Promises, Promises

by Shelley Cooper

  “And,” he added, “being a star in the sky would take you far, far away from the stress caused by your father being out of work.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “You’re probably right.”

  “See that star over there?” he asked.

  “Which one?”

  He leaned close enough to see the water glistening on her eyelashes. “That one,” he said, pointing. “The one on the tip of the Little Dipper.”

  “That’s Polaris,” she said. “The North Star.”

  “I know that now. But after my mother died, my brother Carlo gathered us all together, took us outside and pointed up to that star in the night sky. He told us it was our mother. If we were feeling lonely or lost or scared, or just needed to talk, all we had to do was talk to that star, and she’d listen. I was fourteen at the time, too old to really believe it, but it gave me a lot of comfort to think of my mother being up there, watching over me. Over the years I guess I’ve spoken to that star hundreds of times.”

  “What a lovely gift your brother gave you,” Gretchen said.

  “Carlo sacrificed a lot to make sure the rest of us got what we needed. I’ll always be grateful to him for that.”

  She glanced at him. “What do you think your mother would say if she was looking down on us at this very minute?”

  What would his mother say? That she was proud of him for the work he had chosen to do. That she was thankful the family had remained so close. That Gretchen was exactly the kind of woman she would have chosen for him.

  Marco slammed the door shut on that train of thought.

  “She’d say we’re breaking the law and have no business being here,” he told her.

  Gretchen chuckled. “My mother would say the exact same thing.”

  “That’s mothers for you.”

  “Tell me about your fiancée,” she said.

  Marco blinked at the sudden change in subject. “Tess? What do you want to know?”

  “When did you start dating?”

  “We were high school sweethearts.”

  “So you knew each other for a long time,” she said.

  “Ever since we were kids.”

  “When she broke off the engagement, it must have been hard for you.”

  He hadn’t thought much about it at the time, had in fact been too busy with his studies to really dwell on it over-much.

  “When my mother died,” he said, “after the funeral, my sister, Kate, who was only ten at the time, cried that she wished she could die, too. Carlo told her she had no choice but to keep on living. Only God knew when it was our turn to go. In the meantime life went on, whether we wanted it to or not.”

  “So that’s what you did when Tess left you?” Gretchen said. “Moved on with your life?”

  He nodded. “I had no other choice.”

  “And you made a decision to remain a bachelor.”

  He knew what she was getting at, but she couldn’t be more wrong. “Yes, but my decision had nothing to do with Tess.”

  “It didn’t?” She sounded skeptical.

  He shook his head. “No. Tess was right to break our engagement. I didn’t have the time to give our relationship, to give any relationship, the attention it deserved. I still don’t. That’s why I made myself that promise.”

  “And it had nothing to do with Tess,” she repeated.

  He felt a rising irritation. “No, it didn’t.”

  He thought she muttered something like, “If you say so,” but refrained from commenting. So far as Marco was concerned, the discussion was over.

  “What was your fiancé like?” he asked.

  “A lot like me,” Gretchen said. “Dedicated to his work. Dependable to a fault. Boring.”

  “You’re wrong,” he said in a low voice, his irritation forgotten. “You’re not boring at all.”

  She went suddenly still. “What am I, Marco? What am I really?”

  The urgency in her words conveyed itself to him, and he couldn’t deny her the truth. “You’re a warm, funny, beautiful, desirable woman. A woman who will fulfill every promise she made to Jill, and who, one day very soon, will find herself in the throes of an extremely wild, crazy affair.”

  She would never know how much it cost him to say those words, or how it killed him to think of her in another man’s arms. Instead of relaxing, the way he thought she would, she seemed to grow even more tense.

  “But not with you,” she said.

  Earlier, when he’d been dreading this outing, he’d thought he was the only one doing battle against a desire he couldn’t ignore. But he’d been wrong. Gretchen still wanted him as much as he wanted her. She’d just been better at hiding it than he had.

  She wasn’t hiding it now, though. There was no ambivalence in the heated look that burned straight to his very soul.

  And if he took her up on her unspoken invitation, he knew he would be lost. He couldn’t change who he was, just as he knew she couldn’t change who she was. The end result would be disastrous.

  “No,” he agreed. “Not if your definition of wild, crazy affair still includes the terms love, commitment and marriage. I believe that’s how you defined it for me.”

  Her smile was wry. “You have a good memory.”

  “A good memory helps when you need to memorize dozens of symptoms for an even greater number of illnesses.”

  She looked down at the water. “Thank you, Marco. About the warm, funny, beautiful and desirable part, I mean. I really needed that.”

  “I was only speaking the truth,” he said lightly.

  “And I can always count on you for that, can’t I?”

  “I like to think so.”

  “In that case…” Her head suddenly came up. “Am I totally reading you wrong? Do you want to kiss me? Do you want me at all?”

  The air rushed out of his lungs, and his heart thudded painfully. “You know I do,” he said roughly. “The same way you know why I won’t kiss you.”

  “Is it so easy for you?” she demanded. “Because, let me tell you, it’s not easy for me at all.”

  “It’s not easy for me either, Gretchen.” He thrust the fingers of one hand through his hair and felt rivulets of water run down his face. “The hell of it is, I feel closer to you than I’ve ever felt to another person. I feel as if I truly know you. I know the key events in your life that shaped you. And you know me, in a way no other woman has. Not even Tess.”

  He gave a harsh laugh. “Do I want to kiss you? Right now, Gretchen, I want to kiss you so badly I ache.”

  “I want you to kiss me, too.”

  “I know. That’s what makes it worse. But if we don’t give in to temptation, no one gets hurt.”

  They lapsed into silence. Marco had never been more aware of sensation, of the way the water lapped at their bodies, the smell of chlorine on the air, the sporadic sounds of traffic in the distance, the heat of Gretchen’s skin, so close and yet so far away.

  With a strangled groan, he grasped the edge of the pool and hauled himself out of the water.

  Gretchen was climbing out when they heard a shout. Marco looked over his shoulder, and saw a flashlight beam shining through the fence.

  “Seems we’ve been found out,” Gretchen said.

  “What happens if they catch us here?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure,” she replied. “They could arrest us for trespassing, or maybe they’ll just give us a ticket and send us on our way.”

  “You forget,” he said, “that my brother is the chief of police.”

  “In that case we’ll probably just get a slap on the wrist.”

  “And by tomorrow morning the whole town will know what we were doing in here.”

  She turned away. “Can’t have that, can we?” she said stiffly.

  “Gretchen,” he said softly. “Look at me. Please.”

  When she did, he saw the hurt in her eyes. “I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks. But as for sharing this moment with the rest of the town, forget it. Call me
selfish, but this is our last adventure. I don’t want anything to spoil the memory.”

  “We’ll always have Paris?” she asked.

  The reference to Casablanca and another relationship with no future left him feeling glum. “No matter what.”

  Her sudden smile took him by surprise. “Want to make a run for it?”

  He forced a smile of his own. “I’m right behind you.”

  They dashed to the other end of the pool and grabbed their belongings. Ignoring the champagne bottle and glasses, they scaled the fence and disappeared into the safety of the darkened park.

  Gretchen had a stitch in her side by the time they reached the safety of her duplex. Along with the stitch, there was an ache in her chest that had nothing to do with physical exertion.

  Breathing hard, she dumped her backpack and her sandals onto the porch. A sudden shiver had her shrugging into her cover-up. After fastening each button securely, she sat down on the top step, pressed her back against the post and stretched out her legs. Thankfully, the stitch in her side had eased, although the ache in her chest remained.

  Marco dropped his belongings on the ground beside him at the foot of the stairs. Placing his palms against his thighs, he leaned forward and gasped for air. The pool of light shining through her living room window bathed him like a spotlight.

  At the sight of his bent head, his hair still wet and spiky from their swim, Gretchen felt a jolt of lust shoot through her. How was it possible, she wondered, to feel elated, depressed and deliciously wanton all at the same time? She was elated that they had eluded capture, depressed that her time with him was coming to an end and wanton because, well, because he was Marco. And she loved him.

  She’d known the truth of her feelings after the first day of their adventure, had hugged the knowledge tightly to her chest as she lay in bed that night, and had even dared to dream each night afterward that he might come to feel the same way for her. The week had been magical, even if she hadn’t gotten her wish. With each shared adventure, each shared laugh, each shared confidence, she’d fallen more deeply in love with him.

  And not ten minutes ago he’d made it plainer than the nose on his face that nothing had changed. If we don’t give in to temptation, no one gets hurt, he’d said. Meaning her, Gretchen supposed. Marco might desire her, but he had no intention of surrendering his heart to her. To reveal her love to him now would only cause them both discomfort and embarrassment.

  A lump formed in her throat, and she swallowed it back. The key to getting through the next few minutes with a modicum of dignity, she decided, was to keep things light. Free. Easy.

  “I feel like Bonnie and Clyde after a successful bank robbery,” she said.

  His head came up. “Just be thankful it didn’t end like their last fateful ride.”

  She winced. “Quite the optimist, aren’t you?”

  “Sorry,” he said, still breathing hard. “I guess I just can’t find all that much to be happy about right at this moment.”

  She was with him there. “It is depressing that we have to go back to work in a few hours. Plus, according to Doppler radar, it’s supposed to rain all week.”

  “Not to mention,” he replied, “that in a few minutes we’ll be saying goodbye.”

  How was she supposed to keep things light and easy if he refused to cooperate? Gretchen dropped her head and examined a board on the porch floor.

  “Yes,” she managed to choke out.

  It wasn’t fair. She didn’t want to say goodbye. In fact, she’d been dreading this moment all week.

  They did talk-shows about women like her. Women who knew that the object of their affection was unattainable and who handed their heart away, anyway. Women who sat on the stage and wailed and cried and bemoaned their sorry fate.

  Gretchen supposed it had been too much to hope that, when he’d faced and conquered his fear of heights, Marco would have done the same with his fear of falling in love. Of course, in order to conquer that fear he would have to acknowledge its existence, something he’d also made clear he wasn’t ready to do.

  It was all Jill’s fault, or rather it was the fault of those blasted promises of hers. If Gretchen had never made them, she wouldn’t be in the fix she was in now, wanting a man she could never have. Loving a man who would never allow himself to return that love.

  Even though all she really wanted to do was weep, Gretchen picked herself up off the porch, drew a deep breath and stuck out her hand. Might as well get it over with.

  “Thank you for the adventure, Marco. I had a wonderful time.”

  He straightened to his full height. Instead of taking her hand, he said, “Play for me, Gretchen.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “The piano. I want to hear you play.”

  She put up a token protest. “It’s late, Marco, and I’m tired.”

  He dashed her protest with a smoldering look. “Please.”

  “We’re only putting off the inevitable.”

  “I know. But before we say goodbye, I want to hear you play for me. I want to have one last memory of our time together.”

  For the sake of her peace of mind, and her dignity, she knew she would be better off shaking his hand and wishing him well with his life. Instead, after gathering up her belongings, Gretchen found herself leading Marco up the stairs to her second floor and the piano in the guest bedroom.

  Eyes steadfastly averted from the double bed, she spread her towel across the piano bench to protect the wood from her wet bathing suit. After adjusting the bench’s position several times, she sat down, licked her dry lips, readied her foot at the pedal and extended her fingers over the keys. Feeling unaccountably shy under his intense regard, she asked, “What would you like me to play?”

  He moved to stand directly behind her, making her intensely aware of the fact that, because he’d left his towel, T-shirt and sandals at the foot of her porch steps, his only garment was his bathing suit. The smooth skin of his chest, the hard muscles of his forearms, the flat plane of his stomach, the firmness of his thighs, all were on view were she but to turn her head and look. And touch. Her hands started trembling.

  “You choose,” he said.

  For a minute, as the heat of his skin enveloped her and her insides seemed to melt into a flow of hot, aching need, her mind went blank. Then, as if of their own volition, her fingers picked out the opening bars of Debussy’s “Clair de Lune.” It seemed appropriate, given their adventure that evening, to play about the wonders of moonlight.

  Even though he wasn’t touching her, Gretchen couldn’t relax. She sat with her back rigid, her fingers feeling clumsy, the notes she played sounding forced, false. A third of the way through, she hit a wrong note. The discordant chord grated on her already stretched nerves. Abruptly she dropped her hands from the keyboard and stared down at her lap.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, unable to look at him. “I lost my way.”

  “Don’t stop,” he implored. “I’ve never heard anything so beautiful.”

  This would be his last memory of her. When he thought of her, and of this moment—if he thought of it at all—she wanted him to recall it as something special. Besides, if she couldn’t play for him now, what chance did she have, three months from now, before hundreds of strangers, at the piano competition?

  Gretchen closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. Banishing everything from her mind but the music, she willed her consciousness to a place where nothing could touch her, and poised her fingers above the keyboard.

  This time there was no hesitancy in the notes she played, no clumsiness, no awareness of Marco himself and no discordant chords to jar her concentration. Unknowingly she poured her heart, her soul and every ounce of the yearning she had for him into the haunting tune.

  When she finished and the last notes echoed on the air, Gretchen felt drained and more than a little dazed. Behind her Marco was silent. When the silence continued, she slowly pivoted on the piano bench and slanted a look up at hi
m.

  The expression on his face drew a startled gasp from her throat. He looked as if someone had sucker punched him in the stomach.

  “Marco,” she cried, rising to her feet. “Are you in pain?”

  He hauled her roughly into his arms and buried his face in her neck. “Yes, Gretchen,” he said, his voice thick, “I am. I ache all over. For you. Heaven help me, I don’t have the strength to resist you anymore. I’m too weak.”

  He ran his hands through her hair, down her arms, across her back, and she felt the burn of his touch low and deep in her belly. Shivers of delight left her weak and trembling as he trailed kisses over the sensitive skin of her neck, and Gretchen clutched at him the way a drowning woman would a life preserver.

  “God, you feel so good,” he said, his mouth moving to nibble at her earlobe, his hot breath teasing her skin.

  Something snapped inside her then—the last vestige of restraint. Gretchen tightened her arms around him and plastered her body to his, trying to get as close as possible to him, to climb into his skin.

  “Marco,” she murmured, placing kisses along the column of his throat. “Marco, Marco, Marco.”

  A minute later he gently cupped her face between his hands and tilted her head back. His dark-brown eyes blazed with emotion.

  “Tell me to stop, Gretchen, and I will. Tell me to go home, and I’ll leave this very minute. But I don’t have the strength to do it on my own. I want you too badly.”

  Gretchen could only stare at him in wonder. Why was she trying so hard to resist him? She couldn’t remember. She couldn’t think at all. All she was aware of was a desire that threatened to consume her.

  She was so tired of fighting her feelings for him. As the song went, she’d fought for so long that she’d totally forgotten what she’d started fighting for.

  “I can’t,” she whispered. “I want you, too.”

  His mouth came down on hers then, and Gretchen tasted heaven. Marco’s lips were hard and insistent, his tongue feverishly plumbing the depths of her mouth, his arms encircling her, his hands pressing against the middle of her back with a force that crushed her breasts to his chest. Sinking her fingers into the springiness of his hair, Gretchen felt the hardness of his arousal pressing against her and instinctively rocked her pelvis, eliciting a groan from deep in his throat.