by Tracy Wolff
“I know what I need! I’m a grown woman who’s been taking care of herself for most of her life. I have a rental car, I have a motel room. I have an ATM card and a relatively healthy checking account. When I’m hungry, I’ll eat. When I’m ready to paint, I’ll figure out what I want to use. And when I need more vitamins, I will go get them. So lay off, okay?”
Matt’s jaw snapped shut with an audible click and for a few minutes blessed silence reigned in the car. Laying her head back against the headrest, Camille closed her eyes and tried to drift off. She was so tired—she couldn’t remember ever being this tired. And Matt’s constant nagging about what she needed to do and eat and think was only making her more exhausted.
She knew he was a planner, knew he liked to map things out far in advance as opposed to flying by the seat of his pants, as she was wont to do. But this was too much, even for him. He was borrowing trouble where there wasn’t any, trying to fix something that wasn’t broken. And it was driving her insane.
Still, when he pulled up in front of her motel, she couldn’t help feeling a little bad for snapping at him. In his own way he was only trying to help—it wasn’t his fault that all his plans were slowly freaking her out. How could he know that all she wanted was blessed silence and a chance to assimilate all the ideas currently running rampant in her head? She’d never told him.
Turning to him with a sigh, Camille laid a light hand over his, where it rested on the steering wheel. “Look, Matt, I didn’t mean to bite your head off. I just—”
“It’s okay.”
“You were just trying to help and I totally blew up. I’m sorry.”
When he finally turned his head, it was with a contrite grin. “Nothing to be sorry about. I keep talking about this pregnancy, but forget the most basic stuff. Like how tired you’re supposed to be in the first trimester—even without the jet-lag. Go get some sleep and I’ll call to check on you in a few hours.”
She searched his face for a minute, but found no sign of upset—just a rueful resignation that all was not going to go according to his master plan. Of course, now that she’d gotten her way, she couldn’t help thinking that it was kind of sweet, how much interest Matt was taking in her and her pregnancy. A lot of guys would have been horrified to have an ex-girlfriend drop in, pregnant and unannounced. Matt had simply absorbed the news and then started making decisions that he thought would keep the baby healthy and safe.
He was a stand-up guy, and though she hadn’t planned this pregnancy, she could have done a lot worse for the father of her baby. Impulsively, she leaned over and kissed his cheek.
Matt froze for a second, then turned so that his lips brushed against hers. Once, twice, so softly that it felt like a feather whispering over her mouth. And yet his touch reawakened something inside of her, a need for him that she’d sublimated but that had never really gone away.
Reaching up, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, until his mouth fit fully over hers. Then she sucked his lower lip between her teeth and nibbled on it, in the way she knew he loved.
He groaned, yanked her across his gearshift, and pressed her against him so that her breasts were flush with his chest, her legs straddling his as the steering wheel bit into her back.
But she didn’t care, the pain barely registering as his lips raced across her cheek and down her neck to the pulse point at the hollow of her throat. She moaned, let her head fall back while he licked at her favorite erogenous zone. Heat raced up her spine, her fingers tangling in Matt’s hair as she started moving anxiously above him. Against him.
He felt so good, made her feel so good, that she couldn’t help wanting to forget the nearly three months that stretched between them. Couldn’t help wanting to take this attraction as far as she could and to say to hell with the consequences. They’d been good together once, they would be again. And if it complicated things, they would deal—they were grown-ups after all.
Twisting her fingers in his hair, she yanked Matt’s mouth back up to hers and devoured him. He tasted just as she remembered—like lemon and mint and the deepest, darkest chocolate. Familiar, comforting and yet so exciting she could swear she heard her brain begin to sizzle. Dipping into his mouth, she stroked his tongue with her own and—
Matt wrenched his mouth away with another groan. She whimpered, tried to drag him back, but he lifted her and set her back on the passenger seat.
“We can’t do this here,” he muttered, his voice dark and growly and so sexy that it took all her willpower not to climb back into his lap. He was breathing heavily—maybe even more heavily than she was. His dark auburn hair was tousled from her fingers and his dark eyes were burning with the same need licking its way through her. “People are everywhere.”
For the first time since Matt’s lips had met her own, Camille became truly aware of where they were—in Matt’s car, parked in front of the door to her motel room, and people were, indeed, everywhere.
“Do you—” She cleared her throat. “Do you want to come up to my room?”
He shook his head regretfully. “I’ve got a meeting in a little more than half an hour.”
“Right. Your meeting. I forgot.” She felt her cheeks blaze and for a moment wanted nothing more than for the ground to open and swallow her. She’d been the one to break up with Matt, yet now she was practically begging him to take her back. It was embarrassing, especially considering the fact that he’d been able to pull away when she was so far gone she would have let him take her in the front seat of his car. Not to mention the fact that he’d turned down an invitation into her bed because he had a meeting.
Maybe it was childish to expect him to drop every thing to be with her, but she didn’t understand how he could run so hot and cold. How he could be so controlled after he’d all but ripped her clothes off in the front of his car?
For a minute, she couldn’t help thinking of the cool blonde she’d run into at his house the night before, couldn’t help wondering how serious she and Matt were.
“Right, of course, I’m sorry.” She fumbled for the door handle. “I’m tired anyway.” She scrambled out of the car. “I guess I’ll see you…whenever.”
“I’ll call you later, Camille.”
“Sure. Later.” She started to slam the door, but stopped as Matt held out a hand to her.
“Make sure you get some lunch—and pick out a place for dinner. I’ll take you out.”
“You don’t have to do that, Matt.”
His eyes grew even darker, hotter, as he growled, “I want to. Now stop arguing and go get some rest. I’ll talk to you later.” He leaned across the seat, grabbed her hand. Squeezed. And suddenly she didn’t feel nearly so uncertain.
Stepping back, she slammed the car door and watched as he drove away. He waved right before he turned the corner and her hand lifted automatically in response, though he had already turned and couldn’t see her.
Then, refusing to think about what that kiss had or hadn’t done to their relationship, she headed up the stairs to her motel room, where she flopped onto the bed and promptly fell asleep, fully dressed.
FOR THE FIRST TIME THAT he could remember, Matt had a difficult time keeping his mind on his job. During the meeting with the new clients, he screwed up no less than four times—on minor stuff that any architectural grad student should have a strong grasp of.
Right around the fourth mess-up, he caught his best friend and partner, Reece Sandler, staring at him as if he’d lost his mind. And when, a few minutes later—after he’d screwed up again—Reece mouthed, “What the hell is wrong with you?” he didn’t even take offense.How could he? He was so far off his game that it was a miracle the clients hadn’t given up and walked out. He wouldn’t blame them if they did—despite the copious amount of work he and Reece had put into designing the new Japanese skyscraper. The building was tall and monolithic, with incredible angles that let in an abundance of light and a roof that was different from anything else in the business. He and
his partner considered it one of their best designs. What had started out as a brainstorming session a couple of years ago had turned into what they hoped would soon be the Makati Tower.
Which was why, when the meeting was over and the Makati Corporation representatives were on their way out, Matt didn’t object to letting Reece show them to the elevator on his own. From the time they had set out their shingle eleven years before, Reece had always been the deal-closer. Funny, polished and extroverted, he rarely failed to bring the client around to their way of thinking. He was a hell of an architect, too, but he was definitely the salesman in their partnership.
Matt was the detail guy, the one who took Reece’s sometimes fantastical ideas and made them work. He was the problem-solver, the number cruncher, the one who made the difficult easy and the impossible possible. Which was why it sucked that he’d been off his game today—when Hiro Makati himself had asked about the methods that went into creating the sharp angles that were the building’s cornerstones, it should have been a slam dunk for him to answer. After all, he’d designed them.
Instead, all he’d been able to think about was Camille and how she’d looked when he’d driven away from her after the doctor’s appointment.
Beautiful, stunned and a little insecure—which was not a word he normally associated with his former lover—she’d touched his heart. Again. After he’d promised himself that he wouldn’t let it happen, wouldn’t let her get inside him this time so that she could just walk away again. And he’d blown it, already.
She’d been back from Italy less than twenty-four hours and he was already hungering to take her to bed, to let her back into his life. To try again, even though he was sure it wouldn’t work out. They were too different—he liked security, craved it, and she was the woman her high school graduating class voted most likely to sail around the world. Even more, she was the woman who had sailed around the world—more than once, while he’d always been the guy to keep his feet planted firmly on the ground.
How the two of them were ever going to raise a child together, he didn’t know. But he was smart enough to know that complicating that job with a renewal of their sexual relationship was definitely not a good idea. Eventually things would burn out between them and then where would they be—bitter and angry with each other at worst, awkward and uncomfortable at best.
No, it was better to keep things simple between them. To keep things platonic. Besides, he couldn’t afford to mess with Camille—she was bad for his peace of mind, bad for his organization. Chaos followed her around and, even worse, worked its way into his own life when he was with her. His disastrous performance at the meeting today was proof of that.
Because he felt guilty as hell—he and Reece had worked too hard on this design to watch it go up in smoke because he couldn’t get his ducks in a row—Matt didn’t even try to dodge Reece’s incredulous look when he came back into the conference room.
“You want to tell me what that was all about?” Reece demanded, leaning against the table. “And don’t tell me ‘nothing,’ because I’ve known you since we were freshmen at UT and I have never seen you screw up like that. Not once in damn near eighteen years of friendship.”
For a split second, Matt didn’t know what he wanted to say. After all, he’d yet to come to grips with everything that had changed in his life in the past twenty-four hours and the idea of talking about it… Still, this was Reece and he knew his friend well enough to know that he didn’t let go once he’d sunk his teeth into something—in this case, Matt’s uncharacteristic screw-ups.
Not sure what he was going to say, he opened up his mouth and the words “Camille’s pregnant” flew out before he could stop them.
Reece didn’t immediately respond, just sat there and blinked at him for a few long seconds. “Camille? The woman you were dating a few months back?”
“Yes.”
“The one you moped around about for weeks?”
“Yes.”
“She’s pregnant?”
“Yes.” He was beginning to feel like a parrot.
“With your kid?”
“Well, yeah. I don’t think I’d be this stressed out if it was someone else’s.”
“Hey, when did this happen?”
Matt stared at his friend incredulously. “Excuse me?”
“Not the pregnant thing, the you-finding-out thing.”
“Oh. Yesterday.”
“So this is what you needed the gynecologist’s number for?”
“Well, it sure as hell wasn’t for me.”
“Yeah, but I figured one of your sisters was looking for a new doctor or something. It never occurred to me that you’d gotten a woman pregnant, but at least everything is making a bit more sense now.”
“I’m glad it makes sense to you, because my head is so screwed up that I can barely see straight.”
Reece reached over, clamped a hand on his shoulder. “Tell me.”
He didn’t have a clue where to start, so for the first time in his life he opened his mouth and just rambled. “I fell for her the first time I saw her. She was doing sidewalk art a few blocks from the UT stadium, keeping the fans amused as we killed time before the game.”
“I remember. You were twenty minutes late for kickoff and when you finally showed up you looked like you’d been hit in the head with a two-by-four.”
“That’s how I felt. I hung out with her for over an hour, even paid her twenty bucks to do a caricature of me.” She’d drawn him in a suit and tie, a huge briefcase clutched in one hand and an even bigger pocket watch in the other. He’d been amazed at the astuteness of her drawing, especially since he’d been dressed in faded jeans and an old UT shirt. “Then I stood around, trying to get her number as she drew a bunch of pictures for other people.
“She finally gave me her cell number and I couldn’t wait to call her. I told myself it was no big deal, that I was just having fun with a beautiful woman, but I was sinking fast and was too dumb to know it.”
“There’s nothing wrong with having feelings for a smart, talented, beautiful woman, Matt.”
He laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “There is when you know going in that she isn’t going to stick around. That she’s a gypsy who goes wherever the spirit takes her.”
He stood up, not sure where he was going but knowing that he couldn’t sit still for one more second—not if he had to keep talking about Camille. “Anyway, I broke the rules.”
“You had rules for your relationship?” Reece’s voice was incredulous. “That’s a bit much, even for you, isn’t it?”
“She had rules. I went along with them because—” He walked over to the window that looked out over the city he’d been born and raised in. Down below, cars raced through the narrow downtown streets as pedestrians darted in and out of traffic. “Because I was willing to do whatever it took to be with her. Even let her go. Except—”
“Except what?” Reece prompted from across the room.
“Except let her go. When it was time for her next great adventure, I asked her to stay. Hell, I nearly begged her. It’s humiliating, in retrospect, to think about how I pleaded for more time with her. Even after she left, I couldn’t believe she was gone. Couldn’t believe that she didn’t feel the same way about me that I felt about her. I called her for weeks, left messages on her cell. She never called me back.”
He glanced behind him at Reece. “Pathetic, right?”
His friend looked uncomfortable. “No, not pathetic, exactly. Just—”
“Stupid? Obsessive? Stalkerish? Ridiculous? Pick the adjective of your choice.”
“Desperate, maybe?”
Matt groaned. “Thanks. I always knew I could count on you to kick me while I was down.”
“Hey, you asked.”
“Yeah, well, it was rhetorical.”
“It didn’t sound rhetorical.” Reece paused, then asked, “So how’d Camille tell you?”
“She showed up in the middle of my date wit
h Ariane and announced that she was three months pregnant.”
“Ouch. Your woman doesn’t believe in beating around the bush, does she?”
“No. Not at all. And she’s not my woman.”
“You’re gaga over her and she’s carrying your kid—I’m not sure how much more your woman she could be.”
“It’s not like that. That part of our relationship is over.” Even as he said it, he could feel Camille’s long, lithe body pressed against him. Could smell her wild strawberry scent, though it had been hours since he’d seen her.
“Why not? She cared enough to come back and tell you she was pregnant. That has to count for something.”
“I don’t think so. She doesn’t want any help from me, doesn’t want anything from me. She just thought I had a right ‘to know about the baby.’” He used his fingers to make quotes in the air.
“Yeah, but what do you want?”
“I want to wake up tomorrow and find out this was all a bad dream.”
A long, uneasy silence stretched between them before Reece finally said, “Well, if that’s really what you want, I’d say you’re on the right path. You say she doesn’t want anything from you, right?”
Matt’s hands clenched into fists at the reminder. “Right.”
“So let her go. Problem solved.”
He whirled around in outrage. “Did you not hear me? She’s pregnant with my baby. It’s not like I can just walk away from that.”
“Men do it all the time.” There was an echo of pain in Reece’s voice, a reminder of how he’d walked away from his wife, Sarah, when she’d been pregnant with their daughter, Rose. Sure, he’d been grieving and wasn’t seeing his life clearly, but it had nearly killed Reece, and Matt had no intention of making the same mistake.
“Yeah, well, I don’t. She needs me. My kid needs me.”
“But what do you need?”
Matt turned back to the window, to the hundreds of people down below who seemed to know exactly where they were going. Two days ago, he’d been one of them, but now he was adrift. Lost. More confused than he could ever remember being.