Read Give Me Your Heart for Free Online Page B

the fact was, Leonard had the advantage: he knew of Valerie’s secret attachment to the first husband, and Valerie had no idea he
knew.
    Smiling to think: like a boa constrictor swallowing its living prey paralyzed by terror, his secret would encompass Valerie’s secret and would, in time, digest it.
    The anniversary trip to Italy, scheduled for March, was to be postponed.
    “It isn’t a practical time after all. My work . . .”
    And this was true. The Atlanta case had swerved in an unforeseen and perilous direction. There were obligations in Valerie’s life too. “. . . not a practical time. But later . .
.”
    He saw in her eyes regret, yet also relief.
    Doesn’t want to be alone with me. Comparing me with him, isn’t she!
    • • •
    “. . . a reservation for four, at L’Heure Bleu. If we arrive by six, maybe a little before six, we won’t have to leave until quarter to eight, Lincoln Center
is just across the street. But if you and Harold prefer the Tokyo Pavilion, I know you’ve been wanting to check it out after the review in the Times, and Leonard and I have too . .
.”
    In fact, Leonard disliked Japanese food. Hated sushi, which was so much raw flesh, inedible.
    Where love has gone, he thought bitterly.
    Listening to Valerie’s maddeningly calm voice as she descended the stairs speaking on a cordless phone to a friend. It was nearly two weeks since he’d discovered the Polaroids;
he’d vowed not to look at them again. Yet he was approaching the cherrywood table, pulling open the drawer that stuck a little, groping another time for the packet of Polaroids, which seemed
to be in exactly the place he’d left it, and he cursed his wife for being so careless, for not having taken time to hide her secret more securely.
    “‘Oliver and Val, Key West, December 1985.’”
    With that childish pride, Valerie had felt the need to identify the lovers!
    At a window overlooking a snowy slope to the river and the glowering winter sky, he examined the photographs eagerly. He had seen them several times by now and had more or less memorized them,
and so they were both familiar and yet retained an air of the exotic and treacherous. One of the less faded Polaroids he brought close to his face, that he might squint at the ring worn by the
coppery-haired girl—was it the emerald? Valerie was wearing it on her right hand even then, which might only mean that though Oliver Yardman had given it to her, it hadn’t yet acquired
the status of an engagement ring. In another photo, Leonard discovered what he’d somehow overlooked, the faintest suggestion of a bruise on Valerie’s neck, or a shadow that very much
resembled a bruise. And Oliver Yardman’s smooth-skinned face wasn’t really so smooth; in fact it looked coarse in certain of the photos. And that smug, petulant mouth Leonard would have
liked to smash with his fist. And there was Yardman wriggling his long toes—wasn’t there a correlation between the size of a man’s toes and the size of . . .
    Hurriedly Leonard shoved the Polaroids into the drawer and fled the room.
    “The time for children is past.”
    Years ago. Should have known the woman hadn’t loved him, if she had not wanted children with him.
    “. . . a kind of madness has come over parents today. Not just the expense: private schools, private tutors, college. Therapists! But you must subordinate your life to your children. My
husband”—Valerie’s voice dipped; this was a hypothetical, it was Leonard to whom she spoke so earnestly—“would be working in the city five days a week and
wouldn’t be home until evening, and can you see me as a soccer mom, driving children to—wherever! Living through it all again and this time knowing what’s to come? My God, it
would be so raw.‘”
    Valerie laughed; there was fear in her eyes.
    Leonard was astonished; this poised, beautiful woman was speaking so intimately to him! Of course he comforted her, gripping her cold hands. Kissed