Spring Into Love

by Chantel Rhondeau

“No.” Maggie caught his wrist before he could move away. She wanted the sticky evidence of his release between her thighs, inside her. It made her his. With a smile, she snuggled against him. “Hold me.”

  ~*~

  Maggie and Drew had pizza and salad hours later when they both reluctantly concluded that any additional rounds of lovemaking needed fuel. By then, Maggie was at her third orgasm for the night, not that she was keeping track. She would ache tomorrow, but she counted the cost well worth it.

  Dressed in one of Drew’s T-shirts, she sat at the dining table and picked at her salad. She surreptitiously watched Drew through her long eyelashes as he reheated the pizza in the microwave. It was shallow, she realized, to droll over Drew’s physical attributes when it was really the constancy of his love that she craved, but he looked perfectly delectable in only a pair of jeans. She knew for a fact that he was even yummier out of it—tanned skin layered over lean muscles and rock-hard abs.

  Her gaze dropped to Drew’s left knee, which was wrapped in athletic bandages. He had not taken the bandages off. The old injury did not seem to hinder him in bed, but twice she had seen him wince when he moved too quickly. The injury was a part of him now, as inseparable as his need to protect her and cherish her. She wondered when he would trust her enough to let her see his scars.

  Drew brought the steaming pizza over to the table. The smell of parmesan and mozzarella was enough to make her push her salad aside. She nibbled on a soggy slice of pizza, looked across the table into Drew’s eyes, and wondered when she had ever felt so perfectly at ease with a man after making love to him.

  Never, Maggie realized. “It’s perfect,” she breathed.

  “All the sex must have killed your taste buds.” Drew shook his head. “The pizza’s terrible.”

  She giggled. “Yes, it is.” She took another bite of her pizza, and watched as he wolfed down four slices in quick succession. “Hungry, much?”

  “I was starving.” He stared at the plate as if amazed at how quickly his food had vanished.

  She slid her plate across the table to him. “You can have mine.”

  “I’d rather have you.” He stood and tugged her to her feet.

  She wrapped herself around him. His chest brushed against her sensitive nipples as her smile turned flirtatious. “Still hungry?”

  He answered with a smile that shot a thrill of anticipation down her spine. “Starving.”

  Chapter 13

  “I’ll take it,” Drew said.

  He gave the salesperson his credit card and watched in silence as she slid the diamond engagement ring into a distinctive light blue Tiffany box and topped it with a white ribbon.

  I’ll take it. How could three simple words constitute such a titanic shift in the foundations of his world?

  Maggie, of course. Maggie had changed everything in just two months.

  She came over every evening, stayed the night, and was usually still asleep in his bed when he left for work the next morning. Her toothbrush, accompanied by a veritable army of beauty products he could not identify, claimed prime location on his bathroom counter. Her assortment of earrings on his bedside table multiplied like breeding bunny rabbits. That morning, he had found a sexy pink lace thong mixed in with the clean clothes he had carted up from the laundry room.

  He knew exactly what she was trying to do.

  She was showing him that she could fit into his life.

  And she had succeeded. He could not imagine her anywhere else. The engagement ring’s slight weight in his jacket pocket belied the huge weight lifted off his mind. They were meant for each other.

  He paused outside the sliding glass doors of the store and zipped up his leather jacket. The chill wind chafed his exposed skin, but he braced against the brisk gusts as he walked along the icy sidewalk.

  A plump woman, bundled in a massive overcoat, trotted past him. She tugged at her jacket, the motion throwing her off balance. With a whoosh, she skidded on ice. Instinctively, Drew reached out to steady her, but her momentum pulled him down. They tumbled onto the ice together. Her weight slammed into his left knee. Drew threw his head back and bit back the pained curse.

  “Oh my gosh. I am so sorry,” the woman babbled as she pushed to her feet. “Are you all right?”

  Drew nodded, even though the answer was no. Pain radiated from his knee to pulse along the entire length of his left leg. For several moments, he stood at the corner, massaging his knee, but the pain did not subside. His apartment was only two blocks away, but by the time he arrived, he was pale and sweating.

  “Drew?” Maggie called out from inside his apartment as he opened the door. “I’ve got the most amazing— Oh my God, what happened to you?”

  She rushed to Drew’s side and supported him as he limped into the room. He ground his teeth as he sank into a chair. “Fell on the sidewalk, screwed up my knee.”

  “How bad is it? Do you need to go to a doctor?”

  He shook his head. “Just a heat pack. There’s one in the—”

  “I know where it is. Go lie down, and prop that knee up on a pillow.” She scurried into the kitchen.

  Drew shrugged off his jacket and kicked off his shoes. Hobbling, he limped into his bedroom.

  “Pants off,” Maggie said briskly, coming in behind him with the heat pack wrapped in a towel. “Bandage too,” she added.

  He hesitated briefly, but realized his vanity was completely misplaced. What did it matter if Maggie saw his physical scars? He dug his fingers into the mattress and gritted his teeth as Maggie unwound the layers of the athletic bandage he wore each day to stabilize his knee.

  Her eyes widened as she traced the six-inch scars on both sides of his leg. The area around his knee was already swelling. Tomorrow, it would be black and blue. Without comment, she lay the heat pack over his injury, and then tugged the sheets over his body. “Stay in bed. I’ll get you something to eat and drink.”

  Drew stared at her full-length black velvet gown. “Did you just get in from a photo shoot, or did we have a date tonight that I forgot?”

  “Oh!” Maggie spun around. “My news! StilEterno contacted me this morning. They’ve offered me a contract to design and model.”

  “That’s wonderful!”

  “It paid off. All the nights you spent nagging at me to send out my CV and my portfolio paid off.” Maggie grinned. She laid a hand on the chair on which he had draped his jacket. “The contract is half a million Euros, plus commission on sales, and expat benefits, including a condo in Milan.”

  His breath caught. “Milan?”

  “Yes. That’s where they’re located. Their CEO and lead designers are visiting New York; they’re holding a photo op at the Waldorf Astoria tonight to announce their winter and spring lines, and they’ve asked me to attend. There’ll be lots of reporters there, and I think he wants to make the announcement then. I was waiting for you to get back so that you could change and we could head out together, but…”

  Dylan Smith’s voice echoed through Drew’s head: Don’t get in the way of her career. Don’t stand in the way of her prospects.

  “Go. It’s your big moment,” he forced the words from his mouth. The iciness lodged in his chest spread through his body. “It’s what you’ve worked for; it’s your moment of glory. Go on.”

  “But will you be okay here?”

  He thought of the engagement ring in the pocket of his jacket mere inches from Maggie’s unadorned hand. No. “Yeah. I’ll be fine.” Let her go. Don’t get in her way.

  Drew watched in silence as Maggie flittered through the apartment. She finished applying her makeup, found a pair of solitaire diamond earrings in the jumble of jewelry on the bedside table, and stepped into her stilettos.

  She paused at the door and glanced back, her fur coat draped over her arm. “Are you sure you’ll be okay? I don’t have to go.”

  “Of course, you do. Your career’s important.”

  The smile she flashed him was so delighted that he knew he h
ad done the right thing by letting her go.

  For the second time, he watched the woman he loved walk out of his life, her eyes dazzled by visions of her high-flying career in Milan. For the second time, his heart broke, and he knew there would not be a third chance for Maggie and him.

  ~*~

  The spotlights and camera flashes kicked off a vicious migraine, but Maggie kept her smile in place as she was invited into group photographs with StilEterno’s designers and models. She made the social rounds on the arm of Luca Alosi, the young and dashing CEO of StilEterno, and smiled when he introduced her as Marguerite Ferrara, the “brilliant designer and stunning model we hope will join StilEterno next year.”

  She smiled through the wrenching feeling of vertigo and the certainty that her world was spinning out of control. The sick sensation in the pit of her stomach was oddly familiar, although not something she had felt recently. The fact that she couldn’t place it bothered her.

  If Drew were there—

  Awareness slapped her in the face. Drew wasn’t there, and that was the problem. It was the moment of her triumph, and he, more than anyone else, had helped her attain it. Of course she knew he was happy for her, and they would celebrate some more when she returned home, but—

  She suddenly recalled the last time she had felt that sick sensation in the pit of her stomach.

  Only thirteen years old, she had stood at the door of Drew’s bedroom and stared at his broad shoulders, hunched beneath the covers. Her parents waited in the car to take her to the airport to catch her flight to Milan.

  She pressed a trembling hand against the doorframe. “Drew?”

  “Yeah?” he grunted without turning to face her.

  “I’m going to the airport. I wanted to say goodbye.”

  “Yeah. Bye.”

  She pressed her lips together to keep them from quivering. Why wouldn’t he look at her? After all the time they spent together in the few months since his accident, she thought they had become friends. She even accompanied him to his physical therapy sessions. He had made a great deal of progress; he had taken his first unaided step earlier that week, and they had celebrated over pizza and coke.

  Maggie swallowed hard and blinked back her tears. Nausea churned in the pit of her stomach—a sickening awareness that she had lost his friendship somehow, and she could do nothing about it. “Goodbye, Drew.” Her voice broke.

  “Maggie, wait.” Drew twisted around in the bed. Pain flashed over his chiseled features, and he reached down to grip his injured knee. He held up his other hand to keep her away when she would have run up to him to soothe the pain. A muscle twitched in his smooth cheek when he looked up and met her gaze. “Goodbye, kid.” The words were brusque, his tone gruff. He said nothing more, but he stared at her as if trying to imprint her image on the inside of his eyes.

  God knew, she had tried to do the same.

  Maggie had retreated from Drew’s bedroom, her final glimpse of him blurred by the tears brimming in her eyes. The sick feeling in the pit of her stomach lasted through her entire flight to Milan and for several weeks thereafter until the sharp pain of losing Drew’s friendship subsided into a dull ache. The lingering sense of loss surfaced abruptly whenever she met someone who reminded her a little of Drew, but she learned to live with it.

  That ache vanished when she returned to New York City for college and realized that Drew had also, serendipitously, relocated to Manhattan. It was back, though, sharper than it had been. She had far more to lose now.

  In fact, she had already lost.

  Maggie pressed a hand against her stomach, as if it would keep the pain from spilling out of her. Oh, God, what had she done? For the second time, she had turned her back on Drew and walked out the door. This time, she hadn’t jumped on a plane to Milan, but she might as well have. She was leaving, wasn’t she?

  Wasn’t she?

  Not without Drew.

  And if he did not want to go to Milan, she wouldn’t either. It wasn’t just her life and her career. It was now their lives and their careers.

  She had to get home to—

  “Maggie.”

  She spun around. Drew wore a sports jacket over a black turtleneck and black pants, and looked classy enough to blend in at an event that featured celebrities in ten-thousand dollar suits and dresses. He balanced against a cane, and his face was pale and tight-lipped.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “This is important to you, and I wanted to be here for you.”

  She searched his face. “Is that all?”

  Drew gave a small shrug. He said nothing else.

  His silence was always telling. He was here to see if he could fit into her life. Maggie turned back to Luca with a smile on her face. “Luca, my boyfriend, Drew Jackson. Drew, this is Luca Alosi. He’s the CEO of StilEterno.”

  “Always a pleasure to meet Maggie’s friends.” Luca extended his hand.

  “Likewise.”

  Luca relinquished Maggie’s arm. “There are others I must meet, so I bid you goodnight for now. I will see you in Milan in the new year?”

  Maggie bit back the “yes” on her lips. “I’ll let you know as soon as I can.”

  Luca darted a glance at Drew before looking back at Maggie. “StilEterno will be a wonderful career opportunity for you. I hope you will accept.”

  “Will you go to Milan?” Drew asked after Luca waded back into the crowd.

  “Will you come with me?” Maggie asked.

  Drew reached into his jacket pocket. “I—”

  “Marguerite!” Leon Kinrath’s voice boomed. He grabbed her waist, swung her into his arms, and smacked a kiss onto her lips. “It’s so good to see you again. Have you heard about my latest role? I just signed with Paramount.” He looked at her askance as she pushed against his chest. “What are you doing?”

  “Let go of me.”

  Leon eyed the gathering crowd. “Why, Marguerite?” He raised his voice for the benefit of the listeners. “You were much friendlier when we were at your place.”

  “That’s not how I remember—”

  Drew cut in. “The lady has asked you to let her go.”

  Leon looked at Drew as if he were a piece of lint on his dinner jacket. His grip on Maggie’s waist tightened possessively. “Who are you?”

  “Drew Jackson.”

  Maggie took advantage of Leon’s distraction to bring her stiletto heel down on his toes. The man yelped and released her. “What the hell, Marguerite?”

  Drew held out his hand. “Maggie, let’s go.”

  She latched on to Drew’s arm as if it were a safety line.

  “Maggie?” Leon echoed incredulously. “Why do you let him call you such a common name?”

  Irritation flicked through her. “Just a minute,” she told Drew. She went back to Leon and leaned close to his ear. The man smiled in anticipation of what he probably hoped was a kiss or a secret.

  Maggie offered the latter in a stage whisper, clearly audible to the closest eavesdroppers. “The men who make love to me get to call me Maggie. Everyone else calls me Marguerite.”

  Leon’s hands clenched into fists. His glare locked on Drew, and he sneered. “If you weren’t a cripple—”

  This time, Maggie didn’t bother to whisper. “You’re such a sore loser, Leon. Who knew?” She reached for Drew’s hand again.

  Drew yanked her sharply aside. Maggie blinked in time to see Leon’s fist fly past her face. Drew ducked beneath Leon’s attack, and drove his fist into Leon’s stomach.

  Leon stumbled and doubled over. He wrapped his arms over his waist, and looked up at Drew. A snarl contorted his face. He lunged forward but bystanders pulled him back. “Take it easy, man,” someone said, as he gripped Leon’s shoulder firmly. “Not worth it.”

  Too late, Maggie thought, as the cameras flashed. She darted a glance at Drew. His dark eyes were focused, watchful. His stance was that of a man prepared to fight, his bad leg notwithstanding. Maggie pressed he
r lips together and blinked hard to hold back her tears; she was so proud of him, she thought her chest would burst.

  “Come, darling.” She slid her hand into his and pulled him away. Cameras flashed again, and she did not doubt that the reporters in the crowd were frantically researching “Drew Jackson” on their smartphones.

  It was snowing hard when Maggie and Drew stepped out of the Waldorf Astoria, but they quickly got into a waiting cab. Maggie leaned forward and gave the cab driver the address of Drew’s apartment complex, and then relaxed back into the vinyl seat. She glanced sideways at Drew and slid her hand over his. “If you were hoping for a low-key introduction into my world, I’d say you didn’t find it.”

  “I’m sorry, I—”

  “Leon Kinrath is an ass, and you showed him. I’m glad you came, though I can’t believe you tried to attend a party with your knee hurting as badly as it is.”

  “I figured it was the last chance I had to make it work.” Drew sighed. “I can’t lose you, Maggie. I couldn’t let you walk away from us. I know how important your career is to you, but we’re at a different place than we were ten years ago. I couldn’t follow you to Milan then, but I can now. I can work anywhere; I may have to travel more for meetings, but we can find a way to make it work.”

  Her eyes glistening, Maggie smiled at him. She leaned over to breathe a kiss on his lips.

  Headlights flared through the window into her eyes, momentarily blinding her. A thunderous jolt slammed through her. Metal ground against metal, screaming as they tore into each other. She did not even have time to scream before her world spun and twisted into darkness.

  Chapter 14

  Maggie awoke to the glare of circular florescent lights overhead. Shafts of pain pulsed through her skull, and each breath made her chest hurt. The blur of her vision focused on a pair of broad shoulders by her bedside. “Drew?”

  The man turned. “Maggie.”

  “Brandon?” She struggled to sit up, but the tubes trailing from the IVs in her arm caught her by surprise. “Where…what happened?”