No Romance Required (11 page)

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Vic.” He stepped forward and smudged his thumb over her
cheek. When it came back wet, she shut her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

She couldn’t help her desire to forgive him any more than she could berate herself
for getting herself in this mess to begin with. She wanted to be right where she was.
At his side, for better or worse. However long it lasted.

Crush, Vic? Just lust? You honestly think this is what this is about?

She forced herself to look at him. In for a penny, in for a damn ton, right? He still
needed her help, and she’d committed herself to this insane plan. She wouldn’t back
out now. “It’s okay. We’ll figure it out.” After all, she knew firsthand that no relationship
was permanent.

His shoulders visibly slumped with relief as he gathered her hands in his and lifted
them to his mouth. “Yes, we will. Thank you.” He gave her a fleeting smile while she
reeled from his latest verbal surprise.
Thank you
? Those two words rarely passed his lips. “If you want to see the house now…”

The tour, if it could be called that, lasted under ten minutes. As much as she adored
the huge, open floor plan and each of the homey rooms—she had to do a lot of imagining
about how they’d once been decorated, since most of the house was in stages of packing—she
concentrated more on avoiding making eye contact with Cory than looking around. She
just couldn’t take a chance on him seeing more on her face than she intended. He was
incredibly perceptive when he wasn’t in denial, and she definitely didn’t have her
shields in place.

“And this is my old room.” He splayed his hand wide on the door. “It’s a guest room
now, but there was some stuff Mom didn’t want to part with.”

“She’ll have to soon.” Half-filled boxes lined one wall, but not too much had been
done in there yet. She glanced from the bulletin board filled with ticket stubs and
yellowed pictures to the glow-in-the-dark galaxy on the ceiling. Her lips curved as
she pictured Cory lying in bed studying the blue-and-green planets when other guys
were checking out Cindy Crawford. He was such a lovable nerd—or he could be, if he
didn’t keep finding ways to put up blockades between them whenever they made progress.

Tonight’s roadblock was an all-new variation, she had to give him that. How many women
could say that their man’s declaration of love had driven them further apart?

“She tried to give me the solar system.” He smiled faintly. “Don’t think it goes with
the decor in my place.”

“I’ll take it.”

She didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until his sharp tone snapped her back. “Why
would you want it?”

Because it was yours. Because it will remind me of you.

“You know I’m into astronomy, too,” she said, hoping he’d just leave it alone.

“I’d never guessed before last week.” He brushed the back of his knuckles over her
cheek and her pulse sped up. “Clearly there are a lot of things I don’t know about
you.”

She shrugged. “Open book, babe.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the wall. “Did you really
want me to tie you up?”

She darted a glance into the hall, though she knew Dillon had headed out to the hospital
and Cory’s parents were still in the kitchen. It just felt weird to discuss bondage
in his childhood bedroom. “I don’t do things I don’t want to do.”

“So you’d be open to trying more.”

Yes
. After the barn, she didn’t have any hesitation about trying anything with him. But
one thing she did hesitate on? Telling him the whole truth and nothing but. He had
enough weapons to wield against her already. And he was pretending to love her, which
felt like the biggest one of all.

Taking her time, she sipped the last of her cider and eyed him over the rim. He’d
sucked his down so fast. And she’d just bet he tasted like apples and spice and everything
nice.

“That depends.”

He blotted up a dab of cider on her chin before sucking it off his thumb. From the
sizzling expression in his eyes, he was imagining tasting something else entirely.
“On what?”

Heat quickened between her thighs. “What, exactly, do you want to do to me?”

“Oh, Victoria. You have no idea.” A jolt of longing surged through her as he kissed
her temple. “It’s getting late. We should go.”

She nodded before she could ask him what he’d meant or worse, beg him to spend the
night. He’d likely refuse her in both cases. After his kitchen declaration, it was
probably just as well they get some space from each other. “In a hurry to dump me
off, huh?”

She’d sort of been joking, but his eyes cooled as if she’d hit too close to home.
“Finish your cider,” he said, stepping from the room.

When she returned downstairs, she could hear Cory’s low voice mingling with his mother’s
down the hall. Corinne probably expected her to come and say good night, but she just
couldn’t do it.

Feeling utterly alone, she went out to wait for him in his car. She’d resume the acting
job of her life tomorrow.

She expected him to drive her back to her house and that to be it. Instead he came
inside and she poured them both glasses of wine. She had absolutely no clue why he’d
wanted to come in. To turn the screws some more? Perhaps to suggest some household
items he could use as binding agents?

Goddammit, she hated him sometimes.

Once they were settled in the living room, he stretched his arm along the back of
the sofa, eyeing her silently for so long that her skin crawled with nerves. “Why
do you dislike the holidays?”

With her goldfish-bowl-sized glass of wine in hand, she curled up at the other end
of her couch. Far, far away from him. “What makes you think I do?”

“It never occurred to you to include any Christmas elements in the magazine.”

“So?”

“So you notice details. You make lists. You made sure to include a small mention about
adding a patriotic theme to your decorating for Veteran’s Day. Yet you forgot Christmas?”

Speaking of noticing details… Damn that laser-beam brain of his. She shrugged and
focused on not stiffening up. “Just not a big fan is all.”

“You mentioned being unavailable the week of Christmas when you took the magazine
job. Are you going to visit your dad? You’ve never said where he’s living now.”

That was because he lived all over the place, depending which friend he could mooch
off next. She wasn’t going there with him yet. Maybe not ever. ”Don’t most people
take the holidays off?”

“Sure.”

“But not you, Mr. Big Shot.”

“Well, I take off Thanksgiving and Christmas. Usually. Though last Christmas I ended
up working that night. There was a scheduling problem in the Tarenton store and—”
Catching her smothering a yawn, he shook his head. “Never mind. But even if I end
up working, I like the holidays.”

So had she, once upon a time. “We’re just barely into fall. Can we take it one season
at a time, please?” When he shrugged, she decided to humor him. “Why do you like them?”

He shrugged. “Well, there are the retail aspects. Good business. Lots of people want
to finish their home improvement projects before winter sets in, and then there are
those do-it-yourselfer gift givers. I like the smells, the music. Everyone smiles
a lot more. Sometimes I even like seeing my family.”

“Sometimes.”

“This year may be different. It’ll be harder to want to be around them when they’re
circling their nets to get me coupled off. Though maybe a couple of months of distance
will help.” He dropped his hand to her knee like a spider dive-bombing off the ceiling.
She had no time to react. “Evasion looks good on you, Ms. Townsend.”

She sank a little lower in the cushions. It had really felt like they’d turned a corner
tonight until he’d made her question her decision to enter this relationship once
again. And she wanted to tell someone why those three tiny words bothered her so much.
Wanted to tell
him
. But that would cause more trouble than it was worth. He’d just dismiss her as a
nitpicky female. Maybe she was.

She’d already agreed to lie. What were a few more embellishments to the story?

“You asked if I’m going to visit my dad. I should, but I’m not.” She waited for him
to press her further, but he didn’t. Just waited.

She took a long sip before she spoke. “My mom left us right before Christmas. No warning.
Well, there was some, but I wasn’t old enough to understand what all the silence between
my parents meant. I was thirteen,” she added, expecting the inevitable follow-up questions.

That’s it? That’s why you’ve hated a holiday for twelve years?

But he didn’t say anything at all. The hand on her knee rubbed and rubbed, continuing
even when a sound dangerously close to a sob escaped her mouth. Her eyes were bone-dry,
but God, she was crying just the same. On the inside, where no one could hear.

“I got up one morning and ran into their room first thing. She’d told me the night
before that she’d hidden mine and Melly’s presents and I was going to try to figure
out where. I headed right for their closet, sure she’d yell at me to stop nosing around,
but the only sound I heard was my dad. He was on the bed, his head in his hands, crying
all over the letter she’d left him. His tears made the ink run.”

She could still hear it, the soft snuffling sound of a heart breaking. She’d vowed
then and there never to love someone the way her father had loved her mom, not if
it meant she’d one day be left behind.

“Christmas that year was hell. She’d written us all notes saying good-bye and that
she was sorry. But it was different with Bryan. They’d been arguing over stupid shit
and he told her he hated her the night before she left for good. He was always saying
stuff like that back then. He said he hated me too after she left, but I knew it wasn’t
true.”

“How could it be?”

She didn’t know what to say to that so she waited until she could speak without her
voice wobbling. “He was so furious, so hurt that she’d never said good-bye to him.
Those letters weren’t worth much, but they were something. And she didn’t even leave
him that.” She looked down. Moonlight rippled over the pool of dark liquid in her
glass. “At least that’s what he thought.”

“There was a letter?”

“There was.” It had been full of anger and blame, and she’d hidden it from her brother
to protect him. She still had it in the bottom of her dresser, where it had been all
these years. One day she knew she owed it to Bry to give it to him. But that wasn’t
a story Vicky intended to share with anyone but her brother.

“She never came back,” he said in a low voice. He’d known the result of the story
if not the beginning.

“No.”

“And your dad…he never remarried.”

She laughed hollowly, thinking of the shell of a man she’d last seen the week before
the Fourth of July. He’d retired from his job as an accountant a few months earlier
and claimed he’d decided to travel. Instead he’d immediately holed up in Vegas and
started spinning the wheel.

“No. He turned to a different sort of mistress.”

“Drinking?”

She shook her head. “Gambling.”

“What about your mom? Have you talked to her since then?”

“I’ve spoken to her,” she said, taking another strengthening mouthful of wine. She
still remembered the phone call and letter she’d gotten out of the blue several years
ago. Her mom had changed her mind about being away from her family and wanted them
back. She’d grown tired of living alone and didn’t want to spend the rest of her life
drifting from place to place, or so she’d said. It wasn’t until Vicky had asked her
to meet for coffee that the truth had come out about her living situation. Could Vicky
come to visit her at the group home instead?

It had floored her that her mom had been an hour away from them for over a year at
that point and they’d never known. Before that, she’d wandered from place to place,
trying to lay down roots but never succeeding. Her illness had drawn her back home—and
to the people she’d left behind.

Since then, there had been good days and bad. Vicky visited her religiously, even
when she hated the idea of spending an afternoon in that sterile place of artificial
cheer. What bothered her even more were the attacks of guilt over keeping secrets
from her family every time she left. Originally she’d planned to tell them once her
mom was doing a little better, in the hopes of helping to facilitate a happy reunion.
Ha, what a crock.

Lately her mom had been getting worse despite being on new meds. And Vicky’s secret
had weighed her down even more.

When she didn’t say anything further, he took the glass out of her hand and drew her
into the circle of his arms. He held her head against his shoulder, urging her wordlessly
to let go. To trust him that much.

Twice in one night he’d asked for her trust. But her tears weren’t nearly as easy
to coax free as orgasms. They’d been shoved down for too long.

She’d never cried in anyone’s arms before, but she ached for the comfort of someone—
Cory
—holding her tight while she broke apart. For once, she didn’t want to have to be
so strong that she constantly felt weak.

“You can, you know.” His voice sounded rough. “I’m here.”

She risked a glance up at his face. He was already staring down at her, his handsome
profile silvered in moonlight from the window behind him. She couldn’t breathe around
the ball of need inside her chest, and she damn sure couldn’t cry.

She gripped the lapel of his jacket and leaned up, intent on kissing away the frown
on his sulky mouth. Half an inch away from his lips, the scene from the kitchen flashed
back into her mind.

“We’re together and madly in love.”

Right. Sure they were. Just imagining them becoming lovers had seemed far-fetched,
but him falling for her? Loving her with the same passion they’d fought with for so
long? Too much to hope for.