For The Love Of Lilah

I went to Christian's cottage. Perhaps it was risky as I might have been seen by some acquaintance, but I wanted so badly to see where he lived, how he lived, what small things he kept around him.

It's a small place near the water, a square wooden cottage with its rooms crowded with his paintings and smelling of turpentine. Above the kitchen is a sundrenched loft for his studio. It seemed to me like a doll's house with its pretty windows and low ceilings–old leafy trees shading the front and a narrow porch dancing along the back where we could sit and watch the water.

Christian says that at low tide the water level drops so that you can walk across the smooth rocks to the little glade of trees beyond. And at night, the air is full of sound. Musical crickets, the hoot of owls, the lap of temperate water.

I felt at home there, as quietly content as I have been in my life. It seemed to me that we had lived there together for years. When I told Christian, he gathered me close, just to hold me.

“I love you. Bianca,'' he said. “I wanted you to come here. I needed to see you in my house, watch you stand among my things." When he drew me away, he was smiling. "Now, I'll always see you here, and I'll never be without you."

I anted to swear to him I would stay. God, the words leaped into my throat only to be blocked there by duty. Wretched duty. He must have sensed it for he kissed me then, as if to seal the words inside.

I had only an hour with him. We both knew I would have to go back to my husband, to my children, to the life I had chosen before I met him. I felt his arms around me, tasted his lips, sensed the straining need inside him that was such a vibrant echo of my own.

“I want you.'' I heard my own whisper and felt no shame. "Touch me, Christian. Let me belong to you." My heart was racing as I pressed wantonly against him. "Make love to me. Take me to your bed."

How tightly his arms gripped me, so tightly I couldn't get my breath. Then his hands were on my face, and I felt the tremor in his fingertips. His eyes were nearly black. So much could be read there. Passion, love, desperation, regret.

"Do you know how often I've dreamed of it? How many nights I've lain awake aching for you?" Then he released me to stride across the room to where my portrait hung on his wall. ' I want you, Bianca, every time I take a breath. And I love you too much to take what can't be mine.''

"Christian–"

“Do you think I could let you go if I'd ever touched you?" There was anger now, ripe and violent as he whirled back. ' I hate knowing that we sneak like sinners just to spend an hour together, as innocent as children. If I don't have the strength to turn away from you completely, then I will have enough to keep you from taking a step you 'd only regret.''

"How could I regret belonging to you?"

“Because you already belong to someone else. And every time you go back to him, I dream of killing him with my bare hands if only because he can look at you when I can't. If we took this last step, I'd leave you no choice. There would be no going back to him, Bianca. No going back to your home, or your life."

And I knew it was true, as he stood between me and the image of me he'd created.

So I left him to come home, to tie a ribbon in Colleen 's hair, to chase a ball with Ethan, to dry Sean's tears when he scraped his knee. To dine in miserable politeness with a husband who is more and more of a stranger to me.

Christian's words were true, and it is a truth I must face. The time is coming when I will no longer be able to live in both worlds, but must choose one, only one.