Six Weeks, page 11
But she saw the reality of the situation. The longer they were together, the harder it would be to part.
Drawing on all her vicarious acting knowledge, she got up and walked over to him.
Pressing her hand to his chest, she told him huskily, “I love you, Austen. I truly do. But I don’t think I will ever be able to give you what you want. I’m sorry, but our time is up.”
He started to speak, hurriedly, desperately, but she refused to listen. She picked up her purse and walked towards the door.
“Goodbye, Austen.”
Chapter Ten
Three months later
It was a big city. There was plenty of space to live, work and seek entertainment without running into any of your exes.
Except Jaya had a lot of exes.
One evening, as she was dining with a friend at a newly opened French bistro, she saw Austen enter with a blonde woman. He had his hand at the woman’s back to protect her from being jostled by the other people waiting for a table and somehow that small considerate gesture caused a great big lump to form in Jaya’s throat.
She kept staring, in spite of her friend continuing to talk. After a few minutes, Austen looked across the bistro and spotted her.
He leaned down, said something to his date, and they left a short time later, refusing the table the hostess appeared to be offering them.
Afterwards, Jaya could not get the look on Austen’s face out of her head. It was so blank. As if they were strangers.
She supposed now they were.
* * * *
“You behaved very badly, Jaya.”
If she’d expected sympathy from her aunt, she certainly wasn’t getting it. A nice lunch out at a trendy café, sure, but empathy wasn’t served along with the pistachio macarons.
“What was I supposed to do?” she asked. “I couldn’t give him what he wanted—namely, my finger imprisoned in a gold ring.”
“He would have waited,” Victoria King pointed out. “And I’m not sure he even needed the ring. He might have been content to live together for a while.”
Jaya pounced on the last words. “For a while. That’s how he would have seen it. His campaign would have continued the whole time, until I was left bloody and defeated.”
Her aunt smiled. “It’s not a battle, Jaya. If it were, you should have noticed my son lay down his arms a long time ago. He loves you very much.”
She sighed. “I know.”
“And you love him.” It wasn’t really a question.
“Yes.”
Victoria shook her fair head. “Maybe I’m too old now but I don’t understand where the problem lies.”
Jaya tried her best to explain. “He wants things I don’t know if I can ever give him.”
“You mean children?”
Mutely, she nodded.
“You can tackle that when it comes,” her aunt suggested. “You’re both young.”
“And what if we can’t agree then?” Jaya felt an ache she thought she’d left behind months ago. “I couldn’t handle that. I-I couldn’t.”
The older woman regarded her with the sympathy Jaya had inwardly accused her of lacking. “You’re afraid,” her aunt said. “That’s only natural.”
“It doesn’t make it any easier.”
Victoria reached out to take her hand. “Jaya, listen to me. Austen won’t leave you because of what you can or cannot give him. He wants you. All of you, freely given. If he has to force you, it will destroy you both.”
Jaya gulped. The big questions were still all out there in the future. Living together. Marriage. Children.
How could she possibly convince Austen to give her another chance, only to leave those battles ahead of them? The man would have to be mad to tackle them with her.
He…would have to love her. Very much.
* * * *
His secretary didn’t want to put the call through.
“I can take a message,” the immovable Kristy offered in a too-sweet voice. “He’ll get it when he returns.”
They both knew that was a line she used to pawn off clients Austen didn’t feel like speaking to. From her desk, Kristy could manage his direct line.
Jaya drummed her fingers over her desk. Was Austen sitting in his office, orchestrating this obstruction? Or was Kristy simply trying to protect him?
Coward, Jaya accused herself, not for the first time. At least she’d finished dialling the entire phone number this time around. She’d been too afraid of calling his personal phone and finding out her number had been blocked.
Giving up, Jaya said, “I’ll send him a text.”
“Please do that,” said Kristy, right before she hung up.
Oh God, what was she supposed to put in a text message?
* * * *
We never did put the past to bed.
That was the whole of the message he received—except for the time and place.
Tonight. 9 p.m. The Cat’s Whiskey.
Austen pretended to struggle with himself, but he knew he would be going. He supposed Jaya knew it, too. The terseness of the text seemed to suggest so. No ‘please’ or ‘thank you’. No ‘I’m sorry for breaking your heart’.
It was his own fucking fault. He’d made it a dare. He’d told her she would never get the chance when, at the time, she’d already had his heart secured in the palm of her hand.
I’m going for more pain. Worse, he was going to listen to a proposition for peace and a cordial future relationship—put forward, perhaps, for the ostensible benefit of his parents.
His hand tightened around the steering wheel. If she uttered the word ‘coz’, he would not be able to control his anger. Seeing her with another man at that bistro the other day had nearly caused him to put his fist through the restaurant wall. The wall had been brick.
Leaving his car in an underground lot which accommodated overnight parking, he walked the last few blocks to the bar. It wasn’t quite eight-thirty. He was early.
He wasn’t the only one.
His steps slowed as he spotted Jaya through the bar’s smoke-coloured windows. She was seated alone at the bar, her dangling legs bare beneath a short skirt, nursing a large glass filled with amber liquid.
She looked…beautiful. And lonely.
Austen watched as another patron seemed to come to the same conclusion and stroll up to where Jaya was sitting.
He saw her glance up, a smile on her face which soon faded when she saw…what? What the man looked like? Or the fact that it wasn’t him, Austen?
He watched the pantomime of their conversation, which was short but ended with the man leaving with a faint, rueful smile.
How did she do that? How did she manage to rebuff unwanted advances so cleanly and efficiently?
He knew the answer, of course—practice. She’d had a lot of practice shedding dates, boyfriends, would-be suitors.
What category was he in?
Blanking off all expression from his features, he pulled open the door and strode into the bar.
Jaya didn’t look up as he approached.
He sat down on the stool next to her. She looked up then and everything which had been missing when she’d previously glanced up at the stranger was there in her face now. Relief, hope, happiness…concern? For him or for herself?
Did she think he was angry? He wasn’t. Not anymore.
His heart was drumming a fierce primal rhythm in his chest. He was nervous. But her text had given him reason to hope, too.
Austen opened his mouth and said in what he strove to sound like a normal voice, “What do you need, kiddo?”
“What do you need, kiddo?”
The cool question caused Jaya to blink back sudden tears. Half a lifetime seemed to have passed since she’d last heard those words and she wanted nothing more than to fling herself into Austen’s arms and shower him with kisses and apologies, although he looked remote and more than a little intimidating in his grey suit obviously leftover from the workday.
He hadn’t changed for their meeting. That meant he was probably working too hard. Usually he insisted on a change of wardrobe to delineate business from pleasure. His suit fit him too loosely. Had he lost weight? She searched his pale face. He looked like he was putting in long hours under fluorescent office lights. His features were lean and austere, his set jaw prominent.
She fought down the urge to soothe the intense expression from his face.
Apologies wouldn’t cut it. There was a lot more to unpack between them.
“Hello, Austen,” she said huskily. “Can I get you a drink?”
The words were politely formal. Soulless. But she wasn’t quite sure how else to tackle their meeting.
Part of her was surprised he’d shown up. He hadn’t responded to her text. To be fair, she hadn’t given him a chance to reply. She’d been too afraid of what that reply might be. She still remembered his empty expression that time at the restaurant. Kind of like his expression right now.
When the waiter came over, Austen pointed at her glass. “Same for me, thanks.”
His eyebrows lifted as he watched the man retrieve a very expensive bottle from the top shelf and pour out a triple.
“It looks like I have some catching up to do.”
“Do it fast,” Jaya told him. “This is my second.”
He wrapped his hand around the glass but didn’t lift it.
“Will getting drunk make this conversation easier?” he asked quietly.
Putting down the glass she’d been in the act of raising to her lips took effort.
“Scotch courage,” she said with a wry smile.
Austen pushed his drink away. “I prefer to take whatever you have to say sober.”
After a minute of marvelling over his exquisite self-control, she asked, “How do you know what I have to say?”
His lips quirked, the tiny movement making her insides flutter. “I know you’ve been talking to my mother.”
It was an oblique answer, one to which she didn’t quite know how to respond.
After watching her squirm, Austen seemed to be willing to fill in the blanks himself. “We’re in love with each other so she doesn’t see the problem. She believes that, in time, you will accept the ring and the baby carriage because that’s what most women want, because that’s what she wanted.”
Jaya smiled shakily. “Neither of our parents got their baby carriages the traditional way. My parents were fairly old when they adopted me. Your parents—and you yourself—were even older.”
Austen turned his head away, giving her only his bony profile. “I was older too. I remember my past life. You don’t. You were too young.”
It wasn’t an accusation, but it still made her feel guilty. She only knew a normal family with happy, ordinary parents. She only knew a life with him in it.
“I was lucky,” she said. For both her parents and for him.
He picked up his glass and took a hefty swallow before replying. “Yes. You were lucky.”
“I was lucky to have you in my life, too,” she told him. “My protector. My partner in crime—”
“Reluctant accomplice would be more accurate,” he said drily.
“My advocate when my crimes were found out,” she finished. “If you hadn’t taken most of the blame for our escapades as kids, I would probably still be grounded.”
Austen stiffened almost imperceptibly.
What did I say?
“I should have let you serve your sentences,” he said slowly, watching her. “Having you locked up in your room is nearly as good as tying you to my bed.”
“Austen!” she gasped, not in the least bit afraid. More like thrilled…and turned on.
“But tying you up isn’t going to get us anywhere,” he went on. “What did you want to talk about, kiddo?”
Jaya wasn’t so easily distracted. “If you recall,” she said, peeking at him from beneath lowered eyelashes, “my text didn’t say anything about talking.”
A hard flush rose in his lean cheeks. “Rather a dangerous booty call,” he remarked. “If that’s what you were alluding to in your message.”
“You came,” she pointed out.
“Not yet.” He smiled. “But I’m willing to live dangerously for you.”
It was an admission. No, a compromise. Instability scared him, just as promises of forever frightened her.
Now it was her turn to give a little.
“I want to talk about the future,” Jaya told him. “When we’re ready.”
“When you’re ready,” he corrected her. He paused for a second or two. “That’s fair.”
Relief flooded through her. “I’m not making any promises.”
“Yes, you are,” he said. All of a sudden, he sounded very firm. His courtroom voice, she instinctively recognised with a shudder. “You promised to talk about our future together when you’re ready. That’s already decided. Now, what about our present?”
Her thoughts on the present hadn’t progressed much further than wondering which of their apartments was closest to their current location.
“What about it?” she asked, striving to sound as cool and business-like as he did.
“I want to live together,” he said. “I suggest you keep the current lease on your apartment but after it ends, I anticipate you will be ready to give it up.”
Panic replaced her previous relief.
Had she actually thought this would be easy? Well, no, she hadn’t. But she had believed it was getting easier.
“My lease is up in less than three months,” Jaya told him. “I have to give my notice to renew or vacate in less than two. That’s not enough time.”
He drummed his fingers against the top of the bar and said nothing. He wasn’t going to help her this time.
“It’s a nightmare to find an apartment in this city,” she murmured.
“I’ll tell you what,” Austen said, “if you want to break up with me, I’ll move out. You can sublet my place for exactly what you’re paying now. I’ll have a junior draw up an agreement for us.”
Her objection was swept away, just like that. She suspected if she were to think up another one, he would do the same with it. He was trained to find holes in other people’s arguments and he was great at what he did.
“Any other concerns?” he asked in that smooth velvet voice.
Jaya shook her head.
He stepped off the stool. “Then let’s go home. We can do the rest of our talking in bed.”
* * * *
Jaya was as nervous around Austen as if it were their first time together. She squirmed in the passenger seat of his car. She fidgeted. She fiddled with the contents of her purse, putting on powder, lip gloss, neither of which she needed.
When they arrived at Austen’s building, he got out of the car, handed his keys to the waiting concierge and helped her out of her side. As soon as she was standing, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her hard.
“You’re mine,” he told her in a low rough voice. “Promised and given. If you think I’m going to let you go after this, you don’t know me as well as you should after all these years, my darling love.”
Jaya sighed. ‘Darling love’ was much better than ‘kiddo’.
The sigh turned into a startled gasp as Austen reached down and swept her up in his arms, carrying her into lobby.
Gregory waved and grinned as he saw them go by.
“See?” Austen murmured. “Gregory knew how this would end.”
End. That word was worse than ‘forever’. That word was final.
“Austen…”
He stepped into the elevator with little more than a brief glance at her face. “Shut up.”
Jaya waited until they were at his door to respond.
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
Austen put her on her feet in order to unlock the door. “Nothing good, I could tell. More doubts and hesitation. More obstacles.” He stepped back to let her enter the condo. “Do you honestly think you’re the only one with doubts?”
Surprised, Jaya turned back to stare at him. “Do you have doubts about us, Austen?”
His mouth twisted. “About us, no. About the rest of the future, hell yes.”
In a daze, she walked through his condo—soon to be her home. Looking at it that way made her see it with a more critical eye. It was too flat, the colours too muted. The living room need a pop of colour to relieve all the beige wood. A bit of glitter, perhaps, like gold cushions. Gold and green.
“Say something, sweetheart.”
‘Sweetheart’ was nearly as nice as ‘darling love’.
Turning to him, she said, “I want us to live together. I can see it now. It’s scary but it could also be wonderful.”
He came over swiftly to take her in his arms. “It will be wonderful,” he promised, gazing down into her upturned face. He kissed her mouth as if he couldn’t help himself. “But you have to accept that I’m nervous too. I’ve never lived with a woman. I’ve never wanted to. I only know that I want to live with you. I want to marry you.”
Jaya was silent, taking this in. The idea grew less frightening every time he said it. Maybe, one day, it wouldn’t be scary at all.
“What are you nervous about then?” she asked.
“My past,” he said. “My genes. Did I inherit bad parenting from my biological parents? Will I expose our children to that awful family legacy?”
Jaya knew some stories about his background but not everything. The awful legacy he spoke of was obviously built on his own experiences and trauma.
Her heart aching, she pulled his head down for a long passionate kiss.
When they drew apart, she whispered, “I know you will be a great father. The only legacy that matters is the King legacy and the Buchanan legacy—and they were all good parents.” She smiled suddenly, remembering a similar sentiment he’d all but shouted at her. “Your family is me, Austen.”
