LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Don’t?”

      “Don’t. I don’t want you holding my hand.”

      “Gina, you don’t have to worry,” Gerrick said soothingly. “I’m not going to do anything to embarrass you or even announce our wedding. You’re safe.”

      “I don’t think so,” Gina said, her voice barely a whisper. “Now that the worst is over and now that I’ve had time to think things through, I know I won’t feel safe until we talk about our marriage.”

      “Okay. So, let’s talk.”

      Gina straightened her shoulders and sat taller in her chair as if she were about to have a business discussion, not a personal one. She drew a long breath then said, “I had too much to drink the night we got married and I don’t remember it. I don’t remember if we consummated the marriage.” Without so much as a blink, she steadily held his gaze. “I assume we did. But whatever happened, I don’t remember and as far as I’m concerned that makes it a mistake.”

      “I disagree,” Gerrick said calmly, though inside he was reeling. She didn’t remember. That would explain her hesitation when she awakened, and why she had second thoughts. But it didn’t explain why she kissed him at the airport in Atlanta. Or the fact that she didn’t want out of the marriage Sunday afternoon. Sunday afternoon she wanted to be his wife as much as he wanted to be her husband. Otherwise she wouldn’t have let him come to her house, because she had to know the only reason for them to go to her father’s home together was to tell him they were married.

      “Gina, this just happened at a bad time. I’m willing to give you weeks or months to adjust if need be, but I don’t think we made a mistake.” He paused, took her hand. “I love you, Gina.”

      “You don’t love me,” Gina said, yanking her hand from his and shifting away from him, though she remained coolly detached. “We had a really great weekend but we do not love each other. Gerrick, I barely know you.”

      “We worked together for six years. We’ve known each other twelve.”

      She shook her head. “You don’t really know the people you work with.”

      “Are you telling me you’re hiding some deep, dark secret?”

      “I’m telling you we made a mistake and I don’t want to continue it. I want out.” She combed her fingers through her thick brown hair, then shook her head in disgust. “I’ve got problems enough with my dad and I don’t have the mental energy to argue with you. I don’t even have time to be as diplomatic as I probably should be. And you don’t, either. You’ve got a new job to go to.”

      “That’s funny. Last week you were insisting only I

      could stay behind to run the company in your father’s absence. Now you want me to leave?”

      “You need to leave. You need to get on with the rest of your life and I need to get on with mine.”

      “I see,” Gerrick said coolly and rose from his chair. Where had his wonderful Gina gone? Where was the sweet passionate woman who tormented him by fingering all the red and black lace bras in the hotel store? Where was the woman who made love with passion and abandon? Where was the woman who had asked him to marry her? “I guess I should head for home, then.”

      She nodded.

      “I’ll just say goodbye to your father.”

      She nodded again. “I’ll be in in a minute.”

      Gerrick took no comfort in the fact that Gina appeared to need to collect herself before returning to her father’s room. Heeding doctor’s orders, Gerrick also didn’t tell Hilton that Gina had basically asked him to leave the company. He never lost his smile, his friendly demeanor, or even the spring in his step until he was boarding the commuter at Johnstown’s airport, then he felt as if his entire world was crumbling around him.

      He had loved her for months. Before he got the job offer in Maine he had been building up to asking her out by talking with her every chance he got. True, he hadn’t told her about his family, but she knew as much as anybody knew about him personally. And he knew absolutely everything about her. Most of her growing-up years had been documented in the company’s annual statement because it was a family-owned business. He knew her. He knew he loved her. And he knew that without her, his life would have almost no meaning.

      His heart actually hurt, and he considered not leaving, waiting around until she came back and then trying to talk to her again. But Gina had made her wishes clear. She wouldn’t be receptive to his staying. She wouldn’t see his refusal to go as tenacity born of love. She would fight him tooth and nail, if only on principle. But more than that, if she didn’t believe she knew him, if she had missed that he had been flirting with her for months, then she hadn’t been paying any attention to him and she was right. She didn’t know him.

      So she could not love him.

      No matter how many times she had said it on their wedding night, she didn’t love him.

      The realization hurt so much he stopped his thoughts. He wouldn’t let himself go any further down that road. He knew better. He knew exactly what happened when a person let grief overwhelm him. He might have been in elementary school when his father left, but he had grieved. He had spent Christmas day on a chair by the window, watching it snow, waiting for his father to return, and when he didn’t six-year-old Gerrick had fallen apart.

      Then, when he was twelve his mother took him to spend his summer vacation with her sister, Gerrick’s aunt, and simply never returned. She didn’t give a word of explanation to him or his aunt. She just never came to pick him up. Only one day beyond her scheduled arrival, Gerrick knew what had happened and this time when he fell apart it wasn’t the fear-based agony of a child, but the true grief of a boy on the brink of manhood. No one wanted him, and he knew it.

      Anger and rebellion marked the next four years of his life, but on his sixteenth birthday everything changed. He suddenly realized the only person he could count on was himself, but he also saw that wasn’t such a bad thing since he could control what he did. His life took a miraculous upturn. He got a job so he could begin to pay his own way. He made peace with his aunt and uncle and cautiously made friends at school. He didn’t spend his life avoiding relationships, but he was careful and wise beyond his years.

      Which was why he was amazed he had rolled the dice with Gina. He let his emotions overrule his common sense and now he was hurting almost as much as he had when he was twelve.

      Except this time he had chosen his fate. This time he had a plan, but he hadn’t followed it. When she proposed to him, he tossed his plan and his common sense out the window.

      In some ways that made the hurt worse, because he knew this pain was his own fault.

      He kept a tight hold on his control through the entire flight to Atlanta and on Sunday occupied himself with writing notes about his job for Josh Anderson, so he did not have time to think about Gina. He didn’t want to be reminded of the things she’d said to him, their marriage or how stupid he had been to panic and marry her before she had a chance to catch up to his level of feelings. If he did, he knew he would crumble, or, worse, do something foolish.

      On Monday morning he called Josh Anderson and Ethan McKenzie into Hilton Martin’s office, which he had been using in Hilton’s absence.

      “Good morning, Josh, Ethan,” Gerrick said with a nod to Ethan indicating he should close the office door. To look at him, no one would know the suffering of his soul. Gerrick held his emotions so tightly to his chest that even he didn’t fully comprehend the extent of his pain.

      “What’s up?” Josh asked, taking a seat across the desk from Gerrick. “I heard you went to Pennsylvania over the weekend. How was Hilton?”

      “Weak but recovering,” Gerrick said, as Ethan closed the door and took the second seat across the desk from Gerrick. “And because he’s recovering so quickly and so well, we have some more important things

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