A Summer to Remember(34)
My face felt so hot, I knew it was scarlet from embarrassment, anger, resentment and hurt. I swallowed my champagne in a couple of painful gulps, stood and walked out of the dining room. There was no way I would ever let that cunt see me run but I certainly didn’t have to put up with her company if I didn’t want to.
The first thought in my head when I made it to the suite I shared with Paul was to flee. However, I didn’t bring my car and there was no where to go. I was trapped here, at Martha’s Vineyard, with my whole past naked and exposed for the world to see and there wasn’t anything I could do about it what so ever.
I paced up and down before I flung myself on the bed and grabbed a decorative pillow. I pushed it to my face and screamed out my sheer frustration before the tears began to flow like water and there was nothing I could do to stop them.
The door to our suite opened and I felt Paul take me in his arms as I continued to sob; a deluge of emotions had opened up inside me and were flooding to the surface. I couldn’t stop them no matter how hard I tried and I continued to cry like a baby on his shoulders. Gut-wrenching, heart-rending aches of pain and chaos erupted inside of me and although I knew I should have been vexed and angry, some part of me felt free. It wasn’t a secret I had to cling to any longer and although that should have made me at least somewhat relieved, all I could absorb at that moment were the rawness of my feelings.
Paul didn’t say a word and allowed me to cry until the tears dried up and there was nothing left to grieve for including the child I had so callously thrown away or my own ambivalence about what this would mean about my future in high society with all friends knowing the miserable truth about me and my shitty past and ruined reputation.
This had all happened because I had crappy taste in men and had chosen someone like Kevin to make special only to assuage the pain of not being able to have the man I truly wanted. The one whose shoulder I had cried upon and who continued to hold me as if I were the most precious gem in the world.
I wondered if it was possible to fall more in love with Paul than I already felt at that moment.
Chapter Twelve
How could I not fall deeper in love with him than I was already and yet, he still wouldn’t make love to me or touch me for some strange reason? I wanted to share my body with him, not because I was horny but I needed to feel him and have him inside of me, with me, knowing he truly felt the same way about me as I felt about him.
“I could make up all kinds of shit right now and tell you Ashley slightly embellished or she’s not telling the truth but both you and I know that isn’t so. I didn’t tell you and neither did Jude…not because we were ashamed or wanted you to be humiliated the way she did to you but he’s known for years how I have felt about you and as far as I was concerned, it was a closed subject.”
Paul made me face him and he cupped my face gently as he said, “Jerrica, you have always been the woman for me and I told your brother a long time ago I would be willing to lose our friendship behind being with you. I wasn’t just making up that stuff about surrogacy or adoption because none of it means anything to me. I would be willing to be with you regardless—kids or no kids. Seriously, I have been in love with you from the moment you ran down the stairs with your brown hair in those silly little pigtails and those eyes…God, I remember your eyes. They were so full of hope and innocence.
“I would do anything to see that again inside you. I want to see you happy and peaceful. I hate that hardness that has etched itself into those gorgeous blue-gray eyes of yours because it simply isn’t you. You’re not that jaded and you aren’t a whore. You slept around, so what, do you think I care about that? I’m not perfect and God knows I don’t expect you to be. Please, just give me a chance to prove how much I love you and we can make all of this go away.”
My lips were mere inches from his and I leaned in closer until they touched with his and he kissed me gently at first. He didn’t want to hurt me and I completely understood. When my mouth opened and allowed his tongue entry, our kiss turned passionate and my stomach flipped with butterflies. Every sexual part of me ached with the need to be touched and caressed by him.
He had brought me back to life with a kiss and I couldn’t help but think of the beauty in that sentiment. He’d saved me yet he didn’t even know it and I loved him all the more for just being there for me. He was the one and tonight, I would prove we were meant to be together forever.
Everywhere Paul’s lips ventured, my skin burned with passion and longing. His lips kissed my jaw before they began to devour my neck and collarbone. I threw my head back and allowed him to unzip the modest sundress I wore but his hands supported my back as his fingers trailed up and down my spine.