The Darkest of Shadows (9 page)

Apparently he wasn’t prepared to wait that long, as I was woken very early Sunday morning by the noise of someone’s finger pressed almost continually on the intercom for my apartment.

I struggled out of bed and peered groggily out the window to see a darkened and slightly frazzled Patrick standing on the sidewalk. I tripped over a few pieces of furniture on my way to the door and managed to get the right button to buzz him up the stairs. I remembered to flick the locks on the door and then headed straight back to bed.

I’m not sure what Patrick expected to find when he came barreling into my house a few moments later, but it certainly wasn’t me lying peacefully back in bed. He stood at the end of my bed and watched me for a long silent moment before I heard the sound of clothing dropping to the ground; and then his hard body settled on the bed, curling up against my back. His arms reached around me to tug me back into his embrace. I grumbled something unintelligible and promptly fell asleep.

“You are an infuriatingly independent and frustrating woman,” Patrick mumbled to me, when he woke later to find me leaning up on one elbow, watching him.

“Is that a question?” I asked sweetly.

He tackled me, wrestling me beneath him so that his body pressed naked and hot against my own. “No.” He kissed away any response I might have had. “Just tell me you’re OK.”

“I’m fine,” I assured him, and then I set about showing him exactly how fine I was.

“You’re acting like I’m about to break,” I told him later that day. He hadn’t seemed interested in leaving, and as it didn’t bother me to have him there, I wasn’t pushing for him to go just yet. What was starting to irritate me, however, was the hesitant way he was approaching everything. “I’m not going to run screaming just because we had sex, Patrick.”

“Really?” he asked, with genuine surprise. “’Cause that’s kind of what I was expecting.” He sat down on the lounge beside me. “You are so far from normal that I have no idea how you will react to a situation, and I’m not about to push you to do anything you’re not ready for.”

“If I wasn’t ready to sleep with you, I wouldn’t have done it,” I assured him. “I don’t do regrets; once I commit to something, I try to make it work in the best way I’m able.”

“So, just for my own clarity, would it be asking too much to perhaps have you explain what this means?” He indicated us both sitting on the lounge.

“It means we’re having sex.” I shrugged. “If you want more than that, you’re with the wrong person.”

“Just sex, meaning?”

“I’m not marriage material, Patrick. I don’t do devoted, and I don’t do clingy,” I told him softly. “I don’t love you, and I never will. I’m not your girlfriend; it’s not what I’m capable of.”

“But you have sex.”

I bristled at the implication of his words. “I have sex with
you
.” I clarified. “I live my life day to day, and today you make me happy, so I’ll go with that. But you need to understand that this isn’t real, none of it is practical, and it isn’t anything other than exactly what it looks like. Sex.”

“You’re using me for my body?” He gave me a half smile.

“It’s a very nice body,” I argued.

“I reiterate—you are an infuriatingly independent and frustrating woman, Lilly.” He leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on my lips. “But I’ll take whatever you’re offering. You’ll hear no complaints from me.”

I followed him into the kitchen, where he was busy making what I presumed was to be our lunch.

“So I assume from that little speech,” he continued, “that this thing between us isn’t going to be something we’re advertising.”

“Good God, no!” At least he seemed to be following my train of thought. “Could you imagine the shit we would get at work if anyone found out we were sleeping together?”

“Oh, I could imagine all right,” he replied. “But unlike you, I’d be pretty happy with everyone knowing.” He shrugged. “But your call.”

Exactly. “My call,” I agreed.

I kicked him out of my apartment later that night. I wasn’t about to have him move in, and I wasn’t going to be spending time at his house, either. We would both be seeing each other at work the next day, and due to the events of the last few days and his untimely arrival early that morning, I was feeling drained. I needed to sleep—by myself.

“When will I see you next?” he asked, drawing me into his arms at the bottom of my stairs.

“Tomorrow.”
Work, remember?

“No, not like that,” he elucidated. “When will I get to touch you again?” And did he ever like to touch. His hands were always touching, stroking; his lips kissed their way down my neck, his strong arms molding my body against the length of him, making us both want more than just kisses.

“Well, you have that comfy lounge in your office, and I’m sure we could manage to work back there sometime during the week. Let’s just see how it goes.” I smiled into his eyes.

“Ahh, that lounge.” He shuddered. “Do you have any idea how impossible it is going to be for me to get any work done in that office now? Every time I see that lounge, all I’m going to be able to do is picture your naked body beneath mine.”

“You’ll manage,” I assured him, and pushed his resisting body through the door and out of my apartment building.

Sally beat me to the office the next morning. She bubbled away in her usual manner, seeming totally oblivious to the fact that I never listened to a word she said. Even Ashlan’s arrival didn’t stem the tirade of words.

Apparently, today was the day we all got to hear about Gerard’s frustrating family, with particular emphasis on his mother, who in Sally’s opinion was an overbearing fruitcake. Her words.

“Morning, Lilly.” Ash smiled as he walked past my desk.

“Morning, Ash.” He really was easy to like.

Patrick came in while Sally was still in the middle of enlightening me about the events of her Christmas break.

“Good morning, Sally.” His welcome didn’t even make her pause, and with a smile he turned his attention to me. We shared a smile that said much more than his words. “Morning, Lilly.”

His gaze stayed glued to mine as he continued through the entrance foyer and into his office; then, with a knowing smile, he gently shut his door to begin his day.

It wasn’t until I turned back to my computer that I noticed the silence in the room. Even Ash was disturbed enough to wander back to stand at his door. His attention focused on Sally who, I was alarmed to notice, was staring at me with a shocked, openmouthed expression.

“What?” I looked around, anxious by her startled expression.

“Lillianna Owen. You did not sleep with Patrick!”

“Sally!” I screeched. “Shhh.” I looked at her in alarm.
God, let there have been no one around to overhear that
. Well, too late for Ash, who had turned his attention from Sally to me. He looked startled, and his eyebrows nearly shot up to meet his hairline.

“Oh, this I need to know about,” he said, and then disappeared into Patrick’s office.

“Sally! Good lord! Did you have to advertise it all over the office?” I yelped. “And how the hell could you tell anyway?” I added indignantly.

“Oh, I know when a man’s looking at something he owns.” She crossed the room to sit on the end of my desk. “What on earth were you thinking?”

“It’s not what you think,” I told her quietly. “We’re not together, not like that.” And this was going to sound bad. “We’re just sleeping together.”

“Oh, that’s so much better,” she ground out. “So professional and worthy of you.”

“Hey.” My voice leveled out dangerously. “You don’t know anything about me, and you don’t have the right to judge me in this. It’s between Patrick and me, and as long as we’re both clear from the outset about what this means then it’s no one else’s business.”

“You’re right,” she admitted. “It’s not my business—but don’t let it start to affect your work, because then it will be my business, and I think that one day you might live to regret this.”

I laughed hollowly, the sound deep and haunting. “You have no idea what I regret, Sally.” I rose to stand above her. “Regret is something that I do know about, and trust me when I assure you that this doesn’t even remotely register on that scale.”

I turned away from her and walked straight into Patrick’s office. “Get out, Ash.” I’m not sure if it was my words, my manner, or the quick nod that Patrick gave to him, but Ash hauled ass out of that office and closed the door behind him.

My feet drew me toward the windows and the calming sight of the city beyond them. I don’t know why I chose to come into Patrick’s office; I didn’t want to talk to him about it, but yet here I was.

“Sally lives in a perfect world,” I told him a moment later. “She thinks that the only way to live is with a husband and a family and surrounded by your annoying extended family.”

“Sally has very simple requirements from life,” Patrick agreed.

“All I want is to live through each day,” I told him. “I’m not her, and I can’t have what she loves. She just can’t accept that I’m not that person. She judges me on the way I choose to make it through what’s left of my life.”

“No one knows what you have been through, Lilly.” His hand reached out and gripped my fingers tightly in his. “You keep things very private, so you have to expect that some people won’t understand.”

I spoke quietly to myself. “And the stupid part about it, is that I had that once.”

“Had what?” Patrick asked quietly.

“I had the husband.” I’m not sure why I told him that, but as soon as the words left my lips I shut down.

“You were married?” Patrick sounded stunned, and instantly released my hand and tried to turn me to face him. “Lilly?”

“Sorry.” I pushed away from him and walked toward the door. “I should never have said that.”

“Lilly?” I ignored his call and returned to my desk where I immersed myself in work, anything to take my mind off the secret I had allowed to escape.

Thankfully, after that one altercation, Sally chose to ignore the relationship I shared with Patrick. I’m not sure what Ashlan thought about it—I could only imagine—but he likewise was enough of Patrick’s friend to pretend it didn’t exist.

I tried to keep a very clear division between when Patrick and I worked and when we were on personal time. After Sally’s reaction, I made a rule that we didn’t have sex in the office. I could just imagine Sally’s comment if she believed we were doing the nasty at work.

Instead, a few times a week, Patrick would come to my house after work and would always leave sometime during the night. I wasn’t about to go to work with him in the morning, and for the moment, he seemed content with that arrangement.

It was March before we actually had to go out on a social occasion together. It was a work function—otherwise I wouldn’t have accepted— but still, it was strange for me.

“I’ll pick you up at seven,” he said, as I was slipping out of the office late that afternoon. We were attending the Master Engineering Awards ceremony, and our company had been nominated for an award. It was a huge event for us; all the MDs were attending, and I wasn’t surprised to learn that Samuel Parsons would be venturing out of seclusion for tonight’s event.

Apparently there were a set number of seats at each table, and we had been short one person, so Patrick decided I should go to even up the numbers.
Gee, thanks, like this isn’t going to be awkward
.

Sally and I had managed to patch up our relationship somewhat over the past few months. We were almost back to our old friendship, however we followed a fairly rigid rule that I didn’t mention Patrick and she didn’t mention her family. It was working really well for us both.

“Have fun tonight,” she chirped happily, as I grabbed my bag from under my desk.

“Oh, yeah.” I grimaced. “This is going to be super. You’re just happy that you don’t have to go.”

“Yep,” she said, and laughed. “More than you could imagine. But I also love to see when you get all dressed up, so make sure you send me a picture when you text one off to that friend of yours.”

“Will do,” I promised her, and headed off to get ready.

I already knew I was strange, so it made sense that I would have a few peculiarities. For instance, I didn’t pick a dress and then the shoes to match. I tended to pick my shoes and go in search of a dress that would match, and tonight was no exception. I had found a pair of what I happily called my “bling shoes.” They were black stilettos, with bands of various widths that wound around my feet and up to my ankles and were totally covered in sparkling embellishments. Not too garish, but just enough. I loved them.