“Then we’ll have to hurry, won’t we?” He was already unbuttoning his shirt as he rose from the chair and stepped toward the bed.
Her eyes widened, then twinkled. “Yes, I suppose we will,” she murmured, setting the nail polish aside and opening her arms.
He was lowering her to the bed when they both heard the sound of a foghorn. Andrew covered Nicole’s lips with his own and reached out to turn off the radio.
Nicole smiled against his mouth and pulled him eagerly closer.
ANDREW HELPED Nicole carry her bags to her car the next morning. Appropriately enough—at least in his mind—it was a gloomy day. Heavy gray clouds hovered low overhead. A cold wind moaned around corners and cut through layers of clothing. The air was heavy and damp, warning that the predictions of snow had a good chance of coming true.
Nicole slammed the lid down on the overloaded trunk of her little car and turned to Andrew. She shivered in a leather bomber jacket that was too thin for the frosty temperature. It bothered him that she never dressed warmly enough. It would be a wonder if she didn’t come down with pneumonia or something, he fretted. And who would take care of her when she was all alone in a tiny apartment?
Biting his tongue to keep from voicing the comment, he reminded himself that Nicole didn’t need anyone to take care of her. She was as capable of taking care of herself as anyone he’d ever known. Damn it.
“Well,” she said, her smile a shade too bright, her eyes not quite meeting his. “I guess I’m ready.”
“You’re sure you have everything?” You’re sure you want to do this?
“Yes, I’m sure,” she replied airily, and he almost fancied she was answering both the spoken and unspoken questions.
He nodded and shoved his hands into the pockets of his warm, down-filled jacket. His face felt frozen into an expressionless mask, though he wouldn’t have wanted to say whether it was from the cold or his determined efforts to hide his feelings from her.
Don’t leave me, Nicole. I don’t want to go back to being a robot.
“Drive carefully,” was all he said.
“I will.” She took a step closer to him, rising up on tiptoe to brush a kiss against his unsmiling mouth. “Thank you for all you’ve done for me, Andrew. I’ll call you when my phone’s installed, okay?”
He nodded, his voice lodged behind a lump in his throat. He was aware that he was showing little emotion, that he probably looked as though he weren’t at all affected by her leaving. He knew an outside observer would think him detached, unfeeling. Ashley, for example, had never understood that his inability to express his emotions hadn’t meant that he had none to express.
He and Nicole weren’t saying goodbye. Maybe, with time, he could persuade her to return. He would be patient, undemanding, give her all the room she needed until he thought the time was right to approach the subject. He would court her—patiently, logically, conventionally. How long should he wait before it would be appropriate to propose to her? Six months? A year? Two? Assuming, of course, that she didn’t drift away from him long before that much time had passed.
He shivered, but it had more to do with the cold, gray bleakness inside him than the frigid January weather.
Nicole had her hand on the handle of her car door. “I’d better go. It looks as though it could start snowing at any minute.”
His fists clenched in his pockets. He took a step backward, putting more space between them.
Nicole searched his face one more time, her own expression hard to read, and then she drew a deep breath and opened her door. “See you, Andrew.”
He watched without moving as she climbed behind her wheel, snapped her seat belt, started the engine and drove away from him.
She was gone. She’d departed his life as quickly as she’d entered it. And she’d taken with her all the warmth and color and joy that she’d brought him for such a brief time.
He turned toward his house. Back to his quiet, lonely life of tediously predictable routines. His house wasn’t exactly empty, he reminded himself, climbing the steps with heavy feet. His housekeeper and his cat waited inside for him. Both had been watching him all morning with rather disapproving looks that seemed to ask him if he was really just going to allow Nicole to leave.
Hadn’t she known that he hadn’t wanted her to leave? Would it have made any difference if he’d actually asked her to stay?
He had his hand on the doorknob. All he had to do was open the door and step inside. And he couldn’t do it.
He didn’t want to go inside. Nicole wouldn’t be there.
For the second time in as many weeks, Andrew acted entirely on impulse. He turned on one heel and bolted down the stairs, digging in his pocket for the key to his Range Rover.
DRIVING MORE SEDATELY than Andrew, Nicole had just passed the security gate when he caught up with her. With her turn signal blinking, she was sitting at the busy intersection on the other side of the gate, waiting for an opening to pull onto the street that would take her away from Andrew’s neighborhood.
He rammed the heel of his hand against his steering wheel, blowing his horn to catch her attention before she drove away. He saw her
look into the rearview mirror just as he shoved his vehicle into park and jumped out of it, leaving it parked in the entranceway to the security gate.