Disclosure of the Heart (The Heart Series) (19 page)

He took a sip of his beer. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but what was that with your father on Friday? It seemed like an odd conversation.”

“It was.”

“What happened?”

Ugh
. Thinking back to my dad’s reaction, I dreaded bringing up bad history. “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

“Why not?”

“It’s about after you left and…” I ran out of words.

“Nicki, I don’t want to talk about when I left either, but if we’re going to move forward, I think we need to…at least once.”

“Okay, but not tonight. Not here.”

“When?”

“Next weekend. Come over on Saturday.” I cracked a smile and nodded toward David. “And bring him. He’ll probably still be in the doghouse.”

“You’ve got a date, then.”

“It’s not a date,” I said, waving my finger at him.

“Okay. It’s not a date. It’s dinner at an old friend’s.”

“Exactly.”

The following weekend, I was in the kitchen again while Lisa welcomed Adam and David into the apartment. David was flirty as usual with Lisa, and she put him off. Then I heard Adam say, “Where’s Nicki?”

“In the kitchen, cooking,” said Lisa.

“She didn’t have to cook. She worked all day. I told her just to order takeaway.”

“I said the same thing, but she wanted to cook.”

When they entered the kitchen, I looked up from my pot of pasta sauce. Adam grinned at the apron I wore with my dress. He walked right over and kissed me on the cheek. “Evening.”

“Hi.” I smiled. “It’s good to see you.”

He peered into the steamy pot. “Hmm. Tomato sauce for pasta?”

“Hence the apron. It’s a little messy.”

“You look lovely tonight,” he said, touching my arm.

“Thanks.” The man just brought the shyness out of me sometimes. I handed him the spoon. “You stir. I need to get the pasta going.”

The four of us spent the evening eating, drinking, and laughing. Over the course of dinner, David appeared to wear Lisa down. He’d brought her champagne because of her recent article in
The New England Journal of Medicine
.

After we cleared the dessert dishes, she shooed Adam and me out of the kitchen again. I protested because the place was a mess, but Lisa refused to listen. “It’s okay. You cooked. I’ll clean.”

“And I’ll help,” said David.

“Good,” she said. “It will keep your hands busy.”

“I need that around you, angel.”

“Let’s go outside,” Adam said, sounding a little tired of David’s shtick.

“Sure.” We both had our wine glasses at hand, but I knew I’d need more to make it through the conversation. I grabbed a full bottle of wine.

“The whole bottle?” he asked with a smile.

“If we have to talk, I might need it.”

Putting his arm around my shoulder, he laughed. “I might need it, too.” When we got out on the balcony, I headed straight to the railing, but he tugged at my arm. Gesturing to the chaise lounge, he said, “Over here this time.”

I halted for a moment. Adam wasn’t wasting any time. That same feeling I’d had in high school came over me. He was moving a little faster than I was ready for, but I couldn’t say no to him. “Oh…okay.”

He lay down, taking me with him. It was so comfortable that I curled up next to him, and he kept an arm around me. “Now this is more like it,” he said.

“It’s nice.”

“It’s more than nice.”

“You’re right.” I sighed. “I’m sorry we didn’t talk much this week.”

“We were both busy.” He became hesitant. “What’s going on with Juan Carlos?”

“We’re in touch, though not like before.” My answer begged a question of him. “And Felicity?”

“She’s been sent on assignment to Indonesia. We haven’t been talking much because of that.”

“Only because of that?” I started to worry.

“No, of course not.” He squeezed my arm. “I think the fact we’re together is a sign there are other reasons.”

I grinned and nuzzled into his side, and out of the silence, he asked, “So what about your dad? What does he know of me?”

“It seems so long ago.” I hated dredging up what I’d kept down for so long, so I told him the bare minimum. “Well, after you were gone, I hated being in Bellaire. I didn’t spend much time with my friends when I was there, and I ended up at Dad’s in Chicago a lot.”

“So that’s how he knows me? You talked?”

“No, not really. He must’ve gotten your name from Mom. That’s why your name rang a bell with him. He never forgets anything.”

“He must not. He wasn’t overly friendly.”

“Oh, don’t worry about him. He was surprised to see you, but I was the one he interrogated.”

“What did you say about us…now?”

“That we’re friends.” I was coy. “Close friends.”

“And did he believe you?”

“At first…but when I told him Juan Carlos and I were taking a break, he became suspicious. He warned me up, down, and sideways about what might happen to me professionally and also to Logan.”

“So he probably doesn’t think much of me.”

“Dad doesn’t think much of anyone. He’s innately suspicious.”

“So why did you spend so much time with him in high school?”

“Because he left me alone.”

Adam nodded and was silent for a moment. I could hear him swallow hard before he said, “Yeah, for a while all I wanted to do was be alone—from the moment I left your house. I remember I went home, where my family was waiting for me beside the hired car we took to the airport. I must’ve looked like utter shit from crying.” He tapped my rear. “And from rolling around in bed with you all night.”

“Yeah, we did some of that, didn’t we?” I giggled.

“My God. We did a lot of that. Every damn day.”

“I know, all the time. Now that I’m older and look back…well…” I smirked. “We had a lot of hormones then.”

He laughed. “I’d say I’m struggling with my hormones right now.”

“Yeah, I know the feeling,” I muttered.

“Maybe I should get back to my story.”

“Good idea.”

“So…when my family saw me, they didn’t say anything about me being out all night or even my appearance. They let me sleep, so I slept in the car and for most of the flight back to England. When I got home, I was still sad. I missed you terribly.”

He straightened a bit, and his expression became intense. “Just so you know, I never got back together with Kate—at all—ever. In fact, I didn’t have a relationship with anyone for a long time.”

Wow
. I’d always wondered if he’d gone back to Kate. The answer was music to my ears, but I only nodded, and he continued on. “Even when I did start seeing people again, I tried to keep up with you from the bits of information I got from Sylvia.”

“And then?”

“Then when Logan was running for president, I occasionally saw you in the press. And when he was elected and appointed you a press secretary, I asked for the White House job. You know the rest.”

It was time for my confession. I needed to own up to my part in the break-up. “I’m sorry I put both of us through that. I just couldn’t handle any more pain. I was confident that if I saw you, we’d just break up again. I knew I couldn’t take it. I’m sorry. It was mean of me…I was selfish…I was all those things you called me before you left for your grandfather’s funeral.”

“I won’t have you apologizing to me, Nicki. I was an immature boy and cruel to you.”

“But I’ve wanted to apologize. I don’t think things would’ve changed between us, but it was awful of me to ignore you. I’ve felt so guilty.”

“Please don’t. Looking back, I now know you were right. I was foolish and more than a little selfish myself. You’d just lost your sister. Your whole family was grieving. Yet I asked you to leave them.” He balled his hand into a fist and tapped at the chair’s arm as if to reinforce what he said. “And you were right. We would’ve broken up. We were too young. We lived too far away. Even if we were just friends, things probably would’ve fizzled out—maybe badly. And my dad…well…he had his own ideas about my future.”

“I thought so.”

“Really?”

“Well, you’d mentioned it, and frankly, I got a similar talking-to from my parents, especially after you left.” The nights of crying came back to me with such force I was sure I’d weep again. My voice croaked. “After you left, I missed you so much.”

“Nicki, like I told you, I missed you, too,” he said, tilting my head to his.

“But now…”

“No buts. If we dwell on all the obstacles between us, we’ll never get anywhere.” He tucked an errant strand of hair behind my ear. “Maybe we had to be apart all those years so we could be together now.”

“Adam…” I wasn’t sure what to say, and really, all I wanted to do was sob. The tears welled in my eyes. I couldn’t hold them back any longer.

He used his thumb to gently wipe away my tears. “I can’t have you crying, Nicki. You’re going to make me start, and blokes aren’t supposed to.”

That was like an invitation to bawl, and the tears spilled out of me. Like he wanted to stop the bleeding, he kissed my cheeks, but my blubbering didn’t cease. In what felt like a last-ditch effort, his mouth was on mine, giving me the most passionate of kisses. We made out through my tears, though it didn’t feel sexual to me. Passionate yes, but not a hormonal rush. I was too much of a mess.

Eventually, I broke away and snuggled beside him. He stroked my hair, still trying to comfort me, but I was emotionally spent. Closing my eyes, I found some peace.

It was only when David knocked on the glass door that I saw Adam had fallen asleep as well. “Adam? It’s late,” David said. “We should get going.”

“Right. Yeah. Be there soon.” He was totally groggy.

I propped myself on my arm and blinked at the light shining from inside. “We must’ve slept for a while.”

“It’s past three,” he said, checking my watch.

“Sorry.” I giggled.

“Don’t be. It was nice.” He touched my cheek. “You probably have to work tomorrow.”

“I do.”

“I do, too.”

“You don’t usually work that much on the weekends.”

“I know. I try not to.” He sighed. “But I’m leaving on Wednesday to see my dad.”

“How’s he doing?”

His expression alone told me it was bad. “My mum won’t say much. I don’t think he’s responding to the treatment as well as we hoped he would, so I’m going to see for myself.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll call you when you’re there.” I kissed his cheek and smiled. “I’ll try not to call too late.”

“I’ll stay up for a phone call from you. Maybe we can get together when I get back.”

“Well, I’d like to see you again.” I tried to find the right thing to say but couldn’t, so I made an understatement. “Tonight was…good.”

“It was very good,” he said and leaned in for another kiss.

Chapter Eleven

A
S
M
Y
C
ONVERSATIONS
W
ITH
A
DAM
became more frequent and longer, my talks with Juan Carlos became more infrequent and shorter. Phone sex was a thing of the past. I held things back from him, and I was pretty certain he was doing the same with me. Was he seeing someone else?

The idea of him going out to dinner with another woman, even flirting with her, was fine. I could even handle a kiss. Imagining him doing anything more made me jealous, but not in a rage like I felt about Adam and Felicity. Instead, my jealousy over Juan Carlos was sad and full of regret because it was my own damn fault.

Yet I couldn’t give up on Adam. I felt like I had to play it out or I’d never feel right about any guy, whether it be Juan Carlos or Adam or someone else. Plus, my time with Adam was so damn fun, I didn’t want to stop seeing him.

Our conversations changed, though, when he was back in Cambridge that week. The moment he picked up my call, I heard the exhaustion in his greeting, but it seemed more than just a physical drain he was experiencing. I could hear his bed creak as he answered the phone, and I envisioned him lying down. “Just the person I want to talk to right now,” he said with a sigh.