by Yvette Hines
Nodding, Mary Ann stepped away. Donald patted his son on his back then led his wife toward the front of the house. The rest of the family didn’t speak or say anything as they set his gifts on the den table and followed the example set by Chase’s parents. Jax was the only one that paused just to tap Chase on top of the shoulder lightly with his fist. Chase glanced at him and the two communicated some sort of a ‘male understanding’ through the look. Chase nodded and Jax left after that.
The only ones that remained in the room were myself, Kalan, Chase and Leeza, whose face continued to alternate between discomfiture and haughtiness. As my feet felt rooted to the wood floor, I couldn’t understand that last look. How could the woman not feel sick to her stomach that she’d messed up so fucking bad a relationship with a great guy? Chase would have given her the world on a solid gold platter or killed himself trying.
Kalan moved to stand before Leeza, both of them around five-nine in height, only an inch shorter than me. I watched Kalan eye the woman from head to slowly and gaze back up at the woman with disgust glowing bright in her expression. “You bitch. I will never forget how you hurt my cousin tonight. Never.”
I saw Kalan flex her fingers as if she wanted to claw Leeza’s face up.
Chase’s gaze met mine, his dark gray stare appeared darker and with sparks of anger flashing in them—a terrible storm brewing.
The urge to go to him and wrap my arms around his broad shoulders and lend him my comfort was overwhelming. I wanted to soothe his hurt to the point I felt ill all over with the thought of his pain.
He shook his head then said, “Oriana, take Kalan out of here please.”
Were my thoughts apparent on my face? Pushing that away, I inhaled and went to Kalan. “Come on Kay, let’s go.”
Taking her arm, I gave a firm tug to lead Kalan away from Leeza before she dug into the other woman’s face. Not that Leeza hadn’t earned it, but I had no doubt that it would probably only add to Chase’s stress.
As soon as I was sure Kalan wasn’t going to turn around and head back to Leeza, I let go of her arm.
At the front door, Kalan stopped. “Shit, Oriana, we left all that stuff in the kitchen.”
I had forgotten in the craziness about the kitchen and dining room being decorated. That was the last thing Chase needed to concern himself with.
“Don’t worry about it. Just make sure his parents and the rest of the family get to their cars and home safe. I can handle it,” I told her.
There were low tones coming from the den. I hoped Leeza had sense enough to plead for mercy and beg for Chase’s forgiveness, not that she deserved it.
Folding her long blond bangs behind her ear, Kalan asked, “You sure? I can get the relatives off and come back.”
“Positive. I’ll be quiet as a mouse. I can get things straight and sneak out the back.” I gave her a smile hoping it reassured her. Kalan cared deeply for her cousin, I knew that. Even though Chase was about four years older than both of us, he was like a brother since neither of them had siblings.
She hugged me and said, “Thanks. I’ll call you tomorrow after I talk to Chase.”
Nodding, I closed the door behind her and moved quickly to the back of the house. My goal was to try and put Chase’s house back to rights and then leave and give the couple the privacy they needed to sort their relationship out. Or not.
I buried that thought as I started closing up plastic containers filled with fruit, vegetables, hot wings, pinwheels and so much more. I wondered for a moment how the family thought we would eat all this food tonight. The Hendersons loved food as much as they did family get-togethers. I should not have been surprised; it was always like that no matter the occasion. I was thankful that Chase’s refrigerator wasn’t overstocked so it was easy to find a place to put things. During the two months he was gone, Leeza must not have grocery shopped or cooked much. The crispers were practically overflowing with fresh fruits and vegetables, proof that Chase got deliveries of farmer goods to his house also, but that was it. I was pretty sure the housekeeper had put things up.
I took the Champagne bottles out of the freezer that were in there chilling, moved one to the refrigerator and stored the others in the pantry with Donald’s box wine and the beer. Twenty minutes later, I was in the dining room with a trash bag filling it with balloons and streamers as quick as I could.
The house was eerie, silent. I wasn’t sure if Chase and Leeza were still in the den or if they’d taken their conversation upstairs.
Not your business.
Almost done, I hustled around the twelve person table and grabbed one end of a ticker tape that had ‘Happy Birthday’ writing in blue and green alternating colors. I rolled it around my hands, following it to the other corner.
“Oriana?”
I screamed and jumped as I turned around to face Chase. Caught up in my own actions, I hadn’t heard him moving through the house.
“Sorry to scare you.” He stared at me, questions etched into his features, both his hands buried deep in the pockets of his slacks.
One hand on my pounding heart, the other pressed against the wall with tape sliding from my wrist to the floor. “My fault, I should have been paying attention… I mean not listening…but I—” I groaned. I didn’t want Chase to think I wanted to hear what he was talking about with his girlfriend, intruding on them.
Pulling his hands from his pocket, he waved one before his body, dismissing my confused words. “I thought everyone had left.” He peered toward the archway that led to the kitchen as if he were looking for others in his family.
“They did. I stayed.” I gestured to the bag of decorations and the table that was still dressed with his uncut cake and dishes. “I didn’t think you should have to worry about cleaning everything up, because you have other—”
“Nonsense to handle.” His dark gaze held mine. There were shadows in his eyes—disappointment and cynicism.
The feeling that went along with a relationship that went south and off the course you’d set for it. I was all too familiar with the emotions of a bad romance.
“Uh, yeah.” Nervous, I fingered the clip at the top of my head holding my hair up off my neck. “I’m sure you all will work it out.”
Chase exhale was rough and loud. “Doubtful since I told her to leave and never come back. Tomorrow I’ll call a moving company and have them take her things to a storage unit until she gets another place.”
I didn’t know what to say to that bit of information. I told myself it was still no concern of mine, but I couldn’t stop the patter of excitement in my core. “Well, whatever you’ve decided I’m sure it’s the right choice.” Licking my lips, I swallowed and said, “I’ll be out of your hair in a second.”
“No need to rush off.” Folding his hands over his chest, he stared down at his image on the cake. “Some birthday, huh?”
I gathered the streamer from the pool it had made on the polished hardwood floor and shoved it into the trash bag. “Good thing you have many more ahead of you.”
Glancing up, he smiled. There was only a glimmer of joy in it, but I could see he was trying to push through the emotions of the night.
“That’s true.”
Tying the bag, I set it by the archway and moved to the table to collect the plates and forks.
“Leave them,” he ordered.
Quickly, I lifted my hands away. It was his birthday, if he wanted the cake and items there, I would respect his wishes. “Okay. I’ll just take the trash with me as I go. Not sure if you saw your gifts on the coffee table in the den.”
He gave a sharp nod of affirmation.
No other reason to remain, I turned and reached down for the bag, ready to depart.
“Don’t go, Oriana.”
Glancing over my shoulder, I rose and stared at Chase unsure if I understood him correctly. “What?”
Gripping the back of the wooden chair before him, he kept his gaze on me. “I thought I wanted to be alone. But, I don’t.�
�� He lifted a single shoulder and dropped it. “It’s still my birthday.”
Turning, I faced him unsure of what he wanted from me. “It is.”
“How about sharing some cake with me?” His eyebrows rose high and he appeared years younger, vulnerable—a feat for such a big man.
“Uh, you know I can call Kalan back…or Jax, I’m sure he could be here in a pinch.” It wasn’t that I didn’t want to stay with him, I just knew myself, time alone with Chase was a dangerous place emotionally for me.
“I’d like you to share this with me… Unless you need to go, have other plans or something?” Those intense dark gray eyes held me captive.
I shook my head. “No. Nowhere. I’ll cut a couple slices.” I moved to the table.
“Nope. I’ll take care of it. I believe it's traditional for the birthday person to make the first cut.” He picked up the knife and moved two plates before him.
“You’re right, it is. While you do that…there’s a bottle of champagne still in the refrigerator.”
“You get that. I will take care of the cake.”
“You got it.” I went into the kitchen. Once there I placed my hands on the counter and took a few deep breaths. My heart was beating so hard with excitement not only because I was around Chase, but more because he needed me at this moment and had allowed me to see his hurt. I didn’t want to abuse his trust in me to be there for him. I also had to get myself together. The last thing I needed was to allow the ghosts of my old feelings for him to rise from the emotional graveyard I had buried them in. This was one night and a piece of cake, nothing more.
“Where’s that champagne, Oriana?” he called out. “Or did you decide to go for the box wine I’m sure my father brought.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Coming right up.” Hurrying, I grabbed two crystal flutes and the bottle from the bottom shelf of the refrigerator door and returned to the dining room.
Chase had two dessert plates filled with big squares of cake placed before one end of the table and the seat beside it.
“Oh, God, Chase. I think we’d make ourselves sick eating all that.”
“Hey if you can’t get an intense sugar high on your birthday when can you.” He pulled out my chair at the side of the head of the table.
Thanking him, I sat and set the items in my hand down. “True. But, I’ll pay for it at the gym tomorrow or my hips will.”
He took the seat beside me and smiled. “Your hips are prefect.”
My stomach tightened. I never expected that Chase had even looked anywhere on my body but my face. “Uh, thanks.”
“None needed.” Opening the bottle, he poured the pale liquid into the glasses, filling them practically to the brim.
“Whoa… one of us will have to drive home tonight.” I claimed one of the glasses which appeared to have about a millimeter less of alcohol than the other.
“I’m sure the sugar rush will absorb most of the alcohol.” He winked at me, a glimmer of the usual confident Chase he normal appeared to be.
I laughed. “In what medical research did you get that?”
“Birthday-ology 101.”
“Whatever. Make a wish and we’ll toast to a happier year for you.” I smiled.
“I don’t need to wish for anything but what I have right now. Cake, champagne, good company, a successful business and a scheming, unfaithful opportunist out of my life.” He clinked his glass against the rim of mine.
I hadn’t moved, just stared at him. “I’m sure you’re not the first man to be fooled by a pretty face and hot body.”
He shook his head then downed more than half his glass of alcohol. When he set it beside his cake, he said, “I’m not even mad at her for being who she is. I’d heard the rumors about her just wanting to catch a big fish. People told me the only sincere affection she had was to money and status, however, I still got caught up.” He shoved his hands through his short, wavy dark hair.
“We all make mistakes of the heart.”I gulped down the champagne and felt the bubbles tickle my nose as the intoxication rushed to my head. I reminder that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast that morning. I’d worked through lunch on a new presentation after I’d gotten the call from Kalan about the celebration being moved to tonight.
Chase grunted. “The heart. I should have left it at sex and stuck to the women I was normally attracted to instead of forcing this.” His gaze rested on my face.
I felt uncomfortable under his observation. I knew his last girlfriend had been thicker in form than Leeza, just like the women prior I had met. Most of them were nurses and school teachers, average working class women. Not sure what to say, I picked up my fork and took two bites of the dessert. I focused on the moist cake and thick butter cream on my tongue. “The cake is delicious. You should try it.”
Looking away, he grabbed his fork and lifted a big bite to his mouth. “Really good,” he said after swallowing the piece. “My family really loves having you around, Oriana.”
Smiling, I said, “I’m glad. I like being with them too. My family is so estranged we don’t have the closeness of the Henderson clan. I’m just glad you all let me hang around.”
He chuckled and drank more champagne then lowered the glass. “You say that like you're some stray dog we feed occasionally.”
“A well fed one.” I ate another forkful of cake.
“After all these years, you’re like family…but not.” His voice picked up the normal deep husky tones I was used to hearing.
Raising my glass to my lips, I shrugged. I wasn’t sure if Chase was trying to tell me that I would never be family, always an outsider, or something else. I didn’t need anyone to remind me that at any moment the Hendersons could tell Kalan to stop inviting me to gatherings. However, I was happy to be there until that happened.
“I know I’m not family.” I guzzled more alcohol, taking the liquid beyond the halfway point in my glass.
“Don’t take offense. I don’t mean it in a bad way.” He set his glass down and leaned forward with his hands folded on top of the table.
He was closer now and that made me more nervous. There was only so much space between us and with his new position, I could smell the scent of his cologne. It was the combination of sage, mandarin, vanilla and French clary sage. I knew the notes. It was the cologne I’d helped Kalan choose for Chase for Christmas. Blended with his natural musk it was more potent on his skin than it had been in the bottle at the store and additionally more intoxicating than the champagne saturating my blood stream.
“Look, Chase, I know who I am and my place in the world and I’m okay with it.” I was a confident, successful business woman and I knew I wasn’t the hottest thing on heels but I caused more than a few heads to turn in my direction when I was out and about.
“I’m glad you are.” He still held the same position. “I for one have some serious doubts about where my life is going. My personal life, case in point…tonight’s event.”
I just wanted him to sit back, move away. It was hard for me to take in a breath without his scent clouding my mind.
“You know what they say— life happens.”
His chuckle was loud. “I thought that was shit happens.”
Laughing with him, I said, “I think it all amounts to the same.”
One of his hands took hold of mine. I coughed at the heat of his touch, practically choking on the last roll of laughter still trying to come out.
“Tell me something.”
I stared at his large tanned hand swallowing my brown one. “What’s that?”
“How could I be so blinded by Leeza’s false glamour when there was a woman so much more beautiful and emotionally sincere than her?”
Licking my bottom lip, I rolled it inward between my teeth and thought for a moment. I was never good with hypothetical questions, especially those surrounding the opposite sex and their reaction to gorgeous shallow women. As a full-figured girl, I wasn’t foolish about my looks. I knew I was more than just ‘a p
retty face’. However, I could fill up my hands and feet with how many times men looked past women like Kalan and me for the Leeza’s of the hour. Pulling my gaze from our hands, I looked up into his face. “Men. What woman can understand them?”
“I guess we’re easily distracted by shiny objects.” As he stared back at me, his fingers linked through mine and glided up and down the sides as if mindless.
Chase may have been absent to what his hands were doing, but my thoughts were fully focused on his touch and the tingling sensations set off by it. “Probably.”
“I still recall Kalan’s sophomore year in college when she brought you home during spring break to go deep sea fishing with the family.”
I groaned and tried to pull my hand away. “Oh, don’t remember that. I was sick practically the entire two days we were at sea on that rented boat. Embarrassing.”
His grip held. Not hard, but firm enough that it kept our fingers linked. “When I think about that week we spent in that beach house I don’t think about you being sick, I think about how much I wanted to kiss you from the moment you stepped out of Kalan’s car.”
If it was possible to swallow one’s tongue, it would have happened to me at that moment. I couldn’t believe the words I’d just heard coming from Chase’s lips. “What?” The single word squeaked out of my tight throat.
“I restrained myself because I didn’t know if it would be wanted from you and I didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable through the week.”
Oh, Lord. I recalled how attracted to him I had been. I felt like a silly, lustful teenager. Here Kalan and her family had welcomed me on their trip and all I wanted to do was find myself in my friend’s cousin’s arms. “I…I—”
“I know I’ve probably shocked you. My instant desire for you caught me off guard, too.” His thumb stroked the sensitive area of my palm. “After that week, Kalan brought you home to Charlotte so often you became like a family member. Then you moved here and seemed to solidify your place in the Henderson clan. So, I kept my feelings to myself.”
Fate was a cruel bitch. That was the only reason why I’d been trapped in a house with a man I’d had fantasies about for years and worked hard to push those feelings away only to have him tell me he’d experienced the same pull toward me. In light of the fact that his ex-fiancée had just walked out of his life barely an hour ago, I wouldn’t allow myself to believe this was anything more than a man clearing his emotional conscious. It was the alcohol he’d consumed talking.
