Innocence
I’m all
out of faith
This is
how I feel
I’m
cold and I am shamed
Lying
naked on the floor
Illusion
never changed
Into
something real
I’m
wide awake
And I
can see the perfect sky is torn
You’re
a little late
I’m
already torn
-
“Torn,”
Natalie Imbruglia
“If I don’t see you again, Mr. Sark,
tell Irina I hope you both succeed where I could
not.”
What kind of pansy-ass cop-out is that? Not that he cares much for
Sloane, or will miss working with the maniacal asshole – honestly, he hasn’t
done so much ego-stroking since, well, never – but it’s the principle of the
thing. Thirty years, a lifetime of deceit and betrayal, tossed away over a woman?
He sips wine – a vintage merlot, the inn is small but the liquor
selection is fabulous – and savors the sweet mushroom sauce on his slice of
lamb. A .9 millimeter hides underneath his tailored black suit-jacket. The
waitress recognizes him; he comes here as often as his job allows these side
trips through the French countryside.
The inn is family-owned and out of the way, not the sort of place
to be frequented by any one other than locals, and few of those. Rustic and quaint with none of the cliché. A place where a man like him can find a small measure of peace.
Exposure is not an issue here – here he is just a traveler, some anonymous
businessman with an appreciation of fine wine who occasionally drops by for a
meal and a night’s sleep.
No one knows he comes here.
Right now, he should be in
But he wants away, for a few days. Time to clear
his head, to plan the next move. The loss of the Rambaldi
heart infuriates him. He prefers taking care of business himself, not arranging
hits through clandestine phone calls to fake limousine companies. Another
aspect of Sloane he despises – the man never wants to dirty his own hands.
Guilt has never been a problem for
Anyway, he sure as hell wouldn’t have been bested by the goddamn
fucking CIA if Sloane had sent him to handle the job.
Tonight the dining room’s only other patron is a young brunette.
She sits at a booth diagonal from his, drinking water and toying with a salad.
She seems engrossed in her book; he can’t see the cover but imagines it’s some
racy mystery novel. Her low-slung jeans, simple black tee-shirt and strappy sandals scream American tourist as loudly as
the French dictionary at her elbow.
She catches him staring. Their eyes lock for an instant, and he
lifts the corner of his mouth in a quick smile of greeting. She hesitates
before flashing an uncertain smile back. They look away at the same moment, the
air between them tingling with the brief connection.
Outside, a soft rain drums against the windows.
The waitress brings his check and asks if he would like his
regular room. It’s these small touches that make this place so desirable – his
last visit was, oh, six months ago, and they remember which room he prefers. The one in the east corner, with a view of the garden and easy
access to the back exit, just in case. He can never be too careful.
When the waitress returns with his key, he asks for a bottle of
merlot to take up to his room.
She stops at the young woman’s table on her way to the bar. He
stares out the window at the misty rain but can’t help overhearing their
jumbled attempt at a conversation: the waitress doesn’t speak English, and the
young woman doesn’t speak French.
He briefly considers ignoring it. Hasn’t he just been
congratulating himself on avoiding unnecessary human contact? Only the memory
of her dark eyes, the thought of the soft tingle in his stomach when their
gazes collided, intrigues him.
He crosses to them, touches the waitress’s elbow lightly and translates
the young woman’s request: “Mademoiselle would like a room for the night,
please.”
The waitress laughs, apologizes profusely to them both in French,
and hurries away.
“I have no idea what you just said, but thank you.”
An East Coast accent – probably
He doesn’t.
“I asked her to give you a room.”
She sighs. “I’ve been trying to work up the courage to do that for
two hours. I’m so embarrassed to not know their language. American
ethnocentrism, right?” She laughs and shakes her head, and he likes the
way her sable-colored hair falls softly across her cheek. “I’m Jessi, by the way.”
Ah, the name. Always so important. They
all want to know his name – Jack, Sloane, even Irina.
He enjoys anonymity – the ease of slipping on a new name and a new identity as
casually as most people pull on a clean pair of socks. He doesn’t need the
illusion of a real life, a normal life, a life outside of their twisted, sordid
little world.
He thinks of
Tonight he is... “Ethan.” They shake hands across the table. Her
fingers are light and slender in his; he holds on for a second longer than he
should, and, he notes, she doesn’t resist.
The rain picks up a bit outside, and a hint of thunder growls in
the distance.
Jessi lays her book aside. Not a murder
mystery – Sense and Sensibility.
“Are you here on business?” he inquires.
She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear – good Christ, who does that
remind him of – and admits, “I’m actually supposed to
be on my honeymoon.” He arches an eyebrow, and she looks down at the table,
grinning sheepishly. “Leave it to us Americans to just come right out with it,
huh? Sorry.”
“You can’t possibly stop there. I may be British but I’m not
stuffy enough to pass up a tragic love story.”
She laughs at that. He surprises himself again by laughing with
her.
The waitress arrives with their room keys and
Only he prides himself on not making those connections.
This, of course, could be simply a diversion, nothing more –
merely a way to take his mind off the wrench Sloane just threw into their plans
by packing up his over-wrought grief and finding another sandbox to play in.
Over half a bottle of merlot – she does most of the drinking, he
sips at his and keeps pouring for her – Jessi tells
him about the successful Wall Street lawyer her successful Wall Street lawyer
father wanted her to marry, and the day three weeks ago when she came home
early from her NYU art class to find her fiancé in bed with an old girlfriend.
Not a new story. He suspects the same one has been told in
countless bars across the world since nearly the beginning of time, with only
minor variations to the characters’ names and lives. Love invites betrayal.
Only this one does have an interesting twist. “So,” she concludes,
giggly from the wine, “my father shows up on my doorstep two days ago, the day
I’m supposed to be getting married, and tells me he isn’t going to let me throw
away the best thing in my life just because Mitch made a stupid mistake. I
mean, can you believe it? My own father is telling me this scum-bag is the best
I’ll ever do. He’s ready to drive me to the church because – and this is the
best part – they never cancelled the wedding! He and Mom just assumed I would
go through with it if they just got me there somehow. Isn’t that the most
ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard?”
Well, not quite, but for most people it would be so
“I let him take me to the church. I got into my wedding gown even.
And I’m standing there, looking at my reflection, and there’s like five hundred
thousand of our closest friends and relatives in the chapel,” she giggles madly
at that, “and I looked at myself and thought, ‘I don’t want to marry this guy.’
So I just went down the hall, knocked on his dressing room door and handed him
the ring back. Then I got in the limo and went to the airport and flew to
The waitress appears and asks quietly if they need anything else.
She looks slightly disapproving, and he realizes they must want to close the
restaurant. It’s nearly
He pays the checks – his and hers – and Jessi
is too drunk to notice. He offers to walk her upstairs; she stumbles into him
when she stands. “How much did I drink?” she asks, sounding somewhat alarmed.
“I never drink. I haven’t had a drink since I was, like, sixteen, at my junior
prom.”
He doesn’t deny himself physical pleasure, but he is careful about
the sort of woman he chooses for those rendezvous. Not prostitutes – he would
never pay for sex; it would strike too deeply at his pride to think he couldn’t
seduce someone if he wanted. He looks for women with a
certain crassness and a certain cynicism, though. Women
who don’t expect him to call the next day or even stay through the night.
Women who want the feel of his body and his lips the same way he wants theirs,
but nothing more.
Jessi meets none of those criteria.
He wants her, of course. He can admit that to himself.
She nuzzles his neck with her nose when he unlocks her door, and
his heart rate triples. Her small hands tug at his shirt, untucking
it in the front, pulling him into her room by it. She stretches on tip-toe to
reach his mouth, and for a moment, he hesitates, torn between the desire
building low-down in his stomach and the warning throbbing in his mind.
At the last possible second he moves back, steps away and holds
her at arm’s length. “You’ve had too much wine,” he protests.
She frowns, pouting in a very sexy way. He likes how her features
aren’t quite centered; she isn’t beautiful in the classic sense, but she’s
striking, the delicateness of her tiny bones reminding him of a fragile baby
bird.
He wants to protect her, and that’s dangerous.
“I’m a big girl. I can do something wild and crazy for once,” she
argues, cornering him against the doorframe and unfastening his tie. He
hesitates again, thinking how warm and soft it would be inside of her. She
kisses his jaw, just below his chin, and he shivers without meaning to.
She presses up against him. He can feel the heat of her body
through their clothes. “C’mon, Ethan,” she purrs in his ear, curling her
fingers in the waistband of his pants. “This is supposed to be my honeymoon,
isn’t it?”
Ah, there it is. She’s lonely and hurting and vulnerable, and
while he hardly considers himself an altruistic man, he knows the walking away
would not be easy. She would have expectations.
A man like him has nothing to offer a woman like her. Not even
empty physical comfort.
So he pushes her hands away, gentle yet firm, and says with a
finality she doesn’t argue against, “It was nice to meet you, Jessi. Good night.”
* * * *
He undresses slowly and soaks in the claw-foot tub for over an
hour, losing himself in the squealing guitars and pounding drums and roaring
lyrics of Metallica piped in through his headphones.
He does have a weakness for American heavy metal.
The bath doesn’t wash away the feel of her, but it leaves him
calmer nonetheless. Calm enough to contemplate his next move.
He needs a good night’s sleep – working feverishly to stay one
step ahead of the CIA in the Rambaldi game since the
Alliance’s downfall has left him veritably exhausted – and then he’ll fly to
Cypress in the morning. Report Sloane’s abrupt departure to Irina
and plot some way to steal the Rambaldi heart back
from the goddamn interfering CIA.
In the dark bedroom, he steps into a pair of boxer shorts. He never
admires himself in the mirror. Vanity he allows himself – the thousand-dollar
suits, the Italian-leather shoes, the genuine Rolex watches – but he draws the
line at narcissism.
When he was sixteen, a Russian arms dealer threatened to carve a
chunk out of
Still, he knows he is a good-looking man. He works out
religiously, not so much for vanity as for necessity; his job description,
obviously, includes hand-to-hand combat, so he can’t afford to be soft or out
of shape. But he sees the way women look at him, the way they admire the lean
body beneath the expensive clothes, the way they melt when he flashes his
dimpled smirk at them. Even Irina looks at him
appreciatively now and again. He enjoys it, superficially.
It’s women like Jessi that make him
nervous. Women that stare searchingly into his eyes, curious
about the man inside. Like a certain female CIA operative who shall
remain nameless.
He stows the loaded pistol in the bedside drawer and crawls
between the silk sheets. His limbs ache from weariness, but as usual, his mind
refuses to shut off. He closes his eyes, trying to remember a time when sleep
came easily, when he didn’t have so much to worry about.
He half-expects the knock at the door.
Briefly, he toys with the idea of not answering, pretending to be
asleep. It’s taken her almost two hours to work up the courage to knock once;
he knows she won’t knock again. He can lie here silently and listen to her
footsteps pad away sadly down the hall, then rise early enough to be gone
before she wakes in the morning.
Just become a memory to her. A wine-fuzzy memory
of a handsome stranger who stumbled into her life one rainy night in
Only he wants to be more.
“Coming,” he calls. Some old-fashioned sense of chivalry dictates
that it would be tacky to answer the door half-naked, so he pulls the black
suit pants and white undershirt back on as he crosses the room.
She looks forlorn and frightened standing there in the dimly-lit
hallway. They don’t speak; he just opens the door wider, and she steps in
around him.
“Would you like a drink?” he asks, retrieving the bottle from the
dresser and pouring some into two paper cups before she can respond.
“I think I’ve had enough,” she says, and drinks it anyway.
The rain beats a steady rhythm against the windows. The room is
dark except for an occasional flash of lightning, silent except for an
infrequent rumble of thunder.
They sit on opposite ends of the small sofa.
“I really made a fool of myself back there, didn’t I?”
He refutes it immediately, as she knows he will. “No. You’re a
beautiful woman, Jessi.”
She tucks her dark hair behind her ears again, reminding him
uncomfortably of another woman he’d rather forget. “But you’ve just lost
someone you cared about deeply. I couldn’t possibly take advantage of that.”
She looks at him. In the darkness, all he can see clearly are her
wide, curiously innocent eyes. “What if I wanted you to?”
Her voice, low and husky, destroys the last of his resistance.
There will be consequences, of course;
Dropping his empty cup to the floor, he clasps her knees and
swings her legs up onto the couch, stretching himself out on top of her and
running his hands up her sides to cradle her head. She’s so small that he’s
careful not to press his full weight down onto her, afraid he might crush her.
She tilts her chin up and meets his lips eagerly, sliding her
palms up underneath his shirt and bending her knees to draw his hips more
firmly against hers. Her kiss is hungry, full of passion and longing, and he
matches her ardency, pushing her lips apart with his tongue and stroking the
tender recesses of her mouth. She tastes like wine. Her tongue glides along his,
velvety-soft and inviting.
He eases back momentarily for her to slide the shirt off over his
head. Then his mouth is back on hers, rough and bruising. He slides a hand
under her shirt and discovers she isn’t wearing a bra; her small, firm breasts
mold perfectly to his palm, and he pushes the material up over her navel, drops
his mouth to the taut olive skin where her rib cage meets.
“Ethan,” she gasps, as his kisses trail across to the tip of her
breast. She shifts underneath him, and he lets her roll him over, grasps her
waist and settles her onto his hips.
She’s so light, he could lift her with
one hand.
Again the urge to protect her. He knows he should stop; he doesn’t just
want one empty night with this woman, he wants to know who she is, to wake up
beside her, to call from the airport and find she’s waiting for him at home.
He’s too jaded to believe in love at first sight – or love at any
sight, really – and too cynical to believe this even has anything to do with
her, a perfect stranger.
It has everything to do with his growing realization that one day
very soon he may reach the top, and he will have no one to share that victory.
He feels superior to Sloane and Irina and Sydney and
Jack, but he envies them, too.
So he should, of course, tell Jessi to
stop. Tell her they’ve both had too much to drink – he isn’t drunk on wine, but
he sure as hell is drunk on unwelcome emotions – and send her back to her own
room. Whatever desire she’s awakened in him can be easily remedied tomorrow
night in
Except she knows, somehow, almost instinctively, the most
sensitive spots on his body, and he can’t bring himself to end it. Her lips are
warm and full on his neck, his chest, his stomach; she sucks on the tender skin
above the hollow of his throat, nibbles on the bony protrusion of his
collarbone, traces the outline of his ribs with her tongue. She slides the
pants off his hips, and
Hasn’t he earned some fucking complications in his life?
He carries her to the bed; she’s practically weightless in his
arms, clinging to his neck and grazing his earlobe with her teeth. He deposits
her on the edge, kneels in front of her and reaches for the hem of her shirt.
Her hand closes over his wrist suddenly, and he looks up to find
her chocolate eyes abruptly tinged with fear.
“What is it?” he asks, his voice rough
with passion.
“I’ve never...” Jessi hesitates, a touch
of color creeping into her cheeks. “Mitch and I were...waiting...until we got
married.” She swallows audibly. “I’ve never...done...this...before.”
Holy fuck. A virgin.
He knows some men get off on the prospect of bedding a virgin. For
him, it’s unsettling, the idea that someone so cold – a purposefully heartless
person like himself – could defile that kind of innocence.
He drops his head, closing his eyes while he composes himself. The
irony is not lost on him: He wants her because she’s innocent, pure and
removed from all the stains on his life. But if he possesses her, consumes all
of her the way he wants to, he transfers those stains onto her.
He will take away something she can never recover, and do it
knowing he will abandon her in the morning.
Her fingertips brush the underside of his chin, tilting his head
and his gaze back up to her. The fear is gone, replaced by a sharp resolve.
The wind blows fiercely against the windows, rattling them. The raindrops
sound like bullets, the thunder like explosions.
“I want this,” she says, pressing a finger to his lips when he
starts to protest. “I want this to be with you.”
How can you?
he almost says. You don’t even know me.
But he doesn’t. He doesn’t say anything. He just allows her to
draw him to his feet, stares into her trusting dark eyes as she slides the
tee-shirt off over her head and drops the jeans and a pair of lacey black
underwear down to her ankles, and follows her down onto the bed, sealing her
mouth with a scorching kiss as he pushes her knees apart.
He eases into her as gently as he can, knowing – and hating – that
this will be somewhat painful for her. She turns her face into his chest and
holds tightly to his neck, digging her nails into his shoulder as he pushes in
deeper. A wicked flash of lightning illuminates the room; he glances down at
her pained expression and drives forward once more, powerfully, tearing through
her maidenhood in a quick thrust that causes her to whimper.
Then the agony gives way to a delicious ecstasy. He stares down at
her, transfixed, nearly overwhelmed by watching the thrill and passion of
someone making love for the first time. Her slender limbs wind around him, her
scent envelopes him, her sweat-slick skin slides along his, and he’s lost in
her, in the consuming sweetness of her inner warmth and softness, in the sound
of her ragged breathing and quiet moans.
She comes only seconds before he does. He doesn’t usually give in
to the ecstasy; even in the throes of passion, he is controlled, almost
reserved. But the intensity of the pleasure overcomes him, and his cry mingles
with hers.
* * * *
He sleeps soundly for the first time in years, her slender body
tucked close into his, a light but reassuring weight against his side.
He has forgotten how sweet it is to wake up beside someone.
She stirs when he eases his arm out from underneath her. Rosy
early morning light catches the gold flecks in her dark eyes when she rolls
over and smiles sleepily at him.
“I’m sore,” she announces happily, drawing her knees up to her
chest. The sheet slips off her arm, and he admires the smoothness of her olive
skin, traces the roundness of her shoulder with his fingertip.
“I’m sorry,” he says, meaning it. He doesn’t resist when she moves
in for a soft, lingering kiss. Their naked bodies meet underneath the covers,
and he wants to make love to her again, but he won’t.
Instead, he frees his mouth gently from hers and kisses the tip of
her nose. “It’s still early. Go back to sleep,” he tells her. She nods and
snuggles deeper into the pillow, not noticing that he purposefully keeps his
arms at his sides so he won’t wake her again when he rises.
He lies quietly until her breathing evens out once more. In sleep,
her innocence is unmarred. He wonders if he looks the same when he sleeps,
marvels at how alike human beings are beneath the outward trappings, tries not
to think about how quickly that serene surface will shatter when she wakes to
find him gone.
He doesn’t leave a note. He doesn’t leave so
much as a cuff-link for her to remember him by. He dresses quietly in the
bathroom, retrieves the gun from the nightstand and slips out down the back
stairs, calling ahead to the airfield from the road and arranging to have the
private jet ready to leave for
He puts the top down on the Mercedes and drinks in the crisp,
rain-fresh morning air. The world seems scrubbed clean by last night’s storm.
He will never go back to the inn, of course. He supposes he will
miss the place, so strangely safe and welcoming for a lonely traveler like
himself. It isn’t the memories that will keep him away; no, on the contrary, he
would like to go back, to sit on the bed and run his hand over the sheets and
pretend it’s her soft skin.
No, it’s the possibility that she might be there, waiting for him,
that will keep him away.
“If I don’t see you again, Mr. Sark,
tell Irina I hope you both succeed where I could
not.”
And
Or, at least, he knows how to leave them behind.