“I love this place,” he said happily. There was a path down to the beach, which was too steep for her with her cast. “I’d have to pull you up on a rope,” he teased her. “Theo loves playing on the beach when he’s here. It used to worry me when he was younger, but he’s good about it now.” There was a big terrace where William said he liked to lie in the sun when it wasn’t too windy. The house was very exposed on the ocean side, which gave him the incredible view. And he said he loved watching the fog roll in every day.
After lunch, he made a fire in the fireplace, and they sat down next to it, and he showed her some of his books. They were impressive tomes, and the reviews on the dust jackets were equally so. He was a serious writer, as she was a serious photographer. And they had worked hard to achieve their success.
“I’d love to do a portrait of you,” she said, as she pulled a camera out of her purse and walked outside to photograph the view. He joined her, and she shot a few frames of him, then he took the camera carefully out of her hands and set it down on a table, took her in his arms and kissed her. She felt as though she were flying through time to a place she’d never been, safe in the arms of a man who loved her. It felt more right than she wanted to admit to him, and she could feel her resolve melting as she kissed him back.
“You’ll have to stop if you don’t want me to tear your clothes off,” he whispered in a hoarse voice and she laughed. At that precise moment, she wouldn’t have minded if he did, but she didn’t want to have regrets later. They sat outside for a while, and went back in when it got chilly. He had put a cashmere blanket over her, and they held hands as they watched the sunset before they went back to sit by the fire. He poked it with an iron and put another log on. There was something so masculine about him, which she loved, and so well-mannered. He appeared to be considerate in a thousand little ways, always concerned for her comfort and attentive to her needs, both emotional and physical. He was a gentle, loving man, and she wished she had met him sooner. It would have been wonderful to be married to a man like him, instead of always forging ahead on her own. She could see how one could get lazy and spoiled with a man like him, and happy.
They sat talking in his living room until almost midnight, and they were both getting tired. It would have been easier to just go upstairs to his bedroom, but he didn’t suggest it and smiled at her as he stood up.
“I’m afraid you’ll get demerits at your boarding school if I don’t get you in before midnight, my dear,” he said, smiling wistfully. He would have liked to wake up next to her in the morning, but he didn’t want to violate their agreement, at least not this soon. “I’ll drive you back.” She put on her jacket and they walked out to his car, feeling sleepy and peaceful. It had been a perfect afternoon in his cozy nest above the sea.
He kissed her before she got out of the car, and they lingered for a moment, and then he walked her inside and saw her to her room, ever vigilant of her well-being and safety. Everyone else in the house was asleep, and they walked upstairs as quietly as they could, and she giggled when the stairs creaked. He kissed her again before he left, told her to call him when she woke up, and she heard him drive away a minute later. He called her on his cellphone as soon as he got home.
“You’ve ruined this place for me,” he said plaintively in a velvety voice born of desire and fatigue. “It seems empty without you now. I hope you spend the night with me here sometime soon.”
“So do I,” she said, the words just slipped out. She had created the tension of his wanting her by not sleeping with him. It hadn’t been intentional, but the result was that he only wanted her more now, if that was even possible.
“You make me feel very young, Maddie. I feel like a schoolboy. It sounds a bit mad, but I love you. I’m just sorry we didn’t meet sooner. We’ve wasted so much time until now, not knowing each other. I want to make up for lost time and not miss a minute now.”
“I hope we will,” she said gently.
“I hope so too,” he said earnestly. “Sleep well. I’ll pick you up in the morning. Do you sleep late?”
“Never.”
“Wonderful. I’m an early riser. Don’t be afraid to wake me.”
They both went to bed then and thought of each other, and she fell asleep before he did. He lay in bed for a long time, remembering every moment of the day he had spent with her and wanting more.
She took him at his word and called him at eight the next morning. He had been up and dressed for two hours by then, hoping she would call soon. She had forced herself to wait until eight to do so. He came to get her ten minutes after she’d called him, and drove her back to his place, where he had coffee and warm biscuits and jam waiting for her, and freshly squeezed orange juice, which was delicious.
“I love the fruit in California,” he said as he drank his juice. There was a lot about America he liked, and he said he had no desire to live in England again. He loved the freedom and opportunities life in the States provided, even as a writer. She took more photographs of him over breakfast on the terrace, and got a wonderful one of him laughing when she said something he thought was funny. The fog bank behind him provided a moody backdrop for her shots of him. After breakfast, he drove her to a beach path that was more accessible to her than his own, down the steep cliff where he lived. They walked for a while along the beach, although she was slowed down by her cast. They only passed the occasional local resident walking a dog, and most of the time had the beach to themselves.
“God, I love being with you,” he said as he hugged her, while they stood looking out to sea together. They had agreed that she had to leave the next day, he was dreading it and she was worried about it too. She realized how far they had come and that despite all her safeguards and caution, she would miss him.
“When will I see you again?” he asked her over lunch, and reiterated the offer to meet her in Hong Kong.
“I’m not sure where I’m going after Shanghai. I have three options at the moment, and I don’t know if I’ll have a break or only enough time to get to the next shoot.”
“Is that your only hesitation?” he asked, looking straight at her, and she nodded. She wanted to see him again too.
“Right now, the options are Paris, London, and Madrid, and a very, very slim chance I’ll have to go to New Delhi.”
“That would be fun too. I’m game for wherever you want me. I can do my work on the road. I’m not particular about where I do my writing,” he said, unlike her daughter, who had to do it at home with no one in the house. “I bring my computer and I can work on the plane.” He was even more flexible than she was.
“I’ll know more when I get back to New York.” At least all the options were civilized this time, she wasn’t shooting in Somalia or Pakistan, although that could change if a disaster happened somewhere in the world and she decided to go there. She called her own shots these days, except for her important clients’ complicated schedules, which was the case in Shanghai.