“Why are you protecting her?” Tabitha demanded.
“I’m not protecting her. I’m protecting you. You don’t want to do this.”
“I can handle myself.”
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Gracie C. McKeever
“I don’t doubt it, but why should you have to?”
“That’s a good question, and we wouldn’t be standing here trying to answer it if you’d been straight with her and me.”
“I’ve never been anything but straight with you.”
“Oh, really?”
“Let her go, EJ. Let’s see what the little uptight personal shopper can do with this.”
He glanced over a shoulder to see Jade poking herself in the chest as if she were a prizefighter or wrestler goading an opponent in the ring. God, he’d never seen her like this, shocked by her belligerence. The woman was always so cool and calculating.
Had he ever really known her at all? And who knew if her current show of bravado wasn’t a form of calculation and control, a show put on just for Tabitha’s benefit? There was no precedent for her behavior, he had nothing in their past together against which to judge her, and this was the danger of not being able to read people, especially women where he was already at a disadvantage. He never knew where they were coming from, or where they would be coming from in any given situation.
EJ turned back to Tabitha, saw her seething. The situation with her wasn’t much better.
“I’ll show her what I can do, Eric. Just let me go.”
He caught Tabitha by an arm and walked her to the curb several feet away.
She jerked her arm out of his grasp, but didn’t try to go back to Jade. “What are you trying to do? Get rid of me? Why aren’t you getting rid of her?”
“He knows when to take out the trash.”
“I’ll show you trash!”
EJ pulled Tabitha against his chest and held her struggling form there until she calmed down. He pulled away to stare at her. “I’m not getting rid of you, Tabitha. I just want you to go home so that I can handle this alone like I should have a long time ago.”
“Go home?”
“Because
I’m
not going anywhere. This is a free country, and
you
don’t own the street.”
EJ turned and glared at Jade before he turned back to Tabitha. “I’ll call you a cab.” He told her as he pulled out his cell.
“Don’t do me any favors.”
“Please let me put you in a cab and I’ll call you as soon as I straighten this out.”
“I’d like to see how you’re going to ‘straighten this out.’”
“Tabitha—”
“All right. Fine. I’ll go!”
158
Beneath the Surface
EJ didn’t know whether he should be relieved or not at her capitulation. The dark unforgiving look in her whiskey colored eyes told him he shouldn’t be.
He speed-dialed a cab company, gave the dispatcher his and Tabitha’s addresses before putting away his cell and draping an arm around Tabitha’s shoulder. He walked her several more paces away from Jade, leaned his head close and kissed her cheek. “This isn’t what it looks like, I promise you.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
“Not from me.” EJ gritted his teeth, caught her face between his palms and forced her to look at him. If Jade and Tabitha didn’t get the message from his actions, then he didn’t know what else he could do to convince either woman of his feelings. “Tabitha, I will take care of this and call you. You hear me?”
“I hear you.”
He didn’t think that she did, didn’t think she was interested in hearing anything from him, and really couldn’t blame her.
Damn, this had turned into a worst case scenario in the span of minutes. The only blessing was that the women hadn’t come to blows, and that was only because of his intervention. Who knew what would have happened had he not blocked Tabitha and held her back?
EJ shook his head, tamping down a smile at the image of his lioness in action. He didn’t want to give her the idea that he found any of this funny, but the sight of her rushing at Jade like some avenging dark warrior filled his chest with a sense of protection and possession.
The cab pulled up to the curb in front of them several minutes later and EJ took Tabitha by a hand, led her to the back door and opened it. He squeezed her hand before leaning in to give her a lingering kiss on the mouth. “Remember what I said, Tabitha.”
“I’ll remember everything.”
He put her into the back seat, gave the cabdriver her address again and handed him two twenties before hitting the top of the cab to send it on its way.
Then he whirled on Jade.
* * * *
Frankie sat up straight on the sofa, eyes wide at the sight of her. “What in the hell happened to you?”
“Nothing.” She took off her coat and flung it on the coat tree and stalked towards her bedroom.
Frankie leaped off the sofa to intercept her, caught her by an arm. “So, what happened on your trip? Did you hook up with him or not?”
“Yeah, I hooked up with him.”
“And?”
159
Gracie C. McKeever
“And nothing.”
“If he hurt you…”
Tabitha glanced at him for the first time since she entered the apartment, tried not to grin at his violent glare as much as she wanted someone to go punch out Eric’s lights, knew it would solve nothing. It especially wouldn’t make her feel better, not really.
“He didn’t hurt me, Frankie. I did this all to myself.” It was true. He hadn’t done anything. The hurt and breach of faith were all in her head, just didn’t make her ache any less.
She pulled her arm out of his, continued to her bedroom and closed the door just as Vogue slid in.
“I’ll give you five minutes to calm down, then I’m coming in and we’re going to talk.”
Tabitha smiled at the implied threat, then slid off her loafers and picked up Vogue as she headed to her queen size bed. She flopped back on the mattress, cradling the silky cat against her chest until she began to squirm and complain before Tabitha put her back on the floor. “Ingrate.” She giggled, picked up her pink elephant instead and squeezed it to her chest. It was either squeeze it or rip off its head and scatter its stuffing around the room, but why take out on a defenseless stuffed animal what she wanted to do to one Eric Vega and Jade Aliberti?
Tabitha had given the elephant a name as soon as she’d gotten it: Erica, and the stuffed animal had already found a place in her heart, and a place of honor at her bedpost.
She hugged Erica now as if for strength.
What were they doing now, she wondered, Ms. Secret and Eric?
Was he comforting her in Tabitha’s absence, assuring Ms. Secret that there was nothing between him and Tabitha the way he’d assured Tabitha that there was nothing between him and Ms. Secret? Was Eric even now painting Tabitha as the bad guy in this scenario, the Big Bad Other Woman with whom he had made a mistake? Were Eric and Jade more serious than Tabitha had thought? More serious than Eric thought? Why else would the woman react the way she had outside his apartment, unless Eric had been leading her on in some way? The way he was leading on Tabitha?
She’d known going in that this would hurt—opening up and letting someone in always did—just didn’t know how much, or that the pain would kick in so soon.
They’d barely consummated their relationship, and already she was feeling the familiar pangs of abandonment and loss, rejection and betrayal, the idea of them together, of that tall Amazon model touching Eric, or Eric wooing and whispering terms of endearments in her ear, almost more than Tabitha could bear. She buried her face in Erica’s soft pink fur, closed her eyes and took a shaky breath. She would not cry. She would not. There was no need. Nothing had happened yet, and there was plenty of time for falling apart once she knew for sure what was going on, once she knew that he had actually broken what little trust she’d relinquished.
160
Beneath the Surface
It wasn’t like they were in love or had any great emotional investment with each other at stake, after all. Was it?
Frankie knocked on the door. “Tabby-Cat, open up.”
Tabitha got up, not sure whether or not he’d break down the door, and not in the mood to test him or be tested.
The tears welled as soon as she saw his open brown face, as if his appearance and implied support were emotional triggers, the key to her tear ducts.
He took her in his arms and pulled her close as the tears fell freely, her chest emptying as the sobs escaped her throat in big hiccupping gasps. She hadn’t cried since she was a teen, and certainly not in front of anyone. Not anyone except Frankie after he’d rescued her.
She’d never even cried in front of her mother all those years and hurts ago. No matter how many slaps and slights the woman had delivered, Tabitha had refused to show any emotion, any weakness, in front of the woman.
Even the nuns at the orphanage had had a hell of a time getting a rise out of her, and God knew they had tried. Tabitha often wondered if they’d sometimes found excuses to strike her extra hard, extra whacks, just to see if she would break down.
“It’s going to be all right, Tabby-Cat. Whatever he did to hurt you, we’re going to fix this and make it right.”
She didn’t know why she’d ever doubted the deepness of their relationship, their bond. Separations or not, dropping out of her life or not, he was here now, holding her, comforting her.
He was the only family she had. The only family she needed.
161
Gracie C. McKeever
EJ sat at his computer and played all the mind and time wasting games he could in two hours. Solitaire, Minesweep, Pinball before he switched to surfing the Net, ostensibly to research, but really wound up extending his time-wasting tactics. He popped in and out of game sites, and idly chatted on several listserves to which he belonged, anything to stay away from his work-in-progress. Anything to avoid the fact that he just didn’t have it this morning.
He didn’t want to admit how much that confrontation with Jade had shaken him, had shown him a side of her he’d never wanted to see, a side he’d wrought with his cavalier style.
How could he have been so blind?
He’d hurt not only Tabitha, but Jade with his no strings, you-go-your-way-andI’ll-go-mine philosophy, had had no idea of the depth of feelings she harbored for him, no idea of how long she’d felt the way she did for him.
EJ had tried to comfort himself in the knowledge that Jade was a sharp grown woman who knew the deal, that no one had forced her to do anything, but when he got right down to it, he knew that he had manipulated her as surely as she had tried to manipulate him last night, had strung her along for his own benefit—or more accurately for the benefit of his little friend. He’d accepted the physical pleasure she provided without thought that she’d wanted anything more in return for her favors than the luxury of an orgasm.
Had he made the same mistake with Tabitha?
Her reactions in the hotel room told him he might have, that she mistook his desires as just those of a physical nature. She’d accused him of coming onto her from the very beginning, and he had been, had never tried to get to know her, taking the easy way out and using his gifts to discover her past, rather than asking her about herself and exercising the patience and understanding it would have taken him to wait out her answers once she decided to open up.
162
Beneath the Surface
Now he was afraid to ask her anything for fear of what she’d tell him, afraid that she’d expand on the horrible experiences he’d yet only glimpsed of her childhood.
Were her parents alive? Where was her biological father that he hadn’t seen him in any of his visions? Only a strange man who’d tried to take away her innocence and a woman who was going to die a hideous death in a car crash.
EJ got up and paced the room several times, forked a hand through his hair as he glared at the computer monitor as if it was at fault for what had happened last night, for his inability to get any work done this morning. He really had to get out of the habit of blaming other things, other people for what was essentially his own fault.
EJ walked over to an end table, scooped up the cordless receiver and speed-dialed Tabitha’s office. As expected, he got the nice assistant, Cynthia Lawrence, an attractive young newlywed whom, he knew, had a crush on him—so turned on the charm. He’d sensed a supporter in his past conversations with her, knew that if he had any chance in the world with Tabitha, at least in his dealings with her at work, he had to charm and get through her gatekeeper.
“I’m sorry, EJ, but she’s not taking any calls.”
He’d told her to call him EJ on their first meeting, and so far she was the only person in Tabitha’s office who did. “I understand you have a job to do Cynthia, but you tell her I’m not hanging up until she picks up the phone. Will you give her that message?”
“I certainly will.”
He waited a few minutes, didn’t believe that Tabitha would actually make Cynthia hang up on a client, even if it was him, couldn’t believe her anger had reached that degree of rudeness.
After he’d waited a good fifteen minutes—and he’d looked at his watch several times to confirm the length of his wait, shaking his head, she finally got on the line.
“What do you want, Eric?”
“I said I’d call you.”
“I never said I’d speak to you when you did.”
“Are you going to give me a chance to explain?”
“It took you all night to ‘straighten things out’?”
EJ didn’t want to discuss or remember last night. As far as he was concerned it was past history, and so was Jade, at least in her capacity as his lover. As a friend, he was sure he could only tolerate her sparingly, if she was still willing to be in his life on these terms at all, and with the way he’d left things with her last night, he wasn’t sure she was willing. “Tabitha, all we did was talk and no it didn’t take all night.” He reached out, curious if their connection had evolved any further, whether the scope of his powers had grown. He’d received such intense images from her on the plane; he wouldn’t have been surprised by anything he caught from her.