She tried to hide the deflated look in her eyes. “Okay. Is there a chance you will? I mean, will you give us a chance?”
She was making this hard. I had to remind myself that she put us here.
Before she left, I planned to ask her to move in with me. I could see us having a future together. Getting married, having kids.
Then she chose to leave and it crushed me.
“I need to think about it. Need time.”
“Okay.” She pulled in a breath and blinked several times. I reached across the table and took hold of her hands.
“You will be okay, whatever I decide. And, I promise you that we’ll always be friends. When you left, a part of me I can’t get back went with you. I’m trying to see if I can feel that way again.” That was me being real, and meeting her half way. Or at the point I could reach, realistically.
“I really hope you do, Tai. I really do. I made a big mistake when I left you. I should have at least tried to make us work long distance.” A little smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “Do you remember how we used to be?”
That wasn’t something I was likely to forget.
All I could say was that we were crazy in love.
I was crazy about her from the day that I met her. I thought she was different with her passion for writing and thirst for adventure. It wasn’t often people met someone who was exactly like them but yet different enough in all the right ways.
She’d come to Japan on vacation for the summer. She met me when her car broke down on one of the country roads.
I just happened to be passing by on one of my day trips to Kyoto and I towed her into the next town. I got her car sorted out but slipped her my number too. She called me the next day.
We moved fast. Too fast and then it was full speed ahead all the way.
Until we burned out. I wouldn’t pretend that our time together meant nothing to me. It was a part of me. It just wasn’t enough.
“Candace, you’re very career driven and I don’t know what happened to make you leave San Francisco, leaving a job you loved more than me but it could really just be that you lost your zing and zest. When you get that back, the same thing could happen again.”
“I left because the job wasn’t what I expected,” she confessed. “I was embarrassed to tell you because I left you for that job. I thought I was going to travel the world writing about all sorts of things, but I literally got stuck behind a desk and wrote about stuff I didn’t want to write. Freelancing at least gives me some of what I want.” She pulled in a breath. “Tai, I came to Japan to try to win you back.”
I wished like hell I could give her more, maybe some hope but I knew that was the absolute wrong thing to do.
I knew myself. There was a big part of me that had already decided against this and I was just testing the remaining part of myself that would always care for her.
I wouldn’t give her false hope though.
“What if we started with a date?” she added with a hopeful smile.
I sighed. A date was the last thing I wanted. Dating meant being serious and that gave me that trapped feeling again.
I didn’t like anybody coaxing me into a position I wasn’t comfortable in. Not even her.
“I don’t think a date is a good idea.” I looked at her, at the lost look in her eyes and couldn’t bring myself to completely shoot her down.
God, what the fuck? I was supposed to be a better asshole than this. I surely could think of something to tell her that wouldn’t force the issue.
I just couldn’t be an asshole to her.
“How about lunch? Something like this.” I suggested. This meeting of ours was less formal and didn’t come with any expectations.
“Lunch sounds good. When?” She looked scared to ask.
“What if we just play it by ear?” That way I didn’t have to say when. “It’s going to be really busy around the center with our investigation so I don’t know what my schedule will be like.” Better. That made it vague and it wasn’t far from the truth.
We’d be busy but I wasn’t the one doing any form of investigation. I still had my normal activities to carry out. Business and accounts, making the plans and business reports for the current projects and if the need arose, I would go back to the cave with the team. That was me.
I felt bad trying to maneuver her, but I knew myself.
If there was a woman I was interested in there would be no way on this earth that I would be playing anything by ear. I would have arranged something tonight despite what I was doing or how busy I was.
She should have known that about me but she smiled widely like we’d just made progress.
What I didn’t want is to feel bad about anything.
Like right now. I was thinking of when next I’d see Phoebe. I didn’t want it to be at work.
I wanted to catch up with her properly and explore that chemistry I felt so strong today.
Chapter 5
Phoebe
Chicago, 3 years ago…
No one could tell me that it was okay to not love your husband.
Not be in love?
How could that be okay?
Maybe that worked for some people, but I was struggling. Really struggling. I always struggled with my feelings for Jason.
I thought that there should at least be a spark. Something that connected us and made us click. Something that bonded us and made us want to see each other all the time, or at the very least miss each other when we were apart.
I didn’t feel either, and lately there was something else that I was beginning to sense. More than usual.
Cheating.
It was something I saw and picked up on. No one had to tell me, and no one would dare imply that Jason would do something like that. He was the Governor of Illinois, had been since last year and he stood for integrity. Besides that, family image mattered to him too much to do something like that.
That’s what the general mundane person would think.
I felt differently.
Last year was when I first got that niggling suspicion. It was just after he’d been appointed the position. He’d come home drunk from a party with lipstick on his collar, what looked like a hicky on his neck and smelling strongly of perfume.
I wanted to chalk it up to nothing but we had such a terrible argument after I asked him about it. He accused me of being jealous and paranoid.
The argument was so bad that I had to leave the house and stay in a hotel.
That argument highlighted a lot of things to me. One main thing was that I needed a place of retreat, just in case. I couldn’t go home to my parents because Mom would never see things my way, and I couldn’t rely on Emma. She couldn’t stand me.
So I rented the lake house. I wasn’t there a lot, but just in times where I needed to break free of the suffocation from my marriage.
And times when I felt something was going on.
Like last week I saw him with his secretary in the foyer of the Cook Building. I’d been trying lately to be more invested, as my mother put it. So I went to see if he wanted to catch dinner with me.
He was standing by the glass windows with her and he leaned down to whisper something into her ear. They were standing awfully close and the way that she giggled and then inconspicuously looked around to see if anyone was watching or heard alerted my suspicion.
It was such a small thing but it got me thinking. I walked up to them and the guilty look on her face added to my thoughts.
Then yesterday when I made another attempt to see him for lunch. I was told that he’d already left for lunch with his secretary.
“Phoebe, are you listening to me?” Mom asked, bringing me out of my thoughts.
I blinked and focused on her. She gave me that impatient look, suggesting she’d asked me something.
I didn’t know what it was.
She’d summoned me home to a mother-daughter dinner. Emma would be here soon. I was told to arrive an hour early because Mom wante
d to talk to me.
That was how she was. Treating everything like it was a business meeting.
I hated it. Nothing was ever just normal and ordinary. I guess that was what happened when you were practically raised in the White House.
My grandfather was the Assistant to the president and White House chief of staff. Big title, with big expectations. Expectations he still had.
Mom had been actually raised to be a lady. She did the whole finishing school thing in Switzerland and everything. So she expected Emma and me to follow suit. Be like her, prim and proper, marry men who were up to her level of expectations like dad with his catalogue of credentials.
We sat out in the rose garden in the gazebo. I straightened in my chair and gave her my full attention.
“Mom, I’m sorry I’m not feeling so good,” I lied. “What did you say?”
She raised her perfectly arched brows. “Didn’t you hear anything? Not a word?”
“I’m sorry.”
She frowned. I’d sat here for the last half an hour, so even I could understand her frustration this time. Usually she was just frustrated with me because of archeology. She’d always try to find something to say about that.
“I asked how you and Jason were. Last time we all went to the country club you seemed so cold towards him.”
She’d already pulled me up about that.
This marriage had always felt like she was in the driving seat and I was simply following captain’s orders.
“I wasn’t cold towards him. Nothing was going on.”
That was just the thing, nothing was going on, nothing ever happened when I was with Jason. We barely spoke. First I thought it was our age difference. He was eight years older than me. I never had a problem with it, and it didn’t seem to be an issue much when we were dating.
He seemed into me when we were dating but within months of marriage something just changed . That was nearly a year and a half after we met. We’d been together for two years now.
We got married quick. I thought too fast. I wasn’t ready because I wasn’t feeling the sort of excitement I thought I’d feel when you were engaged.
I’d never admitted this to anyone, but I said yes to him to please Mom.
“You were cold towards him, Phoebe, and that isn’t the way to behave when you’re married to a high profile official. People start talking when they see things like that. You sitting by yourself on the phone while he’s mingling with the people.”
I released a sharp sigh. “Mom, would it make you happier if I was to straddle him in front of everyone, or maybe give him a lap dance?”
She hated when I talked like that.
Emma would never say anything like that.
“Phoebe.” She snapped. “No need to get vulgar.”
She thought that was vulgar. I almost laughed, and instead I shook my head.
I shook my head and decided to voice some of my concerns.
“Mom, Jason and I don’t really click so if you see us apart like that, that’s the main reason. Also I have a feeling he’s screwing around behind my back.”
Mom gasped and looked appalled.
“Phoebe, this is what I mean. You aren’t with some loser from the street. Jason is a sophisticated man who loves you, but what will you expect if you go around making claims like that?”
I pressed my lips together. Was she ever going to see things from my perspective?
Even once?
“Mom, can’t you just hear me out? You always jump down my throat when it comes to Jason.”
“Because I’m so worried you’re going to mess things up with him. It’s bad enough that you went and choose to do archeology, but must you defy me in every other way?”
I couldn’t stand this, and she would never let me live down choosing archeology. I had to fight her on it. fight her so that I could do what I wanted. Thank God Dad was on my side with that.
But the whole Jason thing was…
It was uncharted territory for me since. The short of the long story was she chose him for me, and me being the dutiful daughter, me feeling bad that I never became a teacher like she wanted, went along with it.
I might have been young but I didn’t think things like love and marriage were something to take lightly. I’d robbed myself of my choices when I allowed her to think she could choose for me.
“Things aren’t working out, Mom.”
“Phoebe, make them work. As a wife to an important man like that, you make them work. If he is indeed cheating then that highlights something you did, or didn’t do. You don’t push him into someone else’s bed.”
My breathing stilled as the surprise took me.
She thought it would be my fault if my husband was cheating?
I stood up at the same time that Emma came in.
“I have to go,” I declared.
“I just got here.” Emma gave me a tight-lipped smile and smoothed her hands over her growing belly. She was six months pregnant.
Mom was happy with her because she got married to Dale, one of the most powerful criminal attorneys in Chicago. Mom never had to choose for Emma—everything she did was perfect.
“You’ll have more time to talk about me.” I gave her back the smug bitch smile she threw my way.
I didn’t care. We’d never got on and things weren’t going to get any better.
Before either of them could say anything, I was out the door.
I jumped in my car and headed home.
It was two p.m. I’d have some time to myself before Jason got home.
The person to speak to was him.
Maybe we could patch things up and if he knew how I felt or what my worries were, we could talk them through.
He’d never been mean to me, and always gave me whatever I wanted. Didn’t matter what it was.
But material things weren’t enough for me.
We didn’t talk as a couple, barely slept in the same bed long enough to have sex and… there was something that was missing.
I didn’t want to be right about the cheating. If that was even a possibility then that would be it for us. I just couldn’t be with him after that.
He was supposed to be mine.
Mine only.
If Jason was cheating then I wouldn’t even give him the chance to explain.
I would leave.
The automatic gates opened for me as I drove up to them. As I proceeded up the driveway I noticed his car was there, parked just to the corner of the garage instead of in the garage.
Odd.
He was always so particular about us parking in the garage.
And why was he back in the middle of the day?
I’d taken time off today from work to catch up on some sleep, do some shopping and go see my mom and sister.
Oh well, so much for that time to myself. There was also no time like the present, so I could talk to him now if he wasn’t going back to work.
I parked in the garage and left the door open for him. I then went inside the house, where I heard muffled sounds.
“Jason, I’m home.” I called out. No answer.
Sounded like he was upstairs with the TV on maybe.
I went to the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of pinot noir and two glasses from the cabinet.
I thought we could just have a mini date, here in the house. Silly since we lived here and all but this was me trying. It was me trying not to be as cold as what Mom implied. She’d accused me of that several times during the time I’d been with Jason and I’d always been quick to defend myself. What if she was right though?
What if I was indeed cold?
Maybe I secretly shot myself in the foot with him because deep down I was comparing him to someone else.
Tai.
Tai Ferreira. The guy I wasn’t supposed to be with but still wanted if I was honest with myself.
I tried not to think about him and when I found my mind drifting in that direction, I had to remind myself that it had been years since I�
�d last seen him.
Seven years.
Seven long years and not once did he contact me. I knew he was a Marine but I’d been to Japan several times in that time and never saw him, never heard anything. It was like he never existed.
That lack of contact on his part hurt.
It hurt deeply and said a lot in the same breath.
It said he didn’t want me. Mom told him loud and clear to stay away from me and that was what he did. He stayed right away.
He stayed away and I was left with this stupid teenaged fantasy of him, always comparing every guy I’d met to him.
And… always wondering if I was ever going to feel the way I did about him with anybody else.
That spark…
There was no use thinking of such things now. I was with Jason and…
A loud grunt sounded, tearing into my thoughts.
I was sure that was a grunt.
Leaving the wine and the glasses on the granite worktop, I decided to head upstairs.
“Jason,” I called again.
As soon as I got past the curve on the staircase I heard the grunting again, but that wasn’t all I heard.
There was a woman’s voice. A woman giggled then… moaned?
“Fuck me,” she screamed and ice glazed over my heart, worked its way from there into my blood and numbed me.
Please God don’t let this be one of those stories I’d heard about. The kind where the wife would surprise her husband by coming home early and find him cheating on her. Please no, my heart couldn’t take it.
I would confess something to myself, but just to myself. I didn’t love him. I didn’t love Jason, but he was my husband. I vowed to be loyal to him and cherish him for the rest of my life. until death do us part. And he promised me too.
So this noise that I could hear wouldn’t be that. Had to be my mind playing tricks on me. had to be because I was suspicious.
“Fuck me,” the woman screamed again. Louder this time and the obvious moans that followed were unmistakably moans of pleasure.
“I will fuck you, naughty girl.” That was Jason!
I was outside our bedroom door now, my hand on the brass handle, the metal cold against my palm.
The longer I stayed the longer I no longer had to wonder if what I was hearing was real.
Blossoms of The Heart Page 4
