by Sienna Blake
For once, the wife was silent.
I found myself growing restless during the day. I’d explored the entire mansion, I’d wandered the gardens and the grounds. I’d even made my way into the servants’ quarters today just to find someone to talk to, and was promptly chased out by Loretta.
I was bored.
I felt like all I did was lie around reading, waiting for Drake to come home. For him to sit beside me at dinner. For him to come to my room afterwards and strip me and make love to me. For me to lose myself in his touch, in his beautiful body.
He still went to his room after we were done. I still slept alone.
I felt like I was only alive for three or four hours a day, a translucent cloth thrown over the remaining hours so they were muted and muffled.
That night, Drake appeared in my room later than usual. I was sitting with my legs up on my window seat, despondency making my head heavy, resting my chin on my knees. Today, for once, I had allowed myself to feel the bars that held me. Feel the chill radiating from the cage that seemed to close even tighter and tighter around me.
“I have something for you,” I heard him say from my doorway.
“Great.” I didn’t turn my head towards him. There was a bird sitting on the branch outside, small and brown with round, alert eyes. She might have nothing except the wings on her back, but she was free. She had purpose.
“Noriko?” I heard Drake’s footsteps as he crossed my bedroom towards me. He took my hands and pulled me up to my feet. Only then did I look up at him. “What’s wrong?”
I wanted to yell at him. Like all of this was his fault. Even though I chose this marriage. I accepted this sacrifice.
“I missed,” my father, my family, my freedom, “…you at dinner tonight.” I wasn’t completely lying. His company had become the one light in my purgatory. The one thing I looked forward to. I hated him for it. I hated him and I needed him just as much.
“I have something for you,” he said again. “I think it will cheer you up. Come.” He led me from the bedroom and we walked in silence down the corridor.
He brushed his fingers against my arm and found my hand, pushing his fingers into mine. I stared down at our hands, my pale bird-like one, and his tanned, large, immaculately manicured one, dotted with a plain platinum wedding band set with a tasteful row of tiny diamonds. I never noticed his wedding ring until now. I didn’t remember him having one when we first met.
We stopped at a door farther down the east wing on the same floor as our bedrooms. I remembered looking inside this room. It was another stuffy sitting room. He squeezed my hand before he pushed open the door for me. Was he…nervous?
I stepped inside.
My mouth dropped open. Oh my God.
The entire room had been gutted, the floors stripped of carpet and replaced with polished wooden flooring. There was a huge table in the center, easels in all corners, stacks of framed blank canvases leaning against one wall next to a huge sink, another wall of shelves filled with paints and pots and brushes and rolls and rolls of paper—all kinds of paper, all colors and thicknesses.
That was what the workmen were doing these last few days. Loretta told me there had been a leak in one of the rooms and not to go in there. I had believed her. She had been in on this.
“Do you like it?” The hopeful look on Drake’s face softened my sadness. He was trying to be a good husband. He was trying so hard to please me.
“I…I can’t believe you did this for me,” I said, my voice trembling. “It’s wonderful.”
His smile grew until it crinkled the corners of his warm brown eyes. “Good. Great.”
I turned and surveyed the room again—my studio.
My studio for less than one year.
Guilt shot through me as I thought of my hidden pills. Maybe I should give Drake a chance? Maybe I could stay…?
No. Remember your promise. Your father needs you.
I couldn’t accept this.
“Drake, it’s wonderful, but it’s too much. I can’t—”
“Nothing is too much for you.”
He dipped his face into my neck and inhaled, sliding his arms around me. He groaned against my ear, sending shivers down my spine. “You smell incredible, Noriko, I—” He cut off, grabbing the hem of my shirt and pushing it up to expose my breasts. “So beautiful,” he muttered, before he swooped in and covered one nipple with his wet mouth.
I let out a cry, my head falling back as pleasure made my body tighten and ache. His tongue was magic. His touch like the caress of angels and the devil all at once.
His hands slid up the back of my thighs, picking me up and wrapping my legs around his waist. He strode to the table in the center of the room and laid me down on it like I was something precious. The way he was looking at me made me feel precious.
Don’t get used to this, Noriko, the voice inside me said. You’re only his wife for one year, remember?
I ignored that stupid voice. For the next few hours, I forgot. I forgot about my promise. I forgot about my cage. I forgot everything except for the beautiful man here with me.
Drake and I had been getting along incredibly well for the past week. I thought it might be a good time to push an issue we didn’t see eye to eye on. I had to pick my timing.
I studied Drake as we sat together for dinner that night. He seemed in a good mood. I waited until he’d eaten most of his meal before I decided to brave it.
“Drake?”
“Hmm?”
“I was thinking about my father today. How his treatment’s going. And my sisters. Wondering how they are…”
He didn’t speak. Something dark flashed across his eyes.
Unease tumbled around inside me. I barreled on anyway. “It would make me so happy if I could call—”
His jaw tightened. “We’ve already spoken about this, Noriko. Several times, in fact.”
“I don’t even know how he is. How his treatment is going.”
“Your father’s fine. They’re all fine.”
“If I could speak to him—”
“Do you think I’d be so cruel that I wouldn’t tell you if something happened to him?”
“You’re keeping tabs on them?” This revelation left me cold.
“Of course I am. What is important to you is important to me.” His voice went all soft. “Your home is here now, with me. Any contact with them is going to make you homesick. I’m doing this for you, darling.” He reached out to pat my hand, a patronizing move that made me want to punch him straight in the mouth.
I snatched my hand out from under his and crossed my arms over my chest. “I want to speak to my father. Don’t you love me?”
“Don’t you dare question my love for you.” His fist slammed down on the table, his eyes glittering with rage. “You are all I think about. You are all I do anything for.”
“Then why won’t you—”
“I’ve just told you why.”
“But, I—”
“No. Noriko, that is final. I know you think I’m being cruel. Trust me, it’s for the best.” He picked up his fork and resumed eating.
White-hot rage swirled inside me, forming and taking shape.
See, the daughter inside me wailed. He doesn’t love you. Only Papa and your sisters do. You must keep your promise.
No, the wife cried. He’s only acting this way because he doesn’t know any better. I can teach him…
38
____________
Drake
I loved her.
I loved my wife.
And even though she hadn’t said it, she must love me too, right? I mean, I gave her her own artist studio, I took her to Monet’s garden in France. She had everything a woman wants, designer clothes, expensive jewelry…
So why did I get the creeping sensation that it wasn’t enough?
Why does this fear grip me late at night? That I would lose her. I couldn’t lose her.
I had to hold on tighter.
; I felt like I was going out of my mind. I could barely think of anything else at work and people were starting to notice. I’d been postponing my business trips because I was terrified of leaving her alone.
Why did love have to be so beautiful and terrible all at once? Sometimes it felt like a fairy-tale, at other times like war, a tempest on my soul, a siege against my heart.
Tonight when I reached for Noriko, she pushed back. “Not tonight, Drake. I have my period.”
“Your period?”
“I just said that.”
“Which means you’re not pregnant.”
I slipped a hand on her flat stomach and felt her stiffen.
I was struck with the overwhelming urge to see her belly swollen with my child—our child. It had nothing to do with wanting an heir. I wanted a family. With her.
A baby would keep us together. A baby would tie her to me forever.
“I can’t wait until you’re pregnant.”
She said nothing.
I slipped my fingers underneath the hem of her shirt and skimmed the skin of her belly, praying for a life that wasn’t there yet. “Maybe we should go see a doctor.”
“What? Why?”
“I want to make sure everything is…working.”
She spluttered. “It’s only been two months.”
“I can’t wait any longer.”
She let out a huff. “These things can’t be rushed.”
“They have options. To get pregnant faster.”
The look on her face betrayed her horror. “No, Drake. No doctors. No injections. No test tubes.” She shoved my hand off her stomach and turned away, rolling onto her other side on her bed.
My fingers, still outstretched, felt empty. I curled them into a fist before retracting my hand, a bitterness flooding into my mouth.
Did she know how much her rejection stabbed me like a blunt knife? The dullness in her eyes like needles in my face? Did she know how wretched I felt when I had to take every kiss from her, my mouth filling not with her love, but with her sighs? I felt like she was punishing me for a crime I hadn’t committed.
I wanted my Noriko back. My Mona Lisa with those piercing dark eyes. The woman who stirred laughter from my lungs, who tested me, pushed me, parried with me. Who knew how to peel back my masks and reveal myself even to me.
How do I make you happy? I yearned to ask her. How do I make you smile at me again? How do I make you love me? What do I have to buy you?
“Sure.” I tried to keep my voice even, not to betray all of the tumbling, confusing mess inside my body. “We can wait.”
How could I wait when I felt her slipping through my fingers like ash? The more I needed her, the more it seemed she pulled away.
I settled closer behind her, spooning her, tucking my knees in behind hers and propping my head up with my hand. She tensed and chewed her lip, her eyes on the far wall. I wanted to stroke her side, to touch her face. I couldn’t deal with it if she rejected me again so I left my hand on my side, gripping at my thigh.
“So…what did you do today?” I tried.
Her tiny shoulder shrugged. “Read.”
“What book?”
“Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.”
“What’s it about?”
There was a pause. “A wife who’s not sure who her husband is.” I could hear the accusation in her voice.
I’m trying, Noriko. You’re the one who isn’t trying. “You read a lot.”
“There’s not much else to do here.” Bitterness poisoned her voice.
“Do you need a bigger library? A better studio? I can build you one.”
She turned sharply towards me, guilt flashing momentarily in her eyes. “No. I don’t need a library. I already have a studio.”
I frowned. “Then what do you need?” What do you need from me to fix this rift between us?
She lay her head back on the pillow, facing away from me. “Nothing.”
There had to be something. Anything, Noriko, you only have to ask. “Are you happy with this room?”
“Of course.”
“If you weren’t happy with any aspect of it—wrong color, wrong shape, wrong furniture—I could change it.”
I would change anything you didn’t like. I’d make this room a perfect paradise for you, just say the word.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I would. If you wanted it.”
She said nothing.
Panic shortened my breath, steel chains tightening around my lungs. I was losing her. Even as I held onto her tighter and tighter, she was turning to sand, slipping through my fingers.
This was how my poor father felt, loving my mother.
Disgust made my mouth taste sour. I didn’t want to feel this empathy for him. I didn’t want to understand him. I wasn’t him. I would never be like him. And Noriko wasn’t a whore like my…
My blood went cold. Could Noriko be cheating on me? Could she be saving her smiles and fire for someone else? I felt a choking sensation, fear clawing around my neck as I let this thought dwell.
I shoved it away. No, she couldn’t. I’d kept her away from all of the socialite parties and the shallow pack of well-dressed wolves that was LA society. I had kept her safe from anyone who might try to take her from me. I had kept her safe.
I needed to fix my image in her eyes. “I landed a huge contract today.”
“That’s great…”
She’d always liked it before when I spoke about work. I spoke about the deal in detail. “It added another half a billion worth of value to the Blackwell shares.” I paused, waiting for her gasp of awe.
Nothing. Her breathing had evened out. She had fallen asleep. I didn’t want her to sleep yet. I brushed hair from her cheek, watching her eyes in case it was enough to wake her.
She didn’t move and her breathing stayed the same. I felt myself floundering, alone, adrift, the emptiness of my life before Noriko gripping my ankles, threatening to drag me back into those cold, dark depths.
I couldn’t go back to the emptiness of my life before her.
But she was keeping my happiness from me, making me work harder and harder to have it again. I would have it again. I just needed to find a way to fix us.
39
____________
Noriko
Dear God, Drake wanted a baby. I could see the joy in his eyes as he admitted it to me, as his fingers caressed my belly, the root of my betrayal.
Unbidden images of us as a family stole into my head like thieves. I tried to keep them out. I tried to protect myself from them. Still they found their way in, branding themselves on my heart. How could this be so pure and yet so wretched? It felt like love but it hurt like hate.
I had to turn away from Drake. How could I look him in the face when I held such a secret? How could I kiss him and mean it when I knew I would only end him? How could I keep absorbing him into my body when I’d have to purge him?
If only I could take away all the pain I would cause him. I didn’t know how.
I had to make him stop loving me. It was the only way to save him.
Even as I considered this prospect, my own heart felt like I was tearing it in two.
How do you rid yourself of someone who was in your blood, in your cells? How do you cut someone out when your souls were like the weave of a tapestry?
Drake kept trying to talk to me. How could I reply when my words were lies? He curled around me, trying to love me, and all I felt was crowded, suffocated, my guts churning with poisoned sickness.
I couldn’t do this to him. I had to tell him.
You can’t. It will destroy him.
I’d destroy him anyway.
Drake was in London for a business trip. I was with him. He promised me that he’d have plenty of time to take me to as many galleries as I wanted.
I shouldn’t have said yes. I should have kept my distance. But how could I say no to the London National Gallery? Or the Serpentine Galleries? Or the Tate Britain?
The West End theatre which I’d always wanted to visit?
“I’m sorry, Noriko. I can’t take today off like we planned.”
I pressed my lips together and yanked my bathrobe even tighter around my body. “Okay…” The tone of my voice said it was definitely not okay. “You can’t expect me to stay in here all day. Again.” We’d been in London two days and all I had seen was the inside of this enormous suite. He wouldn’t let me go anywhere without him. Even here I was a prisoner.
It was days like these that made it easy to justify pulling away.
Drake let out a huff and ran his hand through his hair. “Of course not.” He was already dressed in a stylish navy pinstriped suit that made him look so delicious it hurt. “Franco will look after you.” He indicated the giant hulking man who stepped into the suite. He was almost bursting out of his suit, standing by the doorway as straight as a soldier, sunglasses on even though we were inside. “He’ll go with you wherever you need.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, my anger overriding the guilt I wore like a coat. “I get a babysitter now?”
“He’s a bodyguard.”
I eyed Franco, the Silent Giant. “And what are you expecting that he will guard me from? Overzealous doormen? Dangerous pigeons? Obstinate Tube turnstiles?”
Drake looked horrified. “You are not riding the Tube.”
I threw my hands up in the air. “You can’t come to London and not ride the Tube. It’s part of the experience.”
Drake grabbed his wallet and keys. “I’ve been to London a hundred times and I’ve never ridden the Tube.”
“Yes, well, you live on a different planet from the rest of us.”
Drake sighed and walked over to me, slipping between my legs as I sat on the edge of the bed. He cupped my face and tilted it, forcing me to look right at him. “Please, don’t argue with me. I will lose my mind if I don’t know you’re safe and being taken care of.”
My anger softened, just a little, enough to let guilt stab me again.
He leaned in and kissed me hard on my mouth. I fought myself from kissing him back the way my soul wanted to. My lips barely moved, my mouth barely opened for him, even as my fingers clawed at his shirt as if I were trying to crawl back into his heart.
