One Forever Kiss (Affair Without End Book 4)

by Susan Ward

  I helped Linda’s mother, Doris, get a new job with my record label. The woman was too old to wait tables—or so Linda fretted incessantly when she talked about her mother’s health and slim finances.

  It was an important part of who Linda was—taking care of the people she loved—so for her I did things that were easy for me and difficult for her. I found Doris a better job, off her feet with health benefits and more money.

  It also gave me the opportunity whenever I was at the label to get to know Doris better without pissing Linda off since Linda, for her own reasons, insisted we keep our affair on the down-low.

  When Doris let me know that Linda had been sending out resumes after graduation without so much as a nibble, I helped Linda without ever telling her to move to the top of the stack with my good friend Sandy Harris, who was a music promoter. It would also make sure she’d get a job in LA, not too far from home in Santa Barbara if she said yes and married me.

  Chrissie was out of school for the summer and I let Walter take her until September without an argument, partly hoping to keep the careful balance of peace I was struggling to maintain with Lena’s father and partly because what man wants his daughter along on his honeymoon?

  It was far from the perfect honeymoon—two months touring with Jack across Asia—but hell, sometimes a man had to work the best he could within his limitations, and I was just trying to make fit a whole bunch of pieces that seemed determined not to come together on their own.

  I’d convinced myself that if I waited for perfect timing I’d be waiting forever for Linda. I was ready to ask her to marry me before we headed out together as we planned for the final two-month leg of the tour.

  I went so far as to arrange a romantic, if not opulent, wedding for us in the Nevada half of Lake Tahoe so she’d be my wife before I rejoined the tour.

  A perfect plan.

  Or so I thought before everything went wrong in a three-day span of being with Linda at the West Hollywood Hyatt during my LA concert at the Forum.

  Two major events happened in three short days.

  One that would eventually prove insignificant to us.

  One that would be forever life altering.

  Only, at the time, I didn’t know which was which, and wouldn’t for nearly three years.

  Things started out well when Linda arrived at my hotel room. We shared a loving reconnect via incredibly hot sex after our six weeks apart. But somehow we ended up in a fight.

  It had been all my fault. After making love to Linda, I’d argued about Chrissie with Walter by phone, and he always left me feeling anxious about everything. I was a guy just trying to figure out how to get the two girls I loved—Linda and Chrissie—together in my life in a better way than we currently existed.

  I’d said things to Linda that I shouldn’t have, and she had stayed behind in the room instead of joining me at my concert as I wanted her to.

  I’d gone to the after-concert party, though I shouldn’t have, but I needed some time to regroup. I’d arrived in LA with high expectations and in less than twelve hours things were spiraling out of control around me as they always seemed to do those days.

  I was sitting alone at a patio late at night somewhere when Liam said, “What’s that you’re staring at, Jackie?”

  I turned the ring box toward Liam.

  “That’s not what I think it is?” he asked, making me tense with how he said it. Both of us knew more about Linda’s reputation than even she did, though I wasn’t sure what Liam thought about it.

  I shrugged. “I picked it up today at the jeweler’s, but I didn’t want to leave it in the room and have Linda find it. I was thinking I might ask her to marry me this hop.”

  Liam laughed. “You don’t think about something like that. You just do it.”

  I smiled, snapped closed the case, and then sighed. “I’m not sure I should.”

  He studied me for a moment then frowned. “Is it because of her or something else I don’t about?”

  My temper flared. “Fuck you, Liam, for asking me that. I don’t give a shit about Linda’s past. She hasn’t done anything that the two of us aren’t guilty of doing ourselves. It’s just she’s a woman so people judge her differently. Same sort of shit people put Lena through. Lena’s past didn’t matter to me, and Linda’s sure as hell doesn’t. Don’t you ever say an unkind word about her to me.”

  “I wasn’t,” he said in that unflappable Liam way, “so don’t get pissed off at me, Jackie boy. It’s not necessary. If you’re happy, that’s all that matters to me. You know that. And you don’t have to sell me on Linda Cray. I think she’s just the kind of woman you need. Strong enough to keep your pitiful ass in line.” He tilted his head to the side and gave me a look. “And I definitely don’t need another lecture on the inequality of the sexes if that’s the cause you’re championing today.”

  I ignored the slight about my endless activism and said, “Women don’t need me fighting their fight. They already rule the world. And once they figure that out, you’re going to be pretty much shit out of luck, Liam.”

  He laughed.

  “Then why are you sitting here, Jack, staring at a ring instead of back in the room asking Linda to marry you?”

  I shook my head. “Things are heating up with Walter again. I should never have let him have Chrissie for the summer. I can feel it. He’s going to follow through on his threats to take me to court and fight for custody of Chrissie. I don’t know if it’s fair to put Linda through that.”

  “If she loves you, there is no way to prevent her going through that with you, if it happens, so you might as well ask her to marry you anyway.”

  I chewed on that for a while.

  Liam was right.

  It would only not affect Linda if I ended it with her, and that was the last thing I was prepared to do.

  “Get the fuck out of here, Jackie, before you piss off your woman again. It’s nearly 3:00 a.m. You’ll be lucky if Linda doesn’t throw something at you when you step through the door. What the fuck are you doing here at this sorry-ass party?”

  I called Linda from the car on the way back to the hotel. She didn’t answer. Bad sign. Second time I’d tried to reach her since I’d left.

  As I entered our suite, I was prepared for an empty room or a fight, and instead I found her sitting on the floor, one of her delightful picnics spread out around her.

  I hung back at the door and just stared at her.

  There were times this woman knocked me off my feet, but always in a good way, and somehow always knowing when I needed it the most. This was one of those times.

  She looked so loving and sexy, those gorgeous brown eyes making it almost impossible for me to speak.

  “Hello, beautiful,” I said, finally managing to push something through the lump in my throat.

  She smiled. “I thought an apology picnic was in order. I know you’re probably tired from being on stage and small talk, and full of crappy, catered, fancy-schmancy food, but some apologies can’t wait.”

  With that she righted my world without effort.

  “I’m the one who should apologize, Linda.”

  She made a silly face. “Then apologize already.”

  I knew there were people in my life who didn’t get why I was with Linda, but only a stupid man wouldn’t hold on to her with everything he was worth.

  I’d been the one who was wrong.

  She apologized.

  It was like that between us from day one.

  It didn’t matter which one was wrong so long as one of us apologized. Linda loved me and understood the important things at a very young age about how to make a relationship work.

  I was in love for the second time in my life.

  With the kind of woman few men were lucky enough to find, and, Jesus Christ, I’d somehow found two miraculous girls in a single lifetime.

  But I was still me.

  I didn’t pop the question that night. I should have. Instead, I let myself get swept
away in a night of glorious makeup sex.

  A critical error I’ve regretted a lifetime.

  I held back because I knew she’d been troubled by something, and on our last day in West Hollywood, Linda finally told me the full details of what was happening in her life.

  She’d been accepted to a prestigious graduate program in London, and Sandy Harris—bastard—had blindsided me by not offering Linda a job in his LA office as he promised, but instead one as an assistant road manager on his UK tour for some little-known band named Blackpoll.

  Linda was an educated, independent woman.

  I couldn’t fault her reasons for not wanting to marry me at that time, and for wanting to pursue two extraordinary opportunities.

  She was determined to take care of herself and build her own life, and wasn’t willing to commit to me until she did.

  I’d lived this before.

  Lena.

  I asked Linda to marry me anyway, but I knew how it was going to end before I popped the question to her. Just as I expected, she chose Sandy Harris’s job offer and graduate school instead.

  And like an idiot, I let Linda walk out the door.

  Straight into the arms of a rock band, and a young kid who was all the hot talk in the industry.

  Alan Manzone.

  Brilliant guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter.

  The insiders called him “the find of a generation.”

  Women called him “panty-meltingly beautiful.”

  He was addicted to both drugs and women.

  Alan “Manny” Manzone.

  Even before I met him, his name should have warned me that Alan was the kind of guy who’d be a deal-changer in another man’s life.

  By trying to help Linda, I’d crossed her path with his.

  Irrevocably linking us all forever.

  And two years later, Linda was married.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  I was in New York, walking at night as I often did, when my legs on their own took me down the street where Linda lived.

  I hadn’t planned it.

  Not consciously.

  I just ended up there.

  And when I looked across the road at her Central Park West apartment building, I saw her climbing out of the back of a limo and being kissed by Alan.

  I stared.

  My heart clenched.

  She hadn’t married Alan Manzone. That was what I expected after she’d flown to California to come back to me four months after walking out on me at the West Hollywood Hyatt, only to leave me after a month, yet again, in an unmistakably definitive ending sort of way.

  She’d married his bass player and best friend, Len Rowan. In some ways it made losing her harder, since some might see marrying Alan a step up from me—he’d become an international sensation—and, well, Len Rowan, at the risk of sounding arrogant, was a step down from me.

  She’d chosen the guy in the background and not the star, though I was pretty sure, with what I head through the gossip vine, she could have had either one of them.

  Fuck, she’d chosen Len.

  I hadn’t seen her in two years, so I couldn’t stop myself from studying her for a moment, hardly able to take in breath because she was as gorgeous as ever. Different. Hair cropped short, making her face severely beautiful, and visibly a woman very much self-possessed.

  It was good to see her looking so well, almost as much as it hurt to see her, and I was about to walk on when her gorgeous brown eyes locked on me and held me there.

  Everything about that moment held the feel of that fucking last scene in the movie The Way We Were. And, I sure as hell didn’t want to be Robert Redford standing there alone as Barbara Streisand trotted away from him.

  Nope, I’d lived that moment too many times in my life.

  But Linda was waiting on her side of the street in a way that told me she expected me come to her, and I couldn’t bring myself to walk away.

  I still loved her.

  It was late, and traffic was as light as it ever gets in New York City, so I made a casual walk from my side of the street to hers, chiding myself with each step to be gracious and get away quickly.

  She had her own life.

  I had mine.

  There was no point to this.

  Except Linda wanted it and I loved her.

  I halted close to her. I hadn’t even touched her and my heart was racing so fast it felt like I was going to have a heart attack.

  “Hello, lovely Linda.”

  I expected her to smile, but she didn’t.

  “Hello, Jack.”

  I shoved my hands deep into my pockets and tried to figure out what to say next that wouldn’t embarrass either of us.

  “You look well.”

  “So do you.”

  Cautious. Unsure. She was rethinking this, too, and, fuck, it hurt worse than anything knowing that. I wanted some visual confirmation that she was glad to see me.

  I jutted my chin toward the building. “How long have you lived here?”

  “Nearly a year.”

  I laughed. “Four blocks apart. Your apartment and mine. And we haven’t run into each other before. My jaw dropped when I saw you climbing out of the car.”

  Her eyes flashed and then shimmered in that amused not buying it kind of thing. It was clear she thought I’d waited for her. What wasn’t clear was what she thought of that.

  “Would you like to come up?” she asked, politely but nothing else, and my gaze shifted to the building in indecision.

  Every part of me screamed, not good, Jackie. Go home.

  She gave a tiny lift of her chin and walked ahead of me into the building, and I could tell by her expression she’d already thought this through, what she wanted to have happen next.

  Christ, why was she inviting me up to her apartment?

  I followed her into the elevator and stood a careful distance from her. Why was I following her?

  The metal doors shot open before I could finish thinking this through. I wasn’t sure I should go any farther because, fuck, I could feel it.

  That vivid wakefulness you feel with a woman.

  The want.

  And the caution not to.

  Inside her apartment, she gestured at a chair. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “No. I’ll only stay a few minutes.”

  Her gaze flashed and I regretted those words and how coldly they’d come out. Fuck, I didn’t want to hurt her and I didn’t want to hurt me. I just wanted to be with her for a small moment before I had to walk on without her.

  I sat on the couch and she sank down on the arm of a chair half a room away from me. A definite signal that this was a “hello” between two former friends and nothing more.

  But, fuck, I still loved her.

  “Are you doing well?” I asked, and her features changed, surprised, as though she didn’t expect me to care how she was.

  “Very well.”

  “And Len? Are you happy? Does he treat you well?”

  She looked amused by my question, and fuck, it had ripped at my heart to ask it. But it mattered to me to know she was all right.

  I shifted my gaze away.

  Waited.

  Silence.

  And when I looked back at her she looked like she was battling back tears.

  “He’s a good guy. A friend. We get along well,” she said softly.

  Fuck. Friend? What the hell was she trying to pretend?

  Nope, couldn’t do it, not even for Linda.

  My anger simmered to the surface. “Why did you leave, Linda? Don’t you think you owe me an explanation? Why leave and marry him?”

  “The reasons don’t matter. Not now, Jack. Leave it alone. In the past. That’s what I need.”

  That was a loaded comment since it implied I needed to leave us in the past.

  “The reasons matter to me,” I said, unable to stop myself. “I’ve tried to forget you. Not to love you. I’m still in love with you, Linda.”

  She look
ed away, big brown eyes locked on a vacant space in the room.

  Was my comment pathetic?

  Sure, but it was honest.

  “How’s Chrissie?” she asked, surprising me.

  She fucking changed the subject.

  Fine. We’ll do it your way, Linda.

  “Well. Nearly thirteen. I didn’t come here to discuss Chrissie.”

  Her gaze shifted back to me. “Why did you come here?”

  Yep, I could see it. She thought I planned this chance encounter.

  Truth and my pride warred inside me.

  I ignored her assumptions and said simply, “I love you, Linda,” and locked her in a gaze I was pretty sure revealed every nuance of my heart.

  She didn’t move.

  Didn’t speak.

  For a very long time that nearly crushed me.

  Then she sprang out of her chair and ran across the room to kneel between my legs, and I pulled her into my arms.

  “I still love you. I never stopped, Jack. Where we are now has nothing to do with whether I love you or not. You are the love of my life and you always will be.”

  Fuck, what was this woman trying to do to me?

  Love of her life?

  She’d married Len Rowan.

  I told myself to walk out then; instead I brought my mouth to hers, savoring the feel of her against my lips and how her body dissolved into mine in a remembered perfection that was excruciatingly haunting.

  I was losing myself in the feel of her, and then a voice rose in my head, damning me for what I was doing.

  I broke off the kiss and moved quickly from her, leaving Linda kneeling on the floor near the couch.

  “Damn it, what are we doing?” I snapped, anxiously raking a hand through my hair as I paced the room, fighting to calm my spinning body and thoughts. “You’re married, Linda. What are you trying to do to me?”

  She stared up at me, her eyes enormous. “My marriage doesn’t matter. Not with us, Jack. I just was trying to love you.”

  She said that simply.

  It was anything but that.

  “By getting me all fucked up again over you,” I growled. The second the words were out I regretted them, because they’d been harsh and they hurt her.

  Her gaze fixed on me, and something in the dark depths made me stop pacing. “Are you fucked up over me again? Or does this feel right? The way it should? Us, Jack.”