Forbidden (16 page)

An elixir he had never sampled before, the mere taste, the act, he had never considered before he met Amy Ross, drew him ever closer to her and into an unrivalled passion for this woman who surprised him at every turn.

In the morning with the sun streaming in on their faces, it was Amy who awakened first. She turned on her side, leaned on her elbow and watched him sleeping. She wanted to cry for the sheer handsomeness of this big man lying fast asleep next to her. Amy wanted to
move away a lock of the hair that had fallen on his forehead, to touch his cheek, kiss the lashes on his eyelids, lick his lips with the point of her tongue. Of course she did none of these things, didn’t want to wake him, just lay there believing that she was the luckiest woman in the world.

This handsome, talented, extraordinarily sexy man was hers. There were to be many other mornings like this. It was hard for her to believe. She had no doubts now about Jarret loving her, he had told her so continually while they were in the throes of their lustful coupling.

He opened his eyes. The moment he did Amy realised that she and Jarret were back in the real world. Their reunion had been so intense and thrilling, a miracle really, that they had somehow forgotten the real world.

Jarret turned on his side and leaned on his elbow, taking the same position that Amy had been in for hours. They gazed into each other’s eyes. ‘Good morning,’ he said, and a smile crossed his lips.

‘Good morning,’ she replied.

‘I’m famished, and so must you be.’

‘Yes, I am actually. What shall we do about it?’

‘We’ll have breakfast in bed. Would you like that? Or else in the garden?’

‘The garden.’

‘I’m so happy you’re here,’ he told her, and kissed her on the lips. ‘It’s frightening to think that we might have missed last night if fate had not been in our favour.’

There was a tap at the bedroom door. Jarret wrapped
himself in a blanket and went to see who it was.

Fee and he exchanged some words in French. When Jarret finally closed the door he told her, ‘Fee seems to have anticipated our wishes. Breakfast awaits us in the garden.’

Jarret was no longer there when she returned from bathing. The room had been put in order, her clothes gathered up from the floor and laid neatly on the bed. She dressed and went out on to the loggia. The view was remarkable. The magnificent large garden in the inner courtyard below, and beyond it a canal that merged into another much wider, with beyond that the crumbling buildings, domes and spires, towers and roofscapes of Venice – so different from the topography of New York City or Easthampton, the places where she worked and lived.

She recognised the music of Vivaldi coming from somewhere in the house. Several minutes later, while she was admiring the magic world that Jarret and Fee had created for themselves, she came to understand in a flash of enlightenment that she was a stranger in a strange land when it came to their life. How much would they all have to change to make it otherwise? That became the burning question, the imponderable. The other and even more burning question was, could they? And yet more questions – did they want to? Would they?

Jarret entered the garden, a piece of bread in one hand and an apple in the other. Just the sight of him and all questions were automatically relegated to the back of her mind. Amy hurried along the loggia and down
the flight of stone steps. He heard her coming and turned. The light was playing on his blond hair: a Greek or Roman god, that must have been his role in another life. A statue of one at least. Yes, there was something very still and statue-like about Jarret, maybe an indifference to the world, certainly a coolness, even a timidity, that was incredibly seductive. She gave him a hug and kissed him. It wasn’t returned. Instead, he broke off a piece of his bread and handed it to her.

‘I thought you’d never come out of your bath. I missed you. I hope it’s not always going to be that way, my missing you to the point of distraction.’ And he smiled at her.

‘Words that would make any woman’s heart race,’ was her answer to him.

Jarret popped the remainder of the bread that had been spread thick with butter and dribbled with honey into his mouth, and taking her hand in his they walked together through the garden to a table that had been set for breakfast.

It was vaguely reminiscent of the Mad Hatter’s tea party, that breakfast: the small table had a gold cloth on it with an edge that was frayed, and another cloth that was half eaten away and worn through in several places to show the wooden surface of the table beneath. No two pieces of china on the table matched, the tea pot had a broken spout, the creamer had lost its handle. There was a loaf of rough bread on the table, a bread knife that had lost its rippled edge and was dull, the bowl of honey had a crack in it and oozed on to the plate
beneath it. The apple basket’s handle was broken.

Just as Jarret gallantly held out a chair with a broken back for Amy, they heard Fee call out, ‘Hey ho.’ He was walking across the garden towards them dressed in a black caftan, a black silk turban round his head, and carrying a platter covered with paper-thin slices of smoked ham and luscious-looking purple figs. Behind him followed George, dressed in jeans and a white shirt open at the neck, carrying a platter of fried eggs.

‘A breakfast for lovers,’ said Fee, a smile on his lips and his arms open to embrace Amy once he had placed the platter on the table.

‘Oh, Fee, it looks marvellous. How kind, thanks so much.’

George was placing his platter on the table and embracing Jarret with a manly hug when Fee answered Amy with, ‘Not me to thank or Jarret. We hate food and cooking in the house. It was George. I told him you had returned to us and he offered to cook breakfast for you.’

Beautiful, calm and sweet George with whom everyone fell in love. He seemed like an island of sanity and reality in this amazing world of Jarret and Fee’s. And yet she knew that he lived in much the same unreality as they did. It shocked her to think of even using George as a scale to measure Jarret’s life by; there was something way over the top about it. In her overwhelming erotic passion for him, and for the sake of their love for each other, Amy was trying to accept Jarret and Fee’s lifestyle as just another world. A lifestyle as valid as hers or anyone else’s, one she could be happy living.

George placed an arm round her and gave her a kiss. ‘Welcome back to Venice.’

He and Fee fussed over her, and Jarret looked pleased if not just a little aloof from it all. Ravenous, the two lovers sat down immediately to eggs that were cooked to perfection.

‘Fried eggs – the one thing George has learned to master in the kitchen. We should be more than honoured that he’s cooked for us, Amy. You see, he no longer cooks breakfast for anyone,’ said Jarret, a teasing note in his voice.

Amy had the feeling that Jarret was trying to tell her something more about George. People seemed always to be dropping innuendoes about him. She could not understand what they were trying to say or why they were so displeased with him on the one hand and so admiring of him on the other.

The two men refused to join Amy and Jarret for breakfast. George wandered round the garden after telling her, ‘This is Jarret’s pride and joy. This garden is one of the treasures of Venice.’

‘Savannah loved this garden, she was its inspiration. It was somewhere for her to sit. She never could quite get over a city without grand gardens as in the South. It’s filled with cuttings she and Jarret took from their travels round the world – that’s part of its exotic charm. Jarret’s as devoted to this garden as he is to painting. He says it’s his sanity
and
his love. It’s too bad Savannah’s so bitter about it. Well, what are you two going to do today?’ asked Fee.

Amy found it oddly disturbing the way he spoke of Savannah, as if she were still part of Jarret’s life, and Jarret, who had not even mentioned an ex-wife’s existence to Amy, merely listened expressionless and without comment. Indeed, as if he were endorsing the fact that she was still a factor in his life. Amy waited for Jarret to say something about Savannah directly to her: ‘She’s my ex-wife’ would have been enough to ease her anxiety about the power she sensed Savannah still wielded over him. Nothing, not a word. It had been his opportunity to mention and dispense with her in their lives. His not doing so made it clear to Amy that if Savannah wasn’t there in the flesh, she was certainly there as a ghost to haunt them.

Instead he answered Fee with, ‘We haven’t thought about that. What are you going to do?’

‘I’m going to stay with Alfreda and leave you two alone.’

Jarret said nothing, merely handed a fig to Amy, having first turned the skin inside out so she could suck the luscious ripe flesh from it.

George left soon after his walk through the garden. Fee hovered over their breakfast but refused to sit down and join them. Instead he ingratiated himself even further with Amy and eased her anxiety considerably when he told her, ‘I can hardly believe this is the same man who was stomping round here unhappily, unable to paint, besotted by a lady art historian he might never see again. Now here you are, and what a joy to see you and have Jarret out of the doldrums. I don’t think we
should ever let you go. You’re his happiness.’

Fleetingly what went through Amy’s mind was embarrassingly trite: love could conquer anything, certainly ghosts from the past. Trite and wrong, very bad thinking. But she was hopelessly in love so she ignored all the warning signs and asked Jarret, ‘Is that true?’

He laughed. ‘It would seem so, according to Fee.’

‘Never mind according to Fee. What about according to you?’

‘Fee and I most always think the same. Be satisfied with that.’

It never entered Amy’s mind not to be, and when he said, ‘Let’s go to the studio. I want to show you what I’ve been working on since you left. It seems you’re my muse as well as my sensual delight,’ she could have wept for joy.

Fee had been flitting about the garden like a rare species of black butterfly. He hovered over Jarret now. ‘Amy’s leaving in three days’ time, Jarret, so you sort yourselves out before she does. I want no sad faces or sulks from you, and no more changes of plan. Paris and Istanbul, the sooner the better, remember?’

Before Jarret could answer, two people entered the garden and he rose from his chair to go and meet them. It gave Amy an opportunity to realise that to love Jarret was to take on Fee. There was a bond between these two men which she could not quite understand. She had never had a friendship or known one between two people as strong or as complicated as Fee and Jarret’s. The
realisation that Fee was an enormous influence over Jarret became an immediate concern for her, and though she liked Fee and was grateful to him for finding her and delivering her to Jarret, she recognised in him, for all his fun and wit, an ambitious and Byzantine mind. Amy saw herself as a problem in Fee’s life, and Jarret’s love for her as an even greater problem for him. Unless Amy fitted Fee’s requirements – and she hadn’t the vaguest idea what those might be – she sensed her love affair could be short-lived. She knew in her heart that for them both this was going to be the love that was meant to be and for ever, but that it was a fragile thing.

Amy felt suddenly quite frightened for them both. It was a gut feeling for she really had nothing to base her fears on except the way Jarret and Fee were conducting their lives together. Fee was quick to see the colour drain from her face. He was standing close to her and asked, ‘Is something wrong?’

Never one for artifice or for looking to add troubles to her life, Amy asked, ‘Fee, do you mind Jarret and I loving each other?’

‘If I minded, would I have brought you to him, Amy?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I’m your friend, and a good enough one to tell you that Jarret’s falling in love with you is a great surprise, as much to him as it is to me. It would be best for you to remember that Jarret has only one great love and that’s painting. All other loves are sexual, temporary or forbidden, so you see you’re no long-term threat to our lives. That’s why it was easy to pick you up and bring
you home for Jarret’s amusement.’

‘You make yourself sound like a pimp, Fee.’

He laughed. ‘Calling me a pimp, though I am and have always been that for Jarret, is clearly not the way for you to ingratiate yourself with me, Amy. You’re a clever and beautiful woman and Jarret’s in love with you, and rightly so. You’re terrific. He’s sexually besotted by you, will give you all he can of himself, and you can have a great time, especially in bed. I suggest you make the most of it and let me be your friend as I was Savannah’s. We can have a good time together, and we will. Just play by the rules of the game.’

Amy could hardly believe that she was too much in love with Jarret not to just walk away from Fee. He was not exactly sinister but instinct told her he was dangerous for her to have as an enemy. She would have to stand up to him, be civil, and cope with him because he was and would always be a part of her life as long as she stayed with Jarret.

‘What rules?’ she asked.

‘Give Jarret what he wants, no more, no less, and we’ll all be well and happy.’ Fee took her hand in his and kissed it.

Was it as simple as that? Was Fee telling her it was not him nor her but Jarret who was in control of his love affair with Amy? She had no time to ponder these questions because Jarret returned to introduce her to the two people who had arrived – a Greek painter and her friend, a sculptor, who lived in Paris.

Their arrival sparked off another glorious day with
Jarret. His friends were amusing, charming, and very talented and clever artists. Looking at Jarret’s work with them, talking art, going to the painter’s studio and looking at her canvases, then on to a small inexpensive restaurant where they were the guests of the new arrivals, was exciting and fun. They drew Amy out and found her to be as Fee had told them she was: a clever New York art world player who knew all about the contemporary scene there.

The communication between herself and Jarret, rich and interesting although not overtly emotional, was passionate enough for the Greek painter to whisper in Amy’s ear, ‘How did you do it, capture that elusive heart of his?’