Maybe a lot of fear. Though she felt good about telling Harry the extent of her feelings for him, she wasn’t sure how he’d react. Would he consider it a meaningless endearment? Would he dislike her for manipulating him, controlling the bombshell of her declaration, then turning out the lights? Would he despise her for her weakness, the way her mother and Rick used to?
Telling Harry she loved him made her feel vulnerable. Especially since it was still one-sided.
She heard his getting-ready-for-work sounds—the pull of drawers, the creak of hardwood floors—and tensed.
A few moments later, he strolled through the archway dividing the kitchen from the dining room, still towel-drying his hair.
She let her gaze travel over his form, a reflexive admiration of the way his custom-tailored business shirt and slacks showcased his body.
“Hey there, handsome man.” She stood to kiss him.
He obliged, holding her lightly. The feel of his lips resting so briefly against hers didn’t quite reassure her. It was a cool, distant kind of kiss. “Are you okay?” She let her arms linger around his waist, trapping him for the moment.
He became motionless. She could feel tension in his absolute stillness. His voice, when he spoke, was just as controlled. “I feel fine. Why?”
Smooth. Inaccessibly so.
She made a rude sound. “I was wondering what you thought about what I said last night.”
“You said a few things last night.” A smile played about his mouth. He broke from her embrace gracefully and without a wasted movement. “All of them delightful.”
“I meant after that. I was wondering if you’re okay with what I said.” Her body heated at the memories of their lovemaking, even as her heart sped up due to nerves. “Just before I turned out the lights?”
“I know.” He opened a cabinet to reach for a coffee mug, then seemed to change his mind and shut the cabinet door again. “What I think is that you’re a lovely and lovable woman.” On the way out, he kissed her on the mouth again.
He left.
It wasn’t until she was halfway through her cereal that she realized he hadn’t said the words back to her.
Harry tried for the thirteenth time to analyze the advances and declines in a client’s tech stocks. But not only didn’t the numbers soothe him, they didn’t even focus him. The encouragingly green numbers crunched by his state-of-the-art financial software scrolled across his enormous monitor.
But yet again, instead of seeing the numbers, he saw Ginnie. He heard her laughing in his basement as they danced their puppets together. He felt her warm curves as he carried her across his house to his bed. He smelled the fresh aroma of her hair and tasted the instantly addictive flavor of her mouth as their bodies moved together in a timeless rhythm.
His large corner office always provided a refuge, a place to regroup and focus on his clients and on himself. Success was the name of the game.
He gave up on the client’s tech stocks. With a click, he opened up the live intra-day market analysis of the U.S. stock and bond markets, technology stocks, economic releases, earnings reports and day trading highlights.
Visions of Ginnie danced through his head.
She’d said she loved him. Barely knowing him, she’d told him those words. It didn’t matter if she did think she meant them, he told himself. He knew he didn’t have it in him to give her the trust she deserved. Unlike Ginnie, he’d had his playfulness and childlikeness seared right off him, like a wart, like something he didn’t need or want at all, and he was comfortable with things that way. That’s what Ginnie didn’t get or didn’t believe.
Sometimes there wasn’t any going back. Nor did he want to. Better that Ginnie realized it now rather than later.
He’d hoped, oh how he’d hoped without even knowing he’d hoped, that Ginnie was different, but now he’d always wonder whether she was after his money too.
Cursing, he switched off the monitor with such savagery he heard something crack.
“Easy on the equipment, boss. We’re not made of money, you know. Well, I’m not.” Todd entered with his usual saunter, but his eyes were narrowed. He carried a netbook, as all Harry’s employees did. “You feeling okay?”
“Fine.” He should feel fine. Things were about to get back to normal. Just as soon as he kicked Ginnie out of his life.
“You look like hell.”
“You’re fired.”
Todd just grinned, but Harry noticed it looked strained. “Something up?”
Now Todd looked downright uncomfortable. “Ah. The thing is…well.” He tapped the small computer. “Norbert Kenton’s portfolio just took an unexpected serious dip, and he’s pretty pissed,” Todd clarified.
“What?” Harry snatched the computer from Todd’s hand, scanned the numbers. He’d personally overseen Todd on this particular client, who demanded only the best to handle his wealth. That was Harry.
Harry felt the blood drain from his face as he absorbed the bad news.
He shifted into damage-control mode, and in tense, staccato bursts, gave specific instructions to Todd for the dissemination of action plans to the international partners. The different time zones would allow them to salvage what they could of this particular screw-up.
But it never should have happened.
With the messages sent and the instructions given, Todd paused on his way out. “Hey. You okay?” He sounded worried. “And more importantly, am I really fired?”
Todd should be worried. Harry’s daydreaming had nearly caused the head of the company to allow their best client to take a bath. Harry shook his head.
He waved Todd out. He didn’t trust himself to speak, not even to Todd.
He drew in a deep breath, turned on his computer and refreshed the screen to see the instant updates on Norbert’s account.
Still red, but trending slowly back up toward green. Another few minutes should put the investments back in balance.
Harry let out the breath he’d been holding. His head swam with the hugeness of the financial disaster he’d barely averted.
Certainty filled him. He knew precisely what was wrong with him, and he knew how to fix it.
Ginnie hung up the phone, scrawling the date of the new gig on her Jim Henson calendar. She viewed the little boxes of filled-up days with satisfaction as she re-hung the evidence of her wonderful career. She put it right over the repair bench where she could easily see it.
The word was getting out. People liked her, wanted her.
She glanced around Harry’s basement at the bookshelves slowly filling with unpacked books and DVDs. She gazed at the closet rails set up in the free-standing wardrobes containing her equipment. There was everything, from the raw materials—plaster, wood, metal, wires, leather, string, wigs, paint, tools—to small sets of clothes hanging like accidentally shrunken tops and pants and dresses on standard-sized coat hangers.
She even had her portable sound system with its speaker stands, her collapsible stages, her clip-on lamps. It all fit in one corner of Harry’s huge basement.
She gnawed on her lower lip. Was she becoming more than a roommate to him? A little more? A lot more? She simply couldn’t tell.
She began to repair a Sicilian rod marionette, Damian the Dragon. One rod controlled the gleaming mahogany creature’s head movements, while a second rod was attached to its brightly scaled right arm. The arm was controlled by a cord, and the lizard legs, which swung free, moved by their own weight. Some of the dragon scales had fallen off. Ginnie painstakingly re-attached Damian’s scales, but her mind flew ahead of the task.
Her whole being anticipated Harry’s arrival back home. She refused to worry about his lack of mushiness—he’d say the three little words eventually. She wanted more of his hands moving magically on her. How astonishing, the way she’d reconciled her submission to him with her need for control. She remembered how it felt when he’d shown her how exquisite lovemaking could be if she trusted enough to let go of the reins. She rememb
ered how his deep voice caused shivers up and down her body, and the boyish grin on his face when they’d danced together by puppet-proxy.
Of course, he’d saved her life. He’d be entitled to a little bit of her affection for that alone. But he’d accomplished more. He hadn’t just saved her life, he’d rescued her heart. At some point after he’d sent Rick packing, he’d become the True North to the compass of her heart. He accepted her—flaws and all. It was a heady experience.
“You’re a handsome dragon,” she told Damian.
The dragon marched up and down the workbench, showing off his jewel-like repaired scales, tossing his head like a king of beasts.
“Good as new,” she declared, putting him to hang with the others. The long workbench and well-lit basement made puppet repairs easy. She could get used to such a workstation. Maybe she’d have the opportunity to get used to it, if there was a permanent change in living arrangements…
Never in her wildest hopes and dreams had she imagined her life working out like this. Just over a month ago, she’d been focused on leaving Rick, escaping her mother and starting a new life in another state by renting an adorable bungalow—which had promptly fallen in on her—and taking a job from which she was quickly fired.
It had all turned out surprisingly well. Ginnie laughed aloud. She was happy in her work, she’d gotten along with her mother for the first time in forever, her house was being fixed thanks to her great new friend Lara, and she had a lover who made her feel delicious butterflies in her stomach whenever she thought of him. For the first time in what seemed like ages, she felt serene.
Her life was moving in a wonderful new direction.
She heard the door shut upstairs and grinned. Harry was home early.
She ran up the stairs.
He stood near the front door, his thick briefcase held before him in a strange, at-ease military-style. The new beard he hadn’t yet shaved looked odd with his expensive clothes and accessories, but she decided she liked it. The brown suited him.
“Hey, hairy man,” she said with a smile as she crossed the living room. “I fixed a rhinoceros earlier that made me think of you. It has a big, hard, long…personality.”
Harry didn’t smile. Instead of offering a hug or a word of greeting, even, he just nodded once. “I need to speak with you.”
Ginnie got closer, wondering at the tight, controlled expression on his face. She felt disturbing quakes in her serenity. “What is it?”
“I’ve let this go on too long. It’s entirely my fault, and I take full responsibility for allowing it to happen against my better judgment. But now it’s time to stop.”
“Harry?” Panic like she’d never known before welled in her throat. His voice had sounded more empty and controlled than a robot’s. “What are you saying?”
The silence grew tight with tension. Maybe this was some weird joke. He couldn’t mean what she feared.
“This has been a mistake. I’m fixing the mistake. I never should have let you believe there was a chance for more. A serious relationship is what you’re after, but it’s not my goal. It’s not my choice.” He patted the briefcase absently, tapping out a series of increasing numbers. One/onetwothree/onetwothreefourfive. “You’re after something I won’t give you, Ginnie. And you’re offering something I don’t need or want. Therefore, I think it’s time you left.”
He spoke with a businessman’s rational, cold clarity.
This was no joke.
She felt as if her breath was cut off. A tight knot within her begged for release, but looking at his face, she realized it wasn’t going to happen.
“You—” she began.
He interrupted. “This isn’t open for debate.” He placed the briefcase on the entry table, opened it and extracted an envelope. “This is for a luxury hotel and any other expenses until your house is completed. This is also the deed to the house. I’m making a gift of it to you. I’ve arranged for the movers to be here within the hour. I’ll give you until the end of the day to clear out.”
Ginnie wondered if she was in shock.
She’d never felt anything quite like it. Her mind felt weirdly disconnected, as if she’d taken too much cold medicine. Her heart throbbed with a deep, muted pain. When she thought of Harry, which was every minute, her brain detonated the memories as soon as they arose. Painful specifics couldn’t be allowed. Only a haze of the pulverized thoughts.
The haze covered everything. It made breathing an effort and made color disappear from her world.
She felt abraded inside and out and didn’t want to touch anything or anyone.
Somehow she kept from collapsing.
Lara helped.
It was Lara who discovered the twenty thousand dollars inside the envelope several hours later.
“I’ll return it,” Ginnie said. “No, wait.” She struggled to a sitting position on Lara’s couch, grimacing as her elbow squished into a cool damp pillow. She grabbed the envelope, looked inside, pawed desperately through the deed paperwork. “There’s no note. There’s nothing personal inside. It just…wasn’t personal.”
“Ginnie.” Lara sounded frightened.
“It’s okay. I’m okay.” Ginnie tried to think. “Helping Hands. They need every little bit. I’ll give it to them.”
“Don’t you need it?”
What she needed was a new heart to replace the hurting one inside her chest. “Not really,” she answered. “Business is booming. And I own the house now.” The one lasting thing to come from Harry.
She said as much to Lara.
Lara looked uncomfortable. “Ah. Well…there is one other teensy tiny thing I may have forgotten to mention. Just found out about it myself yesterday, you know.”
Ginnie felt tired. “Yes?”
“The wealthy H. Barrett Sharpe has expedited your new home’s repairs.”
“How much?” She was getting a headache.
“I don’t have exact figures. It seemed to be more of a greasing of the palms, as it were. Plus he’s big in real estate, and people owed him favors.”
“Guess.” Ginnie rubbed her temples. This was getting worse and worse. She still owed him something? Aside from her life, of course—which he’d sucked the joy out of when he’d broken her heart. So that debt was clear, at least.
Lara looked at her, worried. “It’s not like he doesn’t have the money.”
“Guess,” she insisted.
Lara shrugged. “Maybe fifty thousand.”
Ginnie suspected Lara was guessing on the low side. Harry…no, she should start thinking of him as Barrett. It felt slightly less painful. Barrett, then, didn’t do things by half-measures. “That’s way too much money.” She sighed, too sad to feel anger at the way he was throwing money at her, as if she was a mistress or hooker he had to pay off. “I’ll sell the house to pay it back. I should move out of this neighborhood anyway. Maybe out of the state.”
“But you just got here!” Lara flounced to the sofa and pushed Ginnie to the side to sit next to her. “I want you to stay.” She sounded adorably young, Ginnie thought. Young and idealistic. “There’s no reason for you to move away.”
Clearly Lara’d never had her heart broken.
“I want to put up a For Sale sign right away.” But Lara had a point. “Okay, I won’t leave town. Business here is booming, after all. But I won’t keep his money, or his house. And I really can’t keep living right down the street from him. Seeing him drive by. Watching him bring home new girlfriends…” The sorrow rose up and up, clogging her throat with tears.
“Oh honey!” Lara’s warm arms wrapped around her. “He’s such an ass! What an idiot he is, what a totally blind bastard.”
She rocked for a while. Finally Ginnie took a deep breath and gathered the tattered remnants of her composure. She nodded. “He’s an ass for how he did it. But it’s not entirely his fault. He told me not to expect a relationship. He warned me. Why didn’t I listen?”
“Everyone hopes for the best.”
“But you’re not!”
“I have my flaws,” Ginnie admitted. She might have been too pushy. Or too naïve. Or too aggressive in the bedroom. Too bossy, too clingy, too domestic, too easy, too boring…too not what he wanted. It didn’t matter anymore. She didn’t know which flaw he objected to. “I thought he accepted me for who I am.” She felt her lip tremble and had to clamp down on her emotions. Her body felt as if she’d been fighting a bad case of flu. Her muscles ached and her brain hurt.
Lara frowned. “So. Everything’s fine, and then suddenly he announces he’s through for no good reason and tells you to get out? That’s not okay.”
Ginnie played with the seam along the side of a pillow. “I told him I loved him. I’m pretty sure that’s what freaked him out.”
Lara stilled. “Did you mean it?”
Ginnie nodded. Her eyes filled with tears again. “I’ve dated other guys. Lived with a few. I’ve had crushes galore. But I’ve never been this much in love.” Her wounded heart was emptying, leaving cold deeper than ice at midnight. She knew it was a pain she’d always carry. She just wasn’t sure she could.
Lara squeezed her shoulder. Her voice was gentle. “He’s more of an idiot than I thought. Do you want me to try to talk some sense into him?”
“No. There’s nothing left to say. He’d have to choose to be in a real relationship to be with me, and I don’t think he’ll ever make that choice.”
The sky was clear, dark and full of stars when Harry pulled into his driveway late at night. He stepped from his car and peered at his house. It was back to being just as it had been before Ginnie, with no lights on except for on the porch.
His house looked cold and lonely.
Out of habit, he’d glanced at the progress on Ginnie’s house as he drove past.
There was a large For Sale sign in the front yard.
He’d nearly crashed his car. She was moving? Ginnie was moving away from him.
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