Romance Me (Boxed Set) (46 page)

During a psychology course in college, Ethan discovered that OCD was hereditary. He decided then that he wouldn’t make the same mistake his mother had—getting married and having children. If there was a chance he’d become OCD, he wasn’t going to risk subjecting anyone else to the illness.

Running a hand over his face and head, he spiked his hair in uneven chunks. Abruptly, he stood and tossed the photo album in the general direction of the closet. Swearing under his breath, he flicked off the lights and walked down the hall to his bedroom.

After shucking his shirt, he reached to turn off the small lamp on his nightstand. His hand froze as he noticed the photograph tilted jauntily next to the lamp. Sadie had given him the photo for his desk at work, but he’d enjoyed the memory so much he’d brought it home. It had been taken at the Courant’s pool, at the party thrown for him, Theo, and Jack after their high school graduation. The boys had been crowded in with their sisters, with everyone laughing and mugging for the camera.

For the first time, Ethan noticed that Sadie, with her frizzy hair and braces, wasn’t looking at the photographer. Her chin was tilted up and her
gaze
was directly on him. Even behind her thick glasses, he saw the intent and awe in her expression.

Sadie
… Once again, like how it had a few days before, her name whispered inside his head, echoing and repeating. Permeating his mind.  Refusing to leave.

Overcome with a feeling he couldn’t understand, he dropped onto the bed. He turned off the dull light of the lamp, plunging the room into darkness. Staring at the shadowed ceiling, he shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts.

Sharing his painful past with Sadie, although difficult to remember, had somehow been easy. She instinctively had known not to pity him; rather, she’d reacted with a righteous anger at his father and a compassion for his mother Ethan himself had never felt. She saw his childhood differently than Ethan ever had. Somehow, Sadie’s different perspective gave Ethan a feeling of release.

He just couldn’t figure out what his mind was releasing.

Chapter Fourteen

As summer drew to a close, Ethan watched the tree outside his office window at the theater change color over the course of a few weeks. The incessant heat and stale wind dried the leaves, turning them brown and brittle. Still, the breath of air coming through his office window, dry as it was, reminded him he was once again home.

Visits with Lia happened almost daily—he could see the changes happening in his little sister. Like a bud on an apple tree, she had lain dormant for so long, and now had blossomed into something beautiful, fresh and alive. Moving back to Meadowview gave him the opportunity to be there for her, to provide protection if she ever needed it again.

He smiled to himself. He’d already seen the results of his endeavors. The festival had already increased revenue, and  season ticket sales for the winter productions were up twenty percent. With the festival’s success, it looked like he’d never have to move away from Lia again.

His own project, the Youth Theater Academy, had gained national attention after he’d appeared on a national daytime talk show featuring programs for disadvantaged youth. The support for his academy by Sadie and her parent’s foundation made him even more determined to give his all to his new position. He knew how deep a hole Sadie had found herself in when the original director had quit. Being able to rescue her made him feel good, like he’d done something worthwhile, something more meaningful than acting or directing. He’d given Sadie the chance to prove herself to her ever-demanding parents, to show that she could be just as good as her perfect older brother.

Not that Theo was perfect and Sadie had never been a failure—she’d just always felt like one, given the way her parents had treated her. He couldn’t understand why they didn’t see her the way he did—competent and capable. A born leader. And beautiful.

Together, he and Sadie sat on the leather couch, the breeze of an overhead fan providing some relief from the incessant heat. Sadie stirred next to him, flipping pages of a script he’d handed her earlier. At some point, Sadie had changed positions and ended up with her bare feet in his lap. He loved looking at her toes, her nails painted in a light apricot, with a thin gold band around one of them. One of her pinky toes had a freckle, he noticed. An image of him licking her freckled toe jumped through his mind, reminding him of how much he still wanted her.

She shifted, pulling her feet up underneath her. A few more minutes with her feet in his lap and her toes wouldn’t have been the only thing he’d be imagining licking. He shook his head, trying to toss off the image.

It had taken him a while to get used to working alongside someone he’d slept with. Knowing how she’d had such a long-term crush gave him a sense of guilt sometimes, guilt for having taken her up on her offer for sex. But she never talked about what happened after the auction, never eluded to her crush. Mostly, he simply enjoyed the process of working with her.

But sometimes, like today, he could be almost overwhelmed with desire. And sometimes, when he could find no escape from the thoughts of her filling his mind, he would worry that she was becoming an obsession, a fixation of his mind.

“Ethan, this kid is awesome. Where did you find someone with such a gift for writing?”

Sadie’s statement jarred him back to reality. He looked at the title of the script she was reading. “His teacher emailed me his work. This kid, Cameron, had been a gang-banger, but found his way back to high school and into a great drama program. He seems to have a lot of potential.”

Sadie skimmed down the page, chewing on her pencil as her eyes flew across the text. “Potential? I’d say he’s already there. This script only needs mild tweaking to make it stage ready.” She held the pencil in her teeth as she twisted her curls up into a bun. A quick flip of her wrist and the pencil now secured her hair in place. Ethan thought she’d never looked cuter. Or sexier, with a pencil in her wild mop of hair, her jewelry-clad bare feet, and that freckled little toe.

“I’d like to use it for next year’s Youth Theater Academy production. What do you think?” Ethan asked, now struggling to keep his mind in the conversation and off Sadie’s hot body.

Sadie nodded. “Absolutely. The play will appeal to a younger crowd, but it will still draw in a more mature audience with its commentary on family dynamics. There are plenty of roles to go around, three set changes, and multiple lighting changes. The costumes are mostly just street clothes except for his nightmare scene—costuming will have a blast designing for some of the images in his nightmare.”

Ethan leaned over Sadie’s shoulder, angling a position to see the play. He was pleased to note this position gave him a prime view of her cleavage, supported by a black lacy bra under her black silk blouse. Desire surged over him, an intense need to feel Sadie’s silky skin under his fingertips, her willowy body under his.

He jammed his hand through his hair, working his attention away from his need for Sadie and to the script. “Check out how he describes why the allure of the gang was so intense for him. It’s on the next-to-the-last page.”

Sadie flipped through pages to the passage Ethan highlighted, where the protagonist spoke to his father:

Dad, the gang made me feel like I meant something. They
saw
me. Every time you looked at me I felt unseen. Not just that you were looking through me, or looking past me, but like your eyes were stopping short of where I was standing. I felt like you couldn’t even be bothered to look the extra few feet or even inches to see me. The gang saw me. They were right there, in my face, staring right into my eyes. I
was
somebody to them.

Ethan watched as Sadie read her way through the section. He wondered if she’d see herself in Cameron’s words. Growing up with Theo, Ethan had spent plenty of time at the Courant’s house and had seen over and over the way Sadie’s parents had looked at her—as if she were invisible, as if they couldn’t quite see her. Mrs. Courant, the ice-queen of perfection, found fault daily with her scrawny, frizzy-haired tomboy daughter. Ethan remembered walking into the house once and seeing Mrs. Courant arguing with Sadie, a wad of cotton balls in her hands. Ethan felt disgust and anger toward Sadie’s mother when he realized she’d been trying to convince her thirteen-year-old to stuff her bra.

With a start, Sadie tossed the script onto the table and stood up.

“That hit a little too close to home,” she murmured.

“Your parents?” he asked, certain of her reply.

“Yep.” Her response was clipped and cold. “I grew up with Theo as the model child—straight hair, straight teeth, straight A’s. The only A I ever got was in my cup size. I was more than a disappointment, I was an embarrassment.”

“Not to anyone but them,” Ethan said quietly but firmly. “And maybe to yourself, but you were never an embarrassment or a disappointment to anyone else. Never.”

Sadie walked over to him, patted him on the head. “You’re sweet, Ethan. But it’s true, I was an embarrassment. And thank God for you stepping in to fill the director position. I would have let down my parents once again if the festival had failed under my leadership.”

“Sadie—” Ethan cut himself off. He felt the anger at Sadie’s parents begin to build and willed himself to remain calm. She hadn’t ever deserved to be treated with such distain. Not Sadie.

“It’s fine, Ethan. I know what I am, and what I’m not.”

Fuck that.
“You need to see who I see,” he said harshly, “not who you think your parents see. You’re brilliant, an amazingly hard worker, determined, a wonderful friend, and absolutely beautiful. You always have been. It’s your parents’ fault that they couldn’t see who you really were, and who you really are. They missed out on knowing someone wonderful, and I feel sorry for them.”

Ethan reached up for her hand. Lightly, he placed a kiss on the center of her palm. “Believe in yourself, Sadie. I know I do.”

He watched as her eyes narrowed. It didn’t matter how much he told her he believed in her, he realized. The only way she’d ever believe her own worth is if the knowledge came from her.

She pulled away. “It’s just not that easy, Ethan. It never will be that easy.”

***

Sadie spent the rest of the day uncomfortable, uneasy, as if she didn’t quite fit in her own skin. Ethan had tapped into something deep within her. He’d found that painful wound caused in her childhood that had never healed. She supposed other kids disappointed their parents, that other girls weren’t as beautiful as their mothers would like, but she hated that it had happened to her. She’d always felt an outcast in her own family. A family filled with bright and shining people, the successes of the world. She never belonged—she was just average, and she’d certainly never shone.

Ethan had made it so easy to think she was lovable. And beautiful, too. He saw her the way she’d longed for her family to see her. He believed in her in a way no one ever had before. The way he’d stroked her hair after telling her to believe in herself had brought tears to her eyes. All she’d wanted was for him to enfold her in his arms. She’d needed his body, hard and warm and oh-so-trustworthy wrapped around her, comforting her.

At her desk, she buried her head in her folded arms. His touch, his words, the way he looked at her, his belief and concern—it was all beginning to be too much. He was starting to mean too much. She was nowhere near getting over her crush on him, and it was beginning to drag her down. Way down.

She had to do something dramatic to get over Ethan. And soon.

***

The only word currently running through Sadie’s mind was “damn.” She leaned against the glass patio door, eyeing the crowd gathered on her patio. Her annual Labor Day party was in full swing, with everyone laughing, eating, and drinking. The backyard of The Cottage looked beautiful, with the miniscule white lights twinkling throughout the shrubbery and cross-hatched overhead, almost like a starry outdoor ceiling. Everyone was having a grand old time.

Everyone except her.

She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Ethan. She should be glaring at Liz, who was mashed up as close as she could get to Ethan’s chest, probably whispering something provocative in his ear, but she really just hated Ethan at the moment. Liz had been at his side for most of the party now, shooting challenging glares at any woman who came near. She might as well have lifted her leg and peed on him, she was so obviously marking her territory.

And Ethan was letting her. Why the hell did he let that beast drool all over him?

“You still have a thing for him, don’t you?”

Sadie startled. Chessie had snuck up on her, and apparently knew exactly who Sadie was glaring at. Sadie rolled her eyes, but her hands forming into fists betrayed her tension.

“You know, I hate to sound like a man, but you need to get laid.” Chessie’s proclamation came from nowhere, releasing some of the tension Sadie held in her grasp.

“You can’t be serious.”

“It’s true!” Chessie exclaimed. “If you want him out of your system, you need to get him out of your body. Your mind is telling you to let go, right?” At Sadie’s nod, Chessie continued. “He’s just part of your muscle memory now. Your body’s the thing hungering for him. Feed the hunger, only use some other guy.”

“Sleeping with someone else will get me over Ethan?” Sadie shook her head, bemused.