Chapter 12: She Stayed

I stood on the step until Daisy sneezed.

It was a small, indignant sound, and it made me laugh, and the laugh turned into something else halfway out.

I turned around.

Santo was still in the doorway, with the light behind him and the rain blowing in on his shirt.

"I'm not forgiving you," I said.

"I haven't asked."

"I'm staying because I can leave. That's the only reason. I want that clear."

"It's clear."

I carried the bags back in, and he took them from my hands and set them at the foot of the stairs.

The housekeeper was waiting on the landing with both arms out for Daisy.

"She's due a feeding at one," I said.

"I know when she's due," the housekeeper said, and took my daughter upstairs.

I stood in the front hall in my wet coat, facing the man whose firm had sent the collectors to my door.

"Two things," I said. "My doctor cleared me on Monday. I told nobody."

His face changed.

"The second thing is I'm angry, and I'm going to be angry in the morning too. This doesn't fix it."

"I don't want it to fix anything."

"Then why do you want it?"

"I don't," he said. "I want you. That's different."

I took his shirt in both fists and pulled him down.

He kissed me hard, and it wasn't gentle.

His hands came up under my wet coat and pushed it off my shoulders, and it fell on the marble.

He lifted me against the wall by the staircase, my legs around his waist.

I had a dozen things to say to him and said none of them.

"Bedroom," I said into his mouth.

"The stairs are far."

"Then carry me."

He did.

He took the stairs two at a time with my mouth on his throat, and kicked his door shut behind us.

He set me on the bed and stood over me, breathing hard.

"You can leave at any hour," he said. His voice was rough. "I'll open the door."

"Not this hour."

I pulled my sweater over my head.

He looked at me for a long time, at the soft stomach and the faded marks and the heavy breasts, and I waited for it to be too much.

"God, Moira," he said.

"Come here."

He knelt on the bed and undid my jeans, and I lifted my hips so he could drag them off.

He kissed the inside of my knee, and the inside of my thigh, and stopped there with his mouth against the skin.

"Say it," he said.

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