London Falling (Falling #2)(18)
It’s that second when a man looks into your eyes and not only sees your soul, but identifies with it, a rare connection of two persons who were fated to meet, to know one another intimately. It dawned on me, I was so ready to jump into bed with him, not because I needed sex--I’d had it pretty recently with Dylan and never lacked for a willing participant. It wasn’t the physical contact that had me hanging on Collier’s every word or mindlessly touching him in subtle innocent ways. It was the buzzing and thrumming, the halo of light I felt moving in the air around him. It sucked me into its vortex and I wasn’t prepared to leave until I’d gotten my fill and understood why it had a hold on me.
“Having second thoughts?” Collier asked concern evident in his tone.
“What? Uh, no. Not at all. Just thinking about what happened in the restaurant. That doesn’t usually happen to me. Well, actually that’s not true. It happens all the time, me, being able to feel and empathize with others emotions, but it doesn’t usually mirror my own.”
He took a deep breath, ending it with a sigh. “Yeah, that was a bit peculiar but not altogether uncomfortable. At least for me, anyway. I’ve had a long time to accept the things that hurt me in my life. Now it’s just a matter of getting past them.”
“Is it too soon to ask who she was?”
He smiled and brushed his fingers though his hair. “It’s not too soon. It’s just not pleasant.”
“I understand if you don’t want to tell me.” Mentally, I chided myself. I shouldn’t have asked something so personal so quickly. Damn curiosity.
“No, no, it’s okay. It’s not a secret. I was married just out of college. Did everything I thought was right. Worked hard, tried to give her all she ever wanted. Started a company with my brother Nathaniel. You know him.” I nodded but didn’t want to interrupt for fear he wouldn’t continue. “I was loyal and I loved her. Probably more than a man should.” He stopped talking and shook his head.
“Then what happened?” My voice was soft and sympathetic.
“It wasn’t enough. She found someone with more money and more time. Left me for the bloke. Been about five years now.”
“I’m sorry.” There really wasn’t anything more I could say. The man had been cheated on by the woman he loved.
“It’s life. It is what it is.” He brought his hand to cover mine in my lap. Immediately the sizzle and thump of our connection leapt from my hand to my heart, filling it with something I couldn’t define. “What about you?” His voice was soft.
“What about me?”
“What sort of daft bastard would leave a bird as lovely as you?” He squeezed my hand reassuringly.
“He didn’t mean to leave me. He died.”
Normally when a man finds out I’m a widow at twenty six, he has a freak out moment, one in which he either decides the waters to this woman’s bed are too treacherous to wade, then bails. Or the alternative: offering me a sympathy f*ck to make me feel better. Neither is desirable. After years of dating, I realized men just couldn’t deal with the fact that I didn’t choose to leave the man I married, nor did he choose to leave me. It was decided by an innocent but tragic accident which left me unwilling and incapable of loving another ever again. That part of me died when my husband died.
“I see,” he said.
Quietly we both chewed over the thoughts, a heavy brew based on the information we’d both shared. The air around us was thick with tension.
Finally he asked, “So what happened to your husband?”
I liked that he referred to James as my husband. It reinforced the importance of that relationship even though he was gone.
Collier had a way about him that put me at ease. Usually, I refrained from telling people about James. Tripp was constantly telling me I had to let it out, let the ghost of James rest. Maybe this would put me one step closer.
I took a deep, calming breath. Collier waited patiently, eyes glued to the road ahead. Not looking in his eyes made it easier to share somehow.
“It was raining out. The first rain of the year. The pungent scent of the newly wet roads in New York City was stifling. I remember the humidity being unbearable. James was driving home from work. His car was t-boned at a light. The driver lost control of the vehicle; bad tires with little tread didn’t stick on the slick oily streets. It catapulted the car into cross traffic.”
“Was the driver bombed?”
I shook my head. “No. He was sixteen. Just got his driver’s license. It was his first time on the road by himself. He was driving home from studying at a friend’s house. He didn’t have a drop to drink.”
“Was it instant?”
“Unfortunately, no. The accident broke a lot of his bones, did a great amount of damage internally but all that could be cured. What couldn’t was his liver. He needed an immediate transplant, but one didn’t become available in time. He died within forty eight hours of arriving at the hospital.”
“In my experience, Beauty, it’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. Our past makes us who we are today. I for one think you’re incredible.” He said it with all the conviction of a man who’d gone through it himself, which I now knew he had.
It was refreshing. Collier didn’t apologize for my loss. He didn’t tell me that everything would be okay or look at me as if I was a broken woman. His brown eyes gleamed with understanding. Like he’d said to me, when he recanted his tale, it is what it is and he truly believed that. We couldn’t change what the universe doled out to us, but what we could change was how we dealt with that experience.