Extreme Bachelor (16 page)

“What does it matter? You wouldn’t have
answered them. You wouldn’t have written me back to tell me why—”
Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit, this was her absolute worst nightmare
because there were suddenly tears in her eyes. She could not let
him see them, could not let him guess that there were times that
she still ached for him, so Leah angrily jerked her hand away from
his grip and fumbled in her wallet for money.

“Put your money away,” he said in a low,
stern voice as he reached into his back pocket and withdrew his
wallet.

“No. I’m going to pay.”

“Leah
. Put your wallet away. I brought you here, and I will damn
well pay for it,” he said, and fished out several bills and threw
them on the table. He stood up, put a hand on the back of her
chair, but Leah was already standing before he could do one lousy
gentlemanly thing to upset her even more.

They marched out of the restaurant, Michael
slightly behind her, Leah desperate to get away from him. “I’m
going to take a cab,” she said, looking up the street.

“Don’t be ridiculous. A cab would cost you a
fortune from here to Venice Beach.”

“I’m not being ridiculous.”

“Yes you are. Just relax. I’m going to take
you home. I am not going to torture you or ask you a lot of
questions, or touch you,” he said, and in a complete contradiction,
he took hold of her elbow and steered her toward the parking
lot.

“Do you mind?” she asked, pulling her elbow
from his hand.

“Fine,” he snapped, and made a grand,
sweeping gesture toward his car, indicating she should precede
him.

She preceded him, all right, striding
forward with the determination of a woman who wanted to end a
really bad date. In fact, she didn’t wait for him to open the car
door, but did it herself, tossing her backpack to the floor and
crawling in over it. When she had seated herself, Michael leaned
over, his eyes hard. “All good?”

“All good,” she snapped, and looked
forward.

He got in the car, started it up, pulled out
of the parking lot at a speed Leah did not think was particularly
safe, but came to an abrupt halt at the street. He sat there, one
hand on the wheel, one on the gear shift, staring straight ahead
until a guy behind them honked for Michael to move.

He pulled out in a screech of wheels onto
Montana Avenue.

It seemed only minutes before they were on
Venice Boulevard and Leah was directing Michael to her house. When
they pulled into the drive, she took one look at the yellowing
grass, the trash can that was still lying on the street from two
days ago, the pile of shoes near the front door, and—dear God, how
embarrassing—her half-finished origami peacock. Brad had moved it
from the kitchen table to the porch, and there it sat in all of its
half-finished glory, with a pair of men’s briefs dangling from its
head.

She wished she could crawl
in a hole. She was thirty-four years old, and she lived in the
middle of a scene right out of
Animal
House
.

“Thanks,” she said crisply, grabbed her
backpack, and opened the door. So did Michael. “What are you
doing?” she demanded as she shut the passenger door and slung her
backpack over one shoulder.

He responded by striding around the front of
the car to stand between her and the house, his hands on his hips.
“I see you are still doing origami. I see it has gotten even
bigger.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You have a problem with
big origami?”

“Not at all,” he said. “But you like the
small, delicate stuff. That is why you paid a small fortune to take
the class with that origami master—to get your scale under
control.”

“Goddammit, is
there
anything
you’ve forgotten? I was only in that class for a week, and
you remember that?”

“You didn’t even make it a week. You made it
exactly two nights before you decided you were in over your head.
But that is what I am trying to tell you, Leah—”

“What, that I am in over my head?”

“No,” he said, his jaw
tight, his patience obviously being tested. “I am trying to tell
you that I remember. I remember
everything
,” he said. “I remember
the origami, the acting, and how you hated the makeup guy on your
last play. I remember how you looked in the morning when your hair
was all messed up and how you wore my shirts that just barely
covered your lovely butt, and how frantic you would get when you
couldn’t find your keys.”

Her heart leapt, began to
beat frenetically. She quickly threw up a hand and held it out.
“Stop! Stop it right now. Jesus, Michael, have you heard a word
I’ve said? I don’t
want
to remember!” she cried, and dropped her arm,
tried to step around him, but he blocked her path and caught her by
the shoulders. And in spite of her cry of indignation, he forced
her to look up, to look at him. There was a glint in his eyes as if
he had no intention of ever letting her go.

“I remember how you used to laugh at my
stupid jokes and how we’d make spaghetti and fling it at the wall
to see if it stuck, and how I never saw a single Monday night
football game the entire time we were together, because there was
that stupid cooking show you refused to miss.”

“Okay, all
right
,” she said, and
feeling overwhelmed and angry, she grabbed his wrist, tried to pull
it from her shoulder. “You remember. Congratulations. But it still
doesn’t change anything.”

“I remember,” he said, pulling her closer,
“how you taste, how you smell, and how you look completely naked.”
His gaze dropped to her breasts.

She was on the verge of crumbling. “Oh God,
please don’t do this,” she pleaded.

“I remember the little smile you have on
your face when you sleep and how you moved all my stuff in the
bathroom to the bottom drawer to make room for all your
things.”

Leah remembered all that, too, and more. She
closed her eyes and dropped her head back, remembering what he
looked like naked, how hot and hard he felt inside her, the way he
moved, driving her crazy. How he’d make her breakfast the next
morning and serve it in bed, nibbling on her toes while she nibbled
toast. She didn’t dare open her eyes, didn’t dare look at him, for
fear of crumbling completely.

But Michael pulled her a little closer and
whispered in her ear, “I remember how we used to make love, baby. I
remember how to make you come.”

Dammit
! Leah couldn’t help herself—she opened her eyes, saw the
desire swimming in his eyes just before he lowered his head to kiss
her neck.

She gasped with shock when his lips touched
her skin. He skimmed her neck and face, a whisper on her skin,
until he touched his lips to her mouth. It was a sweet, tender
kiss, but it seared her like a branding iron. His lips were a salve
on an old wound—so soft, so perfect. And then his hands were
suddenly on either side of her face, cupping it, lifting her chin
so that he could kiss her reverently, tasting her, sampling her.
She could smell him, could feel the warmth of his body so close to
hers, and she felt herself falling and falling, back to the place
they’d once been.

That kiss, so wholly unexpected, so
astonishingly desired, knocked Leah into a tailspin, sent her
reeling and her heart tumbling off its shelf. His lips drifted
across hers, tantalizing her. His arm slipped around her waist,
pulling her closer, so that her breasts were pressed against his
chest, and his erection pressed against her abdomen. His body, hard
and familiar, made her want to sink into him, to feel his arms
securely around her and his strength infuse her.

But when his hand found her ribcage and slid
up to her breast, Leah mentally tripped and fell flat on her back.
Rocked by the sensation of being in his arms again, her heart cried
out to her to stop, to protect whatever little piece of her that
was left, reminding her how deep and painful the hurt had been, and
Leah suddenly recoiled, jerking back and away from him as if she’d
been burned.

The smile that registered Michael’s surprise
was so damn sexy that Leah was astounded she was able to resist the
urge to fall to her knees and sob. Instead, she found the strength
to peel his hands from her body. “How dare you,” she said hoarsely.
“How dare you do this to me now, after the damage you’ve done.”

“Damage? Come on, Leah. I made a mistake.”
He touched her cheek with the back of his hand, stroked her chin
with his knuckle. “I made a mistake,” he said again.

“Me too,” she said breathlessly, still
feeling his lips on her mouth. “A huge, colossal mistake.”

“I didn’t mean just now. I meant before. I
should never have let you go, baby. I am asking for another chance.
I want to start over, Leah. I want to pick up where we left off,
keep going and never look back, because I have never stopped
wanting you, not once. No woman has ever compared to you, and I
realized—too late, but I realized—that I’d been a fucking fool.
Give me another chance. I promise you won’t be sorry.”

She was stunned. What was this? Was he
crazy? He didn’t mean what he said, he couldn’t mean it, and she
shook her head, pushed her hair behind her ears, and stepped back,
away from him, despising him for the look of abject disappointment
in his eyes. “Why didn’t you say that five years ago when I
desperately needed to hear it?” she blurted. “We can’t go back,
Michael. Too much happened between us, and too much damage was
done, and too much time has passed.”

“Damage,” he repeated skeptically.

“Damage
,” she whispered. “I didn’t go to Hollywood because I was too
devastated to function, did you know that? I was so stunned and
hurt and wounded that I couldn’t even get off my goddam couch,
Michael.”

“You—”

“I lost everything!” she exclaimed,
interrupting him, throwing her arms wide. “I was paralyzed with
grief. I couldn’t function, I couldn’t act, I could barely form a
coherent sentence.”

He looked stunned. Horrified. And still it
wasn’t enough.

“You want to know what
happened to me after you dumped me? My agent eventually stopped
calling me, and finally sent me a letter severing our relationship.
My friends from Broadway went on with their lives and kept their
distance because they were afraid I would jinx them somehow. I felt
like the whole world had faded from view, and it was
months—
months
—before I could face it again. But by then it was too late. I
had grieved myself into a black hole and no one would touch me. And
now you come prancing back into my life five years later and say
you’re
sorry
?” A
shout of hysterical laughter escaped her. “Save your breath,” she
said, her voice shaking. “I will
never
go back to you.”

He looked devastated and reached for her
face. “God. I’m . . . I’m so sorry, Leah.”

“Sorry?” she repeated, and slapped his hand
away. “Jesus, Michael, do you have any idea how much I loved you?”
she asked, as tears suddenly filled her eyes.

“I loved you, too,” he said quietly.

She gasped with shock. “Ohmigod, you would
say that now?” she whispered tearfully.

“You need to know it.”

“What I know is that if it is true, if you
really did love me, then what you did is even more insidious.”

Michael looked as if she’d slapped him.
“Good,” she said bitterly, swiping at the tears beneath her eyes.
“I hope you feel awful, because God knows you left me to feel much
worse than that.”

She had to get out of there, get someplace
where she could just breathe, and started walking toward the house,
unable to look at him, unable to even think.

“Leah!” he called after her.

She closed her eyes, told herself to keep
walking, but the masochistic part of her that apparently loved as
much pain as he could heap on her stopped and turned around.

He was standing there, his head low, that
lock of hair hanging over his eye. “Before you go . . . I have to
tell you there is nothing wrong with your car. It was just a loose
battery cable.”

Her mouth dropped open. “You lied?”

“Yes, I lied. I lied because I had to talk
to you. I’ll send a car for you in the morning and have your car
fixed while you’re at work.” And with that, he turned away, walked
around to the driver’s side of the car. A moment later, he was
backing out of her drive without looking back.

Yet Leah stood in her ugly yard long after
his car had disappeared around the corner, her head pounding with
memories and feelings and the very strong sense that she had just
stepped off the edge into an abyss.

Subject: The Chartreuse Dress

From: Lucy Frederick

To: Leah Kleinschmidt

Time: 12:02 am

Okay, you cannot possibly find fault with
the attached dress. I know it’s not gold, but I’ve rethought the
whole color thing. And oh, I found THE cutest
guaranteed-to-get-you-laid shoes ever! They are three-inch heels,
straps that go around the ankles, and very sparkly gold. If you say
you don’t like them, you are not going to be my maid of honor,
because I really really want those shoes! Can’t wait to hear what
you think.

Subject: Re: The Chartreuse Dress

From: Leah Kleinschmidt

To: Lucy Frederick

Time: 9:15 pm

Dress looks great. Shoes sound fab.

Subject: Re: Re: The Chartreuse Dress

From: Lucy Frederick