Beyond Eden (30 page)

“Good, at least now you're talking. Dammit. No, that isn't profanity, that's just appropriate exclamations. No, dammit, don't struggle because you
won't get away from me. I like your belly against me; just get used to it. You've already bruised the hell out of me. You're a dirty fighter, Lindsay, and those long legs of yours reached every part of me. But I've got meaner, nastier experience, so forget trying to get away from me again. Put your head on my shoulder and relax. Do it, damn you! There, that's better.”

He could feel her hitching breath, nearly taste the uncertainty, the fear in her. Fear of him? No, more probably it was fear of herself, fear of a past that had colored her every action for years now. Finally her breathing slowed. He kept quiet, content to stroke her until she had eased against him, her muscles loose again.

“Now that you're back where you belong, I've got something to tell you.”

He didn't say a word. Finally she said, “What?”

He still held silent.

“What do you have to tell me?”

He kissed the top of her head and squeezed his arms around her back. “You're the best lay I've ever had in my life.”

She froze on him, going stiff, and he simply held her. Hell, it was the truth, and some unvarnished truth was good for her. “In addition,” he continued after several moments of her rigid silence, “it's a relief that you and I are magic in bed, since we're going to be spending the next fifty years together. Don't you agree?”

“I don't know.”

“Sure you do. You enjoyed yourself last night. Good God, woman, you had four orgasms!”

“No, no, please don't say that, Taylor. I don't understand any of it, not me, not why or how. Last
night—all during the night, I just don't know. It was five.”

Good start, he thought, grinning as he kissed her ear and said, “Okay, five orgasms. I would have preferred an even half-dozen. Oh, yeah, I like your real name. When I thought it was Lynn, I was willing to accept it because it was who you were. But I must say that Lindsay suits you much better. Yes, I like you as a Lindsay.” When she remained quiet, he continued easily, in a chatty voice, “When you feel like telling me the rest of it, I'm here with ears on alert. I suppose that's why you've kept your mail from coming here. I suppose that's why you signed the apartment lease with one eye on me and your hand curved over your signature. No matter, tell me when you want to. I swear I won't go find out on my own, and you know I could, being an ex-cop and a P.I. and a computer whiz on top of all that. I could find out who you are in about three minutes, probably less. I could have found out two months ago. But I didn't. It's been a real test of my beliefs in the right to privacy not to find out before.”

She stirred against him, not trying to pull away, just her body showing her restless thought, her uncertainty, but she said finally, “I meant to tell you my name. It's just that it was never the right time and I was afraid that you'd know the moment you heard it, or you'd find out and hate me and—”

He needed time to sort through what she'd said, but he didn't have it. “I know, I got you in a weak moment.” What did she mean that he'd hate her if he found out who she was? The Son of Sam's daughter? Jackie Kennedy Onassis' illegitimate offspring? Taylor hated unsolved mysteries. They begged to be resolved and there was nothing he
liked better than figuring them out to the very last loose end, the very last question. He regretted giving her his word. Damnable trust.

“I didn't want you to make love to Eden. She isn't real, she's nothing really, just a chimera, a fake, and I couldn't stand it.”

He hugged her again. “Well, you told me soon enough. I knew it was you, and you are real, Lindsay, very real and all mine.” He began stroking his hand up and down her back. “I bruised your hips. You can see clearly the outline of my fingers. Did you notice?”

He felt her nod against his throat.

“I didn't use anything, I'm sorry. Seeing you, knowing you wanted me, the urgency of it all—well, I lost it and I didn't use anything. Depending on the time of the month it is for you, I could have gotten you very pregnant last night.”

He waited, absorbing her silent shock, and hoping. To his utter delight, she didn't blow a fit, nor did she withdraw from him. She was silent as a stone but he was used to that. He knew she was thinking. And she was. Lindsay was remembering the nurse in the emergency room and the pill she'd been given to prevent pregnancy. To prevent her bearing the prince's child. To prevent her having to have an abortion. She closed her eyes, willing the memory away. And now again, only this time she'd been a willing participant. Taylor's child. Her mind chilled and went blank.

He waited.

“I'm hard again, as I'm sure you can feel. Do you want me to come inside you, in the morning light, so I can see you clearly and watch you climax? And you can see me clearly?”

She trembled at his words and he felt a very clean surge of pure triumph.

He turned and looked at her beloved face. No makeup, and she looked beautiful. Her hair was loose and wild and deeply waving, thick around her face and over her shoulders. Her eyes were a deep blue, glistening with what he hoped was burgeoning desire. He would soon see. He kissed her, feeling her draw back for a moment, then lean into him, her breasts heaving a bit as she did so. He deepened the kiss, touching his tongue to her lower lip, urging her to open her mouth. She did, but only for an instant.

Then, suddenly, she lurched back, rolling off the bed in her haste to get away from him.

She made a grab for the covers but went to the floor without them. He laughed and rolled over, staring down at her. “You don't have to leap away from me. All you have to do is tell me what you didn't like and I'll fix it. I'm good, Lindsay, and I do want to please you.”

She was sitting there on the six-by-nine Bokara carpet, in the midst of that deep red, clad only in dark blue knee socks and panties. She was panting and her eyes were dilated. Her hands were fisted on her thighs. And she looked humiliated.

Not that, no, anything but that. He couldn't stand that. “Come here, sweetheart. You don't want sex now? No problem. You did have a good dose last night.” He held out his hand to her. She stared at his hand, as if trying to determine what it was. His hand was square, the back sprinkled with black hair, the fingers long, the nails short and buffed. Beautiful hands, a man's hands, and a man could hurt her with those hands, hurt her like the prince
had hurt her. She sobbed aloud and crawled away from him, then rose and ran for the bathroom.

“Well, shit,” Taylor said.

Since he had a clear view of the bathroom door, he wasn't worried that she could sneak out on him again. Besides, the key to the bedroom door was safely under the bed. He pulled the covers to his chest, fluffed up the pillows behind his head, and lay there watching that damned closed door. He began to speak, of anything that came into his mind. “Lindsay? I guess you can hear me through the door. Did I tell you that my mom was an opera singer? She was really quite good—a soprano, you know. She performed with Beverly Sills, Carlo Panchi, and a bunch of other greats. Her stage name was Isabella Gilliam. Have you ever heard of her? She died in the late eighties, my dad too, in a plane crash in Arizona. Dad was also so proud of her, and you want to know something? He hated opera. But he never let Mom know that. Whenever I remember the two of them now, I wonder if she did know how painful every opera was for him to sit through and I wonder if she simply pretended not to know so he wouldn't realize that she knew. You know what I mean? Did you want to tell me what you think?”

Silence. Then he heard the shower go on.

Well, enough conversation. He'd been weaving a hopeful dream of unreal cloth to ever believe she'd answer him. He got up and put on a thick terry-cloth bathrobe and went to the kitchen. He couldn't very well lock her in, so he left the bedroom door wide open and pocketed the key. He made coffee and took some croissants from the freezer and put them in the oven. He whistled, one eye on the door.

When she appeared in the kitchen a half-hour later, he was sitting at the butcher-block table drinking his third cup of coffee.

She'd dried her hair and she was fully and completely and modestly dressed, every inch of her covered from her chin down. In fact, she was so dressed, she looked bulky. Her attempt at armor, he assumed.

“Coffee?”

She nodded and slithered into the kitchen and sat down.

“Croissant with that no-calorie strawberry spread?”

“No, thank you, Taylor.”

As he passed by her, he smelled the clean freshness of her and realized that, unlike her, he smelled of sex. Heady and musky and thick in the air.

He offered his coffee cup up to toast her, but she ignored him. She picked at her croissant, her head down.

“Would you tell me something, Lindsay?”

Silence.

“Would you tell me where you intended to go this morning? You live here, your other apartment is rented out. Where, Lindsay?”

She looked up then, and he saw immediately that she'd had no idea at all. All she'd thought was to escape from him.

It was a shitty realization and he hated it.

“Where, Lindsay?”

“I was going to go to Gayle's apartment.”

“No, you weren't, at least not then. You would probably have thought of Gayle soon enough, but not then. Don't lie to me, damn you.”

She threw her croissant at him. Since she hadn't buttered it, he was left with only a few flakes on his unshaved chin.

“Better a croissant than a left hook,” he said, and wiped his chin.

“I would like to go now, Taylor.”

“No. Not until we've straightened some things out between us. It isn't fair to me, Lindsay.”

She looked at him then, really looked, saw his rumpled dark hair, the dark stubble on his face, the intensity of his eyes, and something else. She saw concern for her. It was real.

“I suppose you're right.”

“Yes.”

“I'm a millionaire, Taylor. A multimillionaire.”

He cocked his head to the side.

“My grandmother skipped my father and my older half-sister. I got the mansion and the bulk of her estate. I was also my mother's only heir. Actually, my grandmother gave them all a million dollars, but that's considered pig dung and they're all ready to kill me off.” She shuddered. “It was awful.”

“Come here, Lindsay.”

She looked at him, saw him pat his thighs, and he said again, “Come here.”

She did. She sat on his thighs and he held her very close. She didn't cry. The tears were too deep, too well buried, even from Taylor.

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“My father dislikes me. He always has. I've known it for a very long time. When the lawyer read my grandmother's will, and my father realized what she'd done, he turned on me. It was awful. His wife, Holly, was screaming and carrying on and he was as he always is—cold and ruthless and endlessly cruel. Odd, my half-sister didn't join in the fray. And she's very good at it. But she held herself in—why, I don't know. Then the lawyer—his name
is Grayson Delmartin—he told me about my mother's will. I have a trust fund that's primarily in stocks that supplements my income, but nothing like this, Taylor, nothing at all like this. I don't know what to do.”

“Do you think your father will contest the will?”

“He was so furious, he disowned me. But he won't follow through with it because Mr. Delmartin told him if he did that he would have no moral or legal claim on any of my estate were I to die before he did.”

“He sounds charming, Lindsay.”

“Why does he hate me so much, Taylor?”

“Perhaps if you told me more I could come up with some kind of an answer.”

“He's always given everything to my half-sister, Sydney. She's nine years older than I am and she's always been perfect—beautiful, terrifyingly intelligent, she's got a law degree from Harvard—and she married an Italian prince. Now, of course, she's here and—”

Taylor waited. Damnation, she'd been talking, but it was over, she'd pulled back again, and he hated it.

“Why did your grandmother leave you her estate, do you think?”

“I don't know. I know she was immensely proud of Sydney. Perhaps she'd begun to think her son—my father—wasn't what she thought he was, I don't know. My father and his wife, Holly, lived at the mansion with her for the past two or three years.” She paused a moment, looking at the fancy coffeemaker that Taylor had brought to the apartment. “I do realize some of it, I think. She wanted to arm me against my father, against Sydney, she wanted me to be powerful, and money was the only
way she knew. But, you know, I realized that there was another kind of power that has nothing to do with money.”

He held her even more closely, waiting, but she said nothing more. “What is your full name, Lindsay? You're going to marry me. I want to know my future wife's name.”

Her mouth opened, the words hovered. Power. Yeah, she had loads of power. But Paris, what the prince had done to her. Tears pooled in her eyes and she shook her head against his shoulder. “I can't, Taylor. It's too awful, believe me—too awful. Please, just give me more time.”

“Are you really very, very rich?”

“Yes, very very.”

“What the hell are we going to do about that?”

“I don't know.”

“Is that what made you want to throw me down and ravish me at the airport?”

Withdrawal, but not completely, no, there was more uncertainty there, and he waited. “What happened, Lindsay? What brought you to me?”

He wondered if she had any idea, and said aloud, “The final show of dislike from your father? The understanding that you didn't want him to dominate you anymore? A sort of liberation?” Jesus, he thought, idiot words out of his mouth. He wasn't a shrink and he shouldn't be playing with the words. But he knew she was the girl Dr. Gruska had spoken about. The whole father thing—but seduction? He didn't know, and he was terrified to speculate.