She stared at the photo, looking into Dev’s eyes as though she could bring him to life as she’d known him then, before that night, before that call.
Before it all changed.
She’d get used to it, Taylor told herself again. Instead, to her horror, tears pricked at the back of her eyelids.
She rose and hurried toward the bathroom, blinking.
“You okay, Taylor?” Nicole asked as she walked by.
“Something in my eye.” Whether it was convincing or not didn’t really concern Taylor. Once she got to the small, dark room and closed the door, she could let go of control for just a few seconds. The way she’d done for hours every night for the past week.
The way she was afraid she was going to do for a very long time.
IT WAS DONE. FINISHED. At an end, and good riddance to it.
Dev sat at his desk, reviewing the final report on the renovations. He still needed to get a final release from the landlord, he thought, staring at the form on his computer screen, but after five months, the job was over.And that was probably for the best, he thought. Definitely. Sure, it meant that he’d no longer be working around Taylor, but given that she wanted nothing to do with him, that was sort of a good thing.
Certainly it would keep him from the temptation of digging up reasons to stop by and see her, or hang around outside of her agency on the chance of running into her.
Of course, it made sense to get her to formally signoff on her unit. So much had gone wrong there that it could only help to get a release saying that everything was all set.
It was the smart thing to do, he told himself as he typed in a few quick edits and sent the file to the printer.
The agency looked good, he thought a few minutes later when he walked in. With the carpet and light fixtures in place as the finishing touches, it looked sleek, professional and expensive. He’d become enough of a regular that the receptionist merely waved at him as he walked back toward Taylor’s office. Yep, get in, get business done, and get out. Now was not the time to get caught up in longing for something that wasn’t going to work out.
He stepped into Taylor’s doorway, his hand raised to knock, and paused. Her chair was empty. Probably just as well. He could lay the paperwork on her desk, add a note telling her what to do with it, and head out.
He walked to her desk and pulled a pen out of his back pocket. All he needed was a yellow sticky note, he thought, looking around. Then he saw the photo, and in a flicker, he was back in Cozumel, pulling her against him as they smiled for Raoul. What was it doing there? Why hadn’t she tossed it out? He shook his head, hard, to dislodge the image.
If he’d learned nothing else from his time with Melissa it was knowing when to give up.
And then he saw the shell.
TAYLOR WALKED BACK INTO HER office to a flashing phone. She dropped into her chair, trying to ignore the throbbing in her temples, and lifted the handset.
“Taylor DeWitt.”“Taylor. Alan Champlin. How are you doing?”
She mustered up a smile. “I’m fine, thanks.” Perhaps if she said it enough times, she might actually come to believe it. “How are you?”
“Great, or I will be if I get the right answer from you. Did you have a chance to look at the paperwork?”
The merger, she remembered. The job offer. Her lawyer had given her the thumbs-up on it and she was ready to agree, with a few minor revisions. She reached across her desk for the file and saw an unfamiliar sheet of paper bearing the logo for Dev’s company. Which meant that someone from the company had been in her office.
Dev? “Taylor, you there?” Champlin asked. “I’m here, Alan. I’m just looking for the file.” She rescued the folder and turned to the paperwork. “Well, it made my lawyer and my accountant happy, so we’re halfway there.”
“The key is, did it make you happy?”
As if anything could at this point in time. With an almost physical effort, she dragged her mind away from Dev and back to the subject at hand. “There are a couple of minor points about transfer of assets that I’d like to close on, and I’d like to get the tuition reimbursement written into my contract, but if we can come to an agreement on those, then yes, the deal looks good.”
“Excellent,” Champlin said. “Welcome to the team.”
And even as dark as she felt, the little pump of excitement was there, nudging at her, reminding her that her world would go on without Dev Carson.
But would it ever be complete?
SITTING IN A CROUCH, Dev maneuvered a sheet of drywall against the new studs of his kitchen and propped it into position using a prybar and the fingers of one hand. He used the other hand to sink a couple of screws in to hold it in place. Bless the inventor of magnetic drill bits, he thought as he strained to hold the heavy paper-sheathed plaster for another moment until it was pinned against the two-by-fours. Then he rose and began sinking screws every six inches, smoothly and methodically as an automaton.
If only he could keep his brain as empty as an automaton’s. Unfortunately it kept running back to the subject of Taylor. What did it mean that their photo was on her desk? What did it mean that she’d kept the shell he’d given her in Cozumel? He could go to her and convince her to try again, he knew, but what would it matter if she was still caught up in the past? He’d just be laboring against the same issues.Wasn’t that what he’d done with Melissa? He pushed another panel of Sheetrock up against the studs and tacked it. He’d kept at the relationship bloody-mindedly because he didn’t want to walk away and wonder if he could have made it work if he’d just tried a little harder. Over and over he’d convinced himself he could do it. Over and over he’d come back to it, long after he should have been gone.
What if Taylor were another version of the same thing?
Dev put the final screw in the drywall panel and looked around the room. It was ready for taping and mudding. After that, it would need ceiling texture, moldings, paint, and that was just the beginning. It was hard work, he thought, rubbing at his trapezius muscles, and yet ultimately it would be its own reward. In the end, he’d walk into an impeccably restored kitchen and know that he’d done it. And it might take a month or two to finish it, but it would mean more than if he’d hired a crew to come do it in a week. It would be worth it.
In the same way, he couldn’t help but wonder if Taylor would be worth it. Sure, he’d been wrong about Melissa and it had left a bad taste in his mouth, but some part of him was convinced that despite all the reasons he had to walk away from Taylor, he’d be a fool to do it.
He remembered too well what it was like to be with her. Yes, she was far from easy. But being with her was like finding a lost part of himself, a part he had never known was missing.
Then again, what if he was just kidding himself, like a gambler who kept going back to the table in search of the ultimate score? He could drive himself crazy by flipping back and forth like some uncertain teenager. Indecision was for children, and Dev had lost his childhood long ago.
He looked at the half-finished walls of the kitchen, the exposed framing of the new wall, the Sheetrock that he had attached with his own hands. He remembered the sweat that had gone into it. Things that were worthwhile took effort, he thought suddenly. Tearing things down was easy. It was the building that took sweat and dedication.
And suddenly he knew what to do.
TAYLOR SAT AT HER DESK, staring at paperwork. Staring at the photo of herself with Dev that she’d propped up against her stapler. It was ridiculous to keep it, she knew. Tearing it up and tossing it into the trash would be the smartest thing she could do. As long as she was looking at him, she’d never get him out of her head.
And she’d never get the thought out of her head that maybe nothing really had happened with his fiancée.Taylor slapped her pen down on the desk in frustration. That was the worst part, the fact that she couldn’t entirely extinguish the hope, the wishful thinking, the vain idea that perhaps he really had cared for her. That he’d wanted her.
That he’d loved her.
But that was just a fantasy. The scaffolding was gone and that morning she’d seen them bring in a truck to haul away the construction trailer. Soon, Dev Carson would be a memory. Tearing up his image would hasten that process, if she could just make herself do it. She heard a knock on her office door and looked up.
And her heart stopped.
Dev stood in the doorway looking loose and relaxed in khakis and a work shirt.
She mustered up calm. “Can I help you?” she asked coolly.
He nodded. “Yes. Did you get a chance to look at the signoff sheet I left on your desk?” He walked in to sit in the client chair next to her desk.
He was too close. Having him at eye level made him harder to avoid. “I haven’t had a chance to look at it.”
“It’s just a summary of what’s been done. If there are any problems at all, now is the time to write them on the sheet so we can fix them.”
“Nice to know you stand behind your work.”
“Oh, I do,” he assured her. “Anyway, you don’t have to do it immediately. Take a day, take a good close look at everything before you give it the okay. Once you’re signed off on it, we’re gone.”
“Great.” She set it in her inbox and turned toward her computer. Dev didn’t move, though, and in a minute she turned back to him. “Is there something else?”
His expression was watchful. “Yeah, there is.”
Don’t let him talk about it, she prayed. If he started pawing over the bones of their relationship, she really couldn’t handle it. No, she had to handle it, Taylor thought immediately. There simply wasn’t any choice.
She folded her hands together to stifle her urge to fidget. “Fine, what do you need?”
“I need to set up a trip,” he said.
“Nicole can do that for you,” she said smoothly.
“I’d rather you did it.” He gave her a winning smile. “It’ll just take a minute.”
She couldn’t think of a dignified way to avoid him, so she finally just stared straight ahead at her computer screen. “Let me just bring up your file from our database.” She clicked the keys and then turned to him. “Where would you like to go?”
“Cozumel, of course.”
Eyes forward, Taylor thought. Her hands shook only a little. “I see. And will this be for you alone?”
“Nope. I’m tired of vacations on my own. I want to take someone special.”
“Two rooms?”
Dev’s teeth gleamed. “I said special.”
Her face felt frozen. “One room, then.”
“Yeah. The honeymoon suite, if they have one.”
There was a roaring in her ears. Surely no one, not even Dev, could expect her to get through this. “I see.” Taylor brought up her web browser and went to the tour package booking site. “Do you know when you’d like to go?” she asked, typing in her password.
“Let’s make it next February. The last week. It’ll probably take that long to plan the wedding.”
Taylor’s hands stilled on the keyboard for an instant before she forced herself to start typing again. “Congratulations,” she said tonelessly. She would keep her voice steady if it was the last thing she did, she told herself fiercely. So he’d made up with his fiancée, so what. He wasn’t worth having. And if her heart was breaking at the sound of his voice, it was only because she was being foolish. It wasn’t like it was a surprise. She’d known he was going back to Melissa. She didn’t care. “I’m sure you’ll be very happy.”
“Thanks, but I haven’t asked her yet.”
She swallowed. “I’m sure it’s just a formality, isn’t it?”
He smiled faintly. “Let’s hope so,” he said, reaching over to pick up the shell in front of her pencil holder.
If she could get through this, she could get through anything, she told herself.
“Does she spell her name the way it sounds?”
“I guess so,” he said, toying with the shell. “T-AY-L-O-R…”
Shock stopped any words she might have spoken in her throat. At last Taylor looked at him, her eyes wide with disbelief. “I think you know how to spell the rest,” he said gently.
It was as though she were at the edge of an abyss of uncertainty, of believing, unsure if she were about to fall or fly. “I don’t understand,” she managed.
“Look, let me tell you about last week.” Dev leaned forward. “We’d gotten back from Newport and I was walking around feeling like I didn’t fit into my own skin. Something wasn’t right but I didn’t know what. Then I went into the construction trailer and Melissa was there. And she said something that stopped me in my tracks. She said I was missing something. That’s when she came up and put her arms around me, and I knew.”
“What?” she whispered.
“That I was in love with you.”
Suddenly it was as though she was bathed in heat and light.
“My ex-fiancée, who still remains ex, was never a factor. It’s been you since I met you, maybe even since I first saw you. You didn’t know that, did you? You’re the reason I came here when it was time for the honeymoon.” He caught her hand in his.
Taylor just blinked at him.
“Riley was running the project at first and I was on the renovation project at the Peabody,” he continued. “I’d stopped in to check something with him and I saw you walk by with Nicole, on your way back from lunch, maybe. You floored me. Melissa and I were fighting like cats and dogs, and here you were, sashaying by in your short skirt, laughing, with that lift to your chin. I was hooked.
“Next thing I knew, I was in the travel agency. I thought afterward that it was probably a good thing that you were busy and I couldn’t talk with you, because I didn’t know what would have happened. Now I’m just sorry we’ve wasted time. It’s up to you to tell me how much more we have to waste.”
“I thought you’d gone back to her,” Taylor whispered, leaning toward him.
“We were never together really, not the way you and I are. I love you, Taylor. It’s right with us. And whatever I have to do to convince you of that, I will.”
She laughed shakily. “It doesn’t take much,” she said. “That day Melissa called I was trying to figure out how to tell you that I loved you. That was part of why it hit me so hard. I thought I’d just been a fool, once again.”
He rose and pressed his lips to hers. “I’ll let you be a fool for me. Because I’ll tell you, I’m already a fool for you.”
“It’s a deal.” She grinned. “Now about that trip to Cozumel.”
“Yes?”
“I think March would be much better…”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-7783-4SLIPPERY WHEN WET
Copyright © 2003 by Kristin Lewotsky.
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