If the Shoe Fits (17 page)

Nelson said thank you for the favor, shook Will Cranbrook’s hand and then Eliot’s, with genuine regard, then gave Penny and Sarah brief air kisses before opening the door to the limousine for his chirping wife.

Eliot opened their car door and helped his mother in, then his father got in, then he winked at Sarah and gestured broadly with his free hand.

“After you, Miss Sarah James.”

“Why thank you, Mister Eliot Cranbrook.” She nearly squeaked as she felt his hand on her backside when she bent over to get into the low-slung vehicle, then looked up to see Mr. and Mrs. Cranbrook—Penny and Will—reaching out to assist her.

“Sarah, dear, are you all right?” Penny asked.

Sarah hunched a bit, righted herself, then sat in the rear-facing seat behind the driver. “These shoes are some of my favorites, but they are as high as Everest and are not designed for getting in and out of cars!”

Eliot had slipped in right behind her and was in the other rear-facing seat, smiling at her attempt to cover up his overture. Sarah looked across her lap as Penny leaned her head into her husband’s waiting shoulder, and she had an image of her head resting on Devon’s shoulder that very afternoon while they watched the movie together. She leaned back into her seat, her face hidden from Eliot by the tinkling bar of glasses that rose up between them.

It was fun to be admired, but she was ready to get home.

To get home to Devon if she wanted to be honest with herself.

Soon after Sarah set off, Devon had returned to the Four Seasons to gather his things, settle his bill, and return to the warm haven of Sarah’s lair. He didn’t want to invade her privacy, but after making himself an omelet for supper and finishing the adventure novel he had started at Heathrow, he found himself wandering through her living room, getting a feel for it, for her, picking up small objects. He examined a piece of antique ivory in the shape of a lemon with an intricately carved village scene perfectly rendered in its tiny interior. He contemplated the heft of and possible uses for a heavy silver letter opener or knife that looked to be of North African or Arabian origin.

Devon spent a long time holding an old but lovingly polished sterling silver frame that showed a black-and-white photograph from another generation. A lovely debutante was being presented between two young blades in white tie, her light eyes twinkling with the expectation of many unknown but longed-for pleasures to come, and her lovely fall of blond hair in a youthful, fetching style with one piece partially pinned up and away from her forehead. It was obviously Sarah’s mother. Devon knew there was a stepmother, but he had never asked if her parents had divorced or if her mother had died.

He was standing there in the bay window of Sarah’s living room, overlooking Oak Street, when a stretch limousine pulled up and another handsome blade from his generation stepped out with alacrity and whipped around the rear of the vehicle to open the door for Sarah and then help her out.

Devon thought he looked far too young to be Sarah’s father or one of Sarah’s father’s work colleagues, and by the way he was gripping her upper arms through that thick pile of fur, Devon contemplated taking the heavy Baccarat paperweight that he’d been moving from one hand to another and hurling it at the guy’s head. Devon had excellent aim and could probably knock him out if he took a moment to calculate the angle and distance accurately.

The ass was leaning in for a kiss, but Sarah turned her head at the last possible moment, so all he got was a cool cheek instead of those tender lips. Devon stopped moving the paperweight from hand to hand and felt his grip tighten around the poor piece of expensive crystal that happened to be in his fist. The car pulled away from the curb a minute later and Devon heard Sarah’s footfalls on the stairs from the street a few seconds after that.

Why had he been looking out the window in the first place? Was he hovering like a child waiting for her return?
What
a
jerk
, he thought. And too late to trot upstairs and pretend he had been watching a movie in her boudoir. He felt like a fool, a kept man all of a sudden. Not the carefree, fast-car-driving, mindless-pleasure-seeking persona he had spent years manufacturing, that she would be expecting.

By the time Sarah opened the door to her home and came in a breathless rush toward him, her arms outstretched like a toddler, he had worked himself into a proper snit. Her skin against his face was cold from the biting night air, and the fur cape was monstrously sexy, and he knew he was about to fuck it all to hell.

But some things couldn’t be helped.

“So, who was the guy who just tried to… maul you… and why did you lie to me and tell me you were going out with your parents?”

She stilled and realized that he was not even returning her embrace.

Just
as
I’ve always imagined
love
, she thought:
misery
.

Here she was, practically diving into this man’s arms, and he was going to start an argument. Her arms fell away from him in silent reply and she started to turn back to the front hall to put the cape away, take off her sky-high pumps, and crawl into bed.

Alone.

He could take his infantile jealousy and shove it somewhere dark and private.

She wasn’t more than halfway across the beautiful room when she felt him come upon her from behind and force her body around to face him, one hand gripping her upper arm, ironically, in exactly the same place Eliot had held her moments before. His other hand clenched around the paperweight.

“Sarah. I just asked you a direct question.” If he was going to rip this burgeoning relationship to shreds, he might as well do it properly. “Who was the guy?”

“Fuck you.”

“What?”

“You heard me.” Her face was pale with rage. Her lips pressed together almost to the point of being invisible. “I hardly ever swear, so the novelty, at least, should have startled you into consciousness. But since you appear to be
unconscious
, I am not surprised you didn’t recognize the words. So, for your edification, I shall repeat.” She paused, then spoke, as if to a village idiot, “Fuck. You.”

He was afraid he might crush the glass weight in his hand, so he loosened his hold slightly, then carefully put it back exactly where it had been placed on the spindly little French table (that he also wanted to smash coincidentally). He knew he was overreacting. This was all far too out of control for only having known the stupid woman for a week. Sarah had breached all of his defenses and he was disgusted with himself. Devon wanted her so keenly and with such an irrational, violent level of possession that he did not even recognize his feelings or, moreover, that he (not she) was responsible for them.

He attempted a coherent sentence, but the combination of his own cloud of unfamiliar emotion and the sound (and sight) of her heaving breath, along with those arctic, fierce blue eyes staring at him, challenging him, drove him into a completely irrational fury. He wasn’t even mad about the guy in the limo; he was livid at
her
: Sarah was to blame for making him this way. He reached for her, almost tenderly, letting his hand slip between the cool exterior of fur and then up against the warm silk of her blouse. Her eyes flickered, softened for a second at his touch, then blinked and held fast to the look of angry determination.

He undid the fastenings at the neck of the cape, slowly, trying to control the dangerous rage that was far too near, woven into the very fabric of his desire. He removed the cape from her shoulders and laid it down on the Aubusson carpet, delicately making a soft place for the two of them. His hand was shaking with the effort required to control the tornado of feelings. How was it possible that he could adore and despise her so completely?

In silence, he lowered her and himself down onto the fur pallet, holding the back of her head tenderly as he guided her down onto the floor. He started to undo the loose fabric bow at the neck of her blouse, then, unable to fully undo the knot, he lost control and tore the fragile fabric right down the front of her torso. She looked at him with cold fury, her eyes becoming more vacant and distant with each eternal second that passed. She finally turned her head to one side, her silence letting him know that he might overpower her body, but her mind and spirit would never be overpowered.

***

The glow that Sarah had been feeling when she left the restaurant, her anticipatory warmth at returning to a happy, lusty, carefree Devon was a prehistoric, fossilized memory. Regardless of whatever happened tonight, this… this… whatever it had been with Devon… was over as far as Sarah was concerned. And she never knew whether it was that thought, or the fact that her glance happened to land upon her youthful, innocent,
perfect
mother—in her white cotillion dress, her fiancée on one arm, her handsome brother on the other—that caused one treacherous tear to roll down her cheek.

She closed her eyes, thinking she could retract the evidence of her sadness, wish it away. She hated that Devon would ever know she had let him in, even a little. Sarah hated herself for dreaming that little dream. Then she hated Devon even more for making those dreams cheap and meaningless.

Devon saw himself for the hideous person he was in that moment, in her eyes, in that one tear, and made a futile effort to put the irreparable silk shirt back across her beautiful, vulnerable skin. She ignored him completely and simply rolled away from him and curled into a fetal position on her living room floor.

Sarah drew the fur cape around her like a cocoon. She kept her eyes closed, which was probably immature, but she didn’t care about being mature anymore. She was the innocent party. He was the cause of her misery.

She could tell that he was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall a few feet away from her. His breathing was labored and he was muttering self-deprecating epithets to himself.

“Sarah. I’ll never be able to apologize enough for what just happened. I’m a wreck.”

She curled tighter into herself and sniffed.

“And I don’t expect you to forgive me—”

“Good! Because I never will!” she blurted into the fur around her chin.

He muttered another self-hating expletive.

“This was my mother’s blouse—” It was such a stupid thing to say but it made her start crying all over again. “And you’re the rat bastard who ruined it, and for some despicable reason, I want
you
to make me feel better.”

He was on the floor behind her before she finished the sentence, pulling her into him—her back against his front—hugging her close, breathing his words into her hair and neck and ear. “Please let me make it better, Sar.”

Sarah had a momentary flash of him tying her to the bed and lighting the house on fire. This was a bad, bad beginning to anything worth pursuing. But it felt so good, having him hold her like that.

She turned and faced him, looking hard into his frightened, penitent gray eyes. “What the hell came over you?”

He shut his eyes.

“Open your eyes and tell me,” she ordered.

He opened his eyes and stared into hers. “I was furious…”

“I got that part…”

He took another breath. “I… I don’t know what to tell you, Sarah. I spent the past few hours inhaling everything about you and wandering around your house imagining all the things I was going to do to you when you got back.” He breathed again. “And then I saw that bastard—”

The fury was obviously still close to the surface, but he paused to collect himself. Sarah stiffened slightly and pulled the cape tighter around her. The oddest part was that she wasn’t afraid of him, not in any real physical way. She had been the one who’d wanted to taunt him and bait him into being some sort of unreserved savage. But there was something about his eyes that terrified her, not for herself, but for him. It looked miserable in there.

They stared at each other in those tense, close inches.

“I don’t think I can handle it, Devon.”

No!
her libido cried.
Make
it
work! He is forgivable! He is begging! What are you saying?! He is hotter than Hades! Get your priorities straight! Think of the makeup sex!

He stared at her and she saw the defeat settle in his shoulders. “I totally understand.” He leaned in and kissed her forehead. “No emotional mess. Those were your terms, right?”

She smiled, a small and weak lift of her lips, and nodded. “I… I just can’t…”

He reached up between them and touched her cheek. “You’re right. I’m totally bad news. I thought I could be… good.”

She smiled a little bit more, but it was all resignation. “I liked you bad,” she whispered.

“Oh, Sarah James. You sweet thing. You don’t even know the half of it. I’m a rat bastard, remember?”

“Do you think you would ever hit me?”

“Never!” he answered with complete conviction, then his eyes blinked once. “But I can’t answer for what I wanted to do to that prick who was trying to cop a feel when you got out of his car.” He ran his hand across the fur cape where it rested along the ridge of her hip, already looking sort of nostalgic. “I should probably go.”

“You don’t have to.” Sarah wiped her eyes and awkwardly tried to sit up.

Yesssss!
Her crazy body rejoiced.

“Here, let me help you up.” Devon shifted around so he was off the floor and then gave her a hand. She was still holding the cape to cover her exposed front where the blouse was ripped.

Devon raked his hair with both hands once she was standing. “Holy shit. I am so, so sorry.”

Sarah looked down. “Let me go upstairs and change and maybe we can just have a drink and try to sort some of this out. Okay?”

“Okay. I’ll wait in the kitchen.”

“Okay.” Sarah stared at him for a few seconds longer, trying desperately to repress the urge to lean into his hard chest and lose herself in him again. She turned abruptly to go upstairs to her bedroom before his body got the best of her. She caught a glimpse of herself in the gilt mirror on the hall landing outside her bedroom and almost laughed. She looked like a caricature of a washed-up lush from
Valley
of
the
Dolls
: mascara smudged, hair tangled on one side, blouse torn… all she needed was Norma Desmond’s cigarette holder and a big tumbler of scotch.

Sarah stopped short, all thoughts of scotch forgotten, when she opened the door into her bedroom. Puccini’s “
O Mio Babbino Caro
” was playing softly on the sound system; the fireplace and a few candles lit the room to a romantic glow. The bed had been turned down and there was a bottle of champagne and two glasses on the side table in the bay window. It couldn’t have been any more romantic if Devon had hired set dressers from Louis B. Mayer, circa 1940.

What a waste.

The room was warm from the fire and Sarah threw the cape on one of the side chairs near the window. She continued into the closet and took off the torn blouse. Her mother’s blouse… why had she even told him that? Everything seemed empty all of a sudden. What did a shirt or a cape or a silver picture frame or a charm bracelet or any of it
matter
if her mother was dead? She rarely said it just like that: dead. She always euphemized the whole experience of her mother’s illness and departure: she had passed away… gone… we lost her… such a tragedy… the sadness… her demise.

After Sarah took the blouse off, she let the shredded pieces of the vintage YSL silk fall across the palm of one hand. Should she even bother trying to salvage it? What an absurd, depressing reminder of a short-lived (her first!) love affair. What a cliché. The torn pieces. The remnants of her feelings. She was hating herself already. She almost laughed when she imagined repairing it with thick black wool and knitting needles, creating a sort of Frankenstein scar that would run straight up the front of the delicate chiffon. Alexander McQueen would have loved that. She made a mental note to look into incorporating some kind of scarring into the fall line of shoe designs she’d been working on.