For Eric's Sake (5 page)

"I am sorry," she swallowed, "for trying to manipulate you."

"What?" Shaw looked up at the sound of her mumbling.

"I apologize," she cleared her throat and spoke louder, "for involving you, Shaw. I guess I saw myself as some sort of savior for Eric, and it was wrong of me to play with your life. I don't think I really considered your feelings. I simply manufactured your reactions to follow my way of thinking. You have every right to be disgusted with me, and to resent everything I've engineered." She clutched the counter top behind her. "I had no business trying to control your life. I do badly enough with my own."

She couldn't look at him. She was afraid to see his wrath. "I won't fight you. I don't know how. I know someone who can undo this marriage probably a lot faster than it took to put it together."

Still he didn't respond, and she looked at him, eyes shining, and whispered, "I'm sorry."

The anger was gone from his face, as was all other emotion. He seemed puzzled, his eyes searching as he admitted, "I have to say I'm impressed."

"Please don't be sarcastic." She put her hands to her face, letting her hair fall forward to hide her tears. "I meant what I said just now. It's not some kind of ploy to gain your sympathy. I don't know you well enough to know how to appeal to you."

"I wasn't being sarcastic." He pulled out a chair from the table and sat down. "I am impressed. Impressed that you had the courage or determination or whatever to get me to marry you. Maybe you don't realize what an impossible feat that was."

Brandy took a deep breath, willing the tears to stop dripping from her eyes.

"Come sit down," he invited, "and we'll talk sensibly. Maybe I can help."

Warily, she approached the table and sank into the chair he had pulled out for her. She sniffed loudly. She wiped her hands across her cheeks to smear the tears away.

"You know, you're beautiful," he said, mesmerized by her simplest action, "even when you're crying." Realizing from the blush on her face what he had said, he coughed, wiggled in his chair, and got down to business. "I checked it out."

"Checked what out?"

"This marriage, and it is real, like it or not."

"I told you that this morning," she whispered, idly tracing a swirl in the woodgrain tabletop.

"You have to realize you gave me a rude awakening this morning with the news that I had actually married somebody. It wouldn't have mattered who it was. The fact of marriage just isn't the easiest thing for me to swallow."

"Yes, I do realize that now, and it was wrong of me to involve you."

He reached out and touched a strand of her dark, curling hair. "You did it for the best of reasons. I see that now."

"But I had no right—"

"No, you didn't. But I can't blame you for it totally. I mean, I must have cooperated to some extent, even if I don't remember doing it."

"You did," she whispered. "No one said the words for you. It wasn't a marriage by proxy."

"Well, there then." He smiled and shook his head. "Then I asked for it." He raised his eyes questioning, "Why did I ask for it? Oh, never mind." He looked back at her. "The fact is we are married, for better or worse. Now we need to decide what to do about it."

"We'll get an annulment, of course. It's the easiest way out for you."

"But not for you."

Brandy looked at him, surprised at the sincerity in his eyes. She shook her head.

"What is it that you're actually asking of me?" Shaw prompted. "Come on," he coaxed when she continued to trace the woodgrain lines. "If I understand exactly what you need, maybe I can help in some way. You did want my help, didn't you?"

She nodded. "But you can't help unless you're my husband. I'm underage, you see, and the courts don't want to put Eric in my custody. I don't represent the stable home environment he needs. I work. I'm a model. I can't be home when he gets in from school. I can't be a mother to him they say, much less a father. They think since I'm single and supposed to be always concerned with dating, that I won't be home for Eric in the evenings, either. And financially, well, I'm not making that much now, and I guess that part frightens me most, because I can barely support myself. But one day soon, I just feel it, I'm going to be Atlanta's top model. Then, maybe I'll even go to New York."

His eyes looked fierce when she glanced at him, like a cat ready to pounce, she thought, and she noticed that his eyes were green.

"I'm beginning to get the picture," he said, "but why me? Wasn't there anyone else you could have married? A boyfriend? Someone you might have known from school?"

Brandy shook her head. "I haven't made many friends since I moved to Atlanta. I've been too busy trying to work, and the men I meet are either married or utter creeps. I always have to fight them off—"

"Fight them off? What do you mean?" he asked sharply.

"I'm exaggerating, I guess. It's only happened once or twice."

He frowned and his voice became gruff. "Explain."

"Well, I was modeling this practically sheer teddy one day and the photographer—"

"Ugh," he groaned. "Don't tell me any more. I can guess. Well, you asked for it, you know."

"I did not!" she wailed. "My agent sent me over there. He doesn't get many calls for short girls like me, so I have to take every job he sends me if I want to eat. And I was just trying to do my job. I wasn't trying to… to…"

He looked at her, shaking his head. "Spare me. Well, what about someone from back home? Where do you come from?"

"Bainbridge. It's a little town."

"I know what it is. Weren't there any available men there you could have married?"

"I wasn't very popular in school, and I didn't know many boys." It wouldn't serve any purpose to explain how sheltered her upbringing had been, how she'd had only one date during all of high school. His eyes said he found her words hard enough to believe.

"If I'd been in that school, you would have been my private property and I'd be fighting to keep the wolves away from you."

"It wasn't like that at all," she explained, "I was very shy. And I was too busy trying to finish school a year early so that I could move away. I hated living there. You see, I lived with Louis and May, so I know what it's like. And I don't want that for Eric."

Shaw slid his chair back and stretched his long legs in front of him. "I'm beginning to see."

"So what happens now?"

Shaw shrugged. "I need to think."

She nodded, rearranging the place setting she had meticulously set for their meal. "Are you hungry? We could be eating while you're thinking."

He shrugged again and she took that as a sign to ladle out the food. Anything to keep busy, to stop her mind for a few moments. Brandy picked up the two plates and carried them to the stove, unaware that Shaw was watching every move she made.

"I brewed some hot tea," she said over her shoulder. "That's traditional for Chinese food, but if you'd like something else, I'll get it for you."

"Wouldn't want to break tradition now, would we?" he grimaced. "What is all this stuff?" He stared at the conglomeration on his plate.

Brandy told him the names of the various dishes she had selected: subgum chicken, wontons and spareribs.

"Not bad." He crunched down on a water chestnut. "Not as exotic as it sounds."

Brandy half-smiled, and ate in silence. "More tea?" She filled his cup, wondering what her fate would be.

Shaw got up for a second helping before she could even offer, refilling his plate and asking if he could do the same for her.

"We'll have to have this more often," he said, chasing a snow pea onto his fork.

"We?" Brandy looked up.

Shaw shrugged. "You might not be so bad to have around—for awhile."

Brandy held her breath. Could he mean that?

Brandy sat across from Shaw Janus, watching as he ate his second helping of Chinese food. He looked so domestic, so very much the part she had gambled he could play. Had she glimpsed this side of him during those nights she watched him in the restaurant? Was this why she had been so determined to "trap" him? Had she married him for her own selfish reasons? No, that wasn't quite true. She had done it all for Eric's sake.

Shaw looked so different now: shirt unbuttoned, tie askew, shoes off under the table, a lock of recalcitrant hair at his forehead—all signs of his being comfortable at home. He could be comfortable, she reminded herself, since he was home.
She
was the one who was the stranger, even if she was married to him.

She wondered why she had pursued him so relentlessly the previous week. What had made her think she could make him care about a perfect stranger—
two
strangers for that matter? Why had she clung to the hope of salvation with him against all odds? He was right. If she had simply needed a husband, there were other men she could have asked outright to marry her and not have to play this charade.

She couldn't have married any of them. Barry was too boring. She would never be able to adjust to his interest in mechanics. She hated drag racing, and couldn't imagine spending the rest of her life, or at least the next few weeks, listening to him talk about "souped up" cars and "fast changes in the pits."

Eugene? He cared—about her body, and that was all. His heart, if he had one, was in the wrong place.

But hadn't she used
her
body,
her
looks, to trap Shaw? Hadn't she counted on her sex appeal to trap him into marrying her? Was there a difference?

Compassion had made the difference. It was in his eyes, in those tiny lines around the corners that spoke of laughter, loving, caring. She must have seen it to have pursued him so relentlessly.

Eugene's eyes had no other look but desire.

And there was Carl. He would have married her, but she couldn't even begin to ask him. It would be too much of a burden for him. He was just beginning to establish himself in the business world. The expense of a wife and instant child would have been a strain on him. Besides, he had never been able to accept her wanting Eric, and would eventually resent her for interfering with his career plans.

Yet, she had thrust herself into Shaw's life and interrupted whatever plans he might have for the future.

Compassion
, she thought, smiling briefly as he caught her staring at him. She returned her attention to the food on her plate, thinking,
it's in his eyes. It's what I need from him, and what I'm counting on
.

But all too late she was realizing she didn't have the right to manipulate his life. She had to let go and let fate work out her future and Eric's without involving Shaw. It would be worse for her to try to keep Eric if fate had something better in mind for them.

"Shaw," she whispered, "I really am sorry I forced myself on you, into your life. It was wrong, and you have every right to feel angry."

"I'll get used to it." He continued eating.

Brandy looked across at him, searching for the truth in his eyes, but he kept them averted.

"I—I guess I was just desperate. I felt so alone and helpless, and somehow you popped up on the scene and the more I thought of you, the more it made sense to reach out to you. But I went about it all the wrong way. I should have approached you directly."