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“Then stop trying and just go.” She walked to the door to escort him out. She couldn’t sit calmly in a beautiful hotel room, wearing a big stupid T-shirt while talking to the only man in the world who had the power to turn her life upside-down. “Thanks again for the tickets. We have a long drive tomorrow; I’d better get to bed.” She aimed her eyes at the carpet so he wouldn’t see the glassy sheen in her eyes. “If you’ll excuse me…”
“No,” he said softly. “You’ll have to excusemebecause I’m not leaving. I’ve been trying to talk to you for weeks, and every time I do it turns into an argument.” He clasped his hands behind his head and stretched in frustration. “If you want me to go, you’re going to have to call hotel security, because I’m not leaving until you hear me out.”
He walked to the window and pressed his hands against the glass. Staring down, he fixed his eyes on the blur of traffic while his heart searched for the words he had waited too many long years to say.
Slowly, he turned and spoke. “I know I hurt you the night you went into labor. The press had been all over me and I got drunk. That punk kid I’d tried so hard to bury came alive and raging. I said things that were unforgivable.” His stare never faltered. He was too intent upon making her understand. “I’ve never regretted anything more in my life.”
Jenna angled her head high, her face a resolute picture of pride that failed to mask her wounds. “Regret? Really? According to the tabloids, you and yourregretwere filming in Monte Carlo a few months ago.” She bit down on her lip as the heat of embarrassment made her skin flush. “That was rude. Your career is none of my business.”
“Stop it.” His words were a whisper of misery. “Just stop it. Please. I didn’t become an actor to spite you. I became an actor so I could earn the money to try and find you. It was all I thought about.”
His words hung in the air like a fleeting curl of smoke. He raised his arms overhead and linked his hands behind his neck. “But after three years, I had to face the fact that you didn’t want to be found. It became such an unhealthy obsession I had to give up.”
“So you moved on with your life and married my manager’s assistant. When I read about it in the papers, I wasn’t all that surprised. I might have been young and naive, but I wasn’t stupid. I always knew she had feelings for you.”
He shook his head. “Feelings? No. She saw me as an opportunity, so I did asyouasked in your letter. I made a fresh start—new career, new marriage, new life. The career was the only thing that seems to have worked out though.” He moved closer to reach for her.
“Don’t,” Jenna said, backing away. Her eyes burned. Memories of the love they’d shared and lost were like hands around her throat.
“Don’t what? Don’t say that even after all these years I can still feel what’s between us. Admit it, Jen. You feel it too.”
She shook her head, her tears clinging to her lashes. “I…I don’t know what I feel. We’re not those kids anymore. You and I are…are…”
“What, Jen? What?”
“Strangers.”
“Strangers? Then why did you come to the hospital four years ago, when I was hurt? Why did you cry at my bedside?” Droplets fell to her cheeks. “Why are you crying now?”
He took her hands in his, the grip tight, warm, irredeemable. Still, he wasn’t letting go. “What happened to you was the worst thing that could happen to a woman. I was too young and too plain stupid to be there for you the way I should have been, the way a husband should have been. Beating Mark half to death was what I needed, not what you neededfromme.”
Jenna’s hands trembled in his and he squeezed tighter. It was wrong to force her back to the most painful time of her life, but worse to allow trauma and shame to keep them apart.
“Guilt tore me up and I made mistakes, said and did things I’ll always regret. I’ve wanted to make it up to you every day since, but you were gone.” He drew her closer and took her face in his hands. “Look at me,” he commanded. They stared eye to eye, his deep and sad, hers a golden, glittering pool. “You were my wife and I loved you. I fucking adored you. When you left you broke my heart. It’s still in pieces.”
More tears slipped down Jenna’s cheeks. She couldn’t continue to keep her heart safely locked behind an iron gate. She couldn’t continue to pretend she didn’t still love him. He gently wiped her tears with the pads of his thumbs. Time stopped and nine years slipped away.
Their lips grazed softly, barely touching as he swept her into his arms and carried her to the bed. Ardently they kissed, their hands twined in each other’s hair then slipping lower to shoulders and ribs. Eric kissed her neck and the hollow slope above her collarbone. When his hand slipped beneath the dinosaur shirt to caress her breast, she stopped him. “I can’t. I’m sorry.” She smoothed the T-shirt back down over her thighs. “I-I just can’t do this.”
He sat up, and his head fell back against the headboard with a thump. “It’s okay.” Spreading his legs, he pulled her to him so her back rested against his chest. She could feel the tympanic rhythm of his heart, and the insistence of his ardor pressing steely against her back. He settled his chin on her shoulder and brushed her cheek with his jaw. His breath was a warm tingle that floated by her ear. “It’s okay,” he repeated.
“Eric, it’s been so long…and there are so many things that…and besides…you’re still married. That would make me the other woman.”
He laughed, a low sexy chuckle that made her almost change her mind and give in to desire. “Babes, you could never be the other woman. You’re theonlywoman.”
“Nice try.”
Edging away from her, he stood and tucked his shirt in his pants to adjust the bulge behind his zipper. He stood arms open wide, and she politely cast her sight away from the evidence of his arousal.
“I’ve sowed my wild oats and been married twice. Believe me, you are theonlywoman I want…the only woman I will ever want.” He glanced down below his belt and shrugged. “I hope there’s no one in the elevator. This could be embarrassing.”
“Then maybe you should wait until…y’know.”
“You’re just too damned enticing in that T-shirt. A cold shower should do the trick.”
He reached down and gave her a brotherly peck on the top of her head. “Goodnight, Babes. Sleep well. We’ll talk more back in Cromline.”
Chapter Twenty
