A Simple Deception

XV

"Love, like everything else in life, should be a discovery, an adventure, and like most adventures, you don't know you're having one until you're right in the middle of it." E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

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XV.

Alex hadn't known what had come over him in that moment. All he had seen was the compassionate depths of Susanna's blue eyes, and the parting of her perfectly plump lips. All he had heard was the soft tone of her gentle understanding, and the thumping of his own heart. And before he had any control over his own actions, he had kissed her.

She was frozen against him for mere moments before she melted into his embrace, and she returned Alex's attentions with fervent enthusiasm. He felt her hands on his bare back as he held her tightly to his chest, one hand around her narrow waist while the other was thoroughly tangled in her soft hair. Susanna, in her inexperience, allowed herself to be led by Alex, as he felt the brush of her tongue –

Alex promptly pushed her away. Susanna stumbled, before tripping over the hem of her dress and falling into the shallows of the pond with a splash. Susanna cried out in surprised fright as she supported herself in the water with her hands, her gown quickly drenched and turning a murky brown colour.

"Je suis désolé," apologised Alex immediately, feeling like a right fool as Susanna stared up at him in absolute shock, her mouth incredibly. "C'est ma faute." Alex immediately waded into the pond, unwittingly splashing Susanna further as she closed her eyes to avoid the water. The water was freezing despite the marginally nice weather and Susanna needed to change immediately so as not to catch a chill.

Alex did not wait for Susanna to take his hand. He reached down and wrapped one of his arms around her back, placing the other underneath her knees and he lifted her out of the water. Susanna quickly held on to him, her cold hands finding his neck. After three long strides, they were up and out of the pond and back onto the bank where Alex placed Susanna down safely.

"I am sorry, my lady," Alex apologised again, instinctively reverting back to her formal title. He had allowed himself to feel. In that moment he had become completely lost to her, long before she was lost to him. It had been real. Alex had felt that in the very depths of his soul that it had been a real moment. No charade. No lies. It was the first real moment that he had ever experienced with a woman, and he knew how wrong it was.

It wasn't lust. It wasn't the girlhood fantasies that he inspired in his conquests. This was something deeper, and more meaningful than anything he had ever experienced. And so, he had panicked.

"What on earth did you do that for?" Susanna demanded to know, lifting up a portion of her hem before wringing it out. Her gown was completed sodden down to her under things and she needed to go inside.

But how would they explain this? Alex knew that if Len knew about this, he would be clapping his hands together with glee. This was exactly what Alex was meant to be doing. Certainly, now that he had enough of a rapport with Susanna to be caught in such an embrace somewhere inside the house. That would be the next part of the plan. And yet, entertaining such an idea made Alex want to swallow hot embers.

Alex hadn't shared his story with Susanna because he wanted to build a rapport. He had borne his soul to this woman because he trusted her, and he knew that she cared. Susanna ... Lord, in another life, on another planet maybe, she might have been the one for him.

Alex suddenly realised he was still standing before her without his shirt, and so he seized the pile of linen from the ground, before pausing. "Do you want to wear this back?" he proposed.