Inspite of the warmth of the room i felt my skin rise in
goose pimples. I rubbed my upper arm, trying so hard to hold my ground. My head
was arching with tension, my mind trying to stay clear and focused while the
earth seem to be shifting beneath my feet. The air was polluted with Saul's
hatred, its high -voltage waves zapping at me, making my skin pepper all the
more.
"Are you cold?" Saul asked.
I kept my mouth rigid with so much anger.
“What do you care?" i asked.
He held my glare for a pulsing moment. "Have you had
dinner?" he asked.
"No, and if you think i would dine with you dressed
like this, then you are so on a long thing," i said with a lift of chin.
He smiled as his gaze caressed my naked frame.
"Delightful as that sounds, no- i will not take you
out in public like that. As of this evening your body is for my eyes and my
eyes only."
I found it hard to stand still because of the rage that
was rumbling through me like a seismic activity preceding a massive earthquake.
"You know there are probably street workers, who come
much cheaper than me,' i spat back at him.
"Yes, but i want you," he said with a devilish
grin.
"We have unfinished business, don't we now,
Tara?"
"Any business we had ended five years ago, i thought
i had made that perfectly clear" i said.
His top lip lifted in disgust. "Oh, yes, by moving
out of the apartment i had set up for you without telling me to my face. I came
home to find the place empty apart from a note."
*****
I immediately felt a twinge of guilt about not meeting him
face to face back then, but i knew if i had he would have persuaded me to stay
with him. A note had seem safer and that gave me so much control, the sort of
control i had lost the moment i met and
fell in love with him.
I had been so weak where he was concerned. Although, i had
attributed it to my youth as at that time but there is likely every chance that
i might lose control over again. I had to admit to myself that i had come to a
full circle and the irony of it was beyond painful. It was like a razor blade
stuck sideways in my throat. I feel i can taste my blood, the bitter metallic
taste of regret and heartbreak at what i had lost by leaving him and yet here i
was, back in his life and under his command.
I lowered my gaze from his accusing glare.
"I am sorry." I said but it came out grudgingly
and not all convincing.
He watched as I stood before him with my bottom lip
trembling, my oval shaped face revealing stress and my dark brown eyes losing
it's fire but he turned away, his anger making his movements stiff and jerky.
He clenched and unclenched his hands, wanting to punch
deep holes into the walls of frustration and fury. Its sickened him that he
allowed me drop his guard.
For years he had sworn that he would not do as his father
had done: become totally captivated by a woman who could not be trusted.
His mother had slept her way through his childhood with an
array of other men until she finally left the family home when he was seven
years old. He could still recall the last time he saw her at the age of ten,
getting into the top of the range rover car of her latest rich-toy boy lover,
waving at him as they drove off to their deaths three hours later on the Amalfi
coast.
Saul spent the next decade of his life trying to prop the
shattered shell of his father until death with the aid of large amount of
alcohol that finally claimed him.
Saul had waited five years to avenge his slammed up pride
against me. Five years of meticulously calculating his revenge. Step by step he
rebuilt his empire, taking the greatest pleasure in finally bringing my husband
to his knees, with a little help from the stock market volatility.
Of all the people for me to marry, I could not have chosen
a better way of ensuring Saul hated me for life.
*******
He loathed thinking about his late brother, Fidel making
love to me. He hasn’t yet brought himself to forgive his brother for taking his
prized possession such that his mind revolted at the thought of that bloated
body heaving over my slim body. But then he’s always thought that I was a gold
digger who would always sell myself to the highest bidder. I had just proved it
by the way I had agreed to his terms. I had openly taunted him with my beautiful
body, but he was not going to take what was on offer until he was good and
ready. He wanted me, it was like a virulent fever in his blood, but he was not
going to give in to it until I begged him to make love to me. But this time, it would not be making love
but having sex, nothing but pure physical need that he would enjoy until he
gets tired of me and I would not be the one to walk out on him the way his
harlot of a mother had done to his father. This time around Saul would put an end
to the relationship and that would be when he gets satisfied that he was over me.
Saul turned from the view of the windows and faced me. “Tara,
I want this place stripped of everything that belonged to Fidel. I have a
removal van out there, waiting outside to take everything away in order for my
things to be brought in.”
My slim throat rose and fell over a swallow. “There’s not
much left of Fidel’s things,’ I said. “Since the funeral I have sorted through
it all and sent it to his ex-wife and children. The furniture came with the villa
when he purchased it.’
“You have met his ex-wife and family already?’ Saul said
with a pinch of surprised In his note.
“Yes, at the funeral. They came all the way from Australia
and she was very pleasant… Adam and Lucy, his teens were as much very gracious.’
“Considering their father had shacked up with a tart,’
Saul said, watching as my facial expression became distorted by anger.
‘Is this part of the deal between us?’ I asked
‘For you to insult me at every given opportunity?’
He ignored my ranting and said:
‘You will no longer be using Fidel Nkwe’s name. It’s in
the legal document I gave you. You are to revert to your maiden name even
though you are anything but a maiden.’
I opened my mouth to protest, but he cut me off curtly. “Go
and get dressed. I have made a booking
at a restaurant for dinner.’
My eyes rounded. ‘You were that sure I would agree to this
preposterous plan?’
‘But of course, ma courtesan,‘ he said with a mocking
smile. He patted where his wallet was inside his suit jacket pocket. ‘After
all, money is the thing you most desire, right now abi?’ he said adding a touch
of Nigerian vernacular.
My eyes were almost like a twin tornado, darkening with
fury.
‘Doesn’t it make a difference to know that I don’t want it
for myself?’I said
He gave couldn’t-care-less shrug. ‘It’s of no importance to
me what or who you need it for. I understand the thickness of family blood even
though I have lost one. As it stands, I am happy to pay you to entertain me,
but only until such time as I feel it is time to call it quit.’
The look she gave him would have sliced through steel.
‘You mean when you have ground my pride into dust.’
Saul moved his lips from side to side, reining in his
temper.
In his thoughts:
She had some nerve to lament the damage to her pride, considering
what she had done to his.
‘I have already told you to go and get dressed, ‘he said. ‘I
would advise you to do so and now, otherwise I may very well change my mind and
take you dressed as you are.’
I turned with a swish of my shoulder-length hair and
padded up the sweeping staircase.
The action of my endless legs and neat bottom made Saul’s
blood surge to his groin. He shoved his hands deep in his trouser pockets to
stop himself from reaching for me as he so often had done in the past. He’d
had lovers since, but no one made his blood heat the way i do. All i had
to do was look at him from those smoky eyes and he was rock-hard. He sucked in
a harsh breath, fighting against the flood of memories, but it was impossible
to mentally sandbag against such powerful sensual recollections. For five years
they had tortured him, making him ache with the need to feel me again, have me in his arms, to hold me and have his fill of me.
Saul ran a hand through the thickness of his rod between
his legs as he paced the room again. He would get her out of his system this
time once and for all. Whatever it took, he would do it.
He had to in order to move on with his life. This was his
last chance and he was going to make the most of every single minute.
0 comments:
Post a Comment