*
* *
Erin warmed up leftover pot
roast and the accompanying vegetables for Seth, and he ate in the kitchen while
Erin finished the dishes and straightened up. Then he needed to conclude the
call he’d been making earlier—since he’d ended it prematurely and rather
abruptly—so Erin lit a couple of fragrant candles and took a bath.
The length of
time between Mackenzie's bedtime and her own bedtime was basically the only
time of the day Erin was able to have some real, quiet relaxation.
She was getting
tired when she finally came back into the bedroom, wearing blue satin pajama
pants and a stretchy matching tank top. Her hair was still clipped at the back
of her head, and she carried a load of clean sheets which she’d just taken from
the dryer.
Seth was off the
phone and was propped up on a couple of pillows on the bed, reading what looked
to be a very long legal document of some kind. He’d taken off his shoes, socks,
jacket, and tie, but otherwise he was still fully dressed.
“Are you still
working?” she grumbled, when she saw what he was doing.
Seth didn’t
even look up from his reading. “You were taking a bath.”
“Well, I’m not
anymore.” Erin set the laundry basket on the floor and then sat down on Seth’s
side of the bed with a flop. “You work too hard.”
“Work has to be
done.” He turned a page and shifted his legs away from her slightly, since
she’d basically just sat down on top of them.
Erin watched
him silently for a moment. Then started rubbing one of his shins over the
expensive fabric of his trousers. “Does it really have to be done right now?”
she asked huskily.
Either her
touch or the tone of her voice made Seth look up. His eyes skimmed down over
her bare arms and clearly outlined breasts. He put the report he’d been reading
on the nightstand. “No,” he replied, his voice warming in a predictable way. “I
suppose it doesn’t have to be done now. Did you want me to follow through on my
IOU from this afternoon?”
Erin hesitated.
Then shrugged a little. “I don’t know. Maybe not this evening. I’m not sure I
have the energy. Or something.”
He arched one
eyebrow. “All you’d have to do is lie there. I was planning to do all of the
work.”
“True. But
maybe we can save it until later. I’m not really in that kind of a mood this
evening.”
Seth was
evidently starting to realize that they weren’t going to jump right into sex. “Did
you want to talk about something?” He sounded a little wary, as if he weren't
certain he'd enjoy the conversation.
Erin shifted
and ran her hands down to his feet. Idly stroked the arch of his foot and
watched as his toes curled down instinctively. “I don’t think so. Nothing in
particular. I just feel...weird. Kind of restless or something. I felt that way
at lunch, but then I was all right. But now it’s back. I’m not quite sure what
it is.”
“You look like
there’s something on your mind.” His eyes were sharp and observant as they
studied her face. “Are you sure something isn’t wrong?” He stretched out his
legs as she continued rubbing his calves.
She didn’t
respond. Just focused down on his bare feet. Tried to get a handle on her mood
so she could express exactly what it was she felt like doing.
“Erin? Is
something wrong?” When she glanced up at his face, he pulled his feet away from
her and held her gaze. “Have you changed your mind about...us?”
This finally
prompted a reaction with her. “No! Of course not. What kind of stupid talk is
that?”
Seth narrowed
his eyes, looking cool and slightly aloof. “It was just a question. You seemed reluctant
to talk about something. It’s a perfectly legitimate possibility.”
“It certainly
is not legitimate. Why the hell would you think I’ve changed my mind about us? Think
about this afternoon.”
With a
skeptical expression, Seth replied, “I know. But there could be alternate
explanations for your generosity in my office. No need to overreact. It was
just a question.”
“Well, it’s not
a good kind of question. It makes me think you’re doubting my feelings for you,
if you believe I’d already be dumping you.”
“I don’t think
you’re dumping me.” He was starting to look a little impatient. “I just asked a
question, based on one possible scenario, which was prompted by your current
behavior.”
“It’s
not
a possible scenario. I have no intentions of dumping you. Ever.” She stood up
and went to grab the fitted sheet out of the laundry basket. Turned around and
glared at him.
For a brilliant
man, sometimes he was the biggest idiot she'd ever met.
Seth glared
back at her, more cold than annoyed. “Good. I’m glad to hear it.”
He didn’t sound
glad. He sounded hard and arrogant, and like he wouldn't lower himself to her
level by actually getting angry.
Erin hated when
he was in this mood. It always made her want to slap the icy hauteur off his
face.
She didn’t, of
course. Instead, she said curtly, “Get up. I need to change the sheets.”
Seth rolled his
eyes and acted like she was making him move just to spite him, but he pulled
himself to his feet—as if it had been a huge effort—and then started pulling
the comforter off, dropping it in a heap on the floor.
Erin walked to
the other side of the bed and flung out one side of the sheet toward him. When
he grabbed it, smoothed it out, and started pulling it toward the upper corner
of the mattress, Erin worked on her side and muttered, “I might as well ask
you
if you’re starting to change your mind about us.”
Seth slanted
her an exasperated look.
“What?” she
demanded, yanking on the last corner of the sheet ruthlessly before she fitted
it smoothly over the mattress.
“That would be
the most absurd kind of question.”
Huffing at the
injustice of this remark, Erin grabbed the top sheet. “Why? Why would it be so
much more absurd than your question to me? Just because you figured things out
a little bit sooner than I did?” She shook the sheet out over the bed. Saw Seth
catch the opposite side of it.
He watched her
beneath heavy eyelids. His gray dress shirt was slightly rumpled, and he
appeared wholly incongruous, holding one side of a sheet in his hands. “You
know very well how I feel about you.”
“And you know
how
I
feel about you.” She focused on smoothing the sheet over the
mattress and then tucking in the bottom corner.
Neatly taking
care of his corner, Seth glanced up at her. “I know what you told me, but you
told me then that you weren’t sure about things and didn’t want any sort of
commitment, and you haven’t yet said anything different—”
Erin snorted
again, interrupting him in her outrage. “You’ve got to be kidding me! You’re
complaining because
I
don’t express my feelings enough? So says the man
who has never once said he loves me.”
“I certainly
have told you that.”
“No. You
haven’t. Maybe you
think
you have, but I’m telling you that you haven’t.
Not once. It was always just implied. So you have no grounds to complain that
I haven’t told you
anything
.”
“Surely you
don’t expect me to keep pouring out how I feel, when you’ve told me over and
over that my feelings aren’t returned.” When she started to object, he added,
“At least not at the same level.” He shook one pillow out of its case and
started putting the clean pillowcase on in its place.
“Of course
not,” Erin groaned, picking up a pillow of her own. “I’m not asking you to
write sonnets on your love for me or even
say
you love me, if you don’t
want. But I’ve told you from the beginning exactly how I feel about you—no
matter how confused or irrational it might have been. And that’s
not
something you’ve been willing to do for me.”
Seth tossed the
pillow onto the head of the bed. “You know how I feel for you. I
show
you all the time. You know how I feel, and I’d certainly let you know if
anything has changed.”
Erin threw her
pillow—with a clean case—onto the bed as well. “And that’s supposed to be good
enough? You’ve told me that from the very beginning. You said you’d tell me if
anything changed about your feelings on our arrangement. Well, you didn't tell
me. And the next thing I knew you wanted to ride off into the sunset with me,
as soon as our daughter was born. How the hell was I supposed to know that?”
“We’ve already
been over this. I had misunderstood your feelings for me.”
“I know that,” Erin
exclaimed, glaring at him with her hands fisted at her sides. “I’m not blaming
you for having those feelings, and I know I screwed things up too. But it’s not
all my fault. If you’d been willing to open up your mouth a little sooner and
give me a few hints about how you felt, then I wouldn’t have been so astonished
when you finally got around to telling me.”
Seth’s hands
weren’t fisted. They were relaxed and hanging loosely beside his hips. But she
knew he was tense. She could see a muscle in his jaw spasming occasionally. “Why
are you rehearsing all of this now? It’s over. We’ve already worked through
it.”
“But you still
never tell me how you feel or what you’re thinking,” she insisted. “You’re
still always holding back.”
“Surely my
behavior is clear enough for you to know that my feelings haven’t changed. Surely
you can read between the lines.”
She let out a
little squeak. “I can’t believe you... You were just whining to me about
my
not saying things to you. You know I love you. I’ve told you, and I keep telling
you—more than you’ve ever told me. I’m sorry I haven’t made a lifetime commitment
to you or something like that. But I’m scared. I’m still scared. After Marcus,
it’s just not that easy for me to give up the things that make me feel safe. You
said before that you understood. But, regardless, right now it sounds like you
expect some sort of a double standard. You expect me to understand why you’re
holding back. Well, why can’t the same thing apply to you?”
Seth’s eyebrows
had lowered, and he was frowning in her direction.
Feeling like
she wanted to claw that cool, disdainful look from his face, she snapped, “If
I’m supposed to read your behavior, then why can’t you read mine? Surely you
can see that I love you every bit as much as you love me, that it’s just fear holding
me back, exactly as it is for you.”
She stood
panting and glaring at him—feeling like she’d made an exceptionally strong
point and had left him without a good way to counter it.
But Seth’s
reaction was not what she expected.
He didn’t look
angry or exasperated or defeated. He stared at her blankly, and it looked like
his entire body had clenched up.
Erin, feeling
rather taken aback by his dramatic reaction to her rhetorical comeback, prompted,
“Seth? What's wrong? Is this astonishment at the brilliance of my argumentative
skill? I did have two years of law school.”
“Erin,” he said
hoarsely, something unbearably tense in his gaze. “Erin, think about what you
just said. And then tell me if the implications are what they
sound
like
they are.”
Drawing her
brows together, Erin thought back over her words.
Gasped as she
realized what she’d just said. And what it implied.
Her mind had
been in a chaotic whirl just the moment before, but now all of her thoughts and
feelings slowed down to an aching crawl.
The universe
shifted into slow motion.
“Erin?” Seth
said again, his voice almost rough in his husky timbre. It felt like he was
miles away from her. “Erin, tell me. Did you mean...”
It wasn’t
chaotic or confusing anymore. With that same slow, inexorable momentum, all of
the pieces finally came together.
She loved him.
She loved him completely—even as she’d kept trying to hold parts of herself
back, trying to resist the final commitments that would have made her
vulnerable, that meant she’d give up the control she clung to.
It was never
about Marcus, although it was convenient to blame it on him.
She was just
scared.
It was fear
holding her back, exactly as it was for Seth.
In so many
ways, they’d always been the same.
And, because
they were the same, she didn’t have to be afraid anymore.
“Yeah,” she
breathed, turning back to gaze at Seth’s stiff figure, in which was leashed suppressed
energy and angst. Something was leashed inside Erin too. Something she was
about to set free. “Yeah. I did.”
Seth sat down
abruptly on the foot of the bed. “You did what? You meant—”
In a giddy
flood of relief, Erin actually laughed out loud. She sounded a little
hysterical, but she didn't even care. “I meant what I said. My actions should
have showed you that I do love you exactly the way you love me. All the way.
With everything. Forever.” It felt like a huge burden had finally been lifted. Like
something imprisoned had at last been released. Like she could finally take a
full breath. “Because I do.”
Seth simply
stared, looking so stunned and uncomprehending and adorable that Erin couldn’t
help it. She did something she hadn’t done in years—since maybe as far back as middle
school. Something she’d never dreamed of doing to Seth.
She took three
running steps toward the bed and tackled him.
He grunted when
the force of her body hit him. Her momentum pushed him onto his back on the
bed, his legs still dangling over the side, and Erin ended up in a tangled heap
on top of him. “I love you,” she said again, looking down on his winded face
and beaming like an idiot.
Seth’s arms had
come up around her—as if he couldn’t help himself—and his hands slid up and
down the satin of her pajamas, along the curves of her hips, ass, and thighs. But
his face was still serious when he murmured, “Erin, are you sure? Because if
you change your mind next week—”