Valentine's Day. Nicola Marsh

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СКАЧАТЬ That was what she wanted. That was what he wanted, too. But in the back of her mind she knew this had to be his mother. Gathering all her strength, she pushed back and startled him into noticing.

      “It’s going to be your mother,” she panted, pulling her clothing together. “You’d better take it.”

      “I’ll call her later,” he muttered, kissing her again.

      “No, Max. You’ll hate yourself if you don’t take this call.”

      It took another minute for him to come to his senses, but when he did, he rose and took the phone call. She sat on the couch and smiled as she listened to their conversation. It was in half in Italian, but she understood every word and every emotion. As Max explained about Jamie, the astonished joy on the other side of the Atlantic was easy to feel. It was a good night.

      And a lucky phone call. If his mother hadn’t interrupted, she might have made love with Max. Her willpower had eroded beyond usefulness for a moment there. She had it back now. She knew it would be crazy to make love with a man, no matter how much you loved him, without some sort of plan or commitment. And she had neither. So she was going to give him one last kiss and go off to her bed—alone. Sighing, she turned and prepared to do just that.

      * * *

      Cari was juggling baby bottles and Jamie the next morning when her phone rang. It was Mara.

      “Did you have a nice Valentine’s Day?” she asked hopefully.

      Cari smiled into the phone. “It was wonderful.”

      “Good. I’m so glad we fixed that.” Mara sighed happily. “So, where did you and Randy go last night?”

      It had been a while since she’d talked to her friend. Her heart sank as she realized Mara didn’t have a clue as to what had been going on. How was she going to tell her?

      “Mara, I didn’t go out with Randy.”

      There was a shocked pause, then Mara cried, “What? But I talked to him and he said…”

      “If he said he was out for Valentine’s, he must have been out with C.J.”

      “C.J.?” Her voice was rising. “Who is C.J.?”

      Mara was sounding a bit tightly wound at this point. Cari tried to use a soothing tone.

      “You remember about C.J. She’s the other woman in the big mix-up.”

      “Oh. Ah. And so I imagine you were out with the other man?” She was back to being hopeful again.

      “Yes. Max Angeli.”

      Mara laughed. “Okay, I can hear it in the way you say his name. You’re in love, aren’t you?”

      She never gave up. Cari was halfway between laughter and outrage.

      “No!”

      Mara nagged at her for another twenty minutes but, Cari wouldn’t break down and admit it, not even to her best friend—even though she was very much afraid it was true.

      And if it was true, just what exactly was she going to do about it?

      There wasn’t really much she could do. Max had told C.J. he wouldn’t marry her last night, but in the bright light of morning, she couldn’t take that seriously. She knew him well enough by now to know he would do anything he had to do to heal his mother’s heart. And that was one of the things she loved about him.

      She gave Jamie a bath and cleaned his room and put him in an adorable baby suit. But all the while, her mind was on the facts, and the facts were stubborn things.

      She had to face them. She had to be realistic. Max had a lot of affection for her. He enjoyed being with her. And he definitely wanted her in his bed—he’d made that perfectly clear. But he’d never said one word about marrying her, had he? He hadn’t even contemplated that as much as he had contemplated marrying C.J. Marriage of any sort did not seem to be on his horizon.

      He’d made it clear from the beginning that he wasn’t the marrying kind. And she’d told him much the same about herself. Too bad she’d changed her mind. He obviously hadn’t.

      And no, she couldn’t see herself as a paid mistress, traveling to Venice with the family, being with Max as long as his interest lasted, then segueing into the role of nanny once he’d moved on to someone else.

      Ugh. That picture didn’t fit at all. There was no way she could live her life like that. Painful as it was, she was going to have to withdraw from the field. There was no other way.

      But how could she leave Max? She knew now that she loved him. And how could she leave Jamie? She loved Jamie almost as much as she’d loved Michelle. Well, she’d survived losing her own baby. Now she would have to develop ways to live through losing Jamie—but with a broken heart that might never be repaired.

      She tried to talk to Max about it the next day when he came home for lunch. He brought in burgers in a sack and they sat down at the dining-room table to eat out of cardboard containers. She mentioned a few things obliquely at first, venturing carefully into the subject, but he dismissed it out of hand.

      “I’m not marrying C.J.,” he stated firmly. “I’ll find another way to get the ranch. And I want you here with Jamie. That’s all there is to it.”

      She licked her lips and tried to think of a way to make him understand. “I think I should go. I have a feeling you would be better able to negotiate with C.J. if I was out of the picture.”

      He was astonished and not very happy to hear this theory. “I don’t want you out of the picture. I need you in my life.”

      “Max, there’s no room for me in your life. It’s already too crowded in there. You’ve got too much going on as it is.”

      He dismissed that with a wave of his hand. “Cari, C.J. is irrational. She wants things that cannot be. Whether you are here or not, she is still going to want those things.”

      Cari shook her head, looking troubled. “I don’t know. I think my being here puts her back up and makes her more rigid in her demands. If I were gone she might be more reasonable.”

      “Yes, but I wouldn’t be,” he noted dryly. “If you were gone, I’d be a bear to live with.”

      He was teasing and not really taking what she was saying seriously. She could understand that. He didn’t want her to go, so he was rationalizing that it was for the best that she stay. But she felt she could see things a little more clearly. She had to go.

      Max left for a meeting with the lawyers, and she called Mara and got the number of the person she used for babysitting. Calling her, she made arrangements for the woman to come right over and begin taking care of Jamie. Then she went into the nursery and pulled out the velvet box with the necklace and bracelet inside. She looked at it for a long moment, sliding her hand over the surface. Then she pressed it to her cheek and closed her eyes, remembering how it felt to dance with Max while a guitar played in the background. It had been a wonderful night she would never forget. But it was over. Bracing herself, she walked briskly into Max’s room and left the velvet box on his dresser.

      She СКАЧАТЬ