The Proviso (55 page)

Do you trust me?

He’d made her think of her garden as a work of art,
rendering it a haven again and, in essence, giving her that back,
as well. And he’d brought her the one thing she wanted for her
garden that she had such a hard time getting.

Her biological parents had taken her life from her.
Life had taken from her. David had taken from her.

Sebastian gave. Then gave more. He filled her soul
with humor and hope.

The wine was long drunk by the time her grandfather
clock chimed one, and she felt a light touch on her neck, then
another. Sebastian was kissing her, butterfly kisses on her skin,
and she closed her eyes, tilting her head, letting him taste her
skin with his tongue. At that moment, she’d let him do anything he
wanted to do to her, in front of the fire, cliché and all.

He ran his hands over her hips and up her ribs,
gathering her sweater over his wrists. She gasped at the touch of
his hands on her bare skin. She raised her arms when prompted and
he took her sweater off, slowly, gently. He caressed her belly and
ribs, then his fingers went to the clasp between her breasts. She
let him take her bra off. He continued to barely touch her neck and
shoulders with his lips and tongue, even as he hefted her breasts
in his big palms and they didn’t overflow his hands.

Sebastian pushed her away gently then and took off
his tee shirt. Pulling her back against him, she sighed to feel his
bare chest on her bare back. They sat like that, Sebastian
caressing every inch of her bare skin either with his lips or his
fingers, her juices flowing, her heart pounding, her mouth dry,
until the clock chimed 1:45.

“If you can tell me which bedroom I can sleep in,
I’ll let you go to bed. Alone,” he whispered in her ear.

What if I don’t want to go to bed alone?

“All right,” she whispered. “Up the stairs. First
door on the right.”

Again he pushed her forward gently and then rose,
holding out his hand to help her stand, then turned her around. She
was mortified that he would see her naked torso, even though she
knew that he’d already drawn her nude and had imagined her
correctly. She attempted to cover herself anyway.

He pulled her hands away from her body and looked at
her fleshy hips, her squishy belly, her big breasts. He reached out
and took one in his hand; she gasped, but she didn’t move away. His
touch was too exquisite, too . . . right.

“Perfect,” he whispered and her heart stopped when
he caressed her tightened nipple with his thumb. She looked away,
down, uncertain what to make of his approval of all her faults.

“Look at me, Eilis,” he murmured, and she did,
reluctantly. “No, look at my chest. Look at my body.” So she did
and she gasped. He was cut, as she’d imagined, complete with
six-pack, but he had scars criss-crossing it. Lots of them, some
more obvious than others, some fairly thick and at least one that
seemed to have developed a small keloid.

“What happened?” she breathed.

He grinned proudly, wickedly. “Angry husband. And
assorted other back alley battles.”

She didn’t know why that was funny, but a lot of
things were only funny after midnight. She laughed and put her hand
to her mouth because she knew she shouldn’t laugh.

“The husband. Were you . . . ?”

“Oh, yes,” he murmured. “Caught us dead to rights.
It’s all part of the Parisian artist thing.”

“How old were you?” she asked, tracing a scar with
her finger, unable to say why that scenario was arousing to
her.

“Oh, twenty-three or thereabouts. I actually didn’t
know she was married. Not that it would’ve made any difference.” He
looked back at her torso, her breasts, and she caught her breath
again. He’d made her forget she was half naked. “Eilis,” he
murmured. “Don’t ever let anyone—especially you—tell you you’re
less than perfect.” He leaned in to drop a kiss on her forehead.
“And I know from perfect.”

* * * * *

They ate the povitica for breakfast and drank the
rest of the wine. Eilis let Sebastian feed her, not because he was
forcing her to eat, but because she was beginning to like it when
he fed her from his own hand.

“Okay, you’re right,” he said. “You’ve spoiled me
for anyone else’s povitica.”

She felt warmth suffuse her at his praise.
“Thanks.”

They spent the rest of the day finishing the
decorating, but it was slow going on purpose, because soon
Sebastian would leave to go home, she’d have an empty house, and
she wouldn’t see him again for a week.

After the sky had dropped six inches of snow, Eilis
took Sebastian out to her greenhouse and showed him how to put the
plow blade on her lawn tractor. She let him plow the path from the
greenhouse to the driveway, then the whole of the driveway. She
laughed and laughed at how much fun he was having. Once that was
done, she went in to flip a switch and said,

“Sebastian, watch the driveway.” In about fifteen
minutes, he started to laugh again. “You’ve thought of everything,
haven’t you?” he asked as what remained of the snow melted away and
the driveway dried as if no snow had fallen at all.

She smiled. “I tried to. Usually when it starts to
snow, I go ahead and flip it on low. It’s very expensive, but worth
every penny.”

Sebastian left late that night after a kiss that
scorched her everywhere. “Thank you, Eilis,” he whispered against
her lips. “Thank you for the nicest weekend I can remember.”

And then he was gone in his old truck, which
backfired once, the gates slowly closing behind him. She didn’t
know whether to laugh over the wonderful weekend or cry because he
was gone.

* * * * *

48:
Not Happy Enough Medium

JANUARY 2007

It was Friday. Sebastian would be in her office
today and she bit her lip when she stared at herself in her
bathroom mirror. Every time he looked at her in disguise, his lip
curled a little bit and she was beginning to hate that look. She
knew he hated it and he had since he’d picked her out so easily at
the Ford exhibit.

Since then, they’d been on that wonderful date to
Bryant’s, and then that weekend in December when he’d caressed her
bare torso in firelight, snow outside, mulled wine in their
bellies, Christmas carols playing at just above a whisper in the
background.

He’d pressed her against him to make sure she knew
he wanted her, yet he hadn’t taken advantage of her weakness in the
firelight. She didn’t believe that he didn’t know she would’ve gone
to bed with him that night if he’d pushed just a bit.

He knew what she looked like and he thought she was
perfect
. Why couldn’t she just take that and run with
it?

She knew what her biological parents looked like.
Her mother was one of the most beautiful women she’d ever seen. Her
father was handsome, distinguished. Her half brother was what she
would regard as extremely handsome. Whatever bad genes they had
floating around in there, Eilis had gotten.

A tear tracked down her cheek when she thought of
that look Sebastian gave her every time he saw her in Chanel. She
remembered his sketch of her dressed that way, and though he’d
never said anything to her about it, she knew he despised it. His
face was very expressive once one knew his moods. If one didn’t, it
was his body that radiated humor and warmth. It was that cat’s
comforting purr of his.

He did not purr with her when she was in Chanel.

She sighed and went to re-do her makeup because the
tear had riven a track through it. Then she goofed and had to wipe
off more.

The image in the mirror was pathetic, half made up,
half not. She gulped.

Without thinking about it, she took out her brown
contacts and wiped off the rest of her makeup, then reapplied just
as much as she knew would flatter her.

Without thinking about it, she unpinned her hair and
brushed it until it gleamed the palest of blondes, like freshly
churned butter with only a splash of color.

Without thinking about it, she undressed and threw
the Chanel in the corner of her bedroom, then chose a dress she had
never worn once she’d left the tailor’s shop.

Black linen sheath. Low, wide, square neckline. Hem
three inches above her knees. Sleeveless. Eilis’s tailor had begged
her to let her create this for her; even as she fit it, Eilis stood
wondering how she’d allowed herself to be bullied into having
something so outrageous made. It clung to every curve, emphasized
everything about her body she hated.

Only . . . Something was very, very wrong with it
because it certainly didn’t fit the way the tailor had intended it
to. Eilis ran to the scale and she gaped in astonishment.

She didn’t know whether to squeal for joy or dread
telling Sebastian, “Hey, you were right.” Again.

And she wasn’t hungry.

Eilis decided to go with it. She shrugged on the
plain black velvet bolero jacket—also loose—that went with it.
Though possibly a little too cocktail for work, she didn’t care. It
had just become her new favorite dress. As soon as she had a
chance, she’d go back to her tailor and have it taken in.

Stepping into a pair of very expensive, very high
heels, she looked into her full-length mirror and caught her
breath. She had never looked at herself and thought she was even
plain. Today, she was . . . pretty.

Her mouth tightened. Coco Chanel was dead to her
now—

—and she slid into the right-hand driver’s seat of
her Jaguar.

Between the weight she’d lost, her favorite dress,
her Jaguar, and the . . . new lightness of heart that Sebastian had
bestowed upon her, she walked into work with her normal long stride
that wasn’t evident in the Chanel skirt. She ignored the looks, the
gaping jaws, the one programmer who dared whistle at her only
because he was so caught up in his own world he didn’t know who she
was.

She went directly to Karen’s office and whatever she
interrupted, oh well. Karen’s mouth dropped open.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

Karen gulped. “For what?”

“For not trusting you. For not knowing you. For not
letting you do what I hired you to do. I’ve owed you this apology
for a long time and I was too ashamed to approach you.”

Karen smiled then, a gleam in her eye that made
Eilis
feel
forgiven. “Thank you.”

“How’s your daughter?”

Then Karen told her. Eilis sat down in a chair
across from her and just listened. The girl’s doctors didn’t expect
her to live much longer, and Karen didn’t expect her marriage to
survive the child’s death. Eilis quietly told her that when the
time came, she would pay for the arrangements.

They parted ways with a hug and then Eilis took a
deep breath and started meeting her employees. It was a long time
coming.

Eilis spent the entire day on her feet. After the
first hour, she’d taken her shoes off and carried them around
looped in her fingers. She went from cubicle to cubicle, talking to
her employees as herself, not that Chanel woman.

She asked them specific questions about their lives
now that she knew who they were by name and by sight, her knowledge
augmented with overheard conversations and sly queries of Louise
who, it seemed, knew everything about everyone.

Plenty of people were suspicious of her, but she
left them alone with a smile and a gentle hand on the shoulder.

At three, she was so deep in the labyrinth of
Cubicleville that she didn’t notice Sebastian’s arrival. At quarter
of four, she had gotten drawn into an extended discussion with a
charming programmer who had no particular bias for or against her.
She started when she heard Sebastian’s voice behind her.

“Excuse me, miss?”

She looked over her shoulder to see him as achingly
beautiful as always. It seemed the entire staff had followed him to
watch his reaction to this very strange Eilis Logan.

His gaze swept her head to toe and back again, and
though he didn’t smile, she felt his humor and approval. He stuck
his hand out for her to shake and when she took it, he said, grave
as usual, “Hi. I’m Sebastian Taight. Who are you and what do you
do?”

“I’m Eilis Logan and I’m the CEO.”

The whole place roared. He did then smile, that
heartbreaking smile she’d seen so often that weekend he’d
reorganized her life. He turned and offered her his right arm,
which she took. The whispers behind them were just loud enough for
her to hear,

Damn, they look fine together.

“What happened?” he asked once they reached her
office.

She drew in a deep breath. “I don’t know. Maybe I
got tired of the way you look at me when I’m wearing Chanel.”

His eyebrow cocked. “Oh? How do I look at you
then?”

“Like you despise it, like you might despise me for
wearing it.”

“You’re right. I do despise it. I get very angry and
short with you whenever I see you in it because I know what you
look like.”

Nude.

The word hung in the air and Eilis stared at
Sebastian. His eyes darkened to purple, but he only said, “Well, I
must say it’s a very pleasant surprise. Come into the conference
room, please. I need to talk to you about something.”

Her smile dimmed and her gut clenched at how dire he
sounded, but once the doors were closed and—locked?—he wrapped his
palms around her face and kissed her hard, hot, urgent, his tongue
begging hers to play. She sighed and entwined her fingers with his
where they clutched her face. She matched his tongue stroke for
stroke.

Sebastian slid one hand down her shoulder, then her
ribs, then over her buttock, hers still entwined with it. He
pressed her against him so she could feel his arousal. She moaned
softly as his hand kneaded her, pressing her tighter and tighter
against him.