The Forbidden Twin(28)

Seven o'clock came. Eight. She dimmed the lights and curled up on the sofa.

He wasn't coming. Apparently he'd thought about what she said in the  note and made his decision. Except that he'd told her he would call, one  way or the other, and he hadn't, and he was usually a man of his word.  Maybe she had been too pushy, her expectations too high.

But he'd called her, too, wanting to talk. He'd said so. What did it all mean?

At 9:35 p.m. she cancelled room service and turned a chair to the  window. Headlights dotted the nightscape as a steady stream of traffic  passed below her. They blurred into ribbons of light, red one direction,  white the other. Horns honked. Life went on.

But not hers.

Why didn't he want her? Was she too much trouble? Maybe she'd been too  bold, undermining him as a man. Maybe he thought she was high  maintenance, someone who brought too much drama into a life.

Okay, perhaps she'd stirred his life up a bit, but she wasn't exactly a  drama queen. She hadn't changed him. He was still the cool, calm person  he'd always been.

Maybe that was the crux of the problem. She was too intense. He was too calm.

Fire and ice. Good for a sexual relationship, but not for life.

She looked blindly around the room, aching disappointment drifting  around her. How could he just blow her off like that? Okay, so she  hadn't exactly encouraged him since Summer had discovered them, had  actually discouraged him. But he was big on courtesy. He should have at  least let her know he wasn't coming. He'd said he would. He was a  promise keeper.

Unless he was hurt?

She laughed at the idea, the sound brittle, and wished she'd ordered the  champagne to be delivered anyway, so she could toast her fertile  imagination. She'd seen An Affair to Remember too many times, that was  all. And she'd heard the siren earlier. It had stopped right in front of  the hotel, hadn't it? Had it been an ambulance?

"Right, Scarlet. He was looking up at the hotel and was hit by a car on his way to meet you."

Frustrated, she walked to the window again and looked out, resting her  forehead against the cold pane. She just wanted-needed-a reason for why  he wasn't there, that was all. Because her imagination put him in an ER  somewhere, bleeding, barely conscious, calling her name, since in some  way it was preferable to him ignoring her.

And that was her wake-up call. She grabbed her things, then left for  home, wanting nothing more than to curl up in her own bed, and never see  the Ritz-Carlton again.

In her car she rolled down her car window, felt the chilly air against  her cheeks as she drove, trying to erase the memory of the night. The  short drive seemed infinite yet instantaneous.

She reached the town house, hit the garage door opener and saw the spot  where she usually parked her car, gaping and empty-a glaring reminder of  the state of her life.

Some welcome home.

                       
       
           



       

John clutched a Glenfiddich on the rocks in one hand, his first of the  night, and a ring in the other, not missing the irony of the déjà vu  moment and wishing he was as close to drunk as the other time.

A small scraping sound made him turn toward the front door. Something  flat and white lay there. He slipped the ring into his pocket, walked  over, picked up the envelope. Finally, Scarlet's envelope had arrived.  Instinct made him open the door, because the doorman would've called  first.

A woman stood at the elevator, her back to him. There was no mistaking her this time.

"Scarlet?"

She spun around. "I thought-" She hesitated, looking confused. "Your car is gone."

"It's in the shop." He waited for her to approach, but she didn't, which confused him.

The elevator door opened. She looked into the empty cavern then didn't step inside. The doors closed quietly.

He opened the envelope and pulled out a piece of paper. "Obviously we don't want the same things," she'd written. "Goodbye."

That was it? The big mystery in the envelope? She'd already said  goodbye, when she'd returned his apartment key. So what did this goodbye  mean? She'd changed her mind, but had changed it again now?

"Come in," he said.

"I'm comfortable here."

Leave it to Scarlet to make everything a challenge. She kept him on his toes, and fascinated.

John held up the paper. "I don't understand. What do you want that I don't?"

She pushed back her shoulders as if gearing for a fight. "I had wanted to continue our relationship."

"Continue in what way?"

"As we had. Just spending time together."

As they had? "In private?" he asked, bewildered. "Snatches of time  during the week when we can find it? Maybe an overnight on Saturdays? An  occasional weekend away?"

"Yes."

He studied her. It wasn't what he'd expected. He'd thought she would  either cut him off altogether as a sacrifice to her relationship with  Summer or demand more of him. At the least he'd figured she wanted the  one last time in bed they'd missed out on when Summer had surprised  them.

"Nooners?" he asked, stepping into the hall.

She flinched. "Everything the same as it was the past month," she said.  "Except this time with everyone's blessings, which they gave."

"Even Patrick?"

"I think he's mellowing."

John didn't have time to consider the implications of that. "No," he said.

Silence stretched out for days, it seemed.

Finally, she jabbed the down button.

A door across the hallway opened, and his neighbor looked out, eyeing the both of them.

"Sorry, Keith," John said to the man, taking quick strides to get to  Scarlet before the elevator arrived and she was swallowed up by it. His  neighbor shut his door.

In a low voice he told Scarlet, "I'm not interested in that proposition, tempting as it sounds on a base level."

"I figured that out already. No has no alternate meaning. This conversation is over."

"Not even close. But unless you want my neighbors to hear the rest of  it, I suggest you come inside." He put his hand on her arm, urging her  toward his apartment.

"There's nothing more to say."

"There's a helluva lot more to say."

After a moment she went along, although jerking free of his grasp. She walked directly to his couch then didn't sit.

"May I take your coat?"

"I won't be here long." She crossed her arms.

"I'm missing a piece of the communication puzzle, Scarlet. You act as if I should've known what you wanted."

"If you'd shown up at the hotel, you would know."

"What hotel?"

She looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. "The Ritz-Carlton, of course."

"Of course," he repeated without any understanding. "I was supposed to be there, I gather."

She narrowed her gaze. "It was in the envelope."

He glanced at her note. Had she lost her mind?

"Not that envelope," she said. "The other one."

"This is the only one I've received."

"But … it was delivered five minutes after we talked. The courier confirmed it."

He stared at her, baffled. "At my office?"

"I told you it was coming." Frustration coated her words and stiffened her body.

"My father dropped by. He needed to talk to me about some family  business, so we went to the bar next door. I called my doorman and told  him to contact me when-" He paused. "I assumed you would send it here."                       
       
           



       

"I didn't."

He'd gone crazy sitting at the bar with his father, waiting for a call. "Sit down, please. Can I get you something to drink?"

She shook her head then perched on the sofa, her hands clenched on her  knees. John sat in a chair opposite from her. He wasn't alone in his  loss for words. A comedy of errors, he thought, but not funny at all.

"You're wearing one of your new suits," she said after a moment. "It looks nice."

Avoidance. She was trying to regroup. What was in that envelope, anyway? "You were right. I got compliments."

"Why are you still dressed up?"

He ignored her question. "What was in the other envelope, Scarlet?"

"A key card for a room at the Ritz."

"And when I didn't show up, you thought I'd left you high and dry? Do you know me at all?"

She looked out the window. "I didn't know what to think," she said into the quiet.

"Why didn't you call?"

"Because if you were intentionally ignoring me, I didn't want the humiliation."

"So you came in person instead?" He smiled at her, not quite following  her logic but appreciating how much her emotions were involved.

She stood abruptly. "This isn't going anywhere. Let's just call it a day. A month. Goodbye, John." She headed toward the door.