Memories of the night before and yesterday flooded my brain but, regardless of the pain or maybe because of it, automatically I shifted closer to his hard warmth.
Yesterday, after taking a very long, very cold shower and then just barely stopping myself from breaking everything breakable I could find, I’d found myself in a huge rambling house with nothing to do. I’d finished the only book I’d brought with me. There was no company. No phone. No car keys. No books. No internet. No cleaning to do. No dirty laundry. No ironing.
Nothing.
I realized too late I should have asked Edwina to buy a few magazines. I only had the television and my thoughts and I didn’t want to spend time with either of them.
I avoided the television as I’d found, over the years (with vast amounts of experience) that there was rarely anything on. Plus I usually ate like a pothead with the munchies when I sat in front of the TV, so I made the decision to take a walk.
This was a very stupid idea mainly because I forgot my stinking iPod. There was nothing to do but think when you walked without your iPod.
Too lazy to go back, I forged on and, as they do, things occurred to me as I walked.
For instance, the fact that Katrina had marked Lucien. It wasn’t something that registered on me at the time seeing as I was freaking out but, looking back, the scratches were ugly and savage. His skin had been broken. Katrina not only had not held back, she had the power and speed to get a bit of hers back.
And she hadn’t responded in any way shocked at their fight. It had been like it happened all the time.
Even Lucien’s baiting, “Try,” sounded, in retrospect, as if it wasn’t the first time he’d ever said it but as if he’d said it lots.
And lots.
And Katrina hadn’t hesitated to attack.
Katrina had attacked Lucien, not the other way around.
She had also attacked me, something which Lucien not only protected me from (easily) but also it infuriated him (greatly).
Then there was their conversation, Katrina saying I was “life” to Lucien.
I still didn’t know what that meant.
What I did know was that something important was going on. Something I didn’t understand, told myself I didn’t want to understand but something that was happening regardless.
It was Katrina who left and Lucien didn’t go after her. As far as I knew, he didn’t give her a second thought before he’d turned to me.
This all made me distinctly uncomfortable or more uncomfortable than normal.
Mainly because I was afraid Lucien was right. I’d jumped to conclusions.
I had a lot of bad qualities but I’d never been judgmental. I hated people who were judgmental. They were the worst.
But I feared I had been with Lucien.
Regardless of Katrina’s words, it was clear that Lucien wasn’t sending her “severance papers” (it wasn’t hard to figure out what severance meant) because of me but because of something that had been going on far longer.
And, no matter how much I tried to stop it, his deep voice saying that love was a blanket that keeps you warm kept playing over and over in my head.
He said this not like he’d read it somewhere and liked that quote or as if he was simply explaining what he thought love should be. He said it like he’d felt that before, like he knew it to be fact.
This fascinated me, scared me and, for some reason, made me very sad because whoever taught him that lesson was not Katrina.
The house Lucien gave me was surrounded by woods except for the huge yard, immaculate garden and the pool (yes, pool, with a small pool house, no less). During my house inspection the day I arrived, I’d noticed a path leading into the woods and I took it.
Upon realizing I was a judgmental person and that I probably owed the Mighty Lucien an apology (which sucked), the winding, woodsy path led out onto a lake.
And what a lake.
It was huge. The day was warm and sunny, a gentle breeze blew but it didn’t disturb the glassy surface of the water which went on forever, the wooded hills around it rising to the blue, cloudless sky.
It was gorgeous.
There were big, beautiful homes nestled in the hills with paths or steps leading to the water. There weren’t many of them though. I counted five.
Seriously exclusive real estate.
I could see at the bottom of the path a long, wide, sturdy pier. Not rickety and ill-kept, of course not. It was the kind of pier you tied a fancy speed boat to (or a small yacht).
I walked out to the end of the pier and sat in the sun, staring out at the tranquil beauty of the lake, wondering if Lucien provided such luxurious locations for all his concubines. If he did, it must cost him a whack. He had to have dozens of concubines still alive. If he didn’t, this had still cost him a whack.