Every Breath You Take (11 page)

She stroked his neck now, smooth and warm under the cover of darkness, the soft moonlight splashed across their partially clothed bodies, mint green sheets twisted around them. Jason stirred a little bit and smiled through the half-moons of his eyes when he saw her.

“I wasn’t drooling was I?”

She giggled and kissed him. “Yes.”

“Uh oh. Now you know I’m not perfect.”

“Well, now, I don’t know about that.”

He grinned and pulled her down for a long, slow kiss.

“I was so excited to see you when you got here, I forgot to ask how your meeting was,” she said as she snuggled against him.

“You did kind of pounce on me when I hit the door. See, I knew you were really a freak.”

She laughed, embarrassed by his accurate assessment of her ardor. “Couldn’t help myself.”

He chuckled and kissed her forehead. “Baby, the day I complain about that, just go ahead and pull the trigger. Anyway. I’m probably gonna have to go to Paris next month, finish up this deal.”

“What a tough life you have.”

He laughed and swatted her on the bottom, which made her yelp. “It’s right after Christmas and, man, I hate travelling around the holidays.”

“There are worse places I can think of to go than Paris in December.”

“Hey,” he leaned back to look at her. “Why don’t you come with me?”

“What?”

“I mean, normally I’d get in, get out, but why don’t we stay and . . . New Year’s Eve. We could spend New Year’s Eve in Paris.”

“Are you serious?”

He shrugged. “Yeah. Why not? We’d leave the day after Christmas, come back the following week after I finish my business. I mean, come on . . . what could be better than welcoming in the New Year in the city of love?” he asked, nibbling her ear.

“Hmmm. I always forget what a romantic you are.”

“You got a passport, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, I do. But. . .” she looked at him, ready to throw out a million excuses about work being too busy and not being able to get away before realizing there were always reasons not to do something. Just as there were always reasons to do something. She laughed. “Okay. Let’s do it. Let’s go to Paris.”

“Ha ha!” he said, hugging her. “Aw, baby, I can’t wait to show you Paris. It’s an amazing city. You’re gonna love it.”

“I can’t wait either,” she said, kissing him. “Mostly because I’ll have the hottest tour guide.”

“I can’t believe you’ve never been, I mean, with all the traveling you do.”

“Yeah, well, there’s a ‘me’ for the European hotels, and she always comes here for meetings and stuff so. . .”

“I mean just for fun.”

She snorted. “Yeah, I guess I don’t do enough of that.”

Jason slid an arm around her. “Stick with me baby, and I’ll make sure you have fun.”

“You better be showing me some fun later.”

He chuckled. “Why wait?”

Distractions.

That’s what the problem was, what it had always been. Too many goddang distractions.

Lesson learned.

He knew he couldn
’
t do what he
’
d done before. He
’
d lost too much time that way and in the end had ruined everything. He
’
d learned patience in the hospital.

Now he had to learn to be smart.

He needed to remove the distractions, make it so that it was just the two of them, with no one to whisper in her ear or turn her head.

It was his mission to save her from those others.

They needed a house. A house just for them, where they could live together in peace, far from the distractions that had gotten in the way the first time.

Finding the house had been easy. There were so many foreclosures in the area, all he had to do was find an auction. It was almost embarrassing how little he paid in the end—all cash. He could thank his grandparents for leaving him that trust fund, the one he was able to get his hands on just before he skipped out on his parents. It was funny how they didn’t overturn the terms of the trust so he couldn’t access the money. Well, he couldn’t worry about why they’d done something or why they hadn’t. All he could do was be glad, because without it, he wouldn’t be able to do any of this.

N
atalie eyed the canned green beans and greasy chicken floating on the paper plate in front of her and fought the urge to vomit all over them. She couldn’t stomach the metallic mush of the beans or the slimy, fatty chicken breast. After every meal, he would prod her for praise, trying to extract her gratitude for cooking such wonderful meals for her. He always liked to tell her he knew her better than she knew herself: what she liked, what she didn’t. Yet, he always made her do what he wanted. Eat what he wanted. Be his adoring little puppet.

He called these forced ritualistic meals their quiet time where they could talk and confide in each other. The reality was his alternately blathering on about himself and his unyielding obsession with her or poking her with endless, incessant questions about what she thought about him. What she had thought the first time they met. What she thought about when he said this or when he did that. Sometimes, she thought he was trying to provoke her into declaring her love for him. Or her hatred.

She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of professing either.

She turned her focus back to him now, sitting in a chair at the end of the bed and chattering on about “the future.” She noticed he liked to do that. Babble on about “the future” and what they would do in “the future.” How they would spend their days and what life would be like with just the two of them. He never talked about the present. She wondered whether his conscience ever bothered him and if it was too hard for him to face exactly how he’d blown her life apart. Or maybe he didn’t care. It was as if it was easier to live in some nether region of “the future,” where his overly detailed obsessions dictated her life . . . much the way they had done in all these weeks—had it been weeks? No, it had to be months since he’d forced her to come here. The other day—at least she thought it was the other day—she thought she felt the vent in her room blow heat. That must mean summer had passed and winter was imminent.

Didn’t it?

N
atalie sniffed and pulled the collar of her black wool coat closer to her neck. As much as she loved Chicago, she didn’t dig the cold, bony fingers of winter clawing at her.

Funny enough, though, she hadn’t minded winter in Paris at all.

Paris with Jason had been a fairy tale. After the usual whirl of holiday parties and other social obligations, they spent a frenetic Christmas with his family, swept up in a tidal wave of presents and traditions of church on Christmas Eve and a big breakfast of gooey cinnamon rolls, scrambled eggs that were more cheese than eggs, and fat logs of sausage before spending the morning opening presents. She was embarrassed by the shower of gifts from his family, but Jason had just laughed and said it meant she was part of the tribe. In private, he gave her a sterling silver heart tag charm bracelet and a hefty gold-tinted padlock, telling her she’d find out what it was for later; she gave him a platinum watch inscribed “Always, Natalie.”

They departed for Paris the next morning, and as tired as she was, she was too excited to sleep. After Jason finished his business, they spent their days exploring the Louvre, strolling along the Left Bank, visiting the Arc de Triomphe and ice skating at the rink outside the Hôtel de Ville—well, trying to, since they were both terrible; they spent more time edging along the side and trying not to go spinning across the ice. They crowded into the Champs-Élysées to welcome in the New Year, wishing each other “bonne année” at midnight and kissing long and slow as the crowd exploded around them. She couldn’t get enough of the little cafés with their buttery pastries and delicate cafés au laits or the French markets, bursting with cheeses, meats, baguettes, jams, and jellies. On their last night, he surprised her with a dinner reservation at Le Jules Verne in the Eiffel Tower, and they watched fireworks from the balcony of their hotel.

Yes, she would always remember December in Paris.

She smiled now, on her way home after brunch with Christine and Brandy at Wildberry. She needed to do a few hours of work from home before she met Brandy later that night. Jason was in California on business for a few days, and they’d talked five or six times a day since he’d been gone. Brandy and Christine had joked at brunch that they’d be walking down the aisle as bridesmaids any day now. She didn’t let on to the girls, but she hoped that’s where things were headed. It wasn’t that they had talked about it, but she just had a feeling that soon . . . she would be Mrs. Jason Hudson. Natalie Scott Hudson. Natalie Hudson. She smiled. They all had a nice ring to them.

She grabbed her mail, melting when she saw Jason’s familiar cream stationery sitting upright in the box with an L.A. postmark. She waited until she was upstairs, not wanting to share her reaction to his words with anyone.

“Catfish Fridays,” Natalie said, laughing to herself about Jason’s hankering for catfish at least two Friday nights out of the month, which prompted trips to his favorite spot on the West Side to curb his craving. She didn’t mind a nibble of crispy fish or the accompanying slice of squishy white bread stained orange with hot sauce once in a while, figuring it was a fair trade for his tolerating her occasional penchant for noshing on logs of raw cookie dough in bed, which grossed him out.

Natalie reread the letter four more times before ambling into her bedroom to pull out the miniature red lacquer trunk with the faux lock to drop this letter on top so it could get to know its older siblings. She thumbed through the stack, a faint ribbon of his cologne still lingering across the pages, the creases scruffy and the edges starting to wilt from her obsessive rereading. She’d never received love letters before and sometimes rereading them was the equivalent of pinching herself.

She forgot all about the press release she was supposed to be writing and pulled his first letter from the bottom of the stack and started reading.

E
verything was almost ready.

He took a deep breath, relishing the sharp, damp smell of the new paint. He enjoyed the soft crunch of the new carpet beneath his feet. The wink of the shiny new appliances.

He streamed in and out of the rooms, his imagination already racing ahead to the future they would share here. Of lounging on the couch together while they watched movies, rolled around each other like caterpillars, sharing breakfast and the intimate inside jokes of lovers.

The images of her in his world . . .
finally
. . . after all this time made him tremble with a pure, coursing joy he hadn’t experienced in years. It was all he could do to keep from doing cartwheels across the floor.

She would love it. She would understand that everything he did, he did for her. She’d be grateful. She’d be happy.

She’d be his.

He sighed a breathy, contented little sigh as his mind settled back into the present and what needed to happen now.

Phase two.

“Y
ou know, as much as I love this restaurant, I think the one in Paris was better.”

“Which one?” Jason asked.

“All of them,” she laughed, and he joined in.

“Paris was pretty amazing, wasn’t it?” he said, his voice soft as he picked up her hand, playing with her fingers.

“Yeah,” she murmured, smiling at him. “Trip of a lifetime.”

“I’m glad.”

“You were a great tour guide.”

“You know, I do what I do.”

“That you do.”

“So . . . you ready to go home?”

“Your place or mine?” she said, her voice husky and teasing.

He laughed. “Yours, ’cause mine is a mess.”

She stood up and he grabbed her hand as they made their way to the front of the restaurant. “Jason, I think the messiest I’ve ever seen your place is when I saw a toast crumb on the counter.”

“I know, I know, I’m a little compulsive with the cleaning, but I just can’t stand it being messy. And trust me, it’s more than some toast crumbs on the counter.”

“Well, thank God I’m not a slob,” she said. “I don’t think I would have stood a chance with you.”

“Eh, maybe half a chance,” he said, winking and giving her a peck on the cheek as they stepped outside, the late winter wind slicing into them both. She clamped her hands around his forearm to keep from blowing away as he hailed a taxi. They bundled into one and gave her address before he snapped his fingers. “Oh. Wait. I just remembered, I’ve got the guy coming over early to try and figure out what’s wrong with the dishwasher. Do you mind just staying at my place tonight?”