Chapter Fourteen
S tone watched Cathy remove the pins from her hair. She’d already hung up her dress and taken off her makeup. She wore a short peach-colored robe with a matching nightie underneath.
He stretched out under the sheets and waited for her impatiently.
While he enjoyed her bedtime rituals, tonight he was already aroused and ready for her.
He wanted her in his bed, his arms around her, her body pressing against his.
He wanted to kiss her and taste her. He wanted to reach between her thighs and find her already wet for him.
Then he wanted to plunge inside of her and take them both to fantastic release.
“Thinking about it doesn’t make the wait any easier,” he mumbled to himself.
Cathy glanced up and looked at him. “What was that, Stone?” she asked. She finished pulling out the pins, then reached for her brush.
“Nothing. I was talking to myself.”
“Oh.”
She returned her attention to the mirror. He frowned. There was something different about her tonight. Instead of joking, she was quiet.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
She put down her brush, turned out the lights on the vanity, then crossed to the large bed. But instead of joining him under the covers, she settled on top of the blanket and pulled her knees to her chest.
“I heard people talking at the party tonight,” she said.
So that explained it. “I’m not surprised. A lot of them haven’t seen me in years. A few probably thought I was dead.”
That earned him a quick smile. “I’m confident they were pleased to see that you weren’t.”
“Don’t be so sure about that. My competitors would like nothing more.” He stuffed a second pillow behind his head. “Tell me what bothered you.”
Cathy drew in a deep breath. “I wouldn’t say bothered, exactly. It’s just—” She shrugged. “I know it’s none of my business.”
“I don’t have very many secrets.”
“I heard two women talking about Evelyn,” she said. “One of them knew her, and the other had only met her a couple of times. They said you weren’t in mourning for her because you’d never loved her.”
Now it was Stone’s turn to hesitate. He shouldn’t be surprised that people were talking. After all, he was prime fodder for the gossip mill. He had been for years. His time in solitude would have only made him more interesting…at least to some people.
In the back of his mind, he’d always known the truth was going to come out. It had to at some point. Cathy was too much a part of his world to be kept in the dark, he decided. As long as he didn’t tell her everything.
“I guess it’s time to come clean,” he said lightly. “It’s a long story, so you might want to get comfortable.”
He patted the pillow next to him, but she shook her head. “I’m fine here.”
She was sitting on the bed, but he felt as if she were a million miles away.
He realized he would have been more comfortable telling her this while she was in his arms. At least then he wouldn’t have to depend just on facial expressions.
He could read her thoughts in the tension in her body and the way she pulled back or hugged him close.
This way she could keep her thoughts to herself.
Which was probably what she wanted. Well, there was nothing he could do about it.
“You know that Evelyn and I were friends,” he began.
“After college I went to work in the family business. Evelyn was staying in school to get her MBA. My parents realized they had a son in his midtwenties and they decided it was time for me to get married. They threw a series of parties and invited all the young women they considered eligible. I knew that I was expected to choose one of them.”
He thought back to those days. It had been summer, he recalled. Because Evelyn had been around a lot. His parents hadn’t wanted to include her but they knew better than to exclude his best friend.
“I didn’t think it would be that big a deal,” he admitted.
“I had never been in love, but I’d always had plenty of girlfriends.
I thought this would be more of the same.
But marriage is a serious business. Somewhere along the way I decided they weren’t going to make me choose someone just because of who her parents were and how much money she would bring to our family.
Tensions got very high between myself and my parents. ”
He remembered the fights. His mother’s pleas, his father’s cold anger. The older man had taken him aside and informed him that every Ward for generations had been marrying for the good of the family. It was the first time he’d realized that his parents hadn’t been a love match.
“I wanted more,” he said simply. “At least that’s how it started out.
Then I got stubborn and decided that I wasn’t going to pick someone they approved of.
One afternoon I was complaining to Evelyn about the situation.
I told her all the qualities I wanted in a wife.
Someone bright, easy to talk to, with a great sense of humor.
I remember we were sitting on the beach.
I’d escaped for the afternoon. She looked up, smiled and said, ‘Someone like me.’ I knew then she was right. ”
“So you proposed,” Cathy said.
“Yes. And she accepted.” He rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know what I was thinking. In a way I thought we were just joking. But when she started talking, I realized she was serious and she thought I was, as well.”
The past returned, as it had many times before.
“She said we would be good together, and I knew she was right. We’d always gotten along well.
We liked the same things, had the same dreams. So I decided to go along with it, at least for a while.
My parents were furious. They reacted in the worst way possible—they forbade me to marry her. ”
Cathy nodded. “That just made you more determined, right?”
“I was twenty-six years old. Of course I dug my heels in.” The story was harder to tell than he’d realized. He knew he was to blame for what had happened between them back then. There had been so many signs.
“We had a long engagement,” he said. “Over a year. I’m the one who pushed for that.
I guess there was a part of me that knew what we were doing was wrong, but I didn’t know how to stop it or make it right.
” He cleared his throat. “A couple of months into our engagement, I realized that Evelyn was in love with me. She had been for years. Marrying me was all she’d ever wanted. ”
“And you didn’t want to hurt her,” Cathy said softly.
He nodded. “She was so incredibly important to me. I thought I could make it work. I loved her, but as a friend. At the time, I didn’t think there was a big difference. I was wrong.”
There were many things he wouldn’t tell Cathy. Personal things that he and Evelyn had shared. He still remembered the first time they’d made love, but not the way most men remembered that event. Evelyn had been so eager. He’d known she was a virgin and he’d put it off as long as he could.
Because he’d cared for her and they’d always had fun together, he hadn’t had any trouble getting hard.
But there wasn’t any passion or fire between them.
After a few times together, he found himself avoiding her physically.
She’d been inexperienced enough that she hadn’t realized how little they were intimate compared with most other married couples.
In the end, he hadn’t even been able to fake it.
“The marriage was a disaster,” he said. “She couldn’t figure out what was wrong, and I felt guilty all the time. I tried to make it up to her but I didn’t know how. All I could think of was that I was the only man she’d ever been with and I never really wanted her that way.”
Cathy hugged her knees closer to her chest and reminded herself that she’d been the one to initiate this conversation.
For reasons she couldn’t remember anymore, she’d wanted to know this information.
Now she was sorry. The more he told her, the more real Evelyn became to her.
Worse, the more similarities she saw in their situations.
She loved Stone and she knew he didn’t love her back. She was from a different world; she’d been a virgin. The only differences she could see were that she and Stone weren’t married and that he wanted her in his bed…at least for now.
Her body ached. It was as if every bone had been clubbed. It hurt to breathe, and her eyes felt gritty. His words cut her like daggers. She half expected to feel warm blood oozing down her arms and legs. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t really Evelyn. They were too similar by far.
Unrequited love is one of the oldest stories around, she thought to herself. Lord, but she hated to be a cliché. Unfortunately she hadn’t had a choice in the matter. She couldn’t help loving Stone any more than she could help breathing. It was as involuntary.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “You’ve gone pale.”
He must never know, she told herself as she gave him a smile. “I was just thinking about what you said. I’m sorry things didn’t work out with you and Evelyn. She sounds like she was very nice.”
“You would have liked her.”
Cathy doubted that, despite the fact that the two women had something in common. And she didn’t think Evelyn would have liked her. They would have known each other to be the competition in a game they were both destined to lose.
He pulled back the covers and patted the sheet. “Come to bed,” he said.
She nodded, then stood up and slipped off her robe. Wearing only a short nightgown and panties, she joined him on the wide mattress. There was more to the story, she thought. But she wasn’t going to push to learn it all now.
His arms closed around her and pulled her close. “Are you sorry I told you about Evelyn?” he asked.
“Not at all.” Better to know, she thought.
He brushed her bangs off her forehead, bent his head and kissed her. “I want you,” he murmured against her mouth.
He did. She could feel his hardness pressing against her hip.