Book Boyfriends Cafe Summer Lovin' Anthology 2015

by Melinda Curtis

  But the girl he had known was gone to be replaced by this exhausted, too skinny, wreck of a woman.

  “Becca,” he murmured. “What the hell happened to you?”

  He had a good friend who was a doctor. He would call Jamal in the morning and ask him to stop by.

  By this time tomorrow night Aaron intended to know everything about Rebecca that he needed to know.

  Chapter 3

  “Mrs. Perris, there’s nothing wrong with you that a few day’s rest and some nonstop eating won’t cure.”

  Becca looked from the matter-of-fact expression of Dr. Jamal to the searing, steady gaze of Aaron. As soon as the doctor had finished his examination, Aaron had come into the room and leaned against the wall, feet crossed at his ankles, hands pushed down into the pockets of his slacks, as if he could wait there all day, had nothing else to do.

  She sent him a dirty look, but then smiled at Jamal. “Thank you for coming over to check on me. It’s certainly more . . . hospitality than I had expected.”

  Aaron lifted an eyebrow at her.

  “If you have trouble sleeping, I can prescribe something for you, but it would be best if you ate right and got some exercise, though nothing too strenuous yet.”

  “So you think that a trip, say to Isbahar, would not be recommended?” Aaron asked.

  Jamal turned and looked at him. “Are you out of your mind? Certainly not.”

  “Thank you, Jamal. Send your bill to my office.” The two men shook hands and Jamal took his bag and left.

  “I will pay his bill,” Becca said. “You had no right to call him in to examine me. There’s nothing wrong . . . .”

  “That can’t be cured with food and rest. And that’s what you’ll be getting starting right now.”

  “And that’s what I’ll be getting over at my hotel as soon as I get dressed and move over there. Would you please call me a taxi?” She had awakened, at nearly noon, to find she was still in the dress she had worn the night before with no memory of even having climbed the stairs to her room, much less falling across the bed and passing out.

  By the time she had finished showering and had dressed in yellow linen slacks and matching sleeveless top, Aaron was at her door telling her that he’d called a doctor to examine her. Before she’d had time to react, Jamal had walked in, carrying his bag and pulling out a stethoscope.

  “You’re not going anywhere.”

  “Do I need to ask your mother to call a taxi for me?”

  “She’s gone to work. She owns a shop downtown. She won’t help you and the servants have been told to cook for you, provide you with whatever you need, but not to allow you outside the grounds.”

  Her mouth dropped open and she clapped a hand to her chest. “You mean I’m a prisoner here?”

  “An honored guest. Are you ready for breakfast? Or lunch?”

  She marched over to stand toe to toe with him. “I’m ready to leave. I demand that you let me leave or . . . I’ll call the authorities.”

  “In what language?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Do you speak French or Côte de Diamant? Those are the only languages our authorities, or our taxi drivers understand.”

  “I’m sure I could make myself understood. The word ‘kidnapped’ shouldn’t be too hard to get across.” She was bluffing but she hoped he didn’t know it.

  Again he raised that eyebrow at her. “I’m the respected Minister of Tourism. Who would believe I’m holding you against your will?”

  She stared at him, unable to believe her ears. She was opening her mouth to blast him again when her stomach gave a mighty rumble. She clasped her hands across her belly as red washed over her face.

  “Lunch it is,” he said. “Right this way.”

  He took her arm and urged her toward the door and down the stairs to the dining room, which was set with two places. He seated her, handed her a glass of sweetened tea, and rang a small bell that sat beside his plate. “My mother usually takes care of this, but she is moving to Germany soon, taking my nephew to his parents, so I’ll have to learn to fend for myself.”

  Becca glanced around at the opulent room with its linen-draped table, fabulous paintings and huge, spotless windows. “Oh, yes, I can see you’re in for some real suffering.”

  He pulled a calculator from his pocket and punched in some numbers.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. “Calculating the days of my incarceration?”

  Aaron frowned at the numbers on the calculator. “You’re about ten pounds underweight. In order for you to return to a healthy weight, you’ll need to eat about three thousand calories a day.”

  “A day? I hardly eat that many in . . . in five days.”

  “Which is why you’re weak and sick.”

  The same young man who served at dinner the night before swept into the room with a tureen of soup. He ladled some of the thick, delicious smelling substance into their bowls and then set it down on the table. While he did that, Aaron buttered some bread and placed it on a plate before her.

  “Here,” he said. “Eat.”

  “I’ve been buttering my own bread for quite some time now, thank you very much.”

  “You haven’t been eating anything as healthy as buttered bread or you wouldn’t be ten pounds underweight.”

  Her lips drew together and she glared at him. She was going to continue the argument, she really was, but the smell of the soup teased her nostrils and she decided to eat first so she’d have strength for the battle that lay ahead of her.

  When he saw her pick up her spoon and swallow her first bite of soup, a smile slid over his lips. She would have liked to slap that smile off his face, but that was hard to do when one hand held a soup spoon and the other a chunk of buttered bread.

  Aaron began eating his own soup, but watched her carefully to see that she finished all of hers. After the soup, they were served a delicious fish and vegetable dish, and then fruit, fresh strawberries and the most meltingly sweet mangoes she had ever tasted.

  She speared each piece with her fork, examined the beautiful pink-gold shade of it and then put it in her mouth, savoring each piece, letting the flavor melt over her tongue as she slowly chewed and swallowed. She was so involved in the sensory details of touch, taste, and smell that at first she didn’t notice that Aaron had gone very still. When she glanced at him, she saw that his gaze was on her mouth. She saw heat there, and purpose. His eyes swept up to meet hers. Craving arrowed straight through her to her womb and it had nothing whatsoever to do with food. What she craved was him – and the expression in his eyes told her he knew it, too.

  Her fork clattered to her plate. Shakily, she picked it up, set it down carefully, sipped some water and avoided his eyes until she could get the pounding in her heart and the heat in her face under control.

  After a few moments, Becca sat back and sighed. Satiated as she was, she couldn’t stay angry with him. “That’s the most I’ve eaten in days.”

  “More like weeks, I’d say.”

  She didn’t deny it, but stood when he pulled out her chair and left the dining room, going the way he had indicated, across the ornate entryway and into what must have been his office.

  She glanced around. This was where the real man was. The rest of the this mansion was decorated for show, maybe by his mother, maybe by a decorator, because he entertained guests frequently.

  This room was strictly for him. A large desk was placed in front of a window, not a shiny, showy desk like the one she had seen in his office, but a well-used one with a few scrapes and scars on it. A state of the art laptop was open on the top. Floor to ceiling bookcases flanked each side of the window. The books seemed to cover everything from history to fiction to modern warfare. Many of them were in English, some in French, and of course, Côte de Diamant.

  She took all of this in at a glance and turned to look at the wall opposite his desk. It was covered with framed photographs. She recognized his mother, Sara, standing beside an older
version of Aaron.

  “Your father?” she asked, and he responded with a nod.

  Another photograph looked as though it had been taken in the 1950’s. The couple were smiling into the camera, the man looking as though he’d been struck by lightning as he gazed at the bright-eyed blonde beside him.

  “My mother’s parents,” Aaron said. “She was from Michigan, a secretary here with a diplomatic mission. They met and married within a month. Their families were scandalized.”

  “Were they happy?”

  “For forty-eight years.”

  “It was worth it, then.”

  There was a picture of a man and woman, and the young boy she had met last night, Aaron’s nephew, Musa. This was his sister’s family. There were other family photos, but the ones that caught her eye were of him and his fellow pilots. Her gaze flew over the pictures until she found one of him with the four men he’d trained with in Phoenix. They weren’t in their flight suits, but dressed casually, seated at a picnic table. Aaron and three of the men were grinning into the camera, a fifth was looking at something off to one side. She remembered that day and that photograph because she had been the one who had taken it, only weeks before they had all been called back to Côte de Diamant to go to war with Isbahar.

  She pointed to it. “How are they?”

  Aaron looked at her for a second, then walked over to point to each man in turn. “He was shot down and killed a few weeks into the war.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she murmured.

  Aaron pointed to the next man. “He was shot down, but survived. These two are in business here in Côte de Diamant City, and Ferran . . . .” Here he pointed to the man who was looking off camera. “Ferran is the general in charge of the Côte de Diamantian Air Force.”

  She smiled. “So if you were still in the air force, he would be your boss.”

  “I am still in the air force, the reserves, and he is my boss.”

  Becca looked up at him. “You could be called up at any time?”

  “And have been. This is a small nation. We all have to do our part.”

  Becca looked into his eyes, seeing the steady resolve of the warrior who had fought and would fight again. Growing up around an air force base, she had seen it so many times before, once in a man where she had misread it. What she had thought was the tenacity of the warrior had actually been cockiness and it had gotten him killed.

  “Sit down, Rebecca,” Aaron said. “You’ve rested, you’ve eaten, and now it’s time for you to tell me the truth.”

  He pointed to one of a pair of wing chairs that stood in front of his desk. She sat down, expecting him to sit across from her, behind his desk, but he turned the other chair so that it faced her and sat down.

  He looked into her eyes. “Start with the lie,” he said. “And work your way through to today.”

  The moment she’d been dreading was here. A million times in her mind, she had created scenarios in which she would be able to tell him the truth. Never once had she considered it would be while sitting in his native country, in his home, in his den – with his family staring down at her from the walls. She took a breath and plunged in.

  “I never meant to hurt you, or anyone. I made a decision that I thought was right at the time.”

  “And was it?”

  “No.” Her gaze flew to his. “But in my defense, I was sixteen and my sister had almost died because of . . . of what you did.”

  He stirred in his chair and his jaw tightened. “Let’s skip that for the moment. Start at the beginning.”

  She watched him for a few seconds, trying to read him, trying to decide how to approach this. But she had to do what he said – start at the beginning. “I was working at a summer camp in the White Mountains that summer. My dad was training mechanics at Vandenburg Air Force base in California so my mother went along.”

  “I remember.”

  “Jenny had a job at the mall, in a shop selling candy and ice cream, earning money for college. Since she was eighteen and she’d always been mature and responsible, Mom and Dad thought it would be okay for her to stay home alone.” Becca glanced up. “But you already know that.”

  He nodded and she saw that there was a pulse beating in his neck. What was he thinking? Was he angry? Probably.

  She refused to be intimidated by him. She had come this far in the story, might as well finish it.

  “I received emails and a couple of calls from Jenny. She was ecstatically happy because she’d fallen in love . . . with you.” Becca didn’t know why she’d choked on those words. Yes, she’d had a teenage crush on Aaron, but Jenny had really loved him, enough to have sex with him. “Although, in fairness, she didn’t tell me you were the one until later. You see, our parents had dreams for us that included college and careers, not love affairs and babies before we were ready for them. She didn’t tell me it was you because she didn’t want me to be caught in the middle. But the night I came back from camp, I stepped right in the middle of it.”

  Becca paused, her teeth worrying her bottom lip as she recalled the events of that night – her terror and Jenny’s pain. Her gaze came back to Aaron’s face and saw that his green eyes were narrowed, fixed on her mouth. A fluttering sensation sifted through her, bringing an arousal she hadn’t felt in a long time. It was as if the intensity of his gaze was creating the feeling in her. Flustered, she looked away.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “I came into the house, threw my bag on my bed and went looking for Jenny. I knew she was home because her car was in the driveway. I found her curled up on the bathroom floor. There was blood all over the place and she was barely conscious.” Tears spurted into Becca’s eyes. “If I hadn’t come home when I did she would have bled to death, all alone, on the bathroom floor.”

  She paused, took a breath, then once again examined Aaron’s patiently waiting face. What was he thinking? Feeling? Did it bother him to know that his child had died?

  “I’m assuming you didn’t know she was pregnant?”

  He shook his head.

  What is with this man? she thought in despair. It was like trying to get a reaction out of the Great Sphinx.

  She took another breath to steady herself and then went on. “I called the paramedics. They took her to the hospital. It was an ectopic pregnancy and she’d bled so much I didn’t know if she would live. I called my parents to come, but they didn’t get there for almost a day. I called their best friends. I called my best friend, but no one was home. I was alone to worry and pray over her.”

  “And when did she tell you I was the baby’s father?”

  “That’s an odd way to phrase it,” Becca snapped. “You can’t admit you were her lover?”

  “When?” he asked again.

  “While we were waiting for the paramedics, she came around a little bit. I was sitting on the floor, holding her. She looked up at me, didn’t even know who I was, and whispered, ‘Aaron.’ I could barely hear her.”

  The sense of betrayal had cut through her like a machete because of her silly crush on him.

  “Then what happened?”

  Anger flared as Becca looked at him, so calm so still, so judgmental. “You’re relentless. I’ll bet you’re sitting there putting the entire blame on Jenny for getting pregnant. You shared the blame!” she said recklessly. “Haven’t you ever heard of a condom?”

  “Heard of them and use them regularly,” he answered. “You still haven’t come to the reason you lied to me.”

  Too distraught to sit, Becca jumped up and took a turn around the room. “Isn’t it obvious? You came to the door that night to tell us goodbye because Isbahar had declared war on Côte de Diamant and all of you had to go join the fight.” Becca lifted her hand and saluted him mockingly. “I was there alone. I’d nearly watched my sister die that day. You stood there, whole and healthy and untouched, going ahead with your life, flying back to fight in a war and be a hero while she . . . . Her life was changed forever.” She look
ed up, met his eyes accusingly. “She can never have children.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  His words sounded genuine, but she was too wound up to listen. “You should be.”

  Aaron stood to face her, his hands clenched at his waist, his eyes dark and stormy. “You told me she’d been in an accident and seriously injured.”

  “And you rushed away, glad to leave us . . . her behind.” That had been only one of the things that had hurt. Becca had built him up in her mind as some kind of hero – a white knight in an F-16 and he’d turned out to have feet of clay.

  “That’s not true. And why didn’t you leave it there? Why did you write to me a few weeks later and tell me she had died?”

  “So you wouldn’t come back! So you wouldn’t put her through that again.”

  “And what did they say when you told them about how you’d lied to me?”

  “Who?”

  “Your parents and Jennifer. What did they say?”

  She looked away. “I didn’t tell them. I never did. Jenny was too hurt and there was enough tension and shattered dreams in my family. I couldn’t add more.”

  “So you let the lie stand.”

  They faced each other, breathing hard, furious. She had thought his face was cold, closed-off while she had told her story, but now his eyes were full of fire, his mouth a thin slash of anger. In spite of her own fury, she focused on his mouth, and then his eyes. Unbidden, her tongue slipped out to moisten her dry lips. He stepped closer. Alarmed, she backed up.

  His voice was low, almost a growl when he said, “Is that all? Do you have more to tell me? I want no more lies between us.”

  Becca blinked, uncertain why he’d used that phrase. “It ruined Jenny’s relationship with our parents. They were very disappointed, but they would have come to terms with it if she’d let them. She wouldn’t talk about it. Not even to me. Then when they found out I knew who the baby’s father was, and wouldn’t tell them because it was Jenny’s secret, not mine, they were furious with me, too. It damaged the relationships in our family. Jenny was closed off from them and from me and has been ever since. That’s why, when my dad got so sick and we thought he was going to die, and we couldn’t find Jenny to let her know, I came to find her.”