Chapter Ten #3
He was trying. Trying to make the right choice, and where Heather was concerned he had a low success rate with that. He wanted her to want him, even as he wanted some distance and sanity where she was concerned.
A small smile curved the corner of her lips. “No. Of course not. I just came here to talk about our friendship. I’m glad that I did. I’m glad that we are on the same page.”
He knew that she was lying. But of course he was going to allow her to have the lie.
“I’ll see you in Vienna. For the wedding.”
“I have a dress.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear it.”
Need flooded his veins. She looked away from him, and her red hair slid over her shoulder, catching the lamplight, gold playing over the top of the fiery strands. He wanted to touch them. Wanted to touch her. He wouldn’t let himself.
He had never been one for exercising discipline when it came to Heather.
But he did it in so many other areas of his life.
He hadn’t become as successful as he was without it.
He worked day and night, he catered to his mother, he had brief, satisfying relationships with women who knew that he was never going to get emotionally invested.
Because he didn’t have any more to give.
He was going to have to find more for his child.
There could never be anything else. He needed something that he could draw more from, not something that would take from him. And truthfully, the relationship with Heather filled the well inside of him in ways that nothing else had.
He needed her. Needed her by his side more than he needed her underneath. He was simply going to have to remember that.
“After the wedding we could start talking about the nursery. Find out whether the baby is a boy or a girl. That will be nice.”
“It will be.”
She gave him a smile before she walked out of the room, out of the town house, and he paced over to the bar, grabbing a bottle of Scotch and pouring himself a measure of it.
Then he walked up to the wall and smashed his elbow right through the Sheetrock.
The pain was searing, and he looked at the white shirt he was wearing and saw that it was red with blood.
He let it run.
There was pain now. So that there could be peace later.
He was standing solid in that.
She had been mildly devastated by the conversation they’d had at the London house.
She hadn’t expected it. Yes, she had found it disquieting that he had suggested she leave, but she hadn’t put a lot of extra thought into it.
She had hoped that it was actually a good-faith gesture, which was how he had presented it.
That he trusted her, so she could go and be in New York for a while if it suited her.
She hadn’t expected for him to cut her off entirely. For their sexual relationship to end just like that.
Logically though, she had been thinking that they would end it at least for a while when they got married, until they got their footing and then…
She had known that they would never be able to resist each other, so obviously they would end up back in bed and then maybe he… Maybe he would begin to feel the same way that she did.
Her chest was sore. But she looked amazing.
She had bought the most beautiful wedding dress that she had ever seen.
A sweetheart neckline with crystals all over.
It was short underneath, with a sheer overlay, glimmering with all of those glass beads.
Her legs were visible when the light hit it just right.
And she had the most risqué bustier that she could find beneath it, along with a pair of panties that might as well not even be there for all that they were as substantial as cobwebs.
But that felt like where they were heading. It had been her fantasy, of a wedding night, of the way that things could be between them, and he had decisively ended it. She couldn’t even argue with what he had said.
It was impossible to argue with. They were getting married because she was pregnant. Not because they wanted each other.
She stood there, looking at her reflection in the mirror for a long moment.
It had been four days since she had last seen him, and now it was the wedding day.
And she felt…sad.
Just a little bit sad.
But also determined that this was the right thing. Them getting married was the best thing.
“You look beautiful,” Catherine said.
She turned to face her closest friend, and did her best to smile.
Catherine didn’t know all the details of everything that was happening with her and Romeo, and she was pretty skeptical of the fact that he had suddenly become a decent human being.
In fact, she had called Heather sex addled on more than one occasion.
But now that she was here, at the wedding, she seemed to be a lot more accepting.
Or maybe she had just accepted that Heather was going to do what she had decided, and wasn’t going to be deterred from it.
“Thank you for making me your maid of honor.”
“You’re my best friend,” Heather said. “I thought about having a whole big bridal party, but all of those people… I don’t really know them anymore.
Mind you, we have a huge contingent from our years at Fairfield here.
Because the absolute spectacle of the two of us getting married was too much to resist.”
“I would say. I never got to see the two of you spark off of each other. You were obsessed with him.”
She looked back at her own reflection. The largeness of her eyes, the color in her cheeks. “I’m still obsessed with him.”
“That’s good, since you’re marrying him.”
“I guess. I guess it’s good. But we have to raise a child and not implode. We don’t have a lot of practice with not imploding. We’re…a whole storm.”
“I’m glad that the sex is good,” Catherine said, dryly.
Heather laughed. “That’s not the only thing I meant.”
“I know. But clearly the sex is good.”
“It’s all-consuming. Which concerns me.”
She was hedging around the truth.
“He’s gorgeous. So, I get it. Though I’ve had sex with some pretty gorgeous men who turned out to be disappointing.”
“Nothing about Romeo is disappointing.”
“I think you might just love him.”
She stopped, and of course Catherine was going to say that, because she didn’t know about the contract, about the agreement.
She didn’t know about the connective tissue of all the moments they’d spent together since then.
That he had never professed to have any sort of emotional connection with her.
Nothing other than a desire for friendship, which was why he was determined not to touch her.
“You think I love him?”
“You’re marrying him. In a gorgeous white dress. You look like you’re glowing. You’re having his baby. You’re obsessed with his body. What part of that doesn’t sound like love to you?”
“Isn’t love supposed to be soft and wonderful?”
“No,” Catherine sighed. “Listen, I’m not an expert.
I’ve had some relationships that have burned themselves out quickly, and I’ve had some that have lasted longer.
I haven’t found the love of my life. I certainly never wanted the same man for nearly fifteen years, and nothing, not the passage of time or the way that he treated me, or the way that I treated him, could change the way that I felt.
So I mean, there’s that. Mainly though, I think love is a lot like the rest of life.
It changes with us. Moves with us. I think it can be comfortable.
Something lived in and lovely. But sometimes it has teeth.
Sometimes you leave bite marks all over it because you’re trying so hard to hold on.
I don’t think love is any one thing. It’s too big for that. ”
Her words echoed through Heather. And it was difficult for her to deny them.
It had been him. From the beginning.
When he had stood there by the pool looking at her over the top of his sunglasses like she was nothing, and he had suddenly become everything.
She had watched him go from a beautiful boy to a beautiful man. She had tried to want something else, and she had never quite managed it.
“I spent so many years not even liking him.”
“Is it that simple? Did you not like him? Or were you just desperate for him, and it felt like dislike? Desperate for his attention while he was seducing other women, and in general being mean to you.”
“I…”
Desperate for his attention. That resonated.
It echoed inside of her. Yes, she had been desperate for his attention.
Desperate for him to see her. She had tried to shape herself into the kind of girl that would interest him, that would catch his focus, and when all she could get was his disdain, she had learned to feed off of that.
“We’re worse than I thought. Because you’re right. I never hated him. At all. I wanted him desperately in whatever form that took. And I was willing to have it be hard. Mean.”
Catherine reached out and squeezed Heather’s arm. “You’re just a girl.”
“What does that mean?”
“Who among us hasn’t been absolutely wretched for a gorgeous man? A man who captures us no matter how bad of an idea it is. It is definitive proof that you can’t choose your sexuality. Because God knows I would’ve been done with men ages ago.”
She was about to protest again. There was no way they could love each other because there was so much…anger there.
But there hadn’t been. Not recently. He was the first person that she texted in the morning, and the last before she went to bed. He had been her first thought all day, every day for the last fifteen years.
She wished she could deny that it was love.
She wished she could write it off as obsession. As something temporary or shallow, but nothing with teeth that penetrated this deeply could ever be shallow.
Nothing that had lasted this long.
She couldn’t think about other men. She couldn’t want them.
She cared what he thought about her, so much so that she’d been performing at him in a variety of ways for years.
She’d been sick over him, so much so she’d hoped to never see him again and then had destroyed that plan by sleeping with him, getting pregnant with his baby.
And now she knew they could actually like each other too.
That she could enjoy his company instead of only feeling like her skin was too tight when she was near him.
“I love him,” she whispered.
“Yes, you do,” Catherine said. “It really is a good thing that you’re marrying him.”
“I suppose.”
But he had said that they needed to continue to pursue the friendship part of things.
But there would never be another man for her.
Not ever. And she wasn’t prepared to let him go off and be with other women.
She wasn’t… She wasn’t only doing this for their child.
She was doing this for her too. Because she wanted him.
She didn’t just want to be a vessel for this life inside of her.
She didn’t just want to be a mother. She wanted to be a whole woman.
Who had love. It was one thing she had never begrudged her mother, not just because it had improved their circumstances, but because Heather had always known that her mother deserved that kind of happiness.
Romeo simply hadn’t been raised by a woman who had allowed him that feeling. His mother had often been miserable, and she had made her son feel miserable when she did.
His emotional state was so tied to her that of course he saw it more simply.
If they were happy, and at peace, their child would be.
But life was too dynamic for that.
And they were already too complicated. But that wasn’t something to run from.
“You don’t look happy.”
“I am,” Heather said.
Because for the first time, everything made sense. For the first time, she made sense. For the first time, all of this felt right.
She wasn’t going to let him run away from this.
She had to believe that she still had power. To change his mind. To make things shift.
Catherine handed Heather her bright pink bouquet, and she took hold of it and gave herself one last, purposeful look in the mirror before the two of them walked down to the chapel.
It was absolutely packed full of people, because who could resist coming to gawk at this?
Not many that had been invited, it turned out.
The whole thing looked like an elegant wonderland, with twisting branches woven together with fairy lights wound around them.
Making an arbor for her to walk beneath as she made her way up the aisle.
And there he was. Stern and stoic in his black suit, his black hair ruthlessly styled off of his forehead.
Romeo. Her stepbrother. The father of her baby. Her husband.
Hers. Inevitably. There was no escaping him, and she didn’t even want to.
She wanted him. She wanted this. Forever. He took her hand, and looked at her. His gaze drifted down to her cleavage, and back up. And just like when they had been teenagers, she knew.
He had made a mistake.
He wanted her.
When they spoke their vows, her heart began to beat harder. Faster. She meant every word. This was no performance.
Standing there in front of all these people, in front of Catherine in her pink bridesmaid dress, and Carla in her kelly-green mother-of-the-bride gown. This was real for her. The only wedding she would ever have.
“You may now kiss the bride.”
They hadn’t discussed this beforehand. But there was no need to discuss it. She knew what she wanted.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. Deep and long. With all the desire that she had inside her body. He captured the back of her head, his tongue sweeping over hers, clearly overcome just as she was. He wasn’t going to stop this now. He wasn’t going to stop.
No. He kissed her deep and long, the desire that was building inside of her aching and desperate, even in front of all these people.
This was what everyone had come to see, so they might as well see it. This need that existed between the two of them.
It was real.
And it was strong. No matter what he said.
He pulled away from her, his breathing hard, the color in his cheekbones dark red, suggesting pent-up desire.
Oh yes. He did want her.
She was going to get her wedding night. And what she had that. He wouldn’t be able to have anyone else, not without consequences.
She loved him. That wasn’t making her feelings soft.
She could try to be his friend. But she wanted to be his lover. His wife. His woman.
She wasn’t going to give the man peace.
He was going to have to work for it.
On that she was determined.