She was about to grab him and hug him and promise him that it would all work out right in the end, if he would only have a little bit of patience.
But then he said, “So if you love me, why don’t you just say yes, and we can get married?”
It was yet another molar-cracking moment. She forced a level, reasonable tone. “I just think it’s too early for us to get married.”
“Too early? No, it’s not. If you love me, then what’s the problem? You just need to say yes.”
“Roman. Do you love me?”
He blinked—not as though he didn’t love her. More as though it went without saying. “Of course, yeah. I do.”
She didn’t know what she felt. Relief. Frustration. Confusion. Sadness. All twisted up together into something that hurt. He’d just managed to say he loved her without using the actual word. “Why is it so hard for you to say the words I love you, then?”
“They’re just words, Hailey. Words don’t make it real.”
“Maybe they don’t. But words matter. Words are our most effective way to communicate. And if you can’t tell me you love me without my having to drag it out of you, then I don’t understand why you’re so surprised that I keep saying no to us getting married.”
“What does that mean? That you’re never saying yes to me?”
“No, it doesn’t mean that I’m never saying yes. I fully intend to say yes to you.”
“When, then?”
Her patience with him was fraying. “Why does that sound like an ultimatum?”
“Why are you answering my question with another question?”
She exerted considerable effort to keep her voice low and calm. “You’re being unreasonable, impatient and completely unfair.” And she couldn’t just sit there. Frustration with him made her restless. She pushed back her chair and rose. “Is it that you don’t trust me? You think if you don’t ‘firm this thing up—’” she air-quoted “—like a business deal, I’m going to cheat on you or betray you in some other way or just—I don’t know—walk out the door someday?”
He pushed his half-full plate away. “I didn’t say that.”
“Good. And I really hope you’re not thinking it. Because getting married too soon is no way to guarantee anything. Rushing to the altar is not a solution to whatever doubts you’re having. We need time to work out—”
“Slow down. What did you just say? Whatever doubts I’m having?” He stood. “I’m not the one with the doubts. You’re the one who won’t say yes.”
They were facing off across the table—the beautiful table with the pretty candles he’d set out just for her. She really didn’t want a showdown.
Slowly, she sank back to her seat and tried, again, to speak quietly and without heat. “Roman, it’s not about doubts. I don’t have doubts about you.”
He looked down at her bleakly and muttered, “Yeah, you do.”
Did she? At a moment like this, maybe. A little. But she did love him, and she knew they could work it out if he would just stop seeing a ring and a wedding vow as an all-around solution to every single problem. “No, I don’t have doubts. I love you and I have no doubts about you and me as a couple. I think we’re a great match. I only want us to—”
He showed her the hand. “Leave it, okay? Just leave it alone.” He grabbed his plate and carried it over to the compost bin. A stomp of his foot on the pedal and the lid swung up. He dumped in his half-finished meal, stepped to the sink, rinsed the plate and stuck it in the dishwasher. “I’ll be in my office.”
Scooping up the baby monitor from the end of the counter, he disappeared under the arch that led back to his study, leaving her sitting there alone wondering what the hell had just happened.
Chapter Ten
In his office with the door shut, Roman sat at his desk and stared at an Andy Burgess painting on the far wall.
Really, he wondered, what the hell was the matter with him?
He had a real problem here.
The problem was called love, and who did he think he was fooling?
Not Hailey. Uh-uh. Not fooling her. She had his number. He was behaving irrationally, unreasonably and also unfairly. She deserved better.
Too bad he didn’t seem to be able to make himself do better.
How hard could it be to open his damn mouth and just say it.
I love you, Hailey.
He winced at the mere thought of those words coming out of his mouth. Those words didn’t feel like a good thing. They felt like a dangerous thing. A thing he could never step back from.
That wasn’t normal. Was it? For a man to duck away from the very thought of telling his woman how he felt about her, what he wanted from her?
Which was forever, and with love.
But then, really, as for the love, well...
He just wanted to skip to forever and leave all the messy feelings behind. He didn’t do feelings well. She needed to accept that, deal with it.
Move on to the two of them making a life—and that meant it had to be more than just living together.
He was a traditional kind of guy. If people wanted to be together, they should damn well suck it up and make a real commitment. There should be a ring and vows and a contract.
Why couldn’t she see that? He wanted her and she loved him, and they needed to just get the hell on with it.
Which circled him right back to the basic problem.
He was completely in love with her. He would do anything for her.
All the messy, hungry feelings he had for her put him at a complete disadvantage. And that was unacceptable.
What he’d gone through in his two bad marriages was nothing next to this.
What if he lost her?
What if she woke up one day and realized that she didn’t really love him, that she was still in love with her precious Nathan and would be forever? That the dead guy was the one she really wanted, and she was only settling for Roman?
What if she considered him, Roman, a bad bet for forever?
And, come to think of it—was he a bad bet for forever?
The indications were certainly there. He loved her, but somehow he couldn’t get the actual words to come out of his mouth.
And what about patience? Another check in the negative column. He was not a patient man. He’d just walked away from Hailey, left her sitting at the table all alone because she wouldn’t just give in and do things his way.
He knew he ought to get back out there, apologize for being an ass, make it up with her...
Right then, his phone pinged with an IM from one of his partners in the Portland project. He read it and responded. There was a reply to his reply. They started working through a few kinks in the project.
Two hours later, he was still in his office. An hour after that, he stretched out on the leather sofa under the window.
When he woke up, he could hear Theo on the baby monitor, babbling away to himself. Out the window, he saw the gray light of morning.
* * *
As he crossed the kitchen on the way to get Theo, he saw the note Hailey had propped against the fruit bowl on the island.
Left early. Having breakfast with Harper. I’ll be back around five.
Love,
Hailey.
His first thought was that it couldn’t be that bad between them. She’d signed it “Love, Hailey,” hadn’t she?
His second thought?
He was acting like a douche and he needed to make it up to her.
What he didn’t really want to do was talk about it. He had a feeling they would just end up in another argument if they tried that.
So where did that leave them?
Hell if he knew.
Lois showed up right at nine and took over with Theo. That freed Roman to deal with some loose ends on the Portland project unti
l around eleven, when Ma and Patrick arrived back from Seattle.
He knocked off working to welcome them home. They were way too affectionate with each other for a couple well into their fifties if you asked him. And so damn happy. In fact, Ma looked ten years younger than she had when they left, which was quite the feat considering she’d had breast surgery less than two weeks before. Roman decided he could get along with any man who could make Ma that happy. Even Patrick Holland.
They all—Lois and Theo included—had lunch together. The newlyweds were excited to be moving into the house on the beach. “Our first house together,” Ma announced with stars in her eyes.
Patrick had it all set up. Movers would arrive from Seattle with his stuff tomorrow. He’d hired a couple of local guys to pack up Ma’s things and deliver them to the new place.
Ma’s girlfriends Matilda and Rose dropped by at a little after three that afternoon. They all four sat around the living room drinking gin and tonics. Roman visited for a few minutes when they first got there, just to be polite, but then he retreated to his study, emerging at five to take Theo from Lois.
By then, Ma’s girlfriends were gone. Ma and Patrick were in the kitchen, cooking together. The air smelled of Ma’s famous teriyaki chicken with pineapple rice. They were laughing about something, the two of them. Patrick leaned in close for a quick kiss.
Married and happy.
The way he and Hailey ought to be.
Roman kept on walking. He found Lois and Theo in the family room. She left and he took Theo back to the kitchen, putting him in the high chair, giving him some apple slices to gnaw on.
“Roman,” said his mother. “Set the table, please.”
He was putting the plates around, including one for Hailey, when he heard the front door open.
A minute later, Theo banged a fisted apple slice on his tray and crowed, “Lee-Lee!”
Hailey swept into the kitchen in paint-spattered jeans and a black T-shirt with Keep the Drama on the Stage printed across the front. “Theo!” She went straight to him, ate an apple slice from his hand and kissed his fat cheek with a loud smacking sound.
And then Ma was turning, holding out her arms for a hug.
Hailey went to her. “So good to see you. How was Seattle?”
“Wonderful. But it’s so nice to be home.”
Roman’s gaze collided with Hailey’s as Ma enfolded her in a hug. Hailey gave him a questioning smile. He tried to look adoring and apologetic but wasn’t sure if he succeeded.
The evening progressed well enough, he thought. They ate. Ma wanted to spend some time with Theo, since she was moving out tomorrow. She and Patrick took over with him, to play with his toys and blocks for a while and then to get him ready for bed and read him his stories.
That left Roman and Hailey alone in the kitchen. Together, they cleaned up after the meal. As they cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher, he kept dreading the moment she would bring up their disagreement the night before—and the way he’d walked out on her and never come upstairs to bed.
She didn’t mention it, though. She was quiet. He wondered what she might be thinking and then was instantly afraid she might tell him.
By the time she started the dishwasher and hung up the dish towel, he knew the moment of truth had come. “Let’s go upstairs.” She offered her hand.
He just...couldn’t do it. Not right then. “Listen, I need to deal with a few things. I’ll be up soon.”
She gave him a long look, those astonishing lavender eyes full of all the things he wasn’t letting her say. So beautiful, everything he wanted but probably should reconsider the wisdom of having.
Because he really wasn’t up for it. Never had been. It was good she wouldn’t marry him. He wasn’t fooling anybody. He didn’t know what the hell he was doing when it came to relationships. And he would make a terrible husband.
“Okay, then,” she said gently. “See you soon.”
He watched her walk away and wondered what the hell was wrong with him.
In his office, he did zip. He stared at that painting of a midcentury modern house across from his desk and thought about the damn theater, about how he’d kind of lost his desire to make it into something it wasn’t, how next year or the year after, Theo would be old enough to take part in the Fall Revue, visit the haunted house, sing a song in the Christmas show. Having Theo was like getting a continuing education in what really mattered in life.
An hour meandered by. Now and then, his phone beeped. He ignored it. For a while, he played a video game on his laptop, just throwing away the time until he finally had to climb the stairs and figure out what to say to the woman in his bedroom.
He thought about Charlene and Nina, about how he hadn’t really known his ass from up with either of them. He’d tried to do better with Hailey, to have a real relationship with her, one with give-and-take and all that stuff he didn’t really get.
But he was just plain bad with give-and-take, at least when it came to a relationship. He liked to give the orders and have them obeyed.
And yet, he had learned from the debacles of Charlene and Nina. Both of them had asked how high when he’d said jump—Charlene, until she was ready to dump him. And Nina, until she’d delivered the healthy son he’d demanded of her. Looking back, he realized that the thing with Charlene had been only infatuation. As for Nina, she’d been the means to an end: Theo.
He got it. He needed a woman who could and would stand up to him. Hailey was that woman.
And he was in love with her—in love for the first time in his life.
All he really needed to do right now was to tell her so.
Except she wouldn’t marry him and every time she said no to him, he grew increasingly certain she would never say yes. Because she was a smart woman and she knew he wasn’t up for the real thing.
It was after nine when he finally climbed the stairs. He tapped on his bedroom door before he opened it and found Hailey sitting up in bed with her tablet.
She set the tablet on the nightstand and held out her hand. He went to her, his heart pounding deep and hard in the cage of his chest, dreading whatever would happen next, not sure what he would say and feeling pretty damn certain that whatever came out of his mouth, it wouldn’t be the right thing.
But then she pulled him down to her and lifted her mouth to him like an offering. He took it, starving for her—and for a while, it was all right.
More than all right. Just the two of them, Roman and Hailey, holding each other, loving each other with their bodies when the words weren’t working. Inside her, moving together with her, slow and so sweet and then faster, harder, deeper—it felt like anything was possible, that they would get it right.
Afterward, as they lay naked side by side, he waited for her to say something. The silence stretched out and he tried to figure out how to start. But nothing came to him. And she remained quiet, the way she had been down in the kitchen after Ma and Patrick took Theo upstairs.
Like she didn’t know what to say to him. He probably shouldn’t be surprised. He had no idea what to say to her, either.
Was this how it died between them? In silence, because what else was there to say?
He pulled the covers up and gathered her to him, wrapping himself around her, breathing in her scent of roses and sex, memorizing the silk of her skin.
* * *
The next morning, Roman was already in the shower when Hailey woke up.
She felt a stab of sadness, for the distance between them that seemed to yawn wider with every moment that passed.
And then she pushed the sadness away and joined him in the shower. They made love again, the way they had last night, with few words and a whole lot of feeling. When she came, she almost cried out her love for him.
But she held it back. Love seemed somehow an issue between them. She didn’t want to rub
it in, that he had such trouble saying the words. Would it be rubbing it in to scream it out in the middle of an orgasm?
Somehow, it seemed so. She kept the words in.
Yeah, she wanted to try again to talk it out. But she had the feeling that that wouldn’t go well. She really didn’t want to push him. Maybe just giving him space, waiting for him to start the conversation, was the wisest course.
So she waited.
When she got home from the theater that evening, it was just her and Roman and Theo. Sasha and Patrick had moved to their new place. The house seemed too quiet, especially after Theo went to bed and it ended up being a repeat of the night before.
Roman retreated to his office and she went upstairs. When he joined her, around ten, they made passionate love and then turned out the lights.
She didn’t sleep well. They needed to talk. But she had this feeling that it really would be better if he started the conversation. At least that way, she would know for certain that he was ready to deal with what had gone wrong between them—or, wait. Not “what had gone wrong,” but “how to make things right.”
Willingness wasn’t everything. But it was a start.
“You seem off, Lee-Lee,” Harper said that afternoon. They were at the kitchen table in the cottage, going over Harper’s set design for the Christmas show, which was now officially titled Christmas on Carmel Street. “You okay?”
Hailey glanced at her sister, who sat hunched over her laptop, her acres of blond hair piled up in a bun that had slipped precariously to the side. Really, she could tell Harper anything. But right now, she kind of didn’t know what to say about her problems with Roman. “Yeah. I’m okay.”
Bun bouncing, Harper bumped her with a shoulder. “Liar.”
“You’re losing your bun, Harp.”
Harper dropped her stylus and shoved at the bun, which only made it droop a little farther to the left. “You’re evading. Is it Roman?”
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