Game On

chapter 33


CLARA STOOD IN FRONT OF her suitcase, deciding between a cami-and-cardigan or dress shirt. “How will I know what to wear if you don’t tell me where we’re going?”

“You look fine as you are,” he replied.

“I’m in my bra!”

“That’s good, too.”

Clara dug to the bottom and pulled out a three-quarter-sleeve sweater. Thin enough for indoor temperatures and basic black, suitable for any occasion. “Shall I take my handbag? A notepad? My toothbrush? Does it involve lots of walking because my feet still hurt from wandering the Smithsonian.”

“No, no, no, and yes, wear comfortable footwear.”

“But if I wear my tennis shoes, you tower over me.” Clara glanced at her watch. “Will we at least have time for some sightseeing between this surprise and the game tonight? Because I’d quite like to have a glimpse at that phallic symbol thingy on the Mall that Dan Brown says holds all the Masonic secrets.”

“It’s called the Washington Monument, and yes, if we leave now, there’ll be plenty of time. In fact, if you hurry it along, love, we can go there first.”

The phone trilled beside her. “Let me just get that, then, and we’ll dash,” she said. “Hello? Clara Bean here.”

“Clara Bean…what ever shall I do with you?”

At the sound of Valentina’s voice, she turned away from Luc so he couldn’t see the blood drain from her face. “Whatever do you mean?”

“For one, that stunt you pulled back at West Rosa’s. Though it was lovely of you to pre-order the fish for me. And the wine wasn’t half bad.”

Clara pressed her palm over the mouth piece and said to Luc over her shoulder, “Go ahead. I’ll meet you in the lobby.” She waited to see him open the door before turning her attention back to Valentina. “I thought you’d appreciate it.”

“Yes, well, cunning doesn’t suit you, Clara, so stop trying to emulate your friend. You don’t have her moxie.”

“That’s rather backhanded, but a compliment is a compliment. I’ll be sure to pass it along to Lydia.”

“Don’t bother. I can’t stand the queen bitch. But it is a nod to her shrewdness.”

“So I take it your meeting went well?”

“It was a step in the right direction. I’m back on the fashion show invitation list, but Lydia still managed to hog all of Colin Brastow’s attention when we were supposed to be there to further my purposes.”

“Yes, Lyds does get a lot of attention. Because she’s a nice person. People are naturally drawn to her. You should try it. You might find it works for you, too. The old flies-to-honey thing.”

“Ha, the problem with nice is it’s as slow as that honey and not for us fast-trackers. Nice is for the unambitious, for kindergarten teachers and cupcake bakers. Nice is fallible, it’s easily manipulated, it’s taken advantage of.”

Fine. Clara had it with being nice, too. So her tone was rather harsh, her volume on the loud side when she yelled, “Are we done yet?”

“Take you, for instance. You’re a nice girl, aren’t you, Clara Bean? Letting your boyfriend come to my apartment in the middle of the night to say goodbye…now that was nice.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You don’t know? You mean he never told you that he came to me during your last night in New York?” Val tsked. “Now that wasn’t nice of him, was it? Come to think of it, he didn’t play very nice when he ripped my robe off.”

Clara’s bottom lip caught between her teeth as her head exploded with images of what perfect Valentina must look like under her clothes. Like a Sun page-three model with their perky boobs and come hither smiles. She shook her head to dislodge the mental montage, but they were stuck like posters on a garage wall. Small black spots danced before her eyes. “You’re lying.”

“Please. I’ve better things to do. If you don’t believe me, ask him. And while he’s busy denying our parting kiss, you’ll be thinking about where he was putting his hands on my naked body.”

Clara was overcome with a sick, clammy feeling. Her skin broke into a sweat at the same time a chill ripped through her. She gripped the telephone receiver so hard—only to prevent herself from hurling it across the room and through the picture window—that it caused a shooting pain up her forearm. “What do you want from me?”

Val laughed. “Consider this a lesson, a favour from yours truly in excising your kitten-fluffy niceness so you can’t be used and stepped on. This is a man’s world, my friend, and unless you enjoy being a doormat, grow a set.”

“Are you quite finished?”

“I’m not sure,” Val said with her chiming laugh. “I suppose…unless I think of something else.” The line went dead.

Clara’s knees began to wobble, so she clutched the desk and concentrated on breathing. She wanted to scream, loud and long, but something in the air changed, and she realized she wasn’t alone.

“Who was that?”

Luc.

She turned to see him framed in the doorway. His voice was calm, but a vein twitched in his temple. “Who was on the phone, Clara?”

How long had he been there? What had he heard? What had she said? “Nobody. Never mind. Let’s just get out of here.”

Flustered and unable to face him, Clara dug into the pile of clothes in her open suitcase until she found her burgundy scarf and matching gloves, mumbling about unpredictable weather. She pushed passed him on her way out; wouldn’t look at him. Couldn’t. Haunted by the images Valentina had planted in her head.

He’d been acting strange the morning they left New York. Surly. Affected. Bloody hell, even Riley had noticed it. Even if Clara were inclined to disbelieve Valentina, she couldn’t banish the memories of that morning at the airport. Had he been pining over her?



Leaving the hotel was like walking a gauntlet, especially with Luc regarding her so. She could see in her peripheral that his jaw clenched and relaxed like he was chewing on annoyance.

“Let’s walk,” she suggested, bursting through the lobby doors into the morning sunshine. The Mall was only a few blocks away and she needed to be physical, blow off the fury gnawing her insides.

What she really wanted to do was to run, to feel the pavement slam against the soles of her feet, to sweat all the ugliness out of her system, to get as far away from Luc as fast as possible. Instead, she walked quickly, hoping to stay a few feet ahead.

He kept up, his long-legged strides moving purposely beside her. They didn’t speak, didn’t banter. Indeed, all his energy seemed spent on brooding while hers was spent in keeping herself calm and rational and not giving in to the urge to beat her fists against Luc’s solid chest, claw his perfect face, and scream, “Why? Whywhywhywhy! Why did you go to her? Aren’t I enough for you? Aren’t I good enough for you?”

Some small voice in her head said it couldn’t be true, that Luc wasn’t the kind of person that Val was suggesting, but that part of her was drowned out by the other louder voice that shouted, “You selfish little girl. Thought you had him, didn’t you? Well, you don’t bloody deserve him!”

She wanted so badly to confront him, but she couldn’t. What if, instead of denying it or giving her a valid reason for seeing his ex-lover without telling her, what if he looked at her pityingly and shrugged. What if all those things she pictured them doing were true?

As long as she kept it inside, she could pretend Valentina was full of shit, the encounter never happened, there was no dead-of-night visit, no kiss, no disrobing, no…everything that came after. And to have to say the words aloud, “Did you…” in a voice that would surely ring with whiny humiliation, would be like handing Valentina her dignity on a silver platter.

She walked blindly, seething, fretting, replaying her conversation with Val on auto-loop, changing her response every time but never coming out the victor. The only positive outcome had her hanging up the moment she realized who it was. If only…

When she finally clued into her surroundings, Clara found herself at the Vietnam Memorial Wall, a hauntingly beautiful piece of black rock inscribed with the names of those fallen. It seemed endless, the list as well as the monument, growing taller next to her as the path sloped into the ground. She stopped at its deepest and highest point, where the wall corned into a ninetyish-degree turn. It was eerily quiet, as if all the noise in Washington stayed a respectful distance. It was disturbingly peaceful, this place that represented war, death, the end.

The end.

She couldn’t ignore it anymore. Their relationship, measured in days, weeks, cities, had come to a premature end thanks to Valentina.

A weary sigh escaped her lips.

Clara obviously meant nothing more to Luc than a business-class f*ck buddy and, really, she hadn’t expected more, had she? They’d joked from the beginning about it being a game, complete with rules, though neither had acknowledged the countdown clock. So the buzzer had gone a few seconds early. Big deal. Best to call it off now and declare Luc the winner.

The etched names blurred as she focused on her own reflection in the granite. You couldn’t see both at the same time; one either honed in on the letters of the names or adjusted to see a larger vision of their own reflection. It was almost as if these loyal and selfless young men were trying to disassociate from her, knowing her greatest flaw was their greatest strength. Clara felt petty and stupid for obsessing over the heart of a man she’d known only a month in the presence of the dead, the brave, the valiant.

“You’re crying.” Luc came up beside her.

She wiped the dampness from cheeks with the back of her hand. “So many, so young. A terrible waste, and for what?”

“For a political ideal, for their families, for their country. Over fifty-eight thousand,” he said with an unbelieving shake of his head.

“Such a great sacrifice,” she sighed.

“A sacrifice for the greater good, I suppose,” Luc said.

For the greater good. Luc had taken a fat yellow highlighter to her biggest flaw. Her selfishness would never allow her to look at the greater good, never allow her to consider anything or anybody past the good of her own nose.

He reached out to take her hand, she saw this in the reflection, but before his fingers could make contact, Clara walked away; away from the fallen, away from the judgmental self that stared back at her in the obsidian-like granite, away from him.