Missing (15 page)

Lynn let out a rush of air and rubbed her face with her
hands. “I wasn’t trying to break up with you, Nathan. I’m really sorry. I’m
just…I’m just confused.”

“Maybe if you talk to me about what’s confusing you, I can
help you work things out.” His voice was still unnaturally mild.

She’d hurt him. She could hear it in his voice, see it in
the tense lines of his shoulders and jaw.

He’d been through an emotional hurricane with Beth a few
days ago, and it had ripped his defenses to shreds. And now she was doing this
to him—when it was probably the last thing in the world he’d expected.

She hated herself for hurting him, but that sick-feeling in
her gut just wouldn’t go away.

She swallowed hard. “I don’t know.”

“I think you do. You just don’t want to say it.”

She crossed her arms over her stomach. “This…this thing
between us was just supposed to be casual. It was never supposed to turn into
anything. But now…it has.”

“It has,” Nathan agreed. His hands were relaxed on his lap.
“That’s not what you want?”

“I don’t know what I want,” she admitted, the words suddenly
rushing out of her in a tumble. “It all happened so fast. I didn’t have any
time to prepare or figure things out. It wasn’t like the normal relationship
development that happens gradually. It was just all of a sudden, and this
serious relationship was dumped in my lap. I know it’s not your fault. I’m not
blaming you or anything. Circumstances just led to it. But now I’m…I’m in the
middle of it, and I’m…I’m…”

“You’re not sure that’s where you want to be.”

Her stomach felt even sicker, and she tightened her arms
across her middle. “It’s not you, Nathan. It’s not about you. I hope you know
how much I care about you, and I love being with you. But I’m not a little girl
anymore. I know the kinds of consequences a relationship has on your life, and
dating
you
seriously is not like dating just anyone seriously. It would
come with a lot of baggage.”

She peered in his face, anxiously checking to see if her words
had wounded him further, but he just nodded calmly and replied in that same
even tone, “It would. And a lot of it would be inevitable, even if I tried to minimize
the baggage as much as I could.”

Lynn took a deep shaky breath, almost relieved to be talking
about it, no matter how painful the conversation was. “I’m not blaming you,”
she said again. “But it really worries me. I love my career. I love it. It’s exactly
what I’ve always wanted to do. But publically dating Nathan Livingston could genuinely
affect the credibility of the
Cooler
. I know a lot of people look down
on us anyway, but no one has ever accused us of bias. But if I was dating you…
I really don’t want to give the
Cooler
up.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to. I would never ask you to.” For the
first time, a hint of urgency thickened in his voice. “I know how much your
career means to you. Our relationship may have some impact—I realize that. But
I’d do whatever I have to do to ensure the impact was as minimal as possible. I’ve
thought a lot about this, and I have some ideas. I think we can make it work. Your
career is not a sacrifice I’d ever want you to make for me.”

She gazed at him in silence. She knew he was speaking the
truth.

They’d both always used their careers as an unavoidable obstacle,
but they’d never really spent any time thinking about how they could work it
out.

Maybe they could. People had made relationships work in more
difficult situations.

“What else?” Nathan asked at last.

Looking away from him, Lynn admitted, “It’s not just my
career I love. I love my whole life. I’ve lived a long time being able to do
what I want. My freedom is important to me. And being in any
relationship—particularly one with you—would change that.”

Nathan’s eyebrows drew together, as if he were thinking
through what she’d said, so she went on, “For instance, right now, if I want to
go out at two in the morning without asking anyone or informing anyone or being
tailed by a bodyguard, I can.”

His lips parted as he realized what she was talking about.
He closed his eyes and released a breath. Then said, “If security would be a
real problem for you, perhaps I could—”

“No,” she interrupted. “Nathan, I really appreciate that
you’re willing to be flexible, but I’m not trying to negotiate here. I would
never be in a relationship with you and not let you take reasonable precautions
to protect me. That’s not what this is about. This isn’t a negotiation. It’s a
relationship. And it would change everything for me. That’s why I’m…I’m
scared.”

He nodded again and gazed at her in silence. Only his eyes
reflected how hard this conversation was for him. His eyes, however, were
heartbreaking, and Lynn could barely stand to look at them for more than a few
seconds at a time.

“I think there’s more,” he said at last. “I think it
is
about me, at least partly.” When she started to object, he went on, “You know
who I am now. But aren’t you a little worried that I’ll turn into the man I was
before?”

She was. God help her—she was.

She dropped her head onto her hands.

Over the last week, she’d learned more than she wanted to
know about what happened between Beth and Nathan before the girl ran away. Much
of the alienation was from Ariana’s encouragement and Beth’s stubborn
rebellion.

But Nathan had contributed to it too. He’d worked all the
time. He’d only emerged to try to control them. He’d never demonstrated his
love for them openly. He’d been the kind of father he’d had.

He was a loving, generous man, but his own family had taught
him about distance and control, rather than about affection.

He’d changed. He’d learned a lot over the last two years.
But Lynn wasn’t a fool.

Nathan could be that man again.

Finally, he reached over and lifted her face away from her
hands, turning it so she was looking at him again. “Lynn,” he said, his voice deeply
hoarse. “You have every reason to be afraid. And the only thing I can say is
that I love you, I’ve learned from my mistakes, and I’ll keep working on being
the man you need me to be.”

Lynn crumpled. Choking on sobs, she threw herself onto his
chest and wrapped her arms around him. She cried into his shirt as he gathered
her into his arms, holding her so tightly it almost hurt.

“Lynn,” Nathan rasped into her hair. “Please don’t leave me.
I love you so much. I need you so much. My life is so much better with you in
it, and I think we’re really good for each other.”

She was sobbing so hard she couldn’t speak immediately. It
felt like all of the tension she’d been holding onto for a week was suddenly
unleashed, released in the wave of emotion and revelation Nathan's words had
prompted.

After a minute, he relaxed his desperate hold on her and
pulled back a little. “I’m getting a little worried. Are you all right?”

She choked on amusement, somehow mixed up with a sob. But
she nodded her head and tried to smile up at him through her tears. “I love you
too,” she managed to say, wiping at her face with the sleeve of her robe. “I
don’t want to lose you.”

The composure on Nathan’s face cracked momentarily, and she
saw the blaze of shattering relief.

It made her cry again.

"I know it won't be easy," he said, pulling her
into his arms once more. “But I think we can make it work.”

His body was lean and hard, and she breathed him in. He
smelled like warmth, and strength, and Nathan.

“I think so too,” she said, her voice muffled by his shirt.
“I’m sorry I pulled away like I did. It wasn’t fair, and you deserved better.”

He loosened his arms from around her and then took her face
in his warm hands. He gazed down at her with such a fire of need, hunger, and
tenderness that she could barely breathe. “Did you say you loved me?” he asked,
his voice raspy and soft.

She couldn’t possibly contain her smile. “I did. I love you,
Nathan.”

“Good.” The overwhelming look in his eyes contradicted the
understatement of his words. “I love you too.”

He kissed her then, and she kissed him back. And then
neither one was able to stop.

The embrace deepened more quickly than they expected, until Nathan
had untied her robe and pulled it open and Lynn was fumbling with the button of
his trousers. He made love to her right there on the couch, and it was clumsy
and urgent and a little sloppy, especially since Lynn couldn’t quite stop
crying.

When Nathan sank inside her and she wrapped her legs around
him, they were still kissing each other, and Lynn thought she was just going to
dissolve into a puddle of emotion and need. He was hot and hungry and
desperately needy, but she felt the same feelings reflected in herself—in the
way she kept clawing at him, clinging to him, never wanting to let him go.

Nathan came quickly, and Lynn didn’t come at all. But she
was crying again as she held him afterwards, feeling his body soften
deliciously and his breathing slow down.

After a moment, Nathan lifted his head to gaze down at her.
His expression was soft, but his tone was dry as he said, “I hope all this
crying is a good thing.”

Lynn choked on a laugh. “Sorry about that. It’s ridiculous.
But I’ve never felt like this before.”

“Like what?”

“Like I feel too much to contain it. I’ve been happy before—really
happy. And I’ve been in love before. And I’ve felt passionately committed to
things before. But it’s never been like this.”

Nathan smiled and leaned down to kiss her softly. “Then the
crying is definitely a good thing.” He adjusted on top of her, relieving her of
some of his weight, but he didn’t seem inclined to get up yet. “I don’t know
how I would have been able to face Victoria again if we hadn’t figured this
out.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean she’s been impossible to live with these last few days,
forever nagging at me to fix things with you.”

“You told her I was avoiding you?”

“Not on purpose. But she knew you weren’t coming over for
the last couple of days. And she must have sensed I was…worried about things.
She wouldn’t stop asking about you—demanding an explanation for why I wasn’t
calling you, why I wasn’t fixing things, why I wasn’t manning up and telling
you I love you.”

Lynn smiled in genuine affection. “Poor little thing. She’s
had a rough time.”

“Poor little thing?” Nathan repeated, in exaggerated
disbelief. “She’s a terror. After dinner tonight she told me that I was to go
over to your place and work things out and not come home until I’d gotten you.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. As she did, she squeezed Nathan
in a soft hug. “I’m glad you did.”

“Me too.”

After a while, they managed to get up off the couch. Nathan
asked Lynn if she wanted to spend the night with him, so she got dressed and
they went over to his place.

They hadn’t made it farther than the entry hall when
Victoria appeared from a door that must lead to her bedroom. She was wearing
purple pajamas and carrying a large textbook.

Her eyes took in Lynn and her father, standing together at
the front door. Then she looked at Nathan. “So you got her?”

Nathan’s mouth tilted up as he glanced over to Lynn beside
him. “I got her.”

Then both Victoria and Nathan looked at Lynn.

Since it seemed that she was expected to speak, she said the
only thing that came to her. It happened to be the truth.

Lynn said, “I got him too.”

Lynn’s expression was a strange
mixture of guilt and annoyance, and Nathan knew that didn’t portend well for
him.

He sat next to her in the backseat of his car and tried to
figure out if he had stronger reason to be angry or apologetic.

“So am I going to get the silent glare all the way home?” she
demanded, her chin set in the way it only was when she was really displeased
with him.

He lifted his eyebrows and didn’t reply, deciding he had
legitimate cause to be angry and he wasn’t, in fact, being unreasonable.

Lynn released a loud, frustrated sigh, blowing some of the
loose blond strands that had escaped from the clip securing her hair in a
twist. She was wearing the black pearl choker he’d given her last month and an
ivory silk blouse that appeared vintage and emphasized the lush curve of her
breasts. While she looked beautiful and undeniably sexy, Nathan would have
preferred for her to look a little less irresistible at work.

Particularly considering who she worked with.

He wasn’t fool enough to actually say that, of course.

“All right,” she said, after the silence had stretched on
too long, broken only by the unmistakable sounds of rush-hour traffic outside
the car. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but
you
don’t tell me everyone
you travel with on business, do you?”

“I would if you asked me.” He felt another surge of
resentment, but forced it down into cool control. “And I don’t travel for any
reason with women I used to fuck or be married to.”

Lynn rolled her eyes. “I work with Matt. He’s still my
friend and my business partner. I’m going to have to do things with him from
time to time. What exactly is your problem, Nathan?”

“My problem is you lied when I asked you about it.” When his
car picked up Lynn from her office fifteen minutes ago, Nathan had been
prepared to be mature and reasonable about her planned trip to an international
conference, which he’d assumed she was traveling to with her ex-husband. Only
to be shocked and angry when she’d failed to mention Matt was going with her.

“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell you.”

He looked at her soberly.

“Don’t give me that look.” She gave another gusty sigh. “I
am sorry, Nathan. I should have told you. But I knew how you’d react, and I
thought it would be easier to just underplay it.”

“Underplay it?”

“You don’t like it when I spend too much time with Matt.
Even when you don’t say anything, I know you don’t like it. I didn’t want to…upset
you.”

“I guarantee that lying to me will upset me more than your
spending the weekend with your ex-husband.”

“Don’t make it sound like that. It’s a business trip. We’re
not spending the weekend together.”

Nathan knew that, of course. He knew Lynn wasn’t going to
cheat on him. They’d been dating seriously for four months, and she was
practically living with him now. He didn’t doubt her love or her loyalty.

But that didn’t make it any easier for him to give up even a
little part of her to her ex-husband.

“And you can be as grumpy as you want,” Lynn continued. “You
know exactly why I didn’t tell you.”

He did know. “But that doesn’t make it right.”

“I know,” she murmured, slumping back against the car seat.
“I’m sorry.”

Nathan was silent as he watched her beside him. She was
staring out the window now, and he wasn’t sure if she wanted to cry or to hit
him.

They were approaching his building when he asked, “Did you
still want to come over tonight? I can have the driver—”

She turned to stare at him with a jerk of her head. “Of
course I’m coming over.” She appeared genuinely shocked by his question.

“Okay,” he murmured. “Okay.”

He felt confused and a little rattled. For the last few
months, he and Lynn had been so happy just to be together that they hadn’t
argued very much. He knew that early stage in their relationship wouldn’t last
forever, but arguments were still an infrequent occurrence for them.

When he and Ariana had argued, it had always been huge and
dramatic. She would pout and ignore him for at least a day, usually until he
gave her a piece of jewelry or she decided to seduce him into forgetting the
fight with wine and slinky lingerie.

The car had stopped in front of his building, and Nathan was
waiting for Lynn to get out. When she didn’t, he asked softly, “Is everything
all right?”

She turned to gaze up at him with anxious eyes. “Are you
really so mad you don’t want me to come over this evening?”

“No,” he replied, clearing his voice when it sounded
gravelly. “No, I’m not that angry. I just didn’t know if you would…” He trailed
off, unsure of how to finish the sentence.

Her anxiety transformed into something like tenderness.
“It’s just a little argument, Nathan. We might as well get used to it.”

He relaxed and returned her smile.

“We'll probably end up arguing a lot. If you hadn’t realized
it before,” Lynn added with a lilt to her tone as she got out of the car, “I’m
not the most compliant of women.”

Nathan chuckled as he emerged from the car too. “I might
have noticed something like that.”

They went upstairs and were just coming in when Victoria
came rushing down the hall.

“Hey!” she said, grinning widely. “Beth said she would
probably come to Scotland with us.” She stopped suddenly as her eyes scanned Nathan
and Lynn. “Is everything all right? Are you two fighting?”

“No,” Nathan said quickly, although he couldn’t help but
smile when Lynn burst into laughter. “We’re not fighting. That’s great news about
Beth.”

Things with Elizabeth had been going as well as could be
expected. While Nathan might have preferred for her to move back in with him,
after two years of being on her own, it just wasn’t going to happen. She was
going to continue to go to college and live in the dorm. She talked to Nathan
and Victoria every day, however, and had been coming over in the evenings a
lot. She seemed to want to be part of their lives.

For that, Nathan was infinitely grateful.

“I’m so glad she’s going to come with us,” Lynn said,
grinning in that way she had that seemed to brighten an entire room. She pulled
Victoria into a hug, and Nathan watched, noticing how relaxed and natural Lynn
was in the affectionate gesture and how genuinely Victoria responded.

It couldn’t have been easy for Lynn to be saddled with a
sixteen-year-old girl as an unavoidable part of her relationship with him, but
she’d never expressed even the slightest reluctance, and the bond between Lynn
and Victoria seemed real and strong. As strong as the bond between Lynn and
Elizabeth.

Sometimes it terrified Nathan. If something happened and he
and Lynn broke up, it wouldn’t just devastate him. It would devastate his
daughters as well. But he tried not to think about that much, since he was
planning to do everything in his power to keep Lynn with him forever.

They made dinner and ate, and then Nathan went into his
study to take care of some email. As was often the case, he lost track of time,
and he was surprised when Lynn came into his study and flopped down on a
leather chair.

He glanced over at her, still wrapped up in the complicated
message he'd been trying to write but noting that she looked faintly annoyed.

“It’s after nine o’clock,” Lynn pronounced, when he’d gone
back to his email. “Both of your girls are here, no doubt wondering why their
father feels compelled to work every minute of the day.”

“Beth is here?” Nathan asked, feeling a tug of pleasure in
his chest.

“Yes. She came over to watch that reality show with
Victoria, but I’m sure they’d appreciate your presence as well.”

“I’ll be out in a minute,” he told her, trying to determine
the wording of the email that would least offend all of the parties involved.

After a minute, he realized Lynn was still slouched in the
chair staring at him. “Are you just going to sit there until I’m through?” he
asked.

“Yes. That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

He rolled his eyes, but he did try to hurry as he composed
the remainder of the email.

He was just finishing up when the phone rang. Lynn actually
groaned when he picked it up.

When he heard Ariana’s voice on the other end of the line,
he stiffened. “What can I do for you?” he asked coolly.

He should have just hung up or at least not asked her that
question. Once prompted, Ariana burst into an impassioned tirade about how she
was being kept out of the girls’ lives, how he was an insensitive
control-freak, and how she had a right to interact with her own daughters.

Nathan tried twice to interrupt, but it didn’t do any good.
At some point, he stood up from his desk chair. Then he must have unconsciously
walked over to Lynn, since he somehow ended up sitting in the big leather
armchair with her.

She wrapped her arms around him and leaned against him as he
listened to Ariana’s venting session. Lynn’s presence was silently comforting,
encouraging.

When his ex-wife finally paused for air, Nathan gritted out,
“I have nothing to say to you, Ariana. I am not keeping the girls from talking
to you. But Victoria is still very angry about what happened with Beth, and
Beth is starting to realize the way you manipulated her.” When Ariana began to
object in a shrill voice, he spoke over her. “That’s my last word. They have
your phone number, and they can call you if they want to talk. I assure you
that
I
don’t want to talk to you.”

He hung up the phone while Ariana was still trying to say
something.

With a sigh, he slumped back in the chair, wrapping one of
his arms around Lynn. She was a small woman, but she was warm and substantial
against him. He loved how she felt and wondered how he’d spent so much of his
life without it.

“Bitch,” Lynn said.

He exhaled with laughter.

After a minute, she stretched up to kiss him on the corner
of the mouth. “Can we go and hang out with the girls now?”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Let’s do that.”

They found the girls in the media room, and Nathan had no
choice but to suffer through the most ridiculous reality television show he’d
ever seen. But the clever, ironic commentary volleyed back and forth by
Victoria, Elizabeth, and Lynn made it bearable.

Elizabeth made a particularly dry comment just before a
commercial break, and Nathan couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

She was sitting on the floor next to Victoria, but she
looked up at him when he laughed. Something in her awed eyes made him realize
that his genuine response to her comment really touched her.

Nathan experienced a stab of crippling guilt. What kind of
father had he been to Elizabeth if she was so amazed and gratified that he’d
just laughed at her joke?

He felt a sharp poke in his side and realized that Lynn was
discreetly telling him to get it together. She was right. He would make his
daughter uncomfortable if he stared at her with a guilty conscience that way.

He smiled, and Elizabeth smiled back.

“Victoria said you’re thinking about coming to Scotland with
us, Beth,” Nathan said casually. He always thought about his daughter as
Elizabeth, but she wanted to be called Beth so he never called her anything
else.

“Yeah,” Elizabeth said. “Classes will be over then. So as
long as my tyrannical boss will give me a little time off, then I can go.”

Lynn laughed and reached down to squeeze the girl’s
shoulder. “I’m sure your boss can lighten up a little and give you a vacation,
especially since she'll be taking one then herself.”

The commercial break ended, so their attention returned to
the show, but Nathan couldn’t think of much except how happy he was to have his
little girl back.

Later that evening, when Elizabeth got up to leave, Nathan
gave her a hug and told her he loved her, as he’d been doing consistently since
she’d come back, no matter how stiff and awkward he felt doing so.

For the first time, when Elizabeth responded, she told him
that she loved him too.

***

Nathan took a shower before he went
to bed, and when he came back into the bedroom, Lynn was already under the
covers with the lights off.

Her eyes were closed and she was curled up in a little ball,
so he resigned himself to not having sex tonight.

He climbed into the bed beside her and breathed slowly,
trying to relax. He’d experienced quite a bit of emotional tension today, and
sex was the most natural way for him to release it. But he wasn’t selfish
enough to assume that Lynn had to reciprocate every time he felt like sex.

After a couple of minutes, Lynn’s voice broke into the
silence of the dark room. “Aren’t you even going to
try
to make a move
on me?”

He huffed in surprise and amusement. “I thought you were
asleep.”

“I was thinking about it, but I could be persuaded otherwise
if you’d bother to make an attempt.”

Nathan laughed and grabbed her, pulling her under him and
sinking into a kiss. She returned the kiss eagerly, her body warm and
responsive.

“I love you,” he murmured, lifting his head from hers and
gazing down at her in the dark.

“I love you too.” Her voice was textured with tenderness.
She squirmed beneath him, the motion of her body stimulating his. “If you want
something from me, Nathan, you’re allowed to ask for it. Asking doesn’t mean
you’re demanding. If it doesn’t work for me, I’ll just say ‘no’.”

“Do you want to have sex?” he asked, his mouth quirking up even
though he understood exactly what it was she was telling him.

“Yes, please.”

They were both laughing softly when he kissed her again, but
soon urgency took over. Nathan tried to move slow as he kissed and caressed her
body, knowing it usually took her longer to get aroused than him. But he needed
her so much. He was hard almost immediately, and his groin pulsed in impatience
as he suckled her breasts and stroked her intimately until she was writhing and
moaning.