LITMIR.BIZ

      Stephanie was settling into her window seat when she felt her cell vibrate in her pocket. Probably Izzie. She pulled out the phone, leaned against the window, and hit the Answer button without looking at the caller ID.

      “Hello?” she whispered, cupping her hand over her mouth.

      “Stephanie? Stephanie? Is that you?”

      The voice stopped her cold. It was Robert. She felt her breath catch, and her mouth was suddenly filled with cotton.

      “Stef . . .”

      She hit the End button, abruptly aware that her heart was racing. A couple of hours ago, he hadn’t been able to look her in the face as he’d slunk from the room. And now he had the gall to phone her!

      The phone buzzed again.

      Stephanie hit the Decline button and shoved the phone in her pocket. What did he want? To apologize? Possibly. To get her to reconsider? Probably.

      The phone buzzed again, but this time she knew it was a voice mail alert. It could stay there until after Christmas, she decided. In fact, she might just as well delete it without listening to it, because she was finished with him. Finished with his big lies and small promises.

      Abruptly her throat closed, and her eyes stung with bitter tears. Were they all lies? It had only been a few days ago that he’d asked her to marry him, and he’d sounded genuine. She had believed him.

      She’d also believed him when he said that his wife didn’t love him. She’d been wrong then.

      Stephanie reached into her pocket for the phone.

      One Missed Call.

      It would be the easiest thing in the world to turn the phone off and put it away. The doors were about to close, and the flight attendant would remind passengers to ensure that all electronic devices were turned off. Stephanie wanted to ignore the voice mail message until after the holidays. She wanted to, but she couldn’t.

      Pressing her head against the fuselage, feeling it cool and solid against her hot pounding head, she dialed into her voice mail.

      “You have one new message.”

      Then she heard his voice: “Stephanie? Stephanie, it’s Robert. Look, we need to talk. We have to talk. About today. About us. About everything. Please call me back. I’m on my cell.”

      Of course he was on his cell, Stephanie thought savagely. He wouldn’t want her calling the house, would he? She deleted the message and turned off the phone.

      There was nothing to talk about. Their relationship was over. She should never have gotten involved with him in the first place. Stephanie settled back into the seat, closed her eyes, and popped noise-canceling earplugs into her ears. Instantly, the world grew muffled and seemed to go away. She breathed deeply and did a mental inventory of their relationship.

      It was difficult now, looking back over the past eighteen months to remember what she’d seen in him—and really it was only in the last six months that things had turned very serious and she’d begun to think that he might indeed be the one. He was handsome, in an ordinary sort of way, sixteen years older than she was, though there had been many times that she felt she was the more mature partner in the relationship. He ran his own business, a small production company, now making shorts, fillers, and ads instead of the groundbreaking documentaries he had once aspired to. His job certainly wasn’t an attraction for Stephanie, who drew a bigger salary than he did and with much better benefits.

      So what was it? What attracted a thirty-three-year-old, single, unattached, attractive woman, with her own mortgage and car, to a man with the ultimate baggage: a wife, two teens, and a struggling business?

      It wasn’t a question she’d chosen to ask herself too often in the past, though Izzie had asked it of her often enough, usually phrasing the question slightly differently, reminding her friend just how one-sided the relationship was. Stephanie brought much more to the relationship than Robert: She was a younger, prettier, slimmer version of his wife, who now had the cares and struggles of raising two teens etched into her face and body.

      Stephanie was someone able to bring business to his company. She shook her head slightly. No, it wasn’t just that. She refused to believe that it was just that. Certainly that was an additional benefit for Robert, but all that had come later.

      Besides, thinking back to those early days, she had actively pursued him, and she had certainly made the first move.

      What had attracted her to him, with all of his faults?

      When she first met him, over six years ago, he had seemed so lonely. She’d been hired as a research assistant for a documentary that R&K Productions had been working on. Little by little his story had come out as they had trekked up and down the East Coast scouting locations. Although he shared joint ownership of the company with his wife, Robert had been struggling to grow the company alone, because Kathy had stepped away from the business. He was working fourteen- and sixteen-hour days just to make ends meet. Stephanie had no time for him then; she thought he was ignorant and arrogant and completely absorbed in the company. But, she had gotten her first break in the advertising business from Robert, and for that she would be eternally grateful. That first job had paved the way for the rest of her career.

      When she met him again about eighteen months ago, that loneliness still radiated from him. He was still working ridiculous hours, scrambling from job to job and, from what she could gather, the relationship between him and his wife seemed to have broken down irrevocably. He’d also insinuated that when the children were grown, he was going to leave Kathy.

      Once she knew that, Stephanie had felt no compunction about letting Robert know that she was available . . . if he was interested.

      And he was interested.

      But that still didn’t answer the question. What had attracted her to him?

      Stephanie was vaguely aware that the engines were revving up and that the plane was moving. It looked like it was taking off on time; that was a good omen. Maybe she would make the O’Hare connection.

      What had attracted her to him? That was going to bother her now until she had worked out a satisfactory answer.

      She could feel the sensation in her feet and stomach as the plane took off, and with the sudden lift came an answer: It was the sense of loss that he carried around him. The loss, the hurt that clung to him and perhaps the desperation too. That had appealed to her. He was someone in trouble, and she could help him. Fix his problems. Make him happy again.

      How wrong she’d been!

      She hadn’t made things better; in fact, she’d made it worse, so much worse. Because of her—and Robert too—his family was condemned to a difficult and bitter Christmas. She’d already disrupted her friend’s Christmas Eve, and she was doing something she really didn’t want to be doing: flying to the Midwest to a family she didn’t really know anymore. She’d already been censured at work because of her relationship with Robert’s company, and she knew she’d have a lot of bridge building to do to repair that damage.

      Everything had a price; she knew that. You just had to be prepared to pay the price.

      And she had a feeling that she was only now beginning to pay for her relationship with Robert Walker.

      CHAPTER 3

      Stephanie

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