Flowers for Jill Ch. 06

"I don't understand-" he began, but she interrupted, "You misunderstood."

"The hell I misunderstood," his temper flared, "I told you I wanted something steadier, and you said you were on board. One plus one doesn't equal eleven, sweetie."

She hastened to reassure, "I do, I do. I want a relationship with you, a real relationship, but I can't leave Chicago; I've rearranged my whole life to stay here and I'm finally at peace. And besides, you and I dating might raise a few eyebrows at the office, but that's for future..." she swallowed and waved her hand looking for the best way to explain herself, "We can work on that in the future, I just meant that we can continue to see each other like this; a long distant relationship."

He glared at her in silence for a couple of minutes before shaking his head, "I should've known."

"What?" she sat up holding the comforter to her chest as he got out of bed and started pacing, his complete nudity not an issue for him while debating angrily.

"It's about that Hallward guy, isn't it?" he turned to her with a feral scowl, "It's about time you face the music and realize that you can't hold on to some stupid crush from the past and let it get in the way of having something real with someone that gives a damn about you. I'm not him, okay? And I never will be, but I'm here and he's not. I care about you, and he doesn't. I hate to break it to you like this, but he never did and never will, so you might as well just forget that whole infatuation you had and start working on what we have here." He waved his hand in the air signaling her then himself several times.

She took a deep breath, her head pounding with the beginning of a headache, a sign of shock "How did you know about Curt Hallward?"

"It wasn't hard to hear about it, everyone who knows you knows it." he spat.

Shaking her head, she cried, "You went snooping for information about my past? That's not my personnel file at work, it's not my résumé; it's my fucking personal life. You have no right to interfere in it this way. No right whatsoever. I never dug behind you, or asked any personal questions about you out of respect-"

He interrupted, "Because I'm not dear ol' Curt, so you didn't give a shit."

"Shut. Up!" she yelled getting out of bed and wrapping the big comforter around her body very awkwardly, "You don't know what you're talking about, and if you'd have came to me, and asked me about it, you wouldn't be spewing all this stupid shit. Curt is the past, he doesn't matter anymore. He's nothing to me. Yes, I'll admit that I was fixated on him for far too long, but I had no one else that I felt something for. I was going through a weird stage in my life, and that's all. You can't just-" she tripped on the big blanket, and caught herself before falling.

He continued to stare at her in silence, brows knotted, arms crossed on his chest, and his erection abated but was still half-hard.

"You can't just assume-"

He interrupted grievously, "So you were planning on turning me into a booty-call like that other guy in Kansas City?"

Keith? How did he know about that silly little relationship? "Keith and I dated, then parted on good terms. I don't need to be explaining myself to you like this. He's a good friend of mine, that's all."

Taking three long steps towards her, he leaned down until they were nose to nose, "Look me in the eye and tell me he wasn't just a fill-in until Curt decided to take you up on your offers. Look me in the fucking eye and tell me you didn't have an on-off sex-only relationship with him after you guys broke up. I dare you."

Shaking with a mixture of rage and disappointment, she croaked, "No. None of that is true, Marc. I wanted to move on, and I wanted to love Keith, but I couldn't. We had sex three times after we broke up," she held three fingers in front of his face, "three times only, and we were planning on getting back together, but it didn't work."

Straightening up he shook his head, "That still doesn't explain why you refused to date or have any sort of relationship for what...six years? Seven years, since you were in college?"

Seven years, since she was twenty-one, "I didn't meet anyone that replaced Curt until..." wrapping the comforter more securely around her, she felt the beginning of tears sting her eyes, "until...you..." She couldn't bear looking at his face while admitting it, but she trekked on with determination, "It had always been Curt, Curt, Curt, but then you came along, and he just evaporated...every waking moment was spent thinking about you. You! Not my work that I dedicated my life to, not the guy I chased all over college, not anything...just you. All this time, even before I knew who you were. Even before I knew your real name. I opened a door inside for you that I haven't opened for anyone else. I stripped down to the real me with you, and I somehow knew you weren't going to judge me for it, or take it the wrong way because I wanted you to be different...to be perfect for me. It seems like I was hasty in my decision." Her eyelashes fluttered and, to her dismay, a tear escaped the corner of her eye. She didn't want to cry, she wanted to look undaunted and self-sufficient like a woman who could walk away unfettered from any situation or anyone that didn't do it for her.

"No. Don't, don't...don't cry." He frowned fisting his hands and holding them at his sides with sheer will it seemed, "You turn on the waterworks everytime I try to talk to you seriously, and you make me feel like the biggest asshole on the face of the earth."

"Turn on the waterworks?" she cried incredulously wiping at another tear that ran down her cheek, "Where do you come off accusing me of manipulating you?"

Squeezing the bridge of his nose, he rushed to explain, "That's not how I meant it, I just...I don't know what I'm saying...Just don't cry, I can't stand it, it tears me up inside."

"I'm not crying." She sniffed.

"Good." He murmured lamely.

Silent minutes stretched out between them until he asked slowly, "Did you mean that stuff you said?"

"About?"

"Aboat me, and...everything."

"Yes. Every single word." She felt the need to elaborate, "I don't care a bit about Curt Hallward anymore, haven't for almost a year now. He was just a crush that went sour, and stuck for a long time in my head. You have to understand that. I wouldn't be launching a relationship with you if I wanted someone else."

"A long distance relationship." He amended.

"You make it sound terrible, it's not."

"Yes, it is." He finally had the sense to snatch his boxer briefs and put them on, "I want the woman I'm with, my girlfriend to live with me in the same city, not somewhere across the country where I have to fly over to see her. That's not feasible, especially considering how busy I am; how busy we both are."

"There's that other matter of the employees finding out." She pointed.

"We're not the first coworkers to get into a relationship. And Élsi Dussant is one of those companies that don't make a big deal out of that as long as the personal stuff stays out of the office. I know a number of higher management teams that dated at one point or another, and a couple that got married when dad was the president of the company. That's not an excuse."

"It is for me." she whispered, then cleared her throat speaking up, "It is for me because everyone knows how barren my social life is, and everyone knows those sordid personal details about my failure in relationships. They talk about them like I'm not a human with feelings that could be hurt. The moment they find out that you and I are an item they're going to speculate and assume all kinds of false things especially considering the fact that you're relatively new. A long distance, semi-secret relationship is our best bet until we figure things out."

When he didn't comment, she continued, "And there's that other thing about me returning to New York -I can't do it, Marc. My life was going in the wrong direction, rushing to a dark place that I couldn't escape. Everything about living there got to the point where it scared me, even though I was born and raised there. I had to leave. Needed to leave, and I still need to stay away until I sort things out in my head."

Serenely, he said "Don't take this the wrong way, Jillian -I know what you mean, and that's why I'm saying this- I think that you need to talk to someone." Letting out a short sigh, he explained, "I think you have some kind of anxiety or mild depression or some such, I've been through something like that before, and it paralyzed my entire life. You can't go on moving from place to place, and hiding just because you won't face this."

The fact that his words strummed a familiar chord inside her made her go directly on the defensive, shaking her head resolutely, she denied, "No, that's not it, I'm...I'm...I'm burned out, and I..." she swallowed, "You're way off base...way off base."

"Jillian." He walked up to her again, and placed a finger under her chin forcing her to meet his gaze, "I won't force, push, or badger you, but I do want you to consider what I said. I care about you...more than that, actually, you mean a lot to me, and that's why I want you to work this thing out."

"I don't know." she started to say, but he persisted, "Promise me, Jill."

Nodding, she said "Maybe."

He seemed to struggle with what he was about to say as he stared at her with a mix of dispirited yet furious emotions in his eyes, "In the meantime," he started, "I think you and I need to start seeing other people." He frowned forcing the words out of his mouth, "I can't go on thinking that I'm cheating on you everytime I go on a date, and abstain from touching women because I'm thinking about you and feeling like doing it would betray what we have. I've been in hell over the past few months, and I had planned to come here and play some mind games to get you to come back with me," he admitted snorting mirthlessly with self derision, "didn't quite work that way, now did it?"

"Marc?" she pleaded holding back her tears, but the sadness she saw in his eyes made her nod in demission, "Okay."

"I want you to come to me when this is all..." he motioned to her head then put a hand on his chest, "when all this burden is gone."

She nodded unsure of what she wanted to say as his words started to register, and her mind started working overtime trying to keep up with his reasoning then come up with counter defensive arguments.

"If you weren't so stubborn." He shook his head mournfully, and took her face in his hands planting a long, deep kiss on her lips. It felt so good that she couldn't even bring herself to kiss him back, she just gave him her lips and felt everything he poured into the intimate touch for the last time.

"Sleep here," he smiled wistfully, "let me hold you until the morning, and we'll call it my birthday gift."

Wordlessly, she wrapped her arms around him, dropping the comforter and plastering her body to his, as her mind raged about all the other barriers inside her that she needed to drop in order to be Marc Dussant's girl.