New Adult Romance 2-fer (24 page)

She took the box from his hand and opened it. The diamond ring flashed and sparkled. She closed it and pressed it back into his palm. “It’s hard to part with something so beautiful.” She stepped around and looked up into Kevin’s eyes. “It’s even harder to give up something we love.”

“Francesca--”

“I’m just telling you not to be too hasty. Things change.”

“Yeah, and not always for the best.” If Asshole Mark had just been a man and married Susan, none of this would’ve happened!

Francesca reached up and patted his cheek with her silky hand; her smile would’ve melted anyone’s heart. “But it can change for the better too. Don’t forget that.” She turned and started gliding away in a practiced sweeping movement, sexy and elegant all at once. She turned back and shot him with a knowing look. “And don’t even think of leaving before the party’s over. I have a little something special planned, and you’ll ruin it for me if you aren’t there.”

Kevin stood there, stunned. She was good. How’d she know he was thinking about leaving early...and man, did she have a master’s degree in guilt or what?

~*~

In her haste to get into the building Susan slipped getting out of the car, turning her ankle.
Damn heels!
She staggered for a few feet before she regained her footing. Her ankle hurt, but she still needed to get to the party. The doorman was young and pretty, and not only held the door but asked if she was all right.

He’d seen her slip.

“I’m fine, thank you. Where to for the Costa Gala?”

“Just take any of the elevators to the top floor, ma’am.” He tilted his hat and looked like John Wayne. He didn’t really. But he made her think of John Wayne. And she thought of
The Quiet Man
, and then of Kevin dragging her across that beach six months ago. How warm and strong his hand had been.

Susan gulped and teetered on her heels as she maneuvered herself toward the bank of elevators. The doors to all the elevators were polished to a gleaming mirror-like shine. She caught sight of her reflection and thought again that Lance had done well by her, very well. She couldn’t remember a single day in her life she’d looked prettier, or more stylish.

Except she had this expression on her face. What was it? Desperation? Hunger? Need?

She shook all the thoughts from her head when the doors to the closest elevator opened to the tintinnabulation of a fictitious bell. She entered the mirror lined box, hit the button for the top floor and waited for the doors to close.

And then it hit her: she was going to have to tell Kevin she loved him.

Sounded easy, but just thinking about saying it to him make her mouth as dry as the Sahara, and her knees start to shake. No, her knees were just tired because of the turned ankle, and the long ass drive back to the city, and the nature hike she’d gone on right before Liz had shown up. And the cotton mouth was just because she was dehydrated, nothing more.

I love you
.

It didn’t sound right in her head. Sure, she could hear herself saying it, her voice wrapping itself around it, could even feel it on the tip of her tongue, taste it like candy, roll it around, sizing it up, weighing it, frantically calculating how it would come out.

I love you.

No, that was too short, too blunt. She needed more. She couldn’t just throw that at him without some kind of wind up.

Kevin
, I love you.

Yeah, that’s so much better.

“I know I’ve been--insane?” she whispered under her breath. “Crazed? Acting like a cat in heat? But it’s just because I’m...I’m so...sooo...”

Okay, more words weren’t going to help. Susan took a deep breath. She’d just walk right up to him and kiss him. Kiss him hard, say everything she couldn’t say with her lips and tongue, with…well, her lips and tongue.

She slapped herself in the forehead just as the doors of the elevator slid open. A waiter with a silver tray of champagne flutes stood there and offered her a glass. She smiled gratefully and scooped one up and downed it, throwing it back like a shot, chugging it in three long gulps. She closed her eyes as the cold sparkling alcohol washed over her parched tongue and slid down her dry throat. She opened her eyes, ignoring the startled look on the waiter’s face as she set the empty glass back on the tray, and took another glass.

“Liquid courage?” The warm, silky voice of Francesca Costa slipped through the air and made Susan’s heart stop cold. “I think you’ve tried that before--not a good idea.” She took the glass from Susan’s hand and placed it back on the tray. “But I’m so glad to see you could make it. I was about to send a search party out for you.”

“For me?”
Why the hell does she care? Oh, right. She doesn’t want to lose her new top architect.

“Yes, my dear. The whole reason for this party is because of you.”

Susan chuckled. “And celebrating your company’s win of the opera house project has nothing at all to do with it?”

Francesca smiled the slyest, most vicious of smiles, and slipped her silky arm into Susan’s, locking them together at the elbow. Arm in arm, like old friends, Francesca guided her away from the front of the great room and into the din and crush of the other guests.

“Guilty,” she said. “I do love to throw parties when my company wins a big account. But just between you and me, I haven’t had near as many occasions to do so since you showed up in town.”

“Sorry,” Susan said, yet clearly not.

“I’m sure you’re not.”
Observant.
“But I could’ve shown Kevin and his marvelous design off just as well at a swanky cocktail party in my own home.”

“Are you trying to tell me you rented out this joint just so you wouldn’t have to invite me into your home? Because I’ve already been to your place.”

“And I choose to remember only the sober times.”

Susan felt a flush of embarrassment burn at her face.

“But that’s hardly the reason I was getting at. I needed to set the stage...for you.”

Susan stopped and turned to face Francesca head on. “Set the stage for what? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Temper, temper. No need to make a scene.” Francesca was deceptively strong, turning, and pulling Susan effortlessly back into step with her. “I was only trying to tell you that I wanted to make it as easy as possible for you to win Kevin back.”

Susan stopped again. This time she just stood there, all her strength leaving her. Her heart might have even stopped. She certainly had stopped breathing. It was worse than she’d thought. Not only would she have to say she loved him, but she’d have to win him back.

“I’m not going to be able to do it,” she said to no one in particular.

Francesca jerked her head in Susan’s direction, boring her icy blue eyes into hers. “Of course you can do it! He’s yours, all you have to do is claim him.”

Claim him she says. Like he’s waiting for her in lost and found.

Susan stared into Francesca’s gleaming eyes. “I love him, I really do, but I don’t know if I can handle him being...” And she just stopped talking. She still couldn’t get her head wrapped around the idea that he was a better architect than she was. It was all she’d had left, all that remained of her dreams, of her identity. She was going to be the best architect. And now her best friend would be. And he would be her lover too.

How could she stand it, absorb it into herself and not go insane?

“What can’t you handle?”

Susan shook her head. She’d forgotten Francesca was even there.

“That Kevin’s a better architect than me.” There, she’d said it. She should be having that wonderful, uplifting, weight-off-her-shoulders sensation any moment. Yet all she felt like was a jealous, whiny bitch.

Francesca threw her head back and began laughing in a cruel, demented rapture. Again, she was a dead ringer for Michele Pfeiffer as Catwoman.

Finally, Susan had to glare at Francesca. “It’s not funny.” Her voice was tight and low, like a growl.

Francesca held a manicured hand to her nonexistent belly. “You’re right, it’s not funny, it’s hysterical.” She sighed and took a few deep breaths. Everyone in the room was staring. “Come with me, I have something to show you.” She took Susan by the arm. Susan pulled away from her, but Francesca grabbed her again. “Believe me, you need to see this.”

As Francesca drew Susan further into the party Susan felt more and more as if she were hiking up some steep mountain trail, and that she was coming closer and closer to actually scaling up the side of a cliff.

Susan tried to put the brakes on again as they rounded a corner. “All I need to do is see Kevin, or at least I did before I started doubting my own worth, thank you very much. Whatever you need to show me can just--”

Susan lost the words she was going to say. She lost the thread of the conversation she was having with Francesca. She even forgot her own name for a moment as she stared at the wall sized monitor in front of her, which contained Kevin’s design for the opera house, in three dimensional, fully-visualized splendor. From the elegantly cut marble facade to the sparkling water flowing down the steps of a waterfall springing from a pin and gold clamshell molding between the two arched entryways that led to two enormous leaded-glass front doors.

The point of view moved inside, showing the color of the inside walls, the texture of the curtains, the grand majesty of the simple yet towering floor plan of the stage and the seating and the second tier of seats, and the gilded private boxes.

Susan had never seen anything like it. It was glorious and yet intimate all at once. And though she’d seen nothing like it before, it seemed to always have been there.
Timeless.

“It’s beautiful,” Susan whispered, her gaze never leaving the monitor. But beautiful wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, to describe the design she was staring at with rapt attention.

“Kevin spent the first year after college traveling Europe,” Francesca said, as she too stared into the enormous monitor.

“I remember. He had a Europass and about a thousand bucks he’d saved up.”

“Well, he spent that year going to and studying as much of the old architecture as he could, especially old theaters and opera houses. Went as far as to goad the architects rebuilding the Fenice in Venice to explain how the very walls of the theater could make the music sound even better.” She looked at Susan and smiled. “He’s been dreaming of designing an opera house ever since. I think he knows what he’s doing. And so did the Maestro.”

“The Maestro.” Susan’s voice cracked with a touch of bitterness. “He must have hated my design.”

“He hated all the designs, until he saw Kevin’s.”

The more Susan gazed up into the monitor, the more lost she became in Kevin’s creation. It was gorgeous. So much better than the tower of steel and glass she’d thought of. And it just didn’t matter. And that thought filled her with warmth and golden light. Not just the thought, but knowing, right there and then, that no matter if Kevin was a better architect or not, that it didn’t matter. She would love him anyway. She would let her foolish pride go and just let herself love him.

“I don’t care if he’s better than me.” She didn’t mean for the words to cross her lips, but she felt a weight lift as she said them. “I’m still in love with him.”

Francesca laughed again and slapped Susan lightheartedly on the arm. “You don’t really think he’s better than you, do you?”

Susan turned to look at her old idol, amazed at what she’d just suggested. She turned back to the monitor. “But just look at it.”

“Yes, this design is much better than the one you made. But there are many other projects that Kevin won’t even challenge you for...at least not yet. If he stays, then maybe I can guide him, mentor him until he is real competition for not just you, but for everyone.”

Susan smiled. Francesca sounded so sure of herself, and so very proud of Kevin. “You really care for him.”

“Like he was one of my own kids.”

“I love him.” And with that Susan felt all the thoughts and feelings that had kept her away from him melt away. The thought of telling him she loved him didn’t seem hard at all. It all seemed so easy. She turned to Francesca and said, “Where is he?”

Francesca smiled and nodded in the direction of the balcony. “Out there, in the dark, missing you.”

Susan’s heart skipped as she took a deep breath and started to move toward the open doors to the balcony. Her future awaited her.

SUSAN FOUND THE BALCONY deserted. Not a soul stood anywhere on its spacious overlook. No one was out there, not even Kevin. Her chest tightened, and her heart, that had been beating so hard with excitement, seemed to deflate as she understood that she’d missed him, again.

She gripped the railing and looked out over the city. For a brief moment she could see herself hopping over the railing and to her death, but that was absurd. She’d only jump over the railing if there was a cable rigged up so that she would make it to the street before him, to head him off.

Liz had said he was taking the red-eye...somewhere. That he was leaving right after the party. He’d jumped the gun and left early.