Follow the white pebbles

by Lillian Summers

He tunneled his fingers through her hair and pulled her toward him, invading her mouth in a thirsty kiss that robbed her of her senses. She slowly surrendered to her hunger and dipped her head down to run her lips over the toned skin of his chest. His muscles leapt reflexively and he arched his hips to sheathe himself inside her warmth. The feel of him grinding against her sent flames through her womb. She strained against him, undulating her hips to meet his hardness in a rocking motion of her own. He cupped her face with his hands and took her mouth once more thrusting deep with his tongue, then slowly retreating and thrusting again and again, while his fingers grazed over her nipples, hardening them into proud rosy pebbles. They ground against each other while she clung breathlessly to him, deepening her arching to meet his plunging thrusts. An incandescent power steadily built inside her, and when it exploded she was instantly bathed in wave after wave of a delirious ecstasy she couldn’t name, she couldn’t compare to anything she had ever experienced.

  She was already on the brink of slumber when he kissed the top of her head.

  “Breakfast in bed?” he asked.

  “Uh-huh,” she mumbled, reluctantly rolling off of him.

  He stood up and wrapped himself in a robe then headed for the door.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said, glancing at the clock on the wall. It was almost noon.

  The dining room was deserted but there were clear signs that one of the butlers was already getting lunch ready. Two sets of plates and cutlery were impeccably arranged on the table, and a tray with glasses was placed on the side, waiting for the carafes of juice and fresh water to arrive.

  “Good morning, sir,” Lance greeted him as he entered the room.

  Justin nodded.

  “Just letting you know that Miss Pearce has just arrived,” the butler announced. “I showed her into the library.”

  A slight pang of unease hit at the back of Justin’s mind. Kate’s unexpected visit was the last thing he wanted right now. He wasn’t even dressed for the occasion. He hesitated a little, torn between returning to his apartment to let Lizzie know, and going to meet Kate and have it all done and over with once for all. The latter seemed to entail finality, he decided.

  “Thank you, Lance,” he said. “I’ll go meet Miss Pearce. Can you see that a tray of food is prepared in the meantime? My wife and I will have our meal in our apartment.”

  “Right away, sir.” The butler scurried away.

  Justin hesitated for a moment, rubbing his forehead with the tips of his fingers then he took off with brisk steps toward the library.

  Kate was slowly pacing the room, her gaze wandering out the window. She was wearing a tight fit dress that hugged her curves and had a provocative split at the back, revealing half her upper thighs with every step. Her bodice was so low, he thought for a moment her nipples would show. For the first time since they’d started their affair, she looked very much like a hooker, only that she was wearing a few thousand dollar worth of attire. He winced.

  “There you are.” She suddenly turned around, as if attracted by a magnet. Her green gaze swept him appraisingly, sparkling with a mixture of latent alarm and curiosity. “Where you expecting me?” she purred, closing the distance to him in a few languorous steps.

  He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his robe.

  “No,” he answered curtly.

  “Then why are you dressed like this?” she inched closer, her breasts almost touching his chest.

  He fought the urge to step back. “Why are you here, Kate?” he asked.

  Her eyes searched his face with composed nonchalance. “Are you saying that I shouldn’t be?” She tipped her head to one side, staring at him questioningly.

  “Precisely.” He nodded.

  She kept looking at him, only the soft flaring of her nostrils and the quiet rise and fall of her chest giving away her inner agitation.

  “Why is that?” she inquired, keeping it casual.

  “It’s over between us, Kate,” he replied, his voice devoid of any emotion. “From now on, if you want to come here, it will have to be as a friend of the family. That is, if Jimmy can accept you as one. And if she does, you have two choices: you either behave like one, or you’re not welcome here.”

  She stared blankly at him for a moment. “What is this?” she finally asked. “Have you fallen in love with broom head?”

  He took in a slow, deep breath. “Her name is Jimmy,” he said with a voice so low pitched, she could barely hear it, yet his tone made her shiver. “And yes, I am in love with her.”

  “No, Justin, you’re not.” She grabbed the lapels of his robe, suddenly engulfed with panic. “You are only infatuated with her because of her new appearance. It will all go away as soon as you will have your fill of her. You love me. You know that. You showed it to me so many times.”

  He stood stiff, staring down at her with indifferent eyes.

  “I don’t love you, Kate. I never did, and you know it. It was all about sex, and it’s over now.”

  She pulled at his lapels again. “Show me. Show me it’s over,” she begged. “Kiss me and show me you don’t feel anymore what you felt before.”

  His gaze dropped to her lips and lingered there for a moment. Her face was so close to his, the face that had glowed in pure ecstasy so many times during the endless hours of heated passion they had shared. He would never deny that she was the woman he would remember most when looking back. One he could have never loved, but he could have easily lived with to satisfy his desires. And now she was challenging him to show her that his desires had died. But it wasn’t her he needed to convince. He needed to prove it to himself. He slowly dipped his head and slanted his mouth over hers, drawing on her lips to remember every contour and the taste of her. A small smile twitched at the corners of his mouth as he pulled away and stared down at her savoring his victory. He just couldn’t care less. Her touch had felt insipid and lifeless.

  Kate looked triumphantly at him. “You love me, Justin,” she exclaimed, wrapping her arms around his waist. “I knew that you did.” Her gaze snapped suddenly over his shoulder.

  Justin watched her in a mixture of inexplicable numbness and dumb passiveness as her stare turned from burning plea to shocked surprise then to pert defiance. He shoved her away, almost knocking her off balance, and whirled on his heels, looking toward the door with desperate eyes.

  Lizzie stood there wrapped in her thin silky robe, her hand clasped over her mouth. There was so much sorrow in her amber eyes, he thought for a moment his heart would explode in his chest. Only sorrow, not one hint of blame, not even the unspoken question ‘why?’, he realized just as her slim body started wobbling before hitting the ground.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  They have only said two words: myocardial infarction. Then none of the two paramedics paid Justin any attention other than to bluster at him for his hysterical interference. The ambulance crossed the city with the speed of a bullet train, yet to him it seemed it went as slow as a snail. It was only when Lizzie has been wheeled off through double doors that he almost collapsed to the floor. He begged to be allowed to stay at her side and clenched the rails of the bed with whitened fingers, until the nurses threatened to call security to take him away.

  He hasn’t moved from that spot that gave him a narrow view of the operating theatre, drawing annoyed stares from the medical staff that kept walking in and out with rushed steps. They even refused to say a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ when he desperately asked if she was all right, let alone to stop on their tracks to give some detailed explanation. When they finally wheeled the bed out the doors, he thought he would faint.

  Lizzie’s beautiful face had borrowed an unnatural tint of grey, looking devoid of any desire to live. An oxygen mask was digging deep around her nose and mouth, drawing a white line on her skin, and a catheter was stabbing at her arm.

  He spent the next hour kneeling next to her bed in a silent prayer, holding her hand. He wasn’t praying to God. He was begging her for forg
iveness; that was if she could ever forgive and forget. He had promised last night he’d never hurt her, and the very next day he had. It took him a second to make a mistake, but it will take an eternity to try to forget, like a coward, the wrong he had done to her. And he didn’t even know if he was doomed to spend it alone. The sinister thought tore an excruciating howl out of his chest.

  Then a nurse came in and softly cleared her throat. “Mrs. Fumiko Hamrick, one of the Directors, will want to see you in the conference room at the end of the corridor. Your parents and Mrs. Winters’ parents are here as well and have been already briefed about the situation. Could you please follow me?” she asked.

  He slowly stood up and looked hesitantly at Lizzie.

  “Mrs. Winters will be all right, sir,” the nurse said. “We are monitoring her closely, don’t you worry.”

  Justin leaned down to place a soft kiss on Lizzie’s forehead and left the room, following close behind the nurse.

  There was that kind of silence in the conference room that people sometimes call ‘the loudest voice’. It wailed, it screamed, exploding across the walls. His parents were sitting dark-faced at the far end of the table, pressing into each other as if they wanted to melt into a whole. Arthur was pacing the room like a caged lion, yet there was nothing in his appearance that hinted of the pompous, belligerent man he had painstakingly fought to display for so many years. But Madeline… Madeline looked like an old, haggard woman who was visibly waning.

  Only Susan was sitting ramrod straight, nothing on her pale features giving away any sign of distress, apart from her mouth that was clamped in a thin, almost invisible line. She slightly moved her head when she saw Justin enter the room, staring at him with venomous eyes. “You deserve to die, you son of a bitch.” She spat out the words one by one, not once raising the tone of her voice.

  “Susan!” Madeline covered her mouth with her hand and let the tears flow.

  “You know I’m right,” Susan drawled. “If my baby is layin’ on that bed is because this bastard decided to hump that slut in his own house. He didn’t even have the decency to screw her somewhere else.”

  “Don’t you dare speak like that about my son.” Amanda shot to her feet, pointing an accusing finger at Susan.

  “Oh, yeah? Why the hell not?” Susan planked her hands on her hips. “Just because he managed to notice my daughter when she turned into a butterfly? How long did it last, huh? A night? Two nights?”

  Justin felt the nausea rising to his throat. He lifted his hand in the air, cutting off the heated tirade. “Just stop it, would you?” he managed to say. “Susan is right. If Lizzie is lying on that bed, it’s because of me. I did kiss Kate Pearce this morning, and Lizzie saw it all. There are no ‘but’s’ and no excuses for it. Not as far as she is concerned.”

  Marcus stared at him with sad eyes. “It’s not entirely because of you, son.” He shook his head slowly.

  “What do you mean?” Justin looked at him disconcerted.

  The door opened just then, and an oddly shaped woman about five feet tall with an almost bald scalp and a mousy face walked in with rushed, small steps holding a file clasped at her chest. She swept the room with impatient eyes until her gaze rested on Justin’s face.

  “Mr. Winters? I’m Professor Hamrick.” She held out her hand, speaking nasally with a strong Japanese accent.

  He shook her hand in silence, too drained to speak.

  “Let’s discuss the practical side of things.” Professor Hamrick sat down at one end of the table and opened her file without looking up to see if everybody was seated. “Your wife suffered a myocardial infarction, commonly known as a heart attack,” she started speaking as if only Justin was present in the room. “A massive one for that matter. Were there any preceding signs such as sudden chest pain, shortness of breath, weakness, indigestion?” she asked.

  “No… No, neither of these.” Justin shook his head.

  She looked pensively at him. “I thought so…” she murmured.

  Mrs. Hamrick was openly implying that the instantaneous onset of Lizzie’s symptoms was entirely his doing, Justin realized. A sudden blush heated his cheeks as he guillotined his relatives with his gaze, furious that they had shared with a complete stranger the details of Kate’s visit at his mansion. They looked back at him, shaking their heads almost imperceptibly to deny the unspoken charges.

  “Mr. Winters, we have treated your wife by opening the blocked coronary arteries that supply blood to the heart, and are now providing her with the standard treatments that are recommended after an MI occurrence,” Professor Hamrick continued. “The problem, however, as I explained to your relatives, is that your wife suffers from a very serious condition called dilated cardiomyopathy, in which the heart becomes weakened and enlarged and cannot pump blood efficiently. Why she hasn’t been diagnosed earlier, it is beyond my understanding. If this condition were detected at an early stage, we wouldn’t be sitting here today trying to make a decision.” She stopped talking and laced her fingers together, staring at Justin.

  Justin looked back at her bewildered, shifting his gaze from her face to her parents’ then back at her.

  “A decision?” he asked, shaking his head in confusion.

  “I suppose you family told you that your wife’s condition is so serious it requires hospital-based support, and possibly a heart transplant, or just palliative care.”

  For the second time since he’d entered this room, Justin felt that everything started whirling around him. An acrid wave of bile pushed up his throat, making him gag. “When you say ‘possibly’, what do you mean?” he asked like in a dream, not sure if the voice he’d just heard was really his, or if it belonged to someone else.

  Professor Hamrick recommenced with her detached, professional tone. “Mr. Winters, we only perform heart transplants in selected patients, due to the risks involved. We have stringent criteria to determine the suitability of heart transplant recipients, and your wife will be thoroughly assessed against them. Moreover, assuming that your wife were suitable for a transplant, we would be yet to find a beating heart for her. There are about four thousand people in the country waiting for a donor as we speak.”

  If only he could die just then, it would be a blessing raining down on him. “Take my heart! Take my heart and give it to her!” Justin wanted to howl.

  “I am going to write a ten million dollar check as a donation for this hospital before I leave this room, if you undertake to place my wife at the very top of the waiting list, Professor,” he said.

  She stared coldly at him, straightening her back in a dignified posture. “Your donation would be greatly appreciated, Mr. Winters, but you should realize, however, that the funding does not guarantee the end results. We actually need to take a working heart from a deceased organ donor and implant it into your wife. Right now, that donor is still alive somewhere out there. As you can see, there are a lot of factors to be satisfied, not to mention that the surgery itself is not without risks. So you should seriously prepare yourself for the worst. That includes considering a funeral plan,” she said with a stony voice.

  Rage and disbelief melded in Justin’s heart and mounted to his head like burning steam. “No, Professor.” He pursed his lips. “All I have to do is light up some candles praying that a poor bastard meets his maker and gives my wife a brand new heart.”

  “Justin!” Amanda uttered.

  Professor Hamrick turned crimson. “Mr. Winters!” she exploded. “I didn’t expect such a shameless display of immorality from a man of your station.”

  He clenched his jaws until he couldn’t withstand the pain anymore. “Mrs. Hamrick, do you seriously believe that any of your aspiring heart transplant patients, or their families for that matter, gives a damn about ethics?” he drawled. “Let me tell you something: I bet that if you were in my wife’s shoes, you would rush to stick your nose in the organ donors’ register to find the poor bastard you needed, and go after him to pry his heart out.”

/>   This time his father’s voice exploded across the walls. “Justin! What on earth are you doing?”

  “Justin, do not take it out on Professor Hamrick, she is only trying to help,” Madeline intervened for the first time with a whispering voice. “Lizzie’s life is in God’s hands now. Let us pray for a miracle.”

  Justin’s fist crashed on the table with the force of a mallet. His gaze swept murderously across everyone’s faces. “A miracle?” he mocked. “A miracle? Then let me ask you something. Why Lizzie? Why not somebody else? Do you have the answer to it, huh? Of course not, because our God seems to have given us just enough brains to answer simple questions. Fair enough, God also gives us geniuses every now and then to make us think big of ourselves, but show me one single genius throughout recorded history who can answer that question: Why her? I mean, to answer it objectively, accurately, spare me from pathetic excuses with religious content. No one can answer it. Why? Because God deliberately drew a line between geniality and miracle making. Not a fine line, no no no! He made us in his image. Copies, that’s what we are. Not the real deal. We are no miracle making material. He kept it to himself, damn it!”

  His voice cracked into a desperate cry just as his parents and his in-laws rushed to comfort him, inwardly questioning his sanity.

  “I want my wife back. Do you understand, Professor?” Justin brushed them away and turned his gaze toward Fumiko Hamrick. “Make sure you get her that heart, or I’ll come back to tear yours out.”

  He turned around and slammed the door so hard behind him, it almost came off its hinges. It was only when the sight of the hospital corridor hit him that he fell to his knees and started crying with heartrending sobs covering his face with the palms of his hands. His prayer ricocheted through his thoughts time and time again until his mind went numb with exhaustion. “God, please don’t punish Jimmy for what I’ve done. Please let her live and take me instead.”

  There was nothing Justin hated more than a hospital setting. He hated the sight of wrinkled old women sprawled on wheeled-on beds, the smell of disinfectants, the eerie-looking nuns haunting room after room, the sickening stench of dressings impregnated with iodine.