by Regina Hart
“Why wouldn’t you want me to attend the reunion with you?”
Because I didn’t want to see you flirt with my former classmates.
Rose looked into his troubled hazel eyes. She scanned the clean lines of his classically handsome sienna features. He made her heart jump. “I’m going to attend it alone. The lies were becoming too complicated.”
“But we’ve invested so much time and energy into developing our fake relationship.”
“Yes, and I’m sorry about that.” Though not completely. She regretted the heartache that was giving her sleepless nights, but she couldn’t regret the time she’d spent getting to know him.
“Then why are you leaving me behind? What have I done wrong?”
“You haven’t done anything wrong.” Rose rushed to reassure Donovan. “This isn’t about you.” Not exactly.
“Then what is it about?”
Rose stood and crossed to her fireplace. “It’s about me.” Her mind raced ahead for the explanation. “I didn’t want to hide behind one man to make another man jealous. That would be childish.”
“But it didn’t seem childish before?”
“No, it didn’t.” Rose rubbed her left shoulder, trying to ease the tension. “I guess the time we spent together helped me realize that.”
Donovan frowned. “You think I helped you see that?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then why don’t you want to make our fake relationship real?”
She’d opened the door to that question, the only question she didn’t want him to ask her ever again. “We’re too different, Van.” Dear God, she wished they weren’t.
“How are we different?” Donovan stood, shoving his fists into the front pockets of his navy cargo shorts. “Is it my past? You told me it didn’t matter to you that I’d been homeless for a year and a half as a kid, but it does matter, doesn’t it?”
“No.” Rose wouldn’t allow him to think that of her or of himself. “How could you possibly think that of me? I told you that I was impressed by you and all you’ve accomplished. I lied about attending my reunion. That was wrong and I’m sorry. But I didn’t lie when I said I don’t think less of you because of your past.”
“If this doesn’t have anything to do with my past, then I don’t see how we’re that different.”
“Van, I wish you’d just accept my decision to end our relationship—all versions of it.” Rose wrapped her arms around her waist. “I don’t think it would work out between us. And that’s my decision.”
The silence was heavy between them. The tension built. Finally, Donovan nodded once. “All right, I’ll accept your decision. Goodbye, Rose.”
Rose swallowed the thick lump in her throat. “Goodbye, Van. And thank you for everything.”
“Of course.” His gaze lingered on her face a moment longer.
Rose watched as he turned to leave again; this time, for good. As her front door closed behind him, she let her tears flow.
* * *
“Earth to Van. Are you with us, pal?” Tyler’s teasing broke through Donovan’s consciousness.
“Sorry. What did I miss?”
It was early the next morning, the first day of September. Donovan sat with Tyler and Xavier in Xavier’s office. But his mind kept replaying his conversation with Rose from the night before.
“Sleep.” Xavier sipped his coffee from the huge company mug.
“Xavier’s right.” Tyler’s forehead was creased with concern. “You look terrible. And this toxic substance you call coffee doesn’t seem to be helping.”
“It might if he drank it.” Xavier gestured toward Donovan’s mug.
Donovan glanced at the mug of coffee balanced on his lap. It was practically full. Yet he knew the brew was strong. Its scent permeated Xavier’s office.
His friends were right. He hadn’t been able to settle down last night. Rose, her reunion and their lovemaking had circled his mind like a gam of sharks.
“What’s on your mind?” Xavier asked.
Rose wasn’t the first woman to break up with him. But the end of their relationship was the hardest to face. Was that because she meant the most to me?
“Rose broke up with me.” Donovan left his mug on a corner of Xavier’s desk and stood to wander the almost painfully neat office. “It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? How do you ‘break up’ a fake relationship?”
“It started out fake, but it was obvious that you developed feelings for her.” Tyler’s voice carried from behind Donovan.
“I didn’t think I would. My first impression of her wasn’t great. Then I realized she was tough on the outside, but kind, caring, brilliant and funny on the inside. Now I can’t get her out of my mind.” Donovan rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, trying to banish the images of Rose that bedeviled him.
“What happened between you?” Xavier’s question wasn’t that easy to answer.
“I don’t know.” Donovan had spent a sleepless night, wondering the same thing.
“Did you ask her?” Xavier sounded as baffled as Donovan felt.
Donovan stopped in front of Xavier’s office window. Thin strips of clouds drifted across an azure sky. The image was a backdrop for more visions of Rose: her chocolate eyes, beautiful smile and brilliant presence that lit up a room despite the dark, oppressive colors of her wardrobe. When he closed his eyes he could smell her scent, feel her skin as soft as silk against his palm.
“She told me she wasn’t going to her reunion. I later found out that was a lie.” Donovan scowled at the view from the fifth-floor window. “When I confronted her, she said a fake relationship was too complicated to keep track of.”
“She has a point.” Xavier’s voice was thoughtful.
“I agree,” Tyler said.
“So do I.” Donovan turned away from the window and walked past his chair and Xavier’s glass-and-metal conversation table. “But my not going to the reunion doesn’t mean we have to stop seeing each other.”
“Then why did she break things off?” Tyler shifted on his gray cushioned seat to face Donovan.
“All she’d say is that she believes we’re too different.” The more Donovan mulled over Rose’s reasoning, the more irritated he became. It wasn’t true that they were “too different.” They had a lot in common.
“How are you different?” Xavier asked.
Donovan rubbed his forehead. “She wouldn’t give examples.”
“Then that’s not the real reason.” Tyler’s response was the realization Donovan had come to overnight. Rose was lying. But why?
“Do you want to know why she broke up with you?” Xavier’s dark eyes pinned Donovan as though trying to read his mind.
“Yes. I know I’m not the only one who developed real feelings in this make-believe relationship.”
“Then ask her again.” Xavier leaned back on his black leather executive chair, balancing his coffee mug on his right knee.
Donovan shook his head. “I’ve already asked her more than once and in different ways. She won’t come clean with me.”
“She must have told her sisters how she feels. Do you want me to ask Iris?” Tyler’s offer was tempting.
“No, thanks.” Donovan rubbed his forehead. “I don’t want to put anyone in the middle.”
“What do you want to do?” Xavier studied Donovan as they waited for his response.
He didn’t have an answer. “I think the reason she ended things is that she’s afraid to trust me.”
“Why?” Tyler’s voice held a defensive note as though he was the one being attacked.
“She doesn’t want to get hurt again.” Donovan blew a frustrated breath. “Rose broke up with her ex-fiancé when she found out he was cheating on her. She thinks I’ll do the same thing.”
/> Xavier arched an eyebrow. “Do you really want a relationship with someone who doesn’t trust you? You’ll have to prove yourself every day.”
Tyler sighed. “That would get really old really fast, Van.”
“I want a relationship with Rose.” Donovan looked from Tyler to Xavier. “That means I need to convince her to trust me.”
Xavier spread his hands. “How?”
“I don’t know yet.” But he had to try. He’d rather spend his future proving himself to her than spend his future without her.
* * *
“Why did you tell Van you weren’t going to your reunion?” Iris got straight to the point when Rose answered her cell phone on Tuesday evening.
Lightbulbs came on in Rose’s mind. “You’re the one who told Van I was still going.”
“Maybe if you’d let me in on your plan, I wouldn’t have given away your secret.” Iris’s response was wrapped in irritation.
“If I’d told you what I was going to do, you would’ve talked me out of it.” Rose imagined her sister curled up on her chunky emerald sofa—or perhaps her matching love seat—as Iris chided her.
Rose was certain she was right. Iris was faithful to family, but she also was loyal to friends. She would have tried to convince Rose not to mislead Donovan. But Rose believed what she had done was right for everyone in the long run.
“Why did you tell him you weren’t going?” Iris returned to the question at hand. She’d always been stubborn, even as a child.
“Things were getting complicated. I thought it would be easier for Van and me if we scrapped the whole reunion idea.”
“But you’re going alone.”
“That’s right.” Rose sat up on her black leather sofa and laid the romantic suspense novel she’d been reading on her coffee table. She hadn’t been able to concentrate on it, anyway. Thoughts of Donovan kept intruding: his voice, his smile, his scent, the weight of his body on hers.
“I thought you didn’t want to go alone. That was the whole point of my introducing you to Van in the first place.” Iris’s words brought Rose back to their discussion. “What happened? Did Ben and his wife get divorced?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Then what?”
Rose stood and crossed to her living room’s front windows. “I didn’t want to get involved with another player.”
“A player?” Iris’s voice rose in disbelief. “Van? How many times do I have to tell you he’s not a player?”
Rose planted her right hand on her hip and tightened her grip on her cell phone. “You may know Van as a friend, but I know him as a boyfriend. Well, a pretend one.”
“His character is the same. Van has loyalty and integrity. That doesn’t change when his libido switches on.”
Through the sheer curtains of her front windows, Rose stared at the quiet neighborhood outside her home in Columbus’s Short North area. The evening shadows were growing longer. She could see one of the entrances to Goodale Park.
Rose massaged the tense muscles at the nape of her neck. “Women ogle him wherever he goes.”
“He’s handsome, successful and charming. There’s a lot to admire.”
“The afternoon you and I had lunch with Ty and Van, every woman in the diner was staring at him—and at Ty.”
“I don’t blame them.” Iris’s tone was dry.
Rose frowned. “That doesn’t bother you?”
“Were either Ty or Van staring back?”
“No.”
“Then it shouldn’t bother you, either.”
Memories of the times she and Donovan had gone out together in public streamed across her mind: coffee at the café when they’d agreed to work together, the impromptu lunch when he’d bought her roses, the celebratory dinner with Maxine and Isiah at the pizzeria. Each time, Donovan had received second and third looks from more than one woman, but he hadn’t appeared to notice the attention. Instead, his focus had been on Rose. His gaze, his smiles, his touches had been only for her. Still...
“You’re right. The attention he gets from other women shouldn’t bother me, but it does.” Rose turned away from the window and crossed back to her sofa.
“Van really likes you, Rosie,” Iris softened her tone. “I can tell by the way he talks about you. I could see it when we had those family dinners. He’s a great guy. Give him a chance.”
Rose’s determination wavered under Iris’s words. Her head and her heart were on opposite sides of this debate. She had to remind herself of the risks. “Claudia’s getting a divorce.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Iris seemed confused by the apparent change in subject.
“When I told her Van and I broke up, she asked if she could call him. I don’t want to have to worry about the women waiting in the wings for my relationship to fall apart.”
“Then don’t.” Iris sighed. “Rosie, I know Ben hurt you. But you can’t condemn all men because of one jerk’s actions.”
“What do you want me to do, Iris?”
“I want you to stop standing in the way of your own happiness.” Iris’s words were sharp with impatience. Right about now, her baby sister had probably uncurled from her sofa and was pacing her own living room in her town house nearby.
“I’m not standing in my way.” Rose dropped onto her sofa. “I’m protecting myself.”
“To what end, Rose? Do you even know?”
“What do you mean?” She was losing patience with Iris’s arguments. “You’re spending a lot of time and energy defending Van. Why don’t you use some of that energy to try to understand how I’m feeling, little sister?”
“I’m not defending Van. I’m trying to help you.”
“How?”
“Why won’t you listen?”
“Because every word out of your mouth is a criticism.”
“Rose, you’re the one who said Ben had ruined the plans you’d had for yourself—marriage and children.” Iris’s urgency forced itself down the phone line. “You have another shot at those things with Van.”
“Van? Why would I even consider that with a man who’s a carbon copy of Ben?”
“But. He’s. Not. Will you listen?”
Rose’s heart wanted to, but her head was shouting them both down. “Iris, I can’t have this conversation with you.” She sighed, pushing herself to her feet again. “You and I have very different perspectives on romance. I’m glad you’ve never experienced what I have, and I hope you never do. I’m protecting myself the best way that I know how to.”
“You’ve taken it too far. I don’t want you to end up alone just because you’re too stubborn to know a good thing when he walks into your life.”
“I don’t need a man to make me happy. I’m not afraid to be alone.” Better to be alone than to experience another broken heart. And this time it would be a thousand times worse if Donovan was the one to break it.
“You’re running scared, Rosie. That’s not like you.” Iris’s accusation stung.
“It’s not fear. It’s wisdom from experience.”
“Whatever. I hope you come to your senses before you lose a good thing.”
On whose side was her sister? “Goodbye, Iris. Thanks for the call.”
“Get some sleep, Rosie.”
Rose ended the call, then returned to her sofa. Iris was wrong; she wasn’t running scared. She was being cautious. Yes, she missed Donovan. She missed him so much it was killing her. But calling off the relationship now was smarter than waiting for him to end it.
Wasn’t it?
* * *
“You were right, Lil.” Rose sat on the other side of the table from Lily at the downtown restaurant where they were having lunch on Wednesday afternoon.
“That’s always nice to hear.” Lily dro
ve her fork into her garden salad. “What was I right about this time?”
Rose looked around the popular lunch spot. It was located midway between their jobs. It was fortunate they’d arrived early. The crowd of customers waiting to be seated extended to the doorway.
She turned back to her barely touched burger and fries. “I was giving Ben too much power. I was letting my reaction to him and his new wife, and his soon-to-be family dictate how I would spend my reunion. That was stupid.”
“Yes, it was.” Lily took a sip of her ice water with lemon. “But don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s understandable.”
“I have a hard time believing you’d make the same mistake.” Rose dipped a steak fry in a pool of ketchup.
“Ha. Don’t bet on that. It’s always easier to see the solution to someone else’s problem.”
“You should tell that to Iris.” Rose still stung from last night’s argument with her youngest sister. “She thinks I’m handling this entire situation with Van wrong.”
“Why? What are you doing?”
“I’ve decided not to go to my reunion with him.” She sipped her iced tea. “I’m going to go alone.”
“Why?”
Rose looked up in surprise. “I thought you’d be happy with that decision. It’s what you recommended from the beginning.”
“It doesn’t matter what I think.” Lily forked up more salad. “It’s your reunion.”
Rose stared at Lily. She admired her sister’s Zen-like behavior, but sometimes it made her a little crazy. “I decided I didn’t have to bring a guy to my reunion as a measure of my worth or success. Like you said, I’m successful on my own.”
“I’m glad you’ve realized that.”
“Iris thinks I broke things off with Van because I’m running scared.”
“From what?”
“From having my heart broken. And she’s right. But am I wrong for not wanting to go through that again?”
“Of course not.”
“I’m glad someone understands.” Rose dragged the fry through her ketchup. “I have to protect myself.”
