by Maggie Wells
James looked up at her, one corner of his mouth lifting. “But you can’t understand why I would ask her to marry me,” he stated bluntly.
“No, I can’t believe you did. I can’t believe you want to marry her.”
“I didn’t. I don’t,” he refuted, taking the opportunity to climb two stairs closer to her. But Rosie held up both hands this time to stop his progress. “We had a plan.”
“A plan? What do you mean a plan?”
“Colm, Mike, and I were talking one day. We figured the easiest way to determine how serious she was, was to pretend I was serious about her.” He shook his head. “I know it sounds stupid, but it worked. Asking her to marry me was supposed to be a last resort, but I’d pretty much reached the edge of the cliff. I was going to either push her off or jump.”
“Colm and Mike were in on this, too?”
“Worked like a charm.”
“You’re perverse.”
“I’m calling it genius, but it wasn’t my idea, it was Mike’s.” Nodding to the steps, he asked, “Can I come up? There are some things I’d like to talk to you about, and I’m not sure I’m comfortable talking out here.”
To reinforce his reasoning, he made a point of waving to the woman peeking through the crack in the door of apartment 1A. “Hi. Sorry for the noise.”
He looked up at Rosie again. “Please? There’s a lot I want to…say.”
Rosie hesitated only a moment, and then, without a word, started trotting up the stairs to her apartment.
James followed her into the apartment, closing the door quietly behind him.
Rosie led him into a spacious living room, but did not offer him a seat. Rubbing his palms together, he perched on the arm of the sofa, afraid to claim an actual cushion, as he searched for the right words to. Rosie didn’t seem inclined to cut him any breaks.
“Devin seems nice,” he began cautiously.
“Devin is nice.”
Nope, no assistance forthcoming. “And you and he are…” he trailed off, leaving the question open-ended.
Rosie stared at him as if he were a complete moron. And he felt like one. “We’re dating.”
“He hasn’t asked you to go jump off anything crazy, has he?” The question came out stiff and more tight-assed than he wanted. Something about this Devin guy got to him.
Rosie eyed him challengingly. “Not yet. But who’s to say I wouldn’t?”
“Rosie, I…” he started and stopped. But he had to start again, or the things that needed to be said would forever remain unsaid. “Rosie, you need to know it’s not that I never wanted you…” James blinked, taken aback by his own stark truth.
Rosie stared at him, her expression unreadable. “Is this supposed to be some kind of consolation speech?”
“No, no.” He shook his head hard. “It’s supposed to be an explanation.”
“I don’t need any explanations. Not from you.”
“But I need to give you some.” Taking in her mulish expression, he stood up and started to pace the room. “Do you remember my first day at Trident?”
A ridiculous question, and exactly the wrong tactic to use with her. The day he started was the first day he saw the stars in her eyes. But he never told her why he spent so many years pretending not to see them.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I promised them, Rosie,” he confessed, his voice low and cracking. Clearing his throat, he pressed on. “They made me promise. Colm and Mike took me out to lunch on my first day, and they made me promise I would never, ever go near you.”
Rosie stiffened. “They had no right. I’m a grown woman. The three of you had no right to be talking about me and my personal life at all.”
“Agreed. But, Rosie, I have to tell you, even if I wanted to, I wasn’t in the right place to rock the boat. Not back then.” He took a deep breath and began pacing the room. He balled his hands. “I needed this. I needed what Colm and Mike were offering me.” He stared at her beseechingly. “I needed all three of you,” he corrected. “And the flexibility I could have at Trident… I wasn’t going to hold onto my corporate job much longer. Do you remember how things were for me when the twins were babies? I was drowning, Rosie.”
Rosie’s face softened. “Yes, I remember.”
* * * *
The hellish part was, she did remember. She remembered how helpless James seemed in those early days, deliciously disheveled and distracted. She also recalled exactly how grateful he was for every tiny thing she did for him. What she couldn’t remember was when he started to treat her like a piece of office equipment.
“I’m glad life has improved for you, James, but I still don’t understand what you’re doing here.”
James stopped pacing and stared at her long and hard. “Don’t you?”
Her already-hammering heart stepped up to a staccato beat. Rosie crossed her arms over her chest to keep from pressing her hand to her throat. She didn’t want to give away too much. “I’m afraid you might have to spell your intentions out for me.”
In a flash, he was standing right in front of her, staring her down, forcing her to tip her head back to hold his gaze. “You know what I’m doing here.”
Digging deep, she braced herself with a steely resolve, raising both eyebrows in a challenge. “I want you to tell me. Say the words.”
“I’m here because I want you,” James did not reach for her, but he looked her dead in the eye. “I’m here because I hate watching you with these other guys.”
Rosie scoffed. “Watching me? Have you been following me?”
James shook his head. “No, not like a stalker or anything. Figuratively, not literally.”
She pinned him with a glare. “Welcome to my world. I watch you run around with woman after woman, not one of them ever serious. Not one of them ever more than a plaything. A temporary distraction.” She jabbed a finger into her own chest. “But I was always there.”
“Exactly! Not one of them was you.”
Rosie’s knees buckled, but she managed to stay upright. Somehow, with some form of superhuman strength, she even managed to maintain eye contact with him. But her strength ran out before she could form a full sentence. At last, she squeaked out, “Me?”
“You, Rosie,” he reiterated. “I wanted you from the day we met. Mike and Colm saw and made sure they did what they could to nip it in the bud. But my feelings for you didn’t change. I’ve always wanted you. I never thought I could have you.”
“What makes you think you can now?” Her jaw set, she glared at him. “Fine. You’ve decided you want me. Why are you here now?” she demanded, injecting a surprising amount of steel into the demand for a woman whose bones felt like overcooked spaghetti noodles.
“I needed to tell you,” James said frankly.
“And you have.”
“I want to be with you.”
She shook her head hard. “No. Not like this.”
“Then how? Tell me how. I’ll do whatever you want.”
“I don’t know how, but I know I don’t like how we got here.” She bit her lip and looked away. “I don’t like what you did to Megan. Which is ironic, because I don’t like Megan, but still what you did was sneaky and underhanded.”
“I was desperate, and the guys were trying to help.”
“Collusion,” she corrected. “The three of you colluded. A popular word in the news lately. All those coffeepot talks about the sleazy things happening in politics. I remember the word being tossed around a lot.”
He gaped at her, incredulously. “Jesus, Rosie, we’re not talking about treason. Whose side are you on?”
“I’m only saying the whole scheme was smarmy. Beneath you,” she added with a sniff.
“Okay, fine. Maybe it was,” James rushed to agree, “but at the time it seemed like the best thing to do. And when she left, all I could
think about was getting to you. Telling you.”
Rosie found clinging to her indignation damn hard when he was basically telling her everything she’d waited years to hear, but she did. She clung as if she was hanging onto a knotted rope. Because she had waited years, and damn him, she deserved better than this Hail Mary he was throwing out there.
“How exactly am I supposed to react to this?” When James sent her a quizzical look, she shrugged. “How did you envision this whole scene playing out?”
The expression on his face shifted into incredulity. “Do you really want me to answer?”
“Yes. And I think I’d like you to be specific.” She crossed her arms over her chest, surreptitiously hugging herself. “I need you to be, because I’m tired of mixed signals and guessing games.”
“I want to kiss you. Like I did in the break room,” he said without hesitation. “But more. I want more.” James drew a shaky breath and held his hands out in supplication. “I want you. I want to be with you. Not be with you, but…be near you. With you. In every way.”
His was not one of the more eloquent professions of love she’d conjured over the years, and definitely not good enough. She’d waited years for him.
“I’m sorry, but no.”
“What do you mean, no? This is what we’ve both wanted for a long time.”
She arched a single brow. “So you say. But I’m not willing to settle for being another notch in your belt.”
“Another notch in my belt?” He threw his hands up in frustration. “Are you kidding me with that?”
“Not at all.”
“You think I just want to sleep with you?” he asked, obviously injured.
“I don’t think you’re really in the market for anything more than that, and I am.”
“I’m in the market for you. What do you want? I’ll give you anything. Everything.”
She barked a laugh. “Watch what you’re saying,” she cautioned.
“I mean every word.”
The shell on that cold, hard lump of hate that formed in her belly when she’d heard Megan say he’d proposed cracked and something soft started to ooze out. Knowing she couldn’t keep playing these games, she tossed everything she’d dreamed about out there, half-hoping might send him running.
“I want it all. Marriage, babies, a home of my own. I want to sew Halloween costumes and sit through endless band concerts. I want the world’s most boring and typical life, and I don’t think you’re the guy.”
James blinked only once. “I am,” he croaked. “I’m the guy.”
His assertion unleashed a tidal wave of warmth inside her. Hope flowed through her, making her blood pulse. Stupid hope. Her blind optimism had screwed her over time and again. She wanted facts. Yes or no answers. Something concrete to build her future on.
“Are you asking me to marry you?” she pressed.
The thick knot of his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Yes.”
“You’re chock full of proposals tonight, aren’t you?”
“But I mean this one.”
The glow from the lamps caught the red highlights in his hair and set her heart aflame. She wanted to believe him, but she couldn’t. Rosie knew if she believed him, believed in them, she would break. But maybe, if she was smart, she could take a bit of what she needed from him and leave the rest.
Maybe she could take a little something from him, make him hope, and it would be enough. One night with him would be something. Something she could take and keep and never wonder if he hadn’t given in to her willingly. Unlike these desperation proposals he kept tossing around.
She reached for him, unable to resist sliding her fingers into his coppery-brown hair and pulling him close to her. She’d fantasized this scene countless times.
He folded her into his embrace. “Are you saying yes?”
“I’m saying shut up.”
He lowered his head, his mouth mere millimeters from hers. “We’re not supposed to say shut up.”
“I’m not a kid. I’m a grown woman. And I want you to put a cork in the crazy talk and kiss me.” Their eyes met and held.
He was wavering, she could see that. She reached up and carefully slipped the earpieces of his glasses off his ears. She folded them carefully, then placed them on the coffee table. James watched her, positively drinking her in. His eyes were blue, so very blue. As blue as the lake on a summer day, but, at the same time, troubled. He was scared, too, and he wasn’t bothering to hide his nerves. His fear gave Rosie the courage to lean in and deliberately press her mouth to his.
His soft exhalation tasted like capitulation. Rosie hadn’t realized exactly how much he’d been fighting against this impulse until she felt his mouth heat against hers. Up until now, everything between them seemed easy for him. She always thought he could walk away whenever he chose. He could choose not to engage. Master his emotions to the point where she had no clue he’d been feeling the same thing for her all along. Perhaps maybe not as strongly, and maybe they didn’t use the same labels, but the feelings were the same. He wanted her. He said he wanted her. And now she had the proof.
Rosie tipped her head to the side, fitting her lips to his, letting the kiss linger until he caught up and caught on. She moaned aloud when he slipped a hand into her hair, his fingernails scraping her scalp. She didn’t see the point in pretending anymore. Every touch was a repressed dream come true, and she wasn’t about to hold anything back any longer.
He met her moan with a groan of his own, and she pressed the advantage. She slipped her tongue into his mouth. Searching. Probing. Each stroke demanding he respond in kind.
James didn’t let her down. He spread his fingers through her hair, his palm cradling the back of her head. He took the kiss deep, drinking her in, taking everything she’d longed to give him.
Rosie let her hands roam free. She caressed his shoulders, squeezed his biceps, ran her palms flat over his chest, then slid them down until she cupped his ass. Her boldness startled him. James laughed into the kiss, and she devoured his joy. Feeling empowered by her ability to shock him, Rosie squeezed his ass and swirled her tongue around his.
When they came up for air, they were both panting like dogs on a hot summer day. Before he could say anything chivalrous or borderline noble, she took the option out of his hands.
“Say no now if you’re going to say no,” she demanded.
He blinked in astonishment. “What?”
“If you’re going to say no, now’s the time to back down,” she informed him. “Nobody likes a tease, James.”
This time he laughed out loud. “Are you serious?”
“Dead serious.”
“You’re asking me if I want to back out of, what? Sleeping with you?”
She shrugged. “Well, that’s where this is heading, right?”
“God, I hope so.”
Chapter 13
Satisfied they were on the same page, Rosie gave herself permission to take what she’d always wanted. Grasping James by the hand, she pulled him from the sofa and started down the narrow hallway. He said nothing. She said nothing. There really wasn’t anything more to discuss. This was the moment of truth.
Once they reached her bedroom, Rosie ignored the switch for the overhead light and moved instead to the small reading lamp by her bedside. The lamp cast a dim yellow circle of light over her sloppily made bed and the tumble of clothes she’d left strewn across the floor.
James walked to the puddle of black satin near the foot of the bed and picked up the dress she’d worn to the gala. Holding the silky fabric by the narrow halter, he turned to look at her. “Did I tell you how beautiful you look tonight?”
“Looked,” she corrected.
“Look.”
Rosie gave her head an infinitesimal shake. “I don’t know. Did you?”
He draped the dress carefully
over the chair in the corner, then turned to her. “Can I tell you now?”
She gave a mute nod, swallowed the lump in her throat, and whispered, “Okay.”
The roguish smile she’d fallen for was out in full force, and this time his grin was more potent than ever. He moved toward her with the confidence of a man who knew he was about to get exactly what he wanted. And she couldn’t wait to give it to him.
Brushing her hair from her face, he cradled her cheekbone in his palm and stroked gently over her eyebrow. “You’re beautiful, Rosie. And smart and funny and loyal. Don’t think I haven’t seen these things all along.”
She leaned into his caress. “I’m glad you’re seeing them now.”
James chuckled and drew her to him in a fierce hug. His hand slid through the length of her hair. His warm palm spread over the small of her back and held her firm against him. He was hot, lean, and hard, and everything she’d ever dreamed he’d be.
“Would you be shocked to know this is exactly how I pictured your room?” He turned his cheek to the top of her head and hugged her tighter. “I imagined the books and the lamp. I hadn’t really figured you for the stuffed animals—”
“They were gifts from my nieces,” she hurried to explain.
“But everything else is you, Rosie. The color. The light. Softness. I admit, I thought you’d be neater…” His voice creaked. “This is one reason why I never let myself do this.” He squeezed her again, but this time didn’t release right away. “Oh, Rosie, this could be a real mess.”
Hugging him hard around the waist, she snuggled her cheek into the crook of his neck. “I prefer to think we’re going to be really good.”
He laughed, but she felt it rather than heard him. “I have no doubt. But we could be a disaster in other ways,” he confessed.
“Only if we let things go sideways.”
“Some things may be inevitable,” he argued. “I want you, Rosie. I want there to be no question in your mind. But, more importantly, I need you. And if wanting you is gonna be a threat to having you in my life, I can live with the wanting—”
“I don’t want to live with it—”