In the past, I would have leapt at such a wild opportunity. Me, talking with Oprah, on television! But now, it didn't seem to hold the same appeal, and I'd turned him down multiple times. The man didn't seem to be offended, but also didn't take the hint; he kept on sending me more offers, each more high-profile than the last.
But when I glanced down at the phone, my thumb poised to answer, I saw that it wasn't my agent calling.
It was Helen.
For a few seconds, I just stared at her name, trying to make a decision. Should I hang up, ignore it? Maybe it was a wrong call. Maybe she just wanted to shout at me some more, drive the final nail into the coffin of our relationship.
But even if that were the case, I wanted to hear from her. I still wanted to hear her voice, even if it was insulting me. I deserved it, for how I'd lied to her, and I still loved her despite her being far above me. If listening to her shout at and insult me was the only way I could still have contact with her, I'd take it. My heart needed it.
So I answered the phone, lifting it up unsteadily to my ear. "Hello?" I said, my voice torn between hope and fear.
Silence, for a moment, and I feared that she'd pocket dialed me. But then, after a second, a single, unsteady word. "Hi."
And like that, the rickety little wall that I'd built in my head, barely holding back the tidal wave of emotion from my heart, collapsed. Love rushed out into me, wild, desperate love, so strong that I almost couldn't breathe.
I loved this woman, and I knew that I would forever, even if I never got to see or touch her again.
"Helen, I..." I began, but then stopped. How could I express the enormity of what I felt in words, over the phone? It was so easy for me to pour out words on a page, but when I had the chance to actually talk to her, I felt tongue-tied.
"Are you busy right now?"
Those weren't the words I'd been expecting. I froze for a moment, not sure what she meant by them, if there was some obvious meaning that I totally missed. "No," I finally stammered, as I felt the silence starting to stretch on too long. "I'm not doing anything right now."
"Could you come over to my house?"
A million different implications swirled up around those words, each less practical and possible than the one before. Did she want to have one last bout of sex before forgetting me forever? Had I left something there, and she wanted to return it? Did she want to throw my book in my face, or maybe reveal that she'd burned it and toss the ashes at me? Was this part of a plot to actually murder me, after she'd finally come unhinged at losing a second love?
(Okay, even I admitted that the last one was totally ridiculous. Helen might be many things – strong, powerful, passionate, perfect – but she couldn't be a murderer. Anyone who'd passed on that first rumor, about her and her first husband, had clearly never spoken to the woman before.)
"Yes." I blurted out the word. And really, how could I make any other choice? To not see her would be to undo everything I'd done, all the effort I'd poured into raising myself off the ground. I had to face her, even if it was for the last time, even if it was so that she could finally tell me how badly I'd failed her.
"Okay." And then she hung up. Just like that.
I sat there, still looking at the phone, as if she'd call back. Only after five minutes did I finally snap out of it and scramble for my keys. I fought down a dozen different emotions – fear, need, panic, trepidation.
And, in amid them, the fluttering of wild, desperate hope.
Chapter Twenty-Six
TANNER
*
I showed up at her house exactly nineteen minutes later – the precise amount of time that it takes to drive from the Stone mansion to the O'Callahan one, moving at exactly the speed limit, without violating a single traffic rule.
Every single inch of that drive was nail-biting, and my knuckles remained white from how tightly they wrapped around the wheel.
I had to keep my mind carefully emptied. If I let it start wandering, even for a minute or two, I'd start thinking about what Helen might want, and I'd once again feel that flare of wild, desperate hope burning inside of me. It was too dangerous, and I knew that, if that last little flame of hope were extinguished, there'd be no light or energy to keep on driving me forward. Without that last little flame, I'd just give up and collapse in on myself like a deflating balloon with a slow leak.
I drove up the long driveway, hoping almost that I'd see Helen standing at the front door of her house and waiting for me. Instead, however, the door was forbiddingly closed, no sign that I'd been asked over or requested.
I parked my truck, wincing as the engine coughed a few times before turning off. Now that my agent kept promising me more money was on the way, I probably ought to get that fixed, or perhaps even think about an upgrade. But I felt, almost defiantly, like the truck was a part of me, a little component of my battered and well-used soul. I didn't want to give it up. Besides, I could probably fix the mechanical issues. How hard could a transmission really be to repair, once I saw all the parts and how it worked?
I advanced up to the front door and knocked. Almost immediately, I heard footsteps from behind the door, and my heart quickened and leapt like a salmon in my chest.
The door opened – but it wasn't Helen on the other side.
Instead, two other faces greeted me. One of them, lined and stately, I recognized immediately. Julius stood with his usual ramrod-straight posture, his eyes looking slightly above my own at my forehead – but for an instant, I thought I saw the barest hint of a smile flicker over his jowly cheeks before they resumed normal stiffness. He stepped back to pull open the door with his right hand, his left tucked firmly behind his back.
I shifted my attention to the other person. She definitely wasn't a servant; that much was clear just from the weight of the jewelry that hung from every possible visible location. Strings of diamonds dangled from her ears, and when she raised her left hand to point a finger at me, I saw a ring on her finger with a rock the size of a marble. How did she even keep that hand up? That ring had to have cost tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars! And that said nothing of the brilliant spray of other gems encircling the main stone.
"You!" she snapped in a cultured voice that carried a hint of an upper-crust British accent, stabbing that gem-encrusted hand at me, her finger nearly colliding with my chest. "You're the one who's bloody done all this, aren't you?"
I looked back blankly at her, and then shifted my bewildered gaze over to Julius. He sighed, his shoulders drooping slightly. "Tanner McCallister, may I present to you Lady Circe Phillips," he said, giving a slight bow of his head towards the other woman.
"Call me Champagne," Circe – Champagne – corrected. She was certainly an imposing woman, that much was clear. I guessed that she only stood a couple inches over five feet, even including the spike heels that added at least four more inches to her height. Her tight clothes revealed the kind of body that would make a Pilates instructor chew right through her yoga mat, with toned and tight curves that could easily land her on the cover of a Playboy or Hustler issue. Blonde hair cascaded in carefully styled waves over her shoulders, just loose enough to maintain the illusion of being tossed and natural. Normally, I'd be staring at a woman like her, my tongue dangling out my mouth, until she'd vanished from sight.
But today, I barely even noticed anything about her appearance. She wasn't Helen. That was the only fact that mattered. She could be the Pope, or Kanye West, or even the President of the United States himself, and I wouldn't have been dissuaded from my mission.
"Now," Champagne rolled on, her finger still pointed at me like a cocked gun. "You're the one who hurt my friend Helen! She might be interested in talking to you, but I personally think that you're still scum for hurting her, and if you happened to just wander off a cliff and break a few bones, I wouldn't lose a single wink of sleep..."
Champagne kept on berating me, but I didn't really hear another word. Helen wanted to talk to me again? Sh
e hadn't just called me here to attack me one last time? That little flicker of hope grew stronger. Maybe, just maybe, I had a chance!
Finally, after another few minutes of Champagne's angry remarks, accompanied by plenty of finger gestures, Julius cleared his throat. "Perhaps we shouldn't keep Miss O'Callahan waiting any longer," he suggested, his tone mild.
Champagne looked over at him, sighed, and exaggeratedly rolled her eyes. "Fine, stuffy. Helen's fine; I'm sure she won't even notice how long we're taking. You saw her eyes lit up as soon as she picked up that pair of gardening shears."
Gardening shears? For an instant, a nightmarish vision of Helen removing... certain parts of my anatomy with a pair of rusty shears entered my head, and I had to tell myself not to make a run for it. I could still get away; I hadn't stepped into the house yet.
But if I ran, I'd be giving up on any last chance of seeing her forever. And even if she wanted to come at me with a pair of oversized scissors, it would still be one last chance for me to tell her that I loved her.
I couldn't leave without telling her that truth.
Champagne finally lowered the attack finger and turned around, giving me a view of a truly spectacular ass barely contained by a pair of skin-tight and paper-thin yoga pants. I didn't even glance down at it. "Come on, then, Tanner. While you can still walk," she added threateningly.
Entering, I looked over at Julius. He must have seen the concern in my eyes. He didn't say anything, but one wrinkled hand gave me a gentle pat on the shoulder as I passed him. When my eyes met his, he inclined his head in a tiny but still noticeable nod.
Well, okay. Maybe this wasn't going to end in my dismemberment after all.
Champagne led me through the house, and I was a little dismayed to see that much of it had once again started to slip into neglect. After I stopped cleaning, it seemed, Julius hadn't been able to keep up the slack. I made a mental note to, if Helen somehow agreed to forgive me, try and convince her to hire a maid service to help the old butler with his chores.
We passed through a couple of the sitting rooms, down a hallway, and into the kitchen – but we didn't stop there. Instead, Champagne led me out a side door, one through which I'd never ventured before. If my hazy impression of the big house was correct, this door would lead out to...
...the garden. Sure enough, when I stepped through the doorway, bright sunlight caught my eyes and made me squint for a moment. It wasn't direct, at least, blocked and diffused by tall trees that rose to spread out their leafy branches in a wide canopy over the space. They didn't block all the light, however, and the rest of the garden was awash in brilliant, colorful bursts of light.
I stared around, entranced, a smile growing on my face. Everywhere I looked, I saw flowers of new colors and varieties, growing, crawling, leaping, and spreading high and low. Vines crept up around a couple of the trunks, spreading out brilliant purple-blue trumpets with yellow centers. Tulips in half a dozen colors sprouted from down around the base of the trees. Tiny little white and yellow clover flowers were sprinkled into the lushly green lawn beneath my feet.
But the biggest attraction, the clear focus of this garden, were the rosebushes.
They were all around the back wall, tall and proud. I saw roses in almost every color that I'd seen before, and some I hadn't; they painted the spectrum from a deep red that was nearly black, to pale yellows and pinks, to a pure white variety that looked almost fake, as if someone had drained all color from the plant. Their flowers were open, and their unmistakable scent filled my nostrils when I inhaled.
Helen stood in the middle of this almost riotous bloom of different colors, looking like an angel descended from the heavens. The sunlight danced off her pale skin and made it sparkle ad shine, and caught the edges of her dark hair to show a radiance of healthy sheen. She was turned partly away from me, her eyes focused on the rosebush she was carefully pruning with a pair of shears in one hand.
I couldn't hold back. I stepped forward, her name ripping itself from my lips. "Helen."
She didn't start at the sound, but she turned towards me. For a moment, I saw her features flicker with apprehension – but almost immediately, they bloomed into a smile.
"Tanner," she replied. She stood there, amid all the amazing plants, like the centerpiece in a Renaissance painting.
"This is amazing," I said, not knowing how else to voice my amazement at the garden.
Helen's eyes left mine, moving over the plants, and I immediately, selfishly, wanted them back on me. "It's taken a lot of work to nurse it back to health," she said, her fingers reaching out to brush ever so gently against one of the rose blooms. "I needed something to take my mind off..."
She didn't finish that sentence, but I knew exactly what she meant. It was the same reason that I'd poured myself so fully into writing. It was better than admitting what we might have had between us, what we'd lost.
"There used to be charity functions here," Helen picked up after a second. "You put the idea back in my head, in fact. You talked about using my connections and presence to raise money for those who need my help. And I couldn't do it without having the garden back in full bloom, so they'd show up for more reason than just to gawk at the Black Widow."
"Charity functions?" I repeated. God, man, why was I acting like such an idiot? I couldn't seem to get a grip on myself.
She nodded. "The O'Callahan gardens actually reach further than this. There's an entire hedge maze out there somewhere, although it's probably far too overgrown right now to be navigable." She looked around at the amazing assortment of plants, the great diversity of color and leaves and shades of green. "Can't you see it? In the evening, with strings of lights. It was beautiful, once."
It was beautiful now. It reflected the beauty of the woman standing in the middle of it. I felt that confusion still in my head, fought to push it aside. I needed to just tell her what I came to say, to get it out before I missed my chance.
Helen started to open her lips to say something else, but I couldn't give her the chance finish it. She might dismiss me, afterwards. Maybe she'd only summoned me here to see the garden, so that I could know that my betrayal hadn't totally broken her.
I had to speak my piece, had to let her know how I truly felt about her. This might be my last chance. Before she could say anything more, I'd crossed the distance between us and she was in my arms.
She smelled of healthy exertion, of the roses that bloomed all around us. I pulled her against me, needing her more than anything. My heart filled my throat until I could barely speak, but I couldn't tear my eyes away from her as I held her, maybe for the last time, in my arms.
"Helen, I love you," I said.
The words burst out of me like the cork popping from a bottle of champagne, the first stone giving way as a dam broke. A torrent more rushed behind them, and I didn't have a hope of holding them back. "I love you," I said again, pouring every bit of strength into the words that I could manage. "I've loved you even before you realized the truth, and I've been an idiot about it. I never should have lied to you, but I didn't think that I deserved someone like you." I sighed, shaking my head. "I still don't, probably. But I'm not giving up, like I would have done before. I'll keep working, for the rest of my life if it takes that long, to prove myself worthy of you."
She looked up at me, her eyes sparkling. Her hands wrapped around me; I realized belatedly that she wore a pair of thick gloves, probably for gardening so that she wouldn't be hurt by the thorns of the roses. Too late to take them off.
"Tanner," she said again, but I still couldn't tell if she was going to accept me or throw me away. And even as she spoke this one word, more came rushing out of my own mouth.
"I promise never to lie to you again, Helen. I'll always tell you the truth, no matter how painful or embarrassing it might be for me. And since we've..." I couldn't bring myself to say the word 'separated', "...had this fight, I've earned more success for myself – but I'll give it all away in a heartbeat if you'll
take me back."
There was one more sentence in my head. I took a deep breath, knowing that after I spoke these words, I'd have nothing else to do but wait. I had to say them, and then there'd be nothing else for me to do but wait for the axe to fall. There'd be nothing left but to receive judgment, find out my fate.
"You're my muse, Helen O'Callahan," I said, looking down at this woman in my arms, feeling my heart sing just from being close to her one last time. "You're my inspiration, and I can't imagine life without you. Whatever it takes to prove myself to you – I'll do it."
She looked up at me, her lips so tempting. I knew that she probably wanted to say things to me – hell, she probably wanted to yell at me – but she could do all that after I finished one last thing.
I pulled her close, and kissed her.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
HELEN
*
I hadn't been sure what would happen when Tanner arrived. I thought maybe he'd try to make excuses, or maybe he'd just drop to his knees and beg my forgiveness. Maybe, I'd even considered darkly, he wouldn't show up at all.
The answer, it turned out, was none of the above. As soon as he stepped out into the garden, the moment that my eyes caught his, I started babbling.
I couldn't help it. He looked amazing, strong and powerful and standing tall with confidence. He didn't need money to have presence, the kind that could make him the center of attention just by walking into a room. His hair and beard were a little untrimmed and rough, making him look ever so slightly like a mountain man, but it only made him hotter to me. I wanted to rip his tight shirt off those broad upper arms and muscular chest, to explore every inch of his body. I wanted him to hold me forever, to hear the beating of his heart as my face buried itself in his chest.
For Love of Passion (Stone Brothers Book 4) Page 18
