Free Sins of Omission by Fern Michaels Page B

celebration!”
    The threesome spent the next few hours drinking several bottles of the finest champagne Mickey’s wine cellar afforded. The celebration lasted through dinner and into the early evening.
    Mickey felt like a young girl, sharing secrets of her youth while the young men listened and spoke of theirs. The conversation inevitably brought them through myriad experiences that elicited both laughter and sometimes tears; their glasses were never empty. When she had listened to Daniel, tipsy and rambling, a lopsided grin on his face and hope in his eyes, tell again of his dream of becoming a lawyer, Mickey decided to begin now to help him realize his goal. Mentally she calculated what it would take over the next few months to put this person into action and determined to make arrangements immediately.
    When she watched and listened to Reuben, she was aware that no matter how much he drank, or talked, or listened, a part of him was sitting beside her, tasting her, wanting her.
    The atmosphere in the room was jubilant and warmly familial as they finished the last bottle of champagne. Mickey was the first to rise. Hugging them, and kissing them both on each cheek, she wished them a good night’s sleep, first Daniel, and then Reuben. Daniel’s kisses were wet and childlike and made her smile. Reuben’s sent a shiver down her spine. It was difficult not to remain face-to-face with him and say, Yes. I want you now—more than ever. I want to taste you until I have my fill and then taste you again. His eyes burned into her even as she ascended the staircase. She knew he had followed deliberately for just that purpose. But when she looked back at him, she couldn’t fathom what was behind that smoldering gaze.
    It was odd—she’d been having the strangest feelings the past few days. One minute she wanted to drag the young American upstairs to her bed and the next she wanted to curl up next to him with her head on his shoulder. It was unbearable when he was out of her sight. And she hadn’t been joking when she’d referred to the three of them as the Three Musketeers. Amour. Was it possible she was falling in love with the virile, handsome young American? How could she be sure, never having been in love before, not with her husband and certainly not with any of her amants.
    Perhaps she was beginning to fall in love. In matters of the heart, when one partner loved more than the other, that one, she knew, would eventually hurt to the soul. Did she want that? Did she want to experience that kind of pain?
    And what about Reuben? All she had to do was crook her finger and he’d come like a lamb. A niggling voice within urged her to send both young men back to America. Before it’s too late, the voice warned. “No!” she cried fiercely. But what if the young man becomes so enamored of you he, too, falls in love? You will grow old before him. Do you wish to tie yourself to a gigolo? That’s what he’ll become if you keep him here. You’ll never know if he truly loves you or merely the easy life your money can provide . Send him home! “He’s young,” Mickey whispered, “but old enough to make his own decisions. If he wanted to go home, he’d have said something.”
    Mickey turned off the lamps. The near darkness felt good. One could hide in the darkness of a room or in the darkness of one’s mind. One could hide from the world in any number of ways, and that world would pass by.
    Now she was feeling sorry for herself. In the whole of her life she’d never felt this way. Go after him, take what you want. Give what you want, but never give all of yourself. One of her many lovers had told her that once: Never give all of yourself, for when it’s time to walk away, there will be no reserve to carry you through. She smiled wickedly. All right, Reuben Tarz, you shall have 90 percent of me. Right now!
    Her room was softly lit, the bed turned