It Stings So Sweet (32 page)

And if I become his wife, that’s all I’ll ever be.

How foolish I’ve been to believe
desire wasn’t dangerous to someone like me, someone who took precautions. Someone who doesn’t
care what society thinks. It never occurred to me that desire might be more dangerous to me than anyone
else. “You shouldn’t have put this on a card, Robert.”

He looks shell-shocked. “Why not? You’re
not turning me down, are you?”

Tears fill my eyes. “I was never angling to land the most eligible
bachelor in America. I’m my own person. I love you but that doesn’t mean I want to be
Mrs. Robert
Aster
.”

He takes me by the arms, as if trying to understand. “Is this because of Clara and
Leo? I can’t promise to cut them out of my life, Sophie, but I can promise you they won’t be more than
friends.”

“Don’t be silly. I’m crazy about Clara and Leo. I would never want to cut them out
of our lives.”

He brightens. “You wouldn’t?”

“Of course not. Robert, I think I first fell
in love with you when I realized you could find it in yourself to form such tender attachments to
them, without regard to convention . . . but I should have taken a warning. You couldn’t make your
relationship with Clara and Leo fit into what was expected, so you left them. Well, you can’t make
me fit, either. I’m not a substitute for them that you can mold into a more convenient shape.”

“You were never, ever a substitute, Sophie. Don’t you know that I love you?”

“I want you
to
respect
me and to respect yourself, too . . . and I don’t think you do.”

A look of pure
pain flashes across his face. “Are you saying you don’t want to be with me?”

The question makes
me hiccup with bitter, near-hysterical laughter. “I want to be with you all the time. I want you
more than I thought anyone could want another person. More than reason or good sense would allow,
and that’s the problem.”

A hint of a smile returns to his lips. “I don’t see how that’s a problem.”

“It’s a problem because I’m not sure I like who I become with you.”

His smile evaporates.

Then he pales. “I think I need to sit down.” He reaches behind him and finds a delicately wrought
iron chair, lowers himself onto it, straightens his hair, and gives me a look of pure devastation.
“What the devil are you saying?”

“I’ve been telling myself all the things we do together are
play. That when I bent over your knee for a spanking it was harmless. But maybe those fantasies should
have stayed secret and then I’d never know this about myself. I’d never know how much I crave in
the bedroom all the very same evils that I fight against outside of it.”

Wiping the sweat from
his brow with a monogrammed pocket square, he seems to get ahold of himself. Then he gingerly reaches
for the card in my hand. “Let’s forget this, Sophie. This clearly isn’t the right time. Sometimes
I forget how young you are. You haven’t seen or done enough yet. We’ll go back to the way it was
until you’re ready.”

He’s patronizing me now. Likely he always will. He knows how I feel about
marriage; I told him from the start. The very first day I ever met him. But he obviously dismissed
it, just like he’s dismissed everything else I’ve had to say that didn’t involve being bedded.

“Too late, Robert. You made the rules. Either I obey you or it’s over.”

He crumples the
card. “We’re not playing anymore, Sophie.”

Tears slip down my cheeks. “But I’m afraid it
is
over.”

He angers. “Why are you doing this? I
know
you want to be with me.”

I’m grateful
for the sensualist he’s helped me discover inside myself but not enough to betray the woman I’ve always
been and the woman I want to be. “You’re right. I want to be with you but I also want to be someone
people look up to one day. And I can’t be both.”

The words come out before I realize the extent
of the damage they will do. My hands fly to my mouth as if I could catch what I’ve said and take
it back. But I know that my words twist inside him with all the hurtful things his father has ever
said over the years. With all his insecurities and perceived failures. Even now, he doesn’t guard those
angelic hazel eyes against me, so I can see the toll it takes.

He stands up, his face a mask
of pain. “I see.”

“Robert, wait,” I say, as he walks to the door. “Robert!”

But he’s gone.

I hate myself.

I hate myself for hurting him. I
hate myself for wanting him. I hate myself for all the immoral thoughts that give me pleasure and for
not knowing which part of myself is a fraud.

Am I the girl who loves strong hands holding her
down or am I
the girl who can hold herself up?

I tell myself that heartbreak is just a growing
pain and that when I finally emerge from it, I’ll be something different. Something better. But
in the meantime, I can’t even bear to be alone with myself.

I throw myself back into my causes,
attending meetings at the Civics League every night. It’s the hottest part of summer. Tempers are
high in the city and people idle about on fire escapes in a state of overheated torpor, but I’m cold
all the time. Day after day, a chill seeps into me and I feel like I’m never going to be warm again.
Perhaps I’ve burned so hot with Robert that it’s all ashes now, nothing left inside me but cold,
hard reason.

I should be glad of it. I’ve always wanted to be that kind of no-nonsense woman
who makes an impact on the world.

Irene and Ethel try to keep my spirits up but I cry myself
to sleep at night, snuffling back my sobs underneath the blankets so I don’t wake them. The days are
even worse, because I spend them in the Aster Hotel, where everything reminds me of him, and everything
is stamped with his name.

One afternoon, we get a shipment of peach-colored lingerie with rosettes
for the display counter and I burst into tears, so violently sad that even Mrs. Mortimer pats
me on the back and sends me home for the day.

It’s two weeks before I see Robert again. I’m
shakier now than I was the first time he summoned me to his office, and when I see him at his desk,
piled high with papers and other evidence of diligence, I realize I have more reason to be. There’s
no dazzling smile for me, no witty repartee, no evidence of his boyish charm. Instead of a silver flask
of liquor, he takes a gulp from a teacup and finishes signing his name to some paper before reluctantly
meeting my eyes.

“Miss O’Brien,” he says coolly, setting the tone for our reunion. “I wanted
to return this to you.”

He hands me my journal, fastened with twine. It’s just a little book,
but the weight of it seems too much to bear alone. It doesn’t seem right that I should have it. When
he took it, it was more mine than anything else in the world. But it’s become ours now. And maybe
it’s so heavy because the end has been written.

I try to make him look at me. “Robert—”

“
Miss O’Brien
, I want you to know that I’ve read your list of the hotel staff’s complaints and I
found most of them to be reasonable, well-considered, and articulately presented. You are still a very
persuasive woman.”

How can he compliment me when he is so obviously angry? A ray of hope warms
my breast. “Then you’re going to make changes here in the hotel?”

His mouth turns down at the
corners. “No. You see my father owns this hotel. He always did. I’m merely a figurehead, put here
to pretend I’m not a complete disgrace to the family . . . or to any woman who might find herself in
my company. At any rate, the ambassador has heard rumor of a strike and you should know he’s hired
some men to intimidate the agitators in the coming weeks.”

He’s warning me. He’s giving us
a chance to strike, to act together before we’re singled out. I don’t know if he does it out of spite
for his father or love for me. Either way, standing here, so close, unable to touch him—it’s crushingly
painful, and it’s all I can do to banish the tears that spring to the corners of my eyes.

I thought I knew Robert, but what if he’s a stranger to me? Straightening my spine, I ask a question
that’s been niggling at me. “What happened to Mr. Underwood? He wasn’t on duty in the elevator when
I came up and he ought to have been.”

“I saw to it that he accepted a job elsewhere,” Robert
says, frostily. “Somewhere I won’t have to look at him every day.”

“But you swore to me that
you wouldn’t take any action against him when I told you that he was the one who knocked Gertie up.
You gave your word.”

“What do you think, Miss O’Brien? Do you think that I grabbed him by the
lapels of his jacket and tossed him out? Because I wanted to. Trust me, I did. But for your sake,
I secured him a promotion. I believe I’ve satisfied the requirements of honor.”

“A promotion?”

Robert puts his pen down and leans back in his chair. “I don’t know if you were aware, but Mr.
Underwood is a married man. He has a family on the outskirts of the city. His travel to and from
work takes up more hours of his day than is ideal. He harbors a secret dream of being a professional
golfer. There’s a green only a five-minute walk from his home. When I arranged for him to receive an
offer of gainful employment at the country club, he seemed positively thrilled to accept it.”

I blink. “How did you learn all that?”

“I pay attention to what people want and need. It’s
a skill I perfected in the war. The country club needs enthusiastic employees. Mr. Underwood obviously
needs more time with his wife. It seemed an ideal situation.”

Every sentence is clipped and
professionally distant. And in each of those sentences is buried enormous hurt and a reflection of
who he is. He thinks it’s a skill, but he’s wrong. His way of seeking out what people need and finding
it for them is a talent. It’s a gift. He saw into me, found what I wanted, and gave it to me.

It isn’t his fault that what I want is so wrong in every way.

I can’t even beg him to take
me back, because a woman ought not beg a man for anything. “I suppose that’s a very diplomatic way
of handling everything,” I say. “Thank you. Maybe you should reconsider going into politics . . .
I think you’d be awfully good at it.”

“I’m not going to live my life for my father.”

“You’re not living it for yourself, either, so why not?” I’m afraid this will be my last chance to ever
speak so familiarly with him. He glares at me, but somehow I find the courage to go on. “When the
ambassador says he wants you to make something of yourself, it doesn’t have to be the plan he’s mapped
out for you or a rebellion against that plan, either.”

“You’re the last person I ever thought
might defend him.”

“I don’t like his politics and I abhor his business practices, but he just
wants his son to take advantage of the opportunities that he worked for. He’s not so different than
anybody’s father that way. Where he went wrong is never telling you how proud of you he is, letting
you think that you failed him because you didn’t
kill
enough people. He should have understood what
a true hero you are. That’s why you love Leo Vanderberg. Because he
knows
the strength that’s deep
down inside you. He knows the hero that you are, and I know it, too.”

Robert closes his eyes.
“Don’t, Sophie . . .”

“I’m so sorry for what I said when I turned down your proposal. I know
how it sounded—I never meant it that way. I only meant to comment on
my
worth, not yours.”

“
Your
worth?” he snaps. “You don’t think I valued you? You were worth more to me than anything. More
than my entire family’s fortune.”

The sentiment is powerful but I notice he speaks in the past
tense and that he still doesn’t understand. “I want my worth to be measured in more than money.
I want to be measured by my actions, and not those in the bedroom.”

There’s a long silence
and then he says, “The first time I ever loved a woman, I lost her because I didn’t understand her.
I thought I understood you, but I don’t. And it’s clear now that I never will.”

“What don’t
you understand? Do you think every woman wants to be cosseted and—”

“Answer me this,” he says,
jabbing a finger in my direction. “Are you really so inflexibly devoted to the principle of nonconformity
that you can’t tolerate even a tiny bit of convention in your private affairs?”

“Marriage isn’t
a tiny thing. And I’d like to know how someone like
you
can break from what’s expected of you in
the bedroom, then resign yourself to a life as a traditional businessman with a conventional marriage
just like the father you pretend to despise.”

“Convention isn’t always bad,” he insists, without
answering my question. “You
like
that I take charge.”

“Only in one way, but I shouldn’t, even
then. I’m wrong to. The things I’ve exposed to you . . .”

“
Good Christ
, do you think you’re
the only one, Sophie? Do you think I was never terrified by what you bring out in me?”