“Well, as a matter of fact—” he clasped both of her hands in his “—I was thinking about that myself while golfing with my brothers.”
Her stomach twisted. So this was it. They would break things off and she would be back in Charleston with real memories to replace the fantasies. Except reality had been so much more amazing than any make-believe. “And your thoughts led you to what conclusion?”
His grip tightened on her arms. “What do you say we give it a try for real? No more pretending.”
She couldn’t have heard what she thought. Her stomach clenched tighter than his hold on her. “I think you’re going to need to repeat that because I’m certain I couldn’t have heard you correctly.”
He lifted her left hand and thumbed the bare spot. “Let’s keep the ring in place and get to know each other better, hang out—”
“Have sex?”
“I sure as hell hope so.”
Matthew’s resurrected grin left her in no doubt of how much he wanted her. Except she needed more than that now. She deserved more. “While you were golfing with your brothers, you decided we need to hang out more and have sex?”
“I’m not expressing myself well, which is damned odd considering I’m used to crafting the right sound bite—which should tell you something about how you screw with my head.” His smile went from charming to wicked in a flash of perfect teeth. “How about I try this again. Let’s get to know each other better, build a, uh…” He gestured for the word, his gaze scanning the boat-speckled horizon as if answers bobbed on the gleaming waters.
“Relationship. The word is relationship, Matthew.” It was tough for her to consider, too, but at least she could say the word without becoming tongue-tied.
“Yeah, right. That.” He skimmed a finger along his collar, which would have been understandable if he hadn’t been wearing a freaking Polo shirt with the top two buttons undone.
“Sounds to me like you’re describing sex buddies and sex buddies don’t exchange rings.” How odd that a few weeks ago, sex buddies would have actually sounded like a fun fantasy come true. Except now this ring screwed up everything because it taunted her with the deeper sentiments that she wanted—deserved—from life someday.
“What do you expect from me?” Matthew stared down at her, frustration sparking in his gem-green eyes. “Do you want me to say I love you? I’ve been in love before and it takes a while. I haven’t known you long enough to be sure about something like that.
But I can say that I think I could love you someday. So why break things off when there’s that possibility out there?”
Could love her someday? Talk about a rousing endorsement.
Then her mind hitched on one phrase to the exclusion of everything else he’d said. “You’ve been in love before?”
He went stone still.
“Matthew? Who was it?” She couldn’t resist asking, too darn curious about the woman who had managed to steal his heart.
“The press has linked you to plenty of women over the years and certainly speculated about more than a few of them recently, but nothing serious ever seemed to come of those liaisons. I think that’s part of the reason they’ve gone so snap happy over our fake engagement.”
“You’re probably correct,” he conceded, although still neatly dodging her question.
Her curiosity only heightened. She wasn’t sure why it should matter so much when she was determined to break things off.
She should be running for the door before her will faltered.
Still, she had to ask. “Then who is the woman? I think even my pretend-fiancée status gives me the right to ask.”
He started to reach for his collar again before dropping his arm to his side as he stepped around her to peer out the window.
“Someone I knew in college—Dana.” He stuffed his fists into his pockets, his jaw hard. “Dana and I became engaged unexpectedly fast and before I could introduce her to the family, she died.”
Her heart squeezed inside her chest with sympathy, and an impending sense of how he’d never been hers from the beginning.
“I’m so sorry.” She tentatively touched his shoulder, unable to resist offering comfort for those long-ago hurts. She knew well from her parents’ abandonment how long those emotional aches could persist. “It must have been horrible to lose her.”
“It was,” he said simply, but the two words carried more pain than any lengthy monologue could have. His muscles tensed under her touch.
“What happened?” she asked gently.
“She—Dana—had a heart defect, something rare that had gone undetected.” He scrubbed his hand over his face, his jaw flexing. Pain pulsed from him as palpably as if he’d shouted the words.
“You really loved Dana.” Part of her ached to comfort him. Another part, a new stronger piece of herself asserted she deserved that same intense love. She couldn’t accept being a second-best sex buddy.
Ashley stepped away from Matthew. She carefully placed her fairy-tale diamond and all the precious multi-faceted dreams it had held on to the bedside table. “I’m sorry, Matthew, this is just how it has to end—”
The phone jangled by her engagement ring, jolting her back a step.
Matthew hesitated, his eyes holding hers while the ringing continued. She waved him toward the call. She should call her sisters for a ride. They shouldn’t be too far away since they’d dropped her off less than an hour ago.
His eyes still narrowed and locked on her, he crossed to pick up the receiver. “Landis residence.”
She started to reach for her cell when something fierce in Matthew’s expression as he took the call made her hesitate.
No more than four thudding heartbeats later, he scowled and reached for the television remote resting beside the lamp.
“Right, got it, Brent. I’m tuning in now.”
He thumbed the remote, activating the flat-screen television mounted on the wall. What could the press have come up with on them this time? Pictures of them would be embarrassing but useless. Still she could see from Matthew’s frown this wasn’t happy news.
The TV screen blazed to life with a newsflash that was already in progress. A photo-inset box appeared in the upper right-hand corner behind the news-caster’s head, complete with a picture of Matthew at the golf course…
With his arm around a blond hottie plastered to his side.
Ten
“S o do we shoot him outright or do we torture him first?” Her expression fierce, Starr leaned her elbows on her restaurant table across from Ashley and Claire.
Ashley tried to shake free the numbed sensation still dogging her even two hours after the call from Matthew’s campaign manager. There had barely been time for Matthew to turn to Ashley and state, “The photos aren’t what you think,” before his family had begun pouring into the house for a troubleshooting session.
Sure he’d had an explanation about the water girl at the golf course throwing herself at him, which left him instinctively steadying her at an inopportune time since the press packed the parking lot. His brothers affirmed he didn’t know her—although unlucky for Matthew, his brothers had been in search of food at that particular moment.
He’d been so busy trying to convince her, yet the whole water-girl incident felt like nothing to her in comparison to his revelation about Dana. Ashley believed there was nothing to those golf-course photos.
Her problem boiled down to trust on a larger scale. The need to trust he could ever have deep feelings for another woman again. The belief that he could someday fall for her.
Her sisters had called almost immediately and turned around to come back to Hilton Head. Claire had told her—in a tone that brooked no argument—that they were on their way. Ashley had been more than grateful for the opportunity to escape the mayhem of campaign central working damage control.
Which was how she ended up in a dark back corner of an out-of-the-way seafood restaurant, wearing sunglasses and a ball cap.
Ashley scratched under the hat. She didn’t want her life “spun” anymore.
Starr dragged the bread basket over from the middle of the table, the pregnant woman’s appetite apparently insatiable. “So?
Quick death or torture?”
Claire unfolded and refolded her napkin precisely. “To think, the press missed the real story when they actually bought into that engagement story hook, line and sinker.”
Ashley snatched the perfectly creased napkin from her sister’s hands. “Who says it isn’t real? I never gave you any indication otherwise.”
“Oh come on, we know you.” Claire patted Ashley’s hand, still bare of the engagement ring. “You’re too much like me.
You wouldn’t get engaged to someone you didn’t know well.”
“You’ve never done anything impulsive in the romance department?” She waited to see how her sister would dodge that question since they all knew Claire had gotten pregnant in a one-night stand with a friend who was now her head-over-heels-in-love husband and father to their beautiful baby girl.
Claire raised a perfectly arched blond eyebrow. “Somebody’s not playing nice today.” She reached to the empty table next to them and snagged a new napkin. “But you’re forgiven because of the stress.”
Ashley struggled to shrug off the defensiveness. These were her sisters. She couldn’t lie to them anymore. Perhaps it was time she also stopped lying to herself.
She rubbed the bare spot where the engagement ring had rested. “It doesn’t matter now anyway. Matthew and I are over.”
Or rather Matthew had been trying to bring up the possibility of staying together and she’d cut him off short.
Claire studied her with a gentle concern reminiscent of Aunt Libby’s maternal care. “Is this about the suggestive photos?”
“The ones of me and him, or the ones of her and him?” Ashley crinkled her nose. “The one of him at the golf course actually doesn’t worry me beyond what damage it could do to his campaign. I’m certain the picture was a setup.”
And oddly enough, she was sure. She trusted him with physical faithfulness. Totally. He’d never been anything but honest with her, even when it hurt. She’d heard clearly enough in his voice how much he’d loved that woman from long ago, a real romance that concerned her far more than any manufactured one on the evening news.
Starr sagged back in her seat, tearing into another piece of bread while the other guests and televisions buzzed loudly enough to afford them privacy to talk. “I guess this means we don’t get to enjoy torturing your hunky senatorial candidate.”
Ashley allowed herself a half smile. “I would appreciate it if you took a pass on that this go-round.”
Claire patted her hand, her nail tapping the spot where the ring used to nestle waiting for a wedding band to complete the set. “Now your schedule is free and clear again.”
Ashley tugged the sunglasses off. To hell with anonymity. She wanted to see life clearly now more than ever. “Don’t worry, I will uphold my end of the obligations with reopening Beachcombers.”