CHAPTER ELEVEN

     
      She couldn't move.
      Nicole Simonge had exited Gabriel's apartment ten minutes ago, and still, Victoria could not move. Her legs felt empty. Hollow. Bloodless. If she tried to budge them, they would collapse, unable to bear her weight. A fist was pressing on her lungs, fighting her every breath. Her eyes refused to focus. If she turned her head, they wouldn't follow. She squeezed her arms tightly, just to make sure that they still belonged to her.
      She needed to get going. Gabriel's bail hearing was scheduled for a half an hour. She promised she'd be there. And yet, taking the first step out of his apartment meant taking the first step to ripping her heart out.
      It wasn't supposed to happen this way. Her and Robin. She'd taken such pains to maintain a distance between them. She thought she had it all under control. They were going to be friends. Just friends. When in the world had he managed to get to her so deeply, that the idea of spending a day without him could effectively root her to the spot?
      She supposed that the obvious answer would be -- last night. Only Victoria knew it was more than that. Last night had only been a culmination of her feelings for Robin. She didn't feel this way because she and Robin had made love. She and Robin had made love, because of the way Victoria already felt about him.
      He'd gotten to her. Somewhere between his speech about Hades and their bet at the Gala and his buying her a horse and coming to her apartment in the middle of the night and renting out the Ferry, he'd gotten to her. He'd made her care.
      She would miss him. God, would she miss him. She'd miss the way his smile veered further up the right side of his face than it did his left. She'd miss the way his eyes lit up with enthusiasm whenever he thought of something new for them to do, or something new for her to try. She'd miss his sense of humor. And, God help her, she would miss his touch. She would miss the way his fingers felt as they enticed and caressed her body, and the way he tasted, and the way her breath caught in her throat and her stomach rolled over onto its side every time he looked at her.
      Well, Victoria clenched her fists, leaving bruised crescents along her palms. This was certainly a productive train of thought.
      She had to stop. Stop thinking about Robin and remember that Gabriel desperately needed her help. She was the only one capable of getting him out of jail, and, frankly, it was the least she owed him, considering the sacrifices he'd made for her over the years.
      She hurried out from his apartment, shutting the door tightly behind her as if that could somehow undo the damage wreaked by an earlier entrance, and slid into her car, gunning the engine. She drove to the courthouse, rolling through two stop-signs and almost a red light on the way, trying to outrun the inevitable.
      Less than an hour after Victoria first crawled under his desk, searching for the files that triggered all this mayhem in the first place, Douglas' lawyer kept his word and arranged for Gabriel to be released on bail by reminding the court that no admissible evidence yet existed to convict his client. It was hardly right for him to be locked in jail while the SFPD tripped over themselves attempting to dig up any. While the man whose billable-hour-rate Victoria was terrified to ask pontificated about the alleged evidence, Gabriel's eyes drifted sideways in a shot at meeting Victoria's. She avoided his gaze and stared straight ahead.
      After Victoria drove Gabriel home, he stammered an attempt to thank her for what he presumed she'd already done for him. She cut him off with one hand, shaking her head bruskly. "I did what I had to. That's the best any of us can ever do."
      "Still, sweetheart, I know I had no right asking you -- "
      "You don't know anything, Gabriel." Victoria stretched across the passenger seat of her car and yanked shut his door, leaving him standing outside on the sidewalk. Only once she was convinced that he could no longer hear her, did Victoria finish her thought. "And I intend for it to stay that way."
      Douglas' lawyer had kept his word.
      Now it was time for Victoria to keep hers.

      She jumped every time the phone rang.
      The sick feeling in the pit of her stomach seeped through each pore of her body, infecting her muscles and sinews with a lethargic nausea that made moving an effort, like trying to awaken a leg that had fallen asleep. Only, in this case, the agonizing needles and pins were piercing her heart. She felt numb on the outside, to the point of paralysis. Yet inside, every thread felt wound so tightly that the slightest sound, the buzz of a fly, the hum of the fridge, the honk of a car, prompted Victoria's heart to hammer like mad and her skin to break out in goose-pimples.
      She waited for Robin to call. He'd said he would, to find out how things went with Gabriel. He'd phone the office, and, when he learned she wasn't there, he would phone here. Victoria felt sure of it. She wished she could feel less sure. She wished she could believe what everyone insisted on telling her about Robin, that he was the type of man inclined to disappearing acts as soon as he got the only thing he wanted from a woman.
      But, Victoria knew better.
      Robin would call. The one time she prayed that the man she'd found herself involved with was a cad, she knew that he would call.
      If she were in a different mood, Victoria probably would have appreciated the irony more. But, right now she was too overwrought to devote much time to pondering God's idea of a cosmic joke.
      As soon as the phone rang, she knew that it was Robin.
      Her first instinct was to just let it ring, to let the machine pick up, to hibernate, eyes closed, until the whole mess went away.
      But, she couldn't do that. Nicole had said Victoria needed to eject Robin by ten o'clock the next morning. Or else. Which meant facing the music tonight. Or else.
      She snatched up the phone, not giving her brain an opportunity to change its mind and cancel the order to her arm.
      "H-Hello?" She sounded like a total stranger to herself. She wondered where the woman Robin had made love to last night went.
      He cheered, "I talked to Douglas' secretary, she said you guys did it, you got the good doctor out on bail."
      "Yes." She swallowed, fighting to sound upbeat. "For now."
      "That's superb news. Really, I mean it. We should celebrate. I'm on my way over. Wear something gorgeous. No. I have a better idea. Don't wear anything at all."
      He hung up without further perfunctories, and, what felt like a mere moment later -- or, at the very least, much earlier than she felt ready for it -- turned up on Victoria's doorstep, sweeping her into his arms the second she opened it and whirling her around for good measure. He kissed her, and Victoria let him, knowing that it was wrong, knowing that it would only make matters crueler, knowing that she should push him away, but unable to do any of it. She let him kiss her, and, with all her heart, with all her being, with all her might, Victoria kissed Robin good-bye.
      He had no way of knowing that, of course, and so Robin pulled away from their embrace still wearing the same smile he'd come in with. It faded a touch when he noted the less joyful expression on her face, and, stroking Victoria's cheek with the back of his hand, asked, "What's wrong, love?"
      She ducked under his arm, turning her back on him and walking down the sole step into her living room. "We need to talk, Robin."
      "Okay." His tone was conciliatory, amiable, eager to please.
      She crossed her arms along her chest, her right hand squeezing her left elbow so tightly, she cut off her circulation and felt her fingers grow first hot, then frigid. She said, "We made a mistake. Rather, I made the mistake."
      "Meaning?" Victoria imagined she heard a touch of frost coat Robin's question. He came up to stand behind her, resting his palm on Victoria's shoulder, exerting a touch of pressure in an attempt to make her turn around and face him.
      She resisted, digging in her heels, and pivoting her torso to get away from him. But, Robin refused to loosen his grip.
      "Meaning?" he repeated.
      "Meaning," Victoria spun around, grateful for the irritation that flared at his refusal to obey her unspoken plea for distance. Because, as long as she felt angry with him, Victoria didn't have to acknowledge feeling any other way. "We went too far last night. Now, I'm not blaming you. I take the responsibility totally upon myself. But, the fact remains, we went too far."
      Robin slowly lowered his arm to his side. Puzzlement tussled vexation for control of his features, with neither emerging a clear winner, and both choosing to camouflage behind sarcasm as he coolly observed, "That's very gallant of you to accept all responsibility, but, I'd like to presume I had a little something to do with where matters led last night. I was also in the room, after all."
      She blushed, as much from the memory as from embarrassment. "Yes, of course. I didn't mean to imply that you weren't."
      "What did you mean to imply, then?"
      Damn it, how did he do that? She'd had the words in her head, she'd had everything she resolved to say planned out, and now he'd gone and rendered her speechless.
      "I -- I meant what I said. We went too far. We never should have made love. You're still married. That didn't change between yesterday and the day before."
      "I see." Robin's tone suggested that he didn't in the least, but was making a valiant effort to, for her sake. "I'm sorry that you feel that way, Victoria. But, we can't very well undo what has already been done."
      "We can make sure it doesn't happen again."
      His eyes narrowed. "Until after I'm divorced?"
      "No," Victoria took a deep breath. "Ever."
      Robin's pretense at comprehension evaporated. "What the hell is going on here, love? Eighteen hours ago, you and I were getting along swimmingly, if I do say so myself, and now you're acting like I'm your friendly neighborhood Lothario come to pillage the village nun for sport. Now, listen here. If you want to cool things down a touch between us until after my marriage is dissolved, that's one thing. I'm not saying I'm thrilled about it, but, I do understand, and I respect your ethics, or scruples, or whatever they are. But, to tell me that this is it, I'm locked out for good, well, I think I deserve a somewhat more precise explanation that the ever-popular We Made a Mistake record which seems eternally stuck on your turn- table tonight."
      "I don't know what else to say to you, Robin." She would not cry. No matter what, she would not cry. Not in front of him.
      "Try starting with a cause. How did I go from 'Last night was magic,' to persona non grata in the space of eighteen hours, six of which I spent asleep, so I couldn't have done anything too horrible then, unless snoring has suddenly become a capital offense."
      "It wasn't you. It was me. Now that I've had time to think, I realized that... that -- "
      "What? Tell me. What did you realize?"
      "I realized that," Victoria was grabbing at straws. She only prayed Robin wouldn't be able to notice. "I realized that I didn't believe you would ever really leave Nicole."
      She heard the words for the first time as they were vacating her mouth. They made about as much sense as everything else that had happened to her in the past twenty-four hours.
      Robin took a step backward, momentarily too stunned to do more than blink. "What did you say?"
      "I said that," now that she'd blurted this nonsense, Victoria supposed she should stick to her story. A shame she had to make it up as she went along. "I said that I gave it some thought and, uh, I came to the conclusion that you were never going to divorce your wife. I mean, if you really wanted to, you'd have done it by now, right? You do this all the time. Douglas told me. You get bored with Nicole, and you go looking for another woman to spice things up. You pursue her, you set up this grand seduction, and you get her into bed. Only, eventually, you get as bored with her as you were earlier with Nicole, and, zow, poof, that's it, you're out of there. Well, I don't want to play that game."
      "Zow?" Robin managed to magnify the exclamation into a pair of syllables. "Poof?"
      "You know what I mean."
      "Poof." He repeated, this time with appropriate, Sorcerer's Apprentice hand gestures. "Where are you getting this stuff?"
      "Am I wrong? Hasn't that been your common pattern since you were, what, eighteen years old?"
      "Well, I can't swear about the 'poof' part."
      "I'm being serious."
      "No. You're being ludicrous."
      He was doing it again. Using that smile of his to derail her, along with the point of their conversation. "I told you weeks ago. One night stands with married men are not my style."
      "And I told you that you were more than just a one night stand to me, Victoria."
      She had to bite her lip to force herself to ask, "Is that what you told the girl before me? And the one before her?"
      Robin fought to keep his temper in check, licking his lips and taking a deep breath before reasoning, "Look, love, I guess I don't blame you for having your doubts about me. I haven't exactly lived an exemplary life. I'm a bastard, I'll be the first to admit that. In fact, I believe I already was the first to admit that." He went for a smile. When Victoria didn't return it, it committed suicide. He cleared his throat and, spreading his hands out wide, asked, in as stately a manner as possible, "But, do you think maybe you might find it in your heart to give me the chance to prove that, whatever it is that's bloomed so wonderfully between us, the one thing it is not, the one thing it could never be, is common."
      He wasn't fighting fair. Didn't Robin know this was the part of the script where he was supposed to get fed up, call Victoria a frigid bitch or worse, and storm out the door -- back into Nicole's arms? She'd planned on making him so furious with her accusations, that Robin would be the one to gratefully halt their relationship.
      Only she forgot to tell him how the story was supposed to play out. He wasn't taking offense to her aspersions on his character. He was agreeing with her! Now, what could Victoria do?
      Actually, she knew exactly what she should do. She suspected she'd known it from the start. Robin was too intimately acquainted with each of his wicked habits, he was on too friendly of speaking terms with every single one of his demons to ever grow enraged with anyone else for pointing out his misdeeds. Victoria would never be able to manipulate Robin into dropping her by making him furious.
      Her only remaining option was to hurt him.
      Deeply, and grievously, and irrevocably.
      By striking at his single, visible area of vulnerability.
      She told him, "Do me a favor and drop the flowery language, would you, Robin? It's starting to get on my nerves."
      He shut his mouth abruptly, as startled by what she's said as by how she'd said it. "Victoria?" He might well have been asking who the hell she was.
      "Look." She selected a speck on the wall somewhere above his left ear, and stared at it with all of her might. Because Victoria knew that if she tried to look Robin in the eye for even a fraction of her pronouncement, she would never be able to finish it. "I'll be straight with you. I went in thinking that, you and I, it could really be fun. I mean, you're good-looking, you're wealthy, you've got that dashing, jet-setting thing going for you. I figured, this should really be a swell ride. But, see, I didn't realize how damn high-maintenance you were. One minute you're trying to break your neck, the next you're stumbling in, drunk, smashing glass. I don't have time for that nonsense. You have me running around, cleaning up after your tantrums. But, where the hell were you when I needed help? That morning in the clinic, you just disappeared. And last night, well, your solution to my anxiety over Gabriel's predicament was certainly pleasurable. But, in the long-run, hardly helpful." The spot on the wall blurred in front of her eyes, until Victoria counted two, four, no, eight of them spinning in a deranged diamond pattern. She forbade her concentration to wander from watching... watching... you keep watching the speck. Watch the speck and, by all means, keep talking.
      "I need someone I can count on to be there for me in both the good times and the bad. Someone to be my lover, my friend, and my partner." Victoria said, "But you, Robin, you don't need a lover. You need a keeper. And that's not a position I'm keen on filling. Even with all your money, you're just not worth the aggravation."
      She hadn't dared to so much as sneak a peek at him during the entire duration of her speech. But, Victoria knew she'd have to do it eventually. She couldn't continue addressing the spot. She had to at least check and see if her words had achieved an impact. She hoped to God they had. Because Victoria most certainly did not own the strength or the courage to repeat even one of them.
      She inched her head, ever so hardly, in Robin's direction. He stood in the same spot where she'd left him, hands thrust deep into his pockets, chin pointed up at the ceiling, eyes closed. A muscle twitch in his right cheek proved the solitary indicator that he was even still awake. For an instant, Victoria wanted to grab him by the shoulders, and shake him until he looked at her, looked throughher and through all her lies. Didn't he know her by now? Couldn't he tell that this never was, never could be the real her? Victoria didn't know what she would do if he so gullibly believed the worst about her. And she didn't know what she would do if he refused to.
      After a moment of silence, Robin lowered his chin. He opened his eyes. He took his hands from his pockets, and glanced briefly at his nails, before surveying Victoria from head to toe. "I wish you'd told me all of this earlier, darling. It would have saved me the trouble of faking good manners."
      She'd seen this side of him before. The exaggerated courtesy, the contentious indifference, the facade of control on the outside, while on the inside, Victoria call practically feel the fusion heat building, burning, blackening. She'd felt it emanating from him in Nicole's presence, once around Douglas, and, briefly, with Gabriel. It frightened her precisely because Victoria suspected it was only the tip of a long fuse that, once lit, could prove incinerating to everyone in its path, an inferno so potentially cataclysmic, even Robin was terrified to find out just how hot it could burn if ever allowed expression. And so he swallowed it totally, slipping into nonchalant sarcasm the way a cop slipped on his bullet-proof vest, refusing to become angry because Robin knew that, in the end, the anger would become him.
      Victoria understood why he felt compelled to act in that way. Yet, her insecurity naturally obliged her to wonder if the outward ambivalence might not be faked at all, if Robin really didn't give a damn one way or the other. After all, why should a man known for his international harem care if a girl or two fell by the wayside?
      She hated herself for feeling that way, but a part of Victoria did wish he might look a touch more... pained... by her words. Not that she wanted Robin to suffer, she didn't want that at all. But, Victoria was feeling ripped apart by the knowledge that they could never, ever be together again. And, selfishly, she wanted Robin to be feeling at least something about it.
      She told herself that this was wrong. She knew it was wrong, and, in an effort to set their karma right again, Victoria offered up a quick prayer to the Gods -- Hades, included -- that, just as long as Robin didn't ask any more questions and left her alone and returned to Nicole and Gabriel wiggled out of the mess he was in -- Victoria was willing to shoulder all the pain of their break-up on herself. Robin could walk away scot-free and never grant Victoria another moment's thought as long as he lived.
      The Gods must have heard her, or Robin read her mind, because, in the next instant, he brushed a hand through his hair, beamed the same devilish grin that first shanghaied her attention in his hotel suite what felt like a lifetime ago, and with a blithe, "Guess I'll go find myself another keeper, then, love," strolled out the door.

      "Don't touch that, Eve." Nicole slapped her daughter's hand away just as the little girl was reaching for the curious stack of manila folders buried beneath her mother's vast cache of satin and silk stockings in the bottom dresser drawer.
      Eve stepped back unquestioningly, instantly hiding both hands behind her back, and turning away from Nicole to crawl on the bed, sitting cross-legged, her forehead pressed into the wall. Leaving Nicole with nothing to do but stare at her daughter's discovery and wonder, for the umpteenth time that day, what exactly she'd done.
      Nicole knew the moment she messengered those photocopies over to the District Attorney's office, she'd passed the fabled point of no return. She knew as soon as she threw the archetype original at Victoria Morgan that she couldn't turn back now even if she wanted to. The only thing Nicole didn't understand was why, every once in a while, she felt knocked over by a wave of... wanting to.
      It couldn't be guilt. Victoria had no right to Robin. Nicole was only reclaiming what was hers. And Gabriel deserved everything he had coming to him, considering his weeks of lies. Besides, it's not like she intended to do him any permanent damage. Victoria was certain to cave -- she was that type, you could tell -- then Nicole would have Robin back, and Gabriel would be free as a bird. It was all in Victoria's court. Whatever happened now, Nicole couldn't be blamed. Whether Gabriel rotted in prison was Victoria's call. The only person Nicole cared about was Robin. So that's what she kept reminding herself.
      Even when, the moment she heard her buzzer and opened the door to find Robin reclining there, the initial, uncensored thought that flash through Nicole's mind proved, "He's safe. Gabriel is safe."
      Robin, on the other hand, was dangerous. At least judging by the gleam in his eye, where Nicole saw that familiar drive towards indulgence mixing with utter contempt for its consequences. Robin looked her over, and, voice devoid of anything that might be judged as warmth, invitation, or even inflection, said, "Let's go."
      Nicole went.

      For the first part of the evening, if she closed her eyes and kind of squinted, Nicole could pretend everything was just like old times. She and Robin made a tour of San Francisco's most exclusive hot-spots, where, she convinced herself, he still received the same thrill from entering a room with her on his arm and watching every eye in the place turn in their direction, marveling at the gorgeous pair they made. Granted, Robin barely said more than ten words to her, preferring to save his most verbose exchanges for a succession of bartenders. But, that too, was just like old times.
      He never mentioned Victoria Morgan. He acted as if she never existed even. And yet, Nicole sensed the bitch's presence in every breath Robin exhaled, in every swallow of "vodka, straight up," he gulped, and in every wince he maneuvered to hide whenever some red- head crossed his gradually blurring line of vision.
      Nicole drove Robin back to the Fairmont, and followed him up to his room as a matter of course. Since she was thirteen years old, Nicole had never waited to be asked. She was hardly going to start now, with her own husband.
      He didn't bother turning on any lights, plopping onto his bed, a pillow propped in between his shoulders and the head-board. He dropped back his own head until it smacked the wall with a muffled thump, and contemplated the ceiling, hands by his sides, palms open and turned upward in a stance Nicole found disturbingly vulnerable.
      She settled at the edge of the bed, next to him. In the dark, Robin's pupils glowed like twin nebulas. They watched her without conveying a word. The only sound was the creak of the bed-springs, the bleating of horns outside their window, and Robin's breathing, as ragged as if he'd run long and hard before collapsing, incapable of giving a molecule more.
      Never in her existence had Nicole perched on a bed in a man's hotel room and felt so at a loss over what to do next. And so she resorted to the only world she knew, hoping Robin would follow her lead, and everything would soon return to normal.
      She reached for the top button of his shirt, undoing it with the dexterity of experience. Robin didn't respond. He didn't even move. His eyes remained fixed in the distance. His heart-beat, so obvious at the base of his neck beneath her fingers, stayed steady.
      It didn't exactly do wonders for a girl's ego.
      Deciding a more aggressive assault was in order, Nicole dipped her head and proceeded to undo the remainder of Robin's buttons -- using only her lips and tongue. Yet another life-skill she picked up along the way that, most of the time, proved quite popular. She rested her chin atop his crotch, and rubbing her cheek against his bare stomach, waited for a response.
      Finally, Robin's hand twitched, and he dragged it off the bed, planting it on Nicole's head, tangling his fingers in her hair. It hurt when he tugged. She let it pass.
      "Darling... " Nicole began.
      He didn't let her finish. Abruptly, Robin shoved Nicole off of him, though not hard enough to make her fall, and, rolling over on his side, curled into a ball and went asleep.
      Rejection struck her like a crow-bar across the gut.
      Followed just as fiercely by... relief.
      And then utter confusion.