The Other Side of Us (Harlequin Superromance)

by Sarah Mayberry

  “Tell them you’ll walk when it’s time to renew if they don’t come to the party. That’ll make them sweat.”

  “Would it make you sweat?”

  She gave him her shark’s smile. “That would be telling.”

  He swallowed the last of his toast and brushed his hands together. “On that note...”

  She watched as he made a halfhearted effort to tidy up before grabbing his jacket and paperwork. Mr. Smith followed them both as she walked him to the door.

  “Drive safely,” she said as Patrick stepped onto the porch.

  He looked at her for a beat, then leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Look after yourself, Mac.”

  She watched him walk down the driveway, then glanced next door. She wasn’t sure what she was hoping for—Oliver standing on the porch with a big red bow around his neck?—but she frowned when she realized his wagon was missing.

  Huh. He must have been up super early this morning.

  She went inside and finished cleaning up after her ex-husband. Once she’d put the blankets in the hall cupboard, she had a shower and made her own breakfast and went to check to see if Oliver’s car was in the driveway.

  It wasn’t. She tried his phone again, and again got shunted to voice mail.

  “This is getting ridiculous, Smitty. Where is he?”

  By midday she was starting to feel a little twitchy. She didn’t understand where he could have gone that would take so long, or why he wasn’t returning her calls. She was considering calling the local hospital to double-check there hadn’t been any accidents when her phone rang.

  “Oliver,” she said as she took the call. “Hello. I’ve been wondering where you’d got to.”

  “Sorry. I was driving and my phone was in the back.”

  “That’s all right. I was just wondering what you were up to today and what time you want me to make our booking for dinner tonight.”

  She could hear traffic in the background, lots of it.

  “I was actually calling to let you know I’m on my way to Sydney.”

  “What? Has something happened?” The worst possible scenarios started playing in her head—deceased relatives, house fires and other catastrophes.

  “No. I mean, not in the way you mean. No one’s dead or anything.”

  “Well, that’s a good start, I always think,” she joked, even though her heart was racing. There was something about the way he sounded, so flat and emotionless....

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “This isn’t going to work, Mackenzie. I thought it would, but I’m not up for it. I’m sorry.”

  It took her a moment to understand he was talking about them. About their relationship. She reached out a hand to steady herself on the kitchen counter.

  “Okay. Um...sorry. You’ve caught me on the hop here a little,” she said. “Can I ask what’s changed? Because yesterday I thought things were going pretty well.”

  He’d been lovely, making her breakfast and holding her hand on the beach and making her laugh. She’d felt precious and cherished and, yes, loved, and she’d finally acknowledged to herself that she was in love with him.

  And now he was on the way to Sydney.

  There was a long silence on the other end of the phone.

  “It’s hard to explain. Last night...wasn’t good. I wasn’t good. I’m not ready for this. I’m not ready for you.”

  She attempted to push aside the fear crowding her thoughts and listen to him, to understand. “Because of Edie? Because of the divorce?”

  “Because of everything. I’m not ready to take anything on faith right now, you know? Last night made that pretty clear. You have no idea how close I came to jungle crawling beneath your window so I could find out what was going on between you and your ex.”

  There was bitter humor lacing his words.

  “You thought something was going on with me and Patrick? Because nothing happened. There was nothing going on.”

  He’d seemed so cool when he’d bowed out and left them to talk. Utterly at peace with the fact that her ex-husband had shown up out of the blue.

  That was before Patrick had inveigled his way into staying first for dinner and then the night, of course. She closed her eyes as it occurred to her how it must have looked when Patrick’s Ferrari remained parked in front of her house all night.

  “I wasn’t exactly rational,” Oliver said. “Which is pretty much my point. You don’t need me in your life right now, Mackenzie. And I can’t handle you.”

  She was holding the phone so tightly her fingers ached.

  “Nothing happened with Patrick, Oliver.” It was worth repeating. In fact, she’d repeat it ad nauseam until Oliver finally heard what she said. “He had too much wine with dinner and I put him to bed on the couch. End of story.”

  “You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Mackenzie.”

  “Of course I do. I care about you. You care about me. You absolutely have a right to know that even though my ex-husband stayed the night, he didn’t do it in my bed.”

  “Okay.”

  He sounded so...distant. A million miles away. How could they have gone from him holding her against his heart while he slept to being a universe apart in twenty-four hours? How could she have been planning her life around him at four in the morning and now he was on the road to Sydney? It didn’t feel possible.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you, Mackenzie.”

  Tears burned her throat. She tried to find something to say that wasn’t a plea.

  “Can we at least talk about this?”

  “I’m still on the road. But I’ll call you when I get home.”

  “Okay.”

  “Stay well, Mackenzie.”

  She couldn’t get anything past the lump in her throat. The next thing she knew, she was listening to the dial tone.

  She stood frozen for a long moment, utterly stunned by how quickly things had turned. Then reality caught up with her as key parts of their conversation hit home.

  I’m not ready for you... I can’t handle you, Mackenzie...I’m not ready to take anything on faith right now.

  Oliver was walking away. He’d stormed into her life like a freight train, riding to her rescue, enduring her antisocial rudeness, reminding her that there was more to life than rehab and producing a TV show. He’d made her feel sexy and desirable and alive again. He’d reignited her long-buried passion and dreams. He’d made her feel full of possibilities.

  And now he was pulling the pin. Because he wasn’t ready for her and because he thought she didn’t need him in her life.

  “Bullshit,” she said, the word rising from her belly on a wave of disbelief. She slapped her hand on the counter.

  Bullshit he wasn’t ready for her. And bullshit she didn’t need him. She needed him like she needed air. She needed him like she needed heat and light and laughter. She needed him so much it hurt.

  When he called again, she would tell him. She would apologize for what had happened with Patrick, and she would let Oliver know in no uncertain terms how she felt about him.

  Until then, she was—somehow—going to have to hang on to her patience and her sanity and not panic. Because this was not over. Not by a long shot.

  Because she needed something to do to keep the anxiety at bay, she pulled everything out of the hall cupboard. She worked methodically, refolding linen, pairing pillowcases with sheet sets, culling ragged towels and putting them aside for the ragbag. She couldn’t stop thinking about last night as she worked, about what it must have been like for Oliver. She’d been so stupid, so unthinking. If she’d only stopped to consider the situation for a moment, she would have understood that Patrick barging in and attempting to take over would have sent up all sorts of flares for Oliver.

  After all, not six months ago, he’d discovered his wife had been having an affair for almost as long as they’d been married. With a man she’d been involved with beforehand.

  Mackenzie couldn’t even begin to c
omprehend what the discovery of his wife’s betrayal had done to Oliver’s sense of trust. Edie’s breach of faith had been so profound, so all-encompassing....

  And last night, Mackenzie had blown off her plans with Oliver because Patrick had conned his way into her house. Worse, she’d foolishly, blindly, agreed to let Patrick sleep on the couch, and she’d missed Oliver’s phone call....

  God.

  She felt sick, thinking about what must have been going through Oliver’s mind as he sat next door while she pandered to Patrick’s ego. What he must have been imagining, or trying not to imagine.

  Somehow she managed to make it through the afternoon. As the light started to fade from the sky, she began pacing by her phone, willing it to ring. She should have asked where Oliver was so she’d have some idea when he might arrive in Sydney. As it was, the best she could do was pace and fret and chew her nails to the quick.

  When he hadn’t called by seven she called him and got voice mail. She left a message for him, but when he hadn’t called back by nine o’clock, she knew he wasn’t going to.

  So, what, that’s it? He drives off into the sunset and you’re supposed to nod and chalk up the best few weeks of your life to experience and move on?

  It was much easier to be angry than to give in to the horrible despair lapping at her ankles.

  He’d made promises to her. Not verbal ones, perhaps, but his body had made promises to her every time they slept with each other. He’d made love to her with a single-minded intensity and cradled her afterward as though she was important to him. He’d told her she drove him crazy and that this wasn’t only sex and that he wanted them to keep seeing each other when he went home.

  He’d made her believe that they’d found something special together despite the geographical challenges and the flux in both their lives.

  And now he was retreating at a million miles an hour and not returning her phone calls.

  If only Patrick hadn’t turned up on her doorstep yesterday. If only she’d told him to leave the script and she’d call him when she’d read it. If only she’d insisted that Oliver come over for dinner, or that she’d gone to him when she’d finished with Patrick.

  If only.

  Sick at heart, angry, confused and hurt, she went to bed. She lay awake for a long time, having imaginary conversations with Oliver where she said all the right things and he responded in all the right ways and the horrible, hollow feeling in her stomach went away.

  I don’t want this to be the end. How can this be the end?

  It was her last thought before she fell asleep. The first thing she did on waking was check her phone to see if there was anything from Oliver. There wasn’t. Short of bombarding him with phone calls until he picked up or getting on a plane and confronting him in person, she was out of options.

  She was on the verge of giving in and making another call when she heard the sound of the mailman’s motorcycle out in the street. Mail was a rarity for her, since she handled most of her bills online, but sure enough, the mailman stopped at her letter box.

  The back of her neck prickled with prescience and she shoved her feet into the nearest pair of shoes and made her way up the driveway in her pajamas. There was a lone envelope in the box and she knew before she picked it up that it was from Oliver.

  He was too good a man, too nice a man to simply cut her off at the knees. So he’d written her a letter and caught last night’s mail and now she was supposed to read it and accept his decision and move on.

  She stared at his sloping, elegant handwriting for a long moment, then she walked slowly to the house. She set the letter on the counter and crossed her arms over her chest and stared at the envelope some more.

  She felt as though she was standing at a crossroads, two unknown paths stretching before her. The path where she curled up in the corner and accepted that what had happened between her and Oliver had been nothing but a beautiful bubble that had been destroyed by the intrusion of reality on one side. And the path where she clung to the reality of her feelings for Oliver and his for her and chose to believe that even though there were so many odds working against them, they were meant to be together.

  For some reason, Patrick’s words from yesterday echoed in her mind.

  You never believed in us like that. You always held back. Always.

  It hit her then that she’d never held back with Oliver. Right from the start she’d given him nothing but honesty. She’d been brave with him and she’d been bold and she’d chosen to believe in them.

  She still chose to believe in them.

  Which meant that, really, there was only one path before her. She would have be brave and bold again to take it. She would have to pursue love with the same kind of fearless zeal she employed in her working life. She would have to put herself out there in every possible way.

  She took a moment to appreciate the depth and breadth of her decision. Then she picked up the envelope, opened it and read Oliver’s letter, because she wanted to know what ground she’d be fighting on when she went to find him.

  His letter made her cry, because, as always, he’d been honest to a fault. He apologized for his hasty departure and explained that at the time, it had felt as though he didn’t have a choice. He told her in painful, exposing detail how paranoid and anxious he’d been, sitting on his side of the fence knowing that she was alone with her very charming, very handsome ex-husband.

  He told her that in the short, in the perfect weeks he’d known her she’d made him feel as though the sun had come out from behind the clouds in his life. He told her that she was beautiful and sexy and clever and courageous and that he wanted her to be happy and to find the next thing in her life that would make her smile. And he told her that that thing could not be him right now because he was too messed up, too angry, too scared to be any good to anyone.

  Finally, he told her that he did not expect her to wait for him, because he knew that he had hurt her by leaving the way he had and that he understood that a man only had one chance in life to get it right with a woman like her.

  “Oliver...you foolish, beautiful man,” she whispered when she’d finished.

  Then she wiped the tears from her face and went to pack.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  IN OLIVER’S DREAM, he and Mackenzie were walking along the beach, joined together by Mackenzie’s crazy scarf.

  It was cold but they were warm and she was laughing. Then his dream self reached for the scarf and started tearing at it. Mackenzie watched him, her eyes huge pools of sadness, but she didn’t say anything. When he’d finished, the scarf was severed and she drifted away from him, her eyes accusing now. Asking him why he’d destroyed something that was good, something that made them both happy.

  He woke in a sweat, blinking rapidly to try to dispel the image of her standing alone on the beach.

  He made his way to the bathroom and used a towel to dry himself off. Then he went into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. Strudel padded into the room, her look questioning.

  “Just a bad dream, sweetheart. You go back to bed,” he told her.

  She stared at him fixedly for a moment, then crossed to the sink and settled at his feet with a heavy sigh. She’d been out of sorts, too, since they’d come home four days ago. Mooching around, off her food.

  Did dogs miss each other the way people did? Did Strudel dream about Mr. Smith?

  For her sake, he hoped not, because he missed Mackenzie so much his bones ached with it. It shouldn’t have been possible that someone he’d known for so short a time could have such a huge impact on his life. The fact remained, however, that he thought about her, he dreamed about her, he missed her, he craved her....

  He’d had her, too, for the briefest of times, before he’d screwed it up.

  He couldn’t think about that night without feeling anxious and panicky and ashamed all over again. He never wanted to be in that place again, so desperate and angry and out of control. He definitely didn’t w
ant to inflict that kind of crazy on Mackenzie. Didn’t want her to see him flailing around in his own bullshit. Didn’t want her to know how nuts and scary it was inside his head sometimes.

  He wanted only good for her, and he was not good. He was messed up and scared. He’d told her so, too, in the hardest, most revealing letter of his life. He figured it would be more than enough to convince her that she’d had a lucky escape.

  And if it wasn’t, if she was feeling even close to as shitty and sad and lonely as he was...well, then he was an asshole of the highest order. He’d had no business getting involved with her when he was so screwed up. He should have resisted the pull of attraction and turned his back on the sense of connection he’d felt with her. He should have barricaded himself inside his aunt’s place and worked through his crap on his own instead of inflicting it on her.

  He tried to reimagine the past several weeks if he’d done just that. If he’d kept his distance. If he hadn’t kissed her after she listened to him spout off about Edie. If he had turned her away when she showed up at his door, determined to seduce him within an inch of his life. If they hadn’t shared all those dinners and open fires and nights in her bed.

  He couldn’t. It was impossible to imagine himself not responding to her. Not being attracted to her. Not wanting her.

  So maybe all roads led to him standing at his kitchen sink in the middle of the night, sweaty and anxious and full of regret. Maybe he’d always been destined to break her heart—and his own—because he’d met her at the wrong time, because he couldn’t handle the way she made him feel and the corresponding fear that came with all the good stuff. Fear that she would betray and hurt him the way Edie had. Fear that he would never be able to trust her or anyone. Fear that his divorce had broken something inside him and he’d never repair it.

  He clicked his tongue and nudged Strudel gently. “Come on. Let’s go back to bed.”

  Strudel heaved herself to her feet and followed him to the bedroom. She did her usual circle routine on the mattress before settling with her head resting over his feet, her big brown eyes watching him solemnly.