The Commitment(60)

I reached out and clasped his hand in mine, squeezing it.

"I never thought she'd be so nasty to me, despite the divorce. I was generous with her. I didn’t fight her demands when we split. I was too devastated. She made me feel like a perverted monster. How she must hate me…"

I felt so bad for him. "Your split with Maureen sounds like my split with Kurt, except it must have hurt much more since you two were actually married. Kurt and I were only together for a few months."

"It was hard." He turned back to me, his eyes searching my face. "To be married for five years, to get that close, to become so used to having someone there all the time, and to have it go sour and fall apart." He shook his head. "I was so blind back then. So focused on my career, on my place in the world, I failed to work on my marriage. She had every right to fall out of love with me. Even hate me. It's a mistake I'll never make again."

"What mistake?" I asked, curious about his thoughts on why his marriage failed. "Not pay attention to your relationship?"

He nodded. "I won't neglect you, Kate. If you ever feel the least bit neglected, let me know, for it won't be intentional. I want you to feel completely loved and cared for, the focus of my attention when I'm with you."

I smiled and leaned over to kiss him, and he met me half way, our lips pressing together, my breath hitching in my chest.

"I want you to feel the same," I said. "I've never lived with a man before, so I don't really know what to expect, but if I ever fail to please you, if I ever neglect you, I want to know."

He smiled finally, for the first time in a while. "Living with a man? Let me give you some advice. Expect a lot of sex. Expect him to fall dead asleep soon afterwards. Expect him to watch you greedily all the time, like you're dessert and he can't wait to get to eat you. Or, at least, that's the way I feel when you're with me."

I smiled, a thrill going through me. "You can eat dessert whenever you want." I crawled onto his lap and wrapped my arms around his neck.

"Mmm, Ms. Bennet," he murmured against the skin on my neck. "I think you might seduce me with that coy look of yours, but I'm not in any shape for anything this morning."

"Of course not," I said. "Let's take it really easy today. I have to go back to the studio and apply the next coat of gesso, but otherwise, we should just stay home and recover."

He shook his head. "I have some work to do and will be busy all day."

"I can't talk you into taking the afternoon off? Even you deserve a vacation…"

"I don't think I can," he said. "Since I'm staying longer, I have to finish up some work for our next shareholder meeting. Then I have to go in and get my first shot. The oncologist wants to do a peripheral blood stem cell harvest. I have to take growth factors that will increase the number of stem cells in my blood."

"The Filgrastim?"

He nodded. "I'll be taking it for four days before they do the harvest."

"I did some reading. You won't be feeling well for a while?"

"Just mild bone pain. Nothing I won't be able to handle. Nothing worse than how you feel the day after a really hard workout at the gym." He smiled softly. "We'll have a nice quiet night together.

I hugged him more closely, eager for the night to finally arrive.





CHAPTER SIXTEEN





Drake dropped me off at the studio, and this time, he didn’t seem as suspicious of me going there, despite being alone with two or three men he didn’t really know. I was glad – his jealousy made me smile, but I didn’t want him to really feel any concern. I didn’t even think about them other than as fellow artists.

I helped Keith, the other artist sharing the studio, work on a couple of new frames for his collection in repayment for Nathaniel helping me with mine. The guys at the studio were anything if not communitarian and cooperative. All for one and one for all, seemed to be their motto.

Keith was an interesting contrast to Nathaniel and Jules. Unlike them, he wasn't a pothead, nor did he look like he stepped out of the sixties and I couldn’t imagine the word 'dude' or 'herb' crossing his lips. He was tall with longish dark hair and eyes. He wore a black turtleneck and jeans, and looked more like he belonged in a Lit class about Lord Byron than in an art studio. His paintings were portraits of people, street people, shopkeepers, city celebrities and the buildings they inhabited. They were all dark and brooding, like him.

When I finished putting the final coat of gesso on the canvases, I said goodbye to Nathaniel and Keith and then took a taxi back to Drake's apartment in Chelsea. At about eleven, the phone rang. I answered and it was Maureen.