Taken for His Pleasure

by Carol Marinelli

‘Believe me, I don’t intend to stay in them for long.’ His voice grew more serious. ‘You were asking about Rico?’

  ‘I know I shouldn’t care.’ Lydia closed her eyes, picturing his tortured face. ‘But he’s sick.’

  ‘He’s very sick,’ Anton agreed. ‘Apparently he bought a round the world ticket and he has been watching my itinerary, getting work in each hotel I was due to visit for a couple of months before I arrived.’

  ‘He was in Spain?’ Lydia frowned.

  ‘And New York.’ Anton nodded. ‘And to my shame I didn’t recognise him. He was just another bellboy. Apparently he was determined to deal with me away from our village. ‘

  And she wanted to ask why, but she simply didn’t have the strength to face the answer.

  ‘I’ve been on the phone to his psychiatrist in Florence…’

  ‘Florence?’

  ‘He moved there a while ago.’ He didn’t elaborate further. ‘I’ve also arranged a good solicitor for him. Rico will get the help he needs soon.’ Anton was silent for a moment and Lydia ached for him to go on, to refute Rico’s awful accusations, to tell her it had been his crazed mind talking. ‘Angelina’s just been in. She sends you her love. She’s booking my flight…’

  ‘But you’ve just been shot! Surely you shouldn’t even be thinking about flying?’

  ‘I wasn’t shot.’ Anton played down his wound the same way Graham had. ‘It just scratched the surface.’ Sitting down on the bed, he took her hand, stroking the pale, translucent flesh for a moment before bringing it up to his lips. Tears filled his eyes as he kissed her slender fingers. ‘I didn’t even feel the bullet. It threw me back off my chair, apparently, but I’d lost a lot of blood and passed out. Somehow I heard you scream, and I thought you were dead.’

  ‘I thought you were!’ Lydia admitted through chattering teeth. ‘But we’re both okay.’

  ‘No, Lydia, we’re not.’ Dark eyes held hers, and Lydia knew that he wasn’t talking about the nightmare they’d just been through but the one that was about to follow. Anton’s voice was thick with regret. ‘I’m flying to Rome tonight.’

  ‘Tonight? But you’re not well enough…’ And even though that wasn’t the reason he shouldn’t go it was the only one she could voice right now. Her emotions were too raw for exposure.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ Anton said assuredly. ‘I’ll be in first class, sleeping all the way. I have to go now—there are things I need to do, things I need to sort out. I have a lot of unfinished business to deal with.’

  Defeated, she sank back on the pillow, too tired, too exhausted to truly comprehend the magnitude of her loss—too damn weary to ask the thousand questions that she should be asking, just knowing it was over.

  ‘We’d never have worked out,’ Anton said, a regretful smile on his lips as he gazed down at her.

  The fingers on his good hand traced her bruised, swollen cheek and she’d have loved to push him away, to tell him that he was right, that no man who called the child he’d walked out on ‘unfinished business’ could ever earn a place by her side, but she didn’t have the strength to move. She just stared back at him, tears pooling in her amber eyes as he touched her for the last time.

  ‘I guess you’re going to have to just keep on looking, Lydia.’

  ‘Looking?’ Lydia sniffed.

  ‘For that man who can somehow accept what you do for a living. Especially after…’ His lids closed for a second, and he was visibly moved as he recalled the private hell they had shared. ‘I just don’t think I’d be able to deal with it,’ he reiterated.

  Brushing his hand from her cheek, Lydia turned her head away. ‘Well, you don’t have to deal with it, Anton, because I’m not your problem. Would you please just go?’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘READY for briefing?’

  Maria popped her head around the washroom door as Lydia rinsed her face.

  ‘Sure. I’ll be there in a moment.’

  As the door closed Lydia splashed her face again with cold water and then, taking a deep breath, headed to the briefing room.

  ‘One for the ladies!’ Kevin called as Lydia slipped into the room, taking a seat beside Maria. ‘We’ve got a new pimp strutting his stuff and causing grief amongst the regulars. We’re going to put an officer in undercover—deep undercover.’

  ‘How deep?’ Graham asked as the inevitable cheers and jeers filled the room.

  ‘Enough, guys.’ Kevin’s voice was serious. ‘This could get nasty—you don’t need me to tell you about the recent shootings. Naturally we’ll have men in place, do everything we can to ensure protection…’

  ‘I’ll do it.’ Maria’s hand shot up and her chocolate-brown eyes darted around the room. She was clearly expecting Lydia to have beaten her to it. ‘I’ll do it,’ she said again, frowning at Lydia’s lack of response.

  Somehow Lydia muddled through the rest of the briefing. Somehow she asked intelligent questions, jotted down relevant notes, even laughed along with some of the lewder jokes, but even as the group were dismissed, even as they all headed outside, Lydia knew she was going to be called back.

  ‘Is everything all right, Lydia?’

  ‘Everything’s fine, Kevin,’ Lydia responded, grateful that he was using first names, grateful that he had taken the lead and made it clear that this conversation was off the record. ‘I know you were expecting me to put my hand up back there, and I know that normally—’

  ‘You were held hostage, Lydia,’ Kevin said gently. ‘There are bound to be repercussions.’

  ‘Six weeks on?’ Anguished eyes met her senior’s. ‘It’s been six weeks, and still I keep playing it over and over in my mind.’

  ‘You’ll still be doing the same in six years’ time,’ Kevin said, squeezing her arm in support. ‘Not as much, perhaps, but it’s never going to leave you.’

  That was what terrified her the most. She was waiting for the day, waiting for the moment when she didn’t wake up thinking about it—waiting for the day when it would all be behind her. And as much as Kevin might think he understood—he didn’t. As she had with her counsellor, Lydia was keeping her pain private.

  ‘Lydia, we all laugh in here—we all make out we’re tough. But at the end of the day you were the one bound up, you were the one held against your will with a gun to your head. Don’t feel bad because you can’t just shrug it off. Have you been keeping up with seeing your counsellor?’

  ‘Sort of.’ Tears sparkled in Lydia’s eyes but she blinked them back. ‘She’s very good. It’s just…’

  ‘She doesn’t really get it?’ Kevin offered and Lydia nodded, words failing her as she struggled to hold back tears. ‘Go home,’ he said firmly. ‘Take the rest of the day—the rest of the week off. Take as long as you need.’

  ‘I’ve already had some time off,’ Lydia pointed out. ‘I thought if I came back to work things would be better.’

  ‘Are they?’

  ‘They were for a while.’ Lydia gulped. ‘It’s just…’ She shook her head, not able to go there.

  ‘Go home,’ Kevin said firmly and Lydia knew he was telling her—not suggesting.

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘That’s up to you,’ Kevin said more softly. ‘Just take your time, Lydia.’

  When she stepped off the tram, even the length of her street looked liked a marathon. Dragging her feet along the warm pavers, Lydia screwed her eyes against the hot afternoon sun, too listless to cross to the other side of the road to the shady retreat of the gum trees.

  She understood now.

  Understood Anton’s refusal to accept her career.

  Understood the fear that gripped him, because now she felt it too.

  But the decision that was forming in her mind, the thought of stepping down from her position, had nothing to do with him and everything to do with her.

  Anton was gone…

  …and good riddance.

  Straightening her shoulders, Lydia picked up her feet and walked more purposeful
ly now. How could she ever respect a man who would walk out on his own child? She’d had a lucky escape!

  Dodging the sprinklers, Lydia rummaged in her bag for her keys, trying to recall some poem she had learnt years ago in school. Unable to remember the beginning, she recalled the end, a smile forming on her lips as she replayed it in her mind…

  To love you was pleasant enough,

  But, oh, it’s delicious to hate you!

  And it was. So much more delicious to hate than to grieve, so much easier to hang the blame for their demise on him rather than her.

  ‘Lydia.’

  So sure was Lydia that she was imagining it, she didn’t even turn around—just pushed her key into her lock and turned it, willing the images that haunted her to just go away, to leave her alone so she could get on with her life.

  ‘Lydia.’

  And she knew she wasn’t imagining things then. Knew because in her dreams he always wore a suit—every image she had of him was immaculate—and yet here he stood, dishevelled and unshaven, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, that immaculate dark hair practically unruly now, dark curls flopping over his forehead.

  And never had he looked more beautiful.

  ‘I thought you were in Italy.’ Amazingly her voice was even—amazing because her heartbeat was well into triple figures. Her lethargy dissipated as she pushed open the door and led him inside, through her tiny hallway and into her lounge room. She watched as tired, bloodshot eyes took in the scruffy couch she’d been meaning to replace, the mountain of cushions to freshen it up until she could afford to do so, the endless photos that lined every available space, and the complete and utter lack of the recent presence of a vacuum cleaner.

  ‘I’ve been home.’ When Lydia didn’t respond, just moved a pile of magazines so that he could sit, Anton elaborated, ‘I went to see my family.’

  ‘And Cara?’

  ‘And Cara,’ Anton agreed, sitting down in the space she had cleared. ‘What have you been doing since—’

  ‘Working,’ Lydia broke in. ‘It’s busy, as always—I had a few days off after…’ Neither could bring themselves to say it, the pain of their ordeal still too raw to fully reveal. ‘It didn’t help. I was just sitting around feeling sorry for myself, going over and over all that had happened.’

  ‘And all that could have happened?’ Anton asked perceptively, and Lydia knew he wasn’t talking about them, but about the terror of the aftermath—the horrible tricks one’s mind played as it replayed a hundred and one scenarios. Even if it hurt to see him, would be agony to say goodbye all over again, for now at least she was glad that he was here—glad for five minutes in the same room with the only person on God’s earth who truly knew what she’d been through.

  What they’d been through.

  ‘I knew that I had to go back to work. Had to get back on the horse, so to speak.’

  ‘On the horse?’

  And somehow, in the most horrible of conversations, they managed a small laugh.

  ‘It’s a saying, Anton—the sooner you get back on a horse after a fall…’

  ‘Thank God.’ Anton grinned. ‘For a minute there I thought you might be in the mounted police. Actually, come to think of it, you’d look good on horseback…’ The joking ended then, with a tiny shake of his head to let her know he couldn’t make light of it, and his voice was heavier now. ‘It’s your job.’ Anton shrugged, and she was grateful that he didn’t pretend to understand, didn’t offer her false sympathy.

  ‘It is.’

  There was a horrible pause, each waiting for the other to speak. She wished he’d just get it over with—tell her what he’d come for and leave, give her the bad news so she could begin to pick up the pieces and sort out whatever was left of her life.

  ‘You have a nice home.’

  God, she hated this stilted, forced attempt at conversation. She almost wished he hadn’t come if this was what they were reduced to.

  ‘How’s Dario?’ She watched as he paled, watched as guilt caught up with him, pathetically grateful that she still had the upper hand.

  ‘Beautiful.’ His jaw quilted with emotion. ‘Cara showed me some pictures. I have set up a college fund for him…’

  ‘Great!’ Lydia didn’t even attempt to disguise the bitterness in her voice. ‘Just wave your chequebook, Anton, and it will all be fine.’

  ‘Lydia—’

  Even the sound of him saying her own name irritated her now. Furious, she faced him. ‘Don’t try and justify it to me, Anton. Don’t you dare try and justify to me how you could walk out on your own son!’

  She’d never expected to reduce him to this—had never thought that she, Lydia, could make this beautiful, vital man literally crumble before her. But that proud, dignified face slipped and the delicious navy eyes filled with tears as he said words that she’d never, even in her most far-fetched of scenarios, contemplated.

  Oh, and she had contemplated. Tried to fathom reasons, excuses to justify a man walking away from his son—yet however hard she’d tried, still she hadn’t quite been able to manage it.

  But now, as Anton spoke, he threw every excuse, every reason she’d concocted in his favour on those long, lonely nights into a heap as he admitted his agony.

  ‘He isn’t my son.’

  And such was the pain behind the simple sentence that in that instant she believed him—knew from the abject agony on his face that this wasn’t a lie. She had interviewed too many witnesses, seen too much raw emotion in her time. And if it had taught her one thing, it was to recognise the truth when it finally came.

  Lies were complicated, sinister. They slipped off a guilty tongue in defiance and were delivered with tears that beggared belief. But the truth, when it really hurt, was always so much harder to reveal.

  ‘That’s why I didn’t want Rico to pick up the telephone—why I told him to listen to me instead of you. I knew if Cara revealed the truth to him he’d really go crazy, that it would be the end for us both.’

  She sank to her knees and held his hands as he told her the appalling tale, and knew way beyond the reasonable doubt she normally lived by that these raw, anguished words came right from his soul.

  ‘I thought Dario was my son. I thought he was mine…’ Navy eyes met hers. ‘She let me love him as if he were my own—and I did love him, Lydia. I loved him more than I thought it possible to love another…’ His face twisted in pain, balled fists ramming into his temples as he revisited his private agony.

  She didn’t know what to say. Truly didn’t know what paltry words she could offer in the face of such painful truth.

  ‘Nearly two years ago I found myself with four weeks off work.’ Anton’s voice was distant, almost void of emotion now, but his body was rigid beneath her touch. ‘I never get four weeks off—never, ’he added, just to make sure Lydia understood the rarity of it. ‘But a trip to the States was suddenly cancelled, and a hotel I had been considering buying was sold from under my nose, and suddenly I had four weeks rubbed out of my diary. So I decided to go home. Even though I live in Italy, I rarely get back to my village—something I always feel guilty about—so I decided to take the time and use it wisely, to catch up on my family.’

  She felt his shoulders relax a touch, saw his face soften as for a second he was back there, back at the beginning of the dream before it had turned into a nightmare.

  ‘My mother is brilliant at two things: cooking and talking—and believe me, Lydia, that is not a sexist comment. She is amazing at both! It took about a week of solid eating and talking just to bring me fully up to date on our family, and gradually things moved on to friends. She told me about a family in the village. The elder brother was in hospital with mental health problems. They needed money for his treatment, but the family were too embarrassed to ask for help.’

  ‘Rico?’

  Anton nodded. ‘There was a clinic in Florence that the doctors thought might be able to help him, but the family didn’t have any health insurance, and the cost of
relocating him there would have been too much for them. I went round to see what I could do. They were family friends of my mother, and she told me how good they had been to her during difficult times…’ His voice faded to a whisper. ‘That is when I met Cara—she was Rico’s younger sister, and I guess we…’

  ‘Fell in love?’ Lydia finished for him, hating the jealousy those words flared within her. But as Anton shook his head she felt as if a knife was being pulled from her side.

  ‘That happened two years later,’ Anton said softly. ‘Love came to me when you did.’

  It was the most beautiful thing anyone had said to her, but there was no time to dwell on it. It didn’t answer the questions that buzzed in her brain.

  ‘It was nice. For three weeks we were together, but it was never going to go anywhere. Cara never wanted to leave, and in truth I didn’t want to stay, but for a short time it was special.’

  ‘She got pregnant?’

  Anton nodded. ‘I didn’t know. We didn’t keep in touch or anything. But months later she called me, said that she’d been working up the courage to tell me. She’d concealed the pregnancy but now it was out in the open and her family was furious—mine too. I flew home straight away. I told her I would stand by her, that we would be married before the baby was born…’

  ‘You married her?’

  ‘No.’ Anton shook his head. ‘The baby came prematurely, a few days later, before we’d had time to arrange things.’

  ‘But you would have married her.’ Lydia frowned. ‘Even though you didn’t love her?’

  ‘I cared for her, and believed she was carrying my child.’ Anton made it sound that simple—and maybe it was. ‘People have married for less. But it never got to that.’ She could feel the tension in his body, looked down at his clenched fists as he relived his tale. ‘Cara was rushed into Theatre. The baby was tiny, so tiny, and yet my lawyer was telling me he was big—too big to be my baby. He told me to ask for a DNA test.’

  ‘Did you take one?’

  Anton shook his head. ‘I thought there was no need. I knew he was mine. I trusted Cara. I believed every word she was telling me.’