Hide & Seek - James Patterson [31]
“You are such a lovely and special woman. I adore you, Maggie.”
It was Patrick’s voice, Patrick’s arms, and as he lifted me up and carried me to the massive bed, I felt a release, as though he had severed the invisible chains that had held me captive. This was such a sweet, slow dance. It was so new for me—either forgotten, or never experienced. He took his time, and then entered me gently, carefully.
From a fragile place inside me, a place forgotten, pleasure rippled through me, and I shivered. I felt a deep, warm sensation flowing, spreading, rushing out. It was a feeling that had been missing for so long. And it went on and on that night.
“Gentle Patrick,” I said finally, and I didn’t think I would ever stop smiling. I touched his face once again. He was smiling too. “You’re so good for me. You’re so good, period.”
“It will be better and better,” he said. “Trust me.” Then he whispered, “Trust us.”
I did. Finally, I trusted someone again.
CHAPTER 32
WILL SHEPHERD SHOULD have felt at the absolute top of the world, but somehow he didn’t. He was certainly famous, and filthy rich, but he hated it. That night, he was also dangerously high. The were-wolf of London, he thought. Beware.
The cocaine he’d taken as the concert began, and again immediately before the appearance of Maggie Bradford, made him feel all-powerful. And why the hell not? He was a star not only on the football field, but also among the elite attending the special performance at Albert Hall.
Will looked around, grinning, waving. Pete Townsend was there, and Sting, and Mick Jagger—a new rock group: the Hasbeens—along with Rupert Murdoch and Margaret Thatcher, the two people currently destroying England.
They had come to hear Maggie Bradford soothe their tortured souls. Her ballads did that to people. Her songs were rare, a miracle actually—strong melody, lyric, and mesmerizing. No singer put so many different emotions into one song—all of her songs imitated the dizzying complexity of modern life, or so it seemed to Will.
She came onstage to loud, adoring applause, and yet she seemed so shy. Tickets had been sold out for months. She sat at the piano … and simply began to sing.
Will had no memory of the scene at Lady Trevelyan’s party, and so he looked at her with a fresh eye. There was her long, flowing blond hair. And the simple beauty of her face.
But she seemed to glow on this particular night. He wondered why? What was her secret? What had this woman learned that he hadn’t?
Her voice wasn’t large or particularly dramatic; there was no melodrama in her style. She sang with a purity that pierced his heart like a sword, and he could actually feel the pain as well as the honest beauty of her music.
She was singing about the sadness of lost dreams, about a fall from grace. Will felt she was singing about him.
Tears rolled down his cheeks. The music moved him in ways he couldn’t understand, but it was as though a great light were embracing him from the stage, and then transporting him from the concert hall into a place for only the two of them. What the hell am I thinking? he wondered. He was tempted to laugh at himself. He felt like such a damn fool.
God how he loved the sound of her voice though. He could listen to it for the rest of his life.
He had the strange, haunting feeling that Maggie Bradford could save him from himself.
“Did you forget I was with you in there? You did, didn’t you, Will? You bastard!”
Will looked at the slender, dark-haired woman who was holding on to his arm as he left the concert hall. He had forgotten about her—hadn’t a clue who the hell the beautiful woman behind the dark glasses was. Ah, the werewolf strikes again!
She was stunning, but they all were. Model? Actress? Would-be-actress? Shopgirl? Where the hell had he met her? Christ, this was embarrassing—even for him it was a new low.
“So, how long have you been getting this royally fucked-up on coke? You have, haven’t you? Can you play like this?”
Ahhh, Will sighed