Finding Herself Page 9

  ‘And this could be it,’ she raced on. ‘I mean, to me … it feels like this could be it.’

  He nodded. ‘I think this definitely could be love. I’ve never been in love either.’

  She swallowed hard. ‘Two novices. This should be interesting … I mean, if it is love.’ She sighed. Sophie felt more inept than she ever thought possible.

  ‘I say we find out,’ Tate said.

  He took her hand. Squeezed it hard. A lightning bolt of excitement shot through Sophie. And it felt so good. It felt right.

  A Brighter Spark by Mary Borsellino

  Chapter One

  By Thursday evening, Suzy wanted to hunt down everyone who’d ever said that mother-daughter bonds were wonderful, magical things, and lock those lying assholes in a room with Lily. Let them handle the job of herding a moody, sarcastic 12-year-old goth to her violin lesson for a change.

  Suzy had already known she’d end up feeling like that on Thursday evening, and yet the frustration somehow always managed to sneak up on her anew.

  ‘I’m not going without my Miss Piggy purse,’ Lily declared with a scowl, not budging from her spot on the sofa.

  ‘Well, where did you last have it?’ Suzy asked, trying to keep her annoyance out of her voice. Lily always found some excuse to make them run late – if it wasn’t her Miss Piggy purse that was missing, it was her skull hair clips, or her octopus pencil case, or her purple lipstick, or her green nail polish. It was all just one of the hundreds of little battles of will that happened between the pair of them.

  ‘I don’t know where I had it,’ Suzy’s daughter told her. ‘If I knew, then it wouldn’t be lost.’

  Suzy took a deep breath and pointed at the front door. ‘Get in the car. You’re not going to be late for your lesson just because you can’t keep your things in order.’

  Lily glared, dragging her feet as she walked out the door, and continuing to drag them the whole way down the front path through the yard. Suzy followed and then overtook her, climbing into the car and starting it up when Lily finally deigned to join her.

  ‘I don’t see why I have to go at all,’ the girl sulkily complained.

  ‘Because you begged me for weeks and weeks, not a full year ago, until I agreed to get you violin lessons, that’s why,’ Suzy retorted. As always, despite her resolve to be a grown-up and not let Lily’s needling get to her, she was getting drawn into the fight. ‘If you don’t want them any more, good. It’ll save us money.’

  ‘Martial arts is way cooler than violin. It’s so sexist that Steven gets to go there on Thursdays while I do this.’

  ‘It’s what you wanted!’ Suzy protested, before forcing herself to stop the whine creeping into her voice. ‘Now stop being a drama queen about it. Your dad’s going to pick you up straight from class to go back to his place, OK?’

  ‘Good,’ Lily said peevishly, pulling a thick book out of her backpack and burrowing her nose in it. At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft.

  ‘What sweet, wholesome reading for a little girl,’ Suzy noted in a dry tone. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be into pop stars and ponies at your age?’

  ‘I like ponies just fine,’ Lily said disinterestedly, not looking up from her page.

  ‘I don’t think fire-breathing hell-steeds from air-brushed fantasy novel covers actually count as “ponies”, dear,’ retorted Suzy. Lily ignored her and kept on ignoring her for the rest of the car ride.

  By the time Suzy got back to the house, now silent except for her own footsteps, she was completely drained of energy. All she wanted was to slouch down on the battered old chaise longue out the back and smoke a cigarette and stare up at the stars. But no, she’d quit, and she was going to hold firm to that one, no matter how exhausting her not-even-a-proper-teen-yet daughter was being, no matter how stressful work was, no matter how rarely her son would emerge from his quiet, shy shell and actually talk to people. Nope, no cigarettes for Suzy.

  She thought about running herself a bath, but it seemed more effort than it was worth. Everything felt like that, to be perfectly honest, and the idea of spending the entire evening on her own with nothing but her own miserable thoughts for company was absolutely horrible.

  Acting on a whim, Suzy grabbed her jacket and the prettiest of her scarves, the pink silk one, and set off towards the train station. She’d been a teen queen of nightlife, once upon a time. Surely tonight she could find something fun to do.

  She clung to that optimism for as long as she could, even when it was becoming pretty apparent that the evening was shaping up to be a total washout. She’d found a bar that, in her rosy memories of past years, had been a vibrant, exciting place, but now just seemed noisy and crowded and overpriced.

  Suzy felt like lapsing into a tantrum, the kind of foot-stamping, shouting-and-sobbing display that her kids had grown out of years and years ago. “ It’s not fair!” she wanted to cry out plaintively. She was only 30 years old. Surely that wasn’t so ancient? Even if it had seemed so when she was younger, well, that was just the short-sightedness of kids, wasn’t it? Her best years couldn’t be behind her already.

  Her glass of wine went down easily, at least, taking the edge off the worst of her self-pity. She thought about ordering another but decided against it. If it was her fate to be old before her time, she might as well give making responsible choices a shot to go along with it.

  Dejected, Suzy left the bar and began her walk back through the maze of streets to the train station. She could remember navigating this same route when she was a teenager, staying out until the dawn with cheap shoes on her feet and a cheaper fake ID in her pocket, Drew at her side and their whole lives ahead of them. Now she was alone and weary and her shoes were pinching her feet more and more with every step.

  Finally, halfway on her journey, it abruptly all felt like far more than Suzy could handle. She sat down on the bench of a bus stop. She was too tired to even cry properly, just a few hot, unhappy tears squeezing out over her lashes when she blinked, probably getting her mascara everywhere and making her an even more pathetic sight than she already was.

  Hoping to fight off any potential make-up disasters, Suzy unwound the long silk scarf from around her neck, to wipe her face clean.

  Before she’d completed the action, one of the handful of other pedestrians out and about at this hour (it wasn’t even that late and she was already done for the night; what a hopeless wreck she’d turned out to be) broke his stride and came over to her, offering out a small folded white rectangle in his extended hand.

  ‘Are you all right? Do you need help?’ he asked. Suzy took the offered tissue, surprised by the weight and texture of it. Not a tissue after all – a handkerchief, white cotton, with navy initials embroidered in one corner. D.A.

  The surprise of it – who even carried a handkerchief any more? – made Suzy look up and properly notice her unexpected saviour.

  He had warm, mid-brown skin, the kind of shade that came from having Egyptian somewhere in the family history, or maybe Arabic. His eyes were grey, light enough that they were almost silvery, picking up tones of sea foam green and cerulean blue from the world around. His expression was concerned, kind, a gentle smile on his wide mouth.

  He was dressed in a white dress shirt with a slim, 50s-style black tie and black trousers. He looked like he belonged in a Tom Ford photoshoot.

  ‘Seemed a shame to let you ruin such a lovely scarf,’ he went on as Suzy dried her tears and did the best she could to salvage her make-up.

  ‘I must look a fright, sorry,’ she apologised, handing back the kerchief when she knew she’d done all that could be managed.

  ‘No, no, you look lovely,’ he answered her, and somehow he made those old, stale platitudes that get handed out to messy, crying women sound genuinely sincere. ‘But are you all right?’

  Snuffling a laugh, Suzy wiped at a final stray tear underneath one eye and shook her head. ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. It’s the stupidest reason, honestly. I just … re
alised I’m a grown-up and that I don’t want to be, but there’s no going back.’

  ‘I hear you on that one.’ He laughed kindly and sat down on the bench, keeping a respectful amount of distance between them, not intruding into her personal space without invitation. ‘My kids eventually got to the point where they demanded that we stop going to the circus every summer, because they’d gotten far too old for it. I was heartbroken.’

  She smiled at him. ‘Oh no! You poor thing. You have my sympathies.’

  He gave a nod of thanks, then held out his hand. ‘I’m Daniel, by the way.’

  ‘Suzy.’

  ‘I’m actually just on my way to get a bite to eat –’

  ‘Oh, don’t let me keep you!’ she said, feeling guilty all over again. This poor guy, getting dragged into the stupidest piece of public drama ever when he had somewhere else to be.

  ‘No, no, what I meant was … It’s late for having dinner, I know. I keep terrible hours sometimes. But I was wondering if you’d like to join me for a drink?’

  Her alcohol tolerance had gone down dramatically since her wilder years, and so, on top of the one she’d had earlier – during her fruitless attempt to regain her enthusiasm for life – Suzy knew she’d probably end up at least a little tipsy. But she was tired of being responsible all the damn time, and the kids were at their dad’s for the night anyway. Why not take Daniel up on his invitation?

  She gave him a broad smile and nodded. ‘That sounds like fun.’

  When Daniel grinned there were delicate lines at the corners of his eyes, lovely little crow’s feet. They made him not just handsome but truly beautiful, in the most masculine way Suzy had seen.

  There was a small Italian place just a couple of blocks away, smelling invitingly of garlic and tomato and fresh delicious cooking. Instead of heading to one of the numerous empty tables, Daniel headed for the bar and pulled out Suzy’s stool for her so she could sit down.

  ‘This way we don’t have a barrier between us. I always feel like I’m being interrogated when I try to have a conversation across a table,’ Daniel explained.

  ‘I guess you’d prefer it if I didn’t start asking you questions about yourself, then,’ Suzy teased. That made him laugh.

  ‘I’ll survive somehow.’

  ‘All right. What do you do with yourself, when you’re not rescuing crying women?’

  Another grin, giving her another look at his lovely crow’s feet. ‘I’m an economist. I want to claim it’s more interesting than it sounds, but I suspect that’s only true in the case of people who think economics is interesting to begin with. And they don’t need convincing anyway.’ He gave a self-deprecating grin. ‘But it keeps me interested, and it pays my bills. If the worst I can say about it is that my children think I’m a fuddy-duddy, then I probably shouldn’t complain at all.’

  Suzy smiled. ‘My kids are why I have my job. I’ve always been interested in medicine and science, but they were pre-term births and had a lot of health problems as a result. They’re mostly OK now, and science is to thank for that. The whole experience just made me really want to do something that helps, you know? But I … Well, I grew up very quiet. I’m kind of a loner, for the most part. Except for a few really wild teenage years of going out a lot, I guess I’ve never liked big groups, or even ordinary sized groups, of people. So being a doctor wasn’t ever gonna be an option, not with hospital rounds and waiting rooms and all. So I’m a researcher in a university lab.’

  ‘I grew up very isolated too,’ Daniel replied, touching her hand across the table top. ‘Isn’t it funny, that it left you wanting to be alone, and left me loving crowds? I always wanted to be an actor or performer, when I was a child. But it just wasn’t meant to be.’

  That made her smile broadly. ‘You wanted to run away and join the circus, huh?’

  He laughed. ‘Yes, I suppose I did. Never really grew out of that one, did I?’

  ‘OK, favourite movie,’ Suzy prompted.

  ‘Singing in the Rain,’ Daniel answered immediately. ‘No question. And you?’

  ‘Does it count if I say “the Harry Potter series”?’ she asked.

  ‘You’re the one who asked about films in the first place, so ultimately the rules of the question are up to you,’ said Daniel. ‘But choosing eight of them does seem to stretch the definition of favourite somewhat.’

  ‘I guess you’re right.’ She theatrically slumped her shoulders in defeat. ‘I’ll have to think about it.’

  ‘What about music?’ he suggested. ‘Is that easier?’

  Suzy made a face. ‘Not really! I can’t remember how long it’s been since I listened to music that wasn’t the electronic background tracks of my son’s video games, or the gothy punk stuff my daughter has blaring out of her earphones every hour of the day. Please tell me yours, to help me remember that there’s actually other music in the world.’

  ‘It’s even more fuddy-duddy than my profession and my favourite movie, I’m afraid,’ Daniel admitted. ‘I love vaudeville and ragtime music. I even have a restored gramophone to play the original records on.’

  ‘How very high-tech,’ Suzy teased playfully.

  ‘For 1909, I’m sure it was,’ answered Daniel with a laugh.

  The whole conversation, every gesture and smile and look in Daniel’s eyes, gave Suzy a huge sense of reckless attraction and of possibility. It was the first moment of real freedom she’d felt in so long; sitting there with him it no longer felt like she was trapped by her life and weighted down by her responsibilities. She was able to do anything. If she wanted, she could even invite this beautiful, alluring man into her bed for the night.

  And oh, how she wanted to do that.

  She leant close, her lips brushing the warm shell of his ear as she whispered to him.

  ‘You should come home with me,’ Suzy said softly. ‘Right now.’

  It had been years since she’d bothered to redecorate her bedroom – two simultaneous requirements for school camps and orthodontics and new shoes and allowance had kind of made a dent in her soft furnishings budget for the last decade or so – and now, as they stepped into it together, it looked childish and worn to Suzy’s eyes. Not much had changed since she was in her early 20s, so the bed was covered with a faded spread pattered with peonies and roses, and the nightstand held a haphazard tower of paperbacks which she’d read and not bothered to re-shelve when she was done.

  The corners of the room held stray toys and books and crap left in there by her kids, shoved out of the main thoroughfare whenever she’d bothered to vacuum the carpet.

  To Suzy’s gaze it was clearly a pathetic, lonely room. But Daniel didn’t notice; he only had eyes for her.

  He reached one of his hands behind her, to catch the top of the zipper on the backline of her dress, parting the teeth slowly, the sleeves slipping down off her arms in a long, graceful motion. At the same time he kept kissing her, languid and careful, as if he was content to do nothing but taste every soft sigh and whimper and gasp that slipped from her lips.

  As her dress pooled at her feet, Suzy moved her arms from where they’d held his sides, trying to cover herself, her new nudity making her self-conscious. Daniel took a half-step back, making enough space between their bodies for him to take hold of each of her forearms gently. He moved them apart, stopping her from hiding behind them. To her surprise, she found that she was trembling slightly.

  He leant in and gave her another kiss, this one slow and light, scarcely more than a brush of lips. Suzy opened her mouth wider, tried to lick the edge of his front teeth, but neither that nor the small, insistent pleading noises she made did anything to make him increase his pace or deepen the intensity of his touches.

  He was being so careful with her. Treating her like something precious, something so delicate it was almost fragile.

  Suzy didn’t want that. She didn’t want that at all. She didn’t want to be cherished. She wanted him to shatter her, and then put the pieces back together.
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br />   She twisted out of his grip, pressing her bare skin against his still-clothed form, untucking his shirt and undershirt and slipping her hands beneath them both, scratching her nails down his sides lightly and giving a wicked smirk of victory when the action made his breath catch and his calm ministrations falter. His body was warm against her hands, solid in a way her own flesh had never felt to touch. Grounded and real. She wanted to touch every part of him, to absorb some of that solidity for herself, to undo him and make him lose control.

  She nuzzled at the soft underside of his jaw, at the vulnerable pulse point below his ear. Daniel’s scent was clean and sharp, soap and aftershave, but there was the hint of something darker and more carnal underneath those neat-edged smells. There were secret complexities to him, secrets in the hitches of his breath and the hectic flush tinting his coppery cheekbones.

  He loosened his tie and undid the buttons of his shirt. His sleeves had cufflinks, a tiny silver set of a spoon and a fork.

  Suzy kissed at the pulse point of his wrist, trailing up the delicate skin of the inside of his forearm with tiny butterfly kisses, sprinkling the little pecks of her lips across his flesh. His hand grasped at the curve of her waist, at the softness where her hip swelled out. Usually, Suzy was critical of her body, embarrassed and self-conscious of its imperfections, but the way Daniel touched her with such desire and want changed her opinion completely. Nothing that made his eyes dilate, his lips part, the way her slightly squishy mid-section apparently did, could ever be something she could hate. His lust transformed her, made her feel beautiful.

  Daniel had a trail of dark, curly hair down his chest, and an old, pale scar across one side of his ribs, the contrast making the rest of his skin seem to almost glow with allure.

  They helped each other disrobe until they were both undressed completely. Suzy wished the bulb overhead was a lower wattage, because dimmer light would have been kinder to her insecurities, but at least this way she was able to drink in the sight of him with aching clarity. Daniel had a particular kind of masculine physique that wasn’t the popular fashion at the moment, but which Suzy had always had a strong attraction to – the wide chest and waist of the stars of yore. The Rock Hudson look.