For a moment, he held her close. She could feel his heart racing. Hers was doing a pretty good job of keeping up. She sunk her fingers into his hair and kissed him deeply. The way he kissed her back carried her away. His apartment, the real world, faded away as she was transported through space and time. His hand tangled in her hair pulling her head back to give him better access to her kiss. She moaned as his other hand slipped down and closed around her backside, holding her against him in a way that let her know just how much he wanted her. She clung to his shoulders and rubbed her hips against his. She wanted, no needed him to take her, to make love to her. She knew in her heart that once they made that connection, they’d never be able to break it again.
Eventually, he lifted his head, his breath coming hard, matching hers. She searched his face. “I want you, Ben.”
“Oh Charlie, I want you. I’ve wanted you all this time. But aren’t we supposed to be taking things slowly?”
She nodded reluctantly. “We are, but I don’t want to.”
“I don’t either, but if it’s the right thing to do, then we should. Remind me. Why is it the right thing to do?”
She laughed. “This is a turnaround, isn’t it? It always used to be you who had to remind me what was the right thing to do and why.”
“I guess I just don’t want to be sensible when it comes to you. You make me want to live in the moment. We missed so many moments, I don’t want to miss any more.”
Charlotte nodded. “I just didn’t want to rush you into anything. Don’t you think for a minute I don’t want to.” She closed her eyes, she couldn’t believe she was about to say this. “But I need you to be sure that I’m the one you want. I’m your past. Until yesterday morning Angel was your present. I think you need to take your time to decide who might be your future.”
He let go of her and stepped back. “Please, Charlie, can you forget about Angel? There is nothing between us, there never has been.”
She reached up and touched his cheek. “I know that, Ben. I believe you. All I’m saying is that I think there could be. And before we get back together for good, I think maybe you should explore that.” She smiled wanting to somehow make light of what she was saying, even though that seemed impossible. “You see, if I do get you back, I’m never letting you go again. So, I need you to be sure. I don’t ever want you to wonder what might have been.”
He shook his head. “I’ve spent sixteen years wondering what might have been between you and me. Now I finally get the chance to find out. There is no way I would risk that, not for anything. Certainly not in order to explore something with Angel. I told you, she’s become a friend. She’s a good-looking woman and we do have a connection of some sort. I’m not denying it. But it means nothing and couldn’t ever mean anything. My heart belongs to you, it always has. Now can we please forget about her and focus on us?”
Charlotte nodded. She didn’t know what possessed her to bring that up again, but it was niggling at her. She felt as though she was being unreasonable asking him to commit the rest of his life to her when he’d never even looked around to see what else was out there. It was just her sucky timing that meant she’d finally come back just in time to prevent him from checking out what he could maybe have with someone else.
“Okay, we can forget about it tonight, but would you promise me something?”
“What?” He didn’t look like he wanted to make any promises.
Charlotte smiled. “I want you to promise me that you’ll give some thought to what might’ve happened between you and Angel if I wasn’t in the picture.”
“I can’t promise you that, because I can’t do that. I can’t give any thought to that, because all I can think about is you and the fact that you’re back. You are in the picture, you’ve always been in the picture. Angel isn’t the first attractive woman who’s come along. I like her, okay? I admit it. But I don’t like her enough to do anything about it.” He blew out a sigh and shook his head. “It almost feels as though you’re trying to palm me off on her.”
“No! You know that’s not it. I just feel like I’m being selfish. I was married to Alastair for years and now I come waltzing back in and expect you to drop everything for me.”
“But you’re not expecting, you’re just hoping. I know that. And it’s what I want. Shouldn’t what I want be what matters most?”
Charlotte nodded. “It’s the only thing that matters. But I know you; you’d rather go with the old familiar, than explore something new, something that might be even better. And I don’t want to deprive you of something better.”
“Nothing could be better, in my mind, than us getting back together. What is it that you’re really scared of? Do you think that once we get to know each other again it won’t be the same? Do you think the magic is gone? That the people we are now won’t be able to share something as wonderful as we did in the past?”
“I guess, if I’m perfectly honest, I’m afraid that I won’t be good enough. You deserve the best. And I think a part of me is scared that she might be better for you than I am.”
He came back and slid his arms around her. “What has life done to you to make you so uncertain? You always used to be so confident, you knew best, youwerethe best, and no one could ever tell you otherwise.”
Charlotte shrugged. “Like I told you, I suppose I’ve done a lot of growing up. I suppose there’s also some element of guilt in there. I hurt you, I know that. It’s bad enough that I hurt you when we were kids. But knowing that what happened between us meant that you never found happiness with someone else … That kills me, Ben. And if you have a chance at happiness with someone else now, there is no way I want to take that away from you.”
He looked so sad, it broke her heart. “Youdidn’t hurt me, Charlie. What happened hurt me. What your parents did hurt me. But you? You never did anything to hurt me.”
She closed her eyes against all the emotions that rushed to the surface. She made her way to the sofa feeling as though her legs might buckle under her. “How can you say that? We both know that what I did was what destroyed us. I lost our child.”
He came to sit beside her and put his arm around her shoulders. “That wasn’t something you did. It was something that happened and it happened to both of us. It hurt you as much as it hurt me.”
Charlotte swallowed, trying to hold back the tears that wanted to fall. “Yes, but Ben, the fact that I suggested …” Even now she couldn’t bring herself to say the words, she hated remembering that, even if only for a moment, she’d considered that they might get rid of their baby.
“No. All you did was consider all the options available to us at the time. I need to tell you how sorry I am that I reacted the way I did when you mentioned it. You were just thinking out loud and we should have been able to discuss together whether that was something that we wanted. Instead, I was shocked and hurt and I let you see that when I shouldn’t have.”
“You had every right to be shocked and hurt. I could never have done it. You’re right, I really was just thinking out loud. But I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did either. When we talked on the phone and you thought that was what I’d done … When I told you the baby was gone and you thought …” She closed her eyes, but that didn’t stop the tears from rolling down her cheeks.
He hugged her to his chest and rested his chin on top of her head. “Charlie, I’m so sorry.” She could hear the tears in his voice and looked up into his eyes. He shook his head sadly. “I was so worried. Before you left for Mexico, that was the last thing we talked about. I told you we both needed to take our time to think about it. Then when we talked on the phone and you told me the baby was gone, I was so shocked, I thought that was what you meant.”
