Four of Hearts (23 page)

* * * * *

Candace held onto her anger by a thread. The tears she’d willed not to fall spilled down her cheeks as if no dam existed to keep them in check the moment she crossed the threshold of their hotel suite. Behind her, Ryan closed the door. His long sigh did nothing to soften her anger at him. She hurt too bad to care whether he followed her to the bedroom or not.

She slammed the door and flung herself face first onto the bed. This wasn’t supposed to happen. How could two reasonably intelligent men be so stupid? They were hell bent on ignoring something Candace knew in her heart she could never ignore. Her whole body ached as if something vital had been amputated without benefit of anesthesia. She cried. She cursed the men she loved. In one heartbeat she wished Ryan to hell, in another she cursed him for not holding her when she needed him the most. Exhaustion finally overtook her, and she slept.

Voices in the outer room woke her. She felt like a wrung out dishrag, stiff and sorely used. A door opened and closed, and all was quiet again. Had Ryan left? Her stomach cramped at the thought of being alone. Even though she hated what he and Richard were doing, she loved them, and she needed them. So where was her husband? Why wasn’t he here, holding her and telling her everything was going to be all right. Nothing was going to be all right again, but she longed to hear it anyway. Maybe if Ryan held her enough, said it enough times, she would begin to believe it.

The doorknob turned and Candace feigned sleep. The mattress dipped as Ryan sat on the edge, his hip nudging her back. She’d slept in a tight ball, and every muscle in her body screamed for release, but she refused to let him know she was awake. His voice shattered her resolve.

“Candy, I know you’re awake.” He placed a warm hand on her shoulder and gently squeezed. “I’m sorry. Please don’t do this, I can’t stand it.”

She couldn’t look at him. She craved his touch, but wanted to shake him off at the same time.

“It’s the right thing to do. I know it hurts. I’m hurting too, but please, can’t we talk about it?”

“No. There’s nothing to talk about,” she sniffed as new tears came from God only knew where.

“I need you, Candy. If I don’t still have you, I don’t think I can stand it. So please, talk to me. I ordered food. It’s late, you need to eat.”

“Go away,” she cried into her tear soaked pillow.

His hand stroked up and down her arm in a soft caress. It was tempting to turn into his arms, but she was so mad at him she couldn’t let herself give in. His warmth seeped into her skin where his hip and hand touched her. God, she wanted to take the comfort he offered, but she couldn’t. Not yet. She had to try to mend the hole in her heart before the pain would let her see any reason in their situation. For long moments he sat beside her while she cried, then with one last squeeze of his hand, he left her alone again with her grief.

Candace woke again to total darkness. Someone had closed the drapes while she slept. She had no idea of the time. It could be the middle of the night, or morning. She took stock of her situation. She still wore the shore clothes she’d left the ship in, but she wiggled her toes, her shoes were gone. Her nose was cold, but the rest of her was warm beneath a blanket. A glance at the other side of the bed told her she’d slept alone. Another pang of hurt speared her heart as she remembered turning Ryan away when he’d offered comfort. She hadn’t been ready to talk then, wasn’t sure she was ready now, but they couldn’t go on like this. They had to come to terms with their future, whatever it was going to be.

She slipped her feet to the floor and made her way to the bathroom. A hot shower went a long way to reviving her. Hunger gnawed at her stomach. How long had it been since they’d all ate breakfast together, discussing plans to live together? Less than twenty-four hours, but it might as well of been a lifetime ago it felt so distance, so unreal. Candace belted the hotel issue robe around her waist, took a deep breath and opened the door. Time to face the future.

“Are you okay?” Ryan asked from his seat on the edge of the bed facing the bathroom door.

“No,” she answered truthfully. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be okay again.”

Ryan nodded. “It’s early. When I heard you get up, I ordered breakfast. It should be here soon. I had the boutique downstairs send up some clothes for you last night. They’re in the closet. I hope you like them.” She’d never seen Ryan look so vulnerable, so unsure of himself. Maybe he was hurting as bad a she was. She wanted to go to him, but the ugly anger reared its head and she couldn’t do it. “I’ll leave you alone to dress.”

The defeated slump of his shoulders as he left, pulling the door closed behind him was like a fist around her heart. Somehow, they had to make it through this. She’d all ready lost too much. She couldn’t lose Ryan too. Determined now, she crossed to the closet.

* * * * *

“Don’t tell me it’s going to be all right. We both know it’s not,” Candace said. She helped herself from the room service tray. The food was much the same as the last meal she’d eaten, but held all the appeal of cardboard. Her stomach reminded her she needed to eat, so she did. Food was fuel now. Fuel she needed for the fight that was ahead of her. And she would fight for what she knew was right. The four of them belonged together, no matter what society said.

“Okay. Fair enough. I’m not any happier about this than you are. I love you. Nothing will ever change that. I know how much you love me, and I don’t think anything will ever change that either. You’re mad at me right now, and I suspect you don’t like me very much at this moment, but you still love me.”

No use denying it. “I still love you, and yes, I’m mad at you. I might even hate you a little bit.” The second that last statement left her lips, she wanted to take it back. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean that. I’m mad, but I don’t hate you.”

“I know. No offense taken. Look, Candy, I don’t give a damn what the tabloids say about me, but when they drag you through the mud. . . .”

“I can take care of myself, Ryan. Don’t you think I have a say in this? What about Fallon? I know how much you love her, too. Are you willing to hurt both the women you love, in order to prove you can protect us?”

“I don’t want to hurt you or Fallon. Neither does Richard, but the rest of the world doesn’t understand the kind of relationship we have. They won’t care what Richard and I do. They’ll probably hoot and holler and make us out to be gods for loving two women at the same time, but that’s not the way they’ll treat you and Fallon. The double standard is alive and well across the globe, no matter what the women’s movement says. They’ll attach all kinds of names to you, and none of them will be flattering. I won’t stand by and let that happen, not if I can help it.”

“Don’t you think I have a say in this? I don’t care what they say about me. I do care about how we live our lives. I want to be with you, but the feelings I have for Fallon and Richard are real too. Why should I let people we don’t know dictate who we love?”

“What about the people we do know? What about your parents? What about your sister and her husband?”

“I’ll explain it to them. They’ll understand because they love me.”

“Candy, I know I’ve said this before, but I want you to really think about it. We haven’t exactly thought this whole thing through. Ever since Gabe showed me that tabloid, I’ve been thinking about the implications down the road. Besides our families now, we have to think about the future. What about children? We talked about the possibility of having kids someday. The questions along that line are too numerous to count.”

“I have thought about it. I want kids. At least two, maybe more. People used to raise their kids in extended families. Multiple generations lived together. Raising the children was the responsibility of all the adults, not just the biological parents. I don’t see how having Richard and Fallon be parents to our children would be any different.”

“That’s all fine and good for our children, but, and let me throw this out as a possibility—what if I have a child with Fallon, or you have a child with Richard? Planned or unplanned—how do we handle that?”

Candace’s heartbeat sped up like a racehorse let out of the gate. She hadn’t thought about either of those scenarios, but the idea of having Richard’s child sent a bolt of desire to her womb. Yes, she would like that. To have children fathered by both the men she loved, these two remarkable men? But how would she feel about Fallon having Ryan’s child? She sipped her coffee and rolled the idea around in her head and her heart. “I don’t know. I’m not sure how I’d feel about you and Fallon having a child together. At first I assumed my children would be your children, but you’re right, accidents happen, and who knows? Maybe we might make a conscious decision to have children with our other. . . .”

“Other what? That’s another problem. What exactly would we be to each other? I can’t have two wives, not legally. And you can’t have two husbands.”

“Not legally, but there are polygamous marriages, legal or not. What we call each other is up to us. I don’t think it’s anyone else’s business but ours.”

“Let’s go back to the kids. What would we tell them? Hey, kid, you have two mothers and two fathers. Guess which ones share your DNA.”

“Don’t be crude, Ryan. You’re making light of the situation, and there isn’t anything funny about it.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t help it. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry about all this.”

“I don’t see why we couldn’t tell the kids the truth. For all intents and purposes, they’d have a set of biological parents and a set of adoptive parents, only we’d all live together.”

“You make this sound so rational, so easy. But you and I know it’s not that simple. Maybe if we isolated ourselves from the world, but. . . .”

“Ryan, stop right there. We all ready are isolated from the world. Look at us. Look at the way we live. We’re either on an island, virtually all by ourselves, or we’re on the
Lothario
. We come to Miami for a week or so, and then we go back into hiding. We even bring our families to the island. When was the last time you went to your parent’s house?”

“I don’t know. No, I went before we got married, to tell them about the wedding.”

“And how did that go?”

“Fine. Uneventful. I only stayed a couple of days.”

“See. The media only cares when we’re doing something they can exploit. The rest of the time, they don’t know we exist.”

“Well, they’re going to exploit the hell out of this if we let them.”

“Give them a few weeks. They’ll move on to something else and forget all about us.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“I don’t care what the tabloids say.” Fallon glared at Richard across the breakfast table. “We’ve hashed and rehashed every aspect of our relationship, and all this boils down to is you and Ryan acting like cavemen. As far as I’m concerned, this can only help my reputation. My book sales are going to explode because of this.”

“I won’t have my wife called the kind of names the tabloids are using. Not to mention all the other valid arguments against us living as a foursome. I talked to Ryan last night. He brought up some good points. Have you thought about kids?”

Oh God. Yes. She’d thought about kids. For years, she’d been so focused on her education, and then on the book she’d written on oral sex techniques that she’d shoved everything else to the back burner. Then Richard had come along and now she found herself wanting all sorts of things she hadn’t let herself want before. Children were one of those things. She wanted kids. Richard’s kids. “Yes. What about them?”

Fallon listened to the laundry list of reasons having kids amid a four way relationship wouldn’t work, mentally preparing her rebuttal as he spoke. When Richard wound down, she methodically countered with her own list. She wrapped up her thoughts, “None of that is a problem for me. I’ll admit, I hadn’t thought of the possibility of getting pregnant with Ryan’s child, or you impregnating Candy. But, no matter who the child’s biological parents are, I would love it, because I love all of you. Now that I think about it, I don’t see any reason you couldn’t have a child with Candy if the two of you wanted one.” She studied Richard’s features as if she were going to commit them to paper. “That’s sure to be one hell of a cute kid, don’t you think?”

“Dear God. Fallon. You can’t be serious.”

“I think I am. Don’t get me wrong. I want to have kids with you, and our offspring will be the cutest kid or kids on the planet, but I’d love to see what you and Candy could produce. Count me in.”

“What about you and Ryan? Letting him fuck you is one thing, but knowing he was trying to get you pregnant, that might be too much.”

“Why?”

“It just would be. I’m a guy. When it comes to sharing my woman, I don’t know if I can be that generous.”