His Reluctant Lover (13 page)

“No mercy,” he came right back, but his mouth covered hers and all laughing stopped.  It was serious now.  Clothes came off, tossed out of the way so hands and fingers could explore, entice and drive each other crazy.  She tasted the skin on his chest, on his stomach and even lower, almost smiling with his groan when she took him into her mouth.  “Okay, now I’m begging you for mercy,” he told her, his hands tangling in her hair while her mouth made him almost insane with the need to bury himself inside of her. 

He only gave her a few more moments before he lifted her up and did exactly what he wanted.  Within only a few strokes, she was splintering apart and he was right there with her moments later. 

As their breathing slowed down, he pulled her against his side, nuzzling her neck and enjoying the way she continued to slide against him, as if her body still hadn’t recovered from the mind blowing orgasm they’d both enjoyed.  “We can’t do that too often.”

“Why not?” he asked, pushing a pillow behind his head while his fingers moved down her bare back. 

“Because I might just have a heart attack during the next one.”

He laughed and she felt the sound as well as heard it since her cheek was pressed against his muscular chest.  “I’ll worry about that when it happens.”

She smiled, letting her fingers run through his chest hair.  Why had she fought so hard against this happening, she wondered, then fell asleep even while the sun set for the day. 

Georgette slipped her arms into the fluffy robe, tying it around her waist as she grabbed a towel to dry her hair.  It was their last day together and she felt both amazed and sad that this had to end. 

Walking out of the bathroom, she searched her mind, trying to figure out a way to keep up their affair when they got back to New Orleans.  “So how long are you staying in New Orleans?” she asked, trying to be casual about their departure even while she was bracing for their time to end, worried that he might need to get back to his real world which didn’t include her. 

He was flipping through her sketch book, still naked with only the white sheet partially covering his magnificent stomach with all those fascinating ridges as well as the delicious line of hair that disappeared under the sheet.  Lucky sheet, she thought distractedly. 

“Would you wear this when we get married?” he asked, pointing to the dress she’d created at Westminster Abbey.  “Or this one?” he asked, turning back several pages to the dress from Christ Church.  “I can’t figure out which one I like the best.”

Georgette froze, her whole body going cold.  She couldn’t speak, couldn’t move and it felt like her stomach had just twisted into a painful knot. 

“Georgette?” he asked, looking up at her when her silence broke through.  His eyes widened when he saw her shocked expression.  “What’s wrong?”

She jerked the towel out of her hair, knotting it around her fists.  “We’re not getting married,” she told him with absolute finality, trying to hide the bone deep fear from her voice. 

His shoulders relaxed and he stood up, unconcerned about his nakedness.  He reached into the bedside table and took out a black, velvet box.  “I should do this properly, shouldn’t I?”

Georgette was already shaking her head, backing up.  She felt like his words were ripping her heart in two, maybe even shredding it.  “I can’t,” she came right back.  Were her lips moving?  She wasn’t sure.  The fear and pain were almost overwhelming her right now so she wasn’t sure about anything.  “I can’t!”

He opened the box and looked down at her.  “You can’t what?”

“Get married.  I can’t get married,” she said and pushed the box away.  “No marriage.”

“You don’t want to get married?” he asked and her heart hurt even more as she saw the pain enter his eyes. 

She shook her head.  “No marriage.  Can’t we just…” she lifted her hands towards him, palms up as if pleading with him to understand.  “Can’t we just…keep going like this?”

He shook his head.  “I want to know that you’re my wife, Georgette.  I want to know that, at the end of the day, you’re going to be there with me.”

She bit her lip, wishing that were possible.  “Why don’t we take it one day at a time?”  She could tell immediately that he didn’t like that at all. 

“Because I want the commitment, the kids, the whole deal.  I want you, Georgette.  I’m in love with you and I thought that you loved me too.”

She paled with those words and stepped back again.  “Love?” she tested the word, praying that it wasn’t true.  “Love?” she said the word even louder.  When she realized it was true, she buried her face in her hands and sobbed.  “Oh no!  I’m in love with you!  How could this have happened?”  She stood up and viciously wiped the tears from her cheeks.  “I thought…I knew that you wouldn’t be safe.  That your reputation…” she shook her head, crying harder now as she backed up from him.  “Why did you do this?”

He looked at her strangely.  “Why did I get you to fall in love with me?” He wanted to laugh, but he suspected that she was serious.  And he definitely didn’t understand.  “Why is that a bad thing?  I love you too.  And we obviously are pretty damn good together.”

“Yes!  So why did…emotion…have to come into this relationship?” Again, she wiped mercilessly at her cheeks, wishing she could stop the flow of tears.  They revealed too much, revealing emotions that she wanted to hide, that she didn’t want to acknowledge. 

He chuckled at her horrified expression.  He shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help it.  “It was bound to happen.  You’re a beautiful, vibrant woman with a great sense of humor and intelligence.  The sex between us is better than incredible.  Why would you think that we wouldn’t fall in love and get married?”

She covered her ears with those words. “Don’t say it!”

“Marriage?” he asked, not sure which word was offending her so much.  “Or fall in love with you?”

“Both!  I can’t love you!”

“But you do,” he asserted, refusing to believe that she didn’t feel anything for him.  She just wasn’t the kind of woman who could give herself to him so completely without being in love.  “It’s the natural course of what we’ve been doing.”

“It isn’t,” she hissed!  “My grandparents are married and they pretty much hate each other.  They rarely attend the same social functions because they hate being in close proximity to each other.  In fact, my grandfather has a mistress.  I don’t know anything about her, but he’s been seeing her for years.”  She thought about it for a long moment, then shook her head.  “Well, he’s been seeing someone.  It might be different women.  I don’t know and I don’t care.  I just…don’t want marriage.  Or love.  Or anything else that might…” she couldn’t finish the rule. 

Dylan wasn’t sure which problem to attack first so he stuck with the easiest.  “Your grandparents are the exception to the rule,” he argued.  “And if they hate each other so much, why the hell are they still married?”

She wrapped her arms around herself, almost rocking to try and find some sort of relief from the pain.  “Because they grew up in a generation that doesn’t believe in divorce,” she explained with disgust.  “They just…endure…each other.  They basically live separate lives even though they reside in the same house.  But they only spend time with each other when company comes over.”

“Really?” he asked, still not sure he believed her.  But why would she lie about something like that?  “That’s insane.”

Georgette rubbed her arms, shrugging her shoulders in response.  “It might be insane, but that’s their reality.”

He shook his head, accepting that her grandparents were idiots, but still not agreeing with her grandparents’ relationship.  “Okay, so they’re nuts.  They hate each other and stay married.  What does that have to do with us?”

“My father left my mother before I was born.  I never knew him.  He just up and left.”

This was really pissing him off now.  “And you think I’m going to do the same thing?” he demanded, furious at the implication. 

“I don’t know!  I know that men and marriage in my family don’t work!  I know that love is only an emotion that flits through someone’s mind when it is convenient and fun but when things get really tough, they don’t make it through the problems together.”

“Don’t you dare put me in the same category as your father and grandparents,” he growled.  “You know me better than that.”

“But that’s just it!  I don’t want to know you!  Couldn’t we just…”

“Have sex?” he supplied when she hesitated over the words. 

“Just keep on going like we have been?”

A part of him considered taking her offer.  If she couldn’t marry him, wasn’t a small part of her better than nothing at all?  But then he realized what he was thinking and shook his head.  He wasn’t going to let her go.  Deep down, he knew that they were meant to be together.  “No!  I want it all, Georgette.  I want you.  I want to grow old with you and have kids with you.  I want to know that you’re there at the end of every day.”

“We’ll hate each other!”

“No!” he came right back.  “We’ll argue and we’ll fight.  But we’ll also laugh and love together. I’m made of sterner stuff.  I know what it takes to make a marriage work.”

She shivered at the wonderful image he was creating.  But it wouldn’t work.  She just knew that she didn’t know how.  “I don’t!  And I’m not going to risk…” she stopped those words.

He looked at her, finally understanding.  “Ah, so you’re afraid that you love me too much.  That you’ll come to depend on that love and I’ll leave you.  Is that it?”

“No!” she said, her hands fisting on either side of her head.  “Yes!  Maybe!”  She took a deep breath.  “I don’t know!”

“You were willing to marry Charles, weren’t you?” he asked softly, figuring out what was going on in her pretty head now. 

“Of course!”

“Because Charles was safe.”

“Exactly!”  She wasn’t afraid to admit it anymore.  She couldn’t risk a life with Dylan.  She couldn’t dedicate her love to him in a marriage ceremony that would only take them maybe through the first year.  She’d be devastated when he left her. 

Standing up straight, she turned to face him, needing him to understand.  “I wouldn’t care if Charles left me,” she told him, her lips trembling.  “I would barely even notice probably.”

“And that’s what you want with your life?” he asked her gently.

She looked up into his incredible eyes, seeing the love he felt for her and she hated herself.  She hated the cowardice that overwhelmed her right now.  “Yes.  That’s exactly what I want for my life.”

He shook his head.  “No you don’t.” He looked down into those hazel eyes and wanted to shake her.  “And I’m not going to let you settle for a loveless marriage.”

“You can’t stop me.”

“Want to bet?” he asked.  He pulled her against him, his hands twisting in the belt of the robe belt.  “We’re going to be married, Georgette.”

“I won’t.”

“Tell me you don’t love me.”

She opened her mouth, wanting to say the words.  But they wouldn’t come. 

“See?  You can’t even deny it.”

“I’ll get over you.”

He laughed, a harsh sound but he wouldn’t let her move back from him.  “No you won’t.  And I’m not going to let you.”  With that, he kissed her and stepped back.  “I’ll wear you down, Georgette.  Don’t panic, but we’ll be married.  Very soon.”

With that, he walked into the bathroom, whistling as if she hadn’t just shot his proposal to hell and back. 

She waited until the shower was running.  But at the first sound, she threw off the robe and pulled on underwear, jeans and a tee-shirt.  She didn’t care what her outfit looked like, she just needed to get away, to run from those scary words and the man who had wiggled uninvited into her heart. 

She threw her clothes into her suitcase, uncaring about folding them or even if she got all of them.  She zipped it shut just as the water turned off.  Dragging it down the hallway, she grabbed her purse and slipped out of the door, unaware of the tears streaming down her face.  She didn’t care about anything, just knew that she had to get away from Dylan.  It might be too late, she thought.  She couldn’t really be in love with him, could she?  It was just a momentary lust. 

“Could you get me a taxi?” she asked of the doorman.  A moment later, her bag was stowed in the trunk and she was in the back seat, unable to see the sunny morning because the tears were blinding her.  

“Where to, love?” the cab driver asked. 

“Dublin Airport, please.”  She looked in her purse, checking that her wallet and passport were still there.  Then, with a sigh, leaned back against the seat and tried to figure out how to fall out of love with a man like Dylan Alfieri.

Georgette dumped her suitcase in her house and looked around.  It was too quiet.  Too lonely.  She couldn’t figure out her next move, so she just stood in the entryway.  Even carrying her suitcase up to the second floor seemed like too much effort.  But standing there didn’t seem like a good option either. 

So instead, she stared into the darkness, wondering what Dylan was doing now. 

She should have stayed.  She should not have run away.  She should have talked to him and made him understand why she couldn’t marry him. 

Staring at the lonely, dark rooms, she almost cursed him for bringing so much sunshine into her life and then dashing it all to hell.

Turning around, she walked out of her house, not really sure where she was going but certain that she didn’t want to be in her quiet house alone, thinking of Dylan. 

She’d broken her arm one summer when her best friend convinced her that climbing a tree was easy but she’d fallen to the ground.  She’d carefully taken off her birthday dress when she was eight years old, hanging it carefully in the closet after her father was a no show for her birthday party.  Again.  She’d force a smile on her face the year that Stacy Kilman had gotten the part in the school play that she’d been practicing for the past six months, and then watched Stacy flub the lines as she’d mimed them in the audience.  Georgette had gone through all of the normal childhood pains and tribulations as well as the added bonus of not having known her father.  But she could honestly say that she’d never endured such a soul-bending, hearth wrenching, bone deep pain as what she was experiencing right now without Dylan by her side.

She got into her car and drove, not surprised to find her mother’s gorgeous Georgian mansion in front of her.  This was where she always came when she was in pain, when she didn’t understand the world. 

She mercilessly pushed the thought of Dylan’s strong arms out of her mind.  She had to learn to live without him.  She’d had him for only one week.  One incredible, fabulous and amazing week where he’d taught her so much about sexuality and being with another human being. 

Georgette couldn’t go there.  She had to learn to stand on her own again, to be alone, to endure the world alone.  But only after crying in her mother’s arms one more time.  Her mother would understand.  Her mother had been there.  Her mother had lost her one true love when he’d walked out the door and she’d never loved again. She’d been so devastated by her father’s departure that she’d never trusted another man.  So it made sense that Georgette would come here to start the healing process.  Her mother would help her, teach her how to recover from such a blow to the heart. 

“Mom!” she called out, stepping into the large, ornate entryway.  There was noise at the back of the house and she followed it, thinking that her mother must be listening to the radio or television.  Which was odd because her mother rarely watched television. 

“Mom?” she called again, her voice scratchy because of all the crying. 

Was that laughter? 

Did her mother have company? 

Georgette was just about to turn around, thinking she was intruding when someone laughed from the upstairs. 

With her hand on the doorknob, Georgette turned, afraid of what she might see but also thinking that what she was hearing didn’t make any sense.  Her mother would never entertain guests upstairs. 

“Don’t you dare run away, Ellen!” a masculine voice called out to her. 

Ellen shot down the stairs, wine glass in hand and a laugh in her eyes.  “How many times have you tried to tell me what to do?” she laughed right back.

Her mother was halfway down the stairs when she noticed Georgette standing by the door. 

Her mother stopped but the man behind her didn’t.  He caught up to her, still unaware of the sudden tension, and wrapped his arms around Ellen’s waist, nuzzling her neck.  The whole time, Georgette simply stared up at the two of them, astounded and completely confused. 

“Mother?”

“Georgette!” her mother gasped, trying to peel the man’s arms away from her waist.  “I thought you were in England.”  She stepped away from the stranger who was looking down the staircase at Georgette, a look of both surprise and amusement in his eyes. 

“I came back early,” she explained, feeling like an intruder but her eyes were wide as she tried to understand what was going on.  It suddenly hit her that her mother was wearing a man’s shirt.  And the man behind her was only wearing a pair of slacks.  The shirt was probably the man’s and he was most likely trying to get it back. 

She suddenly realized that she had just seriously invaded her mother’s privacy.  Shaking her head, she backed up, her hand blindly reaching for the door knob.  “I should go.  I’m so sorry for barging in here unannounced.”

Her mother looked up at the man who was leaning against the bannister, unconcerned with the way this looked.  “No.  Please don’t go,” she urged her daughter.  “Let me just run upstairs and change.”

Georgette shook her head and turned the knob.  “No.  You were in the middle of something.  I should go.”

She pulled the door open and rushed outside, slamming the door on her mother’s assurance that she wasn’t intruding.  She hurried down the stairs but when she reached her car, she fumbled with her keys, trying to figure out what was happening.  Her mother was having an affair?

Good grief!  Her mother?

Georgette finally unlocked the car and got in, driving away in a daze.  Her mother was having an affair.  Huh!  She should be shocked, but Georgette wasn’t really sure what she was feeling.  Perhaps she was still too numb from Dylan’s proposal and the jet lag. 

Letting herself back into her house, she dropped her keys in the dish by the door, then almost stumbled over her suitcases.  She still hadn’t lugged them upstairs.  She should probably do that, but she simply stepped over them.  Walking up the stairs, she went into her bedroom and fell onto the bed, pulling a pillow closer.  She missed Dylan so painfully! 

Why had he gone and proposed?  Everything was so perfect, so wonderful.  Until that moment. 

And even worse, why had she gone and fallen in love with him?  Of all the stupid, ridiculous things she could have done, falling in love was the worst!  She’d told herself all her life that she would never fall in love.  Well, not all her life.  She remembered sitting on the front steps in her birthday dress, waiting for her father to show up.  She’d sat on those stone steps for hours, her bottom going numb as she strained her eyes, desperate to see him drive down the street.  It had taken her mother a long time to convince her to come back inside. 

She’d hated her birthdays since that day.  

“Georgette!” her mother called out, using her key to get into Georgette’s house.  “I know you’re here.  We need to talk.”

Georgette pulled another pillow over her head, willing her mother to just go away.  But that wasn’t Ellen Charding’s way.  Georgette knew her mother would search the office first, then head upstairs to her bedroom. 

Sure enough, the door to her office opened and closed.  “Georgette!  We’re going to talk.  You can’t just hide from the world.”

Georgette smirked, considering the option.  Hiding sounded pretty darn good right about now. 

Her mother’s delicate footsteps came up the hardwood stairs, then stopped in Georgette’s bedroom doorway.  “Honey, we need to talk.”

Georgette just pulled the pillow more tightly over her head. 

“Honey, it isn’t what you think.”

Georgette sighed and lifted the pillow away.  Sitting up, she scooted to the top of her bed and stared at her mother, pillows all around her like a big, fluffy nest.  “It looked like you were having an affair with that guy.”

Her mother smiled, her shoulder shrugging slightly as if she were proud of the affair. “Okay, so it was exactly what it looked like.”

Georgette couldn’t believe what she was hearing.  “You’re having an affair?  How long?”

Her mother looked up at the ceiling, her fingers ticking something off as she counted.  “About ten years,” she told her.  “No,” she said and looked back up at the ceiling.  “Twelve years.”

Georgette’s mouth dropped open.  “You’ve been with that guy for twelve years?”  She couldn’t believe it.  “You’re kidding, right?”

Her mother shook her head.  “Nope.  He’s a wonderful man.”

Not the words Georgette had been expecting.  “But you’re in love with my father.”

Ellen snorted.  “Not on a dare!” she exclaimed.  She suddenly caught the shocked look on Georgette’s face and softened slightly.  “I’m sorry, honey. But your father was really the worst kind of loser.”  Ellen sighed and patted Georgette’s leg.  “He was a bad boy with tattoos and messy hair.”  She shook her head as if that explained her initial attraction.  “I got pregnant accidentally and he skidded out of town as fast as his motorcycle could take him.”

Georgette didn’t realize that her mouth was hanging open as her mother told her the story.  Shaking her head slightly she said, “I thought you loved him!  I thought it was the one big love affair of your life and that’s why you never got married again.”

Her mother laughed softly.  “Oh, I’m so glad that’s not true. And I’m also sorry that you’ve created this fantasy world around the mysterious man who donated sperm.  I don’t regret the pregnancy because I got you,” she said, running her hand along Georgette’s arm with love.  “But that man was bad news.  I never talked about him because, well, honestly, I just didn’t know him all that well.  And the sex wasn’t even that…”

“Mother!” Georgette snapped, her eyes wide.  But then the amusement over what her mother had just revealed came through.  “So you didn’t love him?  And you haven’t been pining after him for all these years?”

“Goodness, no.  I’ve dated, but until Jim came along, there wasn’t really any man that I cared about enough to introduce you to.”

Another revelation!  “You mean, you’ve dated other men?  Besides the guy running after his clothes that you were wearing?”

Her mother laughed, her cheeks turning a becoming shade of red at the mention of getting caught wearing Jim’s shirt earlier.  “Of course!  I wanted to find the love of my life.”

“And instead, you’ve found the man of your sex life?” she teased.

Ellen chuckled. “Actually, Jim asked me to marry him about ten years ago.  But you were too young then and I didn’t trust myself to say yes.  I’d already been burned once by an idiot man.  I wasn’t going to risk it again.”  She waved her hand, dismissing the past as not important now.

Georgette caught the flash of light and looked at her mother’s hand with a gasp.  “That’s a diamond ring!”

Ellen chuckled, looking down at her hand with the enormous diamond ring on it.  “You’re very observant, dear.”

Georgette grabbed her mother’s hand.  “And you’re getting married?  Is that what the ring implies?”

Her mother touched the diamond reverently.  “Yes.  Jim has been proposing for years now.  I finally said yes.”

Georgette shook her head, her confusion increasing.  “I don’t understand.  You never loved my father?”

Ellen sighed.  “No honey.”

“And you haven’t been pining away for him?”

“Good grief no,” she laughed.

Georgette didn’t understand.  Her world didn’t make sense anymore.  She’d rejected Dylan because she didn’t want to be hurt like her mother.  But her mother hadn’t been hurt.  She’d been with a man for…years!  And in love, no less!

“What about Grandmother and Grandfather?” she asked weakly.  “Please tell me they’re not also in love.”

Her mother laughed again at the ridiculous notion.  “Goodness, no!  They almost hate each other.”

Georgette sighed and tried to understand.  “Why are they still married to each other?”

Ellen leaned back against the white post of her daughter’s bed.  “I suppose because neither of them found someone they loved enough to get out of their first marriage.  Besides, neither of them have been slowing down.”  Her mother chuckled.  “I also think that they stay married simply because they love hating each other too much.”

“That sounds ridiculous.”

“Not really,” her mother countered.  “They find a great deal of enjoyment in tormenting each other.  Think about it.  Both of them have gone from one affair to another over the years.  Neither one has found that special someone to fall in love with, so they just stayed put.”

“It sounds warped.”

Her mother eyed Georgette carefully.  “No more warped than avoiding love,” she said softly.  “You’re hanging onto Charles because you think he’s safe.  But you don’t really love him, do you?”

Georgette’s startled eyes snapped to her mother’s.  “Is it that obvious?” she asked.

“Only to a mother, perhaps.  So are you going to break it off with Charles?”

She thought about her time with Dylan in Europe and knew that it was the only honest thing to do.  “I suppose I should.”

Her mother clapped her hands, obviously delighted. “Good!  Then you might be interested in that Alfieri guy.  I looked him up after I heard you were kissing him last week and…”

“Mother!  I was not kissing him.”

Ellen rolled her eyes.  “So who was the redhead kissing him in the square that afternoon?  The one heading towards your boutique?  I only know of one lovely redhead who enters that boutique on a regular basis.”  She didn’t wait for Georgette to explain before she went on.  “And I saw the way the two of you were looking at each other at the theatre that night.  Your grandmother and I had to get out of there before the steam messed up our hair,” she said, dramatically patting her perfectly coiffed hair.