“So she couldn’t kill her,” I prompted.
“No. Instead, she banished her, and Elisa wandered in the forest until her brothers, who’d been searching everywhere, finally found her. They spent all night in their man-form weaving a net for her, and when day broke, they flew with her across the sea to safety, each holding an edge of the net in his beak, barely managing to land on an island at sunset before they turned to men again. Then flying and flying again, even when they were so tired, even when they wanted to quit, in order to rescue their little sister. And when they reached a new kingdom where she’d be safe at last, they set her down. That’s where that new kingdom’s king found her.”
“So that’s the story,” I said. “Not bad.”
“No.” She took another sip of the fragrant Sauvignon Blanc, the best the Marlborough Sounds had to offer. “That’s the beginning. The king took her to live at his castle, but she couldn’t forget her brothers, or stop wanting to help them. And when an old woman told her she could turn her brothers into men again if she gathered stinging nettles from the churchyard at midnight, beat them into fiber, and knit shirts of them, she knew what she had to do. But there was a catch, of course. If she spoke a single word before the shirts were done, the magic would fail, and her brothers would be swans forever.”
“But she did it anyway, I’m guessing.”
“Of course she did. Even when the nettles stung and burned her hands, even when she longed to speak, to explain, and couldn’t. Even when she knew her life might be forfeit, she held fast. Because the king was worried by her silence and her nighttime wanderings, and when his archbishop told him that she was a sorceress, and she refused to say a word to defend herself…the king didn’t defend her.”
She took another sip of wine, a final bite of fish, but she was frowning now, lost in her tale. “So she ended up arrested, put on trial for witchcraft, held in a dungeon, and sentenced to death. And all that time, she kept working, kept making her brothers’ shirts, refusing to give up on the idea of saving them. She was still knitting the final shirt, in fact, when she was carried into the courtyard to be burned as a witch. She was put on the pyre, still without saying a word, still holding to her dream, and that’s when the eleven swans swooped down around her. Her brothers, coming to rescue her once again. The people watching cried out that she must be innocent, because swans were a good omen, but the executioner held out the torch to light the fire. And she barely noticed. She only saw her brothers. With the last of her strength, she threw the shirts over the eleven of them, and they became men again.”
I’d lost my breath, carried away by Hope’s intensity, and she looked up at me, the blue-green eyes burning. “As her last act, she saved her brothers. And when she fainted from fear and exhaustion, her brothers had to tell the king her story. And as they spoke, the branches of the pyre turned to flowers. The king plucked a flower and handed it to Elisa, and the two of them were married. And this is the part that kills me. Her youngest brother—she hadn’t had time to finish the final sleeve of his shirt, and he was left with a single wing in place of an arm. A wing that would always remind them of her sacrifice and her love.”
“I can see why you like that one,” I said after a moment. “That’s worthy of being a Maori story, or of being your story. All about sacrifice and family and courage. About holding fast.”
“But do you see what’s wrong with it?” she asked.
“What? That he had a wing? No, I think that’s a good thing. There’s always a price to be paid.”
“No.” She was still looking at me, her gaze so steady. “No. That after she proved herself, after she saved her brothers and they saved her, the king married her. But before that? Where was his faith in her? Why would a woman marry a man who’d been willing to let her die? The thing between her and her brothers—that kind of love, I can believe in. That’s true love. Love that endures anything, will sacrifice anything to save the beloved person. Love that’s stronger even than self-preservation. But the other kind, the love at first sight thing, the enchantment thing? Not so much. It seems to me it can end as quickly as it begins, because there’s not enough there to build a life on, or to put your faith in. So I love the story, but I hate the ending. Except the wing. I love the wing.”
I was as knackered, suddenly, as if I’d had a session with Eugene on the heavy bag. “Yeh,” I said. “You’re right. He should’ve believed her.”
She smiled, and the mood shifted again. “But then there would have been no story, and no sacrifice, would there? Without the bitterness, without the pain, where would the sweetness and the pleasure come from?”
“It’s tied up together, eh.”
“Yes. It is. Just like I can love this day, because you wanted to do all this with me after it didn’t work between us before. Because you’ve been willing to try again.”
I wanted to tell her it was dangerous to open her heart like that to somebody like me, to lay herself so bare. But I didn’t, because I wanted to hear it, and to see it. I wanted to know that I was holding the living, beating heart of this girl. A girl who, I knew, would’ve kept silent, would’ve stung her hands, would’ve knitted those shirts no matter what it cost her.
“And there’s something I need to tell you,” she said slowly. “That I need to have the courage to say.”
“What?” I put out a hand and covered hers, because I couldn’t help it. We were both right. Fairy tales weren’t real, love wasn’t true, and it wasn’t forever. And still, I covered her hand with mine.
“That I don’t know what you want,” she said. “That I’m excited, but I’m scared, too. You keep…hinting. And there’s this thing that keeps coming up in my mind.”
“I’m listening,” I prompted when she didn’t continue.
“It’s that…” She was looking straight at me now. “I don’t want to be hurt. Not…sexually. I don’t think there’s anything sexy about pain, and it’s never been in my…my fantasies, the way some other things may have been. So if that’s what this is, if that’s what you want, then my answer is…” She took a deep breath and said it. “No.”
“Hope.” I traced the sweet curve of her jaw all the way down to her mouth. “It’s what I said. There’s nothing we’ll do that you don’t want. I won’t give you pain, because that’s not what you want.”
“But you want to be the…spider.” It was a whisper. A breath.
“Yeh.” The heat was there, just like that, the fire leaping high along with the lingering warmth. “I want to be the spider. I want to control you, but only because you enjoy being controlled. I want you to surrender, but only because it feels so good to let go. And because you trust me. It’s not about pain. It’s about control. And, yeh. It’s about discipline, too. The kind that feels good. The kind that gives us both pleasure.”
“I’m—” she began, and couldn’t go on. She was trembling, and I wanted everything from her, and I was through with waiting. But I had something I needed to say first, too. Something I should have said before, because she wasn’t going to like it. But maybe now, when she was softened, when we both wanted it so much, was the right time.
I reached into the breast pocket of my jacket and pulled out the piece of paper and a pen, and she dropped her eyes from mine and watched as I unfolded it.
“Um…” she said. “What…”
“I want to walk back to the hotel with you and do all the things we’ve been talking about,” I told her. “I want to do them tonight. But before we can do that, I need you to sign this.”
She was sitting up straighter. “And this would be what, exactly?”
I smiled at her in reassurance. “Nothing to worry about. Just a standard nondisclosure agreement. One signature, and we’re done here.”
She reached a hand out for it, and I let go of the breath I’d been holding.
The seconds ticked by as she read, until she was looking at me again. There wasn’t a bit of softness in her eyes when she pushed the paper back across the
table and said, “No.”
“Hope.” I sighed. “It’s very simple. It never has to go beyond this.”
“Then why do it?” There were two spots of color in her cheeks now. “You want me to say that I’ll never talk about you, or what we do? Right. I’d say that, and you wouldn’t even have to threaten to sue me. Because I’d be trusting you in the same way not to talk about me, not to jeopardize my job or my reputation.”
“It’s different for me,” I tried to explain. “I can’t take that risk. It’s…happened. It’s simple self-preservation.”
“And this.” She grabbed the piece of paper back as if I hadn’t spoken. “That nothing you give me constitutes an agreement to continue the relationship, or an obligation on your part, a promise of…support? How about this? How about this for a concept instead?” Her gaze was steady, her voice not quite so. “How about if you don’t give me anything? Then you don’t have to worry that I—or the next woman, or the one after her, because how many women have signed this thing? Then you don’t have to worry that we’re just gold-diggers who want you for your money, that we’re just looking for a way to take you to the cleaners. You could think that I might be with you because I like you. You could see that I didn’t need any of this to like you. The suite, the very best restaurants, the shoes? I didn’t need Paris at all. I needed to go to a museum with you. I needed you to walk with me, and to talk to me. I sure didn’t need to wonder how many of these things your lawyer’s got filed away, or a reminder that this is temporary, and it means nothing, and you don’t know me, or trust me even to be…to be decent.”
She cut herself off, and her hands were shaking, but she didn’t let that stop her. She ripped the paper in two, then turned it and ripped the pieces again and again before she let them fall onto the table. “Well, keep your agreement.”
A quick grab below the table for her purse, and she was standing. “I told myself that if I went out with you again, no matter what happened, I wasn’t running out on you, and I wasn’t slapping you. That I wasn’t going to behave like a child. So I’m not. I’m behaving like a woman. And this is how a woman says no.”
Making The Rules
I didn’t run down the stairs this time. I walked. And walking out on someone was a whole lot different than running out on him, I found. Not that it didn’t still feel bad. It felt worse, in fact, because there was so much more dream to lose now. But at least I’d maintained a little dignity this time. It was cold comfort, but it was comfort.
I should have taken a different route back to the hotel, but I’d been so angry and sad and disappointed, I’d barely been able to point myself in the right direction on the Rue St. Honoré. I’d imagined myself getting lost in the wagon-wheel spokes of the Paris boulevards, of wandering, tearful and sore, through a foreign capital late at night. And I wasn’t going there. I wasn’t going to be that girl.
So I walked, and I didn’t cry, and I did my best to shove the entire episode aside. Tonight wasn’t the night for thinking rationally. I’d think about it tomorrow, when I was flying back across the Atlantic. Even if I had to max out my credit card to get back. I couldn’t do anything about the suite, or the day, or what an idiot I’d been to believe…
No. Tomorrow. I moved with the knots of chic Parisians, still out in force even this late at night, wandering back from their own dinners. Lovers walking hand in hand. Friends laughing, talking, gesticulating. And a few souls walking alone. One foot in front of the other, back to the hotel.
One moment, I was staring blindly into the window of the Omega store and not registering a thing, and the next, a hard hand was clamping my upper arm and swinging me around as pedestrians veered to avoid us.
“You don’t walk out on me.”
Hemi’s face was set in its hardest lines as he loomed over me. He’d never seemed bigger, and I’d never cared less.
“No?” I looked right back at him. “And yet I could swear I just did.”
He stiffened more, if that were possible, his body going as rigid as his face. “It’s a piece of paper. It doesn’t matter. It’s peace of mind, and we’re done.”
I didn’t want to talk about this again. I’d said what I had to say, and all the same, I was answering. “If it doesn’t matter, why do it? And what kind of peace of mind would there be for me in that? You want me to put that kind of trust in you, to put myself and my…my safety into your hands, when I know you don’t trust me? Not even in the most…the most basic way? Maybe you’d decide you wanted to hurt me after all, and then where would I be? How would I defend myself?”
He looked a little stunned at my force. “You must know I wouldn’t do that.”
I began to walk again, moving faster now, and he kept up with me easily, striding right by my side. I wasn’t going to outrun him, but it didn’t matter. I needed to move. “I thought I did,” I said. “I thought I was beginning to know you. That’s why I didn’t ask you to sign a piece of paper in spite of everything you’ve said to me. I took your word. Why won’t you take mine? Because somebody did it to you before? But I’m not that somebody. Don’t you see how…how un-special you made me feel?” The tears were pricking behind my eyes, but I refused to give into them. “I guess I should thank you for being up-front, for keeping me from making a mistake. So thank you. Thank you very much for everything, in fact. No harm done. Go find another girl to sign your paper. Buy her some shoes. She’ll probably love it. But this isn’t for me.”
“That’s it.” He was pulling me around again, backing me into a recess leading to an interior shopping street, its gates closed now, until I was against a column and he was over me, one hand braced against the wall. “All right. No bloody paper. But we’re both going to get a promise.”
“Oh?” I was trembling, but I wasn’t going to let him run over me. “Who says?”
“I say.” The other hand come out now, so he had two palms against the stone, trapping me. “And I don’t want another girl. I want you.”
“And if I say no?” I stared up at him, every sense alert for the truth.
“Then I let you go, and we’re done.” He stepped back, dropped his hands, and I studied his face for long seconds. “And I’m…” He looked away for a moment, and I could see him swallow hard before he looked back at me again. “I’m sorry.”
I didn’t ask him how often he’d said that. I was pretty sure I knew the answer. “What’s…” I had to stop and try again myself. “What’s the promise?”
I could hear the breath leaving his lungs. “I promise not to hurt you. And you promise not to hurt me. And we make up the rest of the rules as we go along.”
“I thought you made the rules,” I managed to say, even though my knees were shaking, and I needed the column to hold me up. Relief, and more, something I didn’t want to examine too closely. “I thought that was the idea.”
“Oh, no.” His hands were back on the wall again. “We make the rules together. That’s the way it works. I’m driving, and you’re drawing the line. Everything I take, you’ve given to me. You’re giving me the power, and you can take it back any time. All you have to say is ‘Stop.’”
“I could make you mad again,” I told him. “I’m pretty sure I will.”
He took a step forward, narrowing the distance between us. “Then,” he said, his voice dropping, another kind of promise, “I may have to give you a spanking.”
I was trembling again, but it wasn’t from anger this time. “No…” I cleared my throat. “No pain.”
“I heard.” Another step, and his lower chest was brushing the tips of my breasts. He was so close. So close.
“All right,” I whispered.
The moment the words were out of my mouth, his hands had dropped to my bottom, and in one swift movement, he’d lifted me off my feet, had taken that last step, and every hard inch of him was pressed into me as I stood against the stone column.
He shoved an arm more firmly under me, wrapped the other hand around my head, cushioning it, and
then, at last, his mouth was on mine.
When he kissed me, there was nothing gentle about it, and nobody had ever kissed me like this. Nobody had even come close. Hot and hard, dark and deep. He didn’t hurt, didn’t bruise. He just took my mouth completely, like he meant it, like it was his. I was making some noises—protest, or surprise, I hardly knew—and he was paying them not the least attention. My legs wrapped around his waist as if they had a mind of their own, and his fingers twisted in my hair as he tugged my head back, almost hurting, but not quite. His mouth went to my throat, moved to the spot just under my ear, and when his teeth closed over the tender skin there, I moaned. My hands were gripping his broad shoulders, feeling the muscles shift as he held me, as his teeth moved over me, and I felt every bit of him against me. Threat, or promise, or both.
“Bloody hell.” He wrenched his mouth from my throat. “Come on.” He took my hand in his, and we were walking fast, not talking, because there was nothing left to say. Nothing but needing this.
He dragged me through the door of the hotel, punched the button for the elevator, then waited, his eyes on the indicator, until the doors opened. He was punching the button for the third floor, then turning and looking at me, his gaze so intent it burned. I could sense the calculations going on in that mind.
He walked down the corridor beside me, and when I opened the door with my keycard, he reached out and plucked it from my hand.
“Wait for me,” he told me. “And don’t take anything off. And no, that’s not a request. You know what’s going to happen tonight?”
“What?” I managed to ask.
“I’m going to take your virginity.”
The thrill of it was an electric shock, even though I knew it was wrong, that it wasn’t his to take. But that only made it excite me more.
“So go inside,” he said. “And wait for me to come and do it.” And he left.
Fierce (Not Quite a Billionaire) Page 14
