On the end of the island counter was a large stone bowl, deep and long, filled with bananas, apples, and kiwi fruits. Next to that was a piece of paper and a pencil, which Nick saw was the start of her shopping list. It seemed unusually intimate to see such mundane and everyday items as dish soap, creamer, and a dozen eggs.
On the other side of the sink sat a beautiful potted hibiscus flower with delicate white-tinged purple leaves that was in full bloom. The vibrant splash of tropical color against the muted earth tones and dark wood throughout the house touched his heart. It struck him that the flower was just like Shannon in his life—a touch of color in an otherwise bland and neutral existence. With his throat suddenly tightened by emotion, Nick moved swiftly to the refrigerator to grab the water, which he now desperately needed.
After grabbing a bottle and taking a quick swig to relive the choking dryness in his throat brought on by a flood of emotions he hadn’t seen coming, Nick hurried back into the living room to hand Shannon the refreshing cool water. Like him, she immediately ripped off the cap and took a long pull of the ice-cold fluid.
Not quite knowing what to do but deciding that something was better than nothing, Nick moved over to a chair situated next to the sofa where Shannon rested silently. Sitting down and still drinking from his water bottle, Nick surveyed her with intense interest. She seemed relaxed, and though everyone was calm, he knew that the time was fast approaching for them to speak beyond generalities and inquiries into her condition.
Shannon beat him to it, of course, because after all, as a woman, it was her prerogative to shake things up and do the unexpected.
“After the way we parted, I never imagined that one day you and I would quite literally stumble upon one another ever again. I’ve known your sister, Jules, for several years and, honestly, until this afternoon, I never made the connection. She talked about her brother, but usually in abstract terms, and mostly we talked about Dominic and our work together.”
“Well, it’s good to know we can both be surprised,” Nick said with a self-deprecating laugh. “Honestly, Shannon, I’ve never been so flummoxed in my whole life, and yes, I did just use the word flummoxed in a sentence.”
She had to laugh at that even though she knew softening her attitude towards him even an iota was inviting danger, but the simple truth was this was the Nick she remembered. Clever, quick witted, funny. Oh yeah, and seriously hot-looking and very, very good for her ego because he watched her with a searing intensity that rocketed happiness to her soul. That much, it seemed, had not changed, for regardless of how they parted, he was still the only human being who had ever seen so effortlessly into her most secret thoughts and desires.
It was as if he could read her every word and thought, and while this should probably bother her, she knew that instead she found the connection, unbroken by time and circumstances, deeply, deeply moving.
“Shannon, why don’t we acknowledge the elephant in the room?” he queried softly. “I can see by the look on your face and the way you’d obviously like me to jump off a cliff that you are none too pleased that we have, in fact, run into each other.”
Turning his body towards her so that they were less than a foot apart, he continued, “What I say next is more important than anything that came before, and hopefully you’ll hear what I’m trying to say even through a well-deserved case of suspicion.”
That last comment certainly got her eyes flying directly to his, which was what he wanted, and once he had her firmly in his view, with all the sincerity that he could muster, something that was right on the edge of a cry from his soul, he simply looked into her eyes and said, “What I did was wrong. The words I said to you were not how I truly felt. None of what took place after I’d been called back to New York was right. It was all wrong. Everything. Every stupid word in that wretched note I left for you. I was a complete coward for having done that, by the way. And every heartless thing that came out of my foolish mouth that last time we spoke contained not so much as an iota of truth. There’s so much more, and I hope you’ll give me a chance to explain, but nothing else is more important than this…I’ve missed you, Shannon.”
His eyes and the message they sent were riveting, and he seemed so moved and genuine in what he was saying, but at the same time the thought screaming through Shannon’s head was he missed me? Really, he missed me? He said that as if my absence from his life was somehow my decision. As if I had gone off and left him. As if he had the right to miss me because I was the one who’d gone away. She wanted to strangle him in that moment.
Something long denied snapped inside her, and not being able to stop herself, she bit out at him, “You missed me?” a bit more hysterically than she’d intended. “That’s what you have to say? You missed me?”
All the hurt and pain that had visited her over the past eight years piled into her lap as a reminder of what he had put her through. She turned on him with anger blazing in her eyes, “Explain to me exactly how you could miss something that you voluntarily threw away?”
Whatever Nick expected, it certainly wasn’t that. He had to hand it to her; she never was one to dance around the subject. Whatever she felt, you knew about it because she sure as hell was going to let you know. Any fool who took her sexy good looks, tousled blonde hair, expressive turquoise eyes, and sweet-as-hell bowtie lips for granted and thought that she was an empty, airheaded female was in for a huge surprise. This little lady really did pack quite a wallop.
Taking a deep breath then heaving a bottomless sigh, Nick was sure there was more to come, and there was.
“I’m glad for all your help today, Nick, and I thank you for your assistance,” she thundered in a prissy, prim, mother-superior voice as she tried to look down her nose at him.
“But don’t think for a second that accepting your assistance in a crisis means that I’ve forgotten your cruelty when we parted. You made your contempt for me and our relationship quite plain, quite clear. And, thank you very much, that’s not something I’m likely to forget.”
The unladylike snort of disbelief that followed pretty much summed up what she thought of his admission. Shaking her head in disbelief she muttered, “You missed me? Cut me a break.”
“Shannon, we clearly need to talk. I understand your anger and your disappointment in the way I behaved. Hell, sweetheart, if I’m being honest, I’m angry and disappointed in the way I behaved towards you, too. You deserved better. We deserved more, and I grant you that I didn’t handle myself or the situation I found myself in very well.”
Sitting back some in his chair to lessen the intensity of a conversation that had the potential to get fiery, emotional, and out of control if they weren’t both careful, Nick opted for calm sincerity, hoping that right here and right now he could defuse some of her anger and disillusionment. Before he could get another word out in his defense, she erupted in an emotional tirade that shut him up pretty damn quick.
“You want honesty, Nick? Really? That’s what you want? Let me give you a little of my honesty,” she spat out in a blazing blow-by-blow account of how devastated she’d been by his denial of their love affair.
“You were the sun, the moon, and the stars to me, and while I realize that’s a bunch of romantic foolishness, it’s how I felt. I will grant you that I’m responsible for my own feelings, but I have also had to totally own the fact that, while you were my universe I was your…well, I don’t even know what.”
She was mad, that was clear. He had to let her be mad, and he had to allow her to vent on him, because after all, it was his actions that brought all this about. He had decided for her, made conclusions about what was best for her future, when he had shut down their relationship. Nick knew he was an arrogant fool—what guy wasn’t? But at the time what he had done was absolutely necessary. She was right about her romantic notions, but not in a bad way. He loved that she saw him in starry-eyed terms. In his mind, that actually gave them hope for the future.
Unleashing the full measure of he
r glaring turquoise eyes on him, he marveled for just a second at how fiery that icy scowl actually was. God, she was magnificent when she was worked up. The fringes of those frosty orbs were dancing with deep golden sparks of emotion that accentuated the changing cast and hue of her unusual-colored eyes. They told a story, and as he watched her get ready to lay into him verbally, he also caught and marked each emotion as it played on her face and tucked those impressions away for later. Now was certainly not the time to remind her that he could read her like a book. Those eyes of hers were like a study guide above a mouth so shockingly sensual that even when she tried to appear stern and serious she still just looked lush and begging for his attention.
He also knew from the tone of her voice and the way she pulled herself in so rigidly as to give the word uptight new meaning, that he had just stumbled into the hornet’s nest at the heart of their predicament.
“And let’s not forget that you had a secret fiancée the entire time you were sleeping in my bed, so don’t talk to me about honesty,” Shannon hurled at him.
There it was. This was the issue he had to face truthfully and completely for her to have the assurance that she could trust him if there was any hope of them moving forward. She’d obviously done her research if she knew about his ill-fated engagement, because it was barely public knowledge at the time of their final encounter.
Getting to his feet, Nick moved away from the sofa towards the windows across from the fireplace. If they were going to get into this, he felt a little distance between them might be in order. Well, it was now or never… Just go for it, he thought. That’s all he could do—stop dancing around and just tell her the truth.
Acknowledging her account of what had happened with a small nod, he went for broke. “What you’re referring to is only the tent poles of the story, Shannon. Truth is, there’s so much more. I never should have allowed the engagement to gather oxygen in the first place. I wasn’t in my right mind. There were literally thousands of people’s lives dependent on the company. The engagement was part of a business deal my grandfather had made with one of his longtime cronies. Neither of us had even known about it until my grandfather’s will was read. Believe me when I tell you we were both desperate to find a way out. It was just one wrong thing in a bigger picture of a thousand wrong things. I was not secretly engaged! We were pawns in a business deal and that was all, no matter what the press might have been reporting at the time.”
He turned away from her, and while staring blindly at the vista outside, he let the whole story come flowing out. She deserved this much at least. Deserved to know the entire situation and hopefully see what a god-awful mess it had all been.
“When I came back from Africa, everything changed in a heartbeat. It didn’t matter what I wanted. When my grandfather died, everything was replaced with a crushing responsibility that left absolutely no room for anything but duty and obligation.” Whispering, remembering those confusing days when he battled with his needs and desires against the cold, hard reality facing him, Nick let the words pour out.
“You see, it wasn’t just about me, and it wasn’t just about taking care of my mom and sister. That was almost nothing compared to the thousands of employees around the globe whose livelihoods and futures rested in my hands. So many people were counting on me to do whatever was necessary to keep things moving forward.”
The shadows in the room were deepening as the sun continued to set on what had started off as a brilliantly beautiful Southern California Saturday. The uncomfortable energy swirling through him with this line of thought moved Nick even closer to the windows, which looked toward the setting sun.
Shrugging away the discomfort, Nick continued on. “The very idea of marriage at that time was a joke and nothing more. Believe me when I tell you she was no more thrilled about being sold off to the highest bidder than I was.”
With a bitter laugh, he added, “We were both completely furious. After the announcement was leaked we never even met together. Although we’d known each other for years, she and I had nothing in common and would probably have never even spoken to one another if left to ourselves. It was a disaster waiting to happen.”
Nick remembered with detailed specificity the horror he’d felt as he came to accept that his life, at that time anyway, was not his own. Shrugging with acknowledgement that it had all been an out-of-control disaster, the words kept on coming. “And then I did what any self-respecting guy whose life was careening out of control does. I started drinking. At first just to blur the edges, but within weeks, anesthetizing myself with alcohol was like a full-time job,” he said in a tone dripping with self-loathing and regret.
“Six weeks later, Jules and Ned stepped in right quick and I got it together, simply took control of my life and choices. I didn’t care about the business deal that had led to all of it and didn’t like the direction the company had been going. Once I hit bottom, so to speak, the only way out really and truly was up. I’d lost myself for a time, but after that it was all my way or the highway. If I had no choice but to be the head of a huge global behemoth, then it was going to be on my terms.”
Moving from the window and turning back towards her he continued. “I’d been asked to sacrifice everything, and I did, for the greater good, because that was the bullshit I was telling myself then. As I took control, the first step was to end that sham of an engagement and then focus like a laser on making Barrett a company that at least didn’t turn my stomach. And through all of that, over all the years to come, I knew in my heart then just like now that there is no light without you. You are my light, Shannon.”
From her spot across the room, Shannon thought the fading light made him look vulnerable and for just a second felt compelled to concede that maybe she hadn’t been the only one confused and hurting. Long moments of silence seesawed back and forth between them as she recalled the crushing pain she’d felt upon finding out about his real life,
She realized that while she didn’t condone his actions and the horrible way he’d treated her, she’d only ever focused on her part of the story. She never considered that a different reality might have been his. Something totally opposite of the one she’d had festering in her imagination all these years.
In her mind’s eye, out of a feeling of self-preservation, she had formed an opinion of him as a self-involved rich kid who wanted money and position far more than he wanted her. In Shannon’s narrative, he had simply chosen wealth over her. She had never considered that what he might have chosen was to sacrifice himself in order to spare her from something ugly that only he understood.
The thought warmed her more than it should, and she was shocked when a flush of sensual heat started in the balls of her feet, moving in intensifying waves up her body till it bloomed on her cheeks as her body shrugged off years of hibernation and quickened with a longing so strong it made her dizzy.
Nick was nearly poleaxed by her surprising response to his words as he watched in utter fascination while a pretty pink blush moved up her neck to spread across her face.
Before he could get control of himself, he reached out and, for effect, gently traced his fingertips around her pursed lips. He remembered in exquisite detail what it had been like to taste those lips, because long, intense, sultry kissing had been their secret guilty pleasure.
Memories flooded his mind. They had danced around each other when first they met, and by the time there was any physical contact, they had already become deeply involved emotionally. For months they discreetly fed the growing attachment each felt for the other.
During their time together, Nick was the de facto “go-to guy” in all situations where decisions were needed, something that seemed to occur not just daily but practically by the hour. Shannon hired on as a translator, where her intuitive abilities that made her highly attuned to nuances, body language, inflection, and regional eccentricities, made her skills with language highly valuable. Like joined puzzle pieces, the two of them complimented the other. Where
Nick went, so did Shannon. The months sped by as they worked together during the days while becoming closer and closer when they retreated to their project compound after hours. While thought of as a couple, the circumstances did not allow for anything as formal as a date. Nor did it allow for the usual boy-meets-girl mating ritual. Hell, it wasn’t like they could go for a drive and park in some lover’s lane, making out like college kids do. Instead they’d nurtured a bond that built slowly by being thrust together day by day, and then quietly and discreetly, when they could, they let that closeness lead to a growing intimacy.
Truth was, she had been completely inexperienced, and he had acted the way any vigorous twenty-five-year-old guy would, taking her on an erotic adventure that, judging by the way the temperature in the room seemed to go up when they were together, she could not forget any more than he could.
What started with simple hand-holding and quiet touches led to a treasure of stolen kisses that deepened the physical attraction. By the time they actually became more intimate, the two had taken the joining of lips in a simple kiss to a sensuous feast for the senses.
Kissing her had been almost sacred. During the long, lonely years they’d been apart, Nick had preferred to conduct his liaisons with a minimum of extraneous effort on his part. In his mind, kissing was incredibly personal, and personal did not have a place in his life ever since that day when he had savaged the love he’d shared with Shannon and destroyed himself in her eyes forever.
Yeah, he’d had sex and at times lots of it, but his emotions were walled off. He never gave more of himself than was necessary to effect immediate sexual gratification. His libido was one thing. His heart, another.
Love Redone Page 8