by Tamara Lush
I dry heaved again.
* * *
I had a hangover for a full forty-eight hours. This was the downside of being thirty-six and not used to drinking all night.
“You don’t look good,” Laura observed as she stopped by Monday evening with a new stuffed animal for Charlotte and a stack of legal papers for me to look over. The files had to do with the business, and frankly, I didn’t care and didn’t want to be involved. I’d avoided all meetings with the attorney, claiming Charlotte needed me. The business wasn’t something I wanted to think about.
Finally, Laura had insisted, saying I needed to at least read what was happening with the family’s affairs. Caleb and I hadn’t signed a pre-nup, so apparently, under Florida law, I was under some obligation to make business decisions with the King family.
The only decision I wanted was to go to bed and die from shame and sadness.
“I’ll look at everything, but not for a few days,” I told Laura. Not with this hangover. Not with this guilt. “I feel like crap. Allergies.” I took a sip of my tea with a tremor-stricken hand. “They’re killing me.”
She gazed at me and shook her head. “You just can’t get a break, can you?”
“Apparently not.”
“Have you had a kombucha tea today? It’s a great hangover cure. Or maybe some Echinacea tea to boost your immune system?”
“I’ll try it. Thanks.”
Laura walked to the elevator, needing to pick Sarah up at the bookstore. I gave a tired wave from the sofa, where I was trying to read Charlotte a book.
Charlotte leaned against me and stared at the pictures. I’d chosen Pat the Bunny, incapable of anything more complex. With her little, chubby finger, she poked the tactile bunny fur. I kissed the top of her yummy-smelling head and hugged her into me. Her eyes started to flutter shut. After five months of waking up every three hours, Charlotte had become a champion sleeper in her sixth month. Thank God. She was also sleeping in the crib in her nursery now, instead of in the bassinet at my bedside.
My baby girl wanted some alone time, apparently. At first it had stung, but then I was proud she was so independent.
“Let’s get you in bed, little one,” I whispered.
She was out within minutes. Getting her to sleep in her nursery crib might be my biggest achievement in the past month, I thought as I clicked off the light.
In the darkness, I flopped on a nearby plush yellow chair—I couldn’t handle the motion of the swing, not with my queasy stomach—and closed my eyes. I didn’t want to look at the alligator Caleb had placed under the swing all those months ago.
I felt like shit in every way possible. I’d betrayed my husband. All because I’d been drunk and thought Colin was a suitable substitute for an evening. I was needy and out of control.
Unwelcome thoughts raced through my mind. Was I a terrible person for nearly hooking up with my husband’s brother, someone I’d grown so close to? Relied upon, even? What would Caleb say about this, especially since Colin had slept with Tara, who eventually became Caleb’s wife?
I thought about my left-behind underwear and made a horrified face. Covered my eyes withy my hand.
Why hadn’t I heard from Colin?
Eventually I would. When I did, would it be awkward?
Maybe it wouldn’t. My mind lulled into a half-sleep and drifted to Colin’s kiss, the way he’d softly nuzzled my neck and ran his tongue around the rim of my ear. Maybe we’d had a true spark the other night. I allowed myself a moment of fantasy, starting with Colin’s sensual kisses in the bar and forgetting about our sloppy attempt at sex in the room. Would those kisses have turned into much more if we’d been sober?
It had felt so damned good that night in Miami to be wanted by someone who looked a little like my husband. Who sounded like my husband. Who whispered kind and sexy things to me right when I was at my neediest. I longed for someone to nuzzle my neck, play with my hair, caress my breasts.
I also wanted to be fucked hard and well.
The distant sound of my phone ringing in the kitchen made me jump up and race to answer. I didn’t want Charlotte to wake. I shut the nursery door gingerly.
“Hello,” I said in a hushed voice.
“It’s the concierge. Mr. Colin King is here to see you. Shall I send him up?”
Oh shit.
“Yes, please do.”
I raced into the bedroom to strip off my Minnie Mouse sleep shirt with spit-up on the shoulder and threw on a pair of clean, pink silk pajamas. Why the hell was Colin stopping by at eight on a Monday night?
I heard the elevator doors slide open and padded out to greet him.
“Hey,” I said, aware my voice was creaky and awkward.
He was in a dark blue suit, looking like he’d stepped off a Milan runway. The way his clothes fit his tall body made my mind go temporarily blank. He grinned, and his light blue eyes shimmered as they fixed, unblinking, on me. My heartbeat skipped a little. I smoothed my curls with my hand and felt my nipples poke against the silk of my top.
Those reactions were pure biology, I reminded myself. Not real emotion.
“Hi. I brought this for you.” He reached into his pocket and took out my necklace. It looked clunky and cheap next to the Piaget on his wrist. Because it was.
“Thanks.” I laughed nervously and took it from him, making sure our fingers didn’t touch, then clasped it around my neck. I thought about my underwear in the hotel room and pressed a hand to my chest as if to hold in the embarrassment.
“I was worried you’d left the necklace in the room or you’d thrown it away or given it to the maid or something.”
He scowled and spoke in a clipped tone. “I wouldn’t do that, Emma.”
“No. Of course not. Hey, um, you want something to drink?”
He shook his head, then stuffed his hands in his pockets. This clearly was as awkward for him as it was for me. His phone rang. He squinted and held up a finger as he answered.
“Lourdes, I can’t talk tonight,” he murmured. “No, probably not the weekend, either. I’ve got family stuff to deal with. Yeah. Maybe next week. No, I won’t be in Miami until then. I’ll call you when I return.” He hung up. “Sorry.”
I shrugged, and a little pang of irrational jealousy shredded my earlier fantasy around the edges. “Hey, I’m the sorry one. Sorry about the other night,” I said, sinking into the sofa, wondering if he’d hooked up with Lourdes before or after our night together. The thought made me feel even cheaper.
He eased next to me and shook his head. “I’m not sorry.”
“You’re not?” My eyes went wide.
“No. We did what came natural to us. It was actually very excellent and balanced. And maybe we could see how it goes from here.” He shot me a little smile and blinked lazily. “You know…without the gin and whiskey.”
I pushed out a breath. “Well, it makes me feel guilty. Like I’ve moved on too quick from your brother when I haven’t—”
His phone chirped, interrupting us, and he extracted it from his pocket.
Another woman’s name popped up on the screen, and he shut it off, then slid the device onto the coffee table. I watched him move with a controlled grace and tucked my legs under me, feeling uneasy, like an intruder in my own home.
“Why are you here?” I blurted.
He studied me. Something about his appraisal, calculated and sharp, sent a pang of anxious need through me. It baffled me how I was suddenly, magnetically attracted to him. Was I so starved for attention?
“I wanted to see how you were doing. And apologize for getting so drunk. I feel like I’ve been drinking more since…since everything happened—”
I interrupted. “I understand.”
We both nodded, uneasily, and looked at our hands. It made me feel a little better he was as uncomfortable as I was.
“I’m…still hungover.” I laughed genuinely, breaking the tension.
He chuckled and nodded, then moved a little closer, his c
ologne surrounding me and scattering my thoughts. He lightly swept hair away from my face, and his fingertips grazed my cheek in the process. I was shocked by how light his touch was compared to the veritable clumsiness of our time in bed. It made me stop breathing and lean back a few inches, away from him.
It was dangerous, just the two of us on the sofa. I was too lonely, he was too handsome, and there was a spark of attraction between us, if the tattoo of my heart was any indication. I didn’t want to give in to my biological response to him, didn’t want to succumb to attraction. Intellectually, I knew what was happening. My body, though, wanted something purely carnal.
“I also wanted to take you out to dinner some time this week. Somewhere nice and expensive. How’s Saturday?”
“Oh! You mean, me and Charlotte?”
He shook his head. “Just you. I was thinking Charlotte could go to Laura and Sarah’s. For the night.”
I swallowed. “Um…”
What? My sober brain couldn’t process the idea of planning to spend the entire night with a man. With my brother-in-law. I’d been susceptible to the idea when I was drunk and in Miami. Now, in my Orlando living room, my defenses had almost returned. I was semi-sane again, and the idea of spending the night with Colin probably wasn’t a solid one.
“Why don’t you think about it and call me tomorrow?” He mentioned an expensive restaurant downtown, then leaned in and kissed me, seized my lips with a familiar insistence.
I didn’t inhale him like I had the other night, but I did return his kiss. Tonight I was tentative and shy, and he groaned softly, the noise tugging at something deep inside me.
Now that I was sober, I recognized he kissed differently than my husband. Not in a bad way, just different. Colin’s kisses, like his eyes, were more distant than his brother’s.
At least when he was sober. When he was drunk, he was more sensual. Or maybe those had been my intoxicated perceptions. I was an unreliable narrator of my own story, apparently.
“I’m going to go now so you can get some sleep. I want you rested for Saturday,” he murmured, then planted a single, soft kiss on my mouth. He devoured me slowly, carefully, as if he knew exactly how to erase my hesitations.
Now that was a kiss to take my breath away. Why did his parting gesture have to be such an excellent kiss?
He grabbed his phone, then paused to study me, his eyes flickering to my mouth. Twirling one of my curls in his finger, he looked amused. “Stunning, even when hungover.”
Open-mouthed and mute, I gaped at him as he rose and walked to the elevator and pushed the button. The doors slid open.
“Wait.”
He turned, a half-smile on his face. I rose from the sofa and stood in front of him. My lips still tingled from the kiss and my heart crashed around my ribcage. I knew what I had to do. Knew what I had to say.
“Do you want me to stay?” Colin said this in a hopeful whisper, and my stomach tightened with lust. I’d always been a sucker for a man with a deep voice. But tonight, my rational mind overruled my libido.
“No,” I replied. “I don’t.”
Colin lifted an eyebrow. “Then why did you ask me to wait?”
I summoned my courage with an inhale. “I won’t be having dinner with you. I don’t want to see how it goes. I think I know how it would go.”
He grinned. “It would be sublime, I think.”
I shook my head.
“You seemed to be interested the other night in Miami.” His magnetic gaze bored into me, and I reminded myself to stay strong. I didn’t want mindless lust, expensive restaurants, men who wore watches worth more than I’d ever make in a lifetime.
“No. Well, yes. I was into it the other night. But not now.”
“No?” He scowled, probably because he wasn’t used to women declining his charm. “Why?”
“Because…because a thousand reasons,” I stammered.
“Like?”
“Because I’m your sister-in-law, for one. Because I’m in love with my husband, your brother. Because I’m married and what we did the other night was wrong.”
He shrugged and despite the flippant gesture, I saw sharp pain in his eyes. “You’re single now, as far as I’m concerned. Caleb’s not coming back. You and I both know that. It’s been nine months. I’ve accepted it, and you haven’t.”
“I might never accept it.”
He cupped my chin in his thumb and forefinger and tilted my face to meet his. I felt the flame of attraction we’d shared in Miami, and my resolve fell away in little chunks. My breathing turned shallow.
“None of us want to accept the situation, Emma. It’s a fucking tragedy all the way around. But would he want us to stop living?”
I swallowed and closed my eyes. “No. He wouldn’t. I’m not sure if he’d want me with you, though. Maybe he would. I don’t know. But you and I—it won’t work…” My voice trailed off.
“Why? Why wouldn’t it work?”
I opened my eyes and found him smiling, which ignited smoldering embers in my core. God, he was alluring.
“Because women are sport to you.”
He sighed and took his hand away from my face, shooting me an adorably apologetic shrug. “I’m no saint, Emma. I’m a well-heeled rake, to use one of your romance novel terms. But not a bad guy. Maybe give me a go?”
I rolled my eyes, but inside I hesitated. Maybe I could tame the rake. Wasn’t that how it happened in books? The quirky, adorable woman always tamed the rake. She always became the princess.
I’d been Caleb’s princess for three glorious years. Maybe with Colin, who was so similar to my husband…
But no. This—as Colin had pointed out in the moments before our Miami kiss—was real life, not a fairytale. Real life was complicated and tragic. Maybe I would have gambled on him five years before, when I was single. Not now, when I was older and wiser.
And a mother. And still hopelessly in love with Caleb.
I shook my head. Colin edged closer, smiling softly. His cologne, once so overpowering, wrapped me in a seductive embrace. Slowly, he swept a lock of hair from my face, turning on the full force of his appeal.
His smile, his clear blue eyes, positively radiated sex. The trouble was, they radiated toward me and toward a thousand other women, women that had come before me. And even if Colin gave me part of his heart, bestowed some sort of commitment on me—possibly out of pity or duty or even genuine affection—there would still be women after me.
Make no mistake. He had just said he was no saint. In my experience, when a man told you exactly what he was, you should believe him.
“No, Colin. No.” I backed away as if he was poison incarnate.
His eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“You’re all wrong for me. I’m wrong for you. You’d never make me the center of your life like Caleb did,” I babbled, now pacing the room. “Sure, we’d have hot sex. Amazing sex, maybe. And then?”
He grinned. “Yeah? And then? We’d have a lot of fun. And maybe it would work. Maybe it would make us forget everything, for a while.”
“No. I don’t want to forget. And I’d be like all the other women in your life and I can’t risk that. I’d cease to be special. If I ever was special. I want us to be friends.”
“You’re special because of Charlotte. You’re special because my brother loved you.” His smile faded.
“But I’m not special to you. And you’re not special to me.”
He shrugged and his blue eyes darkened. “Maybe you could be. Maybe I could be.”
His cryptic conversational style only annoyed me, and I held up a finger. “I don’t need a maybe in my life right now. I’ve had too many maybes and far too many disappointments. And I’ve been with enough men to know which ones make me feel special. I can sense it, Colin. It’s the after-effects of a childhood filled with benign neglect. I know men. I know men like you. I dated a lot before Caleb, slept with a lot of guys, and it wasn’t satisfying.”
I paused to gulp in
a breath, surprising myself at my monologue. When had I grown up? “Caleb made me the center of his world, and I won’t settle for less. And I still love him. You have no idea how much.”
“I know you do love him. You always will. And he did make you the center of his world,” he said softly. “But—”
I interrupted him. “I’m not crazy enough to think you’re a carbon copy of Caleb. I’ll never love anyone the way I love him. But I’m also not self-destructive enough to think you’ll change and morph into the perfect man or that you’re Mr. Right-Now. You will never adore me, and that’s what I want. I might never be loved again like your brother loved me. But I deserve the right to seek that.”
“You’d rather be alone?”
“Yes. I’d rather be alone than settle for a maybe.”
There was a time when I hadn’t thought I would ever say those words, but that had been before Caleb, before my heart had fractured beyond repair. Before I was a mother.
Now I had an example to set. I had my daughter and my dignity.
“Do you want me to leave?” he asked in a low voice.
“Yes.”
He nodded and pursed his lips, then walked to the elevator. He didn’t say a word as he stood inside, just glowered at me, unblinking.
As the doors slid shut, I nearly lunged and stopped him again. I was so damned lonely. My body craved sex and intimacy, and Colin was all too willing to accommodate. Was I making a mistake? Most women would think I was crazy to not give a rich, sinfully handsome man like Colin a chance. He was a billionaire, for God’s sakes. He could give me and Charlotte everything we’d ever want. Probably for life.
Maybe we could satisfy each other’s needs…but no. I wasn’t wired that way.
And I was in no state to separate sex from love.
Alone with my daughter was what I needed.
I padded to the bedroom to check on Charlotte in her crib. She was in a deep sleep, and I rubbed her back as tears rained down my cheeks. They weren’t tears of regret or of sadness.
They were tears of anger.