I’m In No Mood For Love

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“Fine.” And she was. Seeing him again, she felt nothing. Not a racing heart nor a killing rage.

“This is my fiancee, Beth. Beth, this is Clare.”

Fiancee? That was fast. She turned her attention to the other woman. “It’s nice to meet you, Beth.” She held out her hand to the woman who obviously believed Lonny loved her as a man could love a woman. Only he wasn’t capable of that kind of love.

“You too.” Her fingers barely touched Clare’s before she dropped her hand. The woman was in denial. As deep as she had once been, wanting to believe in something so bad, and refusing to see the reality that was staring her in the face. She supposed the right thing to do would be to let Beth in on the secret life of her fiance, but it really wasn’t her job to disillusion the delusional.

Before Clare could introduce Sebastian, he stepped forward and offered his hand to Lonny. “I’m Clare’s friend, Sebastian Vaughan.”

Clare’s friend. She looked over her right shoulder at Sebastian, at the reality staring right at her. After all these months. She was no more than a friend to him. Her chest imploded right there in Brookstone, next to all those bulbous massagers, for Lonny and Beth and the lady with twins to see. She was no better than Beth. No different from the day she had found Lonny in that closet, literally and figuratively. She thought she’d changed. Grown. Learned. She was as delusional as ever. She wanted to crawl away. Crawl away and fold in on herself.

Through a haze, she made small talk for several more minutes before Lonny and Beth walked away. She stood beside Sebastian as he bought the massage belt for Leo. He didn’t see that she was falling apart. When they left the mall, passing all those people, no one seemed to notice that she was dying inside.

On the drive home he talked about his ski trip and mentioned that he was thinking about taking Leo fishing in Alaska for salmon. It wasn’t until they pulled into her mother’s driveway that Clare finally looked over at the man who was no more capable of loving her than Lonny.

“What’s wrong?” he asked as he stopped in front of the garage. “You’ve been quiet since we ran into your old boyfriend. You’re better off without him, by the way.”

She looked into Sebastian’s eyes. Into the eyes of the man she loved with all of her heart. The eyes of the man who did not love her. She didn’t want to cry, not now, but she could feel the tears scalding the inside of her chest. “Are we friends?”

“Of course.”

“Is that all?”

He turned off the ignition. “No. That’s not all. I like you, and we get along really well. We have great sex.”

That wasn’t love. “You like me?”

He shrugged and put the keys in the pocket of his black fleece jacket. “Yeah. Of course I like you.”

“That’s it?”

He must have started to figure out where the conversation was headed. Weariness entered his green eyes as he looked over at her. “What more do you want?”

That he asked just proved the awful truth. “Nothing you can give,” she said, and opened the car door. She shut it behind her and headed across the lawn toward the back of her mother’s house. If she could just be alone, locked up by herself, before she fell apart. She made it as far as the dormant garden before Sebastian grabbed her arm.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked as he swung her around to face him. “Are you all freaked out because your old boyfriend is engaged?”

“This has nothing to do with Lonny.” A cool breeze tugged at her hair, and she pushed it behind one ear. “Although seeing him again forced me to see how things are between us. How they’ll always be.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I don’t want to be your friend. That isn’t enough for me anymore.”

He took a step back and dropped his hand. “This is sudden.”

“I want more.”

His gaze narrowed. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Want more?”

“Don’t ruin everything by talking about relationships and commitment.”

Not only was her heart devastated, now he was making her really angry. So angry she had an urge to curl up her fist and sock him. “What’s wrong with wanting a relationship and a commitment? It’s healthy. Natural. Normal.”

He shook his head. “No. It’s bullshit. Meaningless, pointless bullshit. Sooner or later someone gets pissed, then the fighting starts.” He rubbed his face with his hands. “Clare, we get along great. I like being with you. Leave it at that.”

“I can’t.”

His eyes narrowed further. “Why the fuck not?”

“Because you like me and I love you.” Her throat hurt from suppressed emotion. “This is no longer just a friendship. Not for me, and it’s not enough just to be liked by you. At one time in my life I would have settled for that, hoping for more. But not now. I deserve a man who loves me and wants a relationship. A man who loves me enough to want to spend the rest of his life with me. I don’t need those things to survive, but I want them. I want it all. A husband and children and…” She swallowed hard. “…and a dog.”

He set his jaw and folded his arms over his chest. “Why do women push and prod and make demands? Why can’t you all just chill out about relationships?”

Lord, it was as she’d suspected. She’d made the same mistake other women had made in Sebastian’s life. She’d fallen in love with him. “I’m thirty-four. My chill-out days are over. I want a man who wakes up in the morning wanting to be with me. I don’t want to be with a man who blows into my life just when he wants sex.”

“It’s more than just sex.” He pointed at her as a cool breeze played with the open zipper of his jacket. “And you’re the one who said that we’re just friends with benefits. Now you want to change everything. Why can’t you just leave things alone?”

“Because I love you and that changes everything.”

“Love,” he scoffed. “What do you expect from me? Am I supposed to change who I am and fit my life to suit yours because you suddenly think you love me?”

“No. I know you can’t change who you are, which is why you’re the last person I wanted to fall in love with. But I thought I could handle being just friends. I thought it would be good enough for me, but it’s not.” Her voice wavered as she looked up into the closed angry face of the man she loved. “I can’t see you anymore, Sebastian.”

He held up a hand as he if meant to reach for her, but dropped it to his side. “Don’t do this, Clare. If you walk away, I won’t come after you.”

Yes. She knew that, and the pain of knowing was more than she could bear. “I love you, but being with you hurts too much. I’m not going to wait around hoping your feelings will change. If you don’t love me now, you never will.”

He laughed, bitter and harsh and without a hint of humor. “Are you psychic now?”

“Sebastian, you’re thirty-five years old and you’ve never had a serious relationship. I don’t have to be psychic to know that I am just one in a long line of women in your life. I don’t have to be psychic to know you’ve never really been in love. The heart-pounding, steal-your-breath, crazy for one woman kind of love.”

He frowned and tilted his head back as he looked down at her. “You’re starting to believe your own romance novels. You have a real distorted view of men.”

Her eyes filled with stinging tears. “My view of you is quite clear. I can’t commit any more of my life to a man who can’t commit to where he’ll be tomorrow, let alone commit to being with me. I want more.” She turned and moved away while she was still able to walk.

“Good luck with that,” he said, stomping on her already crushed heart.

Nineteen