by Mary Campisi
Grace grabbed one of Max’s T-shirt, pulled it on over her head, and padded down the hallway. She’d made it to the second step when she heard a woman’s voice. Soft, sexy…purring? No door-to-door solicitor sounded like that unless she were selling lingerie. Grace inched down the next step, spotted the woman—and Max. Of course, she was every man’s fantasy: long white-blonde hair, tall, slender, with just the right amount of curve poured into a designer sweat outfit. Tanned, toned, fashionable. Very beautiful, no doubt.
Turn around, let me see your face. Let me see how beautiful you are.
Who was she? Why was she here? Stabs of jealousy pierced her, but when the woman spoke, Grace understood exactly who she was.
“I’ve missed you, baby.” A laugh, a soft purr. “Missed everything about you.” The not-so-much-of-a-mystery woman leaned on tiptoe, kissed Max on the mouth. “Every…single…thing.” She punctuated the words with kisses, slid her body along his, and let out a string of sighs.
Max had a girlfriend? How nice that he’d neglected to mention this last night. How incredibly convenient.
“Leanne.”
He stepped back, dragged a hand over his face. Talk about caught in the middle of a situation. Was he trying to get away from the girlfriend or trying to find a way to keep her from finding out he had another woman upstairs? It had to be the second because what man would try to get away from a woman like that? Grant would have been planning his next three moves, ones that included fancy dinners, jewelry, and sex. Lots of sex—she was sure of it. Why was every man she cared about a liar?
“Why are you here?”
What he meant was why are you here, now, when I have a naked woman upstairs? You should have told me you were coming so I could get rid of her. If Grace doubted the relationship, that doubt disintegrated when the woman turned and revealed her movie-star-beauty face, the perfect match for Max Ruhland. Beautiful people sought beautiful people.
“Why are you here?” Max asked again, the hint of what could almost be called annoyance clouding his words.
“For you, of course,” the woman said in a voice filled with flattery and seduction.
Grace had never mastered the flattery or the seduction attempts, and when she witnessed both in action, she realized why. They weren’t real, or sincere, or anything other than manipulative attempts to cater to a man’s overblown ego. How could a man not see that? Or maybe he did and that was the point. Maybe he wanted to be catered to, even if the words weren’t real. Maybe for a little while, he wanted to fantasize and imagine it was all real—the sex, the relationship, all of it.
Then he could avoid the day-to-day existence called life.
“Max, did you hear me?” Leanne closed the distance between them, reached up and stroked his cheek, the cheek Grace had kissed last night.
“I heard you.” The annoyance in his voice escalated. “You need to leave. Now.”
“You can’t mean that.” She clutched his arm. “I know I should have been more understanding about your friend, but how did I know she was like a mother to you? If I’d known, I would never have acted the way I did.”
She was talking about Aunt Frances! Grace crept up the steps, peeked around the corner, so she could observe and not be seen. Soon, Max would wonder about her and she couldn’t risk getting caught before this whole drama played out. He might have left a few details out of his conversations with her, but Leanne was certainly filling in the blanks and answering questions Grace hadn’t known existed.
The woman’s voice dipped, turned cotton-candy sweet. “I would have come with you, stayed by your side, helped take care of her—”
“Cut the BS.” Max shook her hand away and scowled. “You’ve never done anything that wasn’t for your benefit, and Frances’s illness made me realize it. We were all wrong for each other, don’t you get it?”
“No, I don’t. I think we were perfect together.” She crossed her arms over her ample chest. “Can you deny the attraction? Deny the sex wasn’t the best you ever had?”
Grace pictured those perfect bodies entwined. The visual made her ill, but what almost made her throw up was thinking about her body lined up next to Leanne’s. Ugh. It was one thing to know you weren’t model beautiful and accept that time and children had left their road map on you with stretch marks, wrinkles, spider veins, cellulose… She could deconstruct her entire body and list every imperfection, but somehow, she’d forgotten all of them last night when she’d been with Max. She’d felt alive and desired. And desirable.
She’d felt almost beautiful.
But now she saw what real beauty was, and while people said beauty was within and she subscribed to it, at least most of the time, there was no denying this woman’s physical allure. What man could resist it?
“Max?” Leanne’s laughter trickled across the room, stuck in Grace’s throat. “You can’t deny it, can you? Especially, the sex part.”
“It’s not all about sex, Leanne, even if you thought it was.”
“I didn’t see you complaining, not one bit.” She pointed a finger at him, her words filled with heat and accusation. “Not when we were in your car, or your boat, or the balcony of your penthouse.” Leanne stepped toward him, hands fisted on her hips. “Deny that, if you can.”
Max had a boat? A penthouse? No, he couldn’t. He lived here in this house, worked as a mechanic and spent his money on trips now and again. Had he manufactured a past for this woman that included a job that landed him a ton of money and all the toys that went with it? Grace sucked in a quiet breath, tried to understand what she’d just heard. Was he no better than Grant?
Maybe he was worse.
“I’m not going to deny the physical aspect of our relationship was—” he paused, said in a calm voice “—stellar, but there’s more to a relationship than what happens in bed.”
“In bed?” She huffed. “In bed, on the floor, in a chair, in the pool…”
“That’s enough. Let me rephrase that. There’s more to a relationship than the physical part and that’s where we came up short. Life isn’t always just a big party. It’s hard and it’s painful, and it’s about caring and family, and getting through the tough times.”
“Well, don’t you sound like you belong on a talk show for the bleeding hearts? I didn’t know that’s what you wanted.”
He shook his head, his lips pulling into a frown. “I’m not blaming you. I blame myself for thinking you could be something you weren’t.” Pause. “Someone you weren’t.”
“Is this about having a kid? I told you I’d have one if you insisted.” She patted her flat belly. “But only one, and I’d want help with it.”
“Yeah, you told me.”
Max wanted a baby? Grace didn’t even know he liked children.
“So, wasn’t that good enough?”
“I said I wanted to feel like a family, Leanne, that’s what I said. You can feel like a family and not have kids. Hell, you can have dogs and feel like a family. But you didn’t hear any of that and you know why? Because you don’t really know me; you only know what you want me to be.” He glanced at the stairs. “And not everybody’s like that.”
“What does that mean?” She turned, landed her gaze on the stairs. “Are you seeing someone?”
He gentled his voice. “Leanne, this isn’t about another woman. This is about you and me and why we’re never going to happen.”
“Are you seeing someone?”
There was no mistaking the ice in those words or the demand for an answer. Grace crouched at the top of the stairs, waited.
“You know, not answering is the same as answering,” Leanne huffed, hands balled into fists on her hips. “I was your fiancée; do you not think you owe me that much?”
Fiancée?
“Whatever I owed you, I paid back ten times over. Now, it’s time to leave before I lose my patience and my manners.” Another glance at the stairs, an action his ex-fiancée didn’t miss.
She shrugged, worked her way toward
the sofa, ran a hand along the back of it. “So, you’ve found someone who understands you, huh?” Three more steps, a hand tracing the antique framed picture of Aunt Frances and Max. “She knows what you need, what you want, what you don’t want? She’ll cuddle the little boy inside who still believes in happily-ever-after, and she’ll promise you that, even when she knows it doesn’t exist.” Two more steps, too close for Grace to retreat without being heard. “I’m sure she’ll give you a child or two, make you a daddy…and all the while she’ll tell you she worships everything about you. You won’t mind that you can’t party the way you used to, or take trips at a moment’s notice…or have sex in the middle of the day.”
Her laugh skittered across the room, wrapped itself around Grace’s middle, pulled hard. “And then one day, you’ll wake up out of your stupor and realize you’ve been tricked. You’ve given up your freedom for family, and they’ve bled you dry, yet still, they expect more.” Leanne shot a glance at Max who stood several feet away, watching her. “There’ll be nothing left but a shell of the man you used to be, and that’s when I want you to remember what you gave up.” She flashed him a big smile, eased her hands over her breasts, her hips. “I want you to remember all of it, but especially how you turned me away and gave it to some wide-eyed baby machine who made you believe happiness was family.”
Leanne darted toward the stairs, glanced up and spotted Grace, crouched on the landing in Max’s T-shirt. She stared, her gaze taking in every detail. Then she backed away, let out a laugh and said, “You have got to be kidding. You’re giving me up for her?” Another laugh, this one suffocating the oxygen in the room. “Good luck with your happily-ever-after. If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”
13
Grace! Max tore up the stairs toward his bedroom. It was obvious from Leanne’s comment that Grace had been listening. Damn, how much had she heard? Last night changed everything. She’d filled the emptiness in his soul, an emptiness that had kept him restless and wandering for too many years—maybe since she’d left him. Finally, he’d known peace, and he didn’t want to let it go.
Ever.
He heard the shower running and hesitated outside the bathroom door. There was so much to talk about and he’d planned to do that, in bits and pieces, once they were closer. You didn’t bombard somebody with decades worth of crap in a single sitting. What if he scared her away? What if she thought his single status made him unable to commit?
Would she dump him?
Again?
It wasn’t like he’d planned to sleep with her, though he’d be a damn liar if he said he didn’t dream about it every night… But that wasn’t the point. He hadn’t intended to confuse their relationship, or whatever they called it, by sleeping with her. And now he had, though if memory served, he wasn’t the one tugging off his T-shirt and going for his zipper.
Max made his way to the bedroom, took in the signs of last night’s lovemaking: the rumpled sheets, the jeans and T-shirt on the floor, the bra dangling from a bedpost…the pink panties… He dragged a hand over his face, let out a sigh, and sank onto the bed. She couldn’t stay in the shower forever and when she came out, they’d talk. What else could they do but get it out in the open? The one thing he couldn’t tell her about was that he was a hell of a lot more than a mechanic and this house was a bungalow compared to the other ones he owned. When he’d promised Frances to keep quiet about what he really did for a living, it hadn’t seemed like a huge request since most of the town thought he was just a drifter without purpose.
But he didn’t want Grace to think that. He wanted her to know the truth.
And that was a big problem, because right now he couldn’t tell her.
He was deep in guilt-and-remorse mode when the shower stopped, and minutes later footsteps padded down the hall. Max stood, waited for her to appear in the doorway. “Grace?” He started toward her, froze when she sliced him with a look.
“Don’t you dare!”
Max shoved his hands in his pockets, took in the pink bathrobe, the wet hair, the bare feet…the ticked-off expression that said don’t-think-you-are-ever-getting-near-me-again. “Guess you have a lot of questions.” Those dark eyes sparked, burned right through him. There was anger, disappointment, maybe even fear buried in that look, but when she spoke, she could have been talking about yesterday’s project or the price of poblano peppers at Sal’s. No emotion, nothing but a casual monotone that said she couldn’t give a damn what he did, and he might actually believe that if not for the eyes.
“I don’t have any questions.” She shrugged, tightened the belt on her robe.
Yeah, he was not getting anywhere near her for a long time—if ever. Was he really going to accept that? Let her control their fate like she’d done all those years ago? No, damn it. He had a say; this was not all about what she wanted. “Leanne was my fiancée.”
The eyes singed him. “Was? Sorry it didn’t work out.”
“It was wrong from the start.” He held her gaze. “She was fun and exciting, and I thought that’s what I wanted. But even that gets old, and I saw the truth when Frances got sick and Leanne didn’t understand.” She wasn’t you, Grace. Damn it, that’s the problem, that’s always been the problem. No other woman is you.
“She’s very beautiful.”
Was that a hint of jealousy slipping out? In his vast experience, women sized each other up, dug deep, and noticed things men didn’t. “Yeah, she was.”
“Do you mind if I get dressed? I thought we’d finish the painting today.”
“Grace.” He moved toward her, stopped when he was a touch away. “We have to talk about this, but more importantly, we have to talk about last night.”
“No, we don’t. You’ve got a life I know nothing about, and if you’d wanted to tell me, you would have by now.”
“What if I can’t?” She was not going to shut him out, not this time. “What if I gave Frances my word that I wouldn’t say certain things until the month is over?”
“Really, Max?” She let out a laugh that chilled him. “You think I’m that naïve? You’re a liar and a player, and do you know how I can tell?” Another laugh, this one colder, more hurtful. “Because I was married to one.”
“I’m telling the truth. I promised your aunt.”
“Right. And what about the penthouse, the boat, and who knows what else? Did you pretend you were rich so you could get women like Leanne? I’ll bet you blew your savings, if you had any, on rentals to make you look big and important.” She skewered him with those eyes. “And rich. But you aren’t, are you? You’re nothing more than a player with a smile and a hot rod car.”
Her words gouged him, but he would not let her see his pain. “And last night? What about that?” Let her deny that.
She opened her mouth and flattened him, “Call it a long time coming. We’ve both wondered what it would be like, and now we know.”
He stared at her. Who was this ice queen? How could she treat last night like it was an “itch” they’d both needed to scratch? “And that’s it? That’s all you have to say?”
“What else is there to say, Max? I want to talk about our future? Let’s sit down and work out a five-year plan?”
Yes, hell yes, that’s exactly what he wanted her to say. If she were too scared to admit it, then at least act like last night meant more than sex—unless that’s all it had been for her. “You don’t think last night changed things between us, maybe opened a door to talk about a future together?”
“As what?” The look on her face said horrified and not-in-this-lifetime. “Bed partners? Friends with benefits?” She softened her voice to deliver the final blow. “I don’t think so.”
That was cold. Brutal, actually. He hadn’t thought she had it in her, but maybe he didn’t really know her at all. Maybe what he’d been carrying around in his brain and in his heart had been the memory of a girl who no longer existed. Still, if they were going to have it out, why not go all the way and make
her say the words? “Why, Grace? Am I too blue collar for you? Too unpredictable? You always did want to know exactly what was happening next in that organized life of yours, but that didn’t work out so well for you, now, did it?” He should shut up, but he couldn’t, not when she’d wounded him and left him to bleed out. “You had to have the suit with the degree and the white picket fence, two children, vacations, all of it. Did living in the suburbs with a neighborhood watch and play groups keep your husband from cheating on you?” The words kept spilling out. “No, of course not. Did you ever think maybe he wasn’t the right choice? Maybe I was?”
“Stop it!” She clasped her hands to her belly, shook her head. “Just stop it.”
“Why? Because it might be true?” Answer me, just admit you might have made a mistake. But he knew she wouldn’t because Grace Romano Clarke didn’t admit failure to anyone, not even herself.
“You think you were a better choice?” she spat out as though he were pond scum. “What would you have offered? Fidelity? Love? Honesty? I’ll bet you wouldn’t even have been able to offer a steady income. All you had to offer was that charm that could get a woman to do just about anything.” She burned him with more cruel words. “And in the end, you’d leave, too.”
“Wow.” Max crossed his arms over his chest, forced a smile. She would not see how she’d decimated him. “Nice. How the hell did a princess like you let me touch you last night?” It hurt to keep the smile in place, but he did it. Damn right he did. “You must have been desperate. Were you desperate, Grace? Is that why you let me pleasure you…what was it? Three times?”
“Go to hell.”
Oh, she didn’t like that. “You think you know me? I’d never let anything come between me and my family.”
She laughed. “Right. That’s what every man says right up until something, usually a woman, catches his interest. After that, it’s all lies and subterfuge. Guess that’s part of the excitement.”