The Reincarnationist (10 page)

Hands on her shoulders, he pulled her yet closer, although there was no space between them, and breathed in her perfumed skin and hair: that unique smell of sandalwood incense mixed with jasmine that identified her to him as much as her face or her voice.

And then breathless, lips swollen, eyes full of shining,
smoky lust, she stepped back, fumbled with her brooch, undid it and let the robe fall to the ground. Both naked now, they stood a foot apart. Touching each other with their eyes. Igniting. Feeling themselves burst into flame. Luxuriating in the heat. Not caring if this fire scorched or burned. It had already destroyed them in one way. And they'd risen from the inferno in another. Still they stood there. Touching without hands, kissing without lips, making love without entering or being entered. Trying so desperately to make the inevitable coming-together last a long time, a longer time, the longest time. He wasn't the one to make the first move; he never was. Although she'd told him over and over that this was what she wanted, he gave her every chance to change her mind. Wishing she would, praying she couldn't.

She took a step. And then another, and then they were pressed together and he felt her cool flesh against every inch of his body, feeling her as she warmed to him. As she leaned into him. As they fused. These first minutes with her were always
the
first minutes with her. It was as if they'd never been together before. As if he'd never felt any woman's flesh against his. As if the sensation of yielding skin was unknown to him until that moment. It took his breath away, made him long to take her right away, made him aware that he would rather die than ever lose her.

Kissing her, he reveled in how sweet she tasted, until suddenly her mouth was salty.

Julius pulled back only far enough so that he could look at her. As she stood there, naked among the sacred trees, the wind and the leaves making a pattern on her body, there were tears sliding down her cheeks.

After wiping them away, he took her hands and held them both in his.

“Sabina, what is it?”

She shook her head proudly, snatched her hands back, put one on him, stroking him while her other hand reached for his and buried it deep between her legs.

“Julius. Now. Please. Everything else can wait. Words can wait.”

She lay down, pulling him on top of her. As he slipped inside, her legs went up around his back and locked him to her so tightly her thigh muscles felt like a vise. He tried to go slow but she was in a hurry and thrust up at him over and over and over again until he felt he was about to melt inside of her.

“This is how I want to die,” she whispered between gasps. “Like this. With no room for anything else in the world but us. Just us.”

It was dark in the woods, but not so dark that he couldn't see her face. He'd never forget the look in her eyes at that moment. Unadulterated happiness pierced with devastating pain. He didn't know how to describe it, or how to decipher it. The two emotions didn't cancel each other out but somehow remained distinct, coexisting in the same moment.

He would have stopped if he could, would have pulled out and held her gently in his arms, asked her to tell him what was wrong, comforted her, tried to help ease whatever anguish she was in.

Except he knew her better than that. Sabina was a high priestess. Had been an independent woman from the time she was seven years old, when she was brought into the Vestal's house to learn the ancient rituals. Now she was in the most powerful decade of the three she would spend under the Vestals' roof. She'd been trained to understand how special she was and how to deal with it. That ingrained knowledge was now part of her nature, not
something she could shake off. He would not insult her by trying to comfort her when what she wanted was much more aggressive and urgent.

The final push and pull of their lovemaking was accompanied by wind rustling through the leaves and by the little exclamations each of them made, and Julius held back until he heard Sabina cry out in that tortured pleasure song that he had been waiting for. She was right, he thought as he let go, if only they could die like that. It would be kinder than what might be in store.

When they were finished, even the wind quieted. They held each other and then sat up and spread out what they'd brought with them, and although it was prohibited for any woman, including a priestess, to drink wine, they both drank and ate the cakes that she'd made.

After the small feast, she got up, pulling him with her, and they walked to the pond. This was also part of their ritual. To bathe in the water that was both warm in spots where it was fed by an underground hot spring and cool where the water rushed down from the rocks.

Underwater their hands darted like small fishes, his swimming around her breasts, circling her nipples, then slinking away to voyage between her legs, where he found a different kind of wet than the water, wet that was silkier and more slippery; and her fingers fishtailed through his legs to cup him and stroke him and make him hard again.

Julius swam behind her and slipped high up inside her, and his hands came around her hips.

“Oh, but you're greedy,” she whispered.

“Is it too much?”

“No. Never.”

“You want me again?”

“Again, yes. And yes again.”

He laughed at her exuberance, pushing away the thought that this was prohibited. If he let that in, it would steal the orgasm that was starting from down deep, deeper than from inside him, deep from the mucky bottom. Up. And up. And up.

“Now,” he whispered to her, because she liked him to tell her.

She thrust back against him and twisted herself on him, knowing exactly what she was doing and how long it would take so that she would come at almost the same time for what they both always knew might be the last time.

Afterward, wrapped in the blankets that Julius had brought, they sat side by side and he brought up the subject that neither of them had wanted to deal with—the changes that the emperor's newest edict were going to make in their lives.

“It's time for us to run away,” she said. “I've been thinking about this. We can take something—one of the treasures—the statue or the stones, and just disappear somewhere where they won't care who we were before. There's no room for the three of us and our sins here in Rome.”

Julius laughed sarcastically. “Steal the stones? Become outlaws?”

“We already are, aren't we?”

He hadn't heard one part of what she'd said. Or he'd heard it and it hadn't registered. Or it had and it scared him so much he'd blocked it. Because if it was true, now there would be real and visible proof of the rules they'd broken, and there would be no way of saving them. Some women might have explained it with words, but Sabina just took his hand and put it on her stomach. Her skin was warm, silken and smooth. And her stomach was just slightly rounded.

New York City—Tuesday, 10:48 a.m.

R
achel was at Christie's auction house to bid on three paintings her uncle Alex was interested in buying. She'd won one, lost one and opened her phone to call him on his cell as the last of the works he wanted was about to come up. This way he could listen to the action and inform her if he decided to go beyond the limits he'd set before he'd left. After years of bidding on gemstones for her own work, she was comfortable with the auction process and usually enjoyed it. But not that morning.

The room was uncomfortable despite the air-conditioning. Not the same kind of heat she'd felt in the fantasy—because that was now what she was calling it—but it reminded her of that. It was too crowded here—it caused the elevated temperature. There were a hundred and twenty masterwork paintings for sale, and most major museum curators, dealers and private collectors—or their representatives—were present.

“Item number 45,” the auctioneer intoned.

Rachel stared at the painting on the easel. It was a
Bacchus, which, while not signed by Caravaggio, was believed to have been painted by his students with the master himself adding some of the detail work. Despite the lack of signature, it was breathtaking.

The colors were brilliant, the composition classic, and the features on the young god's face exquisitely rendered. The frame, she thought, was overly ornate, maybe just a little too heavy for the work. But a frame didn't matter. She couldn't stop staring.

“You're right, you must have this one,” she whispered to her uncle over the phone. “It's beautiful.”

“Of course it is, but there is something else, isn't there? You felt something when you saw it. You connected to it. I heard it in your voice. What is it?”

To anyone else who knew Alex Palmer, his interest in how his niece “felt” would have sounded strange. On the surface, the aspects and trappings of Alex's life proved why stereotypes existed: his wealth, sophistication, education, business acumen, art collecting and philanthropy all belonged together and painted a picture of a corporate giant with few ties to the spiritual world.

A scholarship to Harvard had put him in the same class as the son of a Goliath in the banking business. By the time both boys graduated, Ric Haslet had taken a liking to his son Christopher's best friend and become his mentor.

When Christopher died in a car accident a year later, Alex became a surrogate son. It was then that Ric became fascinated with reincarnation and came to believe that he and Alex—based on their past lives—had been destined to meet again at this later date.

Alex remained skeptical until the day Ric related a nightmare he'd had several times in his life.

He was a captain during the Civil War, and one night he came across a young soldier, hurt and bleeding by the
side of a road. Looking down at the pale man in the moonlight, he sensed that if he didn't stop the boy might bleed to death. But despite the pain twisting the soldier's features and the pleading in his eyes, the captain walked on. The boy had been wearing the enemy's colors.

In an astonished voice, Alex told his mentor that when he was in grade school he'd become obsessed with the Civil War. For his ninth birthday his parents had organized a road trip to visit several important war sites.

Walking across the Antietam battlefield, he'd become overwhelmed with sadness and broke down. When his father asked him what was wrong, Alex didn't know how to tell him what he was feeling: that he had been left to die here in this place.

It was the only past-life memory—if that was what it was, he told Ric—he'd ever had. And he'd never confessed it to anyone before.

It cemented their relationship and his future.

Rachel knew the story and understood her uncle's fascination with intuition and his obsession with past-life regression. His questioning of Rachel's feeling about the Bacchus was characteristic of how preoccupied he was—always on the lookout for moments he could collect, like the paintings on his walls, as proof that there was much we didn't understand in a dimension he was certain existed.

Ever since Rachel could remember, her uncle Alex had been searching for proof of soul migration. He'd donated huge sums of money to the Dalai Lama, invested in obscure research and once had tried to buy a foundation in New York that was dedicated to past-life study.

Whenever Rachel questioned why he was so interested, he always gave her the same explanation. “If reincarnation exists, then I can leave myself all the things I've worked so hard for. Why should I start from scratch?
I've been poor before. I don't ever want to be poor again.”

But she always wondered if that was the whole reason.

Rachel had held back, as the price for the Bacchus rose quickly, reaching two and a half million dollars. Now there were only three bidders left: Douglas Martin, a well-known collector and public relations scion; Nick Loomis, curator at the Getty in Los Angeles and a friend of her uncle's; and a man sitting three rows ahead of her with his back to her.

Suddenly Rachel felt that strange humming—the same physical reaction she'd had while reading the article in the
Times
about the excavation. She fought to concentrate on the auctioneer. She couldn't afford to lose track of what was going on around her; now was the time for her to enter the race.

“The bid is at two million, five hundred thousand dollars. Do I hear seven hundred and fifty thousand?”

Rachel watched the third man's paddle go up.

“I have two million, seven hundred and—”

She raised her paddle.

“I have three million—”

Nick Loomis raised his.

“I have three million, two hundred and fifty thousand.”

Rachel felt a rush of excitement. She'd never bid anything near this amount for the stones she used in her jewelry designs. The bidding went back and forth until, at three million, seven hundred and fifty, the bid was with her.

Eyes peeled on the back of the third man three rows ahead, waiting to see if he was going to outbid her, Rachel held her breath.

He raised his paddle.

In her ear her uncle said, “Go the limit. I want that painting.”

Her heart beat faster as she upped the ante.

Douglas Martin moved the price up another notch.

“I have four million, five hundred thousand dollars, do I hear—”

Rachel held up her paddle. She wanted to get this painting. She could picture herself standing in front of it, enthralled by the god's smile and seductive eyes. She wanted to touch the frame and run her fingers down the intricately carved, gilded woodwork. She wanted all of it so badly the only word she could use to describe it was
lust.

“Four million, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars with me on the left. Do I hear five million?” The auctioneer looked over at Nick Loomis, but the curator shook his head and put down his paddle.

“Nick just dropped out,” she whispered into the phone.

“You sound nervous.”

More than half the jewels she bought came from sales like this one, but she had never been this anxious. It must be the money. It was a lot of responsibility. Yes, that was it.

“We have four million, seven hundred—”

Douglas Martin raised his paddle.

“We have five million dollars with paddle 66. Do I hear five million, two hundred and fifty?” The auctioneer looked directly at Rachel now.

She had only one more bid left. She raised the paddle.

“Five and a quarter, do I hear five and a half?”

Rachel didn't breathe. She just stared at the space above the third man's head, waiting to see if his paddle would rise. To see if she'd won.

She was going to win. She was going to get this painting.

“Going once…twice.”

Damn. He'd raised his paddle.

“We have five million, five hundred thousand dollars.
Do I hear five seventy-five?” The auctioneer looked at Douglas Martin, who shook his head.

Into the phone Rachel whispered that Martin had just dropped out.

“So it's just you and one other bidder?”

“Yes.”

And then the line went dead. Her heart lurched. She hit redial and heard electronic tones but no ringing.

She knew her uncle wanted the painting. She wanted him to have it; wanted, without knowing why, to keep it away from anyone else.

The auctioneer looked at her. The call still wasn't connecting. What would her uncle want her to do? Her uncle usually set a limit and didn't go past it. He was disciplined when it came to his collecting. It wasn't her money. She couldn't decide for him. What would he want her to do? Damn, why wasn't the call going through?

The auctioneer shook his head, understanding her dilemma but unable to postpone, and announced the sale.

“Sold to paddle number 516 for five million, five hundred thousand dollars. And now, moving on to our next lot we have…”

She got up and walked out of the room, stumbling by the time she reached the doors. She didn't usually cry, but her vision blurred with tears. Something had gone very wrong. Yes, her uncle would be disappointed—he didn't like to lose—but he had a huge collection. One more painting wouldn't matter to him enough for him to be upset with her.

Rachel's phone vibrated. She looked down at the LED readout. It was Alex, calling back too late.

“Hello? Rachel? What happened? Did we get the painting?”

“No…I didn't know what to do. I tried calling you back but couldn't get through.”

“Damn it.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Who got it?”

“I don't know, I couldn't see him.”

“What was his paddle number?”

“Why does it matter now?”

“What was his paddle number, Rachel?”

“Number 516. Uncle Alex, I'm sorry. I didn't think you'd want me to go any higher.”

“It's not your fault,” he said. “Don't worry about it.”

But he was worried about it, she could hear it in his voice. What was it about this painting that mattered so much to him and affected her so strongly?