Can't Stop Loving You

by Miranda Liasson

  Hence her nickname about town, Felony Melanie. “I’m sorry about that, Les.” She was sorry, but she’d also had about enough. She pulled out her cell and pretended to check it. “Oh, Les, I’ve got to take this call. Sorry I can’t get a drink with you. Take care, now!” She left him and exited out one of the ballroom doors, running into Gina Maria coming back from the ladies’ room. “Hey, G, would you mind getting Dad that cookie plate? I’m going to get some air.”

  “Sure. Okay. God, my shaper undergarment is killing me. If it wouldn’t expose all the wedding guests to my boobs, I’d rip it off and throw it in the trash can.”

  “You look pretty, Gina.”

  “I’m never going to get this pregnancy weight off.”

  “That’s what Christy Abrams just said, too. It’s only been three months. You’re a new mom. Give yourself a break.”

  Gina made a dismissive gesture with her hand and looked at her hard, in the way only an older sister can. “You all right?” After Bella reassured her sister that she was fine, just on the lam from Les, Gina lowered her voice and steered her aside. “Hey, I just wanted to tell you that Roman’s here somewhere. There’s a bunch of single women in the bathroom talking about how gorgeous he is. Just so you know.”

  Bella forced a smile to show her how little it mattered. Really. “I always knew we’d run into each other eventually. I can handle it.” Of course she could. She was mature now, tough, strong. On the other hand, maybe she’d just step outside now and never return. “I’ll be back in a little while, okay?”

  “Manny and I are looking to get out of here as soon as Dad’s had enough. We’ll drop him off at home and get him settled.”

  “I can do that. Really. You two enjoy date night.”

  “You sure?”

  She couldn’t be more positive. “Dad wants to leave early anyway. He keeps obsessing about how there’s too much work back at home and he can’t let the Nicolettis get ahead of us. And I’m more than happy to cut out of here early.” Their family business, D’Angelos’ Nursery and Garden Center, was one of two that served Mirror Lake and surrounding communities. The rivalry between their center and the one owned by the Nicoletti family was legendary, and it was fueled by an old feud that had originated in Italy and traveled across the Atlantic to perpetuate in the descendants of both families.

  But for now, Bella needed to escape. And she’d better hurry, too, because she could hear Les calling her name. She snaked through the back hallway, past the restrooms and the kitchen. Fortunately, she’d worked here, at Gianno’s Party Center, as had her siblings in their youth, and she knew the back corridors better than anyone. Walking quickly down one that led to the back parking lot, she exited out the heavy metal door, which was propped open by a wooden dowel.

  She turned left out the door, planning to head to a bench she’d spied earlier on her way in from the parking lot. The early-September evening held just a touch of coolness, a faint harbinger of the change of season to come. Rounding the corner of the building, she bumped smack into a solid wall . . . but not one made of brick. More like rock-hard muscle, approximately six feet two of it. One that wore a dark-gray suit that clung closely to his broad shoulders in all the right places and smelled amazingly spicy and good. She looked up—way up—into the dark, dangerous eyes of the man she’d once loved passionately, the very same one her father had wanted to murder just as badly. And probably still did.

  “Oh. Sorry,” she managed. Her throat seemed to suddenly constrict to the size of a pin. She was lucky to talk at all because taking in air suddenly got complicated.

  Oh, she’d had ages to rehearse this moment. Which she’d done countless times, usually on the sleepless nights of those early years, too numerous to count, when the dull, constant ache for him had kept her tossing and turning until dawn.

  But she’d survived. She’d accepted. Life had moved on, and she had, too.

  “Bella,” Roman Spikonos said quietly, his voice sounding as smooth as Crown Royal, but with a gravelly edge, deeper than what she remembered. She’d always joked he had a cowboy voice, which was silly because he was as Connecticut Yankee as she was.

  Backlit by the buzzing fluorescent bulb that hung off the brick building, his features looked hard. It wasn’t just the steely square jawline, the unsmiling, too-full lips, or the pitch-black hair that seemed to gleam almost moonlight blue in the unforgiving light. Or that nose, as straight and classically Greek as Michelangelo’s David. At first she could swear his coffee-brown eyes widened with surprise, but he quickly snapped them back to neutral. Yep, those eyes, which had always had the capability to go soft with feeling—they were his most impenetrable feature.

  His hair used to be longish, curling recklessly, but it was now cropped in close, thick layers. In his suit, he could’ve been mistaken for a tycoon. Gorgeous, but not the man she’d known so long ago.

  He was holding a drink. The impact of their collision had caused it to slosh over the sides. Her first impulse was to wrench it from his fingers and gulp it down fast, but the civilized part of her somehow held back.

  Roman’s gaze lit on her face. Examined her intently. Seconds or minutes passed, she didn’t know. Everything seemed to stop, even her breathing.

  She’d run into him once before, just once in all this time. They’d both been with other people, and it had been awkward. It had taken her a long time to forget their last meeting, hell, to forget him, but she had. They were adults, and the past was the past. No reason they couldn’t be cordial.

  Right. But thank God she’d worn the red dress.

  Les’s voice echoing down the hallway stunned her back to reality. “Bella? You back here?”

  Roman frowned. Glanced from the door to her. “I—came out for some air,” she whispered, edging quickly away from the building. She did need air, but not because Les was chasing her down. More like because the impact of seeing Roman was the equivalent of being hit in the chest with a baby elephant. Surprisingly, Roman followed her as she hightailed it to the parking lot. Without hesitation, he grabbed her hand and pulled her down between two parked cars.

  His hand was large, encompassing, his grip no-nonsense and firm. In control, like the rest of him. It was nowhere near sensual, like a lover’s clasp, yet she felt the heat of him down to her bones, and it set off that same old ache, familiar yet unwanted. When he tugged it away, she almost breathed a sigh of relief. She eyed the way his jacket pulled over the muscles of his broad back, the fit of his pants on his fine ass, the contour of his leg muscles as he squatted. Memory had served her poorly. The man was a thousand times hotter than he’d been in high school, and he’d topped the hotness charts back then.

  Les called out again. She couldn’t see him, but she imagined him standing there, pushing up his glasses, surveying the parking lot. Bella, squatting between a Chevy and a Toyota, felt like she really was in high school again. Funny how not even five minutes in Roman’s presence could do that to her. As soon as Les went back inside, pulling the heavy door shut with a scrape against concrete and then a clang of metal against metal, she stood up and summoned her maturity. “Sorry. I was just standing around talking when . . .”

  “Lester accosted you?”

  “It was more like my cousins led me right to the lion’s mouth, but same effect.”

  He grinned. “Some things never change.”

  “He couldn’t still have a thing for me.”

  “Why not? You’re still beautiful.” He took a sip of his drink and offered it to her.

  Too intimate a gesture. It made her blush. Thank God it was dark. “What is it?” she asked, looking at the amber liquid. Did it matter?

  “Seven and seven.”

  An old-fashioned drink. That suited him. He’d never cared about being in fashion or following the crowd. Despite her better judgment, she found herself reaching for the glass. Putting her lips to the cool edge. Where his had been, that perverse voice inside her said, but she shut it up by taking several gulps,
even though she’d meant to take only a sip. The ice was mostly melted and it was a bit watery, but it did the trick. “Thanks,” she said, running her fingers over her lips and handing it back.

  “No problem.” He was still eyeing her, but his face was a brick wall. No emotion got through. No sadness, no anger, no . . . anything.

  A muscle in his jaw ticked. A frown drew his dark brows into a V. Even his posture reeked of tension. Suddenly, she knew what was wrong. At least, she used to be able to read him so easily. If she still possessed that ability, she was willing to bet the farm that he was still angry. After all these years.

  He had reason to be. He’d wanted to marry her at eighteen—marry her!—and she’d told him no. She’d lied to get him to leave. It was the hardest thing she’d ever done.

  But she’d wanted to marry him. Lord, how she’d wanted to. The old, familiar pain still sliced at her, threatening to drop her to her knees.

  No. Not after all this time. Everything had turned out as it should have. She’d finished college and grad school and somehow got her baby brother raised up to eighteen in mostly one piece. Not shabby accomplishments, if she could say so herself.

  She’d resolved her own anger a long time ago. After all, what had happened between them had upended her family. Forced her out of high school. Getting pregnant had caused adulthood to punch her in the gut with a fierceness she’d never experienced before or since. But none of it was any more his fault than her own.

  Had his life been the same? Somehow, she doubted it. He’d gotten away from here, went off to lead the life of his choosing. And never looked back.

  But no, she wasn’t angry. Most of the ache had passed. If anything, she was sad at the losses, the choices she’d had to make, the innocence she’d lost.

  Last she’d heard he’d been working in a craft beer brewery in upstate New York. He was probably just here visiting his mother. No wedding ring, but that didn’t surprise her. The man was gorgeous, with Hollywood looks, and he was in the prime of his life. From what she’d heard, he changed girlfriends like women do shoes.

  “So, you’re doing well?” she asked. That seemed a neutral way to start.

  “Own my own business. You?”

  “I’m a psychologist.”

  He raised a brow, like that had surprised him. Had he really not cared to know what had happened to her over the years? With his mom in town and being a psychologist herself, a colleague, that was hard to believe. “You like it?”

  “Very much.”

  “Sorry to hear about your father. His back.”

  “He’s doing better. I moved back home to help out for the next couple of weeks. Fall’s a busy time at the garden center, you know. Fall activities, pumpkins to harvest from the back fields, that kind of thing.”

  He nodded. “Nice of you.”

  “Sorry to hear about your granddad.” Both his grandparents, who owned Apple of My Eye Orchards, the business right next to her family’s, had passed away—his grandmother two years ago and his grandfather last winter. She thought he’d say something like he was selling the orchards, but he just nodded his head and went silent.

  So much for chitchat. Careful, polite, and sugary, but underneath lurked a trove of sadness and hurt. Like frosting over burnt cupcakes. She should have stuck it out with Les.

  “Well, I should be getting back.” She peeked over the hood of one of the cars. “Looks like the coast is clear now.”

  He didn’t say anything, but there he went, looking at her again with those eyes, judging or assessing her, she couldn’t tell. With his gaze came an awareness, way too electrifying, that she struggled to ignore. Accompanied by blood surging in her ears, dizziness, and tingling, worse in some places than others. Oh Lord, she couldn’t remember any of the specific reasons she’d fallen so hard for him in the first place, but her body sure did, and it was letting her know, loud and clear. Either that or she had a neurological condition. “Want to get a cup of coffee?” he asked suddenly.

  What the . . . ? She paused. For too long, probably. Shock and indecision warred. It would be so tempting to go off with him, sit and talk like old times. She’d wondered time and again how he’d fared. People would see them leave together, and that would feed the gossip mills for at least a month, but she didn’t really care about that. Still, her family would wonder where she’d gone. And hadn’t that always been the choice? Her family or him?

  She had much to say. So many years of feelings she could never let out, questions that were never answered. Now a rare chance to speak her piece had just dropped into her lap.

  She’d never been one of those people who always had a tart reply ready on her tongue. Maybe she’d imagined this meeting many times, but words and thoughts evaded her.

  “Look—” he said.

  The door opened once again. “Arabel-la,” Les’s voice called out in a singsong tone. “I know you’re back here. And I brought some wi-ine.”

  Going back to the wedding suddenly held the appeal of clotted milk. To hell with her purse, her family, and all the friends she hadn’t spoken to in years. For once, maybe she could make an unexpected choice. She of all people understood that her inability to move on might possibly have a lot to do with the devastatingly handsome man facing her right now. Maybe it was time to confront the past, confront him, and get some things out on the table once and for all. She faced Roman, whose gaze still possessed a searing intensity that raised gooseflesh on her arms. “You know, I think I will take you up on that coffee, after all.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Roman led Bella to his gleaming black pickup and opened the passenger door. She swung up into the cab, her red dress swirling around her, the parking lot lights catching the reflection off all that glorious black hair. Those pretty legs. His breath hitched and it literally pained him to breathe.

  Seeing her again, smelling her flowery fragrance, brought way-too-distant memories catapulting back, and that was not a comfortable or comforting feeling. Plus she herself looked as skittish as a jackrabbit, ready to bolt at any minute. Yet he couldn’t help the feeling that kicked up inside of him, excitement that he was with her for the first time in twelve years. Anticipation. Hope. Irrational, yes, and illogical, but he couldn’t seem to help it.

  Offering to get coffee with her had been an even dumber idea than going to that wedding. But then, he’d always seemed to put his foot in it ass deep where she was concerned.

  Was he still trying to come to her rescue, even knowing she no longer needed it? It was a trait he couldn’t seem to help. He found himself wanting to get her to smile. Hear her laugh after all these years. They’d had some good times. Really good times.

  Things were different now. He’d loved her once, a lot. And she clearly hadn’t felt the same. His mission now was to find a way to make peace with her, since he was here to stay, although he was pretty sure she didn’t know that yet. Then he’d tuck her back into his memory, where she belonged. Locked down tight. Maybe returning was a good thing. Maybe it would flush her out of his mind for good.

  He felt a sense of innate danger, an instinctive pull in his gut, which was ridiculous. Of course their relationship had been an intense experience. It had been high school. What wasn’t intense back then?

  She didn’t say anything, but there she went, looking at him again with those eyes. Skeptical, guarded. He’d been watching her all night, he’d admit that, because she’d somehow become even more beautiful in the years since he’d seen her and he simply couldn’t help himself. Apparently what was left of his eighteen-year-old self just hadn’t caught up to reality yet. Hadn’t remembered the heartbreak, or the hurts that were just too great to ever get over.

  “Do you mind the windows down?” he asked, trying to fill the silence. “Don’t want your hair to get mussed or anything.”

  “Oh no. I love the windows down.” She always had. She’d never cared about mussing up her hair, and he’d loved that about her. Nor was she ever one to pick over a couple of l
ettuce leaves like so many of the women he’d dated. For being as slender as she was, she could always eat him under the table, too, and he wondered if that was still the case. She’d always had a zestful appetite for life.

  With her, it was always superlatives. I love this chocolate cake! Will you take a look at those stars tonight! I had the most amazing day! She had a way of pulling him into her excitement, too. For a kid like him who came from such tragic circumstances—two alcoholic parents and siblings he’d been separated from at the age of eight—she made even the grayest day seem special in some crazy way.

  “How’s your family?” she asked. A neutral topic she’d picked on purpose, no doubt.

  “My mom’s good. Yours?”

  “Well, Dad’s . . . Dad. He hasn’t changed much.” She might have sounded sad or irritated but she quickly skirted over the topic of her father. “Gina’s been married eleven years, has a three-month-old, and Joey’s a senior this year.”

  Roman wasn’t looking forward to telling Vito that he’d inherited the orchards next door. The orchards his grandparents had farmed for the past fifty years. Now was his chance to do them proud but put his own spin on things, something for which he’d been preparing for the past eight years, ever since he’d left the army. He wanted Bella to know his plans first, before he told anyone else. Didn’t he owe her that much?

  He found himself rolling the truck to a stop. It was a dead-quiet back road, old State Route 1, nothing around but cornfields and darkness. It smelled like loamy earth, and more like summer than the upcoming fall, the scent of coming rain heavy in the air.

  “Why are you stopping?” she asked. “Are you out of gas?”

  He might have picked up the slightest edge of panic. A you-aren’t-a-serial-killer-are-you kind of tone. “No,” he said, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “More like out of patience. I can’t stand all of this small talk.” He turned off the ignition and faced her. “Don’t look so outraged. We used to be able to talk. We used to be able to tell each other anything.” He needed to try and clear the air. Plus he needed to tell her that he was back for good.