Feast of Saints (25 page)

That caused a frown. “Can you give me an example?” he asked.

“My shoes, for one. My friends. My Vespa. How much I eat. Shall I go on?”

“Is there more?” The frown deepened.

“Yes. But it all springs from the same thing. You have no respect for my choices.”

“That’s not true, Lilly. I respect your work. I respect how hard it must have been for you to get where you are. I admire your talent.”

“Thank you. That’s nice. But that’s not what I’m talking about. Those are things that you approve of. I’m talking about when I make choices that you wouldn’t have made.”

Jake’s frowny expression was starting to anger her. He was intentionally not hearing her, disrespecting what she said. So like her father.
Here we go again
.

“You’re doing it right now,” she said.

Jake’s frown turned to astonishment. “I’m not doing anything.”

She reached the short distance between their seats and pressed her palm against his upraised brow, pushing his forehead down, erasing the lines.

“I don’t believe that you don’t know the power you have over the people around you. Any one of us.” She removed her hand and waved it around the cabin, indicating everyone in his vicinity. “You express your preferences like commands. And you can do it with just a look.”

“That’s a bit of an overstatement, isn’t it?” he said icily. When she had erased his brow, she’d uncovered bland Jake. It was extremely irritating.

“Jake, you asked me, and I’m trying to tell you. Sometimes, like right now, you try to change what I’m going to do, or say. Other times, you quite literally override me. Like in Wyoming.”

At her mention of Wyoming, Jake turned obstinate. “What’s wrong with me wanting to keep you from making a mistake, especially one that might end up with you getting hurt?”

“But it’s my life, Jake. Even when you are right, you have no right to take away my choices. Wearing the wrong shoes, picking the wrong mountain to climb, those are my decisions.” Before he could find the argument that would allow him to think he’d won, she said, “I’m not
afraid
of you.”
At least not when I’m awake
. “But you do threaten me. You quite literally overwhelm me. It’s stifling under your thumb.”

“Would it help if I apologized?” he said, not looking apologetic at all.

“It’s not something you can apologize for. It’s who you are.” Lilly could see he didn’t like being pegged like that. She expected him to shut down the conversation, but instead he went on the offensive.

“Do you think you are any better? When we met, did you ask me what direction I thought we should take for Allegrezza? Before you went all Lia Sundquist on me, did you ask me if it was okay? Before you turned me down after Wyoming, did you even give me a chance?”

The Lia comment stung quite a bit. Reflexively, she tucked her guilty hands against her chest as she considered his verbal barrage. She knew from long weeks of watching, listening to him at work, that Jake could be quite brutal when he felt like he was losing. When you were as small as she was, you learned to pick your battles.

She didn’t have a good answer for the first few questions, but to the last, she replied, “I didn’t hear you offering me a lot of choices after Wyoming, Jake.”

Jake’s mouth was pressed in a firm line. “It sounds like no matter what I’d have offered you, you would have said no.”

This conversation was going nowhere but down. “You’re probably right,” she said and turned toward the window. Truth was, she didn’t know what he had offered her. An affair, she’d thought, which held no appeal for her. She couldn’t compete with the likes of Sierra Nighly. And she couldn’t bring herself to tell Jake that if he wanted her, he needed to offer her fidelity, the hope of a happily ever after and a relationship in which she was an equal partner. Internally, she scoffed at the foolish notion. Jake ordered his life the way he wanted it, without regard for anyone else’s preferences.

They were five hours into the flight when she finally fell into a fitful sleep, the vibration of the jet humming in her ear.

Opening her eyes didn’t obliterate the darkness that surrounded her. Disoriented by the blackness, Lilly laid where she had awoken and listened hard, trying to make out any sound that would tell her where she was.
Swish, swish
, she heard the sweeping of his tail. Stifling a scream, Lilly pushed to sit up, but under her hand was not a mattress or even a floor, but the scaly surface of his skin. At her touch, the darkness lifted as he folded back the coal-black leathery wing that had been covering her. They were lying in an underground cavern, she was tucked under his wing, encircled by his body, pressed against his chest.

As he raised his head to look at her, she felt the pounding of his heart, much deeper and slower than her own. Her whole body vibrated with the steady thump, thump, thump. It was… calming. Her own racing heart slowed to match it. He opened his mouth to speak, but his words were foreign to her. When he continued to inspect her, repeating what he had said, she stared into his jaw and the furnace beyond, fiercely bright.

Lilly opened her eyes and immediately blinked as she was temporarily blinded by the Italian sunbeams bathing her face through the small airplane window. Jake was leaning over her, patting her back like a nanny soothing a distraught toddler. When she turned her face to look at him, the rhythmic thumping stopped, although his palm remained pressed between her shoulder blades.

“Are you awake now?” he asked, concern etched on his face.

“Yes,” she said, looking around them at the other sleeping forms in the luxury cabin. “Did I…”
scream
, she almost said… “wake anyone?”

“Only me,” he smiled, reassuring her, rubbing her back. “Ty used to have nightmares like that,” he said. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

Lilly looked at him, biting her lip. No, she did not.

“Was it me?” he asked. His voice was calm, but she could see he wanted a different answer than the one she could give him. She didn’t want it to be him, either.

“I don’t know,” she said. “He resembles you, but he’s obviously not you.”

“What does he look like?” Jake asked, but immediately withdrew the question at her stricken expression.

“You don’t need to tell me. But you should talk to someone. You get little enough sleep as it is.”

She sat up, reaching for the lever that would raise her seat. Jake let his hand fall away and did likewise.

“Are you going to keep it up in Italy?” he asked.

“Keep what up?” she asked. He couldn’t be talking about the nightmares. It wasn’t like she had control over those.

“The schedule you’ve been keeping. Coming in at three, staying until nearly midnight.” Disapproval laced his voice.

Lilly looked at him in surprise. Except for the night he’d brought her the new contract, she hadn’t seen him once during her early morning and late night hours making sure that everything ran smoothly for both Jake and Maya. She hadn’t known that he knew that she was at the studio practically around the clock; that she still obsessed over making sure he had everything he needed; that as much as she liked and respected Clara, the work they’d started together was too precious to her to let go.

“If that’s what it takes.” She was challenging him, seeing if her words from a few hours ago had sunken in. The schedule she kept, the hours she worked, the effort she expended, those were her choices. Not his.

Jake sucked in his cheeks and pursed his lips in the effort not to say anything. She almost laughed at his obvious struggle to keep from ordering her to let Clara handle everything. In the twenty minutes it took to descend into Rome, Jake started to say something, then stopped, at least five times.

When they stood to deplane, Jake reached up to pull down her small carry-on pack and hand it to her. Taking it from him, she briefly covered his hand with hers and squeezed it. She looked him in the eye, “Thank you,” she said meaningfully, acknowledging his concern and his effort to refrain from bossing her around.

“Just look after yourself, okay? Try to get some rest. Can you do that for me?” Jake asked.

“I’m not making any promises. I’ll look after the things that are important,” she said. “I can sleep when this is over.” The simultaneous regret and longing she felt at the prospect of the project ending brought a rueful smile to her face. She loved this job. And hated it.

Walking up the jet way, Lilly reached into her pack to pull out her itinerary, an airport map and a list of a few simple Italian phrases that she’d printed before leaving LA. Always hyper-prepared, she didn’t want to get lost in the Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport. It was Italy’s largest airport and one of the busiest airports in the world.

At the top of the jetway, Jake and Lilly met up with Clara and several other crewmembers crowded together like lost ducklings in the flood of travelers.

“This way,” Jake said, barely pausing before taking charge. Then he stopped and turned to smile indulgently at her still unfolding her map.

“That is, if you agree, Ms. Rose?” said Jake.

She narrowed her eyes at him. Now he was poking fun at her. He obviously had been here before, perhaps many times. None of them except Jake had ever been to Rome.

Lilly channeled her annoyance into wadding up the airport map and tossing it into the garbage can.

“Lead the way, Mr. Durant,” she said sweetly.

The studio had sent an escort, but it was Jake who navigated the confusing airport. Italian phrases that smoothed their way through customs fell off his lips without hesitation. He tipped discreetly and generously. In less than thirty minutes, he retrieved their luggage, purchased tickets for the railway and had them all on board a private dining car on the train to Assisi.

“He’s like Cary Grant in real life,” gushed Tamara, Nat’s intern, seated with Lilly and Clara.

Lilly looked over at Jake seated a few seats away, sipping tea and looking out the window at the Italian countryside.

“He certainly can be charming,” she admitted, wondering why he so rarely turned that charm on her. That thought was quickly followed by fervent thanks that he didn’t. If he ever did in earnest, she’d be lost.

Italy was racking up to be simply intolerable, Jake decided mid-week. It had started with his unpleasant exchange with Lilly on the trip over. Although he had beaten a retreat after that disastrous night at her home after Wyoming, he hadn’t given up on her. He was furious at himself for losing his temper with her. Again. Maybe she was right. He could be overbearing, but he didn’t think he was
that
bad. But her accusation that he hadn’t given her a choice about dating him, or not, after Wyoming, hit home.

Worse, twice now he’d accused her of teasing him, leading him on with the way she touched him, handled him, when she made him into Allegrezza. That
is
how it felt to him, but apparently to Lilly it was just part of doing her job. Moreover, his accusations had pretty much guaranteed she’d never come near him again. The last thing he wanted was for her to stop touching him. Yes, their makeup sessions had left him in a heightened state of perpetual sexual frustration, but he craved that contact with her. He craved any physical contact with her. And it wasn’t just the lotion-slathering and massage. Lilly had a very tactile way of interacting. A gentle squeeze on the elbow, a pat on the arm or back. She never hesitated to straighten a tie, tuck in a tag. Maybe it came from her years of working with children. He missed those touches, too.

In Italy, he was confronted every day with the extent of his loss. At Maya’s insistence, the core Assisi cast and crew, including Jake and Lilly, were lodged in a rented villa just outside of town. He was not imagining the unease his presence in the same house caused her. She stepped wide around him in the halls. Twice he’d caught her begin to enter a room, see him in it and quickly exit. She was quick as a rabbit. Even if he could find the right words to apologize, he couldn’t get within ten feet of her before she disappeared.

Adding to the intolerability of the week, he’d barely slept. Lilly’s room was right next to his. For the last three nights, he’d lain awake in bed straining to listen to her movements in the next room.

By Wednesday, his mood had never been blacker. He had no patience when Clara started right in asking about his and Alan’s plans for the evening. Clara had begun a campaign on Monday to ply him for information about Alan. Perhaps Clara thought she was being subtle, but for someone like Jake, who’d spent a lifetime warding off impertinent inquiries, Clara’s interest in Alan’s personal life was obvious.

This morning, Jake had had enough. Bluntly he asked, “What’s your sudden interest in Alan, Clara? Are you developing a crush?”

Clara flushed. “Me? Oh heavens no! I’m nearly twice his age.”

As Jake watched her red face, he felt a twinge of guilt at putting her on the spot, but his guilt evaporated at her next comment.

“It’s Lilly. She… and… I think Maya… are planning a small dinner party at the villa. That is, if you boys have nothing better to do.”

Jake frowned. Lilly was interested in having Alan attend a dinner party? Clara’s revelation and the knowledge that Alan slept just across the hall from Lilly set Jake’s teeth on edge. Jake felt a sharp pain in his jaw as he grit his teeth hard enough to crack a molar. Although he was trying hard to give Lilly the space she needed, he’d be damned if he would let Alan step in while he bided his time.

“… the patio’s so gorgeous, and it’s perfect for an intimate gathering. It would be more relaxing than dinner in town.” Jake zeroed in on Clara’s conversation again and realized she was still talking about dinner – tonight – at the villa.

“We thought we’d try our hand at traditional Italian cooking. We’ll have help, of course, so it won’t be a complete disaster. It should be fun….” Clara trailed off in the face of Jake’s singularly unenthusiastic expression.

“I’ll check with Alan,” he said shortly, then stalked off when he was called to the set before he could think of a subtle, civil way to ask for details about Lilly’s role in planning the evening.