Bad Case of Loving You

by Deborah Cooke

  “Theo, you always want more than I can give,” she said, softening her words with a smile. It didn’t quite work. “There can’t ever be anything more between us than just sex. You have to go. Now.”

  Her attitude annoyed Theo, even though he suspected it was a performance. He suspected that she wanted him to feel like a means to physical satisfaction and nothing else, because it would be hard for him to argue for more. But he knew that they had a connection, one that was magical and rare.

  “Is pushing me out the new way to run away?” he asked.

  Lyssa retreated into the bedroom and closed the door, which wasn’t the answer he wanted. “Let yourself out, will you?” she said and Theo thought about opening that door and demanding her attention. The lock clicked audibly, revealing that she’d anticipated his reaction.

  And maybe that she thought he might succeed.

  “I thought you wanted to talk,” he said tightly as he dressed.

  “No time now.” She sounded offhand, but Theo was skeptical of her indifference.

  She was such a crappy liar. Why was it important for him to leave? Why had she invited him here? Who was this guy?

  “Maybe we should just forget the whole New Year’s Eve thing,” he said, annoyed that he wanted what she refused to give. All they needed was a chance and he knew he could convince her.

  Lyssa unlocked and opened the bedroom door, but hid behind it, like it was a shield. “I’ll be there, Theo.” She punctuated her words with a glare, as if it mattered that she kept her word—even when she was jerking him around. “And you owe me an hour of your attention in exchange, remember.”

  “Maybe I’m not so interested in your rules anymore.”

  Her fleeting look of fear astonished him. “You promised,” she whispered, her eyes wide with fear. Theo, predictably, felt protective of her, then annoyed with himself.

  What did she have to tell him?

  “I promised,” Theo agreed. “But maybe I’m not feeling like such a nice guy anymore.” He took a step closer, but Lyssa shut and locked the door again.

  Theo flung up his hands in frustration. There wasn’t much else he could do. He couldn’t change Lyssa’s mind if she wouldn’t stay in the same room as him. He wouldn’t argue through a door. He was missing a piece of the puzzle—Lyssa had deliberately omitted a detail because she knew he wouldn’t like it.

  And she wasn’t going to tell him what it was.

  He wanted to snarl at someone.

  Theo was reaching for his jacket when he noticed the Christmas tree on a table by the window. It was a cute little tree, obviously handmade, an arty and colorful touch in the comparatively formal decor of the suite. And there were presents beneath it. He couldn’t imagine that Lyssa would play games with herself, buying herself gifts and wrapping them, then feigning delight as she opened them alone. He knew he shouldn’t pry, but he couldn’t resist.

  He crossed the room and glanced down. The top parcel was addressed to Logan.

  Logan?

  Who was Logan?

  Probably the guy she was meeting in forty minutes.

  Theo strode across the suite, as annoyed with himself for being used as he was with Lyssa for manipulating him. He let the door slam behind himself as he left.

  Only Lyssa could piss him off this much.

  Maybe it was a good plan to walk out of her life forever.

  Lyssa winced when she heard the door close hard. She was standing with her arms folded across her chest, and she was shaking. She felt sick for sending Theo away, but she didn’t think she could have done anything else.

  Except tell him the truth.

  What a chicken-shit she’d become.

  She could have told Theo the truth while he was in the suite. It would have been easy. She could have just opened the door to Logan’s room and revealed all the clutter generated by a ten-year-old boy. She could have shown him a picture on her phone. Between Logan’s age and the color of his skin, Theo would have done the math.

  He’d remembered them running out of condoms on that earlier visit, after all.

  She eyed her reflection in the mirror. “Chicken-shit,” she said out loud, although it didn’t change anything. The simple fact was that the only person Lyssa had in her life, admittedly because she’d made it that way, was Logan.

  And she was just as terrified now as she’d been eleven years before that Theo would try to take him away.

  She’d put up walls to protect her son. She’d defended him and his privacy with everything she had. She’d told herself to be content with Logan—but his question at Thanksgiving proved that Logan needed more than just her. Lyssa had to move beyond her own protectiveness. She had to let Logan know his father.

  But she didn’t have to do it today.

  New Year’s Eve would be soon enough.

  Five

  Theo walked back to F5. It was a good distance, but he needed the exercise.

  And the time to think.

  He had to sort out his mixed emotions about Lyssa before he could talk to other people. A long walk on a cold day sounded like the perfect solution.

  She was the one person who could absolutely infuriate him—and also the one who could fill him with incredible joy. She made him see the world differently, and really, the fact that he was even doing these pop-ups was partly inspired by her. In that last fight, she’d said he was inflexible once he made up his mind about something and too conservative. She’d used that as an example of why their feelings for each other couldn’t last.

  They were different. That was inescapable. Theo saw that as evidence they could learn from each other. He didn’t agree that differences meant their partnership was doomed. He was sure Lyssa hadn’t believed it either until she’d gone home that Christmas. He’d been sure that she was coming around to his view that love and marriage could last through forever—and that they had the match that could go the distance.

  He’d told her he loved her.

  He’d never forget that she hadn’t replied in kind. At the time, he’d thought she was shy about confessing her feelings or hesitant to admit he’d changed her mind. Ever since, he’d wondered if those months of falling more deeply in love had only been about sex to her.

  He didn’t want to believe that, but that didn’t make it untrue.

  Theo took a deep breath, fighting the urge to scratch his new tattoo. Chynna hadn’t warned him that it would be so itchy—and it seemed a lot worse now than it had been earlier.

  He forced himself to review what he knew. What he’d always admired about Lyssa was her honesty. She’d never been good at disguising her thoughts or opinions, which was why he knew she was hiding something from him now. Why did he assume that she was hiding a guilty truth? Maybe she had a good reason. Maybe she’d made a promise to someone else to keep their truth a secret. Maybe there was something she couldn’t tell him without betraying someone else’s trust.

  Theo stopped suddenly in the middle of the sidewalk and the person behind almost collided with him. He didn’t care. He reviewed the hotel room again and realized there’d been another closed door. There was the door to the corridor, the closet, the bathroom, the open door to a bedroom, then mirroring it, another closed door.

  She had a two-bedroom suite.

  Lyssa had said she wasn’t married anymore, but what if Logan wasn’t her lover or partner? He could be her friend or her brother or her nephew. Lyssa had never talked about her family, except to complain about her dad. There could be a perfectly reasonable and unromantic reason for there being a gift for Logan under her tree, one that would also explain Lyssa meeting him for dinner on Christmas Eve.

  And maybe she’d promised not to tell anyone that Logan was in New York.

  It could be that simple.

  Theo exhaled and chose to give Lyssa the benefit of the doubt.

  Then he checked his watch, swore, and started to run toward F5.

  “Late!” Kyle crowed when Theo charged into the conference room at
F5. They’d set up a conference call on Skype to review the progress of the promotion and Theo was late. He hadn’t even had time to go up to his apartment and change. “Late, late, late!”

  Theo glared at the screen. “Merry Christmas to you, too.”

  “Grumpy, grumpy, grumpy,” Kyle accused with a grin.

  “Are you going to say everything three times?”

  Kyle laughed. “Are you regretting this adventure yet?” Clearly, he was loving it.

  “No, it’s just a bit frantic.”

  “While you’re used to lounging over tea and crumpets during the holidays, leaving F5 to all of us.” Kyle mimed sipping tea from a china cup, his pinkie in the air and his lips pursed, and Theo smiled despite himself.

  “It’s a big change.”

  “Out of ye olde comfort zone,” Kyle agreed. “Do you like the view so far?”

  “It’s actually not bad. The pop-ups are fun.”

  “But you are late, and you’re never late. You have that tedious tendency to be punctual, just like Ty, that makes the rest of us look like slackers.” Kyle nodded and his smug expression meant that Theo dreaded what he was going to say. “So, I’m thinking you must have a good reason.”

  “And you want to know.”

  “You betcha.” There was a glint of trouble in Kyle’s eye, one that made Theo a little uneasy.

  “I walked back from the museum. I forgot how far it is.”

  “Miscalculation? No, no, no. Neither you nor Ty miscalculate, unless...”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless you’re under duress. Hey, that rhymes.”

  “Let me guess.”

  “That rhymes, too!”

  “You have a particular brand of duress in mind.”

  Kyle pointed offscreen. “Cue the edited clip.”

  “Oh no,” Theo whispered. Sure enough, it was the segment he’d told Blaine to leave out of the official video of the first pop-up, the one that showed him kissing Lyssa. He felt the back of his neck heat.

  “Oh yes,” Kyle said. “I have spies everywhere. You didn’t want it left out because you didn’t have a release from her. That’s Lyssa Monroe or I’ll eat my hat.”

  “You don’t have a hat.”

  “No worries, because I don’t have to eat anything.”

  Theo sighed in mock defeat. “You’re right. It’s Lyssa. She just appeared, then did that.”

  “You don’t look like you’re fighting her off.”

  “No.” The video was obviously looped because it replayed a couple of times. Theo watched it, looking for some detail he’d missed about Lyssa.

  “And I’m going to guess that she’s why you’re late.”

  “Your powers of deduction are impressive.”

  Kyle chuckled, looking so delighted with himself that Theo couldn’t be annoyed with him. “So, what’s up? Is she back? Does she want to pick up where you two left off? Is she coming to F5 on New Year’s Eve?”

  “She says she is.” Theo chose to answer only the last question.

  “You don’t believe her.”

  “I don’t know what to believe. I want to believe her.”

  “But you made that mistake before.” Kyle nodded wisely. “I have a complaint for the management, by the way. You said you didn’t know Angel.” There was accusation in his tone.

  “I don’t. Angel is such a fabrication that she doesn’t seem to have much in common with Lyssa at all. She might as well be a stranger.”

  Kyle sighed. “Such evasion. I’ve taught you so very well.”

  Theo smiled. “Don’t take all the credit. When I called Angel’s publicist, I might as well have been a complete stranger. Then she blew me off—but Lyssa says her publicist never told her about the invite.”

  “That’s weird.”

  “She wasn’t happy about it, that’s for sure.” Theo hesitated, then continued. “I feel like she’s hiding something from me. I want to think she has a good reason.”

  “But you don’t want to be a gullible idiot one more time.”

  “Thank you for that.”

  “Well, she obviously nuked you. I mean, you haven’t been serious about anyone since.”

  Theo grimaced. “It was so hot, right from the moment we met. I’ve never felt that connection with anyone else. It was and still is incredible.”

  “Just the same?”

  Theo fanned out his hands to mimic an explosion. “Spontaneous combustion.”

  “So, maybe you shouldn’t let her push you away like you did before.”

  “I didn’t have a choice. She disappeared. We fought, she vanished, and the next time I saw her was on the cover of Vogue two years later.”

  “Has she disappeared this time?”

  “No. Not yet.” Theo had a sense it might happen—or was he making assumptions based on the past?

  “Work with what you’ve got, then,” Kyle advised, just as Theo came to the same conclusion.

  Lyssa wanted an hour to tell him something and obviously it was something that she thought he wouldn’t like. How could he reassure her that he’d listen?

  It was tough to evade Sandra’s questions on Christmas Eve, but there was safety in numbers. Lyssa had managed to keep the truth about Theo to herself, but she knew her friend would demand an accounting whenever they were alone together. It might be a while before that happened, though.

  It made Lyssa think of Franco’s advice. Sandra was the mother of Logan’s best friend. She and Lyssa were friends as a result of coordinating the boys’ activities, but they weren’t really close friends—not due to a lack of invitation on Sandra’s part. It was Lyssa who always kept her distance. She’d met Sandra’s husband, Ben, a few times but knew even less about him.

  What would it be like to have someone to confide in?

  What would it be like to be able to talk about this whole tangle with someone she trusted?

  Lyssa had to think it would help her to sort out her feelings and make a plan but there was the problem—she never fully trusted anyone, except Logan.

  She talked to him about a lot of things, but couldn’t share this.

  It was odd to think that there was anything lacking in her life, but once she thought about having a good friend, Lyssa couldn’t stop thinking about it. On the other hand, it was terrifying to think about taking down the walls she’d spent a decade building so high.

  The five of them had a wonderful dinner together, then Lyssa and Logan walked back to the hotel. There was light snow falling and the city looked like a Christmas card.

  Perfect.

  Maybe a portent for their future in the city.

  Lyssa decided to believe that it would be.

  Theo and Tristan were having a small war over custody of his sterling cuff links. Tristan had evidently found them the first time that he’d been left alone in the apartment because Theo had discovered them in the raven’s hoard. No matter where he put them, they were in the bird’s stash when he returned.

  “My mum gave me these for Christmas last year,” he told Tristan when he found them in the raven’s stash again on Christmas Eve. “You can’t have them.” Tristan made a quorl sound, one that could have been a question or a challenge. Theo put the cufflinks in a tin on the counter, one with a lid, as the raven watched closely.

  He’d brought take-out from the shop in the lobby and was making tea when his phone rang. He was surprised to see that it was his sister.

  He wasn’t surprised that Tristan was on the counter, examining the tin.

  “Aren’t you asleep?” he asked when he answered. “It must be past midnight there.”

  “Oh, it is,” Naomi acknowledged and he heard her yawn. “So, I’ll get right to the important bit. Is Mum right?”

  “Right about what?” Theo poured hot water into the teapot, holding the phone against his shoulder. Tristan pecked at the lid of the tin. “Cut it out!” Theo whispered and pushed the tin away. Tristan hopped after it, undeterred. “Leave it!” he whispered.
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  “Busy?” Naomi asked.

  “No.”

  “You have company? I don’t want to interrupt.”

  “I don’t have company. What might Mum be right about?”

  “Oh, you are in a mood. I might lose my bet.”

  “Naomi!”

  “Mum thinks you’re staying in New York for Christmas because of a woman. She’s expecting you to turn up on her stoop sometime soon with a blushing bride-to-be waving a big diamond ring. She keeps saying that girl under her breath, but I have no idea what she means. Do you?”

  “Don’t you have anything better to talk about?”

  “Are you kidding me? Auntie Tess is desperately interested in your love life and won’t want to talk about anything else tomorrow. I need a story, preferably a juicy one.”

  “You should tell her I don’t have a love life.”

  “Tsk tsk,” Naomi said. “No one will believe that. Not after those videos.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That you look, um, I don’t know, surprisingly virile, little brother.”

  Theo laughed in his surprise and tried to change the subject slightly. He doubted it would work but it was worth a try. “I thought you were going to Mum’s for Christmas.”

  “In the morning. The kids are old enough that I want them to have Christmas morning at home.” Naomi’s tone turned conspiratorial. “Plus Father Christmas knows where they live, you know. Nolan was concerned about causing confusion, since his letter came from here, but he might be there. It was a huge deal. Santa might not be able to find him.”

  “I thought Santa was magic.”

  “I tried that. Apparently, Santa’s magic is only credible until you’re four. Krista is still unconcerned but Nolan was very worried. Graeme suggested the compromise.” She yawned again. “It’s rather nice to be home in my nightgown, I must say.”

  “And Graeme?”

  “Dead to the world. It’s quite lovely. I feel like I have the house to myself. Well, except for the snoring of my beloved, and for the reindeer prancing on the roof.”

  Theo smiled. “I hope you put out biscuits and milk.”