Tempt Me at Midnight (21 page)

Something flickered in her eyes. Something that sent a dagger of fear through his heart. She dropped her gaze to her lap, where her hands were tightly clasped. “I was waiting for you to get back.”

“Okay.” His voice was remarkably even, considering the awful pressure that had clamped over his chest. “So what’s your game plan? You buying another house or…?” He deliberately let the question hang, waiting tautly.

An interminable silence followed.

Finally she lifted guilty eyes to his. “I’m leaving, Quentin.”

He felt the bottom drop out of him. Stunned, he stared at her. “Leaving what?

Leaving this neighborhood? Leaving DeKalb County? Leaving your job? Leaving
what?
”

“Leaving Atlanta,” she whispered.

“The hell you are.” His voice was low, feral.

Tears shimmered in those beautiful eyes. “Quentin—”

“What the hell happened?”

She averted her gaze, delicate nostrils flaring as she choked back emotion. “It’s not important.”

His eyes widened incredulously. “
Not important?
You’re talking about leaving Atlanta—
leaving me
—and it’s not important?”

“Please don’t make this any harder—”

Quick as a shot he was off the sofa and kneeling in front of her, trapping her with his hands on either side of the chair. “What happened?” he growled. “Tell me!”

That broke her. The tears she’d been holding carefully in check spilled over, and she covered her face with trembling hands. Her anguish cut through Quentin like jagged shards of glass. He pried her resistant hands away and pulled her hard against him, wrapping her tightly in his arms. She buried her face in his chest and wept, releasing a torrent of raw emotions.

He groaned raggedly. “Sweetness, you’re killing me. You know what your crying’s always done to me.”

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed against him. “I didn’t want to tell you.”

He lifted her from the chair, then sat down and cradled her protectively against his chest. Brushing his lips across her forehead, he whispered soothingly to her, patiently waiting for the storm to subside, trying not to fear the worst.

When she grew silent, he tipped her chin up to peer into her dark, haunted eyes.

“Tell me what’s wrong, sweetheart.”

She inhaled a deep, shuddering breath and blurted hoarsely, “My father came to see me.”

Quentin went rigid with shock. “
What!
When?”

And out came the harrowing story of the night she’d nearly died.

Quentin listened with a combination of shock, horror, sympathy and outrage. By the time she’d finished the devastating account, he was so visibly shaken that she laid a gentle hand over his galloping heart, as if to absorb his raging emotions back into her own body.

Quentin would never lay a hand on a woman, let alone someone’s mother. But the savage fury he felt toward Carlene Austin made him glad that she was nowhere near him, lest he be tested. And as for that son of a bitch Ray Austin, all bets were off.

“I’m so sorry, Lex,” Quentin uttered fiercely as he palmed her face, brushing his lips over her damp cheeks and eyelids, kissing away her tears. “I’m so damn sorry you had to go through that.
All
of it.”

“Me too,” she murmured. “But at least now I know why I’m so afraid of heights.

Even though I was only two, I had repressed memories of the trauma.”

“God.”
Quentin shuddered at the thought of existing in a world without her in it.

Unthinkable.

They sat there for a long time, just holding each other and whispering tender reassurances.

But hard, cold reality eventually intruded when Lexi’s cell phone rang. Giving Quentin an apologetic look, she dug it out of her pocket and answered. After a brief conversation, she ended the call and drew a deep breath, as if to marshal her courage.

“That was my Realtor. She wants to show the house in an hour.”

Dread lodged in Quentin’s gut. His arms instinctively tightened around her. “You don’t have to leave—”

“Let me go, Quentin.”

Their eyes met, and he knew she wasn’t just asking to be released from his arms.

He shook his head slowly. “I can’t do that. I can’t let you go. I told you that before.”

“And
I
told you that this was something I needed to do!” she burst out desperately.

“Lex—”

“This place has become my own toxic wasteland, and no matter how hard I try to outrun the memories, they keep catching up to me. They’re
poisoning
me, Quentin. So I need to go away for a while, and you need to let me.”

His chest squeezed painfully. “How long?”

Her expression grew veiled. “I don’t know. However long it takes.”

She couldn’t have hurt him more if she’d driven a stake through his heart. His arms fell away from her, and she quickly climbed off his lap.

Too agitated to remain seated, he lunged to his feet. Lexi backed away from him, twisting the knife even deeper into his heart.

“Where are you planning to go?” he demanded. “Are you joining your brother and sister in New York? I’d rather not do a long-distance relationship, but if that’s what it takes—”

“I’m not going to New York,” Lexi said quietly.

“Then where…?” As comprehension dawned, the blood drained from his head and he stared at her. “
France?
You’re going all the way to
France?
”

She swallowed tightly, then nodded. “I’ve applied for a faculty position at Le Cordon Bleu school in Paris. Their chef instructors are predominantly French, but given my teaching credentials and the early success of my cookbook, my prospects look…promising.”

“In other words,” Quentin snarled, “it’s pretty much a done deal.”

She just looked at him, her eyes silently pleading with him to understand.

But he couldn’t. Maybe it was selfish of him, but he just
couldn’t
accept her decision to walk out of his life.

“You don’t have to do this,” he told her.

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t!” he exploded, his voice hoarse with desperation. “Stay here with me, Lexi. Let me help you work through this. You don’t have to have any contact with your screwed-up parents. If your father comes anywhere near you, I’ll kill him. And if you don’t want to deal with your mother, we’ll take out a restraining order against her. Hell, I’ll draft it myself!”

Her expression softened. “You can’t fix this for me, Quentin. Not this time.”

Raw emotion clawed at his throat. “What about us? Doesn’t our relationship matter to you?”

“Of course it does!” Her voice dropped from a shout to a pleading whisper. “You
know
how much you mean to me, Quentin.”

“Then don’t leave me!” he half commanded, half begged.

Tears glazed her dark eyes. “I need to do this. I
have
to do this. If you really love me—”

“If?”
he thundered incredulously. “
If?
I’ve spent the past month—hell, the past
twenty years
—proving to you just how much I love you! Don’t you
ever
use the words
if
and
love
in the same breath when it comes to my feelings for you!”

She lifted a trembling hand to her mouth, rapidly blinking back tears.

As Quentin glared at her, he was struck by an unsettling new thought. “This isn’t just about your parents, is it?”

Lexi averted her gaze, saying nothing. But her silence spoke volumes.

Quentin took a small step toward her. “Are you having second thoughts about us?”

“No! Of course not.” But she wouldn’t look at him.

His tension mounted. “What’s going on, Lex? When I left town a week ago, everything was great between us. What’s changed?”

“Nothing. I just…” She trailed off with a helpless shake of her head.

“You just what?” Quentin prodded.

She exhaled a deep, shaky breath that ruffled her long bangs. “I don’t know if I’m…secure enough to be with someone like you.”

“Someone like me,” Quentin repeated with forced calm.

She nodded, chewing her lower lip. “A man who can have any woman he wants. A man who’s
used
to having any woman he wants.”

Quentin frowned. “Lex—”

“I don’t want to get hurt again, Quentin,” she whispered. “I don’t think I could survive it.”

His chest tightened. “I’m not going to hurt you, Lex,” he said with quiet urgency. “I
love
you. What more can I say or do to convince you of that?”

“I don’t know!” Her eyes were filled with anguished confusion. “And that’s part of the problem. You shouldn’t
have
to keep trying to convince me. I shouldn’t be wrestling with all these doubts about our relationship.”

“But you are,” Quentin stated flatly.

She swallowed hard, nostrils flaring as she fought back tears. “I just need time to get away and think…sort things out.”

“What’s there to sort out, Lex? Either you love me and want to be with me—or you don’t.”

She shot him a stricken look. “It’s not that simple!”

“Bullshit! It
is
that simple when two people genuinely love each other!” He took another step toward her. “So tell me, Alexis.
Do
you really love me?”

“Of course I do!” she cried out. “How can you even question that?”

“The same way you can question my commitment to this relationship!” Quentin fired back. “After everything we’ve been through, after everything we’ve overcome this past month alone, I can’t believe you still have doubts about whether I can be faithful to you!”

Guilt flared in her eyes before she glanced away, lips tightly compressed.

Quentin glowered at her, chest heaving up and down as he fought for composure.

He was
so
damn tempted to haul her into his arms, kiss her senseless, bear her down to the floor and make love to her until she surrendered to his demands. But he didn’t want to seduce her into staying with him. He wanted her to stay because she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she could trust him wholeheartedly. He wanted her to stay because she knew she couldn’t live without him.

Just as he knew he couldn’t live without her.

“You’re running again,” he said softly.

“I’m not running!” But her voice broke in contradiction.

The small velvet box in his pocket was burning a hole through his clothes. But he didn’t pull it out. If she rejected his marriage proposal, it would kill him.

“Moment of truth,” he murmured, something they used to tell each other to prompt the other into making a difficult decision.

Lexi swallowed visibly. “Quentin—”

“Moment of truth!”

They stared each other down, the space between them charged with so much tension it was suffocating.

Finally she whispered, “I’m leaving. I have to.”

Quentin held her gaze a moment longer, then pivoted and strode from the living room.

She hurried after him. “Please understand, Quentin.
Please—
”

He paused at the front door, hand on the doorknob. “You know how you always used to tell me that one of these days I’d push you too far, and you wouldn’t forgive me?”

He turned and pointed a finger at her. “If you do this to us—
if you leave me
—I’ll never forgive you.”

And with those devastating words vibrating in the air between them, he slammed out of the house, knowing he’d seen it—and possibly her—for the last time.

P
aris. The city for lovers.

Probably not the best place to take refuge if one was nursing a broken heart. But Lexi had always been a glutton for punishment. So over the next four months, she immersed herself in the hustle and bustle of Paris, hoping the City of Light would help chase away the darkness ravaging her soul.

As she’d hoped, she’d been offered a chef instructor position at the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu school. While she waited for her summer classes to begin, she worked on her next cookbook, inspired by her surroundings. She moved into a studio apartment in the trendy, historic district of Le Marais. Many nights she sat on her balcony with a glass of champagne and quietly toasted the stars. She went for long strolls, meandering down streets lined with outdoor markets, boutiques, cafés and elegant restaurants. She went to the theater and the opera, and spent entire afternoons wandering around museums and art galleries.

But nothing was the same without Quentin.

Every time she saw an elderly French couple companionably walking arm-in-arm, she wanted to weep. Although she was only three hours away, she never visited Burgundy.

It was hard enough trying to keep the memories at bay without actually being there.

She missed Quentin so much she ached. She would have given
anything
to hear his husky laughter, or to hear the excitement and passion in his voice as he told her about a new case. She missed his lazy smile, missed the way his eyes glinted wickedly when he looked at her. Every night she lay awake in bed for hours, craving the heat and strength of his body wrapped around her, buried deep inside her. And she couldn’t help wondering, over and over again, whether she’d made the biggest mistake of her life by leaving him.

When she first arrived in Paris she’d tried to contact him, sending text messages and emails, playing their favorite songs on his voice mail.

He never responded.

After a while she’d given up, dismally realizing that she’d not only lost the perfect lover and companion. She’d lost her best friend.

One day she ventured to Asha’s upscale boutique on the Champs-Elysees. Since becoming a grandmother, Asha had created a line of maternity and infant wear that had become very popular with many celebrity moms. Lexi wanted to buy some outfits for her goddaughter. Every time Reese emailed new photos of Savannah, Lexi was shocked to see how fast she was growing. And she felt guilty for missing out on so much.

She was standing in the boutique, fighting back tears as she gazed upon a beautiful maternity blouse, when an amused voice drawled, “Don’t get tears on my merchandise,
chère,
or I’ll have to charge you for it.”

Startled, Lexi glanced around and was surprised to discover Asha standing there.