He also didn’t want to have a painful erection throughout the entire meal. He’d been hard the whole night sitting next to her. Then rock-hard when she’d teased him with her delicious blow-job imagery. But the more he consumed her lips, the more trouble he’d be in. Better stop now.
He pulled back, thrilling at the look on her face. Lips parted slightly, eyes closed. Then she shuddered and opened her eyes, as if she were dragging herself out of a trip down Unexpected Lust Lane.
“Who said you’d be romancing me?” she countered as she reached for her fork and dove into her plate of pasta primavera.
“I say it,” he said, as he took a bite of his chicken.
“Maybe I’m only going on one date with you.”
“I’ll have to find a way to convince you for more then. I’ll see if I have any tricks up my sleeve.”
She took another bite, chewed, then set down her fork. Her expression turned serious. “Actually, I hate to be blunt, but I’ve learned a thing or two about being upfront, seeing as how I failed to be upfront about something really important for ten years.”
“What do you mean?” he asked after he finished his bite and took a drink of his wine.
“What I mean is I’m not interested in getting involved with someone who has intimacy issues,” she said in a direct tone of voice. She didn’t mince words. She didn’t pull punches. She simply told him. “I’m sorry if that sounds harsh. And I know I shouldn’t be judgmental, given my job, but my reality is I was in love with a good friend of mine for ten years from a distance. From afar. I never said a word to him until he’d already fallen madly in love with someone else. He had no clue I had any feelings for him. Even if I had told him, it wouldn’t have made a difference. He never saw me that way. He never thought of me romantically.”
“That makes no sense to me,” Jack said, speaking plainly. He could only see Michelle romantically. How any man could look at her and talk to her and not want to know her more confounded him.
She sighed, took another bite, and then continued on when she’d finished. “And that was three months ago, when it all came to a head. And it’s fine. We’re all good. But my point in bringing this up is I’m the poster child for unrequited love. And while I’m certainly not asking for love, the bottom line is, I don’t think you’ll be romancing me because I can’t risk my heart again for someone who might be closed down,” she said, and her words were like a heavy stone around his neck.
That described him perfectly. Closed down. Shut down. Battered and broken with guilt. “I’m not closed down,” he muttered, denying the truth he knew inside himself.
She reached for his hand, and laid hers on top of it. “We don’t have to bullshit, Jack. I’m not some blushing twenty-two year old who read in the paper that you were New York’s most eligible bachelor and wants to nab you. I have a business, a career, a respectable profession, a brother and sister-in-law I love dearly, and very close friends. I’m fine. But when you’ve been in love with someone who didn’t love you, it really makes you protect your heart from anyone and everyone,” she said, and those words stung him more than she could ever know. “We had a great time last night and I’m having a lovely time tonight. But this can’t be anything. From what I can gather your heart is still with someone else.”
He swallowed thickly. He was so tempted to tell her the truth that only Casey knew. “Why would you assume that?”
“I could be wrong, but your fiancée died a little more than a year ago. And you go see a therapist who specializes in intimacy. I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out that’s why your sister sent you to see me. To help you move on, right?”
“Yes,” he said, and he clamped his lips shut so he wouldn’t reveal the truth out loud. That he didn’t need to move on in the way everyone thought. That he wasn’t some poor widower. Yeah, he had commitment issues a mile long, but not because of what everyone thought about how things ended with Aubrey. Not because she died. But because of what he’d said before. Because of how it was all his fault.
He winced as the memories assaulted him.
High school sweethearts in Denver, Colorado where he grew up, Jack Sullivan and Aubrey Sheen were one of those couples. The couple everyone thought would be together forever. He was the school’s star shortstop; she was captain of the ski team and an Olympic hopeful. It was first love. It was true love. It was as real as it could possibly be. She was bright and beautiful, ambitious and determined. They laughed together; they had fun together; they were going to be together always. But then they drifted apart, attending colleges with many miles between them, and the inevitable split set in. There were plenty of tears shed, but plenty unshed too. She was focused on her Olympic dreams; he was focused on school, and then on his time in the service.
Years later, when he returned from Germany and started Joy Delivered, they found themselves near each other again. With Aubrey living and working in New York, they reunited.
At first, it felt natural to be back with her. They fit. They made sense. On paper, they should have worked, and so he proposed. But at some point after that, one thing became painfully clear to him. He was living in the past with her. He wasn’t the same person he had been when he was younger. She wasn’t either. But their love had been borne of that time in their lives—young love. He’d mistaken that for forever love.