by Dani Collins
He didn’t answer and she sighed inwardly, thinking they’d lost that fragile strand of communication twining them together. It was always like this, and it created a lot of despair in her.
“I’m embarrassed to tell you,” he said so quietly she almost didn’t hear him.
She tried not to betray how surprised she was, just murmured, “Why? It’s a very nice thing to do.”
“If it was for Ingrid’s sake, it would be, but I wanted people—her sort of people—to see me as their equal. Now they’re here, I can’t be bothered speaking to them. I’d rather dance with you.” His mouth quirked in self-derision.
The importance of status was never lost on someone with a family in politics, but Melodie heard something else in his tone. Humbleness. Her sort of people.
“You are their equal,” she informed him with quiet sincerity.
“I told you what kind of mother I had.”
“One who made sacrifices for her child. Trust me. You do not own the patent on scandal or tragedy. I would think a man who makes his living running background checks would be fully aware of that.”
* * *
Roman had to hand it to her. Each time he gathered his courage and revealed a moment of personal angst, she came through, reminding him that he had every reason to stand tall.
They made the rounds after that, branching out from the bride’s and groom’s immediate family, whom they’d already met, to circulate among the other guests. Melodie fairly sparkled, she was so bright and delightful. He even found himself laughing when she described her fall into the pool that first day, only excusing them when someone joked that Roman had pushed her so he could perform mouth-to-mouth.
“I’m sorry,” Melodie murmured as he steered her toward the bar.
“It’s not your fault,” he said. “The guy is drunk.” And it was juvenile of him to feel insulted and mocked, but he didn’t want anyone to think he treated women roughly. He was past throwing punches over that sort of thing, but he didn’t listen to it. As for being so smitten with Melodie he would behave like a dolt in a romantic comedy, well, he wasn’t about to stand around for that accusation, either.
In all honesty, the whole day was a bit of a trial for Roman on that score, constantly demanding that he examine his feelings and intentions toward her. In fact, he had watched Huxley gaze at Ingrid in a way that wasn’t far off from what he was beginning to feel toward Melodie. She was precious and beautiful and captivating to him, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell her or allow others to see that in him.
“I’m going to take a few more photos,” she murmured, touching his arm as she stepped away.
He nodded, aware he could call her back, that she probably wanted him to, but letting her go anyway. He didn’t wear his emotions on his sleeve. He didn’t even know how to put on the coat.
CHAPTER TWELVE
MELODIE UNDERSTOOD NOW. She wasn’t tired of Roman, but a woman could take only so much uncertainty. She kept telling herself to live in the moment, enjoy what they had, that taking it day by day was fine. She didn’t delude herself that there was another man out there who had all Roman’s qualities plus an open heart, a desire for commitment and a burning need for children. The man she was with was definitely as perfect as she could expect.
But not knowing how long she and Roman would last made her anxious. She was always looking for the end so she could anticipate it, soften the blow. She could easily see why his other companions had made it happen just to get the suspense over with.
She didn’t want to leave him, though. She loved him.
Loved him, loved him, loved him.
And if she judged him on his actions, he cared quite deeply for her. At least that was what she thought he was communicating. So when she received a job offer, Melodie was torn.
Under any other circumstance she would have been beyond elated by the contents of the email, but it meant leaving Roman for a few days. That made it a bit of a test of their relationship. On the other hand, it gave her the fallback position she needed if they were destined to break up.
The prospect of confronting exactly how tenuous their relationship was kept her silent on the topic for several days, until she had to make a decision or lose the opportunity altogether.
She brought it up over breakfast in the sunroom she adored.
“It’s an Italian couple. Well, the wife is Canadian. They’re friends with the Marcussens and saw the photos I’d taken of the family. They asked if I’d come to their home on Lake Como and take some candid shots of them with their children. It would have to be next week,” she said, trying not to betray how nervous she was.
Roman set aside his tablet and sat back in his chair. He wore his usual morning attire of pajama pants, so he was all bare-chested and manly. She wore the silk robe he’d bought her in Paris. A morning breeze wafted in, dewy and tanged by the lemon grove. The low, quiet murmur of waves on the shore was the only sound for a long moment.
“I have to be in New York.” No inflection. No real reaction beyond exchanging information.
“I know. That’s why I’m talking to you about it. I keep trying to say no, and they keep offering me more money. They’ll pay for my flight, put me up. They’re very determined, but it has to be next week or it won’t happen at all.”
“Do you want to do it?”
She lifted a shoulder, genuinely conflicted. Roman could call her his companion all he wanted, but she knew she was his mistress. As idyllic as it should have felt to let him support her, she had spent a lot of years becoming self-reliant. She might not need a job right now, but she wanted one, and being a photographer was a dream career for her, something she’d barely imagined she could pursue as a hobby, let alone anything more. If she could establish herself at this level, it could be a proper way to make a living.
“It’s a really good opportunity,” she managed to say. “You told me I could be a professional if I took money for my photos, and this couple seems to think I’m good enough. I guess there is a part of me that wants to try.”
Nothing showed on his face. Only his green eyes flickered as he cataloged every nuance of her expression, making her feel more self-conscious by the second. Was she fooling herself? Was she really not that good?
Did it bother him at all that she was talking about leaving? That she wouldn’t be at his beck and call?
“This could turn into a career for you,” he said.
“I keep thinking it could, yes.” She glanced at the hands in her lap that were knotting her belt, trying to disguise the disappointment that he hadn’t first leaped to how it would affect him. Them. “I don’t have any illusions,” she continued, doing the work for him so he’d see the broader picture. “I realize I’d be chasing commissions and have to do a lot of traveling.”
She flicked a look up at him.
Still nothing. Her heart felt pinched in a vice that slowly closed as she squeezed out what she thought needed to be said.
“That’s something I always wanted to do. Travel.” It was his cue to say, “We already travel.” He didn’t.
“Running your own business isn’t a picnic, I know,” she continued. “I don’t even know where I’d pay taxes or if I need a work visa, but...”
“You’d regret it if you didn’t try,” he summed up. He was very still, very watchful, but didn’t express any regret on his side. This was purely her decision, he seemed to be saying.
“I think I would, yes.” She said the words steadily enough, but her heart was listing in her chest. Sinking.
He nodded. “Then, you should do whatever you need to. I have every confidence that you could be very successful if you give it your all. I won’t hold you back.”
His words were like the slide of a guillotine, hissing and thunking. She’d known this moment would happen, but the shock
still reverberated through her. It was over. She had wanted him to fight for her, but he was making it easy for her to leave him. She nodded, head loose on her shoulders. “I’ll go email them.”
She rose, feeling weightless and uncoordinated. Despite the warmth of the morning, her skin pimpled with cold. Her fingers were nerveless and her essence stayed at the table while the shell of her body moved away.
The separation of soul and self was so painful she couldn’t even react. Couldn’t cry.
* * *
When Roman made love to her that night she shuddered in ecstasy but couldn’t talk afterward. Couldn’t face the emptiness of her future, even though emptiness was the only option open to her.
If she had thought there was a chance for them, she might have forgone taking the job and stayed with him, but Roman wasn’t like her. He enjoyed female company, loved sex, cared to a point, but he didn’t love her back.
And maybe, if she hadn’t seen firsthand how emotional and financial dependence had gutted her mother’s self-esteem, Melodie might have settled for one-sided love. But she couldn’t do that to herself.
So she held back her tears until, a handful of days later, Roman left for New York and she caught a flight to Italy. They pretended they’d see each other soon, but she knew this was the beginning of the end. Better to make the break a clean one.
* * *
Before Melodie had even finished her work in Italy and sent her thank-you note to the Marcussens for referring her, she received a request from each of Nic’s three siblings asking her to do similar jobs for them. Without hesitation she accepted the commissions. She found herself in Athens by the end of that week, Paris the next and over to New York at the end of the month.
Roman was gone from that city by then, having been called to a supplier’s factory in China. Their face-to-face wireless connections had turned into texts and emails and became more sporadic. She had thought—hoped—Roman would make the effort to track her down or invite her to meet him somewhere, but her schedule was constantly filling and he was making no effort to ask her to come back to him.
Their temporary separation had obviously clarified itself into the natural end to their arrangement. It felt like an amputation. She pined and longed and yearned. Fortunately, though, she was so busy she could only break down at night before she went to sleep alone and dreamed she was with him again.
At least she was creating a decent life for herself. As word spread, a studio in New York reached out to her. It was extremely well respected, had all the print facilities and lined up gigs for its photographers. Quite unexpectedly, Melodie had a home base in the city she’d always wanted to inhabit. All her preparations for the wedding-planning business came in handy now as she reworked them for her new photography business. Practically overnight she was supporting herself.
Roman greased the wheels, of course. She realized that after a few weeks, when one of the studio owners dropped a remark about how he’d come to hear of her. The sublease on her one-room flat was equally a convenient find, but she chose not to fight Roman on it. She suspected he was trying to make up for flattening her first attempt at a proper career. She let him help her. It was a kindness that went both ways.
But she missed him with every breath in her body, every minute of every day.
* * *
Roman was stunned. It took him weeks to fully absorb that Melodie had left him. One day he was waking to the shift of silken limbs against him, the next he was walking around like a bomb-blast victim, shell-shocked and unable to make sense of the empty landscape around him.
He kept going back to that moment when she’d told him she had a job offer. He had felt everything in him draining away then. He’d seen himself about to lose everything and he hadn’t known how to stop it. It was like being nine years old again, completely powerless to change what was happening to him.
He couldn’t stand in the way of Melodie taking a job she wanted, though. He’d already caused her to lose her livelihood twice. And she genuinely loved photography. How could he blurt out that the idea of her leaving him made him physically sick?
Which was the real crux of the matter, he knew. He hadn’t had the courage even to face how deep the cut went as she was carved out of his life. The bleeding never seemed to let up. He barely slept, having no desire to crawl into an empty bed, and when he woke he saw no point in rising. His company was dominating the financial pages. The demise of Gautier Enterprises was a done deal. They were declaring bankruptcy while rumors of corruption dogged its board. He couldn’t care less.
His schedule had finally pulled him to New York, where he knew Melodie now had a flat, but she wasn’t even in the city. He followed her social-media accounts, and she was posting from Spain.
A blip on the reader of his office door announced his PA, Colette. He liked her well enough now that she was up to speed. Ingrid had always been cheerfully efficient, and Colette was equally strong on details and light in mood, not that anything really penetrated anymore. If he had felt like a puppet before, someone who moved through life without feeling, now he felt like a ghost. Even simple sensory pleasures such as a good meal or a piece of music were lost on him.
The worst part was he had fought deep emotions for so long he ought to have been an expert at suppressing them. The things he was feeling now were too big, however. Too dark and heavy and all pervading. There was no escaping the barbed and piercing pain that squeezed him in its coil.
He was in hell.
“Lunch,” Colette said, holding up a white bag, snapping him from what he realized had become a blank stare. “Thanks for buying this round. Everyone is really grateful.”
He shrugged. Colette had started a Friday lunch thing that seemed to boost morale and communication. She’d invited him to join them, but Roman had declined, preferring to brood in here alone.
He would always be alone.
He should have asked Melodie to stay.
But he couldn’t. Not when she deserved so much more than he was able to offer her.
Colette left, and he moved with robotic detachment, pulling out the carton and finding Chinese markings on its side. He wasn’t hungry for anything, he realized, least of all cheap noodles and overly sauced, chewy meat.
But he supposed he should eat.
Fishing for the chopsticks, he wound up touching something that he recognized and almost didn’t want to see, but he pulled it out and looked at it anyway: a fortune cookie.
He’d met Melodie many months ago, had spent countless hours with her since, and still he could remember their first conversation. She’d been so disappointed in him, so brightly engaging with her optimism in the way she described marriage, while he’d called weddings a shell for a useless piece of paper.
Before he realized what he was doing to do, rage broke through his shields and he smashed the cookie, pulverizing it in its cellophane wrapper. The white fortune with its pink ink peeked through beige shrapnel.
Swearing, wondering how the hell his control had deserted him so thoroughly, he opened the package and shook out the crumbs until he could pick out the tiny strip of paper.
“Patience will be rewarded sooner or later.”
Had he really hoped for actual guidance? Fortune cookies were stupid.
Weddings and marriage and lifetime commitments were equally useless things to place faith in. Just like women were.
Moving to the window, Roman rubbed a knuckle against his brow, chest tight. Was that what he really thought? That women were faithless? Because his mother had died before she could get him back? Because every woman he’d remotely cared about had left?
Had he given any of them a reason to stay?
The fact was, his father had been the one to abandon his mother. What did it say about Roman that he hadn’t even tried to keep Melodie in his life? Did there have to be
a child at risk for him to take a risk? What made anyone fight to keep someone in their life?
On impulse, he turned to the phone and dialed a number he knew by heart, but rarely called. The woman who answered was the only woman he’d ever known who’d completely devoted herself to one man, despite the fact he’d left her—involuntarily, but definitely left her—years ago.
“Brenda? It’s Roman. Can I buy you lunch?”
A surprised pause, then, “Why don’t you come over here? I’ll make you grilled cheese.”
* * *
Grilled cheese and tomato soup. Hardly the fine dining he’d grown used to, but Roman was ridiculously comforted by the simple meal when he sat down in Brenda’s kitchen an hour later in what had been his only real home, and even then only for a year.
Brenda, so motherly it had been almost unbearable when he’d lived here, poured him a glass of milk, still attempting to nurture him. He hated milk. Always had, probably because he’d drunk it sour more times than not.
“This is a really lovely surprise, Roman.” She stopped there, didn’t ask him why he was here, even though her curiosity was evident in the long silence after she spoke. But she understood him and respected his boundaries. He’d always appreciated that about her.
So even though he felt like a world-class idiot, he opened his chest and set his heart on the table, self-deprecatingly stating, “I’m having girl trouble, Brenda.”
“And you came to me? I’m touched, Roman. I truly am. Tell me about her.”
He stalled. How could he possibly describe Melodie and all she’d come to mean to him? Her smiles, her quiet toughness, her fierce resiliency and her soft, soft heart.
“I just want to know...what makes people stick around? Is there something I can say that would make her come back? For good? Because I’m not good with words and...”
She wasn’t laughing at him. Her graying head was bent a little as she patiently watched him struggle.
“Charles doesn’t recognize you anymore, but you’re with him as much as you can be. What keeps you faithful?” he asked.