“Why not? If she’s what you want? I know you, Josh. You never let anything stand in the way of what you really want.”
“I couldn’t explain it to you if I had to.”
“Is it all the other women? Are you saying that you’ve found someone you love, and you can’t be with her? Because you can’t keep your hands off all the other women? Is that what she couldn’t forgive you for?”
“No. It’s nothing like that,” he said, digging himself in deeper, then he swore softly. Even if he wanted to come clean now, he couldn’t.
“It’s the woman who was on the phone the other night, isn’t it?” she guessed. “I heard you tell her that you love her.”
“Amanda, just leave it alone.”
“Her paintings are in your apartment. You live surrounded by her work, but you won’t let yourself go to her? I can’t make sense of that, Josh. I didn’t think you were afraid of anything.”
“I’m not afraid of her.”
“You’re not going to tell me you think she’s better off without you? Just like you’ve decided I’m better off without you?” Amanda frowned. “Because I can’t help but thinking we’re somehow connected inside your head. I can’t help but think there’s something else going on here. Some subtext that’s gone totally over my head. What is it, Josh? Just tell me.”
He got the hell off the bed, got to his feet, started pacing the confines of the room, rumbling around like a caged animal. She was worse than he was when it came to refusing to give up on something. She might look like a sweet, docile, innocent woman, but there was much more to her than that.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” Amanda asked. “You’ve somehow connected us in your mind? You loved her and you ended up hurting her. For some reason, you’re convinced you’ll end up hurting me, too.”
“I did, didn’t I?” he said bitterly. “I did exactly what I told myself I wasn’t going to do. I hurt you. And I hurt her.”
“Intentionally?”
“What do intentions have to do with it?” he said through gritted teeth. “Whether I intended it or not, you were hurt. She was hurt, too.”
“But you didn’t mean to hurt me. Rob didn’t care in the least, and the two of you are nothing alike. Don’t try to tell me that you are,” she argued. “As far as you and this other woman, I can’t imagine anything you could have done to deserve to be without her for the rest of your life. Particularly if you love her.”
“Amanda, please—”
“And none of that has anything to do with you and me. Unless you’re punishing yourself?”
“I’m trying to do what’s best for you,” he insisted.
“I don’t think so. I think deep down the problem is with you, and that’s so odd coming from you. You’re the one who told me to forgive myself for Rob. You were so generous to me. You said I just made a mistake and that everyone makes mistakes, so I don’t understand. I’m allowed to make mistakes, but you’re not?”
“I’m not going to talk about this with you, Amanda. I don’t talk about it with anyone. I haven’t for years.”
“Maybe it’s time you did.”
“Talking doesn’t change anything,” he said. “It doesn’t do any good.”
“Has keeping it bottled up inside of you helped at all?”
“Nothing helps, all right?” The words exploded out of him. “Nothing.”
“So you think you’re going to live your whole life without ever loving anyone else? Without ever being important to anyone? So you won’t hurt anyone else? So you won’t let any other woman down?”
“If you say so.”
“You’re going to be all alone? Forever?” she asked.
“I’m not alone.”
“Even with a different woman every day of the week, you can still be alone, Josh.”
“It’s my life,” he said. “I live it just the way I want to.”
“Do you? Or are you doing the same thing I’ve been doing? Living in a way I hope won’t leave me hurting in the end, which isn’t really living at all.”
“I’m not unhappy with my life,” he insisted. “It suits me.”
“Which makes me what? A temporary diversion? Someone you thought you wanted, who just turned out to be too much trouble? Is that what you would have me believe?”
“God, Amanda. I don’t care what you believe as long as we can be done with this, all right?”
There, he thought desperately. He’d done it. She flinched. Visibly. Seemed to crumple before him.
He closed his eyes, so he couldn’t see her any longer. He couldn’t believe how far she’d pushed him, how deeply she’d dug inside of him or how much it still hurt. Even now. And he didn’t even want to think about whether she might be right. He didn’t want to think about Sunnie and how much she’d been hurt. And he couldn’t let himself think of how much he’d hurt Amanda just now.
“Josh…”
She dared to put her hand on his arm. He shoved it away, breathing hard and feeling absolutely out of control, feeling trapped in a way he never had in his life.
“Josh, just tell me. Tell me.”
“You remind me of her, all right?” he said, finding that his vision had gone blurry, his eyes taking on an unfamiliar heaviness, the weight on his chest blossoming and making it hard for him to breathe normally, to do anything but let the words spill out. “You’ve always reminded me of her.”
“How? Why?”
He turned his head away, his tears spilling over and streaming down his cheeks. He swore softly and put his fist against the windowsill, wishing he could smash the window into a million pieces. Amanda just got to him on a gut-deep level. On every level that mattered. And she was right—she and Sunnie were hopelessly entangled in his head.
“How am I like her?” Amanda asked.
“In every way,” he said, pushing his hand back through his hair and keeping his back to her, though it was actually a relief to tell her this part of it. To tell her what he saw in her. “You’re so delicate. So fragile and vulnerable and good, right down to the core. There’s kindness and gentleness in every pore in your body, in every corner of your heart. And there’s absolutely no pretense to you, Amanda. I know it. Everything about you is real and genuine.”
He paused and grabbed a breath. She put her hand on his back, a comforting, delicate hand. Even now she was trying to comfort him.
“You expect the best of everyone,” he said, “that everyone’s heart is as pure as yours, and the world doesn’t work that way, Amanda. All those things I admire about you leave you so damned vulnerable. You were bound to get hurt, and dammit, I didn’t want to be the one who did it. I knew I should have stayed away.”
“Why didn’t you?” she said.
“After what happened with Rob, I just couldn’t. I was worried about you. I was afraid…”
Amanda stood behind him, her hand on his back, feeling the tension inside of him, hearing the raw emotion in his beautiful voice. He cared about her. She knew it. But there was something else. Something she didn’t think she was going to like.
“What were you afraid of, Josh?”
“You were so sad,” he said. “Every time I came back to town, you seemed to have withdrawn a little more. I was asking about you. I knew you’d become even more isolated, and I was worried. I didn’t know how bad things were for you. I didn’t know if you had anyone to turn to. I couldn’t stand the idea that there was no one to help you, and I decided I would be better for you than no one at all.”
“You’re much better than no one. Better than anyone I can imagine,” she said. “I did need you. I needed you desperately, and you were there. I’m grateful for that, Josh. But what did you think I was going to do?”
He finally turned around and looked at her. His eyes were a brilliant blue and glittered in the light, his brow knotted, pain and wariness stamped on his handsome features. She’d never seen him look sad, she realized. Never seen him in pain. And she was afraid…afraid she’d stumbled onto
the only thing that had ever hurt him, and afraid she finally understood, that she’d finally figured out the connection.
“Is this about your sister?”
He flinched. “What do you know about my sister?”
“I’m sorry. I had no right to do it.” She felt so ashamed of it now. She had shown so little faith in him, about something so silly as another woman calling him. “I looked through some old magazine articles. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it. But…Josh, is your sister the one you loved so much? The one you won’t forgive yourself for hurting?”
He said nothing for the longest time. Neither did she. She couldn’t. She felt so bad for him and for whatever happened so long ago. And she was starting to make the connection between herself and his sister, the reason he’d been so insistent on nosing his way into her life.
“Josh, were you afraid I was depressed? That I was going to do something to myself? That I might hurt myself?”
“I wasn’t sure,” he said carefully.
Amanda closed her eyes tightly, squeezed them shut against the pain, both for him and for her and for his lost sister. Selfishly she thought of herself first, just for a moment. He’d come to her because he was afraid she was going to hurt herself, because he’d somehow tied the two of them together in his mind—her and his sister. Which meant he’d done all of this out of fear or concern or a mistaken sense of obligation toward her, maybe in an effort to right a wrong he thought he’d done so long ago to another woman, a woman he loved.
Oh, she hated that thought. Absolutely hated it. And it hurt. More than anything Rob Jansen had ever done to her, it hurt. Because Josh meant more to her than Rob ever had, she realized. Josh who was so full of life, who’d come barging into her world and dragging her out of that hole she’d sunk into. Josh who was so determined she had to forgive herself and start living again.
Well, he’d done it. She was ready to live every moment to the fullest. But she couldn’t imagine doing that without him. But that thought was for later, when he wasn’t here to see how hard it was, when he didn’t need her so much.
It was good in a way—that he needed her. That she had something to give back to him—a man who’d been kind and warm and gentle and so determined to help her. If nothing else, he’d shaken her out of that odd despondency that had hung over her since Rob died. He’d shown her a whole, wide world, and she wouldn’t make the mistake of retreating from it again.
For now it was her turn to help him.
“I want you to know that I appreciate everything you did, and I think I’m very lucky to be able to consider you one of my very best friends. You’ll still be my friend, won’t you?” she said, desperate to have just that. “You promised.”
“I remember. I meant it.”
“And I’m sorry about your sister, Josh.” Then she realized something else, something that didn’t fit. “You said the woman on the phone the other night was your sister.”
“Yes,” he said.
“But…she didn’t commit suicide?”
“She tried,” he said bleakly. “She didn’t quite succeed.”
Amanda started to ask exactly what happened, then decided now wasn’t the time. Because she’d hurt him, just by asking. He was obviously still punishing himself for whatever happened, for whatever he thought he’d done wrong. She knew what that was like, and she didn’t want him doing that, didn’t want him hurting like that.
“I can’t imagine you did anything so bad that you should still be paying for it now,” she said. “I can’t believe your sister would want that from you. I wish I could find a way to help you, the way you’ve helped me.”
He cupped her face in both hands and brushed away her tears. His eyes were wet, too, she saw, and he looked as if every molecule in his body absolutely ached, as if someone had beaten him to within an inch of his life.
“Josh, I won’t ever forget what you did for me,” she said, unable to keep herself from adding, “And I’ll probably always love you, just a little bit.”
He winced and looked away for a moment. She’d made it worse.
“But I’m going to be fine,” she rushed on. “I promise. You don’t have to worry anymore, okay?”
Still, he said nothing. The bleakness hadn’t left his face. If anything it had intensified. She had tears streaming down her face. She just let them fall, and it was all too much, too much for her to handle anymore.
“Dammit, there’s no place to go,” she said, looking around the room, desperate to get away. She couldn’t talk about this anymore. It was too hard. “This is awful. People shouldn’t have conversations like this when they’re stuck together.”
She closed her eyes, then thought of the bathroom.
“I’m going to get in the shower,” she decided. That was one place she could avoid the bleak look in his eyes. “I just…I have to go.”
She was shaking badly when she tried to turn on the shower. And the water never seemed to get warm enough, but she didn’t have the luxury of caring. She was weeping by then, big, heaving sobs that shook her whole body, and the last thing in the world she wanted was for him to hear. So she got into the shower and sank down to the floor, folding her legs in front of her and wrapping her arms around them, curling into one big aching lump under the tepid water and wept.
Chapter 12
Amanda couldn’t look him in the eye. She felt raw and exposed—every need, every hope she’d ever had. He looked nothing like the man she’d always known. He looked tired and guarded, no hint of a smile on his handsome face.
She felt guilty for every secret she’d dragged out of him, every wound she’d exposed. As if she had the right to pick his life apart that way. He’d been much kinder to her when he’d been so intent on getting her to talk to him, and he’d obviously loved his sister in a way she’d never loved the man who’d betrayed her. She would forget about Rob Jansen long before he ever forgot his sister.
Amanda wished there was something she could say, something she could do to help him now. Obviously, he’d been motivated the whole time by genuine concern, coupled with a bit of cold, hard fear, she supposed. When he said he worried about her, it was a bone-deep kind of worry, the kind that could only come from a man who’d loved someone dearly and nearly lost her.
He didn’t love Amanda, but he cared for her. He was honestly concerned about her, and she was touched. Deeply touched. Men had said they cared about her before, that they loved her, but their actions had said something completely different. Josh’s actions spoke loud and clear. He’d treated her like a man who cared about her, like one who was determined to put her welfare above his own. No man had ever shown her that kind of consideration before.
She was still trying to assimilate the things she’d learned about him in the past few days. He wasn’t the man she’d thought. He was so much more. There was substance to him, a seriousness, a sense of responsibility, a genuine kindness, a world of hurt inside him that he carefully hid away from the rest of the world. Amanda wanted to help him. She wanted to do for him what he’d done for her. She wanted him to forgive himself.
Maybe when this was over. Maybe he wouldn’t push her away instantly. Maybe they would have a little time. Maybe she could be good for him, too.
“Time to go,” he said quietly, coming to stand beside her next to the door of the room they shared. “Ready?”
She nodded. “Stick close.”
“I will.”
And if Josh said he’d do something, he would. She trusted him completely. He opened the door. Rudy was right there waiting for them. He took Amanda’s hand and kissed it with a flourish.
“I was just coming to check on the two of you.”
“We slept in,” Josh growled.
Rudy arched a brow and smiled speculatively at her. “I can certainly understand that, but I was hoping you’d join us for cocktails.”
He led them to a small salon, where a half dozen people were milling around and sipping drinks. Amanda needed to have h
er talk with Rudy, so she allowed him to draw her away from Josh, to the opposite corner of the room. She was nervous, but she could do this. She knew it. And Josh was right there, watching her, watching everyone, she saw.
Rudy asked her quite politely how she enjoyed his dinner party the other night, how the flight from the States had been, how she liked Nice, and he seemed to be watching Josh as closely as she was.
Something was happening, Amanda realized, too late. Something bad.
She saw Rudy nod to a man who’d just walked into the room, and then Rudy slipped his hand around her elbow and drew her to him. “I need to speak to someone. Just for a minute, if you don’t mind?”
“Of course. Go right ahead,” Amanda said, thinking he would leave her alone for a minute.
“Come with me,” he said. “And don’t worry. Wherever you go, Josh is sure to follow. We’ve already established that.”
Amanda looked over at Josh, who was indeed watching her. She nodded toward the door Rudy was leading her to, and Josh indeed followed them. Rudy picked up a drink at the bar set up in the corner and handed it to her.
“Try it, please. My family has a vineyard. This is one of our best.”
Amanda took the wine glass and sipped politely. “It’s lovely.”
“No, my dear. You are lovely.”
He drew her into the room, urged her to take another sip and started asking her things she simply didn’t understand about wine. About undertones and nuances that totally escaped her.
Amanda thought she must have turned her head too fast when she went to look for Josh because suddenly she felt a bit dizzy. Too late, she remembered Rudy had a nasty habit of poisoning people. Josh has warned her of that. The room tilted alarmingly. Rudy’s hands were on her arm, holding her up, and she opened her mouth to cry out to Josh for help. But it was too late. Dizzy as she was, she could still see him. The second he walked into the room, a man reached out and struck him on the back of the head, and he crumpled to the floor, a moment before Amanda collapsed into Rudy’s waiting arms.
Cinderella and the Spy Page 17