Susan Meier - Marriage Made In Monte Calanetti

She shook her head. “And there were lots of things that we did need money for. I was uneducated. The best job I could have gotten is what I’m doing now. Waitressing. We would have been cold, hungry.”

A horrible realization rose in him. It coated his mind like smoke in a brush fire, and awakened memories he’d forgotten.

“You were angry that we were broke?”

“I was concerned that you would give up your dream to support me and Melony.”

He stepped back. “Oh, my God. You dumped me because you believed I couldn’t support you?”

“I ended us because I knew I was dead weight. Especially since I came with a little girl. Not just an extra mouth to feed, but two.”

His muscles hardened. His words, when they flowed out of his mouth, felt like dry chips of wood. “You didn’t trust me.”

The pain on Mic’s face seeped into Lily’s soul. She’d known it would hurt him if she admitted the truth, but tonight she saw it was unfair to make him live with a lie that also hurt him.

“I’m sorry.”

He straightened to his full six-foot-four height. “It’s fine.”

But it wasn’t fine. She could see it on his face.

“Why don’t you go home for the night? I’ll clean up after this customer.”

“No. I’ll stay. It’s my job.”

“No.” His eyes met hers. “It is my job. And I do my jobs. I always do my jobs.”

Tears flooded her eyes at the humiliation in his voice. “Please, Mic. That’s exactly my point. You would have taken your responsibilities seriously. And you would have lost your dream.”

“So you felt it was better to take the decision out of my hands?”

His righteous indignation finally got the better of her. “Oh, please. You were in the situation every bit as much as I was. You knew I was responsible for my sister. You knew I was still grieving my parents’ deaths. You knew I had the weight of the world on my shoulders, yet when I said no to your proposal you never argued. I said, ‘I don’t love you’, and you left. You never asked why. You didn’t remember my passion for you. You didn’t think that maybe my troubles might have put me in a bad emotional state. You simply got hurt and left.”

He gaped at her. “You’re pinning this on me?”

She rose from her bar stool. Her chin lifted. “Maybe I am.”

“Well, that’s convenient.”

“Maybe.” A horrible chill enveloped her. The memory of how he’d left raced through her brain. The feeling of abandonment. The knowledge that he hadn’t thought enough of her to even question what she’d said. The memory of the sweeping fear when she realized she was alone and responsible for her ten-year-old sister. “Think back, Mic. You never fought for me. You never fought for what we had.”

“You know, you like to remember your emotional state, but what about mine? I was moving to a city I didn’t know. Alone.”

“Oh, so you only asked me to marry you for company?”

He cursed. “You’re confusing everything.”

“No. Maybe for the first time the truth is coming out.” And it was killing her. All these years, she wouldn’t let herself examine their situation too closely because the pain of losing him had been suffocating. But now she finally saw the truth.

She hadn’t simply lost Mic. She’d proven to both of them that he hadn’t really loved her.

She slid off the bar stool. “I’ve got to go.”

“That’s right. Leave when things get too difficult.”

She shook her head. “No. That’s what you do.”

Mic was so angry with Lily that he didn’t sleep that night. He actually debated not going to work the next day, but knew he had to, if only to prove he did not run from his troubles.

When she stepped into the kitchen and took a clean apron from the shelf, he stood taller.

Accuse him of being wrong? Ha! That was insane.

“Good morning, Ms. Norelli.”

Her face flamed with color. “Good morning, Chef Mic.”

Rafe waved his knife. “And good morning to me. Now that greetings are over, could we do some work?”

Holding Lily’s gaze, Mic said, “I’d love to work since I don’t let my responsibilities slip.”

Her chin lifted and she left the room.

But the quieter she got, the angrier Mic got. Every “please” and “thank you” grated against his nerves. Her sweet, polite act was just a way to make him wonder if she wasn’t correct. Had he really been the one to bail on her?

As soon as that thought popped into his head, he balked. He had not bailed! She hadn’t given him a chance to prove himself. To prove that he could have supported her, helped raise her sister. She snatched that chance away with her refusal to marry him.

The next time she gave him her overly polite thank you, he yanked the dish away from her. “Perhaps, if it’s too much trouble for you to be honest, I should serve this dish to our customer.”

“Too much trouble? I was sparing you trouble!”

Instantly, Rafe was beside him. “I don’t know what’s happening between you two, but take it outside.”

Mic ran his hand along the back of his neck. “We’re fine.”

Lily quietly said, “Yes, Chef Rafe. We are fine.”

But Rafe took Mic’s shoulders and turned him to the back door. “No. I hear this all day. I grow tired of it. Go outside and solve it.”

Lily followed Mic out the door. When it closed behind them, he turned on Lily.

“You gutted me with your refusal of my proposal. You said, ‘No. I can’t marry you.’ Then you’d looked me in the eye and said, ‘I don’t love you.’ What did you expect me to do?”

She stormed over to him, as angry as he was, and poked her finger into his chest. “I expected you to think. My God, Mic. I was eighteen and I had a ten-year-old sister who was grieving her parents. You were the bright spot in our lives and at my first confused answer, you left. You didn’t even come by the next day to ask if I was sure. To talk it out. You just left.”

He caught the finger jabbing into his chest. “You want me to say I’m sorry you broke my heart? Are you nuts?”

She looked up into his eyes. “I want you to say my sacrifice was worth it. That you’re who you wanted to be. That you’re grateful.”

“Now I’m to be grateful that you broke my heart?”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Yes.”

The sight of her tears kicked away any common sense he might have. He caught her shoulders and drew her up as his head lowered. Their lips met in a blinding flash of need so intense it seemed to swallow both of them in its angry vortex. Her lips answered his raw need as he plundered her mouth. Desire burst through him. Heat that he remembered from a long-ago love.

Lily. His Lily. Was in his arms.

Breathless desire tumbled through Lily. Fire and ice raced down her spine. It had been so long since anyone had kissed her, touched her, that her soul wept with longing. She just wanted to be loved again. To feel whole again.

The only time she’d ever felt whole had been with Mic. But as quickly as she thought that, she remembered that this might be Mic, but he wasn’t the same man she’d loved. This Mic was strong, smart, sophisticated. In the eight years she’d struggled for food and shelter for a ten-year-old sister, he’d seen the world.

She pushed herself away from him. “Don’t. Stop.”

His blue eyes skimmed her face. “I’m to be sorry for this too?”

She cleared the ache in her throat, took a few more steps back. “No.” Running her fingers through her hair, she glanced to the right, unable to meet his gaze. How did a woman say no to the man who had once been the other half of her?