by Connie Cox
He nodded. “No games.”
Picking up their tension, Adrian began drumming his spoon and fork on the table.
Cole looked up over his glasses. “Your mother says ‘no games’, son. Eat.”
Miraculously, her son did as he was told.
With no better option Isabella did the same, determined to concentrate on the present and deal with the future when she had to. Survival.
Her first bite of the gumbo was heaven. “Where did you learn to cook?”
She hadn’t meant to encourage conversation, but the question was innocuous enough, wasn’t it?
He shrugged modestly then frowned, as if a painful thought had crossed his mind. “I’ve cooked since I could reach the stove. During school, when my brother and I couldn’t go out on the boat with our parents, we were in charge of supper.”
That commonality called out to her so strongly, she couldn’t help but respond. “I still miss my mother. With the long hours my father worked, mealtimes were often the only times we were together. Then, afterward, Mrs. Beautemps kept me so involved in outside activities, I hardly ever ate at home.”
Cole did that to her—made her respond even when she didn’t want to. He always had. She had once found it freeing to let go of her control when she was with him, saying what she wanted to say, feeling what she wanted to feel.
“I wonder if my father felt lonely after that, eating by himself all those nights?”
“As a man who takes most of his meals alone, I can tell you that it gets old.”
She looked at him, really looked at him—at the gray at his temples, the set of his shoulders, the shadows in his eyes.
Cole wiped his mouth under her scrutiny—which brought attention to the lips Bella longed to taste.
“I’m sorry. Sad memories aren’t appropriate dinner topics, are they?” he said.
She touched Adrian’s juice glass to encourage him to drink, an automatic reflex she should have dropped long ago as he had outgrown his picky appetite for several years now.
“I’m not used to making polite conversation at my table. I guess I save it for the fundraising parties.”
Cole lifted his glass in salute. “I’m in the same boat with you.”
The rest of the meal was small talk about Cole and Adrian’s swim in the hospital pool and their trip to the bookstore and about hospital gossip.
There were silent moments with nothing but the scrape of forks and shuffle of napkins that bordered between awkward and pleasant. With a little more practice they would soon feel like a real family.
She had to stop this. Now.
She looked at her son, so content to have his father at the table with him.
Had the damage already been done?
How long would it take to become used to not having Cole around again? How bad would the trauma be in the interim?
Bella admitted to herself she wasn’t only worried for Adrian’s sake.
The shrimp and rice dish suddenly became very heavy in her stomach as Isabella realized it was too late. When Cole left, he would take a piece of her with him—just like last time.
She covered her mouth with her napkin, not sure she could control herself enough to hide her feelings.
No, not again. But she couldn’t deny it.
She was in love with Cole. And this time it was a love so much deeper, so much bigger, so much more invasive.
I will spend time with my son, Cole had said. It was his right.
She couldn’t stop him any more than she could stop herself from loving him.
What choice did she have but to see this through?
As she had always done to survive, she focused on the basics of her existence. Live for the moment. Live for Adrian. Love Cole.
She had no other choices.
* * *
Somewhere between napkin up and napkin down, Bella changed. Cole wasn’t sure what it was, but it was definitely a change.
Next to him, Adrian thumped his fork, impatient for the next part of the plan they had devised together that afternoon.
Interpreting Bella’s mercurial mood would have to wait. They would have time later to talk once Bella agreed to the plan.
“Dessert?” He scraped his chair back, opened a couple of cabinets until he found the dessert bowls, and scooped up helpings of rich banana pudding for each of them.
“I’m so full...” Bella protested.
“Just taste it.” Cole smiled at her. “I made it just for you, remembering this was your favorite dessert.”
“You remembered that after all these years?”
He had remembered so much, no matter how hard he had tried to forget. But he would file that bittersweet thought under inappropriate dining topics.
“You have to taste it. It’s part of the plan.”
“The plan?” The wary look in her eyes was not a good sign.
He gestured with his spoon. “The pudding.”
“Momma,” Adrian encouraged her.
She took a long look at her son before nodding.
“All right.” Taking a bite, Bella made an ecstatic face very reminiscent of a certain night together. “Mmm. So good.”
“Thank you. It was nothing. Just a little thing I threw together.”
“False modesty doesn’t fit you.”
You fit me. Cole had sense enough not to say it, although he couldn’t swear he didn’t show it in every muscle of his body.
He waited until Bella finished her serving, pleased to note she had found room, even though she had declared herself full.
“I have a favor to ask.”
She rested her hand on her stomach. “You’re taking unfair advantage.”
He noted the warning beneath her lighthearted tone—but he would do anything for his son.
“Yes. Fingers crossed that it works.” He tried to look charming, using the smile that had earned him many women’s favors in the past. “There’s a big convention coming and the hotel is booked. I need a place to stay for the next few days. You’ve got a spare bedroom. I was hoping—”
“No.” Bella’s response was immediate, explosive, threatened.
Cole sat back and let the fear fade from her eyes.
Fear. “What are you afraid of, Bella?”
She cast a sideways look at Adrian. “Not in front of the c-h-i-l-d.”
“Adrian isn’t a child anymore.”
“There—that’s one reason. You undermine my parenting.”
“I don’t...” Maybe he did.
Sensing his weakness, Bella took full advantage. “You’ve never been a parent before.”
“Maybe not. But you’ve never been a fourteen-year-old boy before. I have.”
He dared her to say that Adrian was different. In some ways, yes, Adrian wasn’t a typical teenager. But in so many other ways he was a normal adolescent boy going through the roller-coaster ride of puberty, trying to fit into a world where he knew deep down he would always be on the outside looking in.
Yes, Cole understood a lot of what lurked beneath the surface of Adrian’s exterior.
“Daddy.” Adrian flapped his hand and rocked so fast he was on the verge of oversetting his chair. “Stay.”
“Oh, honey. Daddy can’t. He’s got to go back to New York.”
“Adrian and I already talked about that.”
“Well, you apparently didn’t make it very clear, did you?”
Adrian pushed his chair back and took off running for the stairs.
“See what you’ve done.” Bella’s face flushed and her eyes sparked as she thrust her finger at him.
She was beautiful in all her protective maternal glory, a woman he was proud to call the mother of his child. What would she do if he leaned over and covered her mouth with his own? Would she taste of fire and passion as she had yesterday?
He had to pull his mind back to their discussion. He had to win this one for his son.
“What have I done? Upset your safe, boring little world?” He pointed u
p the stairs. “You yourself said Adrian has advanced being around me—even if you said it grudgingly.”
The sound of Adrian clomping down the stairs had them both drawing back into silent glares and crossed arms.
Adrian plopped his calendar down in front of them. Blue checks marked the remaining days of the week. He mashed his thumb onto each check mark. “Stay. Stay. Stay. Stay. Stay.”
Then he sadly stroked a poorly drawn airplane on the last day of the week before waving goodbye.
Bella looked stunned.
Cole tried to keep his smugness from showing, but he didn’t try very hard. “So what’s it going to be, Bella? Can I stay? For my son?”
Bella looked from the face of her hopeful son to the face of her hopeful son’s father. She closed her eyes as if to shut out both father and son then took a deep breath.
That was when Cole knew what her answer would be.
“Yes. You can stay until you leave for New York.” She turned to Adrian, putting her finger on the airplane drawing. “But he has to go to his house on Saturday.”
Cole held up a hand and Adrian slapped it. High five. Something else he’d taught his touch-averse son today. A surprise he’d been saving for Bella.
But maybe she’d had enough surprises for one day. She just stared at the air where their hands had met before saying, “I’m going for a walk. You two, do the dishes while I’m gone.”
When Adrian frowned his reluctance, she shrugged it off. “Consider it part of your father’s room and board.”
Cole recognized Bella’s domestic chore assignment for what it was, an attempt to reclaim control. By the loud bang of the front door, she might need to make that walk extra-long.
* * *
Bella lay in bed, knowing Cole was only a bedroom wall away.
Was he thinking about their night—and morning—together, as she was? She held her breath, the better to hear any noise in the next room. Was that tossing and turning she was hearing?
When David had learned of her temporary guest, he hadn’t said anything, but he hadn’t had to. His tight-lipped nod had said it all.
They so rarely argued. She tried to think of an olive branch to extend in apology, but she wasn’t sorry. Not sorry about Cole staying over anyway. Maybe a little sorry that she’d thrown into David’s face that he often had guests in his home.
She had always been a little jealous, not because they had once been married but that she was alone and he wasn’t.
He should be happy for her—and Cole wasn’t even staying over in “that” way. But she also understood. David didn’t want to see her hurt, didn’t want to have to pick up the pieces when she fell apart, like she had done a decade and a half ago.
But he would. He would put his arm around her shoulder, let her cry until there were only gasping sobs, then wipe her tears and hold her until she no longer felt like she was unraveling at the seams.
David was right. Letting Cole stay was a mistake—a big one.
Every inch of her, every cell of her, cried out for Cole.
Only grasping her pillow tight kept her from leaving her bed to seek out Cole’s. She had a young, impressionable son in the house. And Cole would be gone within the week. Two good reasons to keep her distance, even though her imagination supplied her with the texture of Cole’s skin, the deep growl in his throat as she turned him on, the mingled scent of their bodies after they’d made love.
Knowing only a thin wall stood between them was torture.
On her nightstand the clock ticked one second at a time, mocking her.
It was going to be a long night.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
AWKWARD didn’t begin to describe the way Bella felt the next morning. What if she met Cole in hallway?
She had never wished for a spaghetti-strapped wisp of nothingness with a matching silk wrapper before, but she did so now.
Dressed in her voluminous, faded, flannel granny gown, she did what she could with the lip gloss she found in her sock drawer, before heading for the bathroom.
The hallway was clear. Only two more steps—
Cole opened the door to the bathroom at the same time she reached for the door handle.
And there he was, in nothing but his gym shorts, the same gym shorts he’d worn when she had dropped her towel for him in his hotel room.
As she stared, he rubbed his hand across his chest hair. Bella remembered in detail how that coarse texture felt under her own palm.
She wanted to reach out and feel Cole’s warmth, wanted to feel his hand glide over her bare shoulder, wanted—wanted with a desire stronger than she had ever felt before.
“Good morning, Bella.” Cole’s sleep-husky voice sent shivers through her.
She felt her nipples peak and chanced a glance down, now grateful for the thick coverage of her dowdy gown.
Before she could discipline herself, her glance drifted further. She couldn’t help but smile.
“Good morning to you, too.” Her own voice was raspy, breathy—everything a femme fatale could wish for.
The squeak of their fourteen-year-old son’s door opening had them both jumping back and looking anywhere but at each other.
“I’ll make sure Adrian gets on the bus this morning.” Cole eased out around her, brushing his hand across her sleeve and jerking back like he’d been burned. An accident? She hoped not.
“Thanks.” Bella barely withstood the temptation to let her shoulder rub against his chest as she passed him. “I’ll see you tonight.”
Once inside the bathroom, she was grateful to find the mirror so steamed up she could avoid confronting her flushed face.
Tonight. It would be so easy to slip into Cole’s room, into Cole’s bed, with none the wiser but the two of them. They had already done it once—make that three times.
But Bella couldn’t deny that this time would be different. This time would mean commitment, at least for her.
Bella’s breath caught as she realized she had already given her heart to Cole—or maybe she’d never taken it back all those years ago. If she gave him her body, too, how could she ever let him walk away again?
She needed time. Time to think. Time to decide to let go or pull back. Time to gather her defenses if he didn’t feel the same—and she had no indication he did, did she?
At the hospital, Isabella jumped every time she heard the intercom crackle until she learned that Cole would be tied up all morning with an internet video consultation. Most surgeons said that the mental aspects of the video consultant were much more brutal than performing the actual surgery. She realized Cole was doing everything he could to stay in New Orleans and get to know his son without jeopardizing his patients’ care. His dedication only made her love him more.
And that love made her dread going home to him. Isabella had already lived through unrequited love. Why did she have to fall in love again—with the very man who hadn’t loved her enough the first time?
So that night Isabella surprised Gloria and several other colleagues by joining them at the local coffee bar after work.
Not ready to live too dangerously, she ordered the decaffeinated version of her favorite coffee-based indulgence but did have real whipped cream on top. After forty-five minutes of stress-relieving laughs, she found her determination to keep the relationship with Cole casual and light, at least on the outside.
* * *
Distractedly, Cole read to Adrian while listening for Bella’s car. The aroma of cooling pizza drifted from the kitchen.
She had called and left a message that she would be a few minutes late while he was in consultation. Cole had never called to report his comings and going to anyone. What would it be like to have someone care if you were coming home or not and then worry if you were late?
For the fifth time that evening he read the manga version of Call of the Wild. “Wolf, wolf, wolf, wolf, wolf,” he said in fast succession while Adrian patted his stuffed wolf as fast as he could. It was a game Cole had invented to
break the monotony of reading the same book over and over. Tomorrow merited another trip to the bookstore.
Cole made a mental note to tell Bella he would be in surgery in the afternoon and wouldn’t be able to take Adrian where he needed to go. He didn’t take lightly that he had asked—demanded—to spend time with his son and now would have to make other arrangements.
How had Bella managed Adrian’s complex schedule all these years? David had helped. But Adrian wasn’t David’s responsibility. Were there carers trained in looking after children with autism who could be called on to take the stress off parents?
When Bella burst into the door, Cole noticed the strain at the corner of her eyes had lessened the smallest bit. He vowed he would do what he could to ease her burdens. Relocating to New Orleans would help.
“Smells great.” Bella took a deep breath to emphasize her appreciation of the pizza.
Living in the same house with Bella and Adrian would help even more. Cole put that thought behind him. “I hope you still like sausage and mushroom.”
“Yes, I do. At least, I think I do. I usually get plain cheese pizza for Adrian.”
The sacrifices she had made for his son knew no bounds. Bella had already entered into one loveless marriage for her son—a marriage that had left scars when it had fallen apart. He could still hear the hurt in her voice when she talked of her ex-mother-in-law turning her back on her and Adrian. He would never ask her to marry without love again.
“We have a cheese pizza for Adrian and a pepperoni one for me.” She gave him a brilliant smile as he pulled out her chair. Bella appreciated the niceties more than any woman he had ever met. He loved to indulge her, as her femininity called forth the gentleman in him.
He would teach Adrian to pull out his mother’s chair. The gesture would give Adrian a sense of pride, like it did for him.
Yes, the decision to move to New Orleans was the right one. If only the partners at the sports center would agree, his lawyers were standing by, waiting to amend the merger agreement.
Bella lifted the lids on each of the pizza boxes. “A pizza apiece? We’re quite a diverse family, aren’t we?”