LITMIR.BIZ

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      He took hold of both her arms and drew her into his, folding them around her. “Oh, God, Stacey, I’m sorry.”

      She closed her eyes and pretended that all the years hadn’t happened. Pretended, just for a second, that they were still living in that one-room furnished apartment where they kept tripping over their own shadows. The Brad she’d loved then would have never forgotten. The Brad who’d lived in that apartment with her had brought her a cupcake because it was all they could afford, stuck a single candle into it and wished her happy anniversary.

      “Yes,” she murmured, “I know you are.”

      CHAPTER 6

      There was genuine distress on his face. “Look, we could still go out.”

      Because he felt bad, she forgave him. And put him first the way she always did, especially when her defenses had been dismantled.

      “You look exhausted, honey, and this is Friday night. If we go out now, we’ll only wind up waiting hours for a table.” But it wasn’t too late to have a romantic dinner at home. The way she’d originally planned. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, then asked, “How do you feel about cold beef stroganoff?”

      “Beef stroganoff?” When his eyes widened like that, he looked almost boyish. God help her, she felt her pulse quicken. He could still excite her the way nothing and no one else could, after all these years. “You made beef stroganoff? That’s my favorite.”

      Affection grew within her. “Yes, Brad, I know. That’s why I made it.” She led the way through the dining room into the kitchen. “I kept it on the warming tray. I’m afraid it’s beginning to resemble congealed butterscotch pudding.” Stacey opened the refrigerator where she’d placed the serving dish. After edging it out, she picked the dish up with both hands and set it down on the counter. “I could put it in the microwave,” she offered.

      He nodded, reminding her of an eager little boy. Of Jim when he’d been little, ready to agree to anything in order to get what he wanted.

      “Sounds great.”

      “It won’t taste as good,” she warned him. “Nothing out of a microwave except for popcorn ever tastes as good as it’s supposed to.” She debated her next move. “Maybe I’ll heat it up on the stove. It’ll take longer, but it’ll taste better.” He hadn’t said anything. “Unless you’re starving,” she qualified, waiting for him to tip the scales one way or another.

      He followed her as she moved toward the stove, his eye on the prize, the dish with his dinner in it.

      “I am,” he told her, then made the supreme sacrifice. “But I can wait.”

      All right, she’d give him points. He was trying. Guilt did that to a man sometimes. Made him easier to work with. And right now, she wasn’t above using that guilt to her advantage.

      Once she moved the serving dish right next to a front burner, she took a pot out of the lower cupboard and spooned in two servings of stroganoff, then added one more for good measure in case Brad was really ravenous. The linguine stood in the bowl where she’d placed it earlier. Stacey dumped that into another pot, poured water over it and set it on the burner beside the stroganoff.

      “Five minutes for the linguine, ten for the stroganoff,” she announced. Then, taking a chilled bottle of wine out of the refrigerator, she poured some into a long-stemmed glass and handed it to him. “You can have this while you’re waiting.”

      “You’re a life saver.” He murmured the words to her back as she filled a second glass for herself. Brad took a long sip and let the red liquid pour itself through his veins. For a moment, his eyes had fluttered shut. “God, that feels good.”

      Stacey felt a slight pinch in the pit of her stomach. There was a time when Brad had said that after they had finished making love.

      To her “good” was a paltry word, hardly fit to describe their lovemaking. Though never frequent because of the demands of his work, when they had occurred, the sessions had been nothing short of spectacular. He’d always teased her that it was quality, not quantity that counted, and he’d certainly made a true believer out of her. At least, until the occasions grew fewer and fewer, moving further apart until eventually, it felt as if she was faced with neither quantity nor quality.

      Stacey offered him a smile that involved mostly her lips and not her heart. And was then surprised when Brad touched his half-empty glass to her full one.

      “To another twenty-five years,” he said before taking another sip.

      Her heart twisted a little. “Twenty-six,” she corrected.

      “Twenty-six?” he repeated, furrowing his brow. “Has it been that long?” He tried to think back to the actual year. For a second, nothing came to him. He drew a blank. “Are you sure?”

      Did he actually think she didn’t remember when they had gotten married? That he’d forgotten cut her to the quick. It was all she could do to keep the hurt from registering on her face.

      “I’m sure,” she answered with a cheerfulness that rang hollow to her own ear. “Time flies when you’re having fun.”

      He knew her inside and out and he knew that hurt tone. He couldn’t fault her, he supposed. But by now, he would have thought that she understood. She shouldn’t need the outward trappings, the constant assurances. Shouldn’t she just know that he loved her without wanting to be shown, without having him jump through hoops all the time?

      Weren’t women ever satisfied?

      He sought what little patience his day had left him. “Stacey—”

      “I’ll get dinner,” Stacey told him, cutting him off as she turned away. That was his I’m-lecturing-even-though-I-don’t-consider-this-a-lecture tone. She didn’t want to hear it. The way she felt right now, she wasn’t sure if she could hold her tongue, and once things were said, they couldn’t be unsaid.

      “You know, I think I like stroganoff better after it’s been warmed up once,” Brad told her a few minutes later as they sat at the dining room table.

      Stacey looked at him over the unlit candles. She’d begun to light them once she’d brought his dish to the table, only to have him stop her. There was no reason to light candles, he’d told her. After all, the power hadn’t gone out.

      But it has, she thought now as she watched him eat. It’s gone out of our marriage, Brad. You just can’t see it.

      “Good,” he murmured, raising his fork as if in tribute. “After all these years, you haven’t lost your touch.”

      How would you know? she wondered as she nodded in response with a half smile. Try as she might to connect a date, an event, to the last time that they had touched each other, she found that nothing came to mind. It had been so long, she couldn’t remember when.

      But that was going to change tonight, she promised herself.

      They went to bed shortly after ten, after narrowly avoiding getting into a heated argument about Jim. She’d mentioned that he hadn’t said anything about Jim not being around, and he’d responded by saying that he was savoring the quiet. It made her feel that he was happy to be rid of their son. The fact that they were so far apart in their feelings about Jim bothered her to the very depths of her soul.

      She would have loved to have resolved something, but that wasn’t going to happen. She’d finally tabled the discussion when it looked to be in danger of escalating into a full-blown argument. She desperately didn’t want to argue on their anniversary, even though she felt that Brad was just as wrong in his attitude toward Jim as Jim was in his attitude toward his father.

      As Brad got into bed, she quickly slipped into the bathroom and put on the sexy black nightgown she’d bought earlier in the week. Running a comb through her hair, she checked over her makeup, opting to leave it on tonight rather than run

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