So why was he still holding back? Why hadn’t he told her what was in his heart, even though she hadn’t said what was in hers? Was he such a coward that he feared rejection? He hated admitting it, but that was exactly it.
He could go into an election a few months from now and face rejection by the voters without batting an eye, but he was terrified of opening his heart to Melanie, only to discover that she intended to stick by the original rules and walk away. He knew too well what that kind of devastating loss felt like. True, his parents hadn’t chosen to die and leave him and his brothers, but the effect had been traumatic just the same. If Melanie chose to go, it would be even worse. He knew that a man never completely recovered from a loss like that. His cowardice now was proof of that.
While he was downstairs, he took the food they’d brought with them from its freezer chest and put it into the refrigerator. Thankfully, it was still cold.
Then he flipped on a single light over the counter, brewed a pot of decaf coffee and sat down at the kitchen table to think. He thought about all the times Destiny had told him that he couldn’t let his parents’ deaths scare him away from love.
“Protecting your heart is self-defeating,” she told him on a dark night when he’d awakened from a childhood nightmare in which he’d relived the loss of his parents. “At the end of the day you’re just as lonely as if you’d loved and lost.”
Richard had nodded his understanding, but the truth was he hadn’t believed her. Surely nothing could be as painful as the void left when someone went away forever.
“You believe I love you, don’t you?” she’d persisted.
He had nodded again, accepting the truth of that. She had been a steady, solid presence in his life from the day she’d breezed back from France and said she intended to stay and take care of him and his brothers. He trusted her—loved her—as he did few people, but there was a part of his heart he held back, protected. Slowly but surely he’d shielded himself from feeling anything for anyone.
“Are you scared I’ll leave? Or that I’ll die?”
Unable to voice such a terrible fear aloud, he’d merely nodded acknowledgment of that, too.
“Oh, sweetie, I will never leave,” Destiny had vowed to him time and again. “It’s true that I might die. We all do one day. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t love each other. Instead we should be grateful for every minute we have together. Life is meant to be lived. If I haven’t taught you the importance of seizing the moment, of taking chances, of loving someone with everything that’s in you, then I’ve failed you.”
She’d tried so valiantly to instill that lesson in him—in all of them—yet Richard had been resistant. So had Mack and Ben in their own ways. Mack had filled his life with meaningless affairs. Ben had loved well but not wisely, and the pain of that loss had cemented all of his old fears. Richard wondered if Ben would ever open his heart again.
Richard had never risked anything at all. Until Melanie had come along, he’d been certain all his determined efforts to protect his heart had been successful. He’d believed he was completely incapable of real emotion.
He was on his second cup of coffee and still brooding when he heard Melanie’s footsteps on the stairs. His pulse kicked up in anticipation, oblivious to all those old fears that had been tormenting him once more in the dark of night.
She wandered into the dimly lit kitchen wearing his shirt and looking sexily rumpled. “I missed you,” she said sleepily, crossing the room and snuggling onto his lap in a totally trusting way that made his heart and his body ache.
Richard’s arms went around her automatically. Instantly he was all too aware of her bare thighs against his own, of her bare bottom intimately pressed against his boxers. Whatever faint hope he’d held of regaining his equilibrium with her flew out the window.
“I came down to turn up the heat,” he murmured against her ear, drinking in the faint scent of perfume that lingered on her skin.
“You should have turned up my heat,” she said lightly.
He grinned at the saucy suggestion. “Now why didn’t I think of that? Is it too late?” He skimmed a caress over her breast, saw the tip bead under the soft cotton of his shirt.
“We might be able to work something out,” she teased. “But first you have to feed me. I’m starved.”
“So many appetites,” he said with amusement. “Are you absolutely certain food is what you want first?”
A gleam lit her eyes as his touch wandered. “You’re making it very difficult, but yes. I want sustenance.”
“Dinner? Breakfast? A sandwich?”
She moaned. “Don’t make me think. I’m half-asleep. Surprise me.”
“An intriguing notion,” Richard said. “You going to let me stand up, or am I expected to manage a meal while holding you?”
She stretched—yet another torment—then rose slowly and moved to another chair. She immediately put her tousled head down on her arms on the table. For all Richard could tell, she went straight back to sleep. His gaze seemed to lock on the nape of her neck. He wondered how she would taste there. It was one of the few places he hadn’t sampled earlier.
Resisting the urge to find out, he poked his head into the refrigerator instead and retrieved the makings for a chicken and avocado sandwich. He checked the freezer and found a container of Destiny’s homemade vegetable soup he could zap in the microwave.
Melanie remained perfectly still as he worked, not twitching so much as a muscle until he put the food down in front of her. Then as if drawn by the spicy scent of the hot soup, she sniffed delicately and lifted her head.
“Oh, my,” she whispered. “Tell me this is homemade.”
He laughed. “It is, but I can’t take the credit. Destiny always leaves some in the freezer.”
“It smells heavenly.” She took a spoonful, blew on it to cool it, then put it in her mouth. “Tastes heavenly, too.” Wide-awake now, she glanced at the sandwich. “Chicken and avocado on a baguette? Very fancy.”
“I will take credit for that,” he said, amused by her enthusiasm. “Do you really not cook anything?”
“I’ll have you know I’ve never ruined a frozen dinner.”
“Now there’s a culinary claim to be proud of,” he said, laughing, his earlier cares forgotten for the moment.
“Fortunately, I am not in your life because of my skill in the kitchen,” she said. “If I were, you would be doomed to disappointment.”
“You could never disappoint me,” he said. Unless she went through with the breakup. That would tear him apart.
She caught his gaze, studied him intently. “You sure about that?” she asked. “You looked kind of funny there for a second, as if there was something you weren’t saying.”
Now, he thought, now would be the perfect time to open it all up, to tell her that everything had changed. He wanted to do it. He should do it. He even opened his mouth to speak, but in the end, he remained silent, a prisoner to his longstanding doubts and fears.
And as he saw Melanie’s expression close down, saw the light in her eyes die at his silence, he knew that he’d lost what might have been his best chance for getting what he wanted for the rest of his life.
Melanie knew that something significant had happened during their late-night meal in the kitchen. She even guessed that Richard had wrestled with his demons and lost, but she had no idea what to do about it. Though she was assertive about so many things in her life, confident of her professional skills, even assured about most of her relationships, she’d lost that self-assurance when it came to matters of the heart.
Truthfully, she had been praying that allowing herself to be open and vulnerable would be enough, that she would never have to actually risk putting her feelings into words that could be thrown back into her face. She knew the power of words better than anyone. They could heal or wound, but once spoken they could never be undone.
Not entirely daunted by Richard’s silence, she left herself open to what might tr
anspire between now and whenever they went back to Alexandria. She could do that much. She’d come down here hoping for a chance to make this work. They’d made so much progress, achieved a whole new level of intimacy. It was too soon to give up on getting more.
In the morning, it seemed that Richard had reached a similar conclusion. He greeted her with a smile and a breakfast worthy of a gourmet chef in a country inn.
“You know I might reconsider marrying you for real if you promised me a meal like this every morning,” she teased lightly.
“You’ve got it,” he said just as lightly. “Of course, we’ll both be waddling into the doctor’s office with high cholesterol and high blood pressure before we hit forty.”
She sighed as she took another bite of a fluffy omelette made with goat cheese and chives. “It might be worth it.”
He gave her a once-over that told her he appreciated the way she looked right now. “So, what are we going to do to work off these calories?” he asked, an unmistakably hopeful note in his voice.
“Not that,” she said decisively. She needed to reclaim a bit of distance this morning, gain some perspective on the night before.
“Too bad.”
She grinned. “I’ll give you a rain check. I want to go sight-seeing.”
He regarded her with surprise. “You do?”
“I glanced through some of those brochures in the living room last time I was here. There’s George Washington’s birthplace, Robert E. Lee’s birthplace, a winery. This could be fun.”
“The winery holds a certain appeal. I’m not so sure about the rest. Destiny considered all that history to be part of our summer experience.”
“You didn’t enjoy it?”
“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear,” he said. “We went every summer.”
“Ah.” She grinned. “Then we won’t need a guide, will we? You can tell me everything.”
“I’m pretty sure I’ve blocked all the details.”
“I’ll get a book and test you,” she responded, refusing to relent. “Now let’s get moving.”
“Now who’s acting like an activities director?” he grumbled, but he did get up and stack the dishes in the dishwasher.
Melanie grinned at his attitude. She patted his cheek. “Don’t pout. When we get home you can test me.”
“On the history?”
“No, on my responsiveness to other commands.”
His expression brightened at that. “Put on your walking shoes, darling. These are going to be lightning-fast tours.”
Richard found to his amazement that he could put last night’s disappointment and worries behind him and fall in with Melanie’s playful mood. She soaked up the history lessons with astonishing attention, making him sift through years of tidbits for the most fascinating ones in his memory. He loved that she listened so intently, her expression as rapt as if he were divulging bits of current gossip about still-living neighbors.
“I know as a Yankee from Ohio, I shouldn’t be so caught up with Robert E. Lee’s family home,” she said as they left Stratford Hall, “but the place is so beautiful and so fascinating. I wish I’d lived back then. Imagine having his family and the Washingtons for neighbors. Just think what the dinner conversations must have been like.”
Richard grinned at her. “Not unlike the conversation at one of Destiny’s dinner parties when she invites half of the power brokers in D.C. I’ll have to make sure you’re at the next one. Destiny likes to throw off a controversial spark and see what it ignites.”
“Yes, I imagine that would delight her. She told me about the incredibly lively and intellectual gatherings she used to have in her studio in France.”
Richard regarded her with surprise. “She did? She never talks about France with us.”
“Really?” Melanie’s expression turned thoughtful. “Maybe she doesn’t want to sound as if she misses it.”
“Why on earth would she be afraid to let us see that she had a life before she came home to us?” he asked, then sighed as the answer came to him. “Because she doesn’t want us to think for a second that she made a sacrifice.”
“I suspect that’s it,” Melanie said. “Maybe you should ask her about it sometime.”
“I probably should,” he admitted. “I wonder if she and Ben ever talk about it. That’s when she was painting. It’s what they have in common. They both love art. She nurtured his talent unselfishly, but I sometimes wondered if she missed painting herself.” He felt oddly left out to think that there was a part of Destiny she had kept from him, a part she might have shared with at least one of his brothers, a part she had definitely shared with Melanie, a comparative stranger at the time.
Melanie seemed to guess the direction of his thoughts. “If she kept silent, it was because she didn’t think you were ready to hear about the life she had in France, not because she loved you less.”
“I know that,” he snapped impatiently.
“Do you really?” Melanie asked quietly. “I think what she did was one of the most unselfish acts I’ve ever heard about. She had a wonderful life, Richard. She was living a charmed life in a place she loved. She was madly in love. Her paintings were selling in Paris and along the French Riviera. She had friends. She was even a bit famous in her world. But when you, Mack and Ben needed her, she never gave any of it a second thought. She was here for you. For her, family came first. That’s the only thing that really matters.”
It was true. Richard had always known that his aunt had made sacrifices for them, but he’d never guessed how many. Or maybe as a child he hadn’t wanted to know. And as an adult, her presence was a given, something he no longer questioned. How astonishing that it had taken Melanie to make him see a whole other side to Destiny. For the first time he was seeing her as a remarkable woman, not just as his aunt.
“You’re amazing,” he said, pressing a kiss to Melanie’s cheek, grateful to her for making him put Destiny’s sacrifices into perspective.
“Thank you, but what did I do?”
“Opened my eyes.” And his heart, he added silently.
The brief vacation from the world passed in a blissful haze. If it hadn’t been for the one thing Richard hadn’t said—that he loved her—Melanie would have been totally content and rapturously happy.
They stayed up late, watched movies and ate popcorn. They danced to oldies on the radio. They made love in front of the fire time and again. Each time was a revelation, showing her new insights into everything but his heart. She despaired of that ever changing.
On New Year’s Eve at the stroke of midnight, she was cradled in his arms, spent but filled with contentment, when he gazed into her eyes, “There’s something we need to discuss before we go home tomorrow,” he said. “It’s a new year, time for new beginnings.”
There was hope to be found in his words, but his tone filled Melanie with a sense of dread. “What?”
He looked away from her. “The very public breakup I promised you.”
“You’ve been thinking about that?” she asked dully. She’d dared to envision happily-ever-after, and he’d been focused on extricating himself from the lie, starting the new year fresh without her and all of the complications she represented.
“Haven’t you?” he asked. “You said all along it was something we should do sooner rather than later. I think you were right. After what happened with Destiny the other day, all the shopping and planning, we can’t let this continue.”
“This is it, then,” she said bravely, refusing to allow one single traitorous tear to fall. “What do you have in mind?”
He met her gaze then, searching her face for something, but she was determined not to let him see the hurt ripping her apart. Instead, she fought to keep her gaze neutral.
“I thought you should decide,” he said, his voice suddenly flat and emotionless.
Melanie nodded, because she didn’t trust herself to speak.
“You’ll think about it?” he prodded. “You’ll let me know? I’ll
go along with whatever you want.”
“Do you want to do this very soon?” she asked when she could keep her voice steady.
“I think that’s best,” he said, his gaze averted.
“So do I,” she said. Then she could get on with the business of mending her broken heart.
Suddenly chilled to the bone, she reached for the chenille throw on the sofa, stood up and wrapped herself in it. “I’m going to bed,” she said in a voice so choked she barely recognized it as her own.
Richard didn’t reach for her, said nothing to stop her. Only when she was at the foot of the stairs did he call out softly.
“Happy new year, Melanie.”
“Happy new year,” she replied automatically, but her heart wasn’t in it. If anything, this new year was off to the worst start ever.
Upstairs, she barely resisted the desire to throw things. Unless something hit Richard in the head and knocked some sense into him, what would be the point?
Couldn’t he see what she saw? They could be happy together. She knew it. She could help him get wherever he wanted to go in life. She’d be the perfect match for a man who needed some balance for all the demands he put on himself. She’d keep him from being stodgy.
But her hope of any future had died the instant he’d brought up the great breakup scene. Despite the emotional and physical connection she’d experienced over the past few days, they were obviously in very different places. To him this had apparently been nothing more than an interlude, something inevitable that had been building between them, something neither of them could have ignored forever. It hadn’t meant anything, at least not to Richard.
Melanie knew better than most that it was impossible to make someone fall in love. It was equally impossible to make them admit to love when they were too afraid to recognize the emotion. When it came to that, she was as cowardly as Richard.
So to protect her stupid pride and her heart, she would go back to Alexandria and throw herself into planning the party at which she would throw that damnable ring back in his face. She would make the scene so believable, so memorable, that it would haunt him forever. Richard might be willing to toss away what they’d had, but he’d never forget her.
Isn't It Rich? Page 18
