His One-Night Mistress(31)

       
           



       

He said in an ugly voice, "So if I don't fall in love with you, I don't get to go to bed with you?"

"You make it sound like I'm blackmailing you! I'm just trying to protect myself."

He stood up and walked over to her, unselfconscious in his nudity. "Come  to bed with me now, Lia … you need to sleep. I don't know what we're  going to do any more than you do. But surely we can work something out."

His body, as well-known to her as her own, towered over her, pulling her  to him as effortlessly as a magnet attracts metal. "I can't, Seth," she  whispered. "It hurts too much. You're giving me all the gifts of your  body-but you're holding the rest back."

"I'm not holding anything back-it's not there to give."

His words were like a death knell. "I'll stay out of your way when you  come to Meadowland to see Marise," Lia said tonelessly, "and Nancy can  deliver her when she goes to Manhattan to stay with you."

"Marise is a highly intelligent child. You think we can behave like a  couple of strangers without her noticing? You told me she deserves  parents who love each other. I'm not so ambitious-as far as I'm  concerned, she deserves parents who can be in the same room together."

"Stop!" Lia exclaimed, covering her ears. "I'll do the best I can, for Marise's sake-I promise."

"Then marry me," Seth said harshly.

Knowing she had to get out of here, Lia said nastily, "I see how you got  to the top-you're ruthless, you don't care about other people's  feelings. I'll clear it with Nancy when I get home, and you and Marise  can work out how often you want to see each other. Dammit, where's my  other shoe?"

"Under the bed," he said, bending to retrieve it, then passing it to her.

She took it gingerly and shoved her foot into it. "Good night. Sleep well."

She looked like a firecracker about to explode. She also looked like a  woman on the edge. "Lia," he said hoarsely, "I can't help the way I was  brought up. That night when I overheard my mother telling Dad about the  abortion-it killed something inside me. The ability to love. I can't  give myself to a woman, it isn't in me."

Her eyes were dark as woodland pools. "You're saying I should take you as you are?"

Grateful for her understanding, Seth said, "Yeah, I guess that's what  I'm saying. I'll be faithful to you, I'll be the best father to Marise  that I can possibly be … but that's as far as it goes."

She remembered how her violin had wandered through a desert of notes,  searching for a place to rest, only finding it after long struggle; and  shook her head. "You already love Marise. Your father and you are  mending years of neglect." Her lips curved gently. "And you love music.  How can you say you're unable to love?"

He didn't smile back. "I'm talking about you, not Marise or my father.  I've lived with myself for a long time-I should know by now what I'm  capable of."

He looked so adamant. So unmovable. "You're letting fear run your life," Lia accused.

Flicked on the raw, Seth said, "I wish it was as simple as that. It's  not. It's a blankness-an emptiness. A lack. Hell, I don't even know how  to describe it."

"So tell me about it," Lia said fiercely. "Make me understand."

Why not tell her? What did he have to lose? Seth sat down on the edge of  the bed. "I was eight years old, a year older than Marise. I'd sneaked  down to the library that night to get a book-I used to read in bed till  all hours-when I heard my father coming, and hid behind the big leather  couch. He sat down at his desk and started going through some bills.  Then my mother came down the hall, talking to one of the servants. Dad  called her in and held out a piece of paper, asking what she'd had done  at the private clinic she always went to."

He paused, lost in memory. His mother had been wearing a black cashmere  sweater and a strand of pearls; as a boy, he'd thought it was weird that  a pearl could come out of an oyster. "She said she'd had an abortion,"  he went on, ironing any emotion from his voice. "I'll never forget the  shock on my father's face. He asked if there'd been a medical reason.  No, she said, she simply didn't want another child. Then my father asked  if it had been a boy or a girl. A girl, she said indifferently, as  though she was talking about a dress she'd discarded. My father was  crying, tears sliding down his face-it terrified me. A daughter, he  said. Eleonore, you know I've always wanted a daughter."                       
       
           



       

Seth rubbed his jaw, trying to lessen the tension. "I didn't know what  abortion meant, but I knew my mother had done something terrible. Then  my father said, How could you have done that? My mother rarely lost her  temper, control was too important to her. But she lost it then, screamed  at my father that she'd never bring a little girl into the world, threw  a priceless crystal statue at one of the cabinets-there were shards of  glass everywhere-and stormed out of the library. Eventually my father  got up, staggering like an old man … he went down the hall and I heard his  bedroom door close. That's when I ran upstairs to bed."

"Seth, that's a terrible story," Lia faltered. She reached out her arms,  her one urge to comfort the little boy he'd been and the man he'd  become.

He struck them down. "Don't," he said in a voice scraped raw, that  long-ago dissonance of terror and incomprehension swirling in his head.  "This wasn't a bid for sympathy."

"I didn't think it was." Lia made one last try, letting the words pour  out. "Seth, I talked to your father last weekend-on Sunday, after you'd  left. He told me a little about your mother's upbringing, how violent it  was. Despite my parents' careers, I had such a happy childhood, filled  with music and the constant undercurrent of knowing I was loved. I can't  imagine a childhood like Eleonore's. It made me understand her a  little-perhaps even begin to forgive her for the harm she did to me.  Couldn't you do the same?"

"Forgiveness isn't the issue. I wanted you to understand why I'm not  into marriage, that's all. My father loved my mother. He gave her his  soul and she trampled all over it. So I learned very young that love  means betrayal and heartbreak."

"It doesn't have to!"

"A barrier slammed down that night, against knowledge I was too young to  comprehend and emotions too terrible to bear. It's still in place. It  always will be."

It was the finality in Seth's voice that destroyed Lia's last vestige of  hope. Her whole body felt ice-cold. Picking up her wrap, she clumsily  drew it around her shoulders. "Thank you for telling me," she said  helplessly. "I'd better go … I'll see myself out."

Seth made no move to stop her. Feeling as though her own heart was breaking, Lia hurried out of the bedroom.





CHAPTER FOURTEEN





SUMMER had arrived at Meadowland. The flower beds were a riot of color,  birds were nesting in the trees and the swimming pool shone turquoise in  the sunshine as Lia and Marise frolicked in the deep end.

Lia should have been happy. Marise was out of school. She herself had  only two summer festivals to attend and a benefit concert at Carnegie  Hall; so she was able to spend hours of precious time with her daughter.  The vegetable garden was flourishing and they had a bumper crop of  strawberries.

Marise had spent a lot of time with Seth; he'd gone to her school  closing, and the last three weekends had taken her to his summer home on  Cape Cod, where he'd introduced her to sailing and ocean swimming. He'd  also dropped in at Meadowland twice with Allan, occasions that had  sorely tested Lia's composure.

Not once had he mentioned marriage; it was as though he'd forgotten both  his proposal and her refusal. Certainly he never mentioned the night a  little boy had hidden in the library of the big stone house by the sea.  Instead he treated her with a courtesy that scoured every nerve in her  body; he might as well have been in Paris as standing in her sun-dappled  kitchen.

Marise loved him, and he loved Marise. That much, she knew.

He'd never love herself. She knew that, too; and ached every moment of the day from the knowledge.

Marise splashed her. "Mum, watch me dive all the way to the bottom! Dad taught me how."

With a start Lia came back to the present, to her daughter heaving her  lungs full of air, then kicking herself deeper and deeper into the  water. When Marise surfaced a few moments later, red-faced and  sputtering, Lia said, "Great, Marise-you're a way better swimmer than  last year."

"Dad's teaching me all kinds of neat things." Marise put her head to one  side, trying to get water out of her ear. "Why don't you ever come to  Cape Cod with us?"