Hurts So Good (19 page)

She needed even more: his support of her chosen career. She was, would always be, a journalist. Oh, how he loathed the press, and she probably would, too, had her life been held up to public ridicule and titillation. But she wasn't Neil, and she couldn't give up her profession any more than she could give up her love for him. Did he love her enough to accept that? Could their whirlwind affair compete with his lifetime of distrust?

Sadly, she doubted it.
Time.
They needed time.

"I'm sorry, Neil," she said slowly. "I love you, more each day, but I can't live in a gilded cage. That's not real, and it's not enough. Not for me."

"Then what do you want? I couldn't deny you a thing,
chere.
Everything I have, all that I am—such as that is—is yours. Problem is, there's a part of me that wants to put you in that gilded cage along with the children we're going to have."

Andrea took a deep breath. "Did you miss me this afternoon?"

"I did. Where was—were you?"

"At the doctor."

"You're not sick are you? Tell me you're not sick."

"No. I went for the reason we're discussing."

His fervent expression of concern eased into an expectant smile. "
Chere
, you're not—"

"No, Neil. I'm not pregnant. My period was late, so I went to have it checked out. The results were negative, and I left with a prescription for birth-control pills."

His smile went flat, and the spark in his eyes died.

"I see," he said dully.

"Quite the contrary, I don't think that you see at all."

"Then why don't you get busy and enlighten me?" he snapped. How quickly he could turn, and it only increased her apprehension.

"All right, I will. I grew up in an orphanage, always wanting a home and two parents who loved me. Things most children take for granted."

"Not me."

"I realize that. And so you, of
all
people, should understand what it means to conceive a child, to give him or her the advantage of stability, a home where the parents might disagree but aren't at terrible odds."

"We don't fight!"

"Not lately, but as of now we're making up for lost time." She shoved a finger into his chest and her face into his. "Get this, Neil, and get it good. I've taken your laundry to the cleaners and cooked your meals—"

"I've cooked just as many for you. I thought you liked my grits at breakfast. The only thing you said you liked better was my jambalaya. And even if I don't get the clothes washed I have bought you several dresses to make up for the ones I've ripped in my hurry to get you naked."

"That's beside the point. I want more in my life than to tend a man who has a career, or what remains of it."

"What the hell does that have to do with you and me and our future?"

"A lot, Neil. It has to do with you not liking what you ended up with after climbing the path to the top. Once you were there, the room with a view didn't look out on what you'd envisioned. So what did you do?"

"Changed it, that's what."

"Yes, that's exactly what you did. Made horrible scenes in public, didn't show for concerts—"

"I told you, my life had already gone sour, but when the music stopped, I lost my want to please a crowd. So what if a few fans had to get tickets refunded?"

"A few people? Try Carnegie Hall, sold out, while you checked into a ratty motel with a bottle and a gun. Thank God you called Lou to tell him goodbye—long enough for him to trace the call and fly in just in time to drag you back home. If recent memory serves, you did say that you were sick for a week and haven't left New Orleans since."

"Saw enough of the world to last me a lifetime, thanks. No reason for me to leave when my lawyers could take care of the bloody mess." He grinned, making light of the horror that time had apparently diluted for him but not for her, never for her. "Picked that bloody word up on tour in England."

She sighed. "The point is,
the
y took care of
your
mess. You didn't want to deal with it, so you paid someone else to so you could stick your head in the sand. How irresponsible."

"It most certainly wasn't! I survived the only way I knew how. And as for paying somebody else to deal with my legal messes, wise up. That's how it's done in the real world. Believe me, all involved were well compensated."

"That's another thing that bothers me.
Money.
You and your damn money. You've got more than you know what to do with, and you won't even hire a personal accountant. And why?"

"Because it's mine, and as such it's my right to count it, invest it, and spend it how I see fit. You grew up poor, so surely you can understand my fondness for keeping my own books. What's your beef with that? I'm generous with you."

"Too
generous. Did it possibly occur to you that sometimes I might want to use
my
money? Or that your open-coffer policy robs me of the right to contribute?"

"Ain't no need for you to do that. I've got plenty for us both."

"That's
not
the issue. Look, your money is a security blanket for you, and I empathize with that. But you have to understand that I want some security of my own."

"What I understand is that I'll make sure you never lack for money or security. But since you want to fend for yourself, I'll give you a tip. Money is a very powerful tool. So's the truth. They got me a divorce and out of a record contract the label's CEO had plenty of incentive to wash his hands of. Seems he didn't want his dirt aired by those rags that lap that stuff right up."

Andrea shifted uneasily, feeling an incriminating blush stain her chicks. The more he confided, the more her charade became worthy of punishment. She knew too much, and she knew him too well. Neil's core was hard, and he never forgave a betrayal. She shivered as her heart raced.

"What are you getting at?"

"The moral is, you don't seem to trust me enough yet to let me protect you and provide for your future. I, on the other hand, trust you. I've given you the means to provide for yourself at my expense. You could always write a story about me that would tide you over for some time."

Andrea felt like the fraud she was, pointing the finger at Neil's character weaknesses while desperately covering her own. She was a liar, a cheat. Worse, she was a coward, terrified of losing his love.

"So tell me,
chere
," he said, stripping off her shirt and bra, "what does all this have to do with you getting on the pill because you don't want my babies any more than you want to settle down with me?"

"It's not that I don't want to."

"Then what is it?"

Fear, Neil
, she wanted to scream.
Knee-knocking, dry-heaves fear. I'm afraid to relinquish what independence I still have left, afraid of what you'll do once I tell you the truth. I can't marry you with this lie between us, the lie and the damning evidence of it that grows with
each
page I type
.

God, how she wanted to tell him that. She
had
to before they could take the next step. The fact that she couldn't was proof their relationship needed time to mature. But at least she could offer him a portion of truth.

"You tried to control me, Neil. Me and our future, with the same kind of tunnel vision that took you to the top. It's a variation on the theme. You want something, and you do whatever it takes to get it. And once you've got it, what happens if the reality doesn't live up to the dream? I don't think I could survive if you discarded me like Christine."

"I'd
never
do that," he vowed solemnly.

"I pray it's true, Neil. But I need time to be sure that what we have is strong enough to overcome any test."

"And just how long might
that
be?"

"I don't know," she said, distress sounding in her voice. "Long enough for me to work out a few things for myself. Long enough for you to adjust to the fact that I'm not cut out to be Donna Reed. I'd rather be Old Mother Hubbard—"

"Especially if I give you my bone?"

She laughed to keep from crying. Neil could always make her laugh, even now, when she wanted to weep because everything was so wrong. "You have the raunchiest sense of humor of any person I've ever met."

"One of my finer qualities, judging from the way those pretty pink nipples of yours are puckered up and begging for a kiss. And you did tell me my sense of humor was one reason I'm the sexiest, most irresistible man you've ever made love to."

"You're the
only
man I've ever made love to."

"I'm the only man you ever
will
make love with." He speared her with a possessive gaze as he rolled her to her back. His lips were tight, and his eyes were narrowed in a dangerous squint. "The
only
man,
chere.
Never betray me, never lie to me... and
never forget
it."

Chapter 15

"It's summer's end, and you still ain't got a ring on yo' finger," Liza said, snorting with disgust. "Honey, I just don't believe it. My predictions always come true. Guess that man's not as smart as I gave him credit for." She sighed wistfully as she spread her arms to encompass the bedroom. "Then again, he do deserve some credit for turning a sow into a swan if this floor looked anything like the other two in the works."

"It is beautiful, isn't it, Liza?" Andrea took inventory of her new surroundings. From the stucco walls and arched picture windows to the Bukhara carpet and the exquisite furniture that hugged it, she stared in awe.

Until her gaze came to rest on the carved chest of drawers that housed those typewritten pages. She ached to share them with Neil, whose acceptance was essential before they could say "I do."

"This here's more than beautiful," Liza asserted. "It's a declaration of his love for you that says a ring comes next."

"We'll see. He has been known to change his mind—I'm still tending bar. And I—I'm afraid there's a chance he might decide otherwise about wanting to marry me too."

"Is that why you be wearing that 'woe is me' look on yo' face? Lawd, can't you see he's crazy about you? He ain't gonna get cold feet at this late date. Neil's finally got his head on straight and his act together. Thanks be to you."

"But, Liza, he could change. I'm so scared he's going to change."

"Just what heck are you talking about?" Liza's brow furrowed into lines of concern as tears filled Andrea's eyes. She grasped Andrea's trembling fingers and said kindly, "What's the trouble, chile? You can tell Liza. I promise it won't go no further, not even to Lou."

Andrea needed no more encouragement to sob against the older woman's shoulder. She felt a loving hand pat her back in a motherly consolation she needed now more than ever.

"Liza, I don't know what to do. I don't know what Neil will do when he finds out. I didn't mean to betray him, but he has to know. And—and once he does, he... Oh God, Christine was unfaithful. I've been unfaithful too. Worse than she was, Liza. Because he loves me, and he never really loved her. I'm afraid he won't forgive me. Maybe I have broken his rules, but he can break my heart. He never forgets a right or a wrong done to him, and he can be so cruel, so blind. I'm terrified, Liza. I thought time would help, but—but the only thing it's done is opened him up, and the more he tells me, the guiltier I look. What am I going to do, Liza? That's why I turned him down when he proposed, kind of, and—"

"Calm down, chile. You ain't making a lick of sense. C'mon now, let's sit and have us a heart-to-heart."

Almost an hour later, as they sat on the bed amid a heap of soaked tissues, Liza's sympathetic groans became a weary shake of the head.

"Lawd, honey, but you do have a mess of squiggling worms in a beat-up can. Where's that thing you wrote?"

"In my drawer. Under the pills Neil told me to keep out of his sight."

"Seems to me, you don't have much choice, if marriage is what you want. You did say that Neil had chilled out on his uncool ideas? That you have a right to your own career?"