He remembered back then how his BFF Ned had once remarked, “Dude, she smells like a French bordello!” bringing a huge laugh from both of them, because really, what did they know about how a French bordello smelled? It was a great description and a good reminder of the past.
Shannon was another thing. What he’d experienced with her formed a lifelong imprint. He hadn’t let anyone get close enough to him to even attempt to wipe the recollections that he was so vividly lost in from his life.
Shannon at her most divine, trembling all over in a mixture of shyness and pure, unadulterated lust. Looking at him with those big, hungry, trusting eyes, ready and willing for whatever came next.
He could never forget that first time any more than he would ever be able to erase the onslaught of emotions that had just kicked him in the gut when he saw that bathing room for himself. He’d never have thought that eight years and a continent later he would find himself staring down a reminder of their intimate past in such an in-your-face way.
Nick knew now that there might be a chance for them. The statement Shannon was making, every single detail of that special time on display, had a sobering effect on his emotions.
* * *
Sometime later, after having carefully dressed, Shannon allowed her on-duty nursemaid to carefully rewrap the bruised ankle and attend the scrapes and gashes on her hands, leg, and shoulder. Shannon tried calming her seesawing emotions as best she could. His touch wasn’t making that exactly easy.
She’d decided against taking more of the prescription pain meds and opted instead for some run-of-the-mill over-the-counter tablets, mostly because she didn’t care for the fuzzy-headed way the narcotics made her feel. Now that her migraine had subsided and her injuries evaluated in the light of a new day, Shannon needed to focus on what the doctor had said so she could get back control of her life.
After the awkward reveal when he’d stepped into her private bathing sanctuary and the way they’d been carefully avoiding each other’s eyes since then, she didn’t trust her senses to provide any guidance. It was best, she concluded, to say and do nothing while her emotions were off the chart.
She wondered what was he thinking but didn’t dare broach the subject. He certainly hadn’t been unaffected, that much had been apparent, but the overly polite manners that had sparked her initial interest in him were frankly grating on her nerves right now. Polite was easy and uncomplicated, but this mannerly disconnect was shredding her composure and making her feel anything but easy and uncomplicated. Damn.
Though she knew she shouldn’t care, she desperately wanted to know how he felt about what he’d seen. Did he remember those days the way she did? Oh god, she thought. Was he embarrassed? The very idea that he would be turned off or find offensive what to her had been something sacred and profound twisted her in knots.
Some welcome ambulatory equipment had arrived mid-morning and Shannon had awkwardly tried out the crutches in the hope that they would help her get around without assistance. She hadn’t counted, though, on Nick being so insistently domineering with his constant reminders of doctor’s orders to stay off the foot completely for another day at least. Shannon was starting to suspect that he rather liked carrying her around because he was more than eager to scoop her into his capable arms at the drop of a hat.
Hell, if she wanted to move to the other end of the sofa, he would pick her up and reposition her, never mind that she was perfectly capable of scooting across the cushions herself. Staring blindly out the window wasn’t going to stop the thrill she experienced every time they touched, although that’s just what she had been doing for some time…staring….blindly.
It was now late in the afternoon and they’d had another ghastly row an hour or so ago. Shannon just couldn’t stop hurling eight years of anger and hurt in his face even though she felt dreadful after each confrontation.
She’d listened to a phone message left on her home machine from her mother that Nick had overheard. Mom was telling her in that professorial way she had that she had been excitedly packing up her and Dad’s gear for their expedition to the Canadian Rockies when she found the RSVP Shannon had sent weeks back accepting the invitation to their fiftieth wedding anniversary.
Her mom had been all but gushing about the family reunion that would take place at the anniversary celebration. Shannon’s brother and his wife, Dad’s younger brother and his family, all the extended university family they had gathered over the years, the whole “Fam Damily” as she laughingly called it.
It was odd to hear her normally laid-back mother burbling on about parties and trips, but what really touched Shannon’s heart was the way she had expressed her total delight that her only daughter would be coming home for a long-overdue visit. She’d ended the call with an admonition to call home so they could talk about plans, causing Shannon to sigh at the obvious parental command.
She’d all but forgotten the fast-approaching event and felt a bit of panic at how close that promised trip back east actually was. Less than a week away and she hadn’t even gotten around to making her travel arrangements, so busy had she been with the latest flurry of events she’d pulled off. Her plan had been to cut back and take some time off after Dom’s big party, and her parents’ anniversary had been part of the grand scheme of things.
She hadn’t counted on the complications of the last two days. Immediately feeling peevish about the spot she found herself in, Shannon was in no way prepared for what came after that missed phone call.
Nick had commented on Shannon’s need to be back east in time for the family get-together. As usual, he had jumped fifty pages ahead and rather matter-of-factly announced that since he, too, had to be heading back east soon, he would arrange everything. Simple. Done. Once again, all was right in the world of Barrett.
The thought Shannon seemed to be having regularly now was, Really? Is he kidding? Releasing a tremendous sigh that was just this side of a snarl, she wanted to rail at him yet again about this propensity he had for making decisions for her. What was this? Don’t worry, little lady, the big capable man has taken care of everything? I don’t think so, Shannon thought as her expression tightened and her lips went grim.
“Thank you for your kind offer, Nick, but as you say…I’ve got this. No need for you to put yourself out any more than you already have on my account,” she spat out. “Had I realized that you needed to get back to your real life, it would have been no problem to hire an aide,” she continued in a rush as she suddenly became intensely interested in the TV channel guide flying by on the screen as she hurriedly punched keys on the remote control she was gripping like her life depended on it. “As it is, I’ve taken up enough of your time, and amusing though it might be for you to experience a Reynolds Family get-together, I don’t think what they have planned is quite your cup of tea.”
Her unexpected outburst caused Nick to look at her, slightly stunned by how quickly she had shut down and gone all prissy on him. One minute, things were in neutral, and the next thing he knew the anger was back. Searching his mind for a reason for this quick change, Nick admitted that he’d been taking over again and concluded this was more evidence that she didn’t want him to be part of her life in any significant way. He had a lot of ground to make up.
“Being here with you is no hardship at all, little one.” Nick fed into the conversation as he moved to sit on the edge of the sofa, making Shannon shift her legs and butt to make room for him. She looked less than happy that he was purposefully invading her body space. Good, get used to it because I am not going anywhere, and the sooner you accept that, the quicker we can move beyond all this crap and begin building a future together.
“In fact, I don’t have to return on any time schedule,” he added with a casual shrug and a slight twisting of his lips. Leaning full across her now with an elbow resting on the sofa back cushions, he had effectively trapped her where she sat and then lasered in on her eyes with the precision of a guided missile.
With his free hand, Nick pi
cked up one of her unruly curls and wrapped it casually around his fingers. Still staring her down, he said softly, “I just thought since you need to take care of your family business and I live, more or less, where you need to go that we could continue what we’ve started here. I’d like very much to meet your family, Shannon.” That last was said in a fading whisper as he seemed to lose himself in the feel of her hair in his hand.
How the hell does he do that? Shannon wondered. Dammit, but every time she tried to assert herself all he had to do was get too close and she was folding her cards like a greenhorn in a high-stakes poker game. The man invaded her senses in ways she didn’t want to think about.
Later she would think back on this moment and arrive at the conclusion that, if he hadn’t been sitting so close to her and smelling like the most forbidden delicacy on the planet, she might have handled what came next in a more graceful way. Instead she waded into an ocean of immaturity and let a gross ton of verbal nonsense come spewing out.
“Continue what we’ve started? Oh, you mean continue taking care of poor me because you feel bad?” She lifted her shoulders as if to say she didn’t care.
“I can take care of myself, as I keep telling you, and have done so every minute since we went our separate ways!”
Pulling her hair from his grasp, she attempted to go nose-to-nose with him, but since he was so much bigger she could only turn her face up to his, giving her an up-close view of his oh-so-kissable lips. Yikes! Screwing up her resolve and shaking her head to dispel the sudden vision of him lowering his head and taking her mouth with those incredible male lips, she went for broke.
“Please don’t think you have to involve yourself any further in my everyday life. You have important things to take care of I’m sure, and besides, you’d be bored or at the very least put off by my parents and their posse of university friends. A bunch of self-professed nerdy academics are hardly in your league, and I wouldn’t want them made to feel somehow lacking or déclassé in your presence.”
Stunned by her response, Nick struggled to understand why she was being so belligerent. “Come on, Shannon, that’s rubbish and you know it. I am not like that at all, and I’d have thought that you of all people would know that.”
Was he kidding? She couldn’t believe any of this. Sure, he’d done a damn fine job of explaining away what had gone on before, but did he think she was stupid? That she’d just forget the cruel way he’d thrown her away like a piece of annoying sticky paper that had gotten stuck on the bottom of his shoe? Didn’t matter that it was a defensive act—he had shown it was possible for him to simply walk away from her, and that is what was really standing in their way.
Who the hell did he think he was? Well, she’d had enough of this.
“Why the hell should I of all people, as you put it, know that?” she all but hollered. “Why, Nick? Because you deemed to slink away from your family castle and play in the dirt in a third-world country? Is that the grounds you are basing this argument on?” she hissed. “Because perhaps you want to rethink that position. Especially considering that you tossed me aside like a used handi-wipe once you’d returned to your silver-spoon life.”
Straightening suddenly and drawing herself up to every one of her five feet eight inches, Shannon momentarily shocked Nick with her lightening-quick physical response. He watched her outburst through hooded eyes, hiding his true reaction from her, completely thrown by this vehement outburst. She’d gone from zero to complete bitch in less than three seconds. In the next breath she continued, only she’d moved to within inches of his face so he could not turn away from the cold truth in her eyes as she spit at him in unrequited pain still languishing after having lain dormant for years.
“After all, the great and mighty Nicholas Temple Barrett couldn’t possibly have been doing anything other than slumming during that period.”
At her use of the word slumming and the way she made it sound, like the vilest of swear words, Nick felt the color leech from his face and knew what was coming next. “Cause after all, isn’t that what you so specifically told me you were doing while you availed yourself use of my body?” The last few words were dripping with so much anger and pain that Nick felt as though she had stabbed him straight in the heart. “Did you think I’d be unable to remember what you said? For real? Well, let me tell you something, Mr. Tycoon, I’ve had eight very long years to go over that statement in my mind, and if you think I’d ever forget, you’re crazy.”
His worst nightmare, the lowest moment of his life, was on a constant loop in her mind, and there was nothing he could do about it. She had been on the receiving end of a powerful, calculated slap in the face at his hands. Eight years of remorse, denial, excuses, and regret crystallized in his head. He had denied their relationship and betrayed the love they’d shared. His foolish belief that his deliberate cruelty when they parted would somehow set her free to go on and live a full, productive, and happy life had been a sham from beginning to end.
His safety net, that ridiculous notion that he alone had martyred himself on the altar of family responsibility, had been totally eclipsed by the realization that he’d ripped open a wound in her soul that still festered. His words and actions that horrible autumn day came back to him in vibrant clarity. The look of pained anger burning in her eyes right now made a neat segue to another memory when those eyes, in which he’d liked to lose himself, had projected back at him a depth of emotion so perfect and loving that no length of time nor separation could erase.
With each step forward, they seemed to also struggle with several moves back. Just when he felt that a stumbling block had been cleared, another one, sometimes more deadly than the previous, lurched into view. As if the hurried farewell letter offering no clear explanation of his behavior weren’t enough to dig his grave, that blasted phone call when she’d tracked him down in those first days after Randolph’s death certainly was.
Caught off guard, he had been juggling waves of desperation when first he had heard her voice. What unfortunately followed had been a blistering, snark-laden put-down intended to set her free. He’d said all sorts of stupid, hurtful things, any cliché-ridden response he could muster. He had known he was destroying what they’d shared, but such was his mindset at the time. To learn now how the words he had used had been tearing her soul to shreds all this time was a bitter pill to swallow.
Spreading his hands wide in a gesture of supplication, Nick said the first thing that came to his heart. “Shannon, I can’t keep apologizing for what happened. At some point you have to decide whether you can forgive my… hurtful…actions.”
His anguished voice and eyes blazing with unwavering regret made her take a mental step back.
He was right. She kept hurling bombs his way of raw emotions and hurt that she’d been nursing since that last horrible encounter. She was mad for sure, but not completely blind. Everything, absolutely everything he’d done and said since the moment when their worlds collided again had been an attempt to right the terrible wrong he had wrought. He allowed her to say some beastly things to him, things that were not in her character at all, and took it all with a tortured acceptance because he deserved whatever she could dish out.
She thought back over all that he’d told her since they’d been forced together in this surreal, emotionally difficult reunion. If he hadn’t wanted to make amends, he could have dumped her at the front door and taken his leave. Instead, he was still here. Still trying to explain. Still trying to show her something that she was going to great pains to deny.
It hadn’t been the money that had taken him from her. The words he used had been spoken in haste, during a time of confusion and stress. She had to see beyond that horrible frozen-in-time moment or else there would be no future for them. The thought of going back to her empty, isolated existence made her stomach sink. In the final analysis, though, she was terrified that if she opened her heart to him again, there was still a chance he could just walk away as he had shown her he could b
efore.
Releasing a heavy sigh laced with anxiety, Shannon looked away and shrugged. “I shouldn’t be sorry for telling it like it is, Nick, but I am.” Fixing her attention on the suddenly fascinating floor, she scrunched up her face and grimaced. “Can’t seem to help it,” she whispered.
Nick watched silently, hoping she could find a way to allow some light back into their tortured relationship, for all this dark, negative energy was chipping away at the tiny gains they’d been forging, thrown together as they were in this unusual situation.
Flexing her ankle while she studied the movement, Shannon finally looked up at him after several tense moments of loud silence, saying, “It doesn’t hurt as much today, you know.”
Accepting the change of subject as her way of defusing the emotional conversation, Nick moved the stool next to where she was sitting and lifted her bruised foot to his lap. He began gently massaging her calf and lower leg while they both sat in thoughtful silence and let the calm return after the storm.
* * *
Hours later she heard him rattling around in the kitchen doing god only knows what. Judging by the impressive delivery of groceries that had appeared a while ago, she sensed he had also taken control of her pantry as he had with everything else.
They needed to talk, she knew that, but every time they attempted to open the lines of communication in any real way, her anger or hurt would overtake the conversation, causing them to carefully retreat to a tense politeness that couldn’t stand forever.
At some point a suitcase had appeared, probably sent over from his hotel. She had sat in overwrought silence while he availed himself of the shower room and changed at last into fresh clothes. Shannon’s tortured attempts to ignore the image of a very naked Nick washing his impressive body in her wide-open shower were pathetic at best.
When he had emerged from her bedroom she’d seen that he’d chosen an informal outfit with another pair of snug jeans topped with an old T-shirt that for some reason set her nerves twitching. It would have been easier to hang on to her angry feelings toward him if he’d been dressed as the ruthless business tycoon she knew him to be. She couldn’t quite muster that same incandescent bitterness when he appeared before her, barefoot and casual.
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