Susan Mallery - Under Her Skin

“How’s Lexi?” she asked. “I thought maybe she’d come to lunch. What? Why do you look like that?”

“Like what?”

“What happened?”

He thought about the empty house. “Nothing happened.”

Kendra covered her face with her hands, then glared at him. “No, no, no. Tell me you didn’t break up with her. Da-ad. She’s great. You can’t tell her I said that, but she is. I really like her. I thought you guys got along. Why would you break up with her?”

“I didn’t. She left.”

“Because you did something.”

He’d been a jerk and a fool. He’d lost her. “It’s over.”

“Does it have to be? Can’t you take it back?”

Take back the deal? Tell her he wanted something permanent? That she was the first woman he could see waking up with every day?

“There are complications.”

She slumped in her seat. “Adults always say that but what it really means is they messed up and they don’t want to admit it. Tell her you’re sorry. Tell her you’ll never do it again.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“It can be. It worked with me.”

That made him touch the back of her hand. “You were willing to give me a break.”

“So’s Lexi. Dad, I’m serious. You have to listen to me. She’s special. Don’t let her get away. Go see her.”

He’d planned to, anyway. “I will.”

“Today. Now.”

“I’m going to wait until we’re done with lunch.”

She studied him. “Then you’ll go over and see her? You promise?”

“Yes.” “And you’ll make it right?” “I’ll try.” “Try hard.”

CRUZ KNOCKED ON Lexi’s door shortly after four that afternoon. She’d been expecting him, knowing he would want an explanation. The problem was she still didn’t know what to say. The truth? It made sense to tell him she loved him and hey, was pregnant with his child, but could that conversation have a happy ending? Did she really want her heart ripped out? Or was it better to get it over with, face the pain and move on?

If only life came with margin notes.

He looked good, she thought as she opened the door. He was gorgeous in a suit, but in jeans and a T-shirt, he made every part of her body whimper.

She’d always wanted him, had always been able to let go sexually. But feeling the earth move didn’t make a relationship. At least not in the long term.

She stood back to let him enter, then closed the door behind him and followed him into her living room.

He didn’t sit.

“I got your check and the ring,” he said. “Your way of ending things?”

She nodded. “I wasn’t in the mood to write a note.”

“I’m sorry about that night. About Sabrina. I shouldn’t have danced with her, shouldn’t have let her kiss me. It didn’t mean anything. I swear.” He paced to the window, then turned back. “There’s a classic guy’s line. In this case, it’s true.”

“I know.”

“She’s an old girlfriend. I’m not interested. I wasn’t interested.”

“I know.”

He moved toward her. “You believe me?”

She nodded. “It just happened. I’m not saying dancing with an old girlfriend, then kissing her, is the way to make your engagement a happy time. But I know it wasn’t…important. What I don’t know is why. Were you trying to make me jealous?”

“I was trying to clear my head.” He shoved his hands into his front pockets. “That night I realized something. What we have together. It’s more than a business arrangement. We’re good together. We’re a team. You’re what I’m looking for. We like being with each other. The sex is great. What if we made the deal permanent?”

She told herself he wasn’t trying to hurt her. That he didn’t know everything that was going on and his words were meant to make her feel better. But she hurt everywhere. She ached for the loss, for the fantasy that he could get over his past and be willing to love someone. Love her.

“We’d get married?” she asked, not sure why she was torturing herself.

“Whenever you’d like,” he said. “You’re already living in the house…or you were. You like Kendra and she’s crazy about you. I had lunch with her today and she was asking about you. Come on, Lexi. It makes sense. We’re good together.”

“What about being in love? What if you meet someone?”

“I don’t want anyone but you.” He smiled and touched her cheek.

That should have been enough, she thought sadly. Maybe it would have been, if he’d been someone else and she hadn’t fallen in love with him.

It would be so easy to give in. To say yes, to accept a pretty half-life where she almost got her heart’s desire. She’d spent so long holding back, being afraid of rejection, terrified to show who she was. She never asked for what she wanted in a relationship because she couldn’t bear to hear someone say no. That she wasn’t worth it.

“I can’t play this game anymore,” she told him.

“I don’t want to, either. I want to marry you.”

“But you don’t love me.”

He dropped his hand. “Lexi, why do we have to go there?”

Because there was the best place to be. Because in the end, love was all that mattered.

“I love you, Cruz. I have for a long time. Maybe from the first moment we met. You asked me why you were my first time. I hadn’t planned that night. It just happened. Because when we kissed, I knew I wanted to be with you forever.”

He stiffened and moved back. She kept talking because it was finally time to tell the truth.

“The next morning I was so happy. You’d made the night perfect. I had all these plans and fantasies. But you couldn’t scramble away fast enough. I was devastated, but rather than admit that, I held on to my Titan pride and told you that girls like me didn’t date guys like you. I would rather have had you hate me than pity me.”

“Lexi, don’t.”

“Don’t what? Tell the truth? Expose myself? Because that’s what scares you the most, isn’t it? The vulnerability.” She stared into his dark eyes, willing him to see the truth. “Love doesn’t make you weak, Cruz. It frees you to be who you really are. What your father did to your mother wasn’t about love. It was about a weak man trying to feel powerful. The lesson you should learn is how much your mom loved you and how you took care of her. That’s where the love lives. Not in how he hit her.”

She wished she knew what to say, what combination of sounds and pauses would get through to him. But she was afraid he didn’t want to hear, didn’t want to know, didn’t want to believe.

“Jed is the same way. He doesn’t hit anyone, but he controls and demands and thinks he’s a strong man. He isn’t. It’s taken me my whole life to figure that out. I can play the game with him forever, but I’ll never win because he keeps changing the rules. I always believed one day I would do or say the right thing and he would finally accept me as his daughter and that he would love me.”

She drew in a breath. It hurt to know the truth, but it also freed her. She had to keep remembering that. “That will never happen. He can’t or won’t connect in that way. I will always love him because he’s my father, but I’m done playing the game. I’m walking away.”

A muscle twitched in Cruz’s jaw. “Lexi, you don’t know what you’re asking.”

“I do. I’m asking for you to take a chance on me, on us. I’m asking you to believe that when I say I love you that I mean it in the best way possible. I don’t want to hurt you or break you. I like that you’re strong. I love everything about you. This isn’t about changing you, it’s about us having a real relationship. One that isn’t because of convenience or connections.”