Black Ties and Lullabies, page 30
She grabbed her purse from the breakfast room table and headed for the back door, only to stop and turn back.
“You want to hear something funny?” she said through her tears.
He turned slowly to face her.
“That man I’ve been looking for? The one who will love me forever?”
“What about him?”
Bernie paused, emotion choking her words. “I thought maybe that man was you.”
She searched his face, looking for even the tiniest chink in the wall he’d built around himself, but all she saw was stoic denial.
“Well,” he said, his voice tinged with sarcasm, “I guess that means you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”
Bernie blinked, and tears cascaded down her cheeks. “Yeah. I guess it does. Good-bye, Jeremy.”
“The babies—”
“I’ll be in touch.”
She opened the door and left the house, hurrying to her car, and she managed to drive almost to the front gate before the tears came, so hard and so fast that they practically blinded her to drive. She pulled a tissue out of her console and dabbed her eyes, then kept on going, needing to get as far away from there as possible.
Max had been right. Jeremy had the capacity to cause her a world of hurt, and that was exactly what he’d done.
Jeremy went to the window and watched as Bernie’s car disappeared down the driveway, and soon all he saw were her taillights glimmering in the darkness, growing dimmer and dimmer until they finally disappeared altogether. He stood at the window for a long time, feeling so alone he could barely breathe. An empty, gnawing sensation ground through his stomach, the silence of the house hanging over him, until all he could hear was the incessant ticking of the heirloom clock in his breakfast room and the blood pulsing through his ears with every beat of his heart.
He couldn’t understand it. He just couldn’t. Any other woman would consider herself the luckiest person on the planet at his proposal, but Bernie acted as if he’d done something wrong by offering her the moon and a few distant galaxies to boot.
He strode over to the counter to his iPod docking station and turned on some music. Then he went to his den, where he flipped on the television and jacked up the sound. Anything to drown out the godawful silence. Then he sat on the sofa and dropped his head to his hands, the music and the voices of the news anchors pulsing through his skull.
His desperation turned to anger, gradually building to a fever pitch. He rose and went to the bar. Grabbed a shot glass. Poured himself a drink and tossed it down. Before the burn in his throat had even begun to diminish, he’d already poured himself another one, only to slam down the bottle, pick up the glass, and throw it across the room. It crashed into his cherry-wood bookcase and shattered in a starburst of glass fragments and alcohol.
He gripped the edge of the bar and ducked his head, his breaths hard and raspy.
She’d walked out on him. He’d offered her everything he had, and still she’d walked out. What the hell was he supposed to do now?
He’d worked like crazy to be where he was now. To have the kind of life most men only dream about. But she acted as if that wasn’t enough. And that had made him want to grab her and hold her and explain to her that he only wanted what was best for all of them. To keep her right here in his house until she accepted everything he wanted to give her.
Instead, he’d driven her away.
Jeremy felt a shiver of desperation that went soul deep. Good God. What had he done?
He sat on the sofa again, dropping his head back and closing his eyes, his heart still hammering in his chest. His thoughts drifted back to Bernie talking about her father. Not once had she mentioned any material things he’d given her. Her relationship with him was all about love and acceptance and time spent together. Jeremy had offered her none of those things. That she’d refused to take his money should have told him something. It should have been a big red traffic light demanding he stop and think about what he was doing. But no. He’d been so stuck in the past, so firm in his conviction that his life was wonderful, that he’d refused to see just how pitiful it really was.
He’d built this house because he could. It had become the outward representation of every age-old resentment he felt inside, every desire he’d ever had to stick it to anyone who looked down on him, who told him he couldn’t make it. Not a solitary soul could pass by this house without knowing what a success he’d become.
But what good was it when he had nobody to share it with?
He sat up again, bowing his head, feeling sick to his stomach. He’d given her what he thought was every reason on earth for her to stay, and she’d rejected every one of them. And he knew why. It was because she wasn’t like other women, who cared only about his money, his power, his prestige, who would agree to any condition on earth just to become Mrs. Jeremy Bridges.
And that was why he loved her.
When that realization struck him, he felt as if he’d been hit by a thunderbolt. It had hovered at the edge of his consciousness for weeks now, maybe longer, but he’d refused to let it rise to the surface. It had been there in the lazy evenings they’d spent on his sofa together, in the meals they’d shared in his kitchen, in the quiet warmth of her bed as they’d made love. How could it be? How could he have spent all that time with her and never realized until this moment how he truly felt?
Bernie had tried to tell him what she wanted in a man, and it wasn’t power, money, or prestige.
He’ll be a good, kind, dependable man who will love me forever…
After what he’d done tonight, he felt like none of those things. But he would be willing to try every day of the rest of his life to live up to them. Somehow he had to tell her he loved her, knowing if he didn’t have her in his life, his life wouldn’t be worth living.
Please, God, tell me I haven’t lost her forever.
Suddenly he heard sirens. He thought for a moment they were outside, only to realize they were coming from the television. He glanced up at the screen and saw flames. Emergency vehicles. A reporter standing out in front with a microphone, shouting to be heard over the commotion.
Then an address flashed across the bottom of the screen, and his heart slammed against his chest. No. It couldn’t be.
He looked closer.
It was.
He leaped off the sofa, ran to the kitchen, grabbed his keys, and hurried out the door.
A few minutes later, Bernie pulled up in front of her apartment and got out of her car, her feet so pinched by her shoes that she’d probably have to amputate both feet. When she thought about how wonderful she’d felt only a few hours ago and how horrible she felt now, she thought she was going to cry all over again. She’d known all along that things could end badly, but she’d never expected anything like this. She’d never expected that he would ask her to marry him, and it would end up being the worst thing he could possibly have done. He’d offered her everything under the sun except the one thing she couldn’t do without, and it broke her heart to finally know that was one thing he wasn’t capable of giving her.
She went into her apartment. She still wasn’t used to being in such a pretty place, and every moment she spent there from now on, she knew she’d be reminded of Jeremy. After what had happened tonight, everything she felt for him should have vanished in an instant, but right now the pain of leaving him was still so raw and so sharp she ached with it.
The worst part was that she couldn’t just cut all ties and move on. He was the father of her babies. A man who would be in her life forever. She only hoped that one day they could reach the place where it wouldn’t kill her to see him and think about how things might have been.
Just as she’d kicked off the shoes from hell and collapsed on her sofa, her phone rang. She rose again and grabbed it from her evening bag. She looked at the caller ID and groaned out loud.
Her mother. The last person Bernie wanted to talk to right now. Her mind instantly leaped to the conversation she was going to have to have with her about Jeremy, the one where she told her mother that the man she thought could do no wrong had done something so wrong that her daughter could never be with him again.
Yeah, that conversation was coming. Just not tonight. She’d talk to her about Jeremy tomorrow, after she got her emotions back under control and her heart had at least begun to mend.
She hit the TALK button. “Hi, Mom. What’s up?”
“Bernadette?” she said in a shaky voice. “Are—are you there?”
Bernie felt a rush of panic. “Mom? What’s wrong?”
“Fire,” she said. “My house. There’s a fire.”
Bernie jerked to attention. “Fire? Mom, are you out of the house?”
“Yes. I’m out. The firemen are here, but it’s still burning. My house is burning. Please, Bernadette. Come now. Please!”
Chapter 30
Bernie threw on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and jumped into her car, and by the time she reached her mother’s house, the firefighters had extinguished the blaze, but smoke was still pouring out through the open front door and a few broken windows. A fire truck, an ambulance, and several police cars were parked in front of the house, along with a couple of vans from local news stations, and Bernie had to leave her car down the street and walk the rest of the way. As she made her way along the sidewalk toward her mother’s house, the acrid smell of smoke filled her lungs.
She worried when she didn’t see her mother right away. Then she spotted her in the next yard over, huddled with three of her neighbors. Her mother saw her coming and walked over to meet her, tears streaming down her face.
Bernie hugged her. “Mom! Are you okay?”
“Oh, Bernadette. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!”
Bernie held her by the shoulders. “Sorry? Why are you sorry?”
“It was my fault,” she said. “The fire was my fault!”
“What do you mean?”
“I put something on the stove, but then I guess I forgot about it,” she said, her words tumbling over each other. “Then I smelled smoke. I came back into the kitchen and it was on fire. I didn’t know how to put it out, so I just grabbed my purse and ran outside.”
“You did the right thing. The most important thing is that you got out without getting hurt.”
“But what am I going to do now? My house! What am I going to do?”
“Calm down, Mom. That’s what insurance is for. Everything can be repaired.”
“Our family photo albums were on the bookshelf in the living room. What if they burned up in the fire?”
“We won’t know what was damaged for a day or two. Then we’ll deal with it, okay?”
“I have no place to live,” Eleanor said.
“You’ll stay with me. Just until we can get the damage repaired.”
But even as she was reassuring her mother, Bernie felt the most horrible sense of foreboding. She’d thought her mother would surely be safe in her own home for a while longer, but if she couldn’t even turn on the stove without causing a fire, how could she ever live alone again? And if she couldn’t live alone, what the hell was Bernie supposed to do?
Damn it! It wasn’t supposed to happen this soon!
The crushing responsibility she felt overwhelmed her. If she had to work, she was going to have to find somebody to care for her mother during the day. How was she ever going to pay for that?
Okay. The insurance money would fix the house. And if she sold it, she’d have that equity. But with the cost of a marginally decent facility or even home health care, that money would be gone in no time.
One of the firefighters approached them, sweat pouring down his temples. Bernie asked him about the damage.
“It really isn’t that bad,” the firefighter said. “We got here quickly, and it was pretty much contained to the front of the house. Most of the damage is from smoke and water.” He turned to Eleanor. “You’re sure not going to want to stay there, though. Do you have a place you can go tonight?”
“Yes. This is my daughter. I can stay with her.”
“There’s nothing you can do here tonight,” he told her. “Feel free to go to your daughter’s house and get some sleep.”
As the firefighter walked away, Eleanor turned to Bernie. “Bernadette? Where is Jeremy?”
Just hearing his name made Bernie feel sick inside. She’d had a terrible feeling her mother was going to ask that question, and she didn’t have a good answer. But just as she started to make something up, her mother glanced off into the distance, a look of relief passing over her face.
“Oh, thank God,” Eleanor said. “There he is!”
Bernie whipped around, shocked to see Jeremy striding across the lawn toward them. He still wore his tuxedo pants and shirt, and even at this distance, he looked so handsome her breath caught in her throat. She put her hand against her chest to try to calm her heart, which was suddenly beating like mad.
“I need to talk to him,” Bernie said to her mother. “Can you stay here with your neighbors for just a moment?”
Eleanor nodded, and Bernie turned toward Jeremy. She didn’t know why he was here. How he knew to come. What he would say when she talked to him. She walked hesitantly toward him at first, in contrast to his strong, purposeful strides, and the closer she came to him, the more her chest tightened. His face was in shadow, and it wasn’t until she drew closer still that she saw it clearly. Gone was the cynical expression that had been on his face when she’d walked out his door, and in its place was a look of overwhelming concern that went straight to her heart.
The swirling soot and ash seemed to drive away the memory of the hurtful words they’d spoken to each other, and when they were still several strides away from each other, he held out his arms. She didn’t walk the rest of the way.
She ran.
When she finally fell against him, he wrapped his arms around her, holding her close, and all she could think was, He’s here. He’s here. Thank God.
“I saw it on the news,” Jeremy said. “I came as soon as I could. Is your mother all right?”
“She’s a little shaken up, but she’s fine.”
“What happened?”
“God, Jeremy… it’s awful…”
He eased her away and held her by the shoulders. “Tell me.”
Bernie felt as if she were sinking in quicksand, and every word she spoke about it only weighed her down more. “She was the one who started the fire.”
“What?”
“She left something on the stove and forgot about it. When she came back into the kitchen, it was on fire. She forgot. She forgot about what was on the stove. She could have been killed. If she’d gone to sleep before she saw it, then—”
Bernie’s voice suddenly choked up, and she put her hand against her mouth, squeezing her eyes closed and gritting her teeth against the tears she felt building behind her eyes.
“Take it easy, sweetheart. It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not! It’s my fault! I should have known she was getting too forgetful. But with everything going on, I just wasn’t paying close enough attention. I can’t stay with her because I have to work, but I can’t afford to pay somebody else to stay with her. At least, not for long. And then the babies are coming, and—”
“Bernie. Listen to me. I’m going to take care of everything, okay? Everything. I’m going to make sure you never have to worry about anything again as long as you live. Do you understand?”
“You’re all I need right now,” she said. “Just you.”
He pulled her into his arms again, surrounding her with the kind of warmth and security she needed above all else. “I’m here for you, sweetheart,” he whispered against her cheek. “I’ll always be here for you.”
Jeremy insisted on taking Bernie and her mother back to his house for the night, which he said would be more comfortable for both of them. Bernie didn’t argue. His house had come to mean comfort and relaxation and contentment to her, and that was exactly what she needed tonight. Mrs. Spencer met them at the door and told them she had the guest suite ready with fresh linens, cups of tea, and nightclothes for Bernie and Eleanor. Bernie sent her mother upstairs with Mrs. Spencer and told her she’d follow in a moment.
As the ladies disappeared up the stairs, Jeremy took Bernie by the hand and led her into the den, where he sat down on the sofa and pulled her into his arms. She lay her head against his chest, soothed by the rhythmic beating of his heart.
“How are the kids?” he asked, putting his hand against her belly. “As tired as you are?”
“They’re pretty quiet. I think they’re sleeping.”
A long silence stretched between them.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “So sorry.”
“I know.”
“No. I need to say it. You were right about everything. I’ve been chasing things that were never going to make me happy. But not anymore. I’ve found out what really makes me happy, and it’s not making the next buck.” He paused, his voice rough with emotion. “It’s you, Bernie.”
Bernie felt a shiver of awareness when he said those words, astonished that after everything that had happened, she was with him now and he was telling her that. She turned slowly and sat up, wanting to see his eyes, needing to see if they echoed the sincerity of his words.
They were glistening with tears.
“I’m so sorry about tonight,” he went on. “The things I said to you. You have so much going for you. You don’t know it, but you do. I was just so afraid of losing you that I did something stupid and drove you away. That’s never going to happen again. Do you believe me?”
The earnest tone of his voice sent shivers between her shoulder. “Yes.”
“You told me you were looking for a man who was good and kind and dependable who would love you forever. I want to be that man.” He took her face in his hands, strumming his thumbs along her cheeks, looking at her as if she were the most precious thing on earth. “I love you, Bernie. Do you love me?”
