Amalia was sitting hunched over her desk, busily reading the same e-mail over and over again, but her mind was clearly so far away that there was no chance she was ever actually going to understand what it said. Quickly and cruelly, time was passing, and she was well aware what that meant – that it would soon be all over. They would have to fight in a courtroom and their opposing positions and points of view would force them apart. She knew it was inevitable.
Unfortunately for her, being aware of all that didn’t mean that she was able to forget about it even for a moment.
Right from the beginning, this whole story had been a complete disaster: they should have never got together in the first place. Now she was finally realizing how wise Ryan had been in trying to avoid her for all that time. Over the last four days they had spent every free moment hidden away at Amalia’s place, making love and talking and then making love again. This was the first time in her life that she had thought she might actually be in love with someone, but even though that was the case, from Sunday he would start ignoring her. And who knows, maybe it was actually better that way, because if they had spent one more day together she was certain she would have made a fool of herself and would have ended up looking even more ridiculous that she already did. To be honest, she suspected that he was well aware of how much she had lost her head over him, even though she had never actually told him. If she started blabbering compromising nonsense, she would be forever labelled as a pathetic, desperate woman.
She was absolutely sure that she had lost her head because she had realized that Ryan possessed a place in her heart thanks more to his multiple defects than to his qualities. He was grouchy, stubborn, competitive and always ready to argue in defense of his point of views and ideas. And for some reason, none of that made him any less appealing in her eyes. On the contrary, she liked him precisely because of his hideous personality. She even liked him because of his bad temper, which was absolutely incurable. And she felt all this attachment after spending only four days with him – or rather, only four nights.
Amalia banged her forehead on her desk in desperation. She was just pathetic, she had turned into one of those desperate little women she’d always laughed about, and now it was obviously time for her to pay the price for having foolishly felt superior, an attitude that had always made her feel safe in the past. Life always presents the check when you least expect it. But she did feel she was really being overcharged.
While she was busy feeling sorry for herself, her mobile rang, snapping her back to reality. When she saw Kayla’s name on the screen, she decided to try and act normally because she didn’t want her friend worrying about her too much.
“Hello, darling,” Kayla greeted her “I was thinking we could have dinner together tonight, what do you say?”
Amalia hesitated long enough for Kayla to understand what her answer was going to be.
“Oh, what? Are you actually going to sideline me again?” she exclaimed, laughing.
“I am. But I solemnly promise you that from Monday evening onwards I’m all yours. In fact, please clear out your schedule for me!” Amalia answered in the tone of someone giving an invitation to the funeral of a family member.
“Again with the doom and gloom? Are you still convinced that the world is going to end on Monday?” teased Kayla in an attempt to make her friend smile.
“No, not the whole world – just mine.” Amalia replied grimly.
Perplexed, Kayla drummed her fingers.
“I must say that for a woman who’s always going around saying she never gets attached to anyone, you’ve really gotten yourself in deep this time. And I mean, really deep! Come on girl, you’ve only been sleeping with this guy for five days…”
She knew very well how ridiculous it was to feel so attached to someone after only five days. But she was also aware of the dramatic truth: it had taken her only five minutes to fall for him. Five stupid, useless, damned minutes. What came afterwards had only worsened an already highly compromised situation.
“Ok, let’s try and think this through rationally,” proposed Kayla. “Those five days are not your real problem. What I mean is, your problem is actually five days of fantastic sex after ten years of depressing abstinence. By the way, please remind me never to screw someone I used to fancy back when I was a teenager, it could really mess me up.”
“God, don’t be so vulgar, Kayla!” Amalia scolded her. “When you fall in love – and it is going to happen to you, sooner or later, believe me – I’m sure you’ll use more delicate language.”
“Who, me? Amalia, apparently you haven’t just lost your head – it looks like another very important organ of yours is malfunctioning too: your brain!”
But Amalia wasn’t about to let Kayla confuse her.
“Oh no – it is going to happen, and when it does, I will be there, being just as horrible to you as you are being to me right now!”
Kayla didn’t say anything for a few moments, uncertain as to whether they should really talk seriously about it all or not, until she eventually decided to be as honest as possible.
“Look, sweetheart, If you’re so sure that you’re in love with him – and that this is a feeling that runs much deeper than five minutes, five days or five years – why don’t you consider asking someone else to take over this case for you? You have a conflict of interests on your hands. It would be as easy as that. And it happens all the time. You can avoid fighting each other in court for the sake of your relationship.”
That was exactly what she hadn’t wanted to hear… Her breathing, which was sounding ragged now, was already an answer in itself.
“I can’t do it. I’ve worked too hard for the last ten years to build up a professional reputation for myself in this town. I can’t just suddenly ask someone to substitute for me three days before the trial. I would lose the respect of the judge and my client in one easy move. Okay, yes, I am in love, but luckily for me I am still in my right mind. At least partly…” she admitted in a pained tone.
“What about him, then? Couldn’t he ask someone to substitute for him?” suggested Kayla.
“Maybe… If he wanted to…” Amalia whispered.
“Look, honey, can I give you a suggestion, as a friend?”
Amalia leaned back in her chair and massaged her stiff neck.
“You’re going to give me it anyway…”
“Yes I am. Don’t wait until Sunday evening to ask him. If you want to do it, if you’re considering bringing it up, for Heaven’s sake, do it before it’s too late.”
“Do you know what I hate most about you?” Amalia asked, smiling sorrowfully.
“Apart from the fact that over the last ten years I’ve had a ton more sex than you?”
“Yes, apart from that. I hate the way you’re always able to analyze things so damn rationally. How do you do it?”
At that point, Kayla suddenly grew very serious, for the first time since that weird phone call had begun.
“It’s because I never get involved, Amalia. I never play any active role in situations like this. And if I have to be honest with you, I’m pretty sure that’s not a good thing. Anyway, go face your dragon armed only with that razor sharp tongue of yours. If there’s one person in the whole world capable of winning a discussion using only words, that person is you.”
“I’ll try. Although I think I might have just found out the real reason why people hire lawyers.”
Kayla kept silent, waiting for the big revelation.
“It’s because you’re never dispassionate enough to win when you’re involved personally. You can never see things in perspective when it’s about yourself.”
*
Despite her best intentions, Amalia never found a good moment to bring the thing up with Ryan during the entire Friday evening. He had come over to her place and taken her out for dinner at a cozy little Mexican restaurant that had just opened round the corner. She had immediately softened when he had given the waiter precise orders to eliminate paprika from both their dishes. She was the type of woman who knew how to appreciate these little things.
Their dinner date didn’t last very long. In fact, before their mains arrived they had already started giving each other funny looks and feeling a type of hunger that not even the best restaurant in the world could have satisfied. Ryan had gotten closer and kissed her in a sweet, surprisingly chaste way, while she, on the other hand, had to struggle not to just jump on him in front of all those innocent people.
Ten minutes later, Ryan had left the table to go and pay the bill – that was something she had stopped fighting about, as the Assistant D.A. apparently had no intention of giving up his habit of paying for them both – and Amalia realized she was happier about going back home than she’d ever been before. They should never have even bothered going out. Being around other people was just a useless pain in the ass – other people might be able to waste precious time having dinner in restaurants, but they only had one weekend left to spend together, and it would definitely be better to spend what little time remained in other ways. By the time they reached Amalia’s front door, their hormones were already out of control.
“We should have never gone out,” she told him as she attempted to unlock the door – but unless he stopped kissing her neck it was unlikely she’d ever manage it. She almost thought she was going to melt right there in the middle of the street. She felt Ryan’s laughter on her skin.
“I didn’t want you to think that I’ve only got one thing on my mind… I wanted to at least take you out for dinner for a change!”
“I appreciate the gesture, but I’m going to enjoy the after dinner even more,” she replied provocatively after finally succeeding in opening the door and pulling it open.
Ryan didn’t wait a second – he dragged her up the stairs and then took the keys from her hands and let both of them into the apartment with his usual impetuousness. She loved that side of his personality: it usually took them a few hours to get to the bedroom. And for someone like her who was used to always having sex in bed, it was an experience that was both liberating and fun at the same time. Ryan put the same passion and commitment into making love that he put into trying to get a conviction: he’d always put his heart and soul into what he did, and those moments were the most precious of all – it seemed that she was able to penetrate his armor and touch the actual man beneath it. He was always so talkative in the courtroom, but like so many other men he wasn’t good at opening up in intimate situations. For him, it was more natural to just show her what he was feeling, rather than talk about it.
Amalia thought that what kept him silent about his feelings was shyness mixed some instinct of self-preservation. At least, he was very careful not to reveal anything, while she was the exact opposite: she had to really fight against herself not to start coming out with sweet nothings, because she knew in her heart that Ryan really didn’t want to hear any of that kind of stuff. Even when he was relaxed, his eyes always communicated to her some sort of warning: they told her not to go there. She was absolutely certain that he wouldn’t appreciate any unrequited feelings she might show him – and in any case, their relationship was going to end in forty-eight hours. Only forty-eight hours.
Realizing the actual amount of time remaining made her wake up from the trance that Ryan’s kisses had put her in, and she suddenly lifted her head and observed their bodies, entangled on the living room carpet. The interior designer probably hadn’t considered it being put to such use, given how rough the texture was.
Ryan immediately noticed the change in her mood and stopped moving too.
“Is there anything wrong?” he asked her softly, caressing her face with his big hands.
“No, nothing,” she tried to reassure him.
He probably noticed the tremor in her voice, but didn’t remark on it. He moved his hand towards her breasts instead, caressing one and then the other until finally he took off her black lace bra. She had never worn that bra much until one day she had noticed how much Ryan seemed to like it when she wore lace. When he touched the delicate fabric, his reactions, which were always impulsive, became absolutely uncontrollable.
For that weekend, she was planning to wear her best lingerie. Sure, once those forty-eight hours were up she would be forced to burn a very valuable collection of underwear, but it would be worth it. If she had to admit defeat – and there was nothing that made her think that wasn’t how things were going to end – she would have at least fought for herself.
“Your head’s so full,” he whispered while he kissed her neck, “let me help you stop thinking for a while.”
Amalia smiled bitterly. At this point she barely had any reason left, but she decided now wasn’t the best time to talk about it so she decided to excite him even more. She grabbed his shoulders and with a rapid movement forced him down onto the floor, kneeling down too and whipping his briefs off. God, he really was handsome when he was completely naked.
Ryan closed his eyes and when Amalia started caressing all of his body, at first with her hands and then with her tongue he gave a long, agonized sigh.
“Can we do this later?” he begged her. “I know I must sound like a fool right now, but I don’t think I can resist much longer…”
“What? Didn’t you say you always work better when you’re stressed?” she teased him, raising her eyes for a moment to observe him. And yes, he didn’t really look as if he could control himself much longer.
“I always used to work best under stress – and then I met you…” he confided to her in a hoarse voice.
Very unwillingly, Amalia gave up her intentions, tearing off her panties and in a moment was straddling him – it was a position that she liked, because it made her feel as though for once she was in charge. And she had just decided to do something she would otherwise never have done with a man she’d only been sleeping with for five days. But Sunday evening was very close and she didn’t want to leave any possibility unexplored.
“The condoms are in my jacket pocket,” he said, pointing to his clothes which lay abandoned on the floor a few yards away.
But she shook her head in denial.
“I’m on the pill,” she revealed. “And I’m clean. How about you?”
That question implied a huge amount of trust on her part, and Ryan really hadn’t been expecting anything like it.
“I’m totally clean. Are you sure about this?”
As a reply, Amalia bent over him and brought him inside her in a single fluid movement, taking him totally by surprise. He moaned and grabbed her by her waist, and she closed her eyes and savored the feeling of being united with him with no barrier between them.
*
Incapable of any movement, they let a few moments go by as they enjoyed that powerful new sensation, and then Amalia opened her eyes and almost stopped breathing for an instant. Life is made up of moments and memories that have a lasting impression on us, and that particular moment would torment her more than any other: Ryan, in the semi-darkness of her apartment, his hair mussed and his lips red from kissing hers, looking at her as though she were the most precious thing in the world. She sensed the emotion in his face so powerfully that she caressed his cheek with a hand to reassure him. But while touching him she went close enough to trigger something inside him. He moved closer and kissed her possessively. Their bodies felt each other’s urgency and let themselves go, at a rhythm determined more by necessity than by will. That time, neither of them attempted to slow the pace and when, after a few minutes, they finally exploded together, Amalia was suddenly certain that nothing, absolutely nothing, would ever be better than that.
Ryan woke up in the middle of the night with the sensation that his heart was about to explode. And it wasn’t only a figure of speech. He sat up, trying not to make a noise or wake Amalia. She lay asleep beside him, her lovely hair all around her face, with one hand under the nape of her neck and the other stretched out towards him. She was the most incredible woman he’d ever met, and seeing her lying there was almost enough to make him lose his mind. Or the little of it he had left, anyway.
The whole thing was going to be the end of him, it was glaringly obvious now. Even he could see it, despite his total lack of intuition recently. He was sinking and felt unable to do anything to save himself. He wasn’t fooling himself about it, though: there was no way he would be able to get away from her before Sunday evening, he was like an addict who can’t get to the rehab clinic of his own free will. Yes, he thought, Amalia actually was like a drug for him, the analogy was absolutely perfect.
The only thought that consoled him was the realization that all those years before he had read the situation correctly: Amalia was lethal for him, and he had known it. Maybe she didn’t have the same effect on everybody, but she clearly did on him. She was like kryptonite for Superman: it might look like an ordinary, run of the mill piece of stone, no different from any other, but in reality it was an invincible weapon against anyone happening to come from the wrong planet.
It was all his own fault: if that woman had always remained in a corner of his mind, even after ten years, there must be a reason. Ryan had made the childish mistake of thinking he was above all that, he had been too sure that he would be able to control himself around her, even if he had clearly seen all the warning signs his mind had been flashing him. Now he thought about it, it occurred to him he might have even heard anti-aircraft sirens.
So if his head wanted to explode, his heart was beating faster and faster and his blood pressure was threatening to give him a coronary in the middle of the night, he only had himself to blame, nobody else.
He had never seen himself as a man who could be driven by his emotions – not because he had any weird theory about it, but simply because it happened to him so rarely. He had been a very capable and determined kid, and his plans for his future had required commitment and a lot of hard work, and he had given up all distractions without a second thought. That’s why he had thought they weren’t particularly important to him. But apparently, he had been wrong.
He had even lived with a girl for a whole year, and he still hadn’t felt the way he did after only five days with Amalia. Five days. The mere thought of that took his breath away again – and he didn’t enjoy the sensation at all.
He knew that most people would have been happy to finally meet that one person who could make them re-think all their certainties… that unique, special human being who could give them the strength to move mountains. But the thought of finding himself in that state just made him feel ridiculous. First of all, he wasn’t really used to having to deal with his irrational side – in fact he didn’t know that side of himself at all, whilst he knew the calm and rational part well. The second reason for feeling ridiculous was that for absolutely the first time in his life he was able to understand the words ‘I would do anything for you’. In the past, he’d thought they were just stupid, empty rhetoric – a bit of excessive poetic license.
But he had been wrong the whole time. At that exact moment, had she asked him to jump off the Brooklyn bridge, he would have done it. Plain and simple. He had no doubt at all about it. He would have jumped with no regrets whatsoever.
Falling in love and being temporarily unfit to plead were the exactly same thing. He wondered how the hell people managed to have a normal life while they were going through that? When all senses seemed to be amplified, all colors appeared more intense and smells more persistent. When you were driven by the impossibility of thinking, working and even sleeping. Seriously, how did other people handle it? He really couldn’t find an answer.
Ryan stood up and headed towards the kitchen. He was thirsty and needed an excuse not to wake Amalia up and start kissing her again. Had she been someone else – that is, if she hadn’t been part of an immense estate passed down through the generations – he really would have lost his mind over her.
He would have booked a flight for Las Vegas for the following day and, assuming she actually felt the same, he would have married her as soon as they got off the plane. He would then have presented Wyatt with a perfectly acceptable reason for not proceeding with the trial. Ok, it wouldn’t have been ideal regarding his intention of making a career for himself in the New York D.A.’s office. Nevertheless, he was sure: had she been another lawyer, he would have done it. For love, he thought, he would do things that under other circumstances he wouldn’t even consider.
But Amalia was Amalia, born and raised amongst privilege, the walking, talking personification of a world he had never had any respect for. She was who she was anyway, and he was in no position to ask her to change. It would have been unfair and unreasonable. And anyway, the two of them wouldn’t have lasted long if one of them had to change to please the other. Sooner or later the same issues would emerge, causing an inevitable rift. For people like them, there was no easy way out.
That’s why breaking up with her the following Sunday would be awful, but watching their relationship slowly destroying itself would be even worse. He would throw himself into that weekend, and then he would be able to close that door forever. Luckily for him, in all his thirty-three years he had only met one woman who was able to put him in such a state of confusion. He hoped to God that he wouldn’t meet another for at least the next fifty years.