Slave to Love (12 page)

“He’s a player,” Monica surmises, “just another fucking player.”

Tears are starting to roll down my cheeks. “I don’t know why I’m so disappointed. It’s just all about the chase for him.”

“For most men,” Beverly hands me a tissue.

“I am so glad I haven’t slept with him. I don’t even want to do that event of his with him. I wish I could just give him back to Susan and Robyn and let them deal with him.” I know I’m sounding like an unprofessional brat, but my heart is bruised, feeling like someone punctured it and let all the hope run out.

“This doesn’t make sense,” Monica is shaking her head. “We watched the way he looks at you, Sierra. Beverly and I were talking about it after you guys left for Universal yesterday. He is totally into you.”

“He wants to fuck me, Monica, that’s all. I’m just a conquest, nothing more and then he goes home to his girlfriend.” Dabbing my tears away, “I hate him.”

Without even ever having slept with him, I feel more betrayed by this man than I ever have by any other with whom I’ve been involved. It felt like we were taking the time to get to know one another, personally and professionally. We were working together on projects like partners. We were building trust and rapport. It felt like we could be something really special.

But it was all a lie. The man I met who grabbed my ass in a boardroom was the real Hale Lundström.

And his friends told me that he would keep me safe. Ha. What they should have warned me was beware the traitor. Beware the cheater.

It’s a really weird thing for me but when I am hurting, depressed, feeling out of sorts, Central Market, an upscale grocery story with the best, and sometimes weirdest, produce in the world, is a place I can go that instantly makes me feel better. I don’t know if it’s the bright, happy colors of the fruits and vegetables, the wonderful scent of organic herbs, the smell of fresh baked breads or perusing the cheese shop by country, but walking around in Central Market, it feels like the aisles absorb my pain, leeching the hurt from my veins and heart and leaving me numb, but in less misery.

I’m in the white wines of Southern France, a long, thin green glass bottle of Pinet de Picpoul in hand. I’ve been home a little over a week and trying my hardest not to think about him. We emailed one another twice during the week. Strictly business, there was no hint in any of the correspondence that we even knew one another.

He’s over in the reds of Italy. Turned part way toward me, I can see his profile as he studies the bottle.

Son of a bitch is back,
I think, after the stabbing pain in my chest subsides. An adrenaline rocket has just been launched into my bloodstream giving my heart a hard knock.

I’m on the move without thinking, it’s just a gut reaction as I work my way toward his aisle.

“Guess you’re back from New York, huh?” it’s out of my mouth the minute I step up to him.

I’m not prepared for what registers on his face as he looks up from the bottle. His initial expression is filled with unabashed love and in a nanosecond I feel it deep in my heart. But just as quickly as it appeared, it evaporates into shock.

“Maggie?” He looks as if he’s going to pass out, but recovers when he sees my reaction.

Maggie? Who the hell is Maggie?
And this is not Hale. His features are rounder than Hale’s. They look almost exactly alike, but I’d describe the man standing before me as really cute, while I’d use the term really handsome on Hale.

“You’re Sierra.”

Now I almost pass out.
Who is he and how does he know who I am?

“I’m Noel. Hale’s brother. I saw you leaving the office one day and asked who you were.”

“Because I look like Maggie?”

He nods.

“I see.” Looking down at the floor I’m filled with another wave of pain. Did Hale seek me out to work on the project with him because I look like someone named Maggie?

“Is he back in town?”

Noel shakes his head. “No, he’s still up in New England.”

“New England? Shows how much I know. I thought he was in New York.”

Noel looks incredibly uncomfortable and I’m not sure why, but I need to get away.

“Well, nice meeting you. Say hi to your brother.” I practically knock over a woman with a small child as I rush away.

Looking back, I see she and the little boy are now beside Noel and they are all looking at me.

Standing outside the Nantucket Angler’s
Club, I’m glad this weekend is almost over, although being on the island always fills me with an odd combination of dread and solace. As I walk the narrow cobblestone streets of the historic district, the old weathered-shingled homes and businesses provide a distinct comfort that harkens my earliest childhood memories, and the smells and feels of summer. There is no place I feel more at home than on the island, and especially, those ancient streets.

The Angler’s Club is another story, with the exception of the dining room where, with just one taste of their fried clams and lobster salad rolls, I can be transported right back to the perfect moment in time, the time before the shrieking of gulls circling in the sky could be felt deep in my chest. Beyond a once a year feast on the lobster and clams, I never want to be here, for reasons obvious. Yet, I never want to leave as if somehow just my mere presence can rewrite history. I, who have become the master of creating something from nothing, am impotent in recreating the one thing that I long to create.

Changing one moment. One single moment.

And I hate the fact that I am a mere mortal who will never possess the power I most want.

“Nice ceremony today,” Jim Shannon, the club’s director of tournaments and awards, comes to stand next to me, as I look at the docked boats moored just the other side of New Whale Street.

I nod in acknowledgement.

“She would have been thirty-nine this summer.”

Again, I nod in acknowledgement.

“Do you think Noel will ever join you?” Jim’s known us since elementary school.

“With his teaching schedule and Oliver it makes it harder. It always falls smack in the middle of first semester for him,” I wonder if I’m explaining or just making excuses for my brother.

“I think it would be good for him. He loved her.” Always the sensitive one, his calling to be a pastor is probably something we could have correctly guessed at by the time he was eight.

“We all loved her.” I keep staring at the boats in the harbor, because if I look at him, he might see the truth. And I can’t let that happen.

“Yes. Yes, we did. We all loved her.”

And so concludes my annual early fall sojourn to Nantucket to award the trophies in the Nantucket Angler’s Club Margaret Myers Annual Memorial Shark Tournament.

On the road to Providence, not five minutes outside of Hyannis and Noel texts. I expect, “How did it go?”

I met Sierra.
Is not what I expected.

Where?
I feel the rush immediately in my blood stream
.

Central Market. She was buying white. I was buying red.

How is she? Is she OK?

I don’t know her. How can I answer that?

What did she say?

She asked if you were still in NY.

Was she wearing the mermaid?

What?

Necklace. Mermaid necklace.

I didn’t notice it if she was.

You would’ve noticed it, brother.

Hale, what are you doing?

Driving.
Thank goodness for voice to text.

No, what are you doing with Sierra?

Presently nothing
. But maybe there is no time like the present.

She’s not Maggie. Is this some passive/aggressive thing to get at me or work through your shit?

Geez, Noel. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Let it go.

I called her Maggie by mistake. I was surprised and taken aback when she approached. Gut reaction.

You did what? Talk about passive/aggressive, bro.

Turning my phone off, I toss it across the passenger seat of the rental. That conversation is done. Totally done. I don’t even want to see his next response.

He called Sierra, Maggie. Great. Just great. Lord knows what this girl thinks. No woman wants to be called by the name of another woman. And how the hell did Sierra meet Noel?

Fifteen minutes later, I reach for the phone and turn it back on, ignoring Noel’s six subsequent texts, I hit send to a number programmed into my cell.

“Hi, I’m booked on a flight from Providence to New York City later this afternoon and I’d like to cancel that and rebook myself on a flight to Austin, Texas.

It’s time to set things straight.

It’s dark as I pull the Lotus into her driveway, but there are lights on in her house, so I assume I won’t be waking her when I ring her bell.

“One sec,” I hear from inside and see the sheer curtains move.

“Hale?” Opening the door, she stands there with her head cocked questioningly.

And I react. I react to the loose, wild hair, the tight, short jean cut-offs, the blue plaid cotton shirt over a white ribbed tank. I react to no make-up, no bra, no shoes. I react to Sierra Stone standing before me, caught totally off-guard.

Taking her face in both hands and backing her up against the door frame, I use my whole body to pin her in place. My mouth is on hers the minute she opens hers to speak, my tongue seizing that very moment to thrust in and claim what I have wanted for so long. What I have waited for.

There is nothing soft, sweet or sensitive about this kiss. This kiss was born out of a desire so deep that I can’t shake it, as it bombards my every waking thought, and has distracted me for months to the point where I am living and breathing to take her hard and possess her. This has now gone well beyond want and need. Tasting her mouth has haunted me since she walked into the bar in The St. Regis rendering me practically speechless, this total anomaly with her sparkly Louboutins and fresh, clean face. This girl next door gone wild.

As the tension recedes from her body, her arms come up to wrap around my neck and she begins to kiss me back with the same fervor and intensity that I’m kissing her. I drop one hand from her face to the curve of her delectable ass. The ass that got me in so much trouble to start with. Wrapping my palm around the cheek, I squeeze it hard as I pull her against me, eliciting a moan that gets me even more excited. I let my fingers stray into her crack as my other hand drops to the other ass cheek. Rubbing her against me, her noises become more prominent, creating the beginning of our story. I need her more than she can imagine. More than she’s ready to hear me tell her, as I simultaneously pull her against me and press her against the unyielding door frame, my tongue deep in her mouth, exploring and claiming. Finally.