She thought she'd escaped until a hand on her shoulder whirled her around.
‘‘Shelly, please listen,'' Mark pleaded breathlessly, his shoulders heaving with the effort of catching up with her. ‘‘The engagement isn't official, because there isn't an engagement. How could I possibly marry Janice after meeting you?''
Chapter Ten
‘‘YOU BROKE OFF your engagement with Janice?'' Shelly demanded furiously. Something inside, some reservoir of emotion, felt as if it had burst wide open. ‘‘You fool,'' she cried. ‘‘You idiot!'' Her eyes brimmed over with tears and deep, deep inside her heart began its stirrings of glad excitement. ‘‘That was the worst thing you could have done!''
‘‘No,'' he said. ‘‘It was the smartest move I've ever made.''
‘‘How can you say that?'' she wailed.
‘‘Shelly?''
He reached for her as though to offer comfort, but Shelly jerked her arms away and stepped back, freeing herself from his grasp. ‘‘Janice was perfect for you,'' she lamented.
‘‘How do you know that?'' he asked calmly, much too reasonably to suit Shelly. ‘‘You never met her.''
‘‘I didn't need to. I know she was right for you. You'd never have asked her to marry you if she wasn't.''
‘‘Janice is a wonderful woman and she'll make some lucky man a good wife, but it won't be me.''
‘‘You're crazy to break off your engagement. Crazy!''
‘‘No, I'm not,'' Mark returned confidently. ‘‘I'm absolutely certain I did the right thing. Do you know why?''
Shelly could only shake her head, wiping away the tears with the back of her hand. She was ecstatic-and yet she was so frightened. She loved him, she was sure of it. Then why had everything become confused and difficult?
‘‘What you said about love the other day changed my mind.''
‘‘You listened to me?'' she cried in real horror. ‘‘Do I look like an expert on love? I've never been in love in my life!'' Not counting what she felt for him, of course. She'd always thought love would clarify her life, not make it more complicated.
Mark ignored her outburst. ‘‘You helped me understand that I was marrying Janice for all the wrong reasons. I'd decided it was time to settle down. Janice had come to the same conclusion. She's thirty and figured if she was going to marry and have a family, the time was now. It wasn't a love match, and we both knew it.''
‘‘This is none of my business,'' Shelly said, frantically shaking her head as if to chase the words away. ‘‘I don't want to hear any of it.''
‘‘You are going to hear it,'' Mark insisted, gripping her elbows and gently drawing her closer to him. ‘‘You claimed people shouldn't plan love. It should take them by surprise, you said, and you were right. Janice and I are fond of each other, but-''
‘‘There's nothing wrong with fond!''
His eyes widened in obvious surprise. ‘‘No, there isn't,'' he agreed, ‘‘but Janice isn't a zany video producer. I like spending time with you. I've come to realize there's a certain thrill in expecting the unexpected. Every minute with you is an adventure.''
‘‘A relationship between us would never last,'' Shelly insisted, drawing on the most sensible argument. ‘‘It would be fine for a while, but then we'd drift apart. We'd have to. In case you haven't noticed, we're nothing alike.''
‘‘Why wouldn't a relationship last?'' Mark asked patiently.
‘‘For all the reasons I listed before!'' Mark was so endearing, and he was saying all the words she'd secretly longed to hear, but nothing could change the fundamental differences between them.
‘‘So you aren't as adept in the kitchen as some women. I'm a fair cook.''
‘‘It's more than that.''
‘‘Of course it is,'' he concurred. ‘‘But there's nothing we can't overcome if we're willing to work together.''
‘‘You know what I think it is?'' she said desperately, running her splayed fingers through her hair. ‘‘You're beginning to believe there's magic in Aunt Milly's wedding dress.''
‘‘Don't you?''
‘‘No,'' she cried. ‘‘Not anymore. I did when I was a little girl … I loved the story of how Aunt Milly met Uncle John, but I'm not a child anymore, and what seemed so romantic then just seems unrealistic now.''
‘‘Shelly,'' Mark said in exasperation. ‘‘We don't need to do anything right away. All I'm suggesting is we give this thing between us a chance.''
‘‘There's nothing between us,'' she denied vehemently.
Mark's eyes narrowed. ‘‘You don't honestly believe that, do you?''
‘‘Yes,'' she lied. ‘‘You're a nice guy, but-''
‘‘If I hear any more of this nice-guy stuff I'm going to kiss you and we both know what will happen.''
His gaze lowered to her mouth and she unconsciously moistened her lips with anticipation.
‘‘I just might, anyway.''
‘‘No.'' The threat was real enough to cause her to retreat a couple of steps. If Mark kissed her, Shelly knew she'd be listening to her heart and not her head. And then he'd know … ‘‘That's what I thought.'' His grin was downright boyish.
‘‘I think we should both forget we ever met,'' she suggested next, aware even as she said it how ludicrous she sounded. Mark Brady had indelibly marked her life and no matter how much she denied it, she'd never forget him.
‘‘Are you forgetting you threw yourself into my arms? You can conveniently choose to overlook the obvious, but unfortunately that won't work for me. I'm falling in love with you, Shelly.''
She opened her mouth to argue that he couldn't possibly love her … not yet, not on such short acquaintance, but he pressed his finger to her lips, silencing her.
‘‘At first I wasn't keen on the idea,'' he admitted, ‘‘but it's sort of grown on me since. I can see us ten years in the future and you know what? It's a pleasant picture. We're going to be very happy together.''
‘‘I need to think,'' she cried, placing her hands on either side of her head. Everything was happening much too quickly; she actually felt dizzy. ‘‘We'll leave it to fate … how does that sound?'' she offered excitedly. It seemed like the perfect solution to her. ‘‘The next time we bump into each other, I'll have more of a grasp on my feelings. I'll know what we should do.'' She might also take to hibernating inside her apartment for a month, but she wasn't mentioning that.
‘‘Nope,'' Mark returned, slowly shaking his head. ‘‘That won't work.''
‘‘Why not?'' she demanded. ‘‘We bump into each other practically every day.''
‘‘No, we don't.''
He wasn't making any sense.
‘‘Street Suite was a setup,'' he informed her. ‘‘I made sure we bumped into each other there.''
‘‘How? When?''
‘‘The day at the beach I saw the play ticket sticking out of your purse. Our meeting at the theater wasn't any accident.''
Mark couldn't have shocked her more if he'd announced he was an alien from outer space. For the first time in recent memory, she was left speechless. ‘‘Tonight?'' she asked when she could get the words out. ‘‘The library?''
‘‘I'd decided to stop off at your apartment. I was prepared to make up some story about the wedding dress luring me into your building, but when I drove past, I saw you coming down the front steps loaded down with library books. It didn't take a whole lot of figuring to know where you were headed. I found a parking space and waited for you inside.''