Solitary Man(24)
Author: Carly Phillips

He rolled over, his arm covering his eyes. “I’d like to say I’m sorry I started this.”

“But you’re not.”

He exhaled a groan. “Of course I am. But not for the reasons you think. And if I say it shouldn’t have happened, you’ll take it the wrong way and jump all over me.”

“Just spit it out. What is it you’re trying to say?” she asked, then steeled herself for what was to come.

“There’s something between us. It’s sexual…”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” she muttered.

“And it’s emotional.”

“And it’s the emotional that makes you run like hell.”

He raised himself up onto one side. When she continued staring at the ceiling, he grabbed for her chin and turned her head to face him. Looking into his eyes was painful, but nothing she hadn’t experienced before, she thought sadly. “It’s not the emotional that makes me run. It’s you.”

“Talk clearly,” she said, frustration pouring through her. “I don’t get you and God help me, I want to.”

“Everything you are, everything you offer me is good—and I don’t deserve it. Hell, I can’t live up to it. I can’t give you what you want, what you need. And every time I look into your eyes, I realize that.”

“Guilt again. You think you’re responsible for Tony. That you let me down.”

He clenched his jaw tight “I did.”

“Yeah, you did. And I expected too much from one night. We’re past that.”

His humorless laugh chilled her. “Way past. And in too deep.”

She shut her eyes, knowing arguing with him now would be like driving in a never-ending circle. She’d never get anywhere. He carried too much guilt to ever forgive himself and he viewed her as some sort of paragon of virtue that he’d never be worthy of.

He didn’t see himself for the good and decent man he was any more than he viewed her as an ordinary person with flaws, someone who also made mistakes. With his two skewed perceptions of reality, she doubted they’d ever be able to meet in the mortal world.

“Okay, Kevin. You win.” She ignored her tingling br**sts and the heaviness between her legs. Sex was easy. Her relationship with Kevin was not. “I’d rather be lonely than tortured.”

“Oh, hell.”

“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Nikki said.

EIGHT

Nikki glanced around Janine’s bedroom. What was once her brother’s bedroom, she thought sadly. Unfortunately, not much had changed in the few months since Tony’s death.

His side of the bed still had his things on the nightstand. A copy of Sports Illustrated lay beside a small clock, his watch sat beside it, and the hardcover mystery novel Nikki had bought him for his birthday a few weeks before he died was propped against a bedside lamp.

She turned to the closet where Janine was inside choosing clothes for her week’s trip to Iowa. Tony’s uniforms and casual clothes still hung on one side of the large walk-in closet. She recalled the day he’d decided to rent this place, and jokingly said it was the only apartment in town with a closet large enough to keep his new wife from stealing valuable clothing space. Nikki grinned. Tony had been joking, of course. Neither he nor Janine were into shopping or acquiring huge wardrobes—no more than they were into arguing over whose space was whose.

With a sigh, she lowered herself onto a small chair in the corner of the room. Janine was right to leave. The memories here were overwhelming. The move would force her to pack away the past and move on with the present in a way she probably couldn’t handle otherwise. Because she’d been so in love with Tony.

Nikki glanced at the ceiling, blinking through the moisture that filled her eyes. Janine and her brother had made the most of their time together. How many couples could claim the same?

How many couples were given the opportunity?

A chill shook her, as she realized the direction her thoughts were taking. She and Kevin were being given that same chance. Maybe they weren’t in love—or at least he wasn’t .She, on the other hand, could topple with the slightest bit of encouragement. Perhaps she was already there. Always had been. But now they were bound together by an unborn life, a baby that would need them forever. Them.

She was already living in his house. Physically they were drawn together. Emotionally they both held back. Only a concerted effort on one of their parts kept them from finding what Janine and Tony had shared.

Or was she deluding herself, Nikki wondered. Wanting to believe in unicorns when no such creature existed? She would never know unless she went looking. Unless she made the effort to create a warm, family atmosphere in the house she now called home.

A new resolve took hold. She’d take dual roads. On the one hand, she’d prepare herself for the end, should it come. But in the meantime, she would give it her best shot. And hope Kevin didn’t shoot her down and destroy what few dreams remained in her heart.

Janine walked out of the closet, a pile of clothes on hangers in her arms. “I’m still uncomfortable leaving you,” she said as she dumped the heavy load onto the bed beside an open suitcase.

Nikki nodded. “I know you are. And a week ago I’d have told you to go and assured you I’d be fine.” She bit down on her lower lip, realizing how her attitude had changed in the five minutes since she’d walked into this room. “I’d have been lying then.”

Janine paused from her task of unhooking the clothes from the hangers and refolding them to fit into the one piece of luggage. “And now?”

Nikki shrugged. “Let’s just say I’ve had an epiphany.” She wrapped her arms around her bent legs and smiled. “I’m trying to see beyond that tunnel vision you accused me of having. I’m going to try to make things work with Kevin.”

Janine’s eyes widened in surprise. “Why the change of heart?”

Her heart hadn’t changed its beat. She’d just accepted what she’d always known deep inside. Her feelings for Kevin ran deep. If she wanted the life she’d always craved, she had to take a risk and hold onto the opportunity that presented itself now.

Nikki let her gaze take in the bedroom once more. “Life is short. I don’t want to miss out on what could have been because I was too stubborn to see what was right in front of me.” Too scared to trust in Kevin again.

Her sister-in-law crossed the room and grabbed Nikki’s hand. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re doing the right thing. It’s what I would do if I were you.”