Accidentally in Love, page 20
That afternoon, therefore, he and Chris found themselves in an anonymous coffee shop near Times Square. There were so many tourists that nobody would take any notice of them.
“Busy day?” asked James, after they were placed in a remote corner of the room.
“You can say that again. Your brother has been shopping,” Chris revealed.
“The usual total black or something multi-colored this time?” James asked sarcastically.
“Suits for work.”
James opened his mouth only to close it soon afterwards. “Is he really going to come to work tomorrow morning?”
“Looks that way. I mean, he promised Sara he would…” he replied, as if that was sufficient enough reason.
“Wait, let’s start from the beginning, because it seems to me that I haven’t really understood what’s going on here. Since when has my brother ever kept a promise? What is his guardian blackmailing him with?”
Chris laughed at James’s gloomy expression. “I don’t know all the details because I was out of town for a couple of days, but from the conversation they had this morning in the car it sounded to me like Sara somehow managed to get some kind of call-the-shots voucher from your brother. It’s like she has this sort of… concession, that allows her to tell him what to do. And he has to follow her orders. I think she asked him to go to work,” he concluded, as if it were nothing unusual.
“And he’s actually going to do it?”
“So it seems,” Chris answered.
“But why?” asked James, looking more and more incredulous.
“I don’t really know,” Chris laughed, “but I guess that since they started living together they must have come to a kind of truce. They seemed pretty friendly during the ride.”
James looked as if he was going to have a heart attack. “Since they’ve been… living together ?”
“Yeah, didn’t you know? Your brother thought he’d be able to blackmail Sara into quitting by being around her all the time and driving her nuts. I mean, Ethan is actually pretty hard to take in prolonged doses, even he knows that. A few days ago, he had her front door taken off and he moved into her house, just like that. And now he’s staying in Ms Di Giovanni’s guest room.”
At that point, James didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “And she didn’t kick him out?”
Chris smiled, wryly. “Because your brother was clever enough to hire an interior designer to turn his entire apartment upside down – he said that he was fed up with black and wanted a change, so his place is a building site at the moment and she wouldn’t have known where else to send him.”
“My brother is fed up with black?” Chris shrugged his shoulders, not knowing what to say. “Okay, okay, let’s forget about the color thing for now. Let’s get back to them. So now he lives with her. And where is that?”
“In Brooklyn – Bensonhurst.”
James suddenly burst out laughing hysterically. “You’re joking, right?”
“Nah, not at all. Yeah, I know what you mean – not exactly downtown, right? I was sure Ethan would pack his bags after the first couple of days of living there. But for some reason he didn’t. Neither of them did, in fact.”
“And just how much is my brother drinking to be able to cope with such a weird situation?” James wanted to know, looking worried.
“Ah, now that’s where it gets even stranger. He’s been unusually sober recently. I mean, the first few days he kept complaining that she’d got rid of every drop of booze in the house, but today a friend of Ethan’s called me, wondering where the hell your brother had gone, because apparently he hasn’t been seen out much recently. And even when he has, like on Saturday night, he’d said that he’d only had a beer, giving the excuse of having a baseball game to play the next day. ”
James really did not know what to make of all this information. “My brother has started playing baseball again, is that what you’re telling me? No, you know what, don’t tell me – at this point it doesn’t make any difference,” he said, sounding taken aback.
“That I really don’t know,” admitted Chris, who could barely hide his delight at the other man’s dismay. He might let himself be bribed, but in his own way he was always faithful to Ethan.
“Well, if by any chance you should find out, please, please don’t tell me – I don’t think I can take any more disturbing news. At this point, I’d rather continue to live in blissful ignorance.”
“Whatever you say, Mr Phelps,” chuckled Chris. “Whatever you say.”
Chapter 11
Ethan held the remote control in his hand, as he dropped – or, given the state he was in, sank – onto the couch, where he lay channel hopping for about half an hour in the hope that he would find something to distract him. But it was proving harder than he’d though, partly because he just couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off the clock.
Where the hell could a woman with an injured leg be on a boring Monday evening?
Ethan had advised her to postpone her date with Tony, at least until she had recovered completely, but she’d insisted she was fine and could handle it without any problems.
Sure! Her leg was really painful, as they both knew – and anyway, wouldn’t she be tired after a day’s work? And didn’t she feel the need to get home as soon as possible to check that he was resting properly before facing the fatigue of the following day?
Ethan was so irritated he felt tempted to do something stupid, and he wasn’t accustomed to resisting those kinds of impulses. Well, he had never had any great reason to curb those impulses, and he didn’t want to examine the reasons why he felt the need to do so now .
He changed channel yet again and then threw the remote control on the couch. Julia Roberts appeared on the screen. Next to her there was a grizzled looking guy who must be Richard Gere. Could it be that Pretty Woman film Sara was always going on about?
Strangely intrigued, he sat up and started following the romantic vicissitudes of this girl who had just happened to meet the usual billionaire with a problematic family. The sidewalk was a place – just like anywhere else – where life changing encounters could happen, so he wasn’t that surprised – hey, there were people who met in court , which was definitely worse…
That last thought gave him an uneasy feeling of déjà vu, so he went back to trying to concentrate on the story. Julia Roberts was just putting on a gorgeous red dress when he heard a key turn in the lock and Sara appeared, limping towards the couch. Ethan couldn’t help noticing that the pain seemed much more pronounced than it had been before. The silly girl should have stayed at home in bed with her leg up or something, the way he’d suggested.
“Oh, Pretty Woman !” she exclaimed, suddenly cheerful, as she dropped down beside him.
“So? You have a nice evening?” Ethan asked, trying not to seem too eager to know all the details .
But he was, dammit, and so he didn’t manage to sound as indifferent as he’d have liked.
She pretended not to hear him, grabbed the remote control and turned up the volume. “Get ready because your scene’s coming up,” she told him.
“My scene?” he asked, giving her a dubious look. He wasn’t actually that interested in Julia’s date – and it hadn’t escaped his attention that Sara hadn’t answered his question.
“Yes, the famous kiss,” she continued quietly. “When Julia Roberts breaks her own rules and kisses Richard Gere. Obviously, in her case she doesn’t usually kiss people for professional reasons, while you won’t kiss anyone because of germs… Maybe her motive was a little more noble than yours,” she teased.
Ethan turned back to the TV and watched the scene where Julia, wearing a white silk nightgown, bends down to kiss a sleepy Richard Gere. The kiss was so saccharine that it felt like his blood sugar levels were going into the red.
“How the hell can you like this stuff?” he asked uneasily, desperately trying to break the strange atmosphere in the room. Seeing those two kiss had given him a strange desire to do the same. The power of the cinema – or at least, that was what he hoped it was .
“Hey, you were the one who was watching it when I came in!” she reminded him with a smile.
“I was channel hopping, you just happened to walk in at that moment, that’s all,” he replied defensively.
“Yeah, right – I’m a really lucky girl at the moment,” she said sarcastically, without going into detail.
He stared at her for a long time, then decided to come out with it. “So did you kiss him, then?” he asked suddenly, sensing something strange about her mood.
Sara turned to him in surprise and waited a moment before answering. “Yes, I did.”
Ethan felt a strange sensation that started in the pit of his stomach and slowly rose upwards. What was it? Anger?
“And… did you enjoy it?” he asked in a low voice.
“It was… weird ,” she admitted without taking her eyes off him.
“What do you mean?” Despite everything, Ethan wanted to know.
“I mean… Oh, it was a nice, relaxed evening. Tony’s always good company. And even the kiss was…” she stopped, unsure of how to describe it.
“Nice?” He said. “And what’s wrong with it being nice? ”
Sara sighed. “I don’t really know. You’ll think I’m nuts, I know, but a kiss, the first kiss, shouldn’t it be a bit more than that?” she asked, looking seriously worried.
Ethan tried to make a joke of it. “I guess he could have had halitosis or something, if that’s what you mean…”
“Don’t kid around, I’m being serious. What do you think a first kiss should feel like?”
He shrugged uncomfortably. He felt like the last person who could answer such a question. “I don’t know. A kiss is just a dumb exchange of saliva. I told you, you can easily skip it, as far as I’m concerned.”
“What do you mean, ‘a dumb exchange of saliva’?! It was a very nice kiss, but it was… it was fraternal . The kind of kiss that makes you want to stop right there and not go any further. I mean, how can I not want to go further with the man I’ve been dreaming about for so long?”
Ethan squirmed uncomfortably on the couch. He hoped Sara would have noticed his embarrassment and would stop asking him for advice. Did he look like her best friend?
“That’s the problem with crushes that go on too long – you build up unrealistic expectations. You’ve spent so much time building castles in the air that reality has no chance of being able to compete with what you’ve dreamed up,” he said .
Sara looked at him in astonishment. “That’s a surprisingly deep analysis coming from you, do you realize that?”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t get used to it if I were you…”
“So you don’t think kisses really mean anything?”
“They’re… superfluous, more than anything else.” he said, trying to express a concept he firmly believed in.
Sara seemed to reflect for a moment, then suddenly whispered, “Would you kiss me?”
Ethan’s jaw almost hit the ground in astonishment. “Would I… what?!”
“Yeah, just for test: it’ll prove that I don’t need to feel anything important when I kiss someone,” she explained, as though what she was saying made any sense at all. “That way I’ll know Tony isn’t the problem.”
“Don’t you remember other first kisses you’ve had?” he asked with growing panic.
“It’s been years since my last first kiss,” she admitted, looking rather embarrassed.
“I’m sorry to have to correct you here, but it seems to me that it was only half an hour ago,” he said, sounding slightly irked.
She gave a nervous laugh. “Oh, right… Anyway, I mean, it’s been a long time since my last kiss apart from that one with Tony. ”
“Sara, come on, I can’t kiss you…”
“I swear, I have no incurable diseases – scout’s honor.” She put the hand on her heart.
“It’s not about diseases or germs,” Ethan said. And strangely, it really wasn’t.
“Even better! Come on, don’t make me beg! Just a perfectly chaste, fraternal kiss,” she begged him, “to reassure me and make sleep better. Because it should be obvious that today hasn’t been a good day.”
When she wanted to, she knew exactly how to flutter those dark eyelashes of hers in the right way. They were even more accentuated by a touch of mascara, which was unusual for her.
Ethan knew he wasn’t going to get out of it. Maybe this stupid kiss would snap him out whatever had brought on this weird mood too. If he got the temptation out of the way, he might be able to start living without that inexplicable sensation in the pit of his stomach which had been there for days now.
“Okay, one kiss – a very small one,” he agreed, holding his thumb and forefinger very close to indicate something extremely tiny.
“Of course…”
“But on one condition,” he said, pointing to her ponytail. “Let your hair down.” If he really had to do this thing, as dumb and pointless as it might seem, he wanted to do it with her hair framing her face. And no, he didn’t want to think about why …
Sara looked at him questioningly, but then quickly undid her pony tail, freeing her long, dark hair. “Like this?” she asked.
Ethan sat there looking at her and swallowed hard. Now he came to think about it, he couldn’t work out just how the hell he could have thought she looked plain that day in court. “Exactly, just like that.”
He moved closer and took her face in his hands: it was his intention of making her stop all this nonsense as soon as possible. A slight brush of the lips, nothing more. Nothing to it, he thought.
But it didn’t take him long to realize that his heart had started beating crazily as soon as he touched her. Not really a great sign, considering what he was about to do. He would look absolutely stupid if he pulled back – and there was another tiny, unimportant detail too… at this point, he wanted to kiss her practically more than he wanted to carry on breathing.
Completely unaware of his thoughts, Sara closed her eyes and ran the tongue along her lip. And then it happened. He lowered his lips onto hers urgently, trying in vain to keep his wits about him. Her perfume took him by surprise, enveloping him and forcing him to let himself go, unhesitatingly.
His perfect plan went up in smoke in just two seconds .
Her lips were soft and voluptuous, and in an instant what had started out as a chaste kiss now began to overwhelm him. She closed her lips on his and Ethan could not help being dragged along with her. It didn’t take long for their tongues to meet, and once they had met they seemed pretty hell bent on not separating again for quite a long time. So long, in fact, that Ethan felt as though he were on fire.
A kiss should have been exactly what he’d said it was – a dumb exchange of saliva – but with Sara it felt like something completely different. Something strange had been triggered off inside him, an instinct that had taken over and was forcing him to reconsider his certainties. A few more minutes of this and he would be dragging her off into the bedroom.
That dangerous thought set a fire station’s worth of alarm bells off in his head, and even though it was the last thing he wanted to do, he pulled away from her.
It took Sara a few moments to open her large brown eyes, and when she did, they were veiled with a strange desire.
“Oh …” she said softly.
Yes, ‘oh’ was definitely right.
Sara was looking at him in amazement. Ethan’s hair was ruffled – she had probably ruffled it herself – and he was breathing hard, those turquoise eyes of his staring at her anxiously. With good reason – it felt like the two of them had been about to cause the first real spontaneous human combustion in history.
“Oh…” she said again, as she began to realize what had happened. She didn’t know what else to say. Her brain had been put out of use and her hormones were suggesting rather naughty things. She brought her hand to the mouth with an instinctive gesture, rubbing her lips to check they were still there.
Just for the record, Ethan had a great mouth, and despite all his saying that kissing was a horrible habit, he kissed sensationally. He’d had a lot of practice before deciding to give it up. A lot of practice…
And if that was just a first kiss, Sara couldn’t dare imagine what he would be capable of if he had more time.
He stared at her lips with obvious embarrassment. He was tempted to say something but didn’t know what. “Pretty… pretty successful experiment, huh?” he said with a nervous laugh, passing his hand through his hair. “I mean, I kiss just like Tony, right?”
Maybe he should have kept his mouth shut.
At that point, Sara would have given anything, anything , to have gone back in time and taken back that stupid request of hers. All she could say in her defense was that she’d had absolutely no idea the chemistry between them was so strong .
Since they’d first spoken, sitting in that modest diner opposite the courtroom, Sara had suspected there was something strange going on between them. She had felt something like electricity in the air, but she’d just assumed it was down to the weirdness of the situation. She’d never had to feel responsible, either emotionally or legally, for someone before then.
The kiss had awoken something inside her – it was as if someone had thrown a bucket of cold water in her face. The attraction was there, it was useless to pretend otherwise. And it was very strong.
She had spent an enjoyable evening with Tony. They had eaten dinner and laughed like two old friends. Sure, he had been pleasant company, but that was all. There was no passion between them.
They had met at a pizzeria near Brooklyn Bridge, sat down and started chatting away amicably. The skies hadn’t opened and the angels hadn’t started singing. In a nutshell, there’d been no chemistry. It hadn’t taken her long to realize she had made a big mistake. She wasn’t attracted to him. Or at least, not in the right way. She’d always thought he was incredibly attractive, he had beautiful eyes and a magnificent smile. But there was none of that crazy alchemy she had just felt with Ethan.
