How had he gone wrong, he wondered, fiercely aware of her sitting just across the smooth, polished surface of the conference table. Somehow, he’d failed miserable. Failed her, failed himself.
For a time, he’d believe he was breaking through her barriers, building trust with her. But that illusion had been shattered when he’d come home to her note. He hadn’t managed to break through crap with her, obviously. She’d come to a vulnerable point and run like a coward. Run like a woman who feared for her life.
“…this graph shows the sector we’re reaching….”
Forcing himself to keep his hands still, Jared resisted the urge to drum his fingers on his knee. This damned charade was killing him. All he wanted to do was leap across the table, take her by the shoulders and shake her till she admitted she loved him.
Of all the people in the world, Kelsey had the biggest, bravest heart. Why didn’t she trust herself, trust her heart?
Not for a moment did he believe her supposed pregnancy had driven her from him. It was something else, something that eluded him. If he could discern the problem, he could fix it. But his lonely, sleepless nights, spent prowling the apartment while going over every step of his failed campaign in his head, yielded no answers.
He’d have been more angry with her if he thought she even knew the question to be answered. In truth, his beautiful wife seemed even more miserable than he felt.
Throughout the meeting, she’d been sitting silent, her tense, somber gaze on the blank notepad in her hands or fixed glassily on Brinkman. Since Brinkman wasn’t a riveting kind of guy, Jared concluded she must think the man at the head of the table was the safest place to train her gaze.
Following her example, Jared brooded on Brinkman’s tie and wondered again what his next step should be. Giving up on her had never occurred to him. He was just so miserable he couldn’t concentrate enough to find the right angle, the optimal way to overcome Kelsey’s issues.
Hell, he didn’t even know why she thought she’d had to leave. That bullshit about Doug and Amy was a screen.
His stare still fixed on Brinkman’s silly cartoon tie, Jared felt her gaze touch him like the warm stroke of her hand. He sat there a moment, assessing the sensation, knowing she’d lifted her gaze to him. From the corner of his eye, he saw the strained expression on her face.
Deliberately, Jared looked her full in the face, catching her startled glance and holding it for a long moment. In that one look, he poured everything—his understanding of her anxieties, his determination to win her over.
As much as a man could promise with a look, he promised. This wasn’t over. It couldn’t be over.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Kelsey unlocked her office door and the scent of roses surrounded her. Vases of the flowers were everywhere—on her desk, on the file cabinets, on the floor. Every corner of the room was filled with roses, dozens and dozens of them in every color until the small space looked like a floral stall at an open-air market.
The smell of foliage and refrigerated petals was over-powering.
Her heart thudding, Kelsey stepped into the room, carefully shutting the door behind her. This would draw comments from her co-workers and she just didn’t want to hear them yet.
As romantic gestures went, a room full of flowers tended to make a woman’s knees go weak.
Crossing the room, she lifted the single rose lying in the seat of her desk chair. A folded piece of paper lie beneath the solitary bloom. She lifted the blood-red thing to her face, the petals soft against her cheeks. Closing her eyes as tears welled, she held it cradled there.
If only. If only it were true. If she could only believe in all the implications.
The folded sheet of paper crackled in her hand as she opened it, wiping the back of a hand across her eyes.
This is crazy, he’d written. I miss you. Can’t you give our arrangement another chance? We agreed to a year. Come home.
Disappointment threatened to choke her. It smelled of roses and terror.
He said nothing of love, nothing more than “come back.” She had an office full of man’s favorite way to get around a woman. More manipulation. And typically, he’d done it big.
Dropping the flower into the trash, Kelsey sank into her chair. He wanted her to come back, wanted her in his bed, his life…for the rest of the year he had coming.
Living with him and knowing the end would come would be like going willingly into the mouth of hell. She couldn’t.
***
“Doug proposed?” Kelsey gasped, surprise pushing back the gray misery surrounding her. “Right there in the street?”
“Yes,” her sister sighed, her eyes misting over at the memory. “I’d given up on him. Truly, I’d even accepted a date with that guy who works two floors down.”