Tess
Iheld my breath while the doorman called up to Scott’s apartment, afraid he wouldn’t let me in.
It was why I hadn’t tried to call him, even though I’d gotten a new phone more than an hour ago.
Because what if I called and he sent me to voicemail?
What if his engagement announcement meant he didn’t really love me?
I totally knew it was stupid thinking.
He was fucking engaged. For real engaged. It didn’t matter if he loved me or not. I couldn’t stick around, jumping at the scraps of his attention. I deserved more than this, whether it felt like I did or not. Whether I believed I did or not.
If I truly had respect for myself, I wouldn’t have reached out to him at all, let alone come to his apartment to talk to him.
But I’d never been the best in the self-respect department, and I foolishly did believe he loved me, so I would give him one conversation.
If he would see me anyway.
“You can go on up, Ms. Turani,” the doorman said after what felt like a decade, and I felt a layer of tension roll off my shoulders.
While the wait for the doorman had seemed to take ages, the ride up the elevator passed in the blink of an eye, and when I arrived on his floor, my pulse skipped with trepidation. It was just past six. I’d had all afternoon to think about what I wanted to say, and yet my mind was blank.
It didn’t help that he was waiting for me, standing in the threshold of his apartment, the door open. He was still wearing the suit he’d had on, but his tie and jacket were gone, the buttons of his collar undone. His hair looked mussed, like he’d run his hands through it a million times.
Still, he looked delicious as ever.
Unlike me, who had changed into yoga pants and a sweatshirt when I’d gone home. Every part of me felt miserable, inside and out. I’d hoped wearing something comfortable would help me feel better.
No such luck. In fact, seeing him all sexy and delicious, it was possible I felt worse.
Until I realized he was looking at me like I was a gift from divinity.
“Tessa.” His voice sounded like his heart was in his throat. The expression on his face was as pitiful as a lost puppy.
And dammit, I was a sucker for vulnerability. One minute I was standing forlorn in front of him, the next I was letting him pull me inside his apartment and into his arms.
“Thank God, you’re here,” he said into my hair, and I gripped onto him harder.
His mouth moved along my jaw, and soon he found my lips, and since I never could resist him, I easily surrendered to his kiss.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” he said when he broke away to catch his breath.
I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t have made it so easy. I should have made him come looking for me.
But I hadn’t, and here I was. That moment of weakness didn’t have to be followed by more of the same.
That realization brought a burst of strength, and I pushed away from him. “This can’t go like this, Scott. I can’t just fall into your arms.”
“Tessa.” He took a step toward me, and I took a step away, my back hitting the door.
“Don’t.”
He hesitated, then moved back, giving me space.
“I know I need to explain. I wish—” He cut himself off with a shake of his head.
“I tried to get a hold of you before the conference so that I could tell you it was being announced. I didn’t want you to hear it the way you did.
It had to be awful, and I’m so, so sorry that it happened like that. ”
“You think how I found out is why I’m upset?” I mean, I was. But it wasn’t the worst part of his announcement. Not by a long shot.
“I’m sure it’s part of it, but you’re right. It’s not my greatest fault here, only I promise, nothing has changed.”
“Nothing has changed?” I stared at him in disbelief. “You’re engaged to my boss! For real engaged. Am I just supposed to overlook that fact? Because I accepted it before when I thought it was temporary, you think I’ll accept it now?”
“It’s not—” He started to move toward me, then stopped himself. “It’s not real. I am not marrying her.”
“Then why would you tell a room full of reporters that you are? How stupid do you think I am, Scott? Do I really come off that na?ve?”
“No. Never. Of course not. How can... You are…” He stopped to gather himself, pinning me in place with his gaze when he did.
“You know that I think you’re the smartest, most talented, passionate woman I’ve ever met.
And if you don’t know, then I’m sorry because I should have told you more often.
I’m endlessly fascinated with the way you think.
Your brain is half the reason I’m so fucking in love with you. ”
My chest pinched at the declaration, but I refused to let the L-word make me weak. “Then once again, why would you announce, to all the world, that you’re marrying another woman?”
“Because if the world believes it, then my father will believe it, and I need my father to believe that I am.”
“Why does it…?” I wasn’t dumb, though, and once I gave myself a second, it wasn’t hard to figure it out. “He threatened you.”
Scott sighed, his expression confirming my suspicions. “Let’s go sit down and talk. Okay?”
I was not in the mood to be coddled. “What did he threaten you with?”
“Please, Tess.” His blue eyes bore into me. “I’ll tell you everything, but can we at least discuss this somewhere other than my front hall?”
I held his stare for several tense seconds. Then, without a word, I strode past him, careful not to let any part of my body graze his as I did, knowing that even the barest of touches would cause me to disintegrate.
I could feel him following though, his heat radiating on my back the way a fireplace only warmed what was in front of it, leaving the rest of my body cold. Part of me wished he’d pull me back into his arms and heat me up entirely.
The rest of me feared that if he did, I’d be under his spell forever, that I’d accept his excuses, that I’d make up excuses of my own.
I was already rationalizing his behavior. If Henry had threatened him, then maybe this wasn’t Scott’s fault. His father was menacing. I had proof of it from the things he’d said to me. “Did you really think he’d choose you?”
I had thought that. After today, I was sure I’d been wrong.
Now I was back to wondering if Henry had been trying to get into my head. What had he said to get into Scott’s head?
“Can I get you something to drink?” he asked when we’d reached his living room.
I barely heard the offer, too preoccupied with working out what his father could be holding over his head. He’d been following me, and I turned now to face him but found myself with a view of his back since he’d crossed to the bar. “Did he threaten to fire you?”
“He’d never fire one of his sons. It would look bad on him. Wine? Water? I have tequila.”
From what Scott had told me about his relationship with his father, there wasn’t anything else he wanted besides a better position and a spot on the board. But he’d already accepted that he would lose those. Had he changed his mind?
Then it hit me, the lightbulb clear and bright. The thing Scott had assured me would happen, even when his father had resisted. “It was the DRF. He said he won’t sponsor the DRF.”
“See? Not na?ve at all.” Scott pulled a bottle of sparkling water from his fridge and held it out toward me.
“Because...why? I mean, why would he even think that mattered that much to you?”
“Because it does matter to me. Because it matters to you.”
I didn’t want to admit how swoony that statement made me. But it had knocked me speechless, whether I wanted it to or not.
And after I recovered from the swoon, I felt sick. Henry Sebastian hated me that much. Not me, exactly, since he barely knew me, but the idea of me. The idea of his son consorting with a half-ethnic girl from a single-mother household that pulled in an income barely above the poverty line.
I wasn’t good enough for Scott, straight and plain. Not in his father’s eyes. Probably not in most of the world’s eyes.
Expect it to get it, but better not expect more than you’re worth. That was the real Sebastian way.
“So nothing to drink?”
I shook my head, and Scott put the bottle back in the fridge before turning back to me. He leaned against the bar, his hands wrapped around the counter as though it was the only thing keeping himself from me, and from the look on his face, his grip was slipping.
He doesn’t feel the way his father does. He couldn’t. Right?
I forced myself out of my stupor and tried to focus on the particulars of what he’d admitted, needing a clear picture so I could delineate bad guy from maybe-not-bad guy. “So explain this to me. You come into the office today after being gone for a long weekend, and your father says…?”
“Tess, will you please sit down?”
“Will you please explain?”
He was tempted to give me the I’ll-explain-if-you-sit-down retort; I could see it in his eyes.
But he must have realized my agitation level was too high for manhandling because he let it go and sat himself, perching on the edge of his armchair, his forearms resting on his thighs.
“I came in this morning around eight, and my father was already waiting for me. He was worked up about a headline in the WashPo over the weekend attacking his commitment to energy reduction, and he insisted I come up with something to distract the media. I suggested announcing the DRF sponsorship.”
“Even though the paperwork has yet to be signed?”
“It was a risk, announcing early.”
“But it makes him publicly committed.”
“Right. He wanted a distraction. I wanted his commitment. Two birds, one stone.”
I paced along the length of his couch, trying to imagine the scene, which wasn’t really important but was easier than attacking the real question which was does Scott think I’m good enough for him?
And the nearly as important follow-up: am I going to be stupid enough to still love him if he doesn’t think I am?
I was afraid the answers weren’t ones I’d like, and I wasn’t ready to deal with that.