The China Doll (15 page)

"You know, you’d be surprised at what you can
get online," he said, right behind her. "And using my father’s name
as your password..." He traced his finger down her spine and she
trembled. "You made it too easy."

She clutched the back of the couch. "Stop it,
Michael. Please, I’m begging you. Stop it."

He turned her around again. She couldn’t
breathe. He kissed her again. She didn’t even try to fight him off.
He stopped. "You already begged me once. And I did what you asked.
And it was the hardest, worst thing I’ve ever done. I hated you for
asking me to do that."

"Good, Michael. Keep hating me, but let me
go."

"I can’t do either," he said. He kissed her
again. They fell back onto the couch. She grabbed his face. She
rubbed her hands onto his chest. He started to undo her pants.

"No," she said. "We can’t."

He stopped, but grabbed her thigh. "Tell me
why," he said, kissing her neck and chest. "Because I can’t think
of one good reason."

"Because of Michael Abbot Senior," she said
angrily. "Remember him?"

"He’s dead and gone. He doesn’t matter."

"But he left his marks, didn’t he?" Miranda
said, unable to fight back her tears. "And we’re his marks."

He thrust her hands under his shirt. She
kissed him again. "We can’t," but she wrapped her leg around
him.

He started unbuttoning her shirt and kissing
her skin. "It’s legal, Miranda. It’s legal in this state, and a
bunch of others. It’s legal in Europe. There’s nothing wrong with
it."

"We couldn’t have a normal life," she said,
closing her eyes as she felt his mouth on her. "No, no, stop. We
couldn’t have a family together. It wouldn’t be safe."

He stopped. She sat up with her back to him
and buttoned her shirt. "Is that why you’re with Alex?" he asked as
he roughly ran his hands through her hair. "You’d rather have
children with that old man than have this with me?"

"This has nothing to do with Alex," she
insisted.

"This has everything to do with him!" She
turned around again. He was angry. She had always been afraid of
him, before, when he was like this but now she put her hand on his
face. He closed his eyes and rubbed his face against her wrist.
"Who do you think arranged to send me away so he could get you
alone?"

She looked down at the floor as her face
contorted with misery. She remembered the day she’d gotten her
mother’s birth certificate, then seeing Michael’s grandfather’s
name on it. She remembered that she’d pushed him away. She
remembered how much she’d wanted to die when he was gone. She
remembered how much she’d needed him to come back. She
remembered...but that was too painful to remember right now.

He kissed her again. She unbuttoned his shirt
and kissed his chest. He lay back and she got on top of him. He
held her face. "Tell me you don’t want me, I dare you."

"It doesn’t matter," she said, kissing him.
"We can’t."

"Right," he said, kissing her neck and
unbuttoning her shirt again. "Because you never thought about me,
even before I got back?" He unclasped her bra. "You never think
about how I used to touch you?" He undid her pants. "You never lay
awake at night thinking about me?" He put his hands inside her
pants. "You don’t have to touch yourself like I used to, just to
stop feeling so lonely, just to get some sleep so you can pretend
the next day that everything is fine." He looked so sad. "Even if
you’re in his bed. God, Miranda, how could you have gone to him
after what we had?"

She moaned and bit his neck. "Stop it,
please!" He moved his hand then flipped her over so he was on top
of her. Her heart was in her ears, her brain. Her lips trembled.
"Please?"

"Let’s play a game. You used to like games.
How about we stay right here, but I don’t touch you? How about all
I do is kiss you? How long do you think it would take before—"

"Stop it!" she said. "I had enough games last
night."

He scowled. "I’m so glad Alex is trying to be
creative to make up for his other deficiencies."

"Oh, shut up!" She pushed him off of her and
put her clothes back on. "It wasn’t Alex’s game. Oh, he was there,
but so were a lot of other people. And it was the kind of game
where everyone loses in the end. You know that kind, right?"

"What are you talking about?" he asked, still
sitting there without his shirt. Now that she was looking, not
touching, she could see how much more muscular he was than he used
to be. She blinked. He smiled, and then she forced herself not to
look at him.

"You’re a real jerk for not calling Richard,
but you should fix that today. Richard’s world fell apart
yesterday."

"What happened?"

"Some cop who hates Lucy decided to take it
out on Richard and Jessie."

"Cop?" Michael was silent for a moment. "Do
you mean that ginger nut?"

"What?"

"You know? Carrot top? Redhead?" Miranda
looked surprised. "And sort of tall? Oh yeah, that guy was tailing
me too. I threw him off."

"No, you didn’t, you idiot. How do you think
I knew that you were back?"

He got up and kissed her neck from behind.
"You already knew; you just didn’t want to admit it." She turned
around. "Just admit it now," he whispered. "You can’t stay away
from me."

"Why did you come back?" she asked, biting
his lip.

"You mean why did I stay away," he said,
kissing her again. "I wanted to die when you made me go, I didn’t
want to exist anymore. You might as well have ripped my heart
out."

"I’m sorry, Michael. I didn’t do it to hurt
you."

"But you did, Miranda. Worse than losing my
parents, worse than living in Alex’s house all those years." He
kissed her again. "I went to Monte Carlo. I drank, I gambled, I
screwed anything that remotely reminded me of you. I did anything
to make me forget how empty I felt." He held her, and she thought
she was going to melt into him. "And then I got the final divorce
papers. Richard was so damn efficient. And I lost whatever was left
of my mind. I wanted to drink myself to death, but it just wouldn’t
come quickly enough. Then I got into a car and I drove as fast as I
could." He inhaled. "I wanted to go off a cliff, I wanted to
explode—I wanted anything that would make me forget you. And for a
minute, I got it. But I was too drunk to even get that right. I hit
a tree. It knocked me out for a day. As soon as I woke up, they
dragged me in front of a judge and threw me into jail. And
then—hey!"

Miranda hit him, scratched him and pulled his
hair. She hit him with a pillow in the face, hard. "You stupid,
selfish jerk! You tried to kill yourself? What were you thinking?
What would I have done if you’d been gone? Was I supposed to die
too? How was I supposed to live if you were dead? How was I
supposed to go on? Don’t you know how hard it was without you
anyway? I hate you!" She cried and put her head on his chest. "You
don’t know."

"I do," he said huskily. "You were the only
thing I thought about when I was sitting in that tiny little prison
for a month. I didn’t have anything to make me stop. Just one more
drug. The only thing I was ever really addicted to. I went into
rehab. A real one." He teared up. "I haven’t had a drink or
anything harder than chocolate for two years. This is all me."

Miranda stroked his face and kissed his
forehead. "I’m glad you’re better, Michael."

He shook his head. "I’m not better. I’m not
ever going to be. Because I can control everything else, but not
this. I started thinking that you were right, that maybe we
shouldn’t be together. I wanted to stop loving you. I wanted to
stop feeling like you had a piece of me that I couldn’t get back.
So I got myself a shrink, and we talked about everything. My
parents, Alex, all the horrible things I’d ever done. You. You,
you, you. I kept waiting for him to tell me that what we had was
wrong, that I needed to move on. But he never did. Because there is
nothing wrong with loving you. And I don’t care if it bothers
anyone else, because this is good. And that’s why I’m back. Because
this is my home," he touched the center of her chest. "And I’m not
leaving again."

Her exhaustion was starting to overcome her.
"So that new therapist I’m seeing isn’t going to make you go
away?"

"Sorry—doesn’t work like that."

"Michael, please."

"Go ahead; tell me you can’t, because you
want to be with Alex." He kissed her. "Tell me that all those other
people you love would rather see you with him than me." She closed
her eyes. "And don’t forget to tell me that you don’t love me."

"It’s not that simple," Miranda said.

Michael smiled and stroked her face. "Tell me
what’s so complicated about this?"

"They were all I had when you left," she said
sadly. "I can’t cut them out of my life again."

"Because they’re such good friends, right?" A
single tear escaped. "Because they didn’t stop you from being with
Alex even after everything he’d done. Even Richard," he said
bitterly. "How could they?"

"Believe me, no one is happy about Alex after
last night," she said, half to herself.

"What did he do now?"

Miranda opened her mouth to speak and then
shook her head. "No. If you want to find out, you call your cousin.
I mean it."

"Yes, ma’am," he said softly. "Now just tell
me what else you want me to do."

She smiled in spite of herself as she looked
at him. She got up. He took her hand and kissed it. She kissed him
one last time, then turned and left before she could change her
mind.

He stayed on the couch, smiling to himself.
Michael Abbot smiled a lot these days.

Two hours later, Michael was just about to
leave his house when there was a knock on the door.

"I ought to punch you, you know that?"
Richard said as soon as he saw Michael.

"Good to see you, too. Can I make you some
coffee first?"

Richard shook his head in disgust, then
walked in. "How long have you been here?"

Michael closed the door. "About a month."

"And you were planning on telling me
when?"

"When I wasn’t going to have to ask you to
keep me a secret from her," Michael said simply. "I know this is a
difficult concept to grasp, but I actually thought I’d be doing you
a favor if you didn’t know I was here."

"Do me a real favor, alright? No more lying,
because I think I’m just about to choke on it."

Richard looked like he hadn’t slept all
night. "Have a seat," Michael said as he gestured to a chair. "Tell
me about last night."

Richard sat back into the couch. "So she did
come this morning?"

Michael smiled again. "Did you think she was
going to stay away?"

"Not after last night."

Michael poured Richard a cup of coffee and
handed it to him. "What happened?"

"You lose, Michael. I hate Alex much, much
more than you ever could."

"Nope, sorry, I’ve got that locked up.
Costing my father his life and lying about who Miranda really
was—you’re not going to top that."

"Try blackmailing my mother into
marriage."

"Alex blackmailed Lucy?" Michael asked
incredulously. "Wow, this has to be pretty good."

"Shut up, Michael. You knew he had something
on her, that’s why she didn’t go to the police."

Michael smiled ruefully. "To be perfectly
honest, I always thought Miranda was overplaying that. I guess I
thought you pled my case to Lucy."

"I wouldn’t plead for my life to her,"
Richard spat.

"What did he have on her, Richard?"

"I knew about it, Michael. I just didn’t know
he did. Or for how long."

"What was it?" Michael asked again, not
because he needed more proof of what a bastard Alex was, but
because he could see that Richard needed to tell him.

"She’s gay," Richard said simply. "She was
having an affair with Joanna Hazlett."

"What?" Michael blinked. "Who?"

"Gay. I think you understand the concept. And
Joanna Hazlett is also Professor Hazlett, but since you didn’t even
get through the second month of college, I guess you wouldn’t have
ever come across her." Richard paused, sighing. "But in the
interest of full disclosure, I think you should know that you did
have a special connection to her. She was Emily’s boss. She was the
person Alex used to get to Emily before you left."

It took a moment for what Richard said to
sink in. "And how is that treacherous little do-gooder?"

"Michael, don’t start. Emily has every right
to hate you, and you know it. But for the record, she cried her
eyes out that day, and she quit her job the next."

"You know, you’re right. That does make up
for the last two and a half years of my life. And Miranda’s. By the
way, how would you like to explain letting her be with Alex?"

"Back off, Michael," Richard said fiercely.
"She couldn’t even get out of bed in the morning. And it only got
worse. I would have called anyone to get her back to the land of
the living."

"Just not me?"

"I did call you!" Richard yelled. "You were
drunk or stoned or both. What else was new? I don’t think I said
anything more than her name when you started blubbering like a
baby. Forgive me—I didn’t think you could help her in that state.
Jesus! Michael, I’m sorry—you’re going to have to give me just one
day not to be upset about that, because right now my life—and
Jessie’s—are in shambles."

Michael looked confused. "Richard, being gay
isn’t a tragedy. Jesus, why am I giving you the PC speech?"

"We are way past that." He shook his head. "I
don’t think I’m going to be able to cover all the catastrophes, so
let me just hit the highlights. Zainab knows I’ve been seeing
Sophie—"

"What?!?" Michael nearly spat out his coffee.
"Sophie Gorman? Are you nuts? Zainab’s gorgeous, and Sophie—"