Waking Up to You Overexposed - By Leslie Kelly Page 0,66
in love with each other?”
“I was single. I hadn’t been seeing anyone in a long time.... We’re best friends. I never envisioned...never thought I would...”
“Fall for someone else?”
A stark nod.
It was the closest she’d come to admitting she had feelings for him. He waited for her to say more, but she didn’t.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” he mumbled, still unable to follow everything. “Shane is the bachelor of the damn year—he could have any woman he wants. Why the hell does he have to have you?”
“He needs me. I...I understand him.”
“What’s that mean?”
She dropped her gaze, not meeting his eye.
Oliver continued to mull it over, until a thought began to form in his brain. It was small at first, a crazy possibility. But he focused on it, developed it. And while it shocked him, given the fact that he’d caught a couple of Thomas Shane’s movies and seen him in person, he finally had to ask, “Is he gay?”
She bit her lip even harder, refusing to say a word.
Oh, Christ. Now everything made sense.
He leaned his head back against the booth, looking up at the ceiling, wondering how things had ever gotten this screwed up.
Her lifelong best friend had asked her to help him hide his sexuality from the press and the public who would rip him apart over it.
That’s why she’d said yes. That’s why she’d told Oliver they could have only one week and he could never try to contact her afterward. That’s why she wouldn’t explain what her secret commitment was all about.
She was displaying all the character traits he most admired in a person—the ones he’d seen so little of during his years as a prosecutor. Loyalty, compassion, integrity.
Yet, right now, with his heart pounding over the fact that he really might lose her to a guy who could never make her body sing—and didn’t even want to—he wanted her to give up all those things. Break her promise, betray her friend, come away with him.
If she loves you, that’s exactly what she should do.
Maybe. But the choice had to be hers. He couldn’t ask it of her, couldn’t make things any more difficult than they already were.
He only owed her one thing: honesty about his feelings.
“What are you thinking?” she whispered.
He wrapped his hands around his coffee cup, realizing they were shaking when a little of the lukewarm liquid sloshed out.
“Tell me. Please.”
Unable to resist, knowing it might not matter, knowing it might even hurt her, he still went ahead and told her the only thing he could. The truth.
“I love you, Candace.”
She sucked in an audible breath.
“I don’t mean to hurt you, or make this any worse than it already is. But I love you.” He reached for one of her hands, catching it in his and holding tight, knowing he would soon have to let it go for good.
“Oliver, I...”
“You don’t have to say anything. I just thought you should know. Believe me, I want to fight for you, keep you, but I know I can’t. You’ve got to do what your heart tells you is right, and I can’t be the one who makes you betray a friend or go back on your word.” One more tight squeeze, then he released her fingers. “So I have to let you go.”
Tears were spilling from her eyes and running down her cheeks, and he wanted more than anything to take her in his arms and comfort her, kiss the tears away, assure her everything would be all right.
He didn’t, though. Everything wouldn’t be all right. He didn’t know if things would ever be all right for either of them again.
Knowing he needed to go now before he changed his mind and kissed her until she admitted she could never really leave him, he slid out of the booth and stood.
“Goodbye, Candace,” he said.
Stiffening his resolve, he headed for the door. But right before he exited, he heard her murmur his name.
“Oliver?”
He turned back and looked at her.
“I love you, too.”
Their stares met and locked, a thousand more words hung in the silence, questions asked and answered, promises offered and lost. All the might-have-beens held in that one long, steady stare.
Until he looked away, opened the door and walked out into the night.
* * *
CANDACE SAT AT the table at the all-night café until her coffee was cold and her tears had dried. The kindly waitress had brought her some tissues, patted her on her shoulder and then left her alone. She spent the next