Soft Limits Page 14

  The birthday girl is resplendent in a cream dress with a sweetheart neckline. She squeals when she sees us, abandoning the bunting she’s tying to a rose bush and bounding over.

  “Evie, Evie, how was Paris? Are you home to stay now? Can I read the book you’re writing about Frederic?” After hugging me she turns to Frederic and something shy enters her eyes but the wattage of her smile doesn’t dim. I probably looked at him just like that when Dad took us to see him in Notre-Dame.

  He kisses her cheek and wishes her happy birthday and I hand her her present. When she sees the Phantom goodies and tickets she goes into raptures of delight. “We’ll be right beneath the chandelier as it starts to rise,” I tell her, and she runs off to show Mum and Dad.

  “I think she’s happy, baby,” Frederic murmurs in my ear, and he goes to one of the tables to pour us some Pimms.

  Hot, sharp arousal plunges through me as I watch his retreating back. Baby. I love it when he calls me that, and lately he’s used it as often as minette or chérie. Something about the way he says it doesn’t feel like the casual way Adam called me baby or babe. I feel like he actually means little baby, especially when he says it when I’m being pliant or cute, or when he tells me to suck my finger or thumb after sex. I’m so clingy after we make love, especially if he’s been rough with me. I don’t like to talk much after but it’s comforting to do something with my tongue as I’m pressed tightly against him.

  I drink my Pimms and sit with Therese and Mona while they tell me about their holidays, but I’m distracted by Frederic standing not far away, talking to my parents. I try to listen to my sisters but soon my mind drifts back to Paris. The other morning we were having sex and he stopped halfway through, resting on his knuckles and looking down at me, frowning. He did this for so long I began to wonder if there was something wrong. Finally he asked, “Can I hit you, baby?” And I nodded, because letting Frederic do what he likes to me is one of my keenest pleasures. I was close to coming, too, and his every twist of my nipple and yank of my hair feels like heaven when I’m in that state. “It will hurt, and I mean it to hurt,” he cautioned. And I still nodded, not bothering to wonder where or how hard, just anticipating the pleasure-pain which would drive me closer to orgasm.

  “Suck your thumb, baby,” he whispered, and he smiled as I did, telling me how pretty I looked. Then his eyes flashed with hard fury and he struck me across the face with his open palm. It felt like my cheek had been branded.

  I turned back to him, shocked tears leaking out of the corners of my eyes. It was real shock and real tears for a few seconds, but then I really amped it up, whimpering that “Daddy hit me, when I’m such a good baby for him. You’re so mean, daddy, how could you?” I said all this in between sucking my thumb and crying like no one’s ever had it worse than me, even managing to whimper my way through two orgasms as he pounded me into the mattress. I thought he was going to lose his mind he came so hard.

  I got cuddled and fussed over so much afterward that Frederic was an hour late to the studio, and his producer called to remind him how many thousands of euros he was wasting keeping everyone waiting. After he left it took me another forty-five minutes to shake myself out of the good little baby, you just cuddle up and let daddy worry what time it is mindset. I lay on the sofa with a cup of tea resting on my belly and a dreamy smile on my face. I can’t help smiling about it now, even as I sit here among my family.

  I realize that I’m directing my smile at Frederic. He returns it and gives me a surreptitious wink. When I say, “Mm,” to Therese, who’s cataloguing the hotels she and her boyfriend stayed in, I notice that Mona is giving me a shrewd look. Then she glances at Frederic.

  Oh, crap.

  Time to circulate. One of Lisbet’s friends’ parents used to be my English teacher in high school so I take a plate of sandwiches and go and talk to her. All the while we’re talking about the latest Donna Tartt novel I’m thinking about going to the bathroom, stripping off my underwear and surreptitiously pushing it into Frederic’s trouser pocket.

  Behave. You’re at your parents’ house.

  Yes, but that’s what would make it so delicious, wouldn’t it? Remember what he did to you last time he knew you were knickerless and he couldn’t touch you?

  Dad brings out a Victoria sponge with fourteen candles on it and we sing “Happy Birthday” to a beaming Lisbet. It’s delicious cake, filled with cream and fresh strawberries, and I eat a huge slice. That and the Pimms make me sleepy and I get up to go inside for a breather and take the empty water jug with me as an excuse. Out of the corner of my eye I see Mona and Therese peel themselves out of their chairs and follow me, determined looks in their eyes.

  Oh, here we go.

  It’s cool and dark in the kitchen, the perfect place to quietly compose myself and try and get thoughts of Frederic putting rough, tender hands on me out of my head. But in march my sisters, as curious as cats.

  “Well?” says Therese, propping herself against the counter and folding her arms.

  “Well what?” I ask blankly, rinsing the jug clean.

  She rolls her eyes. “Oh, come on, Evie, we’re not stupid. Something happened between you and Frederic in Paris. You know, when you were staying with him. In his flat. The two of you are sneaking looks at each other like horny teenagers.”

  A warm sensation fizzes through me. He’s been looking at me, too?

  “You were too busy to write us emails the whole time you were there,” adds Mona. “Why? I don’t believe it was just because of the book.”

  “Do we need more Pimms out there?” I ask, ignoring their questions. For something to do with my hands and to stop the silly smile from blooming on my face, I reach for the strawberries and start slicing them up.

  Mona snorts. “God, you’re so transparent, Evie.” To Therese she says, “Well, they’ve definitely been sleeping together. The question is for how long.”

  I’m grinning now, cutting cucumber into chunks as they debate back and forth.

  “I reckon it was from that very first night, you know, when he was staying here and he took her out to dinner. I bet he was kissing her all over this house and we didn’t know it.” Therese is being deliberately goading, trying to get me to speak.

  Mona wanders over to the chopping board and puts a strawberry in her mouth. She’s speaking to Therese but looking at me. “And the book contract Dad read over, did they make that up as an excuse to nick off to Paris together?”

  I keep making up the Pimms and finally Mona turns to Therese and says, “Well, Prim Pimms isn’t telling us anything. Shall we go and ask Frederic?”

  Therese grins. “Yes, let’s go and ask Frederic. Loudly.”

  They turn toward the door and suddenly my nerve fails me. My sisters wouldn’t actually go out into the garden and ask Frederic in front of everyone if we’re sleeping together, but they would drop hints to him that they know something’s up and perhaps not be as subtle about as they think.

  Besides, I’m sort of busting to tell them.

  “Wait!” They turn to me, poised with expectation. I press the point of the knife into the board and say, “We’re, um, Frederic and I, um...” I don’t know how to express what we are so I settle for a stupid grin.

  Their jaws drop. “Oh my god.”

  “You’re not. We didn’t actually think... Do you mean dating, or...?” They stare at me, scandalized, and I hurry on, lest they start thinking it’s the affair of the century.

  “It’s just a thing while the production happens. Then he’ll return to Paris or go off to Russia or New York or whatever for the next show.” I feel a pang saying it, and I remember with sympathy what Marion said. I thought it was time for Fred to slow down. He didn’t agree. It can’t have been fun for her, never knowing where he’d go next and when she’d see him again.

  Therese and Mona exchange look
s, and Therese says, “Wow, okay. Do you think that’s a good idea? You’re not getting attached to him, are you?”

  Their faces startle me. Isn’t this what they wanted to hear, that Frederic and I are having a fling? Isn’t it what they’d already guessed?

  Mona throws up her hands. “Of course she’s getting attached. She’s been in love with him for ten years.” Turning to me, she says, “You shouldn’t get what you wish for. It’s dangerous.”

  I frown and start on the cucumber again, angry now, the knife thudding on the board. “I have not been in love with Frederic for ten years. I had a crush ages and ages ago, and then I didn’t for ages, and now, well...it’s just different. He’s a person, not a crush. People are never what you imagine them to be.” He’s better. Much, much better. When I look at Frederic I don’t see Monsieur d’Estang, the mercurial stage performer. I see... Frederic. Sleepy morning Frederic, smiling at me with his black curls in disarray. Frederic making painstaking notes on his sheet music. Frederic eating ice cream under the Eiffel Tower and reciting lines from Jane Eyre. “We’re friends. It’s really nice.” But I sound defensive even to my own ears.

  Mona, from her lofty advantage of the whole fourteen months she has over me, says, “Sex makes all these crazy bonding hormones rush through your body. You can get attached to the wrong person without meaning to.”

  “I’m not attached,” I lie. “I’ve met some of the women who Frederic’s been involved with over the years. I interviewed them for the book. They all talk about him in the sweetest way.”

  Therese folds her arms, an expression of catty disbelief on her face. “He’s cherry-picked the people who like him best, of course.”

  My temper goes through the roof. “Frederic’s not like that. He doesn’t want a hagiography, he wants the book to be warts-and-all. I even met his ex-girlfriend. The worst thing she had to say about him was that he’s a workaholic. I don’t care. I admire his work ethic.”

  They stare at me in silence and I realize I’m defending the wrong thing. They’re not questioning whether he’s a good person. They’re questioning the wisdom of me getting involved with an unavailable man.

  Crap. I’ve just given myself away.

  Mona heaves a pitying sigh. “It’s clear what’s happening. You’re in denial. Well, Therese and I will be here to pick up the pieces come January, and we won’t even say I told you so.”

  My stomach lurches. Come January. I hate thinking about January as I’ve been myself with Frederic. This is who I am, what I was missing with Adam, and what I will always be. Perhaps in the future I might find someone else I want to be submissive with and share this sort of tender, ferocious relationship. But I feel sick contemplating another man touching me the way Frederic does.

  They’re right. I’m attached. I can sense him out there in the garden, the man I’m coming to adore. Even coming back here next week without him is going to be painful. January sits cold and ominous on the horizon.

  Silence stretches between the three of us. Then Therese, a smile tugging the corners of her mouth, asks, “So is he a good, um, kisser?”

  Her unexpected question forces a laugh from me. “Oh, god yes. Very good.”

  They start asking me how it began between us and who kissed whom first and where we go on dates and I share a thoroughly, thoroughly expurgated version of how it all happened. He kissed me and then took me to a Spanish rooftop bar. We’ve been going out to the restaurants near his flat. Sometimes I cook and we just cuddle on the sofa. I get a picture of what a vanilla relationship with Frederic would look like and I want to snort with laughter. It’s much, much better our way.

  Mona is asking whether he ever speaks French to me in bed and Therese is screeching at her for being so deplorably nosy when we hear footsteps coming down the passage. I hiss at them to shut up, and a moment later Frederic appears holding a stack of dirty plates. He surveys us one by one, taking in my hot cheeks and Therese trying to hide her giggles behind a cough. She sets Mona off, who grabs a tea towel and starts scrubbing at a non-existent stain on her skirt, her shoulders shaking.

  Oh, for heaven’s sake. Sisters.

  As Frederic passes me he puts his free hand on the nape of my neck and caresses it briefly. “Minette.” Then he puts the plates down and heads out again. As he disappears into the darkness of the passage Therese and Mona explode with giggles. Frederic is definitely close enough to hear.

  I chuck an oven glove at each of them. “Get a grip, both of you, are you twelve?”

  Wiping their eyes they hiccup their apologies, but when Mona says, “Je suis désolé,” I’m sorry in French, it sets them both off again. I finish the jug of Pimms and head back out to the garden with it. They hurry after me, still snickering.

  “What did he call you? Minette? What does that mean?” Mona asks.

  “Kitten.”

  “Oh my god, that is adorable.”

  We head toward the tables which are almost deserted now as people have begun departing. Lisbet’s talking animatedly to Frederic, holding the Phantom program in her hands, and he’s smiling at her.

  Mona says quietly, “You could give him up now, you know. Might be less painful in the long run.”

  As I watch he holds out his hand for the program and flicks through the pages, pointing at a picture and telling Lisbet something about it. She listens with rapt attention. Sweet man.

  Sweet, sadistic, clever man. Nothing could induce me to give you up before I have to. I’m going to be yours until the very moment you have to leave me. “No, it wouldn’t be easier. Let’s talk about something else, shall we?”

  The tea breaks up shortly after that, and once the tables have been cleared and the chairs taken into the house Frederic and I take a stroll through the garden. Though it’s late September there are still plenty of flowers blooming and the grass is a healthy, deep green. We pass the rose folly where I sat, sewing in high summer, and looked up to see Monsieur d’Estang in a blue shirt, holding my notebooks out to me and smiling.

  With the air of two people walking aimlessly, we wander into the orchard behind the garden wall, out of sight of the house. Frederic takes my hand. “How was the ambush?”

  I lean into him, stroking his forearm with my free hand while my other clutches his tightly. “Mona and Therese in the kitchen? Thorough. They’ve got sex sonar or something.”

  “It never occurred to me to speak French to you in bed. Would you like that?”

  All the delicious, filthy, kinky things he does say to me swirl in my mind, and I wrinkle my nose at him. “That’s a bit vanilla for you, isn’t it, daddy?”

  He stops and tugs me into his arms, his voice growing husky and his green eyes gleaming. “Yes, baby, you’re probably right.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Frederic

  She comes through the barriers and into the arrival hall at Paddington, a lace kimono hanging off one shoulder and a book bag hanging off the other. Her holdall falls to the ground with a thump and she launches herself into my arms.

  “Daddy, I missed you,” she whispers into my neck, pressed so close I can feel her heart thumping against mine. I hold her tightly, my arms wrapped around her and my fingers pressed into the spaces between her ribs.

  “I missed you, petite fille.” Every time I put her on that train London becomes a desert, but now that she’s here it feels like home again. The commuting back and forth is hard, especially on her, and I’ve made her promise to tell me if it gets too much. I’m not going to screw up her happiness and her studies just because I crave her in my arms.

  I release her and look down into her upturned face, stroking her cheek. “How was Oxford? How was the train up?”

  But she shakes her head, looking up at me with sparkling eyes. “Oxford was Oxford. The train was too slow. How are you? How are rehearsals going?”


  I walk her out to the cab rank, holding firmly to her hand as if she might disappear if I’m not very careful. “Rehearsals are exhausting, and I’m all the better for seeing you.” I am exhausted but it’s because I’m not sleeping well, not because they’re working me harder than I’m used to. We’re using a rehearsal space near the theater and I’m singing even longer hours than when I was in the studio in Paris, though I expected that. Giselle’s been calling me every few days but I let her go to voicemail. I’m tired of her gloomy prognostications. My voice is fine, I think savagely. But all the same I can’t shake the unease that dogs me everywhere I go. It’s worse in the small hours when Evie’s in Oxford. When she’s with me I can prop myself on my elbow and watch the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest as she sleeps; it soothes me. She soothes me. She’s the one good thing in my life and I wish I could tell her how grateful I am that we have this time together. But if I do I’m sure she’ll be able to read all the things I’m not saying in my face.

  Not telling her is taking its own toll. Piercing remorse shocks me from sleep most nights. I’ve never been the sort of man to keep secrets from those I care about and I can’t deny it to myself any longer. I care about Evie. It goes deeper than finding her an adorable, sexual creature, or admiring the way she thinks. I share things with her when she’s with me, things that surprise or interest me. Things about my work that I’ve never shared with anyone before. When she’s not with me I wonder what she’s doing.

  I want the very best for her, but keeping secrets from her will eventually bring her pain. While I’m lying awake I imagine her, in February or March next year, hearing that my career is over. At first she might feel sorry for me but as she learns more she’ll discover that I knew the end was near the whole time I was with her, and I didn’t tell her. Will she feel shocked? Betrayed? Will she send me an angry email telling me that, as she was writing my biography, this would have been useful information to know? But it won’t just be professional betrayal she’ll feel. It will be personal, too, because she’ll wonder why I didn’t trust her enough to tell her, especially after all the trust she’s put in me.