What the Heart Needs (22 page)

Sam shook his head. “Don’t apologize. You’re welcome as long as you need to be here.”

“Thanks, Sam,” Hannah said, feeling her heart tighten a bit. He was really one of the best men she had ever met.

Back up in her temporary bedroom, Hannah slipped into an old oversized t-shirt she was planning on using as a nightdress, despite it barely coming down mid-thigh. No one was going to see her. She slept better when her legs weren’t all tangled and restricted in pants. She felt a moment of insecurity. What if she needed to go to the bathroom and ran into Sam? But she pushed the idea aside with an eye roll. This was Sam. Someone who had seen her in every state of dress from formal prom dress to bathing suits to huge ugly sweatpants. Hell, he had seen her naked for goodness sakes.

She laid down on the bedspread, curling up under the covers on her side like a sleeping child. Like she always did when she was stressed. Despite the many miles between her and the hate mail and the threats, despite the incredibly comfortable mattress and the quiet, despite the safety of having a man around… she couldn’t get her restless mind or body to settle. She tossed and turned as the sky outside her window deepened from the navy blue of evening to the pitch black of night.

Despite herself, her mind wandered toward thoughts of EM. He had to have received her note by then. Was he furious? Confused? Completely disinterested? She tried to convince herself that she cared only because she wanted her job when she returned, but she knew she was only trying to lie to herself. And not very well. There was a part of her that wanted to know if he was thinking about her because she hoped she was on his busy mind. She hoped she was more than a convenient choice. She hoped she might have actually been more than a body to have sex with.

It shouldn’t have mattered. But it did.

Sex changes. Her mother had always told her just that. “Sex changes.”

As a teenager, she had always figured it meant that as you grew and your relationships evolved, so does the idea and desire for sex. She made it known that once you’re married, and once you have children, sex was not as pressing a concern as when you are a hormone-riddled teen.

But laying awake in bed, Hannah realized her mother meant it in a different way. Sex changes… everything. Even the women she knew like her friend Emily who had a healthy, great sex life were aware in rare, quiet moments that no amount of modern thought could change the truth. Once sex was part of the equation, the problem became a lot more complicated.

If she were being completely, stripped to the bone honest… she wanted Elliott. She wanted him. In her bed. In her house. Going out to eat with her. Seeing crappy movies. Hosting his ludicrous business parties and then curling up on the couch afterward, shoes scattered across the floor, and talking about the guests and their ridiculousness and then falling into bed and having sweet, passionate sex.

She wanted him in ways that were not possible. That would never be possible.

As she finally felt sleep clouding the chaotic musings of her mind, she admitted that she hadn’t been prepared for a man like Elliott Michaels. She had no defenses in place.

And, lastly, mom was right. Sex changes.

--

She woke up with a start, sitting up immediately, the kind of waking that happens when you lay down for a short nap and end up waking up six hours later not knowing what time, day, month, or year you are in. The sun was beaming mercilessly in the windows, making her squint and make a mental note to close the blinds when she went to bed next time.

She glanced at the pretty wrought-iron clock on the wall next to the door, a thin, intricate pattern of weeds and birds, and realized it was so late in the morning that it was almost afternoon. As soon as she stepped into the hallway, deliriously unaware of her bed-tangled hair and puffy eyes, she smelled the intoxicating scent of brewing coffee.

Stepping off the bottom stair, she thought she could hear voices but figured it was simply Sam on the phone or a radio or tv playing. Her right foot touched down on the impossibly cool kitchen tile and she froze.

Sam wasn’t on the phone. There was no radio or television. There in the middle of Sam’s kicthen was a woman. Hannah felt a stab of possessiveness that she pushed down immediately. Sam hadn’t been hers in years.

The woman was lovely in all the soft, inhumanely delicate ways she was not. Her face was a heart, with big round vivid green eyes with thick lashes, plump cheekbones, and small cupid’s-bow pink lips. Her hair was cut short, barely brushing her shoulders in a rich, chocolately velvet color. She was petite in the way she had always admired, short but not too short, with pixie small bone structure and thinness, but with a gentle curve to her hip and breast that made you acutely aware she was definitely a woman.

She was breathtaking. And quite dirty, Hannah realized. Her black yoga pants were covered in powdery light brown dirt from ankle to knee like she had been gardening. She also had dirt caked on her hands and under her fingernails. There was even a small, charming smudge across her jawbone.

She had been talking, a quiet, feminine voice all air and honey until she looked up and spotted Hannah. She fell suddenly silent, her mouth slightly open, creating an O. Hannah felt her eyes run her up once and she was painfully aware of her nearly naked legs and braless-ness.

Hannah watched as a stream of emotions crossed the girls wholly unguarded face. Surprise, sure. Then confusion. A quick flash of distaste. Before finally settling on heavy-lidded, down turned-lip hurt.

So Sam did have something going on. With this adorable, dirt-stained slip of a girl. Now she was in his house, half nude in his kitchen and this girl was hurt. Hannah felt guilt and sympathy well up until Sam finally noticed that the girl’s gaze was aimed at the doorway and he looked over.

“Oh Hannah…” he started, still smiling. Silly, oblivious male.

Hannah held up a hand, “Hold that thought, I didn’t realize you had company. I’ll go get dressed.”

Then the girl seemed to have recovered, her face a complete mask of indifference and Hannah had a surge of sisterly comradaree.
Good for you, girl.
“No no,” she said, waving a small, long-fingered hand, “it’s alright. I was just leaving,” she claimed, lying through her teeth. But she turned quickly and pulled open the French doors in a flash of angry woman.

“Annabelle…” Sam’s voice trailed off as the door slammed shut.

He looked at Hannah, his eyebrows furrowed in an uncharacteristically severe way. “Go, you idiot,” Hannah said, rolling her eyes and waving toward the door.

“Right,” Sam said, making it to the door in two strides.

Hannah closed the door behind him watching as he took across the field with the ease only long-legged people can, trying to catch up to the running figure of the lovely Annabelle who was making painfully slow progress with her small legs. Hannah felt a wave of pity. Maybe she should have told Sam to leave her alone. But no. What woman didn’t want, though they might deny it until they were in the grave, to be chased by a gorgeous man and have him fix your hurt feelings? It was all so wonderfully dramatic, so disgustingly romantic.

Annabelle was one lucky girl.

Hannah felt jealousy ebb and flow away. She was never going to be the kind of girl who got grand romantic gestures. She was the kind of girl who liked dark, mysterious, jerks and got stalkers. Yeah, that was her thing.

Twelve

Elliott felt an unusual frustration settle into every last nerve ending, into his very bones. She couldn’t just run away. He needed to talk to her. He needed to settle her nerves about this whole affair. Affair. He felt a unusual, almost hysterical laugh rise up in his throat at that word. Affair. He was actually having an affair. He couldn’t call this one of his one-night stands or a hookup. He was a married man and he had a woman in his life that he was planning to keep as a mistress.

It was all so horribly cliché. He was a textbook typical, successful, arrogant man. He felt like he should be embarrassed of himself. But the fact of the matter was he was never really supposed to marry Dan. How the hell that had even happened was a weird blur.

She had blown into his life, a hurricane of impossible-to-ignore perportions. She had been a different woman then. Or, maybe it was more appropriate to say, she wore the mask of another woman then. Dan had been every man’s ideal, gorgeous in an intimidating way with a brilliant smile and husky laugh. She had pushed herself into his social circle thanks to her father and made herself hard to ignore in her multitude of bright red dresses that screamed sex.

He had brushed her off, like a man accustomed to women who wanted to be near successful men. But she hadn’t been like those other women. She had grown up wealthy, had been raised in high society. Even the way she enunciated her words screamed of private schools and her quick wit spoke of the kind of confidence only wealthy people can wear readily. She had been an equal. And she knew it. And she knew that men loved a good challenge.

She would appear, flirt, suggest things. Then rebuff you when you came onto her in return. She made herself approachable, but not touchable.

It was only when she knew, she was absolutely certain she had him by the short hairs, that she fell into bed with him. And she did so with such wickedly wild abandon, such complete lack of shyness, that he found himself agreeing to whatever she wanted.

It had been sad and pathetic of him. The sex was so great that he married her?

Elliott raked an angry hand down his face. He knew he shouldn’t be bothered by the whole Dan situation. He was weeks from divorcing her, having agreed to give her way more money than he should just to shut her up and get her claws out of his life. He wasn’t mad at her per say. She saw an opportunity. She took it. It was a smart move for her. But, unfortunately, her smart move made a fool out of him. And that was what kept him awake at night. That was the thing that had made him especially cruel and clipped toward her. He didn’t like to be the pawn.

But the point was, Dan was hardly a wife. But that was another thing that he never really got a chance to tell Hannah. She was probably furious with herself for being the other woman. No sane, self-respecting woman was comfortable with that. He respected that. And he wanted to clear the air.

She wasn’t a mistress.

Though, then, what was she? She wasn’t his… girlfriend. Elliott felt a wave of embarrassment at that word. Teenagers had girlfriends. Grown men didn’t.

Elliott got up and paced his office floor. The last thing he had expected was to wake up in his office, cock out, and Hannah gone. Again. Thank god the phone had rang and woken him up. Then to come in a few scant, sleepless hours later, to find that note… he was not in a good mood.

Maybe he was overreacting. Maybe she wasn’t running away from him. Maybe she wasn’t trying to put distance between them to try to get her head straight. It could have been anything. There might have been some kind of family event or family emergency.

But she hadn’t said anything about that to Tad.

She could have been sick. But why not say something to that effect in the note:
Hey, sorry. I have the plague. Don’t want to infect the whole office. See you in two weeks.

It was the kind of silly but witty note he could see her leaving for someone who she was close to. But not to him. To him it was all Mr. Michaels and formality. She wouldn’t let him see the person underneath the professional mask.

Elliott found himself cancelling his lunch meeting, something he had only ever done a handful of times over the course of his entire professional career. He found her number in the employee rolodex and dialed the number, stabbing his finger into the buttons with unnecessary force. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Voicemail. And it wasn’t even her voice on the message, it was one of those automated ones telling you that you reached that number and to leave a message. He sighed, hanging up. He told himself to leave it at that.

But he couldn’t. He called time after time, knowing full well she was probably sitting somewhere laughing at her near-stalker boss and her twelve missed calls.

It only took a few hours of not getting a return call, even after one voicemail and a text message for his frustration to take a turn toward worry. It wasn’t something he recognized at first. It crept up slowly, a strange swirly feeling in the pit of his stomach that he blamed his lack of eating on. But as the work day ticked away and he fruitlessly tried to put his mind on tasks that needed his attention, it grew and spread, up to his throat which felt suddenly tight.

With a frustrated sigh, he closed the files on his desk and turned to his computer. He carefully signed into an account he never felt the need to look into before: the employee records. He brought up a search and typed in her name. Hannah Clary. Such a simple, pretty name.

The page loaded slowly, bringing up her original cover letter and application form. A list of references with notes from when Sally had called them. Her hiring paperwork complete with phone numbers and addresses. He printed the pages and walked into her office to pick up the copies from her printer. Opening the door, he could smell a faint trace of her, soft and clean like baby powder.

She had over the course of time made the space more her own. There was a spider plant and mother-in-law’s-tongue on the edge of the low filing cabinet near the window. There was a black sweater over the back of her chair and single picture frame on her desk. He walked closer, picking it up. It was a heavy, silver frame in a swirling and knotted pattern. The picture was her family, he realized and wondered how he hadn’t noticed it before. Three people. A tall man with short brown hair, hornrimed glasses and a strong, knowledgable face had his arm around a woman, an older version of Hannah, all softness and long black hair. She had it twisted into a single, thick side braid. Like Hannah did that one time. Her hand was resting on the shoulder of a little girl. A maybe five or six year old Hannah with a silly, missing-teeth grin and a chubby face. Her hair was long even then, pulled into pigtails. She wore jean shorts and a white t-shirt which was stained with what looked like paint. There were smears of red and blue up her arms and a hint of green above one of her eyebrows.