Page 35 of Captivated
“But wouldn’t it be enough to settle for the temporary? For affection and passion?” She frowned, watching a bee court a stalk of columbine. “I think it might be.”
“For some. You’d have to be sure it would be enough for you.”
Morgana rose with a grumble of annoyance. “It’s so exasperating. I hate not being in charge.”
A smile tugged at Anastasia’s mouth as she joined her cousin. “I’m sure you do, darling. As long as I can remember, you’ve pushed things along your own way, just by force of personality.”
Morgana slanted her a look. “I suppose you mean I was a bully.”
“Not at all. Sebastian was a bully.” Ana tucked her tongue in her cheek. “We’ll just say you were—are—strong-willed.”
Far from mollified, Morgana bent to sniff at a heavy-headed peony. “I suppose I could take that as a compliment. But being strong-willed isn’t helping at the moment.” She moved along the narrow stone path that wound through tumbling blooms and tangled vines. “I haven’t seen him in more than a week, Ana. Lord,” she said. “That makes me sound like some whiny, weak-kneed wimp.”
Ana had to laugh even as she gave Morgana a quick squeeze. “No, it doesn’t. It sounds as though you’re an impatient woman.”
“Well, I am impatient,” she admitted. “Though I was prepared to avoid him if necessary, it hasn’t been necessary.” She shot Ana a rueful look. “A little sting to the pride.”
“Have you called him?”
“No.” Morgana’s lips formed into a pout. “At first I didn’t because I thought it was best to give us both some time. Then...” She’d always been able to laugh at herself, and she did so now. “Well, then I didn’t because I was so damn mad he hadn’t tried to beat down my door. He has called me a few times, at the shop or at home. He fires off a couple of questions on the Craft, mutters and grumbles while I answer. Grunts, then hangs up.” She jammed fisted hands in her skirt pockets. “I can almost hear the tiny little wheels in his tiny little brain turning.”
“So he’s working. I’d imagine a writer could become pretty self-absorbed during a story.”
“Ana,” Morgana said patiently, “try to keep with the program. You’re supposed to feel sorry for me, not make excuses for him.”
Ana dutifully smothered a grin. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“Your mushy heart, as usual.” Morgana kissed her cheek. “But I forgive you.”
As they walked on, a bright yellow butterfly flitted overhead. Absently Ana lifted a hand, and the swallowtail danced shyly into her palm. She stopped to stroke the fragile wings. “Why don’t you tell me what you intend to do about this self-absorbed writer who makes you so damn mad?”
With a shrug, Morgana brushed a finger over a trail of wisteria. “I’ve been thinking about going to Ireland for a few weeks.”
Ana released the butterfly with her best wishes, then turned to her cousin. “I’d wish you a good trip, but I’d also have to remind you that running away only postpones. It doesn’t solve.”
“Which is why I haven’t packed.” Morgana sighed. “Ana, before I left him, he believed I am what I am. I wanted to give him time to come to terms with it.”
That was the crux of it, Ana thought. She slipped a comforting hand around Morgana’s waist. “It may take him more than a few days,” she said carefully. “He may not be able to come to terms with it at all.”
“I know.” She gazed out over the water to the horizon. One never knew exactly what lay beyond the horizon. “Ana, we’ll be lovers before morning. This I know. What I don’t know is if this one night will make me happy or miserable.”
***
Nash was ecstatic. As far as he could remember, he’d never had a story flow out of his mind with the speed and clarity of this one. The treatment, which he’d finished in one dazzling all-nighter, was already on his agent’s desk. With his track record, Nash wasn’t worried about a sale—which, in a gleeful phone call, his agent had told him was imminent. The fact was, for the first time, Nash wasn’t even thinking about the sale, the production, the ultimate filming.
He was too absorbed in the story.
He wrote at all hours. Bounding awake at 3:00 a.m. to attack the keyboard, slurping coffee in the middle of the afternoon with the story still humming like a hive of bees in his head. He ate whatever came to hand, slept when his eyes refused to stay open, and lived within the tilted reality of his own imagination.
If he dreamed, it was in surreal snatches, with erotic images of himself and Morgana sliding through the fictional world he was driven to create.
He would wake wanting her, at times almost unbearably. Then he would find himself compelled to complete the task that had brought them together in the first place.
Sometimes, just before he fell into an exhausted sleep, he thought he could hear her voice.
It’s not yet time.
But he sensed the time was coming.
