At the touch of her hand, he flinched visibly and growled, “Get dressed.”
“Erik, I’m sorry. I didn’t want it to… It’s better this way. I couldn’t have lived—”
“Lived with yourself if you had been sullied by my lovemaking?” he finished for her in dulcet tones. Again he cursed viciously, while he paced the room like a caged beast. “Please spare me the guilty conscience. I’m not in a forgiving mood.” He glanced down at her and then roared, “Get dressed, goddammit! Or do you want to be raped? How much do you think I can stand?”
Kathleen scrambled to pick up her underclothes and pulled them on gracelessly. She was shoving her legs into her jeans when she, too, became angry. He was still glaring at her as if she were to blame for the fiasco. She faced him belligerently. “You’re the most selfish person I’ve had the misfortune to know. You don’t care about anyone but yourself, Erik!”
“Why should I?” he demanded. “You’ve taken away my son. I can’t have him. Who else should I give a damn for?”
“You… you could show a little consideration for me,” she said bravely.
He threw back his head and laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Don’t tell me. The next question I hear will be ‘Do you still respect me?’ Right?”
“Oh,” she ground out. “You’re despicable.”
“And what about you, Miss Righteousness? I wasn’t using any force down there.” He indicated the carpet at their feet. “From now on, I’m not jumping to the bait. I know you for what you are, Kathleen. You derive some perverse pleasure from driving a man to the brink of sanity and then you don’t come across. God knows how you must torment poor Seth.”
She gasped in mortification and took a step toward him, raising her arm, planning to deliver a stinging slap to his smug face. Her hand was caught in midair.
“At the risk of making my son an orphan, I won’t throttle you for trying that. But from now on, you can save yourself the trouble of wagging that sweet little ass in my face, because I’m not interested.”
“Go to hell!” she screamed, yanking her arm free.
He laughed. “I’ve been.”
Because she couldn’t immediately think of a rejoinder, Kathleen trembled with pent-up rage. Her jaws clamped and she strained each word through grinding teeth. “I don’t see how I could ever have let you touch me. You’re the most self-centered bastard I’ve ever known. You think you’re God’s great gift to women. Let me tell you something.” She shook her finger an inch from Erik’s nose. “There’s more to being a man than virility. Seth is five times the man you’ll ever be. He knows what tenderness and compassion and forgiveness are. And I don’t think he’d ever try to compromise a friend’s wife, either.”
The words reverberated in the room like a funeral knell. The silence that followed was ponderous. Erik’s head snapped back as though it had been pulled by the sharp tug of a puppet’s string. For long moments, neither said anything, only stared at the other.
When Erik finally moved, it was to bring his hands up to cover his face. Kathleen saw his chest rise and fall. He seemed to be starving for air. When he lowered his hands, he said dully, “You are exactly right, Kathleen. My behavior is unforgivable. You may find it hard to accept my apology, but I wish you’d try.”
She wanted to rush to assure him that the blame wasn’t his alone, but he turned away from her and went to the front door and opened it. Only then did he face her again, his shoulders slumped in dejection.
“It seems I’m not worthy competition for your husband on any level.” He didn’t wait for her to precede him, but walked out into the night, impervious to the cold. There was nothing to do but follow him.
Each
went to his separate car and drove to the Kirchoff residence. When they arrived and walked to the door together, they were less than polite strangers. Tension crackled between them. George met them in the hall and told them Seth was in the den.
“Hello!” Seth called out when they entered. “I’m glad you arrived when you did. George is about to best me in another tournament of chess. I think he cheats, but I’ll be damned if I can catch him at it.”
George only laughed before he offered to get them all something to drink. Seth declined graciously, Erik and Kathleen with reserved civility.
George retreated, and if Seth noticed the tight, taciturn attitude of his two companions, he didn’t show it. He launched directly into why he had asked them to meet with him. When he said what was on his mind, Kathleen fervently prayed that her ears were playing tricks on her.
“I… You… Seth, have you lost your mind? I can’t go to the Caribbean!”
“Why not?”
“Be… because I can’t, that’s why. What would I do there?” She dared not look at Erik to see his reaction to Seth’s unthinkable proposal that she accompany the production crew on the trip.
“The modeling agency called me a while ago. The stylist they are sending with the models is frantic. She’s afraid that she’ll be held responsible if any damage is done to the clothes that will be taken along. More than that, she’s sure she won’t remember which fashions are supposed to be featured in which commercial and how to coordinate them. She wore me out trying to explain her frustration. Erik, with all your headaches down there, worrying about your cameras, lights, the weather, transportation for twenty people, and so on, you won’t have time to think about all of that.”
He paused and drew a deep sigh. “Kathleen dearest, you are the only one I trust, that Erik will trust, to see that everyone has on what they are supposed to have on when he focuses them in his lens.”
Kathleen wrung her hands in agitation. She couldn’t, she couldn’t. There was no way she could go on the trip, be in constant contact with Erik after the emotionally wrenching scene in his apartment. Only a glutton for punishment, a masochist, would subject himself to that situation.
“Seth,” she laughed lightly, hoping no one heard the underlying hysteria, “I can’t go on a trip like that at this time of year. You need me here, to help in the stores. Besides, who would take care of Theron? I wouldn’t want to leave him for that long. I was miserable without him in New York. He’ll think I’ve deserted him.” She hated to use her child as a weapon, but she was engaged in a battle for her sanity, her life.