A Debt Paid in Passion

Last night had been intense. Even after he’d fetched Lucy for a feed a couple of hours ago and come back fully expecting they’d both finally catch a few winks, Sirena had reached for him as though they hadn’t been colliding all night. They’d nearly killed each other with the force of their most recent release.

Then they had finally passed out. When his body had woken him out of habit at six, he’d considered canceling today’s meetings, but two very in-demand people had flown in on his request. He had to make time for them.

He didn’t like leaving Sirena without saying goodbye, but he was loath to wake her when he was the reason she needed her rest. Shrugging on his suit jacket, he moved closer to gauge how deep into REM she was.

Her face was contorted with agony and her limbs gave a twitch of sleep-paralyzed struggle. Alarmed, he sat to grasp her shoulder, sharply saying, “Sin!” to snap her awake.

“Nooo!” she cried and her hand came up so fast it caught him in the mouth before he knew it.

“What the hell?” He dabbed a finger against his lip, expecting she’d split it.

Her wild eyes came to rest on him, terror slowly receding as she curled her offending hand into her chest. “Did I hit you? Oh, my God, I’m so sorry.” Her horror was as real as the remnants of panic still whitening her lips.

“You were having a nightmare. What was it?”

Shadows of memory crept into her eyes before she shielded them with her lashes. Without enlightening him, she drew the blankets up to her neck, shivering and looking to the clock. “What time is it? I didn’t realize it was so late. Did your alarm go off?”

“Sin?” He smoothed her hair away from her sweaty temple. “Tell me.”

“I don’t want to think of it. Will you check Lucy while I have a quick shower?”

“You should sleep in.”

“I don’t want to try in case it comes back.” She slid from the far side of the bed, leaving him uneasy.

* * *

Despite the passion that remained acute as ever between them, Sirena couldn’t shake the sense of an ax about to fall. She brushed aside her worries by day, telling herself to trust that Raoul really had put his suspicions away, but her subconscious tortured her at night. He woke her from horrible nightmares at least once a night, bleak, frightening dreams where he wrenched Lucy from her arms and condemned Sirena to utter abandonment. Sometimes she was in prison, sometimes she was outside his gates, rain soaking her to the skin, cold metal numbing her fingers, his feelings for her completely beyond her reach.

He’d reassure her and be considerate and affectionate and would make love to her so sweetly she thought she would die, but she still wound up alone and rejected when she closed her eyes.

“I don’t know what else I can say,” he bit out over a week later after a sullen dinner when he had remarked on the dark circles under her eyes.

They were in Paris, the city of lovers, sharing after-dinner coffee in the lounge. The nanny had taken an evening off with friends. The housekeeper had tidied up the dishes before leaving for the night. Outside the rain-specked window, the ink-black path of the Seine wound in gilded streaks past the purple and red and yellow lights of the buildings on the far shore.

“Tell me the bracelet has turned up,” she said with a melancholy shrug, trying to be dismissive but actually feeling quite desperate.

Thick silence. He’d made her tell him what the dreams were about, but it hadn’t helped either of them cope. His lack of response almost sounded accusatory to her.

“It’s not like I want to be like this,” she pointed out defensively.

Her phone rang in the depths of her purse. She stood to find it, hoping to avoid another dead-end conversation about something she couldn’t control.

“You could try trusting me. That’s what this comes down to.”

She caught back a snort and insisted, “I do,” but her heart twisted as though it knew she was lying. What could she do about that? If he loved her, she might be able to believe that he wasn’t on the verge of rejecting her. But what he felt for her was passion—and that wasn’t a forever type of feeling, was it?

“You don’t even trust me enough to talk about this without seizing any excuse to walk away,” he said pointedly.

“What is there to say?” She dropped her purse onto the sofa and folded her arms. “I’m supposed to ignore the fact there’s no one else it could be? Is your mother losing her memory? Not a bit that I’ve noticed. Could it be the housekeeper? The one who’s been with her for ten years? Oh, I know, it’s Miranda, who gets paid a fortune on top of that trust you set up for her.”

A flash of something moved in his eyes. She didn’t try to interpret it, too busy rushing on with the facts piled up against her.

“Did a thief break in and steal one bracelet in a houseful of electronics and art? No! Unless you took it, the only other person it could be is me.” She pointed to her chest. “I’m ready to confess just to get the breakup and court proceedings over with.”

A cloak of such tangible chill fell over him, he virtually turned gray and breathed fog. “A divorce? Is that the kind of court proceedings you’re referring to?”

Her fingernails clawed into her upper arms. It wasn’t, but if he reached for the D-word that quickly, it must be something he was considering. The pain that crept into her then didn’t even have a name, it was too all encompassing and deadly.

Into their staring contest, his phone rang. He didn’t move, but it broke the spell. She looked away, body pulsing with anguish.

“Is it?” he demanded through his teeth, ignoring his phone.

“How else will you react when it never turns up?” she said in a strained voice.

When she dared to look at him, he was so far inside himself there was no reaching him. It was as if the man who had been her protector and sounding board and partner had checked out and left the brute from the end of his driveway.

Her heart retracted into a core of ice, cracking from its own cold density.

His phone went silent and her tablet burbled.

“Oh, for God’s sake!” she cried, rounding to the coffee table and glancing at the screen to see it was her sister. A different chill moved into her chest. The timing was wrong for a friendly visit—

She swiped at the screen. “Ali?” she asked before the vision of her sister came into focus, crying.

“It’s Dad. He’s had a heart attack. Mum’s in the ambulance. I’m going to meet them at the hospital.”

Sirena wasn’t aware of swaying, only felt herself steady as firm hands grasped her and eased her onto the sofa. Raoul caught the tablet as it tumbled from her numb fingers.

“She’ll be there as soon as I can make arrangements,” he said in a rasping voice, ending the call. He tried to take her hands, but Sirena jerked from his touch, practically leaping to her feet.

“I have to pack.”

“You’re in shock.”

“I need to do something.”

“Fine. I’ll order the flight.” He ran a hand over his face, looking surprisingly awful. Maybe it was memories of losing his own father.

That thought made her stomach bottom out. Not dwelling on it, she went through the motions of packing, counting nappies for Lucy, fretting about the time it would take to circle half the globe. Would she reach her father in time?

Calling back the nanny didn’t make sense. As nice as she was, she wasn’t family. Sirena just wanted Raoul. For all their horrid conflict, he was a pillar. She couldn’t dismiss how supportive he was as he booked a private jet, bundled them into a limo and buckled Lucy securely beside her in the plane’s cabin.

“Text when you land so I know you arrived safely,” he said.

“You’re not coming?” Her barely there control shredded to near nothing.

“There’s something I have to do.”

Divorce. The ugly word came back, more noxious than ever. This was it, the expulsion from his life she had feared. Or rather, expected. Bile rose to the back of her throat, sitting in a hot burn despite her convulsive swallow. At least she had Lucy.

Without saying a word, she set her hand on their daughter and looked straight ahead. Funny how after all this time of aching for forgiveness, she didn’t care what he believed. She only wanted him to be with her, but he walked away.

As she watched him depart, everything in her was mute and bereft. Minutes later the plane was climbing and the delicate silken ropes binding her to him stretched, thinned and finally snapped.

* * *

Forty-eight hours later, the only good news in her life was that her father’s surgery had gone well and he would recover in time.

On the other hand, she had a baby who cried if she so much as thought about putting her down. As if the awkwardness of reacquainting with Faye wasn’t hard enough without the buffer of her father to smooth the way, her sister insisted on returning to school on the other side of Sydney to be with—don’t tell Mum—her boyfriend.

“This way you can use my bed,” Ali insisted in front of her mother, putting Sirena on the spot. It was Ali’s way of being helpful. She was oblivious to the undercurrents.

A cot for Lucy had already been borrowed from the neighbor and Sirena didn’t want to appear churlish, but it only took one remark from her stepmother to put Sirena squarely back into her broadly criticized childhood.