“And you can’t tell me.”
“Not for the reason you’re thinking. Not because I don’t want you to know, to share fully in who I am. I want that more than anything.”
“Then why not?”
He leaned back on his heels and looked up at the ceiling. “Because it’s too great a risk. To you particularly.”
“A risk. A risk. Well, gosh, Julian. Now you’ve really got me curious. Did you commit murder or something?”
He flinched.
“Whoa,” I breathed.
“No, no,” he said hastily. “Not murder, for heaven’s sake.” He ran another agitated hand through his hair. “Look, you promised not to press me on it. Can you just give me time, please? Time to sort things out? It’s just so damned complex, and I don’t know what the right thing is anymore. Probably there is no right thing.”
He looked so anxious, so deeply perplexed. I felt a surge of emotion for him, ferocious enough to stop the breath in my lungs. “Why?” I whispered.
“Why what?”
“Why me? You could have anyone. You hardly know me at all.”
He smiled then, a tiny wistful smile, tender and intimate. His right thumb reached and stroked along my eyebrow, down the side of my face, around my jaw, feathering my lips. “Kate. I know you far better than you realize. And I never want you to ask that question again. Never again to wonder what I feel for you.” He paused briefly, thoughtfully. “Would it help if I said it aloud?”
I found myself nodding.
“You certainly ought to hear it, putting up with all my mad behavior as generously as you have.” A deprecating shake of his head, and then he went on in a low voice. “Sweetheart, I love you. Of course I do. I love every priceless inch of you. I love you idolatrously, for a thousand reasons, and I shall never stop. Hush,” he said, laying his finger on my lips again, “you don’t need to say anything. I’m a patient man. Just be easy. Know that it’s there, that you needn’t doubt me on this, at least.”
He bowed his head to settle a silken kiss into the hollow of my throat, holding it there for what seemed an eternity before his mouth began to move up my collarbone, melting it in his wake. I tilted my head back, feeling the prickle of his hair against my cheek. “You… are the most baffling man,” I managed.
“How so?”
“You just… you fell in love with me… just like that?” My concentration kept lapsing; I struggled to hold on to my thoughts, which I knew were important.
I felt his laugh against the skin of my neck. “Well, look at you, darling. You’re love-at-first-sight material.”
“Using my own words against me.”
“You don’t think it’s possible?”
“I just can’t believe it. That you would feel that way already. That you would admit it.”
“Well, as they say,” he said, nibbling at my earlobe, slipping down to kiss the vale behind it, “faint heart never won fair lady.”
I lifted my hand to the back of his head. “I’m going… to find out.”
“Yes, I expect you shall. What fragrant skin you have, darling; how convenient that the woman one loves should turn out to be so perfectly…” He paused to kiss the curve of my jaw.
“Perfectly what?”
“Delectable.”
I couldn’t take any more. I wrapped my arms about his neck; my face reached toward him, begging for his kiss. I heard him chuckle, deep in his throat, and then at last his lips met mine, hungry and reckless, and I realized he was as desperate as I was. He knelt in front of me, kissing me madly, his warm spread fingers clasping my face, his scent and his taste flooding every pore of me, until all rational thought detached from my skull. My fingers slipped down, almost by themselves, and began to work the buttons on his shirt, trying to discover the precious skin underneath.
He drew away. He put up his hand and trapped my fingers and twisted them around his own. His chest was heaving hard; I could feel it beneath my hand.
“Kate, wait. I don’t think…”
I looked down. “I’m sorry,” I found myself saying, “I just… I don’t know.”
“Let’s not be too hasty, shall we?”
“Hasty? You’re talking to me about hasty?”
“Kate, don’t be angry.”
“Angry? Julian, I’m so full of crazy feelings right now, angry just doesn’t have room. Do you want me to stay, or not?”
“My God, Kate. There’s nothing I want more,” he said, his voice catching, his fingers biting into mine. “Nothing else I can think about. But not yet. Not yet, please.”
I stared at him. “Okay. Whatever.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Well, guys don’t usually put the brakes on,” I said. “Especially after the ‘I love you’ gambit.”
An austere expression settled on his face. “Exactly what do you mean by that?”
“Oh, please, Julian. Let’s not have the sex talk right now. I’m not up to it, after everything else.”
“The sex talk?”
I waved my hand, evading his look. “Going through our quote unquote histories, dredging up all the ghosts. Can we just have the executive summary and move on?”
He went still for a moment, taut as a crossbow, bright color staining his cheekbones. “Come here,” he said at last, and sat down next to me on the sofa and gathered me into his lap. “If we do this,” he said, the softness of his voice belying the lithe tension in his body, “when we do this, it will have nothing to do with what’s gone before, for either of us. Nothing. Because I frankly can’t bear to think about someone else being with you, and not loving you the way I do. So let’s just leave it a blank slate.” He kissed my temple. “God knows I don’t want you to leave tonight, Kate. I want you to fall asleep next to me, every night of my life. But I’m going to walk you home now, all the same, because I think we’d better not cross that particular Rubicon just yet. Don’t you?”
“I… I don’t know. Not just yet. What does that mean? Do you…”—I swallowed—“do you need me to say it, too?”
“No, darling.” His hand brushed along my arm. “Don’t worry about that.”
“Then I don’t understand. I just… aren’t I… don’t you want me?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Kate,” he groaned. “Not want you? Bloody Christ.”
“Look, you’re confusing the hell out of me! If you were in love with me from the beginning, why did you walk away? And if you do love me, why won’t you just haul me upstairs and show me?”
“I left,” he said rigidly, “because I thought it was best for you. I didn’t realize… I thought I was only hurting myself, at that point. But I shan’t forsake you again, Kate, I swear it. And as for hauling you upstairs… God knows…” He shook his head. “It’s too important to me, Kate. I won’t rush you into something you’re not ready for.”
“Not ready for? Of course I’m ready! Trust me, I’ve never been so ready!”
He laughed hollowly. “No, darling. You’re not.”
“And you think you know what’s best for me?”
“In this case, I do.”
I opened my mouth to cite Beauvoir, chapter and verse, but something stopped me, some unexpected flare of self-insight, or else some realization of what, exactly, he was offering me. So I turned away from him instead, eased myself back against his broad body, squinted up at the ceiling. “You know,” I said, after a moment, “no one’s ever tried to talk me out of sex before.”
“Ah. All those rotters, isn’t it?” He was so warm, so gentle; the tension had left him entirely. I felt the steady rise and fall of his chest behind me, the cradling strength of his arms.
“Well, not that many, actually. I wised up before too much damage was done.” I paused, letting the unspoken details lie massive and still between us, before going on softly: “But you know, I never realized how… just… lame they were, until now.”
He tightened his arms around me. His lips pressed against my hair, reassuring, but his voic
e was intense. “I could murder them.”
“Please don’t,” I said, half-serious, thinking of the efficient way he had landed punches on my attacker in the park. I sat up. “You promised me you’d play the piano for me sometime.”
“Now?”
“Why not?” I twisted in his arms to touch his chin with my finger. “I don’t want to leave yet, and you’ve ruled out sex.”
“Kate. And you can’t think of anything else to do?”
“Please?”
His eyes rolled upward. “You’re discovering your power over me, aren’t you? Very well.” He stood up, bringing me with him. “Go upstairs. The piano’s in the room fronting the street. I’m going to fetch a bit of wine.”
“Wine?”
“Stage fright.” He stroked my cheek with the back of his hand and smiled at me. “Up with you. I’ll be right there.”
I skipped up the stairs, turning right at the landing, and found my way down the darkened hall to the room at the front. I was half-expecting it might be his bedroom, but in fact it was more like a study, or perhaps a music room, with a low comfortable English-armed sofa at one end and a grand piano filling the space near the windows. I turned on a lamp and went to the wide window overlooking the street below. What time was it? Not too late, ten-thirty maybe, but it seemed later: the streetlamps cast lurid yellow-orange pools of light on the deserted sidewalk, and the rapid pulse of traffic had settled into the occasional passing taxi and black sedan. I felt a surge of gratitude, to be where I stood, in this tranquil room, with Julian’s presence a comforting certainty somewhere nearby.
“Found your way, all right?” came his voice behind me, as though I’d summoned him with my thoughts.
“Mmm, yes,” I said, without turning. “I love the room. Very homelike.”
I heard his footsteps behind me, creaking the floorboards, and then a glass of red wine appeared in front of me. The warmth of his body hovered over my skin. “Thank you,” I said, taking it, and held the glass in my hand for a second or two before lifting it to my lips. “Wow. Delicious.”
“What would you like me to play?”
“I don’t know. I loved that Chopin you were playing, when I came here at Christmas.”
He chuckled, close to my ear. “You seem to be under the misapprehension that I’m some sort of expert musician.”
“Aren’t you? You’re good at everything else.”
“I’m passable, but nothing like an expert.”
I turned to find his face inches from mine, looking down at me with amusement. “Don’t punk out on me, Laurence,” I warned.
He smiled and took a drink of wine. “Right-ho. You’ve asked for it. Have a seat,” he said, nodding at the sofa. I went over obediently and sank into the cushion, curling my legs beneath me, wineglass in hand.
Julian stepped to the piano, placing his glass on the edge before pushing off his shoes with his toes and settling his stocking feet on the pedals. “Chopin?” he confirmed, lifting his eyebrow at me.
“Yes, please. A nocturne, maybe. I like those.”
He nodded. The piano stood at an angle to me, so I could just see the keyboard and the side of his face glowing in the dusky light from the nearby lamp. “I expect you’ll know this one,” he said. “The E flat.”
He closed his eyes, recalling the music perhaps, and a short silence filled the half-lit room, so dense I thought I could hear the hasty thump-thump, thump-thump of my own heart, anticipating him.
Then he looked at his hands, and the first few notes rose upward, poising languorously in midair, warm and flawless, perfectly familiar.
How often had I heard this music? It felt like an old friend, someone we’d both known all our lives, without realizing the shared connection. It hardly seemed like music at all: it stirred the intimate space between us, more like a question, an inquiry. As though he were reaching out tenderly to ask me something, to express the inexpressible.
And I wanted keenly to answer him, to tell him yes! yes! but instead I only studied him, enraptured; watched the lines of his face tighten in concentration as he sank into the notes, into the delicate cascades and passionate surges, his eyes following his hands on the keyboard.
He loved this piece. I could see that much. At certain points, points of what might be called suppressed fervor, his eyelids slipped down, sealing an intensity of feeling. He’s sensuous, slid the thought into my head. A deeply sensuous man. The way he kissed me, the way he touched me, the way his fingers traveled knowingly along the piano keys, coaxing out this living music: it was all the same.
His voice echoed in my ear: If we do this. When we do this.
He brought the piece to rest on its low final chord, ebbing into the ether. A moment passed of absolute stillness, and then he turned to look at me with a faintly apologetic expression, eyebrow raised in question.
I spoke with effort. “That was amazing. Thank you so much. I… wow. I don’t know what to say. Play another.”
He crossed his eyes comically. “Clearly no judge of music, for which blessing I’m extremely grateful.” He paused, and then started something else, restive and vibrant.
“What’s that?” I asked, watching his face.
“Beethoven,” he answered. “Appassionata. First movement.”
“Hmm.” I listened for a moment, until the melodic line surfaced briefly. “Oh, yeah. I’ve heard this one.”
“I should hope so.”
“Where did you learn to play?”
“Endless lessons as a child. My mother used to have me play for her in the evenings, when I was home from school.” A little pause. “And I practice a good deal, still. At night, when I can’t sleep.” He fell silent, working his way through a momentary elaboration, and then asked, “Where did you learn your Chopin?”
“Hmm?” The music wound around us; I couldn’t focus on his words. “Oh, my father used to play it on the stereo. He said it was good for the soul.”
He smiled, glancing over at me before returning his eyes to the keyboard. “I think I like your father.”
“Just an ordinary dad, really.”
“Not at all. He raised you, didn’t he? I imagine,” he continued, after a moment, “you grew up feeling as though you didn’t quite fit in with your surroundings. That you weren’t quite like everyone else you knew. Am I right?”
I shifted on the sofa. “Everybody does at some point. It’s part of the human conceit, isn’t it, to think we’re special somehow.”
“And now?”
“I guess I have trouble relating sometimes,” I said. “Not that I think I’m better than anyone else; usually the opposite. Not quite cool enough for Manhattan.”
He shook his head. “A rose among dandelions.”
“Hardly.”
He didn’t reply, only smiled and went on with the sonata, concentrating fiercely on its intricate pounding final minute, closing his eyes as it drifted into nothing.
“Oh, now you’re just showing off,” I told him, and he looked up at me and winked. Without asking, he took a drink of wine and started something else, playing as though I weren’t there at all.
I must have begun to doze off at some point, because I opened my eyes to see Julian on his heels before me, easing the half-empty wineglass from my fingers. “You’re falling asleep,” he said softly, reaching out to tuck my hair behind my ear. “Let’s get you home.”
WE WALKED BACK SLOWLY, hand in hand, to my apartment building, not talking at all. So much had been said today, and our brains were too busy processing it all to think of anything new. It was only when the dark green awning above the lobby entrance loomed ahead that I spoke up.
“So. Should I wait out front in the morning?”
“Actually, I’ve got to fly up to Boston first thing,” he said, a little wryly.
“Oh, no. Not Boston again. I guess this is really good-bye, then.” I stopped in the shadows, just outside the glow of light from the lobby, and turned to face him.
He
leaned forward, cupping his hand around the curve of my skull, and kissed me, hard. “This is not good-bye,” he said fiercely.
“Can you blame me? You gave me a pretty good scare tonight.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, eyes closed, leaning his forehead against mine. The words brushed against my mouth. “Forgive me, darling. I’ll make it up to you.”
“Not another private jet, I hope. Flowers are okay this time.”
“No. I’ve got something else for you, at the moment.” He reached into his jacket pocket and handed me a small folded envelope.
“What’s this?” I asked, turning it over.
“Now, don’t freak out, as you Americans say,” he warned. “I don’t mean to frighten you off with it.”
I looked up at him from under my lashes, and then popped open the envelope to find a set of keys and a piece of paper.
“To the house,” he said.
“Whoa.”
“Just for emergencies,” he said quickly. “If I’m at the office, or out of town, and you need something.”
“Oh.”
“This one’s the knob; the other two are the deadbolts. The alarm code’s written on the paper. You needn’t ask me first, of course. Borrow a book, if you like.”
“Oh,” I said again. I risked a glance at his face. His eyes shone down at me, wide and vulnerable. “Julian, thank you. I’m very touched. I mean, you can trust me. I won’t, like, invade your privacy, I promise.”
As I watched, his expression opened into a smile, and he began to chuckle. He lifted one hand to brush against my cheekbone. “Darling girl, don’t you understand? That’s exactly what I want you to do.”
10.
Clouds billowed in overnight, coating the sky like a blanket and turning the balm of the previous day into a broad muggy warning of the summer to come. I trudged through the heavy air from the subway stop on Broadway to the Sterling Bates building on Wall Street, scrolling through my BlackBerry for Julian’s latest e-mail. It had been sent while I was swaying down the subway tracks, pressed against the sweaty armpit of some massive guy with a Hitler-style mustache and a cheap suit.