He hesitated, but then he pushed her away and stood up. He seemed to be trying to act as though nothing had happened. “Are you sure you need all these clothes?”
The intimate moment was gone. Behind him, Elise closed her eyes. When she opened them, Alejandro was looking at her in the mirror over the dresser. For a flash of a second, she saw the longing in his eyes. The deep wanting of something that he knew he could never have.
Elise wanted to go to him but couldn’t. He was right. Her life; his life. They weren’t alike. They didn’t even run side by side.
“If we could meet on common ground,” she whispered, “as equals, we could—” Turning, he gave her a look that made her stop talking. They both knew it was no use.
If they began something they couldn’t finish, the pain they felt now was nothing to what it could be.
She gave a quick nod of understanding and stepped away from him. It took a deep breath to bring her back to the present. Away from what might be and back to what was. “How many shoes can you carry?”
He gave a slow smile, glad she understood. “One pair and that’s all.”
“I bet we could slide a dozen pair of sandals over your arms.”
“Like a horse harness?”
Elise’s gasped. “Horse! My riding lesson. I’ve got to go!”
He started toward the door.
“You forgot my clothes.”
“I thought you were in a hurry to leave.”
“Not so much that I’d forget my dresses. Hold out your arms and I’ll pack you.”
“A horse, a mule, a Christmas tree,” he muttered as she slid sandals over his forearms, and they smiled at each other.
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Chapter Nine
Both Kathy and Olivia were staring at Elise in wide-eyed shock. Kathy recovered first. “You didn’t go to bed with him?”
“No. And now I deeply regret it.”
“I know all about regrets,” Olivia said. “If I’d only said or done what my heart told me to, I would have had a lifetime of...of happiness.” She looked at Elise. “What was your excuse?”
“Guilt. Kent was working so hard. For me. At least I thought he was. But I was playing around with the gardener and...” She shrugged. “Maybe I was afraid of the intensity of what I felt for Alejandro—and I didn’t know if I actually liked him or just lusted after him.”
“Did you find out?” Olivia asked.
“I think so.” She swallowed. “No, that’s not true. The lust I could handle. Whether I did or didn’t go to bed with him, that was cut-and-dried. But liking him, maybe even...” She paused. “Maybe even loving him was what I couldn’t bear.”
She looked at them. “I knew Alejandro was right. We came from two different worlds. It’s romantic to say ‘We’ll live on love’ but it’s not very practical.”
“I know about the struggle to pay the bills,” Olivia said. “Sometimes money becomes the number one thing in life.”
“Hmph!” Kathy said. “With a father like mine and married to his clone, I’m well aware of the importance of money.”
“After the time in my closet, I began to think about what I was doing.”
“I wish I’d been that smart with Ray,” Kathy said.
“At the time I didn’t feel smart. I felt cold and calculating. I thought about the truth of divorcing Kent and running away with the beautiful Alejandro. Then what? I have no job skills so I didn’t think I could help financially. And forget the money, there were our families. My family would disown me for sure. And I can’t imagine that his family would accept me. One of us was going to have to give up his or her entire life, friends and family, places, everything! For one of us, all that we knew would be taken away. When I looked at it, I could only see it ending badly.”
Elise put her hands over her face. “I felt awful about my thoughts, but all I could see was that Alejandro and I would come to hate each other—and it would be my fault.”