“No. I wouldn’t. I like that kind of music too. I watch old films. Classic films. I love anything with Ingrid Berman, and everything with Vivien Leigh.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. My mom got me into it.”
My daily routine when things are okay usually involves closing off the day with a film. When I was little though my mother always watched a couple a day and she liked the music too. The older the better.
“My parents got me into music too. They were always dancing. My Pa and his doll.”
That makes me smile. “That’s beautiful.”
“Yeah. There was a time when my family went through a real bad spell and we lost everything, but there were certain things they kept going to show us that the most important things we had were each other. My father loved my mother fiercely and he made sure his boys knew you always put your woman first no matter what’s going on. So, Friday night was date night. That’s when they danced. Music was always in my home though.”
That’s such a different life to what I’m used to and we both come from the same world. I guess not so much the same though. My family, mother and father alike, existed outside everything. What can I expect if my father is the leader of a notorious group of assassins? No matter how much love he professed to have for my mother, it counted for nothing when he killed her.
“It’s nice to live in a home like that, with parents like that. Music is always uplifting.” I think of something I could share he might recognize and an old jazz song my mother loved comes to mind. “My mother had this song she played practically every day. It was an old forties song from the end of the war. She liked it because it reminded her of her father. He served in the army.”
“What was it called?”
“It was called “It's been a long, long time”,” I reply and his eyes sparkles. “I always imagined it would be a nice song to dance to.”
I watch him as he moves over to the corner of the room and picks up his phone. I’m not sure what he’s doing until he presses a few buttons and suddenly the room comes alive when the song starts to play.
It melts my heart to hear it again. It’s been awhile since I have. Sometimes I can handle things that remind me of my mother. Most times I can’t.
Tonight, is one where I can, and it has a different feel to it because Tristan is here.
I can’t help but smile as the smooth jazz melody pours through my soul and I watch him gazing over at me.
“This song?” he asks, and I nod slowly.
It’s nice to hear the song, but my focus is completely on him as he makes his way back to me.
“This is the part where we should be dancing,” he says, and I stare back at him in disbelief.
“Dancing?”
“Dancing, you said it was a nice song to dance to. It is. Dance with me.” He puts out his hand for me to take and I do.
I smile as I step into his arms. One strong arm goes around my waist, while he keeps hold of my hand. I press my free hand to his shoulder feeling the heat and strength of his bare skin beneath my fingers.
We stare into each other’s eyes and allow the music to move us. It’s not hard to get lost in him all over again and forget everything that’s happened outside this moment we’re having.
We dance as if we’ve always danced to this song and as I look at him, I recognize the instant he becomes the man from the park, but now I see more than that. I look a little deeper and see the real him again. The place compassion came from allowing him to look back at me too and not see me as Mortimer Viggo’s daughter. Not his enemy’s daughter, but just me, Isabella.
I’m looking at him, the music is playing, and I can tell all of that from one look. He blinks and I’m almost scared the moment will leave like it has done previously, but it’s still there.
I gaze up at him and see the real Tristan. It seems he realizes too that he’s showing me himself. The man beyond the grief and despair.
We stop dancing, stop moving, but he continues to hold me. Maybe it’s the intensity of his stare, or the pull of attraction. I’m not sure what it is that breaks down my inner walls and I know as he’s looking back at me, he can see the real me too.
He can see the girl inside me screaming for help. She’s been locked inside me a long time. Locked away in the abyss of hopelessness. In the darkest corners of all that desolation searching for the light.
My father put her there, put me there. I’ve been there for the last twelve years, right from the night he killed my mother. I’ve been there waiting for someone to save me because I know I can’t save myself.
I look away when a tear slides down my cheek. It’s too much and I can’t acknowledge that part of me yet. That’s why I haven’t thought much past what’s happening from one day to the next. It’s because I don’t know what to do.
With all the connections my father has, I don’t know if Tristan and his people are strong enough to get to him and if they fail, my father will find me. I know he will. Then I’ll be trapped in the dark for the rest of my life.