Give Up On Me

T
he taxi pulled
to a stop in front of the hotel, and Janae peered through the window. Her heart sped up just from the sight of him. An elderly man said something to him in passing, and for an instant, he grinned. She got a quick impression of that unique smile of his. Matt’s canine teeth were noticeably longer than the rest, although his teeth were white and straight. Every time he flashed them, she got butterflies in her stomach, and she fell in love with him a little more.

She paid the driver and climbed out of the taxi. “Hey, baby, I’m sorry I’m late. The meeting went way longer than I expected.”

He turned from the old man, appearing to forget him the instant Janae stood before him. His eyebrows crashed low over his eyes, and his lips tightened. “You know I don’t like to be kept waiting.

Janae put a hand on her hip. “Excuse me?”

Matt’s hands shot out to snatch her to him. He swept her off her feet, and crushed her to his chest. For a second longer, he maintained the austere expression, but then she caught sight of the twinkle in his eyes.

“Put me down, Matt. People are staring.” She struggled. He held on.

When she would have protested again, his big hand came up behind her head and forced it down so he could claim her lips. Janae didn’t even try to resist. She parted her lips and kissed him deeply.

After an eternity of bliss, she pulled back panting and patted his shoulder. The stubborn idiot still didn’t let go, but he set her on her feet. She wasn’t surprised when he leaned down and breathed in, his nose against her throat.

“How can you keep me waiting?” he grumbled. “You don’t understand how much I starved to get you in my arms.”

Janae smacked his arm and at last managed to get free. She turned her back, but he chased after her to bring her to him.

“You’re laying it on a little thick, aren’t you?” she teased. In reality, she’d been just as desperate to see him. Maybe they loved each other too much. She sometimes thought so, especially Matt.

Not that he smothered her. If she asked him not to call because she was busy at work, he didn’t. However, when she saw him later, he was like he was now. Janae loved it. She loved him, and she remembered every day how blessed she was to have a man like him.

For a few minutes longer, she let Matt wrap her in his embrace from behind. The man’s body was so big and hard, it took her breath away. She was no shortie at five foot seven, but Matt towered above her. The top of her head didn’t reach his chin, and the breadth of his shoulders expanded several inches past hers on both sides. She felt tiny, and she couldn’t get enough of it.

“So where are we going?” she asked, pulling away and facing him.

He frowned for real this time. “Why were you in a taxi?”

She waved her hand. “I had to put my car in the shop. It kept stalling, and it was either miss my meetings and our dates or cough up the money to get it fixed.”

“No rental?”

“The repair is going to cost enough as it is.”

“Janae—”

She touched his lips with an index finger. “Don’t even say it. We agreed when we first started seeing each other you’re not going to offer me money, and I’m not going to take it.”

“This is different.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Why must you be so stubborn? I want to take care of you. Are you going to refuse my help even when we’re married?”

She faltered and had to will herself to calm down before she spoke. “First of all, you’ve been hinting around for months about us getting married, like it’s a done deal. Second, you haven’t asked me, so yes, I’m going to keep taking care of myself. Now, can we get off the street, because a sister is hungry?”

He gestured, and they started walking. After a few steps, Janae reached for his hand, and Matt laced his fingers with hers. He stroked her skin, sending tendrils of delight racing up her arm and down to her nether regions. She looked over at him, and he appeared deep in thought. Damn, she hadn’t meant to put him on the spot.

“Matt, I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t worry about it.” She couldn’t guess his thoughts by his tone of voice or even if he was angry.

Matt selected a restaurant adjacent to a luxury hotel, as was his usual choice. The prices made her wince at first and then she
oohed
and
aahed
when she learned the restaurant routinely offered four and five course meals. She’d had stipulations about their dating from the beginning, but so had he. No compromises. He paid for all dinners and entertainment out. He also refused to go anywhere that wasn’t gourmet level. She had baulked at that.

The one time he gave in and agreed to go somewhere the average middle class person would go, he hadn’t enjoyed the food or the atmosphere. Dumb luck, and by then, Janae was so into him, all she wanted was to make him happy. So she caved. What was the point of fighting it anyway? Every restaurant Matt took her to served insanely good food.

She shouldn’t have been surprised. His grandmother owned ten five-star hotels and employed a world famous chef in the restaurant of at least one of them. Matt and his brother were executives in the enterprise, and Matt knew food.

They were shown to their table right away, and Janae picked up the menu. She perused the selections, trying to decide if she wanted to have a dish she had eaten before or go with what she enjoyed the last time.

Matt turned his baby blues onto her. “Know what you want?”

She caught the eagerness in his tone and rolled her eyes. “Okay, spoiled brat, give me the rundown.”

He chuckled. “I’m not spoiled.”

“You love showing off, telling me about pan-seared this and bourbon glazed whatever, and I indulge you. How is that not spoiled?”

He shook his head, an amused expression on his face. “Are you done?”

“Yup.” She raised the glass of wine he poured for her. Janae couldn’t recall a time when the wine wasn’t already chilling and ready because Matt arranged for his selection ahead of time. She took a sip and sighed, content with the delicious flavor.

Matt sat his menu down and slid hers from her hold. “I know how much you enjoy seafood, and this particular restaurant serves a pan-seared king salmon with a expertly prepared piperade.”

“And what is piperade?”

“Piperade or
piperrada
is made with green peppers, onion, and tomatoes which are sautéed with espelette pepper. The dish originated in the Basque region of France. The Basque region is—”

“Let me stop you there. You’re saying I should have a medium well hamburger and French fries?”

He burst out laughing. “You should have whatever you want, and I’ll make sure you get it. I was just getting started with your possible selections.”

“You were giving me a history lesson in food,” she teased. “But I trust you, and you’ve never steered me wrong. I’ll have the salmon.”

He nodded his approval and signaled the waiter, who snapped to the table in a blink. She listened with rapt attention while Matt ran down what they wanted and included precise instructions on several points regarding her food and his. He had gone with the foie gras with cherries and black sesame.

Matt didn’t sound arrogant or as if he were entitled at all, just a gentle statement, which always got him tip top service. More than once, the chef walked out to meet the man who was such a connoisseur of food, and every time, they knew who Matt was by his name.

When the waiter left their table, Matt turned his attention back to her. “Honey, you know I love you, don’t you?”

He extended his hand across the table, palm up. She laid hers in his. “You say it every day. I can’t not know it.”

“No, don’t be flip right now.”

“I’m sorry. Yes, I know. I love you, too, more than I can say.”

His fingers curled around her hand, and he stroked her skin again. She loved his touch, the way he could bring her body alive with that little bit.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said outside.”

“What was that?” She recalled but the subject of marriage scared the crap out of her. Maybe it had to do with her mother and the fact that she had run off with her dad’s best friend. Janae was eleven at the time. After that, she hadn’t heard from her mother for two years, and then she wanted a relationship with Janae. The hell she would. Janae might have only been eleven, but she had heard her dad crying in his room at night, and she had seen the devastation on his face. Before her mother left, she never saw her father cry, or again when he finally moved past his broken heart.

Marriage to Janae meant wounds that couldn’t be healed. Her dad smiled, and she was sure he was generally a happy man, but sometimes she saw his loneliness. Once she had told him he should start dating again, and he had said he could never love another woman other than her mother. Diehard romantic if she ever saw one. His attitude frustrated her, but she loved him and respected his choice. The hurt she saw in him all those years ago made her stick by him no matter what.

Matt squeezed her hand to capture her attention again. “I’ve always been thinking of making you my wife. I know you’re the one. I want my proposal to be perfect and was thinking maybe we should have an engagement dinner.”

Janae drew back in horror. Here was another one. Anybody who thought men weren’t romantic didn’t know the men Janae did. Not that she hated it. She loved romance as much as the next woman, but boy did Matt freak her out sometimes.

“We’ve been good just as we are,” she said. “Marriage will complicate things.”

“I know you’re afraid, but I promise you, I’ll never leave you. I’ll always be there for you, Janae.”

The intensity in his gaze brought tears to her eyes, and she blinked them away. “How can you be so sure? Everybody changes and grows over time. What you want today at thirty-five, you might not want in five years or even two.”

His brows lowered, and his blue eyes deepened in color. “I will always want you and love you. Out there on the street, I wasn’t kidding. I can’t…I
need
to be with you, honey. You are everything. If you give me the chance to prove it to you, I will.”

Janae shook from head to toe. Her heart swelled, and a lump formed in her throat. She tried to swallow it down. Staring at the table, she gathered her thoughts. “I want to wake up every day beside you, but—”

“Look at me.”

She did and wished she didn’t. Laying eyes on him was always her undoing. This man held her entire soul in the palm of his hand, but she would never tell him that.

“Does it hurt when we leave each other, when you go to your house and I go to mine?”

She opened her mouth to speak and then shut it, clicking her teeth together.

“Doesn’t it?” he pushed. “I want to come into the kitchen and see you standing at the stove cooking. You wearing nothing but a short nightie that shows off your sexy legs with nothing underneath.”

“Now, we’re talking about your fantasy,” she joked.

“And I want to join you. We’ll cook our breakfast together, and when we’re done, we’ll sit down at the table to enjoy it. Sometimes I see our son there with us.”

Janae gasped. “Our son?”

“Yeah, I want a boy.” He rushed to add, “I would love a little girl, too.”

Boys might be dominant in his family, but he was talking kids, and they had never gotten that far. Janae dreamed of having cute little babies, but not marriage. Could she offer to live with him and forget the tying of the knot thing?

“We could live together.”

He frowned. She should have known he wouldn’t go for it. “Janae, you wouldn’t have a legal claim if anything were to happen to me. Our kids would, but I can’t do that to you. It’s better for all around that you take my name.”

“Wait, hold on, all around? What’s that supposed to mean?”

She knew what he meant all right. One day after they had been seeing each other three months, she got a call from his grandmother.

“Please don’t tell me the man I love is intimidated by his grandmother.”

Since she had known him, Matt was almost never angry. Never with her. Irritated, yes, but not angry. She had just offended him, and she saw it in the stiff set to his shoulders and the storm in his eyes. Matt had once told her he and his brother got digs all the time because they were subject to the ruling of their grandmother when it came to business. Even closing in on seventy, she was strong and of sound mind and body. The old lady was also as ruthless as they came.

“Margaret doesn’t control what I do in my personal life,” Matt bit out. The old dragon insisted that both boys call her by her name and not the outdated
grandma
. “She has nothing to do with us. Maybe I’m being selfish, but I want her to accept you. That won’t happen if we’re not married.”

“We don’t have to live with
her.”

His anger faded. “Honey, I want our life to be peaceful and happy. I think—
I hope
—Kyler and Margaret will come to love you as I do.”

“You think they’ll put up a fuss if we live together?” She wasn’t ready to let go of the idea, and she still wondered if he was just being weak when it came to his family. That pissed her off.

Matt ran a hand over his face. “How can I help you to understand? Margaret will make a nuisance of herself three hundred sixty-five days of the year, until you are so miserable, you leave me.”

Janae gaped. “Is it that bad?”

“She ran off three other women I dated. All three chose to break it off rather than continue to deal with her.”

“Damn.”

On one hand he was speaking of three women as if it were no big thing to have so many lovers. Okay,
many
wasn’t the right word, but Matt was speaking in terms of longer term relationships, beyond that special three-month warning shot from Nana.

On the other hand, she questioned whether he loved her so much because others had left him. Was he clinging without real feeling? She hated worrying about it and his heart because she loved him desperately. Sure, Matt was the sensitive type, but up until him the only men she had given half a chance were the bad boys and the unfaithful. Neither the bad boys nor the unfaithful would sit for a solid hour while she rambled on about renovations, the kind of business her dad owned and that she helped him with.