Some Like It Charming (A Temporary Engagement) (23 page)

“You do know all that is why she doesn’t want me, right?”

“She wants you. She just wishes she didn’t.” Ellen watched him take a swig of beer and shook her head. “Go get her, numnuts.”

“Grandma!” He shook his head, laughing. “I haven’t heard that word since grandfather died.”

“Your grandfather was high and mighty and born with a silver spoon up his backside, just like you. Who do you think taught him that word?”

He laughed again. “Then how come I’ve never heard you say it until now?”

“Because it reminds me of him.”

He looked at her carefully, seeing the sorrow in her words. “You still miss him?”

“Of course I do.”

He said, “So some love is forever.”

She eyed him. “Some love is.”

“Mackenzie doesn’t think so. She thinks forever love is luck.”

Ellen smiled. “It is. It’s luck and guts and not being dumb. Right now you’re one out of three.” She patted his knee. “But your grandfather only had one out of three at one point, too.”

He raised his eyebrow. “You’re saying grandfather didn’t have any guts?
Grandfather
?” His grandfather had been a terror. Balls of steel when markets were crashing and others were cracking.

She leaned back, a far away look in her eye. “When it came to love. He’d seen his parents’ unhappy marriage and thought there wasn’t anything else in life. And even if there was, it wasn’t worth searching for. He just wanted a pretty decoration for his arm and a woman waiting at home for him.” She snorted. “Luckily, he wised up and realized before too late that there was something more than that.”

She looked at Ethan and poked him in the chest so he was paying attention. “There’s more than that.”

He took a swig. “I think I’ve realized that.”

“So now it’s time to go win her over.”

“Did Grandfather have to win you over?”

“You bet your balls he did. You think I’d just swoon as soon as he started chasing me?”

Ethan looked down into the beer bottle. “How did he win you?”

Ellen sat next to him and put her hand on his arm. “He gave me what I needed.”

He looked up. “What did you need?”

She laughed. “Oh, I needed proof that he respected me as an equal. Now, that won’t work for Mackenzie because that’s not what she needs.”

“What does she need?”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“You’re a lot of help.”

She patted his arm. “You know. You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know what she needs, except maybe change everything about myself.”

She shook her head. “She already loves you. You don’t need to change anything about yourself.”

He blinked. “You think she loves me?”

Ellen barked out a laugh. “Looks like we’re still working on dumb.” She shook her head. “Come at this as if she already loved you. What else does she need?”

“She needs someone who doesn’t remind her of her father.”

“Mmm. But she already loves you, so that’s not what she needs.” She pushed herself up. “You think on it, numnuts. It’ll come to you.”

She picked up the phone, punching in a number.

He said, “What are you doing?”

“Getting the plane ready. You’re not going to give her what she needs wallowing on my couch and drinking my beer.”

He looked down into the amber liquid. What did Mackenzie Wyatt need?

He had no idea. But he was pretty certain she’d say it wasn’t him.

He looked up at his grandmother. “You really think she loves me?”

She patted his head. “Poor clueless boy.”

She tried to pull him up and he helped her by rising. She started pushing him toward the door.

He said, “I still don’t know what she needs.”

She took his bottle and pushed him out the door. “It’s a long flight. You’ll figure it out.”

Ethan knocked on Mackenzie’s door six hours later. He knocked and he knocked and she answered by finally whipping the door open and shouting, “What!”

He said, “I was going to break a window to get in but I thought you wouldn’t appreciate it.”

“I don’t appreciate you trying to knock my door down, either.”

“I have something to say to you. I don’t want to say it. You probably don’t want to hear it.”

“Sounds like a win-win.”

“But if I don’t say it I will regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomo–”

She rolled her eyes and started to close the door. He stuck his shoe in the doorway and said, “I knew you would never fall for me. I knew I could trust you. . . I just didn’t realize I couldn’t trust myself. I didn’t realize that I would fall in love with you.”

She sighed and closed her eyes. “Ethan. How many women have you fallen in love with since you were sixteen?”

“None.”

She opened her eyes, the disbelief clear.

He said, “I’ve loved them all. Still love them all. And have been in love with none of them.”

She waved away the distinction. “And how many of them didn’t fall in love with you?”

He didn’t say it. Knew she would think he’d fallen in love with her only because she
hadn’t
fallen in love with him.

She said it for him. “None. You don’t love me. You just don’t know what to do with a woman who doesn’t fall all over you.”

He took her hand. “But you pass my test. I’d give you half of O’Connor Capital without even blinking. If you wanted it.”

She looked at him, so sad, and he dropped her hand. He said softly, “But you don’t want it. Because you don’t believe me. And won’t ever let yourself love me if you don’t believe it first.”

He pushed something into her hand and she looked down. He said, “Don’t get excited. It’s not that half mil.”

She took the envelope from him, opening it and finding a plane ticket inside. She looked up.

He said, “He won’t trick you again. You’re not a green kid anymore. And you can tell when someone really loves you.”

Her eyes widened.

He said, “But you deserve to see if he’ll choose you this time. I think you need that.”

She stood speechless as he reached out and pushed her hair off her face. “Thank you, Mackenzie. For helping me with the press. For letting me fall in love with you. A man should do it at least once in his life.”

She was still staring at him when he walked away. When he got in his car and drove away.

Cassandra found her crying into a pint of ice cream. “That bad, huh?”

Mackenzie nodded.

“He said he loves you.”

Mackenzie nodded and scrunched up her face again.

“And you love him.”

Noisy sobs answered her and Cassandra let Mackenzie cry for a few minutes before she said, “I’m not seeing the problem here.”

“He’s Ethan Howell O’Connor. That’s the problem.”

Cassandra nodded. “Yep, yep. Ethan Howell O’Connor. Handsome, rich, charming. Oh yeah, and he’s already said that he loves you. God, what an ass.”

Mackenzie took a big bite of ice cream.

Cassandra said, “He’s rich. Is that the dealbreaker?”

Mackenzie sniffed. “That sounds stupid to say.”

“Yes, it does. It sounds very stupid. He’s handsome. Is that the dealbreaker?”

“Well, it’s not ideal. I mean I don’t want him looking like a dog, but he’s. . . He walks into a room and women orgasm. They throw themselves at him. Every day I watch women stare at him with a little look on their face that says ‘I just came. Just a little bit.’ I had to throw some chick out of the elevator. Some cougar was waiting for him outside the restroom.”

“So, that’s the dealbreaker.”

Mackenzie growled. “No.”

“‘Cause you can handle that, right?”

“Yes.”

“So? What else?”

“His mother hates me.”

Cassandra snorted. “Oh, yeah. Because that hasn’t happened to millions of women over the centuries. I’m not even going to ask because that’s not a dealbreaker. Move to a different city. What else?”

Mackenzie shrugged her shoulders.

“So what you’re telling me is that there are things you don’t like, but no dealbreakers.”

“He’s not the dealbreaker. I am.”

“I know dealbreakers and you aren’t it.” Cassandra took her hand and held it. “Trust me when I say there is not always a happy ending. I have lots of experience in unhappy endings. Lots of experience in hopeless endings. And I know this: when there’s a chance at finding the real deal, you have to grab for it. You have to walk to the end of the pier and jump off, knowing full well that you may end up broken on the rocks below. That’s a life well lived. Ending up broken on the rocks because you tried. Not still standing on the pier, afraid.”

Mackenzie whispered, “I’ve crawled off those rocks before. I don’t think I can do it again.”

“You won’t have to. He’ll catch you.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“I will pick you up, dust you off, and help you beat his beautiful face to smithereens.”

Mackenzie sniffed. “You’d do that for me?”

Cassandra nodded. “It would hurt, but I’d do it.”

Mackenzie looked at the plane ticket. “He said I would know when someone really loved me.”

“Do you think he really loves you?”

Mackenzie took a deep breath, remembering when he’d said it, the hopeless light in his eyes because he knew she wouldn’t say it back. He’d been right. She couldn’t believe him, wouldn’t let herself love him for real. Wouldn’t play with everything she had.

She looked up at Cassandra with a terrified look on her face and Cassandra smiled. “I don’t look good in purple. Remember that for the bridesmaid’s dress. It makes me look like a zombie bride.”

“Is that a thing?”

“It is. And trust me, you don’t want to see it.”

Two days later, Mackenzie stood outside an old villa on the outskirts of an old village in Spain. Vines crept up the side of the house and a pink tricycle was parked forgotten on a patch of grass. She stared at the house for a long time until the door was opened by an extremely pregnant woman. The woman stared at her, not smiling, and finally said, “Are you going to stand there all day or are you going to come in?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

The woman snorted, shutting the door behind her, and waddled out to stand beside her.

“Think quickly. You’ve got about two minutes before he comes out here yelling at me to get back inside and sit down.”

Mackenzie looked at her in surprise. “Yell at you?”

The woman nodded her head. “It’s kind of funny.”

Mackenzie couldn’t remember one time,
one time
, that her father had ever yelled at anybody. He was cool and unruffleable. Cold and heartless.

The front door opened back up and her father looked at Mackenzie, expressionless. Then glared at his wife.

Rachel said, “I’m going inside. I don’t want to hear another lecture today. Come in when you’re ready.” She looked at Mackenzie and rubbed her belly. “Try to make it today.”

Mackenzie followed hesitantly, watching her father as he came and took Rachel’s arm to help her inside. He said, “I told you I would get her.”

“I was getting bored waiting. I’m on a time crunch.”

He escorted them to the kitchen table, waiting patiently for Rachel to sit. He gestured Mackenzie into a chair and brought her a cup of steaming coffee and a chocolate-covered
palmera
.