The Weekend Ends

“No.” Sarah stood firm. Their weekend was over and it was time to put the madness to an end before someone caught wind of it. “You have a perfectly nice home, I’m sure. You sleep there tonight.”

JC couldn’t believe she was kicking him out after two days and nights of bliss. It was like being tossed out of heaven. Nothing he did seem to sway her – all the cajoling, all the kisses had been to no avail.

“I told you it was just sex,” she reminded him.

“Bullshit.”

“See? That’s what I was afraid of. You thinking there was as more to it.”

“No, Sarah, you’re the one who isn’t admitting what’s between us.”

“Sex!”

“No, it’s more—“

“I don’t need any lectures from you, sonny boy.” Her voice dripped with false distain. She had to get him out before she was foolish enough to believe him. “Take what you learned and make your next girlfriend a sex slave for life.”

“What did you learn?” he demanded. “That a man can pleasure you without expecting something in return? That you could be cherished? Why are you doing this?”

What he didn’t know, what he couldn’t see that she was protecting him as she had wanted to protect no one before. JC mattered. “Quit acting like a selfish, greedy boy and leave.”

Selfish? Wanting to love her was selfish? “On one condition.”

“You aren’t in any position to argue,” she reminded him. She sighed at the determination in his eyes and asked, “What condition?”

“You look me in the eye and tell me it was ‘just sex’.”

Sarah steeled herself for the monumental lie. She had to do this for JC’s sake.

“Can’t do it, can you?” he taunted tenderly.

She raised her head and met his gaze evenly. “It was just sex, JC. Now, go.”

He went because he had said he would. He hadn’t missed the hurt and the anguish in her eyes. She had lied to him for some reason he had to discover. “You’re lying to me, Sarah.” He brushed a soft kiss on her mouth and left.

JC realized Steven watched him closely the next morning at the studio, probably wondering if JC had indeed gone to Sarah. When he closed his eyes, he could still feel her pain as she sent him away. It wasn’t what she really wanted to do, he thought without any arrogance. In her heart, it was the last thing she had wanted. It would take a campaign to win Sarah – and JC was nothing if not determined!

“Don’t send her roses,” Steven told him.

JC looked at the other man. “What?”

“Sarah. Don’t send her roses. She says they are over used and have lost all meaning. She likes either exotic flowers, like bird of paradise and calla lilies, or something sweet and simple like wildflowers and daisies. And she likes the works of Ayn Rand for reading material.”

“How do you know all this stuff?”

“I grew up with her. She’s my cousin.”

Then this was someone who could help him understand Sarah. “Who hurt her?”

Steven shuffled uncomfortably. “Who hasn’t? She never had the love from either of her parents. She couldn’t win her father’s approval for even breathing. Her mother is one of the most emotionally closed people I’ve ever met. She was this sweet, bright, little kid full of love – who was never loved back.”

“So, she doesn’t believe in love, but she writes about it?”

“She writes about fantasy people. How she wishes life was.”

“It can be.”

“No man has ever proven it to her.”

“I plan to,” JC stated firmly.

“All I can say is, ‘Good luck!’.”