True Bliss (6 page)

"I don't," Bliss muttered. How had she managed to convince herself she was over Sebastian Plato? "I think it's disgusting. But it's nothing to do with me."

Polly crossed her arms on the table and rested her chin on top. Her blue eyes took on a contemplative light. "We weren't going to bring this up, were we, Fab?"

"No. We won't if Bliss doesn't want us to."

"I don't." She felt sick, and too hot. "No, I can't talk about it."

"Polly and I are women of the world, you know. We've lived."

Bliss wiped sweating palms on her pants and raised her eyes to the level of a row of empty wine bottles of questionable vintages ranged along the plate rack that surrounded the big kitchen. Each bottleneck contained the remains of a candle.

"Every one of those is a notch," Fabiola announced, following Bliss's gaze. "Each one is a testimony to passion. Nights of ecstasy. Isn't that so, Pol?"

"Too true," Polly agreed, but she didn't look at the bottles.

"I remember every man to go with every bottle," Fabiola continued. "I used to be wild, but I had my standards and my rules."

"One bottle per man," Bliss commented. They weren't going to stop talking about the newspaper article, and Sebastian. Taking off her metal-rimmed glasses, she polished the fogged lenses on the tail of her loose shirt. "One candle per customer."

"They were not customers," Fabiola said.

"Just an expression," Bliss told her. She was the boss around here and she could just get up and walk out. We never walk away from an argument. Bliss's father had made very sure that his lifelong instructions played loud and clear, and right on cue.

"I never wanted a long-term thing." Fabiola sniffed and pointed to a tall, dark green bottle with very little candle left, but a great deal of globby old wax running in congealed rivulets down its length. "He was the best of the lot. You should have seen him. His eyes were—"

"The same color as that bottle," Bliss finished for her. "Is there a reason for bringing this up now?" She was afraid she knew the answer.

"We don't want you to think you're the only one . . . That is, we don't want you to feel embarrassed about having a secret past. We want you to know we're not shocked."

Bliss opened her mouth, but couldn't decide what to say.

Polly reached to clasp Bliss's hand. "What Fab means is that we're glad you've known passion, too. We're glad you're not a repressed prude after all. And we want you to be proud of your womanhood, not ashamed of it."

"I am not ashamed of my womanhood!" Bliss snatched her hand away and stood up. They didn't know her. No one had ever really known her—except Sebastian. "Since when have I had the reputation for being a repressed prude?"

Fabiola stood up too and said, "Since always. We all thought you didn't even know what it was for."

"It? " Words failed Bliss a second time.

"Fab's right," Polly agreed. "I mean, you've never seemed interested in men as long as we've known you. When Lennox came on to you, you freaked. Now we find out you've had this torrid affair with this fabulous man who took advantage of you and dumped you. I mean, it just goes to show how you can never be sure—"

"Stop!" Bliss waved her hands. "Stop right now. Where is this coming from? How have you shifted from my being chairperson—which I'm not—of some action committee, to my hav-

ing had a torrid affair? And been taken advantage of? And then been dropped?"

Polly moistened her lips. "We've upset her, Fab."

"Oh, how astute of you," Bliss muttered.

"A woman's body is made for love," Fabiola said. She pointed at Bliss's blue shirt, a castofT left behind by a previous tenant, and her purple terry-cloth pedal pushers. "You try to make yourself invisible in all those horrible clothes you wear, but underneath them beats a passionate heart. And your flesh sings with lust at the sight of a great pair of male buns, just the way mine does—and Polly's."

"Used to," Polly amended. "I'm a mother."

"Gosh, darn it!" Bliss sat down again—hard. "I'm sorry. I never swear. But you're making me so angry."

"You didn't swear," Fabiola said. "You're so squeaky clean and pure, it's a bit painful. Or that's what we thought."

"Okay." She didn't swear, and she didn't lose her temper. Years of watching her father do both had made her hate it when people lost control. "I'm going to be very calm. And you're going to be very calm. Fabiola, what is it you've heard about me—apart from the committee thing?"

"We already know you don't exactly hit it off with your parents."

Bliss screwed up her face. "What does that have to do with this?"

"If you got along with them, you wouldn't do this dumb thing of trying to make this place pay for itself."

Polly said, "That's right, Fab. If she trusted them to love her regardless, she'd just admit it can't be done and say she needs to go into her trust fund. And that would be that."

"And that's not under discussion here," Bliss said, feeling colder inside by the second. "Don't try to change the subject."

"All right." Polly sent her sister a warning glare. "You let me do the talking. The reason you're going to be chairperson of this committee is because Prue O'Leary's friend's daughter's

friend got lured to New York and ended up dead in some porno movie maker's studio."

Bliss rubbed her eyes.

"You're not to cry, Bliss. Men aren't worth it."

"Shut up, Fab. She's upset. She can cry if she wants to. Anyway, the man who did the luring is opening up a place just like the one Prue's friend's daughter's friend went to. Right here. In Bellevue. Almost on our doorstep. And you're going to help close it down and run him out of town."

Bliss shook her head wearily. She should have made herself read the newspaper article. "From what I was told, a branch of Raptor Vision is opening in Bellevue. The man who owns Raptor Vision doesn't—as far as I know—make pornographic movies."

"No, but—"

"And he wasn't the person involved in the death of this poor girl."

Fabiola shook her head. "Not directly, but—"

"In fact, the girl made up her own mind to go to New York because she had some idea of becoming a model. Then she got involved in the terrible situation that cost her life."

"Yes," Polly said, signaling for Fabiola to be quiet. "Prue's afraid that if there's a big-time New York modeling agency here they'll exploit more kids the way they exploited Prue's friend's—"

"Friend's daughter," Bliss interrupted. "I don't think we should pursue this without some sane consideration of the truth involved."

"Oh, Bliss." Fabiola's eyes glistened. "You loved this Sebastian, didn't you?"

Sebastian. Sebastian who in Bliss's mind was forever twenty, and tall, and tanned, and letting go of her hand as if he'd stop breathing until he could hold it again. Sebstian who had said, "Tonight," and then left town . . . and Bliss.

"It wasn't the friend's daughter," Polly said hurriedly, sounding anxious. "It was the friend's daughter's friend. Prue told the papers you've got privileged knowledge about this man, Bliss.

This Sebastian Plato. The one with the airline, and the advertising agency, and everything. Now, since the paper says he was brought up in Seattle and went to the same high school at the same time as you, it makes sense, doesn't it?"

"Does it?" Bliss struggled with a ridiculous urge to cry. After all these years. And over something that had been a stupid teenage piece of nonsense.

"He was expelled for raping a girl. Prue told us."

Bliss curled her fingernails into her palms. "School was already out for the summer."

The silence that followed stretched far too long.

Fabiola got up, came around the table, and draped an arm over Bliss's shoulders. "Oh, you poor, dear thing. You're so gentle. How could the beast have done that to you?"

"Sebastian wasn't expelled. School was over. We'd graduated. And I wasn't the girl he . .." She gently removed Fabiola's arm and scooted back to the computer in its niche beside the refrigerator. "I was just his girlfriend. The only part you've got right is that he dropped me when he left town. I haven't seen him since. I don't know anything about his life or his business since then, and I don't care, either. I'm not chairing a committee to oust him. I'm furious with Prue for telling the press I am. And I'm going to call up the papers and have them print a retraction saying it was a mistake. Would you both be kind enough to get back to work?"

She stared at her spreadsheet until the numbers ran together. The twins' sandals scuffed on the worn tile floor and the door to the terrace opened. A heated breeze scurried against Bliss's back, ruffled strands of hair that had worked loose of the rubber band at her nape.

Sebastian Plato. Darn him anyway, she had outgrown the need to cry at the thought of him a very long time ago. Bliss settled a hand on her neck and bowed her head. She wasn't crying at the thought of him now, only at the thought of how much he'd hurt the girl she'd once been.

A wet nose nuzzled her elbow and she jumped. Spike pushed her gray-and-white head onto Bliss's lap and sighed.

"Auntie Bliss?" Bobby Crow's young voice wasn't the welcome interruption it usually was. "I've found someone for us. Because we need more people. Auntie Bliss, I said we're not full up."

She scratched Spike's ears and pushed her gently away. Arranging a smile, she scooted her chair around to face tow-headed Bobby. "New residents have to apply . . ." Bobby held a man's hand, a tall man's hand.

Bliss flinched. Bigger, his body the mature body of a powerfully built man rather than that of a boy about to become that man; nevertheless, she'd have known Sebastian Plato anywhere.

Thi*ee

She'd have known him anywhere.

Blood pounded in her head. Even seated, she felt too far from the floor.

"Mom said we need more people," Bobby said, glancing anxiously at Polly, who stood beside Fabiola. The twins, who hadn't made it outside, gaped at Sebastian. "Didn't you, Mom?" Bobby persisted.

Polly cleared her throat and removed the apron from her brilliantly striped cotton caftan. "That's what I said." She and Fabiola exchanged wow! glances and raised their eyebrows. Their attention instantly snapped to Bliss.

They knew who he was. She could tell they knew, and that they were gauging her reaction to him.

Bobby settled his free hand on top of Sebastian's and looked up, way, way up at him.

Sebastian looked at Bliss. He looked at her as he had once before—the first time they'd met. Serious, assessing, insolent— only now the insolence blended with total confidence.

She flinched again. Across the room she felt him, felt the force of him like successive blows—one, two. Had there been a sound it would have been an oomph as air rushed from her lungs at the first punch. The second connected with her belly, her womb, the muscles in her thighs. Cold, hot, numb, the pain of returning blood. Weakness.

He spread the long fingers of his free hand over his flat belly

and Bliss remembered a belt buckle in the shape of a silver S, a silver snake. The belt he wore today was of soft black leather, with a leather-covered buckle. Below the buckle his well-worn jeans faded to paler shades in places. One of those places was the more noticeable because Sebastian Plato had something he couldn't entirely control. That was old news. Bliss made herself look at bleached-out denim over his thighs—safer that way.

"Mom wants Auntie Fab to put bricks in the loos," Bobby said, bracing one sneakered foot on top of the other and swinging on Sebastian's arm. "I bet you'd put your own brick in." He regarded Sebastian with obvious awe.

Fifteen years.

His lips parted, but he didn't appear to know the words to say, anymore than Bliss knew them. The eyes were just as green as she remembered, the mouth just as fascinating.

No. The eyes were greener, the mouth more fascinating, the slanted angles of his dramatic face more ferociously commanding for the addition of fifteen years of living lines.

Bliss pushed at the strands of hair that hung around her face. Her glasses needed cleaning again. Oh, God, she had on the old blue shirt and purple pedal pushers Fabiola had rightly criticized.

Not that it mattered. Sebastian couldn't have come here because he was drawn to what had once been between them. A childish thing.

"You'd put your own brick in the loo, wouldn't you?" Bobby asked, sounding almost fretful. His elfin features had pinched. A little sponge for atmosphere, so his mother said of him, and she was right. "Auntie Bliss, he would. Is it all right? Auntie Bliss?"

"Of course it's all right, Bobby," she said, smiling at him. "Thank you for taking care of things for me."

"Thanks, Bobby," Sebastian said.

Blow three.

The voice was the same.

No. Not the same, the same, but quieter? Yes, a quieter, darker version of the boy's voice, the boy overcoming so much with

sheer bravado. A quiet, firm, confident yet kind voice now. The dearest voice in the world.

Oh, damn, oh, damn, oh, damn. She'd prayed for him to come back, for the whole despicable story to be a lie. Then, when he hadn't come back, and the story only grew worse, she'd prayed never to see him again.

His small finger hooked under his belt. He was hard. He was hard and staring at her, and knowing she had to see his reaction to her. She almost turned away. Whatever or whoever was turning him on couldn't be her. She needed to remember he was "a red-blooded American male." He probably walked around constantly ready for sex.

Fabiola cleared her throat.

Bliss managed to smile at her. "If you could do that for me, Fabiola, I'd be grateful." Please don't let Fabiola ask what Bliss was talking about.

"No problem," Fabiola said, as if she understood perfectly. "We'll find a way, won't we Pol?"

"You've got it," Polly said, nodding gravely. "It'll take—ooh, a long time, I should think, shouldn't you, Fab?"

"Ooh, probably hours. But we'll come through for you, Bliss. See you later." She and Polly turned in unison and all but jammed in the doorway in their hurry to leave. Spike bounded across the room to follow.