Separate Bedrooms...?. Carole Halston
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stated, stirring cream into his coffee.
“Yes, I had gotten up the courage to tell him last night, but he worked late, and we ended up just talking on the phone. So I put off telling him.”
“Don’t procrastinate, Cara. The sooner you stop the wedding preparations, the better for everybody.”
“You’re right.” Cara sipped her coffee.
Neil frowned, obviously not satisfied with her answer. He leaned toward her and lowered his voice before he spoke in the same sober tone, “After our conversation today when you were leaving to go to the post office, I did some thinking. If you’re going to marry anybody out of desperation just so Sophia can attend your wedding, I’d rather it be me.” Cara was so taken by surprise and so humbled by this proof of his affection for her that she just gazed at him, tongue-tied. He went on, “Not that I’m in favor of the whole idea, mind you. And, of course, it wouldn’t be a real marriage. We wouldn’t sleep together, naturally.” This last statement came out sounding stern. He sat upright again.
Cara felt herself blushing and wondered whether he’d been aware of how she’d responded earlier to his kissing her hand. “Neil, I’m deeply touched. This afternoon I wasn’t proposing. Honest. I would never put you on the spot like that.”
“I didn’t construe what you said as a proposal. My offer is purely voluntary. Consider it a backup plan if you start wavering about breaking off with Xavier.”
“Oh, I see. You’re afraid I’m too big a coward to face the music.”
“You’re under a lot of pressure. Don’t be hard on yourself.” He reached over and gave her forearm a gentle squeeze. Cara felt a warm tingle of pleasure in his touch. Warm pleasure had always been there when Neil patted or hugged her, but the tingle was new. What was going on?
“My conscience wouldn’t allow me to exploit our friendship,” she said and sipped her coffee. “We’re talking a major disruption of your life.”
He shrugged. “I have a routine more than I have a life.” The statement was quietly matter-of-fact. He wasn’t asking for pity, but Cara felt a surge of compassion anyway as she thought of how lonely he must be.
“You haven’t dated at all, have you?” she asked.
“No. I wouldn’t make a very good date.”
“Tell that to all the women who come on to you. Some of them even ask you to go out. I’ve heard you let them down easy.” She hesitated. “It’s been three years, Neil. You don’t want to live alone indefinitely.”
“Between work and my involvement in civic organizations, I have a lot of interaction with people. Don’t make me out to be a hermit. How did the conversation get on to me, anyway? We were discussing you.”
Cara wrinkled up her nose. “Aren’t we always?”
“So you’ll take steps to stop the wedding? Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow. I’ll invite Roy over to my place for supper and tell him I can’t go through with marrying him. Then the hard part.” She sighed. “Breaking the news to Nonna and my mother. They’ll inform the rest of the family. My best bet is to take my phone off the hook. Better yet, leave town until the worst blows over.”
“Tell your family you’re acting on my advice. Make me out to be the bad guy. I can take the flack.”
“You’re so sweet.”
The waitress brought the check. Cara asked if she could pay half and he said no. While he was taking out his wallet and extracting a credit card, she glanced over and noted that Agnes Tanner and her husband had departed. Cara hadn’t noticed them leaving. She hadn’t been aware of anybody except Neil all through dinner, for that matter. Their table might have been a private island in the room.
Poor Roy. She’d never been that focused on him when the two of them were out together in public. For the first time, Cara was willing to admit that maybe Roy had had a legitimate complaint about her devotion to her boss.
No more was said about Neil’s willingness to participate in a fake marriage, but Cara knew without a single doubt he would stand by his word if she decided to take him up on the offer. The knowledge that he’d given her what he called a “back up plan” would, she knew, shore up her courage to act decisively—and wisely—in rectifying the mistake she’d made in accepting Roy’s proposal. That had been Neil’s intention—to push her in the right direction.
The scene with Roy the next evening turned out to be much uglier than Cara could ever have imagined. It turned out to be much briefer, too. They never got around to eating the meal she’d prepared. Roy was in a fury when he arrived and began hurling bitter accusations about her fooling around with her boss behind Roy’s back.
Cara could barely get in a word, but she quickly surmised that Agnes Tanner had been busy spreading gossip, and Roy had gotten a full-blown account of yesterday’s embrace outside the store and last night’s innocent playacting at the restaurant.
“I’ve had it up to here!” Roy shouted, with a slashing motion across his throat. “The wedding’s off!”
“I’m so sorry about all this,” Cara began in a contrite tone.
He didn’t let her continue a meek explanation. “So it’s okay with you to call the wedding off?” he demanded.
Cara sighed in defeat and nodded. The whole story was so complicated, and what could she say to salve his pride? “I’m truly sorry, Roy. And I don’t blame you for being angry.”
“Spare me any apologies, you—” He balled up his fist, and for one frightened second, Cara cowered away from him, afraid he might strike her. He conquered the violent impulse and instead directed a tirade of verbal abuse at her before he stormed out.
The loud slamming of the door made Cara wince. She collapsed into a chair, weak with relief and horrified that she might actually have married Roy, a potential wife-beater, judging from the way he’d acted tonight. Ironically, his language and his behavior absolved her of a great deal of guilt. He didn’t love her, either, because no man who loved a woman could call her such foul names and accuse her of such sleazy actions. Roy’s mind was in the gutter.
“No wonder Neil took a dislike to him,” Cara murmured.
One thing for sure—she wouldn’t describe the breakup scene to Neil in any great detail. He just might call Roy up or, worse, go to see him and bawl him out for treating Cara as he had. Neil had come to her defense in the past. Cara remembered a couple of incidents during her teens when he’d tracked down boys who’d acted disrespectfully toward her. She didn’t know what he’d said or done, but he’d cured the problem in each case.
The phone was ringing. Cara rose and picked up the cordless phone from an end table. She spoke a cautious hello. Roy could be calling to shout at her some more or any number of friends could be checking in to report the rumors Agnes was circulating.
“Cara Marie.” Her mother’s voice came over the line. Cara’s heart sank. She could easily picture Rose LaCroix’s face, her compressed lips and grim expression. The gossip must have made it to her ears already.
“Hi, Mamma. How are you?”
Rose ignored her conversational opener. “Are you talking on that cordless phone?”
“Why, yes.”
“I don’t want the whole world listening in to what I have to say, even if it is a pack of lies.”
Recently there had been a feature on the local news about the lack of privacy in using cell phones and cordless phones. The news reporter had played recordings of intercepted conversations, some of them embarrassingly personal.
“Why don’t I come over in about fifteen minutes?” Cara said. She might as well go ahead and finish the job of calling a halt to the wedding preparations. Especially since nosy Agnes had