Alex sat up, holding his hand against his genitals. I tried to speak, but nothing came out of my mouth, and instead I rubbed my hand up and down my throat. I tried not to think about what Alex would have done if I hadn’t freed my legs.
“What’s the matter,” he said, still a little dazed.
I dragged myself up to my elbows. “You had a nightmare,” I rasped.
I swallowed past the pain.
Maybe it was the light that hit me when I half sat, but Alex suddenly seemed to come to his senses. He reached one finger to the curve of my neck, touching the five red marks that by tomorrow would be bruises.
“Oh God,” he said, pulling me into his arms. “Oh, Cassie, my God.”
That’s when I started to cry. “You didn’t mean to do it,” I sobbed, and I felt Alex shake his head. “You didn’t know it was me.”
Alex held me away from him so that I could see his face, cut with the pattern of shame. “I’m so sorry,” he said. Without another word, he pushed himself up and walked to the opposite edge of the campfire, lying down on his side, facing away.
I watched him, and letting only seconds go by, I picked up the blanket and stretched out beside him. Whether or not he realized it, he needed me. The very worst thing for him would be to sleep alone.
“No,” Alex said. He turned to me, revealing even more fear and rage in his eyes than when he’d been gripping my throat, but I realized that this time it was directed at himself. “What if I do it again?”
“You won’t,” I said, and I believed my words.
Alex rolled over and kissed me, touching the marks on my jaw and throat as if this time his fingers could erase the ache. He stared at me until he took the absolution offered in my eyes. “Cassandra Barrett,” he said softly, “you are one of a kind.”
MY WEDDING GOWN CAME FROM THE BIANCHI FACTORY IN BOSTON; my silk slippers were sent from the bridal district of New York City; fresh white roses and stephanotis had been flown in from France for my bouquet. The crates and cartons traveled Africa by train, then Land Rover, accompanied by a small, dark seamstress who asked to be called Mistress Szabo, and who was responsible for the last-minute alterations that would make the ensemble seem as if it had been spun only for me.
She knelt at my feet while I fingered the pattern of seed pearls at my waist and watched Jennifer run down a wedding checklist for the thirtieth time that morning.
“Miss Barrett,” the seamstress snapped. “You will not fidget.”
I stood at attention, which was very easy to do in the stiff white satin and mounds of petticoats. I wondered how everything could possibly stay pristine white on the jeep ride from the lodge to the small wooden chapel. I wondered how I’d keep from ripping off my veil and letting it fly into the wind; kicking free my shoes and hiking up my heavy skirts to run through the hot, familiar sand.
“There,” Mistress Szabo pronounced. She pulled herself to her feet, her knees creaking, and clasped her hands in front of her. “Si`, bella,”
she murmured. She wove her way to the narrow bed and whisked Jennifer toward the door. “Come, come,” she said. “The bride needs a minute to herself.”
Jennifer checked her watch. “We’re ahead of schedule,” she said.
“You can have five.”
I didn’t really want to be alone, but I didn’t want to be with them, either. I stood in front of the cheval mirror with a crack down the middle, seeing my face split into halves that did not quite line up.
With the exception of Alex’s engagement ring, I wasn’t wearing any jewelry. But my throat was ringed with the proof of Alex’s nightmare, a necklace of amethyst bruises. I had borrowed pancake from the makeup trailer and applied it before Mistress Szabo arrived, but that didn’t keep me from knowing what was underneath.
I closed my eyes and made myself think of Connor. There had been a time, not too long ago, when I believed that he would have been the one I married, if he had still been alive. And if he’d been here—even if he hadn’t turned out to be the groom—he would have told me to make Alex wait. To take a little more time to come to a decision.
But I didn’t want a little more time. I wanted Alex.
At that realization, I understood why, lately, I hadn’t been dreaming of Connor as much; why it had been getting more and more difficult to picture his face. He was leaving me. I had made a decision; Connor had accepted it. He would no longer play devil’s advocate; he would no longer intrude on a good night’s sleep; he would no longer be the one taking care of me.
I sat on the edge of the bed, wiping under my eyes to catch the mascara and trying to even my breath. I felt the same ache in my chest that I’d felt years ago when Connor had died by degrees in my arms.
For a moment I remembered us the way we had been, sitting side by side beneath a summer sunset, building our childhood with bone-clean Popsicle sticks and hot whispered dreams. And then I let him go.
“STOP.”
I could barely hear my own voice, but the chauffeur of the limousine—God only knew where Alex had found one in Tanzania—immediately screeched the brakes. Before he could turn around and inquire what I needed, I had opened the door and started running.
I figured someone would come after me. And would have caught me, too, because I couldn’t really gain speed in a twenty-pound gown, a corset laced tight around my waist. I slowed only once to kick off the low-heeled slippers, thinking that I could run faster barefoot.
