Chapter 10
Jessica’s cheeks still burned with humiliation about what she had said as they took a driving tour of the spectacular Spring Mountains National Recreational Area. First, Evan had the driver stop at a little café and gift shop. “Black?” he asked Jessica.
Jessica nodded.
He ran in and came out a second later with two steaming cups of black coffee and a mocha cappuccino for the driver. “Hit it, Lenny,” he told the driver jokingly.
The mountains were stunning. Crested with snow, they shimmered against the pure blue sky. There was not a cloud in sight. Jessica rolled down her window and let the breeze play with her hair. It was crisp, but not cold. The Aspens were a gorgeous gold and Evan told her that they reminded him of something.
“What?” Jessica asked. She had trouble making eye contact with him.
“These.” He produced a jewelry box.
Jessica gasped, then hesitated. “Should I open it?” she asked, her voice tight. No man had ever bought her actual jewelry before. Well, Gary had given her hordes of stolen jewelry last Christmas, but no man had bought her something personal like this. No man had gone into a jewelry store and picked out something that he thought she would like. The thought meant so much. She didn’t even care if the jewelry was going to be ugly because it charmed her so much that he had done this for her.
“Of course,” he said, tenderly touching her cheek. “I saw them at that store when we stopped for coffee.”
Jessica gingerly opened the box. There a pair of beautiful gold earrings lay on the silk cushion, glowing in the light of the sun streaming through the windows, checkered by the Aspens lining the highway. “Evan,” she gasped. “These…they are beautiful.”
“Here, let me help you.” He took her hair in his hand and gathered it over her shoulder. His fingers lingered for a moment as he delighted in the silkiness of her brunette locks. Then he unclasped the earrings and guided them into her lobes. “Beautiful,” he said when he’d gotten them in.
Jessica picked up her phone and used the black screen as a mirror. They did indeed look beautiful. They complemented her beauty extravagantly. She watched in the reflection as Evan leaned over to kiss her cheek. Chills went up and down her spine as she realized how good they looked together. They seemed to match, as if they were already a couple. The scarf that Evan wore around his neck made him look like a homebody, some yuppie ski enthusiast on vacation, not a trimmed and poised CEO of a big Fortune 500 company.
And she had just told this guy that she loved him without even meaning to. It had just burbled out of her. How could she have said that? Was it how she felt? Because she knew what love meant. Love meant pain. Love meant abandonment and loss. Love meant grieving when the person finally died or ran off. And Jessica knew that even the finest men could not be trusted because everyone was selfish at the core. No one was capable of love. True love was a thing of the movies.
Suddenly, she needed out of the car. “Pull over, please,” she muttered.
“What?” Evan leaned in closer, making her heart pound harder.
“Pull over!”
The driver screeched over to the side of the road. Jessica dashed out and leaned over her knees, panting. She had to wait for her heart to return to normal. Evan tried to catch up with her and she violently shoved him away. “Stay away!”
“Are you sick? What’s wrong, love?” he demanded.
That word made her even sicker. She dry heaved a few times. Then she was calm enough to let Evan lead her to a trunk to sit down.
“What was that?” he kept asking.
“I just…felt freaked out.” Remember the money, she told herself, as she rubbed the sweat off of her clammy palms.
“These mountains tend to make me a bit car sick, too,” Evan assured her. “It’s okay.”
“How many women have you dated?” Jessica demanded suddenly. She imagined droves of women that Evan had seduced and then dumped over the years. Surely he would give her the typical story about how he had been cheated on and had his heart broken. The minute he began such a story, Jessica knew that she could safely disengage her heart and stop loving him.
“Um, two,” Evan answered, clearly caught off-guard by the question.
“Only two?” Jessica was shocked.
“I dated a girl in high school and we drifted apart. And then I had one more serious relationship in my last year of college. Her name was Mona and I planned to marry her. Then my mother got involved.” He sighed. “I don’t really have time to date nor do I want to. That is, until I met you.” He gave her an affectionate smile. “I won’t let Mother come between us, because she will try. You’re special and I won’t let her drive you away.”
“She doesn’t like me, does she?” Jessica let out a shaky laugh. Her panic attack was finally receding completely. Evan’s voice soothed her nerves, though he seemed uncertain how to answer.
“You can be honest. I won’t get mad,” Jessica assured him.
“Well, she doesn’t like any pretty women. She’s pretty jealous of you. She thinks you’re here to steal me away from her.”
“Wow. I mean, you are twenty-nine, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.” He let out an embarrassed chuckle. “It’s pretty sad. So how many men have you dated?”
Jessica blew out her breath. She had no idea how to tell him that she had been mostly single, save for a date here or there and a boyfriend in high school. “I haven’t really ever been in a serious relationship,” she decided to confide in him. “I had one in high school but after my mom died, he didn’t want much to do with me. I guess I wasn’t fun anymore.”
“That’s not true. If he had been a good guy, he would have stayed by your side. I would have.”
Jessica felt overcome with warmth for Evan at that moment. Then she reminded herself that he was just a slick one, who always knew just what to say. He was a good one. He was almost as good as Gary. But this time, she was wise and she would not fall for it. Nevertheless, part of her wanted to trust him, to believe what he told her about his exes and his feelings.
“So you consider us a couple?” Jessica added. Maybe if she entertained this, but was careful to keep her heart out of it, then she could scam him even more. She could crush him. The image of his face after she ran off with his millions flashed before her mind’s eye, and her heart clenched. She hated the idea of his beautiful smile crumbling into a frown. The idea of his gorgeous gray eyes becoming shocked with even more pain….
“Well, shall we continue?” She indicated the car.
“Are you sure?”
She nodded.
He helped her up and led her back into the backseat.
They stopped farther up the road to begin a hike. Lenny joined them as he snacked on a deli sandwich that he had brought from Vegas. He seemed like a disinterested bodyguard, always lurking behind them but not paying attention to their conversations. The secrets he must know, Jessica thought. He even gave them some privacy to make love on a huge boulder that they’d come across.
After they completed their hike, they talked about skiing but decided not to yet. Instead, they went to the ski lodge for lunch. It was a romantic place, but Jessica just felt like a burger and fries. Evan laughed then told her how much he appreciated her honesty and realness.
“I guess you feel more comfortable around me by now,” he commented.
She shrugged. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you feel yourself enough to order what you really want. I admire that. Most girls just order salad to look perfect.”
She laughed. “I didn’t think that much about food. I just know what I want to eat.”
“And I like that. I feel that really, you’re not that pretentious. There is a lot of depth to you, a lot of things I don’t know. You hide them from me because you’re afraid but you’re starting to show me bits and pieces of the real you. I want to know the real you,” he said, after submitting his order for a mushroom Swiss burger with curly fries and handing back his glossy menu. “I want to know what you’re not telling me.”
Jessica felt uncomfortable as usual when he started this talk. “I told you to ask me anything you wanted to know,” she told him. “We talked about this yesterday.”
He nodded. “Okay. I’m going to ask some questions.”
“Shoot.”
“How was it, adjusting to being on your own?”
Jessica trailed off, as memories flooded her mind of her first days with Gary. As they closed up the apartment and she left some of her mom’s things with the landlady, she had been so miserable and scared. The medical trash lying around the apartment and the sense that there was a great, irreparable emptiness and sadness in the vacant hole that her mother had left behind were the worst parts. She would step outside to cry, then return inside to finish cleaning and the medical odor would make her nostrils sting. Gary had helped so much. He’d made her dinner. She was eighteen, so there was no need for foster care. But she was still a scared little girl and didn’t even know that until she faced being alone. “It was hard,” she finally told him.
“I imagine. And your father? Do you miss him?”
“It was so long ago when he died, that I can’t even remember him.” In truth, Jessica had zero memories of him. Her mother had tried to show her pictures once, but she didn’t want to see the man who didn’t care that she existed. He wasn’t really her father, just some sperm donor. Her mother was mother and father to her. She had found the pictures again when she went through her mother’s things recently, and she had slapped them face down in the garbage because they offended her. He had a fat face and he was a jerk. She swore that she bore no relation to him at all and refused to acknowledge their ties.