by Susan Lewis
‘Just don’t stop,’ she begged, ‘please don’t stop.’
Within seconds he was on the point of shooting into her again. Raising himself up quickly, he folded her in his arms and held her close as the shuddering spasms of his own release ejected the seed from his body.
After a while he looked up at her and smiled tenderly into her eyes. ‘You OK?’ he said.
‘I think so,’ she said, smiling too.
‘Do you reckon we should turn off the taps?’ he said.
Laughing, she reached behind her and shut off the water. Then, carefully detaching herself from him, she sank back into the warm, silky suds.
‘You know what I’m going to do now?’ he said, resting his elbows on his knees as he looked down at her.
‘Tell me,’ she said.
‘I’m going to order us some food, because if I don’t do it now and we carry on like this we’re never going to get to eat. And, speaking for myself, I’m pretty damned hungry.’
‘Sounds like a good idea to me,’ she said, sinking beneath the water.
He watched her as she came up, looking at the arch of her neck and the fullness of her breasts as she held her head back for her hair to fall behind her. Then, as her eyes met his, he smiled and stooped over her to kiss her. She looked so ridiculously happy and was so blissfully unaware of the terrible price he was going to pay for being there that he just couldn’t bring himself to tell her. Not yet, anyway.
Chapter 24
WHEN PENNY FINALLY awoke the following morning, after a night of almost unbroken sleep, she found herself alone in the bed. Pushing back the sheet, she picked up a discarded towel from the floor and wrapping herself in it, wandered out on to the veranda. David was standing at the edge of the sea, his hands thrust deeply into the pockets of his shorts. Seeing him, a quiet intensity stirred in her heart. The crystal waves lapped smoothly over his ankles as he stared out towards the horizon. The sun was already high in the sky, shedding its warmth over the spectacular beauty of the island, deepening the turquoise-blue of the sea, making the white sand sparkle and the vivid green of the palms glisten. Even after all the tender and passionate moments they had shared, it still seemed incredible to her that they were there and that they had had to go through what they had to find each other.
She smiled sadly to herself. She still didn’t know yet what he had been through, but something had happened since she’d left, that much was clear, and she had the distinct and uneasy feeling that, despite Christian’s arrest, they hadn’t yet seen the last of him. She knew that David had deliberately held back on this the night before, wanting to lose himself in the euphoria of their love-making and, like her, pretend for a while that the rest of the world was simply a place to which one day they might return. She had no way of knowing what history he and Christian shared, but she knew he would tell her, was probably, even now, trying to find the right words. She wished there was something she could do to help him, but apart from letting him know that she loved him and that, no matter what, she would be there for him, there was nothing else she could do. Maybe, once he’d told her, there would be more, but she knew she must allow him to tell her in his own time and not push him.
She watched him as he lowered his head and walked a few feet along the shore. The fact that she could sense his turmoil so strongly, and that it was the role she had played that had brought them to where they were now, was causing a dreadful guilt to close around her heart. But now wasn’t the time to indulge herself in her own emotions, for this was no longer about her, it was about David and Christian and Gabriella. Most of all, though, it was about David, and since it was too late to change whatever had happened, or what she herself had done, all they could do was go forward together, face whatever still had to be faced, and hope that one day soon they would be able to put it all behind them.
Turning back into the pleasing coolness of the casita she went into the bathroom and, dropping the towel, stepped into the shower. No amount of speculation was going to make her any the wiser, but there was nothing she could do to stop the thoughts chasing each other through her mind. A part of her wanted to resist ever knowing what had led up to the night on the pier, but an even stronger part was preparing to deal with it in the best way she could for David.
When, a few minutes later, she stepped out into the bathroom she found him standing in the doorway, watching her. Under the dark scrutiny of his eyes the heat of desire pulled through her.
‘I love you,’ he said hoarsely.
‘I love you too,’ she said, injecting such feeling into the words that for an instant his eyes seemed to dull with pain.
Picking up a towel he walked over to her and using it to pull her to him he kissed her tenderly on the mouth. ‘I just ordered some breakfast,’ he told her, ‘and then . . . Well, I guess we’d better talk. Do you feel up to it?’ he added, looking searchingly into her eyes.
‘Yes,’ she nodded.
Smiling, he wrapped her tightly in his arms. ‘How did I ever get to be this lucky?’ he whispered. Then, with a dry, bitter laugh, he added, ‘How did I ever manage to fuck up the way I have?’
‘Did you?’ she said, prising herself gently from the embrace and looking up at him.
‘Yep, I sure did,’ he answered flatly.
‘Well, there’s a relief.’ She smiled. ‘I was beginning to think you were invincible and I’m not sure I know how to handle invincible. Fuck-ups: now, those I can handle.’
‘Then I hope to God you can handle this one,’ he said as the fleeting humour in his eyes faded.
In that moment, when he looked at her that way, she truly believed that there was nothing she couldn’t handle. It was only in the weeks and months ahead that she came to doubt her ability to be strong for him, but by then she was dealing with so much more than either of them could have foreseen.
Their breakfast of coffee, croissants, fresh papaya and mango was served on the veranda, by which time Penny was wearing the pale-lilac sarong dress he had chosen for her the day before, with her hair brushed back from her face and tied with a ribbon that matched the dress. As he looked at her he felt the tremendous power of his feelings tightening his heart. Not only was she a very special woman, she had a very special kind of beauty, one that shone through from the very depths of her soul, lighting her clear, blue eyes with honesty and courage and the kind of integrity that made him want to shield her from all the sordid cruelties of the world. He smiled to himself as he thought of how she would laugh if he told her that.
They drank and ate in silence as butterflies flitted and glittered in the sunlight and the haunting song of a hoopoe bird carried on the breeze. Apart from the hotel staff they hadn’t seen another living soul on the island.
‘Well,’ he said finally, ‘I guess I’ve got to begin somewhere, but believe me when I tell you that no one comes out of this with a halo, least of all me.’ He laughed mirthlessly and looked down at his coffee. That’s an understatement if ever there was one,’ he muttered, almost to himself. ‘Anyway, in a nutshell, I had an affair with Christian’s wife and one way or another I’ve been paying for it ever since.’
Penny waited, watching his eyes move out over the sea as he began to relive the past few years of his life. ‘It wasn’t the first time I was unfaithful to Gabriella,’ he said, ‘nor was it the last, but it was the only time it ever got to me the way it did, and, well, I guess it was the closest I ever came to leaving her. The only reason I didn’t was because she was pregnant with Jack, our younger son. If she hadn’t been, well, I’m pretty sure I’d have gone. I say pretty sure because I still don’t really know. I loved Gabriella, I was crazy about her from the day we met, but it didn’t stop me cheating on her, even while she was pregnant. She knew about most of my affairs. God only knows why she tolerated them, except I was rich and Gabriella worships at the altar of the Almighty Dollar. That’s not to say she didn’t love me, because I know she did. She also loved being married to a man who was British and when I had
affairs I was, on the whole, pretty discreet. But with Jenny Mureau it was different and Gabriella knew it. Jenny was wild and crazy and so god-damned beautiful . . .’ His jaw tightened for a moment; then, continuing, he said, ‘She got me so screwed-up over her I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. It was the same for her – it was like we just couldn’t get enough of each other. We met at some party in LA and within half an hour of being introduced we were screwing our brains out in the spare room, while my wife and her husband were downstairs mingling with the other guests. I hadn’t met Christian before, I hadn’t even heard of him, but knowing him wouldn’t have made a difference. I’d still have screwed his wife and I’d have done it right in front of him if that was what she’d wanted.
‘Of course the minute we walked back in the room Gabriella knew what had been going on. She was standing there, almost eight months pregnant, radiant and happy and flirting with some guy, like she was glad to have the attention when she was so heavy and close to giving birth. I don’t think she’d ever dreamt that I would screw another woman while under the same roof as her, much less do it while she was pregnant.’ The edge of bitterness that had crept into his voice was evidence enough of how digusted he felt at himself for what he had done. ‘I’ll never forget the look on her face when she saw me,’ he said. ‘The pain was raw. But it wasn’t only pain, it was fear. It had frightened her to realize that I could hurt her that much; and it was like she knew already that this was the end, that there would never be any going back. I had committed the ultimate sin and no matter how much we loved each other she would never be able to forgive this single act of treachery that made all the others pale by comparison.
‘We left the party soon after. I don’t remember much of what we said on the way home. She was crying, I was yelling, trying to deny it, I guess, I don’t really remember now. By the time we got home she was hysterical. She grabbed a knife and tried to stab me with it. I managed to get it away from her, but she damned near wrecked the place – throwing things at me and telling me to get the hell out of her life. I didn’t want to leave her alone, but I knew I was only making things worse by being there, so I called a friend of hers and asked her to come over. When the friend got there I left and went to a hotel. And do you know what I did then? I called the party we’d just left and spoke to Jenny. She came right away and she was barely in the door before I was screwing her again.’
He was shaking his head in disbelief, as though he just couldn’t connect with the man he was talking about. Sighing deeply, he forced himself to go on. ‘We stayed holed up in that hotel for four, five, days, I don’t remember now. No one knew where we were – Jesus, I don’t think we even knew where we were except in some Orphic oblivion where nothing existed beyond the madness that had possessed us both. I tried to call Gabriella a couple of times, but she put the phone down on me and I just turned over and went on screwing Jenny like I couldn’t give a damn. Of course, I did give a damn, I loved Gabriella, but I just didn’t seem able to stop what was happening. It was like I had lost control. I could see everything slipping away from me, but none of it seemed to matter.’ He pressed his fingers to his eyes. ‘My father had died six months before and . . . Well, I’m not about to use that to make excuses for myself. All I’ll say is that his death hit me hard. We’d always been close and when he went it was like nothing made sense any more. Nothing seemed to have a point to it. I had no idea just how fucked-up I was because of it, but, looking back, it was like I was on some kind of mission to self-destruct. But like I said, it’s no excuse for what I did to Gabriella.
‘At the end of the four, five, days I went back to her. She’d calmed down a bit by then, but, when she asked where I’d been, like a god-damned fool I told her. Don’t ask me why, except I didn’t want to lie to her, not when she knew I was lying. My mother had flown up from Miami by then with Tom, our eldest, who was two at the time. I don’t even want to think about the scenes that went on over the next few weeks until Gabriella gave birth, but they were hell for us all, particularly for Tom. His mommy was constantly in tears, his granny hardly stopped shouting at his daddy and meanwhile all daddy could think about was Jenny Mureau. She was like an obsession with me. I couldn’t get her out of my mind. I was on fire for her every minute of the day. She kept calling me at the office, begging me to see her. I held out for a while, but not for long. I couldn’t. I can’t explain it now, I don’t even understand it now, but back then it was like it was eating me up, like I’d go crazy if I didn’t see her. So I saw her.’ He paused for a moment, frowning. ‘You know, the strange thing is,’ he said, ‘I can’t even say the sex was good. Maybe it was – I guess it must have been to have got me so worked up – but I can hardly remember it now. All I remember now was this compulsion to do something I knew right from the start was going to end up destroying my life. Which it has, but in ways I couldn’t even begin to imagine then.’
Pausing again, he leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, linking his hands in front of him and staring down at the sunbaked deck. ‘The turning point came when Jack was born,’ he said tonelessly. ‘I was there with Gabriella throughout the labour. She had a pretty rough time of it and the fact that my mother had located me in some hotel with Jenny to tell me the labour had started turned the whole thing into a bloody nightmare. It went on for hours . . . You don’t need to know the details: just suffice it to say that Gabriella’s pain, on all counts, was what finally started to bring me to my senses. And then, seeing our second son coming into the world, seeing Gabriella’s love for him and the hesitancy in her eyes when she handed him to me . . .’ He swallowed hard. ‘She was afraid I wouldn’t want him; she thought I was going to turn my back on them.’ His breath caught on the words and he stopped.
Then, swallowing again, he said, ‘My mother brought Tom into the room then and as I looked at her face it was like I could see my father. It was like she or he was reminding me that I was a father too, a father who was fucking up his children’s lives. And I guess it was then that I realized that nothing was as important as those two boys – no woman, no obsession, no amount of money or success, just nothing. They were all that mattered and I had to do something to get myself together before I ended up losing it all.
‘In the weeks before Jack was born my mother had hardly been able to bring herself to speak to me. She was still dealing with her own grief over my father’s death and seeing her son behaving the way he was, neglecting her grandchild, abusing his wife, bringing the kind of shame upon himself that would have broken my father’s heart . . . Well, it was a lot tougher on her than I realized at the time and that’s why I don’t blame her for what she’s done since. God knows, I’ve deserved it.’
Lifting his head, he gazed sightlessly out at the view.
‘I saw Jenny one more time after Jack was born,’ he said. ‘We made love, but after, while we were going back in the car, I told her it was over. By then I knew who her husband was, mainly because she’d told me about him, but now that I knew his name I’d started to listen whenever it cropped up in conversation. On the face of it he was an art dealer, but it didn’t take much scratching beneath the surface to know that the incredible sums of money he’d made had come from a more sinister source. At that stage of the game it was only marijuana – the heroin came later, much later . . .’
He stopped and turned his heavy eyes to Penny. She held his gaze, saying nothing as he smiled weakly then looked away. There were no words to ease his suffering, nothing to be said that could undo what he had done in those nightmare months between the death of his father and the birth of his son. He was paying for it now and she guessed that no one was going to be harder on him than he already was on himself.
‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘like I said, I told Jenny we couldn’t continue. Surprisingly, I didn’t find it as hard as I thought I would. It was like the fever was coming to an end and, beautiful as she was, I couldn’t work out what it was about her that had driven me to such a pitch. I knew i
t was Gabriella that I loved, that I had a long way to go before I got my marriage back together, but that was all I wanted then. Jenny was a madness I had miraculously and mercifully recovered from. The trouble was that those around us never recovered. Jenny did, but it took a lot longer for her than it did for me and by then it had destroyed her marriage. She didn’t love Christian and wasn’t sure she ever had, but he was as crazy about her as I had been. More so. He worshipped her. He lived for her. Everything he did was for her. So when she told him she was leaving it was like his entire world fell apart.
‘I think the first he ever knew about me was when she told him she was leaving him because of me, even though we hadn’t seen each other in months by then. She told him she couldn’t go on living a lie, pretending she loved him when the only man she wanted was me. Whether it was true I don’t know. As I said, I hadn’t seen her in months and neither had I heard from her. I got to hear about it through Gabriella, who’d heard it from one of Jenny’s friends. Of course, Gabriella presumed from that that Jenny and I were still seeing each other. Nothing I said could persuade her otherwise and who could blame her for not believing me when I’d never given her much reason to trust me even before all this.’
He stopped and rubbed a hand over his face, giving himself a moment to think. ‘The months following Jack’s birth hadn’t been easy,’ he continued. ‘Gabriella had tried to forgive me, but we both knew she hadn’t: in truth she wasn’t even close. Then, when she heard that Jenny had left Mureau, she became convinced I was going to leave her and almost overnight she went crazy. I mean, she lost her mind. She did things . . .’ He took a breath. ‘She got a priest in to exorcise our house. She held a crucifix in my face every time I tried to go near her. She started talking to people who weren’t there, or telling people who were there that I was trying to kill her. It was obvious she was heading for a serious breakdown; but when I finally got her to a doctor, it was like . . .’ he shook his head incredulously‘. . . it was like nothing was wrong. She was suddenly back to normal and I was the crazy one for saying she’d done all those things.
