Not that there was any guarantee that Amanda was still staying here, he told himself viciously. There was nothing to keep her here, after all, nothing even to keep her in Atlanta. She could be in Boston, for all he knew.
The thought gave him a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach, one that underscored his lack of control in this situation and made him absolutely crazy. She’d been in rough shape when he’d left her—how was he supposed to live the rest of his life not knowing if she was okay?
“Hey, Simon, you all right?” Mark asked, eyeing him nervously.
“Yeah, fine.” He yanked his focus to his friend with difficulty. “Why?”
The other man gave him a look that said he wasn’t fooling him for a second. That was the problem hanging out with journalists—their bullshit detectors were so much better developed than most people’s. Not, he supposed, that his friend actually needed that meter when Simon was acting like a total and complete maniac.
Forcing a calmness he was far from feeling, he spent the next few minutes acting as normal as possible—which meant he ordered a drink and food and only craned around his friend three times to get a better view of the lobby.
“So, are you serious about going to Yemen next week?” Mark asked him, once the waitress had brought their drinks.
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be? The revolution’s really heating up.”
“I don’t know. We just got back from covering the earthquake in Baja. I thought we were going to be in town for a couple of weeks, doing some local stuff. That’s what we talked about.”
It was what they’d talked about, when he had tried to arrange his schedule to spend as much time as possible with Amanda. Now that that option was off the table, he was almost desperate to get on location. Desperate to get away from the memories that seemed to haunt his every waking hour.
Still, he knew Mark had a family, unlike Simon and the other members of his crew, all of whom were young and anxious to see the world. “If you want to stay behind, I understand. I can call in a favor, get you assigned to someone local for a while. I’m sure the network would be okay with that.”
“I thought you’d already used up all your favors with that overnight plane ride to Somalia.”
Simon looked away. He so didn’t want to go there. “I’ve still got a few up my sleeves.”
Mark shook his head. “That’s all right. I don’t really want to work with anyone else.”
“Yeah, but if you need to be at home—”
“It’s fine. My wife knew what she was getting into when she signed on.”
Yeah, but knowing what to expect wasn’t the same as actually living it. Or at least, that seemed to be Amanda’s complaint from the other night. The same complaint she’d used when she broke their relationship off almost eight years earlier. She wasn’t willing to subject their daughter to his near-constant absences. He wondered if Mark was getting some variation of that talk at home these days.
“Look,” he said, trying to be as honest as he could without giving too much of his past away. He and Mark had been friends since he took this job, but that didn’t mean he wore his baggage on his sleeve for the world to see. “You’re a great cameraman, the best I’ve ever worked with. But your daughter is only going to be young once. You don’t want to miss it all. I’ll understand if you want to put in with a domestic crew, one that doesn’t travel as much.”
“I only have a few more years to do this before I promised my wife I’d give it up,” Mark told him firmly. “I’m not going to cheat myself out of the career I want, the career I can have, just because she wants me home more. We had an agreement. So, Yemen, here we come.”
He reached for his iced tea and took a long sip, making it clear that the conversation was over.
Simon let it go, and they spent the rest of lunch talking about the Yemen trip, other things going on at work and the Braves, who were having another crappy season. Yet even as he carried on his side of the conversation, Simon couldn’t help thinking about what Mark had said.
It was like listening to himself eight years ago, and he wondered if he had sounded as put-upon, as aggrieved, as selfish, as Mark. Or was that his guilt putting a different perspective on the way he saw things now?
They were getting up from the table to head back to work when he saw Amanda, or a woman he thought was her, crossing the lobby at a quick clip. Not even bothering to make excuses to Mark, he took off after her, desperate to reach her before she stepped onto the elevator.
Except, as he got closer, he realized she couldn’t be Amanda. This woman was wearing a flirty green dress and strappy, high-heeled sandals. She had an expensive haircut that showed only a hint of curl and glowed with vitality. He could see her only from the back as she waited for the elevator, but he must have been mistaken.
He was about to turn away when he caught her scent. Freesia. The fragrance went straight through him, had him hardening before he could even try to control his reaction to her. “Amanda?” It came out softer than he’d planned, but she must have heard him, because she glanced behind her with a questioning look.
One that turned into a genuine smile when she realized who it was. “Simon. What are you doing here?”
Waiting for a glimpse of you, like a lovesick idiot. He almost spit out the words, but bit his tongue at the last second. At least he hadn’t lost all control of his vocal cords. “I was having lunch with a friend when I saw you walk by.” No need to tell her he’d left Mark at the restaurant with his mouth open.
“You look great.”
She flushed a little, as if she was embarrassed, and the color did amazing things for her face. It chased away the last of the shadows and made him remember, so clearly, the woman he had fallen in love with all those years before.
“Thanks. I’ve been…making an effort.”
“It’s paid off.”
The elevator dinged and the doors slid silently open. “Yeah, well. We’ll see.” She smiled at him again, then stepped into the empty car. “I guess I’ll see you.”
“Yeah, sure.” He wanted to stop the elevator, wanted to climb in beside her and make her talk to him. But she’d made her position clear and he was going to respect that. Even if it killed him.
The elevator doors slid shut, and he turned away and walked back to Mark. The look on his colleague’s face said he’d seen the whole thing.
“Old friend?” he asked.
“Something like that.” Simon kept his expression neutral, even as he called himself every name in the book. He’d been a total idiot to run after her like that. What had he been thinking? That she would actually want to talk to him? After she’d kicked him to the curb almost before he’d gotten his pants back on?
What a joke. He had to get some control over himself. Of course, he had learned something from seeing her again. Amanda wasn’t wasting away in her hotel room as he’d feared.
Mark was talking as they headed out onto the street, but Simon was too wrapped up in his own head to hear him, or much of anything else. It was obvious Amanda had moved on. Now he needed to do the—
“Simon! Simon!”
He kept walking, not even registering that someone was calling his name, until Mark grabbed his arm, stopping abruptly.
Ignoring the muttering of other pedestrians as they tried to get around him, Simon didn’t have eyes for anyone but the woman in the emerald dress racing toward him.
“I’ll meet you back at the office,” Mark said drily, and Simon nodded, because it was expected of him, not because his brain had managed to interpret anything the other man had said.
“I didn’t think I was going to get off that elevator in time. I swear, it hit every floor going down.” Amanda stopped breathlessly in front of him.
He looked at her in confusion. “Why are you talking about the elevator?”
She shook her head, eyes sparkling. “I have no idea.”
He waited, but she didn’t say anything else, just stared at him for long seconds. Final
ly, when he couldn’t take the silence any longer, he asked, “Did you want something?”
“Actually, yes. I know this is strange, since I’m the one who said goodbye, but I was wondering… I closed on a house today, over on Magnolia. Would you, maybe, like to come over for dinner and help me celebrate?”
He stared at her blankly as he tried to make sense of her words. “You bought a house? Here in Atlanta?”
She nodded. “I did. I know, it seems a little crazy, but I like this city. I can see myself trying to build a life here.”
“Do you have a job?”
She shook her head. “Not yet. I’m trying to take things slow.”
“Yet you bought a house?” He knew he sounded incredulous, but he couldn’t help it. He was having a hard time wrapping his mind around the idea that Amanda was putting down roots in Atlanta. He’d lived here over a year and still hadn’t even thought about moving out of his utilitarian apartment.
Her smile dimmed and her eyes lost a little of their sparkle. “Never mind,” she told him. “It was a stupid idea—”
“No. I’d love to come.” He reached for her hand, squeezed it tightly. “You know me, I was being an ass. But I would really like to see your house.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
She was smiling again, riffling through her purse until she came up with a pen and a scrap of paper. “Here’s the address. And my new cell number in case something blows up somewhere in the world and you have to cancel.”
He took the slip from her. “I won’t cancel.”
“Okay, then.” She nodded, looking suddenly nervous. It was a good look for her. “I guess I’ll see you around seven, then?”
“Seven, it is.”
“Right. Well, then—” She took a deep breath. “Bye.”
It was his turn to shake his head as he gently clasped her elbow, turning her around. “I’ll walk you back to the hotel.”
“You don’t have to do that. Really, I—”
He placed a finger over her mouth and her eyes went wide and smoky. “I’ll walk you back to the hotel,” he told her firmly, and this time she didn’t argue.
“So, tell me about the house,” he said.
She laughed. “It’s a wreck, kind of like me.”
“You’re not a wreck,” he said, running his eyes over her from top to toes.
“Yeah, well, appearances can be deceiving. Anyway, I fell in love with the house at first sight, if you can believe it.”
Oh, he could believe it, all right. Twelve years wasn’t long enough to forget what that first strike of lightning felt like. He cleared his throat. “I look forward to seeing it.”
“Good.” She glanced up. “Well, here we are.”
“Yes. Here we are.” Jesus. He was repeating every word she said like a damn parrot. He stepped away, let his fingers drop from her elbow. “I’ll see you tonight.”
Then he turned and walked away before he could do something stupid, like bend her over backward and kiss her the way he’d been dying to since the moment she turned to face him at the elevators.
Yemen trip to prepare for or not, he suddenly had the feeling that it was going to be a long, long, long afternoon.
WHAT HAD SHE BEEN THINKING? Amanda asked herself for the thousandth time as she looked around her decrepit kitchen. She’d invited Simon over for dinner when the house was a disaster, she had no furniture, and she didn’t even have a kitchen to cook in. At least, not a functioning one. The remodeling company was due to come in tomorrow morning and start the process that would fix all that, but it definitely made it difficult to put dinner together tonight.
Oh, well, what was done was done. Out of desperation, she’d settled on picnic fare.
Not that this was any big deal, she reassured herself, as she spread out the quilt she’d bought that afternoon on the scarred wood of the dining-room floor. It was sunny-yellow, with twists of lavender and green, and it had made her happy to look at it. Which was why she’d ended up buying it—she’d wanted to start out her new life in this house with something sunny. Something that made her smile.
She also wanted to start out with something meaningful, which was why she’d chased Simon down that afternoon. Good or bad, their relationship carried more meaning for her than anything else.
That was why she’d invited him, she reassured herself as she went back into the kitchen and gathered up the things she’d bought for dinner. Not because she was stupid enough to think anything could come of this dinner. Not because she’d missed Simon these past few weeks, though she’d tried her best not to. And certainly not because she was planning on doing something so stupid as falling for him. That ship had sailed long ago, and she had no intention of ever making that mistake again.
And even if she’d been crazy enough to imagine that things might possibly work out between them, his reaction that afternoon, when she’d told him she’d bought a house, would have cured her of the insanity. If she hadn’t known Simon better, she probably would have been hurt by his reaction—he’d looked horrified at the idea of her living so close to him. But she did know him, certainly enough to understand that his horror wasn’t about her proximity, but about her rash decision to put down roots. For Simon, signing a six-month lease was a commitment of massive proportions. Buying a house—even one she’d paid cash for—was way beyond the limits of anything he could wrap his brain around.
Which was why she’d broken things off with him so many years before. She hadn’t wanted—
Amanda cut her thoughts off before they could go any further. She wasn’t going to think about that tonight. This was a celebration and she was going to treat it as such. Enjoy this new milestone in her life and let everything else fall by the wayside. At least for a little while. If she kept doing what she was doing, kept putting one foot in front of the other, then everything was going to be all right.
For the first time in her life, she had nowhere she had to be. Nothing she had to do. No one but herself to take care of. And if that last thought caused a little hitch in her chest—or a huge one, for that matter—then she was the only one who needed to know about it. She was going to put on a happy face and enjoy the hell out of her new life. Fake it till you make it. That was her new motto and she was sticking to it.
Dropping to her knees on the lush quilt, she spread out the food she’d bought. A crusty loaf of bread, some rich Brie that oozed warmly as she didn’t have a refrigerator yet, green and black olives, pasta salad, fresh strawberries. And a bottle of champagne she’d been chilling in a small ice chest.
The plates were paper and the cups plastic, but somehow, she thought it would be a fitting celebration, anyway.
The doorbell rang just as she was popping a strawberry into her mouth. She glanced at her watch. Five minutes until seven—she was counting on at least fifteen more minutes before Simon showed up. But he’d obviously turned over a new leaf.
Or, in his way, he was trying as hard as she was to make this night special. Her stomach tightened a little at the thought, so she took a couple of deep breaths until it relaxed again. She could do this, she told herself, as she walked toward the entryway. It wasn’t that difficult. Really, it wasn’t.
By the time she’d reached the front door, she even believed what she was saying. Or at least she did until she opened the door and saw Simon standing there, a huge bouquet of flowers in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other.
Her first thought was that he looked more handsome than any man had a right to. Her second was that she didn’t stand a chance of keeping this simple. She tried to quash that thought as soon as it came to her, but it was difficult when Simon was giving her that half smile of his—the one that always made her a little giddy, even when she wished it wouldn’t. Especially when she wished it wouldn’t.
Damn it. She was doing okay. Making an effort. Yes, Gabby was still the first thing she thought of in the morning and the last thing she thought of at night, but it was getting be
tter. She’d started to remember the good times with her daughter instead of only the bad. Had begun to allow herself to remember what it felt like to be hugged by Gabby—warm and sweet and slightly sticky—and the way her daughter’s little hand had felt clasped in her own. It wasn’t huge progress, but it was something. After all, she wanted to cry only five or six times a day now, instead of five or six hundred.
Which was why she needed to keep doing what she was doing. What she didn’t need was to invite Simon in again, to leave herself vulnerable to him. Because no matter how many promises she made to herself about not making the same mistakes, the fact of the matter was, with Simon, she always did.
As she stared at him, Simon’s smile faded, replaced by a look of uncertainty that was so unfamiliar she almost didn’t recognize it. “Is something wrong, Mandy?” he asked.
His old nickname went through her like an electric current, delivering a pleasant warmth. And burning other parts of her to a crisp, she reminded herself viciously, because that’s what electric shocks did.
“Mandy?” he asked again, and this time he reached for her. “What’s wrong?”
Pulling back before he could touch her, she forced herself to snap out of whatever bizarre time warp her brain kept trying to slip into. Holding the door wide, she said, “Sorry about that. I’m still a little off sometimes. Come on in.”
He crossed the threshold, handed her the flowers. They were freesia—her favorite.
“I thought you had changed your mind.”
She smiled sadly. “Only about a dozen times or so since this afternoon.”
He didn’t laugh, as she’d intended. Only nodded as if he knew exactly how truthful she was being.
“When you said you’d bought a house, I didn’t realize you meant one of these,” he said, looking around the large antebellum house with interest. “I thought you went for more modern architecture.”
“Usually, I do. But something about this place…” She shrugged. “I fell in love with it the first time I saw it.”