Afterward he slumped against the wall, pinning her to the tile. She was beyond limp, beyond drowsy. He kissed her shoulder, then let his legs bend so that they slid down the wall to sprawl on the shower floor.
Again, silence fell. She didn’t know how to explain what she’d just done, and in any case, she was acutely aware of his stated condition: Don’t do this unless you mean it. Don’t do it unless she accepted him as her lover, though arguably what had just passed between them made that a moot point. Don’t do it unless she tore down the wall she’d erected between them. Don’t do it unless she was his and he was hers, with all the ramifications of what that meant. She’d done it, and God help her, she meant it.
Somewhere along the way she’d been stupid enough to fall in love with him. If she hadn’t loved him, his betrayal wouldn’t have hurt so much. Enraged her, yes, but not hurt. She couldn’t imagine how, in her lifetime, she’d managed to love two such different men as David and Diaz. One was sunshine, the other was darkness. Perhaps, though, it made sense: the woman she’d been before couldn’t have loved Diaz, but she was no longer that woman. She’d wanted to be, but she wasn’t. The terrible things that had happened had changed her, and there was no going back. She would always love dressing up and fussing with her hair, love decorating her surroundings, the way people did in that program that had so bewildered him, but she was a stronger, harder, fiercer woman than she’d been when Justin was snatched from her arms.
The big question now was: Where did they go from here? She was just as lost now as she’d been that morning. The difference was, now she wasn’t alone.
29
Milla woke the next morning cuddled in Diaz’s arms, her head on his shoulder, the warmth of his body a source of comfort in the cold, gray December morning. Rain was pouring down, much heavier than the day before. As usual, he woke almost simultaneously, either too attuned to her to sleep after she was awake, or too inherently cautious to leave himself so vulnerable. Knowing him as she did, she assumed it was the latter.
She sat up and stretched, easing muscles that were stiff from lying in the same position too long. Still lying beside her, he reached up and rubbed one hand over her bare back. Her hair hung in her eyes and she pushed it back, aware of what a mess it must be, since it had still been wet when they’d tumbled back into bed last night. His bed this time, not hers. Though she doubted there would be any his and hers after last night, just theirs. The prospect made her uneasy, knowing that while one essential question had been answered last night, a multitude remained undecided.
“I’ll turn on the heat,” he said. She sat with her arms propped on her drawn-up knees and looked out the window, while he got up and left the bedroom. The house next door was empty, as was the one on the other side. In fact, theirs was the only inhabited house in this entire stretch of rental property. It made her feel as alone as if they were the only people on the planet, though she knew the locals were still here. A few times when she’d been walking on the beach, she’d passed one or two people who were also out getting their exercise, but for the most part she’d had the beach to herself. The windswept desolation had appealed to her aching heart, and in a way the pouring rain did now, too. Her mood was somber; had she made a colossal mistake last night? And even if she had, was there any going back?
Diaz returned with her robe and slippers, then left to put on the coffee. He wasn’t very talkative in the morning—or any other time—and that suited her. She crawled out of bed and hurriedly pulled the robe around her, then dashed to the bathroom.
The bathroom had its own radiant heater, and he’d also turned that one on. Because the bathroom was so much smaller, it heated more rapidly, and it was already almost comfortable. Milla stared at her reflection in the mirror and made a face; her hair was definitely a mess. For the first time in a long while, though, her eyes weren’t dull with misery. They weren’t exactly sparkling, but there was life in them.
She turned on the shower and let the water heat, then got in and briskly washed her hair. The hot water felt good on her sore muscles, reminding her how demanding Diaz had been during the night. He’d been a patient lover but, after the first time, not a gentle one. He’d been hungry in a way he hadn’t been even the first time they’d made love, in a way that wasn’t completely physical. She tried to analyze the difference, but it eluded her, and she wondered if it wasn’t because Diaz himself was so elusive and remote. What was startling was that he’d been neither the night before.
As she was drying off, she automatically touched her hip to make certain her birth control patch was there, and froze. Her fingers found only smooth skin. Horrified, she stared at herself in the mirror as she realized that not only was the patch not there, it hadn’t been there for quite some time. For about three weeks, in fact.
She’d had a period. She remembered that, vaguely, because Diaz had gone out to buy tampons for her. Normally she wore the patches for three weeks, putting on a new one every week, then went without for one week, and that was when she’d have her period. That meant she had either removed the patch or it had fallen off after having been on for way longer than it was meant to be; it would have lost its effectiveness after a week anyway and she’d have had a period then. She had absolutely no memory of dealing with the patch, and putting on a new one hadn’t crossed her mind.
None of which would have mattered, if it hadn’t been for last night.
Realistically she knew her chance of getting pregnant was very small; her body wouldn’t return to normal for a couple of months after going off the patches. But accidents happened, and women got pregnant all the time when it wasn’t supposed to be likely.