Nate had come home later than was his norm (Lily had been noticing he’d been coming home earlier and earlier each night). He’d read to Tash but then went directly to his study without a word to Lily.
Lily had decided to give him space; she’d gained ground and didn’t want to push it. She went so far as to go to bed without saying goodnight. She had made it her practice to visit him in his study for a goodnight kiss if he was working late, something she knew or thought they both enjoyed.
Nate had come up much later than usual but she had been awake, lying in the dark waiting for him. He didn’t turn to her, he didn’t make love to her, he didn’t pull her back into his front and burrow his face in her hair. Instead, he turned his back to her and went to sleep, just… like… that.
Throughout the weekend, Nate worked in his study all day each day and well into the night. He even avoided Victor and Laura although he welcomed Tash sitting and watching television in his study. He didn’t make love to Lily or pull her to him when he eventually sought their bed.
Victor, Laura and Fazire were casting strange, knowing glances amongst themselves but Lily knew better than to ask. Though she had to admit she found it peculiar that Fazire was participating in this behaviour, especially with Victor. Fazire had warmed a bit to Nate but never to Victor.
When the quiet and now openly concerned Victor and Laura left Sunday afternoon, Lily gave Nate his head until he left Tash’s room after she’d read herself to sleep and he headed straight to his study.
Lily followed him, knocked on the closed door and entered at his word. He barely glanced at her when she walked in and she felt her blood run cold.
“Nate?”
“What is it, Lily?” he asked, not lifting his eyes to hers after his first brief glance, his question sounding as if he didn’t much care about her answer and her cold blood slowed as ice crystals formed.
“Is something the matter?” Her voice was timid and unsure and his head came up at the sound of it. She felt a flicker of hope at the warm look she thought she caught in his eyes but then he shuttered them.
“I’m busy, Lily. We’re getting married next Saturday and then away for two weeks on honeymoon. I’ve a tremendous amount to do.”
This seemed plausible and Lily gave him a relieved but weak smile and walked to the side of his desk and stopped, wanting to touch him but for the first time in a long time, afraid.
“Can I do something to help?” she asked softly.
At this, for some reason, he laughed without humour, the sharp bark of it was harsh and it grated against her already frayed nerves.
“You could leave me to it,” he suggested when he was done with his anti-amusement, his eyes on her and they were hard and blank, telling her clearly she was an unwelcome distraction.
Lily remembered that look. She had seen that look. He’d levelled it on Danielle on numerous occasions.
Her heart stuttered in her chest but she nodded and slowly moved away. Very slowly. Snail’s pace slowly. Moving slowly while hoping he’d call her back for a kiss, a touch, something, anything.
He did not.
He also did not turn to her when he finally came to their bed.
He was gone before she awoke, he didn’t wake Tash but he did leave a short, unaffectionate note for Lily (and a longer, very affectionate note for Tash) saying he left early for the office.
That afternoon, sitting behind the register in a quiet moment at Flash and Dazzle, she’d phoned him at the office.
He’d said he’d never miss another one of her calls and he hadn’t. She expected her calls came at times when he was busy but he always took them as, she now knew, he always took Tash’s calls when she phoned him when she got home from school.
“Mr. McAllister’s office,” Nate’s secretary Jennifer answered.
“Hi Jennifer, it’s Lily. Can I speak to Nate?”
Jennifer was quiet for a moment and Lily felt the now familiar stutter in her heart. These past weeks, Lily had chatted to Jennifer and although they’d never met, they’d built a rapport.
This time, however, Jennifer didn’t invite even a short chat, instead, she said softly, “I’m sorry, Lily. Mr. McAllister said he was not to be disturbed under any circumstances.”
Lily swallowed and nodded even though Jennifer couldn’t see her.
“That’s okay,” Lily replied, trying to do it brightly and fearing she failed. “Can you tell him I phoned?”
“Definitely,” Jennifer assured her.
When Lily got home from Flash and Dazzle, she found that Nate’s edict of not being disturbed didn’t apply to Tash who was, as ever, awash with news of her telephone conversation with her father. Although this wasn’t news from Nate, as Lily suspected Nate couldn’t get a word in edgewise and wouldn’t try anyway. It was more Tash’s news said in the form of, “I told Daddy…” and, “Then, when I described it, Daddy laughed.”
Instead of Nate taking Tash’s calls and laughing with her making Lily feel content, it made her fear and alarm turn to anger which she nursed quietly under Fazire’s watchful glare all night.
Nate didn’t make it home for Tash to read to him, nor did he call to say he’d be detained.
Lily monitored her daughter closely to see if her very astute senses were noticing anything different between her mother and father. However, Nate was shielding Tash from this and treating her exactly the same even while his behaviour to Lily was significantly different.
As Lily shut down the house for the night, Nate still not home, Fazire approached her in the hall.
“Lily-child –” he started gently, his eyes soft on her.
“No, Fazire,” she held up her hand as if to ward him off, “not now.”
Then before he could press as Fazire was wont to do, she’d run up the stairs. She got ready for bed but didn’t get in it, instead she paced. And she waited. And her mind tumbled over its thoughts, none of them good.
Very late, she heard Nate enter the house but he didn’t come up and, as minutes ticked by, she went in search of him.
She found him in their back garden, now lushly appointed with planters, pots and beds brimming with flowers and greenery, all of this well-tended by a weekly gardener. She was stunned to see him standing at the balustrade by the cliff looking toward the Victorian pier, smoking a cigarette. Not since their night on Laura and Victor’s stoop had she seen him smoke a cigarette or even smelled it on him.
She stood just outside the new French doors to the garden and called, “Nate?”
His body jerked and his head snapped around to look at her through the darkness. She was just as stunned that she’d surprised him. He was always alert to anything but most specifically her. Sometimes she felt he knew she was approaching a room even before she’d cleared the door.
She couldn’t imagine what had him so lost in thought but she wanted to know, needed to know and damned well was going to know.
She walked across the garden and stopped in front of him.
“You’re smoking.” Her voice was a soft accusation.
“Yes, Lily, I’m smoking. And you’re standing in the garden wearing your pyjamas,” he replied as if her transgression was as bad as his.
“When did you start smoking?” she ignored his comment.
“When I was nine,” he responded immediately, nonchalantly sharing a piece of his history with her like he did it every day and this information hit her like a blow.
Dear God, who started smoking when they were nine? She thought but he didn’t allow her to respond, he went on.
“Get back into the house.”
She blinked, momentarily thrown by his harshly voiced command coming so quickly after he’d shared something personal about himself, something she hadn’t had to wheedle out of him. Determined to get to the bottom of what was bothering him, she decided to ignore it.
“We need to talk. Something’s –”
“Lily, get back into the fucking house. No woman should stand outside bare
ly clothed, especially not you. You’re the mother of my child, for God’s sake. This is a terraced house, the neighbours can see you.”
She had to shake her head trying to clear away his words, his tone, his meaning.
“Nate, it’s nearly midnight, no one –”
“Get back into the fucking house,” he snarled savagely, losing patience and leaning into her so menacingly, she couldn’t help but take a step back.
She hesitated, her heart stuttering again.
Then she squared her shoulders, determined to have it out even if it was midnight and she was in her pyjamas. Yes, they were pyjamas and yes, there wasn’t much to them but she wouldn’t describe herself as “barely clothed” for goodness sake.
“Don’t speak to me that way,” she snapped. “We have to talk. Something’s wrong with you and I want to know what it is.”
Without answering, he turned away from her and resumed his contemplation of the pier.
At this action, she tried a different tactic.
She stepped into his line of sight and put her hand on his arm.
“Nate,” she said in a gentler tone, “please talk to me.”
He looked down at her like he had when he was standing in his parent’s foyer and Victor was shaking her, like when they were in the conference room that awful day talking about Natasha’s custody, as if she was a not very interesting bug he was watching crawl across the pavement.
Pulling all her courage to her like a shield, she threw pride into the wind and leaned into him, putting her arms around him even though nothing about him was inviting her actions.
“Talk to me,” she urged, all her love for him in her words.
He didn’t touch her. Instead, he calmly flicked his cigarette over the cliff as if she was a mile away instead of holding him in her arms.
“Nate!” she cried, beginning to panic. “Talk to me.”
That’s when he touched her. His fingers went into the hair on either side of her head and held her there while his mouth slammed down on hers in the first kiss he’d given her in days.
It was not a loving kiss, it was hard, insistent, greedy, taking everything while giving nothing in return.
She was too happy he was touching her, kissing her, to let it register. She simply opened her mouth under his and gave him everything as she’d always done.
Lily heard his groan and was thrilled by it, but inexplicably he tore his mouth from hers. Then she was being lifted, carried, not to their room but downstairs to the family room. All the while he kissed her in that awful way, his mouth then moving to her neck, shoulders, behind her ear, his teeth sinking into her flesh in a dangerous, erotic way.
He kicked the door to the family room shut behind them and threw her on couch, following her down. He pulled off her clothes, tore off his own, his actions not gentle, nor were his mouth and his hands on her naked body and it finally slid into her consciousness that he was not the same. This wasn’t violent, stormy passion. This was selfish and devouring.
“Nate –” she whispered, trying to slow him, trying to reach him.
“Shut up, Lily,” he growled against her mouth and on those ugly words, he changed.
Instead of taking, he was giving but not in his usual way. It was like he was driven to force a response from her, to bend her body to his will and, damn it all, she loved him too much to deny him. She gave then she gave more then even more.
And he took it, all of it, everything.
Until she was there, waiting, needing him to come inside, her heart pounding, her breath coming in gasps, her body on fire for him.
“Nate –” she whispered again urgently, using her hands at his hips to try to bring him to her but he pulled away.
Her eyes opened and looked into his and she felt her heart rip apart at what she saw.
His were blank but his hand between her legs moved enticingly and her hips, of their own volition, pressed against him.
“Beg,” he demanded, his voice rough and sharp.
Lily stared then blinked, thinking for a moment she hadn’t heard him correctly.
“Wh… what?”
“You want me, Lily?” he asked, then his head descended and his mouth moved along her cheek to her ear.
As he did this, she nodded.
“You want me then beg,” he said into her ear.
She felt her chest seize as emotion filled it even as he manipulated her with his hand and her body betrayed her.
“Nate –”
“I want to hear you say it. Say, ‘Please, Nate, fuck me’.”
At his shocking demand, a demand so not Nate it was frightening, the tears crawled up her throat and his mouth moved from her ear to her breast, sucking in her nipple sharply, sending waves of pleasure through her. Then he rolled his tongue around it as his thumb simultaneously rolled at the core of her, knowing, from what was now months of experience, she loved this, responded to it, it made her soar.
This time, she fought it.
“Please don’t do this,” she pleaded and he came back over her.
“You want to know my secrets?” he asked and her head jerked. She wasn’t keeping up with his lightning-quick changes of mood, his shifting of topics, his shocking behaviour.
His hand was still working at her and she was close to climax, could feel it coming. She closed her eyes, arched her neck, wanting it to come so this would all be over and, hopefully, they could talk. Then his hand went away.
Her eyes snapped open and her chin jerked down to look at him.
“Do you want to know my secrets?” he repeated.
“No!” she cried, louder than she should in a house harbouring sleeping people, one of them their daughter.
His mouth silenced her and she struggled but his hand came back, tormenting her and her body swiftly descended into need even as she continued to fight it.
With supreme effort, she tore her mouth free. “Stop Nate.”
His thumb swirled and she couldn’t help herself, it felt so good, she moaned low in her throat.
“You don’t want me to stop,” he taunted cruelly at her moan. “As ever, you’re gagging for it.”
She bit her lip and knew he was right and she hated herself for it. She couldn’t stop her hips from pressing against his hand, her hands from roaming his back even as her eyes caught his in the darkness. She could see them burning into her, not with love or with passion but with ruthless determination to have exactly what he wanted.
“These are my secrets, Lily. This is who I am.”
She shook her head fiercely. She wouldn’t believe it, couldn’t.
“I know who you are. I wished for –”
“Beg,” Nate interrupted her words with his demand.
She shook her head again.
Then he smiled, a terrible smile that captivated her even as it repulsed her. Then he made her beg. With brute strength and merciless skill, he brought her to the edge of climax and took her away, time and again, until she could bear it no more and she felt, if she didn’t have release, her body would shatter.
Holding him tight, wrapping her arms around his back, her legs around his hips and bringing her lips to his, she whispered, humiliation warring with desire and losing, “Please, Nate, please fuck me.”
And he did.
It was hard, it was fast, it was rough and there was no love in it and she climaxed so magnificently, she felt for a moment she had shattered, gloriously. And after she didn’t hate herself for it, she detested herself, her weakness and part of that was because she felt, disloyally, like she detested him. Nate. Her wish. Her dream man. Her everything.
Immediately after he was done, he knifed away from her without regard for her sensitive body, put on his clothes and, looking down at her, he said, “I’m going to London. I’ll be back Friday.”
Then he was gone.
And Lily lay naked and exposed, staring into the darkness, into the space where he’d been, trying to still her mind then trying to catch a thought and f
ailing at both. Finally, she wrapped a blanket around her body, curled up into a little ball and she cried.
Then she slept. Then she waited. And she tried to hope.
* * * * *
On Wednesday, she called his mobile. She knew he was talking to Tash, still shielding their daughter from whatever-it-was that was falling apart between them. But he didn’t contact Lily. She phoned his mobile in the morning not wishing to go through another humiliating episode with Jennifer. He did not answer. Then she rang him mid-morning, then the afternoon.
Still no answer and she felt hope quickly dying as he missed call after call that he promised he’d never miss.
Then she left the shop early and made certain she was home when Tash got home from school so she could latch onto the phone when Tash was done speaking to her father.
“Mummy wants to talk to you,” Tash said on a giggle as she watched Lily pacing in the kitchen, Fazire’s assessing eyes on her, regarding her from his seat at the table.
Lily nearly snatched the phone out of her daughter’s hand when Tash offered it to her.
Lily had been thinking about it, trying to find a reason for his abrupt change to such hostile behaviour and she’d convinced herself that she’d pushed too hard, got too close, made a mess of things by trying to break through and she was ready for retreat. Even having Nate removed was better than this.
“Nate, I –”
“Lily, I don’t have time for this now,” he interrupted her before she got started, “call me later.”
Then, without another word or waiting for her to respond, he hung up.
She stared at the phone finding it difficult to breathe, her heart stuttering so much she felt like it would come to a halt. Then she looked at Tash who had been grinning at her but her grin faded as Lily put the phone on the receiver.
“Didn’t Daddy –” Tash started.
“Daddy’s really busy, doll baby. Getting ready for our honeymoon,” Lily explained quietly, not believing a word she said but hoping that Tash would.
Luckily, her daughter bought her lie, her grin came back with a vengeance and she skipped out of the room.