Part 12 (1/2)

”Do you think that's a good idea?” my mother asked. ”I mean, if you're not getting along, to be stuck in a car together for ten or twelve hours?”

Tera snorted. ”Sounds like the perfect arrangement to me. He can't weasel away.”

”But will you be safe with him?” My mother was suddenly an expert on domestic violence. For once I didn't mind that she decided she had all the answers, even if it meant I had to listen to a lecture on the warning signs.

Maybe it was good to hear them, actually. I could truthfully say I felt safe with James, physically anyway. Emotionally there was still the fear that he could disappear again.

That's why he wants you to dance in this show, I thought. He's trying to prove to you there's more to him than s.e.x in the back of a limo.

”Yes, Mom, I'm sure I'm safe with him. Besides, we won't be alone. His chauffeur does the driving.”

Tera's eyebrows went up at that, and she looked back and forth between us for an explanation.

”Karina has a rich art dealer from the city at her beck and call,” my mother said.

”Sounds like you have him by the b.a.l.l.s!” Tera laughed.

”It's not like that,” I said, but I couldn't really explain.

”Well, am I going to get to meet him?” my mother asked.

”Why don't we wait until I'm sure I'm keeping him? I don't want another Brad situation where you end up liking him better than I do.”

My mother sighed. ”Very well.”

It had been so long since I'd felt like she approved of anything I'd done that it was a little disorienting to hear her agree so readily. But a relief, too. Not feeling like I had to argue with every sentence out of her mouth was incredibly liberating. For once, the only reason I was eager to leave home had nothing to do with her at all.

To rea.s.sure myself it really was all right to leave, I went with my mother to her doctor's appointment in the morning. She remembered everything now, it seemed, except the accident itself. That was fairly common, they said. Her wrist was healing quickly and so was her ankle. She pressed Dr. Mukherjee on when she could return to the gym.

Tera and I spent the afternoon mowing the lawn and neatening up the flowerbeds, and after dinner it was time for me to hit the road. To keep the drama to a minimum, just in case, I had Stefan come and pick me up without James.

My mother was very rea.s.sured by Stefan. As usual, he exuded an air of friendly competence, and he gracefully accepted a case of bottled water and box of granola bars from my mother when she insisted we take them as necessities on a long drive.

James had some work to finish up at the hotel and by the time we got on the road it was nearly ten at night. He looked quizzically at the case of bottled water as Stefan hurriedly moved it to the trunk, putting a few bottles into the cup holders throughout the car.

”A gift from my mother,” I explained as we settled into the backseat. ”She's definitely getting back to normal: driving me crazy about that sort of thing. Does she think we can't just buy water if we need it? She didn't need to spend the money.”

James cracked open a bottle and took a sip as the car began to move. ”Did you ever consider that maybe it's not about that?”

”What do you mean?”

”Maybe it's just a way to show she loves you. It isn't that she doesn't think you can take care of yourself. It could be her way of caring about you.”

”Hmm. I never really thought about it that way. Does your mother give you things you don't need?”

”Every time I see her! I try not to be guilty of the same thing.”

”You try?”

He held out his arm, beckoning me to sit closer to him. ”I try to say what I mean instead of using gifts in place of what I'm unable to express. But I don't always succeed. There's also the case that with my mother, she doesn't listen to me. So I give her things. To cover all the bases, you know.”

I accepted his invitation, settling against him. There it was again, that feeling that this was right, that I belonged there at his side. Rather than fight it, I relaxed against him to enjoy the ride. There was no traffic, one of the reasons Stefan liked driving at night. Our plan was to go for a few hours and then stop for the night to break up the trip. ”You know, sometimes you let your actions speak instead of words.”

”That's true. But I try not to make too many a.s.sumptions. Especially with you.” He rubbed my arm. ”I let my a.s.sumptions get the best of me once. Not again.”

I basked a little in the warm feeling that came with his apologies, though I wondered a little, as I sat there thinking it over, why he'd never called me on the fact that I'd basically coerced him to tell me his name. That wasn't exactly the loving, trusting thing to do. Yet he'd never come out and blamed me for it. ”James?”

”Yes, sweetness?”

”I really am sorry I pushed you into telling me.”

”I understand completely why my behavior led you to think you needed to go to such extremes,” he said.

”Hey, don't make excuses for me when I'm apologizing!” I teased. ”Seriously, I didn't realize at the time how out of line that was. I should have, I don't know, talked to you more seriously about it instead.”

He kissed me on the hair. ”Is it out of line when a man drops to his knee and proposes to his unsuspecting girlfriend in a public place?”

”Oooh, that's a trick question!”

”Is it? People think it's romantic...”

”What if he does it when he suspects she wants to break up, and he thinks he'll shame her or guilt her into staying with him?”

”Then he likely gets the miserable relations.h.i.+p he deserves for doing something so jacka.s.sed. On the other hand, if he knows she's likely to say yes, or he feels she's really waiting for him to pop the question?”

”That's different.”

”Indeed. In many circ.u.mstances I would agree that coercing someone to tell a secret is not right. But you were quite right, Karina. You had every right to know before you let me take you. You had every right to demand it, and you knew me well enough to know it was the one way to ask that I wouldn't refuse. Had you merely asked me in the car on the way there...? I don't know that we'd have gone any further.”

”What do you mean? Would you have lied to me?”

”I might have ended things rather than lying to you. Think of it this way. We were playing a game. All the time that you interacted only with my mystery ident.i.ty was a game. You basically declared it was time to move from the realm of fantasy to reality or you weren't going to play anymore.”

”Yeah. That's pretty much what I was demanding, I guess.”

”I was already trying to figure out how to move us into the realm of reality. But I wasn't quite ready yet. You beat me to it.”

”And you're saying that might have worked out fine... if you hadn't been paranoid about Ferrara being after you?”

”Exactly. Although now, Karina, I truly hope we've reached the point where we can talk to each other if we have any issue?”

I paid no attention to the highway speeding by outside. My focus was completely on James. ”Me, too. Although I have to ask, does that mean we're starting over?”

”Or maybe it feels like we're actually starting, for real, for the first time. Because I think perhaps we are.”

”Hmm. It certainly feels like since you arrived in Ohio, I've been talking with the real James for the first time.” I lay my hand on his chest, listening to his heartbeat with one ear against him. ”It feels so right to be here with you, to touch you this way. How can I be this comfortable with you when in the back of my mind I'm still telling myself you might do something crazy again? I thought it was your dom aura, but now I'm not so sure.”

”Dom aura? You mean like a spell that magically seduces submissive women?”

”Yeah. Or, you know, you've trained me to feel this way.”