“Why did you come here? To tell me you were sorry even though you’re really not sorry? To try and cajole a decision out of me?”
Joshua shook his head. “You called me, remember? I came to see what you had to say. I must say, I may be pissed about the situation but I can understand it. You can’t help who you fall for. Your heart needs to make a decision. I’ll get out of your hair so I don’t persuade that decision with my dastardly good looks and sharp charming personality.”
Before Melissa could even think to formulate a sarcastic comment, Joshua winked and left the room.
She plopped down on her bed and sat contemplating what Joshua had said. Melissa realized she hadn’t gotten a chance to tell him about her pending plans to move away. Melissa was also trying to figure out a way to tell Christian everything as well. And while she was at it, Melissa began to devise a way to get back at Liz for that rather uncomfortable conversation with Joshua.
~ ~ ~
Melissa sat in the front seat of her car, wondering how to work up the courage to knock on Christian’s front door. Again. They finally had things in a good place and Melissa knew that when she opened up to him, everything was going to change again. She had a sinking feeling it wouldn’t be for the better. When her phone started to buzz, Melissa jumped and looked at Christian’s face smiling from his caller id photo.
“Hey.” Melissa hated how breathy she sounded.
“Why are you sitting in front of my house like a total creep? Come inside.”
Melissa loved the little flutter that happened around her heart at the sound of how happy Christian was about her surprise visit. Feeling like gutter slime, she climbed from the car and walked up to the door. It swung open and Melissa found herself in Christian’s arms, being swung around his foyer in giddy circles.
As Christian put Melissa down, he caught a glimpse of her face. Panic raced through his veins, turning his blood to ice. Melissa looked up as his arms tensed and saw that she had alarmed him. Melissa smiled weakly and walked into the expansive living room. Christian took a breath, wanting to make sure his lungs still worked and followed her.
“What—” It was as far as he got before Melissa placed a finger over his lips to quiet him. Needing to move, Melissa began to pace.
“I need to tell you, no, to explain some things to you. Things that will most likely make you not so happy with me. I want to say I’m sorry before anything else.” The panic Christian was feeling began to intensify. The expression on Melissa’s face was set in hard lines of guilt. Dreading the words she was about to speak, Christian said nothing.
“Do you remember that guy that punched out my brother in the office a couple of months ago? Joshua?” Christian felt his heart stop and sink to his ankles. After he finally figured out that he was in love with Melissa, she was coming to tell him that she loved another man. Unable to form words, he nodded in answer to her question.
“Well, after we met that day, he and I started to see each other socially. I want you to know straight off I never slept with him, Christian. We just had a few dates. I never got the chance to tell him that you and I were involved before he began this whirlwind romance as my mother called it. And for a while, it was fun, having this guy who was unafraid to come to my door and take me out properly. My mother was thrilled. I could hear her picking out the china pattern. But it wasn’t what I wanted. I haven’t been around that much lately because I was trying to figure out my feelings. Would you like to hear them?”
Christian nodded again, reeling inside.
“I figured out that I love you Christian.” Melissa cut herself off as Christian finally made a sound followed by him lunging from the couch to wrap his arms around her. Shocked, Melissa could do nothing but hold on.
“Did you even hear me? Did anything before I dropped the big L-word register?”
Christian eased back and let out a gut-popping laugh.
“Yes, you crazy girl, I heard you. What do I care that you dated some guy for a few months? You just said you loved me. When I saw your face I thought you met someone else and I had actually lost you completely. Liz and I have been talking about all these things I could do to get you back, but now I don’t have to. Melissa—” Christian dragged them both to the couch. After sitting down, he looked Melissa in the eye and said to her something he’d never said to another woman other than a family member or female animal.
“I love you, Melissa. Through everything that we have been through, you have been the constant in my life, the one person I know I can count on to be myself around. You don’t need the veneer I have created for the social world. You make me want to be the most open and honest version of myself. It is enlightening to crave a woman emotionally and not just physically. I find that the possibility of losing that turns my blood to ice in sheer panic.” The smile that stretched across Melissa’s face could have lit Los Angeles for months on its beaming radiant power.
“Let’s go tell your mother. We can make her year by telling her that we’re getting married and she can plan us a huge wedding and my father will get off my back . . . what? Why do you have that look on our face? Did I sprout another head?”
Melissa let go of Christian like he was on fire and leapt off the couch, almost to the other side of the room.
“What do you mean marriage? We did not in any way discuss marriage. You didn’t even ask. We said how we’re feeling about each other, which is amazing, but in no way is that a leap into marriage.” Melissa could feel bands of pressure closing around her chest. The thought of being locked in as some high-society wife with no future but cocktail parties and business dinners and her husband sleeping with his assistant made Melissa feel faint. She did not even notice the way that Christian’s face had settled into a mask of anger.
“You and I come from the same planet, Melissa. On that particular planet, two people who love each other and have expressed that love follow the pattern to marriage and eventually a family. Why does that put a look of complete panic on your face?”
Melissa was outraged at the tone of Christian’s little speech which was thankfully overtaking the shock and panic.
“Just because you want to get married doesn’t mean I want to. I have been stuck in LA for years, the only traveling I’ve ever done was with my family. I want to see the world and experience every new thing I can. I want to ride an elephant in India. I want to eat weird food in Asia. I want to go on a safari and see animals that could eat me alive. I don’t want to be some Stepford housewife chained to her suburbs mansion with bratty kids and the only one showing her affection is the dog.”
Christian’s eyes went hot. “And is that all you think we’d have? After I put a rock on your finger and make you pop out a few kids I lose interest and you’re stuck here forever? That I don’t want to support your dreams too? Give you exactly everything you’ve ever wanted in life? That is outrageous, Melissa. I can’t even believe this is how this is turning out. We expressed extremely tender and amazing feelings and you’ve already made it horrible.”
Melissa felt Christian’s last sentence cut into her soul. Christian was right but she didn’t know what to say to make it better.
“I’m sorry that this moment was ruined but you switched things around on me so fast I panicked. I don’t want to get married. I don’t want to live my mother’s life.”
Christian was astonished. He knew her parents’ marriage had been a happy one and was totally baffled why Melissa didn’t want the same type of life. Christian walked to the window to try to gather his thoughts. Without a word, Melissa escaped. She walked right out the front door, bleeding inside, tears streaming from her face, and raced her car all the way home.
Chapter 8
Melissa slammed into her house, intending to go straight up to her room to continue to pack and ran head first into her brother.
“Christ, watc
h where you’re going.”
When Conner got a good look at Melissa’s face he grabbed her arm and pulled her, protesting, into the library.
“Ouch, Conner. I don’t care how pissed off you are at me, you don’t have any right to manhandle me that way.” She was holding her arm where his fingers had dug in and when she tipped her face up to look at him, all her control snapped.
He was gazing at her as a doctor might observe a nervous patient. All calm understanding and quiet reassurance, which was a nice change from the glaring resentment and astonished bewilderment of the past week.
Curling into a ball, Melissa leaned back against the couch and sobbed until she got the hiccups.
Conner made no move to touch his sister. He just waited until she felt like talking.
“You can leave me alone now, Conner. I’ve embarrassed us both enough for the moment.” Melissa started to rise and go up to her room. Conner grabbed her hand. Melissa stopped and stared at her brother. He was looking thinner and more tired than usual.
“If you’re looking for some deep heart-to-heart you are going to have to live with disappointment. After the things you said in Barnaby’s office and the way you’ve treated me since then, I don’t even feel like your sister anymore. Just some outsider. You are on your own, Conner.”
Conner tightened his grip on her hand, refusing to believe what she was saying. In almost every case, Melissa would play at being a hard ass and then cave and be there to support him. Their mother was being no help to him. Every time he tried to go to her for help or comfort she would offer hollow words of encouragement. He needed his sister.
Melissa shook her hand free and walked to the door. As she crossed into the hallway, she heard Conner stand and say please very quietly. As if she was some sort of deity that he needed to pray to.
Melissa came back into the room and sat down. Conner lowered himself to the table in front of her. Then, surprising them both, he dropped to his knees, wrapped his arms around her waist, and began to sob with his head buried in her torso. Melissa had no idea what to do. She had never seen her brother so emotionally distraught. She rubbed his back and could feel her resolve toward ignoring him until she left for Italy softening exponentially. He seemed very young and very lost.
“What’s wrong? You have exactly what you want. You have the company, where you can keep making money. You figured out what was happening with the embezzlement. Well, actually, Christian figured it out. But that’s on its way to being taken care of. What else could be the matter?”
Conner looked up into his sister’s face and wished he could rationally explain why he felt so . . . wrong.
“I don’t know, Melissa. I feel out of sorts every day. As if something in me is never going to be settled. I miss Father as if I had a limb sliced off. Mother is really trying to be supportive but she has no idea really what I need to hear. You always keep me sane. I’m sor—”
“You and I both know, dear brother, that you are not at all sorry for the things you’ve said to me in the past week. They were things you were feeling and it’s best that we just forget them and try to move on. I’m leaving soon and you have a huge company to run and we both have a mother, a wedding-less, grandchild-less mother who is going to be driving us crazy for the next few years. We need to just move on and forget.” She patted his cheek and managed to get all the way to her room, realizing she had gotten out of telling her brother what had happened to make her cry and that, in and of itself was a small blessing. As she closed and locked the door to her room, she turned and let out a shriek.
Christian was sitting on her window bench, looking beyond pissed as the sun began to set behind him.
“You left. What on earth did you think I was going to do? Nothing? This is going to get resolved, Melissa, so buck up, baby.”
Wanting to cry all over again, Melissa pulled out her desk chair and waited for Christian to continue. He looked as if he was struggling to pick a place to begin.
“We both come from families that have happy marriages. My parents are still happy and in love with each other, your parents, to the day your father died, were both very much in love with each other. Why on earth don’t you want to have that type of occurrence in your life? Aren’t you the one who is always saying that you want to experience new things? Wouldn’t an engagement and being married be a new experience for you? And you would get to experience it with someone who has never had the experience either. Seems like a great idea, honestly. Why are you getting so pale?”
“It isn’t fair, Christian, to throw my own words in my face. Yes, it would be a new experience. And I would be a very lucky girl because we both love each other and probably will forever, but I don’t want the responsibility that comes with that kind of commitment. God, I so completely sound like a guy. ‘Oh no, commitment, look out someone who loves me and wants to tie me down.’” Melissa leaned her elbows on her knees and covered her face with her hands in disgust. Christian crossed to her and moved his body in under her arms, linking her arms around his neck. He rocked her side to side. Melissa turned her head into his neck and tried to calm herself.
“There’s something else I need to tell you,” she whispered into his neck. “I don’t want to get engaged because I’m leaving,” Melissa said quickly.
“Leaving? What do you mean? Where?” He eased back and looked into her eyes.
“My father left me Yards by Yards. He also left me all the properties in Italy. I’ve already made all the arrangements. Liz and I are leaving in a month to move in there. Permanently. I’m CEO and she is going to be chief of staff in a hospital there. Are you going to give up your life here and come with me? Or be a demanding jerk and make me stay here and give up this dream I have had forever?”
Christian moved to the other side of the room.
“When were you going to tell me? As you were sitting in your jet flying away? How can you tell me you love me and that you’re leaving me all in the same day? That is nothing short of mean, Melissa. So I lose all around, huh? What about Joshua? Does he know? Is he going?”
Melissa lunged to her feet. “Do not stand there and hurl your nasty attitude at me, Christian. Of course he’s not going. He doesn’t know. I told you first.”
Christian paced back and forth and finally after one cold glare, he climbed out her window, leaving without another word.
~ ~ ~
Grace knocked gently on the door the next morning and opened it when there was no response. She looked at the scene in front of her and was shocked. Her mistress’s room was covered in piles of clothes, books, papers, and all types of other odds and ends. Melissa was in the middle of the room looking over a page in a notebook. Grace walked further into the room and cleared her throat.
“Good morning, Grace. Does Mother need me for something?”
Grace couldn’t find the words to speak. Never in her life had she seen such chaos.
Melissa glanced up and beamed. “You seem alarmed. It does look overwhelming, but I actually have everything organized.”
Grace eyed Melissa like she was crazy. Afraid to offer help, Grace sat on the end of Melissa’s bed, careful not to disturb any of the piles.
“If this is organized for you I want to see what disorganized is. Never mind that. No, your mother doesn’t need you. I just wanted to see what all the noise was so early in the morning. I could hear you banging around from my room.”
Melissa looked sheepishly down at the floor.
“I’m sorry, Grace. I had a fight with both Christian and Joshua and to save myself from jumping out of that window, I decided to start packing up everything I plan to have sent to Italy. Then I was going to go through the library. And by then I was hopeful that it would be time to go back to sleep.”
Grace was surprised that Melissa was still awake. She knew her friend hadn’t gone to sleep unti
l about three in the morning. Grace had seen the light of Melissa’s room cast on the back lawn until she herself couldn’t stay awake anymore.
“What did you and your men fight about?”
Melissa’s expression turned to one of utter sadness. “Just that in fact, me having men instead of a man. It was exactly this, this feeling of sadness and woe that I wanted to avoid, pretty much forever. Now they both know about each other and one of them knows of my plans and both of them left me. Joshua because I love Christian and Christian because I won’t marry him and get locked into my worst nightmare.”
As if the words had conjured her, Anna burst into the room. “You had a man ask you to marry him and you said no?” It was said almost at a screech. The pallor of Ann’s face going from grieving-widow pale to outraged-mother red.
“Good morning, Mother. You’re looking well today. How are you feeling?”
Melissa could all but see the smoke coming out of Anna’s ears. It was immensely satisfying.
“Do not sass me, Melissa. I am about to sell you to the next highest bidder in my circle of friends who have single sons. Explain yourself.” Anna crossed her arms and planned to stay in the same spot until her daughter talked.
“First of all, I will be gone before any of your friends’ sons even hear of my name much less marry me. Second of all, Christian and I realized that we love each other and before we could even explore that wonderful feeling he began to talk of marriage and all the things I have been trying to avoid for most of my adult life. So I broke his heart by telling him that I don’t ever want to get married and that I’m moving to Italy in a month. I very much doubt he will ever speak to me again. And Joshua found out that while he and I were dating, I was also with Christian. So he’s waiting for a decision. A decision I have no idea how to make because I am in love with Christian and I am leaving so that’s two valid reasons to give him a solid no. But I guess you could say Christian is no longer feeling lovey toward me because he got a solid no too. So I am out of men and out of the ability to care. That is the point I am at, and you are caught up. Now I’m going back to packing. You can close the door on the way out.”
Heartbeat Echoes Page 12