A sudden shaft of regret for not being with him these past few years sliced right through his heart.
“Father, how are you?” He crossed the sunlit room that was lined floor to ceiling in bookshelves, then leaned down and took his weathered hand in both of his, pleased when his father’s leathery face lit up at the sight of him.
“Son, look at you.” His father pulled off his reading glasses and surveyed him with open admiration, setting them on the side table and giving Andrew’s jaw a weak pat. “I should have known this would only make you stronger. You look ready to take on the world!”
“I am, Dad. I am.” He pulled up a chair, closer to him, and smiled affectionately. “Things going well around here?”
“They are now, my boy.” His father’s smile was a mile wide. “Whitney and I counted the days. I think she, too, counted the hours.” He laughed joyfully, then coughed, and grabbed his whiskey glass, slowly sipping. “How did you find her?”
An image of Whitney flashed in his mind, and the testosterone shot up in his veins once more. Pride filled his chest, up to the shoulders, at the mere thought of her. Whitney. Soft and yielding in bed . . . sassy and challenging out of it.
And suddenly he loathed every instant that he’d been locked away, unable to watch her blossom. Unable to watch the girl he loved become a woman.
“I found her . . . grown and changed . . .”
And completely exhilarating.
So independent now. Whitney was wholly different than when he’d left. They both were. He wasn’t the sappy preppy man she’d fallen in love with. He had aged. On the inside. And yet they still fit like perfect puzzle pieces, even when they’d been apart for so long. She still complemented him. Challenged and excited him. And she still, still needed him like he needed her. Instinctively, he knew this. And there was a dark, pained chamber in his heart that yearned to be able to open up and talk to her about where he’d been. He’d never had to hide a part of himself from her. There had been nothing to hide.
But now . . . he felt not only like he was cheating her of his complete honesty, but that he was cheating himself of her love and support—something he desperately craved.
“You should tell her, Andy. A smart girl like Whitney will only love you all the more.”
Unnerved that his father could read his thoughts so well, he laughed bleakly and rubbed the back of his neck, feeling damn restless. “I can’t be sure of how she’ll take it,” he said.
“Son, I understand that you didn’t want her suffering while you left, and I agree that it would’ve been a living hell for her. Three years wondering how you were coping . . .” His eyes darkened with worry, then he shook his head. “But you’ve made it back now, and she’s a different woman than the wounded young girl you left. She deserves to know where you were. And what you did for her, son. You’re my boy and you deserve to be appreciated for that. And Whitney? She’s made a woman of herself and that makes me as proud as if she were my own daughter. Of course I’ve always felt that way, because she’s yours.”
Mine . . .
The thought drugged him, but it was closely followed by warring emotions pulling him north and south. He wanted to protect her, while at the same time, wanted nothing more than to be completely open with her.
He remained quiet, and his father reached out and patted his back. “Give her the truth. If you don’t, you’ll never be able to put the past to bed.”
“I’ll think about it, Dad.”
Was it the right call to tell her?
When I close my eyes, it’s all dark, and all I want is to see your eyes again . . .
She’d been smiling in the morning, saucily telling him they were old lovers having an affair. It had amused him, at first, but now he was also considering taking the opening she was giving him, to court her once more. To forget their rocky start, woo her back, win her. As if they didn’t have a past.
She’d never even have to know if he went that route . . .
An hour later, back at his Fairchild apartment, he mentally went through his options as he poured himself some scotch and then waited in the living room, reviewing files he’d brought from work, not really seeing them. Minutes passed as he waited for her, and then hours.
When it was past nine p.m., he realized she was probably not planning to acknowledge his existence, or even give him a courtesy heads-up about where she was. She did say he was only an affair, didn’t she?
And it had stopped being amusing two fucking hours ago.
His chest a roiling hot mess, he searched for the patience that had run thin for three long years, then soon discovered that her old cell phone number was no longer in service—so she’d changed that, too?—and he ended up calling Daniel Lexington, who had to call Chloe, who let him know that Whitney was, indeed, at the benefit at the Four Seasons Hotel.
Andrew tamped down his irritation. So. She’d gone on without him. Stalking to the bedroom, he showered and changed into a dark suit and white shirt open at the top, and rather than wear the tie, he shoved it into his jacket pocket with the intent of using it only if it was required.
He was no longer accustomed to suits.
They made him feel enclosed and his body trapped. He didn’t like it.
He didn’t like Whitney ignoring him, either.
No. He was not a damned affair. After everything they’d gone through, after everything he’d done for her, was he to be downgraded to being ignored now?
His mood was especially volatile when he arrived at the benefit. Approximately five hundred guests mingled throughout the ballroom, far more than there had been yesterday. There were also flowers. Music. A dance floor. Andrew had never been one for crowds, and he especially didn’t feel like chitchat today. He wanted a bath, a bed, and Whitney.
But his lady was nowhere to be found.
As he blended into the room, his eyes snagged on a flash of red hair, and fixed on it. There was Whitney. Entertaining a crowd of men by the wine fountain. Her gaze slid across the entrance, as though she’d been expecting him to arrive any minute now, and he noticed—oh, yes, he definitely noticed—when she saw him. Her back stiffened, and her eyes flared with a little excitement, a little fear, and more than a little lust.
His heart kicked in response, and his systems leapt into overdrive. He wanted her like he’d never, in his life, desired anything. Every single day, since the first time he’d seen her, he wanted her more and more. He knew she felt the same for him, wanted him with every inch of that luscious body of hers. The air rippled between them as their gazes held, but now he noticed that her reaction to him, her need of him, frustrated her, for her beautiful forehead puckered into a little frown when she saw him.