She was on the verge of exploding. Her confusion after having sex with Eric had turned slowly into anxiety and then into panic before finally settling on sadness. And after the sadness, inevitably, had come the anger.
Forty-eight hours of silence. She had never waited so long for a phone call from a guy in her life.
She did not know what to think. Eric wasn’t answering her phone calls, or those of Liberty; his flat seemed to be empty, at least judging by the fact that nobody opened up to her insistent knocking, and no one had heard from him for the last two days.
What the hell was going through his head? Why this sudden disappearance, and why the resignation? Could it be that he was so stupid and shy that he couldn’t face showing himself? Or was there another reason? Why couldn’t they resolve things like a couple of mature adults?
She was on the verge of actually contacting Eric’s mother in Boston when the shop door opened and Clover, who had returned from Paris, walked in. Zoe saw the wary expression on her face and did not waste any time.
“You’ve heard, then?”
“About Eric, you mean?”
“He quit, did you know?”
Clover’s eyes widened, and she banged her palms down on the countertop.
“Would you mind telling me what the hell you did to him?!”
“Me? Me?!” shouted Zoe, attracting the stares of a couple of customers. Livid with anger, she lowered her voice. “First, that idiot takes me to bed and then he disappears for two days without a single word, and it’s all my fault? All those unasked for put-downs of my awful exes, and then he behaves worse than all of them put together! If I catch sight of him, I’ll murder him myself!”
“He took you to bed?” Clover blinked. “So you didn’t just crack up laughing when you turned up at the restaurant and saw him, then?”
Zoe frowned in confusion.
“The restaurant? What are you talking about?”
Clover hesitated. “Wait a minute, would you mind just telling me exactly what the hell happened? Maybe it’s the jet lag, but I’m not understanding anything.”
“On the evening of Valentine’s Day I was in a mess. A small part of me wanted to accept Stuart’s invitation to dinner, hoping – mistakenly, I know – that maybe we could give it another try. But in my heart I knew that I would never be able to forget what he’d done, just like I knew that what I felt for him wasn’t really love. So I turned down his invitation, told him not to call me any more, and I got ready to go out to the River Café, but… well, I just felt really stupid spending the most romantic night of the year with a complete stranger who I might not even like at all. And after wandering around aimlessly for a while, I found myself getting a cab over to Eric’s,” said Zoe, her arms crossed in front of her chest. “But when I got there, he was angry and drunk. I thought maybe he was sad because of Stephanie, but he wouldn’t tell me anything. I tried to comfort him… There was the storm, and the lights went off, and one thing led to another and we ended up having sex.”
“So you didn’t go to the restaurant, then…”
“No, but what’s that got to do with it?”
“And what about the morning after it happened?”
“I left before he woke up,” said Zoe, biting her lower lip. “It all seemed so crazy! We were friends, and then suddenly we were lovers… I thought I’d better clear my head before I faced it all. I left him a note telling him that I was going home to change and that we’d meet here. But he never turned up, and at two in the afternoon his resignation came by fax!”
Clover seemed dazed. “I don’t get it.”
“Oh, me neither, believe me! It’s been two days and there’s been no trace of him, he’s not answering the phone and it looks like there’s no one at home. I’m planning to call his mother to see if he’s in Boston, but I don’t want to scare her for no good reason.”
“I spoke to him,” sighed Clover, her elbows on the counter and her face in her hands. “He was so pissed! He says he never wants to see us again.”
Zoe felt her stomach drop. “But why?”
“I don’t know! I thought you must have reacted badly to the thing with the restaurant and that you’d turned him down, but now that you’ve told me how things actually went I do not know what to think.”
“Clover, what the hell has the restaurant got to do with it?!”
“Oh God, you’re slow on the uptake sometimes!” Clover raised her eyes to the heavens and then looked her in the face. “Eric was the mystery man!”
“What?” said a stunned Zoe. For a moment she couldn’t seem to grasp the concept, but then the reality of the situation collapsed in on her.
It had been Eric who had sent those tickets? And the gifts, the balloons and the roses… He was the man who she was supposed to meet at the River Café?
“Is this a joke?” she asked, her voice trembling and her heart thudding dully in her breast.
“Damn it, Zoe, Eric has been in love with you for ten years! How the hell could you not realize?!”
“And how do you know?”
“I noticed a long time ago, and I asked him and he admitted it to me. But he made me promise not to tell anyone – he didn’t want you to know.”
“Why?!” she blurted out in frustration. She could feel the anger returning.
“Because he was sure he didn’t have a chance with you and he didn’t want to ruin your friendship. He always said that if he’d confessed everything and you’d turned him down, he would be forced to leave New York and move back to Boston to get over it. That’s why I though you must have said ‘no’! He was so angry. From the way he spoke, I thought you’d humiliated him!”
“I didn’t do anything!” Zoe cried, her voice breaking. “I mean, apart from standing him up at the River Café, but I didn’t know that it was him who was waiting for me… and anyway, I still was with him at the end of the day!” She ran a hand through her untidy hair in an attempt to calm herself down, then ran into Eric’s office and closed the door.
How could she never have noticed anything? And why hadn’t he spoken to her about his feelings? Or taken the opportunity to when she had kissed him in Times Square on New Year’s Eve?
Suddenly, all the presents that Eric had delivered to her anonymously over the last few days made perfect sense: the Red Velvet, as well as being her favorite dessert, was the first thing they had eaten together at the university cafeteria; the plush hamster looked like the one she had given him for his twenty-third birthday; the pendant was a reference to the star that Eric had bought for her online in honor of her move to New York…
Nine red roses, plus one – ten roses, one for each of the years they had known each other…
They were all perfectly obvious to her now, each with a special meaning that only she could understand.
How could she have been so stupid? And what about him? How had he managed to hide it so well for all these years?
They had wasted so much time…
But why the hell was Eric so angry now? What could possibly have made him react like that? She had left him with a satisfied smile on his face, dammit, and now he didn’t want to see her ever again…
She thought of all the years they had spent together, tried to look at every situation through different eyes, and soon the tears were flowing down her face.
She must have made him suffer so much, she realized. All those times when she’d told him about her flings, the two years with Stuart, those dinners for Valentine’s Day, Christmas and New Year when she had forced him to play the part of her boyfriend! Eric had always put up with it all in silence, while she took advantage of his kindness, mistaking it for friendship…
While she had been desperately searching for someone to love her, she hadn’t noticed that he’d been by her side the whole time…
Clover and Liberty joined her shortly afterwards.
“How can we help?” asked Liberty, sitting down next to her.
“I don’t know,” said Zoe, shaking her head disconsolately. “I feel so sad and bitter about what I’ve just discovered and about all the time that we’ve wasted. And I’m mad at him! He can’t just walk away like this, for no reason, after all we’ve been through together.”
“We must be missing something. It can’t just be because of the note you left him,” said Clover, thinking aloud. “Did you make it sound like you regretted it?”
“No! What I wrote might have sounded shocked, but it certainly wasn’t regretful.”
“What do you feel for him?” her friend asked her, straight out.
Zoe turned her grey eyes to her. “I need him, that’s all you need to know. I can’t face analyzing my feelings right now, not in this mood. But before he disappeared I really had realized how important Eric is to me, and I wanted to talk to him about it.”
“So did you tell him?”
“How could I, if he won’t answer the phone?”
“You could leave him a voicemail message”
“No way, I want to tell him right to his face.” Zoe got up from her chair and wiped her eyes. “If he’s such a coward that he doesn’t want to face me then he’s not the man I thought he was. Tell him that, when you call him!”
Zoe left the room and Liberty and Clover stared at one another helplessly.
“What do we do now?” sighed Clover.
“If those two don’t get this issue sorted out quickly I’m going to fire the pair of them,” muttered Liberty, tugging at the hem of her elegant skirt.
“We have to find a way to get them talking. They are meant to be together, and he has waited so long, damn! It can’t end like this, not now that it was just about to actually begin for real!”
“I think that they should sort it out themselves. If Eric really wants her then it’s time for him to man up. He’s not an insecure little boy any more, and I really don’t feel like making excuses for his behavior.”
Clover was walking back and forth across the office, tapping her lips with a finger. “He never gave up, not even when she momentarily lost her head over that idiot Harris. He might be angry right now for some reason, but he’ll come back, I can feel it.”
The more pessimistic Liberty shook her head. “Weak men can be really stupid sometimes. Their self-esteem is more important than anything else and walking over other people’s hearts doesn’t mean much to them. Maybe they don’t even realize it, because they’re so focused on themselves.”
Her friend’s bitter tone made Clover curious, and she interrupted her pacing to look at her.
“Are you sure that everything’s ok between you and Justin?”
Liberty frowned. “Yes – why?”
“I don’t know, you’ve been sounding pretty bitter when you talk about men lately.”
“Justin has his head screwed on, and he’s serious and responsible. He doesn’t have any weaknesses and he knows what he wants. I really can’t complain.”
Clover gave a puzzled nod. “If you say so.” She was about to add something else when they suddenly heard Zoe’s voice – sounding hysterical.
“What the hell are you doing?!”
Curious, Clover and Liberty ran into the next room just in time to see Zoe being lifted up bodily and dragged off by an almost unrecognisable Eric.
“What the…?” laughed Clover.
“About damn time!”
“Where is he taking her?” asked Liberty as she watched her colleague put Zoe on a motorcycle parked in front of the shop and then set off at top speed.
“Wherever it is, I hope it helps them fix things” said Clover, putting her hands to her heart. “How romantic! A love kidnapping!”
“At that speed, let’s just hope he doesn’t kill her,” muttered Liberty, as she prepared to serve a customer who had just entered.
Clover rolled her eyes. “Honey, there is anything in the world that doesn’t make you breathe a sigh of pure joy?”
“Hey, I’m just a naturally joyful person!”
“Yeah, right…”
*
“Stop, damn it!”
Zoe unleashed another flurry of punches against Eric’s back, trying to slow down his mad rush through the city streets. It had been almost twenty minutes since he had burst into the store and dragged her away on the bike that she had never seen before, and he still hadn’t said a word to her.
She had tried to make him communicate in every way she knew, starting with flattery and threats then moving on to punches and kicks, but nothing had distracted him from riding the bike, and she had to be careful not to overdo it if she didn’t want to risk them both ending up on the asphalt.
What the hell was going on in that dumb head of his? First he disappeared and handed in his notice, then he swooped down into the store acting like a bad boy and kidnapped her during working hours! She barely knew him any more.
She had only just managed to see his face before he forced her into the thick biker jacket and full-face helmet and dragged her out of the shop, and she’d barely been able to believe her eyes. That neat, perfect boy she had always known had been replaced by a shabbily dressed man with dark rings under his bloodshot eyes and several days’ growth of beard. There was no trace of his glasses, he was acting completely differently to the way he usually did, and even his way of dressing seemed to have changed.
He looked worryingly like Eric’s evil twin.
The joy that had flooded through her when she had seen him come into the store had turned into disbelief, and then into irritation. But despite the domineering way he was behaving, she was still happy to be breathing his scent and couldn’t wait to get off that bike and hug him tight… after having given him a piece of her mind, obviously.
She stopped banging on his back and sighed loudly, resigned to waiting for him to grow tired of that little game. With her eyes fixed on the landscape whizzing past them, she focused on the speech she intended to make to him, even though she didn’t really know where to start. She was afraid to tell him how she felt, given recent events: Eric seemed unpredictable now, and she had never been great at communicating her feelings – especially when the stakes were so high.
Feeling the bike begin to slow down, she looked around her, increasingly bewildered. She didn’t know this part of town, but it was clear that it wasn’t a particularly nice one, and the only building she could see looked like a motel.
He’d returned from the dead after forty-eight hours and taken her to a motel?!
Eric stopped the bike in the parking lot, dismounted and took off his helmet. Zoe stared at him.
“What are we doing here?”
Without answering, Eric locked the helmets to the bike and helped her dismount, none too gently, then towed her off towards the entrance. Zoe obstinately tried to stop him, but to no avail.
“Eric, for God’s sake, will you just stop for a moment? I don’t want to go in there, I want to talk to you properly! Hey, did you hear me?”
He stopped so suddenly that she crashed into his back, and turned to look at her. His face was so serious it gave her goosebumps.
“You want to talk? Fine. Come inside.”
“Couldn’t you have called me? Given me a time and place and asked me to come to you? Did you really have to bring me to a place like this?” continued Zoe, feeling Eric’s grip tighten on her wrist. “Listen, unless you let go of me right away, I’ll scream! I’ll say that you’ve kidnapped me and that you want to rape me!”
“And I’ll add that to all the other humiliations I’ve gone through because of you.”
Zoe went silent. Twinges of guilt and anger went through her as, with blood boiling, she waited for Eric to get the key to a room. Once she was safely inside the sparsely furnished room, however, she exploded.
“You! You are… impossible!” she snapped, wriggling out of his grasp and giving him a shove. “I’ve never been so angry with you in my life!”
“Maybe because it’s the first time that I haven’t been kissing your feet,” said Eric, seemingly unperturbed. “You’ll get used to it.”
“What does that mean? That from now on this is going to be the way you treat me?”
“Why, don’t you like it?” Eric’s burning eyes rested on her as he advanced towards her. Zoe stepped back until she was against the wall, but it was a mistake. Eric put a hand on the wall each side of her, imprisoning her. He was so close that she could feel his body heat. With that cold, insolent expression, tough-guy clothes and without his glasses, it felt as though he was a stranger. But his scent was the same as always: familiar, fresh and clean.
That particularly comforted her. She looked up into the green-blue eyes she knew so well and softened her tone. “I want the old Eric back.”
“What for? To be your flunky? The butt of all your jokes? The confidant you describe all your sexual conquests to?”
“You’re making me feel like a horrible bitch,” whispered Zoe, bowing her head to escape his gaze. Eric lifted her chin, stopping her.
“Maybe it’s not your fault. You need something else.”
With a sudden movement he took her by the hips, pulling them against his own, then he bowed his head and kissed her so urgently, so voraciously, that it was almost brutal. It was a type of kissing that Zoe knew well – but it wasn’t Eric’s kissing.
Eric’s hands moved to her butt, squeezing it emotionlessly, and then moved to her breasts, while the almost punitive kiss continued and her body was crushed against that of Eric, whose excitement was palpable.
This wasn’t him. This was the way all the assholes she’d dated over the last few years behaved: that cocky bullshit, motorbike bravado, kisses devoid of feeling, the macho fondling, the squalid motels. And he knew it perfectly well because he had always had to listen to her telling him about it.
Always.
If she had had any doubts about her feelings for that wonderful man, that was the moment when they could have vanished altogether.
Even though she kept them squeezed tightly shut, her eyes filled with tears. One managed to force its way out from between the dark lashes and roll down her cheek until it eventually came into contact with Eric’s skin.
The instant it did, he froze. He broke away from her as if she was burning, stared at her face – now bathed in tears – and backed away in horror.
“Eric,” murmured Zoe, taking a step forward. But he shook his head, rubbed his face with one hand and sat down on the edge of the bed, running his fingers through his hair. He looked so desperate that it almost made her heart break.
She approached the bed and slipped between his legs, running a hand through his soft brown curls.
“Look at me,” she begged.
“You were right about everything. What an idiot I am,” he said, without looking up. “It is understandable that you don’t want me.”
“That’s what you think.”
“No, it’s what you think.” Eric stared at her, his expression a mixture of resignation and anger. “I heard what you said to Liberty two days ago. I felt so pathetic…”
Zoe gasped.
“What?”
“You didn’t realize I was there, did you? But I was, I got dressed in a hurry after I woke up and I came into the store. I wanted to see your face and try and work out if that stupid note meant that you were as happy as I was about what had happened or whether you were already regretting it.” Disappointedly, Eric shook his head, pushed her off him and stood up. “You think I’m just a poor loser who happily throws himself at the first pretty girl he meets. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Someone like me couldn’t afford to waste an opportunity like that.”
“It’s not like that!”
“It was Valentine’s Day, I was drunk, you were feeling lonely… A stupid mistake that we shouldn’t have made, right? You’re not made for someone like me.”
Zoe shook her head vigorously. “I didn’t know what I was saying, I was just talking things through! I was surprised and confused, and I was afraid that it meant our friendship was over!” She took another step forward, searching his eyes. “You never said anything to me! You’ve kept what you felt about me for all these years hidden, letting me humiliate you and hurt you and take advantage of you! You tried to make me think that kiss in Times Square was just a drunken dream! And now you’re blaming me because I was a bit surprised?”
“Kept it hidden? Really?” laughed Eric mirthlessly. “Christ, the only thing missing was me actually drooling when you walked into the room!”
Zoe remembered those words. They were the ones Eric had used when he was talking about his first love, Stephanie…
Her soul in turmoil, she looked at him. “So you mean you were talking about me then? I was the girl that you fell in love with at university, not Stephanie…”
“She turned up at the right time, but the truth is that I honestly didn’t even remember having met her,” sighed Eric. “And for the record, I had already split up with her when I started to send you those stupid gifts.”
“How could I have imagined that you were in love with me? I didn’t even think that I was your type!”
“Oh come on, who are you kidding…”
“It’s the truth!” Zoe almost stamped her foot in irritation. “All I am is beautiful! Is that why you’re in love with me? You, with all your degrees, your scientific brain, your principles, your elegance… what use is someone like me to someone like you?”
Eric’s shocked look sent shivers down her spine, but she went on. “I never thought I was up to your standards, Eric. I felt like the pretty airhead on some TV show who goes out with the football players and the bad boys because they are the only ones who don’t care about being with an intelligent woman. All the girls you’ve dated have been so smart, and so serious. I thought that was the type of girl you were looking for!”
“I had to force myself to go out with them. I felt as if I was cheating on you!” said Eric, slumping against the door and staring out the window. “I’ve spent ten years just hoping that you would notice me.”
“And I’ve wasted ten years dating assholes, just because I couldn’t find anyone who gave me even half of what you give me!” Zoe walked over to him and put her hands on his chest. “The only one I ever really fell for was Stuart, and you know it. The only guy even slightly like you that I’ve ever dated.”
“If you wanted to insult me, you’ve just succeeded,” he snapped sarcastically.
Zoe smiled, sensing her Eric under the hard shell that he was affecting. “You know what I mean,” she murmured. Then she turned serious. “And you also know how I felt while we were together. I felt so inferior compared to him that I almost cancelled my personality just to make him appreciate and love me. I never want to feel like that again. The only one I could be myself with, and who seemed to love me and appreciate me in every way, was you, and I… I would never have done anything to complicate what we had.”
“Are you telling me that you were secretly in love with me?” he asked skeptically.
Zoe shrugged. “Maybe I just hadn’t realized it.”
The silence that greeted these words threatened to make her heart fall right out of her chest and onto the floor. Timidly, she raised her face to peer at Eric’s expression, and the intensity of the look he gave her was shocking.
“Well?” she asked uneasily.
Eric raised an eyebrow, his face now relaxed now but still wearing a serious expression. “I’m waiting,” he said, his arms crossed over his chest.
“Waiting for…?” Eric’s challenging look almost made her blush. “Do you want me to make you a declaration of love? Here?”
“Why not? I sent you cards and gifts every year for Valentine’s Day, not to mention last week, and I think that I’ve just opened myself right up to you.” He shrugged, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. “Do try to be convincing, though: I’ve been dreaming of this moment for so long that my expectations are pretty high.”
“Isn’t it the man who’s supposed to do these things?” she muttered, looking around her. “Maybe the way I put it a little while ago wasn’t a classic declaration of love, but I felt like I made it clear to you all the same. Do you have to embarrass me? If you’re hoping that I’m going to get down on my knees…”
Eric’s silence provoked a sigh from her. She closed her eyes for a moment and looked within herself for the courage to open her heart to someone in a way she had never done before.
“I love you, okay? How could I not? You’re my best friend, the only one who understands me, who appreciates me, who makes me feel good. You’re the person that I run to when things aren’t going right, and even when they are. It took me a while to realize it, but love has many faces, you’ve said so yourself… If it meant not losing you, I’d have accepted the face it had before,” she said in a single breath, adding “but to tell the truth I like the new one better.”
Chuckling, Eric took her in his arms. “That’ll do,” he smiled, and then kissed her with all the love that he had been repressing for the last ten years.
The feel of those soft, sweet lips, their flavour and the delicate firmness of their embrace tore a groan of happiness from Zoe, who returned it hungrily. Being in his arms was like coming home, returning to an intimate and safe place. But much, much more exciting…
“I can hardly believe it’s true,” whispered Eric, his lips on her mouth and his forehead pressed to hers.
“Neither can I, but I’m not going to let you change your mind.”
“Why would I?”
“Because I’m unbearable. Are you sure that you won’t kick me out after the first week?” she whispered, with a pout.
“I’ve put up with your worst sides for the last ten years for absolutely no personal gain,” he joked, stroking her back and at the same time holding her against his chest. “Given this new formula, I reckon I can put up with at least another ten.”
“Hey, a night of sex with me is worth plenty, honey,” she winked. “You’re going to have to double your threshold of tolerance!”
“We’ve only done it once, I still have to assess its real value,” he continued in the same tone, nibbling her ear. “I’m going to need at least one night of sex for each year that I wasted lusting after you to make a complete assessment of the issue.”
“Technically we did it twice,” she said softly, tilting her head to make it easier for his lips, which had started to move delicately along the hot skin of her neck.
“That was the same night, it doesn’t count. If we count the individual times instead of the days, we’ll end up halving the amount of time for a perfect understanding.”
“I’m getting confused. You’re the brain, you keep count,” Zoe muttered, closing his mouth with a kiss.
Her heartbeat soared. It seemed incredible that she was there, leaning against the door of a motel, flirting and swapping sexual innuendo with her best friend – Eric, so passionate and seductive that she almost didn’t recognize him.
“You want to make the most of the room?” he asked in a whisper when they separated to catch their breath.
Although tempted, Zoe shook her head. “I want to go to your place. And this time, I swear that I won’t run away when we’re done,” she whispered, giving him a very intent look.
Eric stole another kiss before he led her out of the room.
While he handed back the keys he put his lips to her ear. “We should have stayed longer – they’ll get the idea that we’ve already finished, and that’s not good for my self-esteem.”
Zoe chuckled softly, then squeezed his arm, and with an ecstatic expression, said “You were great! I’ve never felt more satisfied than this in my whole life!” loudly enough for the guy behind the counter in reception to hear her. “Tell me you’ll stay with me tonight.”
Eric’s ears grew pink with embarrassment and Zoe felt her heart fill with emotion.
“I’m relieved to know that you’re not the motorbike and leather jacket type,” she said, once they were outside. “I love it when you’re uncomfortable… You’re so cute!”
Eric grunted a reply while he placed his helmet on his head.
“Where did you get it?” she asked as she climbed onto the saddle.
“It belongs to a friend of mine.”
“I didn’t even know you could ride one.”
“There’s a lot you still have to discover about me,” said Eric with a wink. Suddenly, he turned serious. “I’m sorry I went so fast before. I was angry, but that’s no excuse for being irresponsible.”
“It was worth it. In fact, seeing as I now have an overwhelming desire to discover all of your hidden sides, how about not wasting any more time and taking me home?”
Eric revved the engine and Zoe laughed and clung to him.
And while the bike raced through the streets of the city, she had the feeling that she had finally found her place in the world.