Breathe You In (21 page)

“That could work.”

He withdrew and stepped away.

I straightened and pushed my dress down to
my knees, turned to him. “Do I have the just-fucked look?”

He laughed and tucked his cock away. “Yes,
definitely, I wouldn’t recommend going straight back downstairs.”

I grabbed his tie, tugged him close. “So
how about you start on that list while I go in the bathroom and freshen up?”

“I’m on it.” He sealed the deal with a
kiss.

* * * * *

Half an hour later and looking suitably presentable,
we wandered back to the reception. It had been cordoned off, so half was the
noisy disco and half a quieter area with a separate bar and several soft seats.
Some of the older guests were sitting there chatting, and in the corner of the
room, so were Melanie and Andy.

“Shall we join them?” I asked Ruben.

“Sure, do you want a drink?”

“Just a sparkling water please.”

He headed to the bar, and I joined Melanie
and Andy on the brown leather L-shaped couch. They were chatting about a holiday
to the Maldives they had planned.

“Hey,” I said. “Can Ruben and I sit with
you?”

“Absolutely,” Melanie said. “We wondered where
you’d gone.”

A silly flush drizzled from my cheeks,
onto my neck and then chest. The heat of it spiked in my temples. “Oh, you
know. Just for a few minutes quiet time.”

Melanie laughed loudly and a little
drunkenly. “So that’s what it’s called these days, is it? Quiet time?”

I grinned and sat. “It’s been a long day,
the drive up here this morning was a nightmare with the traffic. I didn’t think
we were going to make it at one point.”

“Well you did, so that’s good.”

“Who drove?” Andy asked.

“Ruben.”

“Oh, in his Subaru, he was telling me
about that. I’ll have to go check it out in the morning before we go.”

“He does really like his cars,” I said,
looking up as he joined us with two tall glasses of water.

“Anyone else need a drink?” he asked,
gesturing to Melanie’s and Andy’s empty wine glasses.

“Oh, white wine for me,” Melanie said,
holding up her glass.

“I’m good,” Andy said. “Trying to make
tomorrow a hangover free day.”

“Oh, hangover,
shmangover
,”
Melanie said, waving her hand in the air. “I need wine.”

“I’ll get it,” I said, smiling at Ruben
and standing. “You sit down.”

“Are you sure?” He put our drinks on the table.

“Yes, absolutely.” I slipped past him,
giving his bum a sneaky stroke as I did so, and went to the bar.

It took a few minutes to get served, and
when I did the barman gave me the choice of Pinot
Grigio
or Chardonnay. I glanced at Melanie. She was squeezing Ruben’s knee and was
talking animatedly, gesturing with her free hand.

“Chardonnay,” I said, figuring she was
pretty pissed and probably wouldn’t notice or care if she switched grapes.
She’d really gone for it all afternoon; it was only early evening, but she was
sozzled
. Who knew what she’d be like by the end of the
night.

Wine in hand, I walked back over to the
corner of the room. Melanie’s conversation came into earshot.

“Thank goodness she’s found you, Ruben.
I’m so pleased to see Katie happy again, and with an extra bit of weight on her
skinny bones too. You certainly are good for her.”

“Hopefully,” Ruben said, looking at her
hand on his knee as though he wanted to remove it but wasn’t sure how to do so
politely.

“And as far as I’m concerned you came
along just in time,” Melanie went on. “I didn’t think she was ever going to get
out of the hole she’d put herself in after Matt’s death.”

“It certainly sounds like she had a hard
time,” Ruben said.

“Fucking hell, yeah,” Melanie slurred. “Every
step has been hard, but I can’t help wonder if some of the decisions she made
were the right ones for her.”

I paused, curious to know what Melanie
thought I’d done wrong.

“Her move to Northampton?” Ruben asked,
picking up his drink and poking the straw into it. The slice of lemon stuck at
the base of the glass was clearly an irritation.

“Oh, no, not that, that’s great, clearly,
you’re here. No, I’m talking about the decision to donate Matt’s organs.”

It was as though my blood had turned to
ice. An arctic chill flooded through me. Shit.

“It’s a very noble decision,” Ruben said.
“It’s wonderful that people can give such an incredible gift at a time in their
life when they’re devastated and have lost so much.”

“Yes, it is, I agree, but for Katie, well,
I think it messed with her head.”

Ruben turned his attention from the drink
to Melanie. “What do you mean?”

“Well, she got a bit obsessed.” Melanie
pulled her lips down at the corners, as though trying to trap words in her
mouth.

I wished she bloody well would trap them.
She could then go and lock them up forever.

“Obsessed?” Ruben said, frowning. “I don’t
get you.”

“It was his heart,” Melanie said, removing
her hand from Ruben’s knee and tapping her own chest. “She became completely
obsessed with knowing who had it. It was as if finding that person would bring
Matt back to her. Rubbish, I know, but grief does strange things to people. And
for a while it was all she thought about, I know it was, and what’s more, she
told me one night that she had plans to go and find that person.”

A trickle of wine slipped over my thumb, the
tipping glass barely registering in my mind.

Ruben looked up.

Straight at me.

I could feel the color running from my
face, my heart thumping so loud it drowned out every other noise in the room as
my pulse raged in my ears.

I righted the glass. Prayed my legs
wouldn’t do what they were promising and give way.

Ruben stood. He walked toward me. It was
like I was watching him move underwater or in some kind of horrible slow
motion. His eyebrows were pulled low, and his lips parted. Disbelief and pain
contorted his features.

He knew. He knew me too well. Now, instead
of being a good thing, his understanding of me was going to be my undoing.

He came up close, real close, so we were
chest to chest. He stared into my eyes.

I couldn’t blink, couldn’t speak.

“You tricked me,” he said quietly.

“No,” I whispered. “No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.” He pressed his lips
together so tight they paled and went white. His stare turned hard and cold, the
softness I adored in the depths of his eyes freezing over.

“Ruben.” I was trembling now; it started
in my belly and was rapidly radiating to my fingers and toes and capturing
everything in between.

He shook his head. “You made me think you were
in love with me when all along you were in love with what was
in
me.”

“No. Please, let me explain.”

He stepped back, as though I was
contagious, shook his head and then turned and strode from the room.

Dumbly I watched him go, his steps long and
angry, his shoulders stiff and hunched.

“Are you all right?” Andy asked, appearing
next to me and taking the once again spilling wine.

I turned my attention to him, then Melanie,
who was looking at me from the sofa with wide eyes. “No, I’m not, Andy, not at
all.”

Reaching for what was left of the wine, I
knocked it back in one mouthful and then marched after Ruben.

I deserved a chance to explain.

I whacked my fist on the door of our hotel
room. “Let me in, Ruben, or I’ll just go and get another key from reception.”

The door swung open, violently, ramming
the handle against the wall. Ruben turned the instant he saw me and went to the
bed.

Quickly, I followed. Halted when I saw he
was throwing his shoes and wash things into his overnight bag.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going home.”

“Please no. We need to talk.”

“What the fucking hell about?” He shoved
his jeans into the bag and rammed the zip closed with a fast, jerking motion.

“Us.” I grabbed his arm.

“Don’t touch me,” he said, shaking me off.

“But
—
”

“There’s no but. Out of all the shit this
crappy life has thrown at me, this is just bloody unbelievable.”

“Why are you so mad?”

His face twisted. “Are you serious?”

“”Yes, I’m in love with you, I thought you
were with me.”

“So did I until I found out you’d hunted
me down.”

“I didn’t
—
” I gasped as he backed me up against the wall. But not in a
super-sexy way, in a scary, he-was-mad-as-hell way.

My shoulders hit, I tucked my hands
beneath my chin. Felt small and vulnerable surrounded by his fury.

He slammed his hands on the either side of
my head, his palms slapping against the wallpaper. He lowered his face until
his nose practically touched mine.

“I just heard how you were obsessed with
finding the man who had your dead husband’s heart, Katie. Surprise, surprise, I
happen to have received a heart. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that
you came looking for me because…”

My stomach bunched. I thought I might be
sick. “Because what?”

“Because I have Matt’s heart.” He
grimaced. “And his lungs? Say it, tell me the truth.”

I nodded. “Yes. You have.”

His eyes bored into mine. “Do you know how
fucking sick that is?”

“Why is it?” I went to touch his chest,
but he stepped away, shoving his hand into his hair and shaking his head.

“Because I’ve been fucking you,” he said, “the
man whose heart has given me life. I’ve been fucking his wife.”

“No, it’s not sick. It makes sense.”

“How can you think that? You’re insane.”

“No I’m not, you’re insane to not see it
how it is.”

“I’ll tell you how I see it. You, Mrs.
Katie Lansdale, broke, and God only knows how, every rule in the book to find
me and then, then you came looking for me. I bet you couldn’t believe your luck
when I went and fell for your pretty face and your sweet smile and asked you
out.”

“No, I couldn’t, because I just happen to
think you’re gorgeous, Ruben, and as bloody messed up as me. We were a good
match, we
are
a good match.”

“Messed up? Speak for yourself, I’m
nowhere near as loopy as you are.” He twirled his finger by his ear.

“You have no idea what I went through
—
”

“And you have no idea what I went through.
Living a half-life, praying for a miracle and then clawing my way back to
health. That wasn’t exactly a picnic, you know, and then just as I feel like I
have something to look forward to—you—it’s pulled from under me.”

“Why is it? You still have me.”

“But I don’t want you, don’t you see?” He
shook his head.

I thought I saw tears in his eyes, but he
turned away, reached for his car keys.

“No, I don’t see. Why don’t you want me?”

“Because I’m not who you think I am,
Katie. Not who you think you’re in love with, and I can’t live with someone who
doesn’t love me for me.” He rubbed at his eyes harshly. “I’m not Matt. I might
have his heart, his lungs, but I’m not him. He simply gave me something to pump
blood and oxygen around my body.”

“No, no, that’s not right.” I raised my
voice, anger replacing the panic of him leaving. “
I
gave you that heart.” I stabbed my chest with my finger. “It was
me
that made the decision. I was his
next of kin. I held my husband’s hand, then picked up a pen and signed that
heart over to you. You’re alive, Ruben, because I made it that way. Without me
you’d be as dead as Matt is.”

He clenched his jaw, picked up his bag and
tilted his chin. “Goodbye, Katie.”

Goodbye!

“Don’t go. We can talk about this. We can
work it out, I know we can.”

“This.” He flicked his car keys between
us. “Is a relationship based on a lie. So many times you could have told me the
truth but you didn’t, and I have to ask myself why that is.”

I stilled. “What do you mean?”

He was silent for a long moment and I
thought he might not explain himself, then, “You look at me and you see him,
don’t you?”

“No, not at all. Ruben, I see
you
.” I pressed my shaking fingertips to
my lips. “And you know about Matt now, so let’s work it out.”