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“Yes.” She remembered the ghost of Grace that haunted his eyes from the day they met. “I knew…at the back of my mind, the back of my heart.”
“Where you love Wesley, yes?”
“Yes.”
“And me?” he asked, his voice soft and earnest in that way it so rarely was with her these days. “Where do you love me?”
Nora did not hesitate before answering. She closed her eyes and whispered, “Everywhere else.”
S?ren looked at her as if he’d already known that would be her answer, as if for all eternity it would be her answer. Perhaps it would, she thought.
“Come to my office,” S?ren said. “We can talk about it.”
Nora smiled. “Your office. I remember when you’d make me cocoa and help me with my math homework on that bench right outside your office.”
“I always knew when you were working on your math homework. The litany of profanities echoing through the halls was always an excellent indicator. Shall we? I’ll see what’s in the cupboard.”
He held out his hand and Nora reached into her pocket. She laid her collar on his waiting palm.
“I didn’t come here for the cocoa.” Nora met his eyes. For perhaps only the second time in eighteen years, she saw she’d surprised him.
S?ren said nothing, merely closed his fingers around her collar. She’d seen those same fingers wrapped around his rosary a thousand times. He held her collar with the same love, the same devotion, the same grim determination to make heaven bend to his ear.
Without a word, S?ren turned on his heel.
Nora followed him through the sanctuary and through door after door. A final door opened to a shadowy tree-shrouded pathway that led from the church to the rectory. How many times had she furtively stolen from the church to his home? A million times, she thought. A million was still not enough.
Secluded by a copse of old-world elms and oaks, S?ren’s rectory stood graceful and quiet in the sheltered sanctuary created by the trees. A small two-story Gothic cottage, it afforded him both beauty and privacy—two very precious commodities.
Nora waited in submissive silence as S?ren built a fire in the living-room fireplace. Glancing around, Nora saw the secret signs of their long association: the B?sendorfer piano she’d given him as a gift last December 21 for his forty-sixth birthday, the tassel of an embroidered bookmark she’d made for him at church camp the summer she turned sixteen peeking out from a volume of John Donne poetry, a lock on the bottom door of a cabinet under one of the bookcases. Only she and he knew what he kept behind that lock. And on the fireplace mantel were ten slight scratches in the wood left by her desperate fingernails on a night he had shown her no mercy. She knew she might add another ten there tonight.
S?ren came to her and gazed down at her face. She kept her eyes respectfully lowered. It had been the first submissive act he’d taught her.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
“To give myself to you, sir.”
“You wish to be mine again?”
“Yes.”
“Completely?”
“And utterly, sir,” she said. “Without conditions or constraints.” The words came so easily to her she knew they must be true. Coming back felt as easy as falling, as simple as death.
“You weren’t mine last night, were you?” S?ren demanded and Nora blushed.
“No, sir,” she whispered.
“You were with your editor last night. Yes?”
“Yes.”
“And did you do as I told you? Did you make him hurt you?”
“Yes, sir.”
From the corner of her eye she saw him raise his eyebrow at her in clear skepticism.
“Show me.”
Nora held out her hands and displayed her wrists, the purple bruises on her skin.
“He held you down,” S?ren said. “Your arms were over your head.”
“Yes,” Nora said, amazed how S?ren could read that simply from the angle of the marks.
“What else?”
Nora unbuttoned her blouse and let it fall to the floor. She unzipped her skirt and stepped out of it. Without shame or fear she shed all her underclothes, as well. She stood naked before S?ren and waited. He studied her body with appraising eyes. Stepping behind her, he raised her hair off her back.
“He bit your shoulder, I see. Several times. He took you from behind.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Anal?”
“Once.”
S?ren moved to her front again. He reached down and slipped his hand behind her knee. He raised her leg, inspecting the inside of her thigh with the perfunctory expertise of a judge at a dog show.
“Finger marks,” he said, releasing her leg. “And knees. You fought him.”
“I made him work for it.”
“Did you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Will you fight me tonight?”
“No, sir. Not now or ever again.”
S?ren said nothing as he continued to study her naked body.
“A few bite marks, a few bruises…I’m afraid your Zachary is something of an amateur in the art of pain. Isn’t he? Not like us.”
The vicious slap landed across her cheek with such speed that Nora gasped as much from the shock of it as she did the pain. She inhaled and tasted blood in the back of her throat. She swallowed it and met S?ren’s eyes.
“No, not like us…sir.”
S?ren smiled and snapped his fingers. Without a moment’s hesitation she dropped hard to her knees. He wrapped her collar around her throat and buckled it at the base of her neck. She breathed into its grip; let it hold her throat like a hand.
Nora heard the air divide in half and she braced herself for the blow.
How easily you forgive, Eleanor. How freely you absolve the sins of others. Tell me, little one, when the time comes, how will you absolve yours?
With the first lash of the whip Nora felt a strip of fire burn across her back. She cried out from a pain so ferocious she nearly choked on it.
Like this, S?ren, she dared answer only in her mind. This is how.
* * *
Yawning, Zach stumbled into his flat. He’d spent all night with Grace at her hotel talking it out. In all his life he’d never been so grateful for a sleepless night. He glanced at the clock on the wall—10:38 a.m. He smiled at the clock. He’d missed his flight to L.A.
He’d already called J.P. and told him he needed some time to decide what to do next. Thankfully, J.P. didn’t seem the least surprised. Zach had gone with Grace to JFK and seen her off. She’d kissed him goodbye, something she hadn’t done when he’d left almost eight months ago. He floated home on that kiss and curled up with it on the couch. He would sleep first, catch an hour or two then call Nora. He didn’t know what to say. But he knew she would understand.
Before he could close his eyes the phone rang. Zach grabbed at it, nearly dropping it in the process of trying to answer it.
“Yes? Hello?”
“Zach, it’s me. Wes.”
“Wesley, what is it?” Zach asked, coming fully alert again at the sheer panic in the boy’s voice.
“I’m at the hospital. I had to bring Nora in.”
“My God, what happened?”
Zach heard Wesley cough like he was gagging on something. But it only took one word to explain all.
“S?ren.”
* * *
The ride to the hospital was nearly as torturous as the ride to Grace’s hotel had been the day before. Zach found the emergency ward where Wesley said they took Nora. He stood in the middle of the vast antiseptic room prepared to do battle with any doctor or nurse who dared ask him to leave. He wasn’t sure exactly where Nora was, what curtain to look behind. He listened, hoping to hear her voice or even her tears, anything to lead him to her. Instead, he heard her laugh.
Zach followed her fading laughter and heard the low rumble of a man’s voice. After a moment a man in a dark blue suit emerged. Zach saw a flash of gleaming metal on his belt. After a quick, steadying breath, Zach slipped through the curtain.
“Good Lord, Nora,” he said as he took in the bruised and bandaged sight before him.
“Hey, Zach. What the hell are you doing here?”
“Wesley called me in hysterics. I can see why.”
“He overreacted. Nearly dragged me here kicking and screaming. He thought it was a broken rib, but it’s just bruised. Seriously, it’s not that bad.” She adjusted the pillow behind her.
Not that bad? Her cheek was purpled and her bottom lip was cracked and swollen. He saw red welts on both wrists and even around her neck.
“A bruised rib? You must be joking.”
“That was my fault, though. I flinched wrong. I’m a bit out of practice. This stuff just goes with the territory. No big deal.”
“No big deal? That was a police officer, wasn’t it?”
Nora flashed him her old arrogant smile, a smile undiminished by the fissure of blood on her lip. “That’s Detective Cooper, my friend on the force. He works with the community, keeps us out of trouble.”
“You’re a madwoman, Nora. Why did you do this?”
Nora gave a cold, hollow laugh, grimacing as the movement seemed to hurt her.
“Remember that day in my kitchen,” she said, pausing to catch her breath. “That first day we were working on my book. You asked me what Wes’s story was.”
“Yes, I recall. Why?”
“I told you I’d put the first randy bitch who laid a hand on him in the hospital. Turns out it was me. Hey, never let it be said I can’t keep a promise.”
“Nora…you will be the death of me,” Zach said, wanting to laugh, too, but finding it utterly impossible.
“You keep saying that. And yet you’re still alive. What the hell are you doing here anyway? Where’s Grace?”
“I dropped her off at the airport.”
“You let her leave without you? Are you insane?”
“I can’t just bloody go—”
“Yes, you bloody well can,” Nora countered. “Just go. Don’t pack your toothbrush. Don’t call work. Just get on a goddamn plane and go get your wife back. For good this time.”
Zach stared at the tiles on the floor. His eyes followed the spots of black and white, letting them swirl together and become gray.
“Go, Zach. You have no idea how much I want to keep you here. Selflessness is not in my nature. Go before I change my mind.”
“What about Wesley?”
“He’ll be fine, too. We’ll be fine. And we finished the book. Your job is done.”
Zach looked up and met her eyes. “You must hate me.”
“I understand. Trust me.”
Zach felt a terrible tightening in his chest. “I couldn’t have gone back to her, wouldn’t have known how if it wasn’t for you. I’m sure that makes no bloody sense whatsoever.”
“Oh, it makes perfect sense.” Nora laughed. “I taught you how to leave me.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I’m not. S?ren told me you were still in love with Grace. I should have listened.”
