Her Immortal Love (15 page)

That wasn’t quite true. Her life, despite all her efforts to the contrary, had begun to orbit more and more around him.

As for his gifts, as appreciative as she was for each and every one, it was those soft, quiet moments after they’d fucked, when she lay in his arms, her head on his chest and they talked that were the most precious to her.

And they were precious because Tristan
listened
to her. He looked into her eyes and focused all his attention on her whenever she would speak to him about her hopes or her dreams, her fears or her doubts. After she had expressed herself he would respond. Not with banality, clichés, or noncommittal grunts, but with an understanding and a wisdom that contradicted his youth. It was as if he knew about and had experienced every feeling she’d ever had in her life.

Turning onto her belly, she rubbed her breasts against the sheets and buried her nose deep in them. They still smelled like him. That powerful, musky youthful scent that even now made her sex tingle with yearning. As she nestled her cheek against the pillow where his head had lain, she saw a long black hair on it.

She picked it up and smiled. If she were so inclined she could use this hair and some of the ingredients from the new age store to cast a love spell. She had a feeling Elaine or, most likely, Saffron knew a few spells. Saffron sometimes dappled in tarot cards and witchy stuff like that. Lydia was tempted to cast such a spell because, in spite of the happiness she now felt with Tristan, he had yet to say he loved her.

He cared for her and her happiness. Of that she had no doubt and she suspected, based on some things he had let slip, that he might even love her.

But he had yet to say it.

She had done her best not to let this bother her. After all, they were only words. And actions spoke louder than words. But in spite of her thoughts to the contrary, to hear him say that he loved her was something she longed for with all her heart.

But she had yet to say those words herself. Did she love him? She honestly didn’t know. Or, perhaps, she was too frightened to even consider the possibility. Too fearful of what that could mean. To love someone you had to be able to trust and, in all honesty, she still didn’t completely trust Tristan.

She rolled over onto her back and looked over at the clock on the nightstand. It was ten in the morning. She should get up. Do some chores. Run some errands. Go to the gym. Since it was her Monday off, she didn’t have to report in to work.

She didn’t get up. Instead she curled her body around the pillow where Tristan’s head had lain and, closing her eyes, recalled last night’s lovemaking in every intimate detail. She slid her hand down and lightly rubbed her clit as she fell deeper into reminiscing.

Her cellphone rang.

She sighed and reached over to her nightstand. She looked at the display screen and frowned.

Carlotta.

Lydia was tempted not to answer. The last time she and her mother had talked on the phone, she had accidentally cut her off. Well, it hadn’t exactly been an accident. Carlotta had been in the middle of relaying Douglas’s report to her of all of Tiffany’s pregnancy symptoms. Lydia had not wanted to hear about it. Her mother had not been amused and left an angry voice mail scolding Lydia for her disrespect and, as always, chiding her regarding what she thought of as her sordid obsession with that gigolo, as she continued to refer to Tristan.

Lydia had not kept it a secret from her mother that she was still seeing him.

Sighing, she punched the talk button.

“Yes, Mother. What is it?” Her voice was clipped. She intended on seeing that this conversation was going to be short, if not sweet.

“Lydia? Is that you?”

“Who else would it be?”

“You don’t sound like yourself. Are you alone?”

Lydia sighed heavily enough to make sure her mother heard it. “What do you want, Mother?”

Carlotta remained silent and the weight of her disapproval was like a heavy rock pressing on Lydia’s chest. But she refused to be intimidated. She patiently waited her mother out.

“I want you to stop by,” her mother finally said. “Today.”

Lydia shook her head. She knew Carlotta couldn’t see the movement, but she needed to do it if only to make certain that she herself understood there was no way in hell she was going to stop by her mother’s. Hearing about Tiffany’s pregnancy over the phone was one thing. Having to sit and watch as her mother gushed about it quite the other.

“I can’t,” she said.

“Why not?”

“I have things to do.”

“And would these things of yours happen to involve
that person
?”

“His name is Tristan.”

“I know what his name is,” Carlotta snapped.

“Then use it. Stop calling him that person.”

“What has gotten into you? You're being terribly rude.”

Lydia gripped the phone. “Mother, if the reason you called is because you want me to stop seeing Tristan, you're wasting your time.”

“I never waste my time, Lydia You know that.” Carlotta paused. “I want you here at noon. The detective I hired will have arrived by then and I want you—”

“Detective? You hired a detective? What for?”

“To investigate
him
.” Carlotta's voice took on a hard edge. “Did you really think I was just going to sit idly by and do nothing while you ruined your life? Someone has to look out for you since you, apparently, possess neither the inclination nor the good judgment to do so. He's going to give me the results of his investigation.”

Lydia couldn’t believe it. No, that wasn’t true. She could believe it. She should believe it. After all these years she knew her mother well enough to know that as long as her mother lived she would always look upon her only child as an idiot.

“I hope you get your money’s worth,” Lydia said. “I, on the other hand, want no part of it.”

“Since you’re the one involved with that person, I would think you'd want to hear what the detective has to say about him.”

“I have no interest in what he has to say. I didn't hire him. You did.”

“For your protection. It’s a dangerous world, Lydia. And you’re a woman alone. You have to be careful. The detective says he's found out some rather disturbing things about…him. Don't you at least want to hear what he has to say?”

Lydia's hand tightened around the phone. Did she? She’d only known Tristan for a few weeks and he was rather cagey about some things. Like his past, for example. She couldn’t deny the doubts that had arisen, questions that remained unanswered and, try as she might, it was impossible for her to ignore them.

“Are you still there, Lydia?”

“Yes.”

“Why don't you at least hear the detective out, dear?”

Lydia came on full alert. Not only had her mother's voice sweetened until it was as cloying as honey, but she had called Lydia
dear
. The only living things Carlotta graced with that particular endearment were her prize roses.

The roses that she paid a gardener to grow and tend for her.

“If you truly care for that person,” her mother’s voice went on silkily, “then what the detective has to say won't change that, will it?”

“If that’s the case, then why should I listen to him?”

“Are you afraid?” Her mother’s voice purred. “Is that it? Are you afraid you'll hear something that will make you not want to be with him anymore?”

“There's nothing to hear.”

But even as Lydia said the words, they sounded hollow to her. Maybe there was nothing obviously wrong with Tristan as far as she could tell, but there was something that wasn’t quite right about him either. No matter how much you might think you knew a person, trusted a person, even loved a person, there was always so much beneath the surface. So much that was unseen and, therefore, unknown. Like icebergs.

Even now, after he had spent all night and the early part of the morning giving her orgasm after orgasm, and making love to her in ways that made her weep and laugh and scream, she still had her doubts. He was, after all, younger than her and with his good looks and expertise in bed, he could have any woman he wanted. Beautiful women. Younger women.

Why, then, was he with someone like her?

“I'm not afraid,” Lydia finally said.

“Then be here at noon.” Carlotta hung up.

Lydia placed the cellphone back on the nightstand. She looked over at the bed where she and Tristan had lain, writhing naked and eagerly against each other. The sweat and heat and delicious heaviness of his young, muscular body pressing her into the bed, his hard hands gripping her wrists, holding her captive, while he had tormented her with his lips, his tongue, his teeth, and his cock.

Sucking, licking, biting, fucking her mouth, her breasts, her cunt.

Lydia wrapped her arms about her stomach and tried not to curse her mother’s name.

* * * * *

Lydia drove her car up the driveway of her mother's mansion and parked in front of it. She sat for a moment, her hands clutched about the steering wheel. She could leave. She could go back home and forget all about this.

But there were still those nagging doubts, those persistent suspicions. For goodness sake, she was a grown woman. Almost forty years old. She couldn't keep acting like a teenage girl with her first crush. She’d been married for almost twenty years. To a man she’d loved and trusted and who had then turned around and betrayed her love and trust with another woman. What made her think she could trust a man who was not only younger than she was, but whom she’d only known for a few months?

As much as she wanted to trust Tristan, she knew that trust, like everything in life, wasn’t just black and white. There were shades of gray, as dense as a morning fog. If she wasn’t careful, she could become lost in that fog.

She opened the door and got out of the car.

Once inside, the maid showed her to Carlotta's sitting room. Her mother sat in a huge, plush chair. A heavy-set man in a dark suit sat across from her. A tea set lay on a table between them. The man held one of the tiny teacups with his thick, blunt fingers. Despite herself, Lydia smiled. He looked completely out of place and about as comfortable as a naughty boy whom the principal had summoned to her office.

They both turned as Lydia entered the room.

Carlotta smiled widely. “Ah, there you are. Come in, dear.”

Lydia grimaced as she moved closer. Her mother calling her dear more than once was not a good sign. She suspected the detective had already revealed the results of his investigation and, judging from the wide smile on Carlotta's face, her mother had heard exactly what she’d all along suspected about Tristan.

The detective rose from his chair as Lydia approached.

“Mr. Rusnak,” Carlotta said, “this is my daughter, Lydia.”

Strands of gray streaked Mr. Rusnak’s coal-black hair. To Lydia he looked more like a high-school football coach than a detective.

“Pleasure to meet you.” He offered her his hand.

Lydia nodded but didn’t take his hand. She didn’t want to be rude, but she also didn’t want her mother to think she was pleased about being here. She sat in the chair next to the detective. He sat back down. He didn’t appear to be upset she’d refused to shake hands with him. He was probably used to people not being happy about seeing him.

“Would you like some tea, dear?”

Lydia shook her head. She wished her mother would stop calling her dear.

“Very well.” Carlotta turned her attention to the detective. “Go ahead, Mr. Rusnak.”

He lifted a briefcase from where it had been leaning against the leg of his chair and pulled out a plastic folder. Lydia noted that a similar folder lay on the table in front of Carlotta. Her mother's carefully manicured nails tapped it.

“Perhaps it would be easier if I gave your daughter a copy of the report,” the detective said to Carlotta, who nodded.

As Mr. Rusnak tried to hand the folder to her, Lydia firmly shook her head. “I don't want to read it.”

Carlotta's eyes shot over to her. “But you said you wanted to hear what Mr. Rusnak had found out about…him.”

“Yes, Mother,” Lydia said flatly. “Hear, not read.” She looked back at the detective. “Go ahead.”

The detective cleared his throat and, for the next fifteen minutes told Lydia a complex, incredible story of false identities, suspicious bank accounts, untraceable wealth, and other things that sounded to her like something that had been written for a movie. All the while the detective droned on, heated images flashed through her mind.

Tristan’s body sprawled across her bed in a deep, sex-satiated sleep; the feel of his dark hair when she slid her fingers through it; the tart sensation of his firm lips moistly sucking her breasts; his dark-blue eyes gazing hotly into hers as he fucked her, over and over and over.

She shook her head and focused back on Mr. Rusnak.

“According to the most up to date records I could find,” he said, “Tristan Drake is currently the Chairman of the Board and the Chief Executive Officer of a company called
Genome
.”

Lydia frowned. “
Genome
?”

The detective nodded. “A biotech pharmaceutical company. It’s based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.” He loosened his tie. It was becoming warm in the room. “It’s one of the top ten pharmaceutical companies in the world. They specialize in creating drugs derived from genetic research.”

Lydia had never heard of it, but she wasn’t that knowledgeable when it came to such things. “How big is it?”

“
Genome
currently employs over 10,000 people. It has 50 locations in 18 countries. Last year it generated over $12.5 billion dollars in revenue.”

“What?” Carlotta’s dark eyes were as large as saucers. “Did you say $12.5 billion? That wasn’t in the report.”

Mr. Rusnak shrugged. “The company is also involved in philanthropic activities, having donated over $100 million this past year alone to various charities and humanitarian organizations.”

Carlotta looked sharply over at Lydia. “Did you know about any of this?”

Lydia numbly shook her head. She’d suspected that Tristan had money, but she’d had no idea he was this rich. He was so young. Either he had become wealthy early in his youth or had inherited the money.