The American Earl (Elbia Series Book 4)

by Kathryn Jensen

  But as soon as Matt had shown up, she lost control of the situation. Sobbing into her arms, she gave herself up to a disappointment so devastating she knew she would never be the same.

  Matt walked all night long, remembering the last time he had done this, in Bermuda. By morning, he couldn’t remember where he’d been or how the hours had passed. He recalled stopping in a good many bars, but hadn’t drunk all that much. Just stayed long enough to rest and warm up from the chilly night. Then he was off again.

  He ended up downtown, across from the Art Institute, in front of a boutique with a trendy window display. Shuddering, he brought back the dark thoughts that had haunted him during the bleakest hours of his life. Hours that matched in pain the loss of his mother, so very long ago.

  Now he had lost Abby.

  The worst part of it was, he had lost her without ever really possessing her. He had thought that she might have fallen in love with him, but he’d learned otherwise that night. Unable to leave her with Richard Wooten, he had lingered outside her door. Not to intentionally eavesdrop on their conversation. He had wanted to make sure she was all right. Then he had heard from her own lips that she had used him. She had been attracted to his money and all it might mean to her dreams. That had crushed him. He had looked into her soul and believed she was as innocent of deception and as loving as any woman he’d ever known. Apparently he had been wrong.

  He didn’t stop by his apartment, just kept on walking to his office. Paula looked up with a smile that immediately dimmed when she got a good look at him. He had forgotten he’d asked her to come in that Saturday.

  “What happened to you?” Standing up from her desk, she came around to meet him. “Matt, are you all right?”

  “Fine,” he mumbled, not breaking stride on his way past her into his office. He must look a grimy, rumpled sight. “I need coffee. And fruit if the deli downstairs is open.”

  He closed the door behind him, pulled a spare suit and fresh shirt from the built-in wardrobe at one end of the room, and quickly washed up and changed in his private bathroom. A few minutes later, he sat down at his desk to consider a future without Abby.

  Exciting things were happening again for Smythe International. In the days since his return from Bermuda, he had saved two at-risk accounts and been given an opportunity to buy out one of his competitors. Six months ago, that prospect would have sent adrenaline racing through his body. Today, he couldn’t give a damn.

  Paula let herself into his office. He looked up at her hopelessly.

  “Care to tell me what happened last night? Looks like you’ve been drug through the streets.” She set a tray on the desk in front of him, poured hot coffee from a carafe. A bowl of fresh melon, mango and pineapple rested along with a muffin beside his cup.

  “A disappointment,” he said, not wanting to show how much he hurt, while perversely hoping Paula would pry details from him. He longed for someone to agree with him that life was unfair and he’d been cruelly shortchanged.

  “Does this involve Abby?” Paula asked quietly.

  He looked up at her through eyes that burned from too much cigarette smoke and too little sleep.

  “You’re good at this.”

  “I know,” she said a little smugly. “Two sons who’ve already had their share of woman trouble have trained me well. What did you do, Matthew?”

  “What did I do?” He was astonished. “I didn’t do a bloody thing! I thought Abby was…might have been—” He shook his head, unable to say the words.

  “In love with you?”

  “Well, all right, yes. I thought she was in love with me. In Bermuda, it certainly seemed so and when we came back to Chicago, it was clear she expected some kind of commitment from me. I did the best I could for her.”

  “You did your best?” Paula asked, her look doubtful as she pulled up a chair across the desk from him.

  “What does that mean, Matthew?”

  “Damn it, I told her I couldn’t work with her while she was my mistress, so I offered her a shop of her own and a luxury condo.”

  Paula tipped her head to one side as if giving this serious thought. “Amazing. And she didn’t appreciate your gracious offer?”

  “Blew me off. She’s going back to her fiancé.”

  “Really.”

  He was loosening up now. He felt he could spill it all out—the frustrations, the confusion, the yearning to be with Abby in the same moment that he ached inside, knowing she’d used him. He told Paula everything.

  After a few minutes, she said. “Abby called me this morning.”

  His eyes narrowed. “She did?”

  Paula nodded. “That young man of hers? She had asked him to meet her so that she could make him understand that they wouldn’t be getting back together. Ever.”

  “She told you this?” He wondered how much more Abby had confided in his executive assistant.

  “What else?”

  Paula shook her head. “Abby has confided in me. It’s not right that I spill it all out to you, Matt. She’s a very special woman, and I like her a lot. I don’t want to see her hurt anymore than I want to see you hurt.”

  “What about her using me for my money?” he demanded. “She admitted it.”

  Paula laughed softly. “If you believe she ever deceived you or cared one bit about your millions, you just don’t know her.”

  Paula reached out and laid her hand over his on the desktop. He felt no comfort, only a vicious pinching sensation in his chest. Still, as he closed his eyes and accepted her sympathy, he understood all that was in Paula’s touch. If he’d had a mother, she couldn’t have done a better job in a crisis.

  She sighed. “Abby’s one fault is that she follows her heart. If you can’t give her yours, Matt, walk away from her. It’s the kindest thing you will ever do.”

  In the days that followed, Abby was aware of Matt spending more than his usual time at the office. He cut business meetings down to the few that were crucial. He canceled a trip to the West Coast. It seemed that whenever she left her office to meet with one of the sales reps or someone in clerical, Matt showed up, too.

  She felt him watching her, studying her during a reception they gave for two new clients, all the while turning over secrets in his mind. She wished she knew what they were.

  They were rarely alone in a room, but even so she felt the eternal tug of his soul against hers. For a few weeks, they had become one. He had claimed her as no man ever had, or ever could again.

  At meetings when they sat at the round, walnut table in the conference room, they were usually across from each other, separated by half a dozen people. The powerful sensation of being drawn to him always came. It was all she could do to stop herself from throwing herself across the table at him.

  At times he seemed to be intentionally trying to catch her eye. She would look up from notes or a report, and find his gaze fixed darkly on her. Was he demanding something of her? She couldn’t imagine what it might be. Hadn’t she given him everything she was capable of giving?

  One day she entered his office, thinking he had left for the day. Footsteps sounded behind her, and she turned to find him shutting the door behind them, his gaze firmly fixed on her.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I just came in for the Brinkley file.”

  Matt nodded but said nothing. He walked slowly toward her, making her think of a large cat, stalking a rabbit, its muscles tensed to spring, ready to respond to any defensive maneuver.

  “I’ll go now,” she said.

  “Not yet.”

  She watched helplessly, unable to move, unable to utter a sound, as he came to within inches of her. She could feel the warmth of his body in the narrow space of air between them. She fully expected him to trap her in his arms and kiss her feverishly. Instead, he lifted one hand and gently touched the tip of her nose.

  “Where are you?” he asked in a husky voice.

  She frowned up at him. “I don’t understand.”

 
“Where is your heart now, Abby? With your Richard? With me? Or off in limbo somewhere?”

  She gasped at the candor of his question. It took her a moment to gather her wits. “Richard has left. He won’t be back,” she answered guardedly.

  “And what about the other two options?”

  She drew a deep breath, but it failed to make her feel any stronger. “I honestly don’t know. We clearly want different things from life. I could give up an awful lot for you, Matt. But not my children, not the hope of spending the rest of my life with one man.”

  Now he did kiss her. Lightly. Lingeringly. She felt her heart leap into her throat. Her knees trembled.

  “Come back to me,” he whispered. “Live with me. We’ll work out the rest, somehow.”

  She looked up at him, amazed by what she was hearing. “You want me to move in with you?” Marriage was the missing word. Children apparently fell under the miscellaneous category of “the rest.”

  “I don’t care about office gossip,” he insisted. “I want you in my life.” His hands were moving up and down her arms, sending chills through her body. His lips touched her temple, her mouth again, her throat. More than anything, she ached to lie with him on cool sheets and let him do all the marvelous things he’d done to her in Bermuda.

  But they were in his office, it was daylight, and there was no guarantee of privacy.

  “Matt,” she whispered hoarsely.

  “Say yes.”

  She gently pressed against his chest. “No. There are too many unknowns. I can’t risk moving in with you, not knowing what will become of us.”

  Frowning down at her, he touched his lips to her cheek. “I know what will become of us. We will be ecstatically happy.”

  “That’s hormones talking.”

  He shook his head. “Much more than that,” he whispered. “Give us another chance. We’ll talk and make love and somehow, it will all work out.”

  She was as tempted as she had ever been. But a little voice from somewhere in her past warned her to be careful. He was committing to far less than she needed. He was promising her a home with him and wonderful sex and companionship…but to nothing more. When it came down to it, his idea of a successful relationship might be a month or a year. Hers was an eternity. Marriage, though no guarantee, was a firm commitment that she could honor and believe in, if he did the same.

  “No, Matt,” Abby said. She touched his face when it contorted with pain. “Not because I don’t love you. Don’t ever think that. I just believe you won’t be able to change. You’ve removed yourself from your father, from your entire family, really. You’ve put up an emotional barrier between yourself and everyone else in the world. A man like that can’t be trusted.”

  “Give me a chance.”

  She smiled sadly. “I can’t risk my future on a promise that isn’t backed up by some kind of proof.” Tears welled up in her eyes and coursed down her cheeks. “Oh, Matt, this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” She wrenched herself out of his arms and backed quickly toward the door to the reception area. “You’ll have my resignation tomorrow. I can’t do this any longer.”

  Abby ran from his office, not daring to stay a moment longer. Words came too easily to men, it seemed. Richard had made promises too, then changed his mind. The pain of rejection had been nearly unbearable then. But as it turned out, she hadn’t even loved the man. If she trusted Matt but he eventually left her, it would destroy her. There was only one way to avoid that. If she walked out of his life now, while she still possessed a few shreds of pride, she might still survive.

  Eleven

  The days that passed were gray and without purpose, it seemed to the young earl. It didn’t matter whether the sun shone or a typhoon struck. A colorless haze had closed around him. He went through the motions of running his business—flew out to L.A. and returned, made a hasty trip for two meetings in Manhattan, signed on a new client. There was no satisfaction and even less joy in the things he had once thought to be the center of his universe.

  Even when the day’s agenda was packed, Matt felt restless. In the company of others, he felt alone. Abby had left him, and he tried to honor her decision by leaving her alone. He didn’t call, didn’t visit her apartment. But every day he drove past the building where she lived, and he gazed longingly up at the window he knew to be hers, wondering if she was at home, or off on her own or with someone else.

  A month passed, and he made good his promise. Her severance pay was generous and would cover the down payment on a small retail business in a respectable part of town. Along with the check that he had had hand-delivered by one of his people, he included the name of a real estate agent he’d often worked with, and a reliable loan officer who would make sure she received the additional money she needed to start up her business. She was already aware of the major suppliers she would need to buy from; that much she had learned by working at his side.

  He felt her loss with heartbreaking bitterness some days, with a sense of oppressive sadness on others. He hadn’t wept since the day his mother walked out of his nursery. He came damn close to it on many mornings when he woke alone in his bed. He found a stray red hair on the shoulder of one of his suits, and it nearly undid him.

  As the days grew cooler and summer came to an end with the falling of the leaves from the hills surrounding Lake Michigan, his loss became no easier to bear. One day Matt walked into the office and stood over Paula’s desk.

  She looked up as if she already knew what he was about to say.

  “I have to give it one more try,” he said.

  She nodded solemnly. “I wish I could say you have a chance. But Abby may have moved on with her life by now.”

  “Moved on…code words for, found another man.”

  “Possibly.”

  He tried to swallow over the sudden rough spot in his throat, but couldn’t. “Have you spoken with her since—” He gestured toward the door.

  “We talk now and then,” Paula admitted.

  “And?”

  “I think she’s been dating. But I don’t know if anyone serious has come into her life.”

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He knew Abby. She wasn’t one to do anything foolish like take a random lover on the rebound. But he had awakened desires in her that she hadn’t known before. There would be feminine hungers to be fed, eventually. And he wouldn’t be there to satisfy them. The thought drove him nearly mad.

  “What are you going to do?” Paula asked.

  “I realize I can’t just ask her to come back to the company, or to me,” he said tightly.

  “Right,” she agreed.

  “I must do something to prove to her that I’ve made peace with my past. Only then will she be able to believe I’m capable of truly loving her.”

  Paula frowned. “And how do you propose to do that?”

  “I haven’t worked it all out yet. But I know I’ll need your help when the time comes. Here, grab your coat, I’ll treat you to breakfast. We need to plan our strategy.”

  Paula lifted her leather jacket from the hook beside her desk, but reached for Matt’s arm to stop him before he moved toward the door. “Owning her isn’t what it’s about,” she murmured. “Abby’s not just another company to acquire.”

  “I know,” he said solemnly.

  “Do you love her?”

  He didn’t miss a beat. “With all my soul.”

  Abby laid down the loan contract, her eyes lingering on it as she stood up to reach for the ringing phone. Dee rushed into the kitchen. “Oh, you’ve got it.”

  Abby nodded. “Hello?” she said into the receiver.

  “It’s Paula, honey.”

  Abby grinned. “Hey, great to hear from you! How’s the gang doing?” She always asked in that way. Impersonal, no names mentioned. Never, ever Matt’s.

  Paula had told her weeks ago that a new hostess had started working for them, and she seemed to be doing fine. Abby didn’t want to think about another woman travel
ing with Matt, staying in the lovely New York penthouse, sleeping in the breezy Bermuda villa.

  “We’re all fine…just in a bit of a pinch right now.”

  “Oh?” Worry prickles danced along Abby’s spine. Although she was no longer working for Matt’s company, she would always feel a warm attachment to things important to him. “What’s wrong?”

  “Kerri, our new hostess, has to go home for a few weeks while her mom has surgery. Matt’s had big plans for entertaining some very important people at the house in Bermuda. It means a lot to him. But he can’t do it alone, and I can’t rush off and leave two teenage boys on their own, even for a day.”

  Abby reacted instinctively to Paula’s urgent tone. “Is there anything I can do?” Later, she would realize that all she’d intended was to offer to call around and see if she could find a reliable substitute for Kerri.

  “There is,” her friend said quickly. “You can step in and be our substitute hostess for a few days.”

  Abby drew a sharp breath. “I couldn’t. I mean, I have a new job and all.”

  “But it will only be for a few days and you know the routine. I can place the orders from here. All you have to do is hop on a plane, supervise the staff as they set things up, show up in a pretty dress and smile at the guests.”

  “Sure but, Paula, I honestly don’t think I could face Matt. Not there. That house holds too many memories.”

  “I know, dear,” she said at last. “It’s almost like someone dying, isn’t it? You need closure. You need to face Matt one last time. Show him and yourself that you’re going to be all right with or without him. Only then will you be at peace with your decision.”