Shades of Gray Read Free Page B

don’t know who to trust. I haven’t been able to do a damned thing with my life, and if I didn’t happen to have income from my parents’ estate, I wouldn’t evenhave been able to live, except from hand to mouth, because I can’t hold down a job! Is that what you wanted, Andres? Is that how you meant to punish me for leaving you?”
    His face was white, his eyes bottomless. After a moment he turned and moved a few feet away before turning back to face her. His smile was twisted. “You could always make me feel things I didn’t want to feel. That hasn’t changed.”
    She wanted to cry. “Let me go.”
    He shook his head a little and said, “I have a proposition for you.”
    Sara waited, tense and afraid.
    “A month. Remain on Kadeira for a month. If, after that, you wish to leave, then I’ll see that you’re taken back to the States.” His voice was even. “And I’ll give you my word of honor that I’ll never interfere in your life again.”
    The silence was long as Sara tried to figure out what he was up to. “What do you expect to happen in a month?”
    “I want …” He hesitated, then finished roughly, “I want the time with you, that’s all. Is it so difficult for you to understand?”
    “You want me to stay here, in your home?”
    He sighed. “It’s safer, you know that. Of course, you’ll have your own suite of rooms.”
    Two years ago he hadn’t tried to take advantage of her confusion, hadn’t insisted on a physical relationship even though the attraction had been explosive; she wasn’t sure about his attitude now. “And if I—I refuse your proposition?”
    Andres seemed to brace himself. “I can’t let you go.”
    She laughed shortly. “I don’t seem to have a choice—again.”
    “You have a choice,” he said quietly.
    Sara knew what he was saying. “All right, then. I’ll stay for a month. It’s a small enough price to pay to be free of you for good.” The final sentence was harsh, and she regretted the words even before Andres winced.
    “I don’t want you hurt,” he said softly. “Just try to remember that, Sara.”
    She nodded, not trusting her voice. And she couldn’t apologize for hurting him, because she couldn’t let him know that his feelings mattered to her.
    “The suite that was yours before has been prepared for you,” he said formally. “The things you left are still here. If there are any other things you need, Maria will get them for you.”
    “Thank you.” Sara kept her own voice formal. “If you don’t mind, I’ll go up to my rooms now. Is dinner at the same time?”
    “Yes.”
    Sara escaped, her heart thudding and her eyes burning. She found that she remembered the way, up the curved staircase and along the open hall to the third door on the right. Andres’s rooms were at the end of the hall.
    She went into the sitting room, looking around to find that nothing had changed. The suite was light and airy, the colors pastels, the furniture comfortable. Her portable tape player and box of cassettes were on the small desk, just where she’d left them, and she had no doubt there would be fresh batteries. In the bedroom, the closet and dresser drawers still contained the clothing she’d left behind, carefully cleaned and neatly preserved.
    She had been living in Trinidad for the winterwhen they had met, and so had most of her possessions with her. And when she had bolted from Kadeira in sick despair, all her things had been left behind. He had, she saw, kept everything, as if he had been confident she would return.
    Sara wandered into the bathroom, unsurprised to find her favorite scents in soaps and bath oils. She wanted to cry again. She quickly stripped for a shower and stepped underneath the warm water, letting it wash away her tears.
    Durant entered the library quietly, unsurprised to find Sereno standing at the French doors and gazing out into the garden. With the license allowed an old and trusted friend, he asked. “How did it