“Jealous?” God knows he was because she hadn’t answered his question. Except if there had been another guy, surely he would have been at the party with her tonight.
His conclusion wasn’t proof positive, but he took comfort in it all the same.
She snatched the paperweight from his hand. “I am tired, not jealous.”
Did he want her to be? No. He wanted honesty. So he settled for the same from himself. “I’ve spent the past twelve months pining for my ex-wife.”
As much as he’d meant to be a sarcastic joke, it hadn’t come out of his mouth the way he’d planned.
Confusion flickered through her dark eyes. “The way you say that, I can almost believe you. Of course I know better.”
“I thought you said we barely knew each other. We only spent a month together. And we spent most of the time in bed.” He sat on the sofa, stretching his arm along the back. “Let’s talk now.”
“You first.” She perched on the edge of the chair beside the sofa.
“You already know plenty about me. My family’s in the news and what you don’t see there you can find on Wikipedia.” He watched her chest rise and fall faster with nerves, lending further credence to his sense she disliked anything high profile.
“None of that information tells me anything reliable about who you are.” She counted on her fingers. “I remember you were always on time for work. You never talked on your cell phone when you spoke with the foreman on the site. I liked that you gave people your full attention. I remember you downplayed the Landis connection so well I didn’t even know you were related until three weeks into the job.” She folded her fingers down again. “But Jonah, that’s not enough reason to get married. Even with the divorce, we have a history now. We should know more about each other than our work habits.”
“I know you like two sugars in your coffee,” he offered with a half smile.
This didn’t seem the right time to mention he knew her heart beat faster when he blew along the inside curve of her neck. The sex part would have to wait.
Talking appeared to be the only way to get closer to her, so he would talk. “You want to know more about me? Okay. My brother Kyle got married recently.”
“You mentioned that already when you talked about their vows renewal.”
“They went to Portugal, which is how I ended up in Spain again.” Nostalgia had pulled him over there, the hope that if he revisited the places he’d been with Eloisa he could close the door on that chapter of his life. “The press doesn’t know the reason they renewed their vows so soon after saying them in the first place. They got married to safeguard custody of my niece, my brother Kyle’s daughter. Her biological mom dumped her on Phoebe, then disappeared.” Anger chewed his gut all over again when he thought of how close his niece Nina had come to landing in foster care. “The whole mess really rocked our family. Thank God little Nina is safe.”
“You love your niece?” she asked, her face inscrutable.
“Gotta confess, I’m a sucker for kids. I take pride in being the favorite uncle. Want to see pictures of the rug rats?”
“You carry family pictures?” she squeaked incredulously.
“Got a whole album on my iPhone.” He unclipped the device from his belt and tapped the screen until pictures filled the display. He leaned closer to her. “My brother Sebastian and his wife remarried after divorcing each other. They have a son.”
He brought up an image of his toddler nephew taking his first steps. Then clicked to an infant girl. “That’s Sebastian and Marianna’s daughter. They adopted her then her birth mother changed her mind.”
He swallowed down a lump in his throat and kept his eyes averted until he could speak again. “Here’s my brother Matthew—”
“The senator from South Carolina.”
“Yes. This is him with his wife and their daughter at the beach.” He shuffled to the next photo. “And this is a family portrait taken in Portugal. There’s Mom with her husband, the General, his three kids with their spouses and children.”
“Your family is huge.”
Her family wasn’t so small either, when taking into account her biological father and his three sons, but mentioning that didn’t seem prudent. “Christmas can be rather noisy when we all get together at the family compound in Hilton Head.”
“It’s amazing you can gather everyone for any event with all the high-profile commitments.”
“We make time for what’s important.” Would she see and understand that his family was about things more important than a press release or bank balance?
She leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms defensively. “Your brothers are happily married, which means your mother is probably riding your back to produce a happily-ever-after of your own with a wife and make chubby-cheeked cherubs, so you dig up me.”
Not even close to what he’d intended. He placed his phone on the end table by the glass paperweight. “That’s one helluva scenario to draw from a simple update on my brothers.”
“You’re not denying it.”
He was losing ground here and he wasn’t even sure why. “My mother may be a strong-willed politician in her own right, but I’m also very much her son, strong will and all. No one coerces me into anything.”
“Unless that influence comes from the bottom of a bottle.”
“I wasn’t drunk the night we got married.” He’d only had two of the local beers. “That was you.”
“Are you saying you actually wanted to be married to me?”
“I thought so at the time.”
Her mouth fell open, her eyes wide with horror. “You were in love with me?”
“The magnitude of your horror is positively ego deflating.”
She shoved up to her feet. “You’re playing with me.” She walked across the room and opened a closet full of linens. “I don’t appreciate your making fun of me.”
The way she so easily dismissed what had happened between them a year ago really pissed him off. Okay, so their wedding had been an impulsive mistake. His brothers had been getting married. He’d had this idea that what he felt around Eloisa resembled what his brothers described about finding “the one.” He may have been wrong about that. She may have had a couple of drinks, but she’d been clear about how much she wanted him, too, how much she’d needed him.
Need wasn’t love. But they had felt something for each other, something strong and undeniable.
“I would never mock you.” Frustration sliced through him with a razor-sharp edge. “There are far more interesting things I would like to do with you tonight. Let’s back up to the part about sex.”
She laughed. “At no time were we talking about sex.”
“You mentioned making cherubs.” Yeah, they were engaging in good old-fashioned bantering but damn, he found it arousing and a fine way to take the edge off his anger. “I’m sorry if your mother never got around to giving you the talk, but sex makes babies.”
Her face closed up again. “You’re not half as funny as you think you are.”
“I’m halfway funny? Cool.”
She dumped an armful of linens into his lap. “Make up your own bed on the sofa. I’m done here.”
He watched her grab her purse before pounding up the steps to her bedroom, and he couldn’t even rejoice over the fact she’d let him stay. Her door clicked shut behind her, the sound of a lock snicking a second later.
Somewhere along the line he’d misstepped. And he didn’t have a clue what he’d done wrong now any more than before.
Upstairs in her room, Eloisa sunk to the edge of her bed, sliding down to the floor. She clutched her knees, tears making fast tracks down her face.
Seeing Jonah touch that glass paperweight had almost driven her to her knees earlier. After she’d lost the baby four months into her pregnancy, she’d had a private memorial service all her own for her child. She’d taken a tiny nosegay of white rosebuds to the beach and let waves carry them away as she’d prayed.
She’d kept one rose for herself. The bloom had dried far faster than her tears. Then she’d had the bud encased in glass along with a couple of tiny shells and some sand from that stretch of shoreline.
Jonah obviously loved children, evident not just from his words but from the way his eyes had gone soft over that family photo album. Each beautiful baby’s face had torn a fresh hole in heart, tormenting her with what her child—hers and Jonah’s—might have looked like.
The doctors had told her it was just one of those things. There was no reason why she couldn’t have more children, but she couldn’t see any way clear to having forever with any man, much less starting a family.
Between fears about threats from her father’s enemies to even deeper fears about living out her mother’s legacy… Eloisa swiped her eyes with her forearm.
God, she was mess.
What would Jonah say if he learned she’d kept the pregnancy a secret from him?
She still didn’t understand why she’d delayed contacting him about the baby. She’d told herself she would let him know before their child was born. When she’d miscarried and her emotions had been such a turmoil of grief, contacting him seemed an overwhelming hurdle.
Every day that passed, it seemed easier to stay quiet. Telling him now wouldn’t serve any purpose.
Her cell phone chimed from inside her purse, startling her midsob. She definitely didn’t feel like speaking to anyone this late. Thank goodness the chimes indicated a text message.
She fished out her phone. Her sister’s name scrolled across the screen. Eloisa thumbed View.
R U home? Worried about u.
Eloisa clutched the phone. She’d never shared her burdens with anyone before. The secrets were too big, too deep. Unburdening herself would be selfish. She stifled back the crazy notion of what it might feel like to spill her guts to her sibling.
Eloisa typed out, Am home and ok. No worries.
She sent the message and pushed to her feet. She needed to splash water on her eyes and go to sleep. Would that be possible with Jonah downstairs on the sofa?
Her phone chimed in her hand. Audrey again.
What about tycoon hunk? Is he there?
She set the cell on the bathroom counter next to the sink. Her fingers hovered over the keypad. What should she tell her sister?
He was most definitely bothering her by his mere presence so much more than she could have even expected. But if she wanted time to figure out what to do about him, her father, her biology, she needed to play along with his bizarre game a while longer.
Beyond that? What did she want?
Eloisa looked at herself in a mirror framed with seashells and sand dollars. She picked at a strand of hair that had slipped loose from her severe ponytail, her face devoid of makeup. But her cheeks were flushed in a way they’d never been before—except for that too-short month in Spain.
The truth settled inside her with a resounding thud. She couldn’t be the sort of person who would walk into that living room, whip the covers off Jonah and say to hell with the consequences, she was making the most of her marital status. She’d gone that route before and it only led to their current mess.