“Monica!” Javy rose and greeted the woman with a smile and a kiss on the cheek. “It’s good to see you! How long has it been?”
“Has to be six months, right? Your family’s Christmas party,” said the woman.
“Was that the last time?” He shook his head, a look of nostalgia, and…something else, which Emily couldn’t identify, crossing his features.
What was it? she wondered. Sorrow over the way things had ended? Sympathy for leaving another broken heart in his wake? She didn’t know Javy well enough to read the subtleties of his expression, but she did know his reputation.
“I heard about the restaurant.” Concern shone in the woman’s eyes. “How long do you think you’ll be shut down?”
“Not long. As soon as the damage is repaired, we’ll be up and running again,” Javy replied.
“I bet Maria’s glad about that,” Monica said, the warmth in her voice taking Emily by surprise.
Emily knew she had a strike against her as far as Maria was concerned, thanks to her past with Connor. She also assumed Javy’s mother didn’t believe any woman was good enough for her son, so she tried not to take Maria’s criticism personally. But Monica’s obvious affection for the older woman spoke of a close enough relationship to make Emily reconsider.
“Speaking of my mother, it’s a good thing she’s not here, or she’d be smacking me for forgetting my manners,” said Javy. “Monica, I’d like you to meet Emily Wilson. Emily, this is Monica Carter, an old friend.”
Emily wasn’t exactly sure of proper etiquette when introduced to an ex-girlfriend while on a date—if this was a date—but Monica merely smiled and held out her hand. “Hi. Nice to meet you,” she said, without showing the least bit of reaction at being introduced as an “old friend.”
But then again, hadn’t Javy used that same term when he’d told his cousin about her? Which, Emily supposed, answered her unasked question from earlier that evening. Maybe Javy did kiss all his friends the way he kissed her.
“It’s…nice to meet you, too,” Emily replied a little weakly to the brunette’s easygoing greeting.
Six months down the road, if she ran into Javy with another woman, he’d no doubt refer to her as an old friend, as well. And Emily could only hope she would respond with as much casual and carefree grace as Monica Carter had.
Emily pulled up to the town house the next morning and breathed a sigh of relief. The place was exactly as she remembered and just as charming in daylight as it had been the evening before.
She was meeting Javy’s cousin, and Anna had sounded so excited, not only about a possible sale, but about the fact that Emily had liked one of the houses. Her enthusiasm was exactly what Emily needed, since her parents, whom she’d also asked to meet her at the town house, weren’t likely to be as thrilled.
“This is what I want,” she whispered as she cut the engine and reached for her purse.
She only wished she could be so certain about other aspects of her life.
She’d purposely decided not to ask Javy to come along. Partly because it wouldn’t be fair to throw him into what might be an uncomfortable situation, but mostly because she wasn’t sure how she felt after running into one of Javy’s friends the night before.
Even after Monica left, the sensual spell Javy cast had remained broken, and Emily had soon made an excuse to leave. She’d told him she had a lot to think about, but while the possibility of buying a house should have held her complete attention, her mind had drifted more often than not back to Javy.
Aware of his reputation from the start, Emily shouldn’t have been surprised to run across one of his former flames. But knowing those women existed and coming face-to-face with a woman as beautiful and confident as Monica were two different things. Emily didn’t quite know how to handle the latter.
You’re jealous, an all-knowing voice accused. Jealous of the women in Javy’s past and the women in his future.
Because there would be women in Javy’s future. If she couldn’t come to grips with that now, she needed to let go. Trying to hold on would bring a boatload of heartache.
The sound of an approaching car interrupted her thoughts. A dark-haired woman sporting a pair of oversize sunglasses waved from behind the wheel of a small, red compact. As she climbed from the car, she pushed her glasses to the top of her head, and Emily could see enough of a resemblance to know this had to be Javy’s cousin.
“Emily? Of course you’re Emily. I mean, look at you.” Before Emily could respond to that statement, the woman held out her hand. “I’m Anna Delgado.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“You, too. I apologize for not showing you around yesterday. I know you saw this place last night, during the open house, but you can’t rob me of giving you the grand tour. It’s my favorite part of the job,” Anna said as she led the way up the driveway. “After that, we’ll get down to my least favorite part, the paperwork.”
Emily followed as Anna opened the front door and swept inside.
“I love the way the foyer opens up to the vaulted ceiling and gives the place a larger feel,” Anna commented.
Emily nodded as she got her second look at the house she soon planned to call home. The tile foyer led into the great room. Sunlight streamed through the shutters, casting striped shadows over the beige carpet. The ceiling fan whirred overhead, a seasonal contrast to the brick fireplace on the far wall. The mantle held a few pictures, posed portraits and casual snapshots of the current owners, but Emily could already picture her own displays lining the wide oak surface.
As Anna led the way upstairs to the bedrooms, she discussed pricing and the strategy of making a reasonable offer. The ringing of the doorbell interrupted her, and she turned to Emily with a questioning lift to her eyebrows.
“That would be my parents,” Emily explained. “I didn’t exactly tell them I wanted to make an offer on this house.”
“Oh,” Anna said knowingly.
Yes, Emily thought, nerves kicking in at the prospect of confronting her parents. As in uh-oh.
“You want to buy a house?” Gordon Wilson repeated, doubt written in every line of his furrowed brow.
Emily had anticipated her parents’ disapproval and hoped the house might charm them into accepting her decision, but her mother especially appeared anything but charmed as she looked around the dining room, mere steps from the kitchen on one side and the great room on the other.
“This house?” her mother asked. “Emily, if you’re interested in investing in a home, why not let us help you to make the right decision?”
Like they’d helped decide her friends, her hobbies, her courses at school…even her fiancé. Although, she’d succumbed to Todd’s golden-boy looks and high-polished charm before her parents met him, their immediate approval made it too easy for her to ignore the doubts that had started swirling during her short engagement.
If not for Connor, she would have ignored those doubts all the way to the altar. She would have been miserable, not only because she would have been married to an unfaithful liar, but because she’d have married a man against her better judgment simply to make her parents happy.
“This is the right place,” Emily insisted. “And I found it on my own.”
“It’s—it’s a town house!” Charlene argued. “Did you even look at the master bedroom? Your closet at home is bigger than that entire room.”
“I guess I’ll be getting rid of some things, then,” Emily replied.
Her parents exchanged a look filled with worry and silent frustration. “Emily, you need to take some time and think this through,” her father said, using the calm, reasonable tone that always made her feel like a petulant child and never failed to quell any opposing ideas.
Not this time. Emily repeated the words as if she could talk some steel into her spine.
“Let’s go back home and discuss this decision. After all, there’s no rush. After a few days, we’ll see if you still want to make an offer,” her father add
ed.
And after a few days, her father fully expected that she would cave. That their talks of how she was making a mistake, how she was rushing into things, and how she was ultimately incapable of knowing her own mind would wear her down until she didn’t have a high heel left to stand on.
What do you want?
The familiar whisper spun through her thoughts, but while Javy’s husky voice normally left her weak, the answer to the question and the faith he’d showed in her made her strong.
“I want this house,” Emily said.
Her father sighed, as if dealing with a two-year-old stomping her feet in a tantrum. “There’s more to owning a house than finding one you like. You might like the way this place looks,” he said, the doubt in his voice expressing his confusion as to why she liked it, “but what about all you can’t see? What about the wiring? The foundation? The plumbing?”
Javy immediately came to Emily’s mind. He would help or know someone who could. After all, he was the one to introduce her to Anna. He and his cousin Alex were making repairs to the restaurant. Javy was…
“Things might be fine now, but what about two or three months from now?” her father asked, pressing.
…not someone she could rely on.
Everything Emily knew told her that. Oh, sure, right now he was charming and attentive. When she was with him, he made her feel like she was the only woman in the world, but last night had proved that wasn’t true. The world was filled with women like Monica, and before long, Emily would be counted among them—a woman Javy would introduce as an old friend to the next woman he dated.
Her stomach twisted at the thought, but Emily forced herself to face it. Ignoring a problem only made it that much harder deal with—her engagement to Todd had taught her that. If she’d taken a good, hard look at Todd two months ago, she might have seen beyond the surface to the faulty wiring beneath. But she hadn’t, and she had the humiliation of a broken engagement to show for it.
And maybe she was making the same mistake again. Rushing in without thinking the decision through. She really didn’t need another failure right now. What if she couldn’t handle a house of her own? Wouldn’t moving back home, admitting she’d been wrong and that her parents had been right, be so much worse than simply staying where she was?
What do you want?
Javy’s voice rang through her thoughts, but maybe that question didn’t really matter as long as what she wanted was something she couldn’t have.
Chapter Seven
“Man, what time did you get started this morning?”
Javy looked away from the tile he’d been ruthlessly tearing up to meet his cousin Alex’s gaze. After pushing the safety glasses up to the top of his head, he wiped his forehead with the sweatband he wore on one wrist. “’Bout an hour ago,” he said.
His cousin let out a low whistle. “And you got all this done?” Alex asked as he looked at the broken remains of a large section of the dining-room tile.
The two of them had worked together the day before on tearing out the tile in the bathrooms and hallway, saving the largest area for last.
“I was feeling motivated,” Javy said.
When Anna had called yesterday to tell him she was meeting Emily at the house, he’d been happy for Emily. He’d been less than happy as the hours passed and Anna’s call was the only one he received. He had fully expected to hear from Emily and didn’t quite know what to think of her not calling.
And, yeah, okay, he could have picked up the phone, too, but Emily was the one with the big news. It only made sense that she would want to call him.
So he’d gone to bed, secure in his decision not to call Emily, only to spend a few restless hours wondering why she hadn’t called. He’d finally reached for the phone, determined to find out, but then he’d noticed it was one o’clock in the morning and he was certifiably insane.
He’d never, never lost a moment’s sleep over a woman not calling. He knew he had a reputation as a ladies’ man, but he also knew every woman was different. Each had her own taste and opinion, and if one woman wasn’t interested, more than likely another woman was.
Those same rules applied to Emily. If she wasn’t interested…except, dammit, she was interested! He knew she was.
Giving in to frustration, he picked up his hammer and chisel and took another whack at the tile.
“Hey, primo, safety glasses, remember?” said Alex. “You won’t be so irresistible to the girls wearing a patch over one eye!”
Javy swore beneath his breath, knowing his cousin was right, and lowered the glasses before picking up the hammer again.
“You know, we just might get this done today,” Alex said over Javy’s relentless pounding. Judging the remaining area with a critical eye, he added, “If we finish the other repairs and patch the floors tomorrow, we can get the new tile laid in the next few days. I’d say you can start planning for a reopening next weekend.”
Javy sank back on his haunches. His calves and ankles were already groaning a protest after the hours he’d spent crouching on his knees. If Alex’s time frame held true, Javy wasn’t going to have much of a chance to sand and refinish his father’s damaged furniture before the reopening.
Of course, all the time in the world wouldn’t make a difference if he couldn’t do the job. Still, he owed it to his father to try, to prove in some way that he was no longer the selfish, irresponsible boy his father had seen all those years ago. That he was more than the selfish, irresponsible man he’d become.
He thought of the confidence and encouragement in Emily’s eyes. He owed it to himself to try.
“Think you could help me haul some of the damaged dining-room furniture back to my place? It’s in the way here, and my mother doesn’t think the worst of the pieces are worth saving.”
If Alex thought Javy’s house was a strange place to take the furniture, he didn’t let it show. Instead, he merely said, “Yeah, sure. I’ll hook up the trailer, and we’ll be able to get it all in one trip.”
“Thanks, man. And thanks for all the work you’ve done here.”
“Hey, it’s the least I can do.”
Alex’s words rang in Javy’s mind even as his cousin picked up his own hammer, slid on a pair of safety glasses and started to work. Recently Javy had felt like everything in his life was the least he could do. The very least. Yeah, he put in the hours and the effort at the restaurant; he showed up for all the family get-togethers; he made sure to catch a game with the guys or hit the basketball court for some one-on-one every other week or so.
But when was the last time he’d looked forward to any of it? He gave a short laugh. He’d felt more satisfaction in the last few days, trying to get the restaurant reopened, than he had when the place was running smoothly. And how messed up was it that he needed a disaster to give his life meaning?
“You say something?” Alex asked, ceasing the relentless hammering for a moment.
“No, I was just…I’ve been thinking of talking to my mother about my ideas for the bar and patio again. Now would be the perfect chance. We’re already closed, and if we keep on your schedule, the repairs will be done sooner than we thought. Why not move on to the renovations?”
“If Maria says yes, I’ll have a crew ready to start the next day,” his cousin said, even as he raised a doubting eyebrow.
“But you don’t think she will?”
Alex shrugged. “She was pretty adamant about not changing a thing. And can you blame her? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” he said, a familiar stubbornness underscoring his words. One that had nothing to do with Maria’s perspective or the restaurant.
“Yeah, well, speaking of things you broke by not fixing them,” Javy scoffed, “I saw Monica the other night.”
He’d waited until his cousin was taking a swing to make that comment, and Alex’s well-aimed hammer clanked off the side of the chisel before bouncing off the tile. “Where? Why didn’t you tell me before?”
Javy shrugged, t
aking his time and executing a few solid hits before answering. “You did break up with her, right? Because she wanted a commitment, and you wanted your freedom.”
“That’s right,” Alex said with an arrogance that could only come from being completely wrong and knowing it.
“So, what difference would it make if Monica found someone who’s serious about her?”
“Has she?” Alex jumped to his feet, hammer clutched in his hand, as if his competition was going to come busting through the door any minute. “Was she out with some other guy?”
With Emily Wilson seated across from him, Javy wouldn’t have noticed if Monica was out with the entire Arizona Cardinals defensive line. But as distracted as he’d been, he wasn’t completely blind. Monica was a beautiful woman. It wouldn’t have surprised anyone—except maybe Alex—if she’d found someone else.
“No, but why would you care? You’ve got your freedom, man.”
“Yeah, right,” Alex muttered before sinking back down on his knee pads and attacking the tile with a vengeance.
Javy shook his head. What was it with the people in his family? So stubborn, so averse to any kind of change.
And what about you? a subversive voice whispered. What would it take to make you settle down?
Emily’s face flashed before his eyes, despite his attempts to push thoughts of her aside.
Emily’s not looking for a relationship, he mentally insisted.
After calling off her engagement days before the wedding, he was sure she wasn’t looking for anything other than a good time. And maybe to reaffirm that she was a beautiful, desirable woman, despite her fiancé’s infidelity. She was not looking for anything permanent.
And if that changed? If Emily started wanting more?
Would he fall back into old habits? Or would he be willing to embrace something new?
Later that afternoon Anna breezed into the restaurant, pushing her sunglasses to the top of her head to look around. “Wow!” she exclaimed. “I can’t believe you’ve done so much since yesterday. Did you have a chance to look at the paint samples I left?”
The Wedding She Always Wanted Page 9