“It wasn’t you!” she cried out. “It was me, so just drop it, will you?”
“I’ll be damned if I will,” he said quickly, passionately, striding forward. He stopped only when she shrank against the counter, afraid of the violence of feeling he emanated. “We’re going to thrash this out because I’ve had it with silence and patience and waiting, and, Robbie, I can’t wait any longer! Answer me!”
Bewildered by his strange words and the import he gave them, she lifted her liquid-bright gaze to his to say haltingly, “I…think we should stop…being lovers.” He flinched as if she’d struck him across the face and went ashen under his tan. Then her tears spilled over because she knew she’d hurt him, and she had never wanted to do that. She said from the back of her throat, “I can’t take having an affair. I can’t take the uncertainty and the inconstancy with a healthy attitude. Some day, I…I want to marry, Jason…”
“God damn you,” he said hoarsely, his mouth distorted out of its usual beauty. Her face crumbled and she sobbed harshly into her hand. In the next instant he had her by the shoulders and was shaking her. She cried out and caught a flashing, blurred sight of his agonized eyes before he let her go and turned away to lean his forehead against his fist, taking great gulps of air as though he were suffocating. Then his head came up. His voice was underscored with bitterness as he began, “Well. If that’s what you want…”
“It was Linda!” she blurted, out of control. She could never hold anything back from him. She always spilled herself out, and then shivered with the nakedness. “I…saw her come over to your house that evening before I left. You came outside and hugged her, and then you both went indoors.”
His head snapped up, and he turned to stare at her incredulously. “That’s why you went? You were jealous of Linda?”
“No. Yes,” she said miserably, and then with an impatient shake of her head, she qualified, “In a way, yes, I was jealous. But I soon realized how silly I was to be jealous of her when you had just made love to me that very day.”
“Wonders never cease.” She winced at his harsh tone.
“Please don’t be cruel,” she whispered. “Not you, of all people.”
At that, he looked away blindly. “I feel like slapping you,” he said as though it were torn from him. “So, just try to be glad I’m resorting to words. Do you want to know why she came over? She’d fallen in love with Ian and she saw him with another woman. It really messed her up. She came over and stayed late into the night just talking to me.”
In a flashing image, she remembered Ian’s call to her that very evening, and a surge of compassion swept over her for the other woman. “Is she all right?” she asked, hushed, and he made a quick, impatient gesture with one hand without replying. Then she tried to explain herself, saying, “Jason, it wasn’t Linda who scared me. It was my jealousy that scared me, and that’s why I went. I’d never imagined that this would get so deep. We’ve got to stop now before we get hurt any more than…”
“All right!” he shouted violently, as though he couldn’t bear to hear her say any more. “All right, damn it!” He turned his face back to her, and she knew she’d never forget the sight of a single tear that splashed down his face. She reeled. “I’ve had it. I’ve tried and tried, but you just don’t get it, do you? Robbie, I’ve been telling you that I love you in so many ways, I don’t even know how to say it anymore! Sometimes I didn’t know why I bothered, but I hung on to any chance I could that you’d grow to love me back. Now I can see that it’s just no use, is it?”
Her body shook so that she could hardly stand. Her heart had stopped totally for one frozen moment before pounding in slow, hard, painful strokes that roared in her ears and eyes and temples until she thought she might pass out. “You never told me!” she cried, reaching to the counter with one hand. “You always said you loved me, but you never said you were in love with me!”
“It was so obvious. Everybody but you knew,” he whispered, his eyes and face naked with his pain. “Marilyn, Herb, my parents, everybody. But you never guessed. I’ve been in love with you all my life. I was in love with you when I left for college, but all you saw was good old Jason! And all I could do was leave and wait for you to grow up before I could see whether or not I really had a chance. But you still haven’t grown up.”
“You’re wrong,” she choked, shaking her head so that wet drops flew. One tear hit him, and he flinched, putting his fingers to the spot as though touching a wound and being amazed that it bled.
A calm descended over him then with a terrible finality that she sensed. She held out her hand to him and drew in a breath with which to speak, but he was already saying, “I’m sorry I shouted at you and hurt you the way I did.” His voice was incredibly gentle. His face was still wet but he didn’t seem to notice as he stared at her for a long, long time. His mouth was thinned to a white line. “I don’t know what else to do, Robbie,” he said quietly. “I’ve been your closest friend. I’ve waited years to be your lover, and I thought that surely you would guess the truth when I confessed that to you. I…I’ve done nothing but picture this scene for years, but somehow we were together in the end and looking forward to spending the rest of our lives together.” Then he gave a little laugh, as if at the foolishness of young dreams. “I suppose,” he whispered, “I should have expected this. It was just that towards the end you seemed to change. But when I thought you had, you never did. You never saw. Maybe in time you could have learned to love me a little. But I don’t have any more time. There are some things that I can’t stand either, Robbie, and…I love you too much to be able to stand by and wait any longer while you fall in love and marry someone else.” He reached out and cupped her cheek for a moment. “I just wish you’d realized what I’d been trying to say. It’s my fault. I didn’t say it clearly enough.”
He walked away.
She stood and stared after him, and she thought, My God, he’s leaving me. This is it, this is really it. He just said goodbye, and I couldn’t say a thing back.
Suddenly in her mind’s eye, she saw a younger Jason saying a laughing goodbye to a younger Robbie. He had looked at her lingeringly while she had stubbornly refused to give in to emotion and stared away, jaw clenched. She was angry because he was leaving without her, and he would be gone for four years to college, and to a new life. “Goodbye, Rob,” he had said then very quietly, and she hadn’t replied. She had been too busy salvaging her own pride and dignity. She knew now that he had been looking, eagerly, for some sign of grief at his departure, but she hadn’t shown a thing.
She had been blind, so blind, and the only thing that astonished her as much as her own incredible blindness was his incredible patience. In retrospect, he had given her part of himself whenever she had needed it, and he had kept giving and giving while she greedily took everything.
A harsh sob sounded from her, but he was already in the hall. If his steps faltered at the sound she couldn’t hear it, for she was wrapping her arms around herself and letting go of the grief she hadn’t been able to at that first parting. Then she’d been sure he would be back, even though she’d been desolate at his departure. Now she knew that he wouldn’t, that this was forever, and she couldn’t take it. The thought of years upon years flashed in her mind. How could she make them anything but empty without him? Her future was as barren as her past had been without him, for she’d been waiting all this time for Jason to come home, she just hadn’t realized it.
Something deep and elemental and soul-shaking stirred to sluggish life inside her. Something awakened that had lain dormant all this time, and it went past all life goals and ambitions and dreams. A powerful awareness came to light inside her, a realization of what she had carried in her heart for years but hadn’t known.
She stumbled through the house. Falling out of the front door, she searched with her head slewing wildly and found Jason walking away, his head bent, his shoulders slumped. “Jason,” she said, and the word was barely more than a whisper.
He stopped dead.
“Please don’t leave me again.” He whirled, and they stared across the distance of the lawn at each other. “I couldn’t bear it a second time!”
He took three rapid steps and then halted. “Robbie,” he said, and in his voice she heard him pleading.
“I love you,” she told him, and he raced back to haul her fiercely into his arms. His whole body trembled, and she slung her arms around his neck as he buried his face in her shoulder. “I love you. I’m in love with you. I don’t know how I couldn’t have seen it before, but I do, I do…”
His head had lifted, and he stared down at her with eyes that blazed. “Shut up,” he said, but she didn’t take offense. Indeed, she didn’t even notice and kept jabbering at him incoherently in an effort to explain the history and enormity of her feelings all at once. She only quieted when he took her mouth hungrily with his own and plunged deep into a hot kiss that sent a powerful wave of sexual yearning through her body. He dragged himself away and stared down at her. “How the hell am I supposed to kiss you when you keep chattering like that?”
Robbie realized that they were standing on the front porch, in full sight of anyone passing in the street, and she immediately drew back. “Let’s go inside now,” she mumbled.
“What’s wrong?” He looked around and then started to laugh, deeply, joyously, infuriatingly. “I see what the problem is. You’re embarrassed to kiss in public, aren’t you?”
She struggled to pull out of his arms, feeling her cheeks grow hot, but he wouldn’t let her go so she collapsed to hide her face in his chest. His hand came up to cup the back of her head, and she felt his lips in her hair. She felt so utterly surrounded by the way his arms so gently held her that she began to cry.
“What’s this?” he asked, astonished. He bundled her back into the house and shut the door. Then he tried to tilt her face up so that he could look at her, but she resisted furiously until he fell back to stroking at her sleek brown head with such tenderness that she cried even harder. “Oh God, Robbie, stop that. I can’t stand to hear you cry like that. What’s wrong, love?”
Her hands twisted into his shirt, and her face felt hot and wet with crying. With a hard quick shake of her head, she tried to avoid answering right then, but he insisted, and so she whispered, “I just…I’ve just felt so empty and hollow these last few years. I kept searching for something to fill the void, but I couldn’t care enough about anything to make a real effort. I thought something was wrong with me, but it was you. I was missing you.”
His hand passed over her hair again. “You’re the love of my life,” he murmured softly. “And I never want to let you go, or leave again. I want to grow old with you and share the sum total of my years and myself. I want to be your lover and your best friend, and…Robbie, I want so much. I’m afraid to go any further. Please, be very sure.”
She drew back and traced every feature of his face with her eyes. There was such a look of love and, longing in his eyes that she had to swallow before she could answer him. That look called to her heart. “I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life,” she replied gently.
A vast relief crossed his features then, and he closed his eyes. She knew she’d never get tired of looking at his face, just looking. She would know that lean, beloved face in all life’s aspects. A great contentment grew in her as she looked ahead to their ageing. Through the years she could see how the richness of their relationship would build until it would resemble a rare tapestry. They would share the future as they had shared the past, through disappointments and joys, through quarrels and misunderstandings and deep happiness, and their love would grow as they grew until even the bad would be good, as long as they went through it together.
He had always called to her. She realized that now. Voices from the past sang in her memory. “Hey, Robbie, what’s the matter, are you all right? Hey, Robbie, come over here and see this… Look! Did you see it? I think it was a hawk… I’m going to miss you. You’re my best friend… Don’t cry, it’s going to be all right. I promise… I’m so in love with you, Robbie. I want to be your lover and grow old with you… Want to play catch outside?—Hey, Robbie…”
About the Author
Thea Harrison started writing when she was nineteen. In the 1980s and 1990s, she wrote for Harlequin Mills & Boon under the name Amanda Carpenter. The Amanda Carpenter romances have been published in over ten languages, and sold over a million and a half copies worldwide, and are now being reprinted digitally by Samhain Publishing for their Retro Romance line.
For more information, please visit her at: www.theaharrison.com. You can also find her on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/TheaHarrison and on Twitter at: @TheaHarrison.
Look for these titles by Amanda Carpenter
Now Available:
A Deeper Dimension
The Wall
A Damaged Trust
The Great Escape
Flashback
Rage
Waking Up
Writing as Thea Harrison:
Novellas of the Elder Races
True Colors
Natural Evil
Devil’s Gate
Hunter’s Season
The Wicked
Coming Soon:
Rose-Coloured Love
Reckless
The Gift of Happiness
Caprice
Passage of the Night
Cry Wolf
A Solitary Heart
The Winter King
She might be able to hide from the world, but she could never hide from him.
Rage
© 2013 Amanda Carpenter
Model Jessica King had loved Damien Kent beyond all reason. Despite knowing he had a cold, businessman’s heart, she thought love would win out. That is, until he escorted another woman to a party—a woman he was thinking of marrying for business purposes. Leaving him broke her heart, but then a terrible car accident broke her body and spirit. Left permanently scarred and unable to model, Jessica hides away from the world, determined to protect what is left of her heart.
Too bad Damien is unwilling to let go of what’s his…
Enjoy the following excerpt for Rage:
The scene should have been idyllic. The beautiful woman seated directly across from the distinguished looking man at the small table had her chair pulled around for the best view from the French-style windows that led onto a tiny balcony. From the balcony one could look out over New York’s most expensive and exclusive neighbourhood and over the far off and yet clearly visible nucleus of shops on Fifth Avenue. The view was dizzying, moving, ever-changing. At the moment rain was remorselessly drumming against the balcony’s concrete floor, and the aspect outside was grey, dismal.
Inside, however, was a totally different story, for the living room which the two were occupying was spacious, the roof arching overhead, the muted colours in the decor rich in their subtle hues. The woman lifted an exquisitely hand-crafted silver teapot in one elegant hand with a look of enquiry to the man opposite her. Everything—the woman, the penthouse apartment, the expensive and tasteful original oil paintings strategically positioned—all suggested a restrained opulence, an unerring elegance, and an occasional, surprising slash of drama.
The woman was as flawless and as perfectly groomed as the beautiful, shadowed room behind her. In the muted elegance of the room she stood out in a vivid splash of colour, and the man’s eyes returned to her again and again. She was indeed the focal point of the room. Her winged dark brows were arched slightly at her companion. She was strikingly lovely, both at a distance and close up. Deep, dark red hair, wholly natural, was swept back from her slender shoulders and fell like a pure silken waterfall from her classical face. Her complexion was white, not a sickly pale shade of white, but a pearly, glowing ivory. The outline of her face was oval, excepting the twin jutting angles of high cheekbones, and the startling surprise in an already startlingly pure visage was her eyes, for they were a strange, fas
cinating yellowish gold, cat-like in their shape.
The scene should have been idyllic, as the man nodded in response to the woman’s unspoken question and she poured tea into his cup, but under the physical perfection of the attractive atmosphere the man sensed dark shadows that were not caused by the darkened sky outside, but by the emotions of the woman across from him.
Jessica regarded Justin with amusement and affection. He was somewhere in his early forties, his closely cropped blond hair fading to grey at the temples, and his blue eyes beginning to fan in lines at the corners. Nevertheless, he was extremely good looking, with a firm square jaw and a cleft chin, and a trim body that towered over six feet. Tall as Jessica was, she came only to his chin, even in her highest heels. Justin’s eyes were keen and blade-bright. He rarely missed much with those eyes. As the thought flickered across her mind, her eyes clouded over to become carefully blank, expressionless. She wasn’t sure she wanted him to read her that well, today.
She should have married him when she had the chance, four years ago. But that time was past and they both knew it. She’d felt something for him romantically quite a while ago, but it had been infatuation and hadn’t lasted. He was a wonderful man and had been her loyal friend for coming up to ten years now. They knew each other very well. She had to smile when she thought back at how they had met. Justin, now a newly appointed judge, had been a young lawyer at the time and she had been just eighteen, fresh to New York from high school and Vermont. He had been a public defender and had been assigned to the group she had been a part of, antinuclear demonstrators who had got slightly out of hand. Something about her had attracted him and they’d become fast friends in a relationship that was to span many years.
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