Her Best-Kept Secret

by Harlen, Brenda

  She wanted the meal to be over so she could go home. It had been her intention to stay out late, to ensure she wouldn’t be there when Richard stopped by. But she knew now that he wouldn’t be coming anywhere near her apartment tonight.

  “Did you want dessert?” Brad asked.

  She shook her head and set her napkin back on the table. “I couldn’t eat another bite.”

  He frowned. “You barely touched your dinner.”

  “I told you I wasn’t very hungry.”

  He seemed about to say something else, apparently changed her mind. “How about another glass of wine?”

  She shook her head again. “No, thanks. I really just want to go.”

  Annoyance flickered in his eyes. “What’s the hurry?”

  “It’s been a long day, and I’m tired.”

  “It’s barely nine o’clock,” he pointed out. “And I brought you here because there’s something important I wanted to talk to you about.”

  She didn’t want to talk—she just wanted to go home and cry the tears she’d been holding back since she’d walked out of Richard’s hotel room the previous afternoon. But there was one question she felt compelled to ask. “Did you know that Mr. Taka was bringing the Hanson people here?”

  His hesitation answered her question before he spoke, “Maybe I did. Maybe I’m not happy about the way a certain lawyer from Chicago has been sniffing around you.”

  “How do you know anything about Richard Warren?”

  “It’s my business to find the story,” he reminded her. “When I saw you with him this morning, I made a point of asking some questions.”

  His audacity might annoy her, but it didn’t surprise her. Giving Brad the smallest bit of information was like giving a starving dog the scent of a meaty bone.

  “Did you get the answers you wanted?” she asked coolly.

  “All but one.”

  “Which one?”

  He pinned her with his gaze. “Have you slept with him?”

  “I guess I should be grateful you’re asking me rather than polling the newsroom.”

  “Have you?” he asked again.

  She couldn’t lie to him. She didn’t want to lie to him. “Yes.”

  His mouth thinned. “I can’t say I’m happy about that.”

  “Do you expect me to believe you haven’t been with anyone else in the past six months?”

  “There have been other women,” he admitted. “But only because I was trying to forget about you.”

  Women—plural. And he was all bent out of shape because she’d been with one other man.

  He took her hand again. “It didn’t work. I couldn’t stop thinking about you, missing you.”

  “And yet it took you six months to contact me.”

  “You know me, Jen. I pride myself on my independence. I didn’t want to admit that I needed you.” He reached across the table for the hand that was resting on the base of her wine glass. “Did you know that I haven’t been back to New York for more than a few days at a time since you left?”

  “Your six-week assignment lasted six months?”

  “I was finished on schedule,” he said. “But when I got home, it didn’t feel like home anymore. Without you, it was just an empty apartment. So I took another assignment. And another after that. Until I realized, consciously or not, I’d been making my way toward Tokyo.”

  She remained silent, not sure what kind of response was appropriate.

  “But I knew if I came to see you, if I hoped to convince you of my feelings, I couldn’t show up empty-handed.” He pulled a cellophane-wrapped fortune cookie out of his pocket. “So I brought this for you.”

  “From China?”

  He frowned, obviously missing the subtlety of her point. “From London, actually. I know a guy there who owns a company that makes these.” He set the it down in front of her. “Open it.”

  She opened the wrapper, wondering what kind of fortune he’d dreamed up for her and wishing he hadn’t bothered. But she broke open the cookie, then stared speechless at the ring that fell out.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jenny thought she’d been shocked when she’d seen Brad in the newsroom, but that moment of incredulity didn’t begin to compare to this.

  “I want you to marry me,” he said.

  She didn’t know what to say.

  She’d never expected, after so many months apart, that he would want not just to reconcile but to move their relationship forward—to take that next final step he’d always seemed so wary of. To offer her everything she’d always wanted.

  And it was everything she wanted.

  So why wasn’t she leaping out of her chair to throw herself into his arms? And why was she now, as he was sliding the ring onto her finger, fighting the urge to pull her hand away?

  She knew the answer to all of those questions was the same. Richard.

  She heard the scrape of chairs and glanced up as the Hanson-TAKA group started to move toward the door. Richard’s mouth was set in a thin line as his gaze moved toward her, disappointment evident in his eyes.

  What had she expected—that he would pull her into his arms and beg her to marry him instead of Brad? Yeah, that was as likely as the Yomiuri Giants winning the World Series.

  She turned her attention back to Brad and realized that he’d been watching her watch Richard. She felt a twinge of embarrassment, but she refused to feel guilty for having moved on with her life during the time she and Brad had been apart. And she had moved on. She didn’t want Brad anymore, she wanted Richard.

  How could she possibly accept what Brad was offering when her heart was still aching for Richard?

  “I was thinking a fall wedding would be nice,” Brad continued.

  “This fall?”

  “Of course,” he said. “We’ve been apart for too long already.”

  He was saying the right things, but she knew the real reason he wanted to marry quickly wasn’t that he’d missed her so much. She stared at the dazzling marquise diamond on her hand for a moment, then looked up at him.

  “Were you even going to tell me about TCR?” she asked softly, referring to the company she knew he’d invested in heavily—a company that had recently declared bankruptcy.

  She saw the flicker of surprise on his face, the shadow of guilt in his eyes.

  “What does that have to do with anything?” he demanded, a trifle defensively.

  “I’m guessing everything.”

  He frowned. “I love you, Jenny.”

  “And yet, during the whole two-and-a-half years we were together, living in the same apartment, you never once voluntarily mentioned the word marriage.”

  “I wasn’t ready.”

  “You’re not ready now,” she said.

  She’d loved Brad once, had even dreamed of marrying him. But all she could think about now was Richard. How her heart had raced when Richard touched her. How her mind had spun when Richard kissed her. How her body had tingled when she’d made love with Richard.

  She pulled the ring off her finger. “I can’t accept this.”

  “I thought this was what you wanted.”

  “A year ago it was,” she agreed.

  He frowned. “Are you saying no?”

  “Yes,” she said, with absolutely zero regret. “I’m saying no.”

  Richard knew the man he’d seen Jenny having dinner with was her ex-boyfriend, but not because she’d told him of her plans. No, during their brief conversation earlier that day, she hadn’t even bothered to mention that he was in town. He only knew about Brad because he’d happened to cross paths with Samara as he was leaving the Tribune building. She’d been happy to tell him about the unexpected and unwelcome visitor.

  But while Samara obviously didn’t like her friend’s ex, it was Jenny’s feelings that mattered. Richard figured the ring on her finger made those feelings pretty clear.

  He told himself it shouldn’t bother him so much. She’d been honest from the start about wanting
a husband and a family, just as he’d been honest about not being the man to give her those things. He should be happy that she was finally getting what she wanted.

  Instead, he was selfish enough to be miserable.

  Just when he’d started thinking about how they could maintain a relationship after the Hanson-TAKA merger was finalized, his hopes had come crumbling down around him. Even before the ex-boyfriend returned, Jenny had left him, and any hope he might have had of changing her mind had been obliterated by Brad’s proposal.

  Richard had once worried about her vulnerability. It turned out the joke was on him. She was the one who’d walked out. He knew it hadn’t been an easy decision for her to make, but she’d done so anyway, and he’d been the one left with his heart torn open.

  Or maybe it was his pride that was in tatters, only his ego that was wounded by her easy dismissal of him and everything they’d shared.

  In any case, he had other things to think about. Now more than ever, he wanted this damn merger finalized so he could go back to Chicago and forget he’d ever met Jenny Anderson.

  He popped the locks on his briefcase and pulled out Hanson’s latest financial reports, determined to put her out of his mind and focus on his work. But the letters and numbers blurred before his eyes and his mind insisted on wandering.

  He pushed away from the desk and moved to the window to look out at the street below, his father’s words coming back to him again.

  And if the woman you love loves you back—

  He severed the thought with a laugh that reflected more derision than humor.

  Jenny claimed she’d ended their relationship because she was falling in love with him. Following that same logic, he figured she must be completely head-over-heels for him now. It was the only reason he could think of for her to marry another man.

  Keiko Irene Anderson came into the world at 10:37 p.m.—a seven-pound fifteen-ounce bundle of wrinkly red skin and spiky black hair with a very healthy set of lungs.

  When Jenny finally left the hospital, after cooing over the latest addition to the family and taking her turn to hold her brand-new niece in her arms, she intended to go home. She needed to think, to process everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, and she needed to sleep.

  But instead of going home, she found herself in front of the hotel. Had she planned to come here all along?

  She didn’t know. But now that she was here, she knew she couldn’t leave without seeing Richard.

  Still, nerves skipped in her tummy as she made her way to the elevator, up to the twenty-second floor, then down the corridor. The last time she’d come had been to tell him that their relationship—barely begun—was over. She hadn’t expected that she’d have reason to come back to the hotel while Richard was still here. And she wasn’t sure it was reason so much as need that had compelled her to come now.

  She just wanted to explain about Brad. She could only imagine what he thought, knowing she’d been in his bed only days before receiving a proposal from another man. And she thought he might want to know about the baby.

  Or maybe she was just making excuses.

  She ignored this niggling thought as easily as the Do Not Disturb sign hanging on the handle and rapped her knuckles against the wood.

  She waited a minute, maybe two, and had lifted her hand to knock again when the door was yanked open.

  “You’re the absolute last person I expected to see tonight,” Richard said to her.

  She twisted the strap of her purse around her hand, suddenly aware that she had no idea what time it was. She didn’t know when she’d left the restaurant or how long she’d been at the hospital. Whatever the hour, Richard clearly hadn’t been sleeping.

  He was still dressed in the suit he’d been wearing at dinner, although the jacket had been discarded and the tie loosened. His hair looked slightly rumpled, as if he’d run his hands through it. His jaw was shadowed with stubble and his eyes were dark. He looked sexily disheveled and just a little bit dangerous.

  That thought gave her pause. Dangerous wasn’t a word she would ever have associated with him before. Then again, he’d never looked at her quite this way before.

  She ignored the quiver of nerves to ask, “Can I come in?”

  His only response was to step back to allow her entry.

  He closed the door behind her, then moved across the room to pick up a glass of amber liquid. She guessed it was probably the whiskey that was responsible for the edgy glint in his eyes.

  “You’re not wearing his ring,” he noted, lifting the glass to his lips as she stepped past him.

  “I—” she cleared her throat “—no.”

  “Did you turn down his proposal?”

  She wished he’d offer her a drink or invite her to sit down—anything to ease this uncomfortable situation. But he did neither, merely standing across the room watching her.

  “Yes.”

  He seemed surprised by her response, but quickly recovered to ask, “Why? I thought you wanted to get married and have a family. Isn’t that, after all, why you dumped me?”

  She winced at the anger in his tone. “My decision to end things with you had nothing to do with Brad. It still doesn’t.”

  “Because what we had between us would never have been enough for you.”

  He was right. What they’d shared together, as wonderful as it had been, wouldn’t have been enough. She would eventually, inevitably, have wanted more. She knew herself well enough to have anticipated that, and she knew Richard well enough to know that he couldn’t give her what she needed. It was the reason she’d ended their relationship.

  I care about you, Jenny.

  The memory of his words evoked both joy and pain. Joy because she knew that he did care; pain because caring wasn’t loving. And she’d promised herself that she would never settle for second best again.

  But she couldn’t deny that she missed him. She felt the tightness in her throat, the threat of tears she hadn’t yet let herself shed. “I’m not sure what I want anymore,” she admitted.

  “Then why are you here?” he asked again, more gently this time.

  “I, ah, came to tell you that that Michiko had her baby. Another girl.” She smiled. “Keiko.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight. She’s beautiful.” Jenny smiled. “She wasn’t an hour old when I got to hold her in my arms—this brand-new baby, a tiny perfect human being.”

  She could still feel the slight weight of the fragile bundle in her arms and the pang of longing so deep inside it made her want to cry.

  “I do know what I want,” she said.

  “A baby,” he guessed.

  “A family,” she corrected. “All my life, I’ve never quite felt as though I fit. I love my parents and John and Michiko and their beautiful little girls, but I’ve always felt a little disconnected—as if they’d been given to me to share but weren’t really mine. I want a family of my own.”

  It was a dream he’d once had, too. But that dream had faded a long time ago. His father’s death had been the first blow, a hard lesson in the fragility of life; his mother’s abandonment had confirmed the capriciousness of love; finding his wife with another man had only solidified his doubts and questions. No, a family wasn’t something he’d dared dream about in a long time.

  Except when he’d been with Jenny, then he’d found himself wanting more than he should. He’d found himself thinking about a future with her in it. Even as he’d reminded himself it was a fantasy—a dream that could never be reality because her life was here and his was in Chicago—he’d convinced himself the obstacle of distance wasn’t insurmountable if they both wanted to be together.

  Of course, her dumping him effectively destroyed those illusions.

  “If you want a family of your own so much, why didn’t you accept Brad’s proposal?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Okay,” he said when she remained silent. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re really h
ere?”

  “Obviously I made a mistake.” She started toward the door.

  He grabbed her arm and turned her around to face him again. “Did you come to see if I’d be willing to make the same offer? How far are you willing to go to entice me?”

  His lips hovered above hers. He saw her eyes widen, felt the soft exhale of her breath. He pressed his body against hers, let her feel his arousal. As angry as he was with her, as frustrated as he was with the situation, he couldn’t deny that she still turned him on. And having her back in his arms, even like this, aroused him beyond belief.

  Apparently he wasn’t the only one affected by their nearness. Jenny moaned as she shifted instinctively, cradling the ache of his arousal between the softness of her thighs.

  He bit back a groan of frustration as he tried to remember that she’d dumped him, trampled right over his heart on her way out the door. But right now, with her back in his arms, he didn’t seem to care. Or maybe he cared too much.

  He crushed his mouth down on hers. He was furious and frustrated and hurting more than he was willing to admit, and all of that pent-up emotion poured into the kiss.

  He expected her to slap him—he deserved to be slapped. At the very least, he expected that she would pull away. Instead she moaned, her lips parting for the ruthless onslaught of his tongue. Her hands weren’t pushing against him but holding on, her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt. Her body molded to his, soft curves yielding to hard angles, her heart beating in frantic rhythm against his.

  Somehow, without either of them being aware, anger gave way to ardor and passion transformed to tenderness.

  She trembled. Or maybe he did.

  He was no longer certain where she left off and he began; it no longer mattered. The taste of her seeped into his blood, more potent than any whiskey. His hands moved over her body, no longer punishing and demanding but seeking and giving.

  His lips skimmed over her cheeks, tasted the saltiness of her tears. Whatever point he’d intended to make was lost in the realization that he’d hurt her, and that was the one thing he’d never wanted to do. He leaned his forehead against hers. His voice, when he spoke, was thick with emotion, regret.