The Unmasking

by Emilie Richards

  “There’s a finished playroom downstairs, too,” Justin said. “It’s big enough for an indoor gym.”

  “Justin, why are we looking at this house. Why do you have the key?”

  “Come see the playroom.”

  Resigned, she followed him down two sets of stairs. The playroom was large enough for an indoor gym. In fact, it still had pieces of indoor climbing equipment on the plush carpeting. “Did they run a nursery school?”

  “No, they had a big family.”

  Bethany walked over to the mass of wood and metal and sat on the bottom of the little slide, her knees drawn up in front of her. “I’m not moving until you tell me what’s going on.”

  “I just bought it. For you and Abby.”

  She shook her head slowly, feathery strands of hair tickling her neck. “You’ll never believe what I thought you just said— “

  “I did. I bought it for you.”

  “Without checking with me? I could have saved you a lot of money.”

  “You don’t like it?”

  “It’s wonderful. It’s a fairy tale. It’s New Orleans architecture at its finest. But you can’t simply buy me a house, Justin.”

  “Then think of it as an investment in Abby’s future. This will be worth a fortune someday.”

  “It’s worth a fortune right now!”

  Justin shrugged. “I can afford it, Bethany.” He ignored her protests. “I talked to Abby’s doctor at length yesterday. He said that the preliminary allergy testing they did indicated she’s allergic to house dust and feathers. It’s going to be very difficult to keep her away from either of those elements in your apartment.”

  “Feathers?”

  “Ironic, isn’t it? He’s not too worried—she’s not in any danger if we take precautions. But she’ll be more comfortable here. I’m going to have a new filtering system installed on the heating and cooling equipment. It will filter out pollution and pollen from outside, and for at least the time she spends indoors she’ll be better off.”

  “Justin, I can’t afford to live here. Do you think I have time to clean a house this large? I don’t have furniture, I don’t have a car to get to work.”

  “You do now. I bought a Toyota yesterday. They’re going to deliver it on Monday.”

  “You did what?” She jumped to her feet, almost tripping on the gymnastics mat at the bottom of the sliding board. “You did what?”

  “You don’t like Toyotas?”

  “You know that’s not what I meant. You’re rearranging my life. Who told you to take responsibility for me? I’ve done just fine without you all these years.”

  “Damned if you have,” he said, advancing on her. “You’ve managed by counting pennies, with no life of your own. Madeline’s told me all about the years you’ve done without so you could establish yourself and build up an inventory of materials.”

  “Madeline? Madeline?” She stood aghast, her eyes blazing in shock and fury. “What’s going on here, Justin!”

  His hands locked on her shoulders, pulling her so close there was no molecule of air between them. “I won’t have you living that way anymore, Bethany. Neither you nor Abby is going to go without, ever again. Please get used to it.” As if to be sure she was listening, his lips covered hers and his arms held her firmly against him.

  The more she struggled, the tighter he held her, until she thought she would pass out from lack of oxygen. He was kissing her, but she knew he was furious, and her anger matched his. Nothing about her, nothing about her life was good enough for Justin. He had to change everything while he changed her into someone who was more like the other women he knew, women like Danielle, who took houses like this one and the pampered lives that went with them for granted.

  Gasping for air was a bad idea. The gasp allowed his tongue access, and that was a mistake. The still-familiar sensation of his body moving against hers, his kiss deepening into passion, flooded her with memories. Despite what was left of her judgment she suddenly stopped struggling.

  He had won. The moment she began to respond instead she could feel Justin’s lips curve into a half-smile against her, like a man used to getting what he wanted. She stiffened immediately, but he didn’t seem to realize the change. He moved a scant inch away, murmuring, “I’ll have to remember you like aggressive men.”

  She pushed him then. Hard. She saw that he’d recognized his mistake, but that didn’t matter to her. She stepped back, hands in front of her poised to push again, and his arms fell to his side.

  What had he said the night Abby went into the hospital? That when he touched her, she melted like a snow cone on a summer afternoon? He was right and it was useless to be angry at herself. Her passion for Justin Dumontier was a reality she couldn’t change. But she could change what she did about it.

  She was breathing hard, but her words were clear. “You can’t turn me into somebody I don’t want to be. You can pretend we were married. You can change our daughter’s last name. But you will never change me, because I don’t want you to! I like myself and my life, which isn’t something you can say about yours, is it? And yet you buy me a house and a car in a city you abandoned and expect me to use both as if I asked you to. Don’t think I don’t understand what this is really about.”

  “I told you what it was about. It’s about our daughter.”

  “It’s about your ex-wife,” she made quotation marks in the air, “being worthy of marriage to a Dumontier. Sure, there’s that fictitious divorce that saves a little face for you. Five years ago you realized your mistake immediately and got as far away as you could. But even at that, you don’t want the people you know to think you fell in love, even temporarily, with a poor young artist who was so far out of your social class she didn’t even realize it.”

  “You honestly believe that?”

  “I know why you left me, Justin. It took me awhile, but I figured it out eventually. I would never have fit into your life, something you probably realized right from the start. Now with no other choice, at least you can make me look vaguely presentable to your friends. What’s next? Want me to quit making masks and sell my portion of Life’s Illusions?”

  She expected an explosion. She half-deserved one, because in her fury she had badly overstated her case. But he didn’t speak. She watched as he clenched his jaw, holding back whatever he most wanted to say.

  “Fine,” she said, turning to leave. “As usual whatever you think will remain a mystery. I don’t need confirmation. I was there. I know what happened. But I’m not the same woman, and I’m not about to make the same mistakes. This time I’m not depending on you for a rosy future. Abby and I will stay where we are. The cat and the feathers will go, and I’ll take her to an allergist. I hope the house really was a good investment and you’ll make money when you sell it.”

  She expected almost anything except what she got. His arms snaked around her waist and he tugged her gently to lean against him. She held herself stiffly, but she didn’t struggle. She could feel tears collecting behind her eyelids, and she swallowed hard.

  “None of it’s true,” he said. “I don’t even know where to start.”

  “Then don’t.”

  He ignored her. “Maybe with the worst part? That I left because I didn’t think you were good enough for me? Believe me, nothing could be further from the truth. And now? I just want you and Abby to be safe and comfortable. I’d like you near my mother because that would mean so much to her, and this house seemed so perfect. But if you want to stay in the Quarter or nearby, we can look there. I don’t want to change you. I don’t want to impress my friends with my good taste all those years ago. I just want to make you happy because up to this point I’ve made you so terribly unhappy.”

  “I’m not unhappy.”

  “I’m making you unhappy right now. You’re crying.”

  She was, and she hated it.

  “Your life has been too hard,” he said. “And I’m part of the reason. A big part, I think.”

 
She sniffed. “I absolve you of all guilt. We can’t change what happened. Mistakes have been made, and we can’t take them back. The house, the car? I don’t expect or want reparations, okay?”

  “Reparations?” He lifted his hands to her shoulders and gently turned her to face him.

  “No house. No car. No anything else you’re planning.”

  For once his reaction was easy to read. He was frustrated. He wanted this his way, and she wasn’t going along with his plans. As hard to believe as it was, the money meant nothing to him. She saw that. But the relief of doing something concrete would have meant everything.

  “Child support?” he asked. “Is that an ‘anything else?’ Because legally, I’m pretty sure that’s required, aren’t you?”

  She knew he wasn’t just “pretty sure.” And he was right. “We’ll talk about that.”

  “When you’ve stopped crying?”

  “I’ve stopped. The tears just haven’t run their course.”

  “I seem to be wrong about almost everything today.”

  “Here’s more grist for that mill. I don’t like aggressive men.”

  “How about men with a clean handkerchief?” He dropped his hands and fished in his pocket, pulling out a neatly folded square of linen and handed it to her. She wiped her eyes and nose and stuffed it in the pocket of her skirt.

  They stood staring at each other. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you,” he said.

  “I’m not yours to do anything with.”

  “Then may I have your permission to end this standoff for the moment?”

  “Depending on how.”

  He bent and kissed her, which was anything except what she had expected, because, of course, his kisses were never an ending at all. His lips lingered, then he lifted his hands to her hair and gently wove his fingers through it. “I don’t want to be angry with you, and I don’t want you to be angry with me. Can we try to make that happen?”

  She knew what he really wanted, and worse, she was sure he knew what she wanted, too. Without the complications of parenting the same child, they could have gone their separate ways and fought back the sexual attraction that had created the child in the first place. But now they were a fixed presence in each other’s lives, and the attraction was always simmering just under the surface.

  Angry, sad, in temporary harmony? It didn’t matter. The helpless fascination they felt for each other would always be right there, no matter what else they felt.

  She pulled away, suddenly reckless. “We should just get this over with.”

  He frowned, obviously trying to make sense of her words. “This?”

  “You were right the other day. I melt when you touch me, and you take advantage of that. And you touch me a lot, so apparently you can’t help yourself either, even if it only complicates things. Maybe we should just have sex and get it over with. Then maybe both of us can think clearly.”

  “Here? Now?”

  She tried to be flippant. “You might as well put your house to good use before you sell it again.”

  “That would be a novel reason to buy a house. Where do you suggest we do it?”

  “I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

  He arched one brow. “The rug looks soft.”

  She looked down. “They took very good care of it, didn’t they?”

  He grabbed her hands. “If you’re teasing, and I think you are, you’re playing with fire.”

  “We’ve been playing with fire since that day at the flea market.”

  “So now we’re going to get burned?”

  She hadn’t expected him to take her at her word, but clasping her tightly, before she could hesitate or refuse, he pulled her down to the soft carpet, pinning her there and half lying across her once she was on her back. Her heart was suddenly thrumming painfully in her chest, and she struggled to sit up, but he wouldn’t let her.

  There was almost no emotion she hadn’t felt in the past minutes. Now desire was foremost, but it was followed closely by regret she had pushed him so far. She’d thought he would know she was trying to provoke him, to make a point. Maybe he had known, because now she thought that in return, he was trying to provoke her. Except that it was also clear, with his body stretched over hers, that he was aroused.

  This was not the place for intimacy, and definitely not the time. Nothing would be resolved, only made more complex. Neither of them were thinking clearly.

  Some things never changed.

  She gave up struggling and lay still, breathing too hard and wondering just how far he really planned to go. He buried his face in her neck and then slowly began to unbutton her sweater. One button, then two, then another until his fingers were spreading out just above her breasts. He brushed his fingertips along the soft skin, and they dipped below the top of her bra. He tugged down a strap and began to trail kisses to the hollow of her throat, then down.

  Without warning he lifted his head, and his eyes met hers. “You’re sure this is the way you want it? We just get the suspense over with? No hearts and flowers. Here and now?”

  “I—” She wasn’t sure what she would have answered, but the chance to speak was taken from her. They heard a door slam above them.

  “Yoo-hoo, Mr. Dumontier! I saw your car outside. Yoo-hoo!”

  Justin sat up, pushing his hair off his forehead. Bethany sat up quickly, too.

  “Mrs. Nelson?” Justin called.

  “Where are you, darlin’?”

  He muttered something under his breath, then he called upstairs again. “I’ll be right there.”

  With uncoordinated fingers Bethany began to re-button her sweater. “Another friend of yours? A neighbor anxious to meet the vixen ex-wife?”

  “The realtor who sold me the house.”

  “Terrific.” She didn’t look at him. Her cheeks were warm and probably suffused with color.

  “I’m a kid again, caught making out with my date in the back seat of my father’s car.” He stood, tentatively offering Bethany a hand. She noticed his was trembling slightly. She let him help her up.

  “Well, I was almost caught with my pants down. Or in this case my skirt up.”

  He grunted. “Don’t be cheerful.” He followed her to the stairs.

  She paused at the bottom and said softly, “I’m sorry. That was a big mistake. My fault. “

  He embraced her to keep her there, circling her waist with his arms, while his lips found the hollow at the back of her neck. She shivered as his hands moved higher and settled on her breasts. So the mistake wasn’t over yet.

  “Bethany?”

  “Hmm?”

  “If you do change your mind and decide to move here and redecorate?”

  “I won’t.”

  “Just promise me you won’t take up this rug.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  BETHANY WANDERED THROUGH the house while Justin spoke with his realtor about an inspection.

  While she waited she followed the curving stairs to stand in the upstairs hallway and gaze at the bedroom with flowered wallpaper. The encounter in the playroom had left her shaken, and she was glad to have a few moments away from him. Their mutual desire was a fact that would have to be explored some other time. She only knew one thing for certain. It was time to see a doctor for birth-control. No matter how their relationship progressed, this time she would be prepared.

  “This room would be great for Abby, wouldn’t it?” Justin’s voice came from behind her, and she turned to see him leaning on the banister, watching her.

  “Actually, I think Abby would prefer the ships,” she said. “But she’ll never get a chance to make a choice, Justin. I know you think you’re doing what’s right for us, but the roses you sent us were almost too much.”

  “I’m not trying to buy you, only a place for you to live and raise our daughter. I wanted to put the house in your name, but if you insist I can put it in Abby’s.”

  “I can’t keep you from buying it. . .” The rest of the sentence was o
bvious.

  “No, you can’t.”

  “Just out of curiosity, why did you choose this particular house?” The house might not be a safe subject, but it was sure to be less volatile than a discussion of their recent behavior a la carpet.

  “I was sure you’d refuse to look with me.” He nodded at her shrug. “But actually, I planned to narrow the decision down to a half-dozen houses and twist your arm to get your cooperation.”

  “And?”

  “Well, I saw this one, and I knew it would be perfect. The owners were on the verge of accepting another bid, and I had to decide right then or risk losing it.”

  “It’s a wonderful house, but what was it that made it perfect?”

  “Come on, you haven’t seen the best yet.”

  She followed him down the stairs and waited as he unlocked the back door. It opened onto a wide gallery running the length of the house. Bethany could almost see wrought-iron tables holding pitchers of iced tea and frosty glasses on a hot summer day. Visualizing a badminton net set up next to the rose garden in the spacious backyard was equally easy.

  Justin motioned for her to follow him down the brick steps and over the patio running beside the gallery. A small freshly painted white building garlanded with wisteria and honeysuckle sat at the back of the lot under the shade of another magnolia. An impressive padlock fastened the door, and Justin tried several keys before he found the one that opened it. “See what you think,” he said, standing aside to let her enter.

  The building contained one large room with a small bathroom and what appeared to be a storage room off to one side. Carpeted in no-nonsense tones of rust and brown, the main room was paneled in a light natural wood sealed with a satiny finish. An elaborate track lighting system and large windows with miniblinds brightened the room, as did several domed skylights in the high ceiling. An apartment-sized stove and a cabinet with a sink took up one corner. A small-scale refrigerator sat beside the cabinet.