Sweetness
"Change in all things is sweet." –Aristotle
I. Lovers
Jennifer felt loose and happy. Warm and tired and overcome with utter bliss. She caught her breath and rolled onto her side, pulling the soft sheet up over her cooling body. Her leg shifted to press against the strong bulk of his thigh, and her heart fluttered to see him smile at the contact.
Neither of them spoke for a moment. Jennifer just watched him. Gosh, he was handsome. The line of his jaw and his brow, the lines of his face. Beautiful. And when he smiled, it was magic. The rest of him was beautiful, too. Strong body in very good shape. A healthy coating of masculine hair. He had a hardness and a softness that she was incredibly drawn to and turned on by. But it wasn't just his looks that she found compelling about him. He was smart and he made her laugh, and he treated her in a way that no one ever had.
"You're a woman of substance," he'd said recently.
It caught her off guard, and she'd been thinking about that a lot lately. Men had always told her she was beautiful or smart or tough. Often all three. And sooner or later, most men would either write her off because of her looks or else be turned off by her intelligence or her temper. And it had been easy to write those men off because of it. Jennifer had often assumed that her romantic life would be full of men with whom she could have a nice time until she tired of them. Because none of them ever made her feel seen or understood or really valued. Either she was used for her body or she was used for her money and connections. No one ever seemed to want her for who she was. Not all of her, at least.
But he did. He praised her beauty and her brilliance. He was not threatened by her competitive nature; he met her step for step. And they could laugh together, which was something she'd never imagined.
As Jennifer lay here after making love to this wonderful man, she realized she'd never felt this way before.
He turned to see her staring at him. "What's that look for?" he asked.
"I think I'm falling in love with you," Jennifer replied.
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her and said, "You let me know when you decide for sure. Because I know I've already fallen in love with you."
That smile on his face made Jennifer know for sure.
Jennifer spent more time with him after that. After all, they were in love, and even though he was busy with his business and she was busy with work, they made time for each other. Because they were in love.
But the more time Jennifer spent with him, the more she saw. She saw what he was like when his attention wasn't solely on her. And really, she should have expected that. What worldwide businessman and industrialist gets to that level of success without a bit of ruthlessness in there? Jennifer was naïve to think otherwise.
And it wasn't just Jennifer seeing cracks in his beautiful, perfect façade. He was starting to lose the shine on her as well. Their competitive natures weren't as much fun as before. He didn't like to lose and even when it was all in fun, he had moments where he took things a little far.
"Elliot, honey, it's just a game," Jennifer said after he threw his tennis racket against the fence in frustration after she narrowly beat him in a set. "We don't even have to keep score," she suggested.
"I don't have time for this shit," he growled. "I've got a merger breathing down my neck, but no, my girlfriend wants to play tennis!"
"If you're not having fun, we don't have to bother," she snapped. "In fact, why don't you go to work, since that's all that you can think about, and I'll just go home. You can call me when things settle down."
Jennifer didn't hear from Elliot Manning for a whole week. But when she did, he sent her two dozen red roses and a beautiful card and he called her to apologize for taking out his stress and frustration on her. Jennifer softened. For a little while.
Things just weren't the same after that. The warm contentment of the relationship wasn't there anymore. The good times were good, but they were fewer and further between. Jennifer had seen a meanness in Elliot that she didn't like. She saw that he didn't treat others the way he treated her. And it wasn't flattering. It didn't make her feel special. It made her feel uncomfortable.
Eventually, it was Jennifer who ended things. She took a job with the London Herald so she could get out of New York and put an ocean of distance between them. And she nursed her heartbreak for a few weeks, working as much as she could and letting herself cry over the loss of the man she loved who, it turned out, never really existed.
It was a few months later that Jennifer had a strange sense of déjà vu.
"I think I'm falling in love with you," Jennifer said, gazing at the most handsome face she had ever seen.
Her words were met with a smile that made her heartbeat quicken, even after she'd cooled after their incredible lovemaking. He pulled her back into his arms and kissed her gently. "I hope you might be, considering you did agree to marry me."
She laughed. "It's been a bit of a whirlwind."
"But you aren't having second thoughts?"
"Not in the least. Every single second with you, Jonathan, is more proof that we're going to have a very happy marriage."
His face turned serious. "That's all I want, Jennifer. I want to love you and make you happy for the rest of our lives."
"And that's all I want, too," she replied.
Jennifer Edwards worried that perhaps as she and Jonathan Hart blended their lives together, she might discover that things weren't as perfect as they looked now. She thought that there was a chance that things would change and they would have to work hard to be kind and to love each other. She worried that she would once again be proven wrong for her faith in a man who seemed too good to be true.
But then the strangest thing happened. They got exactly what they wanted. They loved each other and made each other happy for the rest of their lives. Jennifer's worries faded away to a distant memory. She had finally found a man who really did love her, who proved her right every single day for her choice to love him.