by Dana Marton
He pulled back, catching his breath. “We can’t do this tonight.”
Immediately, the hurt of rejection was back in her eyes.
“Don’t get me wrong, I want to.” He caressed her cheek. “More than anything.”
“Then why?”
“You’re drunk.”
“Not that drunk.” The beginnings of a smile knocked the hurt off her face. “As long as we do it lying down.”
She was killing him.
“If we are to take this step, I’d prefer both of us completely sober.”
“When?”
“In the morning.”
Her smile grew, leaving room for nothing else in his field of vision or in his heart.
He watched her, hopelessly sunk. “If you still feel the same in the morning.”
“I will.” She kept the goofy grin for another moment, then her gaze grew more serious, more curious. “Why now? What made you change your mind?”
“I don’t have the energy to keep denying that I’m hopelessly in love with you. Worrying about you all these years wore me down. I didn’t realize how much you took out of me.”
She poked him with her elbow, but she was grinning.
“I came to a realization tonight,” he said, turning serious.
“I’m the best, and you don’t want the rest?”
She was a cute drunk, he had to give her that. “I’ve known that for years.”
She looked indescribably pleased.
“I used to think,” he said, “that because I saved you, if you gave yourself to me, it’d be like a payment, which wouldn’t be right. You don’t owe me anything.”
She opened her mouth, but he put a finger over her soft lips.
“But tonight,” he told her, “I realized that it’s the other way around. You saved me. If you hadn’t come into my life, I’d be dead by now. I would have picked the wrong fight, or I would have dissolved my liver in whiskey. I’m here today because of you. No doubt about it.”
She looked thoughtful, in a tipsy, hazy kind of way, but when she moved his finger and spoke, the words came out sure and clear. “If I saved your life, and, as you say, you owe me…I’m taking it. I’m taking everything.”
“I’m yours to take. In the morning.”
She looked grumbly.
“Morning will come faster than you’ll be ready for, believe me. Hangovers are my area of expertise.”
“Hmpf.”
“Okay.” He turned the light off. Then he tucked her against him. “Now go to sleep.”
For about half a minute, she was still. Then she said, “I feel like an anaconda is squirming inside my stomach.”
“And that’s why you’re never going to get drunk like this again.”
“Merda,” she said with feeling.
“Monte de merda,” he agreed.
Chapter Twenty-One
Daniela
Daniela was so happy and excited, if she hadn’t had all that alcohol in her system, she never would have been able to fall asleep.
Something, maybe a car horn outside, woke her hours later. Sunlight fell in a golden swath across the bed, across Ian. He had a rugged face. A soldier’s face. To her, it was the most handsome face in the world.
She put a hand over his chest, over his steadily beating heart, and watched him, feeling completely contented and happy.
His hand came up and covered hers. He opened his eyes and looked at her. “How are you feeling?”
She burrowed into his embrace. “Like I am exactly where I am supposed to be.”
He brushed his lips over her forehead and tightened his arms around her.
But before she could float off into the bliss of waking up with him like this, her gaze fell on the bedside clock and she shot out of bed—pain slicing into her head from the sudden movement. Oh, not now.
She could not have a hangover!
“I have a presentation at the convention center in an hour.” She ran for the bathroom to brush her teeth.
“I thought you said they let you go.”
“I’m not doing this for the firm,” she said around her toothbrush before pulling it out of her mouth so she could say the rest more clearly. “I’m doing this for See-Love-Aid. The firm won’t send a replacement. They’ll just blow it off. No lawyer is going to take a billable hour and give it away for free.”
“You got clothes?” Ian stuck his head in the door.
“I left a couple of dresses here when I moved. One of those will work.”
“Take an aspirin. Here. I’ll drive you.” He padded away, called back, “I’ll make coffee.”
They made it to the convention center in the nick of time, and she showed up at the back entrance of the stage just when the conference organizer was about to have a nervous meltdown, judging by her wide-eyed, frazzled expression.
The sixty-something woman in an impeccable red suit stepped forward, grabbed Daniela’s hand, and squeezed a little too hard. “I thought you weren’t going to make it.”
“Sorry to worry you. Presentation cued up?”
“Yes. Here is the remote for the slide projector.” The woman dropped the small plastic controller into Daniela’s hand, then gently shoved her out onto the stage.
And then the spotlight hit her.
Wow. Okay.
The walk to the microphone at the podium at the front of the stage wasn’t bad. But then her eyes adjusted to the bright light, and she could make out the audience.
The enormous room seated at least a thousand people. More people than lived in her village on the Içana. Most were on their cell phones, tapping away.
As she looked around, she understood that many of them had come only because their bosses sent them. Like the law firm had sent Daniela. Their job was to show up and maybe bring back some flyers. Or they’d come for the continuing education credit they would receive for attending the conference.
How was she going to reach them?
She gripped the remote, knowing her slideshow wasn’t going to cut it. She had planned on talking statistics and showing pictures of exploited children. But everyone there had seen pictures of scruffy children before.
Her knees trembled, and she grabbed the podium for support. Then Ian’s tall form appeared at the edge of the first row, and ducking down—Excuse me. Excuse me.—he went all the way to the middle and sat down right in front of her, a smile on his face.
Daniela filled her lungs and locked her knees.
“Hi,” she began. “I’m Daniela Wintermann.”
People looked up but then went back to quickly finish the texts they’d been typing.
“Until very recently, I worked for Hooper, Hinze & Quarles, one of the sponsors of this conference. I’m a law school student.”
People nodded absently. She spoke in unaccented English, she was dressed in a sharp black dress, she was a professional—she was just like them. They’d seen presenters like her before. They’d been to conferences like this before. They’d heard hundreds of interchangeable speeches.
“I was trafficked at age fifteen. I am a former child prostitute.” She announced her deepest, darkest secret, on stage, to a thousand strangers.
The phones went down, and the heads came up. The audience stared.
She told her story—the logger, her mother, Pedro, Rosa—and the phones stayed in laps.
She did click on the slide projector then. A group of young women huddled in the corner of a cornfield was the first image, the aftermath of a rescue op on the Mexican border.
“We are not just formerly trafficked persons.” She showed a handful of similar pictures of abused bodies with hopeful faces. “We are women with endless potential. We have endured. And now we are going to thrive. The past does not define us. We define our future.”
She received a standing ovation. Ian was the first on his feet, applauding madly. And as the conference organizer waiting at the back of the stage hugged her, the woman said, with a sheen in her blue eyes, “That speech jus
t paid our budget for a year. What would it take to have you come and work for us permanently? You are the most amazing teacher I’ve ever met. There are things I’ve been trying to explain for a decade, and I think this is the first time an audience finally understands.”
“Thank you. Can I call you about that?” Daniela said, because Ian was hurrying down the back hallway.
He hugged her and lifted her off her feet. “I’m so proud of you.”
She was proud of herself.
When they were in the car on the way home, he asked, “How do you feel?”
“I feel as free as fish in water.” She grinned. “I know who I am, and I’m okay with my past. I don’t need to hide anymore. I’m fine the way I am.”
He reached over for her hand and held it all the way home, then all the way up to their apartment. Then they were inside—no more words for a while. He picked her up and carried her to his bedroom, laid her on the bed.
He kissed her.
Her whole body felt tingly everywhere they touched, something she’d never felt with any man. She loved his solid bulk, the strength of his arms that made her feel safe and as if she belonged in them.
She kissed him back, letting him explore her mouth, then exploring his. She could have gone for hours just kissing him. And she knew he would let her. He was letting her call the shots. She was in charge.
She liked that thought, but it also made her nervous.
“What is it?” he whispered against the curve of her jaw, his hands soothing her back.
She pulled up and braced herself on her hands so she could look at him. “I want this to work. I want to be able to enjoy this. With you. And I want it to be good for you so you’ll agree to do it again.”
He smiled. “You can pretty much take worrying about me wanting this again off the table. I haven’t even had it yet and I want it again already.” His eyes turned serious. “Why do you think you won’t enjoy it?”
“I didn’t. Before.” She looked at his shoulder. She couldn’t look at him.
Oh God. How stupid could she be? Never, never, bring up before, especially when they were in bed and they’d almost… Now he’d start to think about her with other men and change his mind and—
“Hey. This is not going to be like before. This time, you’re making love with a man who loves you to pieces. Totally crazy about you. I mean, major nut cakes.”
A smile took over her face. No ghosts of the past here, nobody and nothing but Ian and her, and they loved each other.
She kissed him again.
His hands slipped to the bottom of her dress. “I’d like to take this off.”
She sat up to straddle him and lifted her arms. The material caught on her elbow. “Merda.”
“Don’t swear.”
“You swear.”
“I’m an ex-alcoholic ex-soldier with anger management issues. You are a brilliant woman, a lady with class.”
Her heart swelled. He’d been saying things like that to her since they’d met, treating her as if she was someone good and precious.
And then he was all surprised that she’d fallen in love with him. Men.
He helped the dress off her. She let her arms drop, didn’t try to hide herself from him.
Others had told her before that she was pretty or beautiful. He didn’t.
He gave a strangled laugh. “I’m so hard, I’m going to embarrass myself any second now, and I’m still thinking you’re too innocent to touch the way I want, that I have no right to put my hands on you—”
She slipped out of her bra, then took his hands and put them on her breasts.
He ran his thumbs lightly over her nipples. The sudden pleasure was so overwhelming, she let her head drop back and arched her spine, her breasts pressing into his touch.
He gave another strangled laugh. “Maybe we should put your top back on. I don’t know how long I’m going to last like this.”
She rocked against him.
“We should take this slow,” he rasped.
She looked at him. “Could we take your clothes off?”
He was watching her as if she was some kind of miracle. “Yeah. Sure.”
He let her go, moved out from under her long enough to strip. She lay down on the bed and watched him, her body clamoring for him to return to her.
He lay down next to her on top of the covers.
She kissed his collarbone and let her hands explore the wide expanse of his chest. She was enjoying this, just playing, so much more than she’d expected.
But soon an urgency overtook her, and both of them grew more serious, needing, wanting, then finally, joining. And then the pleasure built inside her into a giant wave, like rainwater rushing down from the jungle, and the water broke over her like a river, floated her into bliss.
Afterward, she lay soaked in happiness, tucked into his arms.
He kissed the top of her head. “Are you crying?”
She reached up to touch her cheek, felt moisture on her skin.
Ian came up on his elbow to look at her, worry in his gaze. “Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head. “It was amazing. Beautiful, and a lot more than I imagined. I want to do it every day.”
He gave a quick bark of a laugh. “I might grow old eventually.”
“I want us to grow old together,” she said.
He kissed the corner of her mouth, then whispered against her lips, “We will.”
Several minutes later, as she lay with her head on his shoulder again, she said, “You’re right. I’m a new woman. But you’re a new man too. You’re not the angry, drinking Ian that you were after Linda.”
She expected him to shut down the conversation, but he said, “I’m still angry over Linda and the boys. I shouldn’t have left her. I didn’t understand that she was feeling so bad. I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive myself for not grasping that. And I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive her.”
His chest rose as he drew a deep breath. “You know, the VA sent me to a rehab place once. Hope Hill. It’s in a small town in Pennsylvania. First day there, my counselor looked me in the eye and said that I was an alcoholic with anger management issues and self-destructive tendencies.”
Daniela pressed tighter against him, holding on to him.
Ian said, “So the guy asks me, ‘What do you think about that, Slaney?’”
Ian snorted. “I told him I was thinking about how much trouble I’d get into for punching him in the face.” He paused. “So then the guy says, ‘Oh wonderful.’ I swear, he looked happy. ‘You consider the consequences of your actions. You didn’t act on your impulse. You just considered it. Very well done.’” Ian paused again. “I couldn’t tell if he was really smart or too stupid to live. I checked myself out and came back to DC.”
“I’ve always known you to be a good man,” Daniela told him.
“You probably have some mosquito-borne disease that makes you completely biased and blind to my faults. There’s no end to the weird shit a person can catch in the Amazon.” He rubbed her shoulder with the pad of his thumb.
She smiled against his warm skin. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt this safe, or this happy.”
She wiggled up, reversed their positions, maneuvered him so that his head was on her shoulder as she held him. “I want you to feel the same way.” She kissed the top of his head. “Do I make you feel safe?”
“Safe…other things…” His voice grew distracted, his lips brushing against the side of her breast as they moved with the words. “It’s all good. Believe me.”
* * *
Eduardo
Eduardo watched Ian drive the woman to a different apartment, kiss her before he dropped her off.
Not the maid but his lover.
Eduardo smiled. So much better this way. This way, before Ian was killed, he could experience the grief of losing someone he loved.
As Ian pulled away, into traffic, Eduardo parked by the curb in the freed-up space and watched the woman float to th
e apartment building’s front door. She radiated happiness. Ian Slaney must have done something right this morning.
She looked Brazilian, might even have some Baniwa blood in her—a little familiar, but Eduardo couldn’t think when or where he might have met her.
He was prepared to wait all day, but she came out two hours later.
She’d changed her clothes, carried nothing but a small purse. She paused for a moment in the open door, and an old memory clicked into place in Eduardo’s brain. Finch’s whore.
She looked a little older and a lot more sophisticated, a lot more sure of herself, but she was definitely the girl Eduardo had talked to when he’d first gone to Santana to find Finch. He remembered her now.
Eduardo scrambled to process the implications. Would she recognize him? He was older too. He’d gone gray after Marcos’s death. He didn’t have his goatee anymore. Age had weakened his eyes, so he was now wearing glasses. He’d put on a few pounds, which had changed his face, added the infernal jowls he hated.
The woman was on the move. Eduardo had no time to hesitate. He would just have to risk it.
She walked with a smile and a bounce, looked like a woman in love. All was well in her world. Eduardo counted on that cloud of happiness to dim her instincts.
He started the car and drove ahead, turned into the alleyway between two apartment buildings. He parked the car about three meters in, got out and went around, opened the trunk. When from the corner of his eye he saw the woman pass behind him, he made a production of leaning into the trunk, pulling back, swearing in Portuguese.
She stopped on the sidewalk.
He turned. Flashed her a self-depreciating smile. “Almost pitched headfirst into the trunk. I can’t put weight on this leg. Just had…como se diz…knee replacement.”
She stepped closer. “Let me help,” she said in Portuguese. “Are you from Brazil?”
“São Paulo.” He nodded toward the suitcase in the back and switched to Portuguese too. “Came up to see my brother. Something’s still wrong with this knee.” He tapped his left leg. “My brother knows a surgeon here who’s willing to give it a look.”
