The Best Laid Plans

by Sarah Mayberry

  “What do you call dating a string of women who mean nothing to you and then almost getting into some stupid co-parenting arrangement with a woman you’re clearly half-gone on because you haven’t got the balls to step up to the plate again?”

  Ethan stilled. For a moment he and his brother eyed each other silently.

  There were things he could tell his brother, justifications, explanations. Instead, he turned away. “Thanks for the movie.”

  “Ethan.”

  He could hear the regret in his brother’s voice but he kept walking. He pushed the speed limit all the way home, anger and unease dogging him.

  It didn’t help that his brother was right. Fear was what was holding him back where Alex was concerned. Fear and hard-earned caution. After what Cassie did, after the way his marriage had crumbled around his ears… How could he ever put so much faith in another human being again? How could he ever trust that what was said was real and true and sincere?

  And if his own experiences weren’t enough, there were the many small, sordid disappointments and betrayals he saw in his office on a daily basis to add weight to his argument.

  He might be in love with Alex. He might want her and miss her and think about her all the time. But he simply wasn’t up for the risk. He’d had to put himself together again piece by piece after Cassie had broken him.

  So, yeah, his brother was right. He was a coward. Too afraid to reach out for what he wanted. So afraid—he hit his steering wheel with the heel of his hand and swore—so afraid that he’d sat on his brother’s couch all night while she’d been out meeting another man. A man she might fall in love with and marry. A man who might be the one to make her happy and give her the babies and the life she deserved.

  He pulled over to the side of the road with a screech of tires. He barely got out of the car before what little he’d eaten for dinner burned its way up the back of his throat.

  He stood with his arms braced on his legs for a long moment. Then he spat into the gutter. Feeling about a million years old, he climbed back into his car.

  ALEX ALMOST CANCELED their racquetball game Wednesday night—it was her week for canceling things, after all—but she wanted to see Ethan. Which was on a par with wearing his tuxedo jacket for half the evening—pathetic and needy and destined to get her nowhere.

  As she pulled on her workout gear in the change room at the gym she tried to remember if loving and losing Jacob had been this painful. Maybe time had faded her memories but she didn’t think so. She’d done her level best and tried everything in her power to make things work. When they’d finally parted ways she’d at least had the satisfaction of knowing that she’d given it her best shot. With Ethan, there had been no shot. The gun had barely made it out of the holster. There had been the brief illusion of something—a fiction created by their agreement to try to co-parent a baby—then there had been that one night. After that, nothing but the painful realization that she had fallen in love with the wrong man yet again.

  She shouldered her gym bag, grabbed her racquet and left the change rooms. Her heart pumped out a quick double-beat as she approached their regular court. She curled her fingers around the cool metal of the door handle, took a deep breath and entered the court.

  He was stretching his legs out against the wall. She’d only seen him once today in passing as they both grabbed coffees between clients. They’d barely had the time to exchange greetings before she’d had to race off. She stole a moment to admire the pull of his dark navy T-shirt across his broad shoulders and the snug fit of his shorts. Then she cleared her throat.

  “Hey.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “Hey.”

  She threw her bag beside his in the corner.

  “How did your day go?” she asked.

  “So-so. How about you?”

  “Yeah, you know. The usual.”

  Normally they were knee-deep in mutual insults by now. She wracked her brain from something to say.

  “Hope you’re ready for me to wipe the floor with you, Pretty Man,” she said.

  He smiled faintly but didn’t say anything.

  She grabbed her racquet and took up position on the court. Ethan followed suit.

  “Prepare to feel the pain,” she said.

  “You’re perky today. Had a good night last night, did we?”

  She glanced at him. His expression was unreadable. She pretended to examine the grip on her racquet. No way was she telling him she canceled her date. She manufactured a casual shrug.

  “It was nice.”

  “Nice. What does that mean?” He bounced one of the balls and hit it at the wall so they could warm up with a few practice shots.

  She returned the shot. “It means I had a good time,” she lied.

  Ethan caught the ball on the full and sent it back at her. “So are you going to see him again?”

  She missed the shot and followed the ball into the corner to collect it. “You’re full of questions tonight.”

  He shrugged. “Just being a friend. So are you going to see him again or not?”

  “We haven’t decided yet.”

  “So it didn’t go that great then?”

  She didn’t know what to say to make him let it go. “Can we talk about something else? Head lice? Male-pattern baldness? Better yet, can we just play?”

  “Sure.”

  He served and they raced around the court until she caught him with a short, sharp corner shot.

  “So, was I right about the BMW and the house in Kew?” Ethan asked as she collected the ball and prepared to serve the next point.

  “That’s a pretty insulting question,” she said, frowning.

  “Why?”

  “Because it implies I went home with him on the first date.”

  “Did you?”

  Whoa. Where the hell had that come from?

  If it was any other man she’d ascribe his questions and veiled hostility to jealousy. But this was Ethan and he’d already made his feelings where she was concerned more than clear.

  She faced him, hands on her hips. “What’s going on, Ethan?”

  He was silent for a long beat. Finally he met her eyes, his gaze intense. “What if I asked you not to see him again?”

  She stilled. Suddenly it felt as though all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room.

  Was he saying what she thought he was saying? All the hours she’d sat in his tuxedo jacket last night, breathing in his smell and telling herself she could never have him—had she been wrong? Had she let her experience with Jacob taint her judgment?

  She took a step toward Ethan. “Why?” she asked, never taking her eyes from his face. It felt like the most important question of her life. “Why would you ask me to do that?”

  “You know why.”

  “No, Ethan, I don’t. I have no bloody idea about anything when it comes to you. I have no idea how you feel about me, or what you want or anything.”

  Her voice wavered on the final words but she swallowed the wash of emotion at the back of her throat.

  “How about this? It nearly drove me nuts last night knowing you were out with another guy. I dream about you every night. I can’t stop thinking about you. I spend half the day coming up with excuses to drop by your office. When I saw you at the fundraiser the other night I wanted to throw you over my shoulder and take you home. Does that clear anything up for you?” Ethan’s face was anguished, his body rigid with tension.

  She was so relieved, so overwhelmed she felt dizzy. Ethan cared for her. Maybe he even loved her. And he was declaring himself, which meant—

  She bent her knees and sat on the floor before she fell down.

  “Alex…” He was instantly at her side, crouching with his hand on her back. “Are you all right?”

  She lifted her face to him. “I thought it was just sex. Or that maybe you cared but it wouldn’t make a difference because of what happened with your divorce. I thought we didn’t stand a chance.”

  There
was a flicker of something behind his eyes but she barely registered it as she reached out to grip his forearm, her fingers wrapping around the strong muscles.

  “Ethan, I love you. And I didn’t go on that date last night. I couldn’t, not when my head is full of you.”

  He closed his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them again there was so much heat and need and want in them that she almost laughed out loud. He loved her. Ethan Stone loved her. She’d convinced herself that her love for him was a lost cause, that he would never, ever want the same things that she wanted, and yet he loved her.

  She used her grip on his arm to pull him closer. They kissed, a hard, determined, fervent kiss, his hands gripping her shoulders to pull her closer, hers tightening around his forearm as she strained toward him.

  He loved her. Ethan Stone, serial womanizer, Mr. Anti-Commitment, loved her. A bubble of relief and joy rose inside her and she broke their kiss to release it in the form of a laugh.

  “My God, Ethan, if you only knew how pathetic I’ve been over you. Mooning around like a teenager…”

  He kissed her again. It didn’t take long for things to get heated between them. She wanted to touch his skin, to feel all of him against all of her. She needed the reassurance, the confirmation. Somehow she ended up in his lap, her legs straddling his waist, his hands up her T-shirt as he caressed her breasts.

  She could feel his erection pressing against her. She broke their kiss and drew her head back a little so she could look him in the eyes.

  “Let’s go back to your place. Or my place. Hell, let’s go out to the backseat of my car,” she said, a big grin on her face. She felt as though she had champagne in her veins instead of blood, as though she would float to the ceiling if he let go of her.

  Ethan loved her. He loved her.

  She started to slide out of his lap but his hands tightened on her waist.

  “Alex. Wait. There’s something I need to say to you first.”

  He sounded very serious. She settled back into his lap.

  “Okay.”

  She looked at him, waiting. His gaze searched her face, then he reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.

  “Alex, I care for you enormously. I think you’re a woman in a million. There’s nothing I want more than to go home with you right now and get you naked. I want to have a relationship with you, but I need you to know that I don’t ever want to marry again.”

  She blinked, the smile freezing on her face. “Okay. So…what, we live together? Is that what you’re suggesting?”

  Then she registered the other thing he’d said. Or, more accurately, the thing he hadn’t said. I care for you enormously. Not I love you.

  “I think we should play it by ear. You’ve got your place, I’ve got mine. We could see how things work out. But I’d be happy to try for a baby straight away. I know that’s something you want and that we’re on the clock. And we’ve already hammered out the basics of a co-parenting agreement, so if things didn’t work out—”

  She held up her hand. “Wait a minute. You’re already thinking about the end of things before we’ve even started…?”

  She was still sitting in his lap. It suddenly seemed exactly the wrong place to be. She slid awkwardly out of his lap and moved so that she was sitting to one side of him, one knee drawn to her chest.

  All the heat of passion and need and triumph had turned clammy on her skin.

  “Let me get this straight,” she said. Because it was becoming more and more clear to her that they were not on the same page. Not by a long shot. “You’re happy to have a child with me, but you don’t want to marry me or live with me. And you care for me. Am I getting this right?”

  “Alex—” He sighed and lowered his head, pressing his fingers into his forehead for a beat. Then he lifted his head again. “This is really… I never thought I’d be in this place again. That I’d feel this way about another woman. I want to be with you, I do. But not marriage.”

  “Do you love me?” It hurt her somewhere inside to have to ask. Her pride, probably. Later she could lash herself for being so weak.

  “Yes. Yes, I love you, Alex.”

  The words were hard for him to say.

  She shook her head. “But you don’t want to, do you? You don’t want any of this.” She pushed herself to her feet and strode for the corner.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m going home. Alone. Because I’m an idiot. A willfully delusional idiot who apparently still believes in fairy tales.” Her throat and chest were tight.

  Ethan was standing behind her when she turned with her bag and racquet in hand.

  “Alex. Let’s talk about this,” he said, stepping forward with his arms wide as though he was going to embrace her. There was pain in his eyes and a world of doubt but she was dealing with her own pain right now.

  She warded him off with her racquet. “There’s nothing to talk about. You know what I want, Ethan. I want a family. I want a man who loves me the way I love him. I want—” Her voice broke and she took a deep, fierce breath and forced herself to continue. “I want the whole loaf, Ethan, and you offered me half of one. And you know what the worst thing is? There’s a part of me that wants to take it even though I know it would only make me miserable and sad and that I’d probably wind up hating you.”

  She dodged around him but he stepped in her path.

  “Alex, I love you. I do. If you’ll just listen to me—”

  “No, I won’t. I can’t. I won’t let you convince me. I deserve more, Ethan. I’ve put up with half a loaf all my life. And I deserve more from the man who loves me. I don’t know the details of your marriage and your divorce because you’ve never trusted me with them, but I’m not Cassie, Ethan. I’m me, and I won’t pay the price for her sins. I deserve more.”

  He was very pale. “If I could give you what you wanted, I would, Alex, believe me.”

  The emptiness in his eyes…

  “I know. And that’s the saddest thing of all.”

  She left him standing on the court. The need to cry was like a giant’s hand pressing down on her chest as she made her way through the gym and out to her car. She refused to give in. She needed to stay strong. She needed to cling to her resolve because she was terrified that if she let herself feel the pain and gave herself over to her grief she would be tempted to take the crumbs from Ethan’s table.

  So she kept her head high and her eyes dry as she got in her car and drove home. And inside, she died a little.

  ETHAN DIDN’T KNOW where to go so he went home. All he could think about was Alex. The look on her face when she told him she deserved more. The feel of her in his arms. The taste of her on his lips. The straight, sure line of her spine as she walked away from him.

  He paced his apartment, agitated, his gut churning.

  She was right. He knew she was right. What he’d offered her was a million times less than she deserved. It was selfish and self-serving and it was all he had.

  He raked his hands through his hair and sat on the couch, his fingertips digging into his scalp as though the pressure could force his brain to forget the past and grab a hold of Alex and all that she represented. Love, hope, a chance to do it right the second time around.

  His head felt as though it was going to explode. He wanted, and he was scared. The two warred within him, making his gut churn and his chest hurt.

  He had no idea how long he’d been sitting on the couch when the intercom buzzed. His first instinct was to ignore it—he was hardly good company right now—then it occurred to him that it might be Alex. That maybe she’d reconsidered and was prepared to give him a chance to explain.

  It was a flimsy hope and it died the second he heard his brother’s voice.

  “Ethan. I was on my way home. Buzz me up.”

  “I’m in the middle of something.”

  “It won’t take long. I want to apologize for last night. I was way out of line—”


  “You were right. But it doesn’t matter. I’ll call you later.”

  He walked away from the intercom, even though it buzzed three more times. He was in the kitchen pouring himself a hefty Scotch when there was a knock at his door.

  No prizes for guessing who it was. Derek had obviously entered with one of the other tenants, the same trick he’d used at Alex’s building.

  He considered not answering but the knocking was already getting louder.

  His brother started yelling as Ethan was approaching the door. “I’m not buggering off until I’ve spoken to you, so you might as well open the—”

  Ethan swung the door open.

  “—door.”

  His brother stared at him, then at the glass of Scotch in his hand.

  “What happened?” Derek asked, pushing his way past Ethan and dropping his briefcase to the floor near the hall table.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Wow. Where have I heard that before?” Derek strode into the living room, shrugging out of his suit jacket and loosening his tie.

  Ethan found him in the kitchen, pouring himself a more conservative Scotch. He met his brother’s eyes and took a deep breath.

  “I appreciate the concern but I’m fine,” he said.

  Something warm and wet fell onto his hand. He looked down at it. It took him a moment to understand that he was crying. He put down his glass.

  “Jesus,” Derek said, and then his brother’s arms were closing around him and he was being held tightly and he couldn’t keep the rest of the tears from falling.

  He fought them every step of the way until Derek gave him a shake.

  “Cry, you big dickhead. It won’t kill you.”

  Ethan turned his face into his brother’s shoulder and gripped his shoulders hard. Five years of shame and anger and hurt soaked into his brother’s Ralph Lauren shirt and still his brother didn’t let him go. Only when Ethan sniffed mightily and tried to break away did his brother release his grip.

  Ethan avoided his eyes, concentrating on grabbing some paper towel from beneath the sink.

  “This is about Cassie,” Derek guessed.