CHAPTER EIGHT

Christmas Knight

I waved goodbye to Trinity. Brighton’s parents only lived forty-five minutes out of the city, so her coming and going didn’t have any drama. I didn’t even have to drive her to the airport. It was the afternoon of Christmas Eve and I had finished my shift at the print center. The university was empty. The semester was over. Trinity had invited me to a party Felicity-Ann's parents were throwing on New Year’s Eve, so I did have something on my calendar to look forward to, but every moment felt like a hollow tooth I still had to chew on.

I cleaned the apartment. I didn’t know it about myself, but after all those years of maids picking up after me, I couldn’t live in a dirty place. If I cleaned, I felt important. You didn't think maids were important until they didn't come. The cleanliness stopped me from wallowing in self-pity.

At least our apartment wasn’t ugly around Christmas. Trinity set up a merry little Christmas tree and garland all over the place. She even bought little goodies and put them around the living room to remind me that she still loved me even though she wasn’t around. There was one present under the tree. It was from her. She had taken the present I got for her with her to open on Christmas morning.

After the place was tidy, I sat down and opened one of the bags of cookies she had left. I tried to read. The sun went down early as I pawed through the freezer looking for something to cook. I had just decided to order a pizza when there was a knock on my door.

When I opened it, there was Christian. I took a step back. He was standing in the hall by the elevator with a stack of packages in his arms like nothing had changed.

“Well, if it isn’t Santa Claus in the flesh,” I exclaimed, giving my voice an edge. “And they said you weren’t real.”

He blinked. “Was I mistaken? I thought you might be pleased to see me.”

“Oh, I am, darling. I am.” I accented the ‘darling’ with poison. “Come in.”

He looked around nervously, which was a bit satisfying considering how cool he was in unfamiliar situations. He paused before coming through the door frame.

“There isn’t a water bucket balanced on top of the door,” I said. “There isn't a knife hanging from the ceiling either. Trinity decorated and had veto power over my ideas, so the place is basically baby proofed.”

He glanced at me from under his perfectly groomed eyebrows and came through the door.

He set his packages next to the Christmas tree and turned to look at me. I suggested he sit on a bean bag chair that was filled with rice and watched with evil satisfaction as he spoiled the flatness of his ironed trousers by taking a seat.

“You look different,” he said, as awkward as any father figure visiting his daughter’s dormitory.

“If you’re going to talk to me like that, you can leave now,” I said.

He did a double-take. “Sorry. It’s been a while since we last saw one another. How should I speak to you?”

“You threw me out after I kissed you. Perhaps we could talk about that.”

He leaned back. “Unbelievable. To get here, to get this far to see you, you have no idea how much trouble it has been, and you want to talk about that?”

“Yes. You can start with that and then you can tell me why you never got in touch with me. You can say why you ignored four or five hundred of my requests to speak, and after you’ve apologized four or five hundred times, then I’ll think about whether or not it’s appropriate to accept gifts from you.”

“I am sorry I did that. I felt like I had to,” he said quietly.

“Why did you have to? Why did you have to break my heart? If I shouldn’t have kissed you, you could have just said. We could have worked it out. If I wasn’t supposed to love you, you could have told me that instead of kissing me back.”

“It’s not that simple,” he said painfully.

“Why?”

“Why?” he repeated. “Because I can’t live a normal life. Beth, surely you know there are serious things wrong with wanting me.”

“The only thing I’m aware of is that you screen my calls.”

He put his hand over his face and looked at me between his fingers, all the while shaking his head like he couldn’t stand to reply. “Beth, you have to know I am on the run. You wanted a home, I tried to give you one and I failed. It was always safer for us to live apart and to see each other only occasionally. I tried to make something more permanent and it took me three and a half years to get back to you, just for tonight. Just for this visit.”

I ground my teeth together. He was going to pretend he wasn’t Rogan.

“These people don’t want my money,” he continued. “They want me.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I have secrets, and if anyone thinks, even for a second, that you have my secret too, you won’t be safe. If I’m away from you, if I’m not part of your life, then you’re safe. You being safe is more important to me than whether or not I get to see you. I don’t want them to do to you what they’ve done to me.”

“Yes, an email would have thrown everything off balance. A text would have made the world explode. When you explain it like that, it makes perfect sense,” I fumed.

“Beth,” he said, deepening his voice. “I can’t let anything bad happen to you. Even though a normal life is fraught with its own kind of peril, it’s what is natural, and what I was trying to give you all those years ago when you had your heart problems. I can’t go back on what I wished for you.”

“And what if,” I said, looking at the ceiling, “what I wanted was not life when you held me in the hospital room? What if what I wanted was not even a kiss? What if what I wanted was you?”

“What?” he gasped, finally the same heartbreak I felt manifested on his features.

“I only ever wanted you. I’m not even sure I cared when my parents died, because you are what love looks like to me, and a thousand times more comforting than they had ever been. What if I would welcome whatever horrid future you see for me if I could stay with you? What if I didn’t mind scanning for bugs, changing my face, and lying until my tongue fell off?”

He interrupted me. “You don’t know what you’re saying. You’ve never been tortured.”

“I was three and a half years ago,” I said steadily.

“What?” he gaped.

“When you sent me away with no explanation, and deliberately and purposefully cut me out of your life. I was left answering the question of what I had done wrong! I was in hell. I must have replayed those last few days we spent together over and over. Obviously, I should not have kissed you, but I tried to make sure we were alone and even though most people would condemn us because I was a minor under your care, I never once got the sense that you didn’t want to kiss me. It felt like you did.”

He let his thumb graze his bottom lip as he listened to what I was saying, then he sighed. “That was without a doubt the most expensive kiss I have ever had to pay for. Not just me, and I’m still paying for it.”

“Why?”

“Because Charles had dirt on me, and if he had not been inflamed with jealousy that day, I probably would have been able to convince him not to give what he knew to the wrong people.” He shook his head impatiently. “I still haven’t sorted it out.”

“What does that mean for you and me?” I asked, briskly.

“Beth, you don’t know what’s happened, what’s going on, who I am, or anything. It’s the only way to keep you safe. I can give you tonight. Can’t we just have tonight?”

It was tempting to ask him what tonight could entail, but I had to play the long game. “No. You can’t. You have to come clean. You have to tell me who you are, what you’ve done, why people chase you and invite me to come along.” I crossed my arms and uttered the most difficult words I had ever spoken. “I think you want me too. I think the years we spent together were hard on you and me because we weren’t supposed to love each other, but I’m twenty-one years old now and I think it’s okay if we stopped worrying about how we look.”

Heated, he stood up and removed his coat. The shirt under clung to his shape beautifully as he turned to face me. “I think you’re under a very grave misconception, Beth,” he said intently.

“Oh?”

“Yes,” he said, looking me in the eye. “You seem to think that the reason you and I have not been lovers is that I was worried about what people might think of us. I let you think it was.”

“It wasn’t?” I challenged.

“No. You see, I am not free to be in love,” he said, making a triangle by putting a hand on his hip. “I haven’t been for years.”

“Why?”

“Can’t your fervent little imagination come up with a grand host of reasons why I wouldn’t be free to love you?”

“Your lips say you can and your tongue says you can’t?”

“I just wanted you to have a nice Christmas,” he said quietly. “I used to come and go so often in your life that I thought tonight might be possible.”

“I want more.”

“I’ve already said, I can’t give you more. I tried and it didn’t work.”

My mouth hung open. I had nothing left to lose. This might be my only chance to have it out with him. I had to say everything until there was nothing left to say. “I want you too much to let you leave it at that. Why can’t we be together? It seems impossible to me that you would kiss me on the doorstep of my school with that intensity just to put on a show for my classmates. That was why I ventured to kiss you that morning in Scotland and you kissed me like I was heaven itself. You want me. Why can’t you have me?”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what I want. There are bigger things at stake than what I want.”

I shook my head. “I can handle the truth. You opted to have an abnormal life and I’ll do anything you’re willing to do.”

“Can’t it be enough that I want to tell you?”

“Sure, if it means you come back tomorrow and we go out for dinner. If it means we have the sort of relationship where I know you’ll be back, I know you love me, your mouth is on mine, and I know you’ll be in touch as soon as possible.”

The gut-wrenching pain I had felt for years was on his face. “I can’t.”

“Then you have to go,” I said, rising from my chair. I picked up the parcels he’d brought with him and carried them to the outer hallway, where I threw them on the floor.

“Beth, what are you doing?”

“I’m putting an end to all this,” I said returning to the room to find him striding toward me. “Trust me enough to tell me what’s going on, or leave me alone! I can’t stand the evasion. You want me and you won’t admit it. Instead, you say you can’t love when there are literally a hundred reasons why people can’t feel love or have love. I don’t want to make guesses about what is wrong. I want you to trust me enough with your pain that you can tell me anything. You’re deliberately putting up a wall between us when I want everything! Not just the pretty parts of you, the parts you shine up, but the dirty parts that you would never show anyone. I want you. All of you.”

He looked vaguely exhilarated by my declaration. One of his hands rested on his heart. “No matter how fine a woman you are, there are things I can’t change.”

“Then go,” I said, starting to weep.

He put his hand on my shoulder and I slapped it away.

Christian straightened his body. “You’re right. I won’t come back, but I want to say one more thing before I leave, since it’s the last time.” He sought my eyes with his and with his beautiful eyes looking into mine, he said, “I thought your kiss was worth dying for, but I can't let you die for it.” For a moment, I thought he was going to kiss me again. Instead, he looked away and said, “Be well and if you can… think of me sometimes.”

I wiped the tears that came fast and covered my cheeks. “I won’t. I will never think of you.”

His expression was excruciating. Finally, I was convinced he suffered as much as me.

“Change your mind,” I whispered. “Change your mind and trust me.”

For a second, he looked like he might. Then he clenched his jaw and loosened it, only to say, “I can’t.” He picked up his coat, stepped past me and out the door.

I heard his steps echo all the way to the elevator. He had not stopped to retrieve the packages. I felt my knees crumple beneath me and I fell to the floor. I held my breath until I heard the elevator doors close. Then, I let loose.

I cried. I sobbed. I wept so bitterly that my tears ran down my neck and soaked my clothes. How could he have done that? How could he have come only to leave again? How could he have dangled himself in front of me so callously? I shouldn’t have let him in. I shouldn’t have opened the door.

As long as I was doing things I shouldn’t, I got up and went into the hall. I gathered the gifts Christian had brought me with my foot by mildly kicking them across the floor. By doing this, I kicked each of them into the apartment and closed the door with them on the inside.

I didn’t have the desire to open them on Christmas Eve, and as it turned out, I didn’t have the urge on Christmas Day either. They sat unopened, just inside the apartment until Trinity came home and when she asked me what they were, I told her Christian had sent them.

“Do you want me to open them for you? Find out if they’re anything interesting?” she offered.

“No,” I said lifelessly. “I’ve had many presents from Christian. I can imagine what’s in them. I don’t want them, but I’m not ready to throw them away.”

“Yeah?”

“Trinity,” I said slowly, looking at her with eyes like moons on water, because I was about to cry again. “I have to tell you something.”

“What?” she said, dropping to her knees.

“I’ve never told you this... but I’m in love with him.”

She refrained from looking at me as though I was stupid, and instead gazed at me with compassion in her eyes. “I know.”

“No,” I said, grabbing her hand. “I mean, I love him in a way that is completely crazy. Like I’m obsessed with him, like every time I close my eyes, he’s with me and if I let myself just feel without thinking, it feels like he loves me too. Like he loves me so much he would die for me. Like I would die for him, like I did die and he somehow made me live again. Like the bond between us is so strong that him leaving me makes me feel like death has come. I feel like I live in a world that doesn’t have anything in it but him, and I don't know what he has done.”

“What do you mean?”

I didn't mention the unforgivable thing he did to save my life when I was dying, even though I thought that was what he was skirting around when he said he couldn't love me. Instead, I said, “What has he done to make me love him like this?”

Now Trinity looked at me like I was stupid. “He’s an eleven out of ten. Did you miss that?”

“How he looks isn’t important,” I muttered.

“Isn’t it?”

Trinity didn’t know that his look as Christian Henderson was a lie, and I wasn’t about to tell her. It wasn’t important. Whatever face he wore, he’d always be attractive in a superior way.

“The reason I’m telling you this, is because soon… Very, very soon, I’m going to start chasing Rogan Cormack. I’ve decided that there’s wisdom in that incredibly vulgar saying.”

Trinity raised an eyebrow. “Which incredibly vulgar saying?”

“That the only way to get over one man is to get under another one?”

“And you’ve decided on Rogan?”

“I want him,” I said unapologetically.

“Why? He’s nothing like Christian.”

“Exactly,” I said fiercely.

Trinity sighed. “You’re going to have competition. Felix likes him.”

“Yes, well, most guys like Felicity-Ann and in return she likes most of them. You have to stop the train somewhere.”

Trinity put up her hands in surrender. “Okay.”