by Naima Simone
Jesus. He squeezed his eyes shut as so many feelings churned in his chest and surged up to his throat. Wonder. Hope. Fear. They choked him, driving the breath from his body.
“Baby—”
“Xavier.”
He jerked his head up at the melodious, cultured voice. On some vague level, he was aware of Gwendolyn’s small gasp as she whirled to face the open door behind them. The sound reached him from a great distance as everything around him faded to an indistinct blur and only the slender dark-haired woman standing in the doorway remained in sharp focus.
The last time he’d seen her, she’d stood in their apartment, naked and trembling under the silk robe she’d dragged on after he’d caught her having sex with a man in their bed.
“Evelyn.”
Chapter Nine
“No, dear Beast,” said Beauty, “you must not die. Alas! I thought I had only a friendship for you, but the grief I now feel convinces me that I cannot live without you.”
—Beauty and the Beast
“Do I believe in happily ever after? No. Do I want to believe? God, yes.”—Gwendolyn Sinclair
Evelyn.
Gwendolyn stared at the elegant, beautiful woman standing in the foyer. The slight smile curving her lips and the gleam in her sky-blue eyes emanated a confident assurance of her welcome. And return.
At some point after she’d appeared, their unlikely trio had moved into the house. The transition was a foggy blur. Only the steadily increasing dread that leached the joy from Gwen’s heart remained in sharp focus.
Here stood the woman Xavier had been prepared to marry. And she didn’t need to be a Rhodes Scholar to deduce if Evelyn had shown up at his home unannounced, clad in a formfitting dress with a price tag probably exceeding more than her entire wardrobe, the ex had arrived to change her status.
She logged a mental comparison of her windblown hair, loose jacket, jeans and scuffed boots to Evelyn’s smooth chignon, wraparound sheath and knee-high stiletto boots…and wished she hadn’t. God, she must resemble a street urchin next to Evelyn’s lady-of-the-manor appearance.
Evelyn moved forward in a sensuous glide, her smile deepening with an increasing intimacy. Gwendolyn alternated between longing to weep and desiring to claw the woman’s eyes out. He’s mine,she wanted to shout. You forfeited your future with him and now he’s mine. But she remained quiet. Even when the statuesque beauty bypassed her as if she weren’t there and approached a motionless Xavier. Shock, fury and grief had stolen her voice, leaving her powerless except to watch the drama unfold before her.
She pivoted, unable to not watch. Helplessness bound her arms to her sides and glued her feet to the foyer floor as the man she loved reunited with his former fiancée.
“Xavier,” Evelyn greeted him again in a warm voice just short of a purr. “It’s so good to see you.”
Stone-faced, eyes shards of flint, he’d reverted to the cold stranger of a week ago. He closed the front door with a decisive thud, his gaze never leaving Evelyn’s face. His closed expression revealed neither anger nor welcome, resentment nor delight. Just…nothing.
“Evelyn,” he repeated. “What are you doing here?”
The hard tone halted her progress and she stiffened, the arms she’d lifted descending back to her sides. Apparently, she had expected Xavier to receive her with open arms. With herculean effort, Gwendolyn didn’t cross the room and squeeze between the former lovers in order to protect Xavier from this woman’s selfishness and conceit. She’d cast him aside as if the years they’d been together hadn’t mattered—like he hadn’t mattered. Like she hadn’t inflicted deeper, more horrible scars than a mere mark on his face.
Yes, Evelyn had wreaked far more damage. She’d executed the death blow to his confidence, colored how he viewed the world and people in it. And her wound had been worse because the strike had come from someone he’d trusted. He’d loved.
What a fool.
If she ever had Xavier’s love, his trust, Gwendolyn would harm herself before causing him pain.
“I came to see you. I’ve missed you,” she said and Gwendolyn almost believed the sincerity lacing the claim. Evelyn placed a manicured hand on his chest, over his heart, and Gwendolyn’s nails bit into her palms, the sting a sharp reminder she couldn’t slap the offending touch away.
“Really.” He arched an eyebrow. “How did you know I was here?”
“Your mother told me.”
A twist of his lips. “Of course.” Finally, he stepped back. Evelyn’s hand fell from him and the fist around Gwendolyn’s heart released its tight grip. “Well, you’re here. Say what you came to get off your chest so I can get on with my day.”
If possible, more steel entered her spine. But her tone remained even, confident.
“Can we have a little,” she turned and pinned Gwendolyn with a hard stare, “privacy? This is between you and me.”
As if remembering she stood there with them, Xavier lifted his penetrating gaze to her. Until then, she retained a tiny hope he would… God, she didn’t know. Tell Evelyn to get the hell out? Tell her…tell her he loved someone new? Like her?
One look in his eyes and she threw those hopes away like yesterday’s garbage.
He intended on meeting with Evelyn. And after that?
“I’ll head upstairs,” she murmured and trapped a primal scream in her chest. Still…why weren’t the pristine hardwood floors smeared with her blood as it pumped from the ragged gash in her heart? “Excuse me.”
She spun on her heel, crossed the foyer and climbed the steps. The deal entailed seven days, not a lifetime. No promises of happily ever after.
Too bad her foolish heart had started to believe in them.
* * * * *
“Wasn’t that Joshua’s fiancée?”
Xavier folded his arms and stared at the woman who—at one time—he’d planned a life with. Seven months hadn’t wrought any changes. Still beautiful, classy, sexy. Still unable to look him fully in the face.
No, their time apart hadn’t brought changes in her, but it had worked wonders for him. Her sudden appearance should have ignited a chain reaction of anger, insecurity, resentment and pain. Instead it elicited only curiosity and irritation over the interruption in his day.
Gwendolyn had done that for him. Incredibly, her unconditional acceptance had healed him. An image of her eyes as she caressed his scar and admitted she thanked God for it rose to mind.
She’d performed a miracle and he had only to peer inside himself to marvel at the wonder of its power.
“Gwendolyn.” He supplied her name, resting his spine against the mantel. “And no, since my brother died six years ago, Gwendolyn is not Joshua’s fiancée.”
Evelyn flicked her fingers in an impatient gesture. “You know what I mean, Xavier.” She frowned. “What is she doing here?”
“The better question,” he countered, cocking his head, “is what are you doing here? She was invited. You, on the other hand, were not.”
Her calm, sophisticated façade wavered for a quick moment before reassuming its placid, pleasant lines. Too late, though. He’d glimpsed the annoyance beneath. Inside he smiled. Good. He had no desire to be vindictive, but now she grasped he wasn’t some desperate, lovesick sap, thankful to be blessed by her presence.
The woman who held the power to bring him to his knees occupied a room upstairs. And the need to be with her ached like a limb had been amputated.
“I don’t have the time or patience for twenty questions,” he growled. “Spill it or leave.”
“I deserve your anger.” She drew closer to him, her clear blue eyes dark with regret. “Yell at me. Call me a bitch. I’ve earned every bit of your resentment.”
“How magnanimous of you.”
“Honey,” she whispered and settled a slender hand on his biceps.
He unfolded his arms and dropped his hands to his sides. But his aversion to her touch didn’t deter her. As in the foyer, she splayed her fingers over his chest. At
one time the same gesture and sexy pout could have wheedled anything out of him. Now the effect only left an urge to pluck her hand away.
“I know I hurt you. I made a horrible mistake. But please, give me a chance to make it up to you. I’ve been miserable without you. We were so good together and I was a fool to throw our relationship away so carelessly. Please,” she pleaded again, voice soft. She lowered her gaze to his chest, the very picture of demure contrition. “Give me…us…another try. We are worth it.”
“Evelyn, look at me.”
Confusion crossed her lovely features at his low command. “What do—”
“Look at me.”
A spasm of what he could only define as dismay rippled across her face. She peeked at his scar, glanced away. It should have stabbed deep, her distaste. And on some level, it did sting. The horror-tinged expressions on people’s faces as they stared into his would most likely never cease to hurt. But dampening their repugnance would be the memory of Gwendolyn, trailing kisses over every inch of the puckered flesh, worshipping his scar as if it were precious instead of disgusting.
He could bear the slight pain with that vision offsetting it.
“Xavier, I—”
“Exactly what I figured,” he murmured. “How can we have a future when you can’t even bear to look me in the face? Do you think it’s going to disappear?” He encircled her wrist, lifted her palm to his cheek and set her skin against it. “This is me.”
She snatched her hand away as if the mark had singed her flesh and shuffled backward, the awkward gesture incongruous with the urbane image she projected. She rubbed her thumb over her palm as if she could wipe the touch away. He doubted his ex-fiancée was conscious of the nervous action, but it shouted the truth to him.
“Don’t say that,” she ordered as she turned from him. With a deep inhalation of breath, she gathered her composure before confronting him again. “It is not you.”
“You’re right,” he agreed and straightened off the mantel, shoving his hands in his pockets. “It isn’t. I’m more than this scar. I’m a man who still breathes, still works, is learning to laugh again and still loves. And wants to be loved. Deserves to be loved.”
“I do love you!”
He shook his head at her husky cry. “You couldn’t have walked away so easily if you did.”
Fury twisted her features and a hint of pain penetrated the angry mask. It dawned on him like the morning sun rising over the horizon. Evelyn did care for him. As much as her heart was capable. Though a product of the same self-entitled upbringing he’d been reared in, she hadn’t benefited from the love, patience and humility his parents—especially his father—had passed on to him. Those qualities had counterbalanced the elitism that existed among his peers.
He sighed and tunneled his fingers through his hair, gripped a handful at his nape before dropping his arm back to his side. “I’m not being vengeful. And I’m not trying to hurt you—”
“But you are!” she shouted. “I cheated on you. I’m sorry. More than you’ll ever know. And I can understand you want to punish me for it, but for how long? I’m asking you not to do this.”
“Yes, you cheated.” Yet as much as her betrayal grated, if their love had been strong enough, even that could’ve been forgiven in time. “But it wasn’t the act as much as the reason behind it.” He hardened his voice when she cut her eyes away from him. Even now she couldn’t—refused to—face the truth. “My face repulsed you so much the thought of making love to me drove you into the arms of another man. That’s not leaving the toilet seat up. It’s not something we can work on in counseling.”
“Xavier.”
“Don’t.” He didn’t have it in him to be cruel. At some point during the past week, love had dulled the sharp edge of his anger toward this woman. How could he hold a grudge against Evelyn when her actions—though like a knife in his heart at the time—had propelled him to this place, this time?
To Gwendolyn.
If she hadn’t ended their engagement, he would have been trapped in a loveless marriage with a woman who couldn’t bear his touch, much less love him.
Gwendolyn would have never betrayed him. Never would have abandoned—
The truth struck him with the force of a blow to the jaw.
She loved him.
Gwendolyn loved him.
Every gesture, word and smile during the past week flew through his mind at breakneck speed. His gut clenched. His throat worked as it struggled to swallow the tennis ball-sized lump of cautious excitement. Her laughter as she teased him. Her voice as she’d called him beautiful. Her uninhibited response to his touch. Her eyes as she’d thanked God for his scar, his life.
“Shit,” he whispered.
Awe filled him. Along with a joy so precious, so scary in its sheer power, his heart drummed in his chest, drowning out everything but its bass reverberations. Evelyn’s lips moved, but not one word penetrated the roar deafening his ears. He didn’t care. If it didn’t involve escaping this room and getting to the woman upstairs as soon as possible, he didn’t give a fuck.
“It’s over, Evelyn.” The statement brooked no further discussion. “There is no going back. And I don’t want to. I’ll walk you out.”
He strode forward and with a light but unyielding grip, guided her toward the study door.
“It’s her, isn’t it?” she snapped, jerking her arm from his hold. A sharp bark of laughter pierced the room as her lip curled in a humorless smile. “It’s always been her.”
He frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Give me some credit,” she said bitterly. “Did you believe I didn’t know there was always someone else?”
“What are you talking about?” he repeated, baffled. He held his palms out, clueless. “I never cheated on you.”
“Right,” she scoffed. “I slept with another man, but he didn’t have my heart. Yet, then again, I never had yours. Not completely. In some ways, your infidelity was worse.” When he shook his head, she emitted another of those abrupt cracks of laughter. “I noticed the way you watched her, Xavier. Ever solicitous of your brother’s fiancée. Always attentive. God, I was such an idiot.”
Again shock paralyzed him. Her accusations bounced against his skull like a demented ping-pong ball. Jesus. Had he withheld part of himself from Evelyn the years they’d been together? He hadn’t…
Yes. He had. For more than half his life, Gwendolyn had been an integral presence. First as a little sister, then as a friend and finally…finally as the woman who had healed his soul with her loveliness, laughter and light.
The woman he loved.
Damn. He rubbed a hand over his face and curved it around the back of his neck.
Gwendolyn had become entrenched in his heart as a nine-year-old child, and as she’d grown, she claimed a bit more. And then a bit more. Until he couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t owned a piece of him.
All these years he’d consigned his desire for her as a physical reaction—an inappropriate hunger for the woman who’d belonged to his brother. But the tenderness, the need to hear her voice, touch her, inhale her vanilla scent, hear her sweet laughter… Those things exceeded simple “attraction”.
Maybe on some unconscious level, he’d acknowledged he loved her. And that small part of him hadn’t permitted him to give his whole heart and affection to another woman…because they’d already belonged to Gwendolyn.
He lifted his gaze to Evelyn’s face, drawn in tight lines of anger. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”
“Is that supposed to make it better?” She huffed, disgusted, and waved his apology off. “I don’t need your ‘I’m sorry’. I walked into our relationship with my eyes wide open, believing we could be happy. And we would have been.”
“Maybe for a little while,” he conceded gently. “But not indefinitely. In the end, you would’ve been hurt far worse. And hated me for it.”
“I was willing to take the chance.”
Sil
ence loomed between them as they faced each other, former lovers, almost life partners. The past weighed heavily on his heart and he was ready to shut the door on it and go to the woman who was his future.
“It’s ironic,” Evelyn murmured. “Neither of you realized how the other felt and yet you somehow ended up together anyway.”
He stiffened. Shit. He’d woken up in an alternate universe and every time he turned around, another revelation kicked him in the teeth. “Explain.”
She hesitated. After several tense moments, the stubborn set of her mouth softened and she sighed. Her lashes lowered until only a narrow blue strip remained visible. “The night Joshua died I overheard Gwendolyn speaking to him. She…” Evelyn paused, cleared her throat. “She broke off their engagement—”
“She what?” He hadn’t heard right. He couldn’t have. Gwendolyn had never mentioned calling off the wedding.
Evelyn nodded and met his gaze. “She broke off their engagement,” she repeated. “Joshua erupted, called her names. Accused her of loving you and she didn’t deny it.”
“Oh God,” he whispered, his breath a harsh razor over the lining of his throat even as a fist of regret tightened his chest, shutting off all air to his lungs. Like a drunken sailor, he spun around, lurched toward the front door and flung it open.
“Let yourself out,” he tossed over his shoulder as he crossed the foyer and bounded up the stairs at a dead run.
Chapter Ten
“I was suffering in silence…only the love of a maiden willing to accept me as I was could transform me back into my real self. My dearest! I’ll be so happy if you’ll marry me.”
—Beauty and the Beast
“I love you.”—Xavier St. James
The minutes ticked by like hours. Logic reasoned that twenty-three—Gwendolyn glanced at the gold-framed clock on the bedside table—twenty-four minutes had passed since she’d left Xavier with Evelyn. But the torturous seconds might as well as have been an eternity.
After the first ten minutes, she’d abandoned her vigil on the window seat. Evelyn’s sleek Aston Martin parked in the circular drive hadn’t moved and every second the vehicle remained impelled Gwendolyn closer and closer to the edge of paranoia.
