by Jane Porter
"Right." Charlotte laughed a little, but it sounded strained. "Listen, Morgan left his briefcase at the restaurant after lunch. Let him know I'll just drop it off later today."
"Here, or at the office?" Winnie asked, hating the tightness in her chest, hating the dull panic. Morgan had only loved Charlotte and Charlotte was definitely back in his life. Peripheral or not, Charlotte was a threat.
"Does it matter?" And Charlotte laughed again, another small brittle laugh that made Winnie feel very cold, and very afraid.
Winnie paced her bedroom, heart racing so fast she couldn't get any air.
God, she was a fool. A dolt. A royal idiot. She couldn't do anything right, couldn't make anything work.
She hated this awful claustrophobic feeling, hated the roar in her head, the crazy adrenaline in her veins. Until the wedding she hadn't had a panic attack in years, and now she'd had two in less than ten days.
All because of Morgan.
Morgan, Wall Street's Most Eligible Bachelor.
All because she'd goofed with him, hadn't been able to get it right, couldn't make the relationship work.
He'd wanted cool. She gave him hot. He wanted reason. She lived in illogic. He used the minimum words and she talked in a steady stream, all words, all the time, words nonstop.
Back in seventh grade Winnie had panic attacks regularly, at least one a week, sometimes one a day. She dreaded everything about school, feared speaking in class, was terrified of P.E.
Softball was the worst. She hated, hated, hated the game. The big hard ball always flew at her face ... Her glasses would slip low on her nose and because she couldn't see the ball coming at her, she would swing before the ball smashed into her. Sometimes she would duck before the ball crossed the plate, duck and drop the bat.
The kids all laughed. Even the P.E. teacher laughed. Ninny Winnie. Winnie Graham who couldn't do anything right.
A knock sounded on her bedroom door and Winnie stopped pacing long enough to answer the door.
"I'm leaving for the evening," Mr. Foley said. He had Monday nights off and usually went to visit his sister on Long Island. He turned a little, noted her suitcase sitting by the door. "You're leaving?"
Her eyes burned. She felt terrible on the inside, just like she used to feel as a girl. "I'm going to go see my mom."
"That sounds like a nice break."
Winnie nodded jerkily. Mr. Foley's brown eyes narrowed a little, his expression immensely kind. "Mr. Grady is a very private person, very protective of his personal life. He's never brought anyone here before. You're the first."
"He didn't have much of a choice. My door was pretty well smashed in. He couldn't very well leave me there."
"But he could have taken you to his penthouse just off Wall Street. That's where he usually entertains. But this is his home and he brought you here."
Mr. Foley paused, gave her time to digest this before adding, "I don't know what he's said, or not said, but I've worked for Mr. Grady for a number of years. One thing you need to know is that when it comes to Mr. Grady, actions speak louder than words."
His gaze leveled with hers. "Would you like me to call a cab for you, or are you going to wait for Mr. Grady?"
Heart in her throat, chest filled with longing, she looked away, across her bedroom. He'd put her in the guest room but welcomed her into his bed. Did he love her, or just need her? She didn't know. But she had to find out. "I'll wait."
Morgan brought Chinese food home with him from a local take-out. They sat in his family room, facing each other at opposite ends of the couch. She didn't know how he knew, but Morgan had ordered everything she liked best. Mongolian beef. Kung Pao chicken. Sweet and sour pork. But she couldn't eat any of it, couldn't even get her chopsticks to work.
"You left early," Morgan said, no problem with his appetite, taking seconds of nearly everything.
There'd be no Valentines with this man. No chocolate-covered cherries. He'd proposed to her because she was the best option. She filled the job. She was the most qualified candidate. No romance there.
"Do you ever think about Charlotte?" she asked, setting her chopsticks down. "Do you ever wonder what it'd be like if you and she were still together?"
"We were talking about work."
She pushed her plate aside. "I'd rather talk about us."
"Charlotte's not 'us.' Charlotte is Charlotte." Winnie knew she was heading into troubled waters but she couldn't avoid this, couldn't ignore this. She had to understand, had to know why he could love Charlotte but not her. "Just tell me one thing-when you proposed to her, what were you feeling?"
Morgan clamped his jaw tight, battling his mounting frustration. How could he have ever thought Winnie coolly unemotional? How could he have thought her reasonable? "You really don't want to do this-"
"But I do."
"Winnie, I can't play games. I can't make up stories. I don't want to hurt you, either. Why compare Charlotte to you? It's like comparing apples to oranges."
Her chin lifted, hazel eyes bright with tears. "Am I the apple or the orange?"
He couldn't even crack a smile. His blood pressure was shooting up. "You want the truth? Fine. Here's the truth. I did love Charlotte, I loved her a lot. She was my first real girlfriend, my first true love affair. Everything with her had been stormy, passionate, and intense. I thought we'd spend the rest of our lives together."
Morgan drew a deep breath, gritted his teeth. He couldn't believe he was even talking about this out loud, couldn't believe he'd touch this deeply private pain. Seeing Charlotte today had been bad enough. He'd realized all over again how little he'd known her, how little he'd understood how her mind worked.
She'd never loved him, just the idea of him. She'd never wanted him, but the Grady name and the Grady connections. She'd been sickened that he had been adopted at fifteen.
What kind of person gets adopted as a teenager? she'd asked. You adopt babies, toddlers, you raise them from birth. You can't adopt a teenager.
Who are your parents anyway? What kind of people give away a fifteen-year-old?
"I thought it was love, Winnie," he said coldly, all emotion bottled inside him, smashed hard into a place he couldn't touch. "But it wasn't love. It was sex."
"Just like us." A tear slid down Winnie's cheek. She batted it away.
She was wrong, Morgan thought, but he didn't have the energy to argue. He'd learned years ago that people couldn't make other people happy. Happiness had to come from within. Happiness had to be a personal choice.
"We have great sex, but we also have a real friendship," he said at last, so glad he'd seen Charlotte today and realized that perhaps the thing he'd loved most about Charlotte was her attitude.
He'd adored her rich-girl diction, her perfect blond bob, her narrow straight nose lifted disdainfully at the world. He'd loved that she, beautiful, regal, rich Charlotte, had wanted him. In retrospect, he'd been just as selfish as she. Thank God, Charlotte had broken the wedding off. She'd done them both the greatest favor.
Morgan drew a slow breath. "Even if the sex was bad, the friendship is worth saving. We have a lot here. We have a lot going for us. It'd be foolish to make decisions based on a very narrow definition of love."
Winnie didn't know what to think. She was a romantic. He a pragmatist. She craved bonbons, flowers, violins and he lived in a stark reality minus all those things. She loved the way he touched her, but hated his vision of love. How could this work? How could they ever compromise?
Yet how could she compromise if she didn't trust him? Winnie drew a deep breath. "Who did you have lunch with?"
He looked up at her, his eyes narrowing. There was a strange beat, a moment of silence that felt like a great divide. "Charlotte." There was another silence, this one shorter. "But you already knew that, didn't you?"
When Winnie didn't answer, Morgan sighed. "This is why it won't work, having you as my assistant. A lot of things happened today that shouldn't have happened. I get a lot of calls. I
see a lot of people. I need to make quick decisions and I shouldn't have to explain myself, or defend myself-"
"Then don't!" Winnie finally understood why she couldn't continue at Grady Investments. Morgan had his life. He'd always had his own life. She'd just never known about it before.
"It's not an issue of trust, but of energy and time. You're a great executive assistant. The best I've ever had-"
"I got it. Thanks." He didn't need to repeat himself, she thought bitterly. She wasn't stupid. "I already said I understood."
Winnie's nerves stretched, pulled far too taut. She had to get out of here. Had to get some time to herself, needed to get her head back in the right place. "You said you'd given me a three month severance package, well, I think I'll take advantage of it and not work for a while. I might leave the city for a while, go spend some time with my family."
He didn't say anything for a moment. She'd expected him to nod, give his approval. Instead he looked at her, his expression surprisingly bleak. "How long do you intend to be gone?"
She wanted him to say, "No, don't go." She wanted him to say, "Stay here with me." She wanted him to say something emotional, something powerful, something indicating his true feelings. His expression was one thing, but she really needed words.
But he didn't say anything else, didn't try to talk her into staying.
Winnie stared at his eyes, his mouth, the faint lines etched on either side of those remarkable lips. She felt the worst kind of sorrow. Wanted so badly to be with him but didn't know how to make it work anymore. "I don't know. Just depends on what I feel like doing. I'm already packed. I'm heading out tonight."
Morgan's intensely blue eyes met hers. "Well then, I better give you this now."
He reached into his pocket and withdrew a small gold key chain with three shiny keys. "Your new place. I bought it for you. I picked up the keys from the Realtor today, after my thirty-minute lunch with Charlotte. I was late getting back to the office because the paperwork took longer than we expected."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
WINNIE emptied her bag of groceries in the kitchen of her new apartment, which was part of an elegant brownstone building on a lovely tree-lined street.
She'd been back in the city nearly a week now, after having been gone for a month. She'd spent her first week away with her parents, then a week with her sister Alexis, and then the last two weeks traveling on her own.
She'd told herself she was visiting all the historic places on the southeastern seaboard she'd always wanted to see, but the truth was she was avoiding New York. Avoiding returning. Avoiding, most of all, Morgan.
But she couldn't stay away forever. She lived in New York. Her life was in New York-even if her life wasn't with Morgan Grady.
Winnie put the milk in her refrigerator and the bread on the counter. She'd bought some fresh flowers, so she cut the bottoms of the stems off and then put them in water. Hard to believe, she thought, arranging the dahlias, that they were already in the last week of August. A late Saturday afternoon and summer was nearly over.
Time to start looking for work. She needed a job. Something to do. Something other than pining for Morgan.
Because she did pine for him. She felt like a woman from a Victorian novel, felt as if she'd had a taste of heaven and she'd turned around and run the other way.
Someday she'd get it figured out. Someday she'd meet someone like her, someone kind of goofy and absurd, someone sentimental and deeply emotional and they'd make this perfect life together.
But until then, a job would help fill all her empty hours.
Winnie placed the flowers on her dining table and reached for the newspaper. Sitting cross-legged on her couch, she opened up the paper but hadn't even reached the Classifieds when her doorbell rang.
Winnie peered through the peephole.
Morgan. He was dressed in black tie-black tuxedo, elegant white shirt and white silk bow tie.
She unlocked the door and swung it open. "Hi."
Mercy, he was beautiful. She leaned against the door, unable to tear her gaze away. The tuxedo made him look taller, shoulders even broader, and she could smell his cologne. It was rich with vanilla and spice and perfect with a tuxedo.
"I found your glasses," he said. "I thought you might need them back.'
She couldn't bring herself to take them, was terribly afraid of what she'd feel if she touched him. "I pretty much only wear my contacts now."
"I liked you in your glasses."
"They're ugly."
"They make you look brainy." His lips twisted, creases at his eyes. "Not that you need glasses to look brainy. You're one of the smartest women I've ever met."
Her heart ached. "Thank you." Winnie shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Her pulse raced. "Where are you going?"
"The Faith Foundation's Charity Ball."
"I thought you hated those things."
His smile turned self-deprecating. "I do, but I'm cosponsor. This is the event each year I have to attend."
"Well, you look incredible," she said, quickly taking the glasses from him, being extra careful so their fingers didn't brush. "If that's any consolation."
His gaze met hers and held. "It's not a consolation if I have to go alone."
Oh, that hurt. She hurt. She didn't want him to go alone. She wanted to go with him. But how would this work? Where would things go? Winnie couldn't bear to think of a future always wondering, worrying, doubting. She needed to be sure of Morgan. Needed to be certain of how he felt.
"Where's the party?"
"The Met museum." He reached out, and very gently touched her cheek. "Come with me tonight."
She didn't say yes, she didn't say no. She just stared at him.
"Just a moment," he said, turning around and heading back to the elevator. He returned a moment later and thrust a box at her. The box was slim and taupe colored and tied with a narrow gold ribbon. "I didn't want you to say you wouldn't come because you had nothing to wear."
"Morgan-" she whispered his name.
"If you're going to say no, I wanted to make sure you were saying no because of me."
She looked away, and her fingers tightened around the slender box. It weighed virtually nothing. That meant whatever was inside weighed even less, than nothing. She'd recognized the name printed on the box. It was a very expensive, very exclusive boutique that carried only designer labels from France and Italy.
"I can't," she said softly. "It wouldn't be right."
Yet even as she said the words, she could imagine the limo downstairs, probably champagne on ice. They'd have a drink in the car on the way there and then they'd pull up at the museum and ...
They'd immediately be surrounded by photographers.
The press would be there. The scrutiny would start. The world would pick at her, criticize her, and she couldn't handle it, couldn't endure it if she was just the latest in Morgan Grady's string of lovers.
She wanted more. She wanted forever.
Winnie tried to hand the dress back. ''I'm not black tie material."
His mouth compressed, deep grooves forming next to his mouth. "You don't even let yourself see the possibilities.'
Her eyes burned and she blinked. "It's not that I don't see the possibilities, but I also see the reality. We want different things, Morgan."
His blue gaze searched her eyes. "Not as different as you might think.'
She couldn't speak, didn't trust herself to say the right words. She was never concise or intelligent when she felt so much. Instead she simply shook her head and pressed the box firmly into Morgan's hands.
But he'd have none of it. Swearing, he tossed the box past her, into the living room where it skidded across the floor. And then he just walked away.
Winnie returned to the couch, curled up in one corner and felt absolutely sick.
She felt sick because she knew she was wrong sending him off without her. She felt sick because she was making choices out of fear. She felt sick bec
ause she knew she was just a big fat coward.
Just like she'd been a coward most of her life.
She hadn't been confident as a child. Her panic attacks were a testament to that. But instead of ever conquering her fear, she'd slowly let it get the best of her.
She gave up on sports early. She never tried out for cheerleading. She wouldn't audition for a spelling bee or the school plays.
In college she didn't date. How could she? Except for class, she never left her dorm room.
Her very first job interview was botched, and so instead of trying again, she gave up the career she'd really wanted.
