Part 9 (2/2)
”You still have to eat.” Jean came to her aid.
”I'm taking your daughter to Paris next week,” he pointed out, startling Ivy as much as her mother. ”It's a business trip, but she'll have time to shop and do some sight-seeing. The condition is that I have all my work caught up first.”
”In that case,” Ivy said softly, ”please go home, Ryder.”
He laughed. ”Heartless woman. First you offer to feed me, then you send me packing. At least I get to take the cook with me. Come on, Kim Sun. Let's see how you ruin fried chicken.”
The little man glowered at him. ”You wait and see how nice I make it, then there will be no more smart remarks!”
”Promises, promises,” Ryder murmured.
They went out the door with a wave, still arguing.
”You look happy,” Jean remarked when they were sitting down to their own supper.
”I am,” Ivy said. She toyed with her fork. ”I guess you know that I'm crazy about him.”
”Yes.”
”I hope it's not too soon,” she began.
”Ivy, Ben's dead,” her mother said quietly. ”And I'm not as blind as you might think. I know that your marriage wasn't happy. I've pretended, because you seemed to want me to. But don't you think it's time we both stopped?”
Ivy gave in. ”I guess so. No, it wasn't happy. I was running from Ryder and Ben knew it. I should never have taken the easy way out. I just hope it isn't too late to change course. Ryder is acting...well, strangely.”
”How?”
”He can't seem to decide between growling at me and kissing me.”
”That's promising.” Jean grinned.
Ivy scowled at her. ”I don't understand.”
”Never mind. Take it one day at a time and don't rush your fences. I've discovered in my old age that if you simply let things happen without trying to make them happen, loose strings get tied up neatly. Try it.”
”Have I got a choice?” Ivy murmured. She sighed heavily. ”I wish I could go back. Ben might have been happy with someone else. He might still be alive.”
Jean covered her hand gently. ”Honey, you can't remake the past. You have to go ahead. Ben didn't have to marry you. Will you try to keep that in mind? If you made him unhappy or not, he had as much choice as you did about staying married. He could have asked for a divorce. He didn't.”
”He knew how I felt about Ryder,” Ivy confessed miserably.
”If he knew, he had even less reason for continuing a marriage that was going nowhere,” Jean said sensibly. ”You can't love to order.”
”Ben drank because of me,” Ivy whispered.
”He did not,” came the terse reply. ”You can't keep tormenting yourself like this! Ivy, pity is no basis for a marriage. And if you're honest, you'll admit that pity was why you married Ben. You didn't love him, you felt sorry for him!”
Ivy buried her face in her hands. It was the truth. Ben had showered her with attention at the same time Ryder was avoiding her. He'd cried on her shoulder, and she'd taken pity on him. That was all it was. She hadn't thought ahead. Part of her motive had been getting back at Ryder, showing him that someone wanted to marry her, even if he didn't. But her revenge had certainly backfired.
”My poor baby,” Jean said gently, pulling the weeping younger woman into her arms. ”It's all right. Facing problems is half the battle of solving them. You just cry it all out and you'll feel better.”
She did, too. That night, she admitted for the first time just how much of a sham her marriage had been. Ben's problems had been largely of his own making, and her guilt and pity had probably contributed to them. But he'd made his choices, just as she'd made hers. She hadn't forced him to marry her. Now that she'd come to grips with the failure of her marriage, she could start putting it behind her. Now she could concentrate on Ryder for the first time, and rediscover her lost womanhood. She felt wonderful.
That feeling lasted until the next morning. When she got to work, she found Ryder pleasant and courteous, but as distant as he had been when they'd come home from Arizona. Every time she came close, he withdrew. He'd said it was because he wanted her so badly, but she felt there was much more to his odd att.i.tude. She only wished she knew what it was.
They left for Paris on the following Monday. Ryder's brotherly att.i.tude had left Ivy in the dumps, and only the excitement of the trip kept her buoyed. Seeing Paris had been one of the big dreams of her life. Even now, she could hardly believe that she was actually going there, and with Ryder. They said that anything was possible in Paris. Perhaps the City of Lights could melt even his hard heart and help her win it.
He checked them into one of the ritzier hotels downtown near the Champs-elysees. She could walk out on the balcony and see all of Paris.
The smell of baking bread, and the faint, foreign smell of the city, drifted into her nostrils as she stared out over the wrought-iron rail toward the lighted Eiffel Tower. Far away, the silver ribbon of the Seine flowed lazily through the city with its barges and boats, and nearby were the spires of Notre Dame cathedral. It was magic. She closed her eyes and could almost hear peasants singing the Ma.r.s.eillaise in the streets, hear the excited cries of the crowds on those long-ago days when the monarchy in France had gone to the guillotine. There was such history here, such a presence. It was all she'd hoped for and more.
”Quite a view, isn't it?”
She turned at the balcony door to see Ryder standing behind her. His coat and tie were off, his collar unb.u.t.toned. He looked as tired as she felt.
”It's the most beautiful view I've ever seen,” she agreed. ”Ryder, you look so tired.”
”Jet lag. Aren't you tired? Or is your age a point in your favor?” he added with faint sarcasm. ”I'm ten years your senior, after all. My stamina is a little strained.”
”Don't be like this,” she asked gently. ”We're in Paris.” She started to move toward him, but he held up a big hand.
”No, you don't,” he said shortly. ”When you're back in one piece again emotionally, maybe. But not now. I don't want you on the rebound.”
”What?” she stammered.
”You loved Ben. I don't want any leftover emotion from you. So keep it cool, honey.” He turned and left the room before she could say a single word.
But if she hadn't got the message from what he said, his behavior would have punctuated it. He did everything but hold a knife in front of him to ward her off. He did it nicely, although there was a coldness in his manner that she'd thought was gone until they came home from Jacksonville. Now she didn't know what he wanted from her. She wondered if he knew himself. If only she could tell him how she felt about him. She had a feeling that it would clear up all the misunderstandings and misconceptions and pave the way toward the future. But she couldn't get up the nerve.
Ryder, meanwhile, was having problems of his own. He'd held in his own guilt about Ben until it was tearing him apart. Ivy didn't know that an order of his had sent Ben's father to his death, or that it was the reason Ben had started drinking. He'd hired Ben out of guilt, and subconsciously maybe he'd even moved aside for him with Ivy out of that same sense of responsibility. If Ivy blamed herself for what Ben had become, he could imagine that she'd blame him more. She'd loved Ben, and he was responsible for what Ben was. Indirectly it was his action that had caused the chain reaction, that had given Ben a drinking problem and caused him to be cruel to Ivy. He hated knowing that. He hated even more the thought of having her find out one day.
Keeping his hands off her was h.e.l.l. He couldn't stop watching her. She seemed so at home in Paris. Perhaps it was because of her French ancestry. She looked as if she belonged among the relaxed, happy citizenry, her dark hair and eyes and her exquisite complexion helping her to fit right in.
She seemed to glow, except when she looked at him. He knew she was puzzled and hurt by his att.i.tude, but he hadn't been kidding about his loss of control when he was around her. He didn't want them to slip too soon into a physical relations.h.i.+p before Ivy had time to get over Ben.
His intentions, however, took a step backward on their second day in Paris. Unfortunately, a very handsome young French businessman attending the conference got a look at Ivy and complicated Ryder's life.
Ivy was flattered by the man's attention. After two days of alternate freezing cold and brotherly lukewarm behavior from Ryder, it was almost a relief to find a man with a raging interest in her, even if it was focused mostly on her looks. She responded to it without realizing what it would do to Ryder.
The Frenchman was Armand LeClair, and he spoke English almost as fluently as he spoke French.
”Ivy,” he savored her name, sitting close beside her during a brief lull while the speaker prepared his notes. ”It is a delightful name. Very pretty. Like you, mademoiselle.”
”You're very kind,” she replied, smiling shyly.
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