Overseas

by Beatriz Williams

  “Again?”

  “In the park. You were whaling on that guy. I’m not sure you wouldn’t have killed him if I hadn’t said something. It was seriously spooky.”

  “Kate,” he said, “I would never hurt you.”

  “I know.” Twilight was falling now, casting his face in blue shadow, stark and beautiful. I placed my hand on his cheek, felt the subtle rasp of his day-old whiskers under my palm. “So I’ve been thinking.”

  “Hmm. About what?”

  “We’re not here because of the firing, are we?”

  He hesitated. “No, not really. Though I think it’s doing you good, being away.”

  “I like it here. But don’t change the subject. You said something, on the phone, about some news. Odd news. So is everything okay?”

  He sat back down on the stone wall and drew me under his arm. “It’s nothing to be all that worried about. More an excess of caution, really.” He paused, reaching up to finger a lock of my hair. “How shall I put this? There’s a bit of a question about my—and by extension, your—personal safety.”

  “What? What do you mean?” I demanded. “Someone wants to hurt you?”

  “No. Not exactly. Look, as I said, it’s a little hard to explain.”

  “I’m a smart girl.”

  “Yes, you are,” he said darkly, almost as though that weren’t a good thing. “All right, here it is: in early January I decided to start winding down the fund.”

  “Oh. I think I’d heard that rumor.”

  “Yes, well, I wanted to tell you before, but I couldn’t put you in that position, since you were working in an investment bank. Anyway, we recently broke the news in a letter to our investors, with cash-out planned for the end of the summer, and a few of them haven’t reacted well. End of story.”

  “End of story? Are you kidding? Who? What’s the threat?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not going to tell you. We’re just going to lie a bit low for a little while.”

  “But why we? Not that I’m not delighted to be here with you, but why would this disgruntled investor hunt me down?”

  I felt his kiss along my hairline. His voice was endlessly tender. “Because you’re important to me. We’ve been publicly linked, and you never know. I didn’t want to take any chances.”

  “A pretty slim chance.”

  “The only acceptable chance, with you,” he said, “is none at all. So I’m going to keep you right here until things blow over.”

  “Wait a minute. How long is that?”

  “I don’t know. A month or two, perhaps.”

  I struggled up. “A month or two? Are you crazy? I can’t just disappear like that! I mean, I only brought a change of clothes.”

  “There’s a shopping mall up the freeway a bit.”

  “I’m not going to buy myself a new wardrobe…” His mouth began to open. “And neither are you!” I snapped.

  “Kate, calm down…”

  “You might have told me, you know. I’m going to have to go back in the city…”

  “No,” he said sharply. “I’ll pick up whatever you need; just give me your key.”

  “What? So you get to leave and I don’t? What the hell is going on here? You’ve, like, kidnapped me?” I scrambled back over the other side of the wall and began to stomp back to the house.

  “Kate, it’s not like that… Oh, bloody hell, Kate. You make it so damned difficult to take care of you…”

  I spun around into his chest. I hadn’t realized he was following so closely. “That’s because I don’t need taking care of. I don’t need saving. I’m not, like, your mistress. Actually, I don’t even know what I am!”

  “You’re the woman I love.”

  I closed my eyes. “Julian, you know you can’t mean that. It’s wonderful to hear, and it’s all very romantic, and it makes me want to have mind-bending all-night sex with you, but you’ve known me for, like, two weeks, if you subtract the five-month freak-out you treated me to.”

  His mouth dropped open, speechless at last.

  “So let’s just leave love out of it for now, okay? Because I’m already hooked. You don’t need to go setting me up for complete and total heartbreak.”

  And I turned and marched back into the house.

  I COULDN’T REALLY stay mad at him for long. In the first place, here we were, alone together in a romantic old house, and unless I wanted to commit grand theft auto in his hundred-thousand-dollar car, I had few options for a self-righteous exit, stage left.

  In the second place, well, he was Julian. It was no use trying to nurse resentment when his every touch triggered a primordial flood of oxytocin throughout my starved body.

  So I went to the kitchen instead and started making dinner. Julian came in a moment later, standing hesitantly in the doorway as I banged around the pots and pans like a demented housewife. “Can I help?” he asked.

  “That depends. Do you know how to boil water?”

  “Very funny,” he told me, and went to fill the pot.

  I made chicken and pasta and salad, and we ate it quietly with a bottle of wine at the table in the kitchen. Julian was clearly thinking things over. His brow had compressed into serious lines, as if he were trying to derive some complex quadratic equation. Solve me for x and y.

  Eventually, as the wine kicked in, we started exchanging a little conversation. Small talk, mostly. Things began to thaw out. “So, mystery man,” I said, picking over the salad leaves, “do you think you can bear to tell me something about yourself? Maybe some childhood stories? You can change the names and dates to protect the innocent.”

  He smiled. “Really, it was a fairly ordinary childhood, at least for my crowd. We lived primarily in London; my father was somewhat active in politics. During recesses we went out to our house in the country. Southfield, you see.”

  “How clever of you.”

  “Yes, I’m startlingly original. In any case, I suppose you could say my parents raised me in a fairly old-fashioned way.” He slanted me a playful look. “A mischievous child, I’m compelled to admit. The despair of my long-suffering nanny.”

  “Really? Mischievous how?”

  “Oh, the usual rubbish. Frogs in the cupboards. Scientific experiments gone awry. Pranks on unsuspecting houseguests. It’s just possible I may, at one point, have cost my father the chance of a cabinet position. I’m merely speculating, of course. I was only eight years old at the time.”

  I was laughing. “I can’t imagine what…”

  “And I shan’t tell you. In any case, boarding school at age ten, then on to university.” He took a sip of wine. “Then I joined the army.”

  I nearly choked on my arugula. “The army? Seriously? Why?”

  He shrugged. “It seemed like the thing to do at the time. Adventure, excitement. I learned a great deal about leadership. And decision making: you can’t dither on about your options in the middle of a… a training exercise.”

  “Wow.” I chewed and swallowed, taking my time. “Were you in Iraq?”

  “No, not Iraq. That was after my time.”

  “So that Terminator thing in the park. Your warrior instincts at work, I guess. Hmm. It’s all clicking into place now. Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  “I didn’t know to ask. Do you have any good stories? Pinned down under fire or whatever?”

  He smiled wryly. “A few, here and there. I’ll try to think of some for you. In any case, I left the army after a bit, moved to New York, and started Southfield.”

  “Obviously that’s the short version.”

  “The details are rather dull.”

  “Why Wall Street?”

  “Friend of a friend.”

  “And you were wildly successful, just like that.”

  “I have good instincts. And I got lucky.”

  I shook my head in amazement. “You’re obviously one of those really sick individuals who does everything well. Just my luck.”

&nb
sp; “Rubbish. I certainly don’t do everything well. I only pursue what I’m good at.”

  “Which is everything.”

  He aimed his eyes upward in exasperation. “Must I sit here and enumerate my many shortcomings for you? I can’t cook, as you’ve perhaps noticed. I can’t sing a bloody note. Never get my Christmas cards out in time. I shall probably forget your birthday at least once, unless you’re so good as to remind me. Am subject to hay fever in early spring. Rather uneasy around snakes…”

  I grinned. “You’re scared of snakes? You mean like Indiana Jones?”

  “I did not say I was scared. Uneasy, Kate.” He paused and folded his arms. “Not particularly keen on stinging insects, either.”

  “So I’ll have to kill my own spiders?”

  “No, spiders are quite all right. Just wasps and things. Owing to an unfortunate incident in my childhood. Too inquisitive for my own good.”

  “Well,” I said, trying to keep my face straight, “I guess I can live with that.”

  We did the dishes together, even laughing as we tried to figure out how to work the garbage disposal. When the kitchen was tidy, and the dishwasher hummed industriously, Julian hung up his towel and turned to me.

  “I’m sorry, Kate. I didn’t mean to turn autocratic on you, back in the garden. Another of my faults, and rather more serious, is a tendency to want to order things around me. To a somewhat arrogant belief in my own capacities.” He frowned, and finished, more softly: “I won’t make you stay if you’d rather not.”

  I reached out to hook his fingertips with mine. “Julian, don’t be ridiculous. Of course I want to stay. It’s like living out a fantasy, being up here with you. Which is exactly why I can’t just bury myself for the summer. I’ve just lost my job. My whole career, in fact. And if I don’t try to get things back together soon, I’m afraid I’ll just get swallowed up by you. Be sucked completely into your world.”

  “I’d never do that.”

  “You couldn’t help it. I have to have some other life. I can’t just become your dependent out here. I’d turn into one of those complacent little Stepford women, like Geoff’s wife.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” he said. “You’re not like her at all.”

  “But maybe I would be. It would be too much like winning the lottery, and they say lottery winners are about the unhappiest people on the planet.”

  He laughed grimly. “Believe me, I’m no lottery win.”

  A smile crept onto my lips. I reached up and stroked the side of his cheek. “Believe me,” I said, “you are.”

  His hand wandered up and covered mine; the other arm wrapped around my waist and eased me against him.

  “So what next?” I whispered into his chest.

  He moved up and down under my cheek in a deep sigh. “To be perfectly honest, I’ve got some work to finish up before tomorrow. I have to drive back into the city first thing. Just for the day. Consult with Geoff about a few matters, wrap up some loose ends here and there.”

  “You’re leaving me here? By myself?” I drew back and looked at him, aghast.

  “Just for the day,” he said. “I’ll leave at break of dawn and be back by dinnertime. There’s a Range Rover for you in the garage, probably more suitable for the country roads than that hired piece of rubbish. You won’t be stuck in the house.”

  “Hmm,” I said.

  “I can drop by your apartment, pick you up a few more things.”

  “And I’m not allowed to go with you?”

  “Wouldn’t you be happier here?” His tone turned persuasive, almost wheedling. “You’ve had a difficult time. You can relax. There’s some sort of spa, I think, across the river; you could go there, pamper yourself.”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  He bent his head to kiss me. “Of course you do.”

  But I could tell from his voice that I didn’t, really.

  “YOU PUT ME in your guest room?” I demanded.

  Julian sat up straight, disoriented, sleep clinging to his face in the dim glow from a nearby nightlight. “Kate?” he mumbled.

  “Your guest room?”

  “What time is it?”

  “Two o’clock in the morning.”

  “Christ, Kate.” He threw himself backward into the pillows. “What else was I supposed to do? Bring you in with me?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Well, you were asleep,” he yawned. “I couldn’t exactly ask. I thought I was being a gentleman.”

  “Do me a favor next time,” I said, hands on hips, “and don’t be a gentleman. Do you know how freaked out I was, a moment ago?”

  “I left a note.”

  “Well, it took me a little while to find it. Although I admit it was a very nice note,” I added contritely.

  “Look,” he said, sounding grumpy, “come to bed, then. Only stop talking, for goodness’ sake.”

  “So, a morning person.”

  “Kate,” he said, from the depths of his pillow, “I held you for two hours on that damned library sofa. I held you until my arms cramped. I tried to wake you, and all I had for my trouble was a stream of decidedly unladylike language. So at last, giving up, I nobly tucked you into the spare bedroom and went to bed. I thought I was being kind.”

  “My skirt’s all creased. It’s going to have to go to the dry cleaners.”

  His arm lifted from the covers and pointed to a door in the corner. “Basket’s in the bathroom.”

  I paused. “Can I borrow a T-shirt?” I hadn’t thought about pajamas when I packed. Oddly enough.

  The pointing finger shifted. “Top drawer on the right.”

  I went to the chest of drawers and pulled out a soft white undershirt, then stepped with as much dignity as I could summon to the bathroom, where I changed clothes and, after a second’s reflection, rubbed some toothpaste onto my teeth. His shirt smelled faintly of himself, of that clean soapy smell I loved already.

  I took a deep breath and slipped out of the bathroom. In the subdued glow of the nightlight, the large room seemed modest: a plain original fireplace settled into one wall, flanked by low well-stocked bookshelves, and a few pieces of simple dark furniture served the necessary functions. The bed was perhaps queen-size, four carved posts, clean white bedding. Unbearably inviting.

  “Come to bed, Kate,” Julian murmured.

  I set my knee cautiously on the mattress. He lifted the covers and patted with his hand.

  If I couldn’t trust him, I couldn’t trust anyone, I decided.

  I crawled in and felt his arms close around me. “There you are,” he said against my cheek, and I lay awake for some time, listening to his breathing settle back into a steady rhythm, feeling the heaviness of his arm across my waist, wondering if my heart would actually burst.

  12.

  I woke up to a flood of May sunshine tumbling through the window. For a moment I thought I was back in my bedroom in Wisconsin, where the window faced east and roused me at sunrise every morning. Then I saw the whiteness of the sheets and pillows, the dark antique furniture, the empty pillow next to mine.

  I sat up. “Julian?” I called out.

  No answer.

  So I looked for the note. Julian would certainly have written me one before he left for New York. Sweet dreams, beloved had been the simple message, in spidery black italic handwriting, resting on the plump down pillow in the guest room last night. Surely a night spent in his arms, however virtuous, rated even better.

  I checked all over the bed, finding nothing and getting unreasonably frantic, before I thought to look on the nightstand. There it lay, a folded ecru sheet. I snatched it and leaned back into the pillow; a set of car keys fell into my lap. The Range Rover.

  Darling girl, your frightful snoring awoke me early this morning, so I took the opportunity to make a timely start for the drive to Manhattan. Everything here is yours. Shall return with all possible speed. XX

  He’d pay for that.

  I jumped out of bed, charged with energy
, and padded to the bathroom. It was simple and white and new, awash with morning light, with a large deep tub against the wall and a separate shower cubicle. Julian had brought up my suitcase and laptop bag, both unopened; I took out my travel kit and brushed my teeth and took a long hot shower.

  I hadn’t been thinking clearly when I packed yesterday. I frowned at the contents of my suitcase: three tank tops, one sweater, my favorite yoga pants, two pairs of underpants, and four pairs of socks. I’d either have to go shopping or have Julian bring something up from my apartment.

  Shopping. Definitely.

  I got dressed and went downstairs and made a bowl of cereal in the kitchen. He’d left another note on the marble countertop, with the password to his desktop computer and the house alarm code. Missing you already, he’d added at the end.

  I took my cereal to the library and turned on the computer, chewing thoughtfully as it booted up. I was going to have to let my parents know what had happened before they called into work and started panicking. How to begin? Dear Mom and Dad, I just got fired from Sterling Bates for insider trading. Have moved to Connecticut to live in sin with Julian Laurence. Have a great day! Love, Kate.

  They’d be delighted.

  Eventually I managed to compose something that resembled the truth and moved on to a more straightforward activity: researching the shopping opportunities within a twenty-mile radius of Lyme.

  But before I left, I reached for Julian’s phone and called his cell number.

  He answered immediately. “Good morning, darling. Sleep well?”

  “I just want you to know you’re going to pay, and pay dearly, for that snoring remark.”

  “They were the most elegant little snores. Really quite charming.”

  “Okay. Not helping.”

  He laughed.

  “So here’s what I’m going to do,” I went on. “I’m going to seduce you tonight.”

  “Are you, now?”

  “You don’t stand a chance, Laurence. Not a chance.”

  “You think not?”

  “Because I, for one, will shove a stake through my heart before I spend another night in your bed without making love to you. I realize you find me utterly resistible…”

  “Just because I spent years in army discipline, darling, learning to endure unimaginable extremities of physical hardship…”