Hannah Bernard - The Honeymoon Proposal

She sank into the sofa, and pulled her knees to her chest, clutching the phone in one hand. She reached for the ancient comforter lying across the back of the sofa and pulled it over her shoulders, huddling under it, suddenly feeling cold. A painful pounding in her temples had started as soon as her grandmother had made the request. She wasn’t surprised. If ever there was an occasion to get a migraine headache, this was it.

She stared at the phone in her hand, amazed that her fingers weren’t trembling. She would have to call Matt, and ask him to come over.

This was not a phone call she wanted to make. He was not a man she wanted to see again. Too much had happened, and after only five weeks the hurt and anger hadn’t even begun to fade.

But she had no choice. Grandma did want to see him. And he was her godson, her late husband’s nephew, probably her favorite person in the world.

Of course she would call him. There was no question. For Grandma, she would, even if her own personal preference was to replace that two-minute phone call with a whole afternoon of root canals. Or a casual stroll across hot coals. Or two full hours of public speaking. Or…

She gritted her teeth, realizing she was procrastinating.

She’d do it now. Right this minute while shock was still running her emotions, or courage would leap out the window into the early-evening dusk and never return. This wasn’t a big deal. It was absurd to find her heart racing in anticipation of hearing his voice again.

It was over. She was over him. “It’s over,” she muttered to herself, and it almost became the truth when she heard her own voice say the words. It was over.

She took a deep breath, and with eyes half-closed, made the call.

It was a melancholic—and annoying—discovery that she still knew his number by heart. Five long weeks had passed, but her fingers still punched the series of numbers as easily as they’d ever done. As easily as they’d done when this was the number she called just to hear his voice, when the warmth of him, the heat of his feelings for her, had seemed to reach her through the phone lines no matter what the distance was between them.

Now he was a stranger, the distance internal, emotional instead of geographical, but even more real. She needed to remember that, even as her mind recalled the way his voice used to alter the moment he heard hers, from the distracted, hurried voice of a busy businessman to the warm, loving one a man reserved for his woman.

She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed the phone hard against her ear. It was over, she repeated to herself. Now he was nothing to her, just her grandmother’s godson, a friend of the family. That was all!

Still, she was just about to lose her nerve and end the call when he picked up the phone. The sound of his voice caused her heart to halt in her chest as truth grabbed her by the nose and forced her to face reality.

Over him? Hah!

Nope, she wasn’t over him.

Not even close.

She’d almost managed to convince herself she was, but that was because she hadn’t seen him, hadn’t heard from him. Grandma had his picture on the mantelpiece, between her pictures of Grandpa and of Jo herself, but Jo had managed to tilt it ever so slightly, so his laughing green eyes didn’t mock her every time she stepped into that room.

But now his voice was in her ear, and her entire system was going crazy.

His voice sounded the same. Brisk, slightly absent, hurried, impatient when he had to repeat the hello because she didn’t respond right away, her voice having tightened and her breath hitched. She cursed herself for letting him affect her that way. It had only been a few weeks, she reminded herself. Time would fix this. Broken hearts did heal. Didn’t they?

Maybe seeing him again now, seeing him as a stranger, not hers, would be the jolt she needed. Yes. Maybe.

It could happen, right?

“Matt…I…Matt…” she croaked, then bit her lip hard. That was not what she’d meant to say. She’d meant to be cool and distant and formal, call him Matthew instead of Matt, and inform him of the situation, detached and matter-of-fact.

She closed her eyes. Instead she’d whispered his name as a reverent mantra, just as she’d done when…

No. Those memories belonged in the compost section of her brain. She didn’t want to remember. She didn’t want to remember anything of their months together, especially not the warmth of his shoulder under her lips, the surprised smile he sent her when she kissed him unexpectedly, or those mornings at his apartment, the way he’d used the extra ten minutes the snooze button gave him to wrap his arms around her and hold on tightly, whispering into her ear that it would have to last him through the entire day with her all the way on the other side of the office.

Ouch. She yanked on the short hair at her temple to punish herself. That compost heap was active today.

Maybe she should just hang up, and hope he wouldn’t know who was calling. She could get someone else to phone Matt. Grandma still had enough strength to lift a phone after all, she could probably make the call herself.

Matt’s voice changed, grew louder, as if he’d gripped the phone and pressed it closer to his face. “Hello? Jo? Joanna? Is that you?”

Joanna grimaced as she mentally crossed hanging up anonymously off her list of options. He recognized her voice. She should have expected no less, but it was still a shock to hear her name on his lips, his tone surprised and incredulous.

Not angry, but slightly wary. It had been angry before. Not at first: then, there had been only surprise, annoyance and irritation, and a whole lot of brisk efficiency as he worked to smooth things over, to get her out of the way, to hush up the issue instead of coming to her rescue. The anger hadn’t come until she’d told him it was over, that she couldn’t keep seeing someone who didn’t trust her, someone who wouldn’t stand up and admit to their relationship even when it could clear her of a crime. If you believed in me, you would stand by me, she’d told him, the pain in her heart emerging as fury disguised in cold dismissal.

Of course, what she’d really meant was that if he’d loved her, he’d have stood by her, just as she’d kept silent about their involvement until he got back—for his sake. The CEO shouldn’t be involved with one of his employees, and she wouldn’t expose him without his agreement—even though it had cost her both her job and the friendships she’d forged there.

She hadn’t minded at the time, in the certainty that he’d clear things up when he got back. If he’d trusted her—if he’d loved her, he would have.

The point was moot, of course—he’d done neither.

But this wasn’t about them. This was about Grandma.

“Jo?” Matt repeated, his voice growing impatient. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

She clenched her hand around the phone and cleared her throat. “Yes. It’s me. Hello, Matthew. I’m calling because…It’s my grandmother. I’m at her house now, I’ve been staying a few days—well, almost two weeks. She hasn’t been well lately. She wants to see you. She says she…” She paused to swallow the lump in her throat, but nevertheless the words were nothing more than a croak, betraying the tears gathering in her eyes. “Matt—she’s probably just being overdramatic, you know what she’s like sometimes, but…she says she needs to see you before she dies.”

There was silence only for a second. “I’ll be there ASAP,” he said curtly, and hung up without a goodbye.

Left with a dial tone, Jo let her hand fall to her side and pried her fingers away from the phone. She took a deep breath, not knowing if she felt relief at having this over with or panic at knowing he was on his way. Snap out of it, she ordered herself and made her way toward the guest room where her grandmother was resting. Grandma had asked to see Matt. That was the only thing that mattered.