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Adored Adversary
Zachary
Foramoment,she’salmost speechless. When she replies, it’s in that stiff, formal, almost matronly voice she uses in debates when she needs to appear self-assured and authoritative.
“I’ve told you I’m not allowed—I can’t date.” There’s a visible flutter in her throat as if her heartbeat is too powerful for the slim column of her neck. “We’ll never be together.”
All I hear is that she’s not telling me she doesn’t love me or that she doesn’t want me to love her. When she gives me the reason I shouldn’t love her, all I hear is that if it wasn’t for that reason, then we would be together.
“I know,” I tell her in a reassuring tone. “I don’t expect us to be together, Theo, but that doesn’t mean I can stop feeling the way I feel. Remember the poem? The parallel lines can never meet, but they can never stray from one another.”
She watches me for a moment, an expression of incredulity on her face. And then she gets to her feet and stands in front of me. I can smell that delicate perfume of hers, roses and peaches. I gaze down at her, now almost a head shorter than me, to see her face turned up to mine like a flower.
Her expression is nothing like a flower, though.
“Is this enough, Zachary?” she hisses as if there’s barely enough air in her lungs to speak. “Is it really enough to have me right here, at arm’s reach, even though you can never have me?”
“Of course, it’s not enough. It’ll never be enough.”
I smile at her and raise my hands, my palms brushing up her arms and shoulders on their way to her face. I cup her cheeks through the silk strands of her hair. Her face feels delicate as porcelain in my hands.
“I could have you in my arms and in my bed every day and every night, Theodora, and it would still never be enough. Having you this close and this far all the time is a constant torment. But my pain is soothed by the fact you’ll be suffering too.”
“Suffering? How?”
“Because while it burns me to have you so close when we can never be together, deep down, you’re burning too.”
“Burning?” She laughs coldly, but she doesn’t move her face out of my hands. Our bodies are locked in each other’s gravity fields, in the warmth and perfume of each other’s bodies, in that trembling heat haze of tension between us. “Are you sure of that?”
“Certain beyond doubt.”
“How?”
I sigh and tilt her face up, and she lets me, her pink lips gleaming as they part.
“Because I know you, Theodora. I know you better than I know my own soul. I know every expression on your face like they are the lines of my favourite poems. Everything you think you keep hidden from the world, you can never quite hide from me. The beautiful things—your determination, your strength, your gentle soul—but the ugly things, too. Your ambition, your pain, your fear. Your desire. They’re naked to my eyes.”
She says nothing for a long time. Her eyes are wide, thrown blue jewels in a blue ocean. Her lips tremble for a moment, forming the shape of words. The silence between us speaks a thousand words. Truthful words, painful words, words of denial, words of want.
Words she doesn’t have the courage to say aloud.
With a defeated sigh, she steps away, freeing her face from the cradle of my hands, freeing her body from the heat of mine, freeing herself from the burden of truth.
“Fine.” Her voice is low and defeated. “I’ll tell Mr Ambrose I made a mistake. I’ll join the programme—if it matters so much to you.”
I smile. “Oh, it matters. And you’ll find me to be generous in my gratitude. I’ll even reward you with a gift.”
She narrows her eyes in suspicion. “What gift?”
My gaze sinks into hers. I lower my voice. I speak low and tender, not like a secret, but like an intimate promise—a sacred vow.
“I’ll give you something you’ve always wanted but never dared to ask for. Something you dream about at night, alone in the dark, alone in your bed.”
She retreats in a hasty back step. I let her. Her fingers clutch the long hem of her soft green sleeves.
“What would that be?” she asks, her voice quivering but defiant.
I tilt my head. “Your first kiss.”
