Keys to the Castle (31 page)

They slept, and they made love, and they awoke in each other's arms and made love again. As a soft pink light began to creep across the sill of the casement, Ash kissed her hair and murmured, “Why do people always think sex will end an obsession? The more I have of you, the more I want.”

Sara, curled into the curve of his arm with her fingers spread flat across his abdomen, said sleepily, “I didn't know people thought that.”

“Men do. All the time.” He bent now and kissed her lips. She could taste herself on him, a deeply erotic mixture of tangy perfume and salty sweat and sex, and she responded in kind.

“That explains it, then.” She let her fingers slide upward, exploring again the slick contours of his chest, the tendons of his throat. “I think we're shameless.”

“You make me feel sixteen.”

“You make me feel like Superwoman.”

He laughed softly, kissing her neck.

“I should go.” And yet she turned her head, exposing more of her throat to his kisses, and she couldn't stop her hands from caressing his shoulders, and his back, and that sensitive area she had discovered just beneath his arm, not far from his heart. “It's almost morning.”

“Where will you go, love?” he murmured, hands gently cupping her breasts, kissing them each, tenderly, one by one. “You live here.”

“You know what I mean.” And she made no move to rise.

“Sara.” He lifted his face to hers, his hands cradling her head, his eyes suddenly and surprisingly intense. “Come with me to London.”

At first she thought he was joking. “I can't do that.”

“Why not?”And that was when she began to suspect he might be serious.

“What about Alyssa?”

“You don't trust my mother?”

“I can't ask her to—”

“I can.” His fingers tightened in her hair. “Or we'll send for her. Or we'll take her with us. We'll take her to the zoo and the museum and the park on Sunday. My place is huge, mammoth, really. There's plenty of room. We'll even bring my mother if you insist, but I'd rather not.”

She started to laugh, but he stopped her with a kiss, deep and long and hungry. That was when she knew he wasn't kidding. “Come with me to London,” he said, lowly, a little breathlessly. “I want you to see my flat. It's all black and white; you'll hate it. I want to take you to dinner and dress up for the theater and hail a taxi for two. I want to take you to my office and show you how important I am. I'll even introduce you to the ridiculously handsome Mr. Winkle.”

She started to giggle, her fingers playing over his collarbone. “Is he handsome?”

“Unfairly so.” His thumbs traced the shape of her eyebrows while his lips kissed her cheeks, and her nose, and the corner of her mouth. “I want to make love to you for twenty-four hours without stopping for breath,” he whispered. “I want the scent of you on my pillows. I want . . .” and he moved above her, his eyes deep and solemn and rich with need. “I want you out of Daniel's house,” he said softly. “I want to know if you're real.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and lifted herself into him and she whispered her answer into his ear.

Because she wanted to know, too.

In all of the best fairy tales, the downfall of the hero begins with greed. The beautiful princess is not enough; he must also have the bag of gold. Escaping the wrath of a giant means nothing; he has to go back for the golden goose. Ash should have been satisfied with simply loving Sara, even if it meant she was locked away in a castle. Even if he had to share her with Daniel. But he wanted her all to himself.

The first few days were glorious. She made fun of his stark, cold, hospital-clean flat, and then they made love in every room of it. He took her out to brunch at the Dorchester, because there was never any food in his house, and later they went shopping and he pretended to hate the red cushions she bought for his white leather sofa. But on the way home, he scooped up two armfuls of red roses from a flower stall to complement the cushions and later, as they lay tangled in a cashmere throw on the floor with red cushions scattered all around, he knew he would always adore those cushions because they smelled of her.

“Do you think we'll ever get tired of this?” she murmured, lying soft against his shoulder.

“God, I hope so.” He stroked her hair. “Because I really am exhausted.”

She laughed and he looked at her with the most amazing sense of wonder. “You belong here,” he said. And his brows drew together because even as he said it he could hardly believe it was true. “I didn't think you would. I thought it would feel strange—exciting, of course, but strange—having you here. It simply feels natural.”

She wound her fingers between his. “Do you know how you meet someone on vacation or on a business trip and have a fling?”

“I've never done such a thing,” he assured her soberly, rubbing their entwined fingers against the faint stubble of his chin.

“And then you get home and you try to keep in touch, try to pick up where you left off . . . and it's, like, who
is
this person?”

“I swear, I've never—”

She picked up one of the red cushions and bounced it off his shoulder, and he smothered his laughter in her hair.

She said, seriously now, “Do you think it will be like that with us when the passion fades?”

He took her face in his hands and looked into her eyes and said simply, “No. I've made those kinds of silly mistakes, Sara, and so have you. We can take a few days to act like teenagers but in the end I think we both know what we want. And whatever surprises are waiting for us along the way we'll just learn to manage.”

She smiled. “Spoken like a man who always gets what he wants.”

“It's what I do,” he assured her, and he drew her again onto his shoulder, utterly convinced of his invincibility.

An easy routine began to transform Ash's London life. He discovered his refrigerator could actually hold food. His kitchen smelled of coffee. He went late to the office because he did not want to miss the sight of Sara sitting at his table wearing one of his robes, reading the morning papers and munching on her toast. He stayed at the office only a few hours because there was always something he would rather be doing: taking Sara to lunch, or strolling in the park, or helping her to rearrange the guest room for the anticipated arrival of Alyssa on the coming weekend.

“I do believe the time off you've taken agrees with you, sir,” commented Mrs. Harrison. “You're looking quite fit.”

Ash declared expansively, “I'm in love, Mrs. Harrison. Best thing in the world for the constitution.”

“Congratulations, sir. And just as a point of reference, you might note that during your absence the business has not suffered appreciably. In fact, one might even say it has thrived.”

He gave her a suspicious look. “Are you implying my presence here is a hindrance to productivity?”

“Certainly not, sir. Merely that should you wish to continue half days, I doubt anyone would object.”

He muttered, “I'm certain there was an insult there somewhere.”

“On the other hand,” she continued easily, “did you happen to see the Dejonge proposal that I left on your desk? Their attorneys have gone over it and returned it with comments.”

Ash frowned in annoyance. “I still say we could work this all out in two hours if they'd agree to a meeting. Any progress on that?”

“I'm afraid not, sir. They believe it's still too early in the process.”

“Very well. I'll take the proposal home with me tonight. Sara's stopping by to meet me for lunch. Let me know when she arrives, will you?”

“Actually, sir, she arrived about half an hour ago. She's with Mr. Winkle now.”

Ash frowned at that. “She didn't mention.”

And Mrs. Harrison simply lifted her eyebrows. “Should she have?”

Ash went into his office, closed the door, and picked up the telephone to buzz Winkle's line. But in the end, he replaced the receiver, impatient with himself, and turned to his own work. Nothing would make Sara's temper flare faster than to think he was interfering in her private business discussions, and she was more than capable of managing her own affairs.

Besides, it wasn't as though they had any secrets.

Alyssa arrived the next week in a swirl of happy chatter and a mound of stuffed toys, in the hands of his mother, who happily turned her over. Katherine planned to stay in town for a few days to shop, then she would retire to the country to attend to her own affairs before returning to Rondelais in another few weeks to help Sara prepare for the party.

She took herson's newfound domestic tranquility instride—a town house that had never been more than a hotel room now transformed with fresh flowers and dishes on the drainboard and a guest room outfitted with a Little Mermaid comforter, and his arm, lightly draped around Sara's shoulders—as though it were only natural, as though it had always been so, and that gave Ash an unaccountable pleasure. She stayed for tea and gave an easy, chatty report on matters at Rondelais, and he thought how odd it was, and yet how right, that the two parts of his life should be linked in this way.

“I was right, by the way,” she informed Ash, “about the keys to the west wing. That dour Italian did have them after all. He came out and opened up the rooms, and checked around for damage. Do you know the Orsays left everything just as it was when they moved out? Rotting furniture, pictures on the walls . . .”

“No hidden van Goghs, I trust,” suggested Ash, sipping his tea.

“I'm afraid not. Just family photographs and bric-a-brac, nothing of import. Nonetheless, they might have sentimental value to . . .” She glanced at Alyssa, who was importantly serving tea and cake to her stuffed bear at the small designer cocktail table on the opposite side of the room—scattering crumbs all over the highly polished floors and table surface in the process. “Someone at some point, so I boxed them all up for you.”

“Mother, you didn't go wandering around in there.” Ash's voice was alarmed.

“Actually, the damage is not as severe as one might imagine. Mr. Contandino thinks the roof can be repaired. Of course it would cost a bloody fortune.”

Sara sighed. “What else is new?”

“Never mind, my love,” Ash said, smiling at her. “It would just be another twenty rooms for you to keep clean. Let the roof fall in, I say.”

Sara looked worried, and Katherine said, “It wouldn't hurt to talk to someone about some kind of emergency measures to control the water damage when you return. I'm sure that would be a manageable expense.”

She moved on to talk about her plans for the party, and to arrange to go shopping with Sara the next day for the necessities, and Ash fell into a reverie whose most remarkable component was simple contentment.

They made frozen waffles for breakfast, and Sara decorated them with funny faces made out of fruit, the way she had seen Dixie do for the twins. They fed the ducks in the park. They had dinner at five. And there was that inevitable moment when Alyssa burst into Ash's bedroom early one morning while they were still asleep and declared scoldingly, “
Petit-papa
, Tante Sara, where are your clothes?” Sara was mortified, but Ash laughed about it the rest of the day.

On Sunday they took Alyssa to the zoo and ate cherry popsicles, most of which ended up on Ash's shirt as he was lifting Alyssa to his shoulder to view the elephants. Sara, laughing, was trying to brush the stain away with a paper napkin when she noticed a woman across the path from them, wearing big sunglasses, chic, formfitting cropped jeans, and high-heeled sandals, watching them. As soon as she noticed Sara's gaze, she turned and walked the other way.