When Next We Love by Heather Graham

two easy strides, naked to the waist. The crisp mat of hair on his chest tingled through the soaked blouse that clung to her skin as he caught her and threw her back even more viciously than before. Caught in his viselike grip, she could only stare with disbelief as he quietly told her, “Why, Leigh? Why all this? Because of Richard, because of me, because of you. There was no judge and jury to take care of you on Richard’s behalf. So it falls to me. Stupid, idiotic me. The one who praised you to no end, the one who envied Richard his beautiful and charming wife, the one who would hear no wrong until forced to see it all. You mocked Richard, Leigh, and you made an absolute fool out of me. None of which I ever wanted to believe!”
    Leigh hung limp against him. The puzzle pieces were all fitting in, everything was in the open. Any mask of chivalry Derek had worn had been to connive her to stay where he wanted her.
    “So what now?” she asked bleakly. “Why don’t you just beat me up, macho man, and leave it at that?”
    “Too easy!” he muttered.
    “Then what?” she demanded flatly, no longer rebellious but tired. “You can’t keep me forever to torture …”
    “No, your sentence isn’t life.”
    He left her again to finish dressing, sure she would not take off again. Leigh lay with her eyes closed, incredulous that he could think he could hold her against her will.
    He came back to the bed and jerked her up by the wrist. “Let’s go. You have to change before you get pneumonia.”
    “Wouldn’t you like that?” she queried sweetly.
    He ignored her and ushered her into the room next door, carefully locking the door after they had come through it. “Your suit is in the closet. Emma cleaned and pressed it.” He leaned against the door with crossed arms.
    Leigh took her clothing into the bathroom and changed quickly. She brushed out her hair and repaired her makeup. When she emerged, Derek was still against the door, exactly as she had left him.
    “Now, Mrs. Tremayne,” he said coolly, “the choice is yours. If you walk down those stairs like the nice little lady you always purported to be, the night may go well.”
    “And if I don’t?” It was all too absurd!
    “Then you take your chances!” Something in his expression caused her to pale perceptibly. “Let’s go.”
    She wondered as she preceded him downstairs how she could have managed to become part of the nightmare she was living. There had been moments at first, she was sure, when Derek had truly gentled toward her. He knew Richard had lied about a few things! The scene in the office had assured her of that. But now, now it seemed he hated her more than ever. The violent rumblings of hostility he had barely concealed at Richard’s funeral were erupting like the lava of a volcano.
    Dinner, which she dreaded, went amazingly well. Derek slipped back into his mask of conviviality, and became the perfect host. It was an easy meal, comfortable, made so by the bantering between the three men who worked together and who, in that capacity, had shared in one another’s lives to a deeper extent than family. Roger was the main entertainment for the meal, telling funny tales of early experiences. Leigh began to wonder how the conversation would have gone had Richard been present instead of she, if the four men would not have fallen into ribald jokes and laughed the night away, eternal friends and conspirators of the night.
    They wandered into the game room after dinner, where Roger came upon Derek’s picture albums. He ensconced himself into a well-padded couch with Leigh and went through them as Derek and John shot pool. The albums were dated, and Roger started from the first year that the group, then shy and awkward boys, had first started playing together. They appeared in black velvet suits with ruffled white shirts, their hair—daringly long for those days!—curling over their collars.
    “James put these all together for Derek, you know,” Roger