“Why?”
“I wanted to talk to you. I have something I need to say, and think it’s important.”
He looked behind him at the empty tunnel, opened the janitor’s closet they’d been in before, and shoved her inside. He flipped on the light as the door shut behind them, sealing them together in the same place where he’d once kissed her passionately. As she gazed into his face, he neither smiled nor frowned, and his eyes looked tired but gave nothing away. Nothing of the emotion she’d seen earlier in the locker room.
“I thought you needed to say something.”
She nodded and leaned back against the closed door. The scent of his skin filled her with a visceral memory and deep longing. Now that the time had come, she didn’t know where to begin. So she just talked. “I want to tell you again how sorry I am for the Honey Pie column. I know you probably don’t believe me, and I don’t blame you.” She shook her head. “At the time I wrote it, I was falling in love with you, and I just sat down and poured out my fantasy about you. I wasn’t even sure if I was going to send it in. I just wrote, and when I was through, I knew it was the best thing I’d ever written.” She pushed away from the door and walked past him in the small closet. She couldn’t look at him and tell him everything that needed to be said. “When I finished it, I knew I shouldn’t send it in, because I knew you wouldn’t like it. I knew how you felt about untrue things written about you. You’d made that really clear.” With her back to him, she wrapped her hand around a part of the metal shelving. “I sent it anyway.”
“Why?”
Why? This was the hard part. “Because I loved you and you didn’t love me. I’m not the kind of woman you date. I’m short and flat-chested and I can hardly dress myself. I didn’t think you’d ever care for me the way I care for you.”
“So you did it to get back at me?”
She looked over her shoulder and forced herself to turn and face him. To face the contempt she might once again see in his eyes. “No. If I’d wanted just to get back at you for not loving me, I would have kept myself anonymous.” She folded her arms across her chest as if to keep her pain from spilling out on the floor. “I did it to end the relationship before it began. So I could blame the article. So that I wouldn’t get in too deep.”
He shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“No. I’m sure it doesn’t to you, but it does to me.”
“That’s the most ass-backward excuse I’ve ever heard.”
Her heart sank. He didn’t believe her. “I’ve been thinking a lot this past week, and I’ve realized that in every relationship with a man that I’ve had, I’ve always entered an escape hatch just in case I might get hurt. The Honey Pie column was my escape hatch. Problem was, I didn’t get out fast enough.” She took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “I love you, Luc. I fell in love with you, and I was so afraid that you would never love me. Instead of thinking a relationship with you was doomed to end, I should have fought to keep it together. I should have… I don’t exactly know what. But I do know it ended badly. I take the blame for that, and I’m sorry.” When he didn’t say anything, her heart plummeted further. There was nothing left to say except, “I was hoping we could still be friends.”
He raised a dubious brow. “You want to be friends?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
She’d never thought one little word could hurt so much.
“I don’t want to be your friend, Jane.”
“I understand.” She put her head down and moved past him to the door. She hadn’t thought she had any more tears to shed. She thought she’d cried them all, but she was wrong. She didn’t care if the rest of the Chinooks were in the tunnel; she had to get out of there before she fell apart. She twisted the door handle and pulled, but nothing happened. She pulled harder, but the door didn’t budge. She turned the lock, but it still didn’t open. She looked up and saw Luc’s hands above her head holding the door shut.
“What are you doing?” she asked as she turned to face him. He stood so close her nose was inches from his chest and she could smell the clean cotton scent of his dress shirt mixed with his deodorant.
“Don’t play games, Jane.”
“I’m not.”
“Then why do you tell me you love me in one breath, and then in the next tell me you just want to be friends?” He placed his fingers beneath her chin and lifted her gaze to his. “I have friends. I want more from you than that. I’m a selfish guy, Jane. If I can’t be your lover, if I can’t have all of you, then I don’t want anything.” He lowered his face to hers and kissed her, a soft press of his lips to hers, and the tears she’d been trying to hold back filled her eyes. Her hands grasped the front of his shirt and she held on tight. She would be his lover, and this time she wouldn’t invent reasons to get out. She wanted this too much.
He slid his mouth across her cheek and he whispered in her ear, “I love you, Jane. And I’ve missed you. My life has been total shit without you.”
She pulled back and looked into his face. “Say it again.”
He raised his hands to her face and brushed his thumbs across her cheeks. “I love you, and I want to be with you because you make my life better.” He pushed her hair behind her ear. “You asked me once what I see when I look into my future.” He slid his palm down her shoulder and took her hand. “I see you,” he said and kissed her knuckles.
“You’re not mad at me?” she asked.
He shook his head and his lips brushed the backs of her fingers. “I thought I was. I thought I’d be mad at you forever, but I’m not. I don’t really understand your reasons for sending that column in, but I just don’t care anymore. I think I was more pissed off about feeling like a fool than about the actual column.” He placed her palm on his chest. “When I saw you waiting for me, my anger evaporated and I knew I’d be a bigger fool if I let you go. I want to spend the rest of my life getting to know your secrets.”
“I don’t have any more secrets.”
“Are you sure there isn’t at least one?” He wrapped an arm around her back and kissed her neck.