She meant it as a joke, but he said, “I . . . can’t deny it. There, I said it. Sort of said it. Too much too soon?”
“No,” she murmured.
“Yeah, but what about the guy code—I’m supposed to be all sorts of cool and aloof, keep you guessing and all that. That’s what keeps women interested, right?”
“What keeps me interested is your interest in you and me. And I adore your honesty.”
To Emmie’s surprise, Graham suddenly looked uncomfortable. “Okay, about that . . .”
“What?”
“I should be honest with you about everything, then. Including this.”
And he reached over to the end table for his cell phone. He pushed a couple of buttons and then turned the screen toward Emmie. She found herself looking at a list of incoming calls. Most of them were from Juliet, all within the past several days. Graham scrolled and showed it to her again. More from Juliet, some in blocks of three or four . . . or more.
“What’s that all about?”
“She won’t leave me alone is what it’s all about. I don’t know what to do with her.”
Emmie was crushed. She had been desperately hoping that Graham had been able to write her off on Christmas Eve, or soon after that. But it seemed that Juliet was more tenacious than either one of them had expected.
“She says she needs me,” Graham said quietly. Emmie wasn’t sure what to think. She was glad that he had told her the truth, but she was truly upset that Juliet wasn’t about to let him move on. She must have looked grave, because he whispered reassuringly, “Hey, what did I tell you? I’m done with her.”
“But she’s not done with you.” Emmie pursed her lips. “Think she’s going to call tonight? It is a holiday, after all. She seems to like interrupting special occasions.”
“Don’t even think it! I don’t want to deal with her tonight. Or any night, for that matter. I just want her to go away.”
“Unfortunately, you’d probably have to be really, really cruel to her before she gets the message. But you’re not like that—and I don’t want you to be like that—so, for now, at least, you’re pretty much stuck.”
“Great.” Graham rubbed his eyes wearily.
“Lucky you’ve got a really understanding girlfrie—” Emmie swallowed the word, but not before Graham seized on it with a wicked grin.
“Did you just call yourself my girlfreh?”
Emmie blushed and looked down at her hands fidgeting in her lap. “Maybe it was . . . similar to your saying you were half in lo’ with me.”
“Touché. So . . .” he wheedled, ducking his head and trying to meet her downcast eyes, “are you my girlfreh?”
“How could I not be, when you half lo’ me?”
He tipped her chin up till she was looking him in the eye. “Oh, I’m thinking it’s way more than half by now.”
Emmie felt tingly down to the tips of her toes. “Me, too,” she whispered, and sought out the warmth of his lips again before extricating herself, with reluctance, from Graham’s arms. “You need to sleep,” she said.
“So do you. You shouldn’t go out now. Stay here. Take the bed; I’ll stay on the couch,” he added.
“No way,” she said as she stood up. “I’d sleepwalk, no matter what promises I made to myself, and then you sure would have some ’splainin’ to do to your daughter in the mor—” And then Graham’s cell phone rang. “Your sister calling to wish you a Happy New Year?” she asked. She hoped.
Graham looked at the screen and got that familiar frown on his face. But he answered. “Hello,” he said coldly, not looking at Emmie. She moved to get her coat, but he reached out a hand to stop her. “Happy New Year to you, too,” he said into the phone. “Why are you calling me at this hour? . . . Yes, I know most people are awake on New Year’s, but . . .”
She could faintly hear Juliet’s babble. Emmie wondered how long she was going to keep this up, and if Juliet would end up in a rubber room sooner or later. If she didn’t, Emmie sure was going to.
Graham continued, still coldly, “Oh, I see.” Another pause. He glanced at Emmie.
“Be strong!” Emmie mouthed silently, putting on a tough look and clenching her fist.
Graham smiled at her and seemed to gain confidence from her encouragement. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” he said brusquely, “but there’s really nothing much I can do from here. So good luck with that, Juliet. Happy New Year again.” And he clicked off.
“What did she have to say this time?” Emmie asked, not sure she wanted to know.
“Oh, same old, same old. Nothing new. Oh, yeah—and that she was going to stick her head in the oven.”
Emmie gasped. “Seriously? What are you going to do?”
“Kiss you good night, I hope.”
“But—”
Graham smiled again and shook his head.
“What’s so darn funny? Juliet gassing herself is no laughing . . .” She trailed off and thought a moment. Then she said, “Oh.” Graham nodded encouragingly. “Electric oven?”
“We have a winner.”
Emmie sighed and rubbed her forehead. “She’s exhausting.”
The next several, Graham-less days were torture for Emmie. When he finally called on Sunday evening, from thirty miles out of town, she was relieved that she could finally stop pacing the proverbial widow’s walk; he was in the vicinity. Almost the first words out of Graham’s mouth were, “When can I see you?” He had really missed her! She was thrilled that she hadn’t been the only one pining. She wanted to say, “Right now!” but instead, she said, calmly, “Well, you need to unpack, get settled, and I know you’ve got jobs to check on here—”
“They can wait.”
“You know they can’t. Plus you need to ask Annamaria to babysit, so why don’t we say, um, Tuesday or Wednesday?”
He jumped on “Tuesday” immediately. Sooner rather than later, evidently. The impatience in his voice was like an aphrodisiac. Not that she needed one.
So Tuesday it was. That was forty-eight hours away. How the hell was she supposed to get ready in only forty-eight hours? she thought in a panic. She had gone back and forth repeatedly while he was out of town—be casual, just hang out, watch TV, and let nature take its course? Or choreograph the evening to within an inch of its life? Avery’s and Trish’s lectures echoed in her head, and in the end, she caved and decided to make the night special.
She hoped her plan wasn’t too cheesy, or too blatant. But then again, blatant was pretty much the point.
At eight o’clock, as ready as she’d ever be, she paced back and forth in the darkened living room. Finally she saw headlights sweep across the front windows, and she ran to get ready. Places, everyone, she said to herself.
When Graham rang the doorbell, she called seductively, “Come in!” and waited. The door didn’t open. He couldn’t hear her. So she had to bellow, not very attractively, “Door’s open!” Graham entered with a smile on his face, which disappeared in an instant. Her happy nerves turned to frightened ones. What if she was freaking him out already? She put on what she hoped was a carefree and sexy smile. “Come on in,” she said over her shoulder. Her voice sounded strangled. She hoped he didn’t notice.
He crossed the living room slowly. “Emmie? What the . . .”
“How was your trip?” Lame, she berated herself, but he wasn’t helping matters, gawping like that. Suddenly she wasn’t sure she had done the right thing. Maybe what she thought was seductive just looked stupid. Say something, for Pete’s sake! she wailed inside.
He stood over her in silence. She looked up at him nervously. Finally he whispered, “Wow.”
“Care to elaborate on that?”
In the same hushed tone, he said, “You look . . . so beautiful.”
Phew! Her confidence returned, she tossed her brushed-out and slightly curled hair and patted the rug beside her in front of the fireplace. “Have a seat.”
He yanked off his leather jacket and tossed it on the sof
a. He was wearing a shirt she especially loved, a form-fitting black knit polo that accentuated his shoulders. He knelt beside her in front of the fire and kissed her so passionately she would have fallen over if she hadn’t been lounging up against the leather ottoman she’d moved in front of the fireplace (exactly as she’d planned), new silky robe loosely tied and falling off one shoulder (exactly as she’d arranged it), revealing just a bit of one of her new lingerie sets, her legs tucked to one side like a 1940s screen siren (exactly as she’d oh-so-carefully positioned them).
Graham sat back and drank in the sight of her, and she loved it. She waved a long, slim stick back and forth in the air—gracefully, she hoped—then offered it to Graham. “Toasted marshmallow?”
“You go ahead.”
Oh cripes, how do you eat a toasted marshmallow seductively? she wondered. And why hadn’t she figured this part of her plan out beforehand? Well, she was just going to have to wing it. She pulled the marshmallow off the stick with what she hoped was a sultry move and took a bite. Some of it stuck to her bottom lip and she licked it off, slowly (good), then held out the rest of the marshmallow to Graham. As she’d hoped, he ate it out of her fingers (better), then licked them, very, very slowly (perfect).
He eyed her with a devilish look and, after a second holding the gaze, they both burst out laughing.
“This,” he said, settling next to her, still chuckling, “this is great.”
“Not too much, you think?”
“No such thing. And I really liked the hair flip—that was a nice touch.”
“Rita Hayworth. I practiced that specially, till I got it just right.”
He looked her up and down again and said more seriously, “You really do look amazing. I’ve missed you a lot.”
“Mm, I’m glad to hear it. I’ve missed you, too. Another marshmallow?”
“Allow me.” He picked up another stick, stuck a marshmallow on the end, then added a new one to hers.
Emmie rested her head on his shoulder, and they simply sat like that for a little while, content in each other’s company.
“So,” Graham said, licking the last of a marshmallow off his thumb, “do I get to see what else is under that robe?”
“You so totally do.”
He put his stick down on the hearth and turned to her. She froze under his hungry gaze; he was doing that super-hot thing again: giving her his full attention. His eyes locked on hers, he hooked one finger in the satin sash of her robe and pulled. What little coverage it provided vanished as the sides fell away. Graham pushed the robe farther down her shoulder and kissed her bare skin. Emmie forgot to breathe.
As he worked his way from her shoulder toward her neck, he murmured between kisses, “Emmie?”
“Mm?”
“Your marshmallow.”
“What?”
“It’s burning.”
She could relate. She had completely forgotten she even had the stick in her hand, and in a matter of seconds, the marshmallow had gone from white to brown to black to melted and hanging off the stick, and it was giving off a noxious odor. She murmured, “That’s nice,” tossed the entire thing, stick and all, onto the fire, and wrapped her arms around Graham.
She could taste the marshmallow sweetness on his tongue. She held him tighter as his hands moved across her back under her robe. He ran one hand back and forth for a moment, then muttered, “Where’s the damned clasp?”
She laughed again. “In the front, under the daisy.”
“You know,” he mock-complained, between dotting her skin with kisses, “for years you expect the clasp to be in the same place—in the back. All through your youth, you envy the guys who say they can undo it with one hand. And then they go and give you Undoing Bras for Dummies, with the thing in the front.”
“I should have bought one of those breakaway bras with the magnets.”
“They have those now? Why wasn’t I told?” And he popped the latch with a skill that belied his complaints.
Emmie reveled in the sight of Graham reveling in the sight of her, the feeling of his slightly rough palms on her smooth skin. She was hypnotized, yet she managed to have the wherewithal to start tugging on his polo shirt—because the only thing she wanted more than seeing Graham’s shoulders defined by the dark knit fabric was seeing Graham’s shoulders without the dark knit fabric. She pulled the shirt free and tossed it behind her onto the ottoman. Graham eased her all the way to the floor, and she nearly imploded from the feel of his hard chest, the scattering of rough chest hair, tight against her. His touch was already making her ears ring. Or . . . wait . . .
Graham rose to his knees and fumbled in his back pocket. “Shit.”
“Oh, God, if it’s not Sophie, turn it off!” she moaned, still prone and unable to move.
In a panic about his daughter, he hit the green button on his phone without even looking. “Of course it’s Sophie. Who else would it . . . Annamaria? Is something wrong?” He sat back on his heels, his face falling. “Oh.”
Emmie sat up and pulled her robe back over her shoulders. “What is it?” she whispered, just as fearful as Graham that Sophie was hurt or ill.
Graham looked her in the eye and shook his head slightly.
“What—” she started to say, but then had a chilling thought. “No. No way . . .”
“What’s wrong now? I’m—”
“How does she do that?” Emmie groaned. “How does she know?”
Graham turned his head and gazed at the floor while Juliet—because by now Emmie was sure it was her—prattled on. Emmie glanced around her house, certain that Juliet had planted tiny spy cameras; it seemed she always knew the perfect time to interrupt with her latest manufactured crisis. The thought made her take a moment to close up her bra.
“Hang up,” Emmie hissed. “Hang up now! Don’t fall for it!”
But instead, Graham said into the phone, “Are you sure? Juliet, so help me, if you . . . All right, all right. Yes. Fine.” And he hung up. Pocketing the phone again, he dragged his eyes back to Emmie, who was now on a slow boil.
“You’re not going over there,” she said in a low voice. “Are you?”
He sighed and reached past her for his shirt. “I have to.”
“You don’t have to.”
“She sounded really distraught. I think she really might—”
“She always sounds like that.”
“Well, I can’t assume that she’s lying this time.”
“She’s always lying.”
“Emmie, I have to go over there. Just for a few minutes. Otherwise I’d never forgive myself if she . . .” he trailed off. “But I swear this is the last time.”
“I wish I could believe that,” she said as he hastily pulled his shirt on. “But I can’t,” she continued, swallowing her tears of disappointment and anger, forcing the quaver out of her voice. “You know what I think?” she went on, her voice getting stronger. “I think that no matter what you promise me, you will go running to her every time she calls. Every. Time.”
Her unusual tone brought him up short, and he stopped running his fingers through his hair to stare at her apprehensively. “That’s not true—”
“And you know what else? I think you enjoy it.”
“Okay, that is not fair—”
She ignored his defensiveness and plowed on, even though she hated what she was going to say. “You do,” she said bleakly. “It’s obvious to me, even if you can’t see it. You love having her need you. You love saving her. You love the drama of it all, of being able to be the knight on a white horse.”
Graham angrily lurched to his feet and grabbed his jacket off the sofa. “That’s crazy and you know it—”
She stood as well, and her voice rose over his. “You need to have someone need you, and the more helpless the woman, the better. You couldn’t save Kat, but you can save Juliet—” He spun around and glared at her with a fury that made her take a step back. But she couldn’t seem to stop herself—she needed
to get it all out. “I think . . . I think you prefer a damsel in distress over . . . over anyone. Including me. Maybe you aren’t ready for a real relationship yet.”
“Emmie,” he said, deadly calm, “you’re over the line.”
“Graham,” she said carefully, reluctantly, “if you go over there now, don’t bother coming back.”
The pained look on his face would have broken her heart if it wasn’t in the process of splintering already. His voice was ragged when he pleaded, “Don’t . . .”
Emmie bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling, and she forced herself to keep looking him straight in the eye. “I mean it. Don’t come back.”
He stood stock still for a moment, then moved for the door. “I have to check on her. I thought you’d understand.” And with one last agonized look at her, he was gone, slamming the door behind him.
Emmie stood, frozen, in the middle of the living room. Had she just done that? Given Graham an ultimatum? And he had chosen Juliet over her? She put a hand to her mouth, disbelieving. She felt weak and a little sick. What if he really didn’t come back? She collapsed on the couch but sat staring into the shadows the flickering fire cast on the walls. She drew her knees up and knocked her forehead against them. That was . . . so stupid.
And finally the tears came.
Chapter 19
Graham didn’t come back that night, and he hadn’t called since. She knew he was a proud person—not overly so, of course, but enough that he would stay away from her if she told him to. And she had told him to, in no uncertain terms.
So day after day, she woke up in the morning, dragged herself to work, sat at her desk, performed only the most minimal of her duties, then dragged herself home again. She dodged calls from Trish and Avery, but when she knew Trish was out taking Logan to get his cast off, she called her friend’s home phone and left as cheerful a message as she could without saying anything at all. Somehow that worked, because her bestie left her alone after that, evidently accepting her “so busy with work” excuse and assuming she was spending all her time with Graham. Thank goodness she never told Trish or Avery about her . . . er . . . plans for Tuesday night. Otherwise nothing would have kept them from tracking her down to find out how it went. Oh, yeah, she could have told them, it was just like the movies. Titanic, to be precise. Without the nookie—just the iceberg.
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