Seducing His Heart (28 page)

He stepped closer and hugged her. “You
mean…everything to me,” he whispered. Then, he let go and was out
of the building, in the limousine, and on his way. Bess ran to the
curb. Tears poured down her face. The car stopped at the light.
Whit turned around to look at her. He put his palm on the glass.
She raised her hand.

Then, the light changed, and the vehicle got
lost in the uptown traffic on Central Park West. Bess was shivering
in the wind on the Avenue. So was Homer. They returned to her
apartment. She mixed up hot chocolate and sat by the window.
Another gray, November day. The leaves were almost gone on the
trees in the park. People starting their Thanksgiving holidays
drove past, scurrying along to their families.

Four o’clock. Soon, it
would be dark.
Will I forget him? Will he
email me? Call me? If I meant everything to him, why did he leave
me? I have the keys to his house, so I can see him again, if I want
to. Will I meet someone else? No one can compare to Whitfield
Bass.

Exhausted, Bess fell asleep on the sofa,
with a pug cuddled up to her at each end. The buzz from the lobby
at six o’clock woke her. The dogs jumped up, barking, and raced to
the door. In a few minutes, there was a scratching. Bess pushed to
her feet, rubbing her eyes. “Coming .”

It burst open before she got there. Three
women, all talking at once, and five dogs barking and wiggling,
blew into the room like a tornado. Bess laughed in spite of her
headache.

“
Chinese tonight.” Miranda
opened a brown paper bag.

“
Did Whit leave?” Brooke
asked.

Bess nodded, grabbing a bottle of Ibuprofen
from the cabinet. The room grew silent. Even the dogs.

Rory walked over to her and slipped an arm
around her shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

* * * *

Bess packed up the pugs
and drove out to Rye on Tuesday.
No sense
moping around the city when there’s work to do.
She set out beds for the dogs then trekked into Port Chester
to a huge hardware store. She loaded up the car with painting
supplies, wallpaper, and a few lamps and kitchen tools.

She had created a playlist
before going to bed the night before.
Got
to get started while it’s still light outside.
She outlined with blue tape, opened the primer, and rolled it
on the wall. She hoped to cover the dirty color that had been there
for years.

Unable to wait until morning, Bess applied
the soft, creamy white paint to the living room wall after the
primer dried. The clean, bright warmth of the color brought the
room to life. Stubbornly determined to have the house in shape for
Christmas, Bess worked on. By dinnertime, all the living room walls
had been painted.

She ate leftovers from
home, fed the dogs, and blue-taped the walls of the little room on
the first floor.
This would make a good
office for Whit.
By ten o’clock, she was
ready for sleep. One final walk along the windy beach with the
pugs, and they all settled into the big bed for the night. Bess
opened her computer, wondering if she had an email from Whit. Sure
enough. There it was.

Flight delays. Language barriers. Lousy
food. Wish I’d stayed home. Missing you already. What are you up
to?

Whit

She replied—

Working on the house. Will be painting on
Thanksgiving. Can you even get turkey in Hong Kong? Dogs fine. All
is well.

Bess

Keep it light. Don’t let him know how much
he hurt you. Start to disengage. I’ve got to save myself.

Bess found that Thanksgiving Day was like
any other day if you spent it listening to music, painting and
putting up wallpaper. By Friday, the entire downstairs had a fresh
coat and the powder room was complete. The soft cream of the living
room and dining room gave way to a soothing, light bluish green in
the study. The kitchen was a bright coral, with a small table, in a
bright white that contrasted with the colorful walls.

The dark entryway was the cream color, but
one shade warmer.

By the end of the weekend, the upstairs was
finished, too. The master bedroom was a subtle, slightly grayish
blue with silver trim. The other bedrooms were bright yellow with
sky blue trim and soft taupe with white trim.

The linens for the queen bed were silver and
white stripes. Accent pillows in light pink and rose brought warmth
to the room. Bess was pleased with her work. By Sunday, she was
ready to return to the city and get back to cooking for
television.

Each weekend, Bess schlepped Dumpling and
Homer to Rye. Soon the house was filled with pine furniture in
simple, Early American lines. Cushions, pillows, and artwork kept
the rooms warm and inviting. Lighting was soft, but efficient, from
floor and table lamps. The wood fragrance from the furnishings and
the logs by the fireplace freshened the air.

Bess shopped every antique store in New York
City for candlesticks. She placed them on the dining room table,
the mantle, on the stair risers, on the dressers in the master
bedroom. She bought electric candles as well and placed one in each
window. She left them lit when she returned to her city life. Those
candles, shining in the windows when she returned, beckoned her,
welcomed her into the beautiful cozy home she created.

The house was comfortable, inviting,
cheerful and restful—everything she’d always wanted. She tried not
to think about turning it over to Whit when he came back, if he
did. She created a living space she loved and went out there at
every opportunity.

Every night as she crawled into bed
exhausted and in the company of only Dumpling and Homer, she’d
check her email. There was always one from Whit. He’d complain
about some inconvenience or tell her about something beautiful. He
described the people he was dealing with and the places he’d
travel.

She enjoyed his correspondence. As much as
she wanted to break away, she opened each message with happy
anticipation. The women in the Dinner Club fixed her up with a
blind date from time to time. She’d mention these to Whit to tease
him, and he always rose to the bait, finding some fault with each
man. Bess wanted to like someone else more than Whit, but never
did.

As Christmas approached, Bess planned a
party for the Dinner Club at the stone house. She’d drive them out,
have everyone stay over, and return them to the city the next
day.

“
A Christmas sleepover!”
Miranda said.

“
Let’s do a Secret Santa,”
Brooke said.

They piled into Whit’s car, cramming the
pugs in with them, and headed out. The air was crisp and clear. No
snow in the forecast. Once they settled in, the women took the dogs
for a romp on the deserted beach. The canines stuck their noses in
the sand, chased each other and barked at the occasional winter
seagull.

Bess needed the gathering of her friends.
She hadn’t had an email from Whit in two weeks. Fear that the
relationship was over—perhaps he’d met someone else—made her shiver
at night. She didn’t admit anything to her friends, not wanting to
ruin their holidays.

After the fresh air, the ladies divided up
tasks. Bess manned the kitchen, Brooke made a fire, Miranda set the
table, and Rory tended bar.

The pugs were exhausted. After their dinner,
each found a cozy place and curled up to sleep. The women sat
cross-legged in front of the fireplace. They shared a bottle of
Moscato.

“
I have a confession,”
Bess began. Tears pricked the backs of her eyes. She glanced at her
friends, who waited for her to go on. “It’s been weeks since I got
an email from Whit.”

“
Weeks? How many?” Brooke
asked.

“
Two. At first, it was an
email every night. Then, nothing.”

The silence was interrupted only by the
crack of a twig in the fire.

“
There could be a thousand
explanations,” Rory said.

“
Or only one. It’s over.
This is my first and last Christmas in this wonderful
house.”

“
I love it here,” Miranda
said. “I didn’t see it before you refurbished it, but you’ve made
it so cozy, warm, and beautiful.”

The other women agreed. Bess got that they
wanted to change the subject, so she let it go. “Let’s exchange our
Secret Santa gifts,” she said. Amidst a squeal of excuses,
laughter, and exclamations, small packages changed hands.

As they finished their final clean-up before
going to sleep, Bess sighed and opened her computer. “One more
time,” she muttered. And there it was. An email from Whit. The
subject line had one word—“Christmas.”

Chapter Fifteen

Whit had been prepared for anything. He’d
packed a raincoat, three umbrellas, a down jacket, and a couple of
wife-beaters. He had dictionaries for three different languages, as
well as translation apps for his phone. He got money changed into
the currency of the countries he’d be passing through. He had even
packed a spare battery for his computer. Every eventuality was
covered. Whitfield Bass was an organized man. Nothing was going to
take him by surprise.

The foreign atmosphere had thrown him.
Nothing was the same as New York. The smells, the food, the people,
even the scenery. At first, he’d been fascinated. He’d met so many
people the first week, he knew he’d never remember them all. But by
the second week, loneliness had seeped into his heart. The exotic
surroundings lost their luster when there was no one to share them
with. His first impressions, quirky things he noticed…who cared if
it was all about him, and only him? Was he homesick?

He’d planned for every possible
scenario.

The one thing he hadn’t planned on was the
giant hole in his life left by the absence of Bess Cooper. Bess,
Dumpling, and Homer had become his family. They had bounced back
and forth from her apartment to his from her bed to his. Dinners
had been shared. Dogs had been walked together. Homer had stayed
with Bess while Whit was working. Whit had taken Dumpling when Bess
had to be at the studio early. They had been a team.

Unwittingly, he had
created a small family then deserted them. He missed his old life,
Bess, and the dogs.
Damn it, how did that
happen? I was supposed to be free.

He had tried cutting himself off from her.
No emailing, no phoning. Did it make him miss her less? The
opposite. He missed her more. The torture of checking emails a
thousand times a day to find none from Bess was almost more than he
could bear. He needed her in his life.

The empty, double bed he had in the small
sublet seemed enormous. No Bess. No dogs. He missed the sex, he
missed the affection, the camaraderie, the laughing, talking,
joking. Someone to wonder if he was okay when he was late. Dinner
being saved to be re-heated when he got home. He even missed the
snoring of the pugs.

The finely-constructed, emotionally sterile
world of Whitfield Bass came crashing down.

Sitting in a bar where the chatter was in a
language he didn’t recognize, he drank his scotch and thought about
Dr. Sumner. After the second drink, he finally understood what the
doctor was saying. And he knew the answer to the question.

Why had he not sold the house? Of course. It
all made sense, once he discarded his own words. If he forgot all
his nonsense about not committing and not wanting the family he
never had, he saw that he was saving the house for the family he’d
always wanted. The family he’d have some day. The family he needed
to feel whole.

Something in him didn’t believe all his
malarkey. His heart knew that life could be at least some of what
he had imagined growing up. He needed it. He deserved it. And it
fit perfectly into the stone house. So, he kept it, a place he
loved, to house the people he would love.

A smile crossed his lips.
It made perfect sense.
Why didn’t I see
that before?
He knew the answer to that
one, too. Until he found Bess, the woman to be the core of his
family, the stone house was only a symbol. With her, it could
become a reality. Satisfaction at having the answer warmed
him.

The part of Whit that
wanted that family had put Bess in charge of making the house a
home. Who better for the job than the woman he adored and couldn’t
live without?
Perfect
.

“
So, what the hell am I
doing in Hong Kong, alone?” Through the haze of his second drink,
he saw clearly what he had to do. He had to go home.

“
I have a home. A real
home. And a woman who loves me, who should be my wife.”

In the morning, he called Pick and the
airlines. He packed his bag. He sent this email to Bess—

Am coming home. Let’s have an old-fashioned
Christmas at the stone house. Only you and me. Okay? I’m on a
flight due in Dec. 25.

I’ll take a limousine from the airport right
to Rye. Can’t wait to see you.

Love,

Whit

While he waited to board his flight, he got
an email from Pick.

Not surprised. Didn’t expect you to last.
Merry Christmas. Jamison is on the way. Expect to be invited to the
wedding.

He sent one to Sam.

Returning to NYC at Christmas. Back
permanently. Hope you haven’t given away my job. Will report for
duty on January 2.

Whit

He made one leg of the
trip, but his plane was delayed due to weather. Then, it was
canceled. He never got a response from Bess. But then, he only had
spotty Internet access. He had to hope. Had to have faith she’d be
there.
Me, have faith in a woman? I’ll
try.