Done With Love (9 page)

“You’re kidding. No way in hell am I doing any such thing,” I breathed. “Tell me Roxi recorded the conversation. Please.”

“Um, no. But she regrets that she didn’t. A lot. She kind of called her up on a whim of anger and Roxanna drama. You know how she gets.”

My vision blurred as I stared at the still water in the pool. “Well, it was nice of her to try. Tell her thank you.”

Multiple personalities and rage issues. RAGE issues.
She was a monster. A crazy, evil monster.
Deflated, I lay there, staring up at the sky through the pergola beams.

“If it means anything, I don’t think she was serious. I think she was taunting Roxi,” Gen said.

“Yeah, I don’t think it would help Gerard’s campaign to have been such a bad judge of character to let their son marry a woman with multiple personalities and rage issues,” Catherine added, and I smiled.

“No, I don’t suppose so.” I definitely needed more aspirin. “I wish I would have made her give me a signed copy of that contract,” I said on a sigh. “I just wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“No, because she ambushed you,” Gen seethed.

“It doesn’t matter now. Without it, it’s just my word against hers. Like anyone would believe me.” I rolled to my back and gazed up at the blue sky. “I’m going to take a nap now. I’ll talk to you two later, okay?”

“Wait, Lex,” Gen said, and I paused from ending the call.

“Yeah?”

“Listen to Leo, okay? He’s there to make sure you’re safe. I was watching a documentary and—”

I laughed. “I’m starting to think you should be cut off from television.”

“I mean it,” she said on a huff. “Freakish things happen to people on vacation all the time.”

“Okay, okay,” I said. “I’ll listen to him. Mostly. If he’s being reasonable.”

I ended the call and stood up, beat. Inside the villa, I hovered over the empty side of the bed and contemplated whether to get in or not. Not like I’d jump Leo’s bones or anything. Not after making a complete fool of myself in front of him last night.
Not that jumping his bones would be unpleasant.
Exhaustion made the decision for me, and I scooted under the covers and lay so close to the edge, I was barely on the bed. Sleep didn’t come easily, not with a guy like Leo beside me.

The sheets smelled like Leo. The entire villa smelled like him. His cologne hung in the air, even with the windows pulling in the ocean breeze. Now that I was alone in the room, I lay in the middle of the bed, staring at the wall, then the clock on the night stand, then back to the wall.

He’d gone in search of the guest store and a bottle of shaving cream. I didn’t even want to picture what he’d look like with a few days of unshaven scruff. How was I supposed to find the peace and clarity I’d come here for with Leo walking around looking like sex on a stick?
Jeez.

I was being unfair, sure. It really wasn’t Leo’s fault he looked the way he did. Or that his voice was like a coat of warm honey sliding down my backbone. Or that every time his skin brushed against mine, goose bumps shot down my arms. The problem was me. Even when I ignored him, awareness made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

His suitcase, sitting against the wall, stared at me like a big fat elephant in the room, so I closed my eyes. Then I got a flash of my body draped around his in the pool, the gentle sway of the water pushing the insides of my thighs against his slick wet skin. His mouth over mine…

I shivered and turned into the pillow, groaning frustration. My skin tingled, my breathing ragged as my imagination ran wild. He wasn’t a stranger, which made him being here complicated and confusing. He’d been my first everything—first kiss, first love, first person I’d ever slept with. I still remembered the way he’d made love to me, how innocent we’d both been exploring each others’ bodies, learning together what passion really was. But he was a man now. Everything about him was so much bigger; I had no doubt sex with this grown up version of Leo would be mind-blowing.

This is not about being hung up on Leo. It’s about sex.
I repeated that a few times until I was satisfied with that explanation. The truth was, it’d been awhile since Jeremy and I’d had sex. Why was that, anyway? I hadn’t even thought about it. I’d been so busy stressing about the wedding, and he’d been busy at the law office with a high profile case. There hadn’t been time for intimacy.
And you didn’t think there was something wrong with that?

The clock ticked past the hour. How long could it possibly take to walk to the guest store? And why did I care? We weren’t here together—I’d been adamant in pointing out that fact. Maybe he’d stopped by a bar on the way back. Maybe, while I lay here agonizing over sharing a villa with him, he danced the salsa with a big-boobed heiress, not a care in the world.
What the hell is wrong with you?

For someone who wanted nothing to do with the man, I stressed over him like some teenager with a crush. I scooted to the edge of the bed and rose to my feet.
This is all the more reason to stay clear of him.
I couldn’t think straight around him. His reappearance in my life was just another mess to navigate through.

I stalked to the closet and threw the doors open. Didn’t he know what his being here did to me? Didn’t he get how off the wall it was for him to be here? I didn’t hate him or anything. There’d been six years for me to get over the heartache Leo had left behind, but it didn’t change the fact there was still the unanswered question of why he’d broken up with me in the first place. The last thing he’d said to me before leaving for Iraq was ‘
I love you.
’

Him being here brought the question up to the surface to gnaw at me. There’d been no explanation, only a letter telling me to move on because he was. Short, harsh, and to the painful point.
What kind of answer is that?
Not a good one, that was for sure.

No, I didn’t hate him, but I didn’t get him either. He and I sharing a bed, even if we weren’t having sex, should bother him on some level. It didn’t seem to affect him at all, though. Like him being around again was
no big deal.

I pulled a blue cotton dress over my head as I padded through the room to step out onto the patio. I closed the door behind me and looked out to the dark ocean. The sky was a sea of endless stars and a glowing, round moon, lighting up the horizon where the ocean met a blue-black sky. With every step, my feet sank into the warm sand. The ocean lapped quietly against the shore, and I stopped just before the water caressed my toes. Music played at a soft hum from somewhere down the beach. The Big Dipper caught my attention. I held up my hand and traced the stars with my finger, and whispered, “I still can’t see the Little Dipper.”

“You never could.”

His voice startled me. I whipped around, my heartbeat a fierce pounding in my chest. “You startled me.”

“Sorry. You weren’t in bed. I wasn’t sure where you’d gone.”

Turning back around to face the ocean, I said, “Really, Leo, this place is safe. You don’t need to worry so much.” And then I added, “But…thank you for worrying.”

I was mesmerized by the way the black waves of the ocean shimmered under the light of the moon. It wasn’t until he sat down beside me that I looked away, down to where he rested back into his arms propped in the sand. After a moment, I sat down beside him.

“I brought you a sandwich. It’s on the coffee table.” He glanced over at me. “Turkey and sprouts.”

“Thank you, I am a little hungry.” The sand warmed my toes; I dug them in and sat with my knees to my chest, my arms wrapped around my legs. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you remembered what I like on my sandwich.” I smiled at him. “Since you’re a private investigator now, and all.”

He shrugged. “I have a good memory. Dad takes the credit. Good genes, he says.”

The smile tugging at the corners of his lips was so boyishly wicked; the butterflies went crazy in my stomach.

“I also had them add mayo and tomato.”

Those kinds of details were probably stored away in his memory as effortlessly as a manila envelope in a filing cabinet. How much about our past did he reminisce over? Did he think about us as much as I did of late?

Our gazes locked together, and there was so much I wanted to ask him. So much I couldn’t get my lips to speak.
Why are you really here? It has to mean something.
A man didn’t follow a woman across the ocean to make sure she was okay.
Right?
A simple phone call was just as effective.

After a moment of heavy silence, I turned my gaze back to the stars.

We hadn’t sat alone together like this in so long; I’d forgotten how easy it was to be with him. I closed my eyes and remembered the day our relationship had changed from my one-sided teenaged crush, to something more. Back then I used to write about him in my diary, did the Leo-plus-Lexie-forever kind of thing teenaged girls do when infatuated with a boy. For years he’d never given me any reason to think he cared, until one day he tugged on my hair in the school parking lot. I’d had enough of his teasing by then, because I loved him and he didn’t love me back and it hurt. I turned to sock him, maybe yell, scream at him how big of a jerk he was. Before I could say a word, he pulled me to him, caught me in his arms and kissed me senseless with his friends cheering him on.

The memory flashed so bright, it was hard to believe it had happened so long ago.

Yes, I’d been naïve to think two teenaged kids would fall in love and stay together forever, but those things did happen sometimes. I used to pray it would happen for us. Looking back, there’d only been good memories for us. Memories I wouldn’t give up for a second, not even now, even knowing he would eventually let me go. We were kids back then, and we had loved passionately, so completely—so much that the heartbreak had been worth it. Leo had been worth it. Everyone had a first love.

My jaw throbbed from clenching my teeth together, and I shook the memories from my head. There was no sense in stirring the pot and getting lost in a relationship long gone. So I sat there beside him in silence, ignoring the gravitational pull that kept my heart begging to race while my mind warned it to behave. Even my elbows sensed the turmoil inside—they were numb. I wasn’t sure how long we sat there, but my stomach grumbled, reminding me of the sandwich inside. I stood and brushed off the seat of my dress. He must have sensed I wasn’t in the mood for conversation because he was silent as he fell into step beside me. We walked, our hands brushed with each step, until we reached the patio doors. The breeze rustled through the palm trees as he slid the door open for me, the soft
swish
of the ocean waves our only company.

When I turned, I opened my mouth to speak, but when I met his gaze under the light of the moon, I couldn’t remember what I’d been about to say. He brushed his thumb across my cheek.

I held my breath, waiting, but he dropped his hand. “Eat your sandwich and get some rest.”

“I am a little hungry,” I said, my voice soft because the night was silent around us.

He stared at me in thoughtful silence for a few moments before saying, “I’ll be in after a while.”

I looked down to the six pack of bottled beer sitting on a lounge chair on the patio. Nodding, I turned and stepped inside. As I walked about the villa, my gaze kept traveling to his silhouette on the beach.
Why are you here, Leo Moss?

The dream was so vivid, my heart raced in a terrified staccato. The evil queen’s soulless black eyes bore into mine, and my insides burned until I screamed, clutching my stomach. Behind her stood Jeremy, his face screwed up in regret and confusion. Like a scared little boy, afraid to disobey. And even though he knew how much he hurt me, he did nothing. I called to him, but he wouldn’t help, and I fell to my knees in my beautiful wedding gown, the dirt on the ground staining the delicate material. He didn’t reach for me, not once, while my heart broke into a million pieces, and I wept because he didn’t love me.

I twisted in my sleep, begging my mind to wake up, but I writhed in the nightmare until it faded to black. For a little while, my sleep was peaceful.

The second dream was wrapped in fog, moments from my past, and a piercing green-eyed gaze making my heart flutter. The dream played on in a cloudy sort of silence, the kind that swirled and breezed through the empty space like mist. With each touch of his fingers and kiss of his lips, my heart swelled until I thought it would burst. Every sensation, every whisper, caressed my soul, and as he loved me, I opened my passion swollen lips, and whispered, “
I love you.”