Mitch reached for her hand so fast Emily couldn’t pull away. She tightened her fingers around his. He was going to cry too. He couldn’t b.s. her anymore. "I thought that the more you saw me, the less you’d want me. You were so disappointed, and every day felt more and more like I couldn’t give you what you wanted. I was terrified of being with you and having you look at me one day and tell me that you’d had enough. What the Hell do you need me for anyway? You take care of Hellie, you have your job, and you have your friends. You could have any other guy you wanted. It just seemed safer to stay away."
Her sadness was making her sick. "You wanted to be with her again, because you were more than good enough for her."
He closed his eyes as he cried. "I pretended she was you, Em. I pretended that you were the one writing to me. I pretended that you were the one who missed me and wanted to see me." He opened his eyes and clutched her hand more tightly. "The God’s honest, pathetic truth, Em. I don’t want anyone else. I just want you."
Emily pulled her hand free and stood up. "Em?" Mitch whispered. She shook her head and stumbled as she turned away. He put money on the table and followed her out.
He took her hand and turned her around. She looked dazed. "Please talk to me."
A smile crept across her mouth. "I think I want to hurt your knee again."
CHAPTER 20
Richard had suggested going out to eat, but Zainab wanted to be outside. He didn’t understand why, and she didn’t want to admit that she was inexplicably afraid of being in an enclosed space with him.
Richard met her at the benches near the statue in the Commons. She smiled when she saw him. She was too dignified to pretend that it didn’t still make her happy to see him.
But that didn’t mean he could have whatever he wanted. "Richard, what can I do for you?"
"You can let me apologize, for starters."
"I did let you apologize."
"No you didn’t. You were so damned gracious you didn’t want it."
Zainab sighed. "Richard, you hateful bastard. You owe me the apology of a lifetime. Make it good, or I will never speak to you again."
Richard laughed, then so did Zainab. "Zainab, I was the biggest fool. I outdid Michael at his worst, and I didn’t even inhale. You were the best thing in my life. Not because everything else was so awful, but just having you in my world made everything else in it better. I disrespected you, not just by being intimate with someone else, but by not telling you what was going on. I should have told you everything in the first place, but I didn’t want you to know just how wounded and messed up I was. I should have let you know that I needed to be taken care of, but I’m the one who always took care of everything. I thought growing up in and of itself would do the trick, but that’s not the case. I should have reached out to you."
"Were you reaching out to her?"
"No, of course not. I just wanted to forget with her. And it was stupid, and wrong and I disrespected her on top of it, which I know you actually do care about."
"It sounds like she suffered quite a bit already. I’m not going to feel better knowing that you hurt her more."
He was furious now. "Pretend," he said abruptly. "Pretend for just one minute that the two of us are back together. Would you want to see her around? Would you ask after her? Would you be okay with all of it?"
"Is there a correct answer in this hypothetical universe of yours?"
"You wouldn’t care, would you?"
"Apparently I cared enough to break it off after I found out, didn’t I?"
"No, you didn’t break it off you just thought it was already over."
"It was over if you were messing around behind my back."
"It didn’t have to be!"
"Boy, you have been hanging out with Mitch a little too much, I see. Of course it had to be over."
"No, it didn’t! You should have gotten in my face, you should have beaten me up as badly as Jessie did, you should have told me what a cowardly disappointment I was, you should have made me work hard to get you back!" His chest was heaving. "You should not have just accepted that I was an irredeemable loser."
"Why, Richard?" she asked angrily. "Why do I have to do all of that when you’re the one who screwed up?"
"So you admit I screwed up?"
"What is your problem?" she asked in disbelief. "Fine, you screwed up! You talked about marriage and you made me think you wanted happily ever after. No, you made me think we were living in happily ever after, and all we had to do was formalize it with a marriage certificate. But then you got cold feet and you were too much of a coward to ask me to leave and then such a selfish bastard that you wanted both me and someone else. And now you’re not even going to let me remember you as a decent guy who made a bad mistake, you’re going to be such a selfish prick that you’re going to insist that we’re not together because I didn’t care enough?!? Who are you? And that is the cruelest thing of all, because I could live with knowing that I’d been with a man I genuinely loved. A man who deserved my love—for three years, even if it didn’t end up the way I wanted it, but now you want to make even that a big mistake." She put up her hands. "Fine Richard. I didn’t know you at all. You weren’t noble and heroic. You weren’t kind and loving. You weren’t gentle and sweet. You were just waiting it out until you got tired of me. Are you happy now?"
"I am not happy! We are not together, and I want you back! I miss you so much I’m going crazy. You were the glue that made everything work, and if it’s not falling apart it’s because Emily and Michael—Michael!—are helping me keep it all together. Jesus, do you know how I felt last night, or at the party? There were Jessie and Martin, totally in love and consumed with each other. Remember that? And then Michael and Miranda, who have hurt each other so much I can’t believe they’re still standing, were still lost in each other, because they need each other so much. And then Emily’s mooning over Mitch, Mitch is mooning over Emily. Ugh!" He stood up. "And you won’t even let me miss you, because you wouldn’t want me to hurt that badly!"
She stood up. "Go ahead and miss me then!"
"I do, and thinking of you with Teague makes me sick."
"Then don’t think about it," she said fiercely, "because I haven’t thought about you and Sophie, night after night for months—months! She had nothing to do with me? Whatever. But trust me; he has nothing to do with you."
"How can you be with someone who was with Jessie?"
"How can you be with someone who was with Drew—and maybe Michael?"
"I’m not with her now, and that isn’t what happened with Michael. And Sophie didn’t go to great lengths to hurt just about everyone you care about."
"Sophie made you forget who you really were, or who you were supposed to be? Fine. Robert makes me feel like I’m alive again."
"What?"
"Robert calls me in the middle of the day, for no special reason. Robert tells me all the things he’d like to do with me, and then he does them. Robert makes me feel like I am the most important woman in the world, and you know what? I like that."
"I used to do that."
"Before you went and started your own company."
"It was all on me."
"Trust me; he has pressing concerns as well when he’s in the middle of an active murder investigation."
"He’s an obsessive psychotic snake, and you know it!"
"Did I say I wanted to marry him or even meet his family?"
"Oh, so you’re just using him for sex?"
"No, I’m not like you!"
"So you do have feelings for him?"
"Yes!"
Richard shook with anger. "Fine," he said after a minute. "But we both know that you have feelings for me, and I bet he knows it too."
"It hasn’t come up, and it isn’t a contest."
"Then what is it?"
"Just a question of what’s going to work and what isn’t."
"You and he are going to work better than we are?"
"Richard, wh
at do you want?"
"I want you to move back in with me, quit your job, go to medical school and marry me, not necessarily in that order."
"No!"
"Because you don’t love me?"
"I do love you."
"Then why?"
"Because you’re not done fixing your life and you don’t know how to fix it with me there."
"Do I have to have a perfect life for you to marry me?"
"No—you just have to be willing to share it with me."
Richard's voice cracked. "Even when it’s a mess? Even when I’m the one who’s messed it up?"
"Even then."
"Aren’t you afraid that I’m going to mess up yours too?"
"No."
Of course she isn’t, he thought. And why should she be? Richard needed to sit down again. He hadn’t been this overcome with regret since he’d seen his aunt Josie’s body carried down her stairs, covered in a white sheet.
"You’d be fine with me," he said at last.
"Yes."
"You’re not going to break if I tell you everything."
"No."
"And you love me."
She waited a moment. "Yes."
He looked up. "Do you love him?"
"It’s not like that."
"What do you mean, it’s not like that? You do or you don’t."
"It’s not an issue."
"What the Hell are you talking about?"
"We have a connection, Richard. It’s intense. But we’re not putting names around it—because we don’t have to. There’s no need. It’s a little strange, but right now I like it like this."
So here was the real question. "Does he make you happy?"
"It’s not an issue."
"Did I make you happy?"
"Yes."
He stood up and kissed her as he had never kissed her before. She let him, because she liked the way he kissed. And she loved and missed him. His glasses were fogged up when he was done. "Then it’s up to you, Zainab."
"What is?"
"What do you want more? Teague, Robert, him, this nameless thing that doesn’t make you happy but that does something right for you, or me, this complicated messed up guy with all kinds of names and demands. But I’m going to make it worse for me. If you come to me, it’s going to be the whole thing. Marriage, children, everything."
"All or nothing?"
"Love or nothing."
CHAPTER 21
Michael carried Hellie home. "Does Emily have something against strollers?"
"No, Hellie’s just very independent."
"When she’s not sleeping."
"I can take her, you know, if your shoulder is getting to you."
"Please, she’s light as a feather."
Miranda giggled to herself. "What?" Michael asked.
"You’ve got about an inch on Mitch, right? And probably about twenty pounds?"
"But it’s all muscle now."
"Oh, I noticed."
"And you’ll notice some more."
"Again with the promises."
"So why are you comparing my body to Mitch’s? Is there something I need to worry about?"
"Do you even want to make that joke?"
"No—but you were saying?"
"I’m a little taller than Emily."
"Just one of the many things I like better about you."
"Be quiet."
"Where are you going with this?"
"Well, you never know what’s actually going to happen, but I think it’s a safe bet that our baby probably wouldn’t be...light as a feather." Michael didn’t say anything, but he couldn’t stop smiling. "What? You’re one of those weird guys that need to see a big baby to feel like you’ve done something right?"
Michael shrugged. "I don’t know. Maybe. But right now I just like hearing you say ‘our baby’."
They got to Emily’s house and Michael gently handed Hellie to Miranda. "Do you want me to walk her up?"
"Not yet," Miranda said.
"What time is Emily coming back?"
Miranda smiled. "I think she’s late already. And I’m glad."
Michael nodded, thinking about Mitch the night before. "Okay. And Zainab’s still out with Richard, I assume."
"That’s a good thing too."
"I think so, except that this means I’m spending one more night without you."
"It’s the last night," Miranda promised. "I’m all yours tomorrow."
"Really?"
"Truly. And then we can get to work on certain things."
"Like, wedding planning?"
"Proposal first."
"Don’t I get a dispensation on that since we were married before?"
"Yeah, but as I recall, the first time wasn’t much of a request, so you doubly owe me."
"So you want to work on the proposal or the planning?"
"I guess I had something else in mind, but if you’d rather go look at china patterns—"
"That can wait," Michael said, licking his lips. "So, because I’m paranoid and obsessive and manipulative, I’m not going to believe any of this is happening until I get you in my arms tomorrow."
"I think I know how that feels."
"So can I pick you up tomorrow? Morning?"
"If I don’t see you here by nine, then I’m going to think you’re not serious."
He kissed her. "Yeah, you know how overly casual I can be sometimes."
She kissed him back. "Tomorrow."
~~~
There was a knock on Lucy Bartolome Hendrickson’s door. One minute later, her assistant showed Richard in.
Lucy smiled when she saw her son. "Richard, what a pleasant surprise."
"I’m sorry to bother you without calling," Richard said, unable to look at her. "I really needed to see you though."
Lucy nodded quickly. "You don’t need an appointment with me. Please, sit down."
Richard sat down but looked at the floor. Lucy looked at him quizzically. "Can I get you something to drink? Or eat?" she asked after a moment.
"I’m not hungry," he said, "but I’d love some water."
A minute later, he was sipping his water. Lucy’s expression was concern mixed with amusement. "Dear, is everything alright?"
He shook his head. "No, everything is not alright."
"Is it your company?"
"No—yes. A little bit." He looked up to see his mother smiling. "Michael’s investment was a lifesaver, and his help has been invaluable. I had no idea how much I didn’t know about how to run a business. And who knew Michael would be so competent?"
"You did, son. You always had faith in him."
"I did. I mean, he deserved it. He’s always been too smart for his own good. He finally put it towards something useful." He looked up. "And Emily and Miranda have exceeded everyone’s expectations. We are on the verge of—"
"Jessie told me," Lucy said. "Although I’m sure you had more to do with it than you’d admit."
Richard sat up straighter as he heard the genuine pride in his mother’s voice. "Thanks Mom. I’m learning."
"So I can see."
Richard sighed. "But I—I’m going to need more help if I’m going to do this correctly, in such a way that honors all of the people who are working for me. The other engineers have been my best friends since college. Emily, Michael and Miranda were all willing to work off of my kitchen table for weeks. I have a vision, and I have plans, but I need more if I’m going to make this happen."
Lucy could not suppress her grin. "I’m sure Jessie’s offer still stands."
"I don’t want to touch Jessie’s money."
Lucy beamed. "Richard, I would be more than happy to invest in your company."
"Mom, I don’t want you to make any rash decisions, because I am asking for a lot of money. I’ll arrange some time for Emily, Miranda and Michael to give you as much information as you need."
Lucy tried to look stern. "Good. I expect them to be very thorough."
"And of course
we can start with the same terms I gave Michael—minus the job, of course—although I’m sure Michael can negotiate around that if you need it."
Lucy took a moment to compose herself. "I’ll have my lawyer go through everything with a fine-tooth comb."
Lawyer. Oh, God—did he need one of those? "Um, right. Yes, of course."
"But in the meantime, I think we can shake on it." Lucy stuck out her hand, and now Richard laughed. He hugged his mother.
"I think," Richard said as he let her go, "that we should celebrate."
Now Lucy shook her head. "No, son. I’m sorry. I’m afraid I won’t be available until you can bring a date."
Richard smiled. "I’m working on it Mom."
~~~
Michael got home that night and did a few web searches. He printed out some lists, then went grocery shopping. The cleaning lady had come the day before, but he cleaned again anyway. He cleared out three of his drawers, and then made space in his closet. He got into bed, but he couldn’t fall asleep for a few hours. He never slept well when Miranda wasn’t there.
~~~
Mitch and Emily walked into their house kissing. "Shh!" he giggled as Emily closed the front door loudly and unbuttoned his coat. "It’s after twelve."
"I know—isn’t old age terrible?" she said as she pulled him up the stairs. "Because if we were any younger, I’d make you stay out much, much later."
He kissed her at the top of the stairs, and backed her into the wall. "Old age, huh? I think you’re just trying to get me to prove myself, right here."
"Uh huh," Emily laughed. "Let’s try to picture what that would look like if Miranda or Zainab walked downstairs."
Mitch smiled as he kissed her. "They’re big girls, and Michael at least seems pretty adventurous—"
"Eww!" Emily laughed as she hit his chest. "Fine, what if Hellie walked down?"
"Hellie," Mitch said, turning to climb up the stairs. Emily followed him to their daughter’s room. Mitch tiptoed until he saw her lying asleep in her bed. He crouched down and stroked her cheek. She was so deeply asleep that she didn’t rouse. "Daddy’s home," Mitch whispered, before he kissed her on the forehead.
He came out into the hallway. "I am home," he said before he kissed Emily. "You have to let me stay."
Let's Move On (The New Pioneers Book 4) Page 14