“Amy,” Gloria said low, staring at the diamond pendant on Amy’s necklace because she felt certain she’d splinter into a million crying pieces if she looked any of these people in the eye right now, “let’s go outside. Please.”
Amy stared at her, her face expressionless and yet oddly triumphant.
“I thought you didn’t know what I was talking about.” Amy arched one of her elegant brows. “So how did you know my name?”
After that, there was nowhere to go and nothing left for Gloria to say except the obvious. And she wouldn’t say it through a sniveling mess of tears, either. She’d made this bed of nails, so she needed to be woman enough to lie on it. If Amy could be calm, so could she.
“I’m sorry,” Gloria confessed, holding Amy’s gaze. Cooper edged closer, putting a light hand on the small of Gloria’s back for support. That touch may have been, out of all the moments they’d spent together in the past couple of months, the second she fell hopelessly and irrevocably in love with him. Taking a deep breath, she pressed on, aware of Mr. and Mrs. Davies discreetly slipping away from the table. “I know it’s a pathetic thing to say. I know I shouldn’t even be looking you in the face. I know you could never forgive me, so I’m not going to waste your time asking.” She paused, hoping her tears held off for another second or two longer. “I’ll never forgive myself. But I want you to know that I’m ashamed, and if I had the chance to take it all back, I would. I just... I’m sorry.”
Amy stepped closer, getting up in her face but still maintaining her polite tone and smoothly blank expression. “Here’s what you need to be sorry for, Gloria. You need to be sorry for making me question my marriage. Not just the time you were with my husband but the entire marriage, because now I can’t figure out what was true and what wasn’t true. You need to be sorry that I have to go to my doctor now and humiliate myself by asking for an HIV test—”
Gloria’s chin began to quiver. She pressed her lips together, holding back a sob with difficulty. “No, you don’t. We used condoms. Religiously.”
“—and you need to be really sorry that I have to tell my children why I’m finally going through with the divorce. I want you to think about that. Live with it.”
“I’m sorry,” Gloria said helplessly. “But please don’t throw it all away because of me. I’m not worth it.”
“Oh, I know you’re not worth it.” A ghostly half smile flickered across Amy’s face. “You’re nothing. Which is why I want you to know that I do forgive you.” That smile widened into something crooked and hard, and there, at last, was all of Amy’s bottled-up emotion, flashing in her eyes. “I’m not going to eat myself up hating you. You’re not worth it. So I forgive you. God will deal with you.”
Yes, Gloria thought. He certainly would. She lost her battle with the tears and was forced to swipe one away as it trailed down her cheek.
Amy, mercifully, seemed to be done with her. Giving Gloria a final narrow-eyed look, she hitched her bag higher on her shoulder and turned to go. But after one step, she wheeled back around. Gloria braced for a slap across the face, which was no more than she had coming, but what Amy did was infinitely worse.
“I’m betting God’s going to punish you by putting doubt in your mind.” Amusement lit her expression. “I bet you’re going to spend your life wondering whether this man—” she pointed to Cooper, whose face had turned to stone “—or the next man or the man after that, whichever man you love, is going to be the one to take up with a woman like you and break your heart the way you broke mine.”
With that, Amy strode back through the glass doors leading to the crowded sidewalk, her head high and her spine straight, leaving a ringing silence in her wake.
After a couple of excruciating beats, the nearest diners, who hadn’t bothered to pretend they weren’t listening, put their heads together and began to murmur. Gloria, dumb and frozen with humiliation, stood there and wished God would finish her off with a lightning strike.
Cooper edged closer, dropping his voice. The hand on her back was hard now, as though he was as strung tight with nerves as she was.
“Gloria,” he said urgently.
“Don’t.” She shook him off, not daring to glance anywhere near his direction because there was zero chance she could look him in the eye at this point. “Just...don’t.”
With another quick swipe at her eyes, she grabbed her purse, fished out her wallet and left a twenty on the table because Cooper shouldn’t have to pay for her soup when she’d ruined what should have been a lovely lunch with his parents. Then, with Cooper hot on her heels, she headed for his parents, who were huddled together in the seating area near the dessert case, trying not to look as embarrassed as they surely were.
When they saw her coming, they shot to their feet. Gloria spoke quickly to spare them the further discomfort of trying to think of something to say to her. They’d had enough awkwardness in this one short trip to last a lifetime.
She didn’t dare try to shake their hands again.
“I’m just going to go,” she told them, knowing she’d never see them again. “It was such a pleasure to meet you.”
Cooper’s parents exchanged dismayed looks. Mrs. Davies hurried forward, put a hand on her arm and gave her a gentle squeeze. Staring into her kind, judgment-free eyes, Gloria had a perfect glimpse of why Cooper had turned out so well.
“Don’t run off, Gloria,” she told her. “You need something to eat. Come on.”
“That’s right.” Mr. Davies took her other elbow and flashed a quick smile. “And I haven’t had the chance to tell you about my race-day smoothies yet.”
Standing her ground and resisting their efforts to steer her back to the table, Gloria smiled at these lovely people, who were as different from her own dysfunctional family as swans were from bats. They were kind and gracious, but they didn’t truly want her around, and they sure as hell wouldn’t want her dating their precious son now.
“I appreciate that, but I can’t stay,” Gloria said.
“Gloria.” Cooper’s body all but hummed with frustration. His eyes were more gray than blue now, the turbulent color of a storm rolling in on the horizon. “I’ll take you home.”
“No,” she said firmly, hanging on to her smile and willing her tears of shame to hold off one more second—just another second!—before they fell, because another humiliation right now, no matter how tiny, would probably kill her outright. “You’re going to stay here and eat with your parents because they’re wonderful people.”
A muscle in the back of his jaw began to tick. “I’ll talk to you later, then.”
Gloria stared up into his determined face for a long beat, trying to figure out whether his dogged optimism in the face of hopelessness was the best or worst thing about him.
Probably the best thing, she finally decided, giving him a sad smile.
“Goodbye, Cooper.”
Chapter 11
That night, Cooper bullied the manager at Gloria’s building into taking him upstairs to Gloria’s door so he could check on her. He’d endured a stilted lunch with his parents, during which they’d tried to make him feel better and assured him they didn’t know Gloria well enough to have formed opinions about her. Then he’d gone back to the office for an afternoon of meetings too important to reschedule. Throughout, he’d called or texted Gloria every hour or so, but the only response he’d had was radio silence. Now it was eight-ten, a time when he knew she’d be home from the hospital, and he wasn’t going to let her refusal to answer the door stop him from seeing her.
She’d had all afternoon to lick her wounds, and too much was at stake here for him to leave her to her own self-destructive devices.
“I don’t think she’s here, man,” the beleaguered manager told him after a couple minutes of pounding. “Why not call her again?”
“She’s here, and I n
eed to make sure she’s okay,” Cooper snapped, running both hands through his hair in frustration and thinking hard. There was only one answer. “Open it,” he said, pointing to the door.
The manager’s jaw hit the floor. “I’m not opening it on your say-so—”
Cooper flashed a hundred-dollar bill in the guy’s face.
Suddenly, the door swung open from the inside.
Gloria, wearing shorts and a T-shirt, her lips thinned with irritation, surveyed them and crossed her arms over her chest. Her gaze—she didn’t look as if she’d been crying recently, thank God— flickered past Cooper to the building manager. Her frown deepened.
“If you take a bribe to let this man into my apartment, Roy,” she snapped, “I’ll have you fired. I don’t care if you did give me the recipe for your mother’s potato salad last Memorial Day. You got me?”
The man, who didn’t appear to be fooled by her flinty-eyed glare, jerked a thumb in Cooper’s direction. “You want me to throw the bum out?”
Gloria’s expression softened, though she still didn’t meet Cooper’s eyes. “No,” she told Roy. “I can take it from here.” She tried to smile, but her lips didn’t move much past horizontal. “Thanks.”
Lobbying a final dark look in Cooper’s direction, the guy left. Cooper took the opportunity to study Gloria, whose features were so resolute and hard that his relief at seeing her slipped away. This was not the face of a woman willing to listen to reason.
The knotted ball of fear inside him throbbed harder than ever.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
“Are you going to look at me?”
The sharpness in his tone seemed to take her by surprise. Her dark gaze flicked to his. Wary. Defiant. And, buried beneath all that, still humiliated and ashamed.
Gloria, being Gloria, tried to hide her emotions behind her bravado. “What’s your problem, Cooper?”
“Can I come in?” he snapped. He had no intentions of standing out in the hall while they hashed out the future of their relationship, which was the same thing as the future of his life.
Huffing at this rudeness, she stood aside and swept him in, slamming the door behind him. He stalked into the living room, then wheeled around to face her.
“I left you a thousand messages. Thanks for letting me know you were okay.”
She waved that aside as if he was a persistent fruit fly. “I wasn’t in a talking mood. I’m allowed.”
“I was worried. You could’ve sent me a text. And just so you know? Hiding and licking your wounds doesn’t work for me.”
Her brows hitched higher, mocking him. “Eagle Scout’s got a temper.”
“And Doc’s a coward.”
“I’m not a coward,” she cried, puffing with outrage.
“And I’m not Aaron. So don’t try to pull a disappearing act on me.”
She blinked with shock and a new wariness.
“Believe me,” she told him, “I know you’re not Aaron.”
“Great. Then we’re on the same page.”
“I doubt that.” She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands, probably because that was the best way to avoid looking directly at him. She looked bleary and defeated. “Okay, so, you came, you saw that I’m okay, I can see that you’re okay, so...we’re good, right?” She headed for the door. “Have a great night. I’m tired.”
“Not so fast.” He leaned against the sectional’s arm and crossed his ankles and arms. “I want to know what’s going on in that head.”
Vibrating with edginess, she paced a few steps away and came right back, ruffling her hair with her hands. “You want to do this now?” she demanded.
He felt a pulse of fear. “Right now.”
“Fine.” Her mouth twisted with some combination of words she couldn’t force herself to say and unshed tears. Her nostrils flared. She tried to smooth her hair, tucking it behind one ear. “Fine. Here it is: I don’t think this is working. So I can’t see you anymore.”
A smile, bitter and involuntary, stretched his lips. Could he read this woman like a large-print picture book or what?
“You’re nothing if not predictable.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What’s changed, Glo?”
She had the nerve to cock her head and look confused. “Pardon me?”
“You’ve been up-front with me about your relationship with that guy since practically the day we met. I know you’re not a saint. I’m not a saint either. I’m okay with our mutual flaws, and I thought you were, too. So what’s changed?”
She made a brittle sound, a hiccupping sob.
“What’s changed is that now I know what I’ve done.” Her voice was shrill, just this side of hysteria. “It’s not emotional Monopoly money anymore, Cooper. It’s real. Do you get that? What’s changed is that now I’ve met the woman I hurt, and now I’ve looked her in the eyes, and now I’ll have to live with the fact that she wasn’t going to divorce him before, but she is now.”
Now he was the one who couldn’t hold her gaze. The seething pain in her eyes was more than he could take. “I know,” he said quietly. “I understand. You feel guilty. You’re ashamed.”
“Yeah! I’m ashamed! And I was ashamed in front of your parents today, Cooper! The one time a guy I’m dating actually wants to introduce me to his family, my sordid past shows up to the party!”
“Look.” He took a deep breath, determined to get this exactly right. “It wasn’t the way I wanted it to go with them. I wanted them to see the amazing woman I see when I look at you. It wasn’t good, no.”
She looked slightly mollified that he understood the gravity of the situation. “The word you’re looking for is bad, Cooper. It was bad.”
“So we’ll have to deal with that. And we will. But it’s got nothing to do with our relationship, Gloria. Our relationship is solid and getting better every day.”
“What?” she said on an incredulous laugh. “You didn’t just say that.”
“Hell, yeah, I did.”
“You’re not that clueless, Cooper!” Her voice rose to a shout. “I don’t get to burn down someone’s house over here, and then come over here and build myself a beautiful new house to live in! It doesn’t work that way! I should get nothing! That’s how it works!”
“You’re doing it to yourself!” he yelled back. “My feelings haven’t changed! I’m not trying to punish you!”
“You should be,” she said quietly, her shoulders drooping. “And you would be. If you’d stop letting your hormones do the thinking for you.”
He stared her down until some of her defiance wavered and fell.
“That was beneath you.”
“It’s true,” she insisted.
Frustration made his entire body seize up, all the way down to his fists.
“It’s not true! You think I’m not capable of figuring out when I care about someone versus when I just want to screw them? Really? Is that what you think of me?”
“No.” She gave him a gentle smile—a sad, tender smile—and that was the moment he realized that this battle was 90 percent lost, and unless a team of SEALs was on its way to help him out, he wasn’t going to win. “No. I think that when you calm down and think about it, you’ll know I’m right.” She paused, her smile fading. “I can’t stand to look at myself in the mirror. Why would you think I’m a good candidate for a relationship with you?”
He was up against a brick wall, clearly, but he couldn’t just let her go. Not Gloria. His desperation level hit the red zone, making it impossible for him to think clearly before choosing his words. Not that he had any explanation for the certainty he’d felt the second he laid eyes on her that she was...that she was...
“Because you are a good candidate,” he said flatly.<
br />
“That’s crazy talk, Cooper!”
“What do you want me to say?” he roared. “I can’t describe it in terms that make sense! It’s you, Gloria! It’s always been you! It’s, I don’t know, it’s the look in your eyes, like you’re Wonder Woman and this lost little girl, all rolled up in one.” She stilled, frowning. “It’s your bravado. It’s your incredible brain. It’s your killer instinct. You’d rather chew gravel than lose to anyone at anything.” She blinked, opening her mouth and then closing it again. “It’s your face. It’s your body. It’s because you watch Doctor Who and know who all the villains are. It’s the way you take such good care of your sister, and you never even think you should look out for yourself like that. It’s the way you look at me when you think I don’t notice.”
Her face was bright red now, her eyes shining but still sad. She pressed her hands to her cheeks as though checking for a fever, and then lowered one to cover her heart.
They stared at each other.
“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?” she said.
“Fuck easy.”
She almost smiled at that, but she didn’t swerve one inch off her path.
“It shouldn’t be me.” She was all quiet patience, the way a kindergarten teacher demonstrates proper shoe-tying techniques to her class. “You want someone you can be proud of with your parents. A good person. Someone better than me.”
“Don’t you get it?” he asked tiredly. “There is no one better than you. Not for me.”
Gloria, damn her, stood there watching with those dispassionate eyes, hearing but not believing. He wondered what he could ever say or do that would make her believe.
She smiled benevolently at him. “There will be someone better. You’ll thank me for this one day. You’ll see.”
That was when he lost it. Big-time.
“Screw you!” he thundered. “You don’t get to stand there ruining my life and act like you’re giving me the winning lottery ticket! You don’t get to throw us away! You don’t get to decide who’s right for me and who’s not! Half of this is about what I want, Gloria! It’s not all about you!”
Sinful Paradise (Kimani Hotties) Page 12
