Part 36 (2/2)

If I hadn't been swayed before by Christian's charm, good looks, or the way he called the trunk of his car a boot and the hood a bonnet, I was now completely smitten.

”Here's the thing,” Christian added. ”It doesn't get any easier, no matter how many times you go through it. And if it does-well, I suspect that means you've lost some part of yourself that's critically important.” He reached for my hand. ”Let me be the attending physician at the execution.”

”You can't,” I said automatically. Killing a man was a violation of the Hippocratic oath; doctors were contacted privately by the Department of Corrections, and the whole event was kept secret. In fact, in the other executions I'd studied before Shay's trial, the doctor's name was never mentioned-not even on the death certificate.

”Let me worry about that,” Christian said.

I felt a fresh wave of tears rising. ”You would do that for Shay?”

He leaned forward and kissed me lightly. ”I would do that for you,” he said.

If this had been a trial, here were the facts I'd present to the jury: 1. Christian had suggested that he swing by my house after his s.h.i.+ft, just to make sure I wasn't falling apart at the seams.2. He was the one who brought the bottle of Penfolds.3. It would have been downright rude to refuse to have a gla.s.s. Or three.4. I truly could not establish the causal line between how we went from kissing on the couch to lying on the carpet with his hands underneath my s.h.i.+rt, and me worrying about whether or not I was wearing underwear that was a step above granny panties.5. Other women-those who have s.e.x with men more often than once during a senatorial term, for example-probably have a whole set of underwear just for moments like these, like my mother has a set of Sabbath china.6. I was truly hammered if I had just thought of s.e.x s.e.x and and my mother my mother in the same sentence. in the same sentence.

Maybe the details here weren't nearly as important as the outcome-I had a man in my bed, right now, waiting for me. He was even more beautiful without clothes on than he was in them. And where was I?

Locked in the bathroom, so paralyzed by the thought of my disgusting, white, fish-bellied body being seen by him that I couldn't open the door.

I had been discreet about it-lowering my lashes and murmuring something about changing. I'm sure Christian a.s.sumed I meant slipping into lingerie. Me, I was thinking more along the lines of morphing into Heidi Klum.

Bravely, I unb.u.t.toned my blouse and stepped out of my jeans. There I was in the mirror, in my bra and panties, just like a bikini-except I wouldn't be caught dead in a bikini. Christian sees a hundred bodies a day, Christian sees a hundred bodies a day, I told myself. I told myself. Yours can't be any worse than those. Yours can't be any worse than those.

But. Here was the ripple of cottage cheese cellulite that I usually avoided by dressing in the dark. Here was the inch (or two) that I could pinch with my fingers, which vanished beneath a waistband. Here was my b.u.t.t, large enough to colonize, which could so craftily be camouflaged by black trousers. Christian would take one look at the acoustic version of me and run screaming for the hills.

His voice came, m.u.f.fled, through the bathroom door. ”Maggie?” Christian said. ”Are you all right in there?”

”I'm fine!” I'm fat I'm fat.

”Are you coming out?”

I didn't answer that. I was looking inside the waistband of my pants. They were a twelve, but that didn't count, because this label had resized downward so that fourteens like me could feel better about themselves for being able to squeeze into the brand at all. But hadn't Marilyn Monroe been a size fourteen? Or was that back when a size fourteen was really an eight-which meant that comparatively, I was a behemoth compared to your average 1940s starlet?

Well, h.e.l.l. I was a behemoth compared to your average 2008 starlet, too.

Suddenly I heard scratching outside the door. It couldn't have been Oliver-I'd put him in his cage when he kept sniffing around our heads as we'd rolled across the living room carpet having our From Here to Eternity From Here to Eternity moment. To my horror, the locked doork.n.o.b popped open and began to twist. moment. To my horror, the locked doork.n.o.b popped open and began to twist.

I grabbed my ratty red bathrobe from the back of the door and wrapped it around myself just in time to see the door swing open. Christian stood there, holding a wire hanger with its neck straightened.

”You can pick locks, too?” I said.

Christian grinned. ”I do laparoscopic surgery through belly b.u.t.tons,” he explained. ”This isn't dramatically different.”

He folded his arms around me and met my gaze in the mirror. ”I can't say come back to bed, because you haven't been in it yet.” His chin notched over my shoulder. ”Maggie,” he murmured, and at that moment he realized that I was wearing a robe.

Christian's eyes lit up and his hands slipped down to the belt. Immediately, I started to tug him away. ”Please. Don't.”

His hands fell to his sides, and he took a step back. The room must have cooled twenty degrees. ”I'm sorry,” Christian said, all business. ”I must have misread-”

”No!” I cried, facing him. ”You didn't misread anything. I want this. I want you you. I'm just afraid that ... that ... you won't want me me.”

”Are you joking joking? I've wanted you since the moment I didn't get to examine you for appendicitis.”

”Why?”

”Because you're smart. And fierce. And funny. And so beautiful.”

I smiled wryly. ”I almost believed you, until that last part.”

Christian's eyes flashed. ”You truly think you're not?” In one smooth motion, before I could stop him, he yanked the wide shawl collar of the robe down to my elbows, and my blouse along with it. My arms were trapped; I stood before him in my underwear. ”Look at you, Maggie,” he said with quiet awe. ”My G.o.d.”

I could not look at myself in the mirror, so instead, I looked at Christian. He wasn't scrutinizing b.r.e.a.s.t.s that sagged or a waist that was too thick or thighs that rubbed together when the temperature climbed above eighty degrees. He was just staring at me, and as he did, his hands began to shake where they touched me.

”Let me show you what I see when I look at you,” Christian said quietly. His fingers were warm as they played over me, as they coaxed me into the bedroom and under the covers, as they traced the curves of my body like a roller coaster, a thrill ride, a wonder. And somewhere in the middle of it all, I stopped worrying about sucking in my stomach, or if he could see me in the half-light of the moon, and instead noticed how seamlessly we fit together; how when I let go of me, there was only room for us.

Wow.

I woke up with the sun slicing the bed like a scalpel, and every muscle in my body feeling like I'd started training for a triathlon. Last night could effectively be cla.s.sified as a workout, and to be honest, it was the first exercise routine I could see myself really looking forward to on a daily basis.

I smoothed my hand over the side of the bed where Christian had slept. In the bathroom, I heard the shower being turned off. The door opened, and Christian's head popped out. He was wearing a towel. ”Hi,” he said. ”I hope I didn't knock you up.”

”Well. I, uh, hope so, too ...” Christian frowned, confused, and I realized that we were not speaking the same language. ”Let me guess,” I said. ”Where you come from, that doesn't mean getting a girl pregnant?”

”Good G.o.d, no! It's, you know, rousing someone from their sleep.”

I rolled onto my back and started laughing, and he sank down beside me, the towel slipping dangerously low. ”But since I've knocked you up,” he said, leaning down to kiss me, ”maybe I could try my hand at knocking you up ...”

I had morning breath and hair that felt like a rat had taken nest in it, not to mention a courtroom verdict to attend, but I wrapped my arms around Christian's neck and kissed him back. Which was about the same moment that a phone began to ring.

”b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l,” Christian muttered, and he swung over the far side of the bed to where he'd folded his clothes in a neat pile, his cell phone and pager resting on top. ”It's not mine,” he said, but by then I'd wrapped his discarded towel around me and hiked to my purse in the living room to dig out my own.

”Ms. Bloom?” a woman's voice said. ”This is June Nealon.”

”June,” I said, immediately sobering. ”Is everything all right?”

”Yes,” she said, and then, ”No. Oh, G.o.d. I can't answer that question.” There was a beat of silence. ”I can't take it,” June whispered.

”I can't imagine how difficult all this waiting has been for you,” I said, and I meant it. ”But we should know definitively what's going to happen by lunchtime.”

”I can't take it,” June repeated. ”Give it to someone else.”

And she hung up the phone, leaving me with Shay's heart.

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