How To Pleasure A Playboy(29)

Shit. She was the one who'd gone head over heels, hadn't she? What a disaster.

"He has a warm soul," said Crystal.

"You aren't even a little angry with him for making you leave the Baxter?"

"I should have moved out a long time ago. I'm not sure how I got stuck,  but now I feel free again. Change is a good thing, even if you have to  be pushed into it."

Lacey put her glass down and sighed. "I wish my father would look at  things like that. Since he found out the Baxter was condemned, he's been  angrier than I've ever seen him. He had another of his seizures  yesterday, and he'd barely regained consciousness before he started  ranting again. I was hoping to take him out of the hospice and have him  at home, but the doctors say I can't risk it. He's getting worse  quickly. I'm not sure how much longer he's going to hang on."

"I'm so sorry. It's painful for you."

"Harder on him. It must be awful to feel angry all the time."

"A little anger can be healthy, but not like that. The poor man. I hope  you don't mind me saying that the kindest thing would be if he didn't  try to hang on too long."

Lacey swallowed. She'd had the same thought, but had pushed it away.  Losing her father was going to be difficult, whenever it happened. Fast  or slow, she wasn't sure she was ready to deal with that much pain.

"Are you okay, sweetheart?" Crystal reached across the table to take her hand.

"Yes. I just wish I could talk to Bronson about Dad, and vice versa."  She sighed. "But I feel disloyal wanting that much. Like I'm hurting Dad  all over again."

"Your father's not in his right mind. He used to be a good man and if he was still that person, he'd want you to be happy."

"If he found out I'd so much as talked to Bronson again, it might kill him."

"You have to do what's right for you. If he wasn't sick, he'd hate to know he was the one standing in your way."

Lacey pushed her glasses up her nose with the hand Crystal wasn't  holding. "Do you remember … " She hesitated and almost chickened out. But  she needed to talk about how ashamed she was. She had to drag it out  into the open, even if it made the woman who was like a second mother  think less of her.

"Remember when I was a teenager, I used to yell at him? You had to have  heard us. I think the whole city probably heard me screaming horrible  things at him." She dropped her eyes to their clasped hands, half  expecting Crystal to let go. "I told him I hated him. Not just once, but  all the time. I said such awful things I can never take them back, or  make up for it."

"Sweetheart, you were yelling at your father's tumors, not at him. You  just didn't know it." Crystal's voice was gentle. "Heaven knows I used  to think bad things too. He could be so unreasonable, he'd have made  Mother Theresa pull her hair out." She squeezed Lacey's hand. "This  illness of his has been a terrible thing, but it's nobody's fault. Not  his, and not yours. What will be your fault is if you don't forgive  yourself, or if you let it take away your happiness. What remains of who  your father used to be would hate that. That's the only thing he  wouldn't forgive you for."         

     



 

Tears pricked Lacey's eyes. How many tears could one woman cry? After  the last couple of days, she shouldn't have any left. Her ducts should  be as dry as the Sahara.

"Thank you." Her voice cracked.

"Oh, now, honey. Come on, give me a smile. We've got chocolate brownies, so how bad can things be?"

With an effort, Lacey managed a shaky smile. "They are nice brownies."

"That's better." Crystal gave her hand a last squeeze and let go. "Now, I  don't want to hear any more about letting your father stand in the way  of getting everything you want. You deserve it all. Take it from me."

"But Dad's only got a few months, at most. Probably not even that. I  want him to be as happy as possible in the time he has left."

"If you let that dazzler of yours get away, you might regret it for a very long time."

Lacey sighed. "Even if I didn't have a responsibility to my father, and I  ignored all the readers who'd never understand if they found out about  me and Bronson, there's still a really big problem."

"What's that?"

"When your husband was alive, did he put you first? And did he think  what you wanted was important? More important than making, say, a  brother or sister happy?"

"Of course he did. We were equal partners. We made all our decisions together."

Lacey nodded. "A few years ago, Bronson put another woman before a  family member and he's regretted it ever since. He doesn't want to fall  in love. He doesn't want to ever be in that situation again. If we  dated, I know I'd never come first with him. I want a man who'll see us  as equal partners. Not to be second best."

A small frown creased the old woman's brow. "Some things you can't compromise. You don't think he can change?"

"He doesn't want to."

"So what will you do?"

Lacey's phone rang, making her jump. She fished in her handbag for it.  "Speak of the devil. It's him." She pushed the button to send it to  voicemail, and stuck it back in her bag.

"You're not going to answer it?" asked Crystal.

"I can't, not if I want to get over him. Now you know why we can't be together. The best thing I can do is stay away."

The old woman stood up. "Then I'd better get us some more brownies."





Twenty-One





That week, for the first time in as long as he could remember, Bronson  went to his nightclub alone each night, without a woman or two to  accompany him. His clubs were still riding high on the publicity from  winning the bet, so he didn't care what the gossip columnists said about  his lack of female company. More important was that Lacey didn't see  him photographed with another woman and get the wrong idea.

Lacey wasn't taking his calls, so he'd stopped trying and was giving her  space. That didn't mean he'd given up. But all the obstacles that stood  between them had given him pause, and they needed time apart to work  things out.

Problem was, spending each night at one of his clubs wasn't what he  wanted to be doing. Sure, he had plenty to do there, getting to know new  staff members and talking business with the club managers. But he kept  remembering his nights at the Baxter with Lacey with a longing that  surprised him.

How could he prefer a damp, cold, cockroach-infested dump like the  Baxter to his state-of-the-art nightclub? The answer was obvious. It  wasn't the place he missed, but the woman he'd been with. Every night  since he'd left, he'd had to fight the urge to turn up at the apartment  he'd bought for her.

And now it was time for the Baxter to come down.

On the day scheduled for the demolition, Bronson arrived home from his  club at two in the morning, and got up four hours later to head to the  Baxter. Despite the fact that the sky was still dark and the winter wind  was bitterly cold, some of the crew were already erecting barriers and  warning signs around the building when he arrived. There was a lot of  preparation to do, starting with disconnecting all the services to the  building, and stripping out all the materials they could recycle.

By the time it was properly light, the entire work crew had arrived and  armed themselves with serious-looking sledgehammers and jack hammers.  Soon it was going to get very loud and very dusty inside the building.  But first, Bronson had something he needed to do.

He asked the team to wait while he went inside alone, and up the stairs  to Lacey's apartment. Crystal had warned him to check Lacey wasn't still  inside before he pulled it down, and even if she'd been only  half-serious, he wasn't taking any chances.         

     



 

But her apartment was empty, except for the enormous bookcase in her  living room, which somehow looked even bigger than he remembered. Why  hadn't Lacey taken it, whereever she'd gone?

Grabbing his phone out of his pocket, Bronson called Lacey's number one more time. It went to voicemail again.

"Damn you, Lacey," he muttered aloud, hanging up before the beep sounded  and a message could be recorded. "Why can't you answer?"

Should he save the bookcase in case she still wanted it? Perhaps she'd  left it because she hadn't been able to find a moving company prepared  to handle something so large.

Before going down to the street, Bronson wandered into the bedroom to  run his hand over the sizeable dent the bed head had made in the wall.  Plaster chips from the ceiling still littered the floor in this room,  and the sight of several cockroaches eyeing him from one corner made him  smile.

He and Lacey had enjoyed themselves in this room. But there had to be  something seriously wrong with him if the smell of still-damp plaster  could make his throat tighten with longing.

Being here was making him miss Lacey like crazy. From the way she'd  always tasted of chocolate when she got home from the library, to the  slight bookish smell of her crazy hair. The tiny dent in her cheek, and  the sharpness of her wit. Every day they spent apart, the ache in his  heart should theoretically get better. Problem was, it was getting  worse.