Natural Selection (11 page)

“Wow, this place is a lot bigger than I expected.”

He nodded and followed her silently.

“Shall I show you the ballroom? I believe it is around here somewhere…”

She looked around and attempted to control her giddiness as she spotted the statues of medieval knights and their shiny armor fixed in the doorway.

“Shouldn’t we wait for someone?”

He coughed and headed towards a large set of wooden doors. “I’d rather not.”

She trailed
him into a room with large rectangular windows and high cathedral ceilings. Right away, she noticed how the interior of the ballroom itself was fixed with mauve and navy, making the room look bigger than perhaps she thought it was. To the left of the large dance floor there was a large ten foot antique gold mirror with two antique tapestries on each side of it. The tables were large, sitting at least six respectively, and she wondered if they could wedge a few more chairs in there even if they wanted to.

“Can you see it?”
he said, walking up behind her slowly and brushing a wisp of hair from the back of her neck. “The room splashed with your favorite colors?”

She nodded. When did it get so hard to breathe? When did the huge room get
so
small?

“There’s plenty of space for the band
.” She walked over to the south side of the ballroom and tried for a moment to regain control of herself. How was she supposed to make him regret leaving her when she couldn’t event keep herself in check? Did she even have the strength to play hard to get?

“Do you see it?”
he said, trying to tempt her still. “Candles to warm the room? The band playing your favorite songs?”

“You do know this isn’t about me
, don’t you?”

He looked her up and down
, unsure of whether or not it was appropriate to smile. “Everything in my life is about you, Emilia Ward—this party is no exception. Do you like this?”

The way he ran his hands down her arm made her realize he wasn’t just talking about the ballroom.

“It will do.” She smiled wryly and went in to bite her nails.

“Good
.” He smiled. “Very good.”

Emilia looked at him from the corner of her eye. Did he like the way she had her finger in her mouth, the way she ran her thumb over the bottom of her lip?

Maybe working him over would be easier than she thought.

“
Are there overtime fees if we go past 1
AM
?”

“
Certainly,” he said. “But with the open bar, I doubt that will be an issue.”

“And the parking lot is safe
if people get too drunk?”

“That is what the valet is for…

Intentionally, she rose her voice, making herself sound more musical with each question. “Is there a coat check?”

“Who will need
that
in the dead of summer?”

“Is there handicap access?”

“Now you’re just asking silly questions.”

She smiled sweetly until
his heart flipped. “You caught me.”

Emilia continued to smile as she looked around.
The place was large and certainly beautiful enough for a first-class wedding. As much as she hated to admit it, Emilia could easily picture the regal event that Kasper was trying to organize, the fancy benefits and all of the elaborate weddings that had or ever could be.

Would she ever get to get married like she had always hoped? Like most girls, she had dreamed of such things, but somehow with Kasper it didn’t seem to matter. She had wanted hi
m in any way he would have her, and if that meant something that included a relationship without any sort of long-term commitment, she still was glad to have it.

Yet now
, however, things seemed to be different. There was no question in her mind that she wanted to be with him—spend the rest of her days with him, but without trust how could there be any kind of serious relationship? Could it be that it wasn’t supposed to be a serious relationship? Was it even possible that their relationship wasn’t meant to extend beyond the physical?

She considered this further still as they left, and while he clearly made an effort to stand away from her, she felt closer to him than before.
So close to him, in fact, that she was not afraid to make a bold move as he put the keys in the ignition.

“Kasper?”

He turned the car on and fastened his seatbelt. “Yes?”

“Will you kiss me?”

“W-what?”

“Will you kiss me?”
She repeated each word with elaborate extension, thrusting her chest forward so that he could have a better view.

“Albeit
for me to be a man who pushes his luck—” He looked out the window and resigned himself to the worst. “But why would you want that, when you made it quite clear the other evening that you did not?”

“Because, I want—need to know if that kiss last week was something other than a spur of the moment thing.”

“It was not, I assure you.”

“I need to know if you really still want me—love me the way you say you do—”

She cut him off before he could interrupt her. “I’ve put a lot of thought into this, and I know now that you can swear and promise all you want, but a kiss has a way of revealing things, and I need to know how you feel about me. Really feel about me.”

He scoffed. “You think a mere kiss can adequately demonstrate my affection for you?”

“It did once before.” She gazed at him and smiled. “No pressure or anything.”

While the smile was still on her
face, he reached over, taking her into his hands and trying not to sigh as she leaned into disfigured fingers. How was it possible that he had gone so long without her consent of touch? He wanted to explore the matter further, and yet, how he had managed to live so long without her wasn’t as easy to consider —that or anything else for that matter—once he allowed his lips to touch hers.

It began softly, but as t
he menial differences between them vanished, she was lost in the surge of warmth she felt and he in the tremors of his own body. Impatiently, his mouth pushed harder against hers, and her lips parted without further resistance—making them each dizzy with the joy of it.

“You’re right
,” he breathed. “A kiss is rather revealing.”

Before he could say anything else, she was on him again, exploring, pr
obing, and conditioning herself so that she never had to be separated from him again. Even her inexperienced hands had unclasped his seatbelt so that they could better mold into one another. Kasper twisted himself around her equally, taking in every scent, sensation, and sight that was her.

“N
o,” he insisted when they pulled away, “we need to stop this.”

“W-what?
” Weakly she turned her head away from him and leaned against his shoulder. Of course it had been there all along, his awe of her and her need for him! How silly it was of her to ever doubt it, to try and live without it. “Why?”

He bit down on his teeth and ran his tongue over the top of his mouth. H
e could still taste her there—and it was all he could do not to lose complete control of himself.

“I promised myself if I ever received the privilege of you again, I would do things correctly. I
-if we continue this, I’ll have to take you right here and now like the animal I am.”

“That’s fin
e.” She laughed and ran her hand under his wig—or at least tried to. He pulled her fingers from him and tried as gently as he could to push her away. Still, however, she persisted.

“Not everythi
ng has to be exact and official! Besides, isn’t
this
what you wanted—sex without any consequences? A quick fix? Well, I want it, too—” she breathed and ran her thumb along the edge of his lower lip. “It’s okay, Kasper, really!”

“A quick fix?” Kasper ran the words over in his mind. Was this some kind of a test? A way for him to prove his chivalry? He rested his forehead against hers. No, he assured himself, he would not fail.

“I need you
.” She wriggled until the tips of her fingers were resting against his waist. “I can see you need me, too…”

“Stop
, Emilia.” He took her hand in his own and pushed it away. “You deserve more than this…”

“I knew it
.” Untangling her fingers from his, Emilia closed her eyes and sighed. Clearly, he was just trying to get the better of her—and like a fool she had given it to him, admitted she wanted him as badly as he pretended to. “You just want to play games with me, to tease me and mess with my head. Do you want me to feel bad about myself? Do you think it’ll make it easier to control me?”

“No!” He pulled her face back to his and steadied her in his hands.
How could she think so little of him? “Just the opposite, Emilia, I want you to have nothing but peace. And when the time comes for me to make love to you again, I will prove just how devoted I am.”

“If you wanted me to be at peace
, you wouldn’t have rejected me to begin with. How do you think something like that makes a girl feel?”

“I confess I did not just give you up for your own sake. I did it for me. I—”

“What?” she said, growing impatient. “Just say it!”

“I released you for my benefit as well. If you stayed as a kindness to me, wasted your youth on me without
exploring your options, I would be disgusted with myself. I believed it was better for you to dislike me for a short period of time and forget about me rather than hate me later.”

What was he saying? How could he think she could ever hate him?

“I-I’m not sure what to say,” she admitted. “What to think.”

“You do not have to say anything. Just know that I want nothing more in this life than to take care of you, that I will do anything and everything to assure your happiness.
” He swallowed hard and turned the key, blasting the air conditioning as high as it would go. With any luck, it would help cool the both of them down. “I’ll take you home.”

“Can’t
we go back to your hotel?”

He inhaled sharply, “I think you have little to
no
idea of how very badly I would like that.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Because, if I cannot make you comprehend how much I love you then I have no right to touch you.”

“That isn’t very fair of you…
to get me all hot and bothered like that without doing anything about it.” She scoffed and leaned against the window, shivering at the cool contact of air. “I can’t even believe I had to ask you to kiss me—twice!”

She rebuckled her seat
belt and breathed deep. Some kind of a cleaning crew had arrived and someone who looked like a cook had stepped outside for a cigarette, given him a ringside seat for their conversation. So perhaps, making out in the car in front of an audience wasn’t the greatest idea she had ever had—it was just too bad she could convince her body of that.

Kasper
, meanwhile, smirked as he pulled out of the parking space and headed for the road. And though he kept his thoughts to himself, he couldn’t help but make a mental note of her words, of the sound of frustration in her voice when she mentioned his hesitation to kiss her.
Don’t worry, my little peach; I seriously doubt you will ever have to worry about that again
…

Chapter 7

The Payback

Emilia rotated her shoulders and swore to herself. Kasper’s words had been so sweet, and it seemed like his kiss exhibited nothing but love, but why wouldn’t he make love to her when he had the chance? Naturally, she wanted to believe him when he said he loved her, said he wanted to take things slow, but the last time she had believed him he had let her down so that she almost didn’t recover. And if she let him do it to her again she was almost sure she wouldn’t.

Did he want her to beg? Was his refusal to touch her the next level in
his mind games? What if he wanted to get her to plead simply for his own ego? Or perhaps, worse yet, he just wanted her to so that he could reject her?

Yet what if it was something else altogether? She hated to be so vain, but the second the possibility crossed her mind she realized that the shallow theory might have some sway. Maybe, she
reasoned, there was something wrong with her. Had her body changed somehow? Did she repulse him?

No, she shook her head and cleared her mind of the notion altogether. If she could be sure of anything
, it was that Kasper found her appealing.

So what was she supposed to do about it? The idea of risking her pride hardly appealed to her, yet at the same time, Emilia was sure that if she
let Kasper slip through her hands a second time, she would regret it for as long as she lived. She literally pulled at her hair. Suddenly, she could see it so clearly: her comparing every lover she would ever have to him, getting drunk as a bitter old woman and talking about him to everyone within earshot… dear God, she wouldn’t spend the
rest
of her life dreaming about him, would she? Was that even possible? What she needed was some advice, a consultation that didn’t come from a four-legged friend.  

Pacing back and forth in her kitchen, she picked up her phone and dialed Mrs. Levkin’s number. At that point, it was almost a reflex, a routine she cultivated in those first few weeks when trying to reach Kasper. For an instant she almost thought it
was funny, how easily the instinct came back to her. But the humor was quickly replaced by relief when the familiar voice came over the other end of the line.

“Mr
s. Levkin? Hi, it’s Emilia—”

“Emilia! I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear from you
, dear. How are you? How are your studies?”

She
sighed. As good as it was to hear the warmth of Mrs. Levkin voice again there was awkwardness there she couldn’t ignore. After all, if it was so good to hear from her, then why hadn’t she responded to all of her other calls and e-mails?

“Everything is good and school is keeping me busy…
uh, how are you?”

“Just as busy, trying to—what is that expression? Hold down the fort?”

“Yeah,” she sighed. “That’s sort of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“The fort?”

Emilia laughed as Mrs. Levkin’s chuckle reached her ears. It was only another reminder of how she had missed her friend, that maternal figure she never had.

When the joke wore off they returned to their serious
ness, and Emilia was secretly glad that she didn’t have to restart the conversation

“I’ll admit
I expected to hear from you earlier—one of you, anyway.”

“Y
-you haven’t been keeping in touch with Kasper?”

“
I’ve been trying,” she confessed. “He hasn’t exactly been receptive.”

“Is everything with his work okay
? The clients are still happy?”

“So far
, yes. But that isn’t why you called.”

“No
,” she said sadly. Emilia had thought it would be better for her to avoid Kasper, but if the lack of their relationship was being cited as a cause for his work trouble, she would feel even worse than she already did. “It isn’t.”

“How is everything really
?” she asked.

“It’s str
ange.” She smiled into the phone, all too aware that Mrs. Levkin was one of the few people who had ever asked her that and truly wanted to know, who really cared. “I thought I would do anything to have him back, but now that he’s around—I’m just afraid he’s going to leave again. I-I want to be with him again, and he says he wants to be with me too, but I don’t think I could handle it if he abandoned our relationship again.

The older woman
murmured something inaudible.

“Mrs. Levkin?”

“Do you still care for each other?”

Emilia startled at the abrupt question.
Caring about Kasper wasn’t the issue—trusting him, however, was.

“Yes.” She swallowed hard and ignored
the tears that pricked up at her frustration.

“The l
ast year has been difficult—for the both of you, I’m sure. Yet, none of it would have had to happen if you were not consumed by your fear. Kasper had you investigated not of necessity, but out of fear. He was afraid to approach you without knowing you better, and he was just as fearful to let you go. I understand why you are afraid now, but you shouldn’t be.”

She sniffed. “I shouldn’t
?”

“A broken heart is better than wondering what could have been for the rest of your days. Besides, y
ou shouldn’t have to miss someone if you don’t have to. If I could be with my husband again for just a single day, I would give up anything—I shouldn’t have to tell you what
other
people would do to be with the one they care about. If he is finally coming to his senses, then I’d hope you’d be a smart enough girl to consider how difficult that was.”

“I have
,” she said. “But I’m angry. I know it’s immature, but I’m still angry.”

“Well
…” She laughed with some snarkiness in her voice. “I’m not saying of course that you should make things easy on him—”

And just then, Emilia was inspired. She giggled a little to herself as she caught her reflection in the bathroom mirror.

“Oh, don’t worry, I haven’t been—and I won’t be.”

Mrs
. Levkin laughed. “Good girl.”

***

Later, Claudette came over with a box filled with enough color swatches and craft supplies to decorate the better part of the ballroom at least twice over and Emilia nearly jumped for joy that she wouldn’t be stuck doing it by herself.

“Here
.” She handed her a box through the door while Emilia tried to tame Tut. “I’ve got to grab something else downstairs.”

To keep him calm, Emilia gave him a large rawhide bone and he happily traded his
whining for it. Emilia laughed and was just beginning to sort through everything when Claudette came back with a long dry-cleaning bag folded over her arm.

“What’s that?”

Claudette gave Tut a pat on the head and threw herself over the sofa dramatically. “
This
is the dress I wore for all of two seconds to my mom’s wedding.”

Claudette un
zipped the bag, revealing a single-sleeve black dress with a crystal brooch at the shoulder. Emilia looked at her questionably, but said nothing.

“I figured if you’re going to be wearing a used dress, you might as well know where it came from
, right?”

Emilia ran her fingers along the crystal
brooch. She tried to think of an occasion when she had the opportunity to wear a dress as pretty as that, but failed.

“I
-I don’t know what to say. This is so nice of you.”

Claudette shrugged,
maneuvering the dress from the dry-cleaner bag to hang it up against the wall. “Hey, can’t have one of our hostesses running around in rags, right?”

“You’re a good friend
, Claudette.”

“Clearly
.” Claudette rolled her eyes and sighed, situating herself on the floor next to Emilia and their stash of decorating supplies.

“So you saw this place? Is it as gorgeous as everyone says it is?”

“It is… and we are definitely going to need more of these things.” She shook a large plastic can filled with pink and purple gemstones and ran some of them over her hand. “There are at least twenty tables, and we want one for each.”

“Can’t we just do balloons?” Claudette did something between a whine and a huff. “It’s way
cheaper.”

Emilia shrugged. “I kn
ow, but Kasper says they’re tacky. And I have to say, considering the audience, I kind of agree.”

“Kasper?” Now her interest was perked. “Who or what is a Kasper?”

Emilia froze. It had never occurred to her to keep the shelter’s benefactor a secret, but knowing Kasper the way she did, there was no question in her mind that Kasper wanted it to stay that way. As usual, her instinct to keep him safe and his privacy secure outweighed even the one to share her recent victory.

“Um—
never mind.”

“No way
!” she said with a new excitement in her voice. “You tell me right now.”

Emilia separated the small vases from the gemstones, the fake pearls from the feathers…

“You aren’t going to get out of this so easy. You should have seen your face just now! Can I at least assume it is a guy?”

Sh
e nodded and tried to cover her blush.

“Well
, good for you, Em! And here I thought Tut was the only guy in your life.”

“Ha. Ha.
”

“
Seriously.” She jabbed Emilia with her elbow playfully until she gave in to laughing. “This is exciting! I feel more oblivious than usual. I had no idea you had a boyfriend! Is he coming to the gala?”

She poured the gemstones into the dollar-store vase. If they had water in them, they would look more like a f
ish tank than a centerpiece. “He isn’t my boyfriend, but yes, he is supposed to.”

Claudette practically squealed. “He can afford a ticket
and
a tux rental? I like him already. What does he do?”

“Uh
, he’s a structural engineer and architect.”

Claudette did a double-take.
“Wow, seriously? Does he have a brother?”

“You don’t know anyt
hing about him. He’s—different.” Suddenly, she found it funny how when she was defending Kasper and talking against him she said the same things—thinking on a similar thought pattern for both the positive and negatives. Because of his money and the way he looked, people were so quick to assume things about Kasper. But for all of her time with him, Emilia didn’t know much about him at all—his past was shadowed and his present all the more elusive. How could she love someone so completely who she didn’t even know, not really, anyway?

“
I know he’s well off…” Claudette struggled to correct herself, not intending to sound as greedy as she did. “And he’s interesting enough to catch your eye.” She winked. “I’m just saying he probably comes from good stock.”

Emilia smiled to hers
elf. What would Claudette think if the same man that she was interested in was the same one she so rudely made an idiot out of herself over just a couple of weeks ago? Would her interest still be as piqued or would she just think Emilia was crazy—after his money maybe, like Kasper had once accused her of?

“
It’s more than that,” she admitted. “I care about him, he makes me laugh.”

“Okay
.” She grinned. “So two out of three isn’t bad.”

“Two out of three?”

“Being good in bed would make him the trifecta, obviously.”

The
y giggled together, drowning out each other with dirty jokes and comparing the plots of bad romance novels the other had read. But it was Claudette’s raunchy and quirky humor that promoted her new idea, and once it was there, she was sure she wouldn’t be able to get rid of it until she saw it through.

While she did her best not to, Emilia thought of him most of the night as well
as into the next day. Even her paper on the efficiencies of ambulatory services—which she had originally been excited about—no longer held her interest and she could barely hold her concentration from one moment to the next.

She tapped her highlighter on Tut’s head and listened to him groan.

“Oh come on.” She nudged him with the capped side. “What will it take to get you to do this paper for me? Extra treats? A trip to the pet store? Name your price.”

His response was a snore.

Emilia laughed and tried for the sixth time to read the sentence she had highlighted. Unfortunately, she had highlighted it so many times, that the textbook ink had started to blemish with the neon of the highlighter, creating a mess that she could barely make out even when she squinted.