She closed her eyes as they got to the center of the house. Jenna opened them after a few moments to see the fireplace, the single thing she would miss most.
When Jenna turned her head, Seth was looking at her with such concern that she dropped her gaze to the floor. “I’m going to be fine. Really. It’s just that I put a lot of myself in this one. I’ve never really done that before,” she said.
“When are you doing the magazine interview and photo shoot?” Seth asked.
“Next week—maybe. When the cleaning crew gets finished. They’re waiting on me to give them a call and schedule it,” she replied.
“Jenna?” Seth said, stopping to swallow hard before he continued. “I love you. I want to marry you. I want to live with you in a house that you build for us. I want to fill the rooms with children we make together. You’re the only dream I have left in the world. Will you marry me?”
Jenna weaved with emotion. She shut her eyes tight. “Seth—I—I don’t know. I haven’t—haven’t thought about this. You’re ahead of me on this.”
Seth closed his eyes too, turning to look at the fireplace instead of her. “I love you. Do you love me?” He reached up and unclipped his hard hat, setting it on the hearth.
“I don’t know,” Jenna said, her voice tight. “Maybe. Sometimes I think I do. Sometimes I—I’m afraid you’re going to reach some point of ticking me off your to-do list, and then you’ll go back to your plans, and I—I will be ignored again. If we had children and that happened, I don’t think I could bear it.”
Seth nodded. “So all the love and support I’ve given you in the last two months hasn’t made up for what happened the first time we dated? Is that what you’re saying? You can’t forgive me and will never trust me.”
“I don’t know what I’m saying. I haven’t had time to think about it,” Jenna said again, unclipping her own hard hat and setting it on the hearth beside the one Seth had worn. They weren’t really needed anymore anyway.
“If you were wondering if I understood how it feels to be rejected, you’ve done a great job of teaching me that lesson all the months after we broke up until now. I’ve watched you with other men, worried myself ill thinking you were going to sleep with Stedman, and I ruined our first time together because I was insane to prevent you being anyone’s but mine. We have belonged to each other since we met, but it’s clear to me today that I’m the only one of us that feels that way about it.” Seth turned to face her, made himself meet her tortured gaze. “You can’t even tell me you love me. Can you?”
“Seth, I care about you. I do. I like being with you now. Can’t that be enough for a while?” Jenna asked, not understanding why it was so important to him to get a commitment from her today. “I’m trying to figure things out.”
“How long until you’re ready to discuss getting married? When will our sex-only relationship not be enough for you? The sex has never been enough for me, Jenna, not even at the beginning. I’ve wanted to marry you since the day I met you. I’ve been waiting and waiting these last couple of months for you to catch up. I thought you had. I thought I had finally gotten through that stubbornness of yours,” Seth said harshly.
“I’m not being stubborn. I’m being practical. How am I supposed to be as sure as you are that things will work out with us?” Jenna asked.
“If you loved me the way I love you, having faith wouldn’t be difficult at all. You’d just know how much you mean to me,” Seth said, walking across the room.
He stopped at the archway to the foyer and turned back to see Jenna framed by hearth, the fireplace at her back. He swept an arm up and indicated the room and the house.
“Even this house, as big as it is, can’t hold the amount of love and faith I have in you—in us. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t give you, but if the love I have isn’t enough. . .We’re done, baby. We’re just done.”
Seth walked away. The ring box carrying the promise he’d wanted to give Jenna felt like a weight on his chest. His wedding present to her seemed like a silly idea to him now, regardless of how expensive it had been.
When his phone rang, he answered it, grateful for the distraction. It might just keep him from going back and shaking Jenna Ranger until her teeth rattled.
*** *** ***
Jenna took the wad of tissues Regina pulled from her purse and dabbed at her eyes.
Eddy’s was crowded as usual. Her mother squeezed her hand tightly and looked at her with great concern, which made Jenna’s eyes burn and water even more.
“Seth’s not even answering my texts. I know he’s home, but he won’t come to the door. I handled things badly. I did. But he just surprised me. I was giving a final house tour, not expecting a—a—a—damn marriage proposal,” Jenna complained, wiping her red-rimmed eyes.
She was still in her work clothes and had barged in on their evening. It reminded her of the last time she’d coming running to these three women for support. Seth had rejected her then. Now it was the other way around. Or maybe they had rejected each other this time. She was ill trying to sort it out.
“Seth and I have been sexually involved for over two months. We just a couple weeks ago decided to start dating again. I thought we were taking things slow, then suddenly today he decides that we need to get married. He has never, not once, even talked about marriage to me before today,” Jenna wailed, tears flowing and leaving her face streaked with them. “Was he just assuming it was what I would want? Damn. I’m a mess.”
“Happens to all of us,” Regina said, waving a hand. “You should have seen me wailing over Ben.”
“I never cried over Casey until he was hurt,” Alexa said. “That doesn’t count as wailing. I guess I did cry over Paul, but I was way younger than Jenna at the time. I had a baby too. Hell, it might have been baby hormones making me bawl.”
“I never cried over Jim—well except that time I thought I hurt him,” Lauren said, rubbing Jenna’s arm. “Jim just makes me mad a lot, but not as much as he used to. It’s hard to stay mad at a man who feeds you cannoli while he—oops, never mind. I guess that’s a different conversation.
Regina laughed but rolled her eyes at them. “Fine. I’m admittedly the emotional wienie in the group. I cry at weddings. I cry when I’m sad. I cry when I’m happy. I cry over everything. The point is that panic and tears are just the sort of things that happen to a passionate woman.”
“I’m usually not that passionate,” Jenna said, almost laughing at their bickering. It was a constant in her life. The friendship they offered each other was bolstering, and they had offered it to her since she had gotten old enough to appreciate them.
“Seth makes me passionate,” Jenna admitted. “He makes me be a lot of things. Then he calls me bossy if I try to exercise any control and stubborn if I disagree with him. He’s the most frustrating man that ever walked. How could I possibly love a man like that? We can’t even get along most of the time.”
The snorts and snickering started out being stifled, then grew into giggling that all three older women tried to control. But as they looked at each other, they broke out in loud laughter that drew every eye in the place to their table.
“I came for sympathy, not to be laughed at,” Jenna said, sniffing back another round of tears threatening to fall any second.
Alexa held on to her hand, and Lauren gripped her arm hard to keep her in place until they could control themselves enough to talk.
“Casey used his cane to hold me against the wall in my office and lectured me on what a bad woman I was,” Alexa said, one eyebrow arched at her daughter. “Don’t get me started on how pissed I was. I didn’t talk to him for a week, and then I made him grovel.”
“He put his hand on your leg to comfort you at breakfast the morning he met Daddy,” Jenna told her. “That’s what I want. That’s love.”
“Sure. It all goes together, honey. Casey also likes to control our entire sex life—when, how often, where. Pretty much everything. It’s annoying as hell,” Alexa
said.
“That must run in the family. What do you do about it?” Jenna asked.
“Let him—most of the time,” Alex said sagely. “I’m not stupid. The man is good in bed.”
Jenna closed her eyes and shook her head. She was never going to stop being shocked at some of what her outrageous mother said.
“Ben gets his way with me by using sex,” Regina confessed, sipping her mineral water. “Don’t ask me for details. I’m taking his secrets to my grave or putting them in my next book. I haven’t decided yet.”
Jenna laughed, dried her eyes, and threw the used tissue on the table. Her gaze swung to Lauren expectantly.
Lauren shrugged. “I’m the bad one in my relationship. I get my way using sex. I’m better than Jim in bed, but he’s catching up nicely. He thinks he’s in competition with Ben.”
Jenna laughed out loud, her strong throaty release easing the pain in her chest. “That certainly explains why Jim wouldn’t let you have a stripper when I asked.”
Alexa and Regina looked at Lauren with knowing grins.
“It’s not what you think. Jim just didn’t want me to get over stimulated,” Lauren said, shrugging again.
That sent the four of them laughing for another round.
Jenna closed her eyes. “So how dumb am I being? You’re all telling me that it’s never going to be any better than this with Seth, aren’t you? He’s going to drive me crazy forever.”
They all just shrugged and looked at her with great empathy.
“It’s the great mystery,” Regina said wisely. “You never know what love is going to bring.”
“Well I just kicked Cupid’s ass and sent him home with his bows and arrows between his legs. The man isn’t talking to me,” Jenna said sadly. “This is going to be a problem for the making up part.”
“Well, you know where he’s going to be Saturday night,” Alexa said, giving her a daughter a haughty look. “Put on a great dress and come seduce him.”
“Where is he going to be?” Jenna asked, perplexed at her mother’s comment.
“At Talia Martin’s welcome party, where else?” Alexa answered. “Casey and I are hosting.”
“Who’s Talia Martin?” Jenna asked, even more perplexed. “And why are you two hosting?”
Alexa blinked at Jenna several times in disbelief. Jenna was sleeping with Seth. How could she not know?
Lauren and Regina sat up straighter and leaned back in their chairs. If Jenna got mad and starting throwing things, they were both going to be making a run for it. They had both witnessed her temper tantrums before and they were never pretty.
Alexa cleared her throat. “Well—I assumed you knew this, and don’t know why you don’t, but Talia Martin is the woman Seth is hiring to help him with his business. She’s a single mother with two kids, and she’s terribly smart. I really liked her when I met her. Seth asked Casey and me to host a party to welcome her to Falls Church. Didn’t—didn’t Seth say anything to you about her at all?”
Jenna was in shock—utter shock. What else didn’t she know? She had been so caught up in the house, and all the work of it, that she had never surfaced to visit with anyone for literally two months now. Outside of Lauren’s wedding, all she had done was crawl into bed with Seth every chance she got.
Then she remembered the fight they had. Seth had said that she hadn’t asked him about his work since they had been sleeping together. He was right. It hurt even more to realize that he was right then and still right. Everyone knew what was going on in his life, but her. Her lack of knowing couldn’t have been more humiliating.
She had no one to blame but herself. She hadn’t even bothered to ask.
Jenna laid her head down on the table in the crowded bar and cried for how selfish and stupid she had been. The women at the table looked on in shock, but Regina grabbed Alexa’s and Lauren’s hands before they could touch her. Regina shook her head. “This is good,” she mouthed silently.
Alexa raised her hand to Eddy and motioned for him to send over another round of drinks. Jenna was going to need some serious lubrication for her ego until she could find enough pride to make this right with the man she so obviously loved.
As the drinks hit the table, Jenna raised her head and grabbed a mangled tissue to wipe her eyes.
“Mama?” she said.
“Yes, honey.” Alexa looked at her daughter with deep understanding of how much it was going to take for her to set this right.
“I’m going to marry Seth Carter and make you a grandmother soon. I hope this is okay with you and Daddy,” Jenna said, blowing her nose. She picked up her beer. “I’ve been an idiot. He’s the only one for me. He’s always been the only one for me. I couldn’t replace him and I couldn’t get over him. I’m addicted to his lovemaking. I have no choice. I have to marry him. I’m never going to be able to love anybody else.”
“Now you just need to find a way to tell him that,” Lauren said, smiling softly.
Jenna sniffed. “Not a problem. I’m crashing a party I wasn’t invited to Saturday night. I hear he’s going to be there. God help the person if he brings a date. Seth Carter is mine.”
Alex patted her hand. “Woman up, sweetie. Come looking your best. You don’t want him getting any ideas about making you compete.”
Jenna stood and walked to the woman who bore her, a woman who was also becoming a steadfast friend. “I love you, Mama. You’re the best mother in the whole world.”
“Damn straight,” Alexa said. “Now get rid of those man clothes and spend some money on yourself. I swear Sydney and his globe trotting is hard to get used to. Every time we have a fashion crisis, the man is out of town.”
“It’s okay,” Jenna told her, trying her damnedest to stop crying “I know exactly what Seth likes most.”
“What’s that, honey?” Lauren asked.
“Me,” Jenna said. “Me. It’s always been me.”
She turned on her heel and marched out of the bar.
“Do you think she’s sober enough to drive?” Lauren said, concerned.
Alexa shrugged. “I would say my daughter has never been more sober. It was like I got to watch her grow up five or six years in the last hour. I’ve never felt so old.”
“Well there’s where you’re in luck,” Regina said, smiling over her mineral water. “You got a younger man at home who can fix that for you. You’ll be back to your young self in no time.”
“Or after two or three times at least,” Lauren said, sipping her second glass of malted milk. She loved the way Regina laughed at her every comment these days. “What did I say? You know it takes more than once sometimes.”
Alexa shook her head. “All it takes is for Casey to smile at me. I’m glad Jenna’s getting a man Casey helped train. I just hope my daughter lets herself love him. The boy is crazy about her.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Regina said, laughing, then caught what she had revealed. “And I can’t tell you either. Sorry. I was just trying to say something equally validating.”
Lauren lifted her glass of milk. “Here’s to Jenna and Seth. May they find the love we have.”
“Here’s to my future grandchildren for whom I will also be an aunt. Please never tell the press,” Alexa said, holding up her wine. “At least Lauren’s child will have someone to grow up with.”
“You’re the only woman who ever toasted with malted milk. I’m not even sure your toast counts,” Regina said wryly, laughing as Lauren stuck out her tongue at her. “Here’s to true love, all the bumps, grinds, and g-strings.”
Lauren cracked up. “What kind of toast was that, Regina?”
“Sue me. I’m horny,” Regina said, gathering up her purse. “I’m going home to my man.”
“Here. Here.” Lauren and Alexa said in agreement.
Chapter 20
“Talia, that’s the third dress you’ve tried on. They all look good on you, darling. Pick one,” her mother said smiling.
Talia chided herself
for being brave enough to take on companies but still scared to share her true feelings with her mother.
“Tonight’s very important. I want to look my best,” Talia said.
Her mother met her gaze in her mirror. “Because many of Allen’s friends will be there?”
Talia flushed and glanced away from her mother, but she heard the woman laugh.
“Do you think I’m being foolish with him?” Talia asked, looking on in wonderment as her mother just laughed harder.
“If you are, darling, you picked a hell of a man to do with it. Allen Stedman is prime,” her mother said, running a hand down her hair. “Besides that, the kids love him, and he likes them too. That doesn’t happen often. I don’t blame you for hoping it works out. I say go for it.”
“Go for it,” Talia repeated. “That’s very American.”
“Well, we have been here for several decades now. Your Allen was an American soldier, right?”
Talia nodded. “A military policeman, actually.”
“Well, I can certainly see him doing that,” her mother said. “What does he do now—besides put a relaxed smile on your face a few times a week.”
“He speaks French fluently, and recites poetry during—odd moments,” Talia finished, catching herself before telling a little too much. She lifted her chin to say the rest, hoping to communicate that she didn’t give a flip in case her mother did. “He works as the executive assistant for a beautiful older woman who designs lingerie. Alexa and Casey will be our hosts tonight. He also works for Casey in his security business. I’m not sure of everything he does there. I believe he works as a trainer at a gym as well, or so he’s told Mason. Then he also has a dream.”
“Seems to me things are getting serious if you’re wanting to help him with his dreams already,” her mother said, teasing.
“He’s a clothing designer,” Talia said baldly. “He trained for it for two years. He sews. He draws. He—I’m being obvious, aren’t I?”
“It’s quite okay, dear. I like your renaissance man. Your father likes Allen too. He said he was glad if you and the children had to be so far away from us that at least you had a real man to watch over you,” her mother said, watching relief pour into her daughter’s eyes. “Do try to plan an early Fall wedding if it comes to that. Your Aunt Margaret is wanting us to come to Kent for the holidays this year.”
Dating A Metro Man Page 21