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Authors: Dawn Douglas

Tags: #Contemporary

Paris Rose (5 page)

BOOK: Paris Rose
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The doorbell rang again, as parents began to arrive to pick up their hyped-up, cake-smeared offspring.

“Everyone, I’d like you to meet Olivia,” Nick said, in between arriving parents.

His family greeted her without enthusiasm.

“Sorry I’m so late,” she said. “I guess I’ve missed the party.”

“Where’s Aunt Lucy?” Kieran demanded, staring at Olivia rudely.

“Sshh, honey, she went back next door,” Angie said. “Later we’ll go and say thank you for the cake.”

Olivia frowned. “Who’s Aunt Lucy?”

“She—she’s my ex-wife,” Nick admitted.

A silence fell.

“Sweetie, I’m going to get a start on tidying up the kitchen.” Sylvia headed off, grabbing Nick’s dad.

“Your ex-wife lives next door?” Olivia looked at him.

“Aunt Lucy made me a birthday cake, and it looked like a school bus!” Kieran said. “And I was in the school bus, wasn’t I, Mommy?”

“It’s complicated,” Nick said.

Olivia nodded slowly, looking at him appraisingly. “Yes, a little too complicated for me, I think. I shouldn’t have come here. Goodbye, Nick.”

“I’ll call you,” he said, as she opened the door.

She shook her head. “No. I’m not sure what’s going on here, but I think you’ve got a lot more baggage than you’ve let on. I don’t want to get involved.”

He stared after her as she walked away, then turned around to see Angie, Mark, and Kieran staring. “Thanks a lot, guys!”

“Hey, we didn’t do anything.” Angie planted her hands on her hips. “What did you say to Lucy after you followed her into the house?”

“If you must know, I found her snooping around upstairs. She was in my office.”

“Oh, my God,” Sylvia said softly from the kitchen doorway. “She must have been devastated.”

“You have to go and talk to her,” Angie said.

“Why?” Nick felt like exploding. “I think I have every right to redecorate my own house.”

His sister shook her head. “Just listen to yourself.”

“What the hell do you all want me to do?” he yelled. “Turn this place into a goddamn shrine?”

Rosie, his tiny niece, woke up from her nap and began to scream, terrified by the anger in his voice. Angie picked up the baby and glared at him.

“Nick,” Mark said. “Nobody expects you to turn your house into a shrine, but at some point you are going to need to address your feelings.”

Rosie’s desperate sobs turned to hiccups and something splintered inside Nick as he stared at her tiny face, at her huge, confused blue eyes spilling tears down her pillowy cheeks.

“I’d like you all to leave now,” he said.

“Don’t be silly,” Sylvia said. “We’re going to stay and help you clean up.”

“Please, Mom,” he said, his voice almost breaking.

Mark and Tom began to gather up belongings and usher everyone out. His family left quietly, his mother giving him a brief, wordless hug before she stepped out of the door.

Now Nick picked up trash, thrusting it into a garbage sack, then tying it off and dumping it in the garage. He mopped the kitchen floor, rubbed sticky finger marks off the patio door, and wiped down the counter tops.

Lucy had brought nothing but mayhem into his life since she moved in next door. She was actually wrecking his life, he thought, remembering Olivia’s departure. Then he sighed deeply, knowing he wasn’t being honest with himself.

He and Olivia had been going nowhere.

His only motivation for being with her in the first place was Lucy. Every time Olivia moved, every time she opened her mouth, he’d compared her to his ex, and he’d fully deserved to be dumped this afternoon.

But Lucy had no right to put him on a guilt trip. What the hell was he supposed to do, leave the nursery how it looked two years ago, as a tribute to a baby that would never be born? He went still, a hard lump forming in his throat. Okay—so he’d run from his pain, tried to obliterate it. Failed to “address his feelings” as Mark had so eloquently put it. But surely that was a damn sight better than deciding to cheat on Lucy.

He marched out into the yard to dismantle the trampoline, welcoming the anger invading his body as if it were an old friend. Anger was a hell of a lot simpler to deal with than pain. Hearing him, Dexter exploded, racing across the lawn to bark furiously and claw at the fence.

“If you can’t control that idiot dog, I’m reporting you to Animal Control!” Nick yelled.

“Go right ahead, you asshole!” Lucy screamed.

A reddish haze of fury descended before his eyes. No man should have to deal with this. It was downright intolerable, and he wasn’t going to take it a moment longer. Forgetting the trampoline, he strode next door, making his way between their homes and through the wooden arch that led into Lucy’s yard. Adrenaline pumped through his body.

She was reclining on a sun lounger in a pair of tiny shorts and a bikini top, and Nick abruptly forgot everything he’d been planning to say. His mouth turned dry as he was transfixed by the sight of her full breasts filling the scarlet bikini and her firm, golden belly. Scowling, she scrambled to her feet.
“Can I help you?”

“This has got to stop,” he said.

Dexter started barking again, and Lucy scooped him up and bundled him into the house, then turned back to Nick.

“Why’d you move in next door, Lucy?” he demanded.

She looked at him through narrowed eyes filled with dislike. “I actually wanted you back. What a fool I was.”

He hadn’t expected such honesty, and had never seen her looking so contemptuous, and for a moment was lost for words. “That’s never going to happen.”

“Hallelujah,” she sneered. “I don’t want a man like you. I want a man with feelings, a man who can love me and listen to me and appreciate me.”

Her words were so unfair his fists clenched. “I was all of those things and you know it. And maybe I wanted a woman who didn’t screw around.”

She shook her head pityingly. “I didn’t screw around, and you know it. But you know what? I wish I
had
slept with Jean-Luc. At least he cared about me enough to listen to how I felt—he didn’t just look bored and turn away when I needed to talk.”

Nick closed his eyes for a second, acknowledging to himself there was more than a grain of truth in her words. She’d needed to talk, to express her feelings and grief; she’d wanted them to see a therapist. That just wasn’t his way. Their baby died. All the talking in the world couldn’t change that.

Lucy gave a long, shuddering sigh and when she spoke again, the anger had left her voice. “How could you? How could you just paint over the mural I made for the baby?”

She gazed at him, not accusingly, but as if she genuinely needed to understand.

Nick realized he’d taken a step toward her as he began to speak, searching for the right words, desperately needing them to come out right. “It hurt,” he said finally, his voice hoarse. “I would go in there and look at everything, and it hurt so much.”

“But you made it like our baby never existed.”

Just a few feet of lawn separated them, but it occurred to Nick it might as well be an ocean. They’d each suffered their grief in different languages the other was hopeless to comprehend. He tried anyway, groping for the right words. “I felt so helpless,” he said. “I wanted to make everything better, make you happy. But there wasn’t a thing I could do.”

“I needed you so badly,” she whispered. “I booked that room for us—I thought it would be so romantic, that we could start to find our way back to how things had been. When you said you were too busy, I was just so mad.”

“So you picked up a guy and took him up to your room.”

“I shouldn’t have invited Jean-Luc up, I know that now,” she said tiredly. “I’m so sorry, Nick.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry, too,” he said, surprised at the sound of his voice. There was no anger in it. He really was just sorry—at the whole sad mess they’d made of their lives together.

Afterwards, he was never quite sure exactly how it happened, if Lucy started walking toward him, or if he took the steps needed to close the space between them, but suddenly they were in each other’s arms. She clung to him, her blonde head tucked neatly against his shoulder just as he remembered, and he inhaled the sunshine fragrance of her hair.

“Sorry,” he said, worried that he was holding her too tightly, then realized she was holding on just as hard. He could feel the clamor of her heart against his chest, sense her turmoil. A part of him knew this was a very bad idea. But he couldn’t seem to bring himself to release her, and he was in turmoil himself. His heart was pounding, his emotions churning wildly, and desire was rising. Three more seconds, he thought. And then he’d let go of her. He’d take a step back and allow sanity to return.

Lucy looked up at him, and Nick was lost.

****

When his lips covered hers, Lucy was unable to think. All she could do was feel—the heat and need in Nick’s kisses, his hard body against hers—and then his hand found her breast, and he gently tugged at her nipple. A desperate moan escaped her, and she pressed against him, hard, feeling herself grow hot and wet with longing.

A vague thought entered her fevered brain—they should not be doing this out in the open. At the same time she thought she’d die if he stopped, and clung to him with all her strength. His erection dug into her belly. Lucy’s heart thundered and when her lips parted, Nick’s tongue swept inside, tasting her.

Clumsily, they somehow found their way inside. Lucy almost sobbed with relief when they made it to the bedroom and he tumbled her down on the bed, falling on top of her and releasing her breasts. Groaning, he buried his face in their fullness. He licked her nipples, grazing the tender pink buds with his tongue.

Lucy reached down between their bodies, her hand trembling as she tugged at his fly. He helped her, and her fingers found him and enclosed his hot, rigid length, stroking and caressing.

“God, Lucy,” he muttered, as if in torment.

Their kisses became even hotter, increasing in urgency. Nick’s hands slid downward, his fingers gliding over her stomach and dipping lower inside her shorts and panties, encountering soft, wet heat.

Lucy hardly dared to breathe as he touched her, his fingers sliding and playing, remembering exactly what she liked. Her desperation mounted, and she was almost weeping with need when he began dragging off his jeans and Lucy wriggled free of her shorts. She spread her legs, wrapped them around him, and Nick thrust deeply inside her, again and again and again. Lucy rose to meet him, feeling her release gathering force, uncoiling, until she seemed to explode, and the force of it, the dizzying rush of bliss, made her sob out Nick’s name.

There were two more times that night, slower and sweeter, where they took their time and reveled in the pleasure they’d rediscovered. Lucy sat astride Nick and rode him, watching his face as she made love to him, his closed eyes and long, dark lashes, his mouth tense, gripping her bottom as she rose and fell. And then they slept, waking to find the night had grown cool, and Nick reached down and found the rumpled quilt and drew it up over their bodies. He kissed her, and pulled her close to warm up, and then once again they found each other, moving together in exquisite rhythm, until they were exhausted and fell asleep again.

It was morning when Lucy awoke. The sun spilled in through the half open curtains and birds were busy outside the window, chirping and singing. She sighed happily and stretched, opening her eyes and reaching out for Nick. He was gone, but her worried frown lasted only a moment. When they were married, she’d often wake to an empty bed. Nick started his days early, at the coffee shop, and he had two of those now. She pulled the pillow where his head had rested against her body and nestled into it, smiling to herself, so happy she was close to tears.

She’d done it.

She’d made him see that for her, he was the only man in the world. There were two parts of her life—before Nick and after Nick. Before Nick she’d never really known what the fuss about love was all about. After Nick she’d been aware of what it was all about with every cell in her body. Life turned into a delicious, joy-filled journey, rife with possibilities. He’d given her his love, and Lucy had known it was the most wonderful gift she’d ever receive.

Now she stretched out her legs and wiggled her toes, filled with a sweet, deep gratitude. They were going to be so happy. From now on, they’d understand each other so much better, see that they had different ways of dealing with the pain life dealt out from time to time. Whatever happened, she would be there for him. They would grow from this, be better and stronger.

Maybe someday there would be another baby.

The thought popped into her head, and Lucy bit her lip, afraid. Yet the doctor had assured them there was no reason they couldn’t go on to have a healthy, normal pregnancy. It wouldn’t happen as a result of last night because she was on the pill to steady her hormones, but it could happen. She wanted so much to marry Nick again, for the two of them to have another chance.

As Lucy worked around the house that day it was hard to contain her joy. She fed Dexter, explaining to him that Nick wasn’t really a horrible old grouch, but actually a lovely, sensitive, smart, amusing, sexy man. He knew so much about the world, he was full of surprises, and he only pretended to hate squirrels. Falling in love with Nick was like coming home to a place of peace and perfect understanding, and now she was home once more.

BOOK: Paris Rose
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