Authors: Rose Connelly
James heard the patio door open, but he didn’t turn around.
If he saw Mira
,
the still fragile wall that he was building around his emotions might come crashing down.
“Why did you not tell me?”
h
e finally asked in a soft but emotionless voice.
“I tried,” Mira replied.
The fact that James wasn’t yelling yet should have been a good sign, but
it
didn’t feel like one
.
His voice was so cold and distant that it was almost as if he was already gone from her.
With the flagstone cold on her bare feet, she rounded the table and sat down opposite him.
He glanced
up and the veil
briefly
slipped from his eyes
allowing her to catch a
glimpse of the rage and pain that he was obviously holding inside
before his head lowered once more
.
She had
known
that
he
would be angry when he found out,
but she had never imagined
it would actually cause him pain.
The thought that she had
managed to bring
such a stron
g man to such a
low
depth had tears slipping down
her face.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered brokenly.
“What is it you’re sorry for?”
he
growled with barely suppressed violence.
“Are you upset that you deceived me or are you just sorry that I found out?”
He clenched his fist around the locket and lifted his head to look at her.
“
If I hadn’t found this would you even have told me?”
“I meant to,” she
said, “and I did try, many times, but I just couldn’t make myself.”
She wiped the tears from her face
.
“Please try to understand
.
I didn’t expect things between us to go so far, but once they did I was terrified of ruining it.”
James heard the underlying pain in Mira’s voice and a small part of him still wanted to comfort her, but he ruthlessly smothered the urge.
He had briefly allowed himself to believe that she might somehow be different, but he would not allow himself to be duped again
.
With nothing but escape in mind, he gathered the shreds of his control around himself
, carefully put the locket on the table,
and pushed
back
.
“Please don’t leave like this.”
She
stood up and place
d
a restraining hand on his bare arm.
“I’m so sorry that I hurt you.
I never meant to.
Please just let me explain.”
“What makes you think that I cared enough for you to hurt me?”
he asked
in a chillingly cold voice.
“But after last night I thought…”
“By all means tal
k.
I would love to hear the excuses that your agile little brain came up with.
They’re sure to be inventive.
”
He crossed his arms and waited.
“Well,”
she
licked her suddenly dry lips and tried to gather her scattered thoughts.
“Origi
nally,” she continued.
“I just wanted to see how you were doing.
After we lost touch I admit that I did periodically look into your career.
It wasn’t like I was spying,” she said defensively.
“You regularly made the front pages of industry magazines for your work and,” she
muttered under her breath, “the pages of other magazines for the many rich and famous women that you dated.”
“
I’m not impressed yet and
I don’t h
ave all day,” James interrupted. “S
o if you have a point please get to it.”
Mira shrank from his cold gaze and crossed her
own
arms, suddenly feeling extremely vulnerable in her scanty clothing.
“I’m aware that you know all about my problems in California so I’ll skip that part.”
She cleared her throat and continued.
“Because of the media coverage I had a very difficult time finding a job despite my qualifications.
When a friend suggested that I consider working at EcoSpace
I decided that it was worth a try and, to my surprise, you gave me a job.”
“Interesting, but not
surprising information.
I hardly see, however, what this has to do with the fact that you failed to tell me who you were when you had ample opportunity.”
He
tried to modulate his voice, but the reminder of her betrayal cracked his calm control.
“What did you think that I would do?”
h
e almost yelled.
“Turn you away because of your last name?”
“What else was I supposed to think?”
she
shouted as her own fiery temper suddenly ignited.
The anger felt much better than the sick pain that she had been feeling so she clung to it for all she was worth.
Tossing her head angrily, she stomped over to James and pushed him.
“That’s exactly what you did all those years ago
.
A
bandoned me just when I needed you
.
I was
barely a teenager
you bastard
and my parents had just
been
murdered
!”
She took a deep breath and tried to calm down, but it was impossible
. The
anger had been festering too long.
“You were the closest thing to family that I had and you couldn’t even be bothered to come to the funeral.”
“You think that you’re the only one who lost something that day?”
he
shouted back.
“I lost my mentor, my trust, and a
company
t
hat I
helped
buil
d
up with my own sweat and blood.”
“What did any of that have to do with me?
I’m sorry for what you had to go through, but you were already an
adult and you were
always
stronger than me.
I didn’t just mourn for my parents
,
I cried for you every night for months afterward.”
The
admission shocked James, but it gave him a motive that he understood.
“Is that why you lied to me?”
h
e aske
d.
“W
ere you trying
to exact some kind of revenge?”
“You think that I dated you and slept with you because of some twisted
idea of retribution?
”
Mira asked in outrage.
She turned from James and paced across the patio.
“What was I going to do, make you care about me and then dump you?”
“Is that what you were doing?
Tell me the truth,” he
coaxed, suddenly seeing a way to get out of the situation with some of his pride intact
.
“I won’t say that I agree with your motives, but I could be willing to let it slide.
I know that you enjoyed my company last night and I did get some pleasure from it.
Perhaps we can come to some kind of arrangement.”
“I will never be a man’s convenience
and I would never even consider that kind of tawdry arrangement.”
She stripped off the shirt and threw it at hi
m, completely ignoring her near-
naked state.
“Take your clothing,” she spat, “and get out of my house!”
“If that’s what you want.”
James pulled on the shirt and started to go.
He couldn’t, however, stop himself from taking one last look at Mira as she stood proudly before him.
Despite everything, the pull was still there and the intense attraction was stronger than ever.
He sighed deeply and turned around.
“You know where to find me,” he said finally, “if you change your mind.”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
“Mary, can you find me the files on the Jameson project?” James asked as he held down the intercom button.
A few weeks ago he would have simply yelled out his request or, more likely, delivered it in person and spent a few minutes talking.
Mary had been with him since the beginning and they
usually
shared
a somewhat distant, but amiable relationship.
The current stra
ined atmosphere, however, did not
lend itself to social niceties.
“I’ll bring the files right in,” Mary replied in a frost-coated voice.
“Will you require anything else of me sir?”
“No thank you Mrs. Beecham.
That will be all.”
He
released the button and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
He had been at work less than two hours and he was already developing what promised to be a pounding headache
. It
did not bode well for the rest of his day.
Moments later
his
secretary
marched through the open door and tossed a fat file on
his
desk.
Without uttering a single word, she turned around and stomped out again, pulling the door closed behind her.
When the reverberations of the slamming door stopped echoing in his skull, James leaned back in his leather chair and closed his eyes.
After the ugly altercation with Mira he had wrongly assumed that his working environment wouldn’t be affected
.
He had
thought
that
they would
both be able to act like adults and their issues would stay strictly outside of work.
Obviously, he had
been wrong
because, d
espite the fact that he had not said anything and he didn’t think
she
had either, everyone seemed to know
about their
argument
.