Mirror of My Soul

life of your own, instead of
meddling in mine.”
Gen held up a hand. “Don’t encourage Chloe. She’s dating a biker now who does
tattoos and piercings. She wants me to go on a double date.”
“Maybe we could go out with you and Tyler?” Chloe’s eyes danced. “Interest Tyler in a Prince Albert, maybe?”
“Oh my God.” Marguerite toed her door closed on a burst of their laughter. She felt an answering chuckle in her stomach, mixed up with something lower, coiling tight with her resolve. She’d decided. She wasn’t turning back. Now it was time to get dressed.
* * * * *
She hadn’t spoken to him directly for those two weeks. He’d called her work
number after hours to leave her warm, intimate voice mails, telling her his
whereabouts, his schedule from day to day. A short trip to New York, his cell phone number. Back to Tampa for a day or so to work on a project. A party tonight at his house at the Gulf for some industry contacts, a favor for a friend. He was respecting his own rule, the one he’d set when he said goodbye to her on her front steps, not forcing direct contact until she made the first step. And despite his resolve, she’d been warmed to hear the edge of male impatience in his voice as the days passed. She wondered how long her knight would have waited before attempting to storm her castle again. She’d kept all the messages, downloaded them so she could hear his voice on her digital recorder as she lay in bed at night. Let them keep her company in the car as she made the drive to his Gulf home.
When she drove up his driveway, there were about twenty cars there, most of them luxury models. All the lights were on, a welcoming, warm vista. She could easily imagine those elegant cars as a group of carriages a hundred years ago, the same welcoming sense of graciousness projecting from the home, that enduring classiness that Tyler complemented with his own style.
As she got out of the car, she heard the warm chatter of voices and laughter that heralded a party where people were enjoying themselves. From the direction of the sound, it seemed they were outside at the pool house. She imagined that the glass doors had been thrown open so people could wander in and out, enjoy the grounds as they made new friends in an industry where success lay largely in who one knew and
impressed. She had no doubt that Tyler had guests here that could turn an aspiring actress’s or screenwriter’s dreams into reality. He’d likely carefully chosen a handful of talents to be here to take advantage of that opportunity. Being invited to such a party would have been enough to make one of those hopefuls spend a month’s salary on the right outfit and agonize over accessories days before the event.
Moments like that were turning points. Most of them went unnoticed as such until they passed into hindsight. But sometimes, like now, the significance of the moment 60
Mirror of My Soul
was immediately apparent. Something would change forever when the eyes that
mattered fell on you. And in that second the aspiring dreamer knew, in order to give the performance of her life, she couldn’t perform. She had to give a part of herself to her audience and pull them into who she was.
All of Marguerite’s senses were honed for that one person who mattered. As she moved across the lawn, oblivious to the curious looks, the dead physical stop of some of the men she passed, she picked out his voice among the others before she saw him. His polite chuckle. It ran a shiver of pure, hard wanting through her. She actually stopped herself to let her heart rate calm. Goddess, she’d really missed him. She didn’t know if he was an obsession or something more, but she didn’t care. She just needed to be near him, if it was only to sit across a room from him and stare.
He was sitting just inside one of the pool house doors in a deep man-sized wicker chair. His forearm rested along the curved arm, a drink loosely dangled off the end of it in his hand. One ankle crossed over the opposite knee, his favored pose, his khaki slacks casually adjusted. No coat, just a navy blue silk shirt that only enhanced the breadth of his shoulders, the mixture of the dangerous and the aristocratic in his features. With surprise, she noted that he was wearing his wedding ring on his right hand as a widower would. It made her wonder if he normally wore it but took it off when he was at The Zone or with a female houseguest to avoid questions, or perhaps out of respect for his wife. Respect for the oath he had made even if somewhere along the way the reality of it had become something terrible, unexpected.
Otherwise he was the picture of the relaxed and urbane host, the focal point for many of the women she saw milling around. They watched him with surreptitious
glances, gauging their chances for a night or maybe more than a night, or perhaps just fantasizing.
Back off, he’s mine. He said so. It startled her, coming so abruptly out of her mind and heart. Spoken with the hope of a submissive as well as the absolute certainty of a Mistress. All of it was rolled together into herself. Her. Marguerite. What she wanted.
Still, she stayed where she was, taking this moment to study him without his
knowledge. Each time he lifted his arm to respond in the conversation, she saw down the short shirt sleeve, the soft hairs under his arm, a three or four-inch length of his bare side. The early evening sunlight shone through the shirt, giving her the outline of his upper body, a simple thing that rendered her motionless, unable