by C. A. Mason
She finally cracked, smiling as she tore off the gold paper. Taking a deep breath before she opened the long velvet box, she stared in disbelief at the diamond tennis bracelet nestled inside. “Oh my God, you didn’t. I can’t. This is too much.”
I took the box, extracted the bracelet, and clasped it around her wrist. “It looks perfect on you.” I kissed her palm as my eyes locked on hers.
Tears sprung to her eyes, and she tried to blink them back. “It’s hard enough for me to leave you—”
“Then don’t.”
“I can’t stay.”
“Yes, you can.”
“Blaise…” She turned from me, facing the window. “What happened last night was unbelievable. I never expected to meet someone like you.” She laughed and sobbed at the same time, covering her mouth.
I wrapped my arms around her from behind, resting my chin on her shoulder. “I never expected to meet someone like you either. Now that I have, I don’t want to let you go.”
“This is crazy,” she said, trying to break free of my grasp.
I held her tight. I wouldn’t let her run from me again. “What’s crazy is going back to a man who can’t give you what I can.”
She watched the sun reflect off her bracelet, creating a rainbow. “I don’t care about things. I never have.”
That much was true. Her parents had always tried to buy her compliance: a new car when she turned sixteen, a trip to Venezuela with her friends when she graduated from high school, diamond earrings the year I scrimped and saved to buy her a present I wouldn’t be embarrassed of.
“I’m not offering you things,” I said. “I’m offering myself.”
She turned in my arms, looking ravaged by the decision I was forcing her to make. “I can’t end a three-year relationship on a whim. I love Jeff. I’ve been building a life with him, making plans for our future. How can I possibly go home and tell him I’ve met someone else?”
“How can you not?” I knew the kind of woman she was. The guilt would torment her. “Can you live a lie?” That was an ironic question coming from me. “Can you make love to him and pretend—” I couldn’t finish that question. It was too painful to think of her with someone else.
“Don’t make this any harder than it already is. Please. This is already tearing me apart. I’ve never been in a situation like this, never had to make such an impossible choice.”
But she had. She’d had to choose between continuing to see me in secret and waging war with her parents. She chose the secret.
“Okay,” I said, sighing. I couldn’t convince her to change her mind in the span of a few minutes, and I didn’t want to waste our time together arguing. “At least have a nice breakfast with me before you leave.” I held out her chair when she hesitated. “Please, just indulge me.”
She tightened the sash on her robe before sitting and running a hand through her damp tresses. “I can’t even believe I’m letting you see me like this. I’m a mess.”
Sitting across from her, I paused before setting the napkin in my lap. “You’re gorgeous, and don’t you ever forget it.”
Maura seemed stunned by the vehemence of my claim. “When you say that, you really make me believe it. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt gorgeous.”
“Since before you were raped?”
She looked at the silver dish covering her plate. “Yes. It’s hard to feel beautiful when I have to look at those scars every day. I feel… damaged.”
My heart ached for her. The scars were barely noticeable, but I knew to her, they looked like dark, ugly scabs that would never heal. I reached for her hand. “Don’t you think it’s time you let the healing begin, sweetheart? Do you have anyone you can talk to about this?”
“I saw a therapist for a while, but I felt like we were just going in circles, so I stopped going.”
“Friends, family… your fiancé? Anyone?” I hated to think of her dealing with her pain all alone. Of course I wanted to be the one to help her heal, but if I couldn’t, I wanted to know someone was there to listen.
“It’s been years since this happened,” she said, looking frustrated. “I should be over it by now.”
“Honey, you don’t just ‘get over’ something like this,” I said gently. “It’s always with you, always a part of you. You carry the scars, emotional and physical, but you don’t have to let them define you. You can still be happy. Don’t let that son of a bitch win. Don’t let him rob you of the ability to be truly happy.”
“Do you think this is what I want?” she asked, withdrawing her hand from mine as a tear slid down her cheek. “I want to feel normal again. I want to forget this happened, but I don’t know how.”
“I think last night was a start, don’t you?”
“Yes.” She closed her eyes. “But it was just one night. How can I expect that to change everything?”
“But it did change everything, didn’t it?” I knew she would rather avoid heavy conversation, but some things had to be said, to be acknowledged, before I could let her go. “It changed the way you think, the way you feel, what you’re willing to settle for.” I wanted to get up and pull her into my arms, but her body language told me she needed her space. “Don’t settle for less than you deserve, sweetheart. Demand more.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” she said, looking at me. “You can have anything you want, anyone you want.”
“That’s not true. I want you, and you’re telling me I can’t have you.”
“Blaise. Don’t.”
I heard the warning in her voice and chose to ignore it. I didn’t know when I’d get the opportunity to say these things to her again, and if life taught me one thing, it was to seize the moment. “You can lie to yourself, you can lie to your fiancé, but you can’t lie to me. I saw it in your eyes when I was making love to you last night. You felt something for me.”
“We had sex,” she said, looking stubborn and defiant. “We did not make love. You can’t make love to someone you barely know.”
I looked her in the eye. I loved that she was challenging me, but she was cheating herself out of the one thing she needed: someone to really love her. “Have you ever been in love, Maura? I mean, really in love. The kind where you can’t stop thinking about him, can’t wait to see him, never want to leave him?”
She got up, tossing her napkin on the table. “I can’t talk about this anymore. I have a plane to catch.”
I’d hit a nerve, just like I knew I would. “It was him, wasn’t it? That guy you told me about, the one who raped you?” The word tasted vile, but I had to spit it out. “You were in love with him. You think he betrayed you, so you refuse to let anyone else in. Is that it?”
“Weren’t you listening to anything I said last night?” She paced in front of the bed as she chewed on her nail or the skin around her nail.
“I heard every word you said.”
“Really?” She stopped and stared at me. “Did you hear the part where I told you he brutalized me? Did I mention he slit my throat?” She tore her robe open as tears stained her cheeks. She threw her head back. “Maybe you didn’t get a good look at these last night? This is what he did to me, the man I loved, so don’t you dare accuse me of being a coward because I don’t want to take a chance on loving again!” She was shouting and sobbing, her whole body shaking as she fell to her knees.
I rushed to her side. I should be happy she’d admitted she wasn’t in love with her fiancé, but I couldn’t find any pleasure in her misery. “It’s okay.” I pulled her into my arms and eased back against the bed, letting her rest on my chest. “I’ve got you, baby.” I kissed the top of her head. “Get it all out.”
“Never,” she whispered, sniffling. “I’ll never get it all out. I could cry every day for the rest of my life and wouldn’t even scratch the surface. He didn’t just hurt me; he destroyed me. He didn’t attempt to kill me; he did kill me. He killed my hope, my joy, everything.”
Words got trapped in my throat along with tears. It killed me
to see her so broken, even more so because she believed I was the cause. It was more important than ever that I find out who’d done that to her, not because I wanted to clear my name, but because someone needed to pay for this crime. She desperately needed closure so she could find a way to move on with her life.
“He told me he loved me.” She clutched my white dress shirt as she soaked it with tears. “He made me believe he loved me.” She continued sobbing to the point her words were almost lost. “He asked me to marry him that night. I never told anyone this, but that’s what started the fight. He wanted me to marry him, and I said no.”
There was no way she couldn’t feel my heart hammering. My blood pressure must be through the roof, but I had to let her continue. I had to hear about the pain she’d had trapped inside for all these years, even if it killed me.
“God, I wanted to marry him more than anything. I was just scared. I was so young. I was afraid to go home and tell my parents I’d decided to marry a guy they wouldn’t approve of.”
Nothing could have prepared me for this. This was supposed to be a game, a way to extract the truth from her so I could reclaim my old name, my real life. I’d never expected to fall in love with her all over again, to feel her pain as though it were my own. My grip on her tightened when her phone rang.
“I have to get that,” she said, reaching up for her cell phone on the table.
I saw his name flash across the screen. “No, you don’t.”
As though she hadn’t heard me, she cleared her throat and wiped her tears, faking a smile even though her caller couldn’t see it. “Hey, Jeff. What’s up?”
I sat there with a scowl. I didn’t want him stealing another moment from us. He’d had her for the past three years. This was my time with her.
“Yeah, I’m sorry I couldn’t call you back last night. I was exhausted after the party.” Color stained her cheeks as she glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. “Yeah, my flight’s in an hour and a half. I should be home by noon. Great. I’ll see you at the airport.”
I could tell by the tortured look in her eyes he’d told her he loved her.
“Me too.” She paused. “I’m sorry too. I don’t want to fight anymore. I think we should talk about setting that date when I get home. It’s time for us to get on with our lives.” She looked me in the eye, as though daring me to contradict her.
I was rarely speechless, but hearing her claims left me dumbfounded. I barely gave her time to disconnect the call before I asked, “What the fuck are you thinking? You can’t marry him!”
“I can do whatever I want,” she said, scrambling to her feet. “You don’t get a say in this.”
I grabbed her shoulders, then dropped my hands when I got a flashback of our last fight, the one that had ended in her running out of my apartment and into the arms of a lunatic. “I only want what’s best for you. Why can’t you see that?”
“You don’t know what’s best for me.” She carefully removed the diamond bracelet I’d given her. “As beautiful as this is, I can’t accept it.”
“Yes, you can.”
Maybe if I’d given some forethought to my proposal that night, I could have overcome her objections. If only I’d tried harder to convince her we belonged together, instead of going off on her like a crazy person. I may not have been the one wielding the knife, but the wounds I’d inflicted on her still ran deep, and that was my burden to bear.
“No, I can’t.”
When I stuck my hands in my pockets instead of accepting it, she set the bracelet back in its velvet box with a sigh. Framing my face with her hands, she said, “You’re an incredible man, and I’m so glad I met you.”
I covered her hands with my own. “Don’t think this is good-bye. It’s not.”
Something flickered in her eyes. Hope or panic, I couldn’t be sure. “Yes, it is. It has to be. I meant what I said to Jeff. I’m going to go home and set a wedding date. You’ve helped me to realize I can’t go on living in the past. I have to let go of what happened that night. It’s paralyzed me for too long.”
How could my words have driven her into the arms of another man when I had been trying so hard to draw her into mine? “Marrying the wrong man won’t erase what happened that night. Just because Jeff is a safe bet doesn’t mean he’s the right one.” I hated even saying his name, much less thinking about him.
“Only I know what’s best for me.” She rolled forward on her toes to kiss my lips. “You helped me figure that out. Thank you. I’ll always be grateful to you for that, Blaise.”
Chapter Eight
I warned her it wouldn’t be the last time she’d see me, though I was sure when I’d said that three days ago, she didn’t expect our paths to cross again so soon. I told myself I was back in New Hampshire because it was the only place I could get my questions answered, but the truth was, I wanted to be wherever she was. Every hour since she’d left, I’d thought of her and tortured myself with visions of the night we’d spent together and all the nights we’d spent together before her memories of me had been irreparably tarnished.
Looking at the eight-story brick building that housed her office as well as her father’s real estate offices, I took a moment to appreciate how far I’d come. The last time I’d walked through that town, I would have been too intimidated to even walk into that building. Now I could not only buy it, but the whole damn block.
I walked into the modern lobby, smiling at the receptionist as I sauntered past. I didn’t have to ask which office was hers. I knew. I heard the sound of raised voices before I tapped on the door. Hers and… Even before she said his name, I sensed it was him. Things were about to get interesting because my days of being her dirty little secret were over.
When I opened the door, she looked up from behind her desk. Stunned. That was the only word I could think of to describe her face. I’d blown her mind by reappearing in her life. She’d thought I would be satisfied with a one-night stand. She’d thought wrong.
“Hello, beautiful.” I smiled at her, ignoring the man perched on the edge of her desk. I took the velvet box out of the pocket of the overcoat slung over my arm. “You forgot this.”
Maura gaped at the box she’d left in the hotel. Her eyes darted to her fiancé before settling on me. “Uh, thank you.” She shoved the box into her desk drawer before her fiancé could reach for it. “But you didn’t have to come all this way to drop it off.” She laughed lightly. “You could have couriered it to me.”
“I could have,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “But I wanted to see you again.” I shrugged when she glared at me. “I had some business in town, and I thought we could discuss my proposition while I was here.”
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Jeff said, standing as he offered his hand. “You’re Blaise Walsh, aren’t you?”
I looked at his hand, not trusting myself to take it. I had no idea the last time he’d used that hand to pleasure to Maura, but I knew breaking every one of his fingers was one way to ensure he was out of commission for a long while.
Maura laughed lightly to ease the tension. “You’ll have to forgive Blaise, honey. He’s a bit of a germaphobe. He doesn’t shake hands. I learned that the hard way.”
She was lying, of course. I looked past him and met her eyes, wondering if she’d lied to her fiancé about anything else—like what she did while she was in New York.
“Oh,” he said, looking embarrassed as he slid his hand into the pocket of his tailored slacks. “Well, I can understand that.”
I hated him even more intensely than I thought I would. He was a pussy, used to cow-towing to anyone with money and power. He probably had his head so far up Mr. Lancaster’s ass, he hadn’t seen daylight in three years.
“If you don’t mind, I came to talk to Maura. Would you excuse us?”
“Oh, well, uh…” He looked at his fiancée, confusion evident on his face. “We were kind of in the middle of something.”
“Would you mind if we finish this discus
sion later, Jeff?” she asked, smiling sweetly. “Maybe over dinner?”
“Actually,” I said before he had a chance to respond, “you did such a great job on the anniversary party, I was hoping you could plan another event for us next month.”
Jeff chuckled, slapping me on the back. I scowled as my eyes settled on his arm.
He slowly removed his hand, raking it through his cropped dark hair. “I’m sure Maura would love to help you out with that, buddy, but she’ll be too busy planning our wedding to take on any new projects.”
Our wedding. Those two little words slammed into me with the force of a wrecking ball, but I couldn’t lose it. Not here. Not now.
“I’m not your buddy,” I said, fixing him with a penetrating stare. “And I don’t believe I asked you. I asked Maura.” I knew he could sense my hostility and was probably questioning what he’d done to piss me off. The fact that he was still breathing was reason enough.
“I’ll have to check my schedule and get back to you on that, Blaise,” Maura said.
“Um, honey,” Jeff said, giving her pointed look, “weren’t we just discussing this? I thought we agreed you would focus all your attention on the wedding now that we’ve finally set a date?”
“When is the big day?” I asked, clenching my jaw as my eyes traveled to the ring on her left hand. I’d noticed it when I was making love to her. The frustration that swept through me at the sight of it was just as overpowering now as it had been then, maybe moreso since I’d met the shithead she planned to marry.
Maura swallowed. The look on her face as her eyes dropped told me she was seriously considering whether crawling under her desk was a viable means of escape. “Um, New Year’s Eve.”
“How nice,” I said, my mouth tilting up on one side. That meant I had months to change her mind. “Congratulations.”
Seeming surprised by my reaction, she sat up straighter. “Thank you.”
“Well, I guess I should be getting back to work,” Jeff said. “What time will you be home?”
Home? I hadn’t considered the possibility that they shared a home or a bed every night. I curled my hand into a fist. “She’ll be home late. Don’t wait up.”