The Truth About Fairy Tales (7 page)

             
There was no anger in his eyes. No frustration. Just the look of someone who was just about as confused as I was by this sordid affair or ours.

             
“I don’t really want to talk about Ben with you.” Against my will, I remembered his question from last night. The one I’d chosen not to answer. Jackson wanted to know if I’d slept with his nephew. I had the sneaking suspicion that he believed I had.

             
“I was just...I just wanted to know if...” I couldn’t finish because I didn’t know what I wanted to know. Did I really want to hear that Ben was over me? Or did I hope he might be pining like a lost little puppy?

             
“I understand that you are…concerned about Ben, but don’t be. He’s fine and that’s all I’m going to say, so don’t push it, okay?” Well, now he definitely sounded mad. It was then that I decided this was crazy. What were we thinking trying to make polite conversation with each other when we had absolutely nothing in common? We didn’t even like each other...well, not like most people out on a date for the first time. Were supposed to like each other for crying out loud. We were just really good in bed. Really, really good in bed.

             
I was just about to toss my napkin on the table and walk out before my nice meal arrived, when Jackson, anticipating all my moves, stopped me.

             
“Tell me about yourself?” At his unpleasant little question, I remembered that fat little folder at his house that contained everything there was to know about me. Every little incriminating piece of my past that didn’t make me want to stay here with him any longer

             
“You already know everything about me.” I hated that my voice had taken on that little wobbly sound that was always there when someone came too close. “Why don’t you just look it up in your folder?” I tried to stand but he stopped me.

             
“Maggie, don’t go…please. Look, I’m sorry about the folder. Let’s talk about something else. Surely there’s something about yourself you can talk about with me? Why don’t you tell me about this career aspiration of yours? That sounds interesting and…safe.”

             
“No.” I had no intention of telling him about my career choices or anything else. I was here against my will. If he wanted me to stay, he could just think of something to say to fill the void; otherwise, we’d sit in this awkward silence for the rest of the evening.

             
“Okay, I’ll tell you about me. How’s that?” I wanted to tell him I already knew about him, but then I wondered, did I really? After all, I only really knew the stuff that his nephew had fed me. I’d never even heard of Jackson before Ben. Well, okay, so maybe the local newspapers touted him their golden boy. But most of those articles I didn’t really find all that interesting before Ben came into my life. Until then, Jackson had been just another one of those rags to riches stories. Although I doubt that Jackson was ever close to being in rags when he’d inherited the small manufacturing business from his father. They made some kind of product from the last century and they were just about ready for the graveyard when Jackson came along with his brilliant idea.

He’d turned the company around, brought it up to the current century, and used the equipment in place to manufacture those little whatchamadoodles that his company was now famous for
making.

             
I suppose I should have been impressed and, if I was being honest, I guess that I was, but I was determined not to let him see how blow away I was by him. Instead I let him talk, I kept my mouth shut, and my eyes focused entirely on my food.

             
In spite of the fact that the golden boy here had accomplished more at thirty-something than most people did their entire lives, this one-sided conversation of ours didn’t take long to come to an end. By the time our attentive waiter took our plates away, Mr. Accomplishments was all done with his life story.

             
I sat sipping the very expensive wine he’d ordered and wondering where exactly the conversation would go from here.

             
“Do you dance, Mary Margaret Monroe?” I closed my eyes and cringed at his use of that old-fashioned name. I cursed my mother once more for insisting upon naming me that. No one but those closest to me knew my real name. I’d gone by Maggie for so long that I’d almost forgotten that awful name existed. Not even Ben knew about it.

             
I looked up and found he was no longer seated across from me but standing, hand outstretched, looking nothing like the in charge kind of guy I would always, always associate Jackson Riley as being.

             
“I love this song, Mary Margaret. Don’t refuse me this one request. Please dance with me.”

             
I hesitated only a moment, and then I took his hand and let him lead me out onto the small, dance floor. The second I went into his arms I forgot everyone else in the restaurant.

             
The song was so slow and oh so romantic that I almost started to believe in fairy tales.

             
Here in Jackson’s arms with one song ending and another more seductive one beginning, I had to remind myself that my future lay in Santa Anna.

             
I’d just dance this one last song—well, okay, maybe one more—and then that would be it. I’d ditch him the first chance I got. Then I’d go home and finish off that steamy little novel.

             
So by the time we left the restaurant and after all my promises to myself, I was suddenly extremely nervous. I’d just laid down the gauntlet. I couldn’t back down now, could I?

             
The second Jackson turned off 2222, I knew where we were heading. We weren’t going back to the restaurant where I worked so I could get my car and leave him. We were heading right straight for his house.

Jackson
wasn’t even asking me what I wanted. He was taking it for granted that I’d fall into his arms without an argument.

He stopped the car in the same spot inside his garage and I felt déjà vu all over again.

              “I’m not going in there with you.” Boy did those words sound familiar. How many times had I uttered them over the past few days?

             
He, in turn, simply smiled at me then got out of the car and opened my door for me.

             
I followed Jackson inside. I didn’t even try to talk myself out of it. I followed him like some foolish little girl that didn’t have an ounce of sense left to her name.

             
He closed the door behind me with the hollow sound of betrayal echoing through the house and I tried—I really tried to put as much space between me and my dangerous addiction as possible.

             
It didn’t work. Jackson caught up with me before I got but a few feet away from him.

             
The second his lips found mine, I was lost.

             
“No. I’m not doing this with you again. I, I don’t even like you.”

             
Okay, so it wasn’t a good attempt, but the best I could come up with under those circumstances.

             
“I think you ‘like me’ just fine.”

             
Was that all this meant to him? His answer hurt.

             
“This has nothing to do with like—it’s only sex…”

             
“Is that all you think there is between us, Maggie? Just sex?”

             
For the first time since he’d started touching me, I froze. My eyes met his. Jackson had never looked more serious or more uncertain than he did right at this moment. He lifted me off my feet and carried me up to the bedroom. Then he  showed me there was infinitely more between us than just sex.

             
“Did you sleep with my nephew?” He asked as we lay wrapped in each others arms.

             
“I’m not answering that.” I tried again to sound convincing, but he was so close and he felt so good and damn I wanted him so bad.

             
“Answer the question, Maggie.”

             
“No.” I hated the way my voice shook with emotion, but the second he touched me again I forgot all about keeping my secrets from him.

             
“No you didn’t sleep with him, or no you aren’t answering my question.”

             
“I didn’t sleep with him…” I just managed to get those words out before his lips claimed mine again and I forgot to resist.

             
When we finally came back to earth, much later, I remembered the things he’d said to me that first night when he told me I would never be special.

             
I got out of Jackson’s bed before he realized exactly what I intended on doing. He reached for my hand, keeping me close.

             
“Where are you going, Mary Margaret?”

             
“Don’t call me that. I hate that name. And isn’t it obvious to you what I’m doing? I’m going home,” I told him, not daring to look into those disturbing blue eyes.

             
“Come back to bed,
Maggie
.” He emphasized my preferred name and tugged on my hand.              “But you said…” I didn’t actually say those words, did I?

My embarrassment forced me to look at him at last. I needed to understand what was going on with him, but the only thing the darkness revealed was he was just as uncertain about what was happening between us as me.

              “I know what I said, but I was wrong. You are different. Please come back to bed with me.”

             
For once, I did as he asked. We made love until I forgot all about that strong, determined Maggie for a little while. She could wait. Jackson couldn’t.

             
“Why don’t you like to be called Mary Margaret—Mary Margaret?” He asked me a little while later when we both could actually speak again.

             
I felt my all too familiar uneasiness return. I hated revealing my past so much that I’d pretty much deleted every single detail of it except the years in my grandmother’s care.

             
“It’s too old fashioned.” That was only partly the truth. It was horribly old fashioned, but I could have lived with that because it was after all, unique. What I couldn’t live with was the fact that every single time I heard that name throughout my life I remembered my mother. The woman whose only contribution to my life, besides my old-fashioned name, was to scar me for life.

             
“I see, and you’re too much of a modern girl for that? Somehow, I don’t believe you. So, why don’t you tell me the truth?”

             
Gees, I barely knew the man and yet I could see he was going to be hard to lie to. Ben, well Ben believed just about anything I told him, but Jackson was reading me like an open book.

             
“My mother named me Mary Margaret.” I pretty much blurted out and tried to pull out of his arms, but he didn’t let me go.

             
“I see.” I figured okay, here it comes—the questions. I was wrong. He didn’t go there, at least for the moment. I think he’d figured out my mother was not my favorite subject.

             
“So, when do you finish law school?” Jackson’s question was so completely not what I’d  been expecting from him and I was so grateful because he wasn’t going to pressure me about my mother that I didn’t realize I was actually starting to open up to him just a little about myself.

             
“Six more months.”

             
“And then…what?”

             
I looked up at him as if he’d lost his mind. Then what? “Then I go back to Santa Anna and join Lee’s law firm. Hopefully, pass the bar exam and become a partner. That’s what.”

             
“I see and this is what you want to do with your life? This is your future?” Was it just my imagination or had his tone suddenly become quite serious?

             
“Yes, of course it is.” But for the first time in longer than I could remember, saying those words didn’t bring the usual happiness. Something had shifted inside of me. I tried to convince myself that it was just the fact that I was with someone who couldn’t possibly understand how important that goal was to me.

             
“And what about all those other things in life? Don’t you want to get married—have kids—settle down?”

             
I tried to laugh, but it came out sounding a little strangled. “No. I don’t believe in those things. Love is for foolish people. Those who believe in fairy tales. There’s no such thing.”

             
I wasn’t sure which of us I was trying to convince the most. I was frankly more than a little surprised by his lack of agreement with me than by the fact that he’d asked the question in the first place.