You Are My Destiny novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Say My Name

Phillip did not let go of my hand through the shouting.

Dewitt shouted that it was a stunt.

Rosalind screamed once and was led out by two men in dark suits.

Augustin rose with his cane and banged it on the parquet until the room was quiet.

"The board has seen what it has seen," he said. "On the thirtieth day, it will see the rest. Good night."

Phillip walked me out through the French doors into the cold.

He didn't say anything until we were across the lawn and down the slope.

The boathouse stood at the edge of the lake, with a dock and a stove and a long window full of black water.

He kicked the door shut behind us and turned on the lamp.

It was an old brass lamp on a table, warm and yellow.

He took my face in both hands.

"Look at me," he said.

I did.

"I've never seen your face," Phillip said. "I spent eight months with it under my hands and I never once saw it."

His gray eyes moved over me, my forehead, my crooked nose, the hollow of my cheek, the clouded eye.

His thumb brushed the lid of it very gently.

"This was mine," he said, hoarse. "Wasn't it. I've been looking at the world with your eye."

"Phillip."

"You gave me this."

"I gave you nothing. It was only an eye."

"Kira."

It was the first time he had said my name to me in seven years.

I started to cry.

He kissed me.

He kissed me with his whole mouth and both hands, backing me against the long table until the lamp rocked.

I clung to his coat and kissed him back.

"Seven years," he said into my mouth. "Seven years I've been going to bed with your hands in my head."

"I'm here."

"You're here."

He stripped the borrowed black dress off me and let it fall.

He looked at me in the lamplight, all of me, the stretch marks on my belly and the soft scar under my navel.

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