Part 2
I was fifteen
minutes late and I could see Svetlana through the restaurant window, her dark
beautiful face smoldering with anger. She had gotten up from her table and was
buttoning her suede jacket. Of course, any restaurant manager would seat her by
the window. She was so damn beautiful. Long black hair, dazzling green eyes, a thin
athletic body that only a twenty-five year old could have, and legs that could
stop a man’s heart. I felt lightheaded just looking at her. I knocked on the
plate glass window and her eyes seethed as she glanced at me. Then she looked
away and left the table.
I caught her
as she rushed from the restaurant. “You told me twelve thirty,” she said
coolly, her voice thick with a Russian accent. She pulled her arm free from my
hand and started to walk quickly away. Along with her suede jacket, she was
wearing a short black skirt and suede boots that went half way up to her knees.
I watched her for a moment and felt dizzy. I don’t think I ever wanted anyone
as badly as I wanted her right then.
I ran up to
her about the time she was opening the door to her BMW convertible; a car I had
bought her after our first month together. “Please, Svetlana,” I said, “I
couldn’t help it. I had a meeting that ran late.”
“I don’t know
why I agreed to see you,” she said. “There’s nothing left to say.”
“Please,” I
pleaded.
She stood
quietly for a moment. Her eyes seemed to soften. “Okay,” she said, “you can get
in but I don’t know what good it will do.”
She got into
the driver’s seat and I joined her on the passenger side. As she drove I looked
at her profile and felt a lump form in my throat. “You’re all I can think
about,” I said.
I reached over
to kiss her, but she pushed me away. “Nothing has changed,” she said
dispassionately. “I’m not going to be just your mistress.”
“You love me
too, don’t you?” I asked.
She sat
quietly for a long moment, her eyes focused on the road. “It doesn’t matter,”
she said at last. “You’re married.”
“I can’t
divorce Cheryl. I’ve told you that. She’s funding my research. But if you could
just wait three years, four at the tops—”
“I’m not
waiting three years. I want to enjoy life now while I’m young, with or without
you.”
We sat
silently after that. My heart ached as I looked at her. I wanted more than
anything to taste her lips and to hold her body. Svetlana, though, just stared
straight ahead, a harsh determination hardening her face. After a long time she
broke the silence.
“If your wife
would disappear everything would be fine,” she said at last.
I didn’t say
anything.
“You don’t
love her,” she said. “I remember all the times you told me she’d be miserable
without you. That you didn’t even think she could live without you. You’d be
doing her a kindness.”
I didn’t say
anything. Of course I had been thinking the same thing for months. About how
much better everything would be if Cheryl didn’t exist.
“If it wasn’t
for your wife, I’d be all yours. Body and soul,” she said.
“It wouldn’t
work,” I said quietly. “The police would know it was me.”
Svetlana kept
staring straight ahead, her face hard and beautiful. I noticed the whites of
her knuckles as she gripped the wheel with her small hands.
“Let me think
about that,” she said after a long while.
Part 3 tomorrow
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