by Nora Roberts
Stepping into the car, he tucked a hand in his pocket and felt the jeweler’s box. It was even a weirder time to propose marriage. But he knew he needed it.
It scared him just how much he’d come to depend on having her with him. To talk to him, to listen to him, to make him laugh. To make love with him. He knew he was rushing things, but he justified it by assuring himself that if he got her to marry him quickly enough, she wouldn’t have time to change her mind.
She believed she was in love with him. After they were committed, emotionally and legally, he would take as much time as necessary to make certain it was true.
The elevator opened, and Alex dug for his keys. They’d order in tonight, he decided. Put on some music, light some candles. He grimaced as he fit the key into the lock. No, she’d probably had that routine before, and he’d be damned if he’d follow someone else’s pattern. He’d have to think of something else.
He opened the door with his arms full of nodding lilacs, his mind racing to think of some clever, innovative way to ask Bess to be his wife. The color went out of his face and turned his eyes to midnight. He felt something slam into his chest. It was like being shot.
She was standing in the center of the room, her laughter just fading away. In another man’s arms, her mouth just retreating from another man’s lips.
“Charlie, I—” She heard the sound of the door and turned. The bright, beaming smile on her face froze, then faded away like the laughter. “Alexi.”
“I guess I should have knocked.” His voice was dead calm. Viciously calm.
“No, of course not.” There were butterflies in her stomach, and their wings were razor-sharp. “Charlie, this is Alexi. I’ve told you about him.”
“Sure. Think I met you at Bess’s last party.” Lanky, long-haired and obviously oblivious to the tension throbbing in the air, he gave Bess’s shoulders a squeeze. “She gives the best.”
Alex set the flowers aside. One fragile bloom fell from the table and was ignored. “So I’ve heard.”
“Well, I’ve got to be going.” Charlie bent to give Bess another kiss. Alex’s hands clenched. “You won’t let me down?”
“Of course not.” She worked up a smile, grateful that Charlie was too preoccupied to sense the falseness of it. “You know how happy I am for you, Charlie. I’ll be in touch.”
He went out cheerfully, calling out a last farewell before he shut the door. In the silence, Alex noticed the music for the first time. Violins and flutes whispered out of her stereo. Very romantic, he thought, and his teeth clenched like his fists.
“Well.” Her eyes were burning dry, though her heart was weeping. “I can see I should explain.” She walked over to the wine she’d poured for Charlie and topped off her glass. “I can also see that you’ve already made up your mind, so explanations would be pointless.”
“You move fast, Bess.”
She was glad she had her back to him for a moment. Very glad, because her hand trembled as she lifted the wine. “Do you think so, Alexi?”
“Or maybe you’ve been seeing him all along.”
“You can say that?” Now she turned, and the first flashes of anger burst through her. “You can stand there and say that to me?”
“What the hell do you expect me to say?” he shot back. He didn’t go near her. Didn’t dare. “I walk in here and find you with him. A little music, a nice bottle of wine.” He wished he had been shot. It couldn’t possibly hurt more than this bite of betrayal. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”
“No. No, I don’t.” She needed to sit, but she locked her knees straight. “But I must be to have been so careless as to have an assignation here when you were bound to find me out.” Her eyes were like glass as she toasted him. “Caught me.”
He took a step forward, stopped himself. “Are you going to tell me you didn’t sleep with him?”
In the thrum of silence, the flutes sang. “No, I’m not going to tell you that. I’m not ashamed that I once cared enough for a very good man to be intimate with him. I’d tell you that I haven’t been with Charlie or anyone else since I met you, but the evidence is against me, isn’t it, Detective?”
She was so tired, Bess thought, so terribly tired, and the scent of the lilacs made her want to weep. Rosalie’s funeral had been that morning, and she’d quietly made the arrangements herself. She’d gone alone, without mentioning it to Alex. But she’d needed him.
“You let him kiss you.”
“Yes, I let him kiss me. I’ve let lots of men kiss me. Isn’t that the problem?” She set down the wine before she could do something rash, like tossing it to the floor. “You didn’t come to me a virgin, Alexi, nor did I expect you to. That’s one of the big differences between us.”
“There’s a bigger difference between a virgin and a—”
He broke off, appalled with himself. He wouldn’t have meant it. Stumbling, horrified apologies whirled through his head. But he could see by the way her head jerked up, the way her color drained, that there would be no taking back even the unsaid.
“I think,” she said in an odd voice, “you’d better go.”
“We haven’t finished.”
“I don’t want you here. Even a whore can choose.”
His face was as pale as hers. “Bess, I didn’t mean that. I could never mean that. I want to understand—”
“No, you don’t.” She cut him off, her voice so thick with tears that she had to fight for every word. “You never wanted to understand, Alexi. You never wanted to hear the one thing I needed you to believe. Now the only thing you need to understand is that I don’t want to see you again.”
He felt something rip apart in his gut. “You can’t have that.”
“If you don’t leave now, I’ll call Security. I’ll call your captain, I’ll call the mayor.” Desperation was rising like a flood. “Whatever it takes to keep you away from me.”
His eyes narrowed, sharpened. “You can call God Almighty. It won’t stop me.”
“Maybe this will.” She gripped her hands tightly together and looked just over his shoulder. “I don’t love you, I don’t want you, I don’t need you. It was fun while it lasted, but the game’s over. You can let yourself out.”
She turned away and walked quickly up the stairs. There had been hurt in his eyes. If there had been anger, she knew, he would have come after her, but there had been hurt, and she made it to the bedroom alone. With her hands over her face, she waited, biting back sobs, until she heard the door close downstairs. With a sound of mourning, she lowered herself to the floor and tasted her own tears. They were bitter.
Impatient and unsympathetic, Mikhail paced the floor of Alex’s sparsely furnished apartment. “You don’t answer your phone,” he was saying. “You don’t return messages.” He kicked a discarded shirt aside. The apartment was a shambles. “Lucky for you I came instead of Mama. She’d box your ears for living like a pig.”
“I gave the staff the month off.” With the concentrated care of the nearly drunk, Alex poured another glass of vodka from the half-empty bottle on the table.
“And drinking alone in the middle of the day.”
“So, join me.” Alex gestured carelessly toward the kitchen, where dishes were piled high. “Bound to be a clean glass somewhere.”
Mikhail washed one out before coming back to the table. He sat, poured. “What is this, Alexi?”
“Celebration. My day off.” Alex took a swallow and waited for the vodka to join the rest swimming through his system. “I caught the bad guy.” With a half laugh, he toasted himself. “And lost the girl.”
Mikhail drummed his fingers on the table as he drank. It was no less than he’d expected. “You fought with Bess?”
“Fought?” Lips pursed, Alex studied the clear, potent liquid in his glass. “I don’t know that’s the term, exactly. Found her with another man.”
Mikhail’s glass froze halfway to his lips. “You’re wrong.”
“Nope.” Alex reached for the bo
ttle with an almost steady hand. “Walked in and found her lip-locked to this guy she used to be engaged to. Bess has this hobby of getting engaged.”
Mikhail merely shook his head. Something was not quite right with this picture. “Did you kill him?”
“Thought about it.” Before he drank again, Alex ran his tongue over his teeth. Good, he thought. They were nearly numb. The rest would follow. “Too damn bad I’m a cop.”
“What was her explanation?”
“Didn’t give me one. Got pissed, is all.” He set the glass down so that he could use both hands to rub his face.
“Because you accused without trusting.”
“I didn’t accuse,” Alex shot back, then pressed his fingers to his burning eyes. “I didn’t have to. What I didn’t say was unforgivable. She tossed me out on my ear, but not before she told me she didn’t love me anyway.”
“She lies.” Before Alex could lift his glass again, Mikhail grabbed his wrist. “I tell you, she lies. A few days ago she visited Rachel and the baby. I made her sit for me and sketched her while she talked of you. There’s no mistaking what I saw in her eyes, Alexi. You’re blind if you haven’t seen it yourself.”
He had seen it, and the pain of remembering what he’d seen clawed through him so that he stumbled to his feet as if to escape it. “She falls in love easily.”
“So? There is love, and love. How many times have you taken the fall?”
“This is the first.”
“For this kind, yes. There were others.”
“They were different.”
“Ah.” Patient and amused, Mikhail held up a finger. “So it’s okay for you to play with love until you find the truth, but it’s not okay for Bess.”
“It’s—” Put that way, it was tough to argue with. Especially when his head was reeling. “Damnit, I was jealous. I have a right to be jealous.”
“You have a right to make an ass of yourself, too.” Pleased, now that he knew it could be fixed, Mikhail kicked back and crossed his booted feet. “Did you?”
“Big-time.” Alex swayed, then sat down heavily. “I was going to ask her to marry me, Mik. I had the ring in my pocket and these stupid lilacs. I was scared to death she’d say yes. More scared that she’d say no.” He propped his spinning head in his hands. “What the hell was she doing kissing that son of a bitch?”
“Maybe if you had asked nicely, she would have told you.”
With a lopsided grin, Alex turned his bleary eyes on his brother. “Would you have asked nicely?”
“No, I would have broken his arms, maybe his legs, too. Then I would have asked.” With a sigh, Mikhail patted Alex’s shoulder. “But that is me. You were always more impulsive.”
“We could go find him.” Alex considered and, warming to the idea, leaned over to give Mikhail a sloppy hug. “We’ll go beat him up together. Like old times.”
“We’ll try something different.” Rising, Mikhail hauled Alex to his feet.
“Where we going?”
“I’m going to put you in a cold shower until your head’s clear.”
Alex staggered and linked an arm around his brother’s neck. “What for?”
“So you can go find your woman and grovel.”
Unsure of his footing, Alex stared at the tilting floor. “I don’t wanna grovel.”
“Yes, you do. It’s best to get used to it before you marry her. I have more experience in this.”
“Oh, yeah?” Enjoying the idea of his big brother crawling at Sydney’s feet, he grinned as Mikhail thrust him, fully clothed, into the shower. “Can I watch next time?”
“No.” With immense satisfaction, Mikhail turned the cold water on full and listened to his brother’s pained shout bounce viciously on the tiles. “This is a very good start,” he decided.
“You son of a bitch.” They were both laughing when Alex grabbed Mikhail in a headlock and dragged him under the spray.
He was nearly sober by the time he walked into Bess’s office, but he wasn’t laughing. It was hard to laugh when your throat was thick with nerves.
He was going to be reasonable, he promised himself. They would discuss the entire matter like civilized adults. And if she didn’t give him the right answers, he’d strangle her. He could always arrest himself afterward.
But he saw only Lori sitting at the keyboard, frantically typing. “I’ll have the damn changes by six,” she called out. Her brow was furrowed in concentration as she glanced up. Her eyes frosted over.
“What the hell do you want?”
“I need to see Bess.”
“You’re out of luck.” Nobody hurt her friend and got away with it. Nobody. “She’s not here.”
“Where?”
She offered an anatomically impossible suggestion, offered it so coolly he nearly smiled. But it wasn’t enough. She leapt up and slammed the door shut. Locked it. “Sit down, buster, I’ve got an earful for you.”
“Tell me where she is.”
“When hell freezes over. Do you know what you did to her?” She took the flat of her hand to push him back. “Why didn’t you just cut out her heart and slice it into little pieces while you were at it?”
“What I did?” He jammed his hands into his pockets so he wouldn’t shove her back. “I’m the one who walked in and found her snuggled up to that pretty-faced playwright.”
“You don’t know what you found.”
“Then why don’t you tell me?”
She’d die first. “You don’t know her at all, do you? You didn’t have a clue how lucky you were. She’s the most loving, most generous, most unselfish person I’ve ever known. She’d have crawled through broken glass for you.” Afraid she’d do something violent if she didn’t move, Lori began to pace. “I was so happy when she told me about you. I could see how much in love she was. Really in love. She wasn’t just taking you under her wing until she could find someone for you.”
“Find someone for me?”
“What do you think she did with all those other men who were dazzled by her?” Lori tossed back. “Oh, she’d try to talk herself into being in love, and thinking they loved her back, and the whole time she’d listen to their problems like some den mother. Then she’d steer them in the direction of some woman she’d decided was perfect for them. She was usually right.”
“She was going to marry—”
“She was never going to marry anyone. Whenever she said yes, it was because she couldn’t bear to hurt anyone’s feelings. And, okay, because she always wanted to have someone she could count on. But however loyal, however sensitive, she is to other people’s feelings, she’s not stupid. She’d tell herself she was going to get married, then she’d go into overdrive finding the guy a substitute.”
“Substitute? Why—?” But Lori wasn’t ready to let him get a word in.
“Not that she ever calculated it that way. But after you watched it happen a couple of times, you saw the pattern. But you…” She whirled back to him. “You broke the pattern. She needed you. You made her cry.” Angry tears glazed Lori’s own eyes. “Not once did I ever see her cry over any man. She’d just slip seamlessly into the my-pal-Bess category, and everyone was happy. But she’s cried buckets over you.”
He felt sick, and small, and he was beginning to understand a great deal about groveling. “Tell me where she is. Please.”
“Why the hell should I?”
“I love her.”
She wanted to snarl at him for daring to say so, but she recognized the same misery in his eyes she’d seen in her friend’s. “Charlie was—”
“No.” He shook his head quickly. “It doesn’t matter.” What did matter was trust, and it was time he gave it. “I don’t need to know. I just need her.”
With a sigh, Lori fingered the square-cut diamond on her left hand. Bess had pushed her into taking the right step with Steven. She could only hope she was doing the same in return. “If you hurt her again, Alex—”
“I won’t.” Then he sighed. “I
don’t want to hurt her again, but I probably will.”
She weakened, because it was exactly the thing a man in love would say. “I sent her home. She wasn’t in any shape to work.”
“Dyakuyu.”
“What?”
“Thanks.”
She hated feeling this way. The only way Bess could get from one day to then ext was by telling herself it would get better. It had to get better.
But she didn’t believe it.
She hadn’t had the heart to throw out the lilacs. She’d tried to. She’d even stood holding them over the trash can, weeping like a fool. But the thought of parting with them had been too much. Now she tormented herself with the fragile scent whenever she came downstairs.
She thought about taking a trip—anywhere. She certainly had the vacation time coming, but it didn’t seem fair to leave Lori in the lurch, especially since Lori had added wedding plans to her work load.
A lot of good she was doing Lori, or the show, this way, she thought. But the problems of the people in Millbrook seemed terribly petty when compared to hers. Too bad she couldn’t write herself out of this one, she thought, as she stood in the kitchen, trying to talk herself into fixing something to eat.
Well, she’d certainly made the grade, Bess told herself, and pressed her fingers against her swollen eyes. She’d fallen in love and had her heart broken. Great research for the next troubled relationship she invented for the television audience.
The hell with food. She was going to go up to bed and will herself to sleep. Tomorrow she would find some way to put her life back together.
When she stepped out of the kitchen, what was left of her life shattered at her feet.
He was standing by the table, one hand brushing over the lilacs. All he did was look at her, turn his head and look, and she nearly crumpled to her knees.
“What are you doing here?” The pain made her voice razor-sharp.
“I still have my key.” He lowered his hand slowly. Her eyes were still puffy from her last bout of tears, and there were smudges of fatigue under them. Nothing that had been said to him, nothing he’d said to himself, had lashed more sharply.