Page 25 of Nineteen Eighty
Charles reached for her hand and pulled her forward. He didn’t know what he wanted anymore. From her, from the world. Every action, even breathing, was powered by the moment, nothing beyond. He was too numb to consider where this could lead.
Cordelia surprised him further by climbing over his lap, straddling him as her arms looped around his neck.
“I don’t know what’s happening right now,” Charles whispered, looking up at a woman who was beautiful to him in this moment, even if she’d never been before now.
“It’s nothing.” She kissed the corner of his mouth. Her bare bottom stirred something in him as she moved her skin across his exposed legs. “Or maybe it’s everything.”
“Or maybe it’s nothing,” Charles replied and moved in for a real kiss. He kissed her; his wife. A woman he’d never kissed before now, and might never again. “Or…” He angled her over the gap in his boxers, and waited, for the briefest of moments, for her to protest. When she didn’t, he slid her over him, gasping at the softness enveloping him.
Cordelia didn’t need the encouragement of his hands at her hips. She moved with slow but intentional strides as she rode him, at first gently, but then increasing in pace as his pleasure caused his eyes to roll back in his head. As she did… whatever it was they were doing, which Charles struggled to define once more because they’d never done it before now. Everything sexual he’d ever done with his wife had involved rules and strife, and he didn’t know what it meant that he was lost to something real with her, for once.
Charles spilled long before he was ready, but she didn’t punish him with a cutting remark or an end to their sexplay. Instead, she climbed over him and lay back against the bed, waiting for him to make the next move.
He thought he could love her then. It occurred to Charles that he did love Cordelia, only in a way that was challenging to put to words. She’d kept his secrets, all of them. She’d take this loyalty to her grave.
Charles entered his wife once more. No timer. No rules. Just the two of them, finding their way through to the end of a trying day, and whatever lay beyond.
It was Cordelia who held his hand as they laid Lisette to rest in the Deschanel family tomb at Lafayette No. 1.
Cordelia who promised him that, despite, the rain pouring down from the late summer sky, everything would be okay.
Cordelia who assured him they couldn’t change what would be, only survive it.
Cordelia who cradled Adrienne to her chest when Charles dropped to his knees, hand on the tomb, as the priest led them in prayer.
Cordelia who promised him she would raise the girls as her own, and that he’d never have to worry about them having a mother.
On some level, Charles knew this couldn’t last. Her careful understanding. His tolerance.
But for now, he chose to believe all of it.
CHAPTER 9
Goodbye Blue Sky
It was raining outside Evangeline’s small, Spartan flat in Geneva. She had a chill, but it was too warm for heat, and besides, her space heater only worked half the time. Most of the Swiss she worked with proudly declared they needed no heat or air conditioning, and that Switzerland had such perfect, mild seasons that no one should. But Evangeline, who’d gone from the extreme, sweltering heat of subtropical New Orleans, to the harsh and unforgiving Boston winters, struggled to regulate her temperature in any climate anymore.
But the chill wasn’t from the cold, but all the news from home.
Some was good. When she’d learned Elizabeth and Connor were married in Paris, she’d flown there for a quick weekend to congratulate and celebrate with them. She’d never seen Lizzy so radiant and lovely. So unrestrained in her happiness. Connor, too, was a new man, awash with the purpose found in being a husband.
The news from Ophélie dampened everyone’s joy—except Elizabeth’s, as they’d all made a pact not to tell her until she was home for the summer. There was nothing she could do anyway. Nothing any of them could do, though that didn’t stop Evangeline from picking up the phone, more than once, to look at booking a flight back to New Orleans. It seemed unfair that Colleen, Maureen, and Augustus were left to deal with Charles’ complete mental breakdown. Colleen assured her more hands wouldn’t make lighter work in this case, but Evangeline’s guilt ate at her nonetheless.
In truth, she didn’t want to go home and deal with more family drama. Her work at the foremost nuclear research facility in the world had awakened something in her that had been there all along, waiting to be challenged. She’d flown through her schooling with ease, even at M.I.T., which was competitive for someone with her talents. But until stepping through the doors at CERN, Evangeline had never been in a room in which she was not the smartest, brightest, most capable. Working amongst the greatest minds in the world was humbling. It gave her something new to grasp onto, something bigger than herself.
And she’d met someone.
Evangeline tried those words out loud. She did it in front of a mirror, even. “I’ve met someone.” She wondered if saying them would make them feel more real; validate her own confusion on the matter, or clarify it.
Over the years, as Evangeline allowed herself human connection again, she’d dated a handful of people she’d taken beyond the first date. Some men, some women. She liked them both and didn’t know which she liked more. She supposed it didn’t matter, because a spark was a spark. She’d always been attracted more to minds than bodies.
This time was different. He had a beautiful mind yes, but she loved how her hands felt tracing the hollow spots just below his belly, or his hard, sculpted shoulders. Loved his smile, which had always spoken to her, even when they were just colleagues.
She’d told Colleen about the others, but not him.
Evangeline went to turn the small heater on anyway, when the phone rang.
By the time she hung it up again, all the light had winked out of Evangeline’s life. A gap in her world, once colored by confusion, filled in with a dark and terrible truth.