by Summers, MJ
“There’s no need. It was nothing.”
“But to me it meant everything,” Megan responded.
“I’m glad I could help your mom, Megan. But I don’t want you to feel bad about it. I did it because I wanted to, but if I thought it had made you feel somehow guilty, that would really bother me.” Luc’s voice softened.
“No, I don’t want you to think that. I mean, I know you did it because you wanted to. I just want you to know I’ve never met anyone as generous and kind as you. You’re really a remarkable man. I hope you know that.”
Luc scoffed. “I’m so remarkable that you wanted me to leave.”
So he didn’t want to leave. “Luc, please don’t say that. I didn’t want you to leave—I needed you to. It’s not the same. I couldn’t keep our agreement. I thought I could do it, but I’m not as sophisticated as I hoped. I wish I could have been.” Megan’s voice broke as she spoke. She paused for a moment, trying to blink back her tears and force herself to find her strength.
Luc sighed audibly. Megan could picture him running his hand through his hair, and the thought of it made her body ache with longing.
“Falling in love doesn’t mean you aren’t sophisticated. It means you have a beautiful soul, one that won’t let you hold back and keep up with the jaded lies you tell yourself. It’s not a flaw to be vulnerable.”
“It is a flaw, Luc, because it means we can’t be together anymore, no matter how much either of us wants to be.” Megan spoke quietly, staring out the window at the moon.
“You aren’t the problem, Megan. It’s me. I should have left you alone. I knew I would never be what you needed, and I selfishly pursued you anyway, thinking only of what I wanted.”
“How do you know you would never be what I need? That sounds like bullshit to me, Luc. You were everything I needed when my mom got sick. You didn’t just take care of me, you took care of Elliott and of her too. What if you do have what it takes to be with someone like me, Luc? What if you’ve been lying to yourself about not being capable of this, but you really are?” Megan’s voice was now just short of pleading. She stopped herself before she said more. She wasn’t going to beg. She had begged Ian and all it had done was rob her of her dignity.
Luc voice was sad. “You don’t know everything there is to know about me, Megan. If you did, you would understand. What you do know should be enough to warn you off me, though. I am not a family man.”
“Okay, Luc. I know enough about life to know that you need to trust someone when they tell you who they are,” Megan answered. “You would never be happy in Boulder, shovelling snow and mowing the lawn. That would be hell for a man like you, who has spent his life in the most glamorous places in the world. I know that.”
Luc pictured himself in Boulder, pushing a lawn mower in the summer heat. Immediately he could see an image of Megan smiling at him as he wiped his brow. A pang of longing hit him rather than the dread he would have expected. “I don’t think either of us is willing to risk finding out if it would be heaven or hell. There’s too much at stake.”
Megan let out a puff of air, leaning her head against the headboard. “The fact that you seem to understand why I can’t take chances makes this so much harder for me.”
“Should I pretend I don’t get it and that I’m angry with you? Would that help you?”
“It wouldn’t work. You told me you’d be pretending.”
“Listen, I need to know that you’re going to be alright.” Luc’s voice was thick with emotion.
No! I’m not going to fucking be alright! This is going to hurt like hell! Megan did her best to sound convincing. “Of course, I’ll be fine. I’ve been through much worse. I’ve got to go, okay?”
Luc paused. “I want you to promise me one thing, mon ange. Promise me you will call me if you ever need me. If you are in any type of trouble, ever, you let me know. I’ll be there for you.”
Tears rolled down Megan’s cheeks as she listened to him, still wanting to care for her, even at the end. She nodded, forgetting he couldn’t see her.
“Are you nodding?”
“Yes,” she whispered, laughing a little at herself and at him for guessing what she was doing.
“Oh fuck, you’re crying, aren’t you? I’m so sorry, Megan. I wish I was there right now to hold you.”
“Me too, but I’m pretty sure it would only make this much harder. Goodbye, Luc.”
“Good night, Megan.”
Paris—Two Weeks Later
Luc sat at his desk in the office at Cloud, looking over design boards with his decorator, René. The first club he had opened needed updating and he was in the final stages of approving designs. The phone rang and Luc pressed the hands-free button without looking up to see who was calling.
“Luc Chevalier,” he answered, his voice impassive.
“Luc, you piece of shit! I hope you’re ready to say goodbye to that big dick of yours! I told you’d I’d chop it off if you fucked over my best—”
He lunged for the receiver, picking it up before Harper could finish her sentence. He waved René out the door, avoiding the designer’s wide-eyed, gape-mouthed expression as he exited the room and closed the door silently behind himself.
“Harper, calm down. Let me explain,” he ordered.
“Oh, you can explain, can you?” Harper’s voice oozed sarcasm. “Meg is sitting at home, broken-hearted, and you think you can talk your way out of this? Not fucking likely, asshole. You know what? After you pulled that bullshit cookie-cutter date in Paris, I told her she should give you the benefit of the doubt, but now I can see I was wrong. You’re just another womanizing piece of shit who used her and threw her away like so much garbage.”
“Harper, enough! I would have hung up by now if it were anyone other than Megan you were calling about. Now, I don’t know what she told you, but she wanted me to go.”
“As if she wanted you to go! She’s completely in love with you. Fucking clueless male.”
“Are you drunk?” Luc asked, his voice curt.
“No, I’m not drunk! I’m angry. You made her fall in love with you, got what you wanted and then you left her. Do you know how that makes me feel? Like a total shit friend. I’m the one who introduced her to you, I left her with you in Paris, thinking you’d take care of her, and now look what you’ve done to her. I can’t believe how wrong I was about you. Shit, I’m stupid!”
Luc’s jaw was set tightly, his eyes narrowed. If Harper could see him now, she would be a bit frightened. Simone walked into the office, took one look at him and backed out silently.
“Are you quite done?” he asked quietly.
“Are you sorry?” she retorted.
“Of course I’m fucking sorry!” he barked. “I’ve never felt so bad about anything in my life. I haven’t slept in weeks, I’ve stopped going to kickboxing and I barely eat! All I do is spend every waking hour thinking about Megan, wondering what I should have done differently, trying to figure out if there’s a way I can fix it, knowing she’s upset, wishing I could just go there and be with her until she feels better! I don’t need you to call me up threatening to cut off my dick. I have a conscience. Maybe Megan isn’t the only one who was caught off guard by this, did you ever consider that?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I’m most likely in love with her too, but I don’t know because I’ve never felt this way before. All I know is that I’ve never been this fucking miserable or pathetic in my life. I haven’t enjoyed one single moment of anything since I got home, and I have no idea when or if I’ll ever feel better.”
Harper paused for a moment, feeling suddenly deflated by his words. “Oh. I didn’t realize.”
“Maybe you should get the other person’s side of the story before you go on a rampage next time,” Luc replied, still angry.
“Maybe.” Harper’s voice was petulant.
“What did she tell you, anyway?”
“Nothing. She just told me you
two decided it was for the best you stop seeing each other. I sort of assumed the rest.”
“You just assumed I’m a total asshole despite the years we’ve known each other. You’ve added insult to injury, Harper.”
Harper sighed. When she spoke, her voice was small. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have blamed it all on you.”
“No, you shouldn’t have. She wanted me to go. I was planning to stay for as long as she needed help with her mom. She realized things were getting too serious and that I shouldn’t stay, so I left. I know she’s right. Better now than later, when Elliott would get hurt.”
“I don’t get it. How are both of you so sure it couldn’t work out? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“How could it work? Would they move to Paris and hang around my penthouse by themselves while I’m working nights and travelling? Or would I move to Colorado and start hosting barbecues for the other soccer parents?”
“You’re a snob, you know that? What’s wrong with Colorado?”
“You tell me. You moved away from there,” he snapped.
“That’s because of my work and my lifestyle,” she retorted.
“So you and I are not that different, then, are we?”
“But I’m happy. You’re fucking miserable, remember? Maybe you would actually love it in Boulder, hosting barbecues. How do you know if you don’t give it a try?”
“It’s not something you can experiment with!” His voice was harsh. “If it doesn’t work, three people will be badly damaged in the process, one of them a very innocent little boy who doesn’t have any say in any of it.”
“Well, now I know you were made for each other. You’re both too scared and stubborn to take a risk, so instead you’re going to sentence yourselves to lives of misery and loneliness.”
“We’re just too different, Harper, and neither of us is naive enough to think that we’d be able to make it work.”
“Wrong. You’re exactly the same. You’re a couple of idiots too scared to be in love with each other even though you’d be perfect together.”
“Listen, I know you’re just trying to help, but I have to go. I was in the middle of a meeting.”
“Luc, don’t let her get away. She could change your life. You could have it all, Luc. Everything worth having is waiting for you. You just have to go get it,” Harper pleaded.
“In Boulder,” he replied in a clipped tone.
“Does it matter where you find it, if it’s the real thing?”
“I have to go, Harper.”
“Goodbye. Sorry I threatened to cut your dick off. Call me if you need to talk, okay?”
“Don’t worry about it. And no. I can’t see myself doing that. Goodbye.”
Boulder
Later that night, Megan sat at her computer after having calculated her projected earnings for the next few months. For the first time, she was going to have some leftover money. She smiled to herself, feeling proud of her accomplishments so far that year.
“This calls for some ice cream!” she exclaimed to herself, getting up and crossing the kitchen to the freezer.
The changes she had made to her website had helped her attract more clients. Her new, higher rates didn’t seem to faze any of them, and she realized that this summer she was going to be handling four more weddings than she had during the same weeks the year before.
She thought about next winter and how she would certainly have a little extra money to put aside for Elliott’s education as well as to pay someone to take on all the tasks she hated doing. No more shovelling for her!
Her first impulse was to call Luc to tell him about it, then she remembered she couldn’t. They weren’t together anymore and nothing was going to change that. As she heaped the cold vanilla treat into a bowl, she suddenly felt depressed. She got out a package of chocolate chips and some chocolate sauce, pouring enough of each into the bowl that the ice cream was no longer visible.
Sitting back at her computer, she looked at the numbers again as she slowly ate her snack. Okay, Meg, get back to being happy already! You’ve done something amazing here. Let yourself enjoy the moment.
Why should not having Luc in her life sully this moment for her? It didn’t change what she had done in the least. And it wouldn’t have been a big deal for a millionaire to find out she was going to have a few thousand extra, anyway. The more she thought about it, the more she convinced herself it actually would have been embarrassing to talk with Luc about it.
By the time she scraped the bottom of the bowl clean, she told herself it was all for the best. It was maybe the one hundredth time she had tried to assure herself of that since they had ended things. She wondered how many more times she would have to repeat that mantra before she actually believed it.
Paris
Luc finished locking up the club and decided to walk the twenty blocks to his apartment. It was well after three in the morning, but he was nowhere near ready to face going home to his empty bed. Stuffing his hands into his coat pockets, he strode down the steps of the club, seeing the full moon lending its soft light to the city. The sight brought none of its usual comfort to him. Instead, for the thousandth time since he had hung up the phone after his last conversation with Megan, his mind wandered to that talk. She had as much as admitted that she was in love with him. It was something he knew long before she had said it. He could see it when she looked at him and feel it when they touched. He thought of their last night together, at the possessiveness he had felt when they were making love. He had never in his life felt such a strong need to be inside a woman that he had lost his self-control like that. He had always been exceedingly careful, not wanting to end up tied down with a child. But with Megan that night, he had been willing to risk it. Part of him had wanted to make her his forever. His desire for her was so intense it terrified him.
Kicking a rock ahead of him, he followed its path along the sidewalk, then propelled it forward over and over as he made his way home. There was something soothing about this little ritual and he was desperate for some type of distraction. Anything to get Megan off his mind. Taking in a deep lungful of the chilly night air, he swore under his breath at the heartache he bore. He needed to shake this off, and soon. After all, why did he, at forty-one, suddenly think he would want to settle down?
He thought of his conversation with Harper earlier that day. Enough time had passed for him to be over his anger at how she had spoken to him, and now her words were slowly starting to sink in. Luc, don’t let her get away. She could change your life. You could have it all, Luc. Everything worth having is waiting for you. You just have to go get it.
What if he followed his heart for once in his life? Everything about being with Megan felt more right than anything he had ever experienced before. He thought of her laugh, her smile as she looked at him with those bright green eyes. He could picture her curled up in his arms on the couch in front of the fire—her body absolute perfection, the smell of her hair, the curve of her neck. He could feel her hands skimming over his body, lovingly, greedily, longingly. He could feel her kiss. It was like none he had known before, so soft and passionate. She could tie him up in knots with that kiss. She was the one he wanted for the rest of his life and, deep down, he knew it. There would be no one else for him.
TWENTY-FOUR
Boulder—One Month Later
Megan rushed around the house the morning of Elliot’s birthday party. She was a woman on a mission; she needed to get the decorations up, the food prepared and the tidying finished before the guests started arriving. She worked quickly and tried to appear happy and relaxed to Elliott and her mom, but inside she was a bundle of nerves. Her worst-case scenario would be if Ian showed up drunk or high. She hadn’t told Elliott that Ian was definitely coming, even after he had emailed his flight itinerary, just in case he didn’t show. Each time Elliott asked, she would say, “We’ll see. I hope so.”
Checking the time, she realized she had about forty-five minutes to get herself ready.
She rushed up to her room to get showered and changed. A few minutes later, she stood wrapped in a towel in front of her closet, hair dripping on her shoulders, trying to decide what to wear. Why did it even matter so much to her? She selected a pair of dark jeans and a silk-blend, draped V-neck pullover with three-quarter-length sleeves in blood orange. She hurried to blow out her hair, deciding to leave it down for the day. Once her makeup was applied, she gave herself a once-over in the mirror, deciding she looked passable. Megan’s heart was in her throat as she jogged down the steps to make sure Elliott had put his toys away.
The doorbell rang as the first of Elliott’s friends arrived. In the next twenty minutes, Megan would greet another fifteen children from Elliott’s class and send them out to the yard to play. It was a warm day and even though they needed light jackets, they all seemed to be having fun outside. The house and yard were a buzz of activity, laughter and yelling as Megan and Helen got a couple of pitchers of lemonade ready. They didn’t hear the knock on the door, but Megan looked up when she heard Ian’s voice.
“Hello?”
There in the doorway he stood, wearing aviator glasses, jeans and a slim-fit, dark grey military-style jacket. He wore his brown hair in a crewcut as usual, and he looked young and healthy as he smiled uncertainly at Megan. In one hand he held a large gift bag, and tucked under his arm was a bouquet of flowers. Megan walked over to the front door, not entirely sure how to greet him.
“Hi, Ian.” She smiled up at him. “I’m glad you made it.”
Ian stared at Megan for a minute, as if seeing her for the first time. “Meg, you look . . . terrific,” he said quietly. He wanted to kiss her, but he didn’t think that was proper etiquette when seeing your ex-wife.
“Thanks. You look great yourself,” she replied warmly. Megan was filled with relief as he took off his sunglasses. His eyes were clear and he looked completely sober.
“These are for the hostess.” He handed her the flowers.