Undeniable Demands (15 page)

Yes, it meant something. He wanted to yell it. He wanted to scoop her up into his arms and kiss her until she couldn’t be angry with him anymore. But her furrowed brow and glassy eyes made him wonder if the truth would make things better or worse. Would it hurt her more to know that what they had had was special and he’d ruined it? Or to believe that it all had been a game?

“Tori, I—”

“Wait,” she interrupted. “Forget I asked. I think I’d rather not know the truth. Goodbye, Wade.”

Wade saw one of the tears escape down her cheek as she opened the door and disappeared inside.

Ten

“Y
ou look like hell.”

Wade looked up from his desk to see Heath standing in the doorway of his office. He had to admit he wasn’t surprised by the impromptu arrival of his youngest brother. He’d been dodging calls, texts and emails from his siblings for over a week. He’d canceled dinner plans at Brody’s place. Before too long, he’d figured, they’d send someone to track him down. Since Heath lived and worked in Manhattan, too, he was the obvious stuckee.

Wade looked down at his watch. “Eight days, thirteen hours and forty-two minutes. That means Linda in accounting wins the office pool.”

“Very funny,” Heath said, coming into the office and shutting the door behind him. “What’s going on with you lately? You’ve been too quiet.”

Wade shrugged. “I’ve been busy. Work always picks up after the holidays, and it takes a while for everyone to get back into the swing of things.”

“Uh-huh.” Heath wandered over to the minibar and pulled out a soda from the stash. “Do the other people you say that to actually believe you?”

With a heavy sigh, Wade sank back into his leather executive chair. “No one else ever bothers to ask how I am, so I haven’t gotten much practice in yet.”

“Tell the truth. How are you?”

“I’m fine.”

Heath sat in one of Wade’s guest chairs and propped his feet up on the edge of the large mahogany desk. He scrutinized Wade with his hazel gaze as he casually sipped his drink. “Brody was right,” he said after a few silent moments.

Wade frowned at his brother. “Brody was right about what? I haven’t even spoken to him since I had to cancel our dinner plans.”

“Doesn’t matter. He was still right. You’re in love.”

The declaration sent Wade bolt upright in his chair. What did Brody know about being in love? The man was a hermit. “That’s ridiculous.”

Heath shook his head. “She loves you, too, you know.”

“Since when did my entire family become psychic?”

“Mama saw her at the grocery store. Said she was an absolute mess. She’s not sure what went on between you two, but she’s very unhappy about it.”

“I don’t date to please Mama. She needs to focus her matchmaking skills on you for a change.”

“She shouldn’t waste her time,” he said with a wide grin. “I’m already married.”

“You’re hilarious. Keep telling that story and she’ll move on to demanding those grandchildren she wants.”

Heath shuddered in his seat and took a large swig of soda to wash away the bitter aftertaste of Wade’s suggestion. “The point is that she’s miserable. You’re miserable.”

“I’m not miserable.”

“You’re not Jolly Old Saint Nick, either. You’ve been avoiding everyone. You’ve got bags under your eyes large enough to store loose change. Your tie doesn’t even match your shirt, man. You’re obviously not sleeping.”

Wade looked down at the blue shirt and green plaid tie he was wearing. He could’ve sworn he’d reached for the blue striped one. Must’ve grabbed the wrong tie and not noticed. Not sleeping for a few days would do that to a guy, he supposed. “I’ve got new neighbors. They’ve been louder than usual, and after a few weeks at the farm, I got used to the quiet.”

“And it has absolutely nothing to do with the redhead whose heart you broke last week?”

Heath just wasn’t about to let this go. Wade knew that if he didn’t say something soon, Heath was liable to put him in a headlock and knuckle his scalp until he confessed.

Wade opted to answer the question without really answering it. “She’s better off without me.”

“Isn’t that for her to decide?”

Wade shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. She hates me.”

“I doubt that. She was just hurt. Your betrayal was that much worse because she let herself fall in love with you.”

“She didn’t say that.”

“Why on earth would she? Anyway, she didn’t need to say it. We both know why she rushed home from Philadelphia. And even if she does hate you now, that doesn’t change anything.
You’re
still in love with
her.
”

Wade’s chest started to ache at the mere thought. The pain had plagued him since the door of Tori’s Airstream slammed shut in his face. It had woken him up the few times he had managed to fall asleep. He’d started popping antacids. He’d even done a Google search for “heart attack symptoms” to make sure he wasn’t dying. As best he could tell, he wasn’t on death’s door. He was just in love with a woman who hated him.

“She’s never going to forgive me for lying to her. And I can’t tell her the truth about what we were looking for. I can’t just go to her and tell her I love her and that she’s just got to trust me.”

“You know, fifteen years ago our lives took an unexpected turn. For the most part we’ve been able to carry on with our lives. Sure, we remember. Our consciences are burdened with it. We worry we handled it wrong and made a bigger mess of the situation. We pray that no one ever finds out what happened. But for more than twenty-three hours out of every day, I can live my life like it never happened. Can you?”

“Usually. Until I found out Dad sold the land.”

“But before that…were you happy?”

Happy
was a funny word. Wade didn’t like using it. “I was content. ‘Happy’ sounds like puppies and rainbows. I was pleased with how my life was going.”

“And now?”

“And now…I guess, to use your words, I’m miserable.”

“We’ve decided you should tell her the truth.”

Wade’s brow shot up at his brother’s words. “We? Did you all hold some secret council meeting without me?”

“Yes,” he said, very matter-of-factly. “Via Skype. We talked it over and decided that you shouldn’t give up your chance at real happiness just to protect us.”

Wade almost laughed for a moment before he realized Heath wasn’t kidding. They had no idea what they were asking him to do. He’d spent his whole life trying to protect them. Trying to make up for that night. He couldn’t just flip-flop because they said it was okay. It wasn’t okay. “I’m not going to expose everyone, including myself, just for a woman.”

“She’s not just any woman, Wade. She’s the woman you love. Do you want to marry her?”

The image of Tori in an ivory lace gown instantly sprang into his mind. Her red-gold hair was pulled back into an elegant twist. Her peaches-and-cream skin rosy from excitement and champagne. He’d never even thought about it before, and yet the vision of her in his mind was so real that he couldn’t push it aside. “If she’d have me.”

“Then you can tell her. After the wedding.”

Wade opened his mouth, then realized what they had in mind. If he married Tori, he could tell her everything and she couldn’t be compelled to testify against them.

“She’s not going to marry me unless I tell her the truth. And I can’t tell her the truth unless she marries me. So, really, I get nowhere with this.”

Heath shrugged. “I disagree. When I came in the door, you were ‘fine.’ Now you’re a man in love who wants to get married. I think you’re way ahead. Now you just have to go tell her.”

“Yeah, sure. Tori, I love you and I want to marry you. And once you marry me, I can tell you all about how I buried some guy on your property and I’m afraid you’ll dig him up while building your dream house.”

“Those aren’t the words I’d recommend. But if you show up there, tell her you love her, offer her a ring to prove you’re serious and explain where you’re coming from with all this, I think she’ll understand.”

Wade frowned at his brother, then turned back to stare at his desk blotter. He’d lain in bed night after night replaying those last moments with Tori. If he’d said or done something else, might it have ended differently? Sometimes the door slammed in his face just the way it had happened. But once, Tori had listened to his words. She’d forgiven him. And that was the time he’d imagined telling her the truth.

He wanted so badly to go back and have another try. Heath insisted he still had a chance to turn things around. He had permission to tell her what she wanted to know, but he wasn’t sure if it would make a difference. Could Tori really trust him enough? What if it was too little, too late? Was it possible she was still in love with him after everything that had happened between them?

Wade closed his eyes and pictured Tori as she’d been Friday morning before she left for Philadelphia. Her pale blue eyes were wary, but the love he saw there was undeniable. Maybe he hadn’t lost his chance yet. God, he hoped so. He couldn’t function like this for much longer. He’d have a real heart attack before too long from the stress and the copious amounts of caffeine he was drinking to compensate for lost sleep.

He had to give it a shot. The gaping hole in his chest begged him to at least try. If she turned him down, he would not have lost anything he hadn’t already given away.

Heath looked at his brother. His expression was about as serious as it ever got. “This will work out.”

He sure as hell hoped so.

“You always were the optimist in the family.” Wade rolled his chair up to the desk with a new fire to put his plan into action. “Okay, Mr. Advertising Executive, direct me to the most environmentally conscious jeweler on the market.”

“I should’ve known—” Heath grinned “—that you would pick the only woman on earth able to resist the little blue box. Let me call one of my guys who handles most of our jewelry accounts. But be warned—odds are it won’t be local. You might have to wait a couple days.”

Absolutely not. He would be in Connecticut tomorrow, come hell or high water. “That’s unacceptable,” he said.

“Well, then, get ready to get on a plane.”

Wade nodded and rang his admin to clear his calendar for the rest of today and tomorrow. He’d fly to the ends of the earth to get Tori back.

* * *

“It’s crap. All crap.” Tori ripped the sheet of paper off the pad, then crumpled her latest blueprint into a ball and tossed it into the overflowing wastepaper basket. It had to be the hundredth design she’d sketched in the past week, but she hated them all. Even the ones she’d been really happy with before Wade came into her life.

Now everything felt wrong.

Maybe this whole settling-down thing was just a bad idea. Maybe her mother was right when she said that they had a wandering spirit that shied away from the tethers of the typical American dream. A month ago it had seemed like a great plan. She had been bursting with ideas. Fantasizing about her new closet with room for more than five pairs of shoes. Just the thought of a full-size kitchen and an actual living room with a couch and big-screen television was enough to get her blood pumping with excitement.

Now the only thing that set her heart to racing was Wade. And he was long gone, along with the piece of her he’d taken with him.

Tori cussed and flung her pencil across the Airstream. It bounced off her cabinet door and rolled toward the bathroom. She watched it move across the floor, stopping at the butt of her shotgun, which was leaning against the door frame.

It brought to mind the first day he’d shown up on her property. His charming smile. His infuriating arrogance. The way she’d threatened to shoot him. How was she supposed to carry on with her plans when even the sight of her shotgun brought memories of him to mind? Living on his parents’ old property would guarantee that she could never get away from Wade Mitchell.

But Tori didn’t want to get away from him. She wanted the charming liar back in her arms. She sat staring blankly at her notepad, thinking about what had happened. Since he left, replaying the scene in her mind had given her some clarity. It had allowed her to focus on the words she’d refused to listen to in her anger.

Whatever it was he wanted was important. The land itself had no real value to him, just whatever was on it. Given she didn’t even know what it was, it wasn’t something she would ever miss. A part of her understood his reasoning. If he could take or move what he needed, Tori could keep her land and they could both be happy. Maybe even happy together.

If only she hadn’t decided to come home early.

Tori looked back down at her fresh sheet of paper. The blank squares were taunting her. Picking up a new pencil, she took a deep breath and tried something different. How would she design a house for both her and Wade to live in?

She started with his office. It had an entire wall of windows that opened up on a view of the valley below like the ones overlooking Times Square in their hotel suite. On the opposite wall were floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. A see-through fireplace connected his office to the great room. Both spaces would have twelve-foot ceilings and huge panes of glass. One panel would slide out to let them onto the deck. She sketched in a hot tub where they could sit together in the evenings, talk and drink wine.

Wine… Tori started sketching a dream kitchen with a staircase that led down into a wine cellar. Her pencil moved feverishly now, the rooms flowing together perfectly. Nearly an hour passed before she sat back and looked at the design.

This was the house she wanted. The one with Wade in it. Her gaze moved over the second-story guest bedroom that was right off the master suite. It would be perfect for a nursery. She could just see the ivory-and-green wallpaper, the mobile over the crib. The sunlight that streamed in would provide the perfect amount of natural light. Wade could sit in the rocking chair and read bedtime stories.…

That was the thought that brought the tears to her eyes that she’d fought for days.

Tori grasped the corner of the sketch, ready to rip it off and trash it with the others, but she just couldn’t. This was the house she wanted.

The rumbling sound of a car pulling onto her property pulled her attention away from the design. Unable to see from her seat, she got up and walked over to the window.

The corner of a red hood with a BMW logo nearly sent her heart into her throat. She stumbled back against the sink, gripping the counter to keep her knees from giving out under her. Wade had returned to New York a week ago. Why was he here now? To apologize? To offer her more money? Her mind raced with different options, but she shook each one aside. The only way to know for sure was to go out there and find out.