Chapter 12
CHAPTER 12
T he moment the words left her mouth, Anna knew she couldn’t take them back.
So she said them again. “I lied.”
Something dark flashed over Grant’s face. “This isn’t about condoms and saltwater, is it?”
“Definitely not.” She managed a halfhearted smile, but shook her head. What she needed to say was too important to let herself get derailed by sex. “Can we go inside? I’d rather have this conversation in a house than a car.”
“You’re scaring me,” he said, and the vulnerability in his voice made Anna want to cradle him in her arms and forget this whole damn thing. She was wavering when Grant pushed his door open.
“Come on. I’ll grab us a cold drink and we can sit on the couch and talk.”
She let him lead her inside, but she didn’t sit down on the couch. She was wet and sandy, and she shivered a little in the air-conditioning. Grant moved to the kitchen where he busied himself pulling two glasses from the cupboard. Anna moved past him, opening the door to the lanai. She walked out into the sunshine, hesitating at the edge of the chair. It was where she’d been sitting the first time they’d kissed. Before she’d opened her legs and her heart and her mind and told him everything?—
Not everything.
“Here,” he said behind her, and she spun around to see him standing there with a glass of ice water. She took it from him, her hands shaking, as Grant folded himself into the same chair where he’d been seated a little over a week ago.
Had it only been that long?
He set his water on the table and turned to face her. “Okay, so what’s on your mind?”
Anna took a drink of water, then a steadying breath. She set her glass on the table and began to pace.
“I lied to you,” she repeated, not meeting his eyes.
“You mentioned that. Can we get to the specifics?”
“Right. See, the thing is, I want to get married.”
“Right now?”
She turned at the alarm in his voice and saw the color had drained from his face.
“No—I mean, not to you. Or maybe to you, I don’t know. I’m not proposing, Grant, and I’m not trying to say I want to date exclusively or settle down or move in together or start looking for rings or?—”
“What are you saying?”
She stopped pacing and turned to look at him. To really look at him. His face was still pale, and his hands were clenched so tightly in his lap he looked like he might rip his fingers out of their sockets.
“I’m saying I’ve tried very hard for a number of years to convince myself that marriage wasn’t my thing. That it was okay for other people, but not something I ever planned to do myself.” She pressed her lips together, trying to find the right words. “The thing is, I don’t think it was ever that I didn’t want it. It was more that I thought I didn’t deserve it.”
He was staring at her stone-faced, an expression that left Anna feeling like an elephant was sitting on her chest. She turned away and began pacing again, determined to say what she needed to say before she broke down like a big idiot.
“I haven’t trusted my own instincts for a long time. Between missing all the signs that my sister’s husband was a jerk, and my own stupid near miss with a guy who turned out to have a wife already, I had every reason to think I couldn’t rely on my own judgment. That I couldn’t trust myself.”
“Okay,” he said, his voice low and guarded.
“I spent my childhood blaming myself for my parents’ divorce and a lot of my adulthood blaming myself for my sister’s divorce.”
“Right,” he said slowly, and she saw him nod in her peripheral vision. “And we talked about how that’s a shitty thing to do. None of that was your fault, Anna. You can’t blame yourself.”
“You’re right,” she said, turning to face him again. She stood with her hands limp at her sides, the relief at being understood mixing in the pit of her stomach with the dread of what she was saying. “And I thank you for making me see that.”
“You’re welcome.”
“But you’ve also made me see something else.”
“That you want to get married.” His voice was flat, emotionless.
“Yes. Or maybe I always knew that. Maybe that’s why I became a wedding planner in the first place. I love it all—the flowers, the veil, the goddamn birdseed stuck in my hair. But mostly, I love the ritual. I love the standing together at the altar and pledging forever even though you know it might not work. I love the love.”
“Love,” Grant repeated, the word sounding like a foreign language tripping from his tongue.
“Love,” Anna repeated, folding her arms over her chest to keep herself from shivering. “I want the whole package. Everything. The man, the emotion, the ceremony, the rings, the commitment, the legal bond, the happily ever after.”
“I—I don’t know what to say.”
He looked like a trapped animal. Anna took a shaky breath and uncrossed her arms. “I’m not saying I need that with you. Just that I need that someday, and whoever I date needs to feel the same way.” She stopped herself, then shook her head. “Hell, maybe I’m lying again.”
She started to pace, raking her fingers through her hair as Grant sat silent. “Obviously, I don’t expect any sort of commitment from you after a week. Christ, that would be insane.”
“Insane,” Grant repeated, his voice taking on a robotic quality now.
“But I’m saying I want it all. I want to get married. Not now, but someday. I need that.”
She turned to look at him and her heart nearly broke in two. He was staring down at his hands, looking lost and wounded and so bewildered, Anna’s chest ached.
When he looked up at her, his eyes were filled with apology. “I don’t need that. Marriage, I mean. Not ever.”
She nodded, her throat too tight to speak right away.
“I understand.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me, too.” She took a shaky breath, suddenly feeling very naked and vulnerable standing on a balcony in her bikini. “I think I’d better go now.”
He blinked. “Anna, wait?—”
But she didn’t wait. She turned and sprinted through the house, grateful she’d left her purse on the counter and her rental car in his driveway. She twisted the front doorknob, feeling a moment of panic when it wouldn’t turn.
She twisted the dead bolt, feeling like an inmate escaping as Grant’s voice echoed behind her.
“Wait, Anna, don’t go!”
She made it halfway to her car before the tears started to flow.
Janelle handed Anna another tissue and covered her sister’s hand with her own.
“And then I just left,” Anna concluded, smearing the tissue over her eyes and blowing her nose again. “Just got in my car and drove away with Grant standing there on his porch yelling after me.”
Janelle shook her head. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I can’t really blame him. I didn’t give him a chance to?—”
“Not Grant. You .”
Anna blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“No, I’m sorry. I can’t believe you didn’t feel like you could tell me about running off to Vegas with a stranger. I would have supported you, honey.”
“I know. I just felt so embarrassed.”
“I understand. But we all make mistakes. You’ve seriously been wallowing in this blame over my marriage ending?”
“I’m your sister— and I’m a wedding planner. I should have seen the signs.”
“That’s bullshit.” Janelle shook her head, her expression strangely fierce. “I don’t know whether to hug you or strangle you. Anna, if you had the power to predict which marriages will fail and which ones won’t, you’d never need to work another day in your life because everyone would be lining up at your doorstep for your psychic services.”
“But I?—”
“Enough!” Janelle snatched the soggy tissue from her hands and dropped it into the wastebasket before handing her a fresh one. “How many weddings have you planned in your career?”
“Three hundred and eighty-two,” Anna said automatically, dabbing her eyes.
“And how many marriages have you, personally, had? Like actually walked all the way down the aisle and said ‘I do’ before going home to make a life together?”
“Janelle, I?—”
“None. Zero, zip, nada.” Janelle squeezed her hand. “You may be the older sister, but this is one area where I’ve got you beat in experience, so let me tell you something, sweetie—marriage is fucking hard work. Even when it’s a good one and you’re not fighting all the time or dredging up past grievances, it still takes a lot of work. Mom and Dad worked like hell at it, and yeah, having kids put a strain on it. But so did careers and mortgages and the fact that Mom wanted to travel and Dad liked to stay at home, and Dad enjoyed wine tasting while Mom couldn’t stand it. Those were all factors, but you haven’t spent your life boycotting jobs or real estate or vacations or Pinot Noir, have you?”
Anna wasn’t sure what to say, so she just shook her head. “No.” She looked down at the tissue, which she’d started to shred into soggy little ribbons. “The thing is, I was getting to this point already. The point of forgiving myself and realizing I didn’t deserve a lifetime of punishing myself for bad decisions and other people’s botched marriages. And I owe at least some of that to Grant.”
“I know, honey. The man made you realize you wanted marriage and then ran like hell when he thought you might want it with him. I’ll deal with him later.”
“Please don’t,” Anna said, sniffling again. “It’s not his fault. You don’t go springing the M-word on a man when you’ve known each other ten days.”
“Hmph,” Janelle said, clearly not convinced, but spared from saying anything further by a knock at the door. She stood up and marched across the room to unfasten the dead bolt. She flung open the door, looking ready to spit nails.
“Speak of the devil,” she said, pushing the door wider.
Anna looked up and felt the bottom fall out of her stomach. “Grant. What are you doing here?”
“You left before I got a chance to explain.”
Anna shook her head, feeling like an idiot for sitting here sobbing over a man who didn’t want to marry her.
Jesus. Talk about a stereotype.
“There’s nothing to explain, Grant,” she said, trying to keep her voice even and hoping her face wasn’t blotchy and red. “It’s fine. We have different goals in life, and that’s okay. It was fun while it lasted, but there’s no reason to shed any tears over it.”
She forced herself to smile, a gesture that made her whole face feel prickly with dried tears. With a discreet sweep of her arm, she tried to push a pile of crumpled tissues into the wastebasket, along with four sticks from Fudgsicles she and Janelle had devoured in the last fifteen minutes.
God, you’re pathetic.
She half expected him to run, but he just glanced at the wastebasket, then back at her. He met her eyes again, his expression pleading. “Can we go someplace and talk privately for a minute?”
“You can have this place to yourselves,” Janelle said, not sounding too thrilled about it. “I have a manicure appointment in fifteen minutes anyway. Anna? Is that okay?”
Anna looked at Grant, then nodded at her sister. “Go. It’s fine. Thank you for everything.”
Janelle walked back over and gave her a sloppy hug. “Hear him out, okay?” Janelle whispered. “I’ll cut his heart out later if I need to, but at least give him a chance to explain. The man rubbed papaya on your butt and rescued a cat from a tree. He deserves a chance to speak his mind.”
Anna nodded and released her sister. Janelle grabbed her purse from the space next to the laptop on the kitchen table, then flounced out the door with one backward glance at Grant.
As soon as her footsteps faded away, Anna turned to Grant. “And now you know.”
“Know what?” He seemed to hesitate, then moved across the room and dropped heavily into the kitchen chair Janelle had vacated. He looked tired, and his shirt was wrinkled.
“Know I’m just like all the other girls. I fantasize about frilly dresses, I eat Fudgsicles when I’m sad, and I cry when I have my heart broken.”
Grant winced, then leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. He sighed and put his head in his hands, looking down at the floor. “I’m sorry, Anna. I never meant for this to happen.”
“It’s not your fault. We were both up front with each other about not planning any sort of future that involved marriage. I’m the one who had a change of heart, not you.”
He took a heavy breath, still not meeting her eyes. “I wish it didn’t have to be like this.”
Anna studied the back of his head. Her tears had dried up, and there was a prickle of something else in the back of her throat. If this thing between them was over before it even got started, at least she could get some answers. Some little shred of honesty from the man who’d been so hell-bent on hiding himself.
She rested her hand on the laptop, then flicked the power button with her index finger. Grant’s flash drive was still in the USB port, and Anna slowly navigated her way to the folder.
“Grant?”
“Yeah?”
“When I got back here after leaving your place, I didn’t want to come inside right away. I wasn’t ready to face my sister, so I sat there in my car and looked up a word on my phone. Desiderium?”
He’d gone very, very still. He was still breathing, but other than that, he looked like a man frozen. Anna kept talking.
“It’s Latin. There are a few different meanings, but the one that jumped out at me was ‘grief, longing, or regret.’”
He said nothing, just sat there like a statue, so Anna went on. “I saw the photos on the drive. The pictures of your brother?”
It was an awkward subject change from their breakup to his family, but what the hell did she have to lose? If nothing else, she wanted answers. About Grant, about his secrets, about what on earth made him the way he was.
“Why don’t you ever talk about your brother?” she asked. “What happened?”
He shook his head slowly, raising it up to look at the image splashed across the screen. He didn’t look surprised to see it there. Just tired. So very, very tired.
“I can’t—” He began, then stopped. He let out a heavy breath and looked away again. “I just can’t.”
“You can, actually. You just choose not to. You’re willing to bare your body to me, but never your soul. Not what you’re thinking or feeling, not ever. Why is that?”
He shook his head, but didn’t speak, so Anna answered her own question.
“You’re scared to death to let anyone see the real you. The you that isn’t perfectly perfect all the time.”
He shook his head, but didn’t argue. Didn’t defend himself.
“Okay, then how about another question,” Anna tried. “If this is over between us, at least let me have the closure of some answers.” When he didn’t say anything, she licked her lips and continued. “Why don’t you want to get married? I don’t mean right now or to me. I mean ever. What’s your reason for feeling like that?”
“I told you?—”
“Actually, no. You didn’t.”
He looked up, his eyes dark gray and stormy. “Sure I did. We’ve talked about this stuff.”
“No, we haven’t. I’ve done all the talking. I’ve told you about my parents’ divorce and my guilt over my sister’s failed marriage and my stupid near miss in Vegas, while you used your supersecret spy-hunter skills to keep me sharing story after story after story. I’m not saying it’s all your fault. I’m not exactly the kind of girl who keeps her thoughts to herself. But this whole time, you’ve hardly shared anything with me.”
Grant looked at her for a moment, then glanced away. He didn’t say anything, but Anna had a feeling she’d touched a nerve. She reached out and rested a hand on his arm. She hesitated a few beats, drawing out the silence the way he’d taught her in an interrogation.
Then she asked the one question she’d been wanting to ask all along.
“Who was she?”
She felt his whole body stiffen. When he looked back at her, his eyes were more troubled than she’d ever seen in her life.
He sighed and closed his eyes.
And then he began to talk.