Nick caught the motion and glanced away. “I guess you’ve got a point.” Sipping from his paper cup, he looked down at her. “It all really started about oh, sixteen, maybe seventeen years ago. We were in our twenties and we’d known each other all our lives because our parents ran in the same social circle.
“I was always getting into trouble—one thing or another. Usually booze or women or both were involved. I had trouble staying in school, and didn’t like it, much to my mother’s embarrassment and my father’s disgust. He had to bail me out time and time again, but I just never quite fit into the Cahill mold.”
“The rebel.”
“Yeah, well, at the time, you seemed to like it.” Together, in an ever-dwindling crowd, they walked along the sidewalks.
“It’s seductive,” she admitted, hating to think she was the kind of woman who liked to step onto the wild side, who found dangerous men who lived by their own rules attractive, but knowing there was a grain of truth to it.
“You changed your mind about me.”
“How?” She took a long swallow of coffee, felt it warm her from the inside out as she studied the lines of his face, the hard angle of his jaw and the way his dark hair fell over his forehead.
He scowled into the night. “I guess you finally decided you wanted to settle down. You started making noises that way but I wasn’t ready. About that time Alex decided you’d be the perfect wife. For him.”
“And I just went along with it?”
He snorted. “You never just went along with anything, Marla. But you were a flirt and got your kicks out of pitting the two of us against each other,” he said, his words tainted with a never-forgotten disgust. “I got sick of it and you got married.”
“So you didn’t come to the wedding.”
“Didn’t see any reason to be a hypocrite.” His nostrils flared slightly. “I couldn’t envision myself toasting best wishes to the bride and groom, so I was a no-show.”
“And that was that?” she asked.
“The short and abbreviated version. Didn’t want to bother you with details. Besides, it’s all water under the bridge now.”
“Is it?” she asked, lifting a doubting eyebrow as she recalled the passion of the night before.
“It has to be.” His eyes turned a darker shade of blue. He grabbed her left hand suddenly and lifted it up so that her wedding ring glimmered in the lamplight. She gasped and nearly sloshed her coffee onto her coat. “Last night aside, you’re still a married woman, Marla.”
That was the damned truth. “I know,” she said. “Oh God, how I know.” Wrestling her hand from his, she added, “We both agreed we made a mistake. But I still want to know everything, Nick. Everything about us.”
“Jesus.”
“I mean it,” she insisted, turning her face upward, feeling the mist against her cheeks, daring to meet his angry gaze with her own.
He finished his coffee, then crumpled his cup in his fist. “There’s no reason to dredge it all up again.”
“Isn’t there?”
“Nope.” He tossed his cup in a trash basket and she linked her arm through his as they walked along the shop-lined street, dodging other pedestrians and cars, smelling the salt in the breeze.
?
??Don’t you think I deserve to know the truth?”
“What good would it do, Mrs. Cahill?”
“Maybe none, but I keep getting mixed signals from you. One minute I feel like you want me, the next you’re pushing me away.”
“Let’s get something straight, okay?” he said. “I always want you.” Her pulse leaped at the admission, at the anguish she saw in his features. “And I’ll always push you away.” Her heart ached and guilt sliced through her soul, the same brutal guilt she saw reflected in his night-darkened eyes. So this is what it felt like to be star-crossed lovers, to be fated to never be with the one man she loved, to feel the intense heartache that would certainly follow her like a shadow for years to come.
At that thought she closed her eyes and tried to get a grip. She didn’t love Nick. Couldn’t. She didn’t even know him. Or herself. What was wrong with her? And why in God’s name did she feel such pain to think she threw away a future with him? “I understand what you’re saying, believe me, and I’m not trying to be difficult or to open old wounds, old pain, but I think it’s important that I know everything about myself,” she said earnestly, studying the lines of his face, the ravage of emotions that pulled his skin tight over his bones and caused his mouth to curve downward. “Everything,” she repeated, refusing to back down. “No matter how hard it is to take. No matter how painful. I want it all. The good, the bad, the ugly.”
“You might not like what you see.”
“It has to be better than imagining and fantasizing and fearing and just plain not knowing.” Determined, she grabbed his elbow, her fingers locking over the rough leather of his jacket. “Tell me the truth, Nick. No matter what it is.”