“The fact remains, I should have intervened sooner. He might die because I didn’t.”
“Your father made his own choices,” I said, putting my hand on his knee. “Those choices aren’t your fault.”
He stared at the blazing logs, his knife and fork crossed over his half-finished plate. “I guess it’s my need for control coming out. It isn’t always good for me, or other people.” He looked at me so intensely, my heart began to pound. “Which brings me to last night. I owe you an apology for how I treated you.”
“Okay.” Finally, we were going to talk about it.
“I was trying to be the person I should be, but I don’t think it felt that way to you.”
I’d been suppressing my hurt for hours. It came flooding back now in a rush that brought tears to my eyes. “I don’t want you to be somebody else. I want what we had before.”
His shoulders squared. “You’re not suited to that kind of life,” he said, as if trying to convince us both. “You question everything. You’ll always keep part of yourself hidden from me.”
I frowned, my defenses erupting. “How can you say that? You know me like no one else.”
“Do I? I told you what fidelity means to me, but as soon as we ran into a rough patch you baited me with a waiter. You say I know you, but I don’t know that woman at all.”
Crossing my arms, I turned in my seat to face him. “You were the one who reserved separate rooms, remember? I had no idea whether we were together or not.”
“As I said, I thought you might need space. You’d been through a lot.”
“I needed space, Marc? Or you did, because you didn’t know how to act if you couldn’t dominate me?”
Though his eyes narrowed, his expression didn’t change. “Either way, seducing a waiter wasn’t the way to find out.”
“Isn’t it obvious why I did it?” I said. “I couldn’t get your attention any other way.”
“But it wasn’t just last night,” he said, putting his glass down with a thud. “You met with Lydia. You let your ex-boyfriend into my apartment, where he almost raped you. Most of our problems have come from you keeping secrets. Why should I trust you? Why would the future be any different?”
My mind reeled, casting around for a way to convince him. “I thought if I talked to Lydia I’d understand you better.”
“But the only person you understand better is Lydia, who has a history of destructive behavior. And while we’re on the subject, why didn’t you tell me Trevor was in Paris? Did you still –” Mouth twitching, he shook his head. “Did you still have feelings for him?”
“Yes,” I said. “I felt regret that I ever met him. I felt repulsed and bored. I didn’t tell you he was in Paris because I didn’t want to complicate things.”
“Whatever the reason, you made a promise to me and you broke it.”
I felt a hard jolt of remorse. I’d have given anything to undo the damage, but it was too late. “I’m sorry.”
He tipped my chin up with one finger and looked at me. “Maybe I’ve been too much for you. You felt you couldn’t trust me. From now on, I promise to do what’s right.”
“Which is?”
“I won’t be the way I was. I won’t fuck up people’s lives.”
“So last night – that was a new you?”
Firelight glowed in his eyes like an internal flame. “It’ll get better. I just need time. Can you give me that?”
I looked down at my lap. It was late, and his father was in the hospital. I couldn’t tell him what I really thought about time, and things getting better.
“Let’s talk more tomorrow,” I said, pushing back my chair. “It’s been a long day. We should get some sleep.”
During the night he was warm and erect against my ass, his arms tight around my ribs. The moon was still high in the sky. Though we hadn’t made love before falling asleep, he’d curved naked around me and nuzzled my neck.
We were still in the same position, but now I could feel stress emanating from his body like heat.
I turned my head to look at him. “Are you okay?” I whispered.
“I keep expecting my phone to ring,” he said. His mouth was on my neck, just below my hairline. I quivered against him, unable to keep my hips still. He squeezed the dip of my waist, his fingers almost touching across my navel.
“You’re so tiny,” he whispered. “So sexy I can’t sleep.”
Nipples stiffening, I arched my back. “Do you want me?”
His hands were so tight around my waist I could barely breathe. “Beyond belief,” he said against my ear.
“Take me, then.”
“I can’t,” he said.
“Yes, you can.”
I pressed my backside against his erection and felt it throb in response. My pussy was already swollen and open, pulsing with desire.
“I wouldn’t be able to control myself,” he said. “I can feel it.”
“That’s all right.”
He rolled onto his back with a huff. “Tomorrow, okay? I don’t like what this is doing to me.”
“No, not tomorrow. Tonight.”
Even in the dark I could tell his resolve was shaky. “I want you too much right now,” he said. “I couldn’t even sleep.”
“There’s no such thing as too much,” I said, sliding next to him. I bent over and pressed my lips to his chest. His heartbeat thrummed under my fingers.
“Sophie,” he said. “Don’t.”
Mouth soft and wet, I kissed across his honed stomach to the tender place below his abdomen. It smelled of musk and sandalwood and sweet sex.
Though he pushed at my shoulders, his huge shaft stood straight and stiff, straining for my touch. Parting my lips, I sucked the thick, swollen head against my teeth and tongue.
“Jesus,” he groaned, but he didn’t try to pull away.
With every stroke he swelled into my mouth. I slid firmly up and down his full length, letting him fill my throat, then capturing his engorged tip between my lips.
“Do you like it?” I whispered.
He made a rough animal sound and pressed his palms around my head, his thigh muscles bulging under my hands. Hope surged through me. Maybe I could convince him with temptation. All I had to do was keep reminding him how incredible we were together – when he didn’t stand in the way.
But then, so quickly I hardly knew what was happening, he sat up and grabbed my shoulders. In one swift motion he rolled me onto my stomach and got on top of me.
“Marc, what are you –?”
“Shhh. It’s all right.”
He pushed my legs as far apart as they would go and lifted my hips in the air. I needed him so much that I lifted my ass toward him, inviting him to take what he wanted. Thrusting his huge erection into me, he fucked me mercilessly, as if to prove what he’d said about losing control. I grasped the sheets in my fists, my face pressed into the mattress.
It was exciting, it felt incredible, and it wasn’t what I wanted. This wasn’t the man I’d come to love and trust.
With harsh, impatient strokes he rammed into me, making me cry out in shock as much as pleasure. Like last night at the hotel, it was a staggering display of male strength, and it was only physical.
Gone was the sizzling connection that ignited whenever we glanced at each other. This was Marc trying to be someone he wasn’t, and failing miserably.
He came with a sharp cry, his thrusts driving my legs apart until I thought they’d break. When his body stopped shuddering he wrapped an arm around me, his damp, heaving chest pressed to my back.
“Let me go,” I said in a dry whisper.
“What?”
“I said, let me go.”
He dropped his arm and slid away as if I’d slapped him. I turned to face the wall, my hands balled tightly to my stomach.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have let that happen.”
It took everything I had to respond calmly. “You said it would get better.”
&n
bsp; “I also said that if you continued to tempt me, I’d lose control,” he said. “And that’s what happened.”
“Bullshit,” I said, my voice icy. “The problem isn’t that you lost control, it’s that you didn’t lose it at all. You weren’t yourself, not even close.”
“Of course I was.”
I snorted. “Don’t try to con me, Marc. You’re talking to somebody who knows how to shut down as well as you do. If you want to keep this crap up, do it with somebody else.”
I felt him move closer. Shutting my eyes, I braced for his touch. And when it came, warm and light on my spine, every fiber of my body screamed for more. Even now my response was automatic, an instinct fixed permanently in my brain.
“I told you I need time,” he said in a near-whisper.
I marshalled my last atom of willpower. “We’re out of time, Marc. I should have gone home last week.”
As if in silent agreement, he said nothing. His hand stayed where it was, then gradually fell away.
“Was it this hard with the women before me?” I asked, turning to face him.
He was lying on his back staring at the ceiling. “No. It was a lot easier.”
“Why?”
“They didn’t get to me. This thing between us – I can’t wrap my head around it. All I know is that you matter to me, a hell of a lot.”
I swallowed down the impulse to cry. “Then why are you pushing me away?”
“I’m saving you. You just don’t realize it yet.” His jaw was rigid, his arms crossed like armor over his chest. “How many ways can I say it? I’m not going to hurt you again. I’m not going to damage you.”
“Even if it means living without me?”
He turned his head toward me. His eyes were hard as stone. “I hope you don’t make that choice. I hope you care enough to be patient.”
“Caring isn’t the problem,” I said. “Don’t you see that?”
When he didn’t respond, I rolled back toward the wall and stared blankly into the darkness. It was almost dawn before my body grew heavy and I escaped into a restless sleep.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Marc got up a few hours later, pulling on his jeans in the faint gray light. “I got a text from Eleanor,” he said. “My father’s conscious.”
I was instantly awake. “He is?”
“Yes. He already wants to come home.”
“I’ll go with you,” I said, throwing off the brocade cover. “I just need a minute to get dressed.”
He stood in front of the mirror, sweeping his thick hair back with his hands. “Why don’t you stay here and catch up on your assignments?”
My breath stopped at his tone. It was so casual, but so cold. “Stay here?”
He shrugged. “You must be behind after everything that’s happened.”
I sat slowly back against the headboard. Daylight had magnified the strain between us, which hung in the air like a fog. And now he wanted to go to the hospital without me.
Why was I surprised? This was probably just the beginning of the fallout from last night’s fiasco.
“You want me to stay here alone?” I asked.
“Better to spend the day here than a depressing sick ward,” he said, without meeting my eyes. “You’ll waste hours watching my father get poked and prodded.”
“I do have work piling up,” I said, concealing my hurt behind a business-like tone.
Though we’d seen only two houses with Matthew, I could piece together an article if I interviewed a couple of his buyers over the phone. I took my phone off the nightstand and texted him, hoping he’d respond this morning.
“Awake three minutes and you’re working already,” Marc said, shrugging on a herringbone blazer over a white button-down. Even his smile was different this morning, tighter and less open.
“All done.” I set the phone aside and slid back under the sheets.
“You’ll be okay here by yourself?”
“As long as I have an internet connection, I’m fine.”
I could see the relief in his face. I wasn’t going to be a whiny weight around his neck. “I should be back by late afternoon.”
“Do you mind if I take a few more pictures in the library?”
“Have at it,” he said. “Maybe while you’re there you’ll find Sade’s missing letter, the one I told you about. It’s probably been right in front of us all these years.”
“What does it look like?” I asked.
“It’s a page of parchment, addressed to someone named Dubront. Some of the ink is smeared. It was probably thrown out by mistake, but there’s always a chance.”
“I’ll keep an eye out,” I said.
The old heat flared between us when he leaned over to kiss me goodbye. I was still naked from last night, and the moment I felt his lips on mine I was wet for him. But just as I opened my mouth for his tongue he pulled away, his expression flat.
“I’ll call you later,” he said, and left.
For an hour I lay in bed, paralyzed with despair.
Now I understood why Marc had drifted from one shallow fling to the next. Except for a few brief periods in his life, this was the man he’d always been – tortured and unreachable.
Tears streamed across my temples. How had this happened? Marc was the only man I’d ever let myself love, and he was unattainable. Maybe I’d subconsciously chosen him, just like I’d chosen Trevor.
I groaned, suddenly sure the whole disaster was my fault.
Deep down, I’d tried to avoid pain by picking a messed-up, tormented man who would never let me in. In some twisted way it made perfect sense. After all, I couldn’t lose what was never mine to begin with.
My phone chimed as a text came in from Matthew. He had two couples who could talk to me this morning about their home searches. Forcing myself out of bed, I got dressed and splashed water on my face. After a mug of black coffee I slipped into survival mode, setting up my laptop on a desk in the reading room and taking refuge in work.
By noon, I’d finished the phone interviews and jotted down a rough draft. It would be one page at most – a quick revision and I could send it to Katherine by nine New York time. She’d never know that I’d written it in a stupor with my heart in pieces, every sentence an excruciating chore.
Madeleine came to clean and drop off groceries, then left again. Just after she drove off in the gray drizzle, I got a text from Marc.
Dad still disoriented but doing better. Back around four.
Indifferent, remote, nothing but the facts. He hadn’t even bothered to call. Whatever hope I had left evaporated, leaving a knot in my throat. I gritted my teeth against a wave of anguish.
“Pull yourself together,” I whispered. “Right now.”
I could scream out loud or write a scathing response, but I would not cry anymore. Crying felt like falling apart, and I’d die before I let Marc reduce me to a quivering mess.
Glad about your father, see you later, I wrote back. No reaction, nothing that betrayed how I really felt.
Too agitated to sit still, I got up and paced from room to room. The house was a drafty maze that seemed to go on forever. If I didn’t pay attention I might get lost like Sade’s letter, never to be seen again. Wherever I looked there was a mystery – an old book written in a strange language, a locked cabinet, a ghostly boudoir filled with sheet-draped furniture, the bureau drawers open as if someone had packed in a rush and fled for their lives.
Just off the kitchen, I discovered a narrow door. It opened to a stone staircase leading down into darkness. The old cellar Marc had mentioned during my first visit.
Though there was no light switch, I found a flashlight in one of the kitchen drawers. The yellow beam sputtered as I went down holding the rope banister. I resisted the urge to run back to the kitchen, and stepped off the bottom stair.
Squinting through the gloom, I started down a narrow corridor leading under the chateau. The ceiling had crumbled in places, leaving the dirt floor strewn with chips o
f stone. To my left was a room filled racks of wine barrels and dusty bottles. I kept walking, eventually coming to a storage room crowded with remnants of the estate’s past – chipped steamer trunks, a stuffed fox with glass eyes, damaged paintings in twisted frames. Spilling from a wooden crate was a pile of old letters and opened envelopes.
Flashlight propped on a table, I sifted through pages of faded stationery. I found nothing written by Sade, but came across a letter from Marc’s mother, written to Simon two years after their divorce. As soon as I glanced at it, Marc’s name jumped out at me.
As for Marc, of course he’ll be angry if he finds out, but I don’t see how he would. My parents are dead and no one in your family wants to stir up the past. He’s only sixteen and his life has been complicated enough. Already he feels detached from us, and this knowledge would only add to that. The damage could be irreparable.
She ended with an elaborate signature – Elise. Feeling like a thief, I went through the rest of the papers hoping to find another mention of Marc, but there was only a brief comment about his acceptance to Stanford. Maybe his suspicion that he was another man’s son was true. If only there was more evidence.
The corridor ended in a stone wall under the house. I went back upstairs and stood in the main hall. Where else could I look? I’d explored the rooms on this floor, but hadn’t been to the library.
The thought of its hodge-podge of nooks and drawers made me feel defeated, but I had to try.
It was terrible, but looking for Sade’s letter gave me all the reason I needed to go through the Braydens’ belongings. I only wanted to find a work of great historical value and return it to them. If I discovered anything else, it would be purely by accident.
I started with the desk, which contained nothing but bills and receipts, along with a daily diary filled with Simon’s angled scrawl. There were shelves of appliance manuals and cabinets of bank records, but I found nothing about Marc. Not a single word.
After a fruitless hour I sat down against a wall and wiped my grime-blackened hands on my jeans. It was then that I noticed the sliding door under the built-in bench by the spiral stairs. I walked over to it and knelt down.
Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 2) Page 13
