A woman who could not take the place of, but be by his side instead of, his Meredith.
Maybe his grandfather was on to something after all. It was time to move on, and Anna might be the one to help him do it.
“Nah,” he said. “I won’t be missed that much.”
“They’ve called like ten times.”
“Yeah, well, they have everything they need.” He laughed, kissing her nose. “Stop making me feel guilty for missing work.”
He saw a cloud pass through her eyes, and he wanted to ask her what it was about when her cell rang next. It buzzed a few times on the nightstand before it went to voicemail. She didn’t look away from him. Then it started to buzz again.
“Do you need to get that?”
She rolled over, and he felt a sudden chill from where her body had been keeping his warm. She picked it up and muttered something, but Riley didn’t hear before she turned it off and set it back down. “Nope, nothing important.”
“Not about your mom?”
“Nope. I don’t expect to hear anything about her for a few days still. If at all.” She sat up and glanced around her room, lost for a second. “Are you hungry? I’m hungry.” She hopped out of bed and threw on a robe, leaving Riley to follow behind after he flung his jeans back on.
“Anna, you all right?”
“Yeah, just…there’s a lot going on and this right here…what is this?”
“A great Saturday afternoon that seems like it’s going to carry on into a great Saturday night.”
She shifted, wringing her hands, and Riley realized part of her didn’t believe this was happening. She was nervous, acted like he was going to walk out that door and never look back. He went to her and took her hands gently in his.
“Anna, listen, I have no idea what this is, but I’m not just going to run out of that door and never see you again.”
“And why should I believe you?” Her words turned bitter, and he understood too late that, just like he had been hurt by losing the love of his life in an accident, someone had hurt her before, too, and she had yet to recover. She pulled her hands out of his and stalked into the kitchen. “First he left me, then my dad died, and now Mom is losing her mind! I’ve been left to pick up the pieces in too many parts of my life. I haven’t let anyone in since then. Never.”
Riley ran a hand over his beard, hating the fact that he was still lying to her, but he couldn’t reveal the whole truth, not yet. But he could give her something so she would trust him. “Listen, Anna, that day at the cemetery, the things I needed to take care of…I was visiting the grave of my dead fiancée.”
Her eyes softened immediately. “What? Ben, I’m so sorry.”
“We were in an accident four years ago,” he said quietly, as the distant wail of sirens started to sound in his ears. He tried to stay planted in her apartment and not slide back to those horrible few minutes that changed his life forever. “Drunk driver hit us, or that’s what they said. But Meredith…she died at the scene. Never even made it to the hospital.”
Overwhelmed with emotion, he made his way to the couch and sat down, trying to steady his heart. Anna followed him and curled up on the opposite side. “I had no idea.”
“I wasn’t going to tell you, but I wanted you to know…I know what it feels like to have the world pulled out from under your feet.”
She scooted closer and reached for his hand. They sat like that for a few moments, both lost in thoughts of where their lives had taken them, each of them lost in futures that would quickly turn grim if they didn’t find a way to get free of them soon. Riley wanted nothing more than to tell her in that moment exactly what he needed from her. That he needed a wife so he could keep his fortune, but if he said a word, it would scare her off. No sane woman would ever agree to that after only one official date and a few rolls in a bed. No, Anna deserved more time before he tossed that at her feet.
And he would do his best to give it to her.
“And I just had a broken heart from some jackass,” she muttered.
He laughed and clucked her chin gently with his thumb. “Hey, a broken heart is a broken heart.”
“And you know what’s good for a broken heart?” He waited to see what she would do as she jumped off the couch and started to rummage through her cabinets, pulling out a box. “Brownies!”
***
They’d completely lost track of time. They’d made the brownies in between bouts of more love-making in the kitchen…and on the couch. Phoebe wasn’t sure what had gotten into her, but she just couldn’t seem to get enough of this man who’d stumbled into her life. She’d asked him about his grandfather, and they’d settled down on the floor of the living room, using whatever blankets she could find to make them a bed. There was a half-eaten plate of brownies nearby as they snuggled up next to each other, and he told her all about his life.