CHAPTER 34
Zach had heard of sleeping with one’s eyes open but not of dreaming that way. But after a two-hour wait, two hours with his eyes on the hotel entrance, he knew his mind must be asleep. And when Grace walked in, saw him and smiled as if the two years of the cold and quiet hell they’d been living in had vanished into thin air, he knew he could only be dreaming.
He stood up and shoved his hands in his pockets, afraid if he didn’t he’d drag her to him.
“Hiya,” he said, not knowing what else to say.
“Hiya.” It was her, her voice, his Grace.
“I was waiting for you.”
“I see that. I tried to call you. Several times. When I didn’t hear from you, I called Mr. Bonner. I told him it was an emergency. He gave me—”
“He sent you to Nora’s, didn’t he?”
“Don’t be angry at him, please.”
“I’m not. So you met Nora?”
Grace nodded and hazarded a smile.
“Had tea with her. We talked.”
Zach was afraid to ask, more afraid not to. “What did she say?”
“She said I should call you George.”
“She would say that. Gracie, I—”
“About Nora,” Grace said, cutting him off. “I think she might be the only woman in the world I could ever forgive you for.”
“Say the word,” Zach said, “and she’ll be the only woman you’ll ever have to.”
Grace smiled, but the smile broke in two as she collapsed into his arms. He held her to him and pressed his lips to her hair. She said nothing and that was fine. The weight of her slight body against his, her head on his chest…it made him feel safer than any words she could have spoken.
“Forgive me, too,” she said. “Please.”
“No, Gracie.” He swallowed hard. “Nothing to forgive. Tell me something, please.”
“Anything.”
Zach pulled back and held her by the shoulders. He searched her face, still unable to believe she was here.
“Did I lose you, or did I never have you to start with?” he asked.
Grace shook her head. “You never lost me, Zachary. And you always, always had me.”
Zach’s heart rose so high he thought it would burst from his chest.
“I lied to you,” Grace said, and looked up at him.
Zach’s hands went cold. “About what?”
“The day when I called about the blackout…the lights weren’t really out.”
“They weren’t?” Zach almost laughed.
“No,” she said and pressed her head against his chest again. “The lights were never out.”
* * *
The sanctuary at Sacred Heart sat empty but for the heady air still radiating warmth from the hundred or more souls who had left barely an hour ago. Nora faced the altar and inhaled the familiar smoky scent. She thought of the book of Revelation and how in it the prayers of the church rise before God in the form of incense. She said her own silent prayer and released it like smoke into the sky.
“I’m afraid you’ve missed Saturday morning Mass,” a voice as familiar as her own said.
Nora turned around and found Søren with a pewter pitcher refilling the fount of holy water at the entrance to the sanctuary.
“But we celebrate Vigil mass at five o’clock this evening if you’d like to come back.”
“Søren, you are ubiquitous.” Nora came to him. He set the empty pitcher aside.
“I prefer the term omnipresent,” he said.
“You would.”
Nora didn’t bother attempting to fake a smile for him. She knew him, knew he would see right through it. She waited and let Søren study her. His knowing eyes on her face felt as intimate as a touch.
“You look tired, little one,” he said.
“I am tired.”
“Tell me.”
“I have such a great gift for ruining things. It even impresses me sometimes.”
“Self-pity does not become you,” he chastised her in the same tone he used to silence unruly children in the hallways. “And while you have a gift for creating chaos, I have never known you to be willfully destructive. Now, what is this about?”
Nora gave him the faintest of smiles.
“I finished the book.”
“I had no doubt you would.”
“Zach even signed the contract. Then we celebrated.”
“Of that I have no doubt, either,” Søren said with a wry smile. “So why is there so much sadness in your eyes?”
“I met Zach’s wife today.”
“Ah, the once and future Mrs. Easton. What did you think of her?”
“I think he’ll go back to her.”
Søren nodded. “That was inevitable.”
Nora swallowed. “And last night meant nothing.”
“I’m sure your night together meant a great deal to him. More than you may ever know. The same wind that blows us off course can turn and carry us home.”
“She is his home. I could see that in her eyes. She’s perfect, Søren.”
“Perfect for him perhaps. To me, Eleanor, it is you who is flawless.”
Nora’s heart beat heavy in her chest. Søren’s love never ceased to humble her.
“I’m as flawed as it gets.”
“You are human. And that is the better part of your beauty. But you always knew your editor longed for his wife more than anything. This can’t be a surprise to you. What else?”
Nora was afraid he’d ask her that. But Søren had been her father confessor for eighteen years. Now she needed his absolution more than ever.
“Last Sunday…Wesley and I almost made love.”
“You have been busy, haven’t you? Why only ‘almost’?”
“He stopped first, and then I stopped it all. Søren…” she said in a hoarse half whisper, “I broke the rule—I think I harmed him.”
“Little one.” Søren cupped the side of her face. “I’m so sorry.”
“I have to make him go, don’t I?”
“For his own good, yes. That, I’m afraid, was inevitable, as well.”
Nora nodded, feeling none of the anger she usually experienced when Søren proved himself insufferably right as he always did.
Søren laid two fingers on her temple. He traced the line of her face from her forehead to her lips.
“You always knew Zachary loved his wife. Yes?”
“Yes.” She remembered the ghost of Grace that haunted his eyes from the day they met. “I knew…at the back of my mind, the back of my heart.”
“Where you love Wesley, yes?”
“Yes.”
“And me?” he asked, his voice soft and earnest in that way it so rarely was with her these days. “Where do you love me?”
Nora did not hesitate before answering. She closed her eyes and whispered, “Everywhere else.”
Søren looked at her as if he’d already known that would be her answer, as if for all eternity it would be her answer. Perhaps it would, she thought.
“Come to my office,” Søren said. “We can talk about it.”
Nora smiled. “Your office. I remember when you’d make me cocoa and help me with my math homework on that bench right outside your office.”
“I always knew when you were working on your math homework. The litany of profanities echoing through the halls was always an excellent indicator. Shall we? I’ll see what’s in the cupboard.”
He held out his hand and Nora reached into her pocket. She laid her collar on his waiting palm.
“I didn’t come here for the cocoa.” Nora met his eyes. For perhaps only the second time in eighteen years, she saw she’d surprised him.
Søren said nothing, merely closed his fingers around her collar. She’d seen those same fingers wrapped around his rosary a thousand times. He held her collar with the same love, the same devotion, the same grim determination to make heaven bend to his ear.
Without a word, Søren turned on his heel.
Nora followed him through the sanctuary and through door after door. A final door opened to a shadowy tree-shrouded pathway that led from the church to the rectory. How many times had she furtively stolen from the church to his home? A million times, she thought. A million was still not enough.
Secluded by a copse of old-world elms and oaks, Søren’s rectory stood graceful and quiet in the sheltered sanctuary created by the trees. A small two-story Gothic cottage, it afforded him both beauty and privacy—two very precious commodities.
Nora waited in submissive silence as Søren built a fire in the living-room fireplace. Glancing around, Nora saw the secret signs of their long association: the Bösendorfer piano she’d given him as a gift last December 21 for his forty-sixth birthday, the tassel of an embroidered bookmark she’d made for him at church camp the summer she turned sixteen peeking out from a volume of John Donne poetry, a lock on the bottom door of a cabinet under one of the bookcases. Only she and he knew what he kept behind that lock. And on the fireplace mantel were ten slight scratches in the wood left by her desperate fingernails on a night he had shown her no mercy. She knew she might add another ten there tonight.
Søren came to her and gazed down at her face. She kept her eyes respectfully lowered. It had been the first submissive act he’d taught her.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
“To give myself to you, sir.”
“You wish to be mine again?”
“Yes.”
“Completely?”
“And utterly, sir,” she said. “Without conditions or constraints.” The words came so easily to her she knew they must be true. Coming back felt as easy as falling, as simple as death.
“You weren’t mine last night, were you?” Søren demanded and Nora blushed.
“No, sir,” she whispered.
“You were with your editor last night. Yes?”
“Yes.”
“And did you do as I told you? Did you make him hurt you?”
“Yes, sir.”
From the corner of her eye she saw him raise his eyebrow at her in clear skepticism.
“Show me.”
Nora held out her hands and displayed her wrists, the purple bruises on her skin.
“He held you down,” Søren said. “Your arms were over your head.”
“Yes,” Nora said, amazed how Søren could read that simply from the angle of the marks.
“What else?”
Nora unbuttoned her blouse and let it fall to the floor. She unzipped her skirt and stepped out of it. Without shame or fear she shed all her underclothes, as well. She stood naked before Søren and waited. He studied her body with appraising eyes. Stepping behind her, he raised her hair off her back.
“He bit your shoulder, I see. Several times. He took you from behind.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Anal?”
“Once.”
Søren moved to her front again. He reached down and slipped his hand behind her knee. He raised her leg, inspecting the inside of her thigh with the perfunctory expertise of a judge at a dog show.
“Finger marks,” he said, releasing her leg. “And knees. You fought him.”
“I made him work for it.”
“Did you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Will you fight me tonight?”
“No, sir. Not now or ever again.”
Søren said nothing as he continued to study her naked body.
“A few bite marks, a few bruises…I’m afraid your Zachary is something of an amateur in the art of pain. Isn’t he? Not like us.”
The vicious slap landed across her cheek with such speed that Nora gasped as much from the shock of it as she did the pain. She inhaled and tasted blood in the back of her throat. She swallowed it and met Søren’s eyes.
“No, not like us…sir.”
Søren smiled and snapped his fingers. Without a moment’s hesitation she dropped hard to her knees. He wrapped her collar around her throat and buckled it at the base of her neck. She breathed into its grip; let it hold her throat like a hand.
Nora heard the air divide in half and she braced herself for the blow.
How easily you forgive, Eleanor. How freely you absolve the sins of others. Tell me, little one, when the time comes, how will you absolve yours?
With the first lash of the whip Nora felt a strip of fire burn across her back. She cried out from a pain so ferocious she nearly choked on it.
Like this, Søren, she dared answer only in her mind. This is how.
* * *
Yawning, Zach stumbled into his flat. He’d spent all night with Grace at her hotel talking it out. In all his life he’d never been so grateful for a sleepless night. He glanced at the clock on the wall—10:38 a.m. He smiled at the clock. He’d missed his flight to L.A.
He’d already called J.P. and told him he needed some time to decide what to do next. Thankfully, J.P. didn’t seem the least surprised. Zach had gone with Grace to JFK and seen her off. She’d kissed him goodbye, something she hadn’t done when he’d left almost eight months ago. He floated home on that kiss and curled up with it on the couch. He would sleep first, catch an hour or two then call Nora. He didn’t know what to say. But he knew she would understand.
Before he could close his eyes the phone rang. Zach grabbed at it, nearly dropping it in the process of trying to answer it.
“Yes? Hello?”
“Zach, it’s me. Wes.”
“Wesley, what is it?” Zach asked, coming fully alert again at the sheer panic in the boy’s voice.
“I’m at the hospital. I had to bring Nora in.”
“My God, what happened?”
Zach heard Wesley cough like he was gagging on something. But it only took one word to explain all.
“Søren.”
* * *
The ride to the hospital was nearly as torturous as the ride to Grace’s hotel had been the day before. Zach found the emergency ward where Wesley said they took Nora. He stood in the middle of the vast antiseptic room prepared to do battle with any doctor or nurse who dared ask him to leave. He wasn’t sure exactly where Nora was, what curtain to look behind. He listened, hoping to hear her voice or even her tears, anything to lead him to her. Instead, he heard her laugh.
Zach followed her fading laughter and heard the low rumble of a man’s voice. After a moment a man in a dark blue suit emerged. Zach saw a flash of gleaming metal on his belt. After a quick, steadying breath, Zach slipped through the curtain.
“Good Lord, Nora,” he said as he took in the bruised and bandaged sight before him.
“Hey, Zach. What the hell are you doing here?”
“Wesley called me in hysterics. I can see why.”
“He overreacted. Nearly dragged me here kicking and screaming. He thought it was a broken rib, but it’s just bruised. Seriously, it’s not that bad.” She adjusted the pillow behind her.
Not that bad? Her cheek was purpled and her bottom lip was cracked and swollen. He saw red welts on both wrists and even around her neck.
“A bruised rib? You must be joking.”
“That was my fault, though. I flinched wrong. I’m a bit out of practice. This stuff just goes with the territory. No big deal.”
“No big deal? That was a police officer, wasn’t it?”
Nora flashed him her old arrogant smile, a smile undiminished by the fissure of blood on her lip. “That’s Detective Cooper, my friend on the force. He works with the community, keeps us out of trouble.”
“You’re a madwoman, Nora. Why did you do this?”
Nora gave a cold, hollow laugh, grimacing as the movement seemed to hurt her.
“Remember that day in my kitchen,” she said, pausing to catch her breath. “That first day we were working on my book. You asked me what Wes’s story was.”
“Yes, I recall. Why?”
“I told you I’d put the first randy bitch who laid a hand on him in the hospital. Turns out it was me. Hey, never let it be said I can’t keep a promise.”
“Nora…you will be the death of me,” Zach said, wanting to laugh, too, but finding it utterly impossible.
“You keep saying that. And yet you’re still alive. What the hell are you doing here anyway? Where’s Grace?”
“I dropped her off at the airport.”
“You let her leave without you? Are you insane?”
“I can’t just bloody go—”
“Yes, you bloody well can,” Nora countered. “Just go. Don’t pack your toothbrush. Don’t call work. Just get on a goddamn plane and go get your wife back. For good this time.”
Zach stared at the tiles on the floor. His eyes followed the spots of black and white, letting them swirl together and become gray.
“Go, Zach. You have no idea how much I want to keep you here. Selflessness is not in my nature. Go before I change my mind.”
“What about Wesley?”
“He’ll be fine, too. We’ll be fine. And we finished the book. Your job is done.”
Zach looked up and met her eyes. “You must hate me.”
“I understand. Trust me.”
Zach felt a terrible tightening in his chest. “I couldn’t have gone back to her, wouldn’t have known how if it wasn’t for you. I’m sure that makes no bloody sense whatsoever.”
“Oh, it makes perfect sense.” Nora laughed. “I taught you how to leave me.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I’m not. Søren told me you were still in love with Grace. I should have listened.”
“Søren…why?” Zach shook his head.
“Why?” Nora scooted back on her pillow and briefly closed her eyes. “Why? Søren has loved me since the day we met. He’s loved me since I was fifteen years old. He’s loved me without fear, without guilt, without failing and without flinching every day of my life.” She opened her eyes again and looked at him. “He’s the only man who never hurt me.”
Zach searched for words, any words, but couldn’t find them.
“Nora, I—”
“It’s okay. Really. You have to go. You’re wasting time. You’ve had your bags packed since the day I met you. But it was never to L.A. you were going. We both know that. Go home.”
Zach stood up and walked on shell-shocked feet toward the door.
“Zach?”
Zach turned around. Nora was looking at him.
“It meant something to you, didn’t it? Me? My book? Last night wasn’t just—”
It took less than a second to get from the door to Nora’s bedside. Zach took her face in his hands and, careful of her bruises, kissed her with the passion of a man who knew the next woman he kissed would be the only woman he’d kiss for the rest of his life.
“Yes,” he said, breathlessly. “It meant something.”
Nora nodded. “You’re still my editor, right?”
“Always.”
“I have an idea for a new book. But I’ll need your help.”
Zach touched the unbruised side of her face.
“Just remember, show, don’t tell.” He winked at her.
Nora laughed again, her wicked, dirty, perfect laugh.
“How much are they paying you for this?”
* * *
The drive home from the hospital felt interminable. Wesley didn’t speak and Nora was afraid to shatter the silence. He pulled into their driveway. She got out of the car and felt a sudden wave of dizziness as the painkiller the nurse gave her kicked in when she stood up too fast. She thought she was about to go down, but then Wesley had her in his arms and carried her into the house.
“You shouldn’t have left the hospital.” Wesley set her on the couch.
“I’ve left AMA before. You have to or they’ll start calling in for psych evaluations and other shit you don’t need.”
“You sure you don’t need one?”
“I had a feeling that deep down you thought I was actually crazy,” Nora said.
Wesley sat in the chair next to the couch. He leaned back and covered his face with his hands.
“I’d like to think you weren’t in your right mind when you did this to me.”
Nora leaned back into the couch cushions. Every breath she took hurt, but not from the pain in her ribs.
“I didn’t do it to you,” she said. “I did it for you.”
“That makes no sense, Nora.”
“You promised me you’d leave me if I went back to Søren. Leaving me is the best thing for you to do.”
“You want me go?” he asked, his voice soft with shock.
“No. Never.” She hated the look of relief on his face. “But I need you to. I can’t keep you anymore.”
Wesley ran his hands through his hair. His face was red, his eyes rimmed with unshed tears. “Let me keep you then.”
“No, sweetheart, I can’t. I—”
“Do you love me?”
“Wesley, it’s not morning until you’re awake. And it’s not night until you’re asleep in your bed under my roof. And I could go on and on but hope is a horrible thing, and I love you too much to give you any. I need you to do something for me.”
“Anything,” Wesley said. “Everything.”
“Please,” she begged. “Keep your promise.”
Wesley opened his mouth to speak, to protest, but he turned his head at the sound of a car honking discreetly outside.
Nora met his eyes.
“That’s for me,” she said, standing up.
“You’re really going back to him?”
Nora faced Wesley. All she wanted to do was take him in her arms and hold him until all their pain was gone. But there was no time for that anymore. And his pain and hers weren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
“Wes, I don’t think I ever actually left him.”
Nora grabbed her purse by the door and dug inside it. She pulled out her wallet and wrote a check to Wesley.
“Here.” She handed him the check. “Back pay. Should cover your tuition and anything else you need for the rest of the semester.”
Wesley took the check and methodically ripped it into pieces.
“I never needed or wanted your money. All I ever wanted was you. Nora, please—”
Nora looked back at Wesley and wished she hadn’t. She knew this would be the last time she saw him, maybe forever. She wanted her last memory of him to be happy… The day they’d danced around her living room when her fifth book hit the bestseller list… The night they’d stayed up until 3:00 a.m. to catch the meteor shower… That Saturday last summer he took her horseback riding for the first time… Last Sunday when he wanted to give her his virginity and there was nothing more in the world she wanted than to take it. But she knew she’d never forget the look he wore on his face, the desperation, the broken eyes.
“Don’t go,” he begged. “I love you. I’ve always—”
Nora stopped his words with a hand on his chest over his heart. He covered her small hand with his much larger one. She took a shallow breath.
“I was wrong, Wes. About the watch chain and the combs… You’re the only thing I have of value.”
“Nora—”
“Don’t forget to check your numbers. And stay away from carbs, okay? And do your homework and—”
Nora closed her eyes and tears poured down her face. She inhaled hard and met his eyes.
“I will,” he promised with a hollow voice. His eyes were wide with shock.
She pulled away from him and left the house carrying nothing but her bag. A gray Rolls-Royce was waiting on the street.
“Bonjour, maîtresse,” Kingsley said from the backseat.
“No, it isn’t a bon jour, monsieur.” She collapsed against him, her head on his knee.
“I know, Elle.” Kingsley put his hand on her flushed forehead. She winced at the pity in his voice, the pity in his touch. “Where to? You said you needed to hide out for a few days. My town house? The Circle?”
“Take me anywhere,” she said.
“Anywhere?” he asked.
Nora closed her eyes as the painkillers finally bested her desire to stay awake. Sleep came for her and she let it take her, not falling into it, but flying.
“King…just take me home.”