Not Just the Boss's Plaything(70)

The attorneys had been real, however, sliding papers at her one after    the next in the Costa Coffee near Clapham Junction. She'd signed the    last five years of her life away with every pen stroke. At his command.    With his blessing.                       
       
           



       

Cayo Vila, who never gave in, who had never heard the word no, had let her go, at last.

Just as she'd told him to do, she'd reminded herself. Just as she'd asked.

And then she'd gone back home, carefully taken the tin that held    Dominic's ashes, taped it shut and wrapped it up, and packed it away in    her checked bag.

The trip had been brutal. When she'd finally staggered into her hotel on    the southern part of Bora Bora's main island, far away from Cayo's    private island, it had been impossible not to notice the differences.    She'd told herself she didn't care. That she'd come for a specific    reason and to perform a specific task, and when had she become such a    princess that she found her rather smallish room that faced a bit of    garden depressing? It was still a garden in Bora Bora.

She'd been furious with herself-and with Cayo-for spoiling her so    thoroughly. She'd become used to all of the luxury he surrounded himself    with, apparently. It had only served to make her that much more    appalled at herself and all the many ways she'd let herself down.

It had taken her a week to get up her nerve-and, if she was honest, to    recover a little bit from those two intense weeks she'd spent with  Cayo.   But finally she'd been ready. One evening, at sunset, she'd  taken one   of the kayaks out and brought Dominic's ashes with her. As  the sky   exploded in oranges and pinks, she'd tipped his ashes out into  the   beautiful, peaceful lagoon.

And while she'd kept her promise to the first man she'd ever loved, and always would, she'd talked to him.

"I wish I could have saved you," she'd whispered to the water, the sky, the sea beyond. "I wish I'd tried harder."

She'd remembered her brother's delighted laughter that she'd never heard    enough of. She'd thought of his wickedly amused gray eyes, so much    brighter and more alive than hers-and then, sometimes, so much duller.    She thought of his too-lean form, his shaggy dark hair, his poet's    hands, and the tattoo on his shoulder of two hummingbirds that was, he'd    once said with his cheeky grin, meant to represent the two of them.    Free and in flight, forever.

"I wish I knew what happened to that picture of us as babies," she'd    said, smiling at the memory of the old photograph. "I still don't know    which one of us was which."

She'd mourned. She'd thought of their mother, so terrified of being on    her own that any man had done, no matter how vicious. She'd thought of    all those years when it had been Dominic and Dru against the world,  and   how much she'd miss that for the rest of her life. He'd taken  something   from her she could never get back, and as she floated out  there with   jagged Mount Otemanu before her and the world she knew so  far away,   she'd let herself weep for the family she'd lost, her  potential children   who would never know their uncle, the whole rest of  her life  stretching  out before her with nothing of her twin in it  except what  she carried  with her. In her.

Which wasn't enough, she'd thought then, bitterly. It would never be enough.

"You took part of me with you, Dominic," she'd told him as the inky darkness fell. "And I'll never forget you. I promise."

And when all his ashes were gone she'd made her way back to her hotel,    where, finally, she'd curled up on the bed, pulled the duvet over her    head, and fallen apart.

She'd stayed there for days. She'd cried until she'd felt blinded by her    own tears, until she'd made herself retch from the force of her sobs.    She'd let it all out, at last, the terrible storm she'd been carrying    with her all this time. The grief of so many years, the pain and the    fury and all the lies she'd told herself about her motivations. How  much   she'd loved Dominic and yes, to her shame, how much she'd  sometimes   hated him, too. His excuses and his promises, his grand  plans that never   amounted to anything and his pretty, pretty lies that  she'd so   desperately wanted to believe. She'd wept for everything  she'd lost, and   how alone she was, and how little she knew what to do  with herself now   that she had nothing left to survive, no purpose to  fulfill, no great   sacrifice remaining to build her life around.                       
       
           



       

But one day she sat up, and opened all the windows. She let the breeze    in, sweet with flowers and the sea. She breathed in, deeply. She had  her   tea out on the hotel's pretty beach, and felt born again. Made  new. As   if she really had put Dominic to rest.

Which meant it was time to face the truth about her feelings for Cayo.

"Am I so scary?" he'd asked so long ago that night in Cadiz. The    restaurant had been noisy and crowded, and his arm had brushed against    hers as they sat so close together at the tiny table. His unforgettable    eyes had still been so sad, but there was a curve to that cruel mouth   of  his, and Dru had felt giddy, somehow. As if they were both lit up   with  the magic of this night when everything, she'd been sure, was   changing.

"I think you take pride in being as scary as possible," she'd replied, smiling. "You have a reputation to uphold, after all."

"I am certain that somewhere beneath it all, I am nothing but clay,    waiting to be molded by whoever happens along," he'd said, that    near-smile deepening at the absurdity of a man like him being swayed by    anything at all save his own inclination.

"Metal that might, under certain circumstances, be welded, perhaps," she'd said, laughing. "Never clay."

"I bow to your superior knowledge," he'd said, swirling his sherry in    his glass, his gaze oddly intent on hers. She'd felt herself flush with    heat, and had felt out of control. Reckless. Yet it had felt right,   even  so. More right than she could remember anything else feeling,   maybe  ever. He'd leaned close, then murmured close to her ear. "What   would I  do without you?"

She knew what he'd do without her, Dru thought now, staring up at the    perfect sky and the glorious lagoon, neither of which seemed to be as    bright as they'd been before. Without Cayo. He was probably doing it    right now-carrying on being Cayo Vila, scary by design, taking whatever    he wanted and expanding his holdings on a whim.

But she was distorted by his absence. Disfigured. And it didn't seem to get any better, no matter how many days passed.

She sat in her cramped seat on an Air Vila flight from Los Angeles to    London, staring at the picture of him on the back of the in-flight    magazine, and she thought her heart might tear itself apart in her    chest.

I can't do this, she thought then, scraping away the tears before they    fell on her snoring seatmate. She couldn't live out whatever life it  was   she thought she ought to live, knowing that he was out there,  knowing   that she would only ever see him in these painful, faraway  glimpses. On   the telly, perhaps. In the magazines. But never again  right in front  of  her. Never again close enough to touch, to taste, to  tease.

She'd been in love with him for so long. She was still in love with him,    however hard she wished it away. It hadn't changed. She was starting   to  believe it never would. She felt minimized. Diminished, somehow,    without him. As if she'd depended on him just as much as he'd depended    on her all this time.

Back in her bedsit in London, she tried to tell herself that her whole    life was ahead of her. That she need only pick a path to follow and the    world was hers. She woke the morning after her return and scanned the    papers, looking for clues to her next chapter-but it all seemed cold  and   empty. Pointless.

She was haunted by Cayo even now, in a tiny flat he'd never visited, on a    bright morning that shouldn't have had anything at all to do with  him.   Her eyes drifted shut as she stood at her small refrigerator, and  she   saw him. Dark amber eyes. That fierce, ruthless face, with that  blade  of  a nose and his cruel, impossible mouth. She felt him. She  couldn't   breathe without imagining his hands on her skin, his smile,  the sound of   his voice as he said her name. And that same old fire  still burned   within her, stubborn and hot, even now.