She was quiet for a long moment, an expression crossing her face he couldn’t name. It looked suspiciously like sadness.
“I don’t know what I thought then.” She shook her head and gifted him with a sassy smile. “But now I don’t care what you think. I will no longer hide my love for a movie about a pug and a cat from any man.”
He wanted to laugh away their exchange but he couldn’t. She didn’t have to hide that from him. It bothered him that she hadn’t felt good enough for him then. It made him mad at his parents all over again.
“Do you want me to get Ruby for you now or do you need a minute to relax?” she asked, distracting him from his thoughts of her. “I know you’ve had a rough day.”
He hadn’t been expecting her kindness. He thought she would be irritated or smug, but she acted like babysitting the child of the man she wanted to divorce wasn’t out of the ordinary.
“I’m ready to take my punishment.”
She lifted her hand and gave his arm a squeeze. “Don’t beat yourself up too much, Daddy.”
She left him standing by the couch. His eyes followed her as she ascended the staircase. The thoughts of her he’d just had flew out of his head as he watched the way her hips gently moved. He noticed the way her dress clung to her curves and how her bottom looked so perfectly round. Memories of them together flashed in his mind. He remembered how good she felt cupped in his hands, the long nights they shared wrapped in each other’s bodies. He remembered how happy he thought they were, but a murmur of soft voices at the top of the stairs pulled him from his thoughts.
His baby girl was about to make an appearance. He almost didn’t want to see her. He was a grown man. He had dealt with all kinds of ruthless assholes in his field and yet he was scared to face a little girl’s anger.
“Come on, baby doll,” he heard Belinda say.
Baby doll. When Ruby had returned from getting frozen yogurt the other day she couldn’t stop talking about Belinda. About how her nails were painted with white tips and how her shoes made noise when they clicked on the floor and about how she called her baby doll and yelled at some man for calling her a chunky little thing.
His wife and daughter descended the stairs together, Ruby practically glued to Belinda’s side. He noticed a slight difference in Ruby. Her hair was no longer a tangled mass; instead it was bouncy and glossy. Her face was clean. Her clothes were still mismatched but for the first time in a long time Ruby looked neat. It was obviously the work of Belinda. He appreciated what she’d done—hell, after today he owed her big—but he felt uneasy about how quickly Ruby was growing attached to Belinda. Frankly, it bothered him that Belinda seemed to like his child so much. Why couldn’t it have been like this four years ago?
“Hi, Rube.” He held out his hand to his daughter when she neared but she wouldn’t take it. She just rested her head against Belinda’s thigh and glared at him.
He no longer just felt like he was the world’s shittiest father. He was the world’s shittiest father.
He squatted before her. “I’m so sorry, baby. I was in the city with a client and then I got caught in traffic. You know I would never forget you on purpose. You don’t know how bad I feel.”
Ruby said nothing, only looked at him like he’d betrayed her. Suddenly he felt like he was the child and she the adult. He had disappointed her, and that was far worse than her anger.
“You don’t have to forgive me,” he went on, “but I wish you would say something to me.”
“Go on.” Belinda nudged Ruby closer to him. “You’ve only got one daddy.”
“I want to stay here until the movie is over. It just started.”
How could he tell her no? He owed her this one little thing. He glanced up at Belinda, who nodded her permission. “Okay. You just let me know when you’re ready to go home.”
“Give him a hug,” Belinda ordered.
Ruby looked up at her and frowned but Belinda didn’t say a word; she just raised both her brows and silently restated her order.
Ruby sighed and loosely wrapped her arms around him. It wasn’t a real hug and he couldn’t take that so he lifted her up, squeezed her tightly, and kissed her chubby cheeks before he let her go.
“I love you, Ruby.”
“I’m going upstairs now.”
Not hearing her say it back was like a kick in the chest. He wanted to keep her there, to force her to say it. Instead he watched her go with the sinking feeling that it was going to take a lot to make this up to her.
*
Belinda saw misery wash over Carter’s face as he watched his daughter walk away from him. Seeing him like that made her chest ache. No matter what had happened between them, he was still a good father.
And she took no joy in seeing him so hurt.
“She cried, didn’t she?” He took his eyes off Ruby’s retreating form and looked at her.
Belinda nodded. She wanted to lie to him but she couldn’t. “Only a little bit, though.”
“She never cries, not even when she gets hurts. I seem to fuck up everything when it comes to her.”
“You don’t.” She took a step toward him but caught herself. She wanted to comfort him, to make him feel better, but she knew she shouldn’t. She wasn’t his wife anymore. At least not in the way it counted. “Ruby’s hurt. She thinks she’s not important to you.”
She couldn’t miss the shocked expression on his face. Immediately she regretted her words. The last thing she wanted to do was open up a can of worms, but she kind of understood how Ruby felt. There were times when she felt unimportant, too, and it wasn’t a good feeling.
“I love her,” he said simply after a long pause. “It hurts. I love her so much it hurts. How could she not know?” he said in wonderment.
“She’s just a baby, Carter. She may act like a tiny grown-up but she’s not. She isn’t able to understand how hard it is for you raise her alone. But she will one day.”
He blinked at her and she knew her words were inadequate at that moment. But they were true. Ruby was going to have a very hard time finding a man who loved her half as much as her father.
“Give me your jacket,” she ordered as she shook herself from her thoughts.
He was rumpled. His tie barely on. His hair a mess from running his fingers through it. She felt that familiar beat of attraction race through her. She tamped it down.
“I shouldn’t. We’re going to be leaving soon.” He seemed to regain control of his emotions in that moment, his naked pain fading away as if it had never been there. Once again he looked at her with that expression she could never read.
“You’ve got about an hour to kill. I put the movie on right before you pulled up. I think you should make yourself comfortable.”
Carter gave her a stiff nod and slipped out of his suit jacket. He still smelled good and clean and familiar—as if it hadn’t been years since she’d smelled his scent. Unconsciously she held his jacket to her chest, feeling the warmth his body had left behind, and he stood before her staring at her. It took a moment for her to snap out of it, to realize that they were staring at each other, to notice that she was hugging his jacket to her.
It was weird for him to be in her space, in her home. There was a time in her life that she never thought she was going to see him again.
“We should sit,” she finally said. “Here. On the couch.”
Could you sound any more like an idiot if you tried?
He nodded and sat down on the far end of the couch. She sat on the opposite side, as far away from him as possible. Her brain seemed to stop working correctly when he was near. She welcomed the two feet of space between them. It gave her the presence of mind to put down his jacket.
“I’m not a leper,” he said softly as he pulled off his tie and loosened the top two buttons of his shirt. She got a little peek of chest hair and the large Japanese-style dragon tattoo that snaked across his chest.
“What?”
“I don’t smell. I know I was sitting in the car for
a long time but I don’t think my deodorant has given up on me yet. Has it?”
“No, of course not.” Her attention snapped back to his face. She had been staring at him again. “Let me get you something to drink.”
She bolted up from her seat in a vain attempt to escape his overwhelming presence for a little while. He caught her hand and with a gentle tug pulled her down on the couch beside him. “Goddamn it, Belinda.”
“What?”
“I don’t like this. I don’t like that you are so nervous around me. I’m not going to hurt you.”
It’s too late. You already have.
“How do you expect me to act? The last time we were on this couch together we were having hot monkey sex.”
He flashed her a wicked grin, but it faded away all too quickly and she was sad to see it go. “I wouldn’t call it that.”
“What would you call it then?”
He shook his head and then surprised her by lifting his hand to briefly touch her cheek. “I was unkind to you that day. I regret it. I regret so much when it comes to you.”
Pain, sharp and breath-stealing, streaked through her chest. Of course he regretted her, regretted their time together. She wished she could say the same thing about him, but she honestly couldn’t. “Why did you ask me out?”
“I wanted to have sex with you.” His answer was honest. There was no hint of a smile, no humor in his voice, and she respected him for that.
“You were attracted to me.”
“I usually don’t want to have sex with people I’m not attracted to.”
“Oh.” He had her there. “I didn’t think I was your type.”
“I was going to walk past your store that day.”
“What?”
“The day we met. I was going to walk past your store but I saw a glimpse of you in the window. I don’t know what made me do it, but I walked in just so I could get a better look at you. I don’t know how to explain this. I’ve never been very good with words, but when I saw you, it was like everything inside me snapped to attention. The hair on the back of my neck stood up straight. If it were simply attraction I could have kept walking by, but when I looked at you I knew that I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn’t speak to you.”
She was stunned. This was the sweetest thing he had ever said, the sweetest thing anybody had ever said, but it took her only seconds to remember that he had lied to her. That he had hurt her. That he never really wanted her in the first place. “And now you regret it for the rest of your life because you did.”
He didn’t respond to that. “I didn’t have a good time on our first date with you just because I found you beautiful—and you are beautiful. You know that, don’t you?” He looked into her eyes. “I liked you. I liked talking to you.”
“If I recall, I was the one who did all the talking on our first date, throughout our entire relationship.”
“I liked hearing you talk. I liked your voice. I liked how it made me feel.”
She wanted to believe that. She wanted so much to believe that. To believe that she hadn’t married a man who had no feelings for her at all, but she couldn’t because in the end, even with all her talking, they were still strangers. He didn’t know anything about her, only the woman she pretended to be while she was with him. “You already got in my pants this month, mister. You can stop laying it on so thick.”
He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
He was shutting down. She could see his expression closing off, and she wanted desperately to stop it. But why? She wanted him out of her hair, out of her life. She shouldn’t care if he never spoke to her again. But she did. She wanted to know more from him. “Why did you ask me to marry you?” she blurted out before she saw him completely close down.
“Because you loved me,” he said without hesitation.
“You seem very sure of that.” She frowned.
He nodded. “You don’t give your love away. I knew that the moment I met you. And yet you love very deeply. I could feel your love, Bell. There were times when I was overwhelmed by it.”
“Damn it, Carter.” She shut her eyes before the tears could come. “I wanted us to work. I had dreams for us.”
“What happened to them?”
“They died,” she said truthfully. “I have to go.” She stood up, needing to get away from him. It was too much for her. Too much emotion for one day. But she realized she was in her house. That his daughter lay upstairs in her bed. She couldn’t flee him for long. “I have to go check on Ruby.”
She walked into her bedroom to find Ruby lying on her side not watching the television but staring at the wall. She was still so upset, which bothered Belinda more than she wanted to think about. “Hey.”
“Hello.”
“Don’t you like the movie? It’s one of my favorites.”
“My tummy hurts.”
She could hear the pout in her voice. On any other kid she might have found it irritating, but on Ruby … She crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed. “Is there anything I can get you to make it feel better?”
“I saw on TV that Pepto-Bismol is good for nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, and diarrhea. I can take that. I think I got some heartburn.”
Oh, good God. Something inside Belinda cracked. She lay next to Ruby, cupped her small face in her hands, and peppered kisses across her freckled nose. Ruby shut her eyes and accepted her affection and Belinda didn’t know what she was more surprised by: the fact that Ruby seemed to need it or the fact that Belinda needed to give it. “You are very dramatic, little one, but really freaking cute.” She gave her one last kiss on the cheek and pulled her close. Ruby snuggled into her and for a few minutes they were quiet.
“Squeeze me,” Ruby ordered.
“Like this?” She wrapped her arms around Ruby tightly until she heard the little girl sigh in contentment. “I can squeeze you like a pimple, little girl. I’m just hoping you don’t pop.”
“Thank you,” Ruby sighed.
She finally understood why women wanted to be mothers. For this. To hold a child. And for the first time Belinda wondered what it would feel like to hold a child created with a man she loved, one who came from her body. It must be a powerful feeling.
This feeling was nice, too. She enjoyed Ruby, enjoyed the few hours they had spent together today. Too bad this little girl didn’t belong to some other man. Her past with Carter always made things impossibly hard.
She looked down at Ruby, smoothing the hair from her face. “Ruby, I want you to do something for me?”
“Yeah?”
“I want you to forgive your father.”
*
Carter only sat on the couch for a few moments before he followed Belinda upstairs. She was still running from him. Four years and nothing had changed. Except him. He wasn’t content to let her walk away this time. She asked him half a dozen questions but he had one of his own.
Why did you love me?
She was the only person besides Ruby who had ever uttered those three words to him. Not even the first woman he’d walked down the aisle with. But she had, and he wondered why.
He walked down the long hall that led to her bedroom and stopped as he approached the door. Belinda had his daughter’s face in her hands. She was kissing her freckles and he wasn’t sure who captivated him more: Belinda, who looked so natural giving her love to a child, or Ruby, whose eyes were closed, her face upturned, soaking in Belinda’s affection like she was starved for it.
Shit.
He’d suspected for years that Ruby wanted a mother. Now he knew it was more than a want. It was a need. He couldn’t do it all. He loved her more than anything in the world but his love alone wasn’t enough. Ruby deserved to have the love of two parents.
He knew things weren’t over with Belinda. But as much as he craved her nearness, her warmth, he wasn’t sure he trusted her with Ruby’s heart. She had walked away once and it nearly killed him. He couldn�
��t risk her walking out on Ruby. He couldn’t let her get hurt.
“I want you to forgive your father.”
“He broke his promise,” she whispered.
“What promise?”
“He said we was moving here so he could be with me more. He forgot about me today. I don’t want him to forget about me like he forgot about me when we lived in California.”
“He loves you. He loves you more than anything or anybody else. I know he forgot you had a half day, but he didn’t forget about you. He could never forget about you. He made a mistake, baby. We all make mistakes. One day you’ll make a mistake or two and your daddy will forgive you, because that’s what daddies do. They forgive. We all forgive and now you have to, too. You’ll feel better after you do.”
“Being mad always makes my tummy hurt.”
Belinda bent down and smoothed a kiss to her forehead. “Then don’t be mad anymore.”
She nodded. “Grandma says being angry gives you wrinkles.”
“Does she?”
“Yes. She said if you get wrinkles then you need Botox.” Ruby reached up to touch Belinda’s forehead. “She said ladies get it right here.”
“Your grandmother is a wealth of information, isn’t she?”
“She tells me lots of things. Sometimes I don’t know what she’s talking about.”
“I think a lot of people feel that way about her.” She pulled herself away from Ruby and sat up. “I think we’d better go downstairs now.”
“Can I stay here for five more minutes? I like this bed. You think Daddy will buy me one?”
“No to the bed. Yes, you can stay here, but don’t be too long. Your father is tired. I think he wants to take you home.”
“Okay.”
Carter unfroze then and backed out of the doorway. He knew there was no way he could get downstairs without Belinda hearing so he ducked into the bathroom just a little farther down the hall, and when she was near enough he grabbed her hand and pulled her inside the room with him. She let out a little frightened yelp but when he shut the door and backed her against the door her expression changed. Her pouty lips parted in surprise and something flashed in her eyes.
He wanted to call it attraction, but it had to be more than that. If she felt an ounce of what he did, then the word attraction seemed wholly inadequate. He pressed his body into her soft curves, holding back a groan when their bodies connected. He’d missed this. He’d missed the connection that he had never felt with anybody else.
Gentlemen Prefer Curves: A Perfect Fit Novel Page 17
