Everything to Lose (Moonlight Dating Series #2) (3 page)

“Yeah, thanks.”

Sitting down across from him, she blew into her mug and tweaked her nose when the rising heat tickled her nostrils with the strong scent of the cocoa and cinnamon mixture she’d dusted her coffee with.  

She chanced a surreptitious look at her ex-husband as they sipped their beverages in silence.
His mussed chestnut hair

fell over
limpid blue eyes
, and he looked
good enough to eat.
A
big man
w
ith a
body naturally built to work land, not to languish on desks, poring
over paperwork and computer screens.
To watch him lean over the table to get his sugar, his strong arms straining through his sweater, made her weak at the knees.

She pined for him. Yearned for him, for the feel of his mouth on hers, his hands to roam over her, and his body to warm and fill her. It was a dangerous thing to remember a rogue lover’s touch. It made one desire the unattainable.

But today she didn’t want to be amazed by this man. She didn’t want remember...

Fat chance.

How many times had she called herself an idiot in the past half-hour?
Make that one more
, she mused.

His unusual taciturnity made her jittery. Something rode his mind. The sooner he spoke, the quicker she could put him out the door and out of her sight.

“Spill the beans.”

“Huh?”

“You want to tell me something. That’s why you came. Drop the act, for once. Please?”

She waited through his hesitation.

“You’re right,” he caved. “I wasn’t entirely honest when you asked me why I came. Fact is, I
had
to see you. I’ve been worried about you, and I’m sorry for not c
alling you—” he finally started
.

He
stopped when she raised her hand and shook her head.

She had encouraged him to speak, but this was too much. It was a can of worms she wouldn’t open. “Please, Dane. Haven’t we hurt each other enough? What’s done is done.”

“Lissy,” he insisted. “I’ve had all this time by myself, all this time to think about what’s important and what ain’t worth shit. I came to realize that I had everything I ever wanted and I was stupid enough to let it go.”
Damn him.

“You know that’s not the point. The point is that I wanted one thing and you wanted another. I should have spoken up a lot earlier.”
So many should ’aves, would ’aves.

He seemed to unravel before her – his face revealed so m
uch pain and
confusion.

The floodgates of H
ell were opening wide and fast and she was stuck to the ground, with no means of escape, waiting for the first fiery
flam
es to
consume
her in everlasting damnation.

“Please...listen to me. I miss you so much it hurts. Nothing makes sense any more.”

An empty shell—I know all about that
.

“When I get my morning coffee, I expect to see you right there with me in the kitchen. At lunchtime, I have to stop myself from calling you just to hear your voice.” He started to reach for her hand, but then seemed to think better of it. She watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down. “And at night… at night it’s the worst. I reach for you in my bed, but all I find is space. I miss you. I miss this house—any house, if you’re in it. I miss
us
.”

There it was. He had ripped his heart out and laid it at her feet.

She couldn’t take it. What could she possibly do with that kind of admission?

Stunned and speechless, she simply sat there, staring at him. Of all the roiling emotions inside her, the most overpowering was the anger that once more came to the fore.

Yes, anger was less toxic than guilt.

“So now you decide you miss me, and you fly
across
the Atlantic to tell me all of this. But what about me? Have you given one tiny thought to all the heartache I
’ve
had to go through? You think about how
you
feel, what
you
want to do. But let me tell you something, it’s not all about you. Things just don’t work that way!”

Hurt crept in
to
Dane’s eyes. “I messed up and I can’t take that back, no matter what I do. I need you, Lissy, and leaving you was the biggest mistake I ever made. I want to make it up to you, get things back to the way they used to be.”

Her entire body was now reduced to a quivering mass of seething energy. “Don’t call me Lissy anymore. You have no right. Do you hear me? No right!”

“I’m so sorry, but this can’t be it. You have to give us a chance.”

The blind rage ebbed a little but left a vacuum that was quickly replaced by a perilous sense of hopelessness and despair. “
Why
? Tell me, why did this happen to us?”

She peeled that question off from the depths of her gut, jerked the band-aid from the throbbing wound in her heart. The emotion was all bare for him to see and trample on.

She sounded like she was whining, but she was sadly beyond any sort of reason. Her sanity had flown to Timbuktu with a one-way ticket.

“Why?” she screamed. Her nerves teetered on the brink of something utterly terrifying.

The mug felt slick under her tightened fingers
. If she added any more pressure, the handmade ceramic would surely shatter in her hand. Her head was a weighty mass that burdened her, drained her. All he gave her was an anguished look that made things worse.

“I don’t know why you’re telling me this right now and not before we made a whole mess of things… I just can’t…”

She bit back tears and stood abruptly. Somehow, the noise the chair made as it grated against the tiled floor exasperated her even further. She hated the chair. She hated this kitchen. Hell, she hated this whole house!

“I just can’t deal with more of this,
dammit
! Can’t you see? When you left you showed me I wasn’t good enough for you. That you didn’t want me. That you didn’t want
us
to be anymore. All I ever wanted was your love, your child, to have a family, to love you back with all my h—heart. But I didn’t stop you from leaving. Perhaps we’re meant to be… apart.”

Her voice broke, her throat burned. She swallowed and what came down felt like acid that corroded her insides.

“We let each other go. Now you’re a consultant and I’m an architect. That’s all we have. Our stupid careers.”

At the last word, she grabbed her mug and flung it with all her strength against the wall. In this violent reaction she transferred all of her aggravation, all of her pain.

She watched
,
transfixed
,
as the dregs of the coffee left brown, streaky stains on the mossy green wall and pieces of colorful ceramic scattered on the pristine tiled floor. Strips of sunlight hit the
cheerful
bits through the window blinds. Dust floated in the air above them and she had a wild wish that she could be one of those specks – suspended, weightless, mindless.

Tears fell free. Mortified, she turned and ran upstairs to the sanctuary of her bedroom, praying to find some peace.

But she should have known he’d follow her. That he wouldn’t let go. Her heart sank when she heard the door creak gently, followed by the sound of feet pattering on the carpet toward her. She huddled on the floor, her head buried between her knees that she hugged to her chest in a tight embrace.

“Go away.”

She sensed him close, crouching down, but she was too much of a chicken to raise her head and look him in the eyes. His warm breath teased the baby hairs at her temple, and
strong fingers gently buried themselves in her hair, soothingly combing through the thick mass.

“No,” he stated in a low voice. “I ain’t going away and I won’t leave you again. Never, even if you tell me to.”

Blood pumped fast through her veins. All it took was the excruciating tenderness of his touch and the deep, rich timbre of his voice to yank her heartstrings out of her grasp.

“Never.”

Love surged through Dane, precious and pure. He closed his eyes and savored the way she felt under his touch.

Fragile yet strong.

Soft
.

He regretted none of his decisions in life but one: leaving his Lissy.

And what made him fit to be tied was that it had been all a matter of stupid pride that meant nothing when weighed against the happiness they could have shared, if only he hadn’t been so blind and foolish...

He
'd
had it made. How could he have the world and light out, just like that?

In business he was like a pit-bull – when everyone else admitted defeat he just kept going until the wind blew in his favor. Giving up was not in his nature.

Devil take him.

Of all the things to gamble on, he had to put his marriage on the line when he knew more than anyon
e that running away never solved
a goddamn thing!

He’d seen firsthand how pride and cowardice could break the spirit. Bitterness, betrayal, resentment, abandonment – all these were the bread and butter of his past. The memories were ones he’d never burden Lissy with, because he’d never wanted to think of them himself. He wanted to push them away yet he couldn’t make a clean cut. They were a slow-acting poison he’d been carrying around all his life.

But that pain was his own, not Lissy’s. Even some psychologists advised against reliving a traumatic event or period by talking about it.

Justifying it to himself this way eased his mind. He just had to find a way to slay his demons and make her happy.

Always on your terms? You know she won’t go for that again.

He pushed his misgivings aside, silenced the Devil’s advocate.

Minutes ticked by. He didn’t wish to speak for fear of killing the magic that weaved itself around them, but he knew he still had to make things right.

They both owed it to themselves
,
for nothing in this world was set in stone, especially if the desire to have something was strong enough. Mistakes were always made, but some could be reversed.

He held her like the anchor that she was.

“One chance is all I ask,” he said.

He drew a raggedy breath then slid a hand under her ponytail and found her delicate nape. When she didn’t push him away he dared to lower his lips to her hair and linger there.

His mouth curved into a smile as an enticing waft of lavender scent tickled his nostrils.

Her favorite shampoo.

Inhaling sharply, he buried his face in her shiny mahogany strands.

He loved the smell of her skin that reminded him of sprawling green fields bursting with flowers and sunshine. He loved everything about his Lissy – even when she bottled up her feelings until she exploded.

She leaned ever so slightly into his hand, a tiny white flag he didn’t miss.

“Sometimes life and love don’t go together. Have you thought about that?” she said, her voice muffled through the cleft between her knees.

He wanted to say so many things, the right things that would bind her to him.

Where was his confidence when he needed it most?

“Tell me I didn’t lose you forever. That there’s still hope for us.”

His heart sank when she stiffened. The silence cut like a serrated knife that ripped into his gut.

Finally she turned her head and looked at him. Her eyes, darkened with tears, bore into him, and he could see his own reflection in her enlarged pupils.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” she replied, her brown gaze devoid of artifice. “It’s not that we had a big fight that day, did we? All couples go through those things but we took it too far.” She sniffed and ran the back of her hand over her nose. “What happened made me think
,
though. We held back too much and it makes me wonder if we really knew what we were doing. I feel like I never grew up.”

He wanted to shed all pretenses with her, strip his soul naked and put it in her safekeeping. No corporate achievement or step up the ladder had ever felt as good as being with Lissy. Why couldn’t he just let go?

Because I don’t want to be like my father.

“But then I guess I stopped believing in fairy tales,” she finished.

A difficult statement, the self-same words his mother once said to him a long, long time ago.

His heart twisted in his chest. He was pole-axed by Lissy’s admission, his emotions flung about like a gnat in a hailstorm. He’d tried so hard to be the opposite of the old man, but all he
’d done
was become more like him.