Until You

"Let me get this straight," he said carefully. "Eva drove off and left you?"

"Yes."

"Just left you?"

"We didn't see each other again, or even speak to each other, for years," Miranda said in a shaky voice.

Conor's eyes narrowed. "Surely, she sent you money to live on," he said, remembering what Eva had told him.

"No. But that was okay," she added with a touch of defiance. "I wouldn't have accepted it if she had. Anyway, I was lucky. Jean-Phillipe found me standing on the street corner where Eva had left me. It had started to rain and he took pity on me." She gave a little laugh. "It's not a very pretty story, is it?"

"Dammit, how could Eva have done such a thing? Kids get into trouble, it happens all the time, but to turn her back on her own daughter, to abandon her for an elopement and a few indiscretions—"

"There were no indiscretions!" Miranda hunched forward. "I'd done some dumb things. Drinking beer. Breaking curfew. Smoking a joint one time."

"And inhaling," Conor said, trying to bring a smile to her face, telling himself that he was a civilized man and that there were laws that said he couldn't rip out Eva Winthrop's throat or fly back to France and beat Edouard de Lasserre to a bloody pulp.

"And inhaling," Miranda said, with a little smile, "and then getting sick enough to never want to do it again." She hesitated, and he knew that whatever she was about to say was the thing that she'd been heading for from the start of her unexpected confession. "But when it came to boys—to sex..." Her hand suddenly trembled within his. "Edouard had always been so gentle, until that night. He hardly touched me and when he kissed me, it was like being brushed by a butterfly's wing. I wouldn't let him do more than that. Something had happened, you see, years before... What I'm trying to tell you is that I was a virgin when I married Edouard, and terrified of sex."

The restaurant was a quiet one; it was one of the reasons Conor had chosen it. Hardly any sounds penetrated to this dimly lit corner. Now, suddenly, a vertiginous roaring filled Conor's ears.

"Are you telling me that son of a bitch took your virginity by raping you?"

She nodded.

"And that was it? That one ugly experience was all you had, until—"

"Until you."

She was trying to smile, but tears rose in her eyes. She began weeping silently, as if her heart were going to break.

Conor got to his feet, dug out his wallet and tossed a handful of bills on the table. Then he drew her from her seat, put his arm around her, and took her home.

* * *

He awoke abruptly in the middle of the night. Something had awakened him, but what? Miranda lay in the curve of his arm, her head pillowed on his shoulder.

Conor's muscles tensed.

She'd been telling him about de Lasserre, who had raped her. She'd been a virgin, she'd said, and terrified of sex.

Something had happened. That was what she'd said. Something had happened, years before.

Miranda stirred beside him. "Conor?"

He shifted to his side and drew her closer, so they were lying breath to breath.

"Yes, baby. I'm sorry if I woke you."

"No, that's okay. I wasn't sleeping anyway." Her hand cupped his face. "I'm sorry about what happened in the restaurant." She kissed him, and he felt her lips curve in a smile. "Such terrific shrimp and because of me, we didn't get to finish it.

"

Conor laughed softly, though his nerve ends were humming.

"I don't know how you stay so skinny, Beckman."

"I'm not skinny at all. Manuel says I've put on weight."