“He didn’t trust me then and he doesn’t trust me now and I’m telling you, I’m sick of it. I can’t ask, because he won’t tell me. I can’t –”
“Lily –” It was Maxine this time but Lily was not to be stopped.
“It’s like… like, he’s encased in ice and a suit of steel. I can’t reach him. Even if I were to try to pick away at it, take a blow torch to it, somehow he’s just… simply… removed.”
Laura moved in closer, grabbed both of Lily’s arms and gave her a bit of a shake.
“Lily, quiet!” she whispered urgently. “You’re making a scene and they may come out.”
“I don’t care!” Lily quite liked the idea of a scene. Maybe if she made a scene she might get somewhere.
Laura shook her head again and started to look panicked.
Then Lily grabbed hold of Laura the same way Laura was holding her. “You have to tell me, Laura. If you know what it is, what’s behind that door that Nate has so firmly closed, you have to tell me.”
Laura shook her head, her panic turning strangely to fear.
“Please, you must,” Lily begged.
“I can’t. It’s not my place. He’d never forgive me. He hides it. He puts so much effort into hiding it, like it was wrong, like it was dirty. Yet he seems somehow… proud of it. But he’d never forgive me if I told you, never. And, Lily, I couldn’t bear to lose him, he’s the only child I have left.”
There it was again, “wrong” Laura said, “dirty”. And Victor had said “Nathaniel suffered”. All these ominous words that described him and Lily, who he was supposed to be marrying, spending the rest of his life with, who was the mother of his child, didn’t seem to have the right to know.
She’d had enough of the secrets, hints, hedging and silence, she was sick to death of it. Whatever it was caused her to lose him eight years ago and it was pulling her firmly away from him now. Or, more to the point, keeping her distant.
Nate, she instantly decided, wasn’t the only one who could close down. Two could play that game.
Lily abruptly let go of Laura and turned back the way they came. “I’m going back to the house.”
“No!” Laura and Maxine exclaimed at the same time. “You can’t go back. You have to stay with him. If you go back he’ll be worried,” Laura went on.
“Let him be worried,” Lily flared. “At least that will mean he feels something.”
Laura’s face changed again, this time to motherly disappointment. “Lily, you know that’s not fair. You know that Nathaniel feels everything, especially for you.”
“No, Laura, I don’t know that. If he did, he’d trust me with whatever this horrible secret is.” Laura closed her eyes in despair and Lily didn’t wait for her to open them again. “Just tell them I have a headache and that I went back.”
Without waiting for a response, she turned and practically ran back to the house (as much as she could run in flip flops).
Once Lily arrived home, she halted in the entryway and looked around.
She didn’t know what to do. She had nothing to do anymore. No chores, no errands, nothing. And that made her frayed temper completely disintegrate.
The master bed chamber, as Fazire sarcastically anointed it, that Nate had commanded wasn’t due to be finished until the next week.
Her office, the only other room upstairs now due to the enormity of the master suite, the living room had been moved to the garden level, that Nate had ordered her to decorate wasn’t finished yet either.
Nate had hired a housekeeper who came in once a week and cleaned and did the laundry and the ironing too, which made Fazire none-too-happy. “What next?” he’d demanded to know. “A chef so I won’t be able to cook either?”
Nate paid the bills. Nate had groceries delivered. His secretary set up an account on the Internet with Waitrose, no less, and all Lily had to do was click on her choices and voila! they arrived the next day.
She was, quite simply, overwhelmed by him. He was everywhere, taking control of everything. Or taking care of everyone.
Except he wasn’t there at all.
“Lily?”
It was Nate’s voice and she swung around and glared at him, automatically determined to make some headway, penetrate his shields, get some reaction from him, any reaction.
He was standing in the inner doorway, the hall was shadowy, the sunlight was coming in behind him and she couldn’t see his face.
“You!” she yelled nonsensically.
He started to move forward, the powerful masculine grace of his movement, and Lily’s admiration of it, somehow grating on her nerves and he ignored her bizarre outburst.
“Laura said you had a headache. Is it a migraine?” His voice was soft and normally she would have thought his concern was sweet.
But she was beyond that now.
“No, it’s not a bloody migraine!” she cried, stamping her foot in frustration.
Nate stopped less than a breath away, his hand reached out to her waist and his fingers bit into her there. Lily could see his face and his concern was plain as day. And still, it didn’t stop her.
“What is it?” he asked, his voice low, his tone guarded.
She should have read it, been more considerate with her words but she wasn’t in the mood.
She grasped his hand at her waist and pulled it up between them.
“It’s this!” she exclaimed. “It’s the housekeeper, the workmen, the decorators! It’s everything!” She finished with, “It’s you!”
At that, she abruptly released his hand and watched the shutters instantly go down in his eyes, shielding her from his thoughts, cutting her off.
“That’s it, Nate, close down. I expected no less.” Lily’s voice was edging toward bitter.
He moved into her and Lily stood her ground.
“What’s this about?” His voice was even lower, a different kind of a low, a rumble that was so lethal it skidded across her skin like the flat of a blade.
“You tell me!” she shouted, tilting her head back and moving into him in an unsuccessful attempt to be menacing.
He said nothing. She waited. He still said nothing.
Then she stopped waiting, pulled away and ran up the stairs to their bedroom, threw open the wardrobes a shade hysterically and started to throw her clothes on the bed. She had no reason to do this but it seemed a good attempt at a grand gesture.