Authors: Aris Whittier
James pushed the hair from her face and
ran his fingers across her lips. “I like that,” he
whispered. “How about doing that every morning for the rest of
my life?”
She kissed him again, this time
lingering longer.
James broke the kiss and studied her
curiously. “Why aren’t you answering me?”
“Make love to me.”
When she moved on top of him and dipped
her head next to his ear, he stopped her. “Samantha.”
“Shh, don’t talk.”
“Answer me.” When her head
fell into the pillow next to his, he didn’t move. “What
is it?”
“I can’t.”
“You can’t what?” She
tried to roll away but he caught her. Holding her firmly in place
with his legs he said. “What is it that you can’t do,
Samantha?”
“I can’t talk about this,”
she said as she wiggled. “I can’t stay.”
“Why?”
She slid off the top of him, when he
released her. “Because nothing has changed.”
“Everything has changed.”
He flung back the covers to expose their naked bodies. “You’re
lying here next to me in my bed. Don’t tell me nothing has
changed.” He was angry. “You just asked me to make love
to you.” He took her by the chin. “Dammit Samantha, look
at me.”
“None of this matters. This is
purely physical.”
His expression turned dark and he
didn’t speak.
“All of this is wonderful but it
is also temporary.”
“Temporary?” The word
sprang from his mouth. “I can’t believe what you’re
saying. Nothing has ever been temporary with you.” When she did
something she gave one hundred percent. When she gave her heart she
gave it completely. It was all or nothing. They were both that way.
“This isn’t a fling.”
She reached for the sheet but James
wasn’t giving it up.
“Dammit, don’t try and
cover up.” He shook his head, as he looked at her so
beautifully naked on his bed. “Don’t do this.”
“Don’t make it more than it
is.” Samantha turned her eyes away. “It’s time for
me to go. Marie is in remission,” she explained. “Her
doctor said she’d be strong enough to move back home in a week
or so. There will be no reason for me to stay.”
“There’ll be me.”
When she got out of bed he followed her. He watched her hastily
collect her clothes, which were spread around the room. “Will
you stop and talk to me?”
She rolled the clothes in her hand into
a ball and held them close. “This isn’t going to work. It
can’t work.”
“It’s working right now.
It’s worked over the last few weeks. We are rebuilding what we
had.”
All she could do was shake her head.
“I’m not going to hurt you
again. I swear on my life I won’t ever hurt you.” He took
her by the arms. He needed the contact that she was trying so
desperately to take from him. “Say you believe me.” At
that moment it seemed like the most important thing in the world for
her to say yes to.
“It’s too late.”
His stomach tumbled. “You’re
wrong.”
“No, I’m not wrong, James.
You can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like to be hurt
the way you hurt me.”
“The hell I can’t. You hurt
me too.”
She suddenly pulled her arms free from
his grip. “I hurt you?”
This time when she moved from him, he
made no attempt to pursue her. “You walked out on me. You left
without even telling me where you were going.”
“You didn’t have a right to
know,” she flung back.
“Bullshit! I had every right to
know that you were safe, that you had found a place to live.”
“You lost that right when you
decided to be unfaithful.”
James stood very still. Controlling his
emotions had never been very hard for him; however, he was struggling
right now. He bit his words back so they came out slow and
restrained. “I had a right to know. I had the right to
explain.”
“It doesn’t matter. Nothing
matters,” she condemned him unemotionally.
Everything matters, he thought. She
matters. What they had shared, were sharing, mattered. Watching her
face, he saw the same unmistakable pain he had seen the first night
on the beach. It was raw and sensitive.
“I don’t trust you.”
Samantha held his eyes. “What do we have if we don’t have
trust?” Her voice was harsh when she spoke. “We have sex.
That’s all.”
Her assertion tore painfully through
him. James didn’t move. He couldn’t.
The phone broke the defining silence
that had lapsed between them. James moved to the nightstand, not
taking his eyes off Samantha once. “Yes.” He listened to
Raymond speak for several moments. Jesus H. Christ, could things get
any worse? He could do nothing as he watched the woman he loved
getting dressed at neck-breaking speed, so she could get as far away
from him as possible, while he listened to the details of one of his
biggest deals slowly come unraveled. “Why the hell wasn’t
I notified? This shit doesn’t fall apart over night.”
He paced in short fast steps.
James spoke quickly when Raymond had
finished. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes. I want the
entire team on that goddamn jet with me. And make sure Gregory is
there, too. Call Shelly and have her cancel all my appointments. Also
contact Al.” He ran a hand through his hair as he searched his
mind for anything he might be forgetting. “I don’t want
anyone in Europe to know we’re coming. If there’s a leak,
you’re fired. Hell, if there’s a leak, we’ll all be
fired,” he added abruptly. He turned the phone off and tossed
it across the room.
Completely dressed, Samantha flinched
when the phone shattered as it made contact with the wall. The air
sizzled with emotion and Samantha felt the weight of it pressing down
on them. She moved farther away from him.
“I need to go to Europe.”
His voice was uneven as he spoke, found his clothes, and then quickly
dressed.
Samantha nodded slowly. “I’ll
stay with your mom.”
Why did she have to look at him that
way? All he wanted to do was take her in his arms and hold her close,
yet from the looks of her, if he were to do that she would fight with
everything she had to prevent it. “I’m not sure how long
I’ll be. It could take about three days or possibly a week.”
Samantha watched him walk into the
closet, come back out, and then start grabbing items around the room
and stuffing them into a small brown leather bag. “Take as long
as you need.”
“I’ll leave numbers,”
he said as he zipped the carry-on shut. “I’ll have Shelly
call with all the details in a few hours.” He felt like a
little piece of him was being cut away. The awful void was ripping
back open and there was nothing he could do about it.
“We’ll be fine.”
Their gazes locked momentarily. Neither
one spoke, only stared. Samantha could hear her own heart pounding in
her ears. James felt like he was slowly losing everything he had ever
wanted—all over again.
* * * * *
“What do you want from him?”
Marisa asked as she pushed the coffee aside and took Samantha by the
hands. It had been twenty minutes since she had arrived and Samantha
had filled her in on what had happened.
Samantha sat at the table and stared
blankly through the glass door at the ocean.
“Sam, look at me and answer the
question.”
After a long moment Samantha looked at
her friend. “Nothing.” Lifting her shoulders she added,
“I don’t want anything from him.”
“That’s a lie. We both know
that’s not true.” Marisa’s grip tightened. “If
that were true you wouldn’t be reacting this way.”
“I’m reacting this way
because I foolishly got caught up in emotions that were based solely
on lust,” she said regretfully.
“I disagree. I think you’ve
duped yourself into believing they’re based on lust. I think
they’re based on love.”
Samantha shook her head quickly, not
even considering it.
“Are you saying you don’t
love him? Look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t love him.”
After a moment she said, “That’s what I thought.”
Samantha’s pain-filled eyes
brimmed with tears. “I can’t love a man who’s
cheated on me.”
“What if he didn’t?”
Marisa whispered as she stroked Samantha’s hair softly. “What
if he’s telling the truth?”
“I know what I saw.”
“You know what you think you
saw,” she offered gently as she wiped at her friend’s
tears.
“Whose side are you on?”
“Yours. Why else would I be up at
this god-awful hour?”
The makings of a smile touched
Samantha’s lips.
“I’m not going to tell you
what you want to hear,” Marisa warned.
“I know you’re not.”
Samantha sighed and after a moment of thought, she said honestly, “I
thought it was lust at first but now I’m not so sure.”
Marisa nodded in agreement, encouraging
her to continue with the thought.
“I still love him,” she
whispered to herself.
Marisa pulled Samantha to her and
wrapped her in a big hug. She held her tightly, giving her time to
let it sink in.
“I love him,” she whispered
again.
Slowly releasing her, Marisa pulled
from the embrace. “When I got here, you asked me for my
opinion—here it is. I think you need to hear him out before
deciding what you’re going to do.”
“I don’t want to know all
the details.”
“Of course you don’t. But
you need to know them. There is a difference.” Reaching for her
purse she flung it over her shoulder. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“To see James. I’m sure he
hasn’t left for the airport yet.” When she saw the
reluctant look cross her friend’s face she took her firmly by
the shoulders. “Sam, what do you have to lose? More
importantly, let’s look at what you have to gain.”
Samantha hugged her friend tightly to
her. “Thank you for being the voice of reason.”
They spoke little as they drove through
town. Thankfully the morning traffic was light, so Marisa was able to
make good time. Once they turned off the freeway and headed toward
the narrow high-rise buildings located downtown, they were almost
there. Dodging a few street sweepers, they pulled up to the curb and
Marisa put the car in park.
She turned to Samantha. “Are you
ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
“All you have to do is hear him
out,” she said reassuringly. “You don’t have to
make any decisions, just listen to him.”
“I know.”
Right at that moment both Samantha and
Marisa looked out the window. James was exiting the building and
heading toward a waiting limo a few cars ahead of them. He paused for
a moment as if he was waiting for someone. When he was joined, Marisa
was the first to speak. “Who the hell is that with him?”
Samantha couldn’t take her eyes
off the woman, whom James was helping into the limo, with a gentle
hand against her back. “It’s her.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. I don’t
think I’ll ever forget what she looks like.”
Marisa reached for her door. “The
son-of-a-bitch. I’m going to give him a piece of my—”
Samantha stopped her by grabbing her
arm. “Don’t. He’s not worth it.” It was
funny; she thought she’d have to fight off the tears, but
nothing came. “Let’s go.”
Samantha shot up off the couch when she
heard the loud bang on her front door. It echoed through her
apartment like a gunshot. She took a deep, steady breath, knowing
immediately who it was. Her hand went to her midsection, trying to
soothe the rolling, which had come on instantaneously and was so
fierce she thought she might throw up. Her body was motionless, her
mind racing.
The knock came again, this time even
louder and more persistent than the last. She looked at the closed
door and had half a mind to leave it that way. However, she was smart
enough to know that James wasn’t the type of man who would just
go away if she refused to let him in. She would have to give him the
chance to say what he wanted to say; it was the only way she would be
able to end everything completely.
She coolly collected herself as she
moved to the door and eyed the gold-toned safety chain. The
inhalations she took were long and even, though they were anything
but calming. As she slid the chain to the side and let it drop, the
door suddenly swung open. James pushed past her, knocking her off
balance, causing her to stumble back.
“It seems you have a tendency
toward walking out on me,” James said. Anguish and rage etched
its way across his face.
As Samantha recovered from the sudden
motion, she moved to the other side of the room in an ungraceful
wobble. She didn’t like the way he looked. There were dark
circles under his eyes and several days’ worth of stubble on
his face. His hair was devilish and his suit looked like it had been
slept in. The rolling in her stomach turned into a nauseating tidal
wave. “I didn’t walk out. It was time for me to go.”
The veins in James’s face bulged
as he reached behind him and slammed the door shut. His strides were
lengthy as he moved toward her. “I didn’t say it was
time.”
Samantha noted the anger in his voice
and stepped into the kitchen. It was the most distance she could put
between them without running down the short hall into her bedroom.
She fought the urge to do just that. She had never in her life feared
James, but right now she didn’t trust his judgment. “James,
calm down.”
“I don’t feel like calming
down. I leave for two weeks, come home, and find you gone. No note,
no phone call, nothing.”
“I don’t have to notify you
of every move I make.”
“Not every.” The pitch of
his voice dropped, he remained perfectly still. His eyes never
shifted from her.
Samantha didn’t like his tone—it
was leaden and driven by resentment. “I made sure Marie was
completely moved back into her place.” She raised her
shoulders. “What did you want me to do? Stay at your house and
wait for you to come home?”