Ten

I’D BEEN CRYING IN my bed for about five minutes, and I had no plans to stop anytime soon.

Then part of my mind became aware of a noise in my apartment. I couldn’t think clearly enough to place it before I saw the silhouette of a man in my bedroom doorway, standing against the light of the hall.

I squealed and sat up, my fight-or-flight instinct kicking in before I realized the man was Sean.

He must not have locked the door on his way out, so he’d been able to walk back in.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice sounding very rough, very strange. He strode across the room and took both my hands in his. “I’m sorry. I just came back in. I wasn’t thinking I’d scare you.”

“You did!” I gasped. “What are you doing? I thought you’d left.”

“I had,” he said, still sounding so strange. His face was twisted with what looked like emotion. I’d never seen him like that before. He was always, always so controlled, so self-contained. He knelt down on the floor in front of me, still holding my hands in his. “But it was wrong. It was all wrong.”

“It wasn’t—”

“I know it wasn’t wrong for you,” he interrupted. “It was wrong for me. I shouldn’t have left. It was wrong. I know you want more, and I know you think you’ll never get more from me—but I really...” His voice seemed to run out, and he swallowed, cleared his throat, and tried again. His face was damp with perspiration, and his eyes were nakedly emotional. “I really think I can give you what you want and need. I think I can if you’ll give me one more chance.”

I was frozen, breathless, staring at him blurrily. My mind simply couldn’t keep up with what I was hearing.

This wasn’t really happening.

It couldn’t be.

It had to be part of a desperate, needy dream I’d concocted through my heartbreak.

He didn’t seem to mind that I hadn’t said anything. His words kept spilling out in a clumsy overflow so uncharacteristic of his usual articulateness. “You were right about everything you ever said about me. I thought up this Wednesday evening plan on purpose to protect myself. I liked what I saw in you from the very beginning. I liked it so much it scared me. I had to protect myself so I wouldn’t fall again, so I wouldn’t be hurt like I’d been hurt before. You were right, and I was selfish. Selfish and—”

“I never said you were selfish!” I don’t know why this was the detail that finally pushed me into speech, but it was.

“I know, but you meant it. I know you did. And I was. I was selfish and scared and tried to arrange this whole thing to suit my needs, without ever thinking... See, you were in love with the jackass, and I thought it would be safe. You have no idea how much I hated him. Oh how I hated that man. It hurt so much when you started to date him, and then you stopped seeing me, and I knew I hadn’t protected myself the way I’d tried, but I thought it was too late.”

He stopped, taking a few ragged breaths and staring down at my hands in his.

Mine were trembling. There was no way I could make them stop. My throat hurt, and my eyes burned, and it felt like the whole world was starting to crumble at the edges, like it would cause a landslide I’d be buried beneath forever.

Sean raised his eyes to mine again, and I still couldn’t believe what I was seeing in them, something out of my most over-the-top daydreams. “Then you dumped him and wanted to start again, and I was... I was terrified. My grandmother is right about me, you know. She said that I only feel comfortable if I have a mission, a structure and a purpose to channel all my feelings into. That’s why I had to hold on to our contract and our Wednesday nights. It was the only thing making me feel safe. But again, I was just thinking about myself. Not you. Of course you need more. I should have offered you more from the very beginning. That very first night, when I followed you into that bar, I should have asked you out on a real date. Because I... I liked what I saw in you so much.”

I was gaping at him now. Literally gaping. I would have been embarrassed by my reaction had my heart not been exploding with something else. I tried to say something but couldn’t.

Sean didn’t appear to expect me to talk. He was still rambling on like he couldn’t stop. “I didn’t mean to fall in love with you. I was... I thought I could do it. I thought I could keep you at a distance where it was safe. But I couldn’t, and I did fall in love, and then I didn’t know what to do. So I guess I was trying to change things between us without actually doing it—taking you to the wedding, meeting my grandmother...” He shook his head hard, and his mouth twitched up in a smile for the first time since he’d reentered my room. “I never thought I’d be such a fool, but I guess I am. I am for you.”

“You—” My voice broke. I was still shaking helplessly. “You love me?”

“Of course I love you.” He frowned. “That’s been pretty obvious for a while now, hasn’t it?”

I stared at him speechlessly.

“You knew that, didn’t you?” He was obviously serious. He looked confused, surprised, and strangely frozen. “I’ve been falling all over myself around you for two months now. And I’ve been... acting like a besotted boy. I brought you to meet my grandmother! Obviously, I love you. I thought you knew, and that’s why you’ve been so careful around me and why you tried to let me down so gently just now.”

I was almost choking on my surprise. And exhilaration.

And joy.

It was definitely joy that was trapped in my throat.

“I didn’t know!” I managed to rasp. “Damn it, Sean. I didn’t know! I was being careful for me. Not for you!”

Sean blinked and clenched my hands hard. “Really?”

“Yes, really!” I was slammed with so many feelings at once that they had to come out some way. I pulled my hands out of his grip and hit him on the chest with both of my palms. “How the hell was I supposed to know when you always act so cool about everything?”

He blinked again, but I could see enlightenment dawning on his face.

So much else dawning too.

Coming to light, breaking into life, in the transformation of his expression.

“I always act cool,” he said in a thick voice. “It doesn’t mean anything. I thought you knew that.”

“I knew you felt things beneath it, but I didn’t know... I didn’t know... you felt things for me.”

“Of course for you,” he murmured, his voice even rougher with emotion as he grabbed my hands again and held them tight. “Especially for you.” He swallowed visibly. “So does this mean you... you feel things for me?”

“Yes, I feel things for you.”

“What things?” His eyes were searching, urgent, fierce with barely contained excitement.

“Lots of things.” I felt ridiculously shy, ridiculously scared, which made no sense after what he’d just admitted to me. So I pushed away my hesitation and said, “I love you too. That’s why I had to end it. If you weren’t going to love me, then I couldn’t—”

I wasn’t able to finish my sentence because Sean had pushed himself up off his knees and grabbed my head to kiss me.

I didn’t mind at all. Whatever I was going to add to my confession just wasn’t essential at the moment.

What was essential was Sean’s lips against mine, his body pushing me down onto the bed, his heat and his weight and his urgency and the deep feeling I could feel coming off him in waves.

“You love me, Ash?” he murmured against my lips.

My hands were clenched in his hair, and my legs had wound around his hips. “Yes. I love you.”

He groaned and kissed me again. Then he kept kissing me as he mumbled, “I love you, I love you, I love you, baby. I love you so much. I can’t believe you didn’t know.”

The last bit caused me to break the kiss and give him a little glare. “Don’t try to put this on me. You’re the one who hid how he felt.”

His eyes were laughing and caressing me at exactly the same time. “And you didn’t?”

“I might have too. Just a little bit.”

He chuckled and kissed me again, and he didn’t stop for a long time.

Eventually the kissing deepened to fondling and then to taking off our clothes. When he was buried inside me, my legs bent up toward my chest and hands holding on to his neck, when we were rocking together in a fast, needy motion, he was still trying to kiss me, still muttering about how much he loved me, needed me, never wanted to let me go.

I might have been mumbling stuff back to him. I don’t really know. I do know I was halfway crying, and there was no way to make myself stop.

I came anyway, gasping his name, and then he came too, choking on a helpless exclamation that sounded a lot like love.

He collapsed on me afterward, pressing little kisses against my mouth, my skin, my throat.

I stroked his back, my whole body sated in a way that was emotional as much as physical.

I could tell the difference.

I never wanted to have sex with anyone again when it didn’t feel like this.

“When did you know that you loved me?” I asked after a few minutes of lying tangled up with him. We hadn’t used a condom since we’d both been too carried away, but I was on birth control and I wasn’t concerned.

Sean lifted his head, and I still couldn’t believe the look in his eyes—completely unguarded, so deep.

So warm and soft and fond.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It grew slowly, but I guess it really hit me after you told me you’d had drinks with the jackass before you came to see me. Damn, I was torn up about that.”

“You didn’t act torn up. You acted...”

“Like an ass. I know.” He gave me his quirk of a smile. “Why do you think that was?”

I giggled and slid my hands down his back to his butt. I squeezed there, foolishly thrilled that I was allowed to do so. “I didn’t know.”

“And when did you know you loved me?” he asked.

“I’ve been pretending not to for a long time,” I admitted. “Pretending to myself. I didn’t admit it until I broke up with you just a little while ago.”

“You’re a better person than I am. I would have gone on desperately in love with you and too scared to say anything for who knows how long, had you not pressed the issue.”

I leaned up to kiss him. “Well, we figured it out then.”

“Yes, we figured it out.”

***

WE STAYED IN BED FOR most of the day, getting up only occasionally to use the bathroom or to eat something.

We weren’t making love constantly, of course. We were talking or resting or smiling at each other like sappy fools.

I don’t remember ever having a better day, and I could tell Sean felt the same way.

We did have sex a few times, mostly soft and sweet although at one point we really got going, and he had me on my knees, bent over and clinging to the headboard, my body jiggling wildly as he took me from behind and made me come over and over again.

We were both exhausted after that and took a two-hour nap.

At about four the following morning, Sean finally got up to leave. He had to be at work by eight that morning, and so did I.

The world didn’t come to a halt just because you found love. Life and work and schedules happened just the same.

I walked him to the front door of my apartment, and he gave me a soft kiss before he turned the doorknob. “Are you free this evening?” he asked with a smile.

“Yes. Monday nights aren’t usually very busy for me. Did you want to meet at the hotel?”

“No.” He was frowning at me now. “I wanted to take you to dinner. We’ve never actually had a date, you know.”

I stared at him for a moment, my heart bursting with a new explosion of joy. “I guess we haven’t. I’d love to have dinner with you.”

“Good. I’ll call you later.” He kissed me again and then gently stroked a hand down my tangled hair. It wasn’t looking good after so much sex and so many hours in bed. “You still love me?”

I laughed and reached up to cup his cheek with one hand. “I love you even more now.”

“Good. Me too.”

***

WE DID HAVE DINNER that Monday night. And at the end of the evening we tore up our contract together.

We had dinner on a lot of nights that followed.

We didn’t have any of the normal, casual dating period, when you see the person once or twice a week and hesitate about when or how often to call them. All our preliminaries happened on those Wednesday nights in the hotel. I saw Sean almost every day, and on the few days we were too busy, he called me.

After about three weeks, I was regularly spending the night at his apartment since it was so much easier than to go back and forth to mine after I’d spent the evenings with him. Sean lived downtown, near where both of us worked. His place was much nicer than mine, and it saved me an annoying commute.

Plus I kind of liked sleeping with him.

All right. There was no “kind of” about it. I definitely liked sleeping with him. And waking up with him.

And doing a lot of other things with him too.

About a month after my sister’s wedding, on a Saturday evening, we were coming into Sean’s apartment together at about ten o’clock at night. And I was thinking that it felt like coming home.

Coming home.

Into Sean Doyle’s apartment.

Six months ago, I’d never have even dreamed such a thing was possible.

I put my purse on the entryway table where I always left it and stared down at it for a minute, feeling strange, surreal.

Sean was already toeing off his shoes. He was dressed casually today in jeans and a gray long-sleeve, crewneck shirt. For so long in our relationship, I’d never seen him dressed that way. Only in suits. Or in a pair of his sleep pants.

Or naked.

But right now he was wearing jeans.

He frowned at me. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

His frown deepened as he came over to where I still stood by my purse. “Why are you lying to me?”

I rolled my eyes. “I wasn’t really lying. It’s just one of those things people say.”

He put his hands on my shoulders and turned me around to face him. “I don’t care if it’s what people say. You said nothing is bothering you when I can clearly see it is.”

One thing about being in a relationship with Sean was that I was never able to brush something off if he wanted to know it. If he got something between his teeth, he never let it go. Occasionally that got annoying, but I wasn’t annoyed tonight. I shook my head. “Honestly, I was just standing here thinking how strange it is that it... it feels normal, coming into your place like this. Like I...”

“Belong here?” he murmured.

“Yeah.”

“You do. What’s strange about that?”

“Well, you’re Sean Doyle. And this place is like a palace next to my little apartment.”

“I like your place.” He clearly meant it. Despite his money, he was never ostentatious about his possessions. As far as I could tell, he didn’t buy things just to prove that he could. He wasn’t insecure like that. Or a show-off.

“I know. I like it too. I just meant that I’m a normal girl.”

His mouth turned downward again. “Are you saying I’m not a normal guy? Surely you can see that I am since we just spent hours with my family.”

Right. There was that. I’d just spent the afternoon at a cookout with his parents, his brothers, his sister and her family, and his grandmother. It was the first family event I’d accompanied Sean too. It felt pretty significant.

Maybe that was why I was feeling so surreal now, as if my new reality was finally catching up with me.

“Ash?” Sean asked softly.

I blinked, thinking back to what he’d actually said. “Oh. No, I wasn’t saying you’re not normal. I’m just saying... it’s different. Feeling at home in a place like this. I never expected to feel this way.”

“Desperately in love with me?” Sean quirked up his lip.

I laughed and pulled him into a hug. “Yes. Exactly. I never expected to fall in love with you—or anything that’s come with it.”

He hugged me back, more tightly than I was expecting, so when I finally pulled away, I looked closely at his face. He always had a lot going on inside him, under the clever, charming demeanor he wore, and he didn’t always tell me what it was unless I asked.

I watched him as we went into the living room and he collapsed on the leather couch, putting his feet up and stretching out to get comfortable and checking something on his phone.

I moved his feet so I could sit down and then put his feet in my lap.

“What were you worried about?” I asked after Sean lowered his phone.

“When?”

“Just now. By the door. When you asked me what was wrong. What were you worried about?”

I could see enlightenment flicker across the face, so I knew he understood what I was referring to. He opened his mouth. Closed it again. Then said, “You were kind of quiet on the way home. Then you looked like something had hit home with you. I thought...” He gave an ironic huff of amusement. “I thought maybe the family thing had been too much.”

I rolled my eyes. “It was fine. I told you it was. They were all nice to me, and you know I love your grandmother.”

“I know you do,” he murmured with a fond expression that only lasted a few seconds. “But still... that’s what I was worried about. That you were feeling... pressure.”

I just looked at him, wondering if he could still be doubting my feelings for him—even after our being together like this for a month.

“It’s not that I doubt you love me,” he went on, as if he had read my mind. “But it’s different. Being together in that hotel room. Being together here. Being just us. It’s different than being thrown into the middle of a big family.”

I nodded since he was right. “It is different,” I admitted. “It’s different. Living life with you. It’s different from that hotel room. It’s different and it’s harder and it’s scarier and it’s better. It’s better, Sean.”

He smiled—just a tiny little lift of his mobile mouth. “I think so too.”

I absently rubbed his feet, which were still in my lap. As far as men’s feet go, his were pretty nice, and he still had his socks on.

I worked on his feet for a while, and I could feel the muscles in his legs relaxing. He exhaled loudly a few times, as if he liked how it felt.

When I glanced over at his face, his eyes were closed, and I felt the most ridiculous surge of affection for him, as if I could just swallow him whole.

He opened his eyes just then and might have caught the sappy look on my face.

His smile was just a little smug.

The only appropriate response to that expression was to change my sappy look to a cool glare.

He chuckled and sat up to reach for me. With a little rearranging, I was stretched out on the couch with him, my body pressed against his, one of his arms wrapped around me.

“So what did you really think of my family?” he asked.

I let out a breath and played with the fabric of his shirt. I liked how it felt. I liked that it was his. “They were nice.”

“And?”

“They didn’t ask me a bunch of nosy questions or anything, which was a relief.”

“And?”

“They seem like they’re happy that you’re happy.”

“And?”

I paused for a minute, clenching my hand in his shirt. Then I told him the truth. “I don’t like that you’re not included on that wall of photos.”

There had been a wall in the living room of his parents’ house that displayed framed photos of so many of the family members in their police uniforms. Sean wasn’t included. He wasn’t a cop.

“That’s only for—”

“I know. I know. I still don’t like it.”

He brushed a kiss into my hair. “They love me.”

“I know they do. I could tell. But I’d have thought...” I trailed off.

“You’d have thought what?”

“I’d have thought they would have been prouder of you.”

“I made a lot of money. That’s not the same, you know.”

I adjusted so I could lift my head and look down at his face. “It’s not just your money. It’s everything you’ve done. It’s who you are. You deserve to be on the wall of honor. You’re so amazing, Sean. I’m proud of you.”

“You are?” His voice was soft and thick, and his face was full of emotion that reflected how I’d been feeling about him just a few minutes before. That almost embarrassing overflow of sappy emotion.

“Yes.”

He pulled my head down so he could kiss me. “I’m proud of you too.”

“For what?”

“For everything.”

He settled against me again. He seemed tired this evening, and so was I. I didn’t really feel like having sex. I just wanted to lie with him like this.

That was what we did. We fell asleep together on the couch.

***

A FEW WEEKS AFTER THAT, we went to a play at the same theater where we’d run into each other at the ballet, on my one and only real date with John.

This time I was the one in the box with Sean. I had to admit that I liked it.

I could have done without all the curious stares, but I was getting used to it. Whoever was with Sean was going to get noticed. I wasn’t the kind of person who liked to be the center of attention, but it was a minor inconvenience in the scheme of things.

The play was good, and we both enjoyed it. Sean seemed like he was in a good mood all evening, which was why I was surprised at his reaction to my suggestion that we walk down the block to a cupcake shop afterward.

He agreed, but he didn’t seem happy about it.

“We don’t have to,” I said, trying to figure out what had happened in the past two minutes to cause his change in attitude. He looked stiff and guarded, and I had no idea why. “If you’re tired, we can—”

“I’m not tired. I said it was fine.”

He might have said it was fine, but he clearly didn’t mean it. He took my hand as we left the theater, and he didn’t say a word as we started to walk down the sidewalk, which was crowded from everyone leaving the theater.

I peered at Sean’s face in the bright streetlights as we walked. He looked as sexy and sophisticated as ever in his expensive suit and five-o’clock shadow, but something was definitely wrong. He was tense. His lips were pressed together. He stared straight ahead of us, and his hand was gripping mine so tightly it actually hurt.

“Sean?” I asked, bewildered and worried.

He took a deep breath and looked over at me slowly. Then he jerked visibly when someone shouted farther down the block. It sounded just like a brief, random argument between two men, but Sean sucked in a breath and pulled me against him protectively.

And I suddenly realized what was wrong.

I’d been an absolute idiot not to know from the beginning.

“Oh my God, Sean. I’m so sorry.” I reached up to take his face in my hands. He was paler than he should have been and incredibly tense. “I wasn’t thinking. I’m so, so sorry.”

He’d been shot less than three years ago on a city sidewalk a lot like this one, walking home from the theater.

Lara had been killed.

He’d told me about that night a few times in the past month or two. How the police had concluded it was a random crime, a mugging gone wrong since no further attempt on Sean’s life had followed the incident. He’d even hired a bodyguard for a few months after he got out of the hospital, but he hadn’t liked living that way. No one had been trying to kill him anyway.

It had been a thoughtless, meaningless tragedy, as so many heartbreaks are.

And like an idiot, I hadn’t even thought that making him do the same thing now might bring back to him that terrible night.

“It’s okay, Ash,” he said, his voice rough with suppressed emotion. “It’s not a big deal.”

“It is a big deal.” I was so upset that tears were streaming down my face. “I can’t believe I didn’t even think about it. I’m so sorry.”

My tears seemed to have an effect on him. His face twisted briefly, and he wiped away the tears with his thumbs. “Please don’t cry, baby. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Yes, I did.”

“No, you didn’t. This is just one of those... those leftovers. I think I’m basically over it. Not that I’ll forget about Lara, but I really think I’ve healed. And I’m so happy now with you. But then we walked outside here, and I kept imagining something happening to you, and I...” He shook his head and took a ragged breath.

“I never should have suggested we do this. Let’s go back to the car and go home.” I grabbed the lapels of his suit jacket and turned him toward where the car and driver he’d hired was waiting down the block.

Sean wouldn’t move. “You wanted a cupcake.”

“I don’t need a cupcake. Seriously, Sean. There’s no reason you have to do this.”

“I want to.” His face was getting its color back, and he’d squared his shoulders. “I know I don’t have to, but I want to. This isn’t PTSD or something like that. I’m just... I’m just scared. It was random. The chances of it happening again are almost zero. I don’t want to always be scared.”

“You don’t have to push through this, Sean.” I was still holding on to his jacket.

“I want to.”

I nodded silently and took his arm. If he wanted to do this, then I would do it with him.

I was still crying a little as we walked, but I didn’t let go of his arm, even to wipe my face. Sean didn’t say anything, but his expression and his posture seemed to relax after he’d taken a few steps, as if the conversation and his act of will had pushed him over the worst of the fear.

We reached the cupcake shop, and nothing happened.

He opened the door for me.

We walked in.

We got in the long line at the counter.

Sean reached out to take my hand in his.

With a strangled exclamation, I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face in his chest.

Sean hugged me back.

After a minute, he murmured into my ear, “Uh, baby?”

I made a sound in response, but it was muffled by his jacket.

“I thought I was the one about to have a breakdown.”

I half sobbed and half giggled as I finally lifted my face to smile up at him. “I was having the breakdown for both of us. That’s okay, isn’t it?”

Sean’s expression cracked slightly, and he grabbed me in another tight hug.

He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to.

We’d been together for real for going on two months, and I’d known from that morning we got together, after my sister’s wedding, that both our feelings were real, were lasting.

I’d known Sean was the love of my life—so much better than my romantic daydreams, so much better than my second best.

But sometimes you know even more than that.

Sometimes living in love with someone else reveals truths about the world—truths you never knew before.

Maybe it was an obvious conclusion, something I should have known all along.

But there’s knowing something and there’s really understanding it.

What I had with Sean wouldn’t just make my life happier. It would also make my life harder.

Loving someone else always does.

That’s what makes it so good.

We held on to each other until we reached the counter.

Then we ordered our cupcakes.