After Innocence (18 page)

Sofie gaped.

He smiled, staring.

“What do my clothing and men have to do with the subject of my an?” she asked, trembling with anger.

“Everything, I think,” he said flatly.

“No.” She was firm, but she was shaking, because there was temptation in the concept he had offered her. In truth, she didn’t feel very much like herself anymore. She didn’t feel like a plain, crippled eccentric; today she had actually felt young and perfect and beautiful. She did feel like parading around in a bright and festive gown, with her hair piled loose and high. She could almost see herself at a ball, surrounded by admirers—and Edward.

Sofie forced her absurd thoughts aside. She swallowed and said, “I am not hiding, not from anything.”

“No?” he asked, obviously not believing her.

Sofie dared to stare him in the eye, refusing to even think that he might be right. For he was not right—he was not. “If I were hiding, Edward, then I would have turned away from you long ago.”

Edward met the challenge, leaning across the table, his eyes dark and intense. “You couldn’t hide from me, Sofie, no matter how you might try.”

His tone was as primitive as it was male, and Sofie shivered in sudden awareness. “You … threaten me?”

“No. I am your champion, Sofie. Never forget it.”

A thrill swept through her, raising goose bumps all over her flesh.

Edward added, “If you do not take risks, you will never succeed.”

She stared. She thought about the risk she intended to take by becoming his lover. It would change her as a woman, and undoubtedly it would change her life forever.

His hand tightened on hers. “You’ve already taken risks, lots of them—and you don’t even know it. You’re an
adventurer, Sofie, a daring adventurer, and this will only be one more adventure for you in a lifetime of adventures. I am sure of it. I have never been more sure of anything.”

Tears filled her eyes. No one had ever praised her like this before. “All right.”

He leaned back now in his chair, smiling, satisfied, masculinity in repose.

It flashed through Sofie’s mind that she would paint him this way, immediately, relaxing in a chair in fabulous Delmonico’s. Her heart tripped hard in new excitement as she forgot her fears. “Edward,” she blurted, shamelessly bold. “Will you do me a great favor?”

He eyed her. “Of course. Anything. Anytime. Name it.”

Her heart beat harder. “Will you model for me?” she asked.

Newport Beach

S
uzanne paced her bedroom, pausing to stare across her terrace at the starlit ocean. She was familiar with the view and hardly saw the silver caps on the slick, roiling black water. She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she did not hear the knock on her door. When Benjamin called her name softly from the threshold, she started.

He, too, was clad in his bedclothes, in a velvet-trimmed paisley silk robe and pajamas. “Suzanne?”

Suzanne knew why he had come. She had not married Benjamin for either love or passion, and therefore had not expected a passionate relationship from him. In the ten and a half years since their wedding, she had few regrets, and the fact that he came to her bed at all, much less frequently, was not one of them. She would never turn him away or allow even a hint of her indifference to show. She smiled. “Come in, Benjamin.”

He smiled, too, slipping inside. “You are worried, my dear. What about?”

Suzanne sighed, sinking down on the foot of her bed, a canopied affair done up in multiple shades of gold and yellow with accents of red. “I’m not at all sure Sofie should be alone in the city.”

He sat down beside her, his knee brushing hers. “Whyever not? Sofie is mature and capable. Has something happened that I do not know about?”

Suzanne smiled at Benjamin. He was not the kind of man to elicit passion in a woman, but he was a dear man, kind
and caring, although not demonstrative. One had to know him in order to comprehend his steadfast concern. “No,” she said, thinking of Edward Delanza. She had seen Hilary the other day. Hilary had been openly restless, and soon Suzanne had learned why. Edward was not at her summer cottage with her. He was in the city. Suzanne hated the idea, and was frightened by it. “I think we should send for her again. Really, there is so much to enjoy here at the shore.”

“Darling, Sofie is twenty years old, an intelligent and sensible young woman, devoted to her art. Leave her be. In another few weeks we will be returning to New York anyway.”

Suzanne managed a smile. “Of course, you are right,” she said, but she was still worried, because she had a sixth sense and did not like what it was telling her. She had not heard from Mrs. Murdock, who’d received explicit instructions several weeks ago to notify her should Edward Delanza call on Sofie. That should have been all the reassurance Suzanne needed, but it was not.

Benjamin patted her hand and got up to turn off the lights. Suzanne shed her silk robe and slipped under the covers, clad in a turquoise satin nightgown. Benjamin reached for her. Suzanne closed her eyes as his hand slid over her breast. Quickly he thumbed her nipple until it had peaked.

Suzanne let him fondle her, barely aroused. As always, she began to think of Jake. She saw him as vividly as if he were present in the room, tall, broad-shouldered, lean-hipped and golden and so unbearably sexy. God. Goddamn him. If only he hadn’t been forced to flee. He would still be alive. Incarcerated, but alive. Suzanne imagined what it would be like to visit him in prison, imagined herself all dressed up in her couture finery, being escorted by prison guards to his cell, walking down endless dimly lit corridors, past other prisoners, all of them hot and male.

And Jake would be waiting, ready. Jake had always been ready when it came to sex.

Suzanne whimpered, aroused now, seeing Jake behind the iron bars in his drab prison uniform, knowing his cock would be hard in anticipation of their tucking.

Benjamin slid on top of her, and Suzanne gripped him, spreading her legs wide, hot and wet and open.

The cell door was unlocked. The guard grinned, lewd and knowing. There were hoots from the other cells. Suzanne did not care. She entered the cell, mesmerized by Jake’s glowing golden gaze. The door closed behind her, the lock clicked. Jake pushed himself off the opposite wall, his erection tenting the thin material of his cotton pants. The corners of his mouth lifted. He crooked a finger at her. Suzanne rushed forward. He forced her against the wall, ripped her skirts out of the way, and impaled her, hot and hard, almost hurtful.

Suzanne cried out. Benjamin was inside her now, and she was coming, lost in fire and light, and it was glorious.

Sometime later she opened her eyes to stare up at the ceiling. Benjamin kissed her cheek, said “thank you,” and rolled over onto his stomach facing away from her. The nights he came to her, he always stayed until the morning, which Suzanne did not really mind. But he would sleep soundly, not touching her again.

And now Suzanne ached. Her sex still throbbed, but it was more than that. Tears glistened in her eyes. Her heart ached. She hated him, she missed him, she wanted him. Not a night went by that she did not want him, but the nights when Benjamin came to her were even worse.

It was impossible not to make the comparison between what she had once had and what she now had, and although logic reminded her that she had been unhappy then and was content now, logic was a cold, uncaring bedfellow. So was contentment. Benjamin’s presence beside her always brought forth a yearning as hopeless as it was intense.

Suzanne finally rolled away from Benjamin, cuddling her pillow. It was not the first time that she had fantasized about making love to Jake while her husband made love to her. Jake always shared their bed. But the fantasies were not based on reality. The last time she had seen Jake alive, it had been in prison, but it had not been at all like her fantasy. He had not wanted anything to do with her. The tears fell now, inexorably, as she remembered.

New York City. 1888

“Come with me, ma’am.” The guard was solemn-faced.

Suzanne wore a black suit that fit her dark, angry mood of mourning. She wore a black hat with a half veil and black gloves as well. She held a white handkerchief to her nose to ward off the prison’s many offending odors, mostly of unwashed male bodies. She followed the guard, head high, nose tilted up in a show of real snobbery, inwardly fuming. Her high heels clicked loudly on the stone floors. The guard unlocked a door, and she entered a small room with a scarred wooden table and several chairs. Jake sat in one of the chairs, tense and drawn. Another prison guard stood behind him.

The first guard had allowed Suzanne to precede him in. Both he and his partner wore big black guns in holsters and carried big brown bats on chains hanging from their belts. Just in case, Suzanne knew, Jake might attempt to escape.

Jake regarded Suzanne with absolutely no expression. Suzanne glared at him, then turned to glower at the guard who had escorted her to her husband. “Do you mean to tell me that we will not have a single moment’s privacy?”

The guard ignored her outburst, leaving, with his partner. Suzanne waited until they were gone, the door firmly locked behind them. She knew they watched them through the window on the wall. She whirled on Jake. “Tomorrow they are extraditing you,” she cried. “I cannot believe it.”

He stared, impassive. “Where’s Sofie?”

She blanched, then strode forward, fist in the air. “Sofie! Sofie is at home, where little girls belong. Damn you!”

He stood, towering over her, finally angry, too. “I wanted to see Sofie, Suzanne, to say good-bye. Why didn’t you bring her?”

“What about me?!” she screamed, and she began to beat him with her fists. “What about me, you bastard? What about me! You are locked up, but I am free—but now it is worse than ever! When I walk down the street, my friends run the other way!”

Jake made no move to duck her blows, aimed at his chest and face, and she soon grew tired of hitting him. Suzanne was crying, but she regained some control and said, “They are deporting you, and I will be alone! Damn you, Jake.”

His mouth tightened, his eyes darkened, but he did not respond.

Suzanne had stopped weeping now and she stared at his handsome face. “Do you even care what will happen to me?”

His jaw flexed, as if he refused to answer.

“It was bad enough when we married. But with your success in business, we got past that. Not completely, all doors did not open, but many did. And now they are all closed again—every single last one of them!” She started to cry again.

Finally he said, “I’m sure you’ll survive, Suzanne. And well. You’re very good at that.”

She uncovered her eyes, no longer crying, furious. “Like I survived the first miserable years of our marriage in that shack you dared to call our home?”

“Yeah. The way you survived then.” His eyes were hot and furious.

She thought of being pregnant and alone in that shack while Jake worked day in and day out as if she did not exist. She thought about the few hours they shared together each day, hours of mindless, animal passion. She thought about her first affair, her second, her third. “Everything was your fault. Don’t you dare blame me.”

“I guess I’ve heard that before.” His mouth was an arrow-straight line. “Maybe you’re right. I am sorry. I’m sorry you got pregnant, sorry I was stupid enough to insist we marry, sorry I was stupid enough to want to marry you.” His tone dropped. “I’m sorry I kept on caring, long past the time any other man would.”

She was stunned. He had never apologized to her before, not for anything. And this was the first time he had openly admitted any of his feelings—feelings that thrilled her and gave her hope. “Jake.” Swiftly she approached again. “I can’t bear it.” She wrapped her arms around him tightly. “God, I can’t bear it! They could put you away for life!”

He quickly untangled her body from his and pushed her away. “Nothing has changed,” he said stiffly.

Suzanne looked up at him, stunned. “I love you. And—you love me. Why—you just said as much!”

His smile was twisted, but he did not refute the last statement. “If you love me, Suzanne, you have a great way of showing it. Tell me, who warmed your bed last night, while I rotted in this cell? And who’s going to warm it tonight—and tomorrow and the next night?”

Suzanne stiffened. “No one,” she said. And it was true that last night she had been alone, and she would probably be alone tonight, too. But if he thought she would let her body wither up and die while he was in prison, why, he was wrong.

He laughed harshly. “Do you expect me to believe that you’re going to be faithful to me now, when you’ve never been faithful to me before? Do you expect me to believe that no man’s going to stroke that hot little body of yours while I guard my ass and rot in jail for the next ten or fifteen years until I get paroled—if I do?” He was shouting now.

And Suzanne was as angry. “How could you even expect that of me now!” she cried. “When this is all your fault to begin with?”

As quickly as the anger had erupted, it was gone. Something dark and sad flitted in lake’s gaze. “Right. Of course. All my fault. As always.” His expression hardened as they stared at each other. “Bring Sofie to me, Suzanne. Now.”

Suzanne tensed. If Jake were not leaving tomorrow, she would turn on her heel and walk out on him for his obvious preference for their daughter now, when he should be thinking only of her, his wife, when he should be begging
her
for forgiveness and declaring his undying love. Damn him! But he was leaving, and he would be convicted for his crime and imprisoned in England, and Suzanne did not know how long it might be before she would be able to visit him again. Or if he would ever be paroled—if he would ever come home at all. And suddenly she was frightened, some of her anger draining away. What if she never saw him again?

It was a terrifying thought.

If only the past could be changed.

Resolutely Suzanne stepped forward, intending to use her sexual allure to soften him, to tame him. It always worked.