Lost in Pleasure by Marguerite Kaye Read Free Book Online Page B

a heavy heart, Errin began to disentangle herself. Her own
clothes, the clothes in which she had arrived, were upstairs in Richard’s
bedroom. She decided to do without them, to leave this time in her gown, to
allow herself this one indulgence as a memento.
    Richard watched her dressing, his eyes hooded. ‘Errin, don’t,
you’ll regret it. We’ll regret it.’
    Tears, hot tears, acid tears, filled her eyes. Words clogged
her throat, but she could not speak them, for to give voice was to make it real
and to deny herself the chance of a future. ‘Maybe, but I have to do this
nonetheless.’
    Always, it had been he who walked away, certain that a swift
amputation was better than a slow death. Never before had any woman rejected
him. He had never been ‘not enough.’ It hurt. It hurt a lot, but he knew it
would not last. It was not in his nature for it to last. ‘I won’t beg you,’
Richard said, though he wondered if he’d be able to stop himself.
    ‘I don’t want you to beg.’
    ‘When you change your mind, I’ll be here, waiting.’
    ‘I won’t change my mind, Richard. I’m sorry.’ She leaned over
to kiss him. He did not respond. ‘I’m sorry,’ Errin said again, and took her
seat on the chair, forcing herself to surrender this one last time to its
familiar magical embrace. As her lids began to close, she saw him leaping to his
feet and called to him, ‘Richard.’ It was too late. ‘Richard, I love you,’ she
shouted, but the words were lost in the mists of time, where they joined
countless other similar declarations uttered over the centuries, doomed to
remain unheard, forever unrequited.

Chapter Four
    He tried to forget her. He tried to immerse himself in
his old life. When that did not work, he tried to create a new life,
determinedly cultivating new people, new interests, but that did not work
either. Nothing worked. He missed Errin every hour of every day. He missed her
voice and her scent and her body. He missed the way she talked and the way she
made him laugh, and the way she made him look at his world anew. He missed the
way she argued with him, and the way she swore so comically, and the way she
listened, as if he were the only person in the world whose opinion mattered.
    She made him discontented with his perfectly acceptable lot,
and he resented her for that. He resented the way her absence hovered like a
spectre, dogging his every step. He resented the feeling of having lost
something, of being not quite complete. Of not being whole. He hadn’t ever felt
like that before—had he? Richard thought back, but it was difficult to remember
a time before Errin, just as it was increasingly impossible to contemplate a
future without her. The irony of this conundrum, since his future would take
place before her birth, would have fascinated the former man of science, but it
simply irked him now. He missed her. He missed her more every day, and he hated
her for it.
    He couldn’t find it in his heart to hate her for long, though.
He clung to the belief that one day she would see sense and return, and he
resigned himself to having to wait. But as the weeks turned to months the
reality of his plight began to sink in. Anger turned to despondency.
    His friends tried to rally him. He himself tried to rekindle
his interest in other women, but all of them were pale reflections of the real
thing. He had no desire for any woman but one. One stubborn woman who had left
without a proper explanation.
    Why ? Why had she put an end to it
all? What was it that wasn’t enough? What more could there be? The answer that
came to him was both a relief and an enigma. Love. Could it be love that was
making him feel like this? Was love the mystery missing ingredient from his
life? Was it love that made Errin dissatisfied with her transient role in his
world? Love? Was that the source of these feelings of loss and emptiness and
longing and listlessness and—and devil take it, this damned unhappiness that
could only be