by Bella Forro
We weren’t in her room but a moment before I was pulling her shirt over her head and cupping her breast in my hand, teasing her nipple into a taut bud.
She sighed as I nipped at her flesh, gathered her body around mine until her legs were wrapped tightly around my waist and I was carrying her toward the bed in the corner of the room.
I laid her back on the bed, somehow managing to undress both her and myself in a matter of moments.
She was just as perfect as I remembered her being, and it was scary to think about how close I had come to never having this opportunity again.
That would be the last time I ever came that close to losing her.
I let myself sink into her, her warmth captivating, the gentle way she said my name, her breath hitching, captivating me.
Losing her was definitely not an option.
Ever.
Chapter 21
Victoria
I woke alone in my bedroom.
For a minute, I wasn’t sure if last night had actually happened. If maybe I had imagined it all.
There was no sign of Mark. No clothes. No shoes. I thought I could smell him on my pillow, but maybe that was wishful thinking.
When I swung my legs over the edge of the bed, though, and every inch of my body protested, I knew I hadn’t imagined any of it.
Mark had definitely been there. And we had definitely had the kind of makeup sex that is supposed to make fighting worth it.
Now the real question was, where had he gone?
I wasn’t going to win any awards for moving quickly, but I searched through my dresser for a pair of shorts and a tank top and pulled my hair up into a ponytail.
I was sure I was going to hear from Cassie about my poor decision-making abilities later, and I wanted to go in as prepared as possible. And that meant looking less like I’d been ravaged the night before and more like I’d had a healthy discussion about the state of my relationship with my boyfriend.
I stepped out of my room and into the living room. Our apartment was what you’d expect to find in New York City. Small. Overpriced. From my doorway, I could see the entire space.
And there was Mark in the kitchen with Cassie.
I hadn’t realized I’d been worried he might have just left without saying goodbye. That he had gotten what he had come for and then he had disappeared back to where he had come from.
I hadn’t realized it at all until I was flooded with a sense of relief at seeing him there in his jeans and t-shirt and bare feet, standing in front of our non-standard sized stove with sizzling eggs.
Cassie was using the hand blender, and the two were creating enough of a racket that they didn’t hear me coming until I was in the kitchen with them.
“Morning,” I said, leaning back against the island that doubled as our dining room table.
Mark tossed a look over his shoulder and flashed me a smile. It was warm and reminded me of all the unspeakable things we’d done the night before.
If I had needed any more reassurance about yesterday, it was there in that smile.
“Good morning, sleepy head. We were starting to think you might never get out of bed. We hoped breakfast might be the lure we needed.”
“Really,” Cassie added. “It’s a good thing Mark is here to help, or we’d be in big trouble. You know I wouldn’t be able to pull off eggs and pancakes on my own.” She held the bowl of batter out toward me like a peace offering.
She was right, though. I’d had to eat more meals — meals that barely qualified as meals — Cassie had put together than I cared to remember. If Mark hadn’t been there to help her, I might have never made it out of bed at all.
I guess I hadn’t realized how emotionally draining yesterday had been — the whole weekend, really. Even after sleeping in, I was stifling a yawn, dragging my feet.
Cassie chatted easily with Mark, and I found myself thinking about what I’d said over the weekend — that Mark should have brought Cassie instead of me. Everything about them being together was natural. She was the kind of girl who would have easily navigated his friends’ wives, and would have had no problem at all moving in and out of our worlds.
I felt a little stab of jealousy I didn’t want to feel. After all, Cassie was my best friend. And it wasn’t that I thought she was going to make a move on Mark or that I thought he was interested in her at all.
It was just that I wanted that kind of ease she had. I wanted to be able to do the things that seemed to come to her without any effort.
Mark handed me a plate heaped with eggs and pancakes, our fingers brushing against each other, our eyes meeting, and he leaned in to press a kiss to the corner of my mouth, such a little gesture but somehow filled with the same heat we’d found last night — all the nights.
We settled in around the island, forks clinking on plates, the glasses leaving condensation rings, the conversation comfortable.
Perfect.
It hardly seemed possible that the weekend before had been so tumultuous for Mark and me, when everything had been going so smoothly for us since our return. Since the night we’d made our amends, and the morning after, where it felt like things had slipped together and locked into place.
It was Saturday afternoon, and my hand was slipped into his, and we were moving through Central Park like there was nowhere else we belonged more, nowhere else we needed to be.
The sun came through the trees, the leaves rustling in a gentle breeze. It was hard to believe that autumn was just around the corner, that in a matter of weeks we wouldn’t be able to venture outdoors at all without our jackets and scarves.
It was hard to think about all the good things that had happened without also thinking about the bad. And in the blink of an eye, I was thinking about the weekend before; Amy, his family’s party — everything that reinforced that idea that I wasn’t a good fit for him at all.
I must have given myself away, somehow, because Mark was giving my hand a gentle squeeze, and pulling me in close to him, his arm reaching around my shoulder. “Penny for your thoughts, Victoria? It seems like you’re doing a lot of thinking.”
I sighed. It was almost a can of worms I didn’t want to open. Ever again. It was like beating a dead horse. We kept coming back to it, and nothing had changed. I was going to say the same things I always said. He was going to respond the same way he always did. In the end, we weren’t going to get anywhere, and it wasn’t going to accomplish anything.
“Just thinking about everything,” I settled on, hoping that might end the conversation.
“Everything? Like what?”
I dragged the toe of my shoe on the walking path. “Just like, how different we are. Where we come from. You have all of these things I’ll never have, and it’s so easy for you. It’s just… it’s not easy for me. It’s hard. And sometimes I feel like we barely know each other. Your friends hate me. Your family hates me. And it’s never going to get any easier. It’s a little overwhelming.
I risked a glance in his direction; his mouth turned downward. “I wish you wouldn’t feel that way, Victoria. Firstly, I don’t think everyone ‘hates’ you. Secondly, even if they did, I wouldn’t care. It’s not about them, at all. It’s about us. I know we haven’t followed the normal trajectory. Obviously, none of this is normal.” He gave my shoulder another squeeze. “But honestly, that’s how I know it’s special.
“Maybe it’s just because we started out under that contract. Maybe, if I had just been honest with myself and with you about the fact that I was interested in you, none of this would be happening.”
He stopped walking and tugged me toward him so that we were standing beneath the trees face to face. He tipped my chin up with his hand so I couldn’t avoid his eyes.
“I’m sorry. And I am so very grateful to have you in my life. I appreciate all of the things that you’ve been putting up with for me, even when it makes you uncomfortable. I know it’s not always easy, but I do think we’re going to get to a place where it will be ea
sy, and that the hard parts we have been through will be more than worth it in the end.”
I sighed. The words were nice to hear, but it still felt like he wasn’t listening to me, like he didn’t actually hear what I was feeling. “But, Mark…It’s hard to explain. I guess I just feel like I don’t know you. The person you are when we are alone together is different from the person you are when you’re with everyone else and…I don’t know.”
“How can you say you don’t know me?” he asked, and I could hear the frustration creeping into his voice. “I gave you a whole book of facts to memorize about me.”
I bit my lip. “I know. But that’s all they are. Facts. It’s like I know the surface you. And not the rest of you.”
He had picked up his pace, and his steps were aggressive like he was trying to outrun me and drag me along with him at the same time.
“You want to know what makes me tick, Victoria? You want to hear all about how I was raised without a mother and with a father who couldn’t wait to send me to boarding school? A father who always had me feeling like I was second best and wouldn’t amount to anything? You want to hear about how lonely that life was for me?”
I put a hand on his arm. I knew he wasn’t going to stop, and I didn’t want to hear anything else that he was going to say in anger and bitterness.
“Please, Mark,” I said. “I didn’t want to upset you. This is why I didn’t say anything in the first place.”
“Well,” Mark said. “It’s out there now. It’s like, you’re just one more person in my life who will never want me because I’m not what you think I should be.”
This time, I was the one to pull him around toward me. “Stop. That’s not true. No one feels that way about you.”
I didn’t like the anger simmering below the surface in his eyes. Maybe I deserved it all. Maybe I should have kept all of those concerns to myself in the first place, but I couldn’t take them back now.
“That is certainly how my father feels. And he has all but said he’ll never-” he cut himself off like he was uncomfortable with how much emotion had seeped into his voice. “I’ll never be who he wanted me to be, and because of that, I’ve never been able to earn his admiration. His approval. His love.”
He gave a stiff, practiced shrug like he meant to push everything we’d been talking about away from him.
There was a long, stilted, silence between us and I picked his hand back up in mine. “That’s not true about me, Mark. You don’t need to do things to get my approval. You don’t need to earn things from me. That’s not the way people are supposed to work.”
I didn’t want to address the other part. The love part. I didn’t want to think about how that word was starting to creep into how I thought about Mark or how I thought about us.
It was just too much to think about, right then, with his hand in mine, our words still lingering between us.
Chapter 22
Victoria
I was sitting with Cassie on the sofa. I’d tried to bring up everything that had happened. I’d tried to explain to her the same way I’d tried to explain to Mark.
But, just like before, it felt like I wasn’t doing a good job at it at all. Like I was somehow missing the key components that made it problematic for me in the first place.
Cassie patted me on the knee. “I think you're just thinking too much about this, Victoria. Mark is great, and it is obvious he’s into you for all the right reasons. I mean, I wish I could find someone that into me. Bonus points if he has the kind of background and pedigree Mark has.”
“Ha, ha,” I said dryly.
She was right, in a lot of ways, I knew. But that wasn’t making it any less difficult for me to sort through.
The intercom buzzed to life, and I stood up and made my way to the door.
“Hello?” I asked, trying to focus on the grainy video and figure out who was at the door.
“Here with a delivery for a Victoria Watts.”
The grainy man held the package out toward the camera, and I buzzed him in. “I’ll be right down.”
I left Cassie on the sofa and hurried down the stairs to sign for the package.
When I returned to the apartment, the package in hand, Cassie had barely moved from where she’d been earlier.
“Well?” she said eagerly, tapping the spot beside her. “I want to see what’s in it. Hurry up and get over here.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing special…” I said even though I wasn’t sure of that at all. Even the packaging seemed perfect, expensive.
Cassie was all but clapping her hands together in anticipation. “I bet that’s not true at all. I bet,” she said, waggling her eyebrows dramatically, “he’s sent the perfect gown for you to wear to that Gala. And you were worried about what to wear anyway!”
I chewed on my lower lip because I had been thinking the same thing. It would be just like Mark to send me a gorgeous dress, to make me feel at once grateful and embarrassed.
I sat beside Cassie. “Okay,” I said finally, knowing that studying the package wasn’t going to give me any more clues and that Cassie was going to take the package from me and open it herself if I didn’t do something with it soon.
I unwrapped it, and from the layers of tissue paper pulled out an ankle length evening gown, black and generously peppered with what looked like Swarovski crystals.
An embossed card fluttered down from the material, the word Gucci in gold.
I felt the dismay welling up in me, a bitter distaste. It was just like Mark to think he could make things better by throwing gifts and money at me. Like it had never occurred to him that I might like to choose my own dress. That I might not like to wear a dress at all.
Cassie was fawning over the gown, running the material through her fingers. “Oh, Victoria,” she was saying. “This is beautiful.”
It was beautiful. I wasn’t going to argue with that part. It was just that I didn’t want to have it given to me like that.
While Cassie was busy studying the gown from every angle, I was sifting through the tissue paper.
In the bottom of the package, I found a hand-written note from Mark. I would recognize his handwriting anywhere. He’d been to the boutique himself, maybe watched a dozen models trying on dresses, maybe picked something from a rack with barely a second glance.
Victoria,
I saw this dress and thought of you. Couldn’t stop thinking about how you would look in it. Like it was made for you.
I know you have dresses of your own. And I know better than anyone how amazing you look in them. But I had to know this one was in your collection.
Don’t be angry —
Mark.
Cassie was peering over my shoulder, reading the note, one hand pressed to her breast.
“Oh, Victoria, how romantic.”
“Oh, please,” I snapped, not meaning to take it out on Cassie but unable to control myself. I was so tired of it all. The gifts. The cajoling. All of it. “I don’t want gifts like this. This isn’t something I need at all.” I was shaking my head violently. “I have a dress picked out and ready to go.”
“Come on, Victoria. It’s nice. Like a movie. It made him think of you. It won’t hurt you to try it on. Just see what it looks like.”
In the apartment’s light, the little crystals caught the light and twinkled.
She was right, I knew, but I still didn’t want to admit it. I didn’t want to pull that dress over my body and see the way it would drape over my skin.
“I bet it will look amazing,” Cassie was breathing.
“It’s a Gucci and cost more than I’ll make this year. It damn well better look better than amazing.”
Cassie’s eyes were devious, sparkling. “Let’s just try it on for a minute. If you hate it, you never have to wear it again. And I won’t tell Mark anything.” She made a little cross over her heart with her finger, like an elementary school student swearing on her life.
I sighed, even more angry at myself fo
r wanting to try it on in the first place, for not being as strong as I should have been.
“Alright,” I grumbled. “I’ll try it on. For a minute.”
I pulled myself out of the comfortable clothes I had been wearing and slipped into the dress.
The fabric was silken against my skin, the deep v-neck and thin spaghetti straps dramatic and flattering, the material skimming over my hips and falling delicately to the floor.
It was beautiful. Like it had been specially created for my body, and I couldn’t resist running my fingers over the little crystals.
“Alright,” I said, reluctantly. “Maybe it is better than the dress I picked up at the mall. Not that there’s anything wrong with H&M…”
“Yeah, but, Gucci. And plus, I bet Mark is going to die when he sees you in it.”
I couldn’t argue with Cassie there. Mark was going to love seeing me in the dress. And I suddenly couldn’t wait to see him see me in it.
“I guess it’s almost time for me to be getting ready, anyway.”
“Great,” Cassie said, leaping to her feet, “Let’s hurry up and get your hair done and get started on your makeup. The sooner we get you dolled up, the sooner you can be show-stopping gorgeous and ready to see Mark.”
I let her lead me to the other room. Cassie lived for the times she was able to do hair and makeup — she loved the very thought of me living the Cinderella life she dreamed I was having.
I couldn’t seem to correct her on that assumption. And it didn’t seem to matter how many of the bad things I shared with her. We always seemed to come right back to this.
Like always, it took just a few minutes for Cassie to begin taming my hair, curling long pieces and pinning them up into a coiffed mass.
Then she was sweeping on eyeliner and blush, carefully filling in my lips and coating my eyelashes with mascara.
It felt like no time at all had passed by, but I was suddenly ready to make my debut at the ball.
The dress was perfect. Beyond perfect.
