Serena went back to her office and phoned the hospital, where she managed to get through to Angela.
“It’s not your fault, Serena,” Angela told her. “You just happened to come along at an appropriate time. And I used you as my vehicle to free myself. Even if I am a little sad.”
“That’s a pretty good rationalization,” Serena told her. “So what are you going to do now?”
“Get a place with Max for a while. Then maybe go back into journalism. Maybe I’ll end up at Steel.”
“That would be great.”
“And my mother is back in my life. She came to visit me. She lost touch with me. It’s kind of strained, but it might work. Max is quite happy about it. Anyway, I get out of here tomorrow and I start my new life. Thank you.”
“Let’s keep in touch this time.”
“We will. And be good to Nick. I really liked him.”
Be good to Nick, Serena thought when she’d hung up. How could she, when she lived a lie with Nick? Everything in her life almost formed a full circle, except for Nick.
She closed up her office, went out to the parking lot and climbed into her Jeep. All she wanted to do was go home. There she would make her decisions.
•
When Nick found Serena gone, he went home. Well, he’d achieved everything he had set out to achieve. He’d set his parent’s move into motion. He’d got a hit news show. He’d had great sex with Serena Brown.
He slumped into a chair. But he wasn’t satisfied, not nearly satisfied. He’d pretty much told her not to love him, and she didn’t. He scrubbed his eyes. Damn. He’d been a fool. He should have just told her to fall in love with him and then they’d both be in love with each other and he could marry her. He knew now that’s what he wanted. He wanted to stay home, write a book or two, marry Serena and be with her forever. By not telling Serena that he loved her he was repeating the way he’d reacted to his parents and he was denying himself a loving life.
At their weekly Monday morning meeting he felt like something was closing in on him when he saw Serena. He knew, because she wore one of her pinstriped suits, that something was up. She had a very determined look on her face. After the meeting he went into his office, and wasn’t surprised when she followed, closed the door, and stood in front of him.
“I want to break up with you. For good this time. We’ll tell our parents, so we won’t be manipulated into any more social occasions together.” Her words were fast, succinct, as if she’d rehearsed them.
Nick didn’t blame her for her decision, but he felt his stomach shrivel even tighter. Everything inside his head throbbed. “Reason?” It was the only word he could get out without letting her hear the emotion gathering in his chest. His fingers clenched inside his pockets.
She wet her lips with her tongue. “You know what the reason is. I can’t—” For the first time he heard her voice waver. She cleared her throat. “Why do you need a reason? We were having an affair heading to nowhere, and I don’t want it to continue. Isn’t that enough of a reason? There’s nothing in it for me. No pay off.”
“It’s only since this Angela thing.” He heard his voice sound gruff and unfamiliar.
“Don’t blame Angela for us. We were manipulated back together after my last decision to split. So we’re over that silly gossip. Now we can break up.”
He couldn’t argue with her because he couldn’t speak without begging, his nails were biting into his palms inside his pockets. He moved past her without seeing anything. He had to get out of Steel, far away from Serena. He was on the way to a major breakdown.
He grabbed his jacket and left the office.
Shrugging the jacket over his shoulders, Nick pushed open the heavy fire door and took the stairs. The stairs reminded him of Serena. He walked to his car but he didn’t want to drive anywhere because he didn’t feel as if he were capable of driving. So he began to walk.
•
Serena squared her shoulders. She wasn’t going to cry. Be a big brave girl about this, sweetheart. I’ll be back. Her father hadn’t come back that time. And neither would Nick.
“You look wiped out,” Reeva said when Serena arrived for a scheduled meal that evening. “Do you want a glass of wine?”
“A big one,” Serena told her, sitting down in one of the cushiony armchairs and slipping off her shoes so that they lay scattered on the thick pile rug. Her mother seemed to move around in a fog before her eyes.
Reeva handed her a glass of wine. “I imagine you’re pretty shaken up after that fiasco on Friday night.” Reeva sat down in another armchair. “I hope you stick to interviewing politicians in future. It’s much safer.”
Serena sipped the drink and smiled. “I agree.”
“Anyway, I’m pleased we can have these few hours together. I was thinking about making arrangements for Christmas.”
Serena didn’t even want to think about Christmas. She had to get over the next few weeks yet. She had to face Nick over and over until she didn’t want him anymore. “It’s a bit early.”
“Not really. We have more people to include this year, with Nick. And Seth wants to join us. I was talking to the Frasers the other day and they would be delighted to share Christmas with us.”
Serena couldn’t believe her ears. She felt as if she’d woken up from a deep sleep. “You phoned Nick’s parents?”
“Of course. I took their number from Maria at Thanksgiving.”
“So what does this mean exactly?”
Reeva gave her a sideways look. “We all have Christmas together.”
“Mother. Why didn’t you check with me first? I’ve broken up with Nick.”
Reeva sighed and shook her head. “Now what happened?”
“Nothing exactly happened, but I can’t continue in a dead end relationship.”
Reeva raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying that you got back together after Thanksgiving?”
“Yes. I’m saying that.”
“That doesn’t appear to be a dead end.”
“Well, it was. Nick’s only committed to this show until next spring. Then he’s going back in the field. It’s crazy for me to continue any longer. So I called it quits before I can get hurt. We’ve killed the gossip.”
Her mother gave her a thoughtful look. “You’re thinking he’s going to be like your dad, aren’t you?”
“Well?”
“Well, he’s not. He might seem like him. But he’s not. Your father was much less controlled than Nick. Stu was shattered by his parents’ sudden death when he was eighteen. He lived by the seat of his pants and he drank too much and took too many drugs. Nick’s thoughtful. Sober. And he makes careful decisions.”
Serena had to agree. “Okay. So he’s a great guy. But that doesn’t mean he’s not going to leave me high and dry. In that case, I’m out before he can destroy me. While I’m still in one piece.”
Her mother smiled. “I do admire your strength of purpose, I have to say that. But we’re still having Nick’s Mom and Dad for Christmas. It’s arranged. And that means Nick as well. So you’re either going to have to make it up with him for the season or get back together.”
She couldn’t possibly do that. She’d be a wreck. “I can’t.”
Reeva gazed at her daughter. “I think I once drummed it into you that there is no such word as can’t. Go tell him you love him and that you don’t want him to go.”
“Mother. I couldn’t.”
Reeva smiled. “You can. But you won’t because you have too much pride. What if he loves you?”
“He doesn’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Mother. If he loved me he wouldn’t be leaving.”
“He hasn’t left yet. He’s not leaving for months. He can change his mind.”
“You never got Dad to change his mind.”
“He was different. Nick has roots here. His parents for one.”
“They’ve never been much to him. They’re the reason he left in the first place.”<
br />
“Do you want to tell me about that.”
Serena explained Nick’s story.
“All right. But now they are the reason he came back. Before you burn your bridges at least confront Nick with the truth.”
“Why me? Why can’t he come to me and say he loves me and won’t leave?”
“Because I think he might not know how to do that.”
Was her mother right? Should she go to Nick and tell him she loved him with all her heart and wanted him forever? What if he laughed in her face, turned her down, told her she was full of it? Could she work with him under those circumstances for another few months? She would be glad to see the back of him if that happened. Even so, maybe she should take her mother’s advice and at least let Nick know where he stood with her. Right now he thought she didn’t care. At least he would understand her reason for breaking up with him. He didn’t want her in love with him, did he?
She spent the entire night in agony with these thoughts.
Nick came into her office the next day and said, “You know what your mother has done?”
She nodded. “Yes. I do.”
“Is it okay with you? In the circumstances?”
“No, if you want the honest truth. But we can’t disappoint your parents.”
She saw his cheek throb. “I don’t see why we can’t be civilized for one day.”
She ran her fingers through her hair and looked at him. “Aren’t we being civilized now? I think we’ve done quite well. We’ve lasted quite a few weeks, on and off.”
He pushed his hands into his pockets, and let out a steamy sounding breath. “Okay. Let’s cut to the chase. I’ve had enough of this. You’re acting like a jerk. You had one story that went awry on you because you opened up your creative door and went for it. You had one affair that was going great because you let yourself care. Now you’re harnessing yourself, and you’re going to become narrow and uptight, the little Ice Maiden you were when I met you.”
Serena stood up and glared at him. “That’s not true. Number one, I was not the little Ice Maiden when you met me. I was perfectly fine, thank you.”
“Except for all your hang ups about your father and your brother.”
“I’ve got rid of those now, thanks to you. I read my father’s book. I’m friends with Seth. I’m over all that.”
“So I did something right?”
“You push too hard, you know that?”
“I push hard when I really want something.”
Serena met his glittering gaze and realized that it wasn’t cold and she could see right through him. He was falling apart in front of her. All sorts of feeling showed in his eyes and his strained features. She felt the need to reach out to him, but she couldn’t make her arm move forward. They stood staring at one another for a long, tense moment.
Sensing this was the moment, she drew in a breath. “Okay. This is how it is for me. I love you. I can’t live without you. I know you hate that scene. Therefore, I’m cutting the cord now, before I get any more involved, while I can still think straight, while my world is still under my control.”
She heard him swallow hard. “You mean that?” His voice was hoarse, uncontrolled.
“Yes. I mean it. Because I love you I’m letting you go to be free. That’s what you want, isn’t it? That’s why you let Lise Kryker go, wasn’t it?”
“I let Lise Kryker go because I could never love her. Not because she loved me.”
Serena raised her arms in the air. “Whatever. That’s the situation. I’ve gone and fallen in love with you, and if it goes on any longer I’m going to be a mess. A huge mess.”
“And what about me?” he asked.
“You’ve had some great sex. It was great sex. For me anyway.” Serena could hear her voice breaking. If he didn’t leave her soon she would be wailing and sobbing. She gulped down all her emotion and felt it choke her.
Nick took a step forward until he was about a foot away from her. It was like that first night in her other office, when he’d started to invade her space. He’d invaded more than her space. He’d invaded her mind, her senses, her body, her own worth. No. Not her own worth. He’d increased her worth. He’d made her realize her own strengths. He’d also taught her to love a man. Wasn’t that incongruous? A man who never wanted to love, teaching a woman to love him. What a crazy world.
He touched her face with his palm. “Serena.”
She leaned into his warm hand for a brief moment. She knew the spell he could wrap around her.
“I don’t want to break up with you. We have all sorts of good things to go for yet: Christmas, Valentine’s Day, your birthday, Easter, my birthday—which is next July.”
“You’ll be gone by then.” A sob escaped with her words.
“No. I won’t. I’ve decided that I want to take a few years off and write some books. Oh, I might do some work here at Steel for Don. I might even get offered next season’s Neon Nights if John can’t come back, but I do want to write. I’ve always wanted to write. I’ve just never put myself in one place long enough.”
“So you’ll just string me along while you do these things you want to do and then you’ll leave?”
“I don’t think so.” He leaned over and touched his mouth against her forehead. “Not feeling the way I do about you. I love you so much.”
His words registered. Serena turned her face to look at him and he was very close. She could see the scar, a little more livid against his skin now that his tan was leaving with the cooler weather. Her lips were so dry she had to moisten them with her tongue before she spoke. “Can I trust you on that?”
His eyes locked with hers. “Can I trust you? Isn’t that a risk we have to take?”
“It is a risk.”
“Then let’s take it. Because if you leave me, I’m leaving the show and I’m going and I’m never coming home again. I couldn’t go through the rest of the year with you here and not being with you.”
“You’d leave the show for me?”
“Darn right I would. I love you. I want to marry you. We’ll get engaged at Christmas and plan a June wedding when we’ve got some time off. We’ll do everything right.” He put his arms around her and held her as if his life depended on it. “Please?”
Why did she always feel so secure in his arms?
“Hold me,” Nick said.
She let her arms crawl around him and hold him close. She could feel his heartbeat close to her own frantic heart. And heard his whisper before they kissed.
“I’ll never leave you.”
• • •
Jillian Dagg was born in Surrey, England, and moved to Canada with her parents. She loved reading romance novels so much that she began writing the genre. Her first books were published by Silhouette, Simon & Schuster and a writing career was launched. Jillian lives in Ontario, Canada with her husband and cats.
www.JillianDagg.com
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Heart in the Field Page 26
