A Love Lost to the Years novel · Chapter 15 of 24
Chapter 15: The Drafting Table
He drove, and she sat with her hands in her lap, and neither of them put the radio on.
The house was dark when they came in.
Annabel reached for the light switch in the hall, and he caught her wrist before she found it.
"Leave it."
She left it.
The only light came from the lake through the tall windows, gray and moving on the floor.
Kenneth took her coat off her shoulders and hung it on the hook, slowly.
Then he reached up and began taking the pins out of her hair.
He laid each one in the dish by the door, his fingers brushing the nape of her neck.
Her hair came down over his wrists.
"Ken," she said, very quietly.
"I'm not forgiving you."
"I know."
"I'm going to tell you what I want, and you're going to do it."
Her breath caught.
"Yes," she said.
He had never in seven years said a sentence like that to her.
She had never once let anyone say it.
"The study," he said.
She walked ahead of him down the passage, and he followed her in.
The drafting table stood under the window where he had built it, wide and tilted.
The ring lay in the middle of the dark wood.
She had not touched it in nine days.
He could see that from the dust.
He picked up the ring and closed it in her palm and folded her fingers over it.
"Hold that," he said. "Don't put it down."
"Kenneth."
"Hold it."
She held it.
He stood in front of her and began on her buttons.
He did them one at a time, from the throat down, and he watched her face instead of his own hands.
The silk shirt came open.
Under it was a plain white bra, and under that was the hard, quick rise and fall of her ribs.
"You're nervous," he said.
"I'm not."
"Your heart's going."
"I know it is."
He put his palm flat on her sternum and felt it.
"Good," Kenneth said.
He slid the shirt off her arms and unclasped the bra and let it drop.
She stood in front of him with the ring in her fist and her other hand at her side.
She did not cover herself.
"Look at me," he said.
She did.
Her eyes were gray-blue in the window light and a little frightened and entirely his.
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