Knowing You (24 page)

There was a gleam in his eyes that Stevie remembered. And even emotionally drained as she was, she realized that a few years ago, she would have been delighted for him. She would have praised him and offered support. She would have wrapped her arms around him and taken him off to bed to celebrate.

Now?

There was nothing.

Strange, she thought. How so much could change in a person's life in so little time.

“That's great, Nick,” she said, and turned the doorknob, ready to be alone with her misery. “Good luck.”

He reached for her, grabbing her forearm just tight
enough to keep her from slipping away from him. “Hey, wait; that's not all,” he said, and she could tell from his expression that her reaction had disappointed him. Well, it was a good day for disappointment, wasn't it?

“Nick,” she said, “I'm tired. I've had a long, miserable day and I want to go to bed.”

“Yeah, but I'm not finished,” he said quickly.

If she'd had the strength, she might have laughed. How like Nick.
He
wasn't finished; therefore, no one else was, either. He hadn't noticed the weary sadness in her eyes. He hadn't picked up on the fact that she'd been crying all the way home—and the light in the alley was bright enough to show off her smudged mascara, she knew. He hadn't heard the distress in her voice or noticed the slump in her shoulders.

Had he ever? She wondered now. Had Nick ever once looked beyond his own needs, his own feelings, to be concerned with hers? Nope. Not even when it came to sex. Man. What did that say about her? That she'd been so hungry for love that she'd been willing to take whatever cast-off affection Nick had offered?

Good God.

She didn't know which of them she disliked most at the moment. Herself? Or Nick?

“The interview's in San Francisco,” he was saying, talking faster now, as if he finally understood that she'd already stopped listening. “I was thinking that you and I could go. Stay at that B and B on the Bay you liked so much?” He ran his fingertips up her forearm until she jerked back from him like she'd been burned.

“For God's sake, Nick,” she blurted, far too tired
and unhappy to care how she sounded. “What does it take to get through to you? We are
not
together. I'm not interested in going to San Francisco with you. Going
anywhere
with you.”

“Stevie.…” He winced at her tone but apparently couldn't bring himself to believe she was serious. “We were good together once, and—”

“No, Nick,” she said quietly, anger gone now, replaced by a deep well of loneliness that threatened to swallow her whole. “We weren't good
for
each other. And it's been over for a long time.”

“It doesn't have to be.”

“Yeah, it does.”

He stared at her and she could see the disbelief shining in his dark eyes. And a part of her realized just how hard it was for Nick to accept that there was something—or someone—he couldn't have. She just didn't have the patience to listen to him anymore.

“There's somebody else, isn't there?” he snapped.

“What?” Stevie reached up and rubbed at a spot between her eyes. Pain pounded there, in time with her heartbeat, and Nick wasn't helping.

“You've got some new guy.” He pushed away from the wall and threw his hands wide. “I knew it. I knew that's what was going on. That's why you don't want to see me.”

Again anger fluttered to life in the pit of her stomach. Honestly. Nick never had been able to just let something lie.

“Who is he?”

She shook her head. “Go away.”

“Tell me, damn it.”

She considered it for a second. And for that one brief moment in time, she wondered just what his reaction would be if she told him that she'd been sleeping with his twin. But in the next instant, Stevie realized that that would only keep her standing here in the dark listening to Nick, and open a can of worms she wanted kept sealed shut. Besides, all she really wanted now was to go lay her head down on a pillow.

“This is none of your business, Nick.”

“The hell it's not.”

Apparently, it was going to take an anvil on the head to get through to him. And she was in just the right mood to do it. “We're
over
. Have been for two years. Who I'm seeing or not seeing is none of your business. Do you get it yet? Do you understand that I don't want to see you anymore?”

Nick snorted a choked-off laugh and took a step back, away from her, shaking his head as he went. “I knew it. Some guy outflanked me.”

“Jesus, will you just go home?”

“I told Paul,” he said. “I told him just today that there was some other guy—”

She stopped, one foot into the kitchen of the shop. Though a part of her was urging her inside, to ignore what Nick had just said, she couldn't do it. Call her a masochist, but she had to know. Looking back at him, Stevie asked, “And what did Paul say?”

“Said he didn't know anything and if he did, he wouldn't tell me.”

“Well, that's perfect.” Of course, what had she expected? That Paul would tell his twin that it was
him
she'd been seeing? That they'd been hopping in and
out of each other's beds? That Nick was out and Paul was in? No. But somehow, no matter how irrational it sounded, she wished he had. Even though she didn't want Mama to find out, she wished that Paul had cared enough to tell his twin the truth. Didn't make any sense at all, she thought. But then, what had, lately?

Stevie nodded slowly, gave Nick a grim smile, and walked into her shop. “Thanks a bunch for stopping by.”

Then she closed the door and locked it.

*   *   *

Paul scowled at the knock on his front door. As he shot a quick glance at the clock on the far wall, his frown deepened. Eleven o'clock. Nobody delivered
good
news that late at night. But then, it had been a crappy day—why not have a lousy end to it, too?

“If it's Nick again, though,” he said through clenched teeth, “he's not getting out of here again without a punch in the mouth.”

He stalked across the room, grabbed the brass knob, and threw the door wide. Whatever he'd been expecting, it hadn't been, “Stevie?”

She lifted her gaze to his and he was lost. Those deep blue eyes were swimming in tears, and evidence of still more shone in the lamplight like silver on her cheeks.

Paul grabbed her and pulled her inside. He didn't care why she was here. It was enough that she was. But there was something going on here. She'd come to him in tears and he'd do whatever he could to help. He pushed the door shut with a quick kick and held on to her shoulders with both hands. “What is it? What happened?”

She drew a long, shaky breath and blew it out through trembling lips. “I didn't want to come here,” she said with a sniffle. “I mean, it's too hard to come here. And then after Nick—”

Everything in him tensed. “What about Nick?”

“I don't want to talk about Nick,” she said, and took another gulping breath. “He's not important. This is, and … I just had to talk to someone … to
you
.”

Her bottom lip quivered and Paul's heart twisted for her. Whatever was going on, it had cost her a lot. She looked … broken.

“Tell me,” he whispered, his hands on her shoulders gentling.

“Oh God, Paul,” she said, leaning close until she could rest her forehead against his chest, “I blew it big-time.”

“What, baby?” he asked, wrapping one arm around her and using his free hand to soothe up and down her spine.

“Debbie,” she said, leaning more heavily into him. “I
so
screwed it up.”

Paul winced and felt her pain like a lance to his own heart.

“I went too fast. I asked her to move here with me and I shouldn't have. I scared her and I didn't mean to, but now it's too late and she'll never want to see me again and I finally found a family and now it's gone again.”

“Shhh.… ” Paul wound both arms around her and held her tight while she cried, while she let go of her dreams and tried to find hope in the rubble.

“It's a mess; it's all a mess,” she whispered.

“No, it's not.” He smiled and shook his head. “It'll be okay.”

“How?”

He shifted one hand to her face and tipped her chin up until he could look into her eyes. Smoothing her hair back from her face, he said softly, “You'll
make
it be okay.”

“You think?”

“I
know
,” he assured her, and held her gaze until he finally caught a glimmer of a smile teasing the edges of her mouth. “Now come on in, I'll make coffee, and you can tell me the whole story.”

She sniffed again, reached up, and brushed the tears from her cheeks. Giving him a watery smile, she managed a weak laugh. “I'm not
that
upset.
I'll
make the coffee.”

“Okay.” He waved her ahead of him, toward the kitchen.

She stopped just in the doorway and looked up at him. “You should know, though … I didn't come here for—”

Paul cut her off with a finger on her lips. “Believe it or not, Stevie,” he said, “I'm not actually thinking about tossing you onto a bed right at the moment.”

“No warning necessary, I guess.” She scooped her hair back from her eyes. “I don't cry pretty. I get all puffy and red-eyed and—”

“And beautiful,” he interrupted, then gave her behind a nudge. “Now make some coffee already.”

*   *   *

Three days later, it was Tina's third birthday and there was no getting out of the party.

Stevie clutched a can of soda and leaned against the white picket fence that circled Tony and Beth's backyard. In the center of things, at an extravagantly decorated picnic table, sat Tina, a dark-eyed toddler with all of the Candellano charm and her mother's smile. Reese, Carla's stepdaughter, hovered close to the tiny girl, supervising the opening of presents.

Any other time, Stevie would have enjoyed the party. But she was still so miserable, so sick at heart over how things had gone with Debbie, she wasn't in much of a mood to be around people. She hadn't even been able to contact her mother, since, as Joanna's butler had assured Stevie time and time again, “Madam is unavailable.” Whatever the hell that meant.

A cold, damp wind tugged at the hem of Stevie's ankle-length aqua skirt and she pulled the edges of her black cardigan closed over her cream-colored cotton blouse. She shook her head, swinging her wind-tossed hair out of her eyes, but instantly wished she hadn't bothered. Because now she could see everyone way too clearly.

Tony was making like the paparazzi, snapping picture after picture of his little girl. Mama was slicing her prized strawberry cake into thick wedges. Beth was just coming out of the kitchen carrying yet another tray of sandwiches.

But it was Nick and mostly Paul who held Stevie's attention. Nick hovered on the edges of the gathering. His face a storm cloud, he so clearly didn't want to be there. He made a point of tossing disgusted glances Stevie's way every few minutes.

Paul was directly opposite her. She could feel him
watching her, yet any time she glanced at him, his gaze was somewhere else. He hadn't tried to talk to her. Had actually spent most of the party deliberately keeping a distance between them. And maybe it was for the best.

Since her impulsive stop at his place the other night, she hadn't talked to Paul at all. But damn it, he'd been there for her when she'd needed him most. He hadn't tried to seduce her. Hadn't tried to do anything more than comfort her on a night when she'd needed it so desperately. And in that couple of short hours with him, Stevie'd found new reason to mourn the loss of his friendship. She'd missed their easiness with each other. Missed listening to him, missed his calm presence and rational thinking.

She'd missed her friend.

Just what she'd been afraid would happen,
had
. In the furnace blast of passion, they'd lost each other's friendship. Not so very long ago, Stevie would have felt free to call Paul, day or night, just to talk. Now she couldn't. Because they didn't just talk anymore. They kissed; they made love; they argued. But the old ease between them was gone.

And the last three days without him had been so hard. She'd wanted …
needed
to talk to him some more about the mess she'd made of things. But since she'd arrived at the party, he'd avoided her like he was a vampire and she was wearing a garlic necklace. Grimacing tightly, she told herself she wasn't being logical. Or fair. But that just didn't seem to matter.

“Man, you look serious.”

Stevie came up out of her thoughts slowly, like a
woman waking from a coma. She blinked, looked at Beth, and forced a smile. “Just thinking, I guess.”

Beth dropped one arm around Stevie's shoulder. “No thinking allowed at a Candellano party. You know that.”

She smiled and this time it was a real one. “You're right. How could I have forgotten?”

“Beats me.” Beth pointed with her can of Coke. “Did you see that dress Carla FedExed to Tina?”

“Gorgeous.” Stevie took a sip of Coke and said, “Not even a honeymoon can keep Carla from birthday shopping, apparently.”

“You gotta love it. A Candellano never forgets family.” Then Beth leaned in and asked, “What's up with Nick? Have you noticed? He looks like hell.”

“Who knows?” Stevie said, unwilling to be drawn into
that
conversation. Yet it irritated her, too. Even after two years, the family still tended to look at her and Nick as a couple. So she wouldn't feed that train of thought. Instead, she changed the subject. “I can't believe Tina's three already.”

“I know.” Beth shook her head and sighed. “It went so fast. And now I'm getting baby fever again.”