by Sarah Morgan
“I’m not angry.”
“You’re upset about Roxy.”
He stared down at his white knuckles and his fingers, clamped around the handle of the knife.
“Not just about Roxy.” He put the knife down slowly. “Are you ever tempted to get in touch with your dad?”
“No.” She took the knife from him and finished chopping. “I thought about it at first, but too many things happened. If we met up now it would just be awkward. I needed him back then, but I don’t need him in my life now.”
“I hate to think of you going through that.”
“It’s okay, Matt.”
“It’s not okay.” The depth of his anger shocked him. “It’s not okay, Frankie.”
She shot him a puzzled look and put the knife down. “What’s the matter? Normally you are Mr. Cool. I’m not used to seeing you like this.”
He wasn’t used to feeling like this. This dark, ugly cocktail of emotions was poisoning his usual rational approach to life. “You were left to cope with it alone. That’s inexcusable.” He dragged his fingers through his hair and tried to calm himself. “No parent should put a child in the position you were in.”
“It was a long time ago. I’ve learned to live with it.”
“Have you?” It was a struggle to keep his voice steady. “He’s the reason you keep things to yourself and don’t trust easily. He’s the reason you’re scared of relationships. Scared to move in here with me.”
“I have moved in here with you.” Her hand covered his. “And I do trust you.”
He stared down at their entwined fingers. Her hand looked small and delicate against his and he felt a surge of protectiveness. “Do you?”
“Yes. I do. Calm down, Matt.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “This will be hard for you to understand because your family is so different from mine but I don’t even care anymore. I have no feelings for my father. He’s a stranger to me.”
“That’s wrong on so many levels.” Comparing it to his relationship with his own father, he pulled her against him. He didn’t feel calm. He didn’t feel calm at all. “I wish I’d been there for you.”
“You’re here now. And that’s what counts.” She eased away from him and finished preparing the food. “What happened to Roxy’s parents?”
“Her father was abusive. I think that’s one reason why Roxy is determined not to go back to Eddy no matter what.” He took the garlic from her, scraped it into the hot oil and lowered the heat. At this rate he was going to burn the food. He had to stop thinking about Eddy. And he had to stop thinking about Frankie’s father. “With everything that happened today, I forgot to ask you how plans for the rehearsal dinner are going. I know it’s an important event for the three of you.” He tried to get a grip on his emotions, but it was disturbingly difficult.
“It’s looking good. I was planning on going into the office tomorrow, but that was before most of today was wiped out.”
“Go. I always build in extra time on every job. We can afford to lose a couple of days.” Breathing deeply, he tipped in the chopped tomatoes and fresh chili and reached for the pasta.
They’d both widened their repertoire and it had become a seamless routine, cooking together and eating together. Sometimes they ate in the kitchen, but usually they took their plates up to the roof terrace and ate while watching the sun set over the Manhattan skyline.
Paige, Eva and Jake often joined them for their traditional movie night, but otherwise they were mostly on their own. Matt knew the others were busy, but he had a feeling they were intentionally keeping their distance.
Right now he could have used the distraction. “James and I will move the log seats tomorrow and there are a couple of guys I can call on to help if I need to.”
“Most of the plants are arriving Wednesday, so I’ll make sure I’m on-site for that.” Giving him a searching look, she took the pasta from him and dropped it into the pan. “You’re still angry.”
“I’m fine.”
She leaned against the counter, her gaze fixed on his face. “One of the things I love about our relationship is that we can talk about anything and everything.”
That was true up to a point. They had talked about everything, from growing up on Puffin Island to their dreams for the future.
The only thing they’d never talked about were his feelings for her. Those, he kept carefully locked inside.
And it was starting to drive him crazy.
He had enough self-awareness to know that the intensity of his anger had its roots in the depth of his feelings for her.
He felt out of control and it unsettled him.
Aware that she was waiting for him to respond, he put a lid on the saucepan. “I love that we talk about everything, too.”
And he loved her.
So why the hell wasn’t he just telling her that?
He turned to her, saw the quizzical look in her eyes and lost his nerve.
What if telling her made her panic? What if she rejected him?
He had to wait for the right moment.
The roof garden was finished a week later, and Frankie stood back and admired their handiwork. They’d all put in extra long days and as a result they’d finished before their deadline.
Matt was hauling the last of the log seats into place and she wondered how watching him work could be so sexy. Maybe it was the way his well-worn jeans hugged his thighs, or it could have been something to do with the way his shirt pulled against hard muscle as he hefted slabs into position.
He glanced up and his gaze met hers. His smile was intimate and personal, and she blushed slightly.
He was always looking at her, but that wasn’t what unsettled her. It was the way he looked at her. As if they were the only two people on the planet. As if she was beautiful.
He made her feel beautiful.
Roxy strolled across the terrace. “Just makes you want to stop and gaze, doesn’t it?”
For a moment Frankie thought she was talking about Matt’s body, and then she realized she was talking about the roof terrace.
“Yes.” Her voice was croaky. “It does. It’s looking good. We’ve done a good job.”
“Good?” Roxy stood next to her. “We’re not just good, we’re brilliant.” In the past week she’d settled into Frankie’s old apartment. There had been no sign of her ex.
James, who watched over her like a hawk, grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler. “The best there is.”
But all three of them knew the real genius behind the roof garden was Matt. After working with him all summer, Frankie understood exactly how he had managed to build such a successful business at such a young age. He took jobs he knew he excelled at and he always exceeded expectations. If there was fault to be found, he found it himself and fixed it, and as a result he had happy clients and a rapidly growing business.
“Thanks, team.” Matt opened his bag and took out his camera. He handed it to Roxy. “You have the best eye. Take some photos for our website.”
Pleased to be asked, Roxy walked away and James followed her.
“So that’s it. We’re done.” Frankie felt a little pang. No more roof terrace.
From next week she’d be back in the office with Paige and Eva. She loved her friends and she loved Urban Genie, but she was going to miss working with Matt nearly every day.
“We are done. And thank you.” He offered her a bottle of water and she took it gratefully.
“What are you thanking me for?”
“For helping us out. We wouldn’t have been able to do this without you.”
“You would have found someone.”
“But not the best, and I wanted the best.” He tapped his bottle of water against hers. “We can pretend this is champagne.”
“After hauling half a ton of soil around the place, I’d take water over champagne any day.”
“I hope that’s not true because I’m taking you to dinner tonight to celebrate.”
“
You mean like a date?”
“Not like a date,” he drawled. “It is a date.”
“Sounds good to me.” She thought about how much things had changed in less than two months.
Then, she’d been nervous about having dinner with him, and now they were virtually living together.
With Roxy in her apartment, the option to move back downstairs had been removed.
At one time that would have panicked her, but not now.
There was a new intimacy to their relationship.
“So this dinner—am I dressing up?”
“You are. It’s an excuse to wear your starfish necklace.”
“I’ve worn it almost every day since we came back from Puffin Island.”
“We should go back there soon. Make a trip to see the baby before the weather turns cold.”
Emily had given birth to a little boy a few weeks earlier. They’d called him Finn after a friend of Ryan’s, a photo-journalist who had been killed while reporting from Afghanistan.
According to Ryan, mother and baby were doing well, and little Lizzy was so in love with baby Finn it was touching.
“That sounds good.” Just how good, surprised her. Just as she was surprised by how much she loved being in a relationship with Matt. It made her giddy and dizzy with excitement.
She’d never had a long relationship before, but she was loving every minute of it.
When she was wrapped up in Urban Genie work, they talked and texted regularly and she found herself telling him all sorts of things she’d never told anyone before. Somehow Matt had become a key element of her life. She found herself wanting to share every little thing with him.
She’d been wrong to think that she wasn’t capable of having a relationship, she thought happily. Wrong to think she couldn’t trust.
It had been a gradual process, but little by little things had changed.
She trusted Matt totally.
She trusted their relationship.
She’d never been happier.
Chapter Eighteen
Life is like a seagull. You never know when it’s going to drop something nasty on your head.
—Frankie
Frankie was half-asleep in Matt’s arms when her phone beeped.
“It’s Sunday morning. Who is texting me this early on a Sunday morning? If it’s Paige, I’m resigning.” With a groan, she reached out her hand and picked her phone up.
It was Roxy.
Warning! Your mom is on the way up.
Her mom?
“Matt, get up!” She sprang out of bed. “My mother is here.”
He eased himself onto his elbow. “It’s a little early, but that doesn’t constitute an emergency, does it?”
“Yes! I’m naked in your bed and I’m living in your apartment.” And she didn’t want her mother to know. And the reason for that was too complicated to explore right now. She searched frantically for her clothes, some of which were strewn across the floor. In desperation, she grabbed one of Matt’s T-shirts and managed to get herself jammed inside it. “This T-shirt doesn’t fit. How can it not fit when it’s too big for me?” She felt Matt’s hands on the fabric as he carefully extracted her.
He did it the way he did everything. Thoughtful, calm and measured.
“You’re trying to put your head through the armhole. You need to calm down. What’s the panic?”
“The panic is my mother.” Wishing some of his calm would transfer itself to her, she grabbed her hair, freeing it. “I don’t want her to know I’m living here.”
“Why?”
“Because she ruins everything, Matt. You have no idea. She’ll embarrass me. She’ll embarrass you—”
“Do you really think anything your mother does could change the way I feel about you?”
Something in his voice made her pause and glance at him, but his expression revealed nothing.
How could she explain that what they had was special and perfect and she didn’t want it tainted?
“You don’t know her.”
“I’ve known her almost as long as I’ve known you.”
“But you’ve never seen her in full flow. You don’t know what she’s capable of.” She stumbled as she pulled on her yoga pants. “What is she even doing here? Please get dressed. If my mother sees your chest, I can’t promise you’ll be safe.”
She closed the door between the bedroom and the living room and reached the door as her mother pressed the bell.
Crap, why couldn’t she have a normal mother? Someone who called a few days before and arranged Sunday lunch?
Taking a deep breath, she opened the door. “Mom! This is a surprise.” So was the realization that she’d forgotten her underwear. She was naked under her yoga pants and her breasts were loose and free.
Fortunately, her mother seemed distracted. “I went downstairs first. You didn’t tell me you’d moved.”
“It’s only temporary—”
“You lent your apartment to that sweet girl with the baby. I know. I apologized for waking her, but she told me that she’d been up since five.”
Frankie wondered what else Roxy had told her mother. “What are you doing here, Mom?”
“You’re my daughter!” Her mother’s voice rose. “Do I need an excuse to visit my daughter?”
“It’s eight o’clock on a Sunday morning.”
“You’re always up early. You were the same when you were little. You and your father, thick as thieves, giggling away as you planned your adventure for the day.” It sounded like an accusation, and Frankie tensed in anticipation of the conversation that lay ahead.
Were they going to be revisiting the past or was this about the present? More excruciating details of her mother’s current relationship?
“Come in. I’ll make some coffee.”
“Thank you.” Her mother’s tone was brittle and she was paler than usual. “What are you wearing? It looks like something you bought in a man’s store. It swamps you.”
Given that it was Matt’s T-shirt, Frankie decided not to answer that. “Are you hungry?”
“Starving, but I don’t want to eat. I have this body because I watch what I eat. I look after myself. I exercise, I have a really tight butt—”
Frankie cringed and hoped Matt wasn’t listening. “You’re looking great, Mom.”
“So why do men leave me?” Her mother’s face crumpled. “Why do men always leave me? What do I do wrong?”
Frankie froze, caught unawares by the sudden eruption of emotions. “Dev left you?”
“He said he wanted to find someone his own age who could give him babies. I told him having kids is overrated but he wouldn’t listen to me.”
Frankie wondered why remarks like that still upset her. “I didn’t know you were serious about him.”
“Neither did I. But it turns out I am. We had fun together.” She started to sob and the sound hammered away at the barrier Frankie had erected between herself and her mother.
“Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.” Shaking, she put her arms around her mother and guided her to the sofa. Listening to her sobs made her chest ache. She was right back there, fourteen years old and faced with a parent who could barely drag herself out of bed every morning. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
“How can it be? I’m fifty-four next month. Fifty-four. My life is over.”
“It’s not over, Mom.”
“I will never, ever find a man I can depend on.” She flung her arms around Frankie, enveloping her like an octopus as she sobbed onto her shoulder. “You’re the sensible one, not me. You’ve built a life that doesn’t involve men. You have a great job, lovely friends and most of all you’re independent. You never, ever give away your heart. You have more sense.”
Frankie thought about Matt, getting dressed in the next room.
She thought about all the things they’d shared. The deeply personal parts of herself and her life that she’d revealed to him and she desperately tried to block out the small,
traitorous voice inside her that was telling her to listen to her mother.
“Mom—”
“What? You’re going to tell me this is my own fault for getting involved. And you’d be right.” She blew her nose hard. “You’re right to avoid relationships, Frankie. This is what they do to you.” The tears flowed and Frankie held her mother while she cried, just as she’d done all those years before.
She tried to block the emotions, or at least filter them, but familiar feelings flowed back through her, an ugly mix of panic and helplessness. “Don’t cry, Mom. He’s not worth it.”
“I know.” But still she cried and still Frankie held her, her brain and her heart numb.
Matt appeared, holding coffee.
Over her mother’s head, her gaze met his.
He looked rumpled and sexy and she felt dizzy with longing.
She wanted to run to him and feel those strong arms close around her, protecting her from thoughts she didn’t want to have. Instead of the voice inside her, she wanted to hear his voice telling her in a calm, rational way that everything was going to be okay. And that in itself was terrifying.
She’d worked hard to ensure she didn’t need reassurance from anyone but herself.
She protected herself. That was what she did. That was how she lived.
What did it matter whether her issues came from her father or her mother? Nothing changed the fact that they were there.
How had she let herself get this involved? Being with Matt had melted away the protective shell she’d worn for most of her life, and now instead of feeling strong she felt exposed and vulnerable.
Panic rippled through her.
What had she done?
“I should be going.” Gina peeled herself away from Frankie. “I just wanted you to know that I’ll be moving in with Brad so I have a new address.”
Frankie was barely listening. “Who is Brad?”
“He owns the restaurant where Dev and I ate all the time. He saw how upset I was and offered me a room. Don’t look at me like that, Francesca.” She sniffed and took another tissue from the box. “I’ve finally learned my lesson. This is temporary.”
Until the next person came along, Frankie thought.