Indecent Proposal (39 page)

“You don’t have to do this,” she whispered, but he could see that deep down, she wanted it.

“I love you because I’ve never had anyone by my side before. Because you inspire me to look at things differently. Because for the first time in my life I want someone to be proud of me. I love you because you make me better. You make my life better.”

“Yeah, that’s nice and all, but that’s all the shit she does for you.” It was Nora again, right over Ryan’s shoulder, like the declaration of love police. “What about
her
?”

“Your sister is tougher than Maynard,” he whispered to Ryan, who didn’t smile.
Right
. She just kept blinking away those tears, too tough to let them fall.

“You’re fierce,” he said. “Loyal. Smart. So … so smart, Ryan. Smarter, I think, than you even know. You’re a fighter who leads with her heart no matter how many times it’s been beaten up. And you’re kind, too. And that seems minor, but in my world …” He cleared his throat, but the ball of emotion didn’t go anywhere. It got worse, in fact, and he felt tears building in his own eyes. “I haven’t known a lot of kindness. You changed my life at that bar, showed me what was possible between two people when someone is brave. When someone is kind. I want to return that favor every day. For you. For our baby. Our family. I want to wake up every morning and make you happy. As happy as you’ve made me.”

“You gonna say something about how hot she is?” Nora asked.

Ryan flinched in his hands and he shook his head, looking into those brown eyes with the dark edges. “I’ve doubted my worth,” he whispered to her. “I’ve felt alone, just like you have, and if you let me in, Ryan. If you let me love you, I promise you’ll never feel that way again.”

He dropped his hands from her face and stepped back. He couldn’t force her to trust him. He couldn’t force her to do anything. A guy in the doorway to the living room clapped, and Harrison did a little bow before he shot Ryan a half-smile, trying to hide his doubt and his fear and his worry.

“I’m … I’m going to take another shower,” he said, and then headed up the stairs, leaving the kitchen behind.

She would come to him on her own, or she wouldn’t.

Once Harrison was gone, the kitchen exploded around Ryan but she barely heard it.

“How come you never say that kind of shit to me?” Janet Baker asked her husband, who’d been the guy clapping in the doorway.

“Bring me another beer and I will,” he shot back.

Something got thrown. Someone swore. A bunch of people laughed.

“That was freaking awesome,” Grace Kerns said in a hushed and reverent voice, and other women agreed.

Ryan agreed. Harrison’s speech was awesome. It was like something out of a movie. But still, somehow, she couldn’t move.

“What are you going to do?” Nora asked, coming to stand beside her, staring at the stairs with her like it was a crime scene.

“That person he described, is that really me?” she whispered.

“It’s how he sees you.”

Ryan laughed. “I’m not brave. I’m … scared to death.”

Letting Harrison in, all the way in and trusting him not to hurt her. And letting him trust her not to hurt him—that would be the bravest thing she’d ever done.

“Why’d you make him say all that?” she asked her sister.

“Because that’s the shit you deserve, Ryan,” Nora said. When Ryan looked down at her, she saw the sister of her childhood, returned to her somehow. And her gratitude was overwhelming.

“Thank you,” she breathed.

“You’re welcome, but I really don’t understand what you’re still doing down here.” Nora swatted her butt
with the towel over her shoulder and then retreated into the high-fives of the rest of the women in the kitchen.

Ryan remembered that first press conference, and how putting her hand in his and following him out of the car had been so surprisingly easy. She just did it. She just changed her life.

And taking the back steps to the second floor one by one was the same way.

Easy.

While at the same time impossibly difficult.

She was brave and cowardly all at once. Relieved and terrified. Excited and worried. Laughing and crying.

As if she’d been living with every emotion on mute for years and now she felt it all at full volume. Love amplified everything. It amplified her. She was suddenly capable of thousands of things she’d never dreamed of before. Things she wouldn’t have had the ability to even see.

She skipped the second step, her hand at her stomach over the growing baby. She nearly ran down the hallway to the bathroom. She eased open the door and then shut it quickly behind her so the cool air didn’t get in. She could see the shadow of him through the shower curtain, the solid shape and size that somehow managed to fill all the empty spots in her life.

Silently, she shed her clothes, her heart leaping around her rib cage like it wanted out, and then she eased back the edge of the shower curtain.

“What—” he cried, turning to face her, a long, soapy trail of shampoo falling over his eye. He smiled when he saw her, swiped the shampoo away, and quickly rinsed the rest of it out of his hair. “It’s you.”

“It’s me.” Goose bumps covered her body and she wrapped her arms around herself.

She was naked and cold and he sidestepped slightly so the hot water reached her.

Such a stupid thing to make her cry, but it did. A sob broke out of her.

“Hey,” he breathed, reaching for her, wiping the tears away with his thumbs as fast as they fell. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“I’m happy.”

A slow smile spread across his face. “This is you happy?”

She nodded and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressed kisses to his face. His cheek, the corner of his eye. And she felt his big, wide hands sweep around her, sliding up and down her back as if he couldn’t touch enough of her.

“I love you,” she said.

He rested his head against her shoulder and she cupped his neck with her hands and they stood holding each other up, the warm water running over their faces, into their mouths and eyes, but neither moved.

It was a strange moment of relief. Of homecoming.

“Thank you,” he said.

She stepped closer and pressed her hips against his, suddenly hungry for him. For the tenderness she’d known in his arms. She wanted to erase what had happened between them in her bedroom, that cold and angry act that bore no resemblance to the beautiful sex they were capable of.

And then the hot water, suddenly, viciously, turned cold.

They both screamed and scrambled out of the shower, dripping onto the pink tiled floor.

She swept back her wet hair. “Welcome to my world,” she laughed.

Harrison sobered. He grabbed a towel and bundled her up and then wrapped the old Snoopy one around his waist before picking her up in his arms.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingers squeezing water from the tips of his hair.

The walk to her bedroom was brief but drafty, and then he closed the door behind them and dried her off before settling her under the covers. Shivering, she watched him dry off and then join her.

“It’s our world,” he told her. “It’s what we make it. Parts of you. Parts of me. The baby. It’s what we want.”

He was propped up on his elbow over her and she slipped closer into the crack between his chest and the mattress, filling every space available to her. His erection was warm and hard against her belly and she reached between them to touch him.

“You know what I want?” she asked, her fingers circling the head, tracing the veins along the side.

He smiled, rakish and handsome, and leaned down to kiss her breast, making his way to her nipple. His hand slipped up her thigh and she spread her legs so she was open to his touch.

Love and lust collided between them and she was ready, unbelievably ready for him, and he shifted over her and slid into her perfectly. There was no doubt. No acceptance she wasn’t sure she wanted to give.

“You,” she breathed into his mouth as they began to move. “All I want is you.”

Chapter 30

April

“I have never seen one woman eat so much fried chicken,” Harrison teased, opening the door to the condo. She stepped past him, feeling tight and full and miserably pregnant.

“The last piece was a mistake,” she said, putting a hand to her stomach. The baby kicked her in agreement. Or disagreement; it was hard to say. The baby kicked a lot. And rolled and stretched, putting little hands against her belly and little feet against her spine and pushing with all its baby might.

“You all right?” he asked, smoothing his hand over her distended stomach. The baby kicked him too. Harrison grinned at the feeling and she grinned at seeing him so happy.

So peaceful.

Those smiles of his had multiplied like rabbits. Every day there were more. Easygoing smiles. Self-effacing smiles. Wry. Shy. Delighted. Flirtatious. Sexy. In those monthly trips to see his parents in their new house, his smiles had been pained, resigned. But more recently, slowly, they were becoming warm.

Being out of office was good for Ted and Patty. Their marriage wasn’t anything that Ryan wanted to emulate, but it was better functioning than it had been, largely because Harrison insisted on keeping everything out in the open, giving secrets no chance to fester.

“You tired?” he asked.

“Always.” She smiled. But tonight more than usual, because they’d rolled out the Pregnancy Nutrition Awareness program at the food bank today and there had been nonstop press interviews.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll walk you to your door.”

“Harrison,” she sighed.

After leaving Philly and coming back to Atlanta to try out this new life of theirs, instead of getting a divorce and dating, or having her move out, an expense neither of them could really afford right now, he’d suggested that they keep separate rooms.

And she’d agreed.

“I’ve never had a roommate,” he’d said.

“Then you’re in for a treat.”

And it had been. It had been five months of getting to know each other. Of special dates and ordering in. Both of them had tried to cook for the other with nearly disastrous results, but they’d pressed on, and now Ryan could make tortilla pie and peach cobbler and she made a bunch of it.

The baby loved peach cobbler.

Harrison bought a barbecue for the small patio and was getting pretty good at not burning chicken.

Nora came to visit and they’d had a party.

And then another one a few weeks later. Both of them sort of surprised by the number of friends they had.

They made out on the couch, went to movies. Had brunch with Wallace and Noelle a few times a month. They argued about what to watch on TV.

And every night he walked her to her door before going upstairs to his room.

“Don’t you think it’s time we were done with this?” she asked. “Dating in our own house.”

“You don’t like it?”

“I love it, but I also love that big bed upstairs and
waking up to your pretty face every day.” She squished his cheeks together and kissed his pursed lips.

“Are you saying you’re sure?” he asked, kissing her cheeks, her eyebrows, her nose.

“I am so sure I love you it’s nearly nauseating. What about you? Are you sure?”

“Couldn’t be surer,” he said, walking her back toward the couch. “Can we still make out on the couch?”

She laughed. “I don’t fit on the couch with you anymore.”

As if to prove her wrong he arranged them there, her surrounded by pillows, him with her feet in his lap.

In the corner were the stacks of baby items from the baby shower/wedding party Nora and Olivia had thrown for them in Philly last month.

The neighborhood had amply supplied them with casserole dishes and Eagles football onesies.

Nora and Olivia had promised to come to Atlanta when the baby was born.

“To help,” Nora had said. “Someone’s got to make sure you’re doing it right.”

But Ryan wasn’t stupid; Nora was going to be an amazing aunt. The very thought of it always made Ryan cry.

“Wallace came to see me today,” Harrison said, digging his thumb into the sole of her foot, making her groan and nearly pee her pants.

“How are he and Noelle doing?”

“Good. He ah … mentioned the mayoral election next year.”

Ryan jabbed him in the stomach with her big toe and grinned up at him. “Did he? And what did you say?”

“That I would work for him if he wanted to run.”

“What?” she cried. “That’s not what he meant, was it?”

“Initially, no, but I think he left thinking about it.
He’d have to let someone get him some new ties, but he’d be a great mayor.”

“But what about you? Aren’t you interested?”

“Nope. Not right now. Already I’m spending a week a month in Washington with VetAid, and you’re going to school and so busy with the food bank. And with the baby—”

“We could make it work.”

“I don’t want to make our family work,” he said. “I don’t want to put any pressure on this kid or us to be anything that we’re not.”

“No danger of that,” she laughed. “But if you want—”

“I’m so happy. Happier than I’ve ever been. And that purpose I was looking for,” he said, pulling her closer to him. It was awkward. She was awkward, but laughing they made their way into each other’s arms. “That purpose is you,” he whispered into her hair. “You and the baby.”