Sinful Love (Sinful Nights #4)

by Lauren Blakely

  “Sure. He knows how I feel,” she said.

  Her mother squeezed her arm. “No. Have you told him you’re in love with him, too?”

  She froze, with the glass of wine on the way to her lips. She was falling, yes. But in love? It couldn’t happen that fast. Not for her. Not when love was such a dangerous thing? Not when being in love meant she could be cleaved in two again?

  “You should tell him,” her mother urged.

  Annalise parted her lips, but words didn’t come. She wasn’t sure what to say, or if she could even give voice to all these questions stirring inside her. Was she ready to go into the fire once more?

  “Tell him soon,” her mother whispered, then she pressed a kiss to Annalise’s cheek before continuing. “There are only two men you’ve ever brought to meet me. Julien and Michael. He loves you so. And I know it’s not a one-way street. I see the way you look at him. I see how you lean close to him. How your world seems to be his world.”

  A lump rose in her throat. Her eyes welled with tears, but none fell.

  After the check came and Michael insisted on paying, Annalise’s mother announced loudly that Patrick and Noelle would walk her home.

  Noelle nodded vigorously. “Yes. We’ll help her up the steps.”

  “Go,” her mother said, shooing them along. “Your home is around the corner.”

  They said their good-byes, and Michael and Annalise turned the other direction. “They seem to want us to go to my house,” she said, floating the idea.

  He tensed.

  “Would you want to?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  She stopped on the street, reached for his hand, then looked him in the eyes. “We’re doing this, right?”

  “Of course we are.”

  “I want you to see where I live. You’re not just some man I’m slinking away to a hotel room to be with. You’ve had dinner with my family. I want you in my home. You’re part of my heart. Part of my life.”

  He pressed his forehead to hers. His breath ghosted across her skin. His arms looped around her. With him, she felt so much potential, so much possibility, so much future.

  She took him to her home.

  * * *

  I can handle this.

  As he walked up the curving, carpeted staircase, his palm running along the dark oak banister, he steeled himself.

  He’d run military intelligence. He’d negotiated with some of the toughest motherfuckers in the security business. He’d helped his sister through tragedy. He’d survived the splintering of his family, making sure his younger siblings were cared for.

  He could walk into the home Annalise had lived in with her husband. No problem whatsoever.

  Inhaling quietly, he let the air fill his chest, imagined it transporting strength throughout his body—even though each step was leaden, each footfall heavier than the last.

  Get your shit together, Sloan. Man up

  Annalise unlocked the green door. It creaked open, and pride shimmered in her eyes. Her irises danced as she held out her arm and led him through the narrow foyer into the small kitchen.

  “My home,” she said, beaming.

  He catalogued the room. Red espresso cups. Sky blue dishes in the dish rack, and a clean sink.

  Piece of cake. This was so manageable.

  They wandered into a tiny living room, and before he could look around, she gestured to French doors that opened into a small den.

  “This is my office,” she said proudly, and showed him some of the framed photos on the wall, shots she’d taken over the years. There were a few images from the Middle East that had won her awards, but mostly the photos were of simpler things.

  A lemon yellow dresser.

  A crowded street-side café.

  A leaf blowing across the sidewalk. Even a few of her black and white boudoir shots.

  “You really are talented,” he said, and his voice was calm, steady. This was easier than he’d thought. He didn’t know why he’d been such a wreck about seeing her home.

  Until he spun around and drank in her living room for the first time.

  Her husband was all he saw. A framed photo on her built-in bookcase of him holding a handful of maps under his arm. Wincing, Michael connected the dots. In the picture, Julien stood outside the map shop they’d passed last night.

  Another image showed him drinking coffee, looking studious. Another everyday moment.

  Michael’s eyes roamed to the low table that held a frame of her husband riffling through postcards at a sidewalk dealer. Cringing, Michael realized he’d walked along the Seine with her yesterday, maybe even past that dealer.

  Her hand ran up his arm. It was warm and comforting, but right now he didn’t want it.

  His reaction was emotional, not rational. It was passionate, not thoughtful. He could have devised a million logical explanations to settle his brain and cool his nerves. Instead, raw emotions pricked at him.

  “There’s nothing I can do with you that you haven’t done,” he bit out.

  “Don’t say that,” she said gently.

  He gestured broadly. “He’s everywhere. His imprint is everywhere,” he said, and he felt like an ass. He turned around, his eyes narrowed. “And I feel like a complete fucking schmuck for saying that and feeling that.”

  “You’re not,” she said, shaking her head, her voice soft. “But your imprint is everywhere too. I have an entire photo album of our year together in Las Vegas. I’ve held on it. I took it to university. I even looked at it the other day before you came here, along with the photos I took of you at Caesars. One of those photos is on my desktop right now as I decide how I want to frame it or crop it.”

  He dragged a hand through his hair, and for the first time wondered if Julien had felt this way too. If he’d been crazed enough to want to have this woman all to himself, to erase her history, and mark her only with him. Michael would have wholly understood. Because this intense need to be her only, as selfish and single-minded as it was, gnawed at him.

  “Doesn’t that matter to you?” she asked, frustration in her rising voice. “Knowing how much you mattered to me? I carried you with me in the only way I could. But Michael, this is unfair. This is where I have lived for the last several years. Do you want me to pretend I didn’t have a life when we were apart? Should I have hidden all the photos? Tucked them away in a drawer and whitewashed my home?” She tapped her chest. “This is me. This is who I am. I’ve been married, and I don’t want to have to apologize for it over and over.”

  Ah hell. He was a complete fucking jerk for feeling this way. He lowered his gaze to the cranberry red carpet with geometric patterns, poised to grovel, embarrassed at his ragged jealousy. But then a thought crashed unbidden into his mind, and he couldn't help but wonder if Julien had fucked her on this carpet. A wave of self-loathing slammed into him. He was envious of a dead man. He was eaten up by the fact that she’d had a husband. Who. Had. Died.

  Michael was alive.

  What the fuck was wrong with him?

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered, though he knew that wasn’t enough.

  She placed a hand on his arm. “Just because I cared for him, doesn't mean I can’t feel for you. You seem to forget that I was in love with you before I met him, and yet I was still able to love him and be happy. So I wish you would stop thinking I’m incapable of this. That I can’t feel so much for you. It’s not fair.”

  Perhaps she was right. Perhaps he was too stubborn. Too narrow. But this woman – she was it for him. She was all for him. And that feeling inside him, of never wanting to be without her, made him rash.

  “Do you still love him?” His throat was raw as he gave voice to his darkest fear.

  “Michael,” she said, “a part of me always will. But I’m falling in love with you now.”

  He swallowed, collecting himself. He drew a deep breath, trying to let it out while taking in what she’d just said. But his chest churned with black and white and gray emotions, and he d
idn’t know how to wrestle them to the ground and have them make sense. Instead, he spoke carefully. “Your home is beautiful. But I can’t be here.”

  “But this is where I live. I want to show it to you,” she said, imploring.

  He shut his eyes. “I know. But I need to go. And I would like to spend the night with you elsewhere.”

  At the hotel he made love to her deep into the evening, letting the sex blot out the blackness in his heart, the ugly jealousy in his soul. For so long he’d been defined by loving her. It was who he was. He didn’t know how to take only half of her heart when she had all of his completely.

  He didn’t want to be her second best, and yet he felt like the runner-up. The whole truth of his love for her boiled down to this—she could have chosen him in Marseilles, and she didn’t.

  Maybe it was unfair to feel that way, but it was true. He’d put his heart on the line then, and if she’d wanted him, she could have called off the engagement and they could have run away together.

  That was what gnawed at him.

  And he wished that he could go home and ask his father’s advice.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  She supposed she could have put the photos away. She could have hidden them, tucked them into a cabinet, pretended they didn’t exist.

  But what would have been the point of that?

  As she raced down the metro a few days later on the way to a photo shoot at a client’s Montmartre flat, a poster in the station caught her eye. It was part of the new campaign to stop metro riders from talking on the subway—a chicken dressed as a businessman clucked on the phone while the other riders stared daggers at him. She felt a kinship with the other riders in the picture. Not over secondhand cell phone conversations, but because she was annoyed, too.

  She was fucking annoyed, as her train rattled into the station and she stepped through the doors. She was frustrated as she gripped the pole, and the subway rumbled away. She didn’t want to constantly justify her past to Michael. He’d have to accept it at some point if they were truly going to be together and pull off this transcontinental relationship. Wasn’t it hard enough to manage a long-distance love without this added layer of…bullshit?

  She huffed and stared off, searching the faces of the other people in the car, wondering if the woman clutching six shopping bags on her lap was irritated too, if the teenage girl with her earbuds and the skinny jeans was ticked at the world like her. If everyone on this train was as goddamn frustrated as she was.

  Michael had tried to be cool about Julien after they’d left her home. But she wasn’t a fool. She’d read his emotions and sensed his distance back at the hotel. He’d pulled away from her that last night, and everything since then had been bittersweet.

  She wanted the sweet, hold the bitter, please.

  And she didn’t want to make apologies for having loved before.

  She reached her destination, climbing the many stairs out of the station, and walked along the curving, hilly streets to find her client’s home. All the while, she forced Michael out of her brain. There was no room for annoyance now.

  She raised the iron knocker at the door of her client’s house, and was greeted by a stunning forty-something woman with black hair.

  “Come in, come in,” the woman said in a smoky, sexy voice, excitement in her tone. “I’ve been counting down the hours until the shoot.”

  As Annalise captured images of the boudoir session, the woman told her that she’d been divorced and was remarrying. The photos were a gift for her soon-to-be-husband. In the images, she appeared both sultry and joyful. This woman had moved on. Hell, Michael had managed to press on after losing his father and, for all intents and purposes, his mother. He still loved his father, though. So why the hell was Annalise being judged for having a special place in her heart for Julien?

  After she said good-bye, she held steadfast to the notion that she was no different than anyone else who’d loved before. My God, she’d been in love with Michael before she even met Julien. At some point, Michael would have to accept that she’d been in love with someone else before she fell for him a second time. End of story.

  If he couldn’t deal, she’d have to walk away. The thought churned her stomach, though. She was moving on. Why couldn’t he let her?

  Anger stormed through her as she rode the metro. She stopped at her mother’s, helping her to a doctor’s appointment.

  “She’s doing better,” the doctor said. “Her hip is stronger.”

  Her mother nudged her and winked. “See? I’m tough.”

  “You are,” Annalise said, the first real smile appearing on her face today.

  “You come from a long line of tough women,” her mother said after they left the appointment and headed to a café, Annalise’s elbow hooked around her mom’s arm, their strides slow.

  “I do,” she said as they found a table on the sidewalk and ordered coffees.

  “What’s wrong then? Why do you seem so upset?”

  “You’re too observant for your own good.”

  “That’s where you get it from.” Her mom tapped the edge of her eye. “So tell me…”

  Annalise watched the crowds click-clack by on the sidewalk, the cool, crisp air surrounding them. She gave her mother the gist of how Michael seemed unable to deal with her past. The coffee arrived, and they both lifted their cups, lost in thought.

  Her mother took a drink then set it down on the saucer, her lips curving in a knowing grin. “I knew you loved him.”

  Annalise knit her brow, shooting her mother a curious look.

  “What did he say when you told him you loved him?” her mother asked.

  “I didn’t say that. I said I was falling.”

  “Ah,” her mother said, nodding sagely. “Therein lies the problem.”

  “How is that a problem?”

  Her mother locked her fingers together, forming a bridge. “Falling in love and being in love are bedfellows, but they aren’t the same. We often think they are, but they’re truly not. Falling is just a way to float the idea, like a test of I love you. If you love him, you should tell him. Reassure him. He loves you so. Michael wears his heart on his sleeve for you, and a man needs to know he’s special. He knows he’s not the only one you’ve loved, but he wants to feel like he is.” She unlaced her fingers and stared at Annalise, her eyes holding her captive, softly demanding. “Does he feel like he is? The only one?”

  Her gut twisted. He was the only one for her now, but perhaps she hadn’t exactly made that clear. “I really don’t know.”

  Her mother patted her hand. “Make sure he knows.”

  That night, she wrote to him. She wasn’t entirely convinced she wanted to say those three words in a letter, but there were other things to say. Things that were as important.

  The truth of all her fears.

  When she was through, she dropped it in FedEx. He would receive it in two days.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Sometimes when you drive to a familiar home, you’re not even sure how you got there. You stop at the lights when they’re red, turn on the blinker when you take a left, and suddenly you’re there, though you can’t recall the drive. You know the route by heart. You’ve done it so many times it’s a part of you.

  As Michael walked across the grass with his sister, his feet guided him in that same fashion along the path they’d traveled many times—a winding stone walkway, over spongy grass, then through a row of headstones, guarded by oaks and elms.

  Shannon clutched a bouquet of sunflowers.

  She came here often, leaving these flowers on their father’s grave each time. Today, he accompanied her. It wasn’t the anniversary of their father’s death, nor was it his birthday. It was just an average day, and that was why they came. To remember those who were gone. Both their father, and the baby Shannon had lost ten years ago.

  “You hanging in there?” he asked, eyeing her belly.

  She nodded. “I wish I could speed up time, t
hough. Fast forward four more months and have the baby in my arms, to know he or she is safe and healthy, and alive.”

  He draped an arm around her shoulder. “Yeah, me too,” he said, rather than giving her a platitude. Everything will be all right. He hoped it would, but both he and his sister had seen enough to know those sorts of statements were pointless.

  The morning sun rose in the sky, and soon they reached their father’s resting place. Michael read the engraved words out loud, as he always did when he came here with Shan. Thomas Darren Paige. Loving father.

  “He was,” his sister said.

  “He was.”

  Shannon set the flowers at the base of the headstone, then kissed the granite. Michael’s throat hitched, watching his sister. He kneeled down briefly and wrapped his arms around her, holding her close as tears streamed down her cheeks. She’d always been emotional; she was even more so these days while pregnant. Michael couldn’t fault her for it, either.

  Soon she rose, wiped her hands across her cheeks, and plastered on a smile. “I’m all better now.”

  He smiled back and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Course you are, Shannon bean.”

  “So tell me about Paris…”

  “Ah…the elephant in the room.”

  But he found he needed to talk about this black hole in his heart, and Shan was precisely the person who’d understand best. As they stood by the grave, arms crossed over chests, a cool fall breeze rustling the leaves, he shared the fears that had bubbled to the surface the last night in Paris.

  “And I think I might be a total asshole who has no perspective, since I’m jealous of a dead guy,” he said, with a forced laugh as he finished the story.

  She rubbed his arm reassuringly. “No, you’re not. You’re just in love, and it’s hard, but I don’t know why you’re so worried she can never love anyone but her husband.”

  “How is it even possible for her to love like that?” He gripped his chest, as if grabbing at his heart. “I’m so fucking crazy for her I can’t imagine ever feeling this way about anyone else. How can she do it? She is the great love of my life. How will I ever be anything to her that comes close?”