to her novel.
She spun on her heel and left Wesley alone in her room with the book—the book she had written in a reckless attempt to exorcise the demon of love from her heart. Once Wesley finished the book he would know everything—know the good of her love and the evil, know she wanted him and why. They’d been so happy together in the strange little paradise they’d made together, but now she felt expulsion was imminent. And she had no one but herself to blame for her fall.
Nora returned to her office and sat at her desk. Outside, the last gasp of the retreating winter winds paced back and forth across her windows. Wesley was going to read her book. She opened her saved draft and put her hands on the keyboard. What could she do but write? At least now she knew how to end the big scene. William would try to make love to Caroline like she wanted. He would try, but he would fail. And between the two of them a chasm would open up so wide they could not even see to the other side. The moment they tried the hardest to be together is the moment they are forever torn apart.
Poor Caroline, Nora thought and swiped at a rogue tear hiding at the corner of her eye.
Poor William.