by Jane Porter
My gaze searches his. He looks completely unruffled, as if being here is nothing out of the ordinary. “You could have let me know.”
“And ruin the surprise?”
“I hate surprises.”
He laughs and wraps me in a hug, then drops a kiss on top of my head. “You’re feisty.”
“I don’t understand you,” I answer stiffly, not wanting to get excited, not wanting my heart to get banged up, not again. Not by him.
“What don’t you understand?”
“You.”
“Oh, I’m easy enough to understand. I’m crazy about you. Very much in love with you and here to take you home and make you mine.”
“Is that so?”
“That is so.” And then he reaches for me, his arms sliding around my waist, pulling me close. I can feel his hard, warm body against the length of me. His head dips, his face blocking the bright lights, and then he kisses me. And this kiss, so hot, so fierce, so consuming, feels like home, too.
When he finally lifts his head, his eyes are darkly blue as they look down at me. “Convinced?”
“No,” I say. “Can we do that again?”
And he does, and this kiss is even longer and hotter than the last. My knees buckle and I have to grab on to him.
“Ready to go?” he asks long moments later.
“Yes. If you’ll fly home with me.”
“I was hoping you’d ask.”
On board the small, sleek jet, Michael and I sit next to each other in our leather seats, our fingers linked. It feels very glamorous and more than a little surreal with Michael in his suit and me in my gown. All we need is champagne and caviar and we could be posing for Town & Country magazine.
We’re quiet during takeoff, but once we’ve reached cruising altitude, Michael covers my hand with both of us. “Can we get this right?” he asks.
“I hope so,” I answer. For weeks I’ve craved this, wanting this, wanting him to love me, choose me, to say it’s me he’s always wanted, that it’s me he can’t live without.
Just as they do in romantic movies. Except I want it for real. I want love that’s huge and fierce and strong. I want a man who will love me and be with me and not disappear on me.
I want a man who will grow old with me. Who will be there as the creases deepen and the wrinkles lengthen and my hair goes from brown to gray to white.
I want a man who will hold my hand even when it trembles with age.
I want a man who will wait for me even if I walk slowly from the chair to the door.
I want a man who will sit with me on the winter days and we will face the pale sun together, faces lifted, pleased to still be alive, to still be together, to still just be.
That is my dream. And then he hands me my dream. “Do you remember asking me about my relationships, especially Alexis?” His eyes find mine and hold. “I couldn’t commit to her, couldn’t love her. I was already in love with you.”
Goose bumps pepper my skin, and I shiver. “You’re really in love with me?”
“Madly, ridiculously, although I didn’t want to be.”
“Why not?”
He reaches out, strokes my hair back from my face. “I don’t know. I was certainly attracted to you, and have been from the first time I met you.”
“Where did we first meet?”
“Max’s house. Four years ago. He and Irene threw a huge party just before Christmas. You wore an emerald green dress and were unbelievably hot.”
I wrinkle my nose but on the inside I’m beaming. Hot, huh? “You make it sound like a bad thing.”
“Well, it was. Here’s this gorgeous, sexy, very smart woman with the most ridiculous guy.”
I’m giggling now but Michael ignores me, adding, “He was a painter. From Laguna. And he couldn’t keep his hands off you. Even though I’d just met you I wanted to rip his head off. I wanted to be the one touching you.”
“Matthew Breese,” I say, remembering. We’d dated for five months, but it never felt right. “He was awfully touchy-feely, wasn’t he?”
“Excessively.”
“So if I was hot, and you were attracted to me, why didn’t you ever ask me out? Why always give me such a hard time?”
The edge of his mouth curves and he smiles this slow, rueful smile that has to be the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. “I just knew you deserved more than what I could give you. I’m married to my work. It’s been a problem in all my relationships and I hoped that if I stayed away from you, someone else, someone better, would snatch you up.”
My chest suddenly feels too tender and my happiness slips a notch. “But no one did.”
“Thank God.” He looks into my eyes and there’s so much warmth and emotion there that it takes my breath away. “I was being stupid, and it took the trip to Zambia to make me realize that I didn’t just want your body, but I wanted you, Tiana Tomlinson, forever.”
“But in Katete, you knew I liked you. That last night I invited you to my room…”
“I know. I wanted to go. I wanted to rip your clothes off and devour you, but it didn’t seem like the right time, or place.”
“I can’t believe you turned sex down.”
“But I didn’t want sex.” Michael hesitates, struggling for words. “I wanted you. And I wanted more than one night, and God help me, I didn’t want to screw it up. I’d been attracted to you for so many years and finally, here’s this opportunity, but was it the right one?”
“I had no idea you were so old-fashioned.”
“Not old-fashioned, just protective when it comes to you. I hated it when other jerks hurt you. I didn’t want to become one of those jerks. So I gave us time.”
“How nice of you,” I drawl. “But what was the time for? Time to forget you? Get over you? Meet someone new?”
He grimaces. “There is that. And it did cross my mind. But then the accident happened, and before we had a chance to figure anything out, I was your doctor and I couldn’t act on my feelings even if I wanted to.”
“Your damn ethics!”
He laughs huskily and reaches for me, tugging me from my seat belt and onto his lap. “Don’t think it was easy. Once you were at UCLA’s Medical Center, I couldn’t stay away. I’d go by twice a day just to see you.”
Michael gently sweeps his thumb across my scar, soothing it. “This little thing complicated everything.”
“How’s that?”
“I worried that I’d scar you. Worried that you’d blame me. Worried that it’d change you. I needn’t have worried so much. You’re such a fighter. You’ve come through like a champ. You came out swinging, and I couldn’t be prouder.”
I slide an arm around his neck and press a kiss to his lips. “You should have just called,” I whisper against his mouth. “I wanted you to call. I missed you so much.”
His hand reaches up into my hair, letting the thick mass slide over and through his fingers. “Can we make this work?”
“Yes.”
“How can you be sure?”
I touch my lips against his, close my eyes, and just breathe him in. He smells of soap and cologne, and his skin feels warm, and on his breath there’s a hint of mint. This is what a man should feel like and smell like. This is what my man feels and smells like. “Because I’ve waited a long time to feel this way.”
My eyes sting and I look up at him. “I love you. I’ve only said that to one other man, and I married him.”
“You love me.”
“Yes.”
The corner of his mouth lifts. “This is working out pretty nicely, if I do say so myself.”
I just shake my head. He’s so impossible and awful and wonderful, and I don’t think I could love any man more. “You make me a little crazy,” I confess, “but I think that’s part of your charm.”
He kisses me with hunger, and desire explodes inside me, fierce and raw. Just when I think I have to tear his clothes from his back, he draws away, and he looks down at me with dark, intense eyes. “I don�
�t want to screw this up, baby.”
“How would you?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t always communicate well. I work too hard. I can be preoccupied— ”
“I know. That’s part of you, part of what makes you the brilliant and gorgeous and maddening Michael O’Sullivan. The only man I want in my life.”
He cups my face between his hands. “Say it again.”
“The only man I want.”
And then he’s kissing me again, and things get a little hotter— well, a lot hotter— and clothes shift, and bodies move, and it’s me who thinks this is absolutely the right time to make love. “We have to seize the day,” I say, unbuttoning his shirt and then his belt buckle.
“I’m afraid in a moment you’ll be seizing a lot more,” he answers gravely, and he’s right. Unzipping his trousers, I discover there’s a lot of Michael, far, far more than I expected. It’s an exciting surprise, even a little daunting.
Michael lifts my evening gown and makes quick work of my stockings, and I don’t know if it’s the altitude or the turbulence, but making love is beyond orgasmic. If it weren’t for Michael’s mouth on mine, even the pilot would have heard me scream.
After, he holds me on his lap, my face on his chest, and I sigh with pleasure and peace. That was so good. And so fun. I don’t suppose we’d have time to try it again….
We do.
And I am not disappointed.
We’re on our final descent into Burbank, and I’m back in my seat, clothes adjusted as best as they can be. My beautiful silver gown will never be the same, but isn’t this what beautiful gowns are for? Falling in love? Making love?
As the plane touches down on the runway in the smoothest landing ever, Michael brings my hand to his lips and kisses it. “So what happens now?”
“I hope we go home together,” I answer honestly.
“To whose house?”
“I don’t care. Russian John’s here to meet my flight. He’ll take us wherever we want.”
“Your house tonight. Mine tomorrow. And maybe one day we can find a place we pick out together…?”
“I like it.”
He kisses my hand again and then reaches for his discarded coat and retrieves an envelope. He hands me the envelope.
I look at him, try to read his expression but can’t, and pull a sheet of paper from the envelope.
It’s an itinerary for an Rx Smile mission to Egypt. “It’s the last weekend of April,” Michael says. “I would love it if you could go with me.”
“I’d love to go.”
“I understand you have a career and you can’t just follow me everywhere— ”
I cut him off with a kiss, aware of the little half shiver at the mention of work. I’m so looking forward to Tuesday’s meeting with Harvey, but I’m not ready to talk about it until there’s something concrete to share. This meeting with Harvey might be only the first of dozens of meetings.
I tap Michael on the chest. “I’ll worry about my work. You worry about your work, and knowing us, we’ll always find a way to be together.”
“I couldn’t have said it better,” he answers.
I grin. “I know. I’m good with words. It’s my gift.”
“Thank God, because you’re a disaster at Yahtzee.”
I laugh and laugh and tears fill my eyes, and it’s the best feeling, this coming home, this returning to real life and all its challenges with the man I adore.
The jet brakes, slows, before turning to taxi toward the terminal. We both look out the windows at the lights and the activity.
“I wish we weren’t back,” I say wistfully as the lights of the terminal grow bigger and brighter. “Wish we could stay on this plane forever.”
“You’d get bored,” Michael says, “and we both have things we want to do. You have stories to tell, and I have people to heal. But I also know this: We’re meant to be together. We’re going to achieve amazing things together.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
He lifts my chin and studies my face with the crescent scar and then my lips that won’t stop smiling and finally my eyes. “But I also promise right here, right now, to support whatever it is you want to do.” His voice is so deep, it has a hint of a brogue in it. “I support whatever matters to you. You have my unconditional support, and my unconditional love. I just ask that whatever journey you choose, you include me.”
And that’s when I’m all his, completely, not just the broken pieces of me, but the whole heart, soul, and funny bone. Michael knows how to make me laugh and hope and believe in all the things I had stopped believing in. Best of all, he loves me, the real me, not just the pretty face on TV.
I lean forward and kiss him, and just like before, once I start I can’t stop. I’m just happy, so happy.
“I love you,” I whisper against his mouth, and it crosses my mind that I am complete and content. I have all I could want and more. Because youth is fleeting and beauty does fade, but the one part of us that never ages is our heart.
I don’t need to be glossy and flawless. I don’t need a pretty face. I just need my heart. It’s a good heart, a beautiful heart, and it’s a fighter. It knows how to forgive and knows when to make a stand, and most of all, it knows how to love.
Love.
Love is the real answer. Love is everything.
About the Author
I imagine God blessing me as a baby much the way the three fairy godmothers blessed the infant princess in Sleeping Beauty. I see God peering over my crib and, after much thought, bestowing on me three special gifts: humor, optimism, and tenacity. Of these three, He gave tenacity in the greatest abundance.
At nine I was tested by a prominent foundation that measures skills and aptitudes. Because they weren’t used to measuring children my age, I came up lacking in vocabulary, and my test results showed that I lacked finger dexterity as well. I would never be a concert pianist. I would probably also struggle to thread the eye of a needle. But I did score off the charts in one area, and that was foresight.
Foresight meant that I could work for long periods of time to achieve a goal. Foresight meant that I could work alone for long periods of time. Foresight meant I didn’t give up easily.
I suppose in the world of skills and gifts, there are more glamorous gifts, but industriousness— and that good old gift of tenacity— has helped me achieve the seemingly impossible. I didn’t know any novelists growing up. I didn’t know that I could publish. I just knew I loved books and stories, and I had to try to write them, too.
When people ask me today for writing tips or insights into my success, I say, never give up. Don’t accept defeat. And be willing to keep learning.
This mantra became my personal mantra while writing Easy on the Eyes. This book challenged me at every turn. I spent four months writing from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m. and then another two months tearing it apart and trying it again. And then another month attacking it yet again. And then again even in the copyediting stage.
In contrast, Mrs. Perfect rolled from my fingertips. The writing was smooth, taut, dreamlike, whereas writing Easy on the Eyes felt like open-heart surgery without anesthesia.
In this new novel, I had to work, dig deep, struggle for the story. And for the first time in a long time I felt like a writer, not an author. Writing became something active and alive, a fierce process that required all of my talent and all of my patience and all of my skill. Easy on the Eyes ended up being a gift. I rediscovered how much I love a good challenge and how even the most difficult work becomes rewarding if you keep a sense of humor and remain hopeful (there are those other gifts!).
The great thing about being forty-five instead of thirty-five or twenty-five is that I don’t have to be perfect, and I don’t have to know everything, and I don’t have to get it right the first time, or all the time. I just have to try. And I just have to be myself.
In the five years I’ve written for 5 Spot, I’ve grown to not just like myself, but love myself.
I love even all the bad stuff about me, the negatives like pride, and temper, vanity, willfulness, and ambition, because without the bad, I wouldn’t have the good, and the good is very good.
Easy on the Eyes reminded me that I still have a few goals and dreams left. I want to be allowed to age gracefully. I want to be valuable even with wrinkles and extra padding. I want to be loved even though I’ll always be flawed. And I want to keep counting my blessings.
Humor, optimism, tenacity.
Especially tenacity. Because as I’ve learned, as long as we don’t quit, we don’t fail.
5 Steps to Ageless Beauty
1 Make Your Hair Look Great
Play your hair up with a good cut and color and have fun. You don’t have to cut your hair off after forty. Long hair is gorgeous at any age.
2 Softer Makeup
A lighter lipstick is more flattering as we hit our forties and beyond. Darker lip colors tend to age. Discover how softer, lighter colors can light up the face.
3 Own Your Style
Don’t chase trends. Develop your own style and make it work for you. We’re big girls now. We don’t have to play follow the leader.
4 Go for a Great Fit
A perfect fit always flatters, and well-tailored clothes look gorgeous no matter the price.
5 Be Happy
There’s nothing more beautiful than a woman who smiles. Enjoy being you!
If you liked
EASY ON THE EYES,
here are two more books that will hit the SPOT
From the author of KNITTING UNDER THE INFLUENCE, a novel about adult sisters and the havoc they wreak on one another.
“A witty romp.”
—Marie Claire
When Raquel Rose tells her family she is terminally ill, they go from treating her like dirt to like a queen. So, when she finds out it was a mistake, she can’t bear to them the truth.
“Live a Little is wise, winning, and funny, with engaging characters that pull you in and pages that crackle with wit and insight.”
—VeronicaWolff, author of Master of the Highlands
