The Siren
“It is terrifying,” she admitted. “Zach’s my editor. He’s the first person who ever treated me as a serious writer.”
“I told you that you should be a writer when you were seventeen years old,” he reminded her.
Nora smiled at the memory. She’d written a short story for her English class that had gotten her into big trouble at her Catholic high school. Only the intervention of her priest had kept her from getting hauled in front of a whole team of doctors and psychiatric personnel.
“I assumed you were a little biased where I was concerned.”
“Perhaps I was,” he admitted with a smile. “But I knew talent when I saw it. So what will you do with him?” Søren nodded toward Zach.
Nora watched Zach through the two-way mirror. Griffin leaned in close and Zach managed to recoil without even moving—a very English feat.
“It’s not just about sex this time. Not entirely. Zach’s got secrets, bad ones. I want to help him but I don’t even know where to start. What do you think?”
Søren looked at her and she had to fight her training to keep her eye contact with him. Once in a private moment like this she would never have met his eyes without his permission. But that was so long ago. Søren sighed and shook his head.
“My Eleanor…someday perhaps I’ll learn to tell you ‘no.’”
With that Søren stepped to her side. She watched his face as he studied Zach through the glass. In all her life Nora had never known anyone as perceptive as Søren. He could read a soul with the merest glance. He’d known what she would become from the moment he first saw her. He had told her so. It had always been her favorite bedtime story. Tell me about that day, she would beg. Eleanor, he’d begin, his stories always in third person, had pulled her sleeves down over her hands. She was ashamed of the burn on her wrist. But as she reached for the cup, her sleeve slipped back and he saw what she was. Nora always interrupted with an eager, What was she? And Søren would pull her into his arms and answer, She was mine.
“Guilt.” Søren’s pronouncement wrenched her from the past. “Old guilt. He wears it awkwardly as if he hasn’t quite learned how to carry it yet. He committed no crime although he may believe he did.”
“Old guilt—I have to get it out of him,” she said, amused that she and Søren were at once adversaries and conspirators. “He’s choking on his own secrets. I have to break him. But how? That insufferable British dignity is impenetrable. The last thing he needs is some time on the rack and a good whipping.”
“I agree. It would merely insult him. I have seen that guilt before. He hurt someone once.”
Nora heard a turn in his last statement, heard the teacher’s hint.
“He hurt his wife.”
“Then you know what you have to do.” Søren smiled proudly at her. She was always his best pupil.
“Make him hurt me?”
“Yes, little one. Make him hurt you.”
* * *
“So you’re Nora’s new Maxwell Perkins, right?” Griffin asked Zach.
“Well, I am her editor. But Perkins and I have quite disparate philosophies of editing.”
“Good. I’d hate to see her books get all f**ked up because her editor can’t keep his hands off her prose.”
“So,” Zach said evenly, “you read?”
Griffin shot him a dirty look.
“I may be a slut, Max, but I’m not a dumb slut. I read Nora’s books. They’re amazing. Of course, my favorite book of hers is the one she hasn’t written yet.”
“And that is?”
“The Nora Sutherlin Story.”
“It would be a page-turner,” Zach agreed. “Is he actually going to keep her all night?”
Zach glanced at his watch. Nora had been gone only a short while but he was already impatient for her return.
“If he wants to. The minute he steps into this place, martial law is in effect.”
“Does she come here often?”
“Used to come all the time. Had to. But she dropped off the face of the earth about a month ago.”
“That was when we began work on her book,” Zach explained.
“And when she began work on you, too, huh?” Griffin grinned at him. Zach tried not to let himself be embarrassed. After all, Nora and Griffin were clearly occasional lovers.
“What do you mean she had to come here?” Zach asked after a moment’s silence.
But Griffin only laughed and slapped him on the shoulder.
“Come on. Let’s check out the pit.”
* * *
“I really should get back to my guest.” Nora didn’t want to leave Søren, but she knew she needed to. God only knew what Griffin was telling Zach right now.
“Not quite yet. We still need to plan how to celebrate our anniversary next week. Or have you forgotten what next Thursday is?”
“If I forgot every other day of the year, I would remember that one. But we aren’t celebrating it. Not this year or ever again.”
“I see.” Søren gave her a cool, appraising stare. “Was last year not to your liking?”
Last year…what he did to her that night was beautiful and brutal and it hurt to even remember.
If you come back to me, will you run or will you crawl?
I’ll fly.
Nora shook her head, tried to forget how much she still wanted him.