Keep My Heart- Prologue

Keep My Heart- 2

"Another summer day, has come and gone away in Paris in Rome. But I wanna go home-"

  --Michael Buble's song 'Home'

I really like this, because...well, it's just a great song and it fits Adam pretty well. J

Comment and Vote, please! My life will be complete!

"You're home," Olivia sputtered, and felt her brows come low over her eyes. Hadn't he said, when he wrote his letter, that he would not be home until the first week of July?

  Impervious to her surprise, Adam Hawke said nothing for the moment. Olivia speculated as to why he stared at her so unashamedly.  He was never so brazen as he was—the Adam she knew was quiet and though thoughtful, kept most of his own ideas and emotions to himself.

     "I arrived a few hours ago," he told her, and his voice sounded very tired.

"But you said you were not to be home until July."

His greenish grey eyes were deep. "I returned early. Homesickness."

She answered with a bit of a shocked "Oh" and felt as though she knew nothing about this man.

This man, with his tall frame and messy black hair, was her husband. This terribly private man, who had private thoughts and a detached disposition, was her husband. They had wedded two years before—and this man, she knew very little of. The thought of it astonished her.

"How have you fared?" His voice was light.

"Well," she answered. "And...and you?"

He grinned. "I saw many things I hadn't before. Brazil, Colombia. We even spent a few days in Mexico."

Suddenly Olivia wondered what it would be like to see the world. She would have liked to have gone with him sometime, but he never asked and she didn't either. She didn't want him to feel like she hung onto him. She didn't cling to him—she didn't need him. She fisted her left hand, feeling her wedding ring tighten on her finger.

   "On another note," he began, his voice slow but crisp, "you're awake awfully early."

"I couldn't sleep last night." She moved towards the table cautiously, and he watched her. It pained her because the gleam in his eyes reminded her of Rashleigh.

   "I see."

She squirmed, and felt something in the air between them. He had not said a single word about getting home—Olivia supposed that she looked like an owl in shock. Well, she thought funnily to herself, you pretty much are.

 He cleared his throat.

Snapping out of her reverie, she made eye contact with him, and read in his eyes trouble.

"Yes?" She hated how light her voice sounded.

"I returned because I received a letter."

She smiled. "From whom did this letter come?"

His expression was entirely serious, and she was reminded of how very staid he had always been. She supposed, too—how staid he would always be. Certainly, she knew, whenever he wanted to use it, his sense of humor was both clever and pleasant.

   "It came from Rashleigh," Adam said.

Olivia's pretty blue eyes were amplified to a popping, hurt color as she widened them. The lashes about them fluttered and she felt her heart cease beating momentarily.

  She diverted her face, sure that he knew what she was thinking. Her cheeks must be flaming like rubies. And he could not know that she was kept awake at night for thinking, for regretting the things with Rashleigh.

    "He and his wife are coming to America on business."

They were coming—to America? They were coming here, when they knew that she was still aching? Or, had they forgotten? Did they care? Anger coursed through her veins in the early morning sunshine, and it felt as though the cut they had made in her was torn open again. She felt as though she was bleeding out on the floor, and there was naught Adam could do—but watch.

     "And what has this to do with you returning home?"

He lifted his brows as she faced him, looking pale and sick.

"Olivia," he said in a firm voice, "they will arrive sometime this week. I received the letter this morning in Boston. It should have turned up here three weeks past."

   But they would be here, together. Rashleigh and Georgiana, coming to the place where she had licked her wounds, where she had tried to get over it... They couldn't! She would go crazy if they did come here, and she had to stare at them, loving and everything that should have been hers. No, she did not want Rashleigh to take her back. She was not so angry at Georgiana. Olivia's wrath came mostly from Rashleigh, and how he had used her.

    "They plan on staying here, Olivia, for a month."

A month of it? She would rather be dead!

"I...I can't be in the same house as him," she said, slowly but coolly, and looked beyond his shoulder. Her left brow arched, her eyes glistening with frustration.

    "It's been two years."

Rapidly, all the nights of weeping into her pillow came to her. The mornings of feigning headaches because she was too weak to rise came tauntingly back. Midnights when she had lain in Adam's arms, wishing he was Rashleigh pressed at her guiltily.

   "I can't suffer them. I can't see him. I will never look at him again."

Apologetic, Adam leveled his eyes. "I express all the regret I'm capable of, but there's nothing that can change it, my dear. I can't turn my own brother out to live in a hotel with his wife for a month."

  "If he was put in this situation, Adam," she accented his name with as much venom as she could muster, "you would be in a hotel, hands down."

   "As it is," he sighed, uncut by her comment, "they will stay here. I don't care what he would do to me, this is what I do for him—honor."

   "You care more about honor than you take heed of my sanity?"

"Sanity? Come now, he can't be that bad."

Oh, she wanted to cry. She knew that Rashleigh was Adam's brother, but she was his wife! Olivia had always thought Adam knew better than anyone else how badly that she had been hurt.

   "Please," she whispered. "I'm begging you."

He did not waver; he rose, instead. He towered her, blocking out some of the brighter sunshine. "If I could amend everything he ever did to you, I would. However, you won't allow me to do so—besides, it's only a month. I'm confident that you will keep your good sense for thirty days."

    She was immovable on his words: you won't allow me to do so.

What did that mean? He had never done anything to try and fix her.

Then again, she knew grimly, there was only one person who could fix her and he didn't give a rap. And, anymore, she didn't want him.

   "Try and be a polite hostess, Olivia." He had walked around the table, and was standing behind her. Gently, she felt his hands squeeze her small shoulders and she felt her heart break again. No, he did not know of her personal damages and she intended to keep it that way. 

    "You should go back to bed. I'll handle everything for today."

She wondered if he wondered what day it was and her mind entreated with her eyes.

But no, he did not seem to recall.

Olivia stood, knowing she would not sleep. Still, she did not want to be awake through today.

She said nothing to him, but brushed silently by him, and was through the door.

"Olivia?"

Stopping, she looked at him over her shoulder. An indecipherable expression rested easily on his face.

Her eyes followed where his outstretched palms held a small box, wrapped handsomely.

 "I hope you hadn't thought it had somehow slipped my mind."