by Mary Campisi
“Hmm?” He played with a few strands of her hair, enjoying the silkiness on his fingers. True contentment…
“I missed that.”
He smiled. She was talking about the sex. He’d missed it, too. A lot. “Good. There’s more where that came from.” Years of it. Decades even.
She kissed his chest, lifted her head, and said, “About what just happened…” Damn, she was going to analyze it. When a woman wanted a face-to-face right after making love, it usually meant something was on her mind, and the guy probably didn’t want to hear about it. He could ask, or wait it out; the waiting wouldn’t take long, because when a woman had a bead on something right after sex, it was not going to be stifled. No matter how good the guy was in bed. “There hasn’t been anyone since you.”
Ash’s hand stilled but he kept the faint smile frozen on his face. Of course. She wanted to play “let’s make a confession in bed.” Well, he didn’t want to play because he couldn’t say the same. Not that he’d cared about any of the other women—he hadn’t. In fact, he’d sought them out as a way to assuage the pain in his soul and the treatment hadn’t worked, no matter the woman, the number of times, or the position. Every encounter left him emptier than the last, until he stopped trying to bury his pain and gave up women. But there was a big gap, actually, a boulder of time when he’d been relentless in his pursuit of pain assuagement. And that was not going to make Arianna happy. Hell, it didn’t make him happy and he’d done it. So, how to avoid the unavoidable? Ignorance was always a good start. “I’m glad you told me.”
The blueness in her eyes darkened. “I wanted you to know.”
The frozen smile started to melt, one muscle at a time. “Thank you.” Damn, damn, damn. What she meant was, “Your turn.”
Those eyes narrowed on him. “I guess I could say ‘you’re welcome,’ if I were feeling hospitable, which I’m not.” Her voice thinned. “It’s proper etiquette to respond in kind when the other party has divulged information.”
“Oh.” Ash rubbed his jaw and the rest of his smile slipped away. “It’s also proper etiquette not to inquire, especially in our present situation, which is in bed. Naked. Even more so if the aforementioned divulged information has not been requested?”
Those tiny nostrils flared, the lips pinched. Yup, she was ticked. There was no way to win this or even come out ahead. He’d be accused one way or the other; if he said nothing, she’d assume he did the deed. If he confessed, she’d know. Ah, hell, something told him she already knew. “Look, Arianna…” He let the sentence drag on, thinking she might let it go…rather, hoping she would.
She tilted her head to one side. “Yes?”
He was not getting out of this, not without a thorough interrogation. Ash sighed and plowed forward. “There have been others.” She didn’t move, not even a blink. He ventured on, “But none like you.”
“Of course not.”
Was she playing with him or did she mean it? Men shouldn’t be required to reason after sex. There should be a warning label next to the bed: Engaging in heavy conversation after sex may cause reduced mental capacity, complications to the relationship, and possible bodily injury. When he’d had his wisdom teeth out at seventeen, the discharge instructions had specifically said, Do not sign any documents or make any major decisions. That sentence should be included on the label at the end of the bed, too.
Why was she staring at him like she wanted to choke the words out of him? She wanted more words? Fine, he’d give her more. And a touch, too. Ash stroked her arm, worked up his most disarming smile, and said, “There could never be another woman like you.” How true…she was his Heaven…
“Stop it,” she hissed.
And sometimes his Hell. His hand slipped away. “You asked. And you shouldn’t have.”
“You said you never stopped loving me. How am I supposed to believe that when you couldn’t keep your pants zipped?” She sat up, yanked enough sheet from him to cover herself, and glared at him.
His brain might be saturated with sex, but he doubted she wanted an answer. She pulled the sheet tighter around her body, which infuriated him. Beds were for sleep and sex, sure as hell not this. He pushed back. “You’re opting for modesty after what we just did? You’ve got to be kidding.”
The mouth that had given him such pleasure a few hours earlier flattened. “Get out.”
“Arianna. I never thought I’d see you again. I was broken and hurting and doing my damnedest to forget you.” The truth broke out, fell forward in a rush. “You were everywhere. I spotted a red rose and thought of the first time I bought them for you. I smelled lilacs and there you were, smothering me with your scent. Every blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman tormented me. None of them were you, no matter how hard I tried to pretend they were.” He sucked in a breath, willed her to understand. “The more women I was with, the emptier I became”—he paused, made no attempt to hide the pain in his words. “You were in my soul and you weren’t going away, so I stopped fighting it.” His voice dipped. “And I stopped trying to find replacements because there was no replacement.” There. The truth. All of it.
“Please leave.”
Leave? After the ultimate confession he’d just dumped on her?
“Did you hear what I said? What I just admitted to you?” In case she’d missed the most important part, he repeated it. “I said you were in my soul.”
“Yes. You did.”
Damn her. “And you want me to leave.”
“Yes.”
“I see.” But he didn’t. He didn’t see anything. “For now? Or for good?”
She sat very still, clutching the sheet to her breasts, knuckles white, lips pinched, eyes glazed. Her lips barely moved as the words slipped out. “I don’t know.”
She’d erected a blockade and he wasn’t getting through—not his words, his meaning, nothing. Ash threw back the covers and got out of bed, giving the sheet an extra yank so it slipped from her grip. He didn’t look at her or speak as he shrugged into his clothes and left, cursing himself for loving a woman like Arianna Sorensen.
Chapter 7
“Tell me you didn’t really ask him that.”
Arianna shrugged and sipped her coffee. It was too early for a whiskey, but she’d thought about it. Several times. Instead, she’d called Quinn who had arrived at the studio in fifteen minutes carrying two coffees and her favorite yogurt parfait. “It just came up.”
“Arianna. You’re talking to me. I know you, in some ways better than Ash does. Nothing ‘just comes up’ with you.”
“I thought he loved me.” She hated the neediness in her voice, the desperation coated with pain. She would get past this and learn once again that people invariably disappointed, no matter how lofty the promise.
“He does love you.” And then, “Men in pain are strange creatures.”
She met his gaze and didn’t try to hide the tears. There hadn’t been tears in years and since Ash Lancaster returned, she’d become a regular faucet. “I stayed faithful, even when I believed I’d never see him again.” Her voice wobbled. “Why couldn’t he have done the same?”
Quinn studied her, those silver eyes assessing, analyzing. “You were a wreck for a long time.” He toyed with an empty packet of artificial sweetener. “But if things had been different, you might have opened up to that bastard Maldonando.” When she gasped, he nodded. “I really think so…and then you wouldn’t have brought the whole bad topic up to Ash, right?”
“I guess.” Still, she hadn’t slept with Alexander Maldonando. Circumstances had intervened and his true nature exposed before she went too far.
“I give the guy credit for admitting anything. I mean, think about it; you’re in bed—” his lips twitched “—and we know you weren’t sleeping, and right when the guy is relaxed and feeling great, you want to interrogate him about his past sexual partners? You only have a right to ask in regard to protection, not the details.”
He didn’t see the bigger picture. She’d expla
in it to him. “It’s a matter of trust. And betrayal.”
Quinn gave her the look that said she had better rethink her position. “You were out of the picture, or at least he thought you were. Come on, the guy manned up and told you the truth, a truth you didn’t want to hear and had no right asking. Would you have preferred he lie, because he could have easily given you a line of bullshit in that convincing way he has and how would you have known?”
“I would have known.” She would have picked apart the lie buried in his words.
“Don’t be so sure.” Quinn looked away. “Some people tell lies that sound like the truth.”
It was her turn to look away. She’d done that, conjured up a past that sounded real, even if it weren’t. She suspected Quinn had done a bit of conjuring up the past himself and maybe that’s why he never probed too deep. He was a lawyer; if he wanted to know, he’d find out.
“Ash didn’t betray you, Arianna.” He shook his head and a faint smile crept over his lips. “A guy that admits you live in his soul has it bad.”
“And you’ve never said anything like that to Eve?”
She stared him down until his smile slipped. “We’re not talking about me.”
“I see.” Oh, she saw all right. Quinn had probably told his wife she lived in his soul, his heart, and his brain.
“But how will I ever trust him?” That was the real problem.
“Trust is a tricky thing. It has to be earned and once broken takes a long time to repair, if it can be repaired.” He lifted his coffee cup, met her gaze. “He loves you. Not that I like to admit it, but he’s good for you. He’s not going to hurt you, at least not intentionally, unless you ask stupid questions about his past sex life. Don’t do that again.”
“Okay. I won’t.” And then, “I’m so scared.”
“Yeah, opening up to another person gives him plenty of ammunition to annihilate you. We all have secrets, but if the relationship’s going to work, you have to be honest, first with yourself and then with him, even if that honesty is not something you like to admit or think about.”
Why was he looking at her like that, as though he knew she had a secret?
“Once you do that, you can accept the truth about yourself. You can be yourself with that person, not somebody the outside world sees, but you. The real you. And he’ll love you in spite of it.” His gaze burned into hers with conviction. “And then you’ll be free.”
***
Arianna spent the next hour working on a design for a bracelet collection she planned to exhibit in the fall. Onyx, sapphire, emeralds, and opals. Maybe a diamond or ruby here and there. It all depended on the “feel” of the design and what it lent itself to when complete. She finished her coffee, her second since Quinn left, and considered using leather and turquoise with tiny beads to evoke a southwestern flair. She could have a lot of fun with that and knew a few of her clients in particular who would love southwestern color and leather.
Who was she kidding? She’d only thought of the idea ten seconds ago when Ash Lancaster flitted through her brain for the fifty-second time. She thought of the photos of the landscape and people he’d shown her from his trip out west. He’d talked about traveling there again and taking her with him.
Quinn referred to opening up and trust as though he’d spent his share of time battling the same concerns. Whatever his issues, he and Eve were perfect for each other, and she guessed part of that perfection had to do with the opening up and trust part. Maybe she shouldn’t have interrogated Ash about other women; maybe she should have accepted his proclamation of love and his confession of intense pain when they’d split. Maybe she should have done a lot of things, like admit that she still loved him. And no matter how much pain he’d caused her, she still wanted to be with him, be part of his life.
What would he say if she told him that?
She’d been on her own for a long time and hadn’t depended on anyone until Quinn. But he was her friend, not her lover, and that made it so much easier to let him see pieces of herself—scared, uncertain, hurting—but still only the pieces she wanted him to see. The past was not something she wanted to share—with anyone. But how could she have a future with Ash if she didn’t confess her past? She sighed and tossed her pencil on the counter.
The bells on the door of The Silver Strand tinkled and Arianna looked up, smiled at the woman clad in a wide-brimmed hat, dark sunglasses, and a knee-length raincoat, an odd outfit for an overcast, dry day. Still, many of The Silver Strand’s customers displayed unique garment choices in their quest for self-expression. Sunglasses and a raincoat on a cloudy, rainless day were not any more unusual than the customer last week who sported seventeen rings on her fingers and a turquoise-studded bandana on her head. “Good morning, welcome to The Silver Strand.”
The woman hesitated, hand on knob, and then closed the door. She didn’t remove her glasses or speak as she moved toward Arianna, her tall thin frame concealed behind the tan raincoat.
“May I help you?” Arianna tried to guess the woman’s age but with the hat covering her hair and the sunglasses blocking much of her face, it was hard to tell.
“Arianna, isn’t it?”
The woman clung to the a in Arianna’s name, creating a sound that sucked the air from the room. Accents were regional and hard to erase from a person’s speech pattern, but they could be corrected, given time, practice, and extreme diligence. She’d worked for months to scrub the sound of her town from her voice, but this woman brought it all back, in three words. “Who are you?”
The woman moved closer. “I think the real question is, who are you?” Her lips twitched and curved in a smile that was not filled with warmth or humor. Her thin hands reached above her head to remove the broad-brimmed hat. Once done, a tumble of washed-out blonde hair fell about her shoulders. The glasses were next. Eyes that were once as blue and alive as Arianna’s stared back at her, dull and tired.
“Vanessa.” She hadn’t spoken that name since she left Endicotte.
“Nothing to say to your little sister?” She laid her hat on the counter and leaned forward, so close Arianna could see the lines around her mouth and eyes, lines that spoke of hard living and want.
“How did you find me?”
She laughed. “Find you? I didn’t know you were lost.” She glanced at the jewelry inside the cases. “Well, that’s not true. You’ve been lost for a long time, but that’s between you and a psychiatrist.”
Vanessa had been twelve when Arianna left. She’d had long hair the color of butter, eyes that were bluer than a robin’s egg, and a curiosity for life that exhausted and worried their parents. Vanessa had lists of things she wanted to do—learn to surf, visit Rome, ride an elephant, swim in the Pacific Ocean, and eat croissants in Paris.
“Vanessa, I know there’s no way I can make things up to you, but I’m really sorry.” When her sister merely stared, Arianna continued, “For everything.”
Those pale eyes stared back at her. “Well, that makes it all better, doesn’t it? When you stole that money from Mom and Dad, you stole my life.” Her lips pinched and flattened and spewed out horrible accusations that were sadly too close to the truth. “I had to stay behind because of what you did. I couldn’t go to college, couldn’t go to the next town over without them flipping out that I’d take off. You ruined my life. You ruined all of our lives because of your selfishness.”
Her sister’s words shot through her, filled with hatred and disgust. They’d once been so close…
Arianna spoke softly. “I tried to make things right, but Dad wouldn’t have anything to do with me.”
“Poor you. Do you blame him?” Vanessa scowled. “You said they were dead. You made up parents. Who the hell do you think you are?”
She’d been so desperate to escape her life and jump into the one she wanted that she’d taken unforgivable short cuts and destroyed the only thing that really mattered in life—family. Arianna met her sister’s accusations with the truth. “I don’
t think I’m anybody. I would do anything to change things, but I don’t even know how.”
Vanessa shrugged and snatched her hat from the counter. “It’s too late, anyway. He’s dead. Heart attack. That’s why I came. Mom wanted you to know.”
The world stopped the second her sister spoke those words. He was their father, Edgar Albert Sorensen, the man who had once called Arianna his princess. When the tears came, she didn’t try to stop them or swipe them away. She let them fall—hot, painful, filled with remorse. “Can I come to the funeral?” He was dead, and she’d never gotten to tell him how sorry she was, how much she regretted those selfish actions.
Vanessa eyed her. “The funeral was last week.” She shoved the sunglasses on her face. “Mom wants to see you. I promised to deliver the message, but it’s a bad idea. She’s got high blood pressure and bad arthritis and doesn’t need you upsetting her. I’ll make an excuse for you, shouldn’t be too hard, since you don’t claim any of us anyway.” She turned and walked toward the door.
“I’ll be there tomorrow.”
Her sister laughed as she opened the door. “Sure you will.”
***
Ash headed down the winding road twenty-five miles outside of Philly and sucked in the fresh air. There was nothing quite like a ride in the country. City life stifled him, choked out the quiet with a barrage of honks and sirens and voices…too many voices. Why did everyone have to talk so loudly, so incessantly? Why couldn’t they quiet down, even for the span of a minute?
He rode past the early signs of summer—patches of red, yellow, pink, and purple, sprouting from gardens and pots, climbing fences and trellises. Light and dark shades of green covered trees and bushes, clumped together for miles, creating the perfect summer landscape. Riding a motorcycle was like meditation, at least that’s how he thought of it. The bike cleared his head, gave him perspective, relaxed him. Some people thought motorcycles were owned and operated by a band of hoodlums, maybe even gangs, whose only purpose was to live hard, drink hard, ride hard. And cover their bodies with tattoos. Ash had met quite a few riders who could fill a book with their advanced degrees and some who could barely scratch out a sentence. Some loved to ink the names of their girlfriends, wives, children on their person, while others carried hand sanitizers in their tour packs. So what did any of it matter? Life was filled with all kinds of people, and titles and bank accounts didn’t make a person. Neither did growing up poor or orphaned. What mattered was what you did with the remains.
