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The Night that Changed Everything

Page 17

by Anne McAllister


  Right. Especially since she couldn’t even deal with her own.

  “And I didn’t expect you to drop everything and fly halfway across the world just for Ruud and his leg,” Mona added. “Not that I’m sorry you did,” she added cheerfully, “because we both know Ruud behaves better for you than for me. And he and Dirk and Grace have missed you terribly. But,” Mona added, “I did think you had more pressing things in your own life …” And her perfectly plucked brows lifted in silent query.

  Edie knew exactly what they were asking. And she had no intention of answering.

  “I was glad to come,” she said firmly. “I’ve missed you—all of you. Where’s Ruud? I’m so eager to see them.”

  And even more eager not to be subjected to more questions. She must have convinced Mona that she really was thrilled to be here because after directing the houseboy to put suitcases in her room, she beckoned to her daughter to follow.

  “I didn’t tell any of them you were coming,” she said. “I wanted them to be surprised.”

  They were surprised, and as thrilled as Mona had promised they would be. Ruud’s face lit up. Dirk flung himself at her. And Grace gave her a hug and said, “I’m sooo glad you’re here.”

  Edie assured them she was glad, too. And, of course, they believed her. Why shouldn’t they? They had been the focus of her life since she’d come home after Ben’s death. They had no reason to think anything was different now.

  And, really, it wasn’t different, was it?

  Certainly when she’d announced she was leaving, Nick had done nothing to stop her. True, he’d raised his eyebrows. But ultimately he’d just shrugged.

  “You do what you have to do,” he’d told her.

  Short of killing him, which was seriously tempting, she did what she had to do: she left. She moved on.

  She knew that if she stayed, she wouldn’t be able to do that. She’d be stuck wanting what she couldn’t have. And she wasn’t going to settle for the affair he was willing to allow her.

  No, damn it. It wouldn’t be easy, but she was going to forget him.

  Forget her!

  It should have been a mantra, Nick’s mind repeated it so often. He felt sometimes as if the words were emblazoned on the insides of his eyelids. They weren’t, of course.

  There wasn’t room. That was where all the images of Edie resided—the ones that plagued him every time he closed his eyes.

  There was Edie in the swimming pool, her dark hair streaming, her eyes alight with mischief. There was Edie in the adobe, prowling, poking, looking wistful, reminiscing. There was Edie tossing a salad, Edie across the dinner table, Edie at the Biltmore, smiling at him over her wineglass, offering him a bite of her pasta. There were visions of Edie romping with Roy, Edie feeding Gerald, Edie standing on the parapet at Mont Chamion, looking out over the fairy lights. There was Edie dancing barefoot. Edie in his arms.

  Edie in bed.

  So many, many memories of Edie in his bed. In her bed. Dear God, he couldn’t get them out of his mind.

  The memories should have been enough. More than enough. He should have had his fill of her by now, be ready to move on.

  But he hadn’t. He wasn’t.

  And though he’d gone to the adobe to work the afternoon she’d left the house, he felt as if she were with him, humming in the other room, just out of sight. He couldn’t believe she was getting on an airplane, going to Thailand, for heaven’s sake!

  It was stupid! Insane!

  What they’d had together was amazing, marvelous. Unlike anything he’d ever had before with any woman—except for Amy.

  No … not even Amy had been like Edie. No one was like Edie. No one made him laugh the way she did. No one was quite as enchanting. No one teased and tempted and at the same time gave so unstintingly of herself.

  She had made him happy. And he obviously had made her happy because she claimed to have fallen in love with him.

  And yet the stubborn woman threw it all away.

  Fine, he told himself angrily. So be it.

  If he’d got over Amy’s death, he could certainly get over Edie walking out. He didn’t need her. He didn’t want her. Permanence, commitment—love!—was the last thing he wanted!

  So he’d forget her. He’d finish up the adobe because it was his job—and he’d never mix business and pleasure again.

  Never.

  “Miss? There is a gentleman …” Malee, the housekeeper, opened the door a crack to the room Edie was using for an office. She smiled apologetically when Edie looked up, startled.

  “A gentleman?” Edie felt the bottom drop out of her stomach at the same time hope went winging heavenward. She shut her eyes. Thank God. “Show him in,” she said, wiping damp palms on the sides of her linen trousers as she stood up and tried to compose herself.

  It had been a week. She’d almost given up hope. She took a deep breath as Malee pushed the door open wider and stepped back.

  Kyle Robbins walked into the room. “Edie!” The trademark gorgeous Robbins grin lit his face.

  Edie felt the light go out of hers. “Kyle,” she said dully. Her stomach felt like lead.

  He raised his brows as he read her body language. “Good to see you, too,” he said with obvious irony.

  “I—wasn’t expecting you.” Edie hoped she didn’t come down too hard on the “you” part of that sentence. “What are you doing here?” she demanded. “If Mona put you up to this—”

  “Mona invited me,” he said, “to go over a script with her. We’re doing a film together next month. You know that,” he reminded her. “You set up this meeting.” Which, now that Edie thought about it, was the absolute truth.

  Mona habitually asked to spend a week or so going over a script with the other actors she’d be working with. Kyle was one of those actors. And now that he mentioned it, Edie did vaguely remember setting up this meeting.

  But she’d done it when her every thought had been revolving around Nick. And it was testimony to how little Kyle mattered anymore that the emails she’d exchanged with him had barely even registered on her radar.

  “I forgot,” she said, shrugging lamely.

  Kyle grimaced wryly. “Which pretty much shows me where I stand.”

  “Yes,” Edie said frankly.

  He nodded. “I’m sorry. Many years too late. I was an idiot. I handled things badly.”

  “You were unfaithful,” Edie corrected.

  He winced, but then he nodded. “Like I said, I was a fool. But—” he sighed “—Jake is the one thing about my marriage I don’t regret.”

  And he turned and through the doorway, Edie could see that Kyle hadn’t come alone. Out in the other room a young boy sat on the sofa. The baby Serena had been expecting, the reason Kyle had broken off his relationship with Edie.

  “If I’d known you were here, I would never have—”

  But Edie shook her head. “I’d like to meet him,” she said quite honestly.

  Kyle’s eyes lit up. “He’s a great kid. You’ll love him. Maybe you and I—”

  “No,” Edie said.

  But she would like to meet Jake. And she imagined Jake would like to meet the twins. If he was going to be around for a week or so, they could have a good time—and she could keep even busier.

  She needed to stay busy—because Nick wasn’t coming after her. She’d hoped. But he’d had a week. If it were going to happen, it would have happened by now.

  She needed to face facts, needed to face the truth.

  She might love Nick Savas fervently and foolishly, but however much she might wish it was otherwise, Nick wasn’t willing—or wasn’t able—to return her love.

  She wasn’t coming back.

  He’d thought she would. Even though he’d told himself to forget her, that she didn’t matter, that he was better off without her, deep down somewhere inside him, Nick couldn’t quite manage to convince himself.

  So he did the next best thing. He told himself she’d realize she was wrong,
that she was throwing away something good—and she’d come back.

  He would be gracious about it. He wouldn’t say, “I told you so,” even if he had. He wouldn’t point out how foolish she’d been to run or how much time she’d wasted that they could have been spending together.

  He’d just smile and hold out his arms to her. He’d catch her up in an embrace and carry her off to bed and show her what she’d been missing.

  Every time he thought about doing that, he smiled.

  It was pretty much the only time he smiled all day. He spent almost every waking hour at the adobe working his tail off. He might as well. He had nothing else to do with his waking hours. And the hours he was supposed to be sleeping—well, he wasn’t doing much of that. He might as well have been working then, too.

  When she came back, he’d show her how much he’d accomplished. She’d love it. She’d smile and tell him about growing up there. She’d make him see it in his mind’s eye. But then every day that she didn’t come back, his hopes faded a little bit more.

  And then a week after she left, he was dragging himself back, grim and exhausted, to Mona’s house one evening, when Roy ran ahead, barking.

  Nick came around the corner of the garage and saw a strange car in the driveway. The trunk lid was up. The front door was open.

  He stopped and stared. Hope soared.

  Then he started to grin, and scrubbed eagerly at his filthy face with the T-shirt slung round his neck. He began to sprint toward the door—and skidded to a halt as a woman came out of it.

  “Rhiannon?”

  It was, with Roy bouncing eagerly around her. Edie’s sister paid Roy no attention at all. She was staring at Nick, equally stunned.

  “Where’s Edie?” she demanded.

  “In Thailand.”

  Rhiannon frowned. “In Thailand? Why? Who are you?”

  She didn’t know? He guessed he shouldn’t be surprised. “Nick Savas. We met at my cousin’s wedding. What are you doing here?”

  Whatever answer he might have thought he was expecting, he wasn’t expecting the one he got. She burst into tears.

  “I need Edie!” Great noisy sobs erupted and her face grew blotchy and red. It seemed far too theatrical to be real, but a moment’s reflection told him that she couldn’t possibly be doing this on purpose. These sorts of sobs made her far too ugly.

  “For God’s sake, Rhiannon,” he said, caught halfway between wanting to pat her on the back and wanting to run in the other direction. “Stop that! What’s wrong?”

  She gulped, started to speak. Then started crying again and he had to wait for her to stop to get an answer at last. “Andrew’s b-broken our en-g-gagement!” And, of course, the tears started up again.

  Nick shifted from one foot to the other. He debated offering her his filthy T-shirt to mop up her face, then decided against it. “I’m sure he didn’t mean it,” he said awkwardly, not sure at all.

  “H-he did!” Rhiannon dug in the pockets of her jeans and came up with a handkerchief that looked as if it had seen her through earlier bouts of tears. “And—and I deserve it. It’s all … all my f-fault!”

  Now that Nick could believe.

  “I was trying to make him jealous. He spends so much time swimming! Matt doesn’t mean anything!”

  Uh-oh.

  “He’s just a f-friend. But Andrew got the wrong idea. Edie s-says I don’t think Andrew has feelings.”

  He could believe that, too. “Go inside,” he ordered her. “I’ll bring in your cases, then make you a cup of tea.”

  Rhiannon managed a watery smile. “A cup of tea?”

  He shrugged, feeling stupid and awkward.

  But she nodded and sniffed. “Tea would b-be good. Edie makes me tea. You’re like Edie.”

  He wasn’t, God knew. On the other hand, it might be the biggest compliment he’d ever received.

  He brought in her cases, put on the kettle, then went upstairs, scrubbed his face and pulled a clean shirt over his head. He wished she’d go away, and yet at the same time, he was glad she was here. She was a link to her sister, even if she obviously hadn’t spoken to Edie in days.

  When he came back downstairs, Rhiannon was coming out of the powder room. She’d washed her face, too, but it was still blotchy and her eyes were bloodshot.

  “I don’t know what to do.” She trailed after him into the kitchen, like a lost soul. “What should I do?”

  Nick made tea and thrust the mug into her hand. “Drink this.”

  She took a sip. Then, clutching the mug as if it were a life preserver, Rhiannon carried it to the sofa and curled up in one corner. “Edie would know what to do.” She sobbed into her tea mug, then lifted her gaze and fixed it on Nick. “What should I do?”

  As if he were some love-and-marriage guru. As if he were Edie. What would Edie do?

  He asked, “Where is Andrew?”

  “Here.”

  Nick looked around, wondering if somehow he hadn’t noticed Andrew in the room. “Where’s here?”

  “At home. His parents live about a mile from here. He’s with th-them.” She was sobbing again. “He won’t talk to me.”

  “Have you tried?”

  “N-no.”

  “Well, then—”

  “He says h-he’s done. That he’s getting a new girlfriend! He says he hates me.”

  That was the first thing that sounded promising. “He doesn’t,” Nick said firmly. “Go talk to him.”

  “But—”

  “Listen.” Nick sat down beside her on the couch and leaned toward her, absolutely earnest. “If Andrew says he hates you, he’s trying not to love you. He’s not there yet.”

  Rhiannon looked at him, eyes wide. She sniffed. Twice. “Are you s-sure?”

  Was he? What the hell did he know about love?

  A lot, came the wholly unexpected answer. He’d been in love once. He was in love now—with Edie.

  The recognition hit him like a fist in the gut.

  “But what if he has a new girlfriend?” Rhiannon was demanding.

  It didn’t matter. Just like it hadn’t mattered that Derek Whats His Name had tried to muscle into Edie’s life. “What if he does?” Nick challenged her. “Are you just going to sit back and let her have him?”

  “I—” She stopped and looked at him helplessly.

  “You can,” Nick said, “if he doesn’t matter to you. Or if you can pretend he doesn’t matter.” He let the words sink in. “Or—” his eyes bored into hers “—you can take a risk.”

  Take a risk. Take a risk. Take a risk. The words pounded inside his head.

  Rhiannon didn’t answer. She stared at him. Then she stared into the mug of tea. Nick didn’t care what she did. The words were beating a tattoo in his brain.

  Then Rhiannon lifted her gaze and met his. “I’m going to take the risk.”

  Her words dropped like stones in a quiet pool. Nick could almost see the ripples. Certainly he could feel them.

  She didn’t finish her tea. She put the mug on the counter, ran a brush through her hair, dabbed her cheeks dry again, but at the last minute grabbed a tissue box to take with her.

  “Just in case” she told Nick who was still sitting on the couch, her words—a reply to his own challenge—still echoing in his head.

  She paused beside him, then bent to kiss his cheek. “Thank you,” she said. “I hope you’re right.”

  Nick watched her go. As soon as she was out the door, he picked up his phone and called the airline, hoping to God that he was right, too.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE problem with running away when you were an adult was that, eventually, you had to go home.

  Edie knew that. She accepted it. She’d just hoped she would have done a better job of putting Nick behind her before she did so.

  God knew she’d tried. She’d thrown herself with a vengeance into life in Thailand. Besides doing her regular work for Mona, she’d spent vast amounts of time with the twins and Grace. And because he w
as there, and he really didn’t matter to her now, she even found herself going out with Kyle and his son, Jake.

  But however much time she spent with them all, it wasn’t enough.

  No matter where she was, no matter what she was doing, Nick was always with her.

  She wouldn’t be able to move on until she’d gone home and faced him—or at least faced the renovation of the adobe he’d left behind. That might not work, either. But since Mona’s film was finished and they were all leaving the country, it was the only hope she had.

  “You don’t have to go home,” Kyle told her when she brought him his boarding passes that afternoon. He and Jake were going to the Caribbean for a couple of weeks before Kyle started work with Mona on the new film. Now he was sitting in Mona’s garden watching Jake roughhouse with Dirk. But after tucking the boarding passes into his pocket, he turned to her with a brilliant smile and said, “Tear yours up. Come with us.”

  Edie shook her head. “Thanks, but I can’t.”

  “You’re not happy,” Kyle pointed out. That had been obvious to everyone, though Edie had done her best to pretend.

  Now she shrugged. “So I should bring my unhappiness to you?” She laughed a little ruefully. “Thanks, but I don’t think so.”

  “I could make you happy,” Kyle said with his customary confidence. But then his grin faded a little and he said, “I could try, Edie.”

  “Kyle—”

  “I know you said forget it. But we were good together once—until I screwed it up. I was a fool.” He shook his head. “I’ll always regret that.”

  “But you don’t regret Jake.”

  And he turned his gaze to watch his son playing with the twins. For a long moment he watched, and then he turned back to her. “No,” he said quietly. “I don’t regret that.”

  They both stood silently then, and Edie wondered if she was being a fool, too, throwing away a chance at some sort of happiness just because it wasn’t with the man she really wanted?

  But there was only one answer to that.

  “Thank you,” she said, looking up into his eyes, smiling and shaking her head. “But I can’t. I will always be your friend, but I don’t love you.”

 

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