Gold, Fire & Refinement

Chapter Two

"The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain." ~Aristotle

A tiny drop of blood appeared on the little finger of Zarah's left hand. She chewed her nail to the quick, and now it was hurting. Examining the damage, she saw a torn cuticle and a ragged, uneven nail. It no longer matched the length of the rest of her perfectly trimmed manicure. It looked bad, so she pushed both hands underneath her hips. She would just sit on them if that's what it would take to keep from doing even more damage.

Waiting for her fiancé to get home, her mind kept racing back and forth between one "what if" and the next. The Wizard of Oz, one of her favorite movies, was playing silently in front of her. She watched it at least once a year, but today, even though she was staring at the screen, she hadn't seen any of it. The surround sound was all the way down in the theater room and the monkey-looking creatures were silently swooping down and flying off again, taking the scarecrow and the tin man up and away with them. This was the part that usually made her flinch, but not today. Today, she turned her face away from the screen. Today, her mind was far, far away from Oz.

With more than a little fear gathering in the pit of her stomach, goosebumps broke out on her arms, and her chills weren't the result of feeling empathy for Dorothy and her friends. She was getting ready to do something big and scary ... and she was going to do it anyway. She would be turning  twenty-two in November, and she had made up her mind. Her wedding gift, to a rich and powerful man who had just about everything, would be the one thing he wanted with all his heart, the one thing he did not have. "It might not be the right time," she said out loud to herself, "but it's time."

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Harvey's work had him traveling so much, they hadn't been alone together in weeks. That was why they arranged their schedules to spend this afternoon, the next day, and the next week together. They were taking a long overdue, well deserved hiatus from work, and the afternoon would be the start of a whole week of celebrating their love. In just one week, he'd be leaving the country again to spend three weeks in France working on business deals and a resort expansion project. Although she would miss him terribly, a big work commitment—a story she was covering for Araminta magazine—was keeping her from joining him.

Surveying the room, a movie watcher's oasis, she felt pleased: the mood was all set for romance and love. They would begin their afternoon "make out party" at the movies. With seating for twenty, the room would surround them in intense, passionate colors: different shades of romantic gold, blue, brown, warm beige, and spicy pumpkin—hues evocative of exotic places they'd visited together, like Morocco and Tunisia. Everything was just right for what she had in mind. It had been nearly two years since her fiancé built their dream home on Lake Bellwood: a beautiful two-story ten-thousand-square-foot Mediterranean-style mansion tucked deep inside a country-like setting, on the southernmost tip of Jackson, Mississippi. They had dreamed it up together, giving it light gray stucco siding to match her gray eyes, and deep, Egyptian-blue tile roofs to match his. It was a one-of-a-kind retreat with design and décor artfully blending together things she loved with things he loved. The same way the children they would one day have would be God's artful blending of the two of them.

With one eyebrow raised, she felt her lips forming a sneaky, almost imperceptible smile. She was planning on surprising him that night by telling him about her plans to get pregnant as soon as possible, and their excitement over her decision would make up for her not going to France with him. He would be super busy during his trip, anyway. In between talks with investors about some of his latest development projects, the main hotel of the Riviera Wilson Hotel and Resort was getting a facelift and its owner and namesake would be there for the kickoff. He liked being present and in command at the launch of all of his properties' major construction or costly renovation projects. This one, a seventy-five million dollar makeover, included revamping the curb appeal of the main hotel, renovating one of the hotel's grand event rooms, adding another swimming pool, and constructing a third restaurant for the main hotel—a luxurious eatery with spectacular views of the ocean. His latest development project was going to take six months to complete, and the project she hoped to get started with him soon would take nine.