COUNTERPOINT
An original romantic serialFrom Alina Adams the author of "When a Man Loves a Woman" (DELL 4/00), "Annie's Wild Ride" (AVON 8/98), "Inside Figure Skating" (METROBOOKS 11/00 & 9/99), "Thieves at Heart" (AVON 12/95) and "The Fictitious Marquis" (AVON 6/95)
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CHAPTER 66
For the second time that day, Victoria reacted the way she assumed any normal person would. With one last look at Robin, she straightened up and, averting her eyes, walked out of the room, to give father and son both privacy and dignity.
She walked out of the room and down the remainder of the hallway, past end-tables and paintings and antique knickknacks that she figured probably were worth more than her condo back in San Francisco. The rich, someone with a good press agent, once allegedly said, are different from you and I.
Yes, Victoria thought, they have more stuff.
And none of it matters a single bit in the end.
She kept walking down the hallway until she reached a picture window that looked out onto the garden (when it was this big, did they call it an estate?) surrounding the mansion. She saw the lake Robin once mentioned swimming in when he was a child. She saw the stables and even, she thought, the tennis courts. She saw the cast-iron gates and the winding driveway, and, the entire time, she knew that she was only taking real-estate inventory to keep her mind from focusing and fixating on what she'd just seen.
Victoria's heart broke for Robin. And for Douglas, too. How had they both lived so long with something so horrible hanging over their heads and clawing at their souls and, somehow worst of all, lying like an electrified fence between them? What kind of pain must they both have been in? And when and how, after all this, could they ever begin to heal?
Victoria heard a door open behind her. She heard low, murmuring voices, and then two sets of footsteps. One set walking away and down the stairs. The other walking towards her.
She didn't turn around. She continued glancing randomly at various parts of the estate. She waited until the footsteps came closer and she could feel Robin standing behind her as surely as if she'd seen him. After all this time, Victoria didn't need to see Robin to know that he was there. She recognized the sound of his breathing and the cadence of his walk. And the way her skin prickled whenever he was near as if he'd already wrapped her in his arms, even though he'd yet to so much as touch her.
He stopped an arm's length away. He could have reached out and touched her.
He didn't reach out and touch her.
And Victoria didn't turn around.
She wondered what it all meant. How would Robin feel about what Victoria had just seen? Would he regret bringing her out here? Would he hate her for having seen him in such a vulnerable state? Or, even worse, like so many other times, would be just pretend that nothing had happened at all.
He didn't say anything. To be honest, Victoria wondered if there was even anything to say.
Finally, she decided that it was up to her. She had to start, she had to make this work, if there would be any chance at all for them.
Her hands shook. Her legs trembled and her voice cracked. But, still, she knew it was up to her. And so, still without turning around, she asked softly, "Do you see it, now, Robin? Do you realize that you are not Hades, the harbinger of chaos? You don't destroy everything you touch. And you don't hurt everyone you love."
She both heard and felt his sharp intake of breath. And then she heard him clear his throat in anticipation of speaking.
For Victoria, the universe stopped. She couldn't see, hear or feel anything that wasn't Robin. Her every muscle and nerve was poised to hear what he had to say. Because she knew that whatever he said would dictate the course of the rest of her life.
Robin, his voice surprisingly strong considering everything that had happened, and yet also surprisingly vulnerable, said, "I need you to help me, Victoria."
She swallowed hard. "Help you do what?"
"Prove it."
"To me?"
"No. To me."
She nodded fervently, still not looking at him, "I can do that."
"For the rest of our lives?"
Victoria's heart stopped. And then it started again. She turned around. She looked Robin in the eyes. He really did have beautiful, hazel eyes. Especially when they were as filled with love as they were now. She nodded. She barely trusted herself to speak. And then she repeated. "I can do that."
Douglas told them to take the Cooper jet back home. He rode along with them and, for several hours, he and Robin sat in the corner of the plane, talking in quiet, measured voices. Victoria left them alone. They didn't need her interruptions almost as much as each needed to hear the other out.
Once back in the city, Douglas asked Robin and Victoria where they wanted his driver to drop them off?
Robin and Victoria looked at each other and then, as if speaking in one voice, answered, "Gabriel's."
Victoria rang Gabriel's doorbell with a sensation she couldn't quite describe as trepidation or even vindication or jubilation. There didn't seem to be a 'tion' word handy to describe exactly how she felt. And so Victoria just rang the bell again. Gabriel opened the door, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. Victoria could see Nicole in the background, sitting on a stool next to the counter that separated his living room from the kitchen area. She also wore jeans, although hers were designer, and a shirt custom-made to look casual, yet one that probably, like the knickknacks back in Maine, had cost a pretty penny. Her hair was swept back into a loose bun behind her neck, which was, in fact, the messiest Victoria had ever seen it.
Nicole was wearing no make up.
Which was when Victoria knew.
For her part, Nicole was studying Victoria and Robin just as closely. Victoria wasn't sure what Robin's ex-wife saw on either of their faces or in their demeanor, but she did see the exact moment when Nicole knew, too.
Because it was that precise moment when both Victoria and Nicole looked at each other, and burst out laughing.
In that moment, neither one liked the other any more than they had before, but, also, in that moment, both knew exactly what was going on.
"You know, that was very weird," Robin said to Victoria after they'd left Gabriel and Nicole's following the confirmation that yes, both couples were indeed back on, and seemingly for the long haul, at that. "You and Nicole laughing together. It was pretty creepy, too."
"It won't be happening again," Victoria reassured, "Trust me. It was just one of those cosmic, Haley's Comet, once in a lifetime cosmic convergences."
"It freaked me out. And I've had enough freak-outs lately. I was kind of looking forward to some taking it easy, noneventful time."
"Oh," Victoria paused outside her condominium door. "Does that mean you don't wan to come in?"
He actually hesitated. "Am I being invited?"
"Yes, Robin," she told him gently. "You are being invited."
He stepped over the threshold tentatively, looking around as if he'd never seen the apartment before.
Victoria said, "I think it's time to pick up where we left off, don't you?"
He said, with heartbreaking sincerity, "You don't know how much I want that."
"Then why, Robin, do you look as nervous as an eight grader on his first date?"
"Because," Robin stumbled over his words, arms flailing in no particular direction, except once, where he almost seemed to be pointing at the bedroom, but not quite. "I've never done this before."
"Really?" Victoria raised an eyebrow. "I seem to recall..."
"No. You don't understand. I've done... I've had... sex, I've had sex a bunch of times. More times than I think the human brain was equipped to remember."
"Then, what..."
"Victoria," he seemed to be willing her to understand with his eyes. "In spite of the innumerable times I've had sex before, I have never, ever, ever made love before."
"Oh." Now she understood. She just wasn't sure how to react. "Now even when we..."
"No. Not even then. I liked you, Victoria. I liked you very, very much then, but no, not even..."
"Wow," she said.
"Yes."
"Well, then," Victoria closed the door behind them and took a step closer to Robin. She wrapped her arms around his waist. "I have some very exciting news for you."
"What?"
"Making love," Victoria nuzzled Robin's chin with her lips, working her way up towards his mouth. "It's even better than sex.... "
THE END