The Promise of Change - By Rebecca Heflin Page 0,84
I be? I’m flattered, actually.”
She shrugged. Before she could articulate a response, he pulled her face around to look at him, his hand cradling her neck. His eyes were troubled. She tensed in reaction to his knitted brow.
“Sarah, at the risk of scaring you off . . .”
Her tension increased ten-fold. He drew in a deep breath, as if preparing to take a plunge into deep water.
He’d waited too long to tell her, and could wait no longer. It didn’t matter whether she could return the sentiment or not. “I love you. I think I’ve loved you from the instant we met, your hand covered in beer, your eyes snapping with indignation.” He chuckled softly.
“And from the moment we kissed goodbye that night at Rutherford to this moment, a day has not gone by that I didn’t think about you, miss you, hope that you were happy . . . even if it meant you weren’t mine.”
Sarah stared at him, her eyes wide with wonder and shimmering with tears. She’d never expected to hear those three words.
She let them sink in. She’d fallen in love with him during that short week a year ago. Had loved him all along; and loved him still more now; knew it with the certainty with which she knew she needed to breathe.
She grazed her fingers across his lips. He shivered. “Alex. I love you.” She wrapped her hand around his neck, drawing his mouth down to hers.
“Sarah . . . aside from the tabloid article, what precipitated your . . . um . . .”
“Cowardly retreat?”
“Yes, well, retreat. There had to be more to it than that, although I confess, seeing your photo like that for the first time can be somewhat disconcerting.”
“Alex . . .”
“I want to know . . . so in the future, I can avoid doing whatever it was that I did.” He wore that boyish grin she loved so much.
As they walked along the moonlit gravel path of their favorite garden, she thought about how to respond to his question. “What if I told you it was nothing you did?”
“I’d still want to know what it was that made you throw a wobbly that resulted in a miserable twelve-month separation.” He stopped and turned her to face him, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
She swallowed hard. Then took a deep breath. “When Adrian and I were married, we traveled in loftier social circles. Later, when we separated then, divorced, the dirty laundry associated with it became quite public, subjecting me, not him,” she said, laughing contemptuously, “to ridicule and catty remarks.”
She dropped to a garden bench to finish. “I swore I would never allow myself that kind of public scrutiny again. When I saw our picture, my picture, in the tabloid along with the article calling me the other woman, I panicked.” Tell him everything, she admonished herself. “But that’s not the only reason.”
“What’s the other reason?” His voice was flat, his brow knitted.
“There was an article in the International Herald that morning.” She pulled her knees under her chin, wrapping her arms around them.
“I don’t understand. About us?” His face was wary.
“No. It was just a story about how Adrian had saved a Saudi Prince’s sight and about his upcoming wedding.”
“And, what, you were regretting your divorce, you were jealous?”
“No.”
“Then you need to explain, because I’m feeling a little uneasy.” He frowned, deep in thought. “Sarah, I need to know . . . if there is still something there, because I don’t do anything by halves, and apparently that includes love. If you don’t feel the same way I do, please tell me now so I know what to expect.”
“First, I love you in a way I never thought possible. In a way I never loved, nor ever could love Adrian. Second, there is nothing there. I haven’t seen or heard from Adrian since our divorce was final a year-and-a-half ago.”
She paused, afraid that what she was going to say wasn’t going to make him feel much better. “Something you don’t know about my marriage to Adrian . . . we’d only dated a few short weeks before he asked me to marry him. This impetuous behavior was completely out of character for me, and look where it ended . . .” she trailed off.
It dawned on him, “And you saw our relationship as a potential repeat performance.” He frowned again.
“What I thought was . . . I don’t know what I thought. My reaction was