A Lover's Secret (7 page)

Elizabeth

Elizabeth stood, blinking, at baggage claim. The fluorescent
lights and the dry, recycled air always made her eyes feel sticky. And why did
the sirens need to be so eerie… every time a carousel would begin to turn?
Whoop,
whoop.
Like something dreadful was about to happen.

The other passengers from Jake’s flight were here. Full
flight, by the looks of it, but no Jake. A small girl shuffled past, scanning
the waiting crowd. A middle-aged man in a gray suit rubbed his bald head and
watched the suitcases circle again and again. A tall couple pressed their
bodies together. One by one, the passengers on Jake’s flight tugged bags off
the carousel, kissed loves ones, and shuffled off into the night. But no Jake.

What if something had happened to him? It would be her
fault, certainly. She would be to blame. She was the one who had let him go…who
had let him shove right past her, and now he hadn’t returned, as he promised he
would.

She knew he was erratic. Of course, she knew he was
unpredictable. That was understandable. But, damn it, she trusted him.
He
knew how important this was. To him, to her, to everyone. To the entire
project.

Elizabeth’s phone felt tiny in her hand. She tipped it to
check once again. No messages. He hadn’t gotten on this plane. Of course he
hadn’t.

So now she would have to go to him. She glanced at the face
of her phone once again, then checked the monitors showing departures. The next
flight was in just a few hours. The middle of the night.

She chuckled to herself and adjusted the straps of her
overnight bag. Of course she wasn’t really surprised. Jake almost never did as
he was told, and she had been more or less expecting this eventuality, or she
wouldn’t have packed a suitcase. She wouldn’t have come to meet him at the airport.
She wouldn’t have needed to see, with her own eyes, whether he got off the
plane.

Then again, never had the stakes been this high. She
couldn’t, for the life of her, figure out why he didn’t care. She had gone down
this road a few times…with men just like him.

No, that wasn’t true.

No one was just like
him
. No one was like Jake
Lassiter. For one, she had never been in love with one of them. That was one
hundred percent against the rules, but Jake Lassiter was just,
different
.
Elizabeth smiled to herself. She hadn’t yet met a woman who would tell you that
he wasn’t. If there was anyone to break rules for, it was Jake.

Elizabeth rubbed her temples as she clicked along to the
ticket counter. The next plane didn’t leave for awhile, but there was no sense
going home to an empty house to wait. No, in a few short hours, she would be on
her way, and she would bring him home. Back where he belonged. Where she could
watch him.

She found her gate and settled in a blue sling black chair,
resting her Louis Vuitton on her lap and wrapping both arms around it, feeling
the supple leather against her skin. She tipped her head back then, and
breathed deeply. Ugh. Airport smells. Stale coffee. Disinfectant. The scent of
people from far and wide— their hope, their elation, their disappointments,
their mournful goodbyes. The emotion was palpable. Like it had a pulse.

She had been in her line of work for so long, she knew she
was supposed to be immune to it all, but Jake had been her undoing in a few
different ways. Of all people, she wanted him to make it. She wanted him to
beat this thing. But she alone knew what he was up against, and she would use
every tool she had—and even some she didn’t—to help him.

Jess

The Lincoln town car slid next to Jess on the sidewalk. The
driver, his crisp black cap pulled low, opened the door and motioned her
inside, and, as she slipped down into the upholstery, she expected to see him,
to see Jake, but there was only emptiness and the scent of new leather. Her
door shut with a muffled
phwoomp
and the car purred off again, turning
at the next block.

What must the driver think of her? Picking her up on the
street in the night? Did this happen each evening for a man like Jake? Did he
send his driver to collect women at odd ends of town?

Jazz played on the stereo so softly she had to stop inhaling
for a moment to hear it at all. She closed her eyes then and willed herself to
focus only on the faint trill of the music as the car glided through town and
rolled to a stop before a magnificent series of polished marble columns.

There he was. Between the center pillars, his hair mussed
with sleep; his hands jammed into his pockets, so she could see just the
outline of his fists through the fabric. She looked down at her own pink
striped shirt and black stretch pants…what she always slept in.

She expected to be nervous but she wasn’t, suddenly. There
was a quiet trembling, just beneath. Seeing him there, waiting for her, sent a
spark through her body. A pulling sensation in her belly.

“Now I know I promised not to touch you,” he said with a
fast wink, “but may I take your hand?”

She nodded and with his slightest touch, her skin came
alive. Pins and needles rose to her face and she could feel herself flushing.

That’s when she knew. She knew, at this moment, that she
would not be able to resist this man. That, tonight, she would do whatever he
asked her to.

“You must have freshened up,” he said. “No one looks this
irresistible at two in the morning.”

“I didn’t, actually.” As she spoke—as she felt his hand
cradling hers—she was aware of a new sense of calm, which had overtaken her.
The trembling had stopped, replaced now with a peaceful energy. A strength and
a vitality. A sense of power.

They proceeded to the top floor, together, which opened to a
glass-encased rooftop and a white door, flanked by two onyx columns, pearly
white and veined with gold.

Jake waved a silver card toward a panel near the handle, and
he pushed the door open into a high-ceilinged foyer. Behind it sprawled a vast
living area with white leather sofas buttressed by pillars and a variety of
potted trees. The south wall was composed entirely of glass, and a set of
French doors stood open. Gauzy curtains twisted and twirled lyrically as though
a silent tango were floating in on the breeze.

“Thank you for coming here,” Jake said, low. “When you
called, I wandered outside to talk with you, but it’s really quite cold this
evening. I’ll just shut the door, and we can take a seat on the sofa.”

“No.” Jess’s tone was decisive. “I want to go out there.
Outside.” Her every sense was heightened, ever since he had taken her hand. She
wanted to feel the cold air in her lungs. She wanted to feel the bite of the
concrete floor on the soles of her feet.

“Okay, if you’re sure…”

As they moved toward the open doors, Jake ducked inside the
bedroom and emerged with a flowing white duvet, which he wrapped around her
shoulders as they stepped across the threshold to the rooftop terrace. She
slipped off her shoes, and, as soon as the cold air hit her skin, she felt her
body go taut. Steam rose from a hot tub nearby, and she imagined disrobing.
Dropping the blanket and shedding her clothes. She could almost feel the
sensation of water scorching along her toes, then her heels and her ankles. The
water would buoy her up, even as it sliced against her skin.

But she passed the hot tub and drew closer to the balcony,
where she surveyed a blanket of twinkling lights. Up here, all sounds were
muffled. All was silence and calm.

Jess could feel Jake’s eyes on her, but she couldn’t bring
herself to look at him directly just then. Instead, she considered him from the
periphery of her vision. He was staring at her, with that look on his face. The
one in the photograph on his book jacket. But when she turned to him, he had put
on the other face. The one that had met her at the car. The one that had
brought her up here in the elevator.

Grandma’s words echoed through her mind.
There’s
something about him I don’t trust.
Jess’s throat closed. A city asleep. Thirty
floors up. If she screamed right now, would anyone hear?

He was standing next to her, looking out. His skin was
several inches from her, but she felt an intensity arcing off his body.

“So,” she said awkwardly, staring out into the darkness of
the night.

He faced her, grinning, and he leaned against the stone
balcony.

She drew the duvet around her shoulders, tighter, and she
felt a chill run through the length of her body.

“You seem kind of tense.”

She stopped herself before she conceded that, of course she
was tense. She was always tense.

“I could give you an amazing massage,” he said, holding his
hand toward hers. “Let’s come inside.”

She looked at him now, full in the face, and he turned his
palms upward. “Okay. No massage. We’ll just talk.”

She knew her face was pinched and her eyes were wide, and
she could feel them filling with tears in the night air. It was just the right
temperature to make her eyes water.

“You know, Jess, a lot of people around here like to talk
about you.”

This was the last thing she wanted to hear. “They do?”

“Yep, and, granted, I’ve been asking around. But I’ve heard
your whole life story, from a variety of perspectives.”

Jess stared out into the night and focused on drawing her
breath in and out.

“I heard you were this incredible student…very serious in
school. Which, of course, I know, because I had a couple of classes with you
back in the day. But you were always so modest, too. So humble. It made you
irresistible. I remember your valedictorian speech at graduation. So touching
and inspiring. I watched you up there, in your cap and your gown.” He laughed,
low. “I have never wanted a woman as bad as I wanted you then. Before or
since.”

Jess felt her chest rise and fall. She looked up toward the
stars and the moon. Did he think this would be easy as feeding her a line? Oh,
why had she come here?

“Seriously. You have no idea the kind of power you hold over
me, Jess. A woman so strong, so powerful. So bright and ready to take on the
world.”

“Hmm.” Her eyes swept toward him. “Then I’m sure you won’t
like the rest of my story.”

“What? You going on to med school and getting straight A’s.
I heard you’re almost finished.”

“I was.” She sniffed. The night air felt freeing suddenly.
She inhaled deeply, feeling the cold air enter her mouth and her lungs and, for
reasons she couldn’t explain, she began to speak. She began to tell Jake
Lassiter everything she had longed to tell another person, for years and years,
if only someone would listen. She began simply enough and then, once she got
going, she found she couldn’t stop.

Later in her life, looking back on it, Jess would try to
understand precisely what made her crack open in this way, on this night. She
was never entirely certain, but she thought perhaps it was the fear that Jake
Lassiter planned to use her, and if he was going to use her for what he needed,
then she would use him for what
she
needed.

For whatever reason, she began to tell him everything, her
hopes and dreams, her fears and failures. She told him why she had started
medical school and why she had left. She told him her fear of making mistakes
that she couldn’t take back. Her fear of disappointing her family and herself.
Her fear that, if she chose to be a doctor, she would need to commit to it so
completely that she would never be able to be anything else: a wife or a
mother.

As she spoke, she never once looked at him, but she could
feel his eyes on her, watching her face move and contort. Watching her words
come out in gallops, her eyes blazing. And he stood, perfectly straight and
still. He watched the tears slide down her face, never saying a word or lifting
a hand, but simply witnessing her. Not responding, but simply hearing her. With
each sentence, each confession and admission, she felt herself becoming lighter.
She felt herself breathing more deeply and completely.  

She went on, chattering and jabbering and rambling. “I
realize that I put too much pressure on myself. That’s who I am. I love taking
care of people, and once I become a physician, I fear that this is all that I
will be. But maybe I want to do more. Maybe I want to try new things, travel,
have some kind of adventure…maybe, I don’t know, someday have a child. But I
know myself. And to be the kind of doctor I want to be, it will be all or
nothing. And I’m not ready to go all in. Not now. Not yet.”

Jess stared out at the blinking lights of a waking city. She
continued even though she knew how much men hated it when women over-shared.
When they got a little crazy and blurted all their feelings without taking a
breath. But she couldn’t help it. The more he stood and watched her, the more
she spilled. These were things she had never said out loud, to anyone.

“I’d been thinking about dropping out for two years, and I
probably should have talked to someone about it before it got to this point,
but I couldn’t really find anyone to listen. Just people to give me advice.”
She sniffled, then laughed. “Useless advice. When I went back to clean out my
apartment, to move out officially, the school made me undergo a psychiatric
evaluation and an exit interview—the whole bit. Just to see if I was having a
nervous breakdown. Their conclusion, I think, was that I am simply not cut out
for the life of a physician. But I sometimes think I’m
too
cut out for
it. I know what it’s going to take. I don’t have any illusions about what,
exactly, it’s going to be like, and I know that I’m just not ready.” She
cleared her throat and lowered her voice. “So, technically speaking, the school
has put me on academic leave. Temporarily. I have a few months to come back.
But I won’t.”

Finally, she turned to him. “Aren’t you sorry you asked?”

He laughed then, and he shook his head. “No.” His eyes were
reflective, and he held her gaze for a long while. Then he said, “I am
tremendously happy that I asked. And that you shared yourself with me.” He
lifted his arm, as though to bring it around the back of her neck, but then he
retracted, and he let it fall against his side. “You are going to do something
amazing someday, Jess. I can feel it.”

“Well, that’s nice of you to say, as I’ve just been
cataloging my failures for you.” The breeze flipped her hair back and she could
feel her breath way down deep in her belly.

“No you haven’t. You’re simply telling me part of a story. A
story that won’t end. You’re only to the part where the hero rises up, pushes
off her obstacles, and saves the world. There has to be that part of the story.
Otherwise, it’s not a story. You have to have something to triumph over, before
you triumph.”

She shook her head. “But, Jake, that’s just it. I don’t
feel
like saving the world anymore. I am not the hero I thought I was.”

This was followed by a long silence. Then Jake said, “Well,
if it’s adventure you need. If you need a pushing off point… a little help in
embarking on the next part of your story, then you have come to the right
place.”

Jess crossed her arms under the blanket and huddled inside.

He whispered, drawing closer to her. “I would like to take
you on an adventure so complete, so consummate and absolute, that it is going
to change the way you see yourself.”

It was a moment so quiet, so penetrating and intimate, that
she felt as though she were floating somewhere above, looking down on herself.

“All you will need is a passport, a bathing suit, and a set
of running shoes,” he continued. “And trust. In me. To do what I want with
you.”

His voice, his words, made her swell with desire. She
exhaled. “Ah, I don’t have a passport.”

“Oh.”

“I mean, you know, I’ve never needed one.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay. You won’t need one. I… can make a
Plan B. A domestic Plan B.” He thought for a moment. “Just tell me… city, beach
or mountains?

“Hmm. Not the beach.” She thought of herself spending the
entire vacation in a swimming suit. Too embarrassing. And what would they do
all day? “Cities, too chaotic.” And then she envisioned the gentle rolling
hills, the way she felt, as a child, when she and her father had made it out to
the foothills to hike, the way the ground soared up out of nothing at all. Mythical
and mystical. “Mountains,” she answered finally.

“Mountains it is.” He bobbed his head and grinned.

“And Jake?” Her voice was small. “Will we have to fly? In a
plane?”

“Yes.” He smiled. “We’re going to fly. Do you hate to fly?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never done it.”

“Well, then, this is going to be a bigger adventure than I
thought. Just trust in me. That’s important. Vital.”

She imagined herself handing over complete control. All at
once, she felt feathery and lithe, as though she could float along in the
world, wherever she liked. “I want to tell you something, Jake. Just one thing
more.”

He chuckled. “Okay…”

“You’re going to think I’m weird. But I…just need you to
know. So that you know. It’s just…something I think you should know.”

“Okay.”

“Ack, I’m so embarrassed.”

“Good God, woman. Just tell me already.” His eyes danced
playfully and she understood that, no matter what she might tell him, it
wouldn’t matter. He would accept her.