* * * *
“I still don’t think we’ve gotten that quite right. It doesn’t quite match my fantasy.”
Paul sat behind his desk, pulling on his socks, while she retied her dress. She gave a deeply martyred—and utterly fake—sigh. “You mean we’ll have to do it again?”
“Afraid so. We’ll just have to keep at it until we get it right.”
“Maybe we’re doing something wrong, Paul. Are you sure it was the couch?”
“Now there’s a thought!” He snagged her wrist and pulled her onto his lap. “Maybe we should try the desk.”
Fighting laughter, she twisted away from him. She spread her hands wide on the desk to try to regain some balance. A letter lay open in front of her, next to the legal pad he’d been making notes on when she came in. The letterhead and a few phrases in the letter caught her eye.
“What is this, Paul?”
“What’s what?” He looked over her shoulder, but seemed uninterested. “That’s a letter from the Smithsonian.”
“The Smithsonian?”
“Uh-huh. They want me to be on a panel of consultants they’re forming.”
“They just asked you?” The letter was dated more than a week ago, but with the mails, maybe he hadn’t had it long, maybe...Then she saw another phrase in the letter, and she knew this was not the first time the offer had been made.
“They’ve been asking for a while. Middle of September, I guess they made the official offer.”
September. He’d known all fall. He’d been thinking about it all fall, and he hadn’t told her. An amazing opportunity, the chance of a career, a credential in his field that could make a resume.
The trip to Washington, snippets of comments from his father, from Jan, from Michael all came together and told her what she’d been too involved to see before. He’d had this offer all along. All these weeks they’d been together, and he hadn’t told her.
She pulled away and stood up, hardly noticing he didn’t try to hold her.
What had she thought? That he cared enough about her to truly share his life with her? Just because he hadn’t walked away from her yet, because he’d looked two weeks ahead to ask her to spend Thanksgiving with his family, or even months ahead for some vague date to go sailing, had she thought he was changing his whole way of living, of existing? She was a fool. He’d shown all along how he operated. She straightened her back and lifted her chin.
“They made this offer nearly three months ago and you’ve been holding them off, delaying giving them an answer?”
“Sort of.”
“What does ‘sort of’ mean?”
He picked up the pen from his desk, and let it slide through his fingers. “It means I told them I had several factors to consider, and I wouldn’t be giving them an answer until I felt satisfied with the way things would work. It’s not like they gave me a deadline and I’ve blown it. They said they don’t mind waiting for my decision.”
She watched an uncharacteristic shadow of defensiveness cross his face, and was sure he was thinking about the bid on the house, feeling guilty over something that she’d actually felt relieved about. Maybe she still owed him an apology on that score, but not now. She wasn’t going to be sidetracked.
“What is there to decide, Paul? Are there drawbacks?”
“Yeah, there are drawbacks,” he shot back with something close to bitterness. “You sound just like my father, and he learned it from the master—Walter Mulholland. Just because it carries you one more step up that great career ladder doesn’t make it automatically the right move.” He paused. Just like my father...learned it from the master. A glimmer of understanding crossed her thoughts, but slipped back as he continued, slow and controlled. “I’d have obligations to them. I’d have to be in D.C. a certain number of days each month. It would cut into my business here. I have obligations to clients here. Loyal clients.”
“And of course,” she started silkily, “it would entail having to look ahead enough to keep some sort of schedule. Even if only for a few days a month.”
The smoothness of her tone didn’t fool him. He flicked her a look, then made a sound that could have meant anything. A noncommittal sound. Under her breath, she swore.
“What?” His sharpness indicated he’d caught the drift of her sentiment, though she didn’t bother to clarify.
She knew exactly how this situation with the Smithsonian had come about. He’d probably been all friendly and helpful at first, making them think he was exactly the sort of person they needed, leading them on to believe he’d be there when they needed him. Then, at the last minute, he’d backed off and left them to be the ones to make the final move.
Just the way he had with her.
She swore under her breath again, then turned to stare blindly at the bookcase in front of her.
Oh, he’d worked it perfectly. He had pulled her along. He’d pushed and prodded and chased—up to a point. Then he’d backed off and waited for her to make the next step. At each level, he’d forced her to make the final decision whether to go on to the next. Until there was only that final step to take toward him—to give her heart.
Well, she had. And now she’d just have to live with the resulting pain. But she wasn’t going to live with it alone. He wouldn’t take the step himself, but by God she wasn’t going to let him pretend she hadn’t.
Pivoting, she faced him.
“I love you, Paul.”
For all the uncertain anger bubbling inside her, Bette knew her voice carried conviction. Heaven help her, she did love him. In a way she knew she’d never get over.
As she watched, his eyes lost their narrowed look of defense, then widened in astonishment. They stayed wide, but into them leaped a flame that seemed to add a glow to his entire face as he rose and started toward her.
She held him off with one outstretched arm. Desire wasn’t enough this time. There was more to say. Words that desire couldn’t burn away.
The glimmer of understanding grew brighter, bright enough to illuminate the connection between past and present, between father and son, grandfather and grandson.
“I love you, and that’s my problem.”
He frowned at the word problem but she went on. “You pretend you’re a free and easy spirit who doesn’t commit to anything, but we both know that’s a lie. You’re committed to your business and your friends and your family. And probably, in your own way, you’re committed to me. But that’s not the kind of commitment I want. I want the kind that doesn’t wince at the word marriage, that makes plans for a home and a family, that arranges a life together. The kind that doesn’t need options left open because loving each other is the best option there is. The kind that doesn’t mind strings.”
Looking at Bette, Paul imagined for a moment that he could feel the strings she said bound her to him breaking loose, snapping so hard and so fast that they rebounded back to whip at him. God, she was going to leave him.
“That’s what I’ve wanted as long as I can remember, Paul. I knew from the beginning that you wouldn’t—maybe couldn’t—give that to me. You were totally honest about that. That’s why I tried so hard to stay away from you. But you can be persistent. And charming.”
Her mouth, still red and swollen from their passion, lifted on one side in a smile that squeezed his heart. And in his pain, he lashed out.
“Are you saying I seduced you? Sold you a bill of goods? Because I didn’t. I never made you promises I didn’t keep.”
“No. You never made promises. You were honest. At least about that. But you haven’t been honest with yourself.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No-o-o.” She drew out the negative. “You probably don’t. But I should have seen it before. That first night you practically spelled it out. Your whole life has been spent opposing your grandfather. Whatever his expectations and goals were for you—school, career, attitude toward life, marriage, family—you did something different.”
/> He didn’t bother denying it. It was true. He’d been determined from the start not to do what Walter Mulholland ordered. “And what about you? Haven’t you spent your whole life living up to your grandfather’s expectations? No time for fun, only time for work and advancement. Life goals and schedules and step-by-step plans.”
Her eyes opened wide and he saw the blue intensified by pain, then they narrowed. “I see now. All this time, you’ve thought I was just like your grandfather, haven’t you? That what my grandfather taught me was what your grandfather tried to force on you. Maybe you’ve even worried that I’d try to run your life, to remake you like your grandfather did.”
‘“That’s bull—”
She didn’t seem to hear. “I won’t ask for anything from you, Paul. I just want to be as honest as you’ve been. I love you, but I don’t want to. God, I don’t want to.” Her voice held such hurt he almost reached for her, even as the words struck at him. “Because loving you means I want all those things with you that scare you so much—a home, a family, a future. So someday I think—I hope—I’ll stop loving you. And then I’ll leave.”
Chapter Twelve