Exposed (Tropical Nights) (19 page)

A tear slid down Rachel’s cheek. “I didn’t leav
e you, Leo.” Her voice wavered with emotion, with the sadness of Leo’s story and the courage he revealed in telling it to her. “I was stupid and selfish and a million other things, but it was because I
didn’t
want to lose you. I was trying to stay close to you, even if I see now that I went about it in exactly the wrong way.”

“I know, baby.” He brushed his thumb across her cheek, wiping away the
wet trail of her tear. “After I had time to cool down, I couldn’t ignore the nagging feeling that nothing made sense. Discovering who you really worked for was a shock, but I just couldn’t make myself believe you’d been lying to me the whole time. You were too open with me, too raw, it couldn’t have been just a ruse to get the story. I’m as successful as I am in large part because of how well I can read people, and I knew without a doubt you hadn’t been faking your feelings for me.”

“I wasn’t faking,” Rachel
agreed quickly, wanting to convince him. “It was the honesty of those feelings that got us into this mess in the first place. If I hadn’t cared about ever seeing you again, I would have corrected the misunderstanding right away.”

“I w
as beginning to see that, but there were still so many missing pieces and I wasn’t ready to talk to you yet. Then Karen called me.”

Leo’s statement surprised
Rachel enough to lift some of the heaviness from her heart. “Oh, wow. What did she say?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer to that question.

“I’m not entirely sure.” The corners of Leo’s mouth turned up in just a hint of a
smile. “She immediately launched into a long and meandering speech about how she’d strayed from her cosmic path and now her aura had grown dim and…I honestly don’t even know what she was saying half the time.”

Rachel rolled her eyes. “Sounds about right.”

“So she’s always like that?”

“Sometimes
she’s worse.”

Leo gave a soft laugh.
“That’s hard to imagine. Anyway, the gist of the call was Karen wanted to take responsibility for misleading me. She said everything she told me about your background was the truth, she just didn’t mention you’d been laid off from
Economy Today
several months prior and had started working for her. She kept telling me you were not in on the lie and had no idea she’d told it.”

“That’s all true, but I still should have said something
once I found out. I—”

Leo shook his head and put a finger gently to her lips. “
Just let me get this out. Karen confirmed what I’d already been thinking, but still I resisted going to you. I’d never been so scared in my life. It’s been eating at me, keeping me up at night, turning me into a beast of the worst kind. My friends are mad at me, my employees avoid me, and I can’t blame them. I can barely stand myself. And I
still
couldn’t admit the obvious.” He cupped her face in his hands and looked at her with such naked feeling Rachel forgot to breathe.

“
Then I saw you tonight. I caught glimpses of you through the crowd, but I fought the urge to come to you. And then I saw you dancing with another man.” Leo stiffened as he spoke, clearly agitated at the memory. “I watched his arms go around you and the two of you moving together as he smiled down at you and it hit me: I can’t lose you.” He held onto her more tightly, as though worried his words would come true and she would suddenly disappear. “It was like a sucker punch to the gut and it made it impossible to keep fooling myself. If I didn’t do anything, you would slip through my fingers. You would move on with your life and it would be because I was too much of a damned coward to hang onto you.”

Rachel started to speak, but Leo squeezed her arms gently and she kept silent. She knew he needed to tell her everything, to
lay it all out now so nothing remained unspoken between them.

“
Even after realizing how much I needed you,” he continued, “part of me still wanted to fight it. But I couldn’t deny what every part of my body was screaming at me: you’re worth it. You’re worth the risk and the fear and the possibility of betrayal.” His voice became low and gruff. “Rachel, I can’t keep running from you, it’s like trying to outrun myself. I’m done. I won’t stay away from you anymore. I won’t lose you.”

Ever
ything Rachel had been carrying around inside since meeting Leo—the desire and love and connection along with all the uncertainty and regret and hurt and everything in between—poured out of her in a trembling sob. She could barely see him through the tears streaming down her cheeks. “So you forgive me?”

He gave her a heartbreakingly tender smile. “There’s nothing to forgive. We both did stupid things out of fear and doubt. If you can understand why I pushed you away
—and you do understand, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.”

Leo looked relived, like he actually had some doubt. “Then we’re good. I know you didn’t walk into my office intending to betray my trust. You weren’t the one to tell the lie and I completely get why you didn’t correct it. I wish you
had
corrected it, mind you, but I completely understand your fear.” He leveled his gaze at her. “Just no more lies or omissions or misunderstanding between us, okay?”

“I promise.”

Leo leaned into her and kissed away her tears. “And I promise not to shut you out or push you away. I’m done closing myself off. I want to let you in, I want you fully in my life. Even if it does mean being with a gossip columnist.”

Rachel
grimaced. “Good news. I’m not with the magazine anymore.”

“What? When?
” Leo’s voice rose and Rachel could feel the outrage building in him. “Karen assured me she didn’t fire you. It was her mistake.”

“She didn’t fire me,” she assured him
quickly. “She told me to take a few weeks’ leave until I figured everything out, but I’m not going back. I just can’t stay there after all this. Besides, I’m clearly not meant to be a gossip journalist.”

“Are you okay? Have you found another job? What can I do to help?”

“I’m fine. My blog is taking off and I—” Rachel looked down at her hands, her confidence wavering. “I haven’t told anyone yet, but I actually just signed a book deal.”

Leo’s head wobbled as he pantomimed
it spinning from the news. “When did this happen?”

“Soon after we returned from Acarigua.”

“You wrote a book in the last month?” He sounded incredulous.

“No. Non-fiction books are sold on proposals.
I’m doing the actual writing now.”

“That’s amazing. I’m so impressed.”

Rachel ducked her head. He was giving her one of those awed looks that always embarrassed her. “You had a lot to do with it, you know.”

“Me? What did I do?”

“There were things you said to me I couldn’t get out of my head, about making the decision to live life instead of running from it. When I came back from Acarigua and everything was a mess, I knew I had to start being honest with myself. I had to confront the fact that I’d been using my mother’s death and my dad and brother’s subsequent neediness as an excuse to avoid dealing with my own stuff.” She gathered the courage to look up and meet his gaze. “I spent all my time and energy on them and told myself I didn’t have anything left to devote to a serious relationship.”

It still scared Rachel to admit her failings so honestly, but Leo looked at her with an expression of such tender understanding, she was beginning to feel emboldened.

“And I was fine with that,” Rachel continued, “until you came along and suddenly it wasn’t okay anymore. I’d lost you, and it was because I was hiding behind my family, using every excuse I could think of to avoid taking any risks.”

“It’s like you said, we do what we have to do to survive.”

“
True, but as I sat in my apartment with too many people in it, having just lost both the job I should have never taken and the guy I’d been too scared to fight for, I could no longer believe the lie I had been telling myself for years—that I
had
to do any of it.”

Leo put a
n arm around her waist and held her close. She leaned into him, grateful for the support—both physical and emotional—he was always so quick to give. “What did you do once you’d made that realization?” he asked.

“
I spent that first night back mapping out what had to change and how. The first step was deciding what to do about my career. It was time to take the chance on actually writing the book I’ve been chewing over for years. I had nothing to lose, no more excuses.”

“And you did it,” Leo said with admiration.

“I did. But as hard as it was to believe in myself enough to take that plunge, dealing with my family was so much scarier.”

Leo grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “What did you do?”

“I sat down with dad and Jamie and just laid it all out. They admitted they were both miserable in the city and missed our hometown. Dad even acknowledged how much responsibility had fallen on me since mom’s death, and he talked about how guilty he’d been feeling about that.”

“So they realize what’s been going on
, how much you were all hiding behind each other?”

Rachel nodded. “
They moved back home two weeks ago. Jamie found a job and has been talking about enrolling in classes next fall. Dad’s been going to a grief support group, and though it’s just the very beginning of a long process, I’m starting to see glimpses of his old self.”

“Wow. So it all worked out, didn’t it?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say the work is done. It’s not like we all waved our hands and every problem from the last decade just disappeared. All three of us are struggling to find the balance between turning to each other for support while still managing to stand on our own. But we’re trying, and every day we’re a little closer to achieving that balance.”

“You are so amazing,” Leo said softly.

He leaned into her and rested his forehead against hers. They held each other, not speaking, just content to be in the other’s arms.

“God, I missed you,” Leo whispered. “
I feel like I’ve been holding my breath for the last six weeks and I can finally let it out. Nothing felt right without you and I couldn’t see how it would ever get better. But I know now that everything happened just the way it was supposed to.”

Rachel tilted her head back to look at him.
“I wouldn’t have believed it until now, that we’d end up where we are. This assignment was supposed to be no big deal. I thought you’d be shallow and pretentious and I’d just have to tolerate you long enough to get the story and then never see you again.” She gave a soft laugh. “Instead, you’ve shaken up my entire life.”

Leo’s arms tightened around her.
“I knew immediately you were the one for me.”

“You did not,” Rachel said gently. “You thought I was an uptight journal
ist who you had to tolerate because you needed the PR my story would bring.”

Leo
leaned back and pretended to consider this. “Okay, you’re right,” he said with a grin. “For the first thirty seconds after meeting you, that’s basically what I thought.” His expression turned more serious. “But then I opened my eyes and really looked at you, and I knew in that instant how much trouble I was in.” He pulled her close again.

“
Oh,
I
was trouble?” Rachel teased as she rested her head against his chest. “I’m the one who lost my job over this.”

Leo laughed. “Which ended up being a good thing, Ms. Author. Besides, we can make it up to your old boss by giving her photos of our wedding. Not that
Karen deserves the exclusive, but I find her strangely fascinating.”

Rachel pulled back from Leo and
searched his face for hints of sarcasm but found none. He’d spoken lightly, but she sensed the seriousness of his intentions. “Our wedding? We haven’t known each other long enough to be talking about that!”

Leo shrugged. “We may not have known each other long, but we crammed a lot of togetherness in a short time. Besides, you remember what I said about being good at reading people? I was able to bring my family’s company back from almost certain ruin because I can go into a situation and immediately identify
what I want and how to get it.” He touched her cheek and locked his eyes on hers. “And I want you. I knew it from the beginning, even if it took me too long to fully admit it.”

“But we
…I mean…” Rachel was too overwhelmed to formulate a proper response.

Leo brushed his thumb over her lips. “
It’s okay, Rachel. We belong with each other, forever, and you can take however long you need to accept it.” He curled his fingers around the nape of her neck and pulled her gently to him. “I love you, Rachel. Now that I finally have you back, I’m never letting you go. I’ll wait as long as it takes for you to realize that.”

The tears Rachel had finally
managed to suppress came springing back. “I love you too,” she whispered through her sobs of relief and happiness.

“Good. Now I can do what I’ve been waiting weeks for, what I’ve been holding myself back from all night.”