Midnight Resolutions. Kathleen O'Reilly
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу Midnight Resolutions - Kathleen O'Reilly страница 14
Название: Midnight Resolutions
Автор: Kathleen O'Reilly
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
isbn:
isbn:
“Do you believe in it?” she asked him, her face serious and nervous.
“What’s ‘it’?”
“Fate.”
He could invent something really romantic and magical, something to make her sigh, but she’d probably heard all that before. Instead Ian went with the unremarkable truth. “In the past, I didn’t. I mean, I wanted to, but it never went my way, so it was a lot better for my mental health to think it wasn’t out there.”
“Why not?”
There were a lot of ways to answer that question. Ian chose the least incriminating. “There was this kid in third grade, Kevin Trevaskis, and his parents were a total pain because every year he stayed up waiting for Santa Claus and he never got any presents. But he still believed in this great concept of goodness, even though nothing ever came his way, either. I always felt sorry for that kid. At least, if your parents perpetuate the Santa Claus myth, you have those formative years to hang your hat on, but Kevin didn’t even have that. It was sad.”
“You didn’t tell him the truth?”
Now that he thought about it, it was becoming completely obvious that Ian had issues with truth, even as a young child. Yet now was not the time to dwell on past—and possibly present—indiscretions.
“Who am I to take away his hope? And before New Year’s I’d been thinking about Kevin, thinking maybe he had it right. What if we were the ones who had it all wrong? I went down to Times Square, drinking the enchanting elixir, because for one day, for one second in time, I wanted to believe in that hope, too. I wondered if I’d been missing out. Then I saw you, and I knew. Kevin was right.”
Rose turned a little pale, her eyes wide. Definitely fear.
“Why is that a bad thing?” he asked, not wanting to be insulted, but worried that once again, this was not going to end well, especially in light of Dr. Pediatric Perfection.
“Destiny implies an absence of choice. It means that my decisions, my choices, my words don’t matter. Somebody somewhere is playing chess, and I’m the pawn.”
Relieved, Ian exhaled slowly. “You don’t have strings. You just follow the open doors and see if you like where it leads.”
“Doors aren’t good. Doors can be shut.”
“Doors can be opened.”
“But you’re an idealist,” she pointed out. He’d never thought of himself as an idealist before, and she was wrong, but he liked that she saw him that way.
“So you don’t think this…is fate?”
“I’ve thought a lot about it since that night. I’m not a big romantic. But you make me want to believe in something nice.”
When he looked at her, he could see the ghost of Kevin Tre-vaskis. Hope and fear battling it out. Ian’s feelings were much more defined. Rose made him believe in a better road ahead, in soul mates bound by a single kiss—and then, of course, getting her naked, not specifically in that order. Prudently, Ian shook off the lust and then deflected the conversation to her.
“How come you’ve never married?” He couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that she’d stayed single, sexy and beautiful for this long.
Again she fiddled with the silverware, hesitating. Eventually she decided to trust him. Rose looked up, her eyes not so hard, now almost wistful. “I keep thinking that something better is out there. Like I’m missing out. You ever run up to the crosstown bus stop just as the driver’s pulling away, and you know that was your bus, but you can’t see the number, so you stand there for a minute, not sure if you need to start walking. That’s the way I feel about the men in my life. That I’ve just missed the bus, but I don’t know if I should start walking or wait for the next bus.”
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.