Rising Stars & It Started With… Collections. Кейт Хьюит
parties like this one. The room was filled with food and people, and Veronica’s heart felt full.
“Thank you, Brady,” she said, squeezing his arm when he came over and handed her a glass of champagne.
“For what?”
“For this. For doing this here. It means so much.”
He smiled back, his gaze flickering to a point over her shoulder before coming to rest on her face again. “You might not thank me when you see what I’ve brought along with me.”
She looked at her friend for a full moment—and then the hairs on her neck prickled as if an electrical current had zapped through the air. She knew who she would see the moment she turned.
He was, as always, achingly handsome. Her heart twisted in her chest. Looking at him hurt. And it made her happy, too.
“Damn it, Brady,” she said to the man at her side. “You’re always interfering.”
He shrugged. “It’s my nature.” Then he kissed her on the cheek. “Don’t say I never gave you anything.”
She started to tell him he was an ass, but he’d disappeared. Raj smiled at her, and her insides melted. She had to work hard to keep the frown on her face.
“Hello, Veronica.”
“Why are you here?”
His laugh was so rich, so beautiful to her ears. God, she’d missed him. And she didn’t want to do this. Because she would have to miss him again when it was over.
“I’ve missed that directness of yours,” he said. “You have no idea how refreshing it can be.”
Her heart was thundering. “If you’re about to tell me how other women are just not a challenge after me, save your breath. I don’t want to hear it.”
He looked puzzled. “I wasn’t planning to say anything of the sort.”
Looking at him made her ache. It brought all the loneliness of her life crashing down on her. “I really don’t want to stand here and talk to you like everything is normal, Raj, so you’ll have to excuse me.”
She had to escape, right now, before she fell apart in front of everyone. Before she ranted and railed and told him what a miserable bastard he was for not loving her back. Before she revealed how pitiful she was because she still loved him, and a part of her was almost willing to take whatever crumbs he might bestow if only she could have another night, another day, another moment in time where they laughed and talked and made love as if they cared about each other.
Blindly, she turned and fled. When she reached the hall, she hesitated only a moment before she headed for the ladies’ room, shoving open the door and going over to the small sink to press her hands on either side and breathe. Her face in the mirror looked perfectly normal, but she didn’t feel normal.
The door swung open again and then Raj was there, looming in the mirror behind her. She heard the twist of the lock in the door and she spun to face him.
“Get out.”
“It’s like déjà vu,” he said, his sensual mouth curving into a smile. “You, me, a ladies’ room.”
It was a much smaller ladies’ room, with only this sink and mirror, the delicately papered walls and another door that led into the single toilet. There was no space, and she couldn’t breathe with him so close. He filled her senses, made her ache with longing.
“It’s a nightmare,” she said. “I had no idea you hated me so much.”
His brows drew together, two hard slashes over his golden eyes. “Hate you? My God, Veronica, I’m here because I can’t forget you. Because I need you. Hate is the furthest thing from my mind.”
She swallowed, shook her head, prayed the tears wouldn’t fall. Because it was Christmas Eve and she was feeling vulnerable. Because she missed her baby, missed him. Because she was alone in this world and feeling very, very sorry for herself right now.
“Need isn’t enough, is it? I need food to live, but I don’t need chocolate cake. You need sex, but it doesn’t have to be me.”
He was beginning to look angry. “Sex? You think I’m here for sex?”
“What else? You’ve already told me it can be nothing more.”
He blew out a breath. “I was wrong.” Because he’d tried to move on with his life, tried to forget about the few days he’d shared with Veronica, the days where he’d felt more alive than he ever had before. He’d gone back to London, and then on to New York. When New York didn’t work, when he still felt so restless he wanted to howl, he’d gone to Los Angeles.
In the past, when he wanted to escape, when he wanted peace, he’d gone to the house in Goa. But he couldn’t go there anymore. Because he couldn’t imagine himself there without her.
“You’ve ruined it for me,” he said, watching the way her lip trembled so slightly, the way she was determined not to break in front of him.
She was so strong, so beautiful. She took his breath away. And he’d realized during the long, lonely few weeks without her that he didn’t want to live like that anymore. He’d been denying himself because he’d thought he was doing the best thing for her. But the truth was that he’d been cheating them both.
“Ruined what?” she asked.
“Being alone.”
She sucked in a breath, hugged her arms around herself. Bit her lip. An arrow of pure lust shot through him. That was his lip to bite.
“I’m the President of Aliz,” she said softly. “I have a two-year term. This is my home. I can’t go with you to Goa, or to London, just to keep you from being lonely. Nor do I want to.”
“Do you still love me?” he said, his heart careening in his chest. He didn’t think she’d stopped in three weeks time, but he wouldn’t put anything past Veronica St. Germaine. The woman was a force to be reckoned with. If she wanted to stop loving him, she could. She was a woman who didn’t shrink from challenges.
She turned her head away, but he could still see her face in the mirror. Two red spots bloomed on her cheeks. Her nostrils flared. Her mouth was a flat line as she compressed her lips. “Does it matter?” she finally said.
“It matters to me.”
Her head snapped around, her eyes flashing angrily. “Why? So you can congratulate yourself yet again on your amazing skills?”
“Skills?”
“Those in which you deny yourself any chance at happiness simply to prove what a strong man you are.”
He’d hurt her deeply, more deeply than he’d realized. And he wasn’t proud of himself for it. “I have no wish to deny anything.” He clenched his fists as his side, frustration hammering through him. “I’m here because I can’t deny it.”
She lifted her chin. “I need more from you, Raj. Telling me you want me isn’t enough.”
He swore. “I know.” And then he resolved to lay it all out there. If she rejected him, it was nothing less than he deserved. But he had to take the chance. “I love you, Veronica. I can’t live without you. I don’t want to.”
She slumped against the sink, her red dress shimmering in the low light of the small room. “Did you just say …?”
He closed the distance between them, gripped her shoulders and put a finger under her chin. Lifted it so she had to look at him. Her eyes were liquid, beautiful blue pools in which he wanted to drown.
“I’ve spent my life running away, because it’s all I knew. Because my mother was a drug addict and we were homeless more than we weren’t. Because my father let us go and never bothered to find us again. Running is what I know, Veronica. Staying is much harder.”