Kathryn leaned into the vanity mirror she shared with another singer and twelve chorus girls and removed her lipstick. Her show was over for the night, and the cramped dressing room had stopped buzzing with the chaotic crush of costume changes and last-minute facial touch-ups.
She found comfort in the madness of the small hive of beings rushing headlong with a purpose, even if it was only to make their cues on stage, and she longed for the activity, now that the theater was still.
The silence in the deserted dressing room magnified her failure and preyed on her fragile state of mind. She knew it wouldn’t be long before she had to make a proactive decision about her future, or go mad.
Her life had become a game of sit and wait, a slow torture, with her only lifeline to sanity the hope that Bouchaule would return. As time went on, it seemed less likely. There was no reason for him to return. He no longer needed her for his precious work, and their physical and emotional relationship had obviously been dealt a blow beyond repair.
She hadn’t seen or heard from Thierry Bouchaule since her catastrophic misstep three weeks ago, but she went through the motions of having an assignment, initially lying to the OSS about why she hadn’t had contact with him, by simply claiming ignorance on the matter and then feigning indifference when the OSS quickly discovered the doctor was in Pennsylvania. After seeing the University of Pennsylvania address on the envelope of photos Bouchaule had showed her, Kathryn could only assume he was utilizing the university’s advanced equipment to get a closer look at his obsession and document it for his investors. It wouldn’t be long before his business was finished in the U.S. and then he would head home to France and far out of her reach.
Patience was wearing thin at headquarters, and Holmes never failed to display his disappointment in her progress on the case. She sensed she was on the verge of reassignment, and she couldn’t say that she wouldn’t welcome it. Anything would be welcome now. Anything would be better than withering under the consequences of her arrogance. She had no one to blame but herself, and she played the scene over and over, as it should have ended, with Bouchaule undeniably hers.
It was the night she was to commit herself completely to him, in whatever capacity would ensure the success of her assignment and Jenny’s safety. Her ill-advised descent into alcohol and the reckless abandon it inspired made sure that didn’t happen, and now she would suffer for her lack of judgment.
She was so sure she could control Bouchaule. He was a man after all, and all men have the same weakness. It was just her luck she would find the one man whose pride trumped his desire.
Arrogance makes you careless, Smitty had said once. He was right, as usual. She had made a mess of everything. She’d hurt every person she loved, betrayed the people with whom she worked and respected, and now she was left with nothing and no one.
She wanted to curse her damn foolish heart for falling in love and then her damn foolish head for giving into it. She knew it was wrong and that no good would come of it. No good would ever come from loving her.
At least she could use that to her advantage with Bouchaule, but as hope waned for his return, she was coming undone. Without love and purpose, she was the sum of her damaging acts, past and present, and she searched desperately for anything to deflect the reoccurring anguish of her sins.
She turned to music as a distraction. The uncertainty of working with new musicians and new arrangements rattled her perfectionist sensibilities, but the challenge was a welcome diversion, as a new musical venue every week provided boundaries into which she could channel her disintegrating psyche.
Music was a living, breathing entity, her only friend. A song was honest, clean emotion on a tide of sound, and it lifted her body and soul like a kite in the wind and swept her away from the troubles of the outside world. She felt alive when she performed, and for those moments, never truer to herself.
Her current schedule was nothing like her gig at The Grotto. She was part of an ensemble cast now, a guest player, with no perks or flexible hours. Her musical numbers were more Vaudeville than sophisticated nightclub this time, but after singing the blues in a few dark, moody clubs to appease her disposition, she grew weary of the bloodletting and was grateful for the light atmosphere of the variety show. Dominic’s motto, we are happy here, suddenly had its charms.
She chose her latest venue specifically because it was hard work. There were shows in the afternoon, in the evening, and a midnight show on Saturdays. Rehearsals often went on until three or four in the morning, and free time was scarce, which was the point. Kathryn welcomed the structure, but in the end, it always gave way to a maddening silence that ushered in everything she was trying to forget.
She walked away from Jenny to save her, but the pain, devastation, and hatred she saw in her eyes would haunt her forever. The hate meant that Jenny would move on and love again. She could find someone who would cherish her above all else. Oh, that it could have been her.
Tears came when she allowed them. She told herself happiness was not for her, that she didn’t deserve it. That’s what she always told herself when the good things in her life went the way of all good things in her life. It was a tried and true coping tool that made the tragedies and disappointments bearable, but this time was different.
She almost had it all. That Jenny loved her and accepted her so completely, baggage and all, was nothing short of a miracle. She missed her terribly—her friendship, the no-nonsense way about her, her hairbrained schemes, her laughter, and how her very presence lit up a room and made her heart smile.
When she was alone in bed, surrounded by the unforgiving stillness of the night, she longed for Jenny’s warmth against her. She wanted to lose herself in the scent of her, the taste of her, the lust, the possession, the surrender, the bliss, the calm, the love. God. She had to stop. She no longer had the right to any of those things. Jenny was gone. She’d made sure of that.
Kathryn put her head in her hands. Where was her detachment, her practiced indifference? Guilt and grief kept hitting her in waves, and she was caught in their emotional churn.
She lifted her gaze to the mirror. Apart from her stage persona and the front she put up at her infrequent visits to headquarters, she was lost. She could fool those on the outside and pretend all she liked, but the eyes staring back at her knew her secrets and she had nowhere to hide. Stripped of an act and an audience, she had no identity and couldn’t comprehend the broken woman before her. This wasn’t her. She made her own opportunities, pressed forward, always, but without Bouchaule to distract her, she had to endure the full-on assault of Jenny’s loss; and interest, in the form of guilt, was collecting on her debt to the boys overseas.
Her thoughts were fragmented and conflicted. Doing what was right meant doing some things wrong, and more and more, she was losing her ability to tell the difference. She’d lost the ground beneath her feet, lost herself, and she realized she never really knew who that person was. She moved from situation to situation, letting her goals determine who she needed to be, and now she was alone, grasping for the security and the sanity of purpose.
If only she had Bouchaule. She seriously thought of heading to Philadelphia to get him back, but that couldn’t be done. He needed to return to her. He needed to need her, which led her back to despondency. He didn’t need her. Her assignment and all she sacrificed for it was gone.
Jenny was gone.
Her heart weighed her down like a stone in her chest, as memories and shattered dreams fell on her like layers of cold earth, until she was suffocating in a grave of her own making. She hadn’t seen the light of day in ages, and her face was drawn and pale. Sleep was nothing more than unconsciousness brought on by exhaustion.
If she wasn’t performing or rehearsing, she was hidden away in Daniel Ryan’s secret lab, using his specially coded books to decode the documents she’d photographed.
It was sweet torment knowing Jenny was on the other side of the wall. Sometimes she could hear her shoes as she crossed the hardwood floors or the radio when she played it loud. It made it easy to pretend walking away had just been a terrible nightmare. Sometimes she expected Jenny to pop her head out from the passageway leading to the study bookcase. “Can I get you anything, baby?” she imagined her saying.
Kathryn would lean back in Daniel Ryan’s creaking wooden chair and close her eyes when the ghost of her love echoed in her head. She would savor it for as long as she dared and then quickly discard it. Sentiment was left to the past, where it belonged. She would open her eyes to a cacophony of numbers, notes, and formulae, and she was reminded she’d done the right thing. She was doing the right thing.
The right thing was cold comfort to her now, as her thin veil of composure unraveled, revealing physical manifestations of her deconstruction. Her hand trembled as she reached for the jar of cold cream, and she made a fist, trying to deny her frailty. She had to keep it together, had to regain control.
Breathe, she told herself. Breathe.
She regained some equilibrium and shook off the tremors. One day at a time, she reminded herself. One day at a time. One day at a time for what? She didn’t know, but she would drag herself there because she must.
She rubbed the cold cream onto her face, erasing her makeup like she wished she could erase her pain. Bouchaule wasn’t here to save her. She had to save herself. While she washed her face, she vowed to take control of what was left of her life. She just needed a stage, any stage, to pretend she was sane until sanity found her again. For now, this theater was her stage, and she would wait patiently for the OSS to decide when her assignment was over.
Her hair fell in long wavy tendrils around her face as she removed the pins holding it up. She looked like Medusa, and just as deadly.
There was relief in accepting her failure. She no longer had to pretend to be strong or proud, for she was neither. She exhaled what little strength she had and bowed her head. Her body was weak and shaky, and she grabbed the sink to steady herself. She wanted to cry, but she resisted.
It was time to be reborn. She raised her chin and waited to become a new person.
Moments went by, and she didn’t feel new. She felt exhausted and beaten. Maybe tomorrow she would feel new.
One day at a time.
She opened her eyes, hoping to find herself at least physically transformed in some way, but she was met with bloodshot eyes and a haggard face framed by hair that made her look as mad as she felt. She snorted derisively and shook her head, and then something in the mirror caught her eye. Over her shoulder, from just inside the doorway, someone was watching her.
She blinked the figure into focus. It was a man impeccably dressed in a double-breasted somber gray suit, hat in hand. Thierry Bouchaule had returned. She couldn’t move for a moment, as she tried to convince herself it was real and not a product of her shattered mind finally pushed over the edge. She held her breath and turned.
He was real.
“Thierry.” It was all she could manage to say as her knees went weak. She trembled again, but this time it was relief, elation, and a frantic scramble to collect herself. She quickly turned away to hide her rapidly forming tears but realized she’d been betrayed by her reflection in the mirror.
She’d practiced this scene over and over, knew the woman to become inside and out, and that woman did not shed hysterical tears. She raked her fingers back through her hair several times, corralling it, as she corralled her emotions, hoping Bouchaule could not see her shaking hands or hear her pounding heart. She pinned her hair back and straightened, shedding her sins and the useless woman they’d bred.
“What are you doing here?” she asked calmly.
“Why did you not tell me you had lost your job at the club?”
Interesting opening, Kathryn thought, as she moved to the vanity, where she capped the cold cream for a distraction while she continued to gather herself.
“It didn’t matter. I can get a job anywhere in this town.”
Bouchaule looked around the dingy room with disdain. “Evidently.”
She slammed the jar down and turned, finding her character easily.
“Did you come here to humiliate me again, Thierry?”
He moved into the room and tossed his hat onto a chair.
“It was I who was humiliated.”
Kathryn snorted in disbelief.
“Right, because the whole world revolves around you. You and your precious work.”
“That was not an accusation,” he said, stepping closer. “I admit my manners may leave something to be desired, but I will never apologize for my dedication to my work.”
“Of course you won’t.” She watched his eyes narrow and realized she was playing it a little too hard. “Nor should you,” she relented, almost as an apology.
He smiled, becoming the charming man she knew. They were getting off on the wrong foot, and he apparently didn’t want that any more than she did.
“I do not wish to make you angry, Kathryn. As I said, it was I who was humiliated. I left you unsatisfied. I am not accustomed to leaving a woman unsatisfied.”
Kathryn couldn’t believe his conceit.
“You came here to soothe your ego?”
The charm immediately fell away.
“I came here to apologize.”
“You’ve apologized, now go.”
He hesitated, as if considering it, and she prepared to bolt after him. She would do anything to keep him—cry, beg, even have his child, she had decided in her desperation. Anything. Her hard to get routine was what she thought he would find attractive in a woman, vulnerable, but not desperate, and strong when it mattered most, but not emasculating.
Their drama was interrupted when Kathryn’s male lead from the show stuck his head in the door.
He eyed Bouchaule suspiciously. “Is everything all right, Kat?”
“Yes, Clem. Thank you.”
Kathryn turned back to the mirror, where she observed the two men sizing each other up. The pissing contest was a draw, evidently, and Clem bid Kathryn good night.
“Great show tonight, angel.”
“Thanks, Clem. You too.”
Bouchaule glared at the man until he was out of sight. “Friend of yours?”
Kathryn smiled internally. Bouchaule’s jealousy was a good sign. “Mr. Goddard seems to have mistaken musical chemistry with sexual chemistry, and, no, he is not a friend of mine.”
Bouchaule flexed his shoulders and cracked his neck like a prizefighter warming up for the ring when he affected a Brooklyn accent and said, “You want I should punch his lights out?”
Kathryn grinned, genuinely amused at the man’s humor and command of the accent, but she did not let him off the hook. “Perhaps I should have him punch your lights out.”
Bouchaule straightened, his suave sophistication restored. “I should like to see him try.”
“That might be amusing.”
“Not for him.”
Bouchaule’s humor was suddenly gone, replaced by a serious scowl, as he looked her up and down.
“You do not look well.”
She eyed him in the tall mirror. “Thank you, Thierry. I can always count on you to make me feel good about myself.” She leaned over and picked up a lipstick, acknowledging a little makeup couldn’t hurt her ragged appearance.
“I speak out of concern.”
She turned to face him. “I’m touched.”
He moved forward and gently took her elbow. “You are pale. Are you ill, Kathryn?”
His concern was genuine, and Kathryn got lost for a moment in the depth of his worried eyes.
“I’m not ill.” She lifted her arm from his grasp and turned back to the mirror. “I’m tired. It’s two in the morning, and it’s been a long week.” She set the lipstick down, unused, and met his eyes in the mirror. It was time for reconciliation. “It’s been a long three weeks.”
Bouchaule moved to her back and placed his hands tenderly on her shoulders.
“For me as well.”
Her look was not one of forgiveness—not yet—and he removed his hands and stepped away.
“I am a vain and prideful man. So, yes, I am here to soothe my ego, but more than that, I lost control. I was embarrassed, and I handled it badly. I am sorry for what I said. Please forgive me.”
That was too easy. She eyed him warily. Had something happened in his work? Did he need her blood again?
“If you want your money back, I haven’t got it. I’ve got bills to pay.”
In actuality, she deposited the money at the nearest war bond office and signed ownership of the bond over to the young salesgirl.
Bouchaule was incredulous. “I do not want the money. Why are you being so difficult?”
“Why are you here?”
“Because I love you.”
Kathryn turned. She was surprised, and pleased. It meant she could use the best part of her speech.
“For how long? Until you disappear again? I’m not going to be that woman … the one who sits at home waiting and wondering when you’ll return, if you’ll return.”
He moved closer, and his voice was tender when he said, “I returned that night, but you had gone. You no longer worked at the club, and I did not know where to find you.”
She hadn’t thought of that.
“Then I was called away. I sought you out as soon as I could.”
He moved closer and stroked her cheek.
“Please forgive me.”
She hesitated, not for lack of an answer, but out of surprise that she was moved by his words. She moved out from under his hand and walked away.
“I saw your face when I appeared at the door,” he said to her back. “You are angry and you are hurt, but you love me.”
She turned to face him—and her future.
“So, I love you. What of it? Little good it does me.”
Bouchaule looked appropriately contrite.
“I hate with all my heart the words I spoke to you, and I am sorry. I have been going mad these past few weeks without you, wondering what you must think of me.” He shook his head, as if his words were insignificant against his transgression. “You can grant me your forgiveness or not. I leave it to you. If you want me to go, I will leave and never bother you again.”
She approached him until they stood face to face. His words were confident, but his eyes belied a fear of losing her.
“And what of your promise?” she asked.
He blinked in confusion.
She slowly placed her hands on his chest, thankful they had stopped shaking. “You promised you wouldn’t leave me again.”
He physically relaxed and took her hands in his. “I will not leave you again.” He kissed her hands and then wrapped her in his arms.
She smiled into his dark gray suit and tightened her embrace. Once it would have been a smile of triumph, a fake embrace with a sly smirk behind his back, but this time it was real. She clung to him tightly and almost cried. She was saved. She was someone again, someone with a mission and a purpose. Her demons cheered as they welcomed her home and slapped her on the back for a job well done.
Confidence restored and compass set, it was time to embark on a new path in her life.
“Do you have a room in the city tonight?” she asked.
“No.
“Did Bertrand drive you in?”
“I took a taxi.”
“From the estate? How extravagant.” And risky.
He smiled. “Love makes one do foolish things.”
She was counting on it. “Would you care to stay at my place tonight?”
It had taken Kathryn a few minutes to assure the doctor that going to her apartment was safe for them.
“What of your roommate?” he had asked.
“I’m afraid I wore out my welcome with my friend. I’ve got my own place now, and it’s perfectly safe.”
He looked skeptical.
She smiled. “You’ll see.”
Bouchaule was quite pleased and impressed as they parked at a garage on the next block and made their way through the maze of basement passageways and finally up the cellar steps to Kathryn’s apartment.
“A relic from Prohibition,” Kathryn explained about the building’s unusual architecture. “And a coachman’s house before that.”
Bouchaule wandered through Kathryn’s apartment with great interest, exhaling a whistle as he ran his hand along the satin mahogany of the majestic Steinway that filled most of the living room.
“Came with the apartment,” Kathryn lied. “Some gangster in the thirties bought it for his starlet girlfriend, and when baby went Hollywood, well … there it sits.”
Bouchaule laughed and shook his head. “Very extravagant.”
“Ah, l’amore.” Kathryn smiled.
Bouchaule continued his walkabout and ducked his head into the bedroom, where Kathryn blushed when he saw a picture of them together tucked into the frame of her vanity mirror. It was there to remind her of who she was to become, but discovered by the man himself, the picture served an even better purpose.
He smiled and placed a loving hand on the small of her back. “Thank you, darling, for not giving up on me.”
“I didn’t have a choice,” she replied honestly.
“That is good, I think.”
On the way to the kitchen, he raised a curious brow at the closed door leading to her painting studio, which she had passed without comment.
In response, Kathryn claimed it contained the personal belongings of the owner of the apartment and had been locked since she moved in.
He chuckled. “This place suits you. Deceptively uncomplicated but harboring secrets as deep as the sea.”
“I think that’s a compliment.”
He kissed her cheek. “It means I shall never tire of you.”
He pulled back and looked deeply into her eyes. She thought he was about to kiss her mouth for the first time since their reunion, but he didn’t. He merely smiled, so she filled the awkward moment with small talk.
“Can I get you something?” she asked, as she moved into the kitchen. “I don’t have much, I’m afraid. Coffee, tea, milk?” She opened the barren refrigerator, removed the paper cap from the milk bottle, and winced as the sour smell hit her. “Okay, no milk.”
He laughed, holding out his hand to her. “Nothing, thank you.” He cupped her cheek when she came to him. “You are tired. You need not entertain me.”
She relaxed. It was odd having him in her home, and she admitted to some nerves. This first night was important. She had to get it right.
“I’m going to bathe. There’s some liquor in the bar, if you’d like. Make yourself at home.”
She expected him to join her in the tub, but he didn’t, which told her things were not quite square with them. When she came out of the bathroom, she heard music. He was playing her piano. The tune was “Clair De Lune.”
She stared at him from the hallway, a little stunned, as she tied her bathrobe around her waist.
“Why are you playing that?”
He removed his hands from the keys and closed the fallboard. “Sorry, I did not mean to—”
“No, no, it’s okay. It was beautiful, I just …” She sat beside him on the bench. “It was the song.”
He smiled. “My favorite.”
She had a disturbing case of déjà vu, as she thought back to when she sat beside Jenny in her study and played her father’s favorite song. Perhaps in some spy manual somewhere there was an entry about preying on your victim’s soft spot for a treasured memory. If there wasn’t, there should be. It works.
“Mine too.”
She lifted the fallboard and let him play. She stared at Bouchaule’s graceful hands as he caressed the keys and then closed her eyes and got lost in the melody and memories of her lost family and her lost life.
Bouchaule’s foot released the sustain pedal at song’s end, and Kathryn could feel his stare on her cheek.
“What does it mean to you?” he asked.
She smiled, debating on the truth or an elaborate lie. Her answer fell somewhere in between.
“Pleasant childhood memories.”
He smiled. “Simpler days.”
“To be sure.” She paused. “You?”
“Reminds me of Adele. My sister. She used to attempt it.”
“Attempt it?”
He smiled again. “Oh, she was horrid. No talent for the instrument whatsoever. I think she did it just to irritate me into playing it for her.” His smile slowly vanished and he stared at the ivory keys.
Kathryn took his hand. “I’m sorry, Thierry.”
He covered her hand with his and squeezed it but didn’t look her way. She could see tears forming in his eyes, but he held them off.
“May I use your bath?”
“Of course.”
As he stood, she held fast to his hand until he looked at her. He tugged on her hand and smiled his assurance that he was all right.
“They are happy memories.”
She nodded and let him go.
Kathryn exhaled when she heard the water running. That the man moved her could not be denied. If he was using her for something, he was good—too good in her current overtired state. As it was, her heart went out to him anyway. She couldn’t help it. The story about his sister was true in any case, and for that alone, she felt compassion for him.
She was sitting on the edge of her bed when he entered the bedroom with one towel slung low around his hips and another in his hands, scrubbing at his wet hair.
“Better?” she asked.
“Much. Thank you.”
She stood and pulled the corner of the bedspread and top sheet back. Bouchaule understood he was being invited into her bed, but he hung the towel in his hands around his neck and hesitated.
“I will sleep on the couch.”
She didn’t know why he was so hesitant. Maybe he hadn’t gotten over his embarrassment or hadn’t forgiven her for causing it.
“Thierry …” She reached out and bade him sit beside her on the bed to hear her explanation.
He sat with her and gave her his undivided attention.
“I’d lost a friend that day,” she began.
His face immediately registered sympathy. “To the war?”
In a way. “Yes … to the war. I was upset and angry, and I took it out on you. I’m sorry, you didn’t deserve it. I just—” She swallowed down the memory of that terrible night.
“Wanted the pain to stop,” he finished for her.
His voice was full of understanding and his eyes were soft and compassionate. It seemed he could see right to her core.
“Yes. I wanted the pain to stop.”
“It does not stop, does it?”
She knew he spoke from experience, and she felt closer to him just then.
“No, it doesn’t.”
He entwined his fingers with hers. “You can confide in me. You did not have to go through that alone.”
She squeezed his hand. “You have enough problems. You certainly don’t need mine.”
“I would be honored if you would share your problems with me.”
“Like you share yours?”
“Hardly the same, I am afraid.”
She stared at him until he softened his position.
“You cannot help me with my problems.”
“And you may not be able to help me with mine, but it’s nice to know there’s someone who cares, don’t you think?”
He couldn’t disagree. “I see your point.”
They sat in silence for a few moments, and she sensed a lingering awkwardness from their last encounter. The longer she let that go, the larger an obstacle it would become.
“I’m sorry about that night. It won’t happen again.”
“Well,” he said with a rakish grin as he scratched his cheek, “I would not go that far.”
Kathryn smiled internally. He was a man after all.
“But the next time,” he went on seriously, “it will be because you seek pleasure, not a distraction.”
How well he understood.
He was dirty—dirty and damaged like her. They were a perfect match. Game or not, they deserved each other, and if it was a game on his part, it would be the best game of his life. She would make sure of it.
“Well,” he said dismissively, patting her hand and then standing.
It appeared she had not convinced him to share her bed.
“Stay,” she said with longing in her eyes.
He returned to her side and searched her face.
“Stay,” she repeated, her intentions perfectly clear.
He leaned in and softly kissed her expectant mouth.
This was what she had waited for, when she would welcome him back into her body and mind and accept him as her home and her future. She parted her lips and invited him in. He was her savior, her new religion, and everything she had done was for this moment.
Bouchaule gladly accepted his role and took her in his arms.
His gentle probing kiss was sensual and thoughtful, befitting her rebirth, and ever mindful of his pride, she was submissive to his advances as he eased her onto her back and parted her robe. She soon realized it wasn’t merely consideration for his pride or her assignment that inspired her surrender. He would absolve her of her guilt, if not her sins, and with absolution, would come freedom, and with freedom, pleasure.
This is how it must feel for her victims, she thought—men in power who know better, yet they cannot resist. They’ll be strong and wily tomorrow, they must think, because that’s what she was thinking. Tonight, she and Bouchaule would be together, two broken creatures seeking shelter in each other.
Bouchaule’s eyes were filled with the kind of temporary devotion arousal brings, and as he slid his body between her open thighs, she knew her eyes reflected the same. This encounter was nothing like their previous encounters. It was nothing like any they’d ever had.
His movements were slow and attentive and his eyes never left hers. She found it disconcerting and intoxicating. His gaze was open and she saw his desire, his admiration, and she swore, his love. Whatever Thierry Bouchaule’s intentions in the long run, tonight was no game for either of them.
It felt good to feel pleasure without guilt and good to have sex without the anger so often accompanying it. She closed her eyes, waiting for Bouchaule’s hips to begin the slow, rhythmic thrusting that would finally bring her back to life. That’s how she imagined it would be tonight.
It was something to look forward to, as he was better than most, but she hoped he would just stay where he was and let her enjoy the sensation of his presence bearing down on a particularly erogenous spot deep inside her.
As if he could read her mind, he didn’t move, and she opened her eyes to find him still staring at her, his gaze now boring into her, demanding the truth. She hid nothing from him—she was pure now—and this was the beginning of her new life.
“I love you.”
She wanted to cry when she said it. How far she’d fallen from the last time she’d said it and meant it, but it was true, in a way, this time too—nothing like the love she shared with Jenny—but true in that she loved him for saving her.
“Je t’aime aussi,” he whispered and took her in earnest.
Her surrender was mindless, the act itself like so many before it, but this one was for her pleasure, not her partner’s. When she came, she clutched at his back, unleashing a guttural cry that rode unfettered beside the waves of her spasms, as she dug her fingers into his flesh.
In the throes of the euphoric moment after, she began to laugh uncontrollably. She’d come. Finally. But the laughter turned into sobbing, as she lost all control of her emotions. So much hit her at once: release, Bouchaule’s return, Jenny’s loss. God, Jenny’s loss. She’d only ever lost control like this with Jenny, and that was a pure expression of love like she’d never experienced before. This was the exact opposite.
She had just reached the pinnacle of pleasure with someone other than the woman she loved, and it accentuated the grief of the wasted last weeks, as guilt sabotaged their sex life. These tears were a bloodletting. Every sob leeched a little more of Jenny from her soul, until it was raw, and bleeding, and begging for the pain to stop. Bouchaule would make it stop. He had to or she would die. She had no guilt with him now, and it ushered in the beginning of Jenny’s complete erasure from her mind and body. It was as painful as it was liberating.
Bouchaule cradled her in his arms and rocked her gently, almost as if he expected her breakdown, and she buried her face in her hands, sobbing apologies into his chest.
He kissed her head and whispered soft words of comfort. He didn’t discourage her from crying, and he didn’t shy away from her display of emotion. When she calmed, he went to the bathroom and brought back a cold washcloth for her face.
“Here,” he said, as he gently wiped the tears from her cheeks.
She gladly took it from his hand and hid her eyes with it, afraid she’d revealed too much of herself.
“I’m sorry, Thierry.”
He guided her hair from her downturned face. “Why?”
She looked at him. “I’m sure a hysterical woman is not exactly what you had in mind tonight.”
“You are tired. The day was too much for you. Here …” He climbed into bed behind her and leaned against the headboard, easing her head to his chest.
He held her wordlessly for a few moments, and the tears stopped as quickly as they began. Kathryn sat up and offered a few more ignored apologies as she dabbed her eyes and wiped her nose.
Bouchaule ran his hand across her slumped shoulders, proffering his silent support until she was ready to talk about it. Opening up wasn’t the norm. Usually, one would guard their weaknesses against possible exploitation, but the truth in this case could work toward her advantage, and she knew she had to give to get.
She lifted her tear-ravaged eyes to him in regret. “I hate that I need you so.” She dropped her gaze. “I suppose it’s foolish of me to admit that to you.”
He was silent, and she sought his eyes to gauge his reaction. A single tear stained his cheek.
She wiped it away, unsure of his emotions. “Thierry …”
He took her hand and kissed it. “I love that I need you so.”
That was not what she expected to hear.
“Oh, I do not wish to,” he assured her. “I have neither the time nor the temperament for love, believe me. I should be more sorry for you than glad, but I love that I need you so.”
Kathryn couldn’t tell if he was lying, and she didn’t like being on the other side of the game, wondering if the heartfelt words threatening to breach her defenses were merely a Trojan horse, planted for her eventual destruction, or genuine words of love, spoken from an enchanted heart.
“You don’t have to say that. Just because I—”
“It is the truth,” he interrupted. “I have never cared so deeply for another. I do not wish to be without you, and for me, that is, at the very least, disconcerting.”
Kathryn chuckled. “The reluctant lovers. Sounds like a sordid dime store romance novel.”
“There is nothing sordid about what I feel for you.”
“No,” she said softly. “Nor I for you.”
Silence surrounded them as they contemplated their respective positions. Bouchaule took her in his arms and leaned back against the headboard again.
“We are very much alike, Kathryn. I know you feel it too.”
“Yes,” she agreed honestly and rested her head on his chest.
“They are looking for me, so it will not be easy for us to be together.”
“I know.”
“I’m willing to risk it. Are you?”
She closed her eyes and tightened her embrace on his torso. Tonight, she was home and would feed on his strength. Tomorrow she would be strong and wily. Tomorrow.
“Yes. I’m willing.”