Diamond is distinctive in the way it reflects light. It has a unique brilliance and also breaks the light up into spectral colors, which reflect within the stone as it is moved. Another unusual quality of a diamond is it’s purity. A gem quality diamond is among the purest elements found in nature.
—www.diamondgeezer.com
Paul called a friend who used the helicopter pad based in Broderick, and they flew us to the Glasgow airport in no time at all. At another time, I might have enjoyed the experience, but all I could think about today was getting to Luca and the Katerina.
And maybe I was thinking about the jewel to avoid thinking too much about Paul.
It was midafternoon by the time we made it to Glasgow. Thin light edged the clouds, and splashes of daffodils, in medians and window boxes and flower pots, stood in brave testament to the coming of spring. It made my heart feel lighter.
At least until we passed the car rental counter on the way in. I spied the redheaded boy who’d asked about my father, “the greatest racer ever” and ducked my head in case he remembered me. I wondered where the red Alfa Romeo was now, if Luca had abandoned it here or somewhere else. And maybe it seems silly to you to feel bad about a car, but when I explained to Paul how I’d mistreated the lovely creature, he understood, rubbed one of my shoulders. We take cars seriously, we do.
Once we checked in, I felt the stares of other women on my grimy clothes and badly done hair and makeup. I didn’t have a lot of time, but there were shops of all sorts. “I need to take care of a few things,” I said to Paul.
“I’ll go with you,” he said. “It is clothes you’re after?”
“Yes.” I waved a disparaging hand at the makeshift wardrobe I’d assembled from my cousin’s caravan, the old jumper and jeans over the blue silk shirt of Luca’s. Still a fine piece, and I’d hold on to it.
Paul loved shopping, and although we did not have a lot of time, he took delight in pulling out a narrow, long black skirt and a body-skimming silk sweater with a low-cut V neck. While I tried them on, he tossed through a selection of scarves and pulled out three he liked—I wore the gossamer white one, tied around my throat.
When I went back to the changing room, Paul purchased other things for me, and had them tucked neatly into a carry-on bag I could put on my back. The supple leather felt like skin, and I exclaimed in pleasure when he handed it to me. “This way, you do not have to feel so deprived.”
The clerk practically swooned over his continental manners, his accent, his handsome face. The Scots love the French, and vice versa, united as they are in their dislike of their common enemy, the English. As an outsider to all three, it seemed hilarious to me how nations carried grudges for so many centuries.
But there it was. We carried the packages to our gate area, and I left Paul sitting there while I found the ladies room and changed into the new clothes.
So much better! I folded the jeans and indigo silk blouse and tucked them into the plastic bag the other clothes had come in, then went out of the stall to examine myself in the mirror a little more.
My makeup was all right—I’d put some on before breakfast, then touched it up before getting off the ferry at Broderick before I saw Paul. The bruise on my chin was starting to show a little, and I put some more cover on it, pleased that it was going to heal very fast. A miracle I hadn’t broken a tooth!
There wasn’t a lot I could do about my hair, which was still caught in a long braid down my back. I knew from experience it was likely still damp, and that bugged me enough that I wanted to let it out. If you’ve ever had long hair, you know what I mean. After a while, you just need to let it go. Let it breathe.
I tugged the scrunchie from the bottom and worked my fingers through the braid. Wavy tendrils, some as damp as I’d anticipated, tumbled over my shoulders, down my back.
A little girl washing her hands in the sink next to me watched the whole process. Soberly, in an English accent, she asked, “Are you Rapunzel?”
Her mother chuckled. “Emma! Rapunzel is a fairly tale.”
The girl looked unconvinced. “She looks just like the picture in the book.”
The sweater was a romantic pinkish color, and the slim, stretchy skirt came down to my ankles, with a slit in the back. Together with the yards of blond, wavy hair, I knew what she was thinking.
I smiled at the mother in the mirror, and bent down to the little girl. “Well, I try not to let anyone know that I’m flying around,” I said in a Scottish accent, “but yes, I am Rapunzel. Don’t tell anyone, all right?”
“Oh, no,” she exclaimed seriously. “I would never tell.”
“Thank you,” her mother said to me. “Come along, Emma. We’ll be late for our plane.”
The two went out, leaving me alone in the area by the sinks, and I leaned into the mirror to put on my lipstick. Fixed up, feeling a lot more cheerful, I grabbed my bag and headed back to the waiting area.
I saw Paul sitting there, spectacles low on his nose. He must need reading glasses! I thought with an odd pang. They were so endearing in some strange way I couldn’t decipher just then, but it also broke my heart that he was older, that he would need such a thing. I hated it.
So I wasn’t paying attention to anything but Paul when, abruptly, a hand grabbed me around the upper arm. The hand yanked me, so quickly I was knocked off balance, and stumbled in the direction they intended, into a dark cubbyhole, like a close between waiting areas. I tried to yank back, pull out, but he was stronger and threw me into the concrete wall, twisting my arm up behind me. I grunted, and his hand went over my mouth. I smelled onions on his fingers, and it nearly gagged me.
I twisted and jerked, trying to use his weight to get enough leverage to head-butt him, but he was ready or lucky, because my head met empty air. He shoved me again, and my body slammed hard into the concrete wall. A blast of pain from my bruised left breast went through me, and I gave a little yelp through the hand.
“Where is it?” he said, and lifted his hand for me to speak.
“I don’t have it!”
He gripped me in a way that made it impossible to move, my arm swung up behind me and pressed into my back, my face against the wall. I could do nothing as he searched through the backpack, then very thoroughly patted me down, feeling breasts and crotch impersonally. It infuriated me, and I made a noise. “Stop it! I don’t have it!”
“Where is it?”
“Luca has it,” I said. “Somewhere in Romania.”
The man made a sudden noise, something between a thunk and a groan, and the pressure of his body suddenly fell away. I pushed away from the wall, instinctively cradling my bruised chest. Paul took my hand.
“Come. Quickly,” he said, and tugged me out of the dark spot.
I looked back over my shoulder, and the man was lying prone on the floor, his head at an odd angle. I pulled back. “God, Paul, is he dead?”
A pair of security guards were walking by and Paul pulled me back into the opening of the little alleyway, blocking their view of the body. “Look at me, Sylvie,” he said, turning my body toward his.
It was a dodge, I knew that, a way to keep the security guards from seeing the prone human on the floor, but it also slammed into me as a personal moment. The minute I raised my head, I knew I’d never forget this—the heat of him, the size of him, towering over me.
He pressed me into the wall and put his body close to mine. “Pretend you’re kissing me,” he said.
I met his eyes. It was a long, hot moment. I felt his body close to mine, knew he could feel the give of my breasts and belly against the length of him. His breath touched my lips, and I lifted my face the slightest bit, putting our lips only millimeters apart. “Like this?”
“Yes,” he whispered back, and I could feel the heat of his mouth, the movements of his lips disturbing the air over my own. Against my thigh, I felt him grow aroused, and it was impossible not to move very slightly against him, acknowledging that arousal. His hand, on my side, edged upward over my rib cage, almost as if it were a being apart, and his thumb edged my breast.
Our lips still did not touch, but I could hear my breath coming a little faster. Infinitesimal movements pulsed through him, through me. A ripple of muscle in his left leg, a quiver in my belly, a nudge from his genitals, a pulse—known only to me—from my own.
“What excuse will you find this time?” I whispered.
“For what?”
“For turning away from me. I’m not a child anymore. I’m not going to be married.”
“They were never excuses,” he said
“No?” Boldly, I touched my tongue to his lower lip, very lightly, and the contact sent a bolt of sensation through my lower back so strong that I nearly felt as if I’d drop straight to the floor.
“Sylvie,” he whispered, not moving. “Be careful.”
“Yeah? You just want me to pretend? You don’t really want me to kiss you?”
He raised his hand to the side of my face. “Look at me.”
I raised my eyes. Every cell in my body boiled with a decade of wanting him. He caught my chin in his hand, held me still. Looking into my eyes, he imitated my movement, his tongue flashing over my lower lip. I made a sound, clutched his upper arm.
He did it again, this time more slowly, just a drag of the tip of his tongue along the round of my lip, a hot, measured gesture. “I have always tried to simply keep you safe,” he said, and our eyes were locked, his greeny-gray, mine surely molten with my thoughts.
“And what,” I whispered, my lips bumping his, “will you do now?”
“What do you want me to do, Sylvie? Hmmm?”
I closed my eyes. “I don’t know.”
“That has always been the trouble. You are not sure, and I will not risk losing you.” His lips touched mine, very very lightly. “Once done,” he said, “it cannot be undone.”
“I know,” I said, and hated the fear in my voice, the wavering. “Let me go.”
He straightened. “Give me a moment.”
At that, I smiled up at him. “At least it’s gratifying to know that you do find me somewhat appealing.”
“You could not have doubted that.”
“Oh, but I have,” I said. “Often.”
He shook his head, took a breath, took my hand casually. “Do not doubt your allure, Sylvie.”
“Thank you.” We headed out into the main concourse, and they were calling for us to board Flight 329, with service to Munich and Bucharest. As we approached the area, he reached out and took my hand in his, not the grasp of a guardian to his ward, but that of a man to a woman. He didn’t look at me, but I folded my hand around his in return, and held it until we had to go, single file, through the gate.
As we settled into the plane, the cabin was dimmed for takeoff, and Paul closed his eyes. I looked out the window, but it was the past I saw. Felt.
When I was seventeen, Paul had stayed with me for three days, cheering me up with little jokes and plenty of cheese and fruit and wine, which he’d never withheld and now said I was old enough to gauge if I wanted a second glass. I did, but not a third.
The last afternoon, we packed a picnic. Patches of heather were still black on the hills, but spreads of gorse were beginning to bloom, and here and there were scatters of daffodils, dizzyingly yellow against the dun and green of the land. On the top of a cliff, we spread out the picnic on a cloth and ate bacon rolls and potato scones, which made me think of my mother.
“Sometimes, I really miss her a lot,” I said, gazing toward the water, blue against the rocks far below. “It doesn’t seem fair, does it, that she got killed like that?”
“No, it does not.”
I looked at him. Directly, I asked a question I’d held for a long time to myself. “Did you love her?”
“Of course I did.”
“I mean love her, love her.”
He met my gaze. “No. We were fine friends, but no more than that. She loved your father.”
I jumped up, moving toward the edge of the land. The wind was blowing, and it made my eyes water, or so I told myself. I turned to find I was too close to the edge of a section of crumbling rock. A bit heaved, rumbled, something under my feet, and I screeched and leaped toward solid ground.
And as always, there was Paul, grabbing my hand, pulling me to safety. We tumbled to our knees, and I fell against his chest.
My heart pounded in reaction, and I lifted my head. “I’m sorry. That was stupid.”
“It was,” he agreed thunderously, gripping my hand too tightly. “You must stop being so heedless.”
I don’t know what made me do it. Maybe it was the daffodils, so yellow against the sky, or the feeling of his hand, or something hot and dangerous in his eye. I moved over him and put my hands on his face. I honestly do not think he had any idea what I was going to do until I did it.
Until I bent my head to his and kissed him.
I had been waiting all my life for that kiss, and the instant my lips touched his, it was as if the sky itself exploded, or maybe it was just me. His mouth was just…exactly right. His lips fit mine perfectly, and at first, that’s all it was, just our lips touching, me draped halfway across him, his strong chest against my breasts, his cheeks in my hands.
“Sylvie!” He lifted me away from him, bodily, as if I were a pillow or a slight piece of lumber, instead of a tall, strong young woman.
I flung an arm around his neck. “Please don’t push me away,” I whispered. “I can’t bear it.”
“You are only lonely, my Sylvie. It will get better.”
“No.” I pressed closer, touched his face, his mouth, with my fingertips, and said, very seriously, “I have loved you all my life.”
He made a low noise, protest and hunger mixed in a heady brew, and instead of pushing me away, he relented, pulled me closer, tucked my head into the crook of his elbow. Our eyes met, electrically, and I had a sense of sunlight making a nimbus around his head, as if he were a saint, and a gust of wind touched our clothes. Under his breath, he swore, and then his free hand cupped my face and his lips came to mine, and he kissed me.
Kissed me.
His full lips claimed mine as if there were no other lips in the world, and behind that, his tongue swirling into my mouth, all the way in, and coaxing mine out, drawing me back into his mouth, then back across the tight bridge. He tilted his head, dove deeper, kissing me and kissing me and kissing me until I thought I would faint of love and pleasure.
I had been kissed many times. I had had my young lover.
But they had all been boys. Paul was a man. I’d never been kissed like this. It had never felt like this, so rich and right, as if everything aligned in the world with our touch, as if time itself shifted. I put my hands in his thick hair and pulled him closer, tighter arching upward against his body—
He pulled away violently, pushing me away. “Sylvie, we must not, this is—”
As if he could not bear the sight of me, he got to his feet and strode away. I leapt to my feet. “That’s not fair!” I shouted. “I am a woman. I love you!”
He whirled. “You are not a woman! You are a girl who wants to love someone, who wants someone to love her back.”
“So? Isn’t that what everyone wants?”
“Yes, but—”
Seeing my tears, he came close, put his hands on my arms, pulled me into his embrace. His hand in my hair pressed my face into his chest.
I clung to him, fighting tears.
“Oh, God, what have I done?” He clasped me close, murmured into my hair, “Oh, my sweet child, I am so very, very sorry.” He pressed his cheek into my hair, a fierce and tender gesture that nearly liquefied me. “I am not rejecting you,” he said. “It is only that you are the dearest thing in my life and I cannot bear to sully you this way. I am far too old to be your lover.”
I started to move, push away, protest. He held me close. “No, Sylvie, listen to me closely. I will never say this again. I could not bear to see your eyes turn slowly to disgust as I grew older and older and older. You do not know what I know of the world. You must trust me.”
“Paul—”
“No.” His hand in my hair, his lips on my temple. “Promise you will forget this.”
I squeezed my hands into fists, took a breath. How could I? But the alternative was to lose him, I could feel that very strongly. I let my tears well up again. “Will anyone ever love me, Paul? Will I ever be first?”
“Yes, ma poulette. There is a great love waiting for you, I promise. And—” he pulled away, turned my face up to his “—you are always my first concern. You are my heart. Always. Okay?”
I nodded. “Okay.”
He let me go. “Come. Let’s go find some vigorous thing to occupy us, and then, I think it’s time we went back, don’t you?”