Girl Code (30 page)

He raised an eyebrow when he caught me staring.

“What?” he asked cautiously.

“The no shirt and no shoes look works well for you,” I said, eyeing his bare feet.

The first genuine smile, at least the first genuine smile directed at
me
that day, materialized on his handsome face. It was a small smile, but it was real.

His tone was no longer flat when he spoke to me, but he still didn’t sound like himself. I could still hear and feel his tightly reined in bitterness, anger, and sadness. “Lucky you. You have a guy that looks good in clothes, out of clothes, and partially clothed.”

“That’s such a you thing to say,” I said, rolling my eyes as my own smile made an appearance.

“My vanity is one of the many personality traits you love about me,” he said, getting to his feet.

“There are many personality traits that I
don’t
love about you.” I snorted, crossing my arms across my chest.

He stalked across the room with confidence and power. I tried not to look intimidated as I casually leaned back against the wall next to the window. Leo planted his hands flat on the wall on either side of my head. I inhaled the scent that was so him and so wonderful and sexy. All day I had been surreptitiously sniffing him. It was one of the things I missed most about him.

“Name one thing you don’t love about me,” he challenged. “I’ll bet you can’t name even one.”

Typically, there wasn’t anything I hated about Leo. Sometimes, I wished that I could abhor something about him, but I couldn’t. I loved everything about him, his big ego, his sarcasm and wit, his business savvy mind, his cooking skills, his sexual skills, his kissing skill, the way he fights for me…

“I don’t love the way you looked at me with disgust today,” I said in a small voice. “I don’t love the fact that you hated me.”

Leo dropped his head and stared at the floor between us for several seconds before meeting my eyes again.

“I didn’t hate you. I can never hate you. I was—I
am
angry, Tabitha, and hurt. You ran again, and then I found out that you not only still owned a house with Xander, but you were sleeping there, sleeping with him, kissing
him
while I was left in the damn dirt.”

“I didn’t sleep with him,” I protested.

He stared hard at me.

“But you aren’t denying that you kissed him.”

I tilted my head back, banging it lightly on the wall, and blowing out a large breath of air.

“He kissed me,” I said, staring up at the ceiling. “And I didn’t respond at first, I didn’t do anything, but then I kissed him back for a few seconds before I pushed him away and told him that I was in love with someone else.”

Leo’s body wasn’t touching mine, but I could feel it tense all the same. I continued staring up at the ceiling, being my cowardice self.

“Look at me,” he said in that quietly dangerous tone. “Look. At. Me.”

I inhaled and then dropped my gaze to his as I let my arms fall to my sides.

“I know in your mind you tried to justify what you were doing. In your mind, you gave me up, and you were single and that made it okay, but not so deep down you knew you were wrong. You knew despite all of your efforts to rid yourself of me that you had no right to give your lips and your tongue to that man. You knew that your kisses belonged to me. You are mine, and you were wrong not to tell him that in the first place. You played unfairly, Tabitha. You let him think he had a chance, which made him take something from you that wasn’t his to take.”

Apologizing didn’t feel adequate. Those two words “I’m Sorry” seemed insufficient for our circumstance. There were too many broken promises and too many things to be sorry for. Saying it would never be enough penitence to pay, but I had to say
something
.

“I’m sorry,” I finally said in a whisper, because there was nothing else to say.

Leo rested his forehead against mine as he let out a heavy sigh.

“What do I have to do, Tabitha?” he asked. “What the hell do I have to do?” He raised his head off of mine and met my eyes once again. “Do I have to beg? Do I have to get on my damn knees and beg for you to give us a chance? Is that what you want me to do?”

The unwanted image of Leo on his knees begging me or anyone for anything made my heart seize up. I didn’t bother to blink back the threatening tears as I slowly shook my head.

He brought one hand to my face, caressing it with his knuckles as he spoke in a sudden smooth and molten voice. “You have been pushing me away and running away for fifteen years. Aren’t you tired, baby? Aren’t you ready for me yet?”

I
was
tired and I was ready. I was one of the few people in the world who found true love, and I had run from it, let my fears rule over me. I
had
been a coward, but I was tired of that, too. I wanted to be happy, and more than that I wanted to make Leo happy. He had always given to me selflessly, even when we were kids and he just wanted to protect me from being a rumor in school, or when he wanted to protect me from the approaching catastrophe that was my brother. He was my hero even when I didn’t know it, like in college. Leo had always been a giver, and I had simply taken and run. It was time for me to give back to him.

I raised one hand to the back of his head, threading my fingers through his hair. My other hand grazed over his bare abdomen and eased to his back. My fingers crawled down and slipped beneath his jeans and his boxers and caressed his very good-looking, firm ass.

“I’m ready for you, Leonardo Pesciano,” I breathed against his lips. “Io sono tua, amore mio. Ti prego, perdonami.”

I am yours, my love. Please forgive me.

All of the tension that had been plaguing him seemed to leave at once. He melted over me, pressing my body against the unforgiving wall. I squeezed his ass and he growled as he nudged my legs apart with his leg. His thigh nestled between my thighs and against my pussy, making me moan.

“I love it when you speak Italiano to me,” Leo growled against my mouth.

He shifted against me and I moaned again. As if he couldn’t stop himself, he kissed me. His tongue stroked into my mouth hungrily. My fingers eased up to his bare waist and I held on to him as I was kissed obscenely. His leg flexed against me and my hips automatically swayed forward, increasing the friction. By the time he pulled away from my lips, I was excited and trying not to grind on his leg like a dog in heat.

“Don’t make me come find you again,” Leo whispered. It wasn’t a command. It was a plea.

I already made promises and broke them. My promises wouldn’t mean anything without some proof that I was able to follow through.

“What can I do to convince you that I won’t do it again?” I asked in a small voice.

Leo stared at me intently for a long time before answering.

“I want you in Miami when you’re not traveling for work,” he said quietly. “I want you to make the move.”

He studied my face, waiting for me to object and present him with an argument about why that was not yet possible, but I had no argument, no good reason. I was rarely home anyway. I loved Sandy and Mayson and my other friends, and even my broken family, but I had moved three thousand miles away for Xander once. I loved Xan, but nothing in the world came close to my love for Leo. Convincing Leo that I was ready for him wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. I would have to make some sacrifices.

“Okay,” I said, letting out a breath I had been holding.

Leo looked at me with his eyes slightly widened.

“Okay,” I said again. “I’ll do it.”

The smile that appeared on his face was so big and perfect. I wanted to see that kind of smile on his face all of the time. He let out a little growl and his lips crashed into mine. I wrapped my arms around his waist and caressed his strong back muscles as he kissed me. His leg shifted and I gasped into his mouth.

“I don’t want you to just be my roommate, Tabitha,” Leo said breathlessly a minute later. His nose trailed over my jaw and down my neck. “The last time I asked you to marry me was when I was inside of you, but the next time I ask I expect a response.”

“You’re so bossy,” I gasped as he nibbled on the sensitive area just below my ear. “You totally manhandled me today.”

“You needed to be manhandled,” he murmured, nuzzling my neck.

“Are you going to manhandle me into marrying you, too?”

“I might put you in a headlock if necessary, but I don’t think I will have to. You will say yes.” His tongue followed the curve of my neck to my shoulder where he kissed me softly.

“What makes you so sure?” I asked, moaning softly. “I hardly even like you.”

Leo planted one last lingering kiss on my throat before drawing up to look into my eyes.

“You’ll marry me because I’m a great catch,” he said with that obnoxious smile I loved to hate.

I rolled my eyes.

“It’s true,” he insisted. “I’m good-looking. I own two, going on three, successful businesses. I have an awesome car and a bike—girls dig bikes. I have a boat—girls dig boats, even you couldn’t resist my big dinghy.”

I groaned and tossed my head back against the wall. “I think I prefer you to go back to your silent treatment.”

Leo chuckled as his arms circled around my waist, but he continued with his list as if he hadn’t been interrupted.

“I have a nice beach-front house. I can cook food that is so good that it can melt the panties off of you. I actually clean my house with my own two hands,
and
do my own laundry.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Well, it’s nice to know you are capable of washing your own man panties.”

“You know why else you’ll say yes?” he asked deviously.

“Because the drugs you’ll give me will make, say, fanciful things?”

He responded to my jibe with a soft kiss to my lips, effectively shutting me up. He spoke in a faint voice.

“You will say yes because I am the only one in the world for you, and you are the only one in the world for me. You will say yes because you can’t deny this voltaic energy that has always been between us. You will say yes because I am your soul mate, your kindred soul, kindred spirit, your heart’s desire. I am your one true love and you are mine.”

I threw my arms around him, all smart aleck comments gone from my mind. I just wanted to hold him and for him to hold me. So many years were gone, so much time wasted. Leo was right. I couldn’t deny the energy between us, which had always been there. He was my heart’s desire, my kismet, the only true one for me. Maybe I had done the right thing all of those years ago. Maybe we had to go through all of these obstacles before the timing for us was perfect, but I was done running away from what was meant to be. I was ready for Leo.

“Yes,” I said eagerly.

He laughed again. It vibrated against my cheek and I loved it. “Yes what?”

“Yes, I’ll marry you.”

“I already know that,” he snorted. “But I haven’t asked you again yet, Miss Tackard.”

“Whatever! When you do, I won’t leave you in suspense.”

“Good to know,” he murmured happily.

We stood like that for several long moments, holding each other, feeling each other’s warmth. I listened to the steady, hard drumbeat of his heart.

“You wrecked me every time,” Leo said in just above a whisper. “From the very first time you denied me, you wrecked me.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered as tears once again prickled at my eyes.

Leo pulled away slightly and cupped my face in his hands. “I don’t want you to be sorry, Tabs. I want you to stop.”

I nodded as much as I could with his hands trapping me. “You have me forever, Leo. I promise.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Leo went with me to my signing the following afternoon. Most of the readers thought he was a muse, a male book cover model. He loved every second of their attention. When he took his shirt off to show off the hard curves and lines of his chest, he sent the women into a frenzy. I gave him the most disgusted look I could muster, but secretly, I was ecstatic that the man those women were falling over was mine.

He flew home to Miami on Monday, and I flew to Boston, and then D.C. When I returned to New Jersey, I had a little less than two weeks before I had to fly to London. I bought some boxes from a moving company and made arrangements to have my apartment packed up and shipped to Miami at the end of the summer. I wanted to be able to oversee what was going on and I couldn’t do that until I was finished running around the globe. In the meantime, I was going to send a few of my necessities and keepsakes to my new home so that it would be there when I returned from abroad.

My new home. I was actually doing it. I was going to move to Miami and live in sin with Leo Pesciano. I wasn’t afraid anymore, well not the way I was afraid before. There was a nervous excitement building within me. I felt like one of my characters on her way to her happily ever after. I didn’t know if I actually believed in true love in the sense that Leo had described that night in the hotel in Chicago. I didn’t think I actually believed in soul mates and fate, but once he said it, I knew it was true. Even when I hated the guy, I couldn’t deny the power that charged and sparked between us. It was right. It may not have been right before, but it was right then.

I gave up on Leslie. I called her once more when I was in Boston and she still had not returned my phone calls. Not a text, not an email, nothing. Her last Facebook update was so old that when I went to her page, it was covered in cobwebs and tumbleweeds rolled across the screen. For all I knew, Leslie had dropped off of the face of the earth, and until she was willing to contact me again, I had to move on with my life, even if it was with someone she recently loved. There were so many variables involved with that damn girl code, and the biggest one was the state of my relationship with Leslie. It was pretty much nonexistent. How valid is the code if the other party doesn’t even acknowledge me? I’m not making excuses for what I’d done in the past, but we were adults now. Thirty was around the corner. It wasn’t a teenage crush or puppy love. What I had with Leo was the real thing, solid and true. I would deal with Leslie if and when the time arose.

One of the first things I did when I returned to New Jersey was meet the girls for lunch. It was a Thursday, so I had to fetch Mayson from her office first.

“Why are you smiling like that?” she asked, narrowing her eyes with suspicion as I glided into her office.

“Hello to you, too, May,” I said and then embraced her. As I mentioned before, Mayson never really like to be touched. The long embrace I got in Chicago was probably the last one of its kind for a very long time. She hugged me back, but only for about two seconds before she started shrugging me off.

“Okay, get off of me already,” she snapped.

I pulled back, grinning at her as she shook my invisible cooties from her red button up shirt and black slacks. She looked really good; nothing like the disaster she was even five years ago. She continued to eye me skeptically.

“Your stupid smile should be illegal.”

I only gave a one-shoulder shrug in return and continued to smile. Mayson picked her purse up off of the floor and began to rummage through it.

“What’s wrong with you?” she asked.

“Nothing is wrong,” I said cheerfully. “Everything is great.”

She fished out a stick of lip gloss. As she applied it, she looked at me thoughtfully. “I haven’t spoken to you much since the party. I was really surprised to see you there with Leo. What’s going on with you two? You’ve been hush-hush since we talked when you were still in Miami.”

“I will tell you what is going on with Leo over lunch so I won’t have to repeat the tale. Are you ready yet?” I looked at my watch. “Sandy is probably almost there and she has to get back to work, and Donya is uncomfortably pregnant and would probably rather be at home nesting or something.”

Mayson’s nose scrunched up as we began to walk out of the room. “She’s not happy, you know. She’s pretending she is. I know she’s pretending, because, well…” she shrugged and sighed as she threw her bag over her shoulder. I didn’t think she was going to say any more as she grabbed her sunglasses off of the desk, but then she looked at me and said, “I saw her with Emmet at Lucas’s party. I wasn’t really around when they were dating years ago, I was drugged out of my mind, but I always thought they were…real, like…fairytale kind of shit.” She shook her head. “I don’t think it was supposed to be like this, and I think she’s realizing that now.”

That fight Leo and I had witnessed on the boardwalk all of those years ago was a part of the beginning stages of a blooming romance between Emmet and Donya. It was all kinds of scandalous at the time because the Graynes always viewed Donya as a daughter and sister, and Emmet had almost three years on her. I didn’t see them much, either, when they were together, but I agreed with Mayson, it seemed right. They looked like they belonged together, but they broke up. Donya eventually married someone else, and Emmet followed soon thereafter.

“Well, what can we do?” I asked. “Unless she comes out and says it, who are we to make assumptions to her like that? My friendship with her is still so new.”

“Yeah,” Mayson shrugged. “Just makes me doubt true love.”

“Well, don’t doubt it so quickly,” I said with a secretive smile.

She cocked an eyebrow. “I can’t wait to hear this.”

The elevator doors slid open and Mayson immediately scowled at the man that was standing inside, scowling at her. Amused, I stepped into the cab.

“Grayne,” the man tightly acknowledged.

“Asshole,” Mayson acknowledged with a tight smile.

“Yikes,” I muttered, feeling the chill emanating from the man.

“Is this another incompetent new hire?” he asked, not even bothering to look away from the glowing numbers at the top.

My mouth fell open in surprise, but Mayson didn’t even blink. She looked at her nails with disinterest.

“No, this is my cousin Tabitha and I would never hire her to work for you.”

I didn’t know whether to feel insulted or relieved.

The man’s dark eyes slowly slid to mine. He looked me over, head to toe before coming back to my face where he lingered for too long, as if he saw something in me he recognized before silently turning away.

“We need to discuss any possible candidates
before
they show up at my office with that lost mutt expression on their faces,” the man said. “No more inferior new hires.”

“Don’t,” Mayson said, pointing a finger at him, “tell me how to do my job. I will gut you with a pencil and feed your innards to the back alley rats.”

The elevator doors slid open and the man stepped out without another word or glance, as if he had never heard Mayson’s threat.

“Who the hell and what the hell was that?” I asked as we walked through the lobby. I dropped my pass with security without even pausing in my steps.

“That was Kyle Sterling, and that, that was just our usual office banter.” She smiled brightly. “He used to be Emmy’s boss.”

“What a dick,” I muttered as I followed her out the door.

At lunch, I told everyone about me and Leo, starting with the reunion. Many other details came to light also, like what he did to Rico, that first kiss in my bedroom while my brother warred with my parents on the first floor, and what happened when I saw him in college. When Mayson asked me about the tangible tension that was between Leo and me at the party, I reluctantly told them about Leslie. The reactions around the table were mixed. Sandy said to let it go. Mayson told me to confront Leslie with an ass kicking for being a sucky friend. Donya was notably silent on that topic.

Sandy had to get back to the studio to prepare for the evening news. Mayson stormed out of the restaurant after receiving a text message from Kyle. Only Donya and I remained, unhurried, sipping hot tea and picking at a shared slice of cake. She looked at me thoughtfully and seemed to come to a decision as she sighed and leaned forward a little bit.

“Do you know why Emmet and I are not married?” she asked, looking at me intently.

“Umm, because you’re both married to other people?” I asked, surprised by the question. Donya and I never spoke about very serious matters. Really, the details I had just shared with her about Leo were more than we’d ever shared about our personal lives. It took me a while to get over the fact that just because she was Emmy’s best friend, that she wasn’t actually Emmy.

“Do you know why that is?” she asked quietly.

My brow furrowed in confusion. “No.”

She took a breath, bit her bottom lip, and absently ran a hand over her basketball-sized belly.

“I made a lot of bad choices.” She nodded and spoke in such a low voice; I could barely hear her. She sighed and looked at me dead on, her eyes intense. “A little more than an hour before I was supposed to walk down the aisle to marry Jerry, I took off. I was overwhelmed and it was my wedding day and I wasn’t happy. I told myself I just needed a few minutes to myself and everything would be fine. I had a limo driver take me to the pond, you remember the pond?”

I nodded, acknowledging that I remembered the pond near the Grayne’s main family home in Louisiana. I didn’t want to speak, fearing that Donya would stop talking, and I had the feeling she was going to tell me something of importance.

“I have a lot of memories of that pond,” she said with a faint smile. “I used to spend a lot of time there with Fred and the boys fishing, and later that’s where Emmet first proposed to me. I was only sixteen years old.”

God, it looked like she was going to cry. I wanted to comfort her, but I didn’t know what to say. I had no idea what happened between them.

“So, I went to the pond,” she continued, poking at the cake on the plate between us. “And Emmet was there, but I knew he was there before I saw his car. I know it’s going to sound like magical fairy dust bullshit, but it’s not. I knew he was there because I could
feel
him there. There has always been this unbreakable…cord between us. I could have made the driver turn around so I wouldn’t have to deal with seeing my ex on my wedding day, but now looking back on it, I think I knew. I knew what I was subconsciously hoping for. I was hoping that Emmet would ask me not to marry Jerry, that he would ask me to run away with him, and god, Tabitha—” She smiled sadly and happily all at once as tears brimmed in her eyes. “—I would have gone. I would have left all of those damn people waiting for me to walk that aisle; I would have left Jerry at the altar, and fuck the consequences.”

My mouth opened and shut a few times. I was speechless, struck dumb.

“Emmet did beg me,” she said, nodding. “But…he also dropped a bomb on me. He told me that Casey was pregnant, and I know….I know, I know he was scared and I know that he didn’t want to have a baby with her, but he’s Emmet, you know? He was going to do whatever he had to do for his child, but he was ready to do it with me. He said we could have figured it out together, and he begged and begged for me not to marry Jerry, but I was so angry and hurt, and spiteful. Very spiteful, because I left him there, defeated and low, I
left
him, and I went and married Jerry anyway.”

My heartbeat fell to a sad tempo as it hurt for Donya and Emmet. I wiped at my damp eyes but still said nothing as I waited for her to continue. She wasn’t crying, though. It was like she was using all the strength she had in her not to cry, and I wondered if she had always been that way.

“I am glad that you chose to be with Leo despite what happened between him and Leslie. It’s not over, you know, the conflict. She’s going to pop up when you least expect it, and she’s going to be mad as hell, and
hurt
, and if Leo is this good guy like you say he is, he is going to try to do right by her. I’m not saying he’s going to
be
with her, but he will try to do right by her and fix her. You’ll have to take a stand. You’ll have to be understanding of her and sympathetic to what she’s going through, but you’ll have to also let her know that he is yours, you are his. If this is true love, Tabitha, if this is really, really true and you and Leo have any kind of connection that is as strong as my connection with Emmet, don’t let
anything
or
anyone
tear you apart. It’s hard to fight for the one you love while you’re with him, but it will be so much harder without him.”