Choosing the Right Man (NICE GIRL TO LOVE Book Three)

by Violet Duke

  No, she didn’t.

  Dropping back down into the seat, she watched his hand slide from her wrist down to her fingers, and she did her best to swallow back a shiver when his thumb trailed over her palm.

  “Then what was the whole point, Connor? Or did I decode your gift and letter wrong? If you were always planning on coming back, why push me toward Brian in the first place?”

  “I didn’t know what else to do.” He pulled back and scrubbed a frustrated hand over his face. “Nothing about what you and I had was planned. My whole life, I’ve planned absolutely everything. Until you came along. Instead of planning my life, you made me want to simply live it.” Searching her gaze he added, “More and more, I found myself never wanting to let you go. Not after a month…not ever.”

  None of this made even a lick of sense. And her instant, melting reaction to every paradoxical thing he was saying was the most illogical part of it all. “So why—”

  “Because you two are perfect for each other,” he cut in almost bitterly. “And because you’re both so goddamn good and nice, you were each just ignoring what was plain as day between you two.” His jaw ticked. “So I stepped aside. Even though all I wanted was to hold on to you and keep you as mine forever, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not without letting you two figure out if there really was something there. I didn’t want to short either of you that, and frankly, I didn’t want to wonder over it my whole life.”

  Every long term phrase spilling from his lips was effectively tangling her thoughts, confusing her heart, rebinding what she thought was all but lost.

  “Of all the things I’ve had to give up in my life, you were the only one I couldn’t bear to lose, Abby,” he whispered roughly. “But it was killing me to think there would always be that possibility that I could lose you anyway if I held on. If I didn’t give you two a chance to see if the kind of love you had for each other was more than you thought it was.”

  “Because that kind of thing never goes away. So I told myself that I’d give you both one month, just like you and I had...”

  To fall in love.

  It hung there silently between them though neither had ever said it aloud.

  “I allotted one month for Brian to see if things would’ve worked out for you two without Beth being a factor.” He lifted his gaze to snag hers. “One month for you to see if he’s the one you really want.”

  Abby rewound her time with Brian. Had it really only been a month? It felt like longer, like there’d been no real start date to her feelings for him. “Did Brian know about all this? About your one-month plan for us?” He’d let her believe that Connor wasn’t ever going to come back.

  “Not about the one-month, no. And not about my feelings for you either, not really. At least not until that morning at the house.”

  Right, Helen’s house. His spy. “So your mother was the only one who knew the whole story.” Abby sat there for a few minutes and attempted to make sense out of all this information. To make sense of Connor.

  An improbable feat.

  When she eventually looked up from her food, she saw him eyeing her like he was about to face a firing squad.

  Good.

  Leaning forward, she steepled her hands and asked the only question that hadn’t stopped echoing in her mind for the past few minutes. “When you said you waited one month, how many days exactly did you wait?”

  He blinked at her, startled, and then seemingly pleased, before answering with a head-shaking smile, “Twenty-eight days. I waited exactly twenty-eight of the longest days of my life.”

  Abby sat back with a nod wondering how it was that even though her brain seemed not to know what to do with that information, her racing heart was reacting like it had gotten the answer it was searching for.

  CONNOR FELT HIS HEART pounding in his chest. Count on Abby to ask the most unlikely question—a question that looked deeper into him than most people knew how to or cared to...a question that gave him hope.

  “So am I forgiven for leaving you?”

  “Of course not,” she replied before biting into the summer roll she’d been turning into a voodoo doll for the past ten minutes.

  Well, it was worth a shot.

  “But,” she conceded, “you are forgiven for the length of time you left me.”

  That was more than he was expecting, and truthfully, more than he thought he deserved.

  “Gabriella mentioned you’d started seeing someone,” she said then from straight out of left field.

  What? “When on earth did you talk to Gabriella?”

  She paused in thought for a second and then answered as if surprised by her own answer. “About a month ago.”

  Ah, and another piece of the puzzle in the Abby and Brian saga was revealed. “I haven’t dated anyone after you, sweetheart.”

  “What about the woman you were with at the hospital?” Her voice was bolder now and hot damn if that wasn’t a spark of jealousy firing those sweetly sexy brown eyes of hers.

  “She’s a friend, nothing more.”

  Her eyes narrowed in naked disbelief. “You don’t have female friends. Besides Victoria, that is, and we both know that friendship will always be partly a get-into-bed-free card on her end.”

  Another flare of jealousy. Along with a small smile she hid behind her napkin.

  Funny, he never thought such a thing would ever factor into his feelings over a woman but the fact that Abby could see the good in Victoria meant a lot. He remembered now feeling the same way when she’d actually been complimentary about her, seemed to have liked her a bit even, after their first train wreck of an introduction to each other months ago.

  Even though that hadn’t been a test, Abby was the only person in his life, man or woman, who’d ever aced it.

  “The woman from the hospital is helping me with a few pro bono cases I’m working on,” he explained. “She’s one of the major representatives of an organization I care a lot about. And she’s a hell of a grant writer as well. The night you saw us, we’d been preparing for a trip the following day to the east coast for a day-long set of meetings we had regarding a series of cutting edge clinical trials she’d found and researched.”

  A twinge of respect colored Abby’s expression. “She sounds incredible.”

  None of the other women he’d been with in the past would’ve given the qualities he’d just listed the proper respect they deserved. Another aced non-test. “She is incredible. I admire her a lot, which was why we became friends so quickly. Nothing more. I wouldn’t lie to you about that.”

  She nodded. “I know you wouldn’t.” Her mouth turned down at the corners. “But I have to admit, I’m still a bit envious of her. Where was that sort of devoted friendship with us? You just up and extracted yourself from my life completely. I’d thought I meant enough to you that you’d want to stay friends at the bare minimum, that our friendship was worth at least that.”

  Dumbfounded shock slapped him across the face. “Oh honey, I’m so sorry I made you feel like it wasn’t. Because it was monumentally important to me. Still is. You don’t know how many times I’ve picked up that phone wanting to call you, how many times I’ve dialed your number just to tell you about something that happened that day.”

  He’d hated not being with her all those months, and knowing just how deeply his leaving had hurt her made it all that much worse. “This time, no matter what happens, I’m not leaving you like that again. Ever.”

  “Promise?” she asked softly.

  His heart ripped from the inside out over that. “I promise, sweetheart.”

  They sat and ate in silence for a few minutes before she finally ventured in that adorably intrepid way, “So…what sort of things did you almost call me about?” She lifted a shoulder and smiled. “You can talk to me about ‘em now if you want.”

  Christ, he’d missed her sweetness.

  “Like I said, it was a daily thing. Good and bad and everything in between.” He paused in thought. “But the on
e time I’d actually dialed your entire phone number and nearly pressed ‘send’ about a dozen times was the day Marcus went to go see you and Brian.”

  A dark cloud of sympathy quickly blanketed her features. “I remember that day. I’m so sorry, Connor.”

  “Not to throw your own words back at you sweetie, but don’t apologize for him. Especially not for this. I’m thankful not to share any of his genes.”

  Still, the sadness lingered in her eyes. “Was it your mother who called to tell you or Brian?”

  “My mother.” He rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. “But Abby, I already knew.”

  Her eyes jolted wide in shock. “How?”

  “I’d overheard the conversation between Marcus and Brian years ago, about my being a Sullivan bastard.”

  She shook her head in confusion. “But I thought you were at Columbia then.”

  No amount of time could keep his anger from boiling to the surface when he recalled the memory of what Marcus had done to Brian. Back teeth grinding, he explained bitterly, “I knew Brian was going to tell Marcus that Beth was pregnant so I’d rushed back, wanting to be there to jump in if things got out of hand.” He shook his head, remembering the rush of giddy relief he’d felt when he’d first learned that he wasn’t related to Marcus, along with the overwhelming surge of emotion that had come over him shortly afterward when he’d heard Brian fight for him harder than most brothers—half or full—would.

  Brian was just that kind of guy.

  “He didn’t know that I’d overheard everything from out in the hall. So when he told me his partially-omitted version about the deal Marcus struck with him later on, I kept quiet about it…something that was considerably harder to do when Marcus then spun the deal a different way to me the next day.”

  Something very close to hatred flashed across Abby’s face. “That man has no soul.”

  Yes, Connor had long thought the same thing about the man who wasn’t his father. “Not that I think a lack of a soul is a genetic thing, but that was one of the big reasons why I was so unbelievably grateful to hear him say that I wasn’t his son. I’m just sorry that my mother had felt she needed to rush into a marriage with someone like him just because she was pregnant with me.”

  Abby idly skated the tips of her fingers over his forearm, and drew her hand back quickly after, almost as if she didn’t trust herself with even that small gesture. Suddenly, a slow thoughtful look bloomed across her face then, and she looked up at him in wonder. “It was you, wasn’t it? You’re the one who told Brian and Beth not to rush their wedding.”

  He shrugged. “It was what Brian wanted to do anyway. All I did was suggest it and tell him to screw what everyone else thought about it if he and Beth wanted it that way.”

  “It was more than that.” Abby gazed at him like he was ten-feet tall. “I remember now. Beth must have been only in her second trimester, just starting to show and she’d started second-guessing their decision to wait. Then Brian told her that you’d suggested their kid be in the wedding as a ring bearer or flower girl, so it would be a whole family event. I swear to God, Beth broke down and started bawling over that idea.”

  It wasn’t that big a deal. Connor shrugged again. “I just figured it’d be kind of cool for all of them to look back on it later. That’s partly why people make such a big deal about vow renewals, right? So their kids can be a part of it?”

  “You have no idea how special that family wedding photo is to Skylar.” She sighed. “Like I said, you haven’t changed one bit.”

  If she didn’t stop staring at him like that he simply would not be responsible for his actions.

  A distraction. They were in serious need of a distraction.

  He stood abruptly and held out his hand. “Come on. I want to show you something.” Walking her over to the kitchen he added, “I’ve been thinking about what kinds of things we can do on our date nights.”

  She looked up at him and he nearly groaned aloud at the buried heat he saw in her eyes. “Chaste things,” he clarified, hoarsely, his voice tight.

  At the tiny sound of disappointment she let out, he did groan. “You haven’t changed a bit, either, Abby. You still have the ability to drive me completely insane with seemingly very little effort.”

  Cheeks flushed, she withdrew her hand and stepped back instantly. “I’m sorry. I just—”

  “Honey, don’t ever apologize for reacting to me,” he caught her hand and slipped his fingers back between hers. “Sanity is overrated.”

  Glancing down at their intertwined fingers, she smiled shyly, “Okay, I give. So what were those chaste date activities you had in mind?”

  He opened the door to the walk-in pantry and showed her the world map he’d put up on the far wall.

  She peered at it and then looked up at him questioningly.

  “Pick a country you haven’t visited yet on your culinary tour. I figure for starters, you and I can travel on your culinary tour together—you pick the country, we’ll research the recipes we want to try out and do our best not to screw them up.”

  “Really?” Pleasure infused her features so candidly that he simply stood there, transfixed.

  She threw her arms around him and gave him a laughing hug. “That would be great!”

  It took every ounce of willpower he possessed to resist pushing her back against the wall and drinking in that laugh right from her lips.

  Damn.

  Unable to help himself, he caught her chin between his fingers and tilted her face up to his.

  “It’s taking all the control I have not to kiss you right now, Abby. Every second I’m this close to you, my brain is imagining at least a dozen ways to make love to you.” He leaned forward and felt his control slip another notch at the feel of her breath against his lips. “Tell me you still think about me too.”

  Her eyes dilated with a speed that tested his resolve even more.

  So much better than a yes.

  But before either of them could go down a path they wouldn’t be able to come back from, she pulled away. At the very last second. And the only salve to his bleeding heart was that she’d looked just as torn and disappointed as he felt when she did.

  He drew back from the temptation of her soft lips, and rested his forehead against hers. “You asked me what sort of things I almost called you about? This was one of them. I wanted to call you to tell you that I was thinking about you, about kissing you and stripping every inch of clothing off of you so I could take you right then and there. And tonight, I’m going to pick up that phone and not call you again, not call to tell you that I wish you were asleep next to me in bed so I could hold you, kiss you awake in the morning, and spend the entire day thinking about you and missing you...”

  “Just so I could come home to you and start the whole process all over again.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SHE’D ALMOST KISSED HIM. Sugarplums, who was she kidding, she’d almost stripped all her clothes off for him right there in the kitchen. Sure she had pulled back at the last moment, and yes, they’d called it a night shortly after, but it was over a week later and that non-kiss was still sizzling away in her brain.

  The all-determining coin toss had never looked so appealing.

  Granted, Connor had been kidding about having applied it to their dating arrangement but still, the idea held merit. Mostly because it was the only one she had.

  After spending a week with Connor and a week with Brian, Abby was no closer to making a decision than she’d been at the beginning of this insane joint custody agreement.

  Because as intensely as Connor could make her heart race, Brian could just as quickly make it melt.

  Brian had requested this past week for his date week because he and Skylar had the week off of school for spring break, just as she had. And in true Brian fashion, he’d planned the perfect vacation. He took them up north for three days of sledding and rabidly competitive snowman building, and three nights of toasting marshmallows in front of the fire
and drinking hot cocoa.

  “You said you’d always wanted a snow day during school when you were growing up,” he’d explained when he and Skylar had revealed the surprise. “And since this is officially your last semester as a student, ever, I thought we’d better get that snow day in.”

  Heartmelting man.

  Which was precisely why she was right back between a rock and a hard place.

  Every time she thought she was leaning one way in her decision, something would happen to swing her vote right back.

  “Your move, Abby.”

  Shaking her head, Abby glanced up and saw a pair of dice rattling in front of her face.

  “Earth to Abby,” called out Skylar with a grin. “It’s your turn.”

  Abby looked down at her nearly depleted Monopoly money pile and then over at the overflowing stacks of bills on both Brian and Skylar’s ends of the table. Like father, like daughter. With a sigh of defeat, she rolled the dice and waited to see which triumphant hoot and egging holler she’d hear when the numbers landed.

  3 - 2 - 1...

  Soprano it was. “I win!” Skylar bounced up and down in her chair.

  Starting about two years ago, when it was clear that even Skylar as a ten-year old could whip Abby’s butt in Monopoly, they’d decided they needed a new end-point to their board game nights since playing with only two people wasn’t any fun. That was the birth of the whoever’s-winning-when-Abby-loses ruling.

  To be fair, she and Skylar had a similar ruling when they played Jenga against Brian with his bear-like paws.

  Brian chuckled and gave Abby a consolation kiss on the forehead. “You lasted almost an hour. That’s a new record.”

  Abby whacked him in the chest and started cleaning up the board with a laughing pout.

  “Okay Sky-bug, bedtime.” Brian tugged on Skylar’s braid. “Are you going out with Becky tomorrow?”

  “She’s coming over after lunch.” Skylar tucked the board game back on the shelf. “Are you sleeping over tonight, Abby?”