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“Can I get you a drink?”
“A beer would be great,” Lance said. She noticed he had the picnic basket in his hands. “Have you eaten?”
“No, I haven’t,” she said.
“I’ll set this up while you go get my beer. I am starved. It has been a really long day.”
“Yes, it has,” Kate said. Sleeping with the boss took a lot out of her. She didn’t like the way that sounded—even to herself. She found a Coors Light in the fridge and brought it out to Lance. He smiled at her as he took it.
He took a long draw from the bottle, then set it on the coaster on the coffee table.
The food he’d put out was a cold pasta and chicken salad. It was exactly the kind of dinner she liked on a hot July night and she didn’t kid herself that Lance hadn’t planned it that way.
He was a man who noticed things.
“Thanks for dinner,” she said, as she sat down beside him on the couch and picked up her fork.
Kate steered the conversation to work and to Mitch, who was due back from DC by the end of the week. She did her level best to make sure that they didn’t have a chance to talk about her confession of love.
But then they finished their meal and Lance leaned back against the couch, stretching his long arms along the back of it. “So you love me?”
Lance had thought of nothing else during his drive over to her place. No woman had ever told him she loved him. And that included his fiancée and his mother. He wasn’t a man who went out searching for the softer things in life. He took what he wanted and let the devil take the rest.
But he wanted Kate’s love.
Now that she’d said she loved him, he wanted to hear her say it again. And he wanted to take her and have her say it while he was buried hilt deep in her sexy little body.
“I… yes, I do love you, but that doesn’t mean that I’m going to just let you walk all over me.”
“I didn’t think for a moment that it did. Actually I have no idea what it means.”
“What are you saying?”
“Just that love isn’t something I’ve had a lot of experience with.”
“Well, you’re the only guy I’ve ever loved so I guess neither of us knows much about this,” she said.
But Kate knew love better than Lance did. He knew she’d come from the kind of family that people liked to complain about but was filled with love.
“And I’m not sure that’s a good thing,” Kate said.
“Why not?”
“Because love shouldn’t be one-sided. It’s not healthy.”
“Listen, Kate, I’m not about to promise you something I can’t deliver.” Losing Kate wasn’t something he was prepared to do. Having had her, he didn’t know if he’d ever be ready to let her walk out the door.
“I appreciate that, Lance. But I have to do what’s healthy for me, too. I just can’t keep loving a man who never puts me first.”
“That’s not fair. I’ve put you first.”
“Yes, but in the privacy of your office or your home,” Kate said quietly.
She was tired of being hidden from the world, which suited him fine—he got that. But he didn’t want Kate to think she could manipulate him into doing whatever she wanted. It was important to him that she let him take the lead in their relationship.
“What can I say?”
She bit her lip and then leaned forward so that her face was turned away from him and her arms rested on her knees.
“If I have to tell you, then I guess that means there isn’t anything to say.”
Lance wasn’t sure what she wanted. Hell, that was a lie, he knew exactly what she wanted. “I’m not going to say I love you, Kate. I just told you I have no experience with that emotion.”
“I don’t understand how you can say that. You have dated a lot of women.”
“None of them have loved me.”
“Well, your mother did and your father, too, right? And Mitch loves you.”
Lance shrugged. The devotion his brother and he had didn’t fit into the mold of what he’d call love. It was just a bond that had been forged in the fire of their upbringing. And there was little in the world that would change that. “I don’t know. What’s between Mitch and me isn’t like you saying you love me.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“Because I want you to love me. That feels right to me, Kate. A part of me thinks you belong to me. Right or wrong, that’s the way I feel.”
“Belong to you?” she asked.
He nodded. What would he do if she said to get out? Not just out of her house but out of her life? He’d just told her that she was his. And she was. That was as much as he could feel for a woman.
“I like the thought of being yours, Lance. But I’m confused.”
“I can appreciate that. What would it take to clear things up for you?”
“You are still engaged to Lexi,” Kate said.
“I’m ending that, Kate. I can’t marry another woman when I’m involved with you.”
Lance realized in that moment that he’d do whatever she asked if it was in his power. He needed everything in his relationship with Kate to be resolved. It was past time for him to figure out what he wanted as a man.
And everything kept pointing to Kate.
“I guess I need some time to think about that,” she said. “I feel like I’ve been loving you forever and maybe it’s time to figure out what that really means to me—and to you.”
Lance didn’t like the sound of that. But he wasn’t about to beg for her affection. He’d heard too many fights between his parents that had gone the same way.
“I’m not going to play games with you, Kate. If you want to be with me—if you love me—then I think you can put a little effort into being with me.”
Kate crossed her arms over her chest. She looked at him and he knew he’d said the wrong thing. “I’ve been loving you for a long time, Lance Brody, and you never even knew I was alive. So you do what you have to. I’m not playing games with you. I’m just standing up for myself. And I don’t like you trying to push me around.”
“I’m not pushing you around,” Lance said.
He should have guessed that her love wasn’t real. It was probably tied to the sexuality of their relationship and the fact that he was the first man to make her feel like a woman.
Kate shook her head. “I didn’t say you were doing anything wrong. I just need to think. And you need to end things with Lexi. I’m not going to stop loving you overnight, Lance.”
“Well, I’m not too sure about that. It seems like you have a checklist of things I need to do to win your love and once we check them all off you’ll be mine.” Lance stood up and walked to the front door. “I guess you haven’t changed as much as you’d like to think you have because you are still standing on the sidelines of life, waiting for it to happen to you.”
Kate watched Lance walk away and fought not to call him back. But he’d lied to her. He was still engaged to another woman and worst of all, he didn’t love her.
She closed the door and went back inside. She walked through the quietness of the living room, seeing the remains of their dinner.
She didn’t understand how a man could be so perfect that she’d fall in love with him, and yet so disappointing.
She didn’t know if it was just a sop for her heart or not, but she couldn’t force herself to believe that Lance didn’t care for her at least a little bit. Even if he didn’t call it love.
Her house phone rang and she checked the caller ID.
“Hello, Lance.”
“Listen, Kate. I’m not sure what I said back there that made things get out of control the way they did. But I don’t want to end this relationship.”
Kate didn’t, either. But as she looked around her lonely little town house she knew they couldn’t continue the way they had been. There was a reason why Lance’s engagement had spurred her into action. A reason why she’d been motivated to change things that she’d been content to leave before. And that reason was that she’d finally figured out that no man—especially not Lance—was going to fall in love with her if she just kept being there.
“I can’t do this right now. I really need to think.”
“Can’t do what?”
“Talk to you. Because I’ll agree to whatever you say and that’s not healthy. Not for either one of us. You said you didn’t know what love was, hadn’t experienced it like this, and I know what you meant.”
“What did I mean?”
He’d meant that he’d never had anyone like her in his life, someone who’d been so in love with him that they’d take whatever scraps of affection he threw their way. But she was done with that. She had more pride than that… she deserved better.
“You meant that it was okay for me to keep loving you,” she said.
“More than okay,” Lance said.
“Why? Do you love me?” Kate asked.
He hesitated and she had her answer.
“Damn it, Kate. I don’t know what to say. I want you like I’ve never wanted any other woman,” Lance said.
That didn’t matter. Her physical appearance could change. Would that mean he wouldn’t want her anymore?
“That’s not enough.”
“It’s a start,” Lance said.
“Yes, I guess it is. But I want the man I love to love me back. I want you to need to be with me the way I need to be with you.”
“Katie-girl, you are making this more difficult than it has to be. Let me come back to your place and I’ll prove to you that I need you just as much as you need me.”
Kate was tempted to say yes. She almost did, but then she thought about the fact that sex wasn’t love. It didn’t mean that it couldn’t be but with Lance, right now sex was just sex, no matter how good it was.
“I don’t mean making love, Lance.”
“Making love—you just said it yourself. It’s an expression of our emotions.”
“Ours? Do you love me?”
“Hell, girl, I just said I don’t know.”
“I know. I was pushing and I’m sorry. But I just don’t know what else to do. You broke my heart when you got engaged. And tonight I found out you are still engaged.”
She was rambling, so she just stopped talking. But she knew that some element of truth had been revealed there. She couldn’t just keep loving him. Not now that she’d realized that he didn’t really love her. And not now that she knew he was still engaged to Lexi.
“I’m not going to marry Lexi Cavanaugh, Kate. I can’t marry another woman if I’m involved with you.”
“Good. That makes me feel better. But until things are resolved between the two of you, I have to keep my distance.”
“Why?”
Kate thought about it. She’d left the office feeling ashamed and didn’t like that. And she knew it stemmed from the fact that she wasn’t sure that Lance was her man.
She needed that certainty. If she had that then everything they did together would be motivated by love. And that would be enough for her.
“I just have to. I’m sorry.”
Silence buzzed over the open line and she wondered what Lance was thinking. No matter how well she’d come to know him over the last week, he was still an enigma to her.
And she realized that he probably always would be. That was part of what had made her fall in love with him to begin with. There were secrets and pain in Lance Brody’s eyes and those very things had drawn her to him.
No matter what she did she had a feeling she was always going to love him.
“Goodbye, Lance.”
He cursed under his breath. “Are you quitting Brody Oil and Gas, as well as quitting me?”
“Yes. I am. I won’t be coming back to the office at all. In fact, I need to get away from Houston.”
“You do that,” he said. “Run away if you think that will help. But to be honest, I don’t believe it will.”
“How would you know?”
Lance didn’t strike her as a man who’d run away from anything.
“My mother did it and I don’t think she was any happier after she left us.”
