Page 62 of That Birthday in Barbados
“Catherine. Dear God. There’s so much you don’t know about me.”
“I know I want you.”
I reach a hand to the side of her face, rub my thumb across her chin. I want to ignore my own misgivings, strip the rest of her clothes off and show her that all the reasons she’s thought this shouldn’t happen have nothing to do with how much I want her.
She leans in and kisses me softly. I feel the pleading there. She takes my hand, laces my fingers with hers. “So tell me,” she says. “What else do I need to know about you? What could be so awful?”
I want to tell her. And I will. But not here. Not like this. Not so that her memories of what almost happened between us will be forever tainted by words I know she never expected to hear.
I sit up, swing my legs over the side of the bed. “I’ll find your clothes and take you back to the hotel now. I’m sorry, Catherine. But it really is the best thing for you.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
“All serious daring starts from within.”
? Eudora Welty
Catherine
WE DRIVE BACK to the hotel in complete silence.
I keep my head turned to the night dark flowing by outside my window. I try not to think, to keep my mind blank. I pinch the palm of my left hand, willing myself not to cry. I willnotcry in front of him. I. Will. Not.
It takes forever to get there. I feel him wanting to say something, but I don’t want him to.Please don’t.I repeat the mantra over and over in my head. It will only make it worse. There’s nothing to say, anyway. All the reasons are obvious. They have been from moment one. It’s not as if I didn’t know that. I even tried to tell him I knew what they were.
What I don’t understand is why he didn’t listen before we. . .before tonight.
I squeeze my eyes shut, pinch my palm harder.
Well, it’s not as if I don’t know what rejection feels like. I do. But the pain from my past had at least dulled to a level that made it feel like the thing from my past that it is. But this.This. Somehow this is almost worse. I feel like a fool. Like a woman old enough to know better. A woman who had begun to hope for something that wasn’t in the realm of possibility. Who took a shot and went for someone way out of her league.
The gate to the hotel flashes ahead in the lights of the Defender. I have never been so relieved to arrive anywhere as I am here and now.
Anders stops the vehicle at the front entrance. One of the hotel employees starts to walk around the front to get my door, but I’ve opened it and slid out before he can get there.
“Catherine.”
I hear Anders call my name, a quiet plea, but I’m running now, through the marble foyer of the front desk, down the hallway to the stairs that lead to my room. I take them two at a time for as long as I can, and then one by one because my chest is heaving with the effort of holding back tears I can no longer hold back at all.
*
HOUSEKEEPING HAS BEEN in to do turndown service. The quiet luxury of the room is the haven I need at this moment. The heavy curtains have been pulled. A single lamp is on. I flick it off and throw myself on the bed, face down on the pillow. I consider suffocating myself with it and then stifle back a sob for the ridiculous position I have put myself in. And I have put myself there.
What was I thinking?
I’m forty years old. Started and sold a surprisingly successful company. I’m divorced. I’ve been cheated on. I know what heartache feels like. Why did I set myself up for more?
I roll over on the pillow, stare into the darkness, my eyes open now, tears of self-loathing streaming down my cheeks. I swipe them away, resenting the fact that they’re there, and I can’t stop them.
Am I a cliché? Cougar after a younger man?
I squirm on the mattress at the visual I have created for myself.
I hate the word and all its connotations. I think of the TV shows that have been created around the modern day idea of older women luring younger men to their beds, and I blush hot and hard. Or maybe it’s a hot flash. Have I just catapulted myself into menopause tonight?
I sit up on the bed, run my hands through my damp hair.
Stop.
