Beyond Business. Elizabeth Harbison

she hung up the phone and started to collect her papers, he didn’t even take the time to think things through. He just strode to the door and knocked.

      For several moments he stood there, wondering if she’d heard and if he should still turn and leave as if he’d never been there.

      He’d almost convinced himself to do just that when she opened the door.

      “Evan!”

      A thousand things ran through his mind. A million explanations, a billion apologies. But it all boiled down to one salient point.

      “I was a fool.”

      She looked puzzled. “What?”

      He stepped toward her, and she opened the door and stepped back, allowing him in. “I had no idea what I was giving up when I left here.”

      “Evan, have you been drinking?”

      He laughed. “Not a drop. In fact, I’m more sober than I’ve been in years.”

      She closed the door and stood her ground, even when he took another step toward her.

      He looked down into her beautiful face and wished he could erase every stress line he or his family had put there. But then again, he liked the gentle lines on her face. He liked the new maturity there. He liked everything about the way she looked.

      “I didn’t know how to betray my father, and the only way I could think of to avoid betraying you was to leave. To remove myself from the equation altogether. I thought you’d be better off. And I honestly thought—” he sighed “—I thought you’d forget all about me in no time and that it wouldn’t matter.”

      She swallowed. “I never forgot.”

      He shook his head. “Neither did I. And that was the worst error in judgment I made. Because I also thought that someday I’d forget, too. Everything everyone says about young love—that it’s fleeting, that you remember it later with a smile and a little embarrassment but no heartache, that it never lasts. All of that was untrue.”

      Her eyes were shining with unshed tears. “We shouldn’t be talking about this.”

      “I know, but not talking about it isn’t working, either.”

      “I know.” She sniffed.

      “Look, you can tell me to go to hell.” He gave a dry laugh and shook his head. “I wouldn’t blame you one bit for that. But I at least want you to understand that, whatever my stupid and misguided reasons for leaving, I never ever stopped loving you.”

      He heard her breath catch in her throat. “Then why did you stay away? Why, when you realized how you felt, didn’t you come back? Or contact me somehow?”

      “Because all I knew was how I felt and that I’d let you down. I couldn’t imagine that you would be willing to talk to me.”

      She shook her head.

      “And honestly, Meredith,” he went on, “I could imagine, all too easily, that you’d moved on and forgotten us.”

      “You didn’t have much faith in me.”

      “No,” he said firmly. “I didn’t have much faith in me. And, hell, I didn’t deserve it.”

      They stood looking at each other in silence for a long, shuddering moment.

      “No,” she said at last. “You didn’t.”

      He accepted that.

      He had to.

      “You’re right,” he agreed. “I just wanted you to know the truth.” He started to leave.

      “Why?” she asked behind him.

      He stopped and turned back to face her. “What?”

      “Why did you want me to know the truth? Why now, after all this time? In fact, why now after the nonconversation we had about this earlier tonight?”

      “Because even though we’d like to be mature people who don’t sweat this kind of thing, it’s been the elephant in the room ever since we started working together. It was starting to spill over into everything I did, everything I thought about.”

      “So you needed to get it off your chest,” she challenged. “To relieve your conscience.”

      “Mer, it would take a noble explanation for leaving to relieve my conscience,” he said earnestly. “That’s not gonna happen. The reason I wanted to tell you this is because you deserved to know it because it’s the truth. I love you, Meredith. I always have. And, God help me, I guess I always will.” He gave a small smile. “That’s the last I’ll say about it, though, don’t worry. Good night, Meredith.”

      He turned to leave and had taken two steps toward the door when she said, “Evan, wait. Don’t go.”

      She should have let him go, but she couldn’t.

      She ran to him, and it all happened as if in slow motion. He turned to her, she threw herself into his arms, and they kissed. Long and deeply, and expressing all of the unanswered passion they had felt for all this time but had been unable to share.

      Wordlessly she took his hand and led him up the stairs to her bedroom. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t need to.

      They stopped in the doorway of her bedroom and kissed again.

      “Not the same room you used to have,” Evan murmured.

      “That would be just too weird, wouldn’t it?” She smiled at him, and they kissed again.

      He moved his hands up her back in tantalizing slow motion, moving his fingertips across her back so lightly she arched against him when it tickled. When she did, he unhooked her bra with one quick flick of his fingers.

      She remembered that move.

      The fabric fell loose and he pressed his palms against her back, drawing her closer to him still. She went willingly, eagerly. If she could have, she would have gone right into his soul.

      They kissed for long minutes, maybe ten or fifteen of them, unhurried but both certain where this was going.

      Just as Meredith began to feel as if her core was melting into a puddle at her feet, he whispered, “Let’s move to the bed.”

      She didn’t argue.

      They crossed the room and fell to the bed together, resuming their kiss and increasing the urgency. Evan yanked at Meredith’s shirt and it flew open, the buttons popping off and clattering to the floor like pennies. She didn’t care. The sooner he touched her, the more he touched her, the better.

      His hand skidded across her rib cage to her breast, his touch hot against her skin. He moved his hand to her nipple, playing her like an instrument, until her breath came in short, shallow bursts, her heart pounding urgently, begging for satisfaction.

      She cupped her hands to his face and kissed him deeply, then moved her hands down the length of his chest and the flat of his stomach, until she got to the buckle of his jeans.

      She hadn’t forgotten her own moves, either, and she dipped her hand inside his pants, and snapped them open as Evan groaned against her mouth.

      “If you’re going to stop this, you’d better do it, like, five minutes ago,” he said against her mouth.

      “I’m not sure….” She smiled and kissed him again, enjoying the game.

      Apparently, he was, too. He slid his hand inside her pants and cupped her, dipping one finger into her womanhood for just a moment. “No?”

      She gasped. “I guess we could keep going.” She moved her own hand to hold him. She was awed by the power of his desire and it made her crazy with her own, but she tried to sound controlled. “Unless you want to stop …?”

      “You