Hope Street (21 page)

“I meant, I can’t stay in Kumasi beyond the end of July.”

He lowered the sheaf of papers he’d been reading, rotated in his chair and stood to face her. “I’ve failed to persuade you of your indispensability, then?”

“I appreciate that you think so highly of me, Adrian, but…” She sighed. “I realized that if I stayed, it would be because I was
afraid of facing my problems at home. I may be a coward, but I’ve tried to develop some courage while I’m here.”

“Good heavens, Ellie, you’re one of the most courageous people I know. I’ve never seen you flinch from a snake or a suppurating wound. You’ve driven around the countryside with me in the Jeep, and I’ve been told by other passengers that riding with me can be a near-death experience. Yet you’ve done it without a moment’s hesitation.”

“Riding in a Jeep with you is easy,” she said with a sad laugh. “Coming to terms with an estranged husband is hard.”

“Then don’t do it,” Adrian suggested. Ellie hadn’t realized how close he stood to her until he extended his hand, snagged hers and pulled her toward him. “Forget about him for a while. Stay.”

He touched his lips to hers, and she felt a strange rush of sensation, fear and desire twining through her. She’d been aware of Adrian’s sex appeal from the moment she’d met him—even before she’d met him, since Rose had warned her not to fall for him. And she hadn’t. He was a friend, a partner, a comrade-in-arms. A brilliant doctor. A man who lavished her with praise and made her feel more confident than she had in years. A man who inspired her to do her best, to embrace new challenges—to be unafraid.

And damn, being kissed by him felt wonderful. Even after a long day he smelled clean and fresh, of hospital soap and laundered cotton. His mouth tasted of mint. He was warm and limber and…God, it had been so long since she’d felt like a sexual being.

She kissed him back. At first her lips seemed stiff, as if she’d forgotten how to kiss. She hadn’t, though. What she’d forgotten was what being kissed felt like—the warmth, the pressure, the eroticism of a man’s breath mingling with hers. She’d forgotten, but now Adrian was reminding her.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and he wrapped his around her waist, and they swayed in a subtle dance as their mouths merged and opened and claimed. Standing in his tiny office, in the glare of a buzzing fluorescent light, surrounded by heaps of paperwork and steel file cabinets, Ellie reveled in Adrian’s heat, his strength, his obvious passion for her.

She wasn’t sure how long they kissed, or who broke from whom. But eventually they leaned away from each other, both of them breathing hard. Adrian pushed her hair back from her face, his fingers long and graceful as they combed through the strands. “You could forget about him for a while,” he repeated, his voice a seductive murmur. “I could make you forget.”

He could. His invitation tempted her.

But as she gazed into his face, she understood that she couldn’t accept it. “No. I can’t do this.”

“Why not?”

Because she didn’t
love
Adrian. Because she’d given her heart to Curt and he’d broken it into pieces and flung it back at her—except that he’d clung to some of the pieces. She couldn’t make love with another man as long as Curt still had a hold on her. And to her great regret, he did.

“I just can’t,” she said desolately. “I’m sorry.” She rose on her toes to kiss his cheek, then turned and left the office….

“I’
VE ALREADY TOLD YOU
about him,” Ellie said, her tone flat. “He was a brilliant doctor. British. A bit monomaniacal. He had a good sense of humor. Other than that, there’s nothing to tell.”

Curt stared at the television, still displaying the image of the monomaniacal, humorous doctor with his arm around Ellie. What was that old slogan about Las Vegas? What Ellie had done in Kumasi stayed in Kumasi, right?

Yet he couldn’t get past it. He couldn’t look at that picture on the screen and
not know.

He shoved out of the chair, crossed to the bed and lowered himself to sit on it, careful not to crowd her. She held her ground, refusing to shift away from him. “Ellie,” he said, then swallowed the catch in his voice. “I know things have gone south for us. We’re getting a divorce. What we had is gone, and if you want to place all the blame on me, I’m not going to fight you about that. But damn it, I was honest with you. We always had honesty. And I can’t bear the thought that we don’t have that anymore.”

She studied him, appearing both curious and defiant. “I haven’t lied to you.”

“You haven’t told me the truth, either. Did you sleep with him? Did you fall in love with him?”

She shifted her gaze to the television, then back to Curt. “That’s none of your business.”

“Your sex life isn’t my business. Your honesty is. Don’t take that from me, Ellie. Please.”

Her eyes went soft, like dark chocolate melting. Her lips turned in a faint smile. “No,” she said. “I didn’t sleep with him. I didn’t fall in love with him.”

Curt hadn’t realized he was holding his breath until it emerged from him in a sigh. Just because she hadn’t slept with the brilliant doctor didn’t mean she loved Curt. She hadn’t slept with
him,
either.

Her smile grew. “For all you know,” she pointed out, “he wasn’t interested in me.”

“He was interested,” Curt argued, glancing at the two of them posed on the TV. “Look at him. You can tell.”

Ellie aimed the remote control at the TV and poked a button with her thumb. The screen went black.

If only getting rid of one’s past could be that easy. If only he had a remote control with a button he could press to make all his mistakes disappear. “You should have slept with him,” he said glumly. “If you had, we’d be even.”

Ellie snorted. “It’s not a contest, Curt. A marriage isn’t a game where you score points and hope for a tie.”

Curt agreed with a shrug. “But maybe if you’d slept with him, you wouldn’t hate me so much. You’d understand why I did what I did, even though it was incredibly stupid.”

“I understand why you did what you did,” she said, her tone surprisingly gentle.

“But you can’t forgive me for doing it.”

She ran her thumb along the edge of the remote control, her eyes focused inward on her own thoughts. Maybe he’d hoped she would finally relent and offer her forgiveness, but she didn’t. She just moved her thumb back and forth on the black plastic, gazing at nothing, ruminating.

No forgiveness. Fine. Curt moved on. “So you didn’t sleep with him. But you came home a different person.”

“By the time I came home, I wasn’t a basket case anymore.”

“You were cool and collected. No—you were cold and reserved.” He forced the words out. “You weren’t wearing your wedding band. Something happened over there that made you decide you wanted a divorce.”

“The only thing that happened over there was that I realized I could function on my own. I could accomplish things. I could take care of myself. I could live some good days and go to bed feeling as if my life was worth something.” Her gaze sought his. “And the divorce was something we both decided.”

He conceded the point, reluctantly. He recalled checking out her hand every day for weeks after she’d gotten back to see if her ring had made a reappearance. When it hadn’t, he’d confronted her. Over one of their cold, reserved dinners, he’d asked, “Are you ever going to wear your wedding band again?”

She’d touched her bare finger and closed her eyes. “What’s the point, Curt? We can’t go back to where we used to be.”

“Do you want a divorce?” He’d had to force the words out, yet they’d emerged low and even, as if they’d possessed some inherent logic. Perhaps they had. He and Ellie had lost a son. They’d lost each other. They could never get Peter back; maybe they could never get each other back either.

She’d stopped rubbing the naked base of her ring finger and
gazed steadily at him. “That would probably be the most sensible thing.”

If Ellie could discuss such a devastating emotional step in terms of how sensible it was, he’d supposed, she must have given the subject plenty of thought already. That late-summer night over dinner had been the first time he’d allowed himself even to think the word
divorce,
let alone speak it. Yet she hadn’t seemed surprised. She’d already reached a conclusion. She’d decided to be sensible.

He loved Ellie. He’d wanted her happy. That was all he’d ever wanted, for her to be happy and whole. “All right, then,” he’d said. He could have fought her—he’d always loved a good fight—but this fight wouldn’t have been good. They would have been fighting over whether Ellie deserved to live the rest of her life the way she wanted to. He couldn’t deny her that right.

Yet he’d never wanted a divorce, and he definitely didn’t want one now, even though he wondered if he could remain married to a woman unable to forgive him. “What if I told you I was opposed to divorce?” he asked carefully, watching her and bracing himself. He had no idea what her reaction would be.

“Curt…”

The hell with being careful. He was in a battle for his future, for his family, for everything that mattered to him. He was a natural-born fighter, and he had to shoot for a victory. “We’ve just watched a movie of your life—and a lot of it is our lives together. We’ve lived so much, shared so much. There’s so much affection on that DVD, Ellie. So much joy. I don’t give a damn if you can’t forgive me. I don’t care that you think I’m some kind of monster for what I did. I don’t want a divorce.”

Her eyes widened. “I never thought you were a monster.”

“A sex-crazed beast.”

She opened her mouth to dispute him, then shut it and gave him another enigmatic smile. “You want to argue semantics?”

“I want to argue about putting our marriage back together, Ellie.”

“We’ve been discussing a divorce for the past two months. Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

“Because
you
wanted the divorce. And I thought, if that’s what it would take for Ellie to be happy, then that’s what we’d do. Because I can’t stand the thought of you going through the rest of your life as sad as you’ve been.”

“And now…what? You
do
want me to go through the rest of my life sad?” The absurdity of her statement made them both smile. Then, simultaneously, they stopped smiling. “Why are you telling me this now?”

“I saw that movie.” He gestured toward the television. “And I realized my happiness is important, too.” He shifted on the mattress, turning to face her fully. “I crossed a line. God knows I did, Ellie—but it was because I felt as if we were both slowly dying. I struggled to keep you from going under, but nothing I tried worked. So I finally figured I had to save myself. I wasn’t looking for fun. I wasn’t looking for excitement or passion or love. All I wanted was to feel like I wasn’t dead.” He sighed, scrutinizing her, wishing she were easier to read. What was she thinking of this overwrought confession? Was she even listening to him? Did she care?

“What I did was wrong. I admit it. I bared my soul to you, told you what I’d done, apologized as many ways as I could. I didn’t want another woman. I didn’t want an affair. All I wanted was you, Ellie. All I’ve ever wanted was you.”

Her eyes glistened, and she lowered them to stare at her hands in her lap. He lowered his eyes, too. She might not have
been wearing her wedding band and eternity ring when she’d stepped off the plane at Logan Airport a couple of months ago, but she was wearing them tonight. Only because she’d been faking it for her parents, but the reason didn’t matter as much as the fact that those two bands—one gold, one set with diamonds—circled her finger.

He eased the remote control out of her hand and tossed it onto the night table. Then he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her ring finger. He felt the hard edge of the diamonds against the inner skin of his lip, the smoothness of the gold band, the silken softness of her skin.

“Forgive me, Ellie,” he murmured, then rotated her hand and kissed her palm. Her fingers curled reflexively, and he heard the whisper of her breath. “Forgive me,” he implored, pulling her toward him as he leaned forward. “Please. Forgive me.”

He touched his mouth to hers.

S
HE FORGAVE HIM
. A
S HER
body softened and her breath deepened just from the gentle warmth of his lips on hers, she realized that she’d forgiven him a long time ago.

She waited for his kiss to build in intensity, like the kiss he’d given her outside the keeping room downstairs. But he held back, lightly grazing her mouth with his, a brush of skin against skin, no tongue, no teeth, no wild passion. Quiet and subtle, he seduced her with patience and self-control. No demands, no fire. Only this: a man who wanted her.

She wanted him, too. She’d wanted him all along, from that first night on Hope Street when he’d convinced her that her dreams and goals were noble, and that refusing to mold herself to other people’s expectations didn’t make her a failure. She’d wanted him when she’d fallen asleep beside him that night, and
when she’d awakened in his arms the next morning, and every day since then. She’d wanted him when they were apart—Curt in law school, Ellie still finishing college—and when they were together, and when they got married, and when they had children.

She’d wanted him even after one of those children had died.

She’d been unable to acknowledge the want then. All she’d felt had been crushing grief. And so much time had passed, she’d assumed she would never be able to feel anything other than crushing grief again.

But she
could
feel other things. Right now, she felt her body stirring, awakening from a long hibernation and realizing how hungry it was. Like pins and needles that flooded a sleeping limb as sensation returned to it, the sensation hurt, but she reveled in the hurt. It was a good hurt.

She reached up with her free hand and cupped Curt’s cheek. She had touched his face a million times, but its warmth and texture seemed new to her. Even though he’d shaved before they’d left the house to meet her parents for what was supposed to have been a quiet birthday dinner, his jaw was slightly scratchy from his beard. How long had they been at the inn, eating, talking, recovering from the surprise party and watching the movie of her life? How long had they been trapped in this romantic prison of a room, trying to figure out where they would go once they checked out?

Long enough, she decided. Long enough for her to admit she still loved her husband.

He must have detected a change in her, a surrender, because he deepened the kiss. Only a little bit, only a tilt to his face, a gentle nip on her lower lip, a tightening of his fingers around her hand. For long minutes, that was all—just teasing, coaxing kisses, full of promise.

Was he waiting for another signal from her? Was she supposed to make the next move?

She wasn’t sure she could do that.

Fortunately, she didn’t have to. He guided the hand he held to his shoulder, then released it and dug his fingers into her hair. And opened his mouth over hers.

Their tongues touched. When he’d kissed her downstairs, their tongues had fought aggressively, almost angrily. But this was just sweetness, a tender invitation. He stroked her tongue with his, traced the surface of her teeth, withdrew and slid his tongue lazily across her lower lip. His languid pace served only to arouse her more completely. Her thighs clenched and a pool of heat spread low in her belly.

If she’d had any breath in her, she might have asked him to speed things along. But her lungs seemed to have ceased working, and perhaps her brain as well. She had no choice but to float along on his current, accept it, enjoy it—if she could let herself.

Still kissing her, he moved his hands through her hair and down the sides of her neck to the jacket of her outfit. The fabric was gauzy and light, and when he eased it off her shoulders it floated down her arms to her elbows. She let go of him and the jacket fell free of her hands. Curt stroked the newly bared skin, his palms warm against her.

He pulled back, then dipped his head to kiss her throat. She heard herself sigh. She knew where they were going with this—however slowly—and she told herself she was willing to travel that road with Curt. They could figure everything out afterward. Right now…She sighed again. Right now, all she wanted was his mouth exploring the ridge of her collarbone, his fingers playing over the fabric of her sleeveless top and under her arms. Were armpits an erogenous zone? Tonight, hers were.

“Oh, Ellie…” That was all he said—her name, spoken reverently. Just her name and his mouth and his hands, moving down her sides to the hem of her blouse and slipping beneath it. “Ellie…”

She traced his forearms, sinewy muscle and bone and a downy layer of hair, and then reached the bunched cotton of his sleeves where he’d rolled them up. Was she supposed to tear off his shirt? His hands were on her midriff and she wanted her hands on his. She wanted to feel the broad, supple surface of his chest. But his kisses seemed to drug her. She didn’t think she could handle his shirt. Buttons were beyond her.

He bailed her out by leaning back again and unbuttoning his shirt for her. He shrugged out of it and tossed it onto the floor. She gazed at his chest—like his face, familiar yet new. He’d been spending a lot of time at the fitness center, probably because over the past couple of years jogging on a treadmill and sweating through a Nautilus workout were more fun than hanging around the house with her—or hanging around the house by himself while she’d been in Ghana. His efforts showed. His biceps were clearly defined, his abdominal muscles sculpted slabs.