Obsession (Year of Fire) (20 page)

“My God!” Matilde’s hands closed around her throat as if she were trying to strangle the curses that were welling up inside her. “My God,” she murmured, and her head fell. “They took away your child…my God.”

Matilde suddenly went very pale and her lips were barely distinguishable from the rest of her face. Sofía, concerned, made her drink a sip of tea and eat some coconut cake.

“Love, don’t feel bad,” she begged her, and dried her tears again. “I got my baby back. She was actually a girl. They had even lied to me about that. Francesca’s husband, a very wealthy and generous man, hired several investigators, who gave us the name of the orphanage where we found Amélie. Then he hired the best lawyers to make sure that we would get her back. There were many difficult months, but finally Amélie was with us. When I carried her into our house…” Sofía let out a sob, and Matilde kept her lips pressed tight together so that she wouldn’t start bawling like a child.

Sofía sat up when she heard voices coming down the hall. She left her armchair and walked toward the door, wiping her face with the back of her hand.

“Hi, Sofi!” a woman greeted her. “Look who I’ve brought you. Oh, sorry! I didn’t realize you had company. Ginette didn’t warn us.”

“Please, come in,” Sofía said, still trembling.

Matilde rummaged in her shika until she found Eliah’s handkerchief. She turned a little to hide and dry her face. When she turned back, she froze. Eliah was staring at her from the doorway. She stood up instinctively, utterly confused. His expression scared her.

It wasn’t just the rigorous training he had received from L’Agence that had prepared Eliah to minimize all possibility of surprise, which could be the difference between life and death; Takumi sensei had also taught him to expect the unexpected. Finding Matilde in his Aunt Sofía’s living room had sent all his rigorous discipline to hell, giving him a terrible shock, though he soon recovered and noticed the trail of tears running down her cheeks. He was next to her immediately, grabbing her by the shoulders.

“What happened? Why are you crying?”

“It’s nothing, nothing,” Matilde could barely stammer in reply.

“What in the world?” She heard Sofía’s voice. “Do you two know each other?”

“Yes, Aunt, we know each other,” Eliah answered without taking his eyes off Matilde, who bravely held his gaze. “Tell me,” he whispered to her, bending down, “what happened?”

“Eliah, son, are you going to introduce us?”

Eliah took his hands off Matilde’s shoulders and moved away from her.

“Francesca, this is my niece Matilde, Aldo’s youngest daughter. Matilde, this is Francesca, my childhood friend and Eliah’s mother, as you can see.”

“Charmed,” Francesca said, and kissed her on both cheeks, which were still wet with tears. Matilde, still bewildered, caught a whiff of perfume from the woman’s neck, sweetening the air around her just as her grandmother Celia’s Japanese jasmines had at home in springtime.
Juana would be able to tell me what perfume she’s wearing
.

“It’s a pleasure,” Matilde mumbled.

“You’re just as beautiful as your mother.”

“Thank you.”

“Aunt, why is Matilde crying?”

“Because I was telling her a sad family story. She got upset, that’s all, Eliah.”

“You’re pale,” Al-Saud insisted, and took her forearm to lead her back to her seat.

Francesca, still standing, watched her son. She didn’t remember ever having seen him so solicitous. He hadn’t even shown this kind of concern for Samara.
Aldo’s youngest daughter. She’s so beautiful!
she said to herself. Actually, she was much more beautiful than Dolores Sánchez Azúa, who possessed an undeniable but cold beauty, completely lacking the warmth that radiated from this girl, who was clearly still shaken by the story she had heard.

“Aunt, give Matilde another tea, with a lot of sugar. Please,” he urged her, sitting next to her on the chair. “Eat something.” He passed her the plate of cakes.

“I’m fine,” she promised him. “What are you doing here?”

“I came with my mother.”

“Francesca, please, sit down. What would you like? Tea or coffee?”

Matilde heard the woman accept a tea with milk and then apologize for their sudden arrival as she settled into the chair opposite. Her voice, with a pretty, low timbre, and a refined accent, filled Matilde with peace. She turned her head to look at her and found that the older woman was already looking at her. They smiled at each other.

“And how do you and my son know each other?”

Matilde, still nervous, cleared her throat before she explained, “We met on the plane two days ago. We were sitting next to each other. And yesterday we ran into each other in a subway station.”

Al-Saud cursed how easily Matilde volunteered information, with an innocence that might become dangerous. His mother’s reaction didn’t surprise him. Francesca raised her eyebrows and looked askance. Sofía wasn’t so restrained.

“You, Eliah, on the métro? What were you doing there? I can’t even imagine you taking the métro. Here, love.” She passed him a cup of coffee. “You know something, Francesca? Matilde knows about you and your mother because Rosalía always used to talk about you.”

“Really? The lovely Rosalía…”

“Rosalía and I were great friends. She taught me how to cook,” Matilde said. After a few sips of tea, she was back in control; not even the presence of Eliah, whose thigh was touching her leg, intimidated her. “And she always said,” she continued, “that what she taught me she had learned from Antonina. So, indirectly, everything I know how to cook I owe to your mother.”

She looked down, suddenly startled by the sound of her voice still hanging in the silence of the room. She usually didn’t expose herself in front of strangers; the presence of Eliah’s mother was having an odd effect on her.

Francesca noticed that Eliah was prying Matilde’s hand open so he could claim the handkerchief, which he studied before smiling to himself. Her son smiling was so rare that it made her smile as well; she was intrigued to find out what might be causing this transformation. Sofía said something and she nodded, concentrating on the young people.

Eliah noted that Matilde’s expression was somewhere between embarrassment and anxiety. They looked at each other in silence, and Francesca regarded the exchange with great pleasure. She felt a deep connection between them. The started to murmur to each other with their heads close together. She couldn’t hear what they were saying.

“Tell me what these initials stand for.” Matilde stroked the S and A with a finger.

The sight of her index finger tracing out the letters of his last name made his groin tingle. The power of this woman was growing vast, as was the obsession that threatened to overwhelm him, and he had no idea how to control even if had wanted to.

“It’s my last name,” he explained, in a deep voice. “Al-Saud.”

“Al-Saud,” she whispered, her eyes on the embroidering. “It’s so strange to see you here,” she admitted suddenly, looking up at him. “You, the son of Madame Francesca. I grew up hearing her and your grandmother Antonina’s names. I can’t believe what a coincidence this is!”

“Coincidences don’t exist, Matilde.”

“No?” She was actually flirting with him—her, the girl who usually stayed as far as possible away from men.

“No, they don’t exist. It’s clear that you and I are fated to…”

“
Bonjour, tante!
” Fabrice burst into the room with Juana trailing behind him. “Cousin!”

Eliah stood up to shake Fabrice’s hand. Juana, whose expression had changed when she saw Eliah, stopped dead in the doorway.

“Stud?”

Eliah’s chuckle made Francesca and Sofía exchange looks.

“Yes, Juana, it’s me.”

They hugged each other.

“What are you doing here?”

“I came to drop my mother off. Mama, allow me introduce you to Juana, Matilde’s friend.”

Juana leaned forward to kiss Francesca.

“It’s a pleasure.” She turned back to Eliah. “What a crazy coincidence! Yesterday on the subway and here today. I can’t believe it.”

“So you just arrived in Paris,” Francesca said, starting a conversation with Juana and Sofía. For his part, Fabrice hogged Eliah’s attention, and Matilde appreciated her cousin’s interference, because Eliah spoke to him in French. She never imagined that such a small thing—listening to a man speak French—would make her shudder with pleasure. Alone and forgotten on the armchair, she watched him closely. She noted the quality of his clothes, and for the first time she was ashamed of her gray wool skirt and black cardigan, bought in a Buenos Aires market for a few pesos, while Al-Saud was dressed as though he were a model for Yves Saint Laurent.
The impeccable cut of his gold-buttoned, ivory blazer showed off his athlete’s body, and clung to his shoulders and his straight back as though it were made to measure. His blue jeans showed off his legs, which were long and a little arched, like a horseman’s.
Does he know how to ride?
she wondered. She liked his blue-and-green tartan shirt, which was crisscrossed with white lines. She even stared at his feet, his butter-colored shoes, which were informal without being inelegant. He seemed comfortable in his body and his clothes, although he wasn’t wearing enough for such a cold day. Everything about him—the way he held his head and squared his shoulders, his clothes, the timbre of his voice, the way he moved his hands as he spoke—reflected his strong personality.

An illustration from
The Perfumed Garden
jumped into her head along with the accompanying paragraph.
The Position of the Sheep. The woman is on her hands and knees; the man behind her lifts her thighs until her vulva is at the same level as his member, which he then inserts. In this position she should place her head between her arms.

A phone rang and awakened her from her trance. She still felt the physical symptoms of her dirty thoughts: hot cheeks and a throbbing between her legs. She noticed that Al-Saud went to one side to take the call. Who was he talking to? Was it a woman? The thought of this man in another woman’s arms brought her mood crashing back down to earth, and when she heard him say that he was leaving, anger was more prominent than disappointment.

“Would you both like to have dinner with me?” Matilde realized he was looking at Juana as he asked it. “Or are you ladies busy tonight?” he added casually, turning to face her. Lamenting how readily she blushed, she missed the opportunity to decline the offer because Juana got there first.

“Of course we’d like to! We’re not doing anything tonight.”

Fabrice’s look of disappointment moved Al-Saud to ask, “
Tu viens avec nous, Fabrice?
”

“
Bien sûr!
”

Matilde, Juana and Fabrice went to the closet to get their coats, and Sofía took the opportunity to grab Eliah by the lapels and stare at him.

“Your mother and I saw how you were looking at Matilde. I’m warning you, nephew, that girl is an angel fallen to Earth. Don’t hurt her. She’s suffered too much in her life already.”

That final statement plunged him into an anxious silence. He didn’t dare interrogate his aunt any further. He was afraid of what he might find out about her past. He, a Horse of Fire who wasn’t scared of anything, retreated at the prospect of Matilde’s pain.

“I thought you just met her,” he managed to get out. “How do you know that she’s an angel?”

“Because my brother Aldo told me. And he doesn’t talk like that about Céline.”

Céline, Matilde’s sister.
He felt a burning sensation in the pit of his stomach. The glamorous Céline, with whom he had shared several hours of sex just two nights before. He was grateful that he had had the good sense to be discreet with her.

As they took their leave of the older women, Matilde noticed Francesca giving her a special look as she squeezed her hand and called her “treasure.” On the street, as they walked toward the Aston Martin, Eliah confessed to her, “I’m happy to have found you at my aunt Sofía’s house. Do you know why?” She shook her head. “Because this morning, when you turned me down and Juana said you had other plans, I thought you were lying.”

Actually, I was lying.

“I was annoyed with you,” Al-Saud continued, “because I thought you didn’t have anything to do. Or even worse, that you were going out with a boyfriend you met in Paris.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“So why are you so cold and withdrawn with me?”

Eliah looked at her reaction and was sorry that he had pressured her. She quickened her pace, her eyes on the ground and her small hand at her chest, clutching her coat closed. He pointed toward the car. Then, he heard her say, “That’s how I am, cold.”

The distress in her voice tugged at his chest. Al-Saud took her by the shoulders and cornered her against the Aston Martin.

“The only cold thing about you, Matilde, is your frozen nose.” He kissed it and, seeing her flinch in panic, wondered if she had ever been kissed. He continued to stare at her. She was so close to him. His eyes ranged over her oval face, her soft, flawless and unbelievably white skin. He saw several freckles on the bridge of her nose, which
accentuated her adolescent appearance even further. Though he wasn’t touching her—his hands were on the sports car’s roof—he could feel her body tense up, as though she were an animal trapped by a predator. He wanted to press his pelvis into her stomach to see how she would react.
She’d act like a virgin from the last century
, he thought, although she wasn’t a virgin. At the memory of Blahetter, her supposed husband, he stepped away from her. At that moment Juana and Fabrice, who had been distracted by a store window, caught up with them.

“Stud!” Juana exclaimed. “Is Fabrice telling the truth? Is that Aston Martin yours?” Eliah nodded dutifully, opening the passenger door. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”

“Get in,” he ordered Matilde.

“Please, stud, let me get behind the wheel for a minute!”

Al-Saud agreed and, as he explained the controls on the dashboard, threw furtive glances Matilde’s way. She wasn’t impressed by the technology or design of the DB7 Volante.