known all along that Bella had a problem with what he’d been doing since he hit town, but damn.
She’d just spent the night with him, all the time knowing that she’d taken another public shot at him.
Thoughts of the night before rushed through his mind. How could she have been so eager, so responsive, if this is how she still felt about him? Strange, but he felt used. And suddenly, he realized how all the women in his life must have been left feeling.
Hell of a time for an epiphany.
He stared blindly out at the ocean and tried to ignore the rustle of bedsheets that told him she was getting up. But even pissed, his insides twisted, knowing she was close by and naked. How twisted was that, he wondered, to want the one woman who hated his guts?
A moment later, she joined him at the window, his black-and-white quilt wrapped around her curvy body like a toga.
“I’d forgotten all about writing that letter,” she said.
“If that’s an apology, it sucks.” He tossed the newspaper onto a chair and took a gulp of his coffee.
“It’s not an apology,” she said. “I meant it when I wrote it so I can’t apologize for that.”
He glanced at her. “Great.” He paused, then asked, “Did you mean all that? Do you really think I don’t care what happens to this place?”
“Jesse,” she said with a shake of her head, “when I moved here, I loved it.” She looked out the window at the ocean and the sunrise, just staining the horizon. “I’d never really had a home before. I…grew up in the foster system.”
She said it so matter-of-factly, Jesse couldn’t even offer sympathy. But he remembered how longingly she’d looked at the photos of his family, how she’d seemed so caught up in the fact that they were a huge, yet close group. And then he thought about what it must have been like to grow up alone. What it might have been like for him if he hadn’t had his brothers and cousins. He couldn’t help feeling a stab of sympathy for the little girl she’d once been, who’d had nowhere to call home.
And he wondered a bit that he could feel so much for her. He should have stayed pissed. Yet…looking at her, he just couldn’t seem to hold on to the feeling.
“I loved the funky little buildings on Main Street,” she was saying, “the slow pace of town life, the cottages on the beach. The sense of community. I saw it and knew that I belonged here, as if I’d never belonged anywhere before. I spent the first year here sliding into the town, making my place, fitting in.” She turned her head and looked up at him. “You moved in and immediately started changing everything.”
Frowning, Jesse thought he could understand now just why she’d been fighting him so hard for so long. “Nothing ever stays the same.”
“I suppose not,” she said wistfully and turned her head again to watch the sunrise splashing brilliant color across the ocean.
“So, change is bad, is that it?”
“Not bad, it’s just change,” she argued. “I don’t like it. I love this town. I loved what it was and I was angry at you for—”
“Buying up its soul?” he quoted, feeling the sting of the words again. He’d never meant to be a corporate raider. Hadn’t wanted to be a corporate anything. And yet, somehow it had happened to him. He’d made his peace with it. Even come to enjoy what he’d made of his life. Until he found Bella. And now suddenly, he was left feeling that, somehow, the success he’d achieved was only failure, cleverly disguised.
She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you—well, no, I guess I did mean to. But that was before.”
“Before you were back in my bed?” he asked, feeling a small stab of temper. “Guess it would be a little embarrassing to be attacking in public the same guy you’re sleeping with in private.”
“It’s not that, Jesse,” she said, clutching her toga to her chest tightly with one hand. “I think I might have been wrong about you and—”
“Might? Might have been wrong?” He laughed shortly. “Well, hell, Bella. That’s damn nice of you.”
With her free hand, Bella reached out, grabbed his upper arm and held on. Looking up into his eyes, she said, “I was wrong about you. I admit it. I wanted to hate you because it was easier that way. I wanted you to leave Morgan Beach because I didn’t want to have to see you and not have you. I wanted…”
“What?” he asked, his voice low, his gaze fixed on her.
“You, Jesse,” she said. “I wanted you, and couldn’t admit it, even to myself.”
He took a breath, inhaling the fresh, clean scent of her, then reached out and skimmed his fingers through her thick, soft hair. His gaze moved over her, settled on her mouth briefly and then lifted to meet her troubled eyes. “And now you’re admitting it?”
She deliberately released her hold on the quilt and it swished to the floor at her feet. Moving into him, she slid her hands up over his chest and then hooked her arms behind his neck. “I’m admitting it. I’ll even write a retraction to the paper, if you want.”
He gave her a lazy smile, dismissing the irritation of seeing her letter in the paper in favor of enjoying having her in his arms. “I think I prefer a more private apology.”
“Oh, I’m not apologizing,” she corrected, going up on her toes to kiss him once, twice. “I’m just saying that I’m revising my opinion.”
“Enough to consider making Bella’s Beachwear a part of King Beach?” he asked.
She huffed out a breath. “Enough to think about considering it.”
He laughed a little. “I can live with that.”
Then he picked her up, carried her to the bed and lost himself once again in the wonder of her.
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