by C. L. Donley
Suddenly the Lark he’d known turned to the woman he remembered as Vanessa, biting his lip and eyeing him like a last meal.
But he hadn’t wanted her, he wanted Lark.
“Not so fast,” he said as she grabbed for his belt buckle.
“My flight leaves in two hours,” she breathed.
“So? Miss it.”
“The embassy in Qatar will be expecting me.”
“You are out of your mind if you think I’m letting you leave.”
“You were just about to,” she said, as if to accuse him.
He kissed her again, slower this time, until her arms slinked around his neck and their tongues met. Suddenly the phone in his office warbled. He let it ring and ring. Finally, he broke free from her, breathless.
“My hotel, conosci l’uno?” he asked.
“Si.”
“Wait for me there. I will let them know to expect you,” he demanded.
“Like one of your whores?”
Dario said nothing as they stared into each other’s eyes.
He slinked an arm around her middle and pushed her up against him and his hard erection, as he had at his mother’s house. When he asked her, “Lo senti?” Do you feel it?
He hadn’t quite known what “it” was, not then. It was an energy all its own. Volatile. One he was powerless to continue to maneuver.
“I will be there in an hour. And if you are not there, I will track you down,” he said in a low tone.
Her chest heaved against his. “I won’t be there,” she whispered, defiance in her tone.
He relinquished his grasp on her and unlocked the door, kissing her again before opening it.
“We’ll see.”
* * *
In 45 minutes, Dario was walking up to the hotel, too anxious to do anything beyond make sure he hadn’t made a mistake letting Lark out of his grasp a second time.
He went up to his room, looking around for traces of her.
When he searched the suite he found none. His heart almost sank until he heard the faint sound of water sloshing.
He opened the bathroom door and steam barrelled out, Lark’s office attire hanging off the shower door.
Her hair was in a loose updo that was now frizzy and wet. Her toffee colored bare shoulders and long arms decorated the lip of the freestanding soaker tub as she looked out at the afternoon, that shone through the picture window of the penthouse suite.
“You’re early,” she said in Italian.
He sauntered over to the tub and she followed him with her eyes as he sat on the floor against the bathroom wall in front of her, unbuttoned his sleeves and hiked one leg up at the knee, the other outstretched.
He wore his black-rimmed eyeglasses, his crisp white shirt, and black suspenders, surveying what he could of her body. He’d been dreaming of it for weeks now. Finally, he met her eyes.
“I was afraid that perhaps you meant what you said.”
“I did mean it. I’ve not been here ten minutes.”
“What made you change your mind?”
She shrugged one shoulder, her vague version of an explanation. “Always been a glutton for punishment, I suppose.”
“Punishment?”
“Of course. I was never supposed to lay eyes on you in the first place, certainly not again, after that night. And then you turned out to be my boss.”
“And now I am no longer your boss.”
“And now you are no longer my boss. I nearly made it out of the door.”
“Was it really so difficult to be around me? I went out of my way to put you at ease.”
“By flirting with me and fucking other women in front of me?”
“Were you jealous, cara mia?”
His answer seemed to agitate her. She leveled him with her glare.
“Cover your eyes.”
“I’ve seen you naked once before, remember?”
“You haven’t. Not entirely.”
“I’ve not seen your belly button, it’s true.”
Lark silently returned his gaze as though she meant business. She must know how long he’d been waiting. And she wanted to make him wait some more.
He closed his eyes with a smirk, gently lowering his lids. Lark craned her neck to the side, looking for signs of cheating. But he seemed to be complying.
Swiftly, she was up and out of the tub, her bare flesh on display unbeknownst to him. She grabbed a towel, but only to lay it down on the slippery floor. She walked out of the bathroom bare naked and glistening. He smiled when the sound of sloshing water ceased, convinced he was in the bathroom alone.
He didn’t quite recognize this iteration of Lark, he had to admit.
No, he wasn’t her boss anymore. There was yet another side of her to get to know, one that he wasn’t paying her to keep out of sight.
“Can I open my eyes now?” he loudly asked.
“Si,” was her faint reply from the suite.
He found her on the edge of the bed, with her legs crossed, wrapped in a giant hotel bathrobe and ordering room service in Italian. He sat down next to her.
“You want room service to catch us in the act?” he asked.
“I’m hungry.”
“Admit that you enjoy living in the lap of luxury,” he said, wrapping his arms around her middle as he nuzzled her neck.
“I enjoy living in the lap of luxury,” she limply replied.
He stopped mid-kiss puzzled by Lark’s tepid reply. He raised up.
“Have I offended you?”
“Repeatedly.”
“Is that so?”
“We’ve been in incredibly close quarters for the last three weeks. Did you really think your arrogant playboy routine could still work on me?” she snapped.
“It worked an hour ago.”
“That was… a moment of weakness.”
“Several moments, I seem to recall.”
“You should’ve just let it be. Right there in the office, instead of trying to control it. What could they do, fire you? Now the moment is gone,” she complained.
“I should have ‘let it be’ as you say? So you can get off, and then get on a plane?”
“Just as you have been doing this whole trip? You’re really all just the same, aren’t you?” Lark scoffed.
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Men like you. Men in charge. Powerful, reckless. Looking to be worshipped. Offended that a woman could want something beyond you. Or worse, nothing at all.”
It was then Lark confirmed the truth for him, that she had indeed lost respect for him as he feared.
The woman that he first met wasn’t there anymore, he was imagining things.
Perhaps she was right to sleep with him then as she had done, before he’d had a chance to disappoint her. Perhaps he would have to settle for a single fond memory.
Or perhaps, he should’ve kept walking. He shouldn’t have doubled back, stopped in the store with the glowing green sign to buy condoms. The whole business suddenly made him furious.
He relinquished his position next to her and headed for the bathroom.
“Allora, it seems I have misunderstood you. I certainly don’t want to force you to be here if you do not want it. I’m going to take a shower. When room service gets here, eat. And then you may leave. And be quick about it. I would prefer it if you were gone before I finish.”
Lark was stunned by his statement.
Leave and go where, exactly? She’d missed her flight, thanks to him.
“Va bene,” she said instead.
Lark stared at the closed bathroom door long after he’d closed it. Then she sat at the edge of the bed, staring at her compact luggage, listening to the sound of running water.
She felt stuck between realities. She felt despair, enough of it to cry, but she didn’t.
When Dario called her by her name for the first time ever it was like a lifeline, one she’d tried to resist but she couldn’t. And she thought for a moment that she was saved from her path
ological ability to self-sabotage, that Dario had been the one to save her. If anyone could save her from herself, it was him.
She had indeed gotten closer than she ever had before. For a moment it seemed she would conquer the she-devil within and behead that dumb cunt. But the wind of the blade going by simply blew her hair, short by only a breath.
The she-devil lived and got her kicked out of paradise. Lark stared and stared at her suitcase, too much in shock to relive the recent past and try to do it over. She was so close. So close that it seemed utterly impossible to ruin.
She didn’t know what she was going to do, but it wouldn’t be the first time. Luckily she’d saved up nearly every penny they’d overpaid her. When room service arrived, she quietly ate, dressed, activated the long handle on her carry-on suitcase and walked to the elevator.
When she got to the lobby floor the elevator door opened, and an attractive Italian woman with dark eyes was staring back at her. Her outfit was almost identical to Lark’s and she got on the elevator while Lark could only stand there, watching motionless as she held a key card in her hand, what could only be used to gain access to the penthouse.
“Lei scende?” the woman politely asked as Lark stood frozen. She was obviously waiting for her to exit the elevator.
“Certo,” Lark snapped out of it.
She heard the sound of her own heels click-clacking in the lobby, the sound of the tiny wheels on her suitcase as her vision began to blur with tears.
* * *
Dario emerged from the bathroom with nothing but a towel around his waist once he’d heard Lark gather her things and go out the door. Not long after, he heard the penthouse elevator doors opening again.
Cazzo, she was early. They were never that early. There was no way the two women hadn’t ran into each other, he thought, a ribbon of embarrassment infecting his mood.
He shook it off, grabbed two glasses from the bar and started pouring drinks. Once he turned around, he nearly dropped them when he was once again confronted with Lark’s presence.
He felt a little exposed, standing in front of Lark with nothing but a towel secured around him. She’d never seen so much of him, despite their wild night nearly a month ago. If she noticed at all, she wasn’t letting on. In fact, she had an energy that was more naked than his own, despite being the only one fully clothed.
Her face was raw with emotion, but her expression was blank. Her head was held high but her gaze was faced downward as if she couldn’t look at him.
“Sai cosa vuol dire essere scartato?” she began.
Do you know what it’s like to be discarded?
She stood there as if transfixed, a hand still holding the long handle on her diminutive suitcase.
“My caseworker didn’t tell me that both my grandmother and my aunt could have taken me in, but they declined,” she began in Italian. “She didn’t want to upset me. Sometimes my mother would come to me and cry, as though her world was falling apart without me. She would come to me and say, ‘I’m going to get sober, I’m going to get help, and then I’m going to get you out of here.’ And then time would pass. In the meantime, I would be moved. I would be the new kid at a new school. Sometimes an awful school, sometimes a prestigious one. I would spend as much time at school as I could. It was stable and consistent.
“I would start a new language,” she recalled, a tear rolling down her cheek. “I would be moved again to another family. This one spoke Spanish in the home. Or Korean. Another Arabic. Every day I would hear their language and I learned it. Quickly. Everyone would be so impressed. I thought that they would be impressed enough to keep me from moving again. I thought my mother would be so proud of me she would have no choice but to clean herself up, and find a clean place for us to stay. To me it was a simple task, but I understood. Her life had been very difficult before me. And the drinking made her feel better. The boyfriends made her feel better.”
Dario stood still and listened as she spoke.
“Then one day, I woke up and was 18. I had nothing, no money, no family to take me in, but I had seven languages. I was able to get into college. My mother never did anything for me, and yet somehow I owe her my life.”
Finally, she met his green eyes that were warm and unflinching. She switched back to English.
“I know what it’s like to be discarded. To be moved from place to place like cargo, to learn how to be so streamline, such a convenience that it would be more of a hassle to get rid of you than to keep you. And yet, I was discarded anyway, again and again. But until today, I had never known what it was like to not only be discarded but replaced. I just wanted you to know, Signore Di Rossi, that I appreciate the experience for what it is. I will carry it with me.”
Dario looked at her a long while.
“That was… very moving, Allodola. I had some idea about your life, but nothing so dramatic as that.”
Lark quickly wiped her eyes with a dainty finger, maintaining her stoic composure.
“And… I suppose this is the part where you make an equally dramatic exit to go along with your speech?”
“I beg your pardon?” she gasped.
“You didn’t come back to stay. You’ve come back to wound me.”
“And I suppose this is the part where you think I should feel guilty?” she echoed his response. “How dare you!”
“Do you think I have no wounds of my own? You want to compare, is that it?”
“There is no comparison!” Lark exclaimed, her long arms at her sides with hands in balled up fists. “None!!”
She said it as though she’d been waiting to say it for years, that it was how she felt, no matter if it was true. He didn’t challenge her.
“Va bene,” he replied.
“You sent me away, and you had my replacement within the hour!”
“No, Allodola.”
“Tell me how you could do such a thing,” she sobbed, tears pouring from her eyes. “Tell me.”
Dario was overwhelmed with guilt. It was clearly the exact wrong thing to do to Lark Chambers. He shouldn’t have called so soon but he was blind with frustration. The girl had been early. Much too early.
“I know you’re rich, I know you’re spoiled—”
“Of course I’m rich and spoiled. I was born rich— filthy rich, cara. That is no more my fault than your life is yours.”
“I know you can do it, perhaps I even know why. But how? How??” Lark continued as if he hadn’t spoken.
“Your replacement, Lark? I know nothing of your life, of what you went through, certo. But that also means that you know nothing of what it’s like to be the product of two wealthy families, families that have been wealthy for centuries, d’accord?”
“No, signore.”
“'No, signore.’ Your manners are rehearsed. You mock me. You think it is no great education, the life I live. Yes, I know the novelty of wealth, and how swiftly it wears off. Pleasure at its most fleeting, I can tell you that. But I also know something, intimately, that you don’t. That you couldn’t know, or else you wouldn’t talk in this way. Your ignorance tortures you, cara. You are a fool.”
“What don’t I know, Dario? For God’s sake, tell me—”
“I can replace nothing. Nothing. And no one.”
She was silent as his green eyes penetrated hers.
“I am a man with an entire ocean at my disposal. And I am dying of thirst!” he bellowed dramatically in Italian. “You think because you catch me, in the act of drinking seawater, that I am no longer worthy of respect—”
“I never said—”
“Non devi!” You don’t have to, he said, raising his voice. “I know what it looks like. I know I have a son to raise, and a family business to save. But sometimes I miss the wetness on my tongue, the simple pleasure of swallowing and feeling content, even if just for a moment—”
“And that is the speech you choose? You compare women to salty water! No wonder we are disposable to you!” Lark spat, gesturing wildly.
“Says the gorgeous Italian widower who cannot find another wife!”
“You threw me away, cara. Remember? You tried to ruin us before we could begin.”
“Yes! And thank goodness! Turns out we’re all just seawater compared to il tuo amato!”
In a flash, Dario was across the room crushing Lark in his grasp, his torso still wet from the shower and dampening her blouse, rendering it see-through. The scent of his skin, the sight of his body, and the feel of his warmth were too intense for her to properly grasp his fierce and sudden anger.
“What right do you have? To bring up the dead? Hm?” he confronted her burning eyes.
“Is she the reason you are doing this to all of us?” Lark demanded weakly.
“All of what? To whom?” he shook her with every question he asked.
“Your… bone pile. Of broken hearts.”
“I’ve broken no hearts.”
“Haven’t you?”
She looked at him, intently, all but confessing her feelings in that silence.
Dario felt his confidence bloom. He was actually going to make love to her again.
“They are transactions, nothing more,” he said. “I prefer it that way.”
“How long do you plan on torturing the living? Because your true love is a ‘ghost’ as you call her? That floated away?”
“I wasn’t talking about my wife.”
“What?”
“In Paris. When I said that to you. Yes, I loved my wife, but she was not the woman I was speaking of. You are the woman.”
“Bugiardo!” she spat.
“Why would I lie!”
“Because you don’t care, you do what you want! Why would you parade them in front of me?”
“I don’t know! Because I’m an idiot. Because I wanted to make you jealous,” he said.
“Jealous? Why?? Che cazzo, it was like knives in my heart!” she suddenly cried, trying to free herself from his grasp. “Vorrei che non mi avessi mai visto quella notte!” I wish you never laid eyes on me that night! she said in Italian.
Dario held her tightly by her arms at the elbows. He let her struggle and squirm and wear herself out against him as she cried, until finally she was spent, panting and sobbing.
