LITMIR.BIZ

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losing his own mom. Parents, good ones, were a precious commodity.

      So the thought of Melodie’s mother’s ashes being mistreated still bothered him, even though nothing terrible had come to pass. It had been more than the basic indecency of such a thing. He simply wasn’t that cruel.

      Meanwhile, the claim Melodie had made about how she’d come to have those ashes had shaken his assumptions about her and her family. He had needed to know more, to understand if what she had claimed about her estrangement from her father could be true. He’d made a number of calls over the ensuing days, first talking to her building manager at length.

      Melodie, it seemed, was a perfect tenant who paid on time, lived quietly and took care of minor repairs herself. In fact, until the recent passing of her mother, she’d spent most of her days out of her apartment, working or visiting her mother at the clinic.

      When Roman had looked more closely at her finances, he’d learned that she’d been living simply for years. Her income was low, especially for the daughter of a senator who received dividends from a global software company. For six years she had worked in a variety of part-time and minimum-wage jobs, only taking on debt to improve her mother’s care and then to start her wedding planning business.

      He’d spoken to Ingrid’s mother, too, learning more about Melodie’s mother than Melodie herself, but even that had been an eye-opener. Patience Parnell had been a fragile sort at college. She’d been given to tears and depression over the tiniest slight. She’d quit school when a modeling agency had scouted her, but after the initial boost to her self-esteem, that sort of work had ground her down. She’d left that career to marry a rich widower, expecting to be a homemaker and help him raise his son. Instead, she’d been his trophy wife, constantly on display as he set his aspirations on Washington. The demands of networking, campaigning and entertaining had grown too much for her. She never really recovered from postpartum depression after having Melodie. She’d checked into a sanitarium six years ago and, it was whispered, had checked out under her own terms.

      When she had been diagnosed with breast cancer, she had refused treatment, letting it take her life in a type of natural suicide.

      Every time he thought about it, he saw Melodie before him in that ridiculous outfit. Her anguish had been so real as she’d said, I’ll keep her safe. I’m the only one who ever has.

      That crack in her control was the thing that niggled most. She had been such a coolheaded fighter up to that point. He’d seen it in the way she’d doggedly tried to argue with him. At any other time he would have admired such a quick, clear ability to reason her way out of conflict. Hell, he probably would have tried to hire her. People who could step past emotion to straighten out a tense situation were gold.

      All he’d seen at the time, however, was an attack. A cold-blooded one. His mind had been so skewed by his experience with her father and brother he’d stayed on the offensive, refusing to hear her, especially because she’d been so levelheaded in her defense. He’d read her wrong because, until those last moments, she hadn’t flinched or broken down.

      That strength in her had thrown him, making him see her as an adversary. Now all he could think about was how it would feel to put all one’s energy into fighting for someone, for your mother, and lose her to a lack of will to live.

      He swallowed, pushing stiff fists into his pockets, knuckles coming up against the string of pearls he should have returned to Melodie by now. He kept thinking she might contact him, but, in her shoes, would he want to talk to him?

      If there was a good enough reason, he thought she would.

      The beads rubbed mercilessly against his knuckles, the way a certain question kept rolling around in his mind, rubbing and aggravating.

      Did no condom mean no birth control?

      A lead blanket descended on him each time he recalled his fleeting moment of sobriety, as he had recognized the mistake he was about to make.

      He was a man of logic. He didn’t believe in giving in to feelings. He still couldn’t understand how he had, especially with his view of Melodie as dark as it had been. He’d been appalled in those first seconds afterward for so much as touching her.

      Yet it had been the most profound sexual experience of his life.

      Had it been the same for her? Had their physical attraction been real? Please, Roman, please. His entire body clenched with tension and his breath drew in and held, savoring the memory of skin and musky scents and hot, wet welcome pouring over him like a bath. Behind his closed eyes, another question, the most burning question, glowed brightly.

       Was she pregnant?

      * * *

      Beggars can’t be choosers. It was a truth Melodie had learned to live with the day she’d come home six years ago to discover her father had badgered her mother into a hospital she couldn’t leave.

      She’s an embarrassment, he’d said.

      He was the embarrassment, Melodie had informed him. Terrible words had followed, ending with her nursing a bruised cheek, a sore scalp and a wrenched shoulder while she’d begged through choked-back tears for permission to see her mother. He’d forced her to stay silent on his abusive behavior if she wanted so much as a phone call.

      After striking that deal, Melodie had walked out, going to a friend’s house and never returning. Her privileged life had ended. She’d learned the hard way how to make ends meet, taking whatever job she could find to survive.

      Of course, there was one job she had refused to stoop to, but today might be the day she completely swallowed her pride. They’d noticed at her temp office job that she had a flare for organization. They wanted to offer her a permanent position with a politician’s campaign team. Become a handler. A political gofer. Barf.

      But the money was significantly better than entry-level clerk wages.

      And her mother’s wish to have her ashes sprinkled in the Seine was weighing on her.

      So Melodie begrudgingly put on a proper tweed skirt and jacket over a black turtleneck, put her hair in a French roll and closed the door on her new apartment far earlier than necessary so even if she missed her first bus, she wouldn’t be late for her interview.

      This was an old building, bordering on disrepair, and it smelled musty, but the price was right and all the locks worked.

      As she walked down the stairs, she told herself to be thankful she had anything at all. After a lifetime of watching her mother struggle against negative thoughts and spirals of depression, Melodie had learned not to dwell on regrets or could-have-beens. She accepted her less-than-ideal circumstances philosophically and set goals for a better situation, confident she would get to where she wanted to be eventually. This apartment and taking a job she didn’t want was merely a step in the process.

      This was also the last time she started from scratch, she assured herself, grateful her mother hadn’t lived to see her fall on her face this way.

      Mom. Pearls. France.

      Her hand went to her collar, didn’t find the necklace, and her heart sank into the pit of her stomach.

      She tried not to think of France, but Roman crept into her thoughts day and night, taunting her with how horribly she’d misjudged him.

      She blamed her sunny ideals. All her life she had wanted to believe deep emotional connections were possible, even though her mother’s yearning for a better love from her father had been futile. And even though, among the loose friendships Melodie had made over the years, she’d seen more heartbreaks than success stories.

      Ingrid and Huxley had fed her vision, though. Every once in a while, she came across a couple she wished she could emulate: the people who communicated with a glance and did sweet things for each other, just because.

      The only way she’d coped with her barren early years had been by promising herself that real, true love would come to her eventually.

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