For the Love of Family (18 page)

But maybe learning about her grandfather’s terrible mistakes had taught Belle something. It had taught her that you could be a decent person and still get tangled up in very bad things.

“We’re trying to make it right with every employee he turned down unfairly.”

“Yes, I know. David told me. That’s generous of you.”

“No, it isn’t. It’s too little too late.”

For the first time, she heard how exhausted he was. And she realized that their little interlude was hardly the
biggest problem on his plate. Todd Kirkland’s betrayal would have been a crisis anytime. Right in the middle of the expansion, it was brutal.

“I should have been more aggressive about checking into the rumors,” Matt said, looking off into the distance with tired eyes. “For some of these employees, the crisis we could have helped avert has already done its damage.”

She was silent, sure that he wouldn’t want empty words of reassurance. She could imagine how guilty he must feel. If she knew one thing about the Malone family, it was that they loved their business and valued its employees.

Suddenly he looked back at her. “Who is David?”

“He’s a lawyer—”

“I know what he does for a living. I mean, what is he to you?”

“He was my boyfriend for two years.” She fiddled with the Cinnamon Diamonds box. “A few months before I came to work for Diamante, he gave me an ultimatum. Marry him or let him go. I let him go. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.”

“Why? Do you love him?”

“No. But he loves me. Or he did. And I hated to hurt him.”

“I see.”

She waited another minute, but it was fairly clear he didn’t intend to ask her any questions, or share his reaction to her explanation. It was time to put the last card on the table and then go home.

“You see…the other night, when we made love…that was when I gave you my body.” She shivered in the
rapidly chilling air. Telling the truth was so much harder than playing it safe. “But I gave you my heart eight years ago, and you’ve had it ever since. I know you didn’t ask for it, and you probably don’t even want it. Still, the truth is…I love you, Matt. I have for a very long time. And I wanted you to know.”

With trembling fingers, she picked up the pizza and the pastries, and smoothed her skirt. She tried to make herself stand.

The seagulls cried around them, probably smelling the uneaten food. The waves broke against the rocks.

She looked at him, willing him to say something before she left. Anything.

To her surprise, he smiled. “You still haven’t eaten your Cinnamon Diamonds.”

She shook her head, not sure why he cared. Was he just trying to postpone the moment when he had to break her heart?

“No,” she said politely. “I’ll…I’ll save them for later.”

“I think you should eat them now.”

She felt stupid, her brain heavy with sorrow. Why was he pushing this silly issue? She couldn’t imagine eating anything right now.

He took the box out of her hands and opened it. The scent of cinnamon mingled with the sea salt in the air.

“This order was made especially for you, Belle. If you hadn’t come here today, I would have delivered it to your apartment tonight.”

She glanced into the box, which held the standard Cinnamon Diamond, a small ribbon of sweetness spiraling into a sugary rosette. Beautiful, but meaningless.
It would not even begin to feed the hunger that had hollowed her out since the night he’d left her.

“Belle,” he said quietly. “Look inside.”

Numbly she picked the pastry up. Unwound it slowly.

Even if it did hold one of the silver plastic rings, why would that matter? The rings had been her idea, and she knew better than anyone how cheap they were, and how plentiful.

And then she saw it.

Not a ring at all.

An earring.

Gaudy, heavy, encrusted with crystal and rhinestone.

Her ear tingled suddenly with the tactile memory of that Halloween night. The way it dragged on her lobe. The way it dangled cold against her neck.

The way it had warmed when he kissed her, pressing it into the pulse at the side of her throat.

She recognized it without a sliver of a doubt. She’d looked at that same filigreed sparkle, encased behind glass above her dresser, for eight years now.

But hers was still at home, buried in shame beneath her thermal leggings and other seldom-needed skiwear. There was no way he could have…

Finally, the truth dawned.

This wasn’t hers. This was the match. The other half. The half that had slipped from her ear. The half that she believed had been swallowed up by the crowded hotel ballroom, or the black acres of parking lot, never to be seen again.

“You kept it all these years.” She raised her eyes to his. “Why?”

“Because it was all I had left of you.”

Her heart began to beat high in her throat. She held the earring tightly in her hand, not caring that the frosting was melting between her fingers, like sugary tears.

“It was all I had,” he went on. “And somewhere in the fog of my dumb male brain, I knew you were the best thing that had ever happened to me.”

Even the seagulls seemed to have paused overhead, holding their breath.

He hadn’t forgotten that night, either. He had known, as she did, that it was something very special.

“And now?” She almost whispered the words. “Do you still feel that way now?”

“More than ever,” he said, his voice deep and strangely husky.

She shook her head. “But how—”

“I tried to find you, but no one knew who you were. So, for the past eight years, I’ve been in love with an idea. A ghost lover. The one that got away.”

When he said that, her own palms tingled. She knew so well what he meant. The dream of love lost. The fading echo of the sweetest laughter, always just around the next corner.

“Now I’m in love with the real woman.” He reached out and touched her cheek with the back of his hand. “I’m in love with the laughter and the tears. The stubborn pride, the refusal to be cowed. The creativity, the complexity, the charm.”

His gaze fell to her lips. “The passion.”

“But—” Her mouth tingled as if he’d touched it. “After what you believe I did—”

“You didn’t do anything. The things I said to you that night were unforgivable. I wasn’t thinking clearly. When we made love, it was so…”

He shook his head. “I’ve never felt like that. I felt too vulnerable. I had lost control for the first time in my life.”

Though the breeze still blew against her face, she felt her cheeks heating, as she remembered the abandon of that moment. He’d seemed so masterful, and then, when it all exploded, she’d been too lost in her own tumbling surrender to realize that he, too, was falling through space, and helpless.

“When I saw the earring, I couldn’t quite make sense of it. I thought my memory must be playing tricks on me. I still don’t understand how I could have been so stupid. For weeks now, I’ve been sensing that you had something in common with…with her. But I never made the connection. Until I saw the earring. It hit me then, an avalanche of emotions I was still too drained to process.”

It took her breath away, realizing what a fragile thread led a person along the winding path to his destiny.

They might never have made it into the bedroom that night.

And, if she’d realized he still had the match to her earring, she would never have had the nerve to let him enter her apartment at all. Because she didn’t know, she’d felt safe. No man, after all these years, would recognize the exact shape and size of a piece of worthless costume jewelry.

And so she’d opened her door, and her heart…and somehow made it possible for this incredible happy ending to find her.

“And then I heard another man at your door, talking about your investigation of Diamante. I…it went through me like a knife. It didn’t make any logical sense, but in that moment I believed you had made a fool of me, and then betrayed me.”

“Oh, Matt,” she breathed. “How could I have—”

He took her face between his hands. “As I said, it was unforgivable. I didn’t mean it. Maybe I was subconsciously looking for a way out of a relationship that was too intense to feel safe. But through it all, I loved you. If it’s true that you love me…if you can find it in your heart to forgive the unforgivable…”

“I love you,” she said. “And I think I could forgive you anything. But this isn’t your sin. If I hadn’t kept so many secrets…”

He dropped the box, with its loose spirals of forgotten pastry, letting it tumble sideways onto the bench. Then he took her by the shoulders and slowly pulled her in.

With a low murmur, he wrapped his arms around her, tightly, shutting out the evening chill.

“Have all the secrets you want,” he said, his lips warm against her ear. “It will be my pleasure to try to coax them out of you.”

It was only then, when she heard the playful sensuality in his voice, that she allowed herself to believe it. She laughed softly, and the misery she’d felt since the night he left shook loose and blew away on the darkening breeze.

She felt light enough to float away, too, so she clung to him, anchoring herself in the moment.

She leaned her head against his shoulder, relief and bliss coursing through her. He smelled like cinnamon
and sunscreen. He felt like desire and laughter, like hope and home.

She made a small sound, her heart so full she couldn’t seem to hold it all in.

He loosened his grip. “Too tight?”

She shook her head. Unable to give the feelings words, she just moved closer. He made her complete. He made her strong.

He made her unafraid to be herself.

“Never,” she said. “If it’s your arms around me, there’s no such thing as too tight.”

“Excellent. Because I have a feeling I’m going to keep you pretty close from now on.”

“Oh, really?” She smiled, her cheek shifting against his shirt. “To make sure I don’t go investigating things on the sly?”

“No.” He kissed the top of her head, and heat speared through her. She wondered whose house was closer, his or hers….

“To make sure I don’t dress up in sexy costumes and go trolling for strange men in hotel ballrooms?”

“You’d darn well better not,” he said with playful heat.

“Well, let’s see, then. Perhaps to make sure I don’t disappear again, on the stroke of midnight?”

“You may think that’s funny,” he said. “But I’ve lost you twice now, Belle. It was…I can’t ever go through that again.”

“You won’t have to.”

“Damn right I won’t. You see, I know a simple trick. Every night when the clock strikes twelve, I’ll make sure I’ve got you in my arms.”

He tightened the hand he had wrapped around her waist. “Like this.”

With his other hand, he opened her fist, which she’d closed protectively around the earring. He lifted one frosted finger, put it to his mouth and sucked softly.

“I understand it works best,” he explained helpfully, “if we’re both completely naked.” He thought for a second. “Well. I guess you could wear the earrings.”

She laughed, or tried to. But something was burning, deep inside, and it had stolen all her air.

“Tighter,” he said softly. In a single motion, he tilted her hips into him, and licked her finger one more fiery time.

She caught her breath. “Like this?”

“Exactly like that. Every night of our lives. And I promise you, sweetheart. The magic will never end.”

ISBN: 978-1-4268-4148-4

FOR THE LOVE OF FAMILY

Copyright © 2009 by Kathleen O’Brien.

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