Elizabeth reluctantly took her hand, wondering what had happened to Paul’s last assistant, Ariel. She’d been young and attractive, too, but happily married, with two kids. This woman’s left hand was bare, and judging by her trim, shapely figure, Elizabeth seriously doubted that she’d had children. At least, not recently.
“Is my husband in?” Why hadn’t she just called him Paul? Elizabeth wondered. Was she still trying to stake her claim? If so, how pathetic was that?
“I’ll buzz him and tell him you’re here.” Another emotion glimmered in the woman’s eyes, one Elizabeth couldn’t define this time.
“No, don’t bother,” Elizabeth said with a cool smile. “I’ll just pop in for a moment.”
She could feel the woman’s gaze on her as she walked away and she knew that if she turned, Nina Wilson would be staring at her.
Elizabeth knocked, then waited for Paul to say, “Come in,” before she opened the door and stepped inside. He was standing at the wall of windows, looking out at the mountains. Hands shoved in his pockets, he appeared to be a million miles away.
“Did Carter ever call back?” he asked absently.
Elizabeth cleared her throat. “I guess you were expecting someone else.”
At the sound of her voice he spun, a look of astonishment flashing across his handsome features.
It wasn’t fair, Elizabeth thought fleetingly. It wasn’t fair that after everything they’d been through, after all the grief and hurt and bitterness of the past eighteen months, he still had the power to take her breath away.
“Elizabeth! What are you…what brings you by here?”
He chose his words carefully around her, Elizabeth noticed. They’d both been walking on eggshells for so long, she wondered if either of them even knew how to relax anymore.
Coming over to stand behind his desk, his gray eyes raked her curiously. And no wonder. She hadn’t been in his office in over a year. Not since before the accident.
“I was out walking, taking advantage of the beautiful weather, and I found myself near your building,” she tried to say in a normal voice. But what was normal these days? “I decided to drop by and see if you have dinner plans.” Oh, God. She hadn’t meant it to sound that way, as if she were asking him out.
He lifted a brow as he regarded her across the expanse of the desk. For the longest moment he said nothing, and Elizabeth rushed to explain, “There’s…something I need to talk to you about.”
“I see.” His gaze flickered, but she didn’t have a clue what he was thinking. He seemed so remote, so cold. Nothing at all like the man who had barely let her out of bed on their honeymoon.
She didn’t want to remember their honeymoon now, though. Or the night they’d made Damon. Not with Nina Wilson sitting right outside Paul’s door.
“Shall I pick up something on my way home?” he finally asked.
“No, I’ll cook.” It would give her something to do for the rest of the afternoon.
“Are you sure?”
She hadn’t cooked in months, but Elizabeth found herself looking forward to the prospect. “I’ll enjoy puttering around the kitchen again.”
“In that case, what time?”
“Seven-thirty? Is that too early?” He often didn’t get home until well after ten. And even on those nights he didn’t go straight to bed but would sit in the living room with a drink, sometimes watching television, sometimes staring into the dark.
He nodded. “I’ll make sure to get away early. I’ll see you at seven-thirty.”
He came around the desk then to walk her to the door. His shoulder brushed against hers, and Elizabeth was surprised to find herself growing quite breathless again. She could smell his cologne, a rich, classy scent with seductive undertones. Yes, that was Paul. Rich, classy, seductive…
The dark gray pin-striped suit he had on was one of her favorites. But then, Paul could wear anything and look good. He was tall and slender, his body toned from the miles and miles of running he did every week. At thirty-six, he had the physique of a man a decade younger, but the lines around his mouth and eyes gave his face maturity.
Elizabeth had never met any man—and never would, she suspected—who compared in any way to Paul Blackstone.
At the door he gazed down at her, and it was almost as if…for a moment it seemed as if he might…
The door opened and Nina Wilson came in. “Boyd Carter is on line two—” She stopped short when she saw Elizabeth, and her expression became contrite. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you still had someone with you.”
“My wife was just leaving.”
My wife.
Elizabeth glanced at Nina, and for a moment, the woman’s gaze darkened with something that might have been fury. Then she seemed to shrug it off and smiled. “It was nice meeting you…Elizabeth.”
Score one for you, Elizabeth thought as she left the office. Because by using her first name, Nina Wilson had effectively put them on equal footing.
AS PAUL BLACKSTONE watched his wife leave the office, an uneasy premonition tickled along his backbone. So she wanted to have dinner with him tonight. What was that all about?
He wanted to believe that the overture was a good sign. Elizabeth might finally be emerging from the dark place she’d crawled into eighteen months ago. Somehow he didn’t think so, though.
He understood her despair. There had been times in the past year and a half when he’d wanted nothing more than to pull the covers over his head and hide from the world rather than wake up to face another day without his son. But life had to go on. He had a living to make. Mortgage payments, bills, responsibilities that didn’t stop because life no longer seemed worth living.
Eventually he’d been able to see the sunlight again. Dimmer, yes, but it was there if he looked hard enough. But Elizabeth…
Paul closed his eyes briefly. He very much feared that she would never find her way out of the darkness, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
Trying to shake off a growing sense of doom, he took the call from Boyd Carter, but his mind wasn’t really on the conversation. When he finally hung up, he swiveled his chair around to stare out the windows. The sun was still shining, but the rainbow over Elliott Bay had long since faded. And in the distance he thought he saw rain clouds gathering over the snowy peak of Mount Olympus.
He let his mind retreat back to the visit from his wife. What did she want to talk to him about? Reconciliation? A fresh start?
Wishful thinking, he decided. He was fairly certain that she’d decided it was time to end the travesty that their marriage had become. And maybe she was right. Maybe it was time to let go. Maybe it had been time over a year ago when she’d sobbed in his arms that she didn’t want to go on. That without their son she had nothing to live for.
Paul understood her grief. He did. But, God, how that had hurt him. How it still hurt him that she hadn’t been able to turn to him for comfort, but instead had pushed him away.
But as devastated and grief-stricken as he’d been that night, the worst had been yet to come. A few days later he’d gotten home from work to find Elizabeth unconscious in their bed. Unable to rouse her, he’d called the paramedics, and they’d rushed her to the hospital, where the sleeping pills had been pumped from her stomach.
When she’d finally awakened a few hours later and seen Paul at her bedside, she’d slipped her hand from his and turned away.
She’d blamed him for saving her. Blamed