Can't Stand the Heat - Louisa Edwards [121]
Miranda wilted before their eyes, like greens under hot bacon dressing. Tears slid down her white cheeks. He hated that she looked beautiful even when she cried.
Even when she’d betrayed him.
“I—I—I . . . Oh, my God.” She shook like a brisk wind had her.
“Not good enough,” Grant snarled. “Come on, Adam, let’s go. We’ve got work to do to get the restaurant in shape to open tonight. And I will be goddamned if we let all this shit keep us closed.”
“In a second.” Adam hardly recognized his own voice.
Shaking his head, Grant moved off, muttering under his breath about crazies with guns and scandalmongers with no morals.
“I don’t know what to say.” Miranda clutched herself around the middle. “It’s all a huge mistake, those things should never have been published. I’d decided, I was going to break the contract. You have to believe me.”
“You wrote those things. And you sent them to the publisher.”
She didn’t deny it. The mute suffering on her lovely face was answer enough.
Adam forced himself to continue. “You lied to me. You cozied up to me, for what, for material? Jesus. Was I research?” Adam stopped, sickened, and Miranda rushed to fill the gap.
“No, no. Don’t believe that, I couldn’t stand it if you—I swear, please. Everything I said last night, about how I feel for you, that’s all true. I meant every word, every touch.”
She was sobbing openly now, attracting attention from passersby. Adam started to feel suffocated.
“But I don’t know how to tell the difference,” he said, feeling stupid, slow. How was he supposed to get this? “How do I know what was a lie and what wasn’t?”
“You just . . .” Her mouth worked for a second. “You just trust me. I guess.”
Defeat weighted the words so they dropped into the space between them like overworked dumplings, doughy and thick.
“I think you can see where the logic falls down, there,” he said.
“I should’ve told you—”
“But you didn’t. I don’t know why I’m surprised, though. You’ve got to be the most secretive, closed-off woman alive. You never told me anything. About your parents, about your life. Every important thing I know about you, I learned from someone else. Maybe we all only think we know you; all we really know are the stories we tell each other about you. Maybe it’s all lies.”
Miranda shuddered. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “This isn’t what I wanted, what I meant. I love you.”
His heart fluttered, tried valiantly to make Adam feel something, but he throttled it ruthlessly. Numb was good. Numb was his friend.
“I’ve got to go,” he said, backing away. If anything was going to break through the ice encasing his emotions, it would be that sentence on Miranda’s sweet, treacherous lips.
“Did you hear me?” she said, desperation roughening her voice. “I said I love you.”
“Don’t. Don’t say that.”
She recoiled as if he’d slapped her, but nodded in acceptance. “Sorry. I don’t know what else to say. It’s a switch, right? Me, not having the words.”
“You don’t have the words because there isn’t anything left to say.”
Adam walked away.
He only looked back once before the crowds of market-goers closed between them, blocking his view. She was standing where he’d left her. Her hair shone like a dying fire in the summer sun, casting her face in shadow. The fingers of one hand were white-knuckled on the sack of cherries.
Adam didn’t think he’d be able to eat another Rainier cherry as long as he lived.
TWENTY-NINE
The apartment had that echoy, vacant feeling that told Miranda that Jess wasn’t home.
She dropped her purse by the door and dragged into the living room, wanting nothing more than a glass of wine and a long soak in a hot tub. Beyond that, she just wanted to forget.
Forget the mess she’d made of her life. Forget the condemnation in Grant’s face, the hurt in Adam’s eyes.
He didn’t scream at her, didn’t raise his voice once. After the way he blew