Chapter 8 #3
“That doesn’t mean I would do it,” Ben said, but he had promised her he wouldn’t hound her if she didn’t want to continue with him, and he respected her and what she wanted, although it nearly killed him to let her go.
“I’ll be here for a few months, and then I think I’ll make the crossing on the boat to the Med in April.
There’s no point in having a boat like that if you don’t take her out for an ocean voyage now and then.
I’d love you to do that with me one day.
It’s an incredible experience. I feel like an explorer every time I do it.
I try to do it every year. Call me if you need anything, Charlotte.
” She nodded and couldn’t speak. They kissed for one last time and then he was gone.
She felt as though an elephant had hit her.
He took her breath away every time, but she knew she was doing the right thing.
Better the pain of loss now than a lifetime of agony later if he ran true to form and left her in a year.
She couldn’t take the chance of losing a man she was so addicted to.
Every inch of her was keening for him after he left, and he walked all the way uptown to the Dakota on the Upper West Side, crying.
He was glad that they had one last night together.
And so was she. But she had made her decision.
Some things were better not started when you knew they have to break later.
The damages would have been far greater, Charlotte was sure of it.
—
After John’s first night back with Lillith, after his explanation for his three-week absence, things were almost back to normal. He was incredibly convincing, a skill he had developed and honed in his youth. It had been particularly useful with women ever since.
He had utterly convinced her that he was under siege for the men he had fired from the shipping company he bought, which was partly true.
She made him breakfast before he left for work.
He said he had a full day of difficult meetings, on the same ominous subject, with the unions ready to strike.
She almost believed him this time, but she was glad she hadn’t given up her job or her apartment, and after his disappearing for three weeks, the morning after his return, she didn’t bring up the subject.
She assumed that she wouldn’t be moving in with him for a while.
She wanted to see evidence now that he was reliable.
His passionate declarations when he made love to her and pushed her to the limits of her tolerance for pleasure weren’t enough to convince her that she could count on him.
He had shaken her faith badly with three weeks of silence.
But as if he had a pact with the devil, when she read the morning paper, there was a full article in the business section about how dire a situation John was in, with the dockworkers poised to strike in solidarity, all of the terminated employees suing him, and the censure of the entire shipping community.
She realized when she read it that he had been telling her the truth about the three weeks when he vanished, and claimed he was beleaguered and too ashamed to face her.
She wasn’t angry anymore, she felt sorry for him.
He was in a terrible mess, and the paper estimated that he could lose half his fortune in damages.
It was a high price to pay for seventeen old boats that he didn’t really need, and gloating about the greatly reduced price and the final destruction of the previous owners, which had satisfied his blood lust. The New York Times reporter wrote that a number of sources had said that he had boasted about the misfortune he had inflicted on the sellers and the fired employees, and was proud of it.
It wasn’t a handsome image for an immensely rich man, taking advantage of poor men with families to support, who could barely make ends meet when they had jobs, let alone without them.
The sympathy was all for the underdog, which should have been predictable.
—
Although he had promised to, Lillith wasn’t surprised when John didn’t call her that night. She was sure that he was with lawyers or union heads, trying to work out a settlement that would satisfy the men and get him out of trouble. And he wasn’t used to accounting for his whereabouts.
She was calmer at work that day than she had been for three weeks.
She had looked as though she were at a funeral for weeks, and her boss wouldn’t send her to clients because she was so distracted and looked so mournful, and several of her co-workers had warned her not to let her personal life impact her job.
But how could she not? He was the sun and the moon to her, and she had made her apartment cozier for him, taking away some of the too-feminine touches and buying a stack of beautiful new towels with a matching monogrammed bathrobe for him she could ill afford.
But she wanted him to feel at home now when they stayed there, until she moved in with him eventually.
She still believed she would one day, when his life calmed down.
She wasn’t worried about his not calling her this time.
It was understandable in the circumstances.
Now that he was back, she was sure that he wouldn’t do the same thing again for three weeks after she had told him how much it hurt her.
He had told her that he loved her, which didn’t mean the same thing to her that it did to him.
To her it was a promise of the relationship to follow, while to him it was a statement of his feelings at that exact moment, subject to change without notice.
No one had ever been as kind to Lillith as John was to her over the holidays, with the love and attention he had lavished on her on the boat.
She told herself that his three-week disappearance had been an unfortunate stumble in the early stages of their relationship.
She was sure now it wasn’t intentional or meant to be cruel, although she had felt it that way.
Jane, the assistant who worked with her, said that he had all the earmarks of a sociopath.
She had dated one for a year, and said he had nearly driven her insane, and used to disappear for weeks and then show up again as though nothing had happened.
Lillith didn’t believe her. She trusted John.
He had been deeply apologetic the night before, and his eyes were damp when he explained how hard it had been for him too.
He said he had become the victim of the men he had innocently fired.
And Lillith was certain the press had blown it into more than it was to make it sensational and sell papers.
John had said it to her and she believed him.
He wouldn’t lie about something as serious as that.
—
Isabelle was sympathetic too, after she read the paper that day and saw the article.
She was sure it was humiliating for him to be eviscerated by The New York Times.
They talked about it in bed that night, after they made love.
They were falling into a comfortably passionate routine, and he was staying with her one or two nights a week, and frequent weekends.
Occasionally, Isabelle felt like she was seeing too much of him, but she knew he was lonely for Helen, used to being married, and she didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
She still wasn’t sure if their involvement was a healthy idea.
Isabelle knew that she reminded him so much of Helen that it seemed like a way for him to avoid facing that she was gone.
He had the next best thing in Isabelle. And he appeared to want to spend as many nights with her as he could and she’d allow.
But she had an independent social life she enjoyed and a wide circle of friends, and since their affair was a secret and they intended to keep it that way for a while, she couldn’t include him.
She liked going out on her own now. She didn’t need a man to escort her, nor want one all the time.
Occasionally, she felt trapped with John on weekends.
He sat for hours reading or brooding, bundled up on the deck, and she enjoyed city life more than the country in the winter.
He insisted on going to the Hamptons nearly every weekend and having her to himself.
Isabelle missed her friends. John had surprised her with revealing his feelings to her and his wanting to leap into a full-blown relationship with her, and she wasn’t ready for it. And he loved being isolated with her.