Breaking All Her Rules (9 page)

She’d pushed and she needed to let him take what he needed to survive the push.

She fumbled with the towel at his waist and it loosened and fell around their feet. He lifted her, set her on the bathroom counter, stepping between her thighs, pressing hard against her, sending pleasure crackling along her veins.

This was all he could handle. This was what he could take from her. So this was what she would give. Because she loved him. And that meant, for now, for this moment, they didn’t need to give and take equally.

It meant she didn’t need it all from him now.

She wanted it, desperately. But she had to give him time to get there.

He lowered his head, kissing her collarbone, moving lower and taking her nipple deep into his mouth. She held tightly to his shoulders, gasping as he teased the entrance of her body with the blunt head of his shaft.

“Condom,” she said, the word almost impossible to force out.

He swore and lifted her up from the counter, carrying her into the bedroom and depositing her on the bed. He wrenched open the nightstand drawer and produced the box of condoms, which he tore into with shaking fingers.

He was still shaking while he rolled the protection onto his length, something wounded, desperate in his eyes.

It made her heart twist. And it gave her hope. Because he was feeling. Whatever he said about not having the ability...he was feeling.

He joined her on the mattress and hooked her leg up over his hip, driving into her, a harsh sound on his lips as he buried himself to the hilt.

He moved inside of her, broken words pouring out of him. Dirty words. Incoherent words. Words that somehow touched her deep down in her soul.

She clung to his shoulders as he rode her hard, her body trembling, another orgasm rising from deep within, so strong, so overwhelming that she had to look away from him as it overtook her completely.

He followed right behind her, lowering his head and shuddering as his pleasure wracked his body. He lay on her, his skin slicked with sweat, his eyes closed tight, and she held him.

She wanted to tell him that she loved him again, but considering that was the source of his emotional breakdown she doubted it would be helpful.

A lesser woman might take offense to that, but she didn’t. If only because the fact that her loving him affected him so much meant that at least it mattered. Even if he didn’t want it.

She stroked his hair, moved her hands over his face, his stubble-roughened jaw. She didn’t want to live without this man, and that was one hell of a sobering realization.

He’d changed her. He’d changed what she wanted, what she expected.

Which was horrible because she’d been completely fine until she’d met him. She’d been happy with the trajectory of her life. Happy to live on a pass/fail grading scale, where emotion and desire didn’t matter.

Now she wanted more. Stupid Zack Camden.

And looking at him, at the blank expression on his face, she felt like he wasn’t going to give it to her. Not now that he’d made her want it. Not now that he’d made her see.

“I think we need to stop now, Gracie,” he said, the words so loud in the silence of the room.

She closed her eyes, fought against the pain that was ravaging her chest. Like a pack of wild dogs.

“I take you don’t just mean we need to stop having sex for the night.”

“You know what I mean,” he said. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. You weren’t supposed to get hurt.”

And neither were you.

She left the last part unsaid, but she knew it was true. He was more worried about his own feelings than hers, she would bet a lot on that.

Not that it fixed anything, really. Because the end result was the same. Except these feelings, love and all that, weren’t just pass or fail.

It wasn’t all about the end result. It was about all the things that had happened on the way. It was about the fact that she was happier with the person she was now, than the person she’d been the day they met.

Even if right about now everything hurt like a son of a bitch.

There was some clarity and real change in there, too. And later that would matter. Later. Right now everything sucked.

And for the first time she felt embarrassed to be naked in front of him.

She moved away from him, turning her back to him to shield herself. At least her skin. Futile, since he’d seen it, and she’d just revealed everything on the inside. But it made her feel slightly protected, and she needed a little protection right now.

“I know that’s not what you intended,” she said. “Hell, Zack, it’s not what I intended, either. You don’t fall in love with a random hookup who lives across the country. There are rules about those things. And I know that. Even though this is the first time I’ve ever actually done anything like this, I know that. But you and I have never followed the rules. You drew me a picture, and I sleep with you all night. You told me about your past, and I told you about my parents. You broke a vase in my apartment and I didn’t even care. You make me swear. You make me...want. And none of that is supposed to happen. None of what’s happened between us makes sense. It’s not normal. We’re too different, you’re too screwed up.”

She looked over her shoulder, back at Zack, who was laying on his back staring at the ceiling.

“It shouldn’t have happened like this,” she said. “But it did. So I’m going to say it one more time, Zack. I love you. Like...really and truly. You’ve changed me in a hundred different ways, and even if we don’t end up together, I’ll never be able to go back to my life and live it the way I did before. You broke me. Like you broke the damn vase. I can’t put it back together and have it be the same.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, after a lot time. “But I can’t, Grace. More than that, I don’t want to. I don’t want you to love me. I don’t want to love you. I...I watched my wife grieve this horrible thing that no one should ever have to go through, and I didn’t help her. I couldn’t help her. I just locked myself up and lived in my own grief. I’m not meant to be the other half of a couple. For too many reasons to list.”

“Is one of them that you’re a damn coward? Clinging to the past when what we have is completely different?”

Zack pushed into a sitting position and got off of the bed. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Sure, I’m a damn coward, because I know what it’s like to have your heart ripped out of your chest. I know what it’s like to try to keep living when you have nothing but a bloody hole left where it should be. Forgive me for not wanting to try again. Forgive me for feeling done with it. You’re right. We’re too different and it’s not because I’m a cowboy and you own pantsuits. It’s because you think love is some wonderful, happy thing that I should want to have.”

“You’re the one who told me that it was better than success, Zack. Better than perfection.”

“If you can keep it. Grace, I hope you have it all someday. A husband and kids or even just a job that makes you delirious with glee. Whatever it is that’s going to make you excited to get up every morning. That’d be great. For you. But I got my shot. And it ended in...it’s the worst nightmare you have as a husband. As a parent. To watch your wife hurt beyond healing. To lose the child you’re supposed to protect. It’s a nightmare, Grace. The worst possible way it can all end and that’s how it ended for me.”

Her heart tightened, her lungs compressing. “Zack...I won’t even pretend to know what you went through. And I’m not trying to belittle it. I’m just...” A tear rolled down her cheek and she didn’t bother to wipe it away. She didn’t care if she was an ice bitch now. She didn’t even want to be one. She wanted him to see how she felt. That for her, this was worth the pain. “I can’t understand why a man with so much to offer the world, a man who could have so much, doesn’t want anything for himself anymore.”

“I can’t,” he said, his voice raw. “And I can’t explain it much better than that. It’s just that...I can’t do it. I can’t risk that pain. I can’t even...I can’t even imagine it. I don’t want to. I don’t want this at all.”

She nodded slowly and got off the bed, her hands shaking as she walked out into the living area, collecting her clothes. “Okay,” she said, shouting into the bedroom. “That’s...” She turned and saw him standing naked in the doorway. She lowered her voice. “I don’t understand, Zack, and I won’t even pretend that I do. But one thing I do want you to know before I go.”

“What’s that, baby?” he asked, the tone in his voice so sad it nearly killed her.

“That I love you. Still. And even if you can’t find it in yourself to give it back, I want you to know that there is still someone who wants to give it to you. Who loves the man who’s been through the nightmare. I want you to know that you’re not done changing the world, because you changed mine. Because your artwork is amazing, and I know it’s changing people. That your success is deeper than you think it is. And that’s it.”

“That’s it, huh?” he asked, his eyes blank.

“Yeah. Except...I love who you made me. I love
you
. Again. Because it should end that way. Not with anger. But with that.”

She dressed silently and grabbed her purse off the table by the couch. And then she walked out of the suite and into the hall. It was as far as she made it before her knees gave out.

She slid down the wall, clutching her purse to her breasts, tears rolling down her cheeks. Damn that stupid cowboy. And her stupid cab dilemma. The stupid phone mix-up. All those little things from that day that had turned into the biggest thing that had ever happened to her.

That had shaken everything in her, changed her irrevocably.

She was sitting in the hallway of a hotel she couldn’t afford, having failed at love, with a career that was crumbling. And it didn’t feel like the end of the world. It felt like the start of something big.

Something sad, with regard to losing Zack, but something big.

Her life was actually kind of a mess, for the first time in her memory. She stood up, took a deep, shaking breath. Her parents would not be proud of her behavior. Or where she was at in her job. But it wasn’t their life. It was her life. Her mess.

And she was going to embrace the heck out of it.

Chapter Nine

If he was hung over at the fund-raiser tomorrow, Marsha was going to kill him. He didn’t really care. Except it was for charity, so maybe he should not make a total idiot of himself.

He sat down on the cement floor in the studio, whiskey bottle in hand, and tipped it back. Yeah, he was supposed to be showing these pieces for the Broken Hearts Foundation. Auctioning them off for the benefit of families who couldn’t afford medical expenses. For Tally. For children like her.

And here he was, drunk off his ass, or...on his ass, staring down a piece of art he couldn’t figure out, feeling like he’d been broken inside all over again.

How was that even possible? He was sure he hadn’t had a heart left to break. Or at least that the pieces that remained were too small to smash any further.

That was why he’d told her to go. It was why he’d had to have her leave, before he was tempted to reach out and take what she had on offer. When he full knew he had nothing to give back.

And yet, in spite of his best efforts he hadn’t escaped unscathed. And he knew she hadn’t.

But he was in hell. And any noise about him not being able to feel? Well, it was a lie, apparently. He hadn’t realized.

He pictured Grace as she’d looked when she’d walked out of the hotel room two nights ago. Pale, tears on her cheeks. He hated himself for making her look like that. Because even while he stood there, telling her he could never feel on that level again, he’d broken her.

He was such a bastard. Such a damn bastard.

He leaned back against the wall, his head hitting hard against the drywall. He barely felt it. It was cushioned by his drunkenness and the pain in his heart.

He looked at the iron figure in front of him. The unchanging, unbending, dead, iron figure that was...him.

That realization made him want to throw something across the room. He didn’t want self-actualization. He poured his grief into his work, he didn’t learn from it. He hardly believed in any of that stuff, it was just that he’d found when he didn’t create, he thought he’d explode from the emotion in him.

He’d never considered it therapy, but he could see now that it was.

And he imagined he was supposed to learn something from this dead piece of work that seemed to mean nothing. To give nothing.

He put his head against his knees, and squeezed his eyes shut. And all he saw was Grace. He hadn’t wanted for so long, he’d forgotten what it felt like. But right now he ached with it. And he was trapped.

Between gut-wrenching, blinding fear and a need that made his bones ache. Funny how everything in his life came down to the heart.

To a heart that was broken at birth and stopped beating long before it should have. To a heart that had been numb before Grace had come back in this life, and that was stuttering to life now, burning with each beat.

He staggered to his feet and went over to his worktable and dug through old materials. He had an idea. And he had no idea if it would fix his artwork, or fix him. Or if it was all just the alcohol making something dumb seem like a good idea.

But he had to try. Because there was one thing he did know, and that was that he couldn’t keep living like this. Because he wasn’t really living at all. He was existing. And until Grace, he hadn’t realized there was a difference.

She’d brought something deep and rich back into his life. Texture, sound and color. All things that scared the hell out of him. Because he’d adjusted to black and white. To cold iron and dead lifeless metal. Daring to want more seemed like a risk that wasn’t worth taking.

He should stick to this life. It was safer. He wouldn’t get hurt.

But it was dead. And inside, so was he.

“So then what’s the point?” he asked the empty room. He didn’t get an answer.

He opened his kit that had a bunch of miscellaneous crap in it, and looked at the red tubes of glass sitting in their case. Color was something he never used. And he rarely used glass because it was just so damn fragile.

But maybe it was time he took the risk.

* * *

“I quit,” Grace said, her voice strong in the empty room. “And it’s not entirely your fault. Though...a lot of it is.” She stared down her boss and felt a surge of power. “I’m good at what I do, and you get caught up in this petty system where you punish one of your best consultants because you’re trying to exert your power. It’s my fault that I didn’t stand up for myself about the client, because frankly, he was sexually harassing me, and I did keep that to myself. I shouldn’t have. I don’t trust you would have behaved any better, Doug, but I could have at least given you the chance.”

Everything that had been bound up inside her, frozen, suspended in her need for perfection, her paralyzing fear of making mistakes, melted now. Released in a flood.

“Grace,” Doug said, spreading his arms out. “I’m shocked. I thought we were all friends here.”

“We are not friends, Doug,” she growled. “You’re condescending, sexist and a bit of a racist.”

“Oh, come on now, Grace...”

“You made me be the elf last Christmas, because I was cute, and small. And I believe at some point you suggested I be a ninja elf.”

“It would have been cool.”

“No. No, it wouldn’t have been cool. And it had nothing to do with Christmas. Also, asking the attractive female employees to sit on your lap is awful, and someone has to tell you that. But we’re all too afraid to tell you because you’re our boss. But you’re not my boss anymore. You’re just a tiny, little...mole man with an office. An office I no longer have to visit on a weekly basis. Goodbye.” Grace turned on her heel, her heart pounding, adrenaline pumping through her veins. She couldn’t believe she’d just done that.

Holy crap.

“Grace.”

She turned and looked at Doug, who was still sitting, looking shocked.

“Yes?” she asked.

“What can I do? I can give you some extra accounts. We can work it out. I won’t make you be the elf again.”

She shook her head. “We can’t work anything out because this just isn’t where I want to be. I don’t know quite what I want, but...it’s not this. And it’s not here. But...for heaven’s sake please try to be less of jackass. For the sake of everyone that’s left in the office.”

She walked out of the office and down the hall, past Carol’s desk. “‘Bye, Carol,” she said, “I just quit. And I told Doug to stop being a jackass.”

Carol’s eyes widened and she gave Grace a low-profile thumbs-up. Grace walked out the office door and got into the elevator, tugging her phone out of her bag and dialing her dad.

“Dad, I quit my job,” she said when he picked up.

“What?”

“I quit. I just...walked into my boss’s office and quit because I hated my job and I don’t have another job, but I do still have my savings...but I don’t have another job. And I know you’re disappointed because now I’ve thrown everything off and I...I called my boss names so I’m never going to get a reference from him. And I did because...I’m in love with this guy and Dad, he’s an artist. And a cowboy. Which is possibly the most random combination ever, and if there was a way for him to seem more unsuitable to you, I don’t know what it would be. I don’t even think he went to college.”

There was a pause on the other end of the phone, and the elevator doors opened to the lobby.

“I’m not sure what you’re saying.”

She walked out into the lobby and then out onto the street. “I was just very irresponsible and made a bunch of decisions based entirely on my feelings. I...think I’m having a midlife crisis.”

“You’re thirty, Grace,” her father said, his voice soft.

“I know. But I’m going through something.”

“You were unhappy at your job?”

“Yes.”

“And you think this will make you happy? You think...this man will make you happy?”

She looked up at the sky, at the buildings looming overheard, the sun burning her eyes. “I don’t know. But...it doesn’t really have anything to do with Zack because we...broke up. But he made me realize some things. Things I want that I didn’t know were so important to me. I’m just sad that...I think you’re going to be disappointed in me. And Hannah already...she’s hurt you and Mom so much and I just don’t want to hurt you, too. I want to be the daughter you want to have.”

There was a long pause. “I am so sorry that I never told you,” he said.

“What?” she asked.

“You are the best daughter I could ask for. You are the daughter I want to have, no matter what you do.”

“But...but I just...”

“You don’t need to live your life atoning for your sister, Grace. You shouldn’t live your life for anyone. Not even me.” He took a heavy breath. “I think I’ve been too rigid, Grace. Success has always been important to me, and to your mother, because we know what it’s like to live in a world where opportunity is lacking. But...hearing you speak now, I feel...I feel that success, doing what someone else might think is right, is not so important if you are miserable in it.”

“I don’t want you to have to worry. The way she made you worry.”

“Grace, I’ll always worry. I’m your father. Bu that’s my job. And yours is to live.”

A tear rolled down Grace’s cheek. “I love you, Dad.”

“I love you, too. No matter what you do. No matter where you work. But I’m not sure about an artist. They don’t make any money.”

She laughed. Her dad was handling all this much better than she could have anticipated, but even he had his limits, apparently. “Well, that’s the least of your problems, Dad. Because the artist doesn’t want me.”

“What an idiot he is.”

She swallowed hard. “Thanks, Dad. That means a lot.”