Dare (29 page)

“You’re not going anywhere.”

“You lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie. I withheld a little information, that’s all.”

“That’s all? You were married, Xander! That seems pretty significant to me.”

“It was years ago. We were teenagers, and it didn’t last very long.”

“It lasted long enough that the county can’t find any record of a divorce. Doesn’t that mean you’re still married? Doesn’t that mean that you and I have been living in some sort of sin?”

“Now you sound like your father.”

The color drained from her face, even as the most intense anger popped into her eyes. I thought briefly that she might slug me for that one. But she only turned, going back to the closet to grab more clothes.

“Harley, it’s a mistake. I’ll get it cleared up, and we’ll get our marriage license just like we planned.”

“I don’t think I want to marry a man who would lie to me.”

“It wasn’t a lie.”

“It was an omission. That’s the same thing.”

“You told me not to tell you. Do you remember that?”

She tossed a handful of clothes on the bed before she turned to me, her hands on her hips.

“You are not blaming this on me!”

“You didn’t want to know about my past; you didn’t want to know about the women in my life.”

“I wasn’t talking about marriages! You made me believe that I was the first woman in your life that you wanted to marry, but now I found out that you were married before—”

“To a friend! To someone who needed help escaping a bad situation. It was not a love match.”

“And I’m supposed to believe that?”

“Yes. Because you love me and you trust me.”

“How can I trust you when you lied to me about something so important?”

There was no answer to that. There still wasn’t. But I convinced her to leave the bulk of her things, convinced her that leaving me was only temporary, that she would be coming back. But then weeks passed, then months, and I was beginning to worry. And then Jonnie went to her house and discovered she’d replaced so many of the things that were still in my house.

She was separating herself from me. She was moving on.

“Is there a dress in all that stuff that I might be able to wear tomorrow night?”

I’d almost forgotten the subject that brought us to this place. I nodded, picturing a black dress she’d bought months ago, but never wore.

“I think there is.”

“Do you mind if I take a look?”

“Of course not. My house is still yours as far as I’m concerned, Harley.”

And I meant every word of it.

Harley

I waited until Xander went to work before I made my way—slowly—upstairs to the master bedroom. This was the first time I’d come up here, thanks to the cast I’d had on my leg for so long. I had to stop for a second at the top of the stairs to admire the layout of the second floor. There was so much light, most of it coming from a skylight that was centered over the stairway. I hadn’t realized just how high that ceiling was, or that there was, apparently, a room designed around the open skylights. It’d never occurred to me to wonder what was up here, or what might be above this, before. I mean, you could tell from the outside of the house that it had three floors. But I’d never thought to ask what was on the third floor.

What better time than now to find out?

There was another set of stairs tucked into the back wall at the end of the hallway. I’d already decided that the master bedroom was behind the double doors at the end of the hall—that much I remembered from the memory I’d had about the night Xander and I became engaged—and that all these other doors—four in all—were guest rooms and the hall bath. It was a large house for a single man, but I got the impression the house was meant for more than just a place for him to rest his head at the end of a busy day. He was the owner of a rising company. He must do a lot of entertaining.

My leg ached, but I imagined my physical therapist would applaud all this working out I was doing. I just wished I could take the boot off tonight and wear a stylish pair of pumps to the party instead of a boot on one foot and a flat on the other.

I made my way slowly up the stairs, my hand moving automatically to a light switch at the top that I couldn’t have known was there, but found just the same. There was a short landing and then the space just opened up. And it was incredibly familiar.

It was the art studio from my dreams.

It was huge, this great open space that was actually designed in a square that allowed for the open space over the stairs where the skylights lived. But it was situated in such a way that it didn’t feel square. It felt huge and open and there were windows everywhere and more skylights that weren’t visible from downstairs. And there were built-ins that held so many art supplies, things I wouldn’t even have dreamed of owning because they were so extravagant. But they were here, every paintbrush, every paint, every easel that I could ever dream of using. And there were canvases displayed here and there, or stacked carefully in special compartments, paintings I don’t remember doing, but that felt familiar just the same.

This was mine, my space. My studio.

I walked around the room, running my fingers over things that should have been so familiar but weren’t. I found myself wondering what kind of a man would provide such a space for me. Would Philip have done this?

It was funny. My memories ended my senior year of college. In my mind, Philip and I were still together. I had been so convinced that we were on the verge of getting engaged, that Philip was my future. But even since waking in the aftermath of my accident, I hadn’t thought of Philip all that much. Why was that? Could it be because a part of me remembered what had happened between us? Xander said that he became engaged to another woman and broke my heart. Was that true? Was Xander being honest with me?

Of course, he had to be. My parents admitted that Xander and I were engaged. We wouldn’t have been if I was still with Philip. There was no doubt in my mind that I was once in love with Xander Boggs. Why was that? Technically, I didn’t know him from Adam, yet I chose to stay in this house with him, chose not to return home to my family. Why had I done that?

I hadn’t let myself think about it too much these past few weeks. I was so focused on remembering that I didn’t focus much on what I already knew.

I pulled a painting out of a stack that was sitting in a specially made rack along one wall and studied it for a long minute. My art was usually focused on nature, on the interaction of the various elements of nature, rather than portraits. But I’ve been known to do the occasional portrait. This, apparently, was one. It was a fairly intricate painting of Xander and myself. But it wasn’t just a straight portrait. There were hidden elements in it, such as the combination lock that replaced an actual lock of Xander’s hair.

Why would I make his lips an actual bow, his eyes tiny airplanes, and place this house in the design on his tie? There was affection in this painting. But there was something else, too. Uncertainty, maybe? Fear? I don’t know, but it bothered me a little.

I continued to look through the paintings—my paintings—and came across another that was something of a deviation from my style. It was a charcoal drawing of two bodies intertwined in sexual pleasure. I’d never done anything like it before. I blushed so deeply during my nudes class in college that my professor had to take me out into the hallway and press a cool cloth to my forehead on several different occasions. For me to do something like this was inexplicable.

Yet, I instinctively understood that it was Xander and I. And that this painting came after the first.

There were others. Some even more risqué than the charcoal, some subtler than even the portrait. There were dates on the back, so I could put them in chronological order if I’d wanted to. But I could see by looking at them how they progressed. The paintings told a story that even Xander himself couldn’t have told me.

It was the story of our love—right there in front of me—told just as clearly as a hidden diary might have told it.

I was reluctant to love him, but when I did fall, I fell quick and hard.

I loved him. There was no doubt in my mind.

So what went wrong? If I loved him this much, why did I walk away from him? What was so bad about learning of his previous marriage? Was it because he didn’t tell me about it before? Was it simply a case of cold feet? Or was it something else?

I was beginning to wonder if it even mattered anymore. Things had clearly changed. So I was angry, but I didn’t take all my things. I was clearly planning in returning. Did it really matter anymore? I wanted so desperately to remember my past so that I could get on with my life. But maybe remembering wasn’t that important. Maybe what was important was the here and now. Maybe all I needed to remember was that I have this great guy who clearly loves me very much. He sat by my hospital bed for more than two weeks, waiting for me to wake up. Then he brought me here, waited on me hand and foot until I could get around on my own. What guy would do that, other than one who’d made a serious commitment and intended to make good on that commitment? And I clearly loved him. Why shouldn’t we stop looking back and start looking forward again?

Just thinking it seemed to take this weight from my shoulders.

Xander

I walked into the house after arguing with Jonnie over the phone all the way home. She was unhappy with a new client I’d elected to take on, telling me that we should be choosier now that the company was on steadier feet. But I figured that, as long as the client had the money, we had the service. It was our clients that made our reputation. We could both use that argument until we were blue in the face and both be right. And I was the boss.

But you’d think that it was Jonnie’s name in the door, the way she hammered at me over these things. And she had been in charge so much lately, what with the attention I was giving to Harley. I was grateful to her, but I was going to take on the clients of my choosing.

I just wanted to see Harley’s face. I was so exhausted. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go to this party tonight, no matter how many times I’d promised Margaret I would. But Harley wasn’t in the sitting room. She wasn’t on the porch, either.

I went through the maze of rooms at the back of the house and stepped up to the open door of her bedroom, but she wasn’t there either.

Where the hell was she?

I called her name as I retreated through the house, even peeking inside the kitchen before heading upstairs. It didn’t even register that my bedroom door was open until I approached it. And then I was enveloped in a scent I thought I would never smell again: Harley’s perfume, the one she always saved for special occasions.

“Harley?”

“Sorry,” she said, stepping out of the bathroom as I pushed through the double doors. “I was looking for shoes and I just couldn’t resist.” She held up the bottle of perfume I’d bought her not long after our first date, a blush on her cheeks. “It’s really nice.”

“It’s your favorite.”

“Is it? I guess that’s why I was so drawn to it.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. She looked like my Harley again. The dress was red, one of those with a full sleeve on one side and nothing on the other, a soft linen that hugged every curve of her incredible body. She was a little leaner after the accident, but she filled it out exactly as she’d done eight months ago when she wore it to a client dinner. And, that night, the dress wasn’t on for long once we walked out of that restaurant.

She cleared her throat, and I realized I was staring.

“You’re welcome to anything in here. Most of it’s yours, anyway.”

“Yeah, I was a little curious about that. Were you living in this house long before I came along?”

“Jonnie, my office manager, insisted I needed a house to throw parties and such for the business. She picked out three or four options, I chose this one, and she furnished it for me. I hardly spent any time in it until you moved in.”

She cocked her head as she looked around. “I can see that.”

“Hey, it’s not that bad. I have my game room downstairs. And that armchair over there is mine.”

“I can tell. Have you had it since college? Because it kind of smells.”

I laughed, caught a little off guard by her joke. She smiled, that little dimple making an appearance in her cheek. And it was like, once again, nothing had happened between us. I wanted to tug her into my arms and hold her, to feel her laughter vibrating against my skin. I wanted to kiss her until my breath was her last breath. I wanted back that freedom to touch her whenever the mood struck, to hold her for hours, to love her the way we did before everything fell apart. And there was something in her eyes that told me that might not be as far out of the realm as possibility as it had been this morning.

But then she cleared her throat. “I should go, let you get changed.”

I nodded only because it seemed expected. It took everything I had not to grab her as she walked past me.

***

If there was one thing Margaret could do, it was throw a party. She sent a limo for Harley and me, even though it wasn’t a terribly long drive. But, again, I hadn’t anticipated the line we would be forced to sit in before we got to the main entrance of the community center.

“She must have invited everyone in the city,” Harley said, as she stared out the window.

“She probably did. At least everyone in the city with the right number on their bank statement.”

“You’re awfully cynical.”

“No, I just know Margaret. She likes to surround herself with people like her father, people who make it their life’s mission to out-make and out-spend one another.”

Harley settled back down in the seat beside me. “Well, it can only be good for the kids of this neighborhood.”

“True. Margaret does tend to do good things every once in a while, even by accident.”

She punched my shoulder. “Be nice.”

I groaned, even as I took her hand and kissed her palm lightly. “Okay. If you say so.”

She flashed a smile like the one back in the bedroom that again made me feel as though something had changed between us. I touched her cheek lightly, seriously considering a kiss, when the door suddenly burst open. We’d finally reached the coveted red carpet.

Leave it to a party in Los Angeles to lend itself to press, red carpets, and a handful of celebrities who probably didn’t even know what this thing was all about.

Bulbs immediately flashed in our faces as we got out of the car. I pulled Harley close to me as we made our way up the carpet, trying to keep her protected from the intrusiveness of the press. But then someone grabbed her arm and spun her nearly out of my grip.

“Harley Alistair! Where have you been hiding?”

I could see the confusion in Harley’s eyes as the man accosted her. I slid my arm around her waist and pulled her tight against me.

“We’re not answering questions right now.”

“You’ve always been open with the press, Harley,” he said. “You promised me an exclusive on your falling out with Margaret Wallace. Did you change your mind?”

“I don’t…”

I tugged Harley even closer against me and began making my way up the carpet, even as the guy kept yelling at our backs.

“Harley, where have you been these last few weeks? When did you get back with Xander Boggs? Weren’t you going home to Texas this month?”

Harley was shaking. I pulled her even closer, so close that there was no space between us at all. I would have picked her up and carried her if I thought that it would get us out of this any faster.

The moment we were inside the building, I tugged her out of the line of arriving guests.

“Are you okay?”

“Who was that? How did he know my name?”

“He’s a reporter. He works for the
LA Times
, I think.”

“How did he know who I was?”

I touched her face, worried about the color that had risen in her cheeks. “You had a show almost eight months ago. It brought you to the attention of a lot of people.”

“My art? He knows me because of my art?”

“Why else?”

That confusion was back in her eyes for a second. It was as if the memory was right there, she just couldn’t grab onto it. And then she shook her head, shook whatever it was away, and focused on me. “You’re right. Why else?”

I kissed the center of her forehead, relief washing through me. Then I looked her in the eye.

“Are you okay?”

She nodded.

“Ready to go inside?”

She nodded again.

I slid my hands over her short hair, feeling each and every contour of her head. She felt so solid in my arms. And when she smiled through the confusion and fear that idiot reporter had caused I knew this was going to be okay. Everything was going to work out.

I took her hand and led the way into the party.

Margaret and her team had transformed the community center into a huge party headquarters, each of the separate rooms filled with waiters carrying trays of drinks and hors d’oeuvres and people explaining the purpose of the room once the center opened. The hallways sported drawings done by local kids; books were displayed that would soon occupy the large library; and guides were available to explain every little detail about the center that anyone could possibly want to know.

And then, of course, the gymnasium was the centerpiece of the evening, Harley’s mural was lit in such a way that no one could possibly miss it. Margaret spotted us the moment we came through the door.

“Hey!” she said, kissing my cheek lightly before turning her attention on Harley. “People just absolutely love it. It’s the icing on the fucking cake!”

“Margaret…”

“What? She’s a grown up. She can take bad words, right Harley?”

Harley just smiled. “It’s a great party, Margaret.”

“Of course it is.” She turned as someone behind us called her name. She swatted a hand, as a popular actor waved at her. “Damn actors are so demanding.” She kissed my cheek again. “Daddy’s in the library. And your mom’s with him.”

That wasn’t a surprise. Where Grant went, my mother often followed. She’d been his personal assistant for nearly forty years. I’m not sure either of them knew how to function without the other.

“Let’s dance,” I said, snagging Harley’s hand and leading her out to the dance floor. She followed quite willingly, her hand clamping down on mine. I wasn’t thinking as we reached the center of the dance floor. I twirled her around like I’d done a thousand times before, forgetting about the boot on her leg and the fact that she wasn’t expecting it. She fell headlong against my chest, nearly knocking the air out of my lungs.

“Sorry,” she mumbled.

“My fault.  I should have been paying more attention.”

“This is hard for you, isn’t it? The fact that I can’t remember things you take for granted.”

“It’s been complicated. But that’s not your fault.”

“It’s not fair though. I was the one who went jogging on a busy street and didn’t watch traffic. But you’re suffering just as much as I am.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m suffering. When I asked you to marry me, I knew I was committing myself to whatever might come. Just because it hasn’t been all peaches and cream doesn’t mean I don’t want it.”

Her face softened as she looked up at me. “That’s sweet.”

“Is it?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard commitment described quite so plainly before.”

I ran my hand up the angle of her neck and rested my fingers just under her jaw. “Just because we never actually got married doesn’t mean I don’t think of us that way.”

“You really do want to be with me, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re the one. I don’t know how else to put it.”

But she seemed to understand. She moved closer to me, her hands moving slowly up under the back of my suit jacket. When she looked up at me, I kissed the tip of her nose. I began to pull back, but then she followed my movement and our lips brushed. It was the sweetest kiss I had ever tasted. I wanted it to last forever. The fact that she didn’t pull away when I deepened the kiss gave me more hope than anything leading up to this moment had.

I loved her. Despite everything, Harley was my life.

“What the hell are you doing?” a voice growled behind us.

I turned, tucking Harley behind me, and forced a smile onto my lips.

“Hello, Mother.”