Almost To The Altar

by Neesa Hart

  Her mouth dropped open on an irritated huff. “It isn’t my fault, you know! You’re the one who keeps stirring it up. So I’m attracted to you. So what?”

  “So what?” He looked outraged.

  “So what? We’re both adults, not hormone-crazy adolescents. We’re both old enough to be responsible for our actions. I told you before, I didn’t want to pursue this, but you just can’t let it alone, can you? And now that you’re angry because it isn’t working out, which I told you it wouldn’t, you want to blame me. Well, it isn’t my fault.”

  His expression turned hard. She knew before he said the words that he was about to verbally strike at her. She’d long since come to recognize that as Wil’s primary means of defense. In a way, she supposed, she deserved it, for goading him with the kiss.

  “It became your fault the day you decided to lock yourself away in that ivory tower of yours.”

  Even knowing it was coming didn’t dim the hurt his words caused. Elise conquered it with a burst of anger. “ Just who elected you judge and jury of the universe?”

  “The same person who made you think you were better than the rest of us.”

  She gasped. Once again, he’d zeroed in on her most vulnerable spot and struck like a rattlesnake. “You bastard. You cold, arrogant bastard.”

  Wil said nothing as she snatched at the scattered papers on the floor. Elise crammed them haphazardly back into the file folder, using the activity to calm her racing nerves. When she faced him again, his expression was hard as granite. Only the turmoil in his eyes belied the impassive look on his face.

  “Look, Wil,” she said, calling on her deepest reservoir of calm. “I don’t know why you feel like you have to do this. The way I see it, you pretty much said every insulting thing you could think of to me ten years ago. I might have felt like I had to accept that from you then, but I sure as hell don’t feel that way anymore.”

  She clutched the folder to her like a shield. “I think it would be best for both of us if I completed this deal with your father. I just can’t take this anymore.”

  “I wasn’t trying to be insulting.”

  “Oh, well, excuse me. I seemed to have missed that.”

  “Damn it, will you stop being so stubborn?”

  “I’m not being stubborn. Every time I’m around you, you find a new way to insult me. Well, thanks, but no thanks.” She gave him a bitter look. “I’m not going to let you do this to me again, Wil. Once was enough.”

  She shouldered her way past him toward the narrow door. “I think from now on, it would be best if I just did business with your father.”

  “Damn it, Elsa—”

  “You have no idea what you did to me, do you?” The look in his eyes confirmed her suspicions. For years, he’d blamed her for what had happened between them. She’d have to be a lot stronger, and a lot more determined, to break down the wall he’d erected. Wil despised her. He’d never tried to disguise the fact. And she just couldn’t stand the hurt of trying to reach him anymore. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I’m just not strong enough.”

  Without waiting for his response, she fled the room.

  Chapter Seven

  At nine o’clock that night, Elise let herself into her apartment with a weary sigh. Rich Proliss had managed to monopolize most of her afternoon with details of the Collingham auction, and she’d had to work later than she planned to complete a contract for Alex Devonshire.

  Unfortunately, the deluge of work hadn’t kept her mind off Wil. Parker Conrad, she reminded herself, was all she’d ever wanted in a life partner. She respected him. She cared for him. She wanted to marry him, to have his children. What she felt for Wil was nothing more than the rekindled flame of a remembered infatuation. His reappearance in her life had forced her to think about old wounds and old battles she’d believed were behind her. It had been years since she’d allowed herself to grieve over the loss of her parents’ closeness, years since she’d considered how much Wil’s rejection had hurt. Dredging all that up from the past had taken its toll on her, and she reminded herself sharply that the sooner she forgot about him, the sooner she forced his memory back into the sealed inner closet where it belonged, the better.

  Mentally and physically exhausted, she dropped her briefcase on the hall table, then headed for her room. Flannel pajamas had never been so appealing, she decided as she settled the soft fabric against her skin. Pulling her hair into a loose ponytail, she plodded back to the living room. When she finished going over the set of contracts Alex had sent her to review, she would go to bed.

  Engrossed as she was in a particularly complicated clause, the sharp knock on her door startled her. With a frown, Elise glanced at the clock. It was after eleven-thirty. The only person who’d disturb her at this time of night was her landlord, and then only if there was some sort of problem with the apartment. Just what she needed, tonight: a late-night visit to fix rattling pipes.

  The relentless knocking continued as she hurried across the living room carpet. If he wasn’t careful, he’d wake the building. With an irritated huff, she jerked open the door. At the sight of Wil Larsen, his fist poised in midair, his features set in an angry scowl, she blinked. “Wil?”

  When she jerked open the door, Wil shot a hasty glance at her elderly neighbor, Mrs. Fitzmartin, whose kerchiefed head peeked from the crack of her door. Shouldering past Elise into her apartment, he growled, “Don’t you know better than to open the door without checking to see who it is first?”

  The sight of her clad in those ridiculously oversize flannel pajamas sent his pulse racing. He suddenly felt like a fool for turning up on her doorstep in the middle of the night, but, God help him, he’d been going out of his mind since that afternoon. Several times that evening he’d tried calling her, but she hadn’t been home. Now that he was here, he didn’t know what to do. So he yelled at her. Great plan, Larsen, he thought.

  While he studied her back, Elsa continued to stare into the hallway for several seconds. He had the distinct impression that she was trying in vain not to lose her temper. “Why don’t you come in?” she told the empty doorway,

  her sarcasm unmistakable. Shutting the door with a distinct click, she turned to face him.

  He paced a long path in the center of her living room. In the shadowy light, her expression was unreadable. Amid the soft greens and blues and tweeds of her apartment, he felt out of place, agitated. Now that he was here, he didn’t know what to say to her. If he simply blurted out that he’d been feeling like a fool since he’d last seen her, he’d only make things worse.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked him.

  At his side, his hands flexed. He wasn’t ready to answer that question yet. He didn’t know what he was doing there. When she walked away from him in Chester Collingham’s garage, he’d sworn to himself that he’d leave her alone. After hours of pretending, he’d driven to her apartment, without the first clue as to what he was going to do once got there. Now that he was here, he still didn’t know. “You shouldn’t have opened the door. You don’t have a view glass. You didn’t even ask who it was.” He raked his gaze over her pajama-clad form. “Do you have any idea how vulnerable you are?”

  “People don’t generally bang on my door at all hours of the night. I was disoriented.”

  “Still—” he continued to pace “—you’re smarter than this. It could have been anybody on the other side of that door.” He didn’t want to talk about anything as mundane as Elsa’s security, or the lack thereof, but he had a cloying suspicion that the moment he changed the subject, he’d have to touch her again. If he did that, God only knew what would happen. With a brief flick of his wrist, he indicated the doorway. “I thought Nick was going to install a dead bolt for you.”

  His accusation seemed to shred what remained of her patience. “Stop it. I’m tired, and I want to go to bed. And I don’t think you drove here in the middle of the night to shout at me about the locks on my door.” She leaned back against the
door with a quiet sigh. “He didn’t have time to finish it this morning. He got called into the station.”

  At the tired note in her voice, he abruptly stopped pacing to stare at her. He didn’t think he imagined the way she shrank back into the shadows. With only the moonlight illuminating her apartment, he couldn’t see her face, but he still felt her discomfort.

  “Why are you here?” she asked him.

  “I tried to call you all evening. You weren’t home.”

  “I worked late.”

  Long, anxious seconds ticked by. His body hummed with a pulsing energy, like a well-tuned engine. He hadn’t noticed it before, had been too agitated, but as he watched her, he felt the heated blood running through him. The sensation was so strong, it should have vibrated across the plush carpet, through the floorboards, to the soles of her bare feet. Even from across the room he felt the warmth of her skin. He sensed the way her flesh prickled with awareness where the damp tendrils of her hair lay against her nape.

  Indistinguishable emotions warred through her.

  He absorbed them.

  A skitter of anticipation raced along his flesh as memories of the feel, the exquisite sensation, of her pressed against him, her soft mouth under his, her scented flesh against his whiskers, washed over him like a rising tide. Another thread of his sanity withered and died.

  “Wil?”

  The catch in her voice undid him. For hours that had seemed liked years, thoughts of her, of touching her, had consumed him. Shuddering, unable to resist, he crossed the room in three quick strides to pull her into his arms, to bury his mouth in hers. “Damn you,” he whispered. God, how he’d wanted to resist her. “Damn you.”

  Heat seared a path from her body to his. As his lips moved against hers with a blatant hunger, he felt her quiver. The same emotional power that had sent her fleeing that morning surged again. This time, Wil broke the kiss before it could consume them.

  He stepped away from her so abruptly, she stumbled backward. He steadied her with his hands on her shoulders. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean—”

  Elsa shrugged his hands from her shoulders. “This is becoming an annoying habit with you.”

  Cursing himself for being a thousand times a fool, Wil walked away from her. He yanked open the snaps on his leather jacket. From the corner of his eye, he saw her flinch. “I’m sorry,” he told her again. “I didn’t mean to pounce on you like that.”

  “No?”

  “No.” With his jacket hanging open, he wondered if she could see the way his heart was pounding beneath the faded denim of his shirt. It might have been a trick of the moonlight, but he’d have sworn he saw her shiver. “I just can’t seem to keep my hands off you. A lot has changed, but I guess that hasn’t.”

  “Evidently not.”

  At the bitter note in her voice, he winced. “I’m not going to apologize for wanting you, Elsa. Especially not when I know it’s a two-way street.” Shrugging out of his jacket, he tossed it over the end of her couch. “Can we sit down? This could take a while.”

  She seemed to hesitate. “I’m really not up to this tonight. I’ve got a long day tomorrow.”

  The look she gave him made his gut clench. She had always had the power to turn him inside out with that look. “Elsa,” he said, “I want to try and explain what’s happening to me. I know I’ve been driving you crazy. If it’s any consolation, I feel a little nuts myself.” Without waiting for her permission, he dropped onto the couch.

  Elsa lingered in the shadows. “You haven’t been driving me crazy, Wil. I just don’t understand why we’re at each other’s throat one minute, and trying to reclaim something from the past next.”

  He waited several heartbeats. “Please look at me.”

  Slowly she turned to face him. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because ten years ago, you meant the world to me. I tried, I swear to God I tried, but I can’t pretend I’m not torn up over this,” he admitted. “Now that I’ve seen you again, I found out that I need to know what happened to us. I need you to make me understand.”

  An agonizing few moments passed as she watched him. For long seconds, he was sure she’d refuse. If she asked him to leave now, he knew, things would really be over between them. He’d come here tonight in a desperate final effort. If Elsa wouldn’t meet him at least partway, he’d be doomed to a lifetime of regret.

  His heart kicked into double-time when slowly, as if compelled, she crossed the room to his side. He seized her hand and pressed it to his lips for a hungry, grateful kiss. He felt as if he’d been given a reprieve from the guillotine. A part of him sreamed a warning that she shouldn’t be this important, he shouldn’t let her be this important, but he was powerless to stop the tide of relief flooding through him.

  She sank into the overstuffed chair next to his seat on the couch. He doubted that she knew how appealing she looked with her feet bare and her hair curling in ever-loosening tendrils around her face. Her woman’s curves had always been full enough to tempt him beyond reason, but outlined beneath the pajamas they seemed to beckon him. His palms tingled with the need to touch her. Had it not been for the slightly vulnerable look in her eyes, he might not have been able to restrain himself. But that look told him, - without words, that Elsa was more than a little afraid of him. If he knew one thing about her, he knew she was fighting hard not to be vulnerable—not to anyone, and especially not to him.

  In the years since he’d last seen her, he’d wanted to believe that she’d become a materialistic, narcissistic mem-!!ber of the very society he’d once lived in. Every time he spoke with her parents, heard her mother’s pain at the separation that had rent their family, he’d resented Elsa for making it happen. Since Maks had been struck by a car and killed, Elsa’s family had become his family. He still blamed her for the pain she’d caused them.

  It had been easier to harbor his resentment by feeding it with visions of her living a too-fast life, filled with affluence and greed, a life in which nothing mattered but her wants and her desires. When he first saw her again, something in his heart had begun to crumble, like a great chunk of ice sliding into a tropical sea.

  “Aina,” he finally pleaded, using thé once familiar endearment like a caress, “please let me explain.”

  He saw the look of pain that crossed her features and hated himself for it. “There’s nothing to explain,” she told him. “What happened between us was never really resolved. We were young, I was confused, you were angry. We shouldn’t have let these wounds fester for so long. I guess it just seemed easier.”

  “No.” His fingers tightened on hers. “I was twenty-eight years old. That’s old enough to know what I was doing. I loved you, Elsa.” At the look she gave him, he felt the band begin to tighten around his chest once more. “I loved you. The last thing I wanted was to hurt you. I haven’t been the same man since the day you walked away from me. Whatever caused the argument with your father, I can’t believe it was worth what this has done to both of us.”

  Elise turned her face to gaze out the window, not wanting him to see the pain his words caused. He still held her responsible for the way their relationship had ended, and that truth hurt her almost as much as the harsh words he’d said the day she left. Through the window, she watched as a shifting pattern of clouds raced across the surface of the moon. She felt cold, raw, despite the warmth of her apart-!!ment.

  Instinctively rubbing her upper arms for warmth, she tried to ignore the way his gruff plea tugged at her, beckoned her, but couldn’t. A part of her would always belong to this man, no matter how deeply she denied it. Turning slowly to face him, she felt her resolve disintegrate like a wave breaking against the rocks. “You will never know how much you hurt me, Wil. A part of me died that day.”

  “Tell me,” he pleaded. “We’ll start there and see where it takes us.”

  He wasn’t going to be deterred, she realized. She would have to tell him, or he’d sit in her living room until he wore her d
own. With a deep sense of resignation, she leaned back in her chair. Carefully, lest they overwhelm her, she unlocked the secret door in her heart where she’d hidden the memories. “You know what it was like. You know how hard it was for Maks and Nikki and me. From the day we arrived in Chicago, we had no money, no family, no friends. We were the ragged little kids with the Russianspeaking parents and funny names. In case you forgot, Americans weren’t particularly fond of Russians back then.”

  The callused pad of his thumb rubbed the top of her hand. Seeking his warmth, she tightened her fingers on his. “Pop couldn’t find work in New York, so he and Mama decided to bring us to Chicago. He’d heard there were jobs here for men who’d work hard. Nobody told him that there weren’t any jobs for men who worked hard and spoke Russian. If it hadn’t been for your father, we’d have starved.”

  “You were very young. I’m not sure you remember things exactly the way they were.”

  “No? Some things I remember really well. Like how it felt to be bussed out to suburban schools where all the girls had nicer hair and nicer clothes and shoes that fit. I remember sitting in class and feeling stupid because I couldn’t understand what we were reading, or what my teacher was saying. I remember being teased because my dresses had patches and my coat was made out of an old bedspread. After Maks’s accident, things only got worse.”

  She drew a deep, shuddering breath. They’d been in Chicago less than a year when her brother Maks, three years her senior, was struck while crossing the street. Elise’s school bus dropped her off at a particularly busy intersection, and her mother generally sent Maks to walk her home from school. The light had just changed, and Maks had started across the street toward her when a car raced through the intersection, striking him. The driver hadn’t stopped, and Maks had never regained consciousness. After lingering in a coma for several weeks, he’d died. Her father, never an affectionate man, had become more withdrawn, more difficult. As her mother carried the grief on her own, Elise and Nikolai had been left to handle their brother’s death any way they could.