No Apologies
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~ EXCERPT ~
She was nothing like he'd remembered-and everything he couldn't forget.
The woman looking back at him through the gap created by the door-chain was practically a stranger. Thin, way too thin, with hair cropped close in tiny auburn tendrils that barely brushed the tops of her ears. Deep, dark eyes, eyes he could swim in, seemed huge in the narrow planes of her cinnamon face. The tightening in his loins and her shocked gasp confirmed her identity.
"May I come in?" he asked again, amazed at the casualness of his tone. Inside he seethed with nervous energy.
She continued to stare at him, that lovely mouth working as if she'd lost her voice. Then coldness crept into her eyes, stilling her features. "I don't talk to strangers."
So the gloves were off already. He gave her what he hoped was a deprecating smile. "Then why did you open the door?"
"So I can do this." With a saccharine smile, she very slowly and deliberately closed the door in his face.
Okay, that went better than he thought it would, but it irked him nevertheless. "Do you feel better now?" he asked through the door.
The door jerked open. Like an avenging angel she stood before him, eyes flashing, hands on hips. "I'll feel a lot better after I do this!" She raised her hand.
His hand shot out, grabbing her wrist. "Do you really want to do this on your doorstep?" he asked, his voice low. He'd come here to apologize, not antagonize. One look at her and his emotions and common sense had taken a one-way ticket to hell.
Dressed for lounging in socks, jeans, and a dark green turtleneck, the casual Angela looked far different from the glamorous, silk and cashmere Angela he remembered. She was different, changed somehow. Not only in looks and style, but something in her eyes, something deep. It disturbed him.
"I don't want to do this at all," she retorted, tugging to free her hand. "I have nothing to say to you!"
"Fine. You can listen instead." He pushed her back into the house.
"No." Her eyes widened with anger, fear, or shock. Whatever it was, she backed away as he inexorably pushed his way into her house. "There's nothing you can say that I even remotely want to hear."
The quaver in her voice struck him, and he released her. "This doesn't have to be uncivilized, Angie," he said, trying to soothe her as he turned to shut the door. "Just hear me out."
She retreated down the short foyer. He followed close behind, barely registering the dark traditional style of the living room they entered and almost crashing into her when she whirled around. "You have the nerve to call me uncivilized, when you just forced your way into my house?"
She went absolutely still, the blood draining from her face. "How did you find out where I live? Oh God, Yvonne gave you my address?"
"I haven't seen Yvonne," Jeff replied. "I got your address from Pops."
"Pops?"
"Yeah, the doorman at your old place. He always did like me."
"Be glad someone still does," she retorted, folding her arms across her chest. He couldn't help following the gesture, couldn't help remembering how she felt, how she tasted.
A restless, reckless mood settled on him. God, he'd missed her. He almost reached for her, but tucked his hands into his pockets instead. "Nice place."
He didn't mean it. This place was nothing like Angela. He knew she loved the view from her apartment and wouldn't have given it up for anything. This two-story brick townhouse with its classic, dark furnishings couldn't compare to the cosmopolitan art-deco digs close to everything she loved about downtown Atlanta. This place looked too permanent, too settled down.
Settled down. His stomach dropped. Was he too late? Had she met and married someone else while he was gone?
Coming to see her here, unannounced like this, seemed like a good idea on the flight in. Now he realized it for the mistake it was. Just one of many he'd made during the last two years.
What did you think? That she'd wait like a good little girl for you to get your act together?
He shook his thoughts off to find Angela staring at him as if he'd sprouted an extra head. "I like it."
"You liked your old place too. Why did you move?"
Her expression grew colder. "That's none of your business. In fact, nothing in my life is any of your business. Go back to whatever rock you crawled out from under. I don't care. Just go away."
Just like that, his good intentions went out the window. "Why? Am I disturbing your new man?"
Oh, that got to her. Her back popped as she straightened, folding her arms. "And if I said yes?" she taunted.
An abrupt, consuming fury grabbed him. "Then I'd go upstairs and haul his ass out of your bed!"
She blinked in surprise before anger caused her cheeks to blossom. "You have no claims on me, Jeff Maxwell!" she spat. "You lost that right a year ago--if you ever had it!"
That did it. "Oh, you think so?" He smiled, but he felt far from amused. "Let's see about that!"
Needing to teach her a lesson as much as he needed to touch her, he dragged her close, imprinting her body with his own. His lips descended on hers, hard, demanding, full of a year's worth of hunger, of anger, of regret.
When she stiffened, he softened the kiss to featherweight brushes of lips to lips as memories swept through his blood. She relaxed against him then, pressing against him with an equal hunger.
Someone moaned. He didn't know who, and he didn't care. All that mattered was having her back in his arms again. Angela apparently did care. She pushed away from him, and as he opened his eyes, slapped him. Hard.
The sound was loud in the charged silence of the room. Jeff blinked, then abruptly stepped away from her. What the hell was he doing?
"Damn it, Angie, I didn't mean to do that," he said, angry with himself for losing control. He stepped farther away from her, needing the distance before he did something to earn another slap. "That's not what I came over here for."
She folded her arms across her chest again. Her boiling anger had subsided to a simmer, but it still lurked beneath the surface of her gaze. "Why did you come here?"
He rubbed at his forehead to ease his sudden headache. "I want to apologize to you."
It sounded lame, especially after what had just happened. Angie apparently had the same thought. She made a sound between a snort and a laugh. "My God, you're serious, aren't you? You came all the way back from wherever the hell you were and pushed into my house just so I could listen to you apologize?"
"Yes."
"Then you came a long way for nothing."
He sighed, searching for calm, for the right words to say. The carefully rehearsed speech he'd spent months crafting evaporated. "I know you don't want to hear this, and you won't believe me, but I'm gonna tell you anyway."
Her expression remained hard, but curiosity crept into her eyes. "Tell me what?"
"About that night, the last night we were together."
Her eyes darkened with the same pain that threatened to suffocate him. That night. God, he'd been reliving that night for the past year. Seeing his two best friends so happy with their newborn sons had done something to him. He'd felt so many things: happiness, jealousy, love. And an ache, so pure, so encompassing that he couldn't name it.
He'd wanted Angela to ease that ache. Needed to feel her with him and around him, taking him into her arms and her body. He'd wanted to lose himself in her sweetness and in doing so, hopefully find himself again.
Instead, she'd walked out on him. He remembered asking her what she wanted from him. He would have done anything, given her anything to ease the ache. Except answer the question she'd asked of him.
He could have lied, but they both would have known it for a lie. He did love Yvonne. He loved her then, he loved her now. He'd loved Yvonne for fifteen years, since he'd first seen her after the accident that left her an orphan and nearly paralyzed her. But he wasn't in love with her. He knew now that he never had been.
"A year ago, you asked me to tell you that I didn't love Yvonne."
She flinched, obviously not expecting him to bring it up. "One of my more glorious mistakes. So what?"
"I didn't answer you then, but I'd like to answer you now." He took a deep breath, then plunged ahead. "I love Yvonne, but I'm not in love with her. I never was."
The silence pounded in his ears as she just looked at him. Then a sound too broken to be a laugh escaped her. "You're right, I don't believe you."
"Angie--"
She rounded on him. "I was there, remember? You came to me when you broke her and Mike apart. I should have refused you then, but stupid me, I couldn't stand to see you hurting like that. I thought my love would be enough for you, but it wasn't, was it?"
She answered herself with a shake of her head. "I could blame you and be done, but I was at fault too. I thought my love could help you, could heal you. How stupid could I get? I spent a year beating my heart against the wall you've got around yours. But even I had my limit."
Pain sliced through him, a reflection of the pain he'd caused her. "Angie..."
"When Yvonne and Mike announced her pregnancy, I watched your face. That was the beginning of the end. I knew it and I still fought against it. Up until that day in the delivery room, I fought it."
Her eyes hardened as she glanced at him. "Do you remember that day, Jeff? Do you remember how you stood there, what you felt as you watched them with the twins? Well I remember. The hunger and the jealousy and the resignation."
She leveled a finger at him, "It was written all over your face for me and everybody else to see."
He closed his eyes, the better to not see the anguish in hers. But she wasn't done. "I told you before, I won't be runner up. I deserve to be first place in a man's heart. And you, you have no idea what you threw away. I loved you, Jeff Maxwell. I loved you in a way that you will never, ever, be loved again."
He stared at her, stunned. "Y-you loved me?"
She stared at him in horror, as if she'd just realized what she'd said. Then she stepped away from him. "Get out."
No, not like this. He reached for her arm. "Angie, please. We need to talk about this--"
"No!" She jerked away from him, her voice rising. "No more excuses, no more apologies, no more words. Just get out!"
She shouted the last, and as soon as she did her face went slack with fear. "Oh God."
A muffled wail swept down the stairs, duplicated by something that sounded like a walkie-talkie. Shocked, Jeff stared at Angela for a heart-stopping second before pushing past her, snatching the talkie off the couch. "What the hell?"
Another wail answered him. No, it couldn't be. Without a word, he dropped the monitor and turned for the stairs.
"Jeff, wait!"
He didn't listen to her, didn't care about anything other than reaching the source of those plaintive cries. Up the stairs, down a hall, to a half-closed door. He hesitated a split-second before pushing it open.
The room was dimly lit, but unmistakable. The smell of baby powder hit him a second before the sight of the crib did. My God, it was.
Forgetting to breathe, he approached the crib and peered inside. A baby, not more than six months old, flailed tiny fists in the air as it wailed for attention.
A baby. His heart dropped, settled, melted. Powerless to do anything else, he reached into the crib, lifting the tiny bawling bundle of humanity.
Shock and anger left him, replaced by wonder and a pure longing. Dimly aware of Angela frozen in place beside him, he cradled the pink-clad baby close in the curve of his left arm, the fingers of his right hand trembling as he reached to stroke her face. "Hello there."
She stopped mid-wail, as if she realized someone new held her. Her eyes popped open, blinking up at him, cries forgotten. When she gurgled in welcome, he fell headlong into love.
Angela finally moved, stretching her hands to him. "Give her to me."
Jeff raised his head, sudden anger surging in him. Angela had a baby. There was no doubt in his mind who the father was, just like there was no way in hell he was about to relinquish his hold on his daughter. "Don't even think about it."
Still cradling the baby close, he stepped away from Angela then settled into the rocker near the window. He drank in the baby's features, committing them to memory. He had a daughter. The knowledge settled into him, curling like a kitten in his heart. Man, it was a wonderful feeling.
She was beautiful, perfectly beautiful in her pink sleeper with three fluffy sheep dancing across the chest. "What's her name?" he asked, smiling as she gave a huge yawn.
Angela folded her arms about her chest, hovering near him. "I want you to leave."
"I bet you do." He had no intention of leaving, not now. Not ever.
He tried to feel anger, but all he felt was a crushing guilt. His father had instilled in him the meaning of duty and responsibility at an early age. He'd disappointed his father once, when he was eleven years old. He prayed his dad wasn't looking down from heaven in disappointment now.
Setting the rocker in motion, he repeated his question, his eyes never leaving the flannel-clad bundle in his arms. "What's her name?"
"Her name's Kayleigh. Now will you please leave?"
Jeff returned his attention to the precious gift in his arms. "Hi Kayleigh," he crooned. "What a beautiful name for a beautiful girl. I bet you want to know who I am, don't you? All right, I'll tell you. I'm your father."