A Seal Upon Your Heart (25 page)

The two were lively and it made him feel good to see them bring activity to the place. He’d gone back to his dinner of cold cuts and beer and then his workout. He thought he heard Martier scream and he dropped the weight and dashed to the kitchen and was almost to the door when he realized that she was laughing. After that he kept checking…just in case one of them drowned.

~***~

If she had already claimed this man as her own then all that she did with him would be fine—because she intended there would be no one but him. If it were his fingers that she imagined tracing the shaved flesh between her thighs then it was fine. If she ran her fingers over her nipples and they grew hard because she imagined it were his fingers than there could be no wrong in that…no judgment if she cried out his name breathlessly when the pleasure overtook her. And then of course no shame when her body glowed and her lips smiled at her own imagination.

CHAPTER 22

The next day as they drove to work Martier talked about her friend’s engagement and their swim that had lasted until nearly ten pm. She seemed happy and animated and this is the way he wanted her to be.

She wondered if Tim would come to the wedding with her if she invited him. But that was far in the future.  By then he would know that she had put his name out into the universe and claimed him as her own. She went about her duties; making the coffee and then checking for messages while humming happily to herself.

He had client meetings today and sent her out to get lunch. She took hers downstairs with Claudette and the girls.

“Did you wear your new bathing suit this weekend?” Claudette asked innocently.

Martier’s eyes grew large before she remembered to mask her emotion. “Um…yes.”

Claudette sniffed and hid a smile. Martier was just relieved that she didn’t ask for details.

She soon left the ladies so that she could check for messages and a
s she was getting on the elevator she saw Karl. Karl French. He was the man that had flirted with her so blatantly the week before. He was getting off and when he saw her he turned right back around and got back in with her.

“Hello there pretty lady.”

Martier hid her grin. He looked very nice. His suit was not traditional like the ones that Tim and the partners wore; suits with superb lines and never off the rack. Karl’s suit was equally superb but with more of a trendy flair. The fit seemed tighter, the legs slimmer, the fabric was bold; and it all seemed to work for him.

“Please tell me that you forgot my name and that the reason you didn’t call me for lunch had nothing to do with me being horribly distasteful.”

“Neither.” She pressed the button for her floor. “You are Karl French.” He looked impressed that she had remembered his name.

“And you are Martier Besigye.” And now she was impressed that he had remembered. “And about that lunch…?”

She stepped out of the elevators and turned to him as the door opened. Couldn’t he see that she had already set herself to another? Wasn’t it in her face? Didn’t she have a special vibe now that she was in love? She’d seen it in others. She gave him a soft smile.

“No. I have to decline. I’m sorry.” Karl clutched his heart in a show of good-natured disappointment as the doors closed.

Martier walked back to her office still grinning. Even if you had set yourself to another, it still felt good to have a handsome man flirt with you.

Jakob Marx and Tim were just exiting the office. They hadn’t seen her approach and Jakob was smiling in that way that people have when they are speaking candidly.

“Ok, sir. We’ll see you two tonight. Oh and this serves as your heads up; Elaina plans to invite you and Priscilla to dinner this weekend.”

“Oh for fucks sake, Jakob. When will your wife stop trying to manipulate my love life?” Tim said in annoyance.

“Dating a rich, attractive woman who incidentally has huge knockers isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, then?”

“Jakob…” Tim said sharply as his eyes finally fell on Martier. Jakob turned and saw the pretty assistant watching them as if she was unsure. Oh right, the girl from the convent. He’d said knockers. Oops.

“I’ll see you two tonight.” He said as he clapped his friend affectionately on his back. “Hello Martier.” He said as he passed her. She ducked her head in something like a nod and stammered something that might have been hello.

Tim’s face had gone a shade of pale as he watched her. She quickly took her seat and wouldn’t meet his eyes. She busied herself with putting her things into her cubby. His brain was trying to form an explanation before he remembered that he didn’t have to. Yes, they’d kissed. But he had been the one to stop it and he had been the one to say that they shouldn’t. Didn’t that expunge him from guilt? He’d made no promises…

Well was he supposed to be alone forever?!  Wasn’t he doing her a favor? She was 23 and her future was wide open. She would fall in love, get married and have a family. Tim’s chest felt tight at the idea of that. He’d wanted that once upon a time. But it wasn’t too late for her. And he would be damned if he would be a desperate older man trying to cling to her!

“I’ll be in my office.” He said while pointing to his office.

She finally looked at him. There were shadows in her face that he’d never seen before. Her beautiful bowed lips were downcast.

“I understand.” She said softly.

He went into his office and shut the door, searching his mind for the hidden meaning behind those words.

~***~

She had no idea how she made it through the day. She felt completely numb. Her mouth moved when she answered the phone and when the clients were no longer there she supposed it was an indication that she had provided the correct service.

Tim worked in his office for the remainder of the day. His phone lit up several times indicating that he had called someone and she could tell that his private line had rang several times bypassing her phone. Was he talking to her? The lady that he was going out with tonight; Priscilla. Rich,
white
Priscilla with huge
knockers?

Well that meant Priscilla was everything that she was not. Her stomach tumbled and she felt like crying only that was dumb. You don’t cry over a man that was never yours in the first place.

Tim spoke quietly into the phone. He didn’t want Martier to overhear his conversation. “Tim I have the information you wanted. I just emailed it to you.”

“Thanks Nick.” Nick was in records. A lawyer like Tim didn’t have to do his own research. He set people like Nick on it and they got him what he wanted. Nick had done it in just a few hours.

His computer sounded letting him know that he had received a new email. He pulled up the file on Martin Besigye. He read silently. Apparently the man was thirty-three when he was killed while awaiting trial. He owned a failing coffee farm and worked in one of many administration offices in Kigali. He hadn’t been the head of the office, just a worker in a place called the Kicukiro District.

He wasn’t an official.

He was just a government worker. Probably doing something like processing mail at the local post office, or doing housekeeping in a hospital, or any number of mundane tasks that a government worker might perform.

Except for one thing. On a day in April 1994 Martin Besigye was instructed to join the Interahamwe and to kill his Tutsi neighbors. His confession contained a statement that he had been forced to kill by his employers or risk he and his family’s execution.

Tim sat back in his chair. What if someone came in to his office right now, put a gun in his hand and ordered him to shoot every green eyed person he saw. And what if they told him that they would take away everyone he loved if he didn’t…

Tim blinked his eyes. And that is what had happened to Besigye.

The file indicated he’d had 4 children but they didn’t provide names or ages. It did list the name of his wife; Benitha. Had she been as beautiful as her daughter? Most assuredly she had. He wished there was more but the file was thin. He sighed and picked up his phone. He called Chuck Bertke who worked with a different firm. Bertke focused mainly on International law and was in a much larger establishment. Of course they didn’t handle the small time things that his firm did, but at times they needed help in local matters and it is how he and Chuck had met and become friends.

They chatted for a while, and Chuck gave the obligatory condolences, even though he’d come to the funeral. Tim thanked him absently and dove into the reason for his call. Chuck listened intently.

“So you want to see if there is any way that your client can get her father’s court records, as well as any information on family, relatives, etc? Tim you should just send her over to Hardwick, Lyons and Pumpernell. This is the kind of stuff we deal with everyday-”

“Well…she’s not a client. She’s a friend.”

“I see. Well…you’re going to have to do a trade-out on this one, Buddy. This is going to take some man hours.”

“Definitely. Log the hours and we’ll match them.”

Chuck liked the sound of that.  His work was complex but Tim’s firm knew the local judges and sometimes things moved smoothly when they went through his firm instead.

Chuck had warned him that it could take some time and he decided that he wouldn’t mention any of this to Martier yet; especially not now when things were so screwy. When things went back to the way they were before that wonderful but ill-fated kiss then he’d tell her the things he’d discovered.

~***~

The ride home was quiet; absolutely no talking except when the two politely said good night after Tim dropped Martier off at her cottage.

She hurried into the cottage and then threw herself into her bed. She didn’t pull herself out of it for several hours and by then her pillow was wet with her tears.

Tim was in a sour mood as he prepared for his first date in over twenty years. But he decided that he would not think in the terms of “date” but in the terms of just hanging out with old friends and a new one.  Why was that so complicated?

He left earlier enough to get the car detailed and then drove into Priscilla’s neighborhood. It was filled with historic homes, old money homes. When he came upon the huge Mediterranean house he was impressed. He hadn’t bothered to find out much about Priscilla’s ex-husbands but he now wondered who these men were. He rang the bell at just after six and a maid answered. He was led into an austere sitting room filled with furniture that had spindly legs; French, and authentic. No knock-off antiques here.

Priscilla came in a few moments later and her dress took all of his attention. It was a blue, shimmery spaghetti strapped dress that met her knees, flowing as she walked. The top plunged and he didn’t think she was wearing a bra. Damn. He met her eyes and smiled.

“Priscilla, you look beautiful, as usual.” They kissed on the cheek and she took a step back to admire him.

“Thank you. Would you like a drink Tim or would you like to head out?”

“No, I’m fine.” He looked around. “You have a fantastic house.”

“Well…it’s pretty big for a single woman. My son Monty still uses one of the wings but…” She shrugged her shoulders. Tim knew that he could have asked her how long she had been single and he could make attempts to get to know her better but he didn’t.

“We can leave now.” She had a shawl and handed it to him to drape over her shoulders. When he did he noted that indeed, she was
not
wearing a bra but her breasts were so fake that they didn’t or couldn’t move. Tim decided that he liked breasts that he could actually touch with no fear of explosion.