His eyes crinkled at the corners as he snapped my mother’s linen napkin through the air before placing it in my lap. “I made grilled cheese and French fries.”
My stomach flopped and I shook my head.
He cocked his head to the side. “It’s good drunk food.”
“Oh.” I followed him to the stove, slipped my arms around his waist, and laid my cheek against his back as he flipped the sandwich. “Thank you.”
“It’s just grilled cheese.” He laid a hand over mine as I squeezed him.
“No. It’s you.” I loosened my grip so he could turn. On my tiptoes, I tried to press a kiss against his upturned lips, but I only reached his chin. “I don’t remember you being this tall.”
He leaned over and kissed the tip of my nose. “I don’t remember much of anything.”
Being with Simon made me more whole than I’d been since I first left Storybook Lake, and more vulnerable than the last time he’d dumped me. I stared up at him for a few seconds, pondering how I’d ever be able to keep him. I’d messed up everything in my life so badly; I wouldn’t have blamed him if he walked away right then…. But he wouldn’t. Sean or not, I wouldn’t let him.
The reasons he’d left me before no longer existed. I’d changed from the semi-spoiled, more-evil-than-I-cared-to-admit-girl who used my body for her own wicked pleasures. Not that the new version of myself had turned out much better, but the old reasons--my mean girl, don’t-give-a-crap-life decisions--had been dispensed with. Warm realization spread through me. With Simon, I had a chance for the happiness Sean promised and never delivered. It might have been a chance I didn’t particularly deserve, but if I didn’t grab onto it with both hands and hang on as long as I could, it would be my own fault if he left me. I had to tell him.
As I opened my mouth to bust out my secret, he brushed his soft lips across mine and I held on, deepening the kiss, need pooling in my stomach. With one hand on my hip and the other tangled in my hair, he walked me backward until I leaned against the counter. He lifted me so I sat on the cool granite and we were eye to eye. Everything I needed to say was forgotten. Only Simon existed in that moment. Only he mattered.
“Dani.”
The whisper spurred me on as I left a trail of kisses down his neck. Something about this man captivated me, and I couldn’t let go, even as the smoke alarm shrilled.
“I think your sandwich is finished.”
“I don’t care.”
Chapter 17
We didn’t fall into bed that night. And the decision to walk away tested my willpower in ways I’d never known. After some serious making out in the kitchen, we chit chatted over lunch. More than once I thought of telling him about Kieran, but I wanted to say it the right way. Or maybe, I was selfish and wanted more time with him before I dared risk losing him over a secret I never meant to keep. Maybe I just wanted him to see me in this version of myself.
It didn’t escape me that the longer I remained quiet about it, the worse the fallout would be. I imagined a nuclear war reality more than once. That was the dystopian feeling I always experienced when I thought of losing Simon. It should have been enough to get me to talk to him, but no. Instead, I sat beside him with his arm around my shoulders. I grinned like a hopeless fool. We watched a couple movies, ate dinner, then watched more TV. Sometime close to dawn, I went up to bed. Alone.
I spent a long time thinking of Simon while he slept downstairs on the sofa. Everything about him seemed effortless. His smiles were easy--never had to be coaxed or pulled. His wit came quick, his courage without a second thought. Even his recovery from a bullet tearing though his brain had progressed with a speed doctors took dubious credit for.
The problem in our relationship hadn’t been with him. I’d been exactly the person Jocelyn believed, worse even, and no matter how hard I wished to be better, I hadn’t changed. He deserved more.
I hadn’t planned to split up Joss and Keaton, not consciously, anyway. Maybe it had been my subconscious kissing him. Or maybe, I was so damaged I couldn’t help but to let my need for vengeance take over. Or there was always the lead paint excuse I’d used as a kid. Either way, Simon deserved better. I wanted to believe I’d grown into something more than an evil teenager, hell-bent on her own destruction, as well as everyone else within striking distance. But considering the lies I clung to like a rope while I hung off a mountain, I couldn’t be sure.
I threw the blanket back, thoughts of Simon heating my room in ways that had nothing to do with the ambient temperature. After a little while of sweating through my memories, I stood and started pacing. I wanted to earn the right to be with him and the thoughts racing inside my head--Simon, sleeping steps away, the fun ways I could wake him, the way his body fit with mine--did nothing to help me calm down.
Finally, I flung the door open and tiptoed to the living room. This was the moment. I was going to tell him. No more hiding the truth. No more. Period. I couldn’t have Simon with this lie standing between us, mocking me. If he left, I earned it. If he stayed, I would know it was the right thing. I stood at the bottom of the steps watching his chest rise and fall with each breath. After a moment, I started forward, walking until my knees brushed the blanket half covering his stomach and legs.
Reaching out a shaky hand, I ran my fingers through his hair. A slow smile spread across his lips. “If this is a dream, I don’t want to wake up.” He slid his fingers up my arm and laced them through mine in his hair, then brought my hand down for a kiss. “Lay by me?”
Oh, the temptation. I wanted so badly to be worthy of him, to build this relationship on more than sex and my need for protection. On the other hand, I wanted Simon. I wanted to feel his skin pressed against mine, to run my hands over his etched stomach muscles…. I shook it off. That particular train of thought would lead me down the wrong track….
I squeezed his hand and gave him a good tug. “Can we talk?”
He closed his eyes for a second, then sat up. After taking a moment to stare at me, he patted the spot next to him.
I swallowed hard and pointed over my shoulder to the recliner. “I should probably maintain a safe distance.”
“If you don’t want me, Dani, I’m not going to force you.”
“Not wanting you isn’t the issue. Trust me.” I sat beside him and turned my body so my knee pressed into his hip. The blanket slipped to his lap, leaving his chest bare for a long, mouth-watering perusal. I curled my fingers into my palm to keep from reaching out. “Seriously, not the issue.”
We sat quietly for a long time, staring out into the muted light of a sunrise hidden behind a rainstorm, before he chuckled. “Great talk, babe. I think we got a lot ironed out here, don’t you?”
I took a big, loud breath, trying to organize my thoughts. Instead of calmly telling him, I blurted, “I want you.”
He grinned, tangled his fingers in my hair, and laid a kiss on me that had me ready to throw all my good intentions into the wind. His lips brushed across mine, then struck with an intensity I was too Simon-weak to fight. I slipped a hand over his heart, the wild beat beneath my palm as exciting as his tongue caressing mine. His fingertips massaged the back of my scalp and I fell away. Earth and gravity no longer held me. My entire universe narrowed until only he mattered--the perfect, lovable, and infinitely strong Simon.
I gathered the mental will I had left and pulled away. “I don’t want to just fall into bed with you.”
His lips on my neck stilled. “It’s a couch.”
“You know what I mean.”
He brought his head from beneath the veil of my hair, closed his eyes, and reclined against the armrest. His chest puffed with a deep breath followed by another, then a third. When he’d used an unfair proportion of oxygen, he sat up and clasped his hands in front of him. “What’s up, Dani?”
Before I could think to stop it, my eyes ventured to his lap. I bit my lip as he pulled the blanket into a bunch, covering the evidence of how much
he wanted me.
“Don’t stare. You’ll make me self-conscious.”
I lifted my gaze to find his smile. He’d never been a man affected by a single second of shyness. “Sorry.” Heat crawled up my cheeks.
After a moment, a grin spread over his face. “Okay. So, you didn’t come down here for sex. Is there a discussion in there somewhere we need to have?”
I nodded, trying to keep my eyes on his, on anything above his waist. “Yes.”
He waited a few seconds. “Should I start?”
With Simon, I could never tell where the conversation would end up if he started it, but I nodded.
He cupped my cheek with his palm. “I know you’ve been hurt, Dani, but I never dreamed”--he rolled his eyes and wobbled his head from one side to the other--“okay, I did dream of having you back here with me. I have spent most of the last few years remembering being in love with you, and I don’t want to do anything to run you off like I did before.”
“You didn’t--”
“It’s not your turn.” He put a finger over my lips. “We don’t have to sleep together. I will be happy holding you or looking at you from across the room as long as I know you’re not thinking of leaving or being with anyone else.” He grinned. “I might walk a little funny for a while. I still have this horny teenager thing going on.”
I fell a little more in love with him with every word he spoke. “I don’t want our relationship to be tainted by this Sean thing. I have been buried under him and all his crap for such a long time. I want this”--my hand waved between us--“to be more than just…” I didn’t want to diminish all the things I felt for him by labeling it as something tawdry, but I couldn’t find a way to get the words out. “There are some things you don’t know.”
He nodded. “They don’t matter to me. You are the only thing I care about. Nothing is going to tear us apart again.”
The devil on my shoulder won this one. If we were together, anyway, maybe it didn’t matter. He would be a part of Kieran’s life. How important was it to make it official?
“We could lay here and listen to the rain.”
In a tangle of arms and legs, we cuddled until long after the rain quit, holding on to the perfection of the moment, the peaceful quiet of the house; the thing we’d lost so many times before.
Chapter 18
A month or so after my parents and Kieran returned home, I hadn’t heard any more from Sean. So, with a false sense of safety guiding me, I decided to buy my own place. I had the money thanks to my “little clothes business” and nothing to spend it on, so I found a cute little Snow White cottage in the fairy tale section of town--a half mile from my parents. It wasn’t because I didn’t love or appreciate all they’d done for me. This was the new start I wanted for Kieran, one to dispel the bad memories with new ones in our own house. I wanted a place of my own, privacy, a place where Simon and I could be together without my mother busting in on us with fake offerings of cookies or beverages.
For all of ten minutes, life rolled on without any of the big speed bumps usually contorting my every day. Before I waved the truck into the driveway, a process server met me at the sidewalk and handed me a blue-backed set of papers. Sean had initiated a custody suit.
Grace, my high school best friend and the only lawyer I knew not in California, said not to worry about it. No court in the world would ever give Sean custody, or even a minute of visitation if she could help it, but the prospect of such a monster coming near my son caused panic attacks, horror-filled nightmares, and an almost constant hand tremor.
It took three intense therapy sessions with my mother before we figured out the trembling stemmed from Sean knowing where I lived. He’d known enough to send the process server to my brand new address.
Yet, life went on. Once people discovered I’d come back to town--another newsletter announced my home purchase--invitations poured in for social engagements I never dreamed I’d be invited to. Having Simon as my bodyguard went a long way to smoothing everything with the town.
A few days after I moved in, Gatlin Reid’s birthday party invite, addressed to me and Simon, arrived. I’d said I would go, but standing in my living room the night of the party, I changed my mind, and doubts negated the fact I’d spent more than an hour on my hair and makeup.
“I don’t want to go to a party where I have to see your sister and Keaton, Simon.” How could he even suggest such a thing? I’d almost single-handedly destroyed their relationship--mostly out of pure spite. While Keaton had forgiven me, from past experience, I knew Jocelyn could hold a grudge. The chances of a party brawl were all too real. It didn’t inspire me to want to go to a place where we would be shoved together in a room while a member of their circle celebrated his party-boy pants off.
Simon and I squared off in my living room, arguing over whether or not we would be going. Kelly, Simon’s ex (another reason to say home) had phoned earlier in the day, before my butterflies came calling, to ask if we’d be there. I hadn’t done her or Gatlin wrong and she promised, even though the guest list included Keaton and Jocelyn, it would be fine. With a clearer knowledge of our past and a slightly crooked nose thanks to Joss’s fist, I didn’t buy it for a second. However, even before she moved away and came back, I believed Kelly saw the world through the rosiest pair of glasses ever invented. She probably honestly thought Jocelyn could let bygones be bygones as long as I made Simon happy.
“I talked to Joss.” He grabbed my coat off the wall tree by the front door and held it out like a matador’s cape in front of a charging bull.
“And how many times did the word bitch come up in the conversation?”
He grinned. “Only once or twice. It was really tame by Jocelyn standards.”
I turned and started for the bedroom to throw on a pair of old sweats, but he propelled me back to him with a hand on my elbow. He licked his bottom lip and I smiled. “Come on. If it’s too uncomfortable, we’ll leave.” He waved the jacket again.
I shook my head and crossed my arms. Okay. I’d sent Kieran to my parents’ and spent the afternoon ignoring work in favor of getting dressed. My intricate up-do elongated my disproportionately short neck. Black patent stilettos added a good four inches to my height. Yet, with no reason other than fear not to attend, I stood my ground.
Right up to the moment he blinked his beautiful amber eyes at me and my heart melted. His eyes did me in every time, made my hands tremble, my heart quiver, and my stomach tighten in delightful anticipation. “Okay. We can go, but if it gets ugly, I’ll probably never forgive you.”
He wiggled his eyebrows and pulled me against him, wrapping his arms around my waist. “I have ways of making you surrender to my will.”
I had one hand in his hair and one on the hard lines etched beneath the tuxedo shirt, and my breathing quickened. Yeah. He had methods--crazy, exciting methods of holding out on me.
He drove toward the Munie building, holding my hand and chattering over things I ignored as I crushed my bag in my other hand. I hadn’t seen these people since I moved back to town with the exception of Keaton and Simon. The butterflies in my stomach flapped like bats on speed.
As we walked in, a dozen pair of eyes zeroed in on my face. The bruises had faded long ago, and I looked the same as always, but people stared as though I’d forgotten my clothes. I clutched his arm until he leaned over beside me. “Hey, Simon, it’s kind of uncomfortable.”
He squeezed my hand. “They can’t believe how beautiful you are. Come on. Let’s get a drink.” He tugged me farther into the room. “You’ll see. It’ll be fine.”
We stood in front of the bar holding daiquiris with little umbrellas and a distinct lack of rum as Gatlin captured me in a hug from behind. “Just the drama girl my party needs.” His whisper tickled my ear. “I heard you were in town. Come to make an honest man out of our boy?”
I glanced over at Simon who had his eyebrows raised, also apparently awaiting my answer. “I heard yo
u went straight.” I turned to face Gatlin. Dressed in a dapper black tuxedo, his normally iridescent hair had been dyed a magical brown that brought out the glow in his olive- toned skin. For years, he’d pretended to be gay as a marketing ploy for his beauty shop. He never had been, and I had the insider information to prove it. More insider than I cared to remember, and nothing I wanted to come to light.
He laughed a real laugh. “You’ve been gone way too long, sweetness. I roared back into the closet and, now, I’m on the prowl for a lovely single lady to blow out my birthday candle.”
I made a face at him. “I hope that isn’t your pick-up line.”
He shook his head. “Oh, baby, I do not need lines. And if I did, I only use those on the single girls.” He waved a finger in front of my face and nodded to Simon, who was talking to the bartender. “And clearly, you are not single.”
“You never know. I’ve always found your particular brand of masculine very attractive.”
“You never noticed me. I wasn’t even a blip on your radar. You were all wrapped up in the pretty boys. Never had time for me.” He pretended to pout.
“Fishing for compliments. I expected better.”
“And I’m waiting for my compliment.”
I over-exaggerated my sigh and rolled my eyes. “Fine. I don’t think there’s anyone in this town who could ignore how pretty you truly are. It sparkles from the inside. Men and women alike imagine not only spending the night with you, but being you. You are--”
“Enough already. You’re making me blush.” He bowed slightly, then pulled a strand of hair away from my head, inspecting the curl. “And might I just say, I’ve never seen Simon happier than when you showed up in town.”
Behind us, Simon laughed at a joke someone else told.
“I don’t know. He seems a little depressed these days.”
Someone called out to Gatlin, and he leaned in to kiss my cheek. “I must mingle. Save me a dance.”
Breaking Hearts Page 11
