No Longer Forbidden? (20 page)

Her heart landed jarringly back to earth. Rowan reminded herself to draw a breath before she fainted. It came in like powdered diamonds, crystalline and hard. It took her a moment to find words.

“Let me guess. You’ll even let me grace your bed while you pay those expenses?” The bitterness hardening her heart couldn’t be disguised in her flat, disillusioned voice.

“That’s not how I meant it.” His shoulders tensed into a hard angle.

“You’re going to pay my expenses and
not
want to sleep with me?” she goaded.

His bleak gaze flicked from hers. “I can’t say I don’t want you. It would be a lie. The wanting doesn’t stop, no matter what I do.”

And it made him miserable, she deduced. No mention of love or commitment either.

Rowan told herself not to let his reluctant confession make a difference—especially when he was standing there not even looking at her, his bearing aloof and remote, but her heart veered toward him in hope anyway.

She lifted a helpless palm into the air. “It’s constant for me, too, but—”

“Then why can’t we continue what we started?” He pivoted his attention to her like a homing device.

“Because I don’t want to be your mistress!”

He rocked back on his heels, his jaw flexing like he’d taken a punch.

“I don’t want to be
any
man’s mistress,” she rushed on. “I want a relationship built on equality. Something stable that grows roots. Even if—” Her words were a long walk onto thin ice. She looked down at the pen she had unconsciously unwound so the center of its barrel fell open and parts were dropping out. “Even if it doesn’t include children, I still want something with a future.”

She looked up, silently begging for a sign that he wanted those things, too.

His eyes darkened to obsidian. His fists were rocks in his pockets.

“You’re right, of course,” he said, after a long, loaded minute. “All we had was a shelter in a storm, not something that lasts beyond the crisis. I’ll never again judge Olief for caving in to physical relief during a low point.”

The words impaled Rowan. She nodded jerkily, because
what else could she expect him to say? That he had miraculously developed a deeper appreciation for her place in his life? At best he was nursing a sense of obligation toward her. It was the last sort of debt she wanted to make him feel.

“I’m going for a walk.” She needed to say goodbye to Rosedale. It was the final item on her to-do list.

“Stay back from the water.”

A bitter laugh threatened, but Rowan swallowed it and left.

Rowan caught a lift with the courier in the morning, giving Nic about three seconds to react to her leaving. She walked into his office, said she could save him a trip to the landing and asked where were those papers that needed signing.

No prolonged goodbye. Just a closed door, the fading hum of an engine, then silence that closed around him like a cell. Her scent lingered in a wisp of almond cookies and sunshine, dissipating and finally undetectable.

Nic stood up in disbelief, drawn to the window where the vehicle had long since motored up the track on the side of the hill and disappeared. He had been girding himself for an awkward leave-taking, expecting something uncomfortable in front of the passengers waiting for the ferry. He had thought they’d have a quiet day today, but he’d been sure she’d spend it here. With him.

His limbs felt numb as a graveled weight settled into his abdomen.

Unconsciously he found himself searching the grounds for her lissom silhouette. But she wasn’t at the gazebo, or in the swing under the big oak, nor among the rows of grapevines or even taunting him from the rocky outcropping at the beach. Yesterday he’d watched her wander the estate for hours, often looking back at the house. He’d thought she was waiting to see if he’d join her, but he’d been too
disturbed by their discussions in the breakfast room. Too stripped of his armor.

“I don’t want to be your mistress.”

He hadn’t planned any of that: either the offering of a settlement or a continuation of their arrangement. It had come out of the situation as he’d realized she was setting herself up to be destitute. Shame had weighed on him for his arrogance in cutting her off. Rowan wasn’t a superficial user. She was too sensitive for her own good, putting other’s needs ahead of her own—even people who had deep flaws like her mother and father.

Pushing away from the window, he strode from his office into her room—only to be brought up by the neatly folded sheets on the foot of her stripped bed. He didn’t know what he had expected, but it wasn’t that.

The night table and dresser top were clear. The closet held only hangers. All the drawers were empty. Even the shower had dried to leave no trace of her. The wastebasket was fresh, the long dark hairs shaken from the floor mat and swept away.

A wild insidious thought occurred that he’d imagined her presence here. The rock music while she had worked, her burbling laugh after a leading remark, the feel of her naked skin against his … His breath turned to powdered glass in his lungs.

She’d given her virginity to him. That meant something, didn’t it? She had said she wouldn’t forget him, yet …

“Damn you, Rowan!” he squeezed out, instantly needing proof of her existence.

He dragged drawers from their rails and in his impatience tossed their hollow shells to clatter across the hardwood floor. Empty. All empty. With nothing else to throw, he impulsively launched a drawer at the wild-eyed man in the mirror.

His image shattered in a jarring smash that disintegrated into a glinting pile of shards on the floor.

He was losing his rationality, but this was more than a man could bear. He’d dealt with the confusing pain of his father shutting him out and his mother walking away without looking back. He’d even met unflinchingly the gaze of his real father when Olief had looked up from smiling with pride at the girl who wasn’t his into the eyes of the man who was.

All of it had devastated him, but this pain was worse.

Driven to the master bedroom, he began overturning boxes. One of them must have photos of her. But they held only Cassandra and Olief, nothing of Rowan. No warmth, no affection, no laughter.

No Rowan.

She had left him.

He’d been abandoned. Again.

CHAPTER TWELVE

N
IC
’
S
PA blipped into his computer monitor with a message that the auction house was on the phone. He instructed her to tell them to call back next week, not missing the subtle pause before her assent that silently screamed,
Again
?

Pushing back from his desk, he moved to the window, where he rubbed the back of his neck. His whole body hurt from long work days and harder evenings in the gym. Blinking to clear the sting from his eyes, he tried to take in the view of Athens, but nothing penetrated.

He was too aware that if the auction house was calling the week was up for the demolition team, as well. They’d get the same answer, since he couldn’t let anyone into the house while it was in the state he’d left it and he couldn’t face going back to clean up.

Nicodemus Marcussen, the man who had looked into the wrong end of a rifle twice, not to mention coming face-to-face with a jaguar and surviving a bout of malaria, couldn’t find the courage to do a bit of housekeeping and get on with his life. These days he had a lot of compassion for men like Rowan’s father, who drowned in alcohol to numb the pain of being alive.

He cursed and hung his head.
Rowan’s father
. She wanted to use the auction money to set up a trust for him. Twelve weeks was too long to put that off. Nic couldn’t
keep doing it. Why hadn’t she contacted him to ask what was holding it up?

Heavy-hearted, he suspected he knew. Drawing his hand from his pocket, he examined the key that seemed to end up in his possession every morning. He’d come to associate its rough-smooth shape and metallic smell with guilt, anger and loss, but he couldn’t make himself get rid of it. The key or the house.

Rowan expected him to. Everyone did. The architect had delivered the drawings weeks ago. The builders were being put off as well. Nic was sole heir to everything Olief had owned. There’d been provision to support Cassandra and allow her the use of Rosedale, but the house, as part of Marcussen Media, was his. He had every right to knock it down, but he couldn’t make himself do it.

Clenching his hand around the biting shape, he recalled the signed documents arriving that had allowed the declaration of death. The Italian painter’s signature had been a shaky flourish in all the right places, but there had been nothing from Rowan. No forget-me-not stationery with a snooty missive demanding Nic sort out her finances.

He’d give anything for the privilege, he acknowledged with a wistful ache in his chest, but after a brief game of financial ping-pong with Frankie he’d had to leave Rowan’s modest balance for her to pay off. She didn’t want anything from him and it hurt so much he couldn’t bear it. But what did he intend with a gesture like that?

Connection
, he thought simply. He just wanted to know they were still linked in some way. He was becoming as sentimental about attachment as she was.

The spark of irony glinted in his mind, no bigger than a dust mote catching in a beam of sunlight, but he held his breath, examining it.

When had he last felt like this? Truly wanting someone
in his life? He’d grown up wanting Olief in his life, but when the opportunity had finally arisen he’d been too tainted by the years of neglect. He’d held back from letting real closeness develop with his father, certain he’d lose in the long run.

And he had.

Everything in him still screamed that it was dangerous to yearn for love and the indelible link of family, but that was what he wanted with Rowan. He’d settle for scraps if he had to, but he couldn’t function under the belief that he’d never see her again. He needed to know that his future contained her.

Even if it doesn’t include children, I still want something with a future
.

How many times had he replayed those words in his head along with his own response that what had passed between them had been only shelter from a storm? He’d been scared when he’d said it. He could offer her a lot of things, including a secure future, but when it came to love he feared his heart was too damaged.
He
was.

He’d thawed a lot under Rowan’s warmth, though. It made him think that maybe, if she could be persuaded to keep seeing him … But he was getting ahead of himself. She might not want anything to do with him.

A yawning chasm opened before him as he contemplated going to her and putting his soul on the line. But it wouldn’t hurt any more than he was hurting right now. At least he’d know.

And, damn it, he was not a helpless six year old any longer. He was a man who knew how to fight for what he wanted. He would do anything to have her back in his life. To
keep
her in his life.

The decision made him suck in a breath that burned. A
flame of something he barely recognized came to life inside him. Anticipation of relief from pain.
Hope
.

Wherever she’d gone, he’d find her and bring her back to where she belonged!

Rowan watched the little girl appear and disappear between the heavy coats of the bustling street, her face a picture of frightened despair as Ireland’s ever-present rain drizzled into it. Her voice, clear and agonizingly uncertain, lifted in a shaky plea. Everything in Rowan wanted to run to her. She was overwhelmed with compassion for this waif who’d lost everything.

Until a man in a modern trenchcoat, his dark blond hair foreign in a sea of black Irish peasant cuts, strode from between the carriages and ruined the scene.

“Cut! What the hell?” someone yelled. “Security!”

“Nic!” Stunned to recognize him, Rowan rushed forward, shock making her stumble. “It’s okay, I know him,” she assured the men in the red shirts charging forward.

Her whole body trembled in crazed reaction. He looked so good! But tired. His face was lined with weariness, breaking her heart. And he was
annoyed
. He glared at the assistant director when the woman tried to take his arm.

“Come with me, you crazy man.” Rowan grasped Nic’s wet sleeve and led him away, glancing back at her charge to say, “You’re doing great, Milly. I’ll be right back.”

Little Milly beamed with pride, then stood dutifully still as Makeup approached.

Rowan dragged Nic into a friend’s trailer and tried to catch her breath. It was impossible when he filled the space with his dominant presence and masculine scent. Everything about him hit her with fresh power: the authority he projected, the stirring energy he radiated into the air. The
sexual excitement he sparked in her with the simple act of falling into her line of vision.

Oh, that physical pull was so much worse now she knew how incredible it was to lie with him. All of her wanted to fall forward and kiss, hold, caress,
be
with him.

She tried to conquer it, tried to quell the shaking and hold on to control. Tried to find her equilibrium and act like a rational human being when he’d just knocked her back after three months of learning to live without him.

“What are you doing here?” she asked with growing defensiveness. “And like that? If someone barged into your board meeting you’d have them arrested.”

“Not if it was you.” He narrowed his gaze on her mouth. “Why is your accent so strong?”

The sound of his voice, the leading words he’d said, made her heart lurch. She could barely stay on her feet. “Living here does that. And I’m teaching that girl to speak like a native so they won’t crucify her for being American. I’m her dialogue coach.”

Nic ran a hand across his hair, then dried it on his thigh. “Frankie said you were on a film set in Ireland. I didn’t know if that meant you were acting … Can we go somewhere to talk?”

Seriously?
She bit down on her lip, shocked by how badly she wanted to go anywhere with him, but self-preservation reminded her to keep her feet on the ground. “We’re in the middle of a scene,” she pointed out with forced patience.