Patrick let out a long breath and wondered if he was blowing this job. He didn’t want Tove to be nervous around him. Maybe he’d lost his touch in retirement. The sound of water running in the bathroom told him that she’d probably be in there for at least a few more minutes as she washed her face and brushed her teeth, so he took the opportunity to shuck out of his suit trousers and pull on some cotton lounge pants. He was utterly comfortable with his body, but he had the feeling Tove wouldn’t appreciate his usual nudity while sleeping. He stretched out on the bed and picked up his book while he waited for his turn in the bathroom, glancing up when the door opened and Tove re-emerged, wearing sky-blue silk pajamas that made her eyes seem even more intense. Her face washed clean of makeup, she looked softer, more vulnerable.
She gave him a weary smile and crawled into bed, curling towards the wall. He thought about what he might be able to do for her while he brushed his teeth and washed his face. The whole situation was packed with stress—even a wedding where everyone got along and there was no terrible ex-husband in the mix was an anxiety-inducing event.
When he emerged from the bathroom, he found the room nearly dark, the only illumination being the bedside lamp on “his” side. He thought maybe she was already asleep, but when he slid between the sheets, she rolled over and faced him, her hands under her cheek.
“You okay over there?” he asked, plumping up the pillow under his head and settling in on his side, facing her.
Her gaze flicked to meet his, then away. “I suppose so. I’m just very, very tired all of a sudden.”
“Well, it’s been a big day for you. And I have an idea.”
Her eyes met his again. “An idea?”
“Yes. You know, there’s a lot of runway between no sex and sex.”
A crease appeared between her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
“I mean there’s cuddling. And you look like you need a cuddle.” And those silk pajamas look incredibly touchable, he didn’t add. His selfish feelings didn’t need to enter into it.
She appeared to consider this. “Is that something you want to do?”
“Sure. I suggested it, after all. Touch can be a powerful stress reliever for some people. It doesn’t have to be about sex.”
“I…I think I’d like that. I don’t remember the last time anyone held me.”
God, that was the saddest thing he’d heard in a long time. “Well, then.” He reached over and pulled her toward him, stroking her back as their bodies came together. She was stiff at first, then gave a little sigh and he felt her soften as he continued to move his hand up and down her back in long sweeps. The pajamas did feel exquisite.
The woman in them felt even better.
How is this my life? Tove thought as she lay on her side, deepening her breath and succumbing to Patrick’s delicious touch. His body was radiating heat as well, making her feel as if she was warming herself in front of a blazing fire after a long day in the cold.
It’s not real, she reminded herself. He was there because she’d paid his fee and the day after tomorrow she would say goodbye to him and never see him again.
But for the time being, she was loving being touched so much, she nearly wanted to weep from the relief of it. Somehow, being held by Patrick made her feel as if she didn’t have to be the person who was always in charge, always making decisions. Somehow, this little circle of intimacy made her feel like she was in a partnership—more so than she ever had when she had been married.
This was what Andrea and Derrick had. Mutual support. Comfort. And now, she was nearly crying from the thought of really being in that kind of a relationship.
No, she really was weeping. Fuck.
“Shh. It’s okay.” Patrick, damn his perception, was gathering her closer, rolling over onto his back to pull her half onto his chest.
“I’ll get you all wet.” She hated how clogged her voice was, choked with tears and emotion and fatigue.
“I won’t melt. It’s okay.” One hand traversed her back in long, comforting sweeps. The other stroked her hair.
“I don’t even know why I’m crying.” There was nothing about today she hadn’t anticipated, nothing that was even that terribly awful. Anthony had just been the same Anthony she’d divorced and tried to co-parent with. The girls getting married was wonderful. The pre-wedding party had gone off without a hitch.
“Stress does a lot of things to a person’s system.” Patrick’s voice was a low rumble, soothing against the ear she had pressed to his chest.
“What do I have to be stressed about?”
His hand paused. “Seriously? Your daughter is getting married. That’s huge.”
“But it’s a happy kind of huge,” Tove nearly wailed.
“Shh,” Patrick said again, gathering her even closer, his arms closing around her, pressing her body to his. “It’s still change. It’s still stress. Your little girl is going through a major life event. Of course it’s stressful.”
Tove lifted her head and looked at him. The tears had stopped but her face was still wet. “You’re right. How do you know this?”
He shrugged and pulled her back down on his chest, the hair coarse against her cheek. “It makes sense. You’re just too close to it to see it clearly. Also, people don’t tend to hire someone like me unless they’re either very horny or very stressed. You seem to fall into the latter category.”
“Since I said no to sex?” she asked.
“That, and the original brief was more about your asshole ex than anything else. But somehow, he doesn’t seem to be the biggest thing causing you grief just now.”
She wiped her eyes and took in a deep breath. “He seems…more like a paper tiger now, I guess. When Em was a kid, there was so much riding on his behavior. But she’s grown up now and while I know he’s still disappointing her, it’s not impacting her as a person. She knows now that her dad being shit is not about her.”
“Intellectually, yeah. I’m sure she does.”
“But?” She twisted her neck to look up at him again.
Uncharacteristically, his eyes slid to the side, not meeting her gaze. “Bad parents are bad parents. And you never stop being someone’s kid.”
Tove’s blue eyes bored into him and he knew he’d said too much. “Sounds like you know something about having shit parents,” she said, her voice deceptively smooth.
He realized he’d stopped stroking her back and started again, still loving the feel of the satin against his palm, of the warm promise of the woman underneath. She continued to gaze at him in quiet expectation and he realized she wasn’t going to let it go. There was that perceptiveness again.
“Yeah. I do.”
“Hm. Do you have any kids?”
His hand paused and he realized the question had startled him. “No. When did you think I would have time to have a kid?”
She snorted. “Men have all the time to have a kid. It only takes a few minutes. In some cases, seconds. Raising them, that’s usually on the women who have them.”
She wasn’t wrong. But she also wasn’t right about him. “I wouldn’t have left the sole raising of my child to someone else. But I also don’t have any children.”
“Okay, then.” She subsided back onto his chest, but instead of resting her cheek, she laid a hand under her chin and continued to look at him. “So, you know something about shit parents. I do too.”
“Do you?”
She rolled her lips into her mouth and gave an abbreviated nod. “There are famous models in the world who are lovely parents, but my mother was not one of them.”
“Ah.” He didn’t know what else to say. He wasn’t used to having the world turned upside down on him like this. He realized he’d never in his life thought about who Katrin Nilsen was as a person. With a fleeting sense of shame, he realized she’d only been images passing through his life.
“Let me guess. You had that poster with the blue bikini on your wall growing up.” Tove’s eyes had a kind of weary, slightly humorous resignation in them.
“Um. Yeah. Yeah, I did. But it wasn’t on my wall. It was on the inside of my closet door.”
“Disapproving parents?”
“You might say that.” Disapproving when they were present, that was. Which was infrequent, since they were too busy with their careers and each other. They’d clearly never wanted children and Patrick had been a disruption in their lives. “Was that your issue with your mother?”
Tove’s eyes fluttered. “No, she was around. She kept me with her as she traveled the world, sometimes leaving me for short stints with friends, but she never really had what you’d call a permanent home, so my upbringing was very…nomadic. Los Angeles to New York to Paris to Milan to Tokyo… Just round and round and round. Wherever she had jobs. Endless tutors until I went to boarding school at fourteen.”
“And your father?”
One shoulder rocked in a gentle shrug. “To this day, I don’t know who he is, though I have a few educated guesses. I always thought she’d tell me before she died, but that didn’t happen.”
It was common knowledge that Katrin Nilsen had died in a private plane crash, alongside the rock star who’d been her lover at the time. “How old were you when you lost her?”
“Nineteen. I was in college at NYU at the time. That was also around the time I met Anthony. He seemed very secure, very up-and-coming. Wall Street, you know? And I was very afraid of losing everything. Mom’s estate was in a bit of a mess.”
He shifted and tugged her a little closer. “There are worse reasons for ending up with a shitty husband.”
Tove sighed and settled her cheek back against his chest. “I know. And, like I always tell myself, I ended up with Emily, so it’s not exactly that I regret the relationship. Just…”
He stroked her back again, waiting for her to finish the thought. But when he opened his mouth to ask another question, he realized she was asleep.