The One In My Heart

He smiled a little and kissed me on my lips. “Food first then, so I can have everything hot.”


I rested my hand against his jaw for a moment. He smelled great, his stubble felt marvelous on my palm, and, of course, I still found his eyes, the green of high summer, utterly mesmerizing. My hand slid down to his shoulder—the khaki Henley he wore was made of a soft waffle-weave cotton—and then back to his nape, to play with his still slightly damp hair.

He stared at my parted lips, and then back into my eyes. You have such hungry eyes, he’d told me once. Did I look hungry again? Ravenous? Insatiable?

The only remedy to feeling like that was to make him fall victim to the same frenzy of lust, the same avalanche of need.

But before I could slide my hand down his back and lift up his shirt, he moved away from me and walked toward the dining room.

“Come on,” he said over his shoulder. “Let’s eat.”

The food was beyond delicious, but I felt off balance. It wasn’t helped by the general silence at the table, our conversation consisting only of variations of, “Try this,” and, “This is even better.”

Between sips of a clear peppery broth, I observed Bennett surreptitiously. He seemed to be eating with a singular concentration. Did he have something on his mind? I was becoming increasingly convinced that he did. And that he was tense—and had been since I walked in.

I’d barely eyed the soup container before he picked it up. “You want some more?”

“Yeah, thanks. Half a bowl, please.”

I loved it when he did little things like that for me. And he was always doing such little things. He was always—

The thought struck me: Was it possible he was going to propose? His formal-ish invitation, his decision to forgo sex, his nerves—everything pointed to a significant decision he had come to, a decision concerning us.

He hadn’t wanted an engagement earlier, because the timing would be suspect. But now we’d weathered the storm together. Not to mention, something needed to be done to kick-start his stalled reconciliation with his father. Knowing Bennett, he wasn’t going to tell Mr. Somerset outright that he wanted to return to the family. An engagement would be just the thing to get everyone excited and move the process forward.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” said Bennett.

My heart lurched. “Yes?”

“Larry de Villiers got your e-mail address from me a while ago. Did he ever contact you?”

I hadn’t felt so deflated since he canceled our previous “engagement.” Reaching out, I scooped some stir-fried lotus root into my bowl. “He did. He sent me an e-mail.”

“Mind if I ask what he said?”

“He…he thanked me for talking with him that day at Mrs. Asquith’s.”

“Did you say anything in return?”

I hesitated. “No.”

With his chopsticks, Bennett picked up a single peanut from a kung pao dish. “Why not?”

Why did I have the sensation that the ground might be shifting? “No particular reason.”

“Did you talk to Zelda about him?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you ask her whether she’d consider getting back with him?”

I ate a piece of lotus root, even though my appetite was gone. “She said she didn’t know.”

“Has he made any overtures?”

“I don’t believe so.”

Bennett had opened a bottle of Riesling for dinner. He refilled my glass. “Is he holding back because you told him to?”

“I don’t know,” I said instinctively. Then, forcing myself to be more forthcoming: “Maybe.”

He refilled his own glass. “And you’re okay with that?”

My conscience might protest once in a while, but since I hadn’t done anything about it, it could only mean I was fine with things continuing as they were. But to admit that straight-up was beyond me.

My silence reverberated in every corner of the apartment.

Bennett gave a quarter turn to the base of his wine stem. His expression, as he studied the pale green-gold liquid in the glass, was severe, perhaps the most severe I’d ever seen of him. Yet it was also…unhappy.

I wanted to reach out to him, but I sat exactly where I was, frozen, my chopsticks still gripped in my fingers.

His gaze returned to me. “I’ve never asked you, have I, why you were wandering the back lanes of Cos Cob in the rain, looking like a character out of Les Misérables?”

I quaked inside. “Why are you interested all of a sudden?”

“I’ve always wanted to know,” he said calmly, quietly. “You know that.”

Despite the softness of his tone, there was an implacability to his words. “Come on,” I said, feeling like a caught fish wriggling on the hook, “you got laid. Aren’t you supposed to be happy with that?”

“No.”

I laid aside my chopsticks at last. “Why are you asking me so many questions?”

Why won’t you let me dodge them, as you’ve always done before?

“Because you have never told me anything about yourself. Ever.”