Blame It On Paris

'Yes, I do. But I also know you're working too many hours. I don't want you burning out.'

'I won't. I won't.'

Her boss lingered one more minute. 'The second thing I wanted to tell you-just as I was going through the lobby, a man was walking in to see you. I told Brenna I'd let you know so she wouldn't have to page you.'

'Thanks!' Kelly popped out of her chair thinking it was Will. No, she wasn't expecting him. And no, she couldn't imagine a reason on the planet why he'd stop by her place of work in the middle of the afternoon, but it wasn't as if clients normally showed up out of the blue, either, so it could be him.

Even if her thinking was illogical, her heart was still soaring before she'd reached the door, then she ran back to the desk, opened the middle drawer, brushed her hair and smacked on coral lip cream. Her tan slacks and salmon shirt were hardly femme fatale attire, but en route to the lobby, she undid an extra button at the throat and put some sauce in her step.

Her enthusiasm was squashed when she saw the man in the lobby-the guy facing the windows, jingling change in his pocket. The one with the dusty-brown hair and skinny shoulders and handsome features. Familiar, handsome features.

Jason spun around as if sensing her presence. His expression was hungry and raw even if his posture was protectively stiff. 'I've been out of town. Just got back.'

'I heard you were gone.'

He nodded. 'I went on the honeymoon we were supposed to take together.' He barely paused. 'All I could think of was speeding from the airport, getting here, seeing you. I've got something I have to say.'

Kelly thought she knew every flavor of guilt, but this taste was acid all the way down. She herded him into her office, aware of faces and eyes drawn to doorways. They all knew Jason, all knew of her wedding plans, her broken engagement. And seeing him again made her heart clutch. His dear face was as familiar as peanut butter.

She did still love him, the way she loved cocoa in winter and peppermint ice cream and snuggly slippers. It was a real enough love, even an important love. But there was none of the excitement she felt with Will, none of the fierce loneliness when she wasn't with Will, none of the singing joy of life or the lusty pizzazz.

She couldn't treat Jason as an enemy, because he wasn't. But she wanted this conversation with him like a hole in the head, and he started in the instant she closed her office door.

'Kelly…on this vacation, I drank. Swam. Took a lot of time to think. I think you're making a mistake. I think we both are. I want you to give us another try.'

She started shaking her head, but he wasn't about to let her answer. Not yet. He jammed his hands in his pockets and slowly stalked around her bitsy office like a wounded cat. 'I don't care what you said. I know there was a guy. There just had to be a guy. because nothing else makes sense. So let's get that out in the open. I don't care. I mean, of course I care. But I still love you. I still think we can make a damn good marriage. Lots of people have flings before the wedding. Weddings make people panic. When people panic, they do crazy things. So maybe that's wrong and not smart, but it's still one of the mistakes people make.'

She tried to interrupt him again, but he'd obviously prepared this whole speech, and he was already gulping for air between sentences. Her work phone rang. Then the song on her cell phone started playing. Her coworker two offices down-Myrna, the one getting the testy divorce-pushed open her door and started to ask a question, saw her with Jason, backed right out again.

And Jason kept talking. 'We've known each other our whole lives. I know you love me. I love you. Maybe we forgot some of the romance because we knew each other so well. But both of us could take a fresh shot. We're invested in each other, Kelly. We have shared family, shared friends, a shared history. It's just plain crazy to throw that all away.'

He'd been talking so steadily that she wasn't expecting him to suddenly move toward her, clearly intending to pull her into an embrace. She froze like a scared rabbit. 'Jason,' she said, 'I'll care about you forever. I'll always love you. But not the way-'

She smelled the familiar scent of him, the familiar feel of his hands on her shoulders, the familiar way he approached a kiss and her stomach rolled. His lips came down, yet thankfully within seconds, he stopped, jolted upright.

He met her eyes. He looked sick. She felt sick, too. but there was no way to pretend a feeling that didn't exist.

'You can't even try?' he asked thickly.

'It doesn't take trying to care about you. Jason. But it's not there-the kind of love you want. My heart can't make it happen.'

'That doesn't make sense. What the hell is the right kind of love, the wrong kind of love? Love is love. It changes over the years, anyway. So we hit a lull. So what? It doesn't mean we won't care for each other ten years from now. Or twenty.'

Her office phone started ringing again. Another coworker. George, poked his head in and backed out faster than a fire.

Kelly sucked in air, thinking this was about as much fun as a case of leprosy. Slowly, carefully, she said. 'We're not getting married. Jason. I hate hurting you. I'm terribly sorry. But I am one hundred percent positive that it isn't going to happen.'

He put up his hands in an exasperated gesture of giving in, and finally started shuffling toward the door. 'It's your mother's birthday party next week. I assume the neighborhood will put on a big block party, same as always. So if you think we won't be talking again, trust me, we will. But I can see there's no point in trying to get through to you anymore today.''

Talk about a way to put a girl in a funk. Kelly couldn't reclaim her workaholic mood after that, couldn't get anything done. She grouched around her office until she finally gave up. Outside, it had turned hot and humid; South Bend traffic was as snarled and grouchy as she was, and once she deposited the bonus in the bank, she holed up at home.

Her room had no air-conditioning, so she stripped down to shorts and a tee. slapped together a peanut-butter sandwich and then sat at her laptop to pound out an e-mail to her father.

It was a waste of time, she knew. Her father didn't care, and pretending otherwise was getting a little ridiculous. But sometimes, Kelly figured, a woman was entitled to beat her head against a wall if she wanted to, and right then, she was definitely in that type of mood, which possibly affected the tone of her e-mail.

Hi, Dad. You haven't responded to any of my other e-mails and I suspect you won't to this one. But I'm still writing to you.

I'm really sorry you were a low-down cheater who never considered there might be consequences from your having a good time. But you affected my mother's whole life. And mine.

I always, always tried to be a good daughter, a good person. I never took chances, never did anything wrong if I could help it. I know, I know, you don't care, or you'd have written me back by now. But I'm trying to tell you that's who I've always been-a girl who was afraid of taking risks-and I think it's partly because I had no dad. No sense of someone who could pick me up if I fell really hard.

My mom has always been there for me. As I hope I've been for her. But there's always been a hole…a wondering how different my life might have been if I'd had a dad, known a dad.

And I do get it, of course. Why you haven't responded. My existence is just a nuisance for you. But I'm angry, do you understand? Angry at you. Angry at you for not knowing about me, for not caring enough to even find out if your actions created a baby. I'm angrier yet that you never even considered whether having a daughter might have added something good to your life.

I guess I've never been real to you.

I'm starting to understand that I was never all that real to me, either. But now there's a man I've fallen in love with. Real love. The kind of man I think I could spend a life with…except that I'm not sure of anything right now. I thought I was a 'good girl.' Now I'm doing some pretty wild things. I thought I was the daughter of a single mom. Now I know that's not true, either. I thought I knew myself- what I wanted, what I needed, what I was capable of. And all that seems in question now, too…

I know you don't care, so I don't know why I kept venting to you, why I…

Kelly startled when her cell rang. She didn't want to answer. Her mood had evolved from low to subterranean. Bleak, dark. Cry-close gloomy. PMS with thorns. She had absolutely no motivation to push that on anyone else.

But the phone kept ringing, too distracting to concentrate further on the silly e-mail that her father was just