A Scarlet Kiss

by Heidi Lowe

  Forget about me, she'd said the night before. Forget about us. As I cried quietly to myself in the back of the taxi, I wondered which one of us would have the hardest time doing that.

  Haven Inn might have been the most deceptively-named place on Earth (well, besides Greenland). A rundown, twelve-room b&b in a place called High Wycombe, approximately three miles from the Rutherford-Manning house, there was nothing remotely haven-like about it. Not the threadbare, stained carpets or curtains, nor the creaky, uncomfortable bed, nor the bits of masonry that fell every time I opened and closed the window or door. The wifi signal left a lot to be desired, also, but in the grand scheme of things, that was the least of my worries.

  "You're not from around here, are you, love?" a rough-looking woman covered in tattoos said on the third day of my stay, when I went out for a cigarette. If she wasn't a meth head, I didn't know who was.

  "No, I'm American," I said. We were standing at the entrance, in a designated smoking area.

  "Ooo, I've always wanted to go to New York. See that statue, what's it called again?"

  "The Statue of Liberty."

  "That's the one. Is that where you're from?"

  "No, Massachusetts. Close to Boston."

  "Here on holiday or...?"

  "I'm going back next week. What about you?" I wanted to steer the conversation away from me, in the hopes of momentarily forgetting my predicament, my sorrow. After all, that was what Scarlett wanted.

  "Oh me, I've been in this shithole for the last four months. Waiting for the council to find me somewhere more permanent. Old place had faulty wiring...went up in flames."

  "That's terrible."

  She proceeded to show me some burn marks on her arm, which were admittedly difficult to make out through the tattoo art.

  "Got a case against the landlord. Criminal and civil. Can't say too much about it, but my lawyers've said it could be a big payday for me." She rubbed her fingers together to denote money, and when she smiled, she revealed a mouth filled with broken yellow and brown teeth.

  Just the mere mention, in passing, of lawyers, was enough to conjure up the memory of Scarlett. Was she thinking about me? Had she begun to regret her decision to end things?

  When the friendly meth head launched into a monologue about her abusive ex-boyfriend, and how she was contemplating giving him a second chance, I excused myself and hurried to my room. I scrolled through my phone for Scarlett's number, then pressed call before I could change my mind.

  I won't respect her wishes, I mused. Screw her wishes. We love each other, I just know it. All she's doing is hurting both of us. If I could just speak to her...

  She picked up on my second try.

  "I told you not to call me, Jenna." Her voice sounded muffled, like she'd been crying recently and only just stopped.

  "I love you," was my response to that. There, I'd said it. Now she knew.

  I heard her take a breath. She didn't speak for the longest time, so long I thought she'd hung up. Then she said, finally, voice now heavy with tears, "I don't love you. Please don't call again."

  The line went dead.

  She was lying, she had to be. How had I gone from meaning everything to her to this in the space of a week? No, she was definitely lying. The way she looked at me, the way she kissed me, the way she held me, she couldn't have been that affectionate with someone she didn't love. I'd seen how cold she was with her other lovers. Eric, Patrick and Susan. They didn't mean to her what I did.

  Knowing this, nevertheless, did nothing to alleviate my agony at being rejected once more. I bawled my eyes out in that bleak little room in the Haven Inn, and thought about booking an early flight out of there, just so I didn't have to spend a minute longer breathing the same air as her.

  When clarity and rational thought came back to me, I put away my credit card, gave myself the pep talk I needed, then went to work on the new website I'd been commissioned to build. If nothing else, depression made me work harder, faster, and longer. At least my clients were happy.

  That was how I spent the remainder of my days in England. Grinding away, filling every spare minute up with work so as not to allow my thoughts to stray to Scarlett. I tried her number again, in a last ditch attempt to change her mind. If she heard my voice, I reasoned, she couldn't ignore what she felt for me. But to my horror, her number had been disconnected.

  She was trying to eradicate me from her life, just like she had done with Susan. Now I understood everything. At the time, Susan's response at the party seemed like an overreaction. But now I got it. One couldn't simply turn away from Scarlett, give her up without a fight. Someone like that only came around once in your life. I was certain I would never share with anyone else – male or female – what I'd shared with Scarlett; didn't think it was possible.

  So with that revelation driving me, on the evening before my flight, I hopped into a taxi and headed back to the house. If she didn't love me, she would have to look me in the eye and say it. Then I would know where I stood.

  The code to get through the front gates hadn't changed, I was relieved to see. I followed the path right around to Scarlett's door, and hammered against it. Her car wasn't in the drive, but it could have been in the garage where she usually kept it. If she wasn't here now, I planned on waiting. For as long as it took.

  Something told me, when she didn't answer, that I would find her in the stables, tending to her horses.

  Scarlett never looked more beautiful, more serene, than when she was grooming her horses. Just as I'd done before, when I spotted her in the stable, I watched her from a distance, my heart pounding at the sight of her. Breathless and yearning, that was how she left me. Keeping my distance and regarding her from afar was ultimately easier than confronting her, but I knew sooner or later I had to face her.

  "I just want to know one thing," I said. My voice made her jump.

  "J–Jenna, w–what are you doing here?"

  "Just answer me one thing." I made my way to her, noting the mounting fear in her eyes. What was she so afraid of? "Did you ever love me?"

  "Jenna, you shouldn't be here." She tried to turn away but I grabbed her arm. "Jenna, please just go. I can't do this."

  "Did you ever love me?" I demanded more forcefully. "Goddammit, Scarlett, I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon. The least you can do is tell me the truth."

  "What difference does it make? We can't be together."

  "Answer the question!" I shouted.

  "No!" she screamed back, then without warning burst into tears. She tried to push me away when I went to embrace her, but realizing it was useless, she let me hold her...and pepper her face with kisses...and before either of us knew what was happening, we were frantically yanking each other's clothes off. Our kisses were ravenous, a desperate battle of tongues reuniting after what seemed like a lifetime. I never wanted to part from her. And as she pulled me onto a large oblong-shaped hay bale, it became apparent that she didn't want to part from me, either.

  Relief came over me when she slipped her fingers inside me, as though her touch was the thing that kept me going. As she worked me over, I didn't dare close my eyes, instead held her gaze, imprinting her expression and the contours of her perfect face on my mind in case I never saw her again. I wanted to remember her this way, pleasuring me with such determination.

  "Why did it have to be you?" she said, eyes wet. A teardrop hit my cheek. "Why you, of all the women in the world?"

  I couldn't answer that, so kissed her in an effort to alleviate her pain.

  I came hard, like three orgasms in one. My moans ripped through the stable, made one of the horses neigh.

  "I love you," I whispered.

  "I love you, too," she said. "Of course I do. Even before we met I knew I was going to fall for you."

  "Oh my God!" This voice didn't come from me or Scarlett. There was a sinking feeling in my stomach. Scarlett's look of pure horror matched my own. Standing behind us, crestfallen, mortified, and revolted all at once was M
arcus!

  "No," Scarlett breathed, stumbling to separate herself from me. "Marcus, it's not...I didn't–"

  He backed away from her, hands covering his mouth, head shaking. "Get away from me, you...you whore!"

  "Marcus, please," she pleaded. "Let me explain."

  "You love her?" This he screamed at me. "Her? You couldn't say it to me but you say it to my fucking sister, Jenna. Are you fucking kidding me?"

  Scrambling to pull on my clothes, I said, "It just happened. None of us planned it."

  "Shut up! How does something like this just happen? What are you, a lesbian now?"

  "I don't know what I am. But I love her, that's all I know. I'm sorry you had to find out this way."

  "Marcus." Scarlett tried to reach out for him, but he boxed her hand away, balled his hand into a fist and went to strike her, but stopped himself.

  "Don't ever say my name again." He was crying and shaking with rage. How similar they now looked as they wept. "You sat there and watched me fall apart over her, wracking my brains trying to figure out why she couldn't love me back, and all the time you were fucking my girlfriend. That's sick!"

  "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." She kept repeating it. "The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you."

  He looked as though he would spit in her face.

  "You make me sick. Both of you. But you most of all." His eyes were narrowed slits of hatred, directed at her. "You're supposed to be my sister, and this is what you do to me. I wish your plane from Singapore never made it back here."

  With that, he ran off, but not before shooting me the meanest look I'd ever received.

  "It's all right. Now it's out in the open." I put a hand on Scarlett's shoulder as she cried.

  "Get off!" she growled, shoving my hand away. With a shaky finger aimed at me, she added, "This is all your fault. I never should have let you get inside my head. You've destroyed my family. You're poison!"

  "Don't say that." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. How had I become the enemy? I didn't force her to be with me, to fall in love with me. How was any of this my fault?

  "Get out, now! And don't come back. Take your fucking plane back to America and leave me and my family alone."

  "Scarlett, you don't mean that."

  Her eyes were vicious behind the tears as she squared up to me. She delivered the final blow through gritted teeth. "Yes I do. I never want to see you again. Now leave."

  There could have been no mistaking that loathing. I dashed from the stable and from that house, never looking back.

  EPILOGUE

  The staff briefings at Tanner, Monroe and Chase Partners were held every Monday at eleven. Like clockwork. You were expected to drop everything you were doing and rush into one of the two large boardrooms, where the partners gathered all the most important people in the company for an hour.

  As the company's lead front end web developer, naturally I was expected to attend, much to my displeasure. My work had little bearing on the everyday workings of the law firm, and if I were being honest, I much preferred being left alone to my own devices. Truth was, being surrounded by a bunch of lawyers – some of the best in New York, where my office was based – made me uncomfortable. I'd only known one lawyer in my life, and she'd turned around and stepped all over my heart. So needless to say, I had a bias against all in that profession, even going as far as turning down the invitation to dinner from one of the junior associates, a good-looking, charismatic guy with ruthless ambition. Lawyers were trouble.

  You're probably wondering why, then, I would have taken a job like this, going from virtual freedom in self-employment, to moving two hundred and fifty miles from Birfield, Massachusetts to New York. Put simply, they were paying me a truckload of money. I'd done some contract work for them and impressed them so much that I was told to name my salary, in order for them to get me as a permanent fixture. It was an offer I couldn't refuse. One of the partners, Rett, a guy old enough to be my father, took a liking to me, and had been looking out for me ever since I moved there five months prior.

  "Jared, where are we with the discovery on Linden V Bishop?"

  My loud yawn made several of my colleagues shoot me scornful looks, though Rett seemed to find my involuntary interruption amusing.

  "Sorry," I said quickly, face burning up. So embarrassing. They already thought I was an oddball, not a team player, because I rarely accompanied them to bars after work, or any of the company events.

  I'd been up all night the night before, managing only a couple of hours' sleep. That was one of the drawbacks of working for a busy, well-known law firm: sleep became a rarity. I'd decided even before taking the job that I would stick it out a couple of years tops, make as much money as I could, then move back to Birfield. Big city life simply wasn't for me. My house was being rented, paying for itself, and the rent out here, even on my salary, was sky high.

  Another glance at the clock showed that we still had fifteen minutes left before they wrapped up the meeting. The longest fifteen minutes of my life, I thought. I'd all but zoned out completely by then, switched off and wasn't paying attention to what the partners were saying.

  "...all know we're expanding. We're pleased to announce the addition of a fine attorney who previously worked on some very high profile international cases..."

  My whole body went numb, frozen in place, when the door opened and a familiar face strutted into the room. I had to blink hard to make sure she was real, not a mirage, or some other woman with the same curly brown locks, piercing brown eyes, and perfect smile. Those lips. Seeing them in the flesh after six months was surreal. I'd dreamed about them, about their owner, about kissing them, and each time I woke up crying, resigned to the fact that I would never see them again.

  Yet here they were! How was this possible?

  "Hi, my name's Scarlett Rutherford-Manning, and if it isn't obvious from my accent, I'm English. But don't hold that against me."

  Laughter abounded. Men sat up in their chairs and paid more attention than they ever had in their lives. Not only was this woman stunning, she commanded respect and deference – oozed authority.

  She captivated her audience, talking briefly about some of the cases she'd worked, and what had driven her to move out here to join the firm as a partner.

  "I've always loved New York. Besides, it was only one of two states in which a British lawyer can practice without doing a JD and studying the law all over again from scratch."

  They found that funny, too. But I didn't. I wanted to know what the hell she was doing here, working at my company, living in New York. This surely wasn't a coincidence. That much was obvious by her lack of reaction to seeing me in the room.

  Once the briefing ended and everyone went to shake her hand, introduce themselves and kiss her ass, I slipped out of the room and hid in my office, where I could hyperventilate, tremble, and generally have a breakdown at being face to face once again with the woman I still loved after so many long, depressing months.

  It took her five minutes, just five, to find me in my office. She knocked but came in straightaway, without permission.

  I scowled at her from behind my desk, my heart doing back flips and somersaults at the mere sight of her. Oh how I still loved her. Now it became clear to me that I'd never really been over her, I'd just been going through the motions, putting on a brave face, trying to forget how harshly she'd treated me, how broken she'd left me.

  "I didn't say you could come in," I said, feigning coolness, apathy, when inside my heart ached for her.

  "May I come in?"

  "No."

  She didn't budge, didn't even attempt to leave.

  "We should talk, Jenna."

  "No, we shouldn't. We did enough talking back in the stable, remember? Or have you already forgotten what you said to me?" Keeping the tears at bay was no easy feat. Sooner or later they were bound to burst forth and soak up the papers on my desk. Flood the room, even.

  She hung her head. "How could I forget? I've
regretted it ever since."

  "Yeah, well I'm over it." That croak in my throat, along with the fact that, dammit, the tears had broken free, spoke to the contrary. Who was I trying to fool?

  "I'm not. I'm not over you, not by a long shot. And I didn't try to get over you. I wanted the memory of you to stay with me, so that I would have the courage to do what I had to do."

  I frowned. "The courage to do what?"

  "This. Everything. I sat the New York Bar for you, Jenna. I worked my butt off to do it quickly when I found out you joined the company. I reached out to a friend to get me a meeting with the senior partners... I came here for you."

  "You shouldn't have wasted your time. Now, if you don't mind, I have work to do." While these words were spewing from my mouth, the voice inside me, the one that knew I was full of shit and wanted this woman more than I'd ever wanted anything my whole life, screamed for me to tell her I still loved her; begged me to give her a second chance. But the louder, more vocal voice wanted to keep me miserable, wallowing in self-pity, hating her.

  "Okay, I'll leave now, but I'm coming over tonight. And if you don't let me in, I'll come back every night until you do."

  Only once she'd left did I allow myself to cry, turning on the air conditioner to drown out as much of the sound as I could.

  I thought about ignoring her knocks at my door, her calls for me to let her in, but eventually I couldn't take it anymore and opened the door to her. I kept my distance, even afraid for the incidental touch of her hand on mine when I handed her the glass of water she requested.

  "Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked, after some time of me glowering at her.

  "Because I don't trust you."

  She laughed in that easy way she did, brushed her hair out of her face. It was longer than I remembered. Suited her. "Why don't you trust me?"