Confused, she’d wanted someone to talk to and Christien had been there.He loaned her his strength, held her until her body stopped trembling.
And because she’d been vulnerable, his gentle probing shattered the meager defenses she’d put in place.When the story spilled out of her in fits and starts, he didn’t look at her like she had a third eyeball in the middle of her head.In fact, it had been the opposite.He’d been shocked for sure, but there had been something else in his eyes.Up until then he’d kept her at a distance, but after she told him her story she sensed…a closeness to him that hadn’t been there before.
Except he thought she was reliving memories of a past life.
So now who was nuts?
Reincarnation?She’d immediately dismissed the concept.She didn’t believe in reincarnation.But the notion of a past life stuck with her, popping up at weird times.Was he right?Was this what the strange dreams were about?
“We’ll start trying in December,” Erica was saying.
“Why wait six months?Why not now?”Lainie brought her mind back to the present and took another bite of her Caesar salad.She glanced around at the other diners in the small outdoor café who were also enjoying the warm sun.Conversations ebbed and flowed, accompanied by the clink of cutlery and china.Normal.Everything was normal and it felt good to act normal for at least one hour out of the day.
Her gaze passed over a man sitting at a table across the street.Her gaze jumped back to him.He was nursing one of those expensive, designer coffees and leafing through a magazine.The bright sun glinted off his blond hair and turned his pale skin pink.Dressed like every other man in the area—in dress pants and a white button-down shirt—he didn’t seem out of the ordinary.On the contrary, he seemed very ordinary—a businessman enjoying lunch on a nice spring day.Even so, Lainie’s heart thumped hard.Something about him seemed familiar.
“Peter wants to pay off a few more bills,” Erica said, but Lainie barely heard.
He’s probably a guy who works and lives around here, just like you.
“Lainie?Are you all right?”
She turned back to Erica and pasted on a smile.“Of course.I thought I saw someone I recognized.So tell me about the baby.Are you going to keep working after it’s born?”
Erica shook her head.“Enough about me.What’s been going on with you?”
It was on the tip of Lainie’s tongue to tell her new friend nothing was going on in her life, yet she hesitated, wanting—needing—to share something of herself.To pretend this was a normal lunch between good friends.There it was again, that wordnormal.Would she ever feel normal again?
“I’ve sort of been seeing Christien Chevalier.”
Erica put her fork down with a loud clang and stared wide-eyed at Lainie for a moment.“You’re kidding, right?Chevalier?The guy who owns the nightclub?”
“Yes.”
“My God, Lainie.He’s…” Erica’s brow scrunched.
“Out of my league.I know.”She tried to tell him as much but he refused to listen.Sometimes—most of the time—she found it hard to believe Christien Chevalier was interested in her.But he’d as much as said it outside her apartment building Sunday morning when he claimed he would wait until she was ready for him.
She’d been trying so hard to give him an out, to make him understand she wasn’t going to be clingy or needy.Instead of taking the out, he’d stepped away from it and she’d lost her heart to him.
They were so different.He was rich.She was struggling to make ends meet.He’d been all over the world.She never made it out of Wisconsin.He was big-city sophistication and she was small-town rustic.
Yet the differences didn’t seem to bother him.
Erica shifted in her chair, preparing for a long talk.“So tell me.What’s he like?Have you slept with him?”
Lainie laughed.It felt good to laugh and shed her somber thoughts.“He’s very nice.Very thoughtful.A little…” She searched for the right word to describe Christien.“Chivalrous.And no, I haven’t slept with him.”She’d been surprised to wake up in his home, however.She remembered him leaving to take care of business and being so tired.The next thing she remembered was standing in the middle of the room and him holding her tightly while she cried, the remnants of the dream still terrifyingly close.
The dream.Madelaine and Christien in the garden, about to be caught by her husband.Even now Lainie shuddered at how close they had come to being discovered.It was almost like watching a soap opera on TV except it was so much more real and the intensity of the dreams was wearing her out.
She didn’t tell Erica about the dreams though, or running to Christien after seeing visions of herself dying.She hadn’t even told Christien about her visions of death and neither would she.He might say she wasn’t crazy, but she didn’t believe him.How could she whenshethought she was crazy?
“But I have kissed him,” she said with a secret smile, her body warming at the memory of their kiss.It’d heated her blood until she was completely flushed.His arms around her made her feel safe.It’d been a long time since she felt safe.When he pulled away, he looked flustered, not an expression he wore easily.
“Yeah?So tell me what it’s like kissing Christien Chevalier?”Erica asked.
“It’s…”Like I’ve come home.Like I’ve been searching for something all my life but didn’t even know it until he showed up.“Nice.”
“Nice?Nice?By the look on your face I bet it was much better than nice.”
