Alaina Hawthorne - Introducing Daddy

He uncrossed his arms but didn’t step toward her, he just rocked forward on the balls of his feet. “I’m sorry, Evie. That’s not what I meant to say.”

She cut him the ugliest glance she could manage and then turned away again. The pressure of furious tears intensified in the back of her throat. Hurry, elevator. Hurry, hurry. She clutched the hamper to her middle and hoped that the huge basket would disguise her weight loss, her pale complexion and her brimming, swollen eyes. I won’t look at him, and that way I won’t cry. And I don’t have to say anything, either. I’ll just deliver my basket and get the hell out of here, and things will go on just like I planned. “What’s wrong with this thing? Is there a phone in here?” What she wanted to do was scream, Let me out.

“It’s okay,” Adam said quietly. “We’ll start up again in a minute. This happens a lot.”

For a moment he was quiet, but she felt him looking at her. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for months,” he said. “Nobody will give me your number.”

“Good.” Her voice was definitely wobbling. God, she hated that. And why did she have to look like something the cat wouldn’t even bother to drag in? Not that it mattered. In fact, this was probably better. Adam, of course, looked impeccable in perfectly tailored Savile Row. Evie recognized the suit from one of his trips to the U.K. Last year? No, two years ago. She remembered because he’d been gone for their anniversary. And her birthday.

“Why, Evie? Why won’t you even talk to me?”

She didn’t look at him. “What’s the use? What could we say that we haven’t already said a thousand times?”

“I may have said it a thousand times, but it’s still true. I want you to come home, Evie.”

There was no avoiding it, she had to look at him; talking at the elevator doors was stupid. She sighed. “And where’s home this week? Argentina? Outer Mongolia? And how would you even know if I were home or not? You hardly ever bothered to show up there.” She took a quick breath and her voice lowered. “Half the time I didn’t even know where you were unless your secretary told me. I didn’t know you were back in the country until I saw your engagement notice in the paper.”

He winced. “Damn. I knew you’d see that piece of bull—but it wasn’t an engagement notice. Kimberley and I just went to a company function together because she didn’t have a date.” He paused for a long moment. “And I had no idea how to get in touch with my wife.”

His voice had been growing hard, but then his tone softened. “That was just stupid gossip from a stupid gossip column, you know that. Besides, you know Kimberley. She’s just a kid.”

“We’re the same age.”

He shook his head slightly. “For Pete’s sake, Evie, I’ve known her since she started college, and—”

“You’ve known me since I was in junior high.”

Adam’s mouth closed in a hard line, and with the deepest satisfaction Evie saw that he was losing his temper—that she’d gotten to him. Good, she thought. In the past she had never won any arguments. Adam could always talk circles around her. No matter how prepared she thought she was, she would always wind up ranting or crying, while Adam maintained his maddeningly unflappable calm.

“The point is, Evangeline,” he said slowly, “that I want you with me. I always have.”

“No, Adam,” she countered, “you don’t want me with you. You want someone at home in case you decide to show up there. You want dinner on the table and your errands run. You want an acceptable arm hanger for social functions and someone to see that your family gets Christmas cards and birthday presents.”

“Evie, please, not this again.”

“You started it.”

When she saw the flash of hopelessness cross his face she turned away. Despite everything that had happened between them, she still hated to see him unhappy. Be strong. You know what’s at stake here. If he knew…

“Couldn’t we go somewhere and just talk?”

The ache in his voice wrenched her heart. Part of her—most of her—wanted more than anything to spend hours, years, talking to him. Any second she knew she might drop the basket along with the pretense of anger and fling herself into his arms. Yes, right back into the same situation you were in for the past seven years. But it’s not just the two of you anymore, is it? Think of her. That one thought evaporated her momentary fantasy of a tearful reconciliation.

She looked straight into his gray eyes. You’d better make this convincing. “You don’t get it, do you?” The shock and pain in his face twisted her insides. “Remember the last time that I said ‘This is the last time?’ Well, believe it or not, it really was the very last time.” Her voice was thinning out, and she felt the return of incipient tears. “I think it’s pretty obviousit’s been obvious for years—that we want different things, Adam. Different lives.”

“I don’t,” he said. “I want the life we had together back.”

“Well, excuse me,” she said in a choked voice. “Maybe you want the same old life, but it’s just not good enough for me anymore. I don’t want to live alone. I want a husband and a family. I’m not a talking doll, Adam. Just once I’d like to come first—not second or third or fourth behind business meetings and rig workovers and power dinners—”

“You are the most important thing in the world to me, Evie. You always have been.”

“Am I? What about Christmas, Adam? What about the robbery? You left me to go off on your trip.”

Although it had almost been a year, the hideous images remained fresh in her mind—the drizzling December day, her back seat loaded with packages, carols on the radio as she’d stopped for the traffic light. The impact from the car slamming into her from behind had thrown her into the steering wheel and knocked her breath away. She hadn’t known not to get out; she’d never even heard the expression “bump androb.” Besides, when she’d seen the sleek, luxury sedan behind her, it had never occurred to her that it might have been stolen.

By the time she’d opened her door, they’d already swarmed out of their car and had been waiting to jerk her off her feet and throw her down onto the concrete. The opening at the end of gun had looked enormous—like a black, toothless mouth. Please, God, she’d prayed. Don’t let him…

“I made a mistake, Evie. But what was I supposed to do? The robbery was terrifying, I’ll admit, but you weren’t hurt, and the summit in Mexico was critical. You knew it meant jobs for hundreds of people, and I was the only one who…How many times do I have to say I’m sorry?”

But he hadn’t been sorry at the time. His office had caught him at the airport that day, and he’d burst through the doors of the Emergency Room, wild-eyed with rage. But he hadn’t canceled his business trip; he’d just put it off for a day.

One whole day.

She’d begged him not to leave. He’d begged her instead to come along with him—the negotiations were unraveling, he’d said. Governments were squaring off and a multinational consortium was on the verge of collapse.

Evie had raised her hands and showed him where the gravel had gouged away the skin. Then she’d pulled up her skirt to reveal the purple bruise on her thigh where one of them had stepped on her.

Still, he’d left the next day.

So had she.

That memory renewed her strength. “Well, here we go again,” she said acidly. “you’ve started with Plan A and since that wasn’t working you jumped directly to Plan C.”

“What? Plan A? What—?”