Destiny (20 page)

Nash’s stomach roiled at the thought of her with anyone else. Ridiculous considering he’d been married and divorced, but his feelings for her ran so deep and so close to the surface, he had a hard time being rational.

Somehow he remained silent.

“Ryan and I met under… unique circumstances. My friend worked for an escort service. We both owed so much money in student loans and she found this way to make extra cash. I never wanted anything to do with it, but one night she was sick and she had this appointment. If she canceled at the last second, she knew she’d lose the job permanently, so she begged me to take her place. She promised there was no sex involved, so… I said okay.” She wrapped her hands around her waist, rocking in the swing.

She drew a deep breath and continued. “It sounds so much worse than it was. I didn’t sleep with him that night. We just really connected. He wanted to see me again, but I already knew his marriage situation, so I made him prove to me that they were separated and he did. I thought it was okay, but my mother was right. It wasn’t. He had a family and a child and I should have stayed far away.” Her voice cracked and she kicked harder at the dirt under her feet.

Nash remained silent, letting her gather her thoughts before going on.

“Long story short, after about eight months, Ryan went to discuss something with his ex. One thing led to another and he slept with her. She got pregnant and he went back to her. To try to keep his family together.”

Her voice cracked and Nash winced, knowing the pain that had to have caused her. No wonder she’d resisted so hard when she thought Nash was still in love with Annie.

“In the end, Ryan and his wife couldn’t make things work and their new divorce proceedings are ugly. She’s accusing him of sleeping with an escort, and anything more she can dig up before I have to testify at the divorce proceedings, she’ll use. So when I found out the guy talking to Tess was a PI, I panicked. Ethan noticed and asked what was wrong. I just told him tonight. He hasn’t known long,” she said, looking up at him with big, imploring eyes. “Are you disgusted?” she asked in a small voice.

“God, no.” He shook his head. She could never disgust him. “Do you really think I’d judge you for choices you made?”

Even as he asked, the truth dawned on him. Of course she thought that. Why else wouldn’t she have confided in him?

She exhaled long and hard. “Thank you for that. I know I should have told you.”

And that was the crux of things. He dug his fingers into his jacket. “Why didn’t you?”

“In the beginning, I didn’t know what you would think. You were so angry all the time. At Ethan, at Faith. Later, Annie begged me to tell you but—”

“Annie knew?” he asked, stunned. “My ex-wife, my older brother… Who else knew your past before me?” He felt himself choking on the depth of the betrayal, which was just now setting in.

“Faith,” Kelly admitted.

Every muscle in his body tensed up and he stared up at the dark, starless sky, waiting for the pain to come, to explode in his head, but he felt… nothing.

Before this revelation, he’d already been raw, hurting, betrayed by everyone he knew at one time or another. This was just one more thing added onto the heap.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice broke into his thoughts.

Looking at her tearstained face, he realized she wasn’t the one who should apologize. “You know what? There’s no need. You don’t owe me an explanation. We’ve been together what? A few weeks? A month?”

But it felt like so much more.

She stood up and grabbed his face, turning his head toward her with chilled hands, forcing him to meet her gaze. “They were intimate weeks. Long enough for me to know
I love you.
”

He jerked back, startled. Not that he should be. He’d been damned close to falling himself. When he looked at her, cheeks red from the cold, eyes damp, she was so damned sexy she took his breath away. But inside him everything had shut down.

He couldn’t take any more caring, feeling, or most of all, hurt.

He gripped her wrists and pulled her hands away from his face. “You don’t love me, Kelly. We’ve had great sex. Lots of fun. You were there for me when my world fell apart and I’m grateful.” His voice sounded like sandpaper and she winced as it grated over her skin.

Her lower lip trembled. “Are you telling me you don’t care about me?” she asked point-blank.

“Of course I care. But we haven’t been together long enough for it to be love. Besides, people who love each other trust each other.” He thrust his hands into his jacket pockets to avoid touching her, pulling her close, and using her as an escape from his pain. She’d been there for him, but she hadn’t trusted him enough to confide in him. That truth gnawed away at him like acid.

He thought he’d stepped up, been the brother Dare needed, the husband Annie wanted, the man Kelly could love. But nothing he’d done had convinced any of them he was trustworthy. Obviously he didn’t know the first thing about the people in his life.

And he didn’t know the first thing about himself.

With energy to spare and frustration to work out,
Nash woke up early the next day and headed to the Y where he normally worked out. He stepped inside and was greeted by the receptionist.

“Hi, Nash.”

“Erin, how are you?”

“Pretty good.”

He held out his membership card for her to scan. “You’re all set.”

“Thanks.”

She treated him to a wide smile. One that held an invitation… if he wanted to take her up on it. He didn’t. He nodded and walked past the desk, his mind on one woman only.

He and Kelly were supposed to be on their way to a bed-and-breakfast for the weekend, not broken up with no hope for the future. Neither had discussed the trip. It seemed obvious to Nash that with a custody threat looming over Tess, this was not the time to get away. Combined with the argument and his declaration that it was too soon for her to be in love with him, he assumed she figured out all on her own that the trip wasn’t happening.

Nash gestured for a friend of his to spot him, and he lifted weights for a good thirty minutes, promising to return the favor when the other guy was ready.

He wiped his face with a towel, debating whether to hit the treadmill or the elliptical when he felt someone beside him.

“Hey.”

Nash glanced at his older brother. “Don’t you have a fancy home gym?” he asked.

“Waiting on a few machines to be delivered. Besides I like getting out of the house once in a while.” Ethan flicked his towel at Nash like he used to do when they were kids. “You okay?”

Nash let out a groan. “No.”

“Want to talk about it?”

Nash looked at Ethan. He’d have thought he’d slit a wrist before he turned to him for anything. “Yeah,” Nash said, surprising himself. “I do.”

Ethan lowered himself onto an empty bench.

Nash copped a seat beside him. He stared down at his hands, not knowing what he wanted to say. “When you left, I stepped up. I had no choice. I felt responsible for Dare. And we were always close, or I thought we were. He tagged along with me and my friends, and I let him.” Nash shrugged, remembering their younger days. “He never once let on there was anything more to his going to the Garcias’.”

“Maybe he had to work through things on his own.”

Nash turned his head. “At fifteen? More like he didn’t think he could come to me.” He wondered if Dare would’ve gone to Ethan if he’d still been around.

“You can’t know what he was thinking.”

“How about Annie? We were inseparable since we were sixteen. The first time I heard about her being unhappy in our marriage was when she asked me for a divorce. She couldn’t come to me either.”

“I imagine it’s not easy to tell someone you love that you’re unhappy,” Ethan said.

“Tess didn’t exactly warm to me right away.”

“She bonded with me first. She was just being protective.”

Nash cocked an eyebrow. “What about Kelly? What excuse are you going to come up with for the fact that the woman I was sleeping with didn’t think she could tell me about her past and her problems?”

Ethan rested his elbows on his knees and blew out a harsh breath. “My leaving did a number on you. I’m not going to make excuses or say I’m sorry again. I’m just stating the facts. You’re loyal. You’re someone everyone in the family knows they can depend on.”

“But?” Nash asked, needing to hear the truth. Even from Ethan.

Hell, especially from Ethan. He’d been gone for ten years and was completely objective. He might be the only unbiased one left to tell it to him straight.

“But you’re a hard man. The first thing people think when they see you is, he’s rigid. Inflexible. And as they first get to know you, they think, he sees things in black and white. No shades of gray.”

Nash set his jaw. “Explain.”

“Ethan left. He’s a bastard. His reasons don’t matter. Kelly dumped Tess on my doorstep. You thought she had no heart. Until you finally learned differently. Annie’s sick, and therefore she’s needy. It didn’t matter how many times she told you to back off and let her be independent. It was your way or no way.” With a shake of his head, Ethan blew out a breath. “Shit, I hate this.”

“I asked for it,” Nash muttered. And because he had, he listened and tried to process what his older brother was saying.

“And Kelly?” He balled his hands into tight fists.

Ethan leaned his back against the wall. “She told me she hoped it would all just disappear, and by the time she wanted to tell you, your life had imploded. She didn’t want to burden you. But Faith said that after Kelly told her everything, even Faith wasn’t sure how you’d react.”

Nash groaned. He’d asked for the truth and Ethan hadn’t held back. He supposed he owed him for that. He’d never realized how damned intractable he’d become and had a lot to think about later.

“She said she loved me.” Nash surprised himself with the admission. His entire body warmed at the memory of her unexpected declaration. Part of him had wanted to forget everything else going on and tell her he loved her right back. But the pain of betrayal had already swamped him and he’d immediately lumped her in with everyone else in his life who hadn’t trusted him with the truth.

Like Ethan just said, Nash saw things in black and white.

“Do I want to know what you said back?” his brother asked.

Nash winced. “That it was too soon for love. That we had a good time and great sex.”

His brother shook his head and rose from his seat. “Good going,” he muttered, slapping Nash on the back. “Know what I think?”

Nash didn’t answer.

“I think you should go home and figure out how you feel about this woman. Because if it’s what I think, then your window to fix things is damned small so you’d better get moving.”

Wise words. Too bad Nash hadn’t a clue how to make things better with himself, let alone with Kelly.

Seventeen

Kelly’s head hurt like she had a hangover. She slept
in, unable to pull herself out of bed to deal with the most basic things like showering and eating breakfast. The one thing she did do was call Tess and force cheer into her voice as she spoke to her sister and promised they’d find a way to let her stay with Ethan.

In the interest of fairness, she told Tess she should keep an open mind about seeing her mother and having a relationship with her if that’s what Tess wanted.

Her sister launched into a foul-mouthed tirade the likes of which Kelly hadn’t heard since the day she’d dragged her to Ethan’s this past summer. Her ears still ringing, Kelly made Tess promise to talk to her therapist about Leah. No matter her own feelings, she didn’t want Tess to wake up one day, an adult with regrets over impulsive teenage decisions. Which didn’t mean she wanted Leah in Tess’s life, not unless her mother had done a real one eighty and was now Mother Teresa, which Kelly doubted.

By noon, she rolled out of bed and made herself a cup of vegetable soup. She was drinking it when she heard a knock at her door.

Her stomach flipped for a quick minute before she remembered Nash didn’t want anything to do with her. She padded to the door and opened it wide, only to find a process server waiting for her on the other side.

She glanced at the blue papers in her hand. A quick read told her this was what she’d been expecting. A mandatory summons to appear on Friday, 11:00 A.M., in Manhattan
at a deposition in the divorce proceedings of Mr. and
Mrs. Ryan Hayward.

Kelly was both nauseous and oddly relieved. At least this part of her life would be over soon. And even if the scandal hit the Manhattan papers, Tess had more to worry about than her sister’s issues. And the rest of the Barron family already knew her deep, dark secrets.

The irony was, now that she’d received the summons, things didn’t look as bad as she might have thought. In fact, it felt like she’d panicked for no good reason, at least as far as the family was concerned.

Considering she’d lost Nash over withholding the truth, Kelly couldn’t say she felt any better.

After a long weekend, Kelly returned to work on Monday. She’d barely begun to tackle her work for the day when she heard the sound of footsteps and then a familiar voice.

“Hello? Kelly?”

“In my office, Annie,” Kelly called out.

Annie stepped into the doorway. “Where were you this morning? I picked up my coffee and waited, but you never showed. And you never miss your morning coffee run.”

Kelly shook her head and managed a laugh. “No wonder I feel so fuzzy. I forgot,” she admitted.

Narrowing her gaze, Annie stepped toward Kelly and placed her hand against her forehead. “Are you sick? Fever?”

Kelly shook her head.

“Well, you look like shit,” Annie said bluntly.

“Why, thank you.” Kelly would have liked to throw back a snappy retort along the lines of
So do you
, but she’d be lying. Annie, in her brown sweater, with her big eyes and bright complexion, was glowing. She looked gorgeous.

And happy.

Kelly’s stomach twisted hard. “Things with Joe are good?” she asked, as pleased for her friend as she was unhappy herself.

“Amazing.” Annie pulled a chair closer to Kelly. “What is wrong? You can tell me. I’m your friend. Just because I’m Nash’s ex-wife doesn’t mean he has my loyalty. You do,” Annie assured her. “We are living our own lives, going our separate ways.”

Kelly nodded. “I know. I do. And I value our friendship more than you can imagine.” She hadn’t had many close friends, and Annie, who’d accepted her so quickly, confided in her about her MS and about Joe, held a special place in Kelly’s heart.

“Then talk to me. Please.”

Kelly swallowed hard. “My mother wants custody of Tess.” She poured out the story of the PI. “And then she showed up at school and held her arms out to Tess, like she hadn’t been gone for more than a year.” Kelly’s heart beat faster at the memory. “We argued. In front of Ethan and Nash. She said I always judged her for her affair with Mark Barron because he was married, but I was a hypocrite. By getting involved with Ryan, I was no better than she was.” Kelly stared at the stack of documents on her desk without really seeing them. “The worst part is, she’s right.” She started trembling, like she had that night.

Annie jumped up and grabbed her hands. “Your mother is a selfish bitch. You are nothing like her. Do you hear me?”

“Ethan said the same thing,” Kelly said with a small smile.

“And Nash?” Annie asked softly. “What did he say?”

Kelly blinked back tears. “When he realized Ethan already knew everything? When I let it slip that you’d begged me to tell him, so you knew too?”

“Oh God. I’m so sorry.”

“I told him I loved him and he said we weren’t together long enough for it to be love. That we had great sex and a lot of fun. He was grateful for how I helped him through a tough time. But love required trust and we didn’t have that.” Kelly shrugged, looking up at Annie. “And he was right about that too.” Kelly swiped at a tear dripping down her face.

“I’m going to kill him,” Annie muttered. She rose and began pacing the small room.

“For letting the sum of his past experience dictate his response? Come on, Annie. You know he has every right to feel betrayed. Add up the people in his life who didn’t come to him with one thing or another.”

“Then he needs to grow up and take responsibility for that. There’s a reason nobody comes to him. You told other people because you knew they’d understand. He’s so damn rigid and set in how he thinks. By the time you get up the nerve to talk to him, there’s too much water under the bridge, you know?”

Kelly shook her head. “Nice analogy, but I knew him. I knew his weaknesses. I should have trusted him. If he’d heard it from me first, the right way, maybe he’d have come around eventually. Or maybe he’d have surprised me and just understood and not judged. I’ll never know and that’s
my
fault.” She shrugged. “Who knows. Maybe there’s enough blame to go around, but any way you cut it, it’s over for us.”

“I disagree.”

Kelly ignored her. That discussion was closed. “In the meantime, guess what I got? A summons to appear at a deposition Friday in Ryan’s divorce.”

“When it rains, it pours.”

“You said it.”

“Want me to come with you? For moral support?” Annie asked.

An easy smile lifted Kelly’s lips and her spirits. “You’re such a good friend. But I’m okay. And I need to do this myself and put it behind me once and for all.”

“You’re one of the strongest people I know. I admire you.” Annie hugged her, made her promise to call if she needed to talk about anything, and took off.

Kelly didn’t want to spend another minute thinking about her complicated life, so she dove back to work. She and Richard had a scheduled conference call later in the afternoon during which she hoped he’d sound stronger than the last time they’d spoken. His plan was to return to work for a few hours midweek, see how his stamina held up, and go from there.

In the background, Kelly heard his wife arguing that he’d be there for one hour on his first day, no more.

Kelly grinned. If Mary was fighting with her husband, Richard was definitely on the mend.

She spent the rest of the afternoon working on questions in Richard’s next scheduled deposition, which had been postponed until next month. The word
deposition
only served to remind her that perhaps she should bring a lawyer of her own to Ryan’s deposition. Even President Clinton had gotten himself in trouble and slapped with a perjury charge after going it alone. Kelly didn’t intend to lie, but as a paralegal, she knew better than to take a deposition lightly.

She didn’t want to upset Richard, and the only other local lawyer she knew was Nash—the last person she would turn to for help. Instead, she called Ethan, who referred her to his attorney, who promised to have someone call her tonight.

Before heading home for the day, she checked in with Ethan, who assured her that Nash had his own PI digging into her mother’s life and he was certain they’d find enough ammunition to fight her and keep Tess.

Then she headed home to her small apartment to spend another night alone. She never knew how quickly you could get used to having another person in your life, or how big a hole they left when they were gone.

The first night Nash spent in his apartment after the
art show, the emptiness ate at him. He hadn’t spent time there since Dare left, except to pick up clothes or take an occasional shower. The fridge was empty and the place needed a good dusting.

He bit the bullet and called the cleaning service he occasionally used and arranged for them to come first thing Monday; then he went food shopping on Sunday. Of course he was too distracted to make a list, so he forgot a half dozen things, including milk.

After work on Monday, he stopped by the grocery store on his way home. Better to kill time out than to head home to his lonely apartment. Funny, in all the time he’d spent at Kelly’s, he’d never cared how small her place was. They’d shared one sink in the bathroom, his toothbrush sat next to hers, his razor kept falling into the sink because there was so little space on the counter, and he just hadn’t cared.

Because he’d been with Kelly.

Now he was alone and his big empty condo annoyed the hell out of him.

He pushed the cart down the aisle, slowly picking up the items he needed, using the time alone to think. To come to terms with the things Ethan had told him. He’d had to replay his past in his mind, his attitude toward friends and family and his reactions to people and situations.

Self-reflection sucked.

So did the conclusions he’d come to, because looking inward, Nash didn’t like the uptight man he’d become.

Hadn’t he thought Dare the more easygoing brother and himself the darker, more uptight one? And he hadn’t even known the pain Dare harbored for most of his life. Yet faced with the knowledge, Nash’s thoughts had been all about himself and how he’d been betrayed, not about what his little brother had gone through.

As for Kelly, he’d been worse. Instead of being there for her in the aftermath of her mother’s scene, harsh words, and threats, he’d walked out on her. Then he’d thrown her love, the one thing he wanted more than life itself, back in her face.

He had so much to fix, so much to make right.

A simple
I’m sorry
wouldn’t cut it. Even if Kelly were willing to take him back on an apology alone, it wasn’t good enough for Nash. He needed to prove to her that he would change, become someone both she and his family could come to in the future. Only then would he be able to apologize and ask her to forgive him.

As his father used to say, actions speak louder than words. Too bad Mark Barron hadn’t lived by his own mantra. But Nash would.

As soon as he figured out how to accomplish his goal.

“Nash!”

He turned at the sound of Annie’s voice.

He swore to himself, realizing she’d left a message on his cell. He’d seen that she’d called, but he hadn’t bothered to play back the message yet.

“Hi,” he said, pausing to wait for her to catch up to him.

“Hi.” She greeted him with a smile, then kissed him on the cheek.

He hugged her and stepped back.

“Fancy meeting you here,” she said.

He shrugged. “A man has to eat.”

“Didn’t you get my message?” she asked, sounding curious, not mad.

He nodded. “I saw you called. I didn’t have a chance to listen yet.”

“That’s progress,” she said, sounding pleased. “You didn’t rush to call me back, which means you have more important things on your mind.” She studied him with inquisitive eyes that saw too much because she knew him too well.

“Anything important?” he asked.

“Depends on whether you think me calling you a dumbass is important.” She folded her arms across her chest and glared at him.

“What did I do now?” he asked, though he had a hunch he knew. Annie had been talking to Kelly.

She grabbed his jacket, pulling him away from a few other people who were shopping.

And staring, since she’d yelled at him.

“Are you so stupid that you’re going to let Kelly go just because she found you too intimidating to confide in? That’s your hang-up, not hers!” Annie jabbed him in the chest as she spoke. “I suggest you learn from past mistakes or you’re going to end up alone.”

Face flushed, eyes blazing, she looked healthy in a way he hadn’t seen in a long time.

“Trust me, I have no intention of growing old by my lonesome,” he assured her. “But it’s nice to know you care.”

“I care about Kelly. You’re too stubborn and dumb for me to worry about any longer,” she said, but a knowing smirk curled at the corners of her mouth.

She cared. She just didn’t want him to know it.

“Seriously, Nash. You can’t let her go.”

“Do you really think I intend to?” He cocked an eyebrow her way.

Annie lifted her shoulders. “I don’t know. Based on what Kelly told me, why should I think anything else?”

“Just because I’m stubborn doesn’t mean I can’t learn. Relax. I’ve got it under control.” At least he hoped he did.

“Before or after Kelly goes to give her deposition against her ex-boyfriend?”

He stiffened. “When did that come up?”

“She was served over the weekend.”

“On top of everything else she’s had to deal with?” He ran a frustrated hand through his hair.

“That actually sounds like you care.”

He jerked toward her only to find her blue eyes sparkling with mischief.

“Sorry. I couldn’t resist.” She shook her head and laughed. “Nash, what are you doing to yourself?” she asked, sounding concerned.

“Finding out who the hell I am. If I’d been at all aware, maybe we’d still be married.”

“Or maybe we wouldn’t have gotten married at all?” she asked softly. “I’ve done a lot of soul searching too. You were my best friend. The person I trusted most in the world. But we were so young, we didn’t even know ourselves.”