Six Weeks, page 9
Jaya came again, too soon, the ecstasy becoming an ache deep inside, a kind of sweet piercing pain.
Her body came apart in his hands, a moment before he reached his own violent climax.
Afterwards, he stripped the ties from her wrists, releasing her into the very different bonds of his arms.
Nestled in his embrace, she murmured, “I’ve never come like that before.”
It took him a moment to respond, gruffly. “You don’t have to say that.”
This, from a man who’d just demanded she roleplay being in love with him.
Peeking up at him, she told him, “It’s the truth.”
A beat of silence. Then, very formally, he said, “Thank you.”
A great big yawn separated her next words. “You’re welcome.”
As her eyelids drifted shut, she felt his mouth brush against her hair. He said something else as well, but she was asleep before she could process it.
Chapter Eight
The cheque arrived two days after the court date. Austen contemplated the six-digit total. It wasn’t the largest single payment he’d ever received but it was the most prompt. Contrary to what the other lawyers in his firm might think, a high-profile acquittal didn’t always ensure punctual payment of his bills.
His secretary entered his office while he was still admiring the cheque.
As she placed a form on his desk for his signature, she nodded at the small cream-coloured piece of paper. “That should put you in the top twenty.”
Partners were ranked by their billable hours and also their collections. John McNamara’s cheque put Austen’s collected fees for the year over a million. Only a select few of the firm’s hundred or so partners ever reached that level.
“We should celebrate,” Austen said, acknowledging Kristy’s contribution to his success. “Maybe a week at that Caribbean resort you liked last year?”
A singles’ resort, he knew, but had never let on.
“I would rather go out to dinner,” she said. “Just you and me.”
Not exactly his first choice for a celebration but he couldn’t refuse.
“Anywhere you like,” he promised.
The celebration he was thinking of for himself was also meant for two, but it didn’t involve his secretary.
His ideal party was very private and involved champagne and him and Jaya in his tub, surrounded by bubbles. When the bubbles popped, one by one, revealing her delicious naked body…
Damn, he had to get a grip on himself. Kristy was staring.
He glanced down at the form she’d brought, signing it automatically.
As she picked it back up, Kristy said, “Oh, I almost forgot. Your mother called.”
“Oh? From where?”
Now that they were retired, his adoptive parents spent their time indulging their respective passions. His father’s idea of heaven was a year-round cabin on the lake where he could boat, fish and snowmobile along winding country trails, depending on the season. His mother’s horizons were wider. She spent half of the year at the cabin but during the boating, fishing and snowmobiling seasons, she travelled. It was currently boating season so that meant his mother was in Hungary or Tunisia or Chile. Mobile phones and email had long ago made it unnecessary for him to keep strict track of what country she was in at any given time.
“From Toronto,” Kristy answered. “She said she was in town between trips. She wants to see you. She misses you.”
The last bit, he was sure, was his secretary’s own embroidery. His mother might miss him, but she would never say so to someone else.
Austen picked up his phone. “I’ll give her a call.”
* * * *
Over the phone, his mother said nothing about missing him, but she hugged him extra hard when they met the following day for breakfast. She was a tall woman, just a few inches shy of six feet, and her height, along with their shared colouring, usually made people comment on their resemblance.
In her late sixties, Victoria King was still an attractive woman, with clear pale blue eyes and short blonde hair cut stylishly around her face.
“Who’s the lucky lady?”
Austen sputtered over his coffee. “Sorry?”
“Who’s your girlfriend?” his mother asked, smiling. “And don’t tell me you don’t have one because I’ll know you’re lying.”
“How did you know?” he asked, giving in to the inevitable.
Still smiling, Victoria stabbed a piece of turkey sausage with her fork. The diner was a local institution, having existed on the same spot for over five decades, but even it had had to go with the times and offer a few healthier options.
“Usually, when I’m in town, you invite me out for dinner. This time, you invited me out to breakfast, forgoing your morning workout. That tells me your evenings are already booked.”
Austen contemplated the older woman for a minute. It was truly eerie how well the woman who raised him knew the inner workings of his mind.
“I could be busy at work.”
“You’re always busy at work but you manage to make time for your mother. This woman is more important than your mother. I understand. That’s only natural. Normal and natural. I’ll get over it.”
“You already seem to be over it,” Austen observed, wondering what his mother would have said if he told her the most important woman in his life was also her late sister’s adopted daughter.
His mother loved Jaya like she was her own child, but he didn’t know how she would handle that piece of news. He and Jaya had been raised as cousins. How ‘normal and natural’ would his mother find it if she knew they were lovers?
Putting down her fork, his mother’s expression turned serious. “I worry about you, Austen. And before you tell me I shouldn’t, I’ll tell you that I have no choice about it. I’m not a worrier by nature but you’re my son. If I can’t worry about you for no good reason sometimes, how could I call myself a mother?”
Though she ended her speech with a smile, her voice was watery.
“You shouldn’t worry,” Austen said. He was touched but he was also determined to maintain a certain distance. Jaya was at the heart of that distance. If he let his mother guess the truth, he was afraid the publicity would scare Jaya away. She was already so skittish about relationships.
He busied himself stirring his coffee as he went on. “I have a career, a good income…a partner, as you’ve guessed.”
“The partner whose name you won’t even tell me,” his mother pointed out drily.
Eyes down, he told the truth. “I can’t. Not yet.”
Reaching out, his mother stopped his hand. The coffee he was needlessly stirring was black.
“It’s Jaya, isn’t it?”
Austen’s head snapped up. Maybe there was something in the idea of mothers possessing focussed ESP where their children were concerned.
“She’s the reason you won’t tell me your girlfriend’s name,” his mother continued. “Isn’t she?”
What could he say? This had nothing to do with Jaya? It had everything to do with Jaya.
“Somehow, she got in the way of you and Lisa,” Victoria said, “and you’re afraid if you let us know about this woman, she’ll get in the way of it again.”
“Jaya didn’t get in the way of me and Lisa,” he said quietly.
His mother was watching his face closely. “Maybe she didn’t get in the way. Maybe she was in the way right from the start.”
“That’s not true,” he said with some heat. “She’s my—”
He broke off. What could he say? She was his partner? His lover? His girlfriend? He couldn’t bestow on her any of those titles without her consent and he certainly couldn’t share them with others. Not yet. Perhaps not ever.
“She’s your…?” his mother pressed softly.
“She’s mine,” he said. “No girlfriend or lover or even wife could make me remove her from my life.”
“Is that what Lisa tried to do?” His mother’s voice was sad. “Lisa was smarter than you realise, Austen. As long as Jaya is the central woman in your life, no other woman will be able to come close to you.” She sighed. “You share everything with Jaya. That’s how Nicole and I wanted it. We wanted you to be like siblings, but it was never that. It was always more complicated. In a way, it was a destructive bond, right from the start, because it was an isolating one. It was you and Jaya alone. I was afraid—I’m still afraid—of what will happen when she wants to settle down and get married.”
Austen snorted. “No chance of that. Why choose one man when there are a million and a half in the city?”
“One of those men might be the man who makes her change her mind,” his mother told him gently. “I don’t think you’re prepared for that, darling.”
He was…as long as that man was him.
What chance did he have when sixty men had tried and failed? There were signs, yes. Sometimes. Reasons to hope for more.
The look on her face when she’d told him she loved him. Sure, he’d demanded as much but he hadn’t really expected her to give in, even as part of the game.
The memory of that look was like a blow to his gut.
Another memory made his lips curve.
“I’ve never come like that before.”
Could he build on that? Use lust instead of love to bind her to him?
He had hope—but he also only had ten days left.
“What are you saying, Mom? That I want to be the man Jaya settles down with?”
Knowledge of how little time he had left made his voice harsh.
Victoria blinked at him then said quietly, “I didn’t think you had admitted that possibility to yourself yet.”
The smile he gave her felt like it was made of glass. “I’m capable of admitting it to myself, even if there is no hope.” He hesitated before asking the next question. “Are my feelings for her so obvious? Can everyone see them?”
Over the past few years, he’d cross-examined dozens of witnesses. He could often tell when they were concealing something. It was a skill which helped him to figure out when to dig deeper and when to leave a less than satisfactory answer on the record.
But even with his skill on the other side, he’d never given any thought to how he would perform on the witness stand.
“Don’t worry.” His mother smiled. “I don’t think anyone else could see it. Blame my perspicacity on ‘Mom sense’.”
Relieved, he grinned back at her. “More like skull-penetrating radar.”
“There’s only one skull that matters to me,” she told him. “Yours. You’re my baby still, you know, and you always will be.”
Suddenly, he was five years old again. Small, vulnerable, already traumatised from years of broken attachments, he hadn’t been an easy child to get to know, much less love. Right from the start, this woman had shown him patience, caring and, yes, love.
Still, there was only one response to such sickly sweet maternal sentiments.
“Mo-om!”
Both of them were laughing when the waiter came by to top up their coffee.
After a minute or two, Victoria sobered. “You’ve lost weight, Austen. I know it’s because of this thing with Jaya. Have you let her know how you feel?”
His mouth twisted. “I’ve let her know.”
“You’re such a reserved person,” she went on. Her expression grew thoughtful. “You have excellent control over yourself but sometimes I’ve wondered if it was too much control. When you first came to us, you were so impulsive and you would get so wild with anger over the smallest attempt at discipline or redirection. The authorities said they wouldn’t support a permanent placement unless you were able to control yourself better in our care.”
She was silent for a while. Austen knew what she was thinking. He remembered that warning, couched in terms he could understand as a small child. “You must behave yourself better,” his new adoptive parents had told him, “or else the nice lady at the agency will be unhappy with us.”
Even at that age, he had understood the choice he’d had to make. He had to get a hold of his temper or else the lady from the child welfare agency, who wasn’t all that nice to him in private, would come to take him away from the Kings and send him to yet another home.
Austen had liked the Kings, who were older and more mature than any other foster family he’d stayed with. Already he loved his new little cousin. He’d wanted to stay, so he’d learned restraint. He’d learned it better than anyone could have dreamt possible. He’d had to. It was the key to his having a home with the Kings…and with Jaya.
His mother leaned forward to touch his hand, lightly, as if she were unsure of how her next words would be taken. “Is there really no hope for the two of you?”
Jaya’s voice was lodged in his head. “I love you…I love you.”
“There’s hope,” he said. He’d succeeded in making her want him, but could he force her to love him? Would it even be worth it if her love was coerced?
His mother spoke firmly. “Then you owe it to your girlfriend and any others you might have in the future to find out where you stand with Jaya.”
‘Before it’s too late’ was the unspoken addition to that statement.
He had ten days left.
* * * *
Kristy was waiting for him when he came into the office. Her arms were crossed over her chest. A bad sign.
“You declined every invite I sent you!” she accused, following him to his desk. “For two whole weeks.”
He pressed his fingers to the sides of his nose. “I’m booked the next few weeks.” Ten days, actually. “We can have dinner after my schedule clears.”
“You won’t,” Kristy insisted, angry tears in her eyes. “All your time goes to her.”
He made his voice cold. “Jaya is my partner.”
Maybe if he kept repeating it, it would remain true.
“For how long?” his secretary taunted. “I’ve worked with you for three years. I know the pattern. She only calls you when she breaks up with someone or doesn’t have a man in her life.”
Austen looked up at her, his eyes narrowed. “Do you listen in on my calls, Kristy?”
Jaya always called him on his personal phone so his secretary couldn’t truly listen in on the call, but she could eavesdrop on his part of it. Recently, he’d become more and more abrupt with Jaya’s too familiar calls.
What had he said the last time she’d called him? “Six weeks. Right on schedule.”
The memory made him feel disloyal.
Kristy flushed. “I can’t help hearing you.” With her hands, she gestured helplessly. “I sit right outside.”
“Make a reservation for two weeks from today,” Austen told her, his voice still cool. “You choose the restaurant.”
Kristy sniffed a couple of times, her eyes watching to see if her emotion was having any affect. “Okay,” she finally said, turning to go. At the door, she turned back, making him suppress a sigh.
“What is it, Kristy?”
“She won’t change, you know.”
Austen’s patience was worn out and beneath it was anger and irritation.
“You don’t know her,” he said, his tone sharp.
“I know her type,” his secretary said airily. “She’ll never give you what you want and the longer you wait, the more it will eat you up. You’re too skinny already.”
He smiled humourlessly. Echoes of his mother’s concern, except without the actual concern.
Emboldened by his silence, she went on. “What does she do, ride you until you’re exhausted every night?”
Austen couldn’t help himself. He laughed. She sounded so aggrieved. Did she think it was a hardship to spend every night fucking the woman he loved?
Love.
The word meant a great deal to him. For the first five years of his life, he’d been starved of it. His adoptive parents were the first people he remembered showing him any love. And Jaya. She’d loved him from the start, with an adorable childish worship that had caught him and still held him all these years later.
“Sometimes,” he said, still chuckling, “for a change, I ride her.”
His secretary’s face went pink all the way up to her hairline. Without a further word, she spun around and swept out of his office.
The invite came to his computer a few minutes later. Dinner at the Ritz, two weeks from today.
He clicked to accept.
In two weeks, he would know. One way or the other.
Austen’s features hardened. He was prepared for ‘the other’.
Chapter Nine
Lying on his bed, Jaya watched Austen get dressed in a smart new suit, its crisp lines making the best of his recent leanness.
“My mother thinks you’re starving me,” he told her, his eyes flicking over her reclining figure in the mirror.
Jaya sat up. She knew her aunt was in town for a medical check-up but she’d managed to avoid her so far.
“Did you tell her about us?”
“No,” he said shortly. “But she knows we see each other and she apparently blames you for not taking better cousinly care of me.”
“Austen,” she said with new urgency, “if she knew—”
He turned to face her. “I told you, she doesn’t know. God forbid our big dark secret should get out.”
In the past few weeks she’d attended a couple more of his business events but the people she’d met there were from a different world than hers. They weren’t people who mattered.
No one except Kristy Parker knew her as both his cousin and his so-called partner.
Partner. She should have refuted the word the minute he’d spoken it. And yet, the memory of his blunt statement still warmed her inside.
It was clear that ‘coz’ would never again cut it for them—and he was convinced their time had almost run out.
Austen gave her a cool smile, clearly misinterpreting her silence.
“I’ve gone over it all in my conscience a thousand times,” he said. “Adopted cousin means nothing, legally or morally. We can date. We can fuck. Hell, we can get married if we want.”
