The Pieces We Keep(14)

Vivian’s thoughts churned as she tried to visualize how all the pieces fit. “So-why can’t she go now? If she’s a Swiss citizen? Surely it’s safer there.”

Isaak said nothing, letting the curtain fall free of the entire façade. Here, in the impossible quiet of London, a revelation took shape.

“Your family isn’t Swiss,” she breathed.

His eyes snapped to hers. “That isn’t true. My ancestors are, from my mother’s side.” He attempted to protest further, but weakened by the flimsy argument, his words trailed off.

“Then it’s all been lies. A splendid heap of lies.”

Always she sensed a barrier hanging between them, an invisible bridge. Yet she had no inkling of how wide the stretch, or how many deceptions filled the gap below.

If his admission was meant to help, he was mistaken. She had been played a greater fool than she’d realized. The urge to flee overtook her and she did not bother to fight it.

She was several yards from the lamppost when he called after her.

“Vivian, stop.” He gripped her shoulders from behind. “Damn it, you’re always running away from me.”

She was plagued by the truth of this. But then she recalled it was likely his one and only truth, and she tried to break away. “Just let me go.”

“I can’t do that,” he told her. “I love you.”

Her body went still.

Weeks ago, as they necked passionately in a secluded park, those very words had escaped her lips. He had smiled in return but replied with merely a kiss. She had managed to hide her disappointment, and ever since refrained from the same mistake.

At last, he had reciprocated in kind. But how to gauge his sincerity?

“Did you hear me?” he said, his mouth beside her ear. He nuzzled the side of her hair. His moist, heated breath sent a shiver down her spine. “I love you, Vivian.”

She worked to recover her voice. “We don’t even know each other.”

“You know that’s not true.” He relaxed his hold and slid a hand down her sleeve. Beneath her unbuttoned sweater, his fingers settled on the waist of her skirt. He guided her around to face him. His purposeful touch dissolved every layer of fabric.

“Darling, please, think,” he said. “Your father fought in the war. Against Germans, for God’s sakes.”

The Great War. Her father’s service. Her mind hadn’t yet ventured there.

Vaguely she did recall her father’s grousing, back when she was a child, about a local German plumber said to have swindled the neighbors. A dirty Kraut was the term her father had used. But it was an emotional slip, and once little Vivian asked him what it meant he never repeated the phrase. Times had changed.

“That was decades ago.”

“Yes. But he’s still an American diplomat. Political relations are worsening. I didn’t know how he’d feel about-how you’d feel about me, if you knew.” He moved his hand to her cheek, and she cursed her inability to pull away. “Besides, you can’t blame me for keeping my guard up.”

“Oh? Then who is to blame?”

“You,” he said, and Vivian’s gaze sharpened.

“Me?”

He arched a brow, as if no answer could be more apparent. “You’ve made it clear from the start, you have no intention of staying. Sooner or later your father will be transferred, and you’ll get what you’ve always wanted. You’ll move back to America and travel from one coast to the other. Bathe in the blue seas of California, pitch pebbles into the Grand Canyon, ride bareback through the Texas plains. You’ll live as you please, no one tying you down. Isn’t that what you said?”

For Vivian, the memory of sharing those picturesque dreams was somewhat faint. A generous glass of red wine during one of their evening picnics had lubricated her words. Lying on his arm as they gazed at the stars, she had described the places she would visit, each one inspired by tattered, dog-eared issues of National Geographic.

It hadn’t occurred to her that he would harvest so many of those details.

“Now do you understand?” he said. A look of vulnerability seeped into his deep-set eyes, dissolving the remnants of her will.

She found herself nodding, unsure how the situation had both tangled and untangled in such a short span. All she knew for certain was how much she suddenly needed him close.

She moved forward and delighted in the feel of his arms enfolding her. She rested her head against his neck, absorbing the thrum of his pulse, the scent of his skin. A lavish mix of tobacco, vanilla, and sage. “How did you know where to find me?” she murmured.

“At the end of a long day, your favorite place to go?”