"I'm sorry, I don't know who that is. Are you sure you have the right house?"
"You are Gabriella Matheson. I have the right house and the right person." Blayne inwardly chastised herself for letting a beautiful woman's smile shake her to her foundation. "As I was saying Mrs. Matheson, I represent Arthur Aston-Carlyle, your father."
The smile was gone from the lovely face in front of her and suddenly Blayne felt cold.
"I think you have the wrong person. My father's name is Humberto Sotomayor."
"No, Mrs. Matheson, it's not." Blayne insisted. "I know that this is not probably the best way to find out about this but time is of the…." Blayne noticed that the woman in front of her began to grow pale.
"I can explain all this to you if you give me a few minutes." Blayne took a step closer to Gabriella who searched her eyes. The confusion she saw in those blue eyes troubled her since she was the one that had put it there. "You have your father's eyes," Blayne said softly out of nowhere. "His are the same shade of blue."
Gabriella suddenly took a step back and Blayne walked in. She took a few steps inside then turned towards Gabriella who was still standing in a daze by the door.
Gabriella looked directly at her and Blayne was taken aback when she saw the pain in her eyes as they began to fill with tears. "My eyes…?"
"Yes, you have his eyes," Blayne said gently. Somehow she knew that this had hit home. In her need to rush through this task she saw the pain she was causing. A perfectly happy woman had opened the door and the same woman now seemed incredibly forlorn.
Gabriella passed by her and picked up a phone and began to dial. Blayne came up behind her and took it away from her. Gabriella faced her as tears were already running down her face. "Give that back to me!" She demanded.
Blayne hung up the receiver. "Let me talk to you first."
"No, I need to talk to my mother."
"I don't think that's such a good idea," Blayne insisted.
"I bet you don't." Gabriella sounded angry now.
Blayne took a step back; she would let things take their course. Gabriella picked up the phone and dialed. She was facing Blayne all the while.
"Mama…Mama, I need to talk to you. I need to ask you something…. No, I'm okay." Gabriella took a deep breath, never breaking eye contact with Blayne. "Who is Arthur Aston-Carlyle?"
Blayne saw it happen. She saw the moment it happened. It was clear in Gabriella's eyes and she had been the one to bring her the news. Blayne saw the beautiful woman's heart break into a million pieces in front of her.
Gabriella hung up the phone slowly, without saying a word. She began to tremble and Blayne walked up to her slowly. Blayne then did something that both women would later remember and question. Blayne took Gabriella into her arms, as the other woman began to sob loudly, clinging to the warm arms that surrounded her.
"My eyes…always my eyes," Gabriella said as she wept. Her body shook with the sobbing and Blayne held her tighter. Gabriella's whole body was pressed against her; she was clinging to Blayne inconsolably as an old pain had been brought to light and cruelly exposed.
Blayne caressed the soft hair and kissed the woman's head lightly. Her arms pulled Gabriella even tighter to her. All that the world seemed to hold for Blayne at that moment was the softness of the body in her arms.
Gabriella wanted the world to open up and swallow her whole. Her eyes; her eyes had always been the subject of snickers and suppositions. That same topic had been a sensitive subject and an argument between her parents ever since she could remember. Her father had died over ten years before and at the end they had been close. She treasured those last months and she hated her blue eyes, which everyone found necessary to mention. As a child, schoolteachers always expressed interest when her parents would come to parent-teachers conferences about her eyes. After a while, her father just didn't come anymore. He began to look at her differently. He never said a word to her. He loved her….she was his child but Gabriella always felt the distance between them that the question of her eyes had created in his mind.
"He must have known. My father must have known." Gabriella sobbed as she buried herself in the warmth of the arms around her closer to her still.
"Shhhh…it's all right. Shhh…" Blayne said as her hands caressed Gabriella's back.
Gabriella only felt the strength of the arms around her. It had been so long since she had felt the security of such an embrace. Only in her father's arms had she ever felt safe as she did now and she gave herself to that emotion she so desperately needed at the moment. She leaned into Blayne and cried all the harder. Her father had been gone for so long. Her husband Joseph had stopped making her feel anything similar to safety for a long time. Gabriella clung to the security of the arms that held her so tightly; after awhile all she felt was the heat in her body begin to burn and encompass her. She clung to that warmth and sought it. The world became filled with strong arms and soft caresses as her face looked up to meet lips that covered her own. Her eyes closed and the emptiness that had always been inside her suddenly filled. She had felt the cold inside her grow for so long and now Gabriella pressed harder against that which seemed to cover her whole body with the warmth that she had sought her whole life.
Blayne wasn't sure how it happened. One moment all she could do was kiss the soft dark tresses of hair. Then Gabriella's mouth came up and her mouth naturally met it. There was no thinking; no thought at all. Suddenly her thoroughly orderly life crashed around her and for the first time she didn't care about anything. Blayne didn't think, she didn't weigh her actions or her options as she did with every step and every action in her life. Something inside her, long dormant, had taken over and the emotion was all that mattered.
Passion was the only thing that seemed to reign, where they were did not matter, who they were was not important. They had no will. The desire had awakened and it would not be denied. Hands traveled and explored as mouths tasted and bit hungrily. There were no expectations, no questions. Each woman could no more fight what was happening then they could continue living without taking another breath.
Blayne hands unbuttoned Gabriella's blouse with a mind of their own and before Gabriella realized it Blayne's mouth was sucking hungrily on her breast. Gabriella's head fell back in wanton abandonment as a moan escaped her lips.
A car door slammed hard. Something in Blayne's head clicked through her jumbled emotions and she pulled away quickly but not before locking eyes with those of the woman that had made her lose all her control. Gabriella cried a little as she tried to pull Blayne back towards her.
"Someone just got here," Blayne said trying to catch her breath. Holding Gabriella's hand tightly she took a few long steps to the door and locked it moments before the knob turned. That one action would give them the minute they both needed.
Gabriella's hands were trembling as she tried to button up her blouse. Blayne pushed her hands away and finished buttoning the blouse quickly for her. Blayne then looked up into those blue eyes again and saw the distance growing quickly between them. She pulled Gabriella roughly into her arms once more and kissed her soundly and hungrily on the lips. Both women just regarded one another questioning, waiting, guessing….until the pounding on the door shook them out of their trance.
Blayne then took a few steps away and waited for an even more distressed Gabriella to open the door.
Gabriella just stared at her a moment longer and then suddenly she seemed to realized the enormity of what had just happened.
The knocking grew louder still.
"You better open the door, Mrs. Matheson," Blayne said coldly.