“I love it! This is such fun!” Her sparkling eyes reflected her delight.
“I guess your driver did okay then,” he said. Kate’s laughter was contagious and Drew joined her, relieved that something he loved wouldn’t be an issue for them.
“More than okay and now I’m starving.” She took his hand and pulled him toward the restaurant.
An hour later, stomachs filled with eggs, bacon and plate-sized pancakes, a more relaxed Kate climbed on the bike behind Drew. The motor rumbled to life and instead of fear, its sound and vibration excited her.
“Ready?” Drew asked.
Kate saw his mouth move, but couldn’t hear him over the roar of the motor so she just nodded. She no longer cared about where they were going, so long as her body remained glued to this man’s.
Drew allowed himself to enjoy her good mood since once he said what he’d put off for too long, the ride home would be very different — that is if she even wanted to go with him. He deliberately chose a destination she was familiar with. She’d spent four years in Poughkeepsie at Vassar College and had been happy there. The city had a Metro North station so she’d be able to take a train back to Manhattan if she told him to go to hell, as he expected and deserved.
He dreaded her reaction, but he owed her the truth. He’d never walked away from a challenge, so regardless of the risk it had to be done. Today.
Kate tightened her grip on Drew’s waist when he slowed to turn into the campus. With the exception of Jim, the rotten boyfriend, her years at Vassar had been filled with stimulating classes, good times and great friends, especially Liz, and she was excited to be there.
Drew did a quick circle of the area where the dorms, library, art museum and classroom buildings were located, then headed to a more remote, park-like part of the campus. Just like at the breakfast stop, once they were off the bike Kate threw herself into his arms. “This is perfect. How did you know? Of course, Liz told you. I can’t wait to show you around!”
“I’d like that, but let’s relax a while first.” He took a blanket from one of the bike’s leather saddlebags and spread it on the grass, then sat and extended a hand toward Kate. She shook her hips and shuddered. “I feel like I’ve been sitting on a giant vibrator. Do you ever get off from the motorcycle’s motor?”
Drew threw his head back and laughed. “No, it takes more than that.” Laughter turned to a devilish grin. “Is a certain part of your body tingling?”
“Maybe,” she said as she lowered herself to the blanket and leaned against him.
“I can take care of that.” He wasn’t asking for permission and his fingers discovered how turned on she was when he undid her jeans, slipped his hand between her legs and began to stroke her. There wasn’t anyone in sight, but this was a college campus and some runner or bicyclist could appear at any moment. “We need more privacy.”
“I’m too close,” she panted as he continued to lazily slide his middle finger back and forth through her slickness. He increased the pace and pressure and she buried her face in his neck to muffle her moans as she came.
“I guess this means you’ve changed your mind about motorcycles,” he said, once she rolled to her side.
“Not that your ego needs any boosting, O’Connor, but I think what just happened had as much to do with hugging your body for a couple of hours as it did with the bike.”
“The feeling is mutual,” he said and sat up, anxious to deal with the reason that he’d brought her here. “Kate, we need to talk. It’s important and I’ve put this off for too long.”
The quick shift in his mood made her feel like a dark cloud had blocked the sun. Her heart began to race when the first thought to pop into her head was that he was about to break up with her. But that couldn’t be it. He loved her or so he said. Maybe he was sick or maybe he was in some kind of trouble. Oh, God, could he be dying? The fear on his face scared her more than his words. She grabbed his hand. “You’re freaking me out so you better tell me whatever it is right now so we can deal with it.”
“Although I like that you said we can deal with it, this is my problem.” He rubbed the back of his suddenly tight neck and took a shaky breath as she waited for him to get to the point.
“I’ve told you that I spent most summers in Ireland at my gran’s. I think my mother insisted on it to get me away from my father’s fists and the toxic atmosphere in our house. It was one of the few times he agreed to something she wanted, but my guess is he liked getting rid of the kid he called a brat for a couple of months. Anyway, those summers in Ireland are probably why I’m not more screwed up than I am.” The crooked smile that accompanied his words didn’t reach his eyes. He enclosed Kate’s hand in his and absentmindedly ran his thumb over her knuckles.
“Drew…” she began, but he interrupted.
“No, let me finish.”
“Okay.” Kate wasn’t sure where he was going, but this was obviously important and he needed to share it with her. At least he isn’t dying or breaking up with me, she told herself.
“Anyway, I hung out with the local kids. Although I was American, they accepted me and we became great friends. There was this girl…” he paused to clear his throat before continuing. “She lived in Dublin and her family spent summers in the same town as me. It’s on a lake and so…anyway, Erin became my girlfriend when I was sixteen. She was a year younger. We experimented sexually with each other, of course, but never actually did the deed until the year I turned eighteen. We both knew that after that those lazy summers and our time together would be over. She’d go off to university and I’d have to work to earn money for college.”
Kate nodded, urging him to continue, but afraid of where this story was headed. She was a goddamn book editor and knew that very few teenage romances ended with the lovers living happily ever after.
He swallowed the lump in his throat that was making speech difficult and rubbed his damp palms on his jeans. “She was a virgin and very Catholic, so birth control was a problem and I was a teenage boy with out of control hormones. Kate, I wanted her so badly that when she finally said yes, I stupidly agreed not to use condoms. I pulled out at the last minute — not just once, but every time we did it. It was beyond stupid, like playing with a loaded gun. Two weeks before I was scheduled to fly home, she told me she was pregnant.”
“Holy crap. What did you do? I mean with the Catholic thing, abortion would have been…”
“Out of the question,” Drew said, finishing her sentence. “It was illegal in Ireland and she would have had to get it done in another country.”
So far it was a glimpse into his past that had nothing to do with her, but if that were so then why was he so nervous? Her mind raced through various scenarios, but until she had something to worry about, she would try to hold it together, to not cry, to not scream at him or slap him, but it was becoming harder to control those urges. She whispered the question that had to be asked. “What happened?”
“She told her parents who told Gran who told my parents and then all hell broke loose, but in the end I thought I loved her and couldn’t let her face it alone. Besides, I had little choice in the matter. Erin’s father was ready to shoot me dead and her brothers had some fun using me as a punching bag.” He stood and turned his back to Kate, unable to witness the hurt his next words would cause, but they had to be said. “I married her, Kate.” He took a deep breath and forced himself to say the rest. “I have a wife.”
“What?” The word was barely more than a whisper. “What did you say?” She couldn’t have heard him right. Kate felt like her head was about to explode and she had to work to draw air into her lungs. She crossed her arms to contain the rage bubbling inside her body like molten lava. When she spoke, her voice was cold, toneless, but it rose in volume with each word. “Let me get this straight so there’s no misunderstanding. You didn’t say you had a wife, past tense, which means you have a wife. You’re not just a husband, but a father with a child in Ireland and you’ve had the fucki
ng nerve to sleep with me and toss me some bullshit I love you?”
He held her shoulders so she couldn’t turn away, but she twisted out of his grip. “You bastard! Let me go!”
“Kate! Listen to me. There’s no child. She told me it was a false alarm two weeks after our wedding. There was never a child.”
“But you stayed married. Christ, I can’t fucking believe this.” Kate ignored the tears that ran down her face and dripped onto the grass. “Did you visit her after I flew home? Is that why you didn’t want me to go to that village with you? Did you sleep with her? Why are you here and not with your wife?”
“I haven’t seen her in years. Katie, I was a boy. I thought I loved her, but how the hell are you supposed to know what love is when you’re that young?” He searched her eyes trying to gauge her reaction, but there was nothing there to reassure him, so he kept talking. “I think it was lust combined with as much emotion as a horny teenager is capable of, but not love. Not like what I feel for you.” When he reached for her, she took a step back.
“Don’t touch me,” she growled.
He sighed and lowered his head. “I wanted to go home and start college. We had our whole lives ahead of us and without the baby…there was no reason for us to stay together or at least that was how I saw it. During one of our fights, I told her I didn’t love her and left.”
“So why aren’t you divorced?”
“That’s the million dollar question. I thought we’d have the marriage annulled, but it’s not that easy to do in Ireland. Besides, she refused.”
“Why?” She couldn’t bear to look at him and kept her eyes lowered. Her trembling fingers plucked at blades of grass as she sat cross-legged at the edge of the blanket.
“Why? I have no idea, although she certainly has grounds. Desertion and adultery to start with.” He released a frustrated sigh. “Catholics stay married forever, she says.”
“That’s crap and you know it. There are plenty of Catholics who divorce and then remarry.”
“I know that,” he mumbled, “but without an annulment from the Church, she would be denied certain rites, like communion, and that must be more important to her than her freedom.”
“So there’s an Erin O’Connor, a Mrs. Andrew O’Connor in Ireland?”
“Yes.” Nothing he said could change that reality. It was fact.
Kate studied his face, a face that had become the one she dreamt about waking up to each day for the rest of her life. She saw pain and regret, yet if he’d kept such an important part of himself from her, could she give him the kind of trust they needed for their relationship to survive his public life? Maybe she’d been a fool to think that Drew was the right man for her. As difficult and frustrating as this was for him — and she could admit that it was — how was she supposed to get past the fact that he was a married man? She must be the world’s biggest fool.
He stretched his hands toward her, needing her touch, yet sure that she would deny him. He was right. “I gave up trying to convince her to let me go after a few years of getting nowhere. Katie, I didn’t need to be free and maybe some part of me liked that I wasn’t. That changed when I met you.”
“Damn you, Drew! I had a right to know that the man I was falling in love with is married! Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”
He didn’t hesitate. “Simple answer? Fear. I can’t remember when I’ve felt anything other than lust for a woman, but with you…it’s different. I was afraid that if I told you before we had a chance to see where this was going, you’d run. I finally had a reason to insist that the marriage had to end. I arranged to meet with her and her lawyer and finally take care of this when you and I were in Galway, but…”
Kate interrupted. “Wait a minute.” She gnawed on her bottom lip as she considered his words. “So instead of starting the process to free yourself, you flew home after I freaked out about that picture of you with the redhead in the hotel bar. Because of my insecurity, you dealt with your crazy jealous girlfriend instead of maybe finally coming to terms with your crazy wife.” She covered her face with her hands. “Oh, Drew. I’m so sorry.”
“You’re sorry? For what?”
“For making you choose between taking care of this or flying back to me.”
“It was an easy choice. I will always choose you.”
Her brows knitted together as she concentrated. Did she really want to lose him over something that happened so long ago? But he was another woman’s husband. There were plenty of women who didn’t mind sleeping with married men, women who preferred their sex with no emotional strings, but she wasn’t one of them. She wanted the chance of a future with him and that was impossible until his marriage was dissolved. She couldn’t figure out why this Erin would insist on staying married to a man who didn’t want her. There had to be a reason, but damned if she could think of one.
During much of their discussion, Drew had been pacing and now Kate did the same. She told herself to set emotion aside and deal with the problem logically. “You got married when you were eighteen. That’s eleven years ago. You’ve moved on and she hasn’t. What I don’t get is why a woman in her twenties, who I guess is attractive, hasn’t found another man she wants to be with.”
“She said I was the only man she’d ever love and even though I was an adulterer who’d abandoned her, she’d been true to our vows.”
“Bullshit. Please don’t be offended, but I find that hard to believe. Your wife sounds like a nut case.”
Drew laughed with relief when he tried once more to hug her. She didn’t resist, although her body was stiff and she kept her arms at her sides instead of wrapping them around him. He knew how close he’d come to losing her forever and he still might. “I should have trusted you, Katie. I’m so sorry.”
“Anything else to confess? This would be the time to do it.”
He scrunched his brows together and gazed at the bright blue sky, the picture of a man deep in thought. “No, nothing else. You know my deepest, darkest secret and maybe you get why I couldn’t risk doing the book.”
“Actually, I’m surprised that some reporter hasn’t dug this up already. You’re famous and the tabloids would pay a lot for this story.”
“When I won the Olympics I half expected that might happen, but by some miracle it didn’t. Maybe Erin and her family didn’t want the attention that would come with her being married to me, especially since I’d left her. I guess anyone who knew about the marriage assumed we were already divorced.”
“But Erin knows…”
“There’s that. She’s never asked me for anything, not a cent despite my wealth, so I don’t think she’d ever sell me out.”
“She might when you demand a divorce. Don’t forget that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned and it’s clear that for some strange reason Erin doesn’t want to let you go. Once you file the papers, there will be a public record and the story’s bound to come out. Have you considered going to the press first so that this doesn’t bite you in the ass and put you on the defensive? I assume Charles knows, so maybe talk that over with him.”
Drew began to pack up their gear and stow it in the motorcycle’s saddlebags. “Yeah, he knows. Other than you and her family, no one else does. I’ve kept it that way since I didn’t want to hurt her more than I have.”
“Hurt her?” Kate’s face reddened as she turned toward him. Her hands were on her hips and her eyes shot daggers in his direction. “Hurt her? Un-fucking-believable, Drew. What about me? If you love me like you say you do, it’s my feelings that you should care about.”
He reached for her, but the hand she held up made him drop his arms to his sides. “Don’t touch me. This is so messed up.” She swiped at her runny nose. “We need to take a break until this is settled. I mean a complete break. No visits, no phone calls, no texts or emails. Nothing. I am not going to have an affair with another woman’s husband.”
“You said we were in this together.” He spoke softly and gazed at the ground, una
ble to meet her eyes.
“Tough shit. You’re acting like you’re still that infatuated, clueless eighteen-year-old instead of the confident man you’ve become. One mistake shouldn’t define your life and you’ve let this woman hold you hostage. I would think you’d want to be free even if you don’t end up with me.” She shivered, although the air was still unseasonably warm. She zipped up her leather jacket and pulled on her helmet. Before she lowered the protective black mask, she demanded, “I want to go home. Now.”
Just as well, Drew thought. More talk would only make things worse and he supposed it was a good sign that she was willing to ride back to the city with him. She was right about everything. It was long past time for him to man up.
He settled himself on the bike and a moment later the motor roared to life. It wasn’t until they were underway that Kate reluctantly wrapped her arms around him, but her body wasn’t pressed against his the way it had been on the ride up. The physical separation tore up his insides and he vowed to do whatever it took to make things right between them. He loved her too much to ever let her go.
CHAPTER 24
“I hate to say it, but now what? It seems that you and Drew are always in the midst of some crisis,” Liz said before taking a sip of her martini. “I’m not easily shocked, but this? It’s the stuff of novels or — and I should know — soap operas.”
It was two days since Kate had told Liz about the bombshell Drew had dropped on her. She hadn’t seen or heard from him since then, so he was taking her demand for space seriously. She should be glad that he respected her wishes, but she was disappointed that he wasn’t fighting harder for her. It made no sense, but who said she had to be logical?
The women sat at the bar of a busy downtown restaurant while they waited for a table. Kate gripped her glass tightly, but didn’t raise the drink to her lips. “It’s like we’re doing some kind of dance that’s two steps forward and then two steps back, although this time it feels more like one step forward and three steps back.”
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