Second Honeymoon. Sandra Field

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СКАЧАТЬ please,” she said in her impeccable English, which was flavored with the slightest of accents from her Francophone heritage. “I’m sorry I’m late, Troy. Another of these cutback meetings—they manage to cut back on everything but my time.”

      He smiled at her. “I behaved disgracefully at the surgery meeting. Not that it’ll make any difference.”

      They talked easily about hospital matters, then moved to the trip Martine had taken to San Francisco and the conference Troy had attended in Texas. And all the while Troy was aware that the whole conversation was window-dressing—interesting, urbane and witty, most certainly, but window-dressing, nevertheless.

      When they had almost finished their second drink, he said casually, “Shall we move on? I thought we might have dinner at the new place on Granville Island that everyone’s raving about.”

      “Or,” Martine said, “we could go to my apartment.”

      Her dark brown eyes were unwavering, her purpose clear. “You’re very direct,” Troy said.

      “I almost always know what I want.”

      He looked down at his hands. A couple of months ago he had tried taking off his wedding-band and putting it away in his bureau, and had found himself unable to do so. So he had compromised, and now wore it on his right hand. “Technically I’m still married,” he replied. “Even though I haven’t lived with my wife for the last year. Do you know that, too?”

      She nodded. “I noticed you the very first time we met at the general staff meeting. So I checked out your marital status and was told you were separated. At the time, I have to admit, you seemed only half-alive. Then one day in the canteen I saw you laugh out loud at something someone had said, and that’s when I knew I wanted to go to bed with you. The difference was as day to night.”

      “You see me as a challenge, in other words,” he said drily.

      “I am not promiscuous,” she said, and put down her glass.

      “I never thought you were,” Troy responded, and realized it for the truth. Her offer was, in its way, as flattering as that from the institute in Arizona.

      Lucy might not want him, but other people did, he thought with sudden underlying fury, and drained his own glass. “Let me drive you to your car, then I can follow you to your apartment.”

      Fifteen minutes later he was standing in Martine’s living-room. It exhibited the same cool, uncluttered elegance as the woman herself, although the great jug of vivid silk peonies in one corner hinted at climes other than coolness. She had poured him a drink and then excused herself; he took a big gulp of an exquisitely smooth malt whiskey, and wished he didn’t feel so much like a teenager on his first date.

      The room was warm. He took off his jacket and loosened his tie, and prowled around looking at the serigraphs on the pale pink walls and the books on the shelves—all of which demonstrated a taste both individualistic and eclectic. Why, then, did he feel so hollow inside?

      From behind him Martine said lightly, “Have you read the latest Atwood? I always buy her books in hardcover because I can’t wait for the paperback.”

      He hadn’t come here to talk about Canadian literature. Troy turned around. She had shed the linen dress in favor of a flowing black jumpsuit that revealed her creamy shoulders and clung to her hips. In the soft light of the single lamp her eyes and her hair also looked black. He said flatly, “Where’s your bedroom?” and pulled off his tie, flinging it on the plump leather couch.

      Her lashes flickered. “This way,” she said.

      She had lit a candle on either side of the wide bed, and had pulled back the covers. The room looked like a stage set, Troy thought. Seduction Scene—take one. He began unbuttoning his shirt with furious haste.

      Martine murmured, “There’s no hurry; we have all night.”

      “I haven’t been with anyone except my wife since the day I met her,” Troy said, noticing with a distant part of his mind how he was avoiding the use of Lucy’s name in this room.

      “Ah…then I am flattered.”

      He didn’t like Martine using the same word he had used in his thoughts. Quit thinking, for God’s sake, he told himself. This isn’t about your brain, it’s about your genitals. You’re going to break out of the cage you’ve been in for what seems like forever. So get on with it.

      As he hauled his shirt out of his waistband Martine ran her fingers up his chest and raised her face for his kiss. Without finesse he pulled her close to his body and began kissing her—hard, almost angry kisses. With one hand he stroked her hair—its smoothness another shock—and with the other found the rise of her breast under the sensuous black fabric.

      And somehow, in the confusion of desperation, incipient desire and raw novelty that was tumbling through his brain and his body, Troy knew that he had expected to find the full curve of Lucy’s breast—so familiar, so desirable—not the small, firm peak of another woman’s. A woman who was a stranger to him.

      A woman who wasn’t Lucy.

      His hand felt like a lump of ice. Or was it his heart that felt that way? With an inarticulate groan he pulled his mouth free, let go of Martine and sat down hard on the corner of the bed, running his fingers through his hair and realizing dimly that the harsh breathing he was hearing was his own.

      Resting his hands on his thighs, because his fingers were trembling and he didn’t want Martine to see that, he said hoarsely, “I’m sorry…more sorry than I can say. I can’t make love with you, Martine. I just…can’t.”

      “You’re still in love with your wife.”

      He glanced up. Her voice had been level, her face was expressionless, and he had no idea what she was thinking or feeling. Both were well hidden, he thought, with a stab of entirely irrational rage. “I don’t know the answer to that. If I am, I’m a damn fool.”

      “What is her name?”

      “You mean no one’s told you about her?”

      “I endeavor not to listen to gossip,” Martine said coolly, crossing her arms over her chest. “I only asked about your marital status for my own protection.”

      “Her name’s Lucy.”

      “Why did she leave you? Because I am presuming the separation wasn’t of your choice.”

      “You got that right,” Troy said, more bitterly than he’d intended, reaching for his shirt where it had fallen on the carpet and shrugging into it. He hated talking about Lucy, but he owed Martine, minimally, the decency of an explanation. “Can we go back into the living-room?”

      “Better than that. We will go to the kitchen and I will make an omelette,” Martine said composedly.

      For the first time since he had entered the apartment, Troy really looked at her. “You’re not surprised by what happened,” he said slowly. “Or rather, didn’t happen.”

      “No. But I thought you worth the risk.”

      “Playing games with me, Martine?”

      She СКАЧАТЬ