AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She knew exactly what August had done.
“You’re getting married,” Lia said to him.
He raised his hands in surrender, faked a smile. “I suppose I am.”
“No, no.” She shook her head. “You can’t...not for me. You can’t mean it. He doesn’t mean it.” Lia said that to his silent mother, who still had not turned to face her. “August...” Lia breathed. “No.”
“Can you go and wait for me upstairs? We can talk in a few minutes. We can, can’t we?” He asked that of his mother.
The woman nodded tersely, held up one finger. One finger meant one minute. That’s all the time she would allow Lia and August to be alone together. One minute to say goodbye.
Lia wanted to kill the woman. She wanted to strangle her where she stood with her own ermine wrap.
This woman who was going to save Lia...
“It’s not worth it,” she said to August. “I’m not—”
“You are,” August said softly. And then louder as if he wanted to make sure his mother heard and understood. “You are.”
Her lips quivered, tears burned her eyes. She couldn’t speak, could only shake her head as if to deny it all.
“Please, Lia,” he whispered. “Please go up and wait for me.”
How could she say no to him? How could she not do anything he asked of her after he’d done this terrible, beautiful thing for her?
She went upstairs to his office/bedroom. She stood by the bed and did not move. For a long time, she simply stared at the sheets they’d made love on, the pillows they’d slept on, the Rose Kylix they’d drunk from...
“I will never see him again.”
She knew that for a fact. August would come up the stairs and enter the room and they would sit in the same chairs they’d sat in on the day they’d made their deal, and he would say he was sorry for hurting her. She would thank him for helping her and he would thank her for understanding. Then she would leave and go home and go to bed and she would wake up tomorrow and the first thought in her mind would be,I will never see him again.
If she were a little stronger, a little less well-bred, she’d have beat on his chest and screamed in his face and told him he was an idiot, a fool—that she would rather have spent the rest of her life in hiding or in jail than to let him do this for her. Hadn’t he said he would rather die than give up his freedom?
It was all her fault. She’d told him too much. She’d told him how much David had hurt her and how scared she was for her friends and her brothers and her parents. Did he feel responsible for her now?
Lia heaved a quiet sob. Her guilt consumed her. She would give anything—her heart, her soul, her life—to go back in time, back to Pan’s Island, back with August, and never leave.
Without thinking, Lia walked to August’s bedside table and pulled the cork from the wine bottle. She poured not a sip, not a swallow, but a full glass of Syrah into the Rose Kylix, lifted it and drank.
Why? Because she couldn’t bear the moment anymore. She couldn’t bear her guilt and her love for August. She had to go away, disappear, be someone else, anyone else. She had to go back to Pan’s Island one more time. Being there last night had healed her heart. Maybe it could work its magic on her again.
She didn’t take her clothes off or lie on the bed. She sat instead in the armchair in front of August’s stupid fish tank fireplace and watched the blue flames dance behind the glass. Those flames really did look like water, like ocean waves dancing to the tune of an evening storm. Lia stared at those waves, those waves, those endless dancing waves. She could hear them now, the waves rising and crashing, lapping at the stony shores of an ancient kingdom. She could see the blue waves and hear them rise and crash and now...now she could smell them, salt and copper.
Lightning struck Lia.
She gasped and opened her eyes.
This was not Pan’s Island.
That was Lia’s first thought when she awoke. But where was it? It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dark. Such deep dark that she knew she was in the past, in a world lit only by the moon, stars and torch fires. Luckily it was a bright night and a full moon, and soon Lia could make out her surroundings.
She was in a bedroom lying on a soft feather bed with a gauzy mosquito netting hanging overhead like a canopy. The walls were pale stone, the ceilings high and outside the large low window she saw the ocean.
Lia heard a voice. A male voice, soft and incoherent. She looked over, next to her, and saw a man sleeping. She wasn’t afraid of the sleeping man, although he was naked in the bed. So was she. Somehow, she knew he belonged there more than she did. He wasn’t unhandsome, simply older than she’d wanted in a husband.
Husband? Yes...that’s who he was. Her husband. Brown hair with enough silver in it that she saw it shimmer in the moonlight. A close-cropped beard. A broad back and shoulders, strong arms, the rough hands of a man who held the reins of a team of horses every day, and the reins of a kingdom.
Lia pressed her hands between her legs and touched herself. She felt fresh semen dripping out of her body onto the linen sheets.
