Chapter 85

Two months later, Rachel was still kicking herself over that one night with him that had left her unhinged for weeks afterward.   It wasn’t that she regretted seeing Jon or spending time with him, because that had been the point of the breakup – to preserve the good things about them.  The evening had been pleasant and enjoyable all the way up until she had made the horrific mistake of touching him – kissing him.

There was no one else to blame but herself.   She should have known that the man who had stolen her heart could easily destroy the tenuous glue that held the broken pieces together, leaving behind jagged holes.    

Again.

In an act of self-preservation, Rachel had vowed to not subject herself that risk until the pieces were firmly bonded together with Super Glue.  She wouldn’t feel safe until then. 

That’s why when he’d called twice, asking her to repeat their dinner, she had declined both times.  The last time had been only a month ago and she been forced to steel herself against his casual charm, telling him it wasn’t a good thing for her.  That had been followed by reminding him of the day they broke up and his assurance that he would respect her wishes. 

Jon hadn’t been happy.  He had ended the call with a sharp, “You got it!” and she hadn’t heard from him since.

It was only a few days later the house had sold to a cash buyer and the escrow time period had barely given Rachel time to pack her personal belongings.  It had taken eighteen of the twenty-one days to get her few remaining things packed and make arrangements for them to be shipped back to California.

The terms of this particular home sale had dictated that all furniture and furnishings were to remain with the property, which had made her packing job easier, but  they’d even asked for the barista machine Jon had given her for Christmas.  She’d managed to get excluded, but virtually everything else stayed – dishes, pots and pans, even the bath towels and linens.  Every escrow had some little quirk to it, and this was no exception.  If the buyer wanted the last square of toilet paper, the bank was happy to cooperate.  

That left only a couple of suitcases with the essentials, and those were now loaded into the back of her SUV.

Her  final walk through the house she had considered home for over a year now complete, Rachel found herself in the large kitchen/family room.  It was the place where most of her life with Jon had been lived out.  Morning coffee, casual dinners, cocktails and everything in between had been enjoyed in this room – by  the fireplace in the winter and on the deck in the summer. 

Memories were everywhere, reminding her of the dining room scene at Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion.  The ghosts of a precious past danced in every corner, occasionally clasping hands with apparitions of the future that might have been.  The visions were heart-wrenching and painful to ‘watch’, but she still wondered how on earth she was going to be able to walk away.

And as hard as that would be, it was going to be near impossible to say goodbye to Jon.  It would be so much easier to take the box of belongings that he’d never collected and drop them outside his front door, but Rachel wasn’t callous enough to do that.  She knew she couldn’t just drive off into the sunset without a word to him. 

So, it was with a deep breath and a final nod to their past that she switched off the lights and walked out the door.  The only time she turned back was to lock it tightly behind her and, if she hadn’t been so distracted by the dread of going to Jon’s house, the drive out of those unreliable gates might have broken her heart.  It was a mixed blessing that she had already moved on to the agony of seeing him one last time. 

Her knuckles went white on the steering wheel as she turned into his driveway, the box of his things taunting her mercilessly from the passenger seat.  The late afternoon sunshine that had been a beautiful mixture of not-quite-summer and not-quite-fall a few minutes ago now felt like a blowtorch of heat beating through the driver’s window.  It burned uncertainty into the set of her shoulders.

What if he’s not home?!?!

She hadn’t thought this through very well, otherwise she wouldn’t have waited until the last minute to see him.   The gates to his house had been open, but that wasn’t a good indicator of his presence on the property as they were often open.   Jon had always been determined not to live in a prison and his fans, for the most part, were exceptionally respectful of his privacy.   

Rachel gently depressed the brake pedal and shifted the car into park in front of the French-style mansion he called home.  In that moment, sadness washed over her with an intensity that she hadn’t known since the early days after the accident that took her husband and children.  It bordered on despair – or  panic – with  a distinct aftertaste that she recognized as nausea.

It had no more bubbled up into her throat when there he was – before she could change her mind and run like a coward.   Standing beside the car with his arms folded and a guarded expression on his face, the man who had made her heart both soar and sink had appeared of nowhere.  He didn’t miss a single thing with those sharp blue eyes as she pushed open the door and stepped out of the car.  

As her foot touched the driveway, the first tear touched her cheek, suddenly and surreptitiously.  She hadn’t known she was anywhere close to crying, but by the time the car door closed not only was she crying, but Rachel had worked herself up into a full-blown sobbing mess.  It was as if her body couldn’t physically hold one more unshed tear and every painstaking one of them chose this moment to spill down her face in a river of despair.  

When Jon first saw her from the portico as she pulled down the driveway, he’d had mixed emotions.  It annoyed the living shit out of him that his heart skipped a beat with excitement, but at the same time he was furious with her.  

The last time he saw her it was obvious she still felt something for him, but Rachel cut him off after that night and refused to see him again.  He didn’t know which made him craziest – the fact that he couldn’t get her off his mind or the fact that no matter how many other women he slept with, he couldn’t get her out of his heart.

By the time she’d stepped out of the car he’d forgotten all the crazy, kinky things he’d done to try and banish her memory.   

Once the tears had become obvious, every bitter thought he’d ever had was gone. 

Rachel wasn’t a crier and he was a sucker for the softer side of her.  Well, he was a sucker for any side of her, if he was honest, but the vulnerability factor was off the charts today and all he could do was wrap his arms around her. 

It wasn’t a conscious decision to thumb the tears off her face, it was just instinct.  But once he had her face in his hands, all those other instincts took over and before he knew what happened, he was wrapped up in a kiss that was anything but gentlemanly.

Rachel felt his hands brush through her hair before he gripped her head so firmly it almost hurt. 

Everything hurts, she thought. 

It hurt to be with him, it hurt to be away from him… Somehow the way his teeth clinked painfully against hers was a relief.  If she was going to feel pain at least it was in his arms on the receiving end of his kiss. Tangible pain was preferable to the gut-wrenching longing she’d felt all these months away from him.  

The voice that kept screaming she had a plane to catch was forced out of her head.  Just a few more moments in his arms and then she could tell him goodbye. 

The yo-yo of her emotions was frustrating.  She felt like she had the proverbial angel on one shoulder and devil on the other.  It wasn’t that she was ignoring the devil who kept reminding her that she loved him, but loving him had never been the issue - living with him was. 

The angel of self-preservation whispered that nothing had changed, and this business of giving into lust and passion only to pull back was making her crazy.  It was time to leave and when she was gone, it would be easier.  He wouldn’t be there to tempt her, making her feel like a tease. 

That little angel brought rational thought with it and Rachel pulled back, out of the reach of his lips.  “I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t have done that.” 

But, really, the only thing she was sorry about was that she couldn’t keep doing it and keep her sanity – that they couldn’t make this work.  That she wasn’t going to feel those lips on hers every day for the rest of her life. 

It was enough to invite the tears back in full force.  Her throat became clogged with them and kept any feeble justification for her behavior at bay. 

“What’s wrong, baby?” 

We are.

She couldn’t push the words through her clogged throat and wouldn’t have if she could.  Rachel bit her lip to prevent the tears from becoming sobs, giving him a tight-lipped shake of the head as her only response.

He turned her gently toward the door.  “Let’s go inside, I’ll get you a glass of wine and you can tell me what’s happened.”

“Your... stuff…” she murmured and dazedly pointed to the SUV over her shoulder.  “It’s...  It’s in the passenger seat.”

“I’ll get in later.  C’mon…”

Rachel allowed him to guide her through the double doors and into the family room in the back of the house.  The time allowed her to corral her erratic emotions, stemming the flow until there was nothing but the occasional sniffle as she settled on the sofa, her slip-on shoes falling off as she tucked her feet under her.  

Jon was behind the corner bar pulling out a bottle of wine as she ran a fingertip under each eye, swiping away the lingering moisture.  After a year with this man, Rachel finally noted there wasn’t a room in this house that didn’t have a small refrigerator hidden somewhere.  The man loved his wine.

“Just water for me, thanks,” she requested quietly

“A little wine with soothe your nerves.” 

“I... shouldn’t.  I’m driving into the City in a bit.”

“I don’t think you better plan on driving anywhere tonight.  You’re obviously upset.”  He hadn’t listened to her, anyway, and joined her on the couch with both their glasses.  “Reschedule your appointment, but no driving for you, little girl.” 

The stem of fine crystal in her hand became her focal point as she grasped at the basis of Lamaze lessons from many years past.  The heaviness of the stem, contrasting with the delicacy of the base and bowl, was what gave her a distraction from the pain as she took that first figurative step toward goodbye.

“United Airlines doesn’t reschedule their red eye to California because I’m a hopeless romantic who can’t face saying goodbye.”

 “What?”

Suddenly she was grateful for the wine she hadn’t wanted and swallowed a gulp.  It it allowed her to stall for a moment until she could figure out what else to say.  Her carefully scripted goodbye seemed to have completely left her memory.  

He wasn’t a patient man on a good day and, with her strange behavior and unexpected announcement, he was even less so.  “Rachel!  What’s going on?” he demanded, and she could hear a thread of fear in his voice.

She realized there was no way to do this without pain.  The words she chose weren’t going to change the outcome and the only way to say what she had to say was to just spit it out. 

“I’m moving back to the West Coast.  I’m on the red eye tonight.”

“No.”  His response was immediate and accompanied by a firm shake of his head.  “You were suffocating there.  You told me that yourself.  You said Jersey had become home.  Going back there is the worst possible thing you could do.  Your job is here and … this is your home now.”

“This was home because you were here, Jon.  But now… Well, at least in California I’ll have my family.  James has taken over as President of the Western region, and I’ve been named VP.  It’s a huge feather in my cap, professionally.”

His wineglass hit the sofa table with a dull ‘thunk’.

“James is behind all this?  Your prick ex-boyfriend from two decades ago, who screwed you over forty ways from Sunday and left you broken in a heap on the floor?  THAT James?  You’re following him to California because being here with me is so bad?”

This conversation wasn’t going at all the way Rachel planned it.   She had naively presumed she could stop by, drop off Jon’s things and wish him well without betraying her own emotions.  Granted, that hadn’t exactly gone according to plan, but it had honestly never crossed her mind that he’d have anything to say about her leaving.   

Since he apparently did...   She felt like she owed him an explanation. 

“It doesn’t have anything to do with him, per se, it’s just an amazing opportunity.  He’s going to let me get the Hawaii region set up and that means I’ll be able to live there for several months – something  I’ve always wanted to do.  You know that.  I’ve talked to you about it.”

“Fine.  You wanna live in Hawaii,  go live there awhile.  But we can’t ever put things back together if you’re on one coast and I’m on the other.  This is ridiculous, Rachel!”

His argument was as unexpected as a snowstorm in July, taking her completely by surprise.  Rachel had never considered the two of them back together as an option and assumed they were on the same page with regard to their relationship.  Hadn’t they hurt each other enough already? 

Now knowing his thoughts, she had to get her act together if she had a prayer of leaving him without a complete nervous breakdown.

“Jon!  We’ve tried - a couple times - to put things back together.  It just isn’t gonna work.  I’ll head to the West Coast and work myself to exhaustion and someday...  Someday I’ll be in the grocery store checkout with a shopping cart full of tequila and you’ll be on the cover of People magazine with some stunning young thing who has taken your breath away.”

Rachel knew it was true.  HE would find love again. 

She, however, would lose herself in work.   Again.  She was damaged beyond repair.  Broken.  Work had been her salvation after the death of her family, and it would be no different this time. 

“It will break my heart, but that’s what will happen, Jon.”

Jon could see the handwriting on the wall.  She would leave for California and end up married to James while HE drank and toured himself into an early grave.   Alone. 

Work had been his salvation after the divorce.  It would be no different once Rachel removed herself from his life. 

“And what about you, Rach?  You gonna be happy with some schmuck like James or some guy that’ll give you a couple kids but doesn’t even raise your pulse when he walks in the door at night?  C’mon!  This is serious shit here… don’t fool around and make this a worse situation than we’ve already got!  What the fuck are you thinking?”

Her soft-spoken response was in sharp contrast to the snapping tone he used on her, giving him a flash of guilt.  She was beaten down enough and didn’t have enough fight left in her to even adequately defend herself. 

“It’s hard enough leaving, don’t make it harder on me, Jon.” 

“Then maybe you shouldn’t!  Didja ever think of that?” 

She rose from the couch and crossed the room to the corner bar, setting her wineglass on its shiny surface.  “We’ve been through all this.  We split months ago.  The only thing that’s different now is my address.”

He was behind her in a flash, spinning her to face him, his hands gripping tightly on her arms.  “I think you still love me.  I KNOW I still love you…….. This is wrong, Rach.”

“No,” she insisted shaking her head, “What’s wrong is for us to stay together because it hurts too much to let go.”  Rachel stepped closer and placed a flat hand against his chest, tipping her face up to give him a good look at the agony that filled her eyes.   “Love me enough to help me do this.  Please!  …. Please??”

For once, Jon didn’t have a press-ready response to the situation and the pitiful expression on her face left him even more unsure how to handle this.  So instead, he said nothing while trying to find the right words. 

But Rachel took his silence as acquiescence.  Pushing up on tip-toes to brush a feathery kiss over his lips, she dropped her forehead to meet his.  “I do love you, Jon.  Always.  I’ll always love you…”

The emotion between them at an all-time high, neither would ever be able to say who made the first move – it just happened.  Their hands and mouths wound around each other – bodies pressed tightly together.  Rachel’s hands fisted in his hair and she gripped as if she were holding on for her very life. 

He wanted to remember the way her body felt under his hands as he struggled to kiss her long enough, hard enough to last.  Remembering the way she moved under him and the way her breathing would hitch when she crossed over from merely turned on to full-blown out of control.

She realized she’d forgotten how broad and solid his chest and shoulders were.  Much more so than his leaner waist and lower back, where her hands always seemed to be tracing circles in the indention there. 

“Stay with me, Rachel…. even if it’s just for tonight.” 

Dazed and aroused, she struggled to gather her thoughts.  “My flight….”

“Fuck it!” he rasped, fisted hands knotting more tightly in her hair.  “If you’re really gonna leave me, you’ll go on my plane.  You can go tomorrow if that’s still what you wanna do… but tonight… I need you with me.”

Rachel’s chest rose and fell with each hard breath.  Her lungs felt on the verge of explosion, like they did after she’d run too hard – too fast.  God how she wanted to stay – to lose herself in him for just a little while longer – but could she stand the torture?  Was one more taste, one more touch worth the anguish?

“I can’t drag this out – this is gut wrenching…”

His thumbs skated over her cheeks and intense blue eyes darted back and forth between hers as he willed her to comply.  He wouldn’t beg, but he would demand.  The question was whether or not she would obey – him OR her heart.  “Stay.  Just… just stay.”

Not willing, or maybe able, to deny either of them she exhaled and he knew he’d won this round.  She was going to be his for a little while longer. 

“I’ll stay with you tonight and we’ll have this one last night.  Say all the things we wished we’d said…. hold each other one more time.  But tomorrow we walk away.  In return, you won’t make me do the big goodbye scene at the airport and you won’t ask me to change my mind.  You won’t be that heartless.”

He felt like he was making a deal with the devil; selling his soul for one night, but tomorrow seemed like a long time away to Jon.  Right now he had her in his arms and she was willing to be in his bed, where they ‘d always communicated best.  Maybe by morning he’d be able to change her mind.

“Jon? Promise me that…. you won’t tear my guts out when I have to leave…. and we’ll have tonight.”  Holding up her pinky finger for their symbolic pinky swear, Rachel was the one demanding now – and questioning him with her eyes.

He couldn’t believe that what she said was going to happen, but resigned himself to the fact that she believed it was inevitable.  If it came to that, he could do it.  Even so, he dismissed her scenario as a possibility and hooked a pinky around hers, wordlessly promising what she needed to hear.

It was enough to make her tense shoulders go lax and she willingly twisted toward the back stairway with him at her side.  As they had done countless times before, they climbed the stairs to his bedroom, pinkies entwined in a symbol of trust.