Leslie Kelly – The Guy Most Likely To...: Underneath It All / Can't Get You Out of My Head / A Moment Like This (страница 7)
“Was it really airsickness?” she asked, seeing through the humor and getting right to the point.
He shook his head. “No. It wasn’t.”
He’d been physically ill all right…sick about what his parents had done, that he’d let them drag him along, about what would happen to Emily. The minute he’d found out the truth, he’d started to argue, demanding to be returned home. His pleas had fallen on deaf ears. And when he truly accepted the fact that his father—who he’d assumed was inattentive because he was busy making millions of dollars for other people—had been stealing those dollars, he’d literally thrown up.
He had to be honest with himself. If he’d been able to call Lauren sooner, he might not have done it. He’d been pretty ashamed for the first few months of his unwanted exile.
As if she knew that, she reached across the table and gently squeezed his hand. It was meant to be comforting, quick, friendly. But Seth found himself gripping her fingers, holding tight. He was flooded with memories of innocent days when holding Lauren’s hand had felt like the most momentous part of his day.
Her fingers were still soft, fragile, slender. He wanted them touching him, twining in his hair, pulling him close for a warm, sultry kiss.
Their stares met and locked for a long second. Then, knowing they still had talking to do, he released her.
The silence continued as the waitress returned with their drinks. Lauren took a sip of hers, then lowered the glass back onto the table and ran the tip of her finger across its wet rim.
“So then what happened?” she finally asked.
He didn’t really want to get into the whole story, but he’d promised her—and himself—that he wouldn’t hold anything back if she gave him the chance to speak. So he told her, trying not to dwell on the dark details or let his voice reveal the still-tangled emotions he carried with him and probably always would.
When he was finished, she peppered him with questions. “Did you even know which country you were in?”
“Not at first.”
“And you didn’t have any money?”
“Not a cent. Or my passport. They took it.”
“There was no phone, no computer at the house they rented?”
“No computer. They had a satellite phone they kept under lock and key in a safe in their bedroom.” Knowing the other questions she had to be wondering about, he added, “The servants all spoke Spanish, and I didn’t. Plus the estate they rented was in the middle of nowhere. The times we went into the nearest town, my parents never let us out of their sight. Em and I pretty much just had each other.”
She bit her lip and blinked quickly, as if trying to hide any telltale moisture in her eyes. “How did you get away?” she asked, her voice soft, a whisper.
“I cracked the safe,” he admitted, smiling at the memory.
“Seriously?”
“It was pretty old. I worked on it for months. Finally, I opened it, got a hold of the phone and called my grandfather in California.”
“Did he come for you?”
“He waited long enough to get a visa, then hopped on a plane to South America,” he replied, wondering if she could hear the relief and gratitude he still felt, all these years later. His grandfather had been the best man he’d ever known, had been everything Seth’s own father wasn’t. Honest, loving, honorable, he’d been a straight-arrow high school football coach who’d never understood the woman his daughter had become when she’d married Seth’s rich father. Seth had known his Gramps would know what to do. And he had.
“How…”
“I was able to tell him the country and the name of the nearest town. He showed up a week after my call for help. He told my parents he’d already called the FBI and turned them in. Demanding our passports, he packed up me and Em and flew us back stateside.”
“When was that?”
“October ‘02. Almost five months after we left Chicago. He took us back to live with him in L.A.” Seth reached for his own drink, sipping and letting the icy liquid cool off the heat of the memories. “That was the week I called you at your parents’ house.” Not sure what answer he wanted, he asked, “I guess you didn’t get the message?”
“I got it.”
Oh. She’d chosen not to call him back. A part of him had been hoping she’d say her parents had never told her he’d been trying to find her. “I understand. I guess you’d moved on and didn’t want to hear any excuses.”
“True, though I probably would have listened to them at that point. I didn’t get quite as hard and angry until a few years had gone by without any further word.”
Unable to help it, he asked, “So why didn’t you call me back?”
Her eyes widened in shock. “Call you…What do you mean?”
“I gave your father my number and asked him to have you call me in California. I even offered to fly to Chicago to explain and to apologize to you and your family in person.”
She lifted a hand to her face, rubbing her eyes, sighing audibly. “I didn’t get that part of the message.” Shaking her head, she said, “My mother was the one who told me you’d called to apologize, but nothing else. I guess my father only told her what he wanted either of us to hear, because I know she wouldn’t have kept that from me.”
Seth wasn’t sure whether he felt better, or worse. Part of him was relieved she hadn’t chosen to ignore him for the past decade. Another part hated that she’d been manipulated by her own father, as he had by his. Of course, hers had almost certainly been doing it for her own good. His…not so much.
“That’s a lot of lost years due to other people’s interference,” he mumbled, talking as much to himself as to her.
“Maybe we needed them in order to grow up.”
“Maybe.” Then, getting to the point that had brought him here, he added, “So do you think you can forgive me for running out on you without a word?”
Lauren stared at him across the table. Her eyes were decidedly glassy now, and she was nibbling her bottom lip. The hand that continued to toy with the rim of her glass shook.
But her words were steady. Absolutely certain.
“I can. And I do, Seth. You’re forgiven.”
He nodded slowly and replied, “Thank you.”
LAUREN HADN’T TOTALLY understood how much her acceptance of Seth’s apology meant to him until she saw the way he sagged back in his chair in relief. He looked like a criminal who’d been forgiven by his victim.
In truth, he’d been the victim…of unscrupulous parents, of time, of distance, of her resentment and her father’s over-protectiveness. She wanted to cry for him, and for Emily. They hadn’t even talked about what had happened later. Were his parents in prison? Still on the run? How had he ended up working as a sports agent and how had Emily ended up back here in Illinois?
There were a lot of questions still to be answered. But right now, she didn’t want to ask them. She just wanted to sit here, enjoying the soft music and his company, letting herself believe, for the first time in ten years, that he really had, at one time, cared about her. She wasn’t going to call it love—eighteen-year-old guys didn’t really understand that concept as far as she was concerned. But he’d cared. And that mattered to her. A lot.
“So how’s
She laughed with him. “Not bad. I live in Georgia now.”
His jaw dropped. “Seriously? I can’t picture you as a slow-talking, languid Southern belle.”
A hint of an accent had crept into his remark, and she responded in kind. “Why, suh, you wound me. Ah’m a genteel Georgia peach.”
His laughter turned into a snort. “You might have a Georgia zip code, but your blood’s all Chicago speed and energy.”
Maybe. Probably. She definitely wasn’t happy with her job, and hadn’t been since her much-loved boss, Mimi, had left the grocery store chain her family owned. Frankly, laying out ads for canned green beans and dog food hadn’t been what she’d had in mind when she’d gotten her marketing degree.
Seth’s open smile and easy charm made him so easy to talk to that she found herself telling him all about it. He soon had her spilling her guts about her life, everywhere she’d been in the past ten years, every address, job…and relationship.
Those hadn’t been hard to talk about—they’d been few and far between. But the conversation had opened the door, and since turnabout was fair play, she eventually asked, “What about you? No Mrs. Crowder back in L.A., I take it?”
He almost choked on his drink. Setting it down, he leaned over the table and said, “You really think I’d have tracked you down and tried so desperately to make things right with you if I had a wife?”
Not wanting to read too much into his words, which made it sound as though he’d come here for more than an apology, she kept her tone light. “It’s possible. Maybe you’re doing some kind of twelve-step program and making amends is part of it.”
He gestured toward his empty martini glass. “If so, I’m doing a pretty shitty job with the rest of the program.”
“True.”
“I came here because I wanted the chance to explain, to make sure you understood. I’ve been angry at my parents for a lot of reasons for a lot of years.”
“I don’t blame you.”
He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “But close to the top of the list is that they cost me you.” His jaw clenched and his hand tightened on his glass. His voice low, he added, “They cost me the night we were supposed to share after the prom.”