by Heidi Rice
He concentrated on taking another swallow of the cool brew.
Maybe he was possessed. Possessed by her. Was that why the nightmares hadn’t stopped? Why they’d plagued him every night in his dreams in the two weeks since he’d forced himself to walk away?
He’d come to Vermont to escape them. But the cabin had been too silent. Too solitary. The hard physical tasks he’d set himself—repairing the broken shingles on the barn, chopping enough wood to survive a nuclear holocaust—hadn’t taken the edge off his hunger. And seeing her in his kitchen, the residual hum of desire still flowing through his veins, now he knew why.
Ever since he’d escaped the horrors of his childhood he’d always been self-sufficient, at his most content in his own company. He’d never thought he was lonely, because he’d been determined never to need anyone but himself.
But after a few short days sharing a villa with her, and only one night sharing a bed with her, she’d managed to invade every corner of his consciousness. She’d captivated him, not just with her body but with her personality—that heady mix of boldness and vulnerability, innocence and bravery.
He took another long lug of beer but the cold, malty taste did nothing to moisten the arid dryness in his throat.
“Why do you want to be with me, when you don’t know me?” he finally forced himself to ask.
“Because I do know you,” she said, so simply and so directly he wanted to weep. “We’re a lot alike. We spent so long running from our feelings that we’d forgotten how to feel. How to trust—not just others but ourselves too. I don’t want to be that person anymore. I want to stop running. Because I’ve discovered it’s better to feel everything than to feel nothing at all.”
He let his head drop and grasped the bottle.
“I’m not like you,” he said, bracing himself to answer the questions he knew would come next—and which he would no longer be able to avoid. “I’m not the guy you see on the surface. I’ve done things...had things done to me...that I can’t change. And it makes me unfit for the kind of human habitation you’re talking about.”
Surely the way he’d taken her—not once, but twice now—proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt? The animal instincts, the desperate need to claim her, to mark her as his, came from a fear which he’d never been able to overcome—that deep down he knew he deserved to be lost in the dark forever.
“Are those things the cause of your nightmares?” she asked softly.
But it wasn’t softly enough to stop the shame which he had kept buried inside for so long from careering to the surface like a runaway train and smashing the last of his composure to smithereens.
* * *
Katie watched his head jerk up and saw the naked pain in his eyes. Emotion trembled in his arms as he braced them against the countertop, drawing her gaze to the wounds on the tanned skin of his forearms.
“What happened to you, Jared? Can you tell me?”
He dropped his chin to his chest, the dejected nod almost more than she could bear.
“When I was a little kid it was just me and my mom.” He began talking in a flat monotone, as if he was reciting a story that had happened to somebody else. “We lived in a tiny walk-up in Brooklyn. She held down two jobs. We were barely getting by from pay check to pay check, but I didn’t know that, because she made sure I had everything I needed. Then she hooked up with a guy called Bannon. He was the local bookie. It was cool at first. I liked him. I’d always wanted a dad, someone to play ball with. And he made a fuss of me. Called me ‘son.’”
He shrugged, the movement brittle, the sheen of sweat visible on his chest despite the hum of the air conditioning.
“First time I saw him hit her, I persuaded myself it was her fault. He was a jealous guy, he loved her—and he was screaming at her, saying she had flirted with some other guy. I was ten years old, I didn’t understand adult relationships, and it was easier to blame her than to admit the guy I hero-worshipped was a monster.
“By the time I was eleven, he had gotten over his jealousy, because he had her turning tricks for him. She was tired all the time and strung out on the drugs he got her hooked on. She wasn’t my mom anymore. She had become a shadow of the woman she’d once been. I still made excuses for him. Still tried to make it right in my head. But I knew it wasn’t.
“Then one day, not long after my eleventh birthday, which my mom had forgotten about, he told me he was taking me to see the Yankees to celebrate. Even though I was wary of him, I believed him. I was so excited on the way there. He bought me a hotdog and a soda and a ball-cap. We watched the game. I’d never been to the stadium before and I was high on the whole experience. The Yankees snatched it in the final innings. But when we headed to the subway to go home, he took the wrong train. We got off at a stop I didn’t recognize, in the Bronx. My mom wasn’t much good to him anymore he told me, but I...I could make some dough for us both. ‘You’re a good-looking kid,’ he said. ‘And small for your age. I know guys who will pay a pretty penny for a piece of that. And I’ll give you a cut.’ I threw up the hotdog. Even at eleven years old, I knew what he meant.”
Katie covered her mouth, the horror story unfolding making her yearn to take him in her arms. But she knew if she touched him too soon he would break. As he continued to talk, though, her heart broke for that little boy.
“I kicked up a fuss and he swiped me, hard across the face. It was the first time he’d ever hit me. I tried not to cry, but I was so scared. The best day of my life had suddenly turned into my worst nightmare. He picked me up and carried me kicking and carrying on to this house with neon lights over the door. Once he got me there he took his cigarette and burned my arm a couple of times, until I stopped shouting and screaming and I was just numb. Then he locked me in there and told me he’d be back and I better behave or there would be more of the same. I kicked and carried on when he came back and he burned me some more. It went on for days. Until there wasn’t any fight left in me. That’s when...”
She saw him swallow and knew this was the worst of it. She swallowed too, her own stomach raw. “He brought some guy back with him and he raped me. It hurt like hell. But I didn’t even cry—because I couldn’t. When it stopped, and they left, I lay there for a long time looking at the neon blinking over the door. It hurt to move, but some part of my mind knew that if I stayed there I’d end up like my mom, a shell of myself. So I broke the window and climbed through. And then I just ran. The cops caught up with me and stuck me in the system, but every time they put me with a new foster family I ran again. And I just kept on running until the night when I decided to palm Dario’s wallet in Greenwich Village and he caught me. But a part of me never got out of that room. And it never will.”
A sob choked out of Katie’s throat and Jared’s head rose, the blank expression turning to bone-deep regret.
She brushed away the tears she hadn’t even realized were streaming down her cheeks. “It’s not your fault. What he did to your mother. What they did to you. You do know that?”
“My rational mind wants to believe that. Dario paid for therapy while I was in the home. And the guy told me that. But whenever I go back to that room in nightmares, I hate myself more each time. Don’t you see what that nightmare is telling me? I can’t be the guy you need, Katherine. Not in the long term. Because I’ll always be that scared little kid, trying to get out of that room.”
The relief was palpable as she realized how wrong he was about himself. All she had to do was make him see it. He wasn’t scared of loving her, he was simply scared of not loving her enough.
“But that’s not true, Jared. You got out of that room, and you helped me get out of that room too. You didn’t just face down your own demons, you helped me face down mine. What if the nightmares aren’t telling you you’ve failed, but that you succeeded?”
“How can that be true when I just took you like a madman again?”
She stepped toward him, seeing the anguish in his eyes. Sliding her hand into his, sh
e lifted the back of his fingers to her cheek. “No, you didn’t. You gave me a choice. A choice I wanted to make. A choice I enjoyed.”
He stroked a fingertip down her cheek to tuck the unruly hair behind her ear. “That’s just the sex talking, Katherine. Good sex. Great sex. But it’s just sex. You don’t know that, because I’m the only guy you’ve ever had sex with.”
She sniffed and a small smile tugged at her lips as she realized how wrong he was. “True,” she said, suddenly feeling euphoric. “But you’re also the only guy I’ve ever fallen in love with.”
He looked shocked and wary. “Why would you love me when I’ll always need you so much more than you can ever need me?”
“That’s simply not true, Jared. I need you more than you can ever know. I did five years ago. And I do now.”
He shook his head, still unconvinced, still so unsure. “You had a crush on me five years ago. That’s all.”
“Maybe it was a crush, but even then there was something there, a connection that neither one of us could deny. You looked at me and you saw me. I was just a bratty kid, desperate for attention and affection, but you made me feel like so much more than that. And even then you protected me, from myself most of all.”
“I was protecting myself...” he said. “Not you. I called you a spoiled brat. I slapped you down. I...”
“Because you were cornered, Jared. And at that moment I was being a spoiled brat. I didn’t understand what that connection was then, but I do now.” She cradled his face and kissed him with all the love in her heart, then whispered against his lips, “I wasn’t mature enough to love you then, but I am now.”
He eased her back, the torment in his eyes tempered by need.
“I want to love you,” he said. “But what if I’m not capable of love?”
She could hear his fear and suddenly she knew that a part of the young boy who had seen the best day of his life turn into the worst still lurked inside him. That he was scared to grab the golden ring in case it turned to dust in his hands.
But the only way to make the fear go away was by showing him he had the power to defeat it.
“Don’t you see? Just wanting to love me is enough,” she said. “If you’re ready to stop running and try. Are you?”
It was a risky question. Their whole future rested on the answer, but the euphoria and hope built in her chest because she could already see the answer in his eyes as he studied her.
“I’m not sure I have a choice,” he murmured. “Because the one thing I am sure of is I’m not strong enough to walk away from you again.”
The smile spread across her face and filled her heart to bursting. “I’m going to take that as a yes.”
He cupped her cheeks in his palms and rested his forehead on hers as his fingers caressed her nape.
“You do that,” he growled, before cupping the back of her head and bringing her lips to his in a mind-numbing kiss, full of the promise and possibility of bone-deep yearning and unconditional love.
EPILOGUE
“WHAT’S GOING ON down there?” Jared squinted, the light from the early-evening sunshine making it hard to focus on Katherine and her sister who stood on the pool terrace below the De Rossis’ villa on Isadora.
But something was going on, because Katherine had just wrapped her arms around Megan. And was hugging her hard enough to bruise.
He’d been on the island for a couple of hours, having arrived by helicopter that afternoon from a conference he’d been attending in Rome. But, after a brief kiss when he’d arrived, Katherine had been busy helping Megan put the kids to bed and he’d been trapped helping out Dario on the outdoor grill.
He’d been waiting for Dario finally to ask him what he guessed his friend had wanted to ask him for months now. What the heck did he think he was doing dating his sister-in-law?
Because Dario knew what Jared had been and what he was capable of. And Dario must have serious doubts, because he still had serious doubts himself. Not what he was doing with Katherine, but what the heck she was doing with him.
She was beautiful, talented and smart. But, more than that, she was the center of his universe—had been for twelve months now. Twelve months which had gone by in a flash of color and light and sensation—of long, hot nights, and short, contented days whenever the two of them could get away. He from the demands of his business, and she from her growing career as an artist.
But Dario had kept silent, talking about pretty much everything but the huge elephant between them that now felt as if it were sitting in the pit of Jared’s stomach.
Dario glanced up from flipping lamb steaks on the grill like a pro—and grinned as he directed his gaze to the terrace below. “I expect she is telling Katie our news.”
“What news?” Jared asked.
He’d been desperate to see Katie. They’d been apart for three days and the hunger for her that never eased was stronger than ever—but he knew it would be hours before he could touch her again.
Katherine had moved in with him six months ago at his insistence. So he knew this reckoning was long overdue—but he had an answer ready for when Dario finally came at him.
He loved Katherine. She’d brought something into his life that he thought he could never have, could never deserve. Not just great sex, and lots of it, but stability and companionship. He’d never realized how lonely he was until he’d had her waiting in his loft apartment when he got home in the evening. Usually she was wearing one of his old shirts, her hair and arms covered in flecks of paint as she finished off some commission or one of the pieces for another of her shows.
Maybe he owed Dario his life. But he didn’t owe the guy his happiness. Or Katherine’s. And she was happy. He’d made sure of it.
He’d wanted to push for more now for a while. Wanted to ask Katherine to marry him. He wanted his ring on her finger. But he hadn’t brought the subject up because he didn’t know what the heck to say. How even to get it said. He wasn’t a romantic guy and, every time he tried to get his head around how to make the proposal, it started to hurt. And he knew the truth was, it had nothing to do with the logistics of a proposal—how hard could that be? A good wine? A nice location? Make yourself look like a jerk? Job done.
What really made his head ache and his heart hurt was the thought that if he pushed, if he asked for that one more thing, that ultimate commitment, the dream state he’d been living in for a year would dissolve in front of him and turn out to be exactly that—nothing more than a dream.
He’d even spoken to the damn therapist about it. The woman Katherine had found and eventually badgered him into seeing—which had helped with the nightmares.
Dr. Carlton had told him the fear of rejection was in his head, part and parcel of the baggage he’d been carrying for years from his childhood abuse. Baggage that he was finally starting to shed with her help, and Katherine’s. But it seemed neither one of them could help him with this. Because every time he thought of going down on one knee, of asking Katherine to be his forever, that little kid who’d sat terrified and alone waiting for the axe to fall lurched out of hiding.
“We are having another bambino.” Dario’s voice, filled with contentment and no small amount of masculine pride, broke into Jared’s musings.
The shaft of envy was so swift and so sharp it took a moment for Jared to muster up the required smile.
“No kidding, man?” he said. He slapped Dario on the back, trying to sound pleased, when all he could think about was Katherine heavy with his kid. That slim, coltish body ripe in pregnancy...
The longing hit him hard. Katherine would make a terrific mom. But how could he ask her to bear his child when all the fates were stacked against him making an even halfway decent dad?
“That’s great,” he added, because Dario was looking at him with a curious smile on his face that he didn’t like.
“You don’t sound sure,” his friend said.
“You and Megan make great parents—what’s not to be sure about?�
� he asked, but comprehensively failed to keep the sting out of his voice.
“Right,” Dario muttered, concentrating on lifting the steaks off the grill and laying down some strips of eggplant that his housekeeper had marinated before leaving the island with the rest of the staff for a day off.
Jared’s temper and frustration spiked. He didn’t want any bad blood between them. But suddenly he was through tiptoeing around this situation. “Listen, if you’ve got a problem with me and Katherine being a thing, why the heck don’t you just come out with it?” he demanded, his temper warring with his frustration—and a choking sense of vulnerability.
Dario tensed, and stopped distributing the eggplant to spear him with a look that could only be described as disgusted. “Yes, I have a problem with your thing,” he snapped back.
The elephant plummeted to Jared’s toes.
Dario was the only man he had ever respected. The only man whose opinion mattered to him. And he was Katherine’s only male relative. If Dario told him all bets were off in this relationship, it would hurt. And it would end their friendship. Because he wasn’t giving her up. Not now. Not ever.
“When are you going to stop fooling about and claim her properly?” Dario added.
“What do you mean properly?” Jared demanded.
“You must marry her, of course, give her your name. She deserves that much, don’t you think?”
“You want me to ask Katherine to marry me?” Jared asked. Was that approval he could see in Dario’s eyes alongside the flash-fire spark of temper?
“Why would I not?” asked Dario, and it was his turn to look confused.
The tension in Jared’s stomach dissolved, along with the crushing fear that had dogged him through most of his life. That he would never be good enough, strong enough, finally to escape from that room forever. And he laughed.
“I don’t suppose you’ve got any suggestions for how to make it happen, have you?” If Dario was cool with him and Katherine making their thing permanent, why not get the guy’s help?
