They let each other go and Sean steered him over to a small and deserted seating area, where they sat. Sean scrubbed his hands over his head and took a couple beats to gather his thoughts.
“She got up to get some water, tripped, caught her head on the corner of the nightstand and bled like a stuck pig. Called 9-1-1 and got herself here. They ran their X-rays and scans and whatnot to make sure she hadn’t had a stroke or anything. Stitched up her head. That’s it. She waited till she knew all that before she texted us to let us know what happened. I was at the club with my boys when I got the word.”
Disbelieving, Mike checked his phone. Sure enough, there was Mama’s text, sent two hours ago: Good evening, Michael. Everything’s fine, but I tripped and fell. Got a couple stitches. Nothing to worry about. I’ll call you tomorrow with all the details. Sleep tight!
Mike blinked down at the text, rereading it several times. “‘A couple stitches’?” he echoed blankly.
Sean snorted. “Yeah. If you call fifteen a couple.”
Mike frowned, thinking hard.
So ...the whole incident had nothing to do with Mama’s cancer? Had Mama told Sean about the recurrence?
Didn’t seem like it.
And Mike wasn’t about to mention it.
Heaving a huge sigh of relief, he read the text again. “‘Nothing to worry about,’ she said. ‘Sleep tight.’” Looking up, he raised his eyebrows at Sean. “Is she insane?”
“That’s your mother,” Sean said wryly. “She had a fit when I called her. Really flipped out when I showed up here to check on her.”
“Unbelievable,” Mike muttered, shaking his head.
“Remember that time she missed the step on the porch and broke her arm?” Sean asked. “Her arm was damn near twisted around backwards, and she was like, ‘It’s a little sprain. It’ll be fine once I ice it!’ Remember that?”
Mike, who’d forgotten that Sean did such a wickedly accurate Mama impersonation, laughed. Sean laughed. And suddenly they were boyish coconspirators again, one of them diverting Mama by making a commotion down the hall while the other snuck into the kitchen to steal some fresh-baked peanut butter cookies.
Mike slung his arm around Sean’s neck and squeezed it. These laughing, poignant moments between them were way too few and far between, and he hadn’t realized, until this very second, how much he’d missed them.
Their laughter trailed off and they settled back to wait.
Mike shot an uneasy look at Mama’s closed door and checked his watch. “Wonder what’s taking so long?”
“It’ll be okay,” Sean said, waving a hand.
“Yeah. You’re right.”
“So. How’d the gala go?”
Mike’s brain flashed to Dara smiling at him, the slits in her sexy black dress sliding past her bare thighs.
“It was good.”
“Good?”
“Yep,” Mike said, ears burning.
“Was Dara there?”
“Yep.”
“Anyone sniffing around her?”
Mike squirmed, thinking of Dara nearly nude on the bed beneath him, the sweet taste of her kisses in his mouth, the supple velvet of her skin imprinted on his bare flesh, the musky scent of her arousal lingering on his fingers. He thought of how they’d touched each other. Made each other come. Cried each others’ names. How only the news about Mama being in the hospital could have blasted him from Dara’s bed, and how he’d intended to go back to her as soon as possible. How, if Sean leaned closer, he’d probably be able to smell Dara’s floral scent on Mike’s clothes.
How he’d betrayed his brother and violated the most basic ethical code between male friends: Don’t go after a woman who’s off-limits.
And Sean, the younger brother he loved, watched him with innocent eyes and didn’t have a clue.
“Nope,” Mike lied as lightly as he could.
Sean nodded with grim satisfaction just as the nurse came out of Mama’s room.
“You can go back in,” she told them.
They did, discovering Mama propped up in bed with an IV and a forehead bandage covering what was unmistakably a nasty cut. She looked drowsy, but brightened when she saw the two of them together.
“You didn’t need to come, Michael,” she said as he leaned down to kiss her.
“You fall on your ass and land in the hospital, I come. It’s a rule.”
“Language, Michael,” she sighed, reaching for them both.
They each took a hand, forming a triangle with what was left of their family. Mama’s eyes shone with teary contentment.
“My handsome boys,” she said, her eyes drifting closed. “I’m so proud of you. I knew you’d work things out. It’s almost worth being in the hospital to see you together like this.”
Mike dredged up a smile, miserably avoiding both their gazes.
His glaring hypocrisy made him sick to his stomach.
Early that next afternoon, a Sunday, Mike stepped out his front door onto the porch and started to stretch for his jog. It was the kind of late fall day he normally loved: crisp and clear, the sky a brilliant blue, almost too bright to look at. But today the weather mocked him. This was a day for lovers to walk in the park, then come home and sip hot chocolate and make love in front of a crackling fire. He and Dara weren’t lovers and never would be.
Last night could never happen again.
Mama’s accident was the well-timed tap on the shoulder from God to give him the dose of reality he sorely needed. Now he was back to his senses.
Bottom line?
He’d never be able to break his brother’s heart and tell him he’d touched Dara.
The thought of Sean’s horrified face was ice water in his veins. Sean would never forgive him. Not now, not in five years, not in twenty. And he couldn’t throw away his relationship with his brother, strained though it was. He wouldn’t do it to Sean, and he wouldn’t do it to his mother, who’d had this health scare on top of her cancer. Cancer that, by the way, might still kill her. And the one thing she’d asked of him was to make up with Sean.
What kind of selfish person would put his needs in front of theirs?
Not him. He wasn’t that man. Didn’t want to be that man.
As for his feelings for Dara? He was managing them one miserable second at a time. She’d be gone when the semester ended, he kept reminding himself. Until then, he’d . . .
Stifle them.
He knew all about stifling them, didn’t he?
That decided, he thought he’d try a run, not that he expected it to help. But he had to do something, and he might as well try to burn off a little of his edginess and sexual tension. And maybe, if he ran really hard, he could go thirty seconds or so without seeing Dara’s face.
When he heard a car pull into his driveway, he straightened from his lunge and realized, with a start, it was Dara.
She killed the engine. Got out. Walked up the sidewalk to the porch.
He watched her, paralyzed inside a concrete block of torment.
She stopped short, looking shy, and smiled. “I should’ve called first.”
“No. It’s okay. Are you ...How are you?”
She flushed prettily, then looked away. After a moment she looked back at him, a satisfied, sensual half smile on her sweet lips.
“I’m good.”
He grinned idiotically, enormously pleased with himself. “Good.”
A flash of heat, hotter than ever, pulsed between them, and his heart contracted, hard. Then the panic rose in his throat. He quickly looked away, his smile dying.
“It’s beautiful here, Mike.” She turned away, making a show of looking at his white brick colonial. “You have a pretty house.”
“Thanks,” he said faintly, his thoughts spinning.
Why had she come? Having her here was exquisite torture, partly because his body reacted so violently to her presence. He was like Pavlov’s dog at this point; he caught sight of her, and his mouth began to water, his blood to heat
. But mostly, it was upsetting because here was where he wanted her. Watching TV with him in the great room, eating at the kitchen table, sleeping snuggled up to him in the big king-sized bed with the new down comforter he’d bought for the winter. Having her here reminded him of all the things he wanted that he shouldn’t want and would never have. And suddenly, he was furious with her for turning his life upside down and for almost turning him into that man he didn’t want to be: The one who’d betray his brother in a heartbeat.
“How’s your mom?” she asked.
He’d woken Dara up with a call from the hospital first thing this morning to let her know what’d happened. He’d ended the call with a vague promise to call her later. They hadn’t talked about anything else.
“She’s good.” He said. “They’ll let her go before dinner.”
“Did Sean find out about the cancer?”
“No. I had a quick word with her when he was out of the room. She’ll tell him this week.”
“Good.”
Her brow crinkled with worry, probably because he was having trouble meeting her gaze.
“Is everything else okay?” she asked. “You sounded strange on the phone. You’re acting kind of funny now.”
Probably because he was about to blow up the beautiful beginnings of what had promised to be the most exciting relationship of his life.
He cleared his throat, still not looking at her. “Let’s go inside.”
“Now you’re scaring me,” she said, trying to laugh.
Having nothing reassuring to say, he held the front door open for her and pointed her through the foyer and into the great room, where they sat on the sofa. Leaning his elbows on his knees, he studied his hands, wishing he could use them to crush his skull and thereby get him out of doing what he needed to do next.
She waited in utter silence, her fear almost palpable.
“I’m not going to be able to ...be with you,” he said quietly. “I should never have come last night.”
“Oh.” Her brown eyes, hurt and huge, took over her entire face. “Why?”
“For all the reasons we’ve already talked about.”
“Oh.” She nodded, looking dazed. “But after last night, I thought we’d sort of concluded it was unrealistic for us to try to stay away from each other.”
“Last night I wasn’t really thinking with my head. As I’m sure you noticed. Neither were you.”
The unspoken implication that he only wanted her for sex made her wince. To her credit and his everlasting dismay, she kept her gaze direct, her back straight and proud. And she told the truth, something he seemed constitutionally unable to do these days.
“I’m thinking clearly now,” she told him. “I’m here now. Because I care about you.” She hesitated. “I thought you cared about me.”
He focused on his hands, rubbing his palms back and forth. “I think we need to separate wanting from caring.”
It did not escape his notice that every time he opened his mouth to lie to her, his voice got fainter. Raspier. Watching her stare blankly across the room, he wondered why he wasn’t telling her he’d chosen his brother and mother over her. Maybe because he knew she’d try to convince him that what they were doing wasn’t wrong.
Or maybe because he feared she’d call him a rotten SOB for throwing away what they had together, and he’d have to sit there and listen, knowing she was right.
Dara frowned. Blinked furiously. She seemed to be collecting her thoughts and getting angry. “So ...you want me. But you don’t care about me. Is that it?”
“Want? I want a rare steak for dinner. I want a hot shower at the end of a long day. I’m so hot for you I’m having trouble functioning. But,” he continued, shrugging lightly, as though that would shake off her effects on him, “I’ll get over it.”
“You . . .” Squeezing her lids tight shut, she cocked her head, cleared her throat and then glared at him, her eyes glittering with absolute disbelief. Probably because he was lying through his teeth. “You’ll get over it? Is that what you just said?”
“Yep. I know I can’t always have everything I want. It’ll be better when you finish your internship, and I don’t have to see you every day. And I’m sure I’ll meet someone new soon enough.”
“That’s it, then?” she asked on a bitter laugh. “You want me, but we can’t be together, and you’ll forget me as soon as I’m gone and you meet someone else? That’s it?”
“That’s it,” he said, his voice nearly inaudible.
“But why?” she cried. “You haven’t given me a reason! Tell me why.”
Frustration finally got the better of him.
“What’s the point?” he barked.
“Tell me why!”
“You want a reason? Pick one: Sean would kill me, my sick mother would kill me, I don’t want a relationship right now, and I would wind up hurting you. Is that good enough? Is that what you want to hear?”
His control had slipped completely away from him, allowing him to do the worst possible thing: look in her face. Her eyes were angry. Teary. Wrecked. The emotional equivalent of a war zone after a bombing.
And yet she held it together with her spine of steel, making his admiration for her notch impossibly higher.
“Are you saying,” she said calmly, “that you don’t feel anything else for me?”
“Don’t make me say things to hurt you, Dara.”
A single tear fell as she waited, a precious drop of melted crystal that made him hate himself even more.
All the while, his frustrated fury collected in the back of his throat, a bile threatening to choke him at any moment. He wanted to pull her into his arms and forget about Sean. When he was with her, he didn’t care what promises he’d made to his sick mother. So what kind of man did that make him? What kind of brother? What kind of son?
There was another problem: his unfocused panic was back, worse than ever. The upshot was that—whatever the reason, and he was pretty sure he didn’t know the real reason—he couldn’t be with Dara. He just couldn’t.
He had to get over Dara and make sure Dara got over him. He had to get her out of here and make sure she never gave him a second thought.
“Dara.”
She seemed to brace herself, squaring her shoulders.
“I just want to screw you.”
The following Wednesday, Jamal sauntered into Dara’s office while she was editing a memo. She kept her head down, but he didn’t take the hint.
“Well, well, well.” He collapsed into one of her chairs, propped his feet on her desk, and crossed his ankles. “Look who’s here.”
“I’ve been here all week,” she said dully.
Actually, she’d been present in the building but had spent an inordinate amount of time in the powder room, the supply room and the kitchen, the three places she was least likely to run into Mike.
“Yeah, whatever.” He watched her intently. “Did anything happen with you and Mike Saturday night?”
Dara scowled. Why did Jamal have to bother her? Couldn’t he see how miserable she was? And why did he have his feet on her desk?
She stood and pushed his feet down.
“What are you talking about?” she snapped.
“Don’t waste my time with the denials,” he said, replacing his feet on the desk with exquisite care. “Sparks were flying off you two all night.”
“Jamal, please. I’m begging you. Leave. Me. Alone.”
“Dara.” Jamal swung his feet down, got up and settled on the corner of her desk. “You gotta understand Mike. He feels guilty. Not just about you.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean he’s older than Sean. Smarter. Better looking. He’s always been successful. Probably always will be. Sean’s a screw-up.”
Dara sputtered a half-hearted protest on Sean’s behalf.
He ignored it. “Right now Sean has a chance to make something of himself, and Mike won’t do anything to mess that up. No matter how much
he may want to.”
She pressed her hands to her eyes for a long moment and choked back the grapefruit-sized lump in her throat, wanting so much to believe him.
Then she let her hands drop. “All Mike wants is to sleep with me. He’s made that painfully clear.”
“Don’t be such a stupid idiot, Dara.” Jamal snorted with laughter. “Mike’s so in love with you, he can’t think straight.”
“Well, that settles it.”
“Dara,” said Jamal, exasperated now, “Mike can have sex with whoever he wants. I’ve seen plenty of women throw themselves at him. Damn. They basically get one look at him and start taking their panties off.”
She grimaced. “Thanks for the image.”
“All I know is that Mike hasn’t been himself ever since you came. Why would he be this unhappy if it was just about sex? You need to think about that,” he told her, tapping his temple as he left.
On Thursday, Dara’s luck finally ran out. For days she’d successfully eluded Mike at the office, although maybe “eluded” wasn’t the right word when the person you were avoiding also avoided you. Mike had reverted to staying out of the office when she was there and communicating with her only through e-mails or notes.
Her crushed feelings of Sunday had, by Thursday evening when she let herself back into the office to help Jamal with an English essay before dropping him off at home, turned to rage. How dare Mike smash her heart like that? Did he think she couldn’t see the way he looked at her? Or remember how tenderly he’d touched her? Did he think he’d cleverly hidden his real feelings— Oh, God, there he was.
Just inside the door, she froze.
So did he.
Jacket and briefcase in hand, he stood in the foyer outside the reception area, his mouth a round O of surprise as a vivid flush crept over his face.
A detached coolness fell over her. She nodded politely. “Mike.”
She started past him toward the stairs, fighting the urge to sprint away from him with every step and hating her body’s weakness where he was concerned. She wanted to curse him, scream at him and scratch his eyes out.
Unfortunately, she also wanted to throw herself into his arms and beg him to touch her again.
Trouble Page 14
