by Simply BWWM
His eyebrows rose. “A hedge maze? Like, a wander around through tall hedges in a maze and try to get lost and then try to find your way again kind of maze?”
She nodded. “Yes. The website said it’s the biggest in the world, or one of them. It’s got a lot of other things in it, but the big thing is it’s got a hedge in the shape of a pineapple inside of it.”
His eyes grew wide and he grinned at her with high hopes. “Can we please give it a try? Come on… come with me. I’d love to do it!”
She didn’t need asking twice. She nodded quickly, and they hurried off to the ticket booth and then to the opening gate of the maze. Minutes later, they were walking through it, down some long corridors, then down shorter corridors, around strange corners, and then into dead ends.
They walked all over it, and after half an hour, they finally stopped. She turned to look at him and gave him a helpless look. “I think we’re good and truly lost.”
“Do you want to call for help?” he asked, indicating the get out of jail or the maze free rescue flag they had.
She shook her head. “No way! I’m not giving up.”
“Me either.” He shook his head and put the flag back down low. A crack of thunder overhead made them look up, and just as they did, both of their faces felt small sprinkles of rain, which swiftly became big droplets of rain.
“Oh no!” Nicole cried out. She was wearing a white blouse, and she knew that in no time at all, it would be totally soaked through. Worse than that, though, was the fact that she didn’t have an umbrella.
“Wait! I remember a tree over in a corner not far from here. It was a dead end. I remember telling myself not to go for the tree, but now I think it’s our best bet.” He grabbed her hand in his, and she ran behind him as they tried to work their way back through some of the maze. Just a few minutes later, he found it, and they ducked beneath its thick branches.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to stand under a tree during a lightning storm,” she said worriedly, looking up.
He peered up into the sky too. “I haven’t seen any lightning. I think it’s just heavy rain now.” He couldn’t have been righter. The rain drops were bigger than any they had seen on the island before, and they weren’t going anywhere.
“I think we’re well and truly trapped!” she half laughed as she looked up at him. He was staring at her.
With one hand he brushed his fingers over her face and her hair, pushing the water off of her skin, though it did no good at all. Then, he moved his thumb over her lower lip and slipped his other hand behind her head, holding her as he bent forward to kiss her.
She tried to pull away at first, but his hands were firm on her, and she got nowhere. After a few brief moments, she didn’t want to pull away. He was warm and strong, and his scent and taste drew her in. She could not hold back her hunger to taste him and hold him. She kissed him in return, and she heard him moan softly as the rain washed straight down over both of them.
Dane didn’t lift his mouth from hers for a long while, and when he did, the haunted look was strong in his eyes. “Nicole… I know you keep saying that you don’t want anything to happen between us, no more romance, no more sex or intimacy, that you only want a business relationship with me, but I just don’t think I can do that.”
“What? Why not?” she asked worriedly, hoping that he could somehow manage to find some self-control around her.
He gave his head a shake and gazed into her eyes, holding his hands on either side of her face. “Because I’m falling in love with you. I tried to talk myself out of it. I tried to stop it. There’s no stopping it, and there’s no denying it. I’m falling in love with you, and I don’t want to try to stop it anymore. I want it. I want to fall madly, totally in love with you, and I want you to fall in love with me too. I want to share all the passion I have for you, all of this overwhelming emotion, with you, all of the time. It’s too much for me to feel it all on my own. It’s yours. It’s ours. Please…” he trailed off and closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against hers.
Her heart felt as if it was going to break. “Dane. I… I don’t know what to say,” she spoke quietly.
“Don’t say anything,” he replied quietly, but then he looked at her sharply again. “There’s also this business with Paul! I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit that he’s coming after you, and he’s so set on winning you back and making you his again. I don’t want that to happen. I’m so afraid that you’re going to choose him over me, and then you’ll leave the company and go back to San Francisco with him! I can’t lose you, Nicole; I just got you, and I never want to lose you.”
She clenched her teeth for a moment in frustration and then shook her head. “No! It can’t happen this way. It can’t go like this! Dane, I’m not getting back together with Paul, no matter what he tries, and I’m not going to be with you! Not romantically. We can’t do that! We have the business to think of! We have our work relationship to think of! We just… we can’t! No matter what it feels like, it’s just not going to work out for us like that!”
She wished that there was some way that she could make him understand, make him see clearly just what she was talking about, but he was too wrapped up in her. He was, as he had just admitted to her, falling in love with her, and she knew that he wouldn’t be able to stop it, and she could see that he didn’t want to stop it. “Just business for us, okay?” she asked in a pleading tone.
He shook his head as he gazed at her face. “I can’t! I can’t do that. I can’t promise you that! I want you too much!”
The rain somehow grew stronger, pouring down on them both in rivulets as they had to raise their voices to speak above the pelting of the drops against all of the leaves and the ground around them.
“Look, I want you too, but I’m so afraid that it would be the wrong choice! I can’t make another mistake like that, especially not now, not at this new job. I’m just getting my new life in order! I can’t risk a heartbreak with my boss! You can’t risk losing me and me leaving the company over an affair! Why can’t you see that? Dane… there’s just nothing more to it. We have to stop!” she pleaded with him, and he could finally see that she meant it.
He stayed silent and raised the white flag on the pole up above the line of the hedge. He was surrendering. He was giving up.
She felt hot tears stinging her eyes, and she was grateful for the pouring rain that hid her tears from him. She turned away from him, and a short while later, an employee came and got them and took them out of the maze.
Glad that she had put the top up on her car, though it was to keep falling leaves from the eucalyptus trees out of it, they climbed in and were quiet all the way back to Honolulu, where it was sunny and dry, without a raindrop in sight.
He walked her to her office, and they both stopped short when they saw Paul sitting there in the waiting area. Dane frowned sharply at him and then turned to Nicole. He thanked her for the business lunch, and she nodded, but when he reached his hands and arms out to her, she turned away from him. He dropped his arms and went back to the elevator.
Paul was up and out of his chair in seconds with a dark look on his face. “Who was that guy?” He asked aggressively, shooting a nasty look at the elevator.
“That was my boss, Dane. Remember?” she said dryly, barely looking at Paul as she took her shoes off and wondered about going home to change her clothes, which were still stuck to her body.
“What were you doing outside of the office with him? You’re both soaking wet!” He was bitter about it, and she knew that his jealousy was strong.
Anger flushed through her, and she turned on her heel and faced him, planting her fists on her hips. “First of all, it was a business lunch, and second, it’s none of your damn business what I do or with whom I do it!”
He saw that he had gone too far, and he sighed, his shoulders shrinking down out of their defensive form. “Okay, I’m sorry, you’re right… I should trust you. But listen… come with me, hu
h? I need to talk with you. Just… just take a fast walk with me. Please.”
Nicole looked around the office and then down at her wet clothes. She realized that walking through the warm breezes and sunshine outside might actually dry her off a bit. “Okay, fine. Let’s go.” She sighed as she picked up her purse and walked with him to the elevator. She told Tia that she would be back soon, and they left.
Together they strolled away from the building and toward the beach a block away. The sun felt good on her body, warming her and drying her off, as well as drying her clothes a bit at a time.
When they reached the beach, Paul stopped and turned to face her. “Look, I know I’ve done a lot wrong, and I really, really screwed up when I let you go, but I am here to fix that, and I mean it. I want to be with you. I love you. I want to live with you and spend the rest of my life with you, and after talking about all of that with you, I just don’t think that you understand how serious I am. So, I’m going to prove to you just how serious I am about winning you back. You mean everything to me, baby. Give me another chance. I swear to you that I will never let you down again.”
With that, he dropped to one knee before her and reached into his pocket, pulling out a box. Her heart stopped in her chest as reality crashed over her like a tidal wave. He opened the box, and she saw a diamond ring inside of it.
“Marry me, Nicole. Marry me, be my wife, and make me the happiest man in the whole world,” he pleaded, gazing up at her.
Tears stung her eyes, and it felt to her as if the air that had frozen in her lungs had suddenly caught on fire. She was in no way prepared for what he had asked her, and as she stood there looking down at him, she knew that her one-word answer was going to crush him and break his heart, truly devastate him. She hated that she was going to have to say it, but there was no way around it.
Holding her hand to her mouth, she wiped at the tears in her eyes and took the box from him, looking at the ring for a long moment and wondering what her life with him could be like if she could find a way to say yes to him.
Breathing in deeply, she pursed her lips together and looked up, trying to find the kindest words she could. What she found was another man, standing thirty feet away from her, wearing a soaking wet business suit and an expression of absolute pain and heartbreak on his face. It was Dane.
She realized that he must have followed them from the office, and he had seen Paul’s proposal to her. Dane turned and walked away swiftly, and she tried to call out to him, but he was gone, disappearing into a crowd of tourists.
Paul looked around and frowned, and then grabbed her hand, looking up at her anxiously. “Nicole! Please!”
Nicole pulled him to his feet and shook her head slowly. “I can’t marry you, Paul. I am not the right woman for you. You need someone who will adore you, and that is never going to be me.”
“I am not going to give up on you, Nicole,” he promised her. “I’m not!”
“Go back to San Francisco, Paul!” she pleaded with him as she pushed the box with the ring back in his hand. Then, she turned and ran after Dane.
The Final Chapter
She didn’t catch up with Dane, and when she got back to the office, he was gone. His office was dark, and his door was locked. Feeling as if her heart was going to break in two, she closed herself behind her office door and pulled her cell phone from her purse, calling Jeffrey.
“Hey, dollface, what’s going on?” he asked casually, until he heard her sobbing. His tone changed completely. “Oh no… what’s wrong? What happened?” he asked worriedly. He had never heard her cry so hard before.
“It’s Dane and Paul,” she began, trying to speak through the sobs.
“What happened?”
“Dane told me that he’s falling in love with me!” She wept bitterly.
There was a moment of silence on the other end. “And what did you tell him when he said that?”
“I told him that we couldn’t be together because we need to only have a working relationship!” She sniffled and wiped a tissue at her nose, dabbed her eyes and continued to cry.
“Oh dear.” Jeffrey sounded disappointed. “And what do you think you should have told him?”
“That I’m falling in love with him too. Just as much. Just as strongly as he is.” She finally admitted it. She had seen the heartbreak on his face when he saw her with Paul, when he saw Paul proposing to her and giving her a ring, and she felt the same heartbreak in her own heart. She knew what he was going through, because she was going through it too, and trying to deny it was useless.
“I think that’s wise. I think you should have told him that too.” Jeffrey replied. “Just in case you wanted confirmation. So, what happened then?”
“We were out. We came back to the office, and Paul was here. Paul asked me to go for a walk with him and when we did, Dane must have followed us, but I didn’t see him right away. I didn’t see him until after Paul got down on one knee and gave me a diamond ring and asked me to marry him!” She began sobbing again.
“Oh god.” Jeffrey groaned. “What did you say to Paul?”
“I told him no of course. I gave him the ring back. I told him to go back to San Francisco. He said he’s not giving up on me, though.” She wiped her fingers over her eyes and reached for a new tissue. “That’s not the worst thing though.”
“There’s something worse?” Jeffrey asked with growing concern.
“Yes. When Dane saw Paul propose, he saw me take the ring and the box, but I was just looking at it, I don’t know why I was. I think he thought that I said yes to Paul, and he took off. I gave Paul the ring and took off trying to catch up with Dane, but I couldn’t find him, and now he’s gone. I have no idea where he is. I couldn’t believe his face. He was so brokenhearted! I am the worst!” She wept more and dabbed at her eyes again. “How could I have hurt Dane like that, when I’m falling in love with him?”
“You’re falling in love with me?” Dane asked, and she gasped and looked up at the doorway of her office. Dane was standing in it, his hand on the door knob, his eyes wide and red rimmed.
“Oh my god, is that Dane? Did he just come into your office?” Jeffrey asked hopefully.
“Yes,” she answered quietly, to both questions. Then, she spoke more into her phone. “Jeffrey, I’m going to have to call you back.”
“You better! I want a full report! And stop telling him no!” he snapped at her happily.
She ended the phone call and set the phone down on her desk as she stood up.
“I don’t know if you were talking to me or to the person on the phone. Did I just hear you say that you’re in love with me?” His voice was thin, and he sounded as if he couldn’t believe his ears at all.
She nodded. “You did hear me say that,” she admitted, walking slowly around the desk to him.
He came in and closed the door behind him. “That’s the best thing I’ve heard all day.”
Nicole wiped at her face with a tissue once more and then tossed it in the trash and took a deep breath to steady herself. “What are you doing here?” she asked quietly.
Dane shook his head and walked toward her. “I guess you saw that I followed you outside when you left with Paul. I just couldn’t take it. I had to. I knew that he was here to try to talk you back into being with him, and I was just so afraid that I was going to lose you to him. So, I followed you out, and then I saw…” He trailed off and narrowed his eyes as if he was in pain.
“You saw him propose to me,” she offered.
“Yes.”
“And you saw me take the ring from him,” she continued.
“Yes.” He sounded miserable, as if he had swallowed something poisonous that would kill him at any moment.
“And then you left before you could see me hand the ring back to him and tell him no.” She drew in another breath and watched as realization dawned on his face and his eyes grew wide again.
“You… you gave the ring back to him?” he asked in astonishment.
>
“Yes.”
“You… you told him no?” he continued.
“I told him no.” She walked toward him and stood before him. “I told him to go back to San Francisco.”
“You did?” Dane asked as a smile began to form over his mouth. His beautiful brown eyes were shining with more than tears then.
“I did.”
“Why?” he asked quietly, his eyes searching her face.
“Because I didn’t want to marry him; I will never want to marry him, and I couldn’t possibly even consider marrying him when I’m in love with someone else.” She reached her hands to his and held them.