French Silk(74)

Although she'd notified him of her arrival, he hadn't contacted her. She had expected him to arrange an evening of lovemaking before she had to leave for the location shoot in Mississippi. She had kept a vigil over her telephone but hadn't received a call last night or today.

"Guess he was too busy getting ready for the wedding," she muttered angrily as she watched the procession of well-turned-out guests file through the tall, narrow cathedral doors.

But when she spotted him, her anger evaporated and her heart twisted with love and longing. He epitomized the American dream: a handsome, charming, successful man … with an adoring wife for garnish. Yasmine had seen Belle Petrie only in photographs. Alister's wife was slight and blond, pretty in a pale, aristocratic sort of way, and not nearly as vapid as Yasmine had imagined.

At the sight of Belle and Alister together, all the blood in Yasmine's body seemed to rush to her head. It pulsated through her veins with envy. She felt it pounding in her brain, against her skull, the backs of her eyes, her eardrums.

As Alister moved among the crowd, shaking hands and smiling, he appeared not to be as miserably unhappy as he claimed to be. On the contrary, he seemed complacent and content, a man who had the world wrapped around his little finger. Nor did Belle appear deprived of anything, especially marital bliss.

Yasmine could barely contain herself. Her first impulse was to rush through the gates and brutally attack the man who had turned her into a woman so desperate and jealous that she was reduced to spying. Imagine the shock of the formally attired, bejeweled wedding guests if she were to publicly expose Alister Petrie, the best among them, as a lying adulterer. Could she ever regale them with lurid accounts of what he did in bed!

But she couldn't cause a scene without exposing herself as a jealous fool, and she wasn't prepared to do that. She was clinging tenaciously to a few shreds of pride, even though it would have been immensely satisfying to witness Alister's mortification.

She was somewhat mollified when he spotted her. He did a comical double take. His smile collapsed. Appalled disbelief caused his features to go slack. For several moments his jaw hung open, making him look stupid.

As she moved along the fence, Yasmine kept her stare fixed on his fearful eyes. When she passed through the gate, he looked ready to bolt. She took perverse pleasure in moving straight toward him. His tongue darted out to moisten his lips. She got close enough to see sweat popping out on his forehead. At the last possible moment she angled off, walking away from him at no wider a margin than ten degrees.

She took Chartres Street uptown. Although she wanted to gauge Alister's reaction to the close call she'd given him, she didn't glance back once.

Claire and Mary Catherine were eating dinner when she arrived at French Silk. Claire apologized for not waiting for her. "There's so much to do before leaving tomorrow, I wanted to get dinner out of the way early."

"Doesn't matter. I'm not hungry." Yasmine didn't break stride until she reached her bedroom door, which she soundly closed behind her to discourage a visit from Claire.

Having reached the sanctity of her room, the tears that she had stubbornly withheld welled up in her eyes. For the next hour and a half she vacillated between red rage and black despair. One minute she fantasized killing Alister slowly and painfully while his wife watched. The next, she fantasized making love to him until thoughts of all else were obliterated.

Emotionally spent, she lay on her bed, her forearm over her eyes. There was a discreet knock on her door. "I don't want to talk right now, Claire," she called out.

"I wouldn't have bothered you, but something just arrived for you."

"What?" She lowered her arm and sat up. "A delivery?"

"Yes."

Yasmine padded barefoot to the door and opened it a crack. Claire extended her along, slender, flat box. Ignoring Claire's sympathetic expression, she took the box, thanked her, and closed the door. The box contained a single Sterling rose nestled amid green tissue paper. It was a perfect, flawless bloom of smoky lavender petals. The sweetness of the gesture pierced her soul like a thorn. Mewling with heartache, she cradled the rosebud against her chest and fell back on the pillows, weeping.

Several minutes later the ringing telephone roused her. She rolled toward the nightstand and lifted the receiver. "I just got it," she said, knowing even before he identified himself who the caller was.

"Darling."

The sound of his voice precipitated another bout of tears. "I thought you'd be furious with me for stalking you," she said.

"I was, at first," he admitted.

"You looked like you'd just swallowed a golf ball when you spotted me through the fence."

"If the bride had reached out and grabbed my nuts, I couldn't have been more astonished." They laughed together softly. Then he said, "I can't blame you for spying, Yasmine. I've been a pig. My time and energy have been consumed by my reelection campaign. I'm so damned busy. Everybody pulling on me in a thousand different directions. I've neglected you. Out of necessity, but… What I'm saying is, I'm sorry. Be patient with me, darling. When the election is over things will be different. You'll see."

"You and Belle look so happy together, Alister," she remarked as she slowly wound the telephone cord around her finger. His apology had sounded sincere, but she couldn't dismiss the happy picture he and his wife had made as they stood hand in hand in front of the church.