by Penny Wylder
“And you like him? You’re good to him?”
What? “I like to think so. We haven’t known each other that long, but I do like him and I want to keep seeing him.”
Eleanor leans forward, pinning me with a steely gaze. “My son likes you. I can see it in the way he looks at you. But it’s very important that he has someone who is loyal and trustworthy in his life. Someone he can always count on. Are you prepared to do that?”
I take a sip of the champagne to calm my nerves. “We’re still figuring out how we fit into each other's lives, ma’am, but I’m not the kind of person who would turn her back on someone.”
The way she’s looking me up and down makes me wonder what she’s thinking. She’s nearly impossible to read. When she opens her mouth, it’s not what I expect. “My children deserve people who are going to respect and love them unconditionally. I won’t tolerate anything less. You need to understand that, because I will be checking. And if I discover you are anything less than loyal, there will be consequences. There’s nothing I won’t do for my children, and I don’t think you want to experience what that’s like.”
“Mom.” Bianca says, stepping forward with the glasses in her hands. She gives them to Eleanor. “Jesus. Are you trying to terrify her?”
Eleanor says nothing as Bianca pulls me up and away, and I’m still too stunned to say anything. “God, I’m so sorry,” Bianca says. “I tried to go as quickly as I could but I didn’t know that she was going to hit you with that. You probably weren’t ready for it to be that intense, but you do have to understand at least part of it, given what she’s been through. I’m going to have a serious conversation with her about tact though.”
“Wait, what?” I ask. “What are you talking about?”
Bianca stops. We’re at the edge of the dance floor near the doors to the gardens, and now we’re looking at each other trying to figure out where the misunderstanding is happening. “I think I’m seriously missing something.”
“Oh my God,” Bianca says. “I’m going to kill him.”
“Why?” My frustration suddenly cracks. “Look, Bianca, I really like Eric, and I don’t really have a right to push him about stuff after a few days, but what the hell did you just pull me out of?”
“He needs to be the one to tell you,” she says. “Otherwise he’ll never forgive me. But it’s all tangled up with what happened with our dad.”
“Eric hasn’t even mentioned him.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’ve should have known. Look, just tell him what happened with Mom, and ask him. I wish I could tell you.”
“There you are,” Eric’s voice reaches me and I feel his hand on my arm. He pulls me in to his side. “I saw Mom alone and wasn’t sure where you went.”
“Bianca was rescuing me.”
He looks between us. “Rescuing you from what?”
“Good luck,” Bianca says, escaping around us to where James is waiting.
“What happened?” he asks, hands gripping my upper arms. The intensity feels like fear or desperation.
“Well, I think it’s safe to say that your mother doesn’t like me.”
“Why?”
“Because she just threatened me. She threatened to split us up if I wasn’t completely loyal to you and didn’t love you unconditionally. And I really like you, but I want to know what’s going on. I’m feeling a little blindsided, and like I walked into something way bigger than I realized. Especially now that Bianca tells me that this all has to do with your dad?” His face darkens, and I know that Bianca was right. “What happened?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why not?” I whisper fiercely. “If I’m going to take threats from your mom—who I’m assuming is equally as rich and powerful as you are—then I deserve to know what happened to make those threats happen, don’t you think?”
“No,” he says flatly. “I don’t.”
“That’s bullshit.” I pull away from him. “Tell me what happened. Help me to understand what I’m dealing with here. Because we’re not going to be able to figure out what’s between us if I only know half the story.”
He shakes his head. “Don’t pull that card. We don’t know everything about each other, and I’m sure there’s things that you’re not going to tell me until we know that we’re for real. I’m not going to tell you because it’s none of your business. You’re not entitled to my pain any more than I’m entitled to yours.”
The words strike home. Until we know that we’re for real. I had thought that we were for real. Sure, it’s new, but that doesn’t mean that it’s fake. “It sure as hell felt real to me,” I say, pushing past him and out of one of the French doors and out into the air.
There are a few people scattered out here, and they look at me as I burst outside. I can feel him following me. The look on his face must be really something because the people milling around quickly make themselves disappear.
“It was real,” he says, practically growling. “It’s still real.”
Eric’s hand is on my shoulder, and I spin to face him. “How? How is this real if you weren’t even honest about the reason you brought me here? I just got drilled about whether or not I was trustworthy enough to date you. And then she told me that I didn’t want to see the consequences for being disloyal. What the hell, Eric?
“I understand wanting someone good for your kids, but if I’m going to get measured against a standard than you have to meet it too. Trustworthiness goes both ways, and so far, I have trusted you with everything. I let you touch me in a way that no other person has touched me, and now…” I don’t even know what to say anymore. I feel all mixed up and possibly betrayed, but I’m not even sure that that’s the right emotion because I don’t know what the hell is going on. Tears that I don’t want well up into my eyes and I turn away from him.
This is just like every other Valentine’s Day, ending up in tears. Only this might be worse because it started out so brilliantly.
“Jesus, Sally,” Eric says, and he sounds dejected. “This isn’t easy for me. This is the one thing, that one thing that causes me so much pain it makes me angry to talk about it. Hell, she’s still clearing out boxes. She had me come over and pick up the last of them this morning. This whole thing has been a process so long and drawn out and I’m tired and today of all days I’m just reminded of it.”
Boxes. Boxes usually mean people’s things. Shit. His father died. That has to be it. His father died and he has yet to get over it. “He’s gone?” I ask.
He blows out a breath. “Yes.”
“I’m so sorry, Eric. I honestly had no idea. That explains why you hate it so much. If my father died on Valentine’s Day I think that I’d hate it too. I didn’t know, and I didn’t mean to be cruel. I didn’t realize that’s what you were going through.”
He starts to laugh. Not just a little laugh but a big laugh, almost angry that fills the space around us and echoes out into the gardens. It’s a sound that makes me sick to my stomach. “Why are you laughing?”
“Because I wish it were that,” he says. “That bastard being dead would be way easier than this. But he can rot in hell. I’m glad he’s gone and I’m even happier that the last of his toxic shit is out of this house.”
“What?”
Eric turns away from me and runs his hands through his hair. “Three years ago we had a party kind of like this one. It wasn’t nearly as extravagant or as many people, but there were enough. My dad disappeared for a while, and he always gave the toasts at our parties. So I went looking for him, and I found him, in the middle of fucking his twenty-one-year-old secretary.
“And once I’d finished screaming at him and he’d put himself together and come out to talk to us, he informed us all that he was leaving my mother for her. That they were in love and that was the end of that. He’d hired her a week before. It was Valentine’s Day.
“That’s why I can’t stand this holiday.”
Oh my God. The tears that wer
e welling up before spill over and I start to cry. Because I understand and every emotion that’s been built up in the last minute needs to come pouring out and because that’s so incredibly sad.
“Hey,” he says, “don’t cry. It’s all fine now. I’m fine.”
But it’s not fine. To have this day, something that’s supposed to be reserved for love and joy shredded in front of you, and on top of that have your family torn apart. That’s miles away from fine.
I understand why Eleanor said what she did now even though I still can’t believe that it happened. I let Eric pull me into an embrace, and I tuck my head into his chest. “I’m sorry,” my voice is muffled.
“I’m sorry too,” he says. “I should have just told you, but it’s just…easier to pretend that it never happened. And my mother, I thought she’d be more like me, that she would hate this day and what it stood for and not be interested in relationships. But it’s not like that.”
“That’s why she wanted you to bring a date?”
I feel him nod above my head. “She’s become obsessed with Bianca and me finding the perfect people to spend our lives with. To the point where if we’re not with someone she sees it as a personal failing. It got even worse when I split with my ex.
“I’ve been doing what she asks because last year she had a break down and we thought we were going to lose her. And Bianca asked you to be my date so we didn’t risk her spiraling into another episode. But I should have warned you that this could happen.”
I don’t say anything, and I let myself relax into the warmth of his arms. “Bianca lives here to take care of her, though she has a life in the city. Neither of us want her to be back in that place again.”
“Yeah.” That’s all there is to say. How else can you respond to sadness like that?
Eric pulls back far enough to look down at me, but not enough to let me go. His face is serious. “Forgive me,” he says. “I was an ass, and my pain isn’t an excuse to lash out. This is very real, and I want everything to be your business.”
I nod, still worried that another bout of tears is coming. Finally, I manage. “I forgive you.”
He looks relieved, and he leans toward me before stopping. “I would very much like to kiss you, Sally, if that’s all right.”
“Yes, please.”
His lips on mine are soft, gentle. It makes the space in my chest ache for him and for his family. This kiss is something fragile, just like us. It’s too new to take for granted, this thing between us, and it easily could have ended.
I don’t want that. All I want to do is be with him, without the pressure of everything else.
“Do we have to stay?”
He shakes his head. “No. I came. I brought you. I didn’t think she was going to speak to you like that, and I’m going to talk to her later. But even though you love Valentine’s Day, I would still love to get the fuck out of here.”
I allow myself to warm up to him, to let go of what just happened so I can recapture the joy of what I felt when we arrived. “Do you remember when I said I had a plan to get you to like Valentine’s Day?”
“I remember something about that. What about it?”
I take a breath, because there’s no going back from this. “Take me home, Eric.”
12
Eric
The ride from my mother’s house back to the city is quiet, but not uncomfortable. We both know what’s going to happen when we get to my apartment, but we can’t start now. I know that once I start touching her, pleasuring her, making love to her, that I won’t be able to stop. But I keep her hand in mine, stroking her palm with my thumb.
I can’t believe that I almost fucked this up. I can’t believe I was such an ass and I can’t believe that Sally forgave me. In the end, I can’t be mad at Bianca for giving away what was going on. Sally was right, I should have told her at least the basics before throwing her into the lion’s den with my mother.
I don’t like to think about that day, about how catching my father with that girl felt like dying. My parents were always the happiest people that I knew. They were in love and still together when so many people’s parents had split up. And then my father fell in love with a girl in a week and everything changed.
That’s the real reason that's I question my attraction to Sally and the fact that it’s so fast. I don’t want to be like him. I don’t want to be like the man who could rip his family in half because I fell for someone after a week. If I’m capable of doing it for Sally, then what happens after I’ve been with her for years? Does it happen again and this time I’m the one who leaves?
There’s something inside that tells me that I’m not that man, that I’m not the kind of person that would do that.
But until the day it happened, I didn’t think that my dad was that kind of person either. And I still found him balls deep into a girl less than half his age.
That memory still makes me seethe with anger, and the look of betrayal on my mother’s face is going to haunt me until the day that I die, without question.
The fact that Sally wants to change my mind about this day is sweet, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. Whenever I think about what happened it burns just as much as it did then. I don’t want it to, I’m tired of living with what feels like an open wound, but I’m not sure how to move on. I’ve kept it at the center of my being for a long time now, and it’s not going to be simple to just let it go.
And then there’s what’s about to happen. When Sally asked me to take her home, I knew what she meant. She’s not just asking to come home with me, she’s asking for me to take her virginity. To be the first man that she’s ever been with, and that makes me want her more fiercely than I thought I could.
It also gives me a shiver of nerves. This is the only first time that she’ll have, and I want it to be perfect for her.
I want her to remember it forever, even if nothing comes of this.
But that’s not what I want. Even if that terrifies me and makes me wonder if I’m going to end up like the man I hate, I know deep in my gut that Sally is different. She’s meets something in me that I didn’t know that I needed. She soothes my rough edges and makes me excited where I had been bored. There hasn’t been anything that I’ve learned about her that’s made me hesitate, and she handled the way my mother treated her shockingly well. I know plenty of people who would have exploded, and handled my mistake and my mother’s threats with a lot less grace than she did.
Her anger at me was justifiable, and when she said that she forgave me and let me kiss her, that was the sweetest feeling in the world. And now I’m going to give her what I hope is the best night of her life so far.
The limousine pulls up to the building, and I look over at Sally. She looks nervous, but ready, and she’s smiling. I smile back, and pull her out of the limo after me. We still haven’t said anything, but we don’t need to.
Walking together, we take the elevator to the top of the building. I use my key which it opens directly into my house. I bought this place a few years ago after the whole thing with dad, when I couldn’t stand to be in that house anymore and remember what he did and see the evidence of that in my mother’s face every day. And once she became obsessed with finding me my perfect match, it was even more important to have some distance.
So I’ve made this place home, taking the time to make it comfortable and fill it with things that I love.
“This place is beautiful,” Sally whispers, and I see her looking across the living room to the windows where there’s a large roof balcony and a view of the city.
“If you like the view,” I say, “I’ve got an even better one.” It just so happens that that view is in the bedroom, but that’s where we’re headed anyway.
One side of my room is entirely glass, facing downtown. The way the skyline looks from this room is one of my favorite views in the whole city. “Wow,” she says, looking out.
Stepping up behind her, I pull her against me and wrap my arms aroun
d her waist. She fits like she’s meant to be there, like I was the one meant to hold her and I’m so happy that she’s going to share so many firsts with me. If that’s still what she wants.
I lean down and press my lips to her bare shoulder. “Sally, we don’t have to do anything that you’re not ready for.”
“I’m ready,” she says softly. “I don’t want to wait anymore.”
Turning her to face me, I kiss her. Her body melts against mine and I know that it’s going to kill me to go slow, but I’m going to take my damn time even if it does kill me. Because this woman deserves to have every inch of her body worshipped, and that’s what I’m planning on.
I run my tongue across her lips and she opens for me, lets me in. Our tongues dance together, and her hands grab my arms. She’s trying to keep her balance, and I love that just a kiss can knock her off her feet.
Guiding her toward the bed, I turn her around again, this time so I can unhook the back of her dress. Sally lets me, even though I can tell she’s still nervous. So I go slow. I press my lips to the top of her spine before I unzip the back and, I move with the zipper, tracing a path with my mouth and my hands as I peel her out of the dress.
When I push it off her hips, it pools in a purple puddle at her feet. Sally’s arms disappear, and I sit on the end of the bed, turning her to face me. She’s wearing black, lacy panties and bra that are making it a challenge not to toss her on the bed right now. But she’s instinctively covered herself.
I pull her to me. “You are beautiful.”
She doesn’t speak, but now I can see just how her body lights up when she blushes.
“Is this a first too?”
“Yeah.”
I smile, “I like that. I like knowing that I’m the first. That I’m the first one that’s going to kiss your skin and touch your breasts and have you bare and underneath me.”
“Are you trying to seduce me, Eric?” There’s a small smile.
