by Cindy Gerard
She’d watched in relative silence as Michael coaxed a fussy Brandon into drinking all of his milk and eating his chicken before he could eat his cookie.
Michael was a natural with him. She’d enjoyed seeing the interplay between father and son. All in all, it had been a pleasant afternoon. Brandon had fallen asleep on her lap shortly after eating, and she and Michael had talked about inane things, safe things until she’d thought, rather desperately, that she was so comfortable with him. And then she hadn’t felt safe anymore.
She’d felt open and vulnerable and far too susceptible to his charm. To the way he made her want to smile back at him. To the way his dark hair, shorter and tidier than he used to wear it, made him seem so much more mature, so much more responsible, settled. And that made her want to mess that glorious, silky hair with her fingers until a renegade hank of it fell over his forehead as she guided his mouth to hers and let him tumble her to her back on the floor.
She caught herself, manufactured a quick smile and nodded in agreement while John quietly and with total confidence, relayed their selection to the waiter. She had no idea what she’d just agreed to. She had no idea about anything anymore when just yesterday her future had been all but carved in stone.
Then, as now, she hid behind a silence that the uncertainty of the past twenty-four hours had fostered. She sipped her wine. She’d thought she’d known what that future would bring. She would be John Parker’s wife, and Brandon would have a father.
But Brandon already had a father. And she was still Michael’s wife.
“You’re very quiet tonight.” John’s voice broke through her thoughts.
“I’m sorry.” She set down her glass and smiled with apology into the grave solemnity of John’s eyes. “I’m not very good company, I’m afraid.”
“Paige’s return has unsettled you,” John said bluntly.
She didn’t try to hide her reaction or the small, tight laugh that slipped out.
“That is an understatement of epic proportions.”
“You don’t have to deal with him, you know. Your father would be more than happy to run interference. For that matter, so would I.”
“John,” she said kindly, “legally, Michael is still my husband. He will always be Brandon’s father. And Michael has been through a very difficult time.”
“You still have feelings for him,” John concluded at the end of a stoic pause.
“I can’t pretend that I don’t.” She looked at him, then at her hands. “It wouldn’t be fair to either of you.”
At his prolonged silence, she looked up and into a hurt that she hadn’t thought John was capable of feeling. That obvious emotion made it harder to say what she had to say.
“We have a history, Michael and I. We have a child. That doesn’t mean I understand what I’m feeling for him now.”
Her own words surprised her, sent her into immediate denial. She knew what she was feeling: nostalgia, guilt, regrets over what couldn’t be.
John watched her face in the dimly lit restaurant. His emotions once again were tightly concealed.
“And where does that leave us?”
Tara reached for John’s hand and covered it with hers.
“You’re going back to him,” he said.
Soft candlelight flickered between them on the table.
“No,” she said quickly, as much for her benefit as for his. “No. I…I’m not going back to him. I intend to follow through with the divorce.”
“Then why this indecision where you and I are concerned?”
This was going to be hard. Very hard. She wasn’t even sure she herself fully understood the decision she’d come to. She did understand that to continue seeing John would not be fair to him.
Or was it because it wouldn’t be fair to Michael? Again, her conclusion surprised her. She’d thought a lot about everything Michael had said, about giving him a chance. About giving them a chance.
A chance for what? A replay of what had happened to them before? Before, when they’d been kids? Giving him that chance was like asking her to suspend her memories of those horrible times. It was asking a lot.
And still, here she was, second-guessing herself, agonizing over the possibility that she may have had unrealistic expectations back then. Maybe she hadn’t been as proud of Michael for wanting to make his success on his own as she’d claimed. Maybe she’d secretly resented him for not accepting her father’s grudging offer to come into Connelly Corporation. It would have been so much easier for them if he had, at least financially.
It would have broken Michael’s pride, though, and in the end maybe she’d placed too much blame on that pride. Maybe his pride hadn’t been the major factor that had sent their marriage on a downward spiral.
She’d never know now. But she did know what she had to do as far as John was concerned.
“John, while seeing Michael again has complicated things in many ways, it’s also clarified some things for me, like our relationship.”
She stopped while she searched for the best words to say this. Unfortunately, there weren’t any best words. There were only true ones.
“What you and I have is special. Very special. It’s friendship and caring and yes, I do love you, John.”
“But now you realize you don’t love me the way you love Paige,” he said, preempting her.
She smiled sadly. “Can you honestly say that you’re in love with me?”
“Love is a relative term, my dear. But, for the sake of clarity, make no mistake. I am in love with you.”
She witnessed the pain in his eyes and realized with some surprise that he really did love her.
“You deserve to have that love returned.”
Carefully removing the diamond engagement ring from her finger, she wrapped it in his hand, and held it between both of hers.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I can’t be the one to do that.”
John slowly withdrew his hand from hers and, without a trace of emotion crossing his dignified and handsome face, dropped the ring into his jacket pocket.
“So, is the wine to your liking?” he asked after a moment as he lifted his glass to his mouth.
It was so like him. Noble, impassive, seemingly impervious to the change she had just leveled on his life. He was backing out. He was backing away. Without a fuss, without one reckless, rash outburst of passion, he was letting her go.
So like John. So unlike Michael.
That was unfair. It was totally unfair to compare John to Michael. It was like equating silk to denim, silver to steel, water to fire. And yet, that’s what this all boiled down to. Comparisons. One man to the other. One she did love and wished with everything in her that she didn’t. One she didn’t love and wanted to.
But she’d experienced Michael’s fire; she’d felt the heat of his flame. John was entitled to that kind of reaction from her. It wasn’t fair to him that she couldn’t give it even though she was resolved to end her marriage to Michael.
Tonight, however, wasn’t about Michael. It was about John and what he was feeling. For his sake, she did for him what he’d done for her. She backed gracefully away.
“The wine is wonderful. As are you. Friends?” she asked with both compassion and concern.
“Always.” His eyes warmed slightly before he shaded his emotions again. “And as your friend, I’ll share a bit of information. Randolph Bains called just before I left to meet you this evening.”
Tara felt her stomach dip. Bains was a highly respected and wealthy friend of both John’s and her father’s. He was also the publisher of the Chicago Tribune.
“You’re going to pop up on the front page of the society section tomorrow morning I’m afraid. It seems that one of his reporters snapped a photo of you leaving your building today with Paige and Brandon.”
She closed her eyes, feeling as bad for John as she felt angry over the invasion of her privacy. Tomorrow it would be a small piece in the Trib. The next day the tabloids would run wild wit
h it. She could already envision the headlines when they picked up the story off the wire.
Connelly Heiress Dumps Chicago Tycoon For Long Lost Yummy Hubby
Parker In The Cold As Tara’s Hunky Hubby Returns From The Dead To Claim His Wife
“John, I’m so sorry.”
He shrugged. “Goes with the territory. Say, I believe I just saw Sam Braxton walk by. If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I’ll just go say hello.”
“Of course.”
Tara watched him rise from the table and walk away, this proud and noble man. She’d hurt him. For that she would always be sorry.
She’d also closed a chapter of her life that had just transitioned from a new beginning to yet another unanticipated ending. It should have been harder to do.
It should have been a lot harder.
She was weakening, Michael told himself the next morning as he finished his coffee and scanned the morning edition of the Tribune. The picture disturbed him. It had always disturbed him to see his face in print, but it came with the Connelly package. It bothered him more for Tara’s sake. She was fair game for any inventive photographer. It was like living in a fishbowl. No privacy. Such was the price of her famous family.
Making sure his cell phone was charged, he slipped it onto the breast pocket of his jacket, snagged the keys to his rental car and closed the door to his hotel room.
The first order of business this morning was to pay a visit to Grant Connelly. As well as things were going with Tara, he was concerned about the information she’d shared yesterday afternoon, specifically, the murder of King Thomas and Prince Marc.
He wanted a word with Grant. He wanted to know if there was more that Tara didn’t know. He wanted to know if his wife and son were in harm’s way. And then he was going to do everything in his power to reduce any threats of clear and present danger.
His cell phone rang before he even reached his car. It was Vincente—and five minutes into the conversation, he knew he had to make a major change of plans. He only hoped this unexpected turn of events didn’t jeopardize the headway he’d made toward winning back his wife.
After a quick, to-the-point discussion with Grant, Michael felt confident that everything was being done to ensure Tara and Brandon’s safety. He hadn’t earned any points with Grant, the man did not like his methods questioned. Michael didn’t care about Grant Connelly’s point system. He cared about Tara.
He found her in Brandon’s playroom. Ruby had pointed him in the right direction then tactfully left them alone.
It was a sight he’d never tire of seeing—his wife and his child together. Tara sat with her legs crossed in front of her on the floor; Brandon knelt beside her as they made great fun of building towers of blocks then gleefully knocking them down.
His heart did that half-hitch thing it was wont to do every time he saw them together. The thought of leaving them again, if only for a few days, made him physically ill.
“Good morning,” he said, standing back in the doorway.
When Brandon spotted him, he let out a happy squeal and scrambled to his feet.
Michael met him halfway, lifting him high in the air before catching his stocky little body against his chest.
“Hey there, big guy.”
“Da!” Brandon proclaimed through a drooling grin and clapped his baby hands against Michael’s cheeks. “Da. Da. Da!”
“That’s right, kiddo. I’m your dad.” He shot for light and breezy, but the words came out on a choked whisper.
“And don’t you ever doubt it,” he added against Brandon’s silky hair as he struggled to recover from the pleasure of hearing that one drooling syllable from his child.
He hugged him hard and over the top of his shining head, watched Tara rise and dust off her oatmeal-colored wool slacks. She looked trim and sophisticated in her slate-blue silk blouse that she’d tucked into the waistband and topped with a black leather belt that matched her shoes.
His heart flat-out galloped when he noticed that the diamond solitaire roughly the size of Mt. Everest was no longer wrapped around the ring finger of her left hand.
“Hi,” he said, buoyed by the implications, as Brandon, whose tolerance for being held had ebbed, struggled to get down. “You look pretty.”
She blushed. He loved it.
“You’re looking pretty GQ-ish yourself.”
He grinned, ran a hand over his tie and squatted down beside Brandon, who was busily stacking his blocks again. The little boy handed him one. Michael placed it on the top of the drunkenly leaning tower.
“What have we got here—a budding architect?”
With another squeal of laughter, Brandon swung his arm through the middle of the stack and sent the whole thing scattering across the floor.
“More like a demolitions expert, I think,” she said, shaking her head.
He looked down at the floor, slowly stood. Because he wanted to reach for her, and because her posture relayed uncertainty on her part, he shoved his hands in his pockets.
“There’s no easy way to say this,” he said abruptly. “I have to leave.”
He watched her face, tried to decide if he saw disappointment or resignation. A little of both, he decided and counted himself lucky she didn’t just throw him out on his ear.
“I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave you. I don’t want to leave Brandon. But I don’t have a choice.”
A quick stab of pain shot through his temple. It had ceased to surprise him two weeks ago but it caught him off balance now. So did the memory of similar scenes in the past. How many times had he said those words to her? I have to go. He could see in her eyes that she was thinking the same thing.
“Damn,” he swore under his breath, rubbed absently at his temple as the pain subsided. “I hate this. Something came up, something I couldn’t anticipate when I left Vincente in the lurch two weeks ago.”
Tara’s eyes were full of concern, yet she kept her distance. Looking nervous, she walked across the room, picked up one of Brandon’s stuffed animals, a soft, fuzzy blue elephant, and held it to her breast.
“Come with me,” he blurted out, surprising himself as much as he’d surprised her. “Come meet the Santiagos. You’ll love them. They’ll love you and Brandon.”
“Michael, I can’t just pick up and leave. It’s not that easy with a child. I don’t even know if my passport is up to date.”
“I know.” He shot her a crooked grin, trying not to place too much import on the fact that her first impulse hadn’t been a flat-out no. Instead, she’d concerned herself with logistics, as if she’d actually considered going before she’d stepped back from the idea.
“It was knee-jerk,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “It’s just that now that I’ve found you, I don’t want to take a chance on losing you again.”
While her face was impassive, her eyes told him that whatever there was between them was a long way from being resolved—and gave him hope that it was a long way from over.
“I’ll be gone for three days max,” he promised, refusing to be waylaid by her uncertainty. “I know what the root problem is. I can fix it fast.
“Look,” he continued when her silence spoke of doubt, “I promise you that this isn’t my M.O. anymore. It’s just that I left them in a bind.”
“Michael, you don’t need to explain.”
“Yes, I do. I need to make you understand that it’s the Santiagos that are important here, not the business. Hell, if it was just business, I’d let things sit on hold forever. But this is their business and they’re part of my family now. They need me.”
Bits and pieces of dialogue from past partings rumbled in the back of his mind like distant thunder, reminders of the many other times he’d left her.
“I need to go, Tara. The company is depending on me.”
“And I need you to stay. I need you, Michael. When is it ever going to be about my needs? About what our marriage needs?”
“Go,” Tara said, cutti
ng into his regrets, meeting his gaze with a look that said maybe she understood more than he’d given her credit for.
He crossed the distance between them in two long strides and folded her fiercely into his arms.
“Hang in there with me, okay?” he appealed against the silk of her hair. He pulled back, tipped her face up to his. “And hang on to this while I’m gone.”
Lowering his mouth to hers, he kissed her with all the passion, all the need and all the hunger that had been building since he’d kissed her yesterday morning in the sunroom.
This time though, he tempered the urgency; this time he controlled the greed.
With a tenderness fostered by her softness, he lingered lovingly over her mouth, asked tentatively for admittance, then melted into her kiss when she opened for him and took his tongue inside.
Tara felt like she was drowning in sensations. That always happened to her when she let Michael get too close. For the life of her, though, she couldn’t find it in her to push him away.
She’d missed this. Missed the feel of his big, callused hands holding her to him, pressing her against the growing ridge of his erection, running possessively along her back and hips.
She missed the taste of him on her tongue, the heat of him coiling around her, consuming her with a mind-stealing need to be naked and hot and beneath him.
She was dizzy with it, her breasts aching, her body arching.
“Time out,” he managed on a shaky laugh as he dragged his mouth from hers and tucked her head under his chin. “Lord help me, there’s nothing I’d rather do than finish this and then start all over again.”
He groaned, hugged her hard then swore softly.
“I’ve got to go, babe. I’ll be lucky if I don’t miss my flight as it is.”
Embarrassed and shaky, she let him set her away.
“You managed to book a flight already?” It was a stupid question, a desperate grab for equilibrium in the world he’d just flipped upside down and was still rocking.
“I finagled a charter. Tara—” He gripped her upper arms. “Think of me while I’m gone, okay? Think of the time we’ve lost. Think of what we have to gain by seeing this through.”