“I…” she started, then stopped, took a deep breath and continued, “you just surprised me, being early,” her hands came out at her sides, “I’m not ready yet.”
The tension left Cash’s body.
Women, it was his experience, liked to make an entrance. Even when Abby left his bathroom, her face cleaned of makeup, she still managed to make an entrance (mainly because she looked damned sexy in her clinging blue nightgown).
He bent his head to touch his lips to hers as he gave her neck an affectionate squeeze.
“Tell me where to find the whisky. I’ll get it while you finish getting dressed,” he told her.
She nodded while saying, “In the kitchen, I’ll show you.”
“I can find my way.”
She seemed to be considering this, her eyes darting anywhere but him. Then she swallowed, her gaze came to his and she nodded again. “The cupboard, by the –”
He brushed her lips with his again to interrupt her. “I’ll find it. Go.”
Her white teeth appeared as she bit the side of her lip but she gave another short nod, disengaged from his hand and walked from the room, saying, “I won’t be long.”
Cash watched her go or more to the point, Cash watched her ass sway as she walked away.
He found his way to the kitchen, even more ancient-looking (and warm and welcoming) than what he’d already seen of her house. He located the whisky, a heavy, cut-crystal tumbler, poured himself a drink and walked back to the living room.
Upon entry to the room, Cash saw a black cat with yellow eyes and long, silky fur sitting on the back of the couch, its tail swaying. Instead of the pert nose of a domestic feline, it had the nose of lion. This feature significantly increased the usual catlike disdain. It regarded Cash, blinked, jumped off the couch and trotted smartly from the room.
Cash ignored the cat and looked around.
There was an empty Denby mug on a coaster on the table in front of the couch, the stringed label of the wet tea bag still in it indicating it was a cup of some complicated herbal tea. Next to that was a cookbook with an excess of multi-coloured post-it tags sticking out the sides, a plastic row of the post-its sitting on top of the book, a Waterman pen resting at the book’s side.
Cash went to the mantel and looked at the photos. Most of the pictures were older and in black and white. All of them were candid and in every one the subjects were smiling.
When Cash turned away from the mantel, his eyes caught on a large, silver-framed photo sitting ensconced on a bookshelf and he froze.
It was Abby’s wedding photo.
He stared at it from his place several feet away and it felt like the image depicted was burning itself in his brain.
In slow motion, his body came unstuck and he walked to the photo, his fingers curling around it, he brought it to him for closer inspection.
She’d been a young bride and a beautiful one. Her beauty hadn’t matured to her current magnificence but her obvious happiness made up for it.
And she was definitely happy.
The photo wasn’t posed. Abby, wearing a complicated but not overdone, strapless gown made, it appeared, entirely of lace, wasn’t smiling.
She was beaming.
Her head was tilted back and her arm was wrapped around a tall, brawny, good-looking blond man who was smiling down at her. She was curled into him, her arm around his back and Cash saw the man’s arm was around her waist. Her fingers were touching his face and – the photo was black and white, so colour was not discernible – but it looked like she was using her thumb to wipe lipstick from his mouth.
The intimacy of the gesture, their shamelessly unhidden joy, Abby glowing in a way she had not even come close to giving him, coupled with the memory of Abby wiping his own mouth the day he met her, all of this made Cash feel like he’d swallowed a mouthful of acid.
The intensity of his reaction vaguely disturbed him, but he resolutely set it aside, put the photo down and threw back the whisky. It took him two drinks to drain the glass.
He headed to the kitchen to refill it and was back in the front room standing at her window, sipping at his whisky, lost in thought (most of these thoughts centred around when he would find the time to purchase a dozen new dressing gowns for her), when she returned.
“I’m ready,” she announced and he turned to look at her.
She was wearing a body-hugging, jade green, jersey dress. It covered her completely from wrists to hem which touched her knees. Even if it covered her almost fully, it left nothing to the imagination. The only expanse of skin that was exposed, outside of her legs, was at the wide, low-cut, v-neck. She was wearing strappy stiletto sandals in patent-leather, a shade darker than the green of her dress. She had on a pair of gold hoop earrings, her hair down around her shoulders in a sleek fall, her makeup more dramatic than the night before but less than it had been the first night they went to dinner.
She wore no other adornment.
She looked, as ever, exquisite.
“I wasn’t sure what to wear to a dinner party at crazy Mrs. Truman’s. I’ve been thinking about it all day,” she told him as she walked into the room.
This was the wrong thing to say.
Except for his enjoyable conversation with his uncle and when work intruded, he’d thought about nothing but her all day.
“I was thinking armour but I’m not sure a suit of armour goes with these shoes,” she finished when she’d stopped in front of him, a small smile playing at her glossed lips, her head tilted back to look at him.
She meant to be amusing. For the first time, Cash didn’t laugh.
Her smile faltered and her head tilted to the side.
“Cash?” she called.
He didn’t answer.
Instead, he looked to the window and caught their reflection in the glass.
She was standing close, head still tilted back to look at him but she wasn’t touching him.
Even in the indistinct reflection of the glass he could see they complimented each other. It wasn’t the first image he’d seen of them together and it wasn’t the first time he recognised they looked good.
He liked the look of them together. They matched. She looked like she belonged with him. She looked like she was the kind of woman that would belong to him. If he was honest with himself, it aroused him, thinking of her as his.
But she wasn’t his, no matter how much he paid for her.
She belonged to the man in that photo.
Her hand came to rest lightly on his arm, taking him out of his thoughts and she asked, “Cash? Is everything all right?”
He threw back the remainder of his whisky, looked down at her and replied, “Fine.”