Regrets Only (35 page)

“We’re
not together. I haven’t seen him in weeks.”

He
nodded. “What’s that in your hand?”

Until
then she wasn’t sure he had even looked at her at all. She had almost forgotten
the two little notebooks, which she was mostly holding to help her stay
focused. “Well, there are two things I came to talk to you about,” she said. “And
I brought notes.”

He
looked at her now, curious. “More lists?”

“Well,
yes, sort of,” she conceded.

“Okay,
Scarlett. I think I can reschedule this meeting for later.” He made a sweeping
gesture at the mountains in the distance. “You have my attention.”

He
looked both more boyish and more menacing in his dark hat and sweatshirt. She
was struck once more by how unlike his public image he could look sometimes.
She had decided that she liked this—that she knew a Dylan that no one else did.
Or few people, anyway. Suzanne found herself standing there, unable to speak.
She was torn between twin desires: one, to reach out and touch him, to press
herself into him until he had no choice but to take her in his arms. The other:
to run as fast as she could back to her car and never see him or think of him
again.

No
way through but forward, darlin’
,
she heard her dad say in her head. She took a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking
about all the reasons that we shouldn’t be together,” she said, trying to
control the shaking in her voice.

Dylan
snorted. “Yes, that seems to be a favorite topic of yours,” he said. She
thought maybe it was meant as a joke, but the bitter edge was hard to miss.

“I’ve
spent my whole life cataloging reasons I should or shouldn’t be in a
relationship. As you know, it never took much to convince me something wasn’t
going to work. But with you, the list of what won’t work is long. I mean,
longer than most.”

She
held up the notebook as illustration. Dylan’s expression was one of scientific
curiosity, rather than emotion. “For example?”

Suzanne
felt awkward and childish, as though she’d brought him her diary to read to him
how she felt. “Well, some we have already talked about. I’m older than you; you’re
on the road all the time; the incredible volumes of women hanging on you at any
given moment. But it’s more than that. Sometimes I’m ashamed of who I am and
what I’ve done. I know how I feel when I know you’ve been with someone, how I
feel when I think about Misty—”

“Suzanne,”
he interrupted. But she shook her head, wiping a couple of stray tears.

“No,
let me finish. It hurts me so much to think of that and I know it would hurt
you to think of that horrible list on my dining room wall. I think underneath
all of this,” she gestured at the house behind her, thinking of the parties
she’d seen there, “you’re kind of a traditional guy. One day you’re going to
want a traditional girl and marriage and babies. I’ve never wanted to get
married, and I’ve always wanted to have a career.”

“And
I love kids, but I have always felt like the world is a damn scary place to
bring innocent children into. It even took me a while to get excited about
Marci’s pregnancy. My own best friend. Plus, you’re still so young and on the
road all the time, and…” She flipped through the notebook, trying to decipher
her writing through the blurring of tears. “Well, I think maybe some of these
are just Journey lyrics…Anyway, I think you get the idea.”

He
chuckled. “So you came to explain why we shouldn’t be together?”

She
shook her head. “No. I need to tell you something, but please don’t feel like
you have to answer me now. It’s just something I need you to hear from me, face
to face. Okay?”

“Okay,”
he said seriously.

She
held up one of the notebooks. “I made this stupid list this summer because I
thought it would help me feel better about being away from you. It’s all true,
and things probably would never work between us. There are a million reasons we
shouldn’t be together. But I don’t want me being a coward to be one of them.

“Dylan,
I drove all night to tell you that I’m in love with you. I have been for
months. I don’t think I’ve ever said those words out loud before. I don’t know
if that will mean anything to you at this point, and it’s okay if it doesn’t. I
know we’ve hurt each other, and I’m sorry, and that we don’t make any sense
together. If you don’t feel the same way, or if too much has happened, I will
understand. No matter how you feel about me, I’m just grateful to have the
chance to say that to another person.”

Suzanne
forced herself to stop talking. Dylan’s face was set hard in a lack of
expression, as though he were one of the queen’s guards in London. But there
was some emotion brewing underneath, and she saw him swallow hard. “Thank you
for saying that,” he said. “It means a lot to me.”

She
waited, but he didn’t go on. Each passing second felt like a knife to her
heart. She fought back tears, forcing herself to take deep breaths.
You said
it,
she told herself, thinking about what her therapist might say.
You
came here and told him how you feel, and that was brave as hell. You can’t
force him to return your feelings. Stand tall. You’ve owned your part and no
one can take that away from you.

Still,
she waited another moment to give him time to respond. Just in case. But his
expression was stoic, though she thought the corners of his mouth may have been
twitching, holding back some kind of feeling. She couldn’t tell what. But she
would get no further answer from Dylan Burke today.

Gently,
he prompted her. “And the second thing?”

She
inhaled deeply, turning a page in her mind.
Move on.
“I need to borrow
some money.”

Even
his expert control over his responses couldn’t hide the surprise. “What?”

She
sat in the chair across the table from him and slid the second notebook toward
him. “Not borrow, actually. I need a donation. A big one.”

A
month later, Suzanne sat on an airplane bound for New York, feet drumming
nervously. The man in the seat in front of her turned around and shot her a
You-Aren’t-Seriously-Going-To-Do-That-The-Whole-Time
look. It was mid-October, just four weeks after she’d begun implementing her
plan, and to her utter astonishment she had been invited to appear on the
popular morning show,
American Breakfast
. They had taken an interest in
the Bonita Daniels Fallen Heroes Foundation, most likely because of Dylan’s
very public involvement with it, and Suzanne was going to have a minute-long
interview the next morning.

Originally,
they had asked Chrysaline to be there, too, but Mary had flatly refused, and
Suzanne understood. She felt protective of Chrysaline, too, especially since
her mom’s death was barely two months past. It all felt fast and chaotic to
Suzanne, and she was an adult whose grief was nothing compared with Chrys’s.
So, she was going alone, but bringing some of Chrysaline’s best pieces with
her, including a spectacular portrait of Bonita drawn from a snapshot, laughing
at a family picnic.

The
idea for the foundation was simple: filling in the gaps for kids who’d lost a
law enforcement parent in the line of duty. Often, life insurance or
collections from other officers helped these kids get their basic needs met,
but things like college scholarships and special camps were still sometimes out
of the question. And Suzanne wanted to do more than get them by; she wanted to
help them find inspiration. To help them create the lives for themselves their
parents had been working so hard to give them.

Even
though Dylan never responded to her confession that she loved him, a pain that
Suzanne was slowly beginning to tolerate, he had been immediately interested in
helping Chrysaline and other kids. He woke Yvette up himself that morning on
his deck, and had her get a substantial check to Suzanne to get the foundation
started, and by the end of the week he’d convinced six other young celebrities
to do the same. He was even talking about getting some other singers to donate
live recordings of their music for a fundraiser album—the enormity of which
project had sent Yvette chirping in circles for days.

Suzanne
herself had put together the foundation’s board of directors, calling on the
executives and managers whose parties she had planned for years, telling her
personal story over and over, showing off Chrysaline’s artwork over lunches and
happy hours. Recounting her humiliation at the hands of Penny and Gunnar was
painful, but what was her pride compared with Chrysaline Daniels’ loss? Some of
her old contacts were happy to help, others had to be cajoled or shamed into
participation, but at the end of the day no one could say no to Suzanne.

They
were planning a kickoff event for the foundation the following spring, putting
Suzanne back in her old role as party planner, but this time with renewed
energy and purpose. She had already made contact with 147 kids around the
country, and there were many more she was trying to locate. The kids who wanted
to do so could donate artwork, writing, music, science projects, photographs,
and other items to be auctioned or used in the promotional materials. She also
had the kids and their guardians working on lists of things they wanted,
needed, and dreamed about, so that Suzanne and the board could begin
establishing a process for helping them.

The
project was a mind-blowing undertaking, and she slept very little, but was
happier than she had ever been. Even her parents were helping, and her dad
beamed with pride when he’d report to her that he had secured a donation from
an old colleague or convinced senator so-and-so to donate a flag flown over the
Capitol building. He also served as her informal legal advisor until she could
recruit a volunteer as general counsel for the board.

As
for Dylan, Suzanne saw him in spurts. They talked on the phone about the
foundation, and once or twice he came to meetings of the new board to help.
Suzanne was not in favor of exploiting his celebrity status, but she found it
hard to deny that when he took time out to attend a meeting, the board seemed
to take their tasks very seriously. Perhaps coincidentally, no one had to rush
out of a room to get back to work when Dylan was there.

When
they talked on the phone, he rarely volunteered information about where he was.
She knew he had been in Los Angeles some of the time, probably in talks about
doing more films, but she had only deduced this by passing comments about the
time zone or the weather. Other times he might be in Nashville or down the
street in his Atlanta apartment—she could never be sure. Still, he seemed to think
of her as a friend, and she did her best to accept it.

During
the day, she accepted his friendship and help with a grateful heart. He had
saved her life, and now he was making it possible for her to help others. To be
in love was a gift, even if the person you loved could not return your
feelings. She had friends: when she was lonely, she called Marci or Beth or
Rebecca or Chad. She had occupation: the foundation kept her busy, and if she were
sad or bored she painted. She sold a few more paintings, enough to pay her rent
well into the spring.

Only
in the quietest moments did she allow herself to feel the pangs of love. Like
now, when she was strapped into an airplane seat and had flipped through the
SkyMall
catalog a hundred times. Or in the middle of the night when the bustle of the
day had died down, when her paints were put away and she could no longer force
herself to focus on today’s meeting or tomorrow’s to-do list. Only then did she
allow herself to feel the hard, icy truth: this time she would be the one left
behind.

If
he wasn’t already, Dylan would be dating again soon, and she’d only be able to
hide the truth from herself for so long. Eventually his commitment to the
foundation would have to wane, too, as his career progressed and a new Misty or
Gretchen—or a more widely-known conquest like a costar or duet partner—took his
arm and pulled him back into the world where he belonged.

As
the plane began its descent into New York, Suzanne wondered whether it might be
time to start dating again. She didn’t want to start her old pattern of running
through guys faster than she went through shampoo bottles, but she couldn’t
pine away for Dylan forever, either. She decided to talk to her therapist about
it next week.

#

She
was awakened at 3:30 a.m. by an automated voice on the hotel phone. Suzanne
rolled out of bed, muttering obscenities. She put Preparation H under her eyes
like the beauty magazine she’d read had advised, and took a taxi to the TV
studio as instructed. In the cab, she got a text from Marci, who was due in two
weeks, still not sleeping, and was now so big she could barely get comfortable
at any point in the day.
Good Luck! We are Tivo-ing it just in case!

Suzanne
hated the thought that she might miss the baby’s birth while she was out of
town, but Jake had told her confidentially that he thought Marci was being
overly optimistic that she would come early. Suzanne’s parents had wished her
luck the night before. She had not heard from Dylan.

When
she arrived at the studio, she was hustled to a chair where hair and makeup
staff fussed over her for a few minutes. The producer, a short man with light
red hair who wore jeans, a blazer and sneakers—and seemed far too young for
this job—went over the plan. “You’re in a segment called ‘Meaningful Mornings.’
All about people who have found their passion helping others. It’s a short bit
after the 8:30 news, so you have some time. Wish we could’ve interviewed the
girl,” he said wistfully.