The Wealthy Frenchman's Proposition (11 page)

But now, she thought, she might not have to let go. She didn’t know what he meant by asking her to stay, but it sounded positive. She couldn’t believe she’d waited so long to move in with him. Granted it had only been for a little over a week. But their lives had meshed together.

She liked living with him. For the first time in her entire life, she felt like she was in the place where she was meant to be with the man to whom she belonged.

“What do you mean?”

“That I want you to stay with me, and not just as my temporary fiancée. I want this to be permanent.”

She felt a rush of joy and she tipped her head back, blinking so he wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes. She took a deep breath and felt the gentle stroking of his finger against the side of her cheek.

“So what do you think?”

Her gaze met his and she tried to read the emotions there, but as always she had no idea what he was feeling. But she knew what
she
felt. She loved this man. She wanted nothing more than to say she was his and live the rest of her life with him.

“I think yes. I’d love to spend the rest of my life with you.”

He gave her a tight smile and kissed her. “Great.”

“Great? That’s all you can say?”

“It seemed more appropriate than ‘get naked.’”

She laughed and hugged him tightly to her. “Get naked would work.”

“Really?”

“Yes!”

He laughed then, and she felt a sense of rightness deep down in her soul. In that empty part that had been hollow since her father had left all those long years ago.

He started to unbutton her blouse and she put her hands in his thick hair, rubbing the back of his scalp as he undressed her. She thought of the wedding plans she’d put off making, because planning a wedding she wasn’t going to follow through with had seemed like torture. But now she could stop putting off Blanche and really start thinking about the kind of bride she’d be.

“When do you want to get married? I know we’d been putting off picking a date because of the pretense, but now that we’re going through with it things are different.”

Tristan stopped unbuttoning her blouse and lifted himself off of her body. “Married?”

“Isn’t that what you meant, Tristan? If we’re going to live together permanently…”

He pushed completely off her and sat on the edge of the bed, his back to her. And she realized he hadn’t meant marriage. “What were you thinking?”

“That we’d live together,” he answered.

“What’s the difference in living together and being married?” she asked. “Everyone already thinks we’re engaged.”

“I don’t give a damn what everyone thinks. We both know that we aren’t really engaged,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at her.

She shook her head, fiddling with the ring he’d given her, and realized that her shirt was unbuttoned and she was still laying in the middle of his bed. She sat up and quickly refastened her shirt.

“I don’t know what to think anymore,” she said, climbing off the king-size bed. “I never know what to expect from you, Tristan.”

“I do not understand,” he said.

And for the first time, she realized that he really didn’t understand what she was talking about. Because Tristan was always looking out for himself. For his own desires, his own safety. She had been thinking that because he showered her with attention and gifts, he was caring for her.

“I love you. Do you remember that?”

He stood up and walked over to her. He touched her so softly, tracing the lines of her face with his fingertip. “I do remember it. Hearing you say you love me is something that I think about a lot.”

“And…?”

“And that’s why I want us to continue living together.”

She staggered back away from him. “Did you ask me because you feel sorry for me?”

He shook his head. “I asked because I’m tired of being alone. And you bring something to my life that I never thought to find again.”

“Love,” she said. “I bring love to your life.”

“No, you bring that to yourself. To me you bring companionship and friendship…an end to the loneliness I’ve felt when I’m around other couples.”

She didn’t know what to say. Because she had the feeling that he’d asked her to live with him out of pity. She realized for the first time that her father had done her a huge favor by leaving. Because Tristan staying with her out of guilt or pity made her feel worse than being left behind.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. Obviously I gave you my word that I’d stay with you until the party and that’s…in two days, right? So after the party I’ll move back to the brownstone.”

He knew he shouldn’t be mad at Sheri. But he was. If she wasn’t so stuck in her bourgeois American idea of what a relationship should be, then he’d have everything he wanted. “Running back to your favorite hiding place?”

“I’m not running,” she said, crossing her arms around her waist and staring up at him with those big wounded doe eyes.

But this time he didn’t let the eyes affect him. He knew better. She was as manipulative as the other women he’d dated. The ones that had always wanted to be Mrs. Tristan Sabina and had schemed to get there. Sheri was the same, she just went about it differently. “It sure seems that way from where I’m standing. You said you loved me, and now that I won’t marry you…you’re going back to the same place you’ve always run to.”

She dropped her arms and stalked over to him. “Well, you’d know all about running. Of course, you hide out in the public eye. Dating a bunch of different shallow women. Acting like nothing in life affects you.”

Tristan couldn’t argue with that. “What do you want from me?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t hedge, Sheri. Tell me what you want. How can I make this right for you?”

She turned away and then glanced back at him. “You could love me.”

He didn’t know how to answer that. “I’m…I can’t do that.”

She nodded. “Then you have nothing I want.”

She walked to the bedroom door and he realized that she was leaving. That she was going to walk out that door and he wasn’t ready for her to go.

“Sheri.”

“Yes?”

“I really want you to stay.”

She looked back at him. “I want to. But for the first time in my life, I realize that I can’t keep settling for the least bit of attention. You changed me over the last few weeks. Made me into a different woman. And the one constant through all of that is how much I love you.

“But tonight, I realized that loving you isn’t enough for me, and it’s not fair to you. You need something more. Something I can’t give.”

He didn’t know what she was talking about, but could tell that it made a lot of sense to Sheri. “Are you leaving tonight?”

“No. I gave you my word I’d stay through our pretend engagement party.”

“Very well. Thank you for that,” he said, gathering his facade around him. He always knew how to put on a good face. And it wasn’t like he really loved her. She was his
pretend
fiancée. “I’ll sleep down the hall.”

“Okay.”

He walked out of his bedroom. In the wide, long hallway he heard her footsteps behind him. “Tristan.”

He looked back.

“I thought you were different,” she said, her voice sad and low but still audible.

“Different how?”

“I don’t know, just different from the other men in my life.”

“I am sure I am different.”

“On the outside you are very different. But inside, you’re the same.”

“Same how?”

“Hollow and empty. Unwilling to let your guard down for a second and accept the gift of my love.”

Her words were heartfelt, and to be honest, he did feel an ache deep inside at her words. He’d thought for a long time that he wasn’t exactly the man he used to be.

“I have a full life. After you break our engagement I will be back to my busy schedule and the life that I have become accustomed to.”

“That doesn’t mean that you’re happy.”

He saw the tears in her wide brown eyes and knew he was going to remember that look on her face for a long time.

“Happiness is a fool’s notion.”

“No, it’s not. Unless you think it’s foolish to take a risk. To put yourself on the line. And I know you don’t, because you take risks every day in business. At the Sabina Group, and with the nightclubs you own with Gui and Christos. It’s only in your personal life that you refuse to take a chance.”

He pivoted on his heel and walked back to her. “Studying me in magazines and tabloid stories does not mean you know who I am and what makes me tick.”

“No, it doesn’t,” she said. “What makes me an expert is having fallen in love with you. And living with you this week has shown me a man that few people really see. I do know the real you.”

“Do you? Who is the real me?”

She took a deep breath and looked up at him. In her bare feet, he felt like he towered over her. “The real you. Are you sure you want to know?”

“I asked, did I not?”

“That’s right. You did. Well, the real man I’ve seen, Tristan, is a coward. Someone who’s felt a deep pain, and I’m not discounting that. But because of one loss, you’ve cut yourself off from ever loving again. And that seems cowardly to me.”

Tristan didn’t answer her, just walked away. And this time he wasn’t coming back. He wasn’t a coward, and he wasn’t about to let Sheri Donnelly use those words to make him do something he knew he’d regret.

He’d been the embodiment of every romantic fantasy she’d ever had. The lover she’d always wanted. He’d made her feel as if she was the sexiest woman alive, and the pleasure he’d evoked in her body was beyond even her wildest fantasies. And the way he’d taken care of her…The way she’d felt when she was with him…

Working and living with Tristan had made her believe she’d found the other half of her soul. That she’d brought things to his life that had been lacking, and he’d done the same for her.

She put her head on her desk and realized that she wasn’t going to be able to stay on here at the Sabina Group. There was no way she could sit in this office every day and pretend that she wasn’t still in love with Tristan.

It was well after six and she was still working. She was scheduled to meet Tristan and his family and friends at Del Posto for dinner at eight-thirty. After calling Tristan a coward, she couldn’t stand him up.

Her phone rang.

“Sabina Group, this is Sheri.”

“Sheri, this is Palmer at the security desk. There is a Count Guillermo de Cuaron y Bautista de la Cruz here to see you.”

“To see
me?
”

“Yes.”

Why was Gui here? “Please send him up.”

“I will.”

She hung up the phone and pulled her mirror out of the bottom drawer of her desk, thinking she should fix her makeup, then realized she hadn’t put any on this morning. She’d reverted to the old Sheri. She needed the comfort of her big comfy clothes and her plain appearance. There was a lot to be said for not being noticed.

“Ms. Donnelly, I’d like a word with you.” Gui strode into her office like he owned it. But he stopped in his path and put his hands on his hips, cursing succinctly under his breath. She caught about every other word, since his Spanish accent was fairly heavy. “What the hell is going on with you and Tristan?”

“I think you should ask him that question. I’m taking care of some last-minute things here at the office. I think we’re all meeting at the restaurant for dinner.”

He shook his head. “I already talked to him, at the airport. And I came over here to find out what has happened between the two of you.”

“Ask him again.”

“I thought the problem was you.”

She glanced up at Gui and realized there was a bit of truth in what he’d said. “The problem
is
me.”

Gui shook his head. “How is it you?”

“I want things from him that he can’t give me.”

“Love?”

“How’d you know?”

“Because I know Tristan, and that’s the one thing he thinks he cannot offer you.”

There was something about Gui that made her want to pour out her soul. Something so understanding in those hazel eyes of his. “I think it might be me. I’m not the kind of woman who inspires that in any man.”

“Don’t say that, Sheri. Tristan wasn’t always the man you see before you today.”

“He wasn’t?”

“He was badly hurt when Cecile died. He used to be the most gregarious of all of us. So filled with a big joy for loving. And then when Cecile was diagnosed with cancer…he thought they’d beat it at first. He put his entire life on hold to stay by her side.”

Sheri ached to hear his words, but they mirrored what she already knew. Tristan had told her himself that he couldn’t love anymore. That he’d had his once in a lifetime. It was just her bad luck that she had found
her
forever-love in him.

“I know all that. I thought I could love him enough for both of us. But that was silly, and now we’re both moving on.”

“I’m not sure that you haven’t changed him, Sheri. He’s a different man today than he was at Christos’s wedding, and that’s thanks to you.”

“I doubt that. I’m not the type of woman who can change a man’s life.”

Gui sat down on the corner of her desk. “Yes, you are. Don’t give up on him yet. Will you give him one more chance?”

She shook her head. She couldn’t bear the pain of losing him again.

The phone rang, but it was after hours so she let it go to voice mail. “Why do you care?”

“Because Tristan is one of my dearest friends and you’ve made him happier in the last few weeks than I’ve seen him in years.”

She was afraid to believe him. But at the same time, she knew Gui wouldn’t lie to her. “I’m afraid to take another chance on him. I just made up my mind that he wasn’t going to stay with me.”

“You strike me as a fighter, Sheri. Someone who wouldn’t let the chance of a lifetime slip away.”

She looked up at Gui and realized that he was right. She was letting go of Tristan too easily. She loved the man, and that wasn’t going to change. Shouldn’t she keep fighting for him?