Rhea knew that Eli, Cassie, and Mason were out on the porch brainstorming song ideas, so she had a clear field to clean their rooms, but she was still hesitant to clean Eli's room. It seemed too be a bit too personal. She heard a door close behind her and jumped at the sound. When she turned to look over her shoulder her mother was watching her.

"Rhea dear, what are you doing?" she asked in her native French.

"I was about to go and clean Mr. Emory's room Mama," she smiled at her delicate mother, answering back in her own flawless French.

Collette Harris was still a beautiful woman and even in her early fifties she looked a lot like Phoebe with her blond ringlets and blue eyes, but she had always been a little fragile, and having Aion had taken a lot out of her. Some days she felt good and helped around the inn and others she was too tired to get out of bed. Today looked like it was a good day.

"Oh, I'll take half of your stuff and clean the Stevens' room if it would help?" she offered.

"That would be wonderful Mama, I still need to make lunch and Aion was able to make me promise to bake him a batch of those cookies he likes so much."

She joined Rhea at the base of the attic stairs and took half of the cleaning supplies. "I'll do a quick clean and then be down to help you with lunch."

"Thanks Mama, I'm glad you're feeling so well today."

She smiled at her daughter, tucking her hair behind her ear, "You should go shopping my dear and buy some new things, get a haircut, something fun."

"I'll make the time to do that." It was an empty promise but it seemed to appease her mother as she wandered down the hall towards the room where the Stevens were staying.

It was so hard to stay mad at both her parents. They weren't bad people and they loved her very much, but they were terribly irresponsible with money, and they wouldn't care if she was as well, but they had come to depend on her to hold it together, and every year that went by their dependence on her became greater and greater.

Rhea turned back to the stairs and started to climb them slowly, and as she pushed open the door she was hit with Eli's scent, his cologne and soap. It was a smell that she remembered well.

She moved to the bathroom and began cleaning there first. It didn't take her long, Eli was a fairly neat person so all she needed to do was a quick wipe down, then she vacuumed  before starting on the bed, and she was almost through when she heard the door to the room close. She spun around and saw Eli leaning against it, watching her.

She needed to keep busy so she wouldn't have to look at him, so she finished making the bed before reaching for a dust cloth and starting to wipe down the furniture.

"I'm sorry Sunny," he had moved to stand directly behind her and she could feel the heat as it radiated off of his body.

Rhea didn't need clarification as to what he was talking about. "You should be, how could you think that I would keep something like that from you?" She spun around and he was right up on her.

"I haven't been happy in a long time and I've become very jaded. The more time that passes the more I realize I have very few people I can trust. It's not an excuse but I hope it helps you understand that it was all me and none of it you." He put his hands on her shoulders, willing her to look up at him.

She was unable to do it and stared hard at the button on his shirt, nodding her understanding.

"How did you know I was here, I was doing my best to stay out of sight," she finally asked after a silence that seemed to stretch on forever.

"I didn't know for sure, but every once in a while, I would catch the sound of your voice or the smell of your perfume. It made me think that I had finally lost it and that you really were haunting me. I put it all down to the fact that I was in Georgia and that you were from Georgia, and that the last time we saw each other was here in Savannah.

Rhea nodded. "When I dropped you off that afternoon at your hotel, I knew I wouldn't be back." Finally, she looked up at him, tears swimming in her eyes, "I'm sorry. I didn't want to leave you, I wanted to stay with you forever, but I couldn't..." Her guilt for leaving without saying goodbye made her confess what she didn't want to when she didn't even need to.

"Why couldn't you?" He didn't look mad only curious.

"It doesn't matter now." She shook her head and broke away from him beginning to gather up her things.

"I disagree, it matters very much." He reached for her and she evaded him. "Why won't you talk to me?"

Rhea looked at him, eyes wide with despair, "Because your impossible to resist, because you'll say all the right things, or because I'll cave and follow you to the ends of the earth, take your pick." She couldn't let him know that it was because she knew he would eventually doubt her in the end just like he like he had that morning, and when he did it would destroy her. Plus, there was the strong likelihood that he would grow bored with her as well. She looked down at her chapped hands, knowing there was nothing about her to hold a man like Eli for very long.

"How about you tell me the why and I'll tell you if your being reasonable or not."

Rhea laughed through the tears that she hadn't realized were falling. Only Eli could make that statement without the repercussions of having a woman tell him off for it.

"It's reasonable, trust me. I don't need you to tell me it is." She picked up her things.

"From this morning's conversation with Otto, I take it that no one here knows where you were that year you worked for me."

"No, it was my year. You were my secret."

Eil's smile was slow and sexy. "I like that, a secret. I have a few of my own and you're one of them."

Rhea loved the way that it sounded when he said it as well.

"Although, Mason knows, so is it really a secret?" He smiled his sexy grin again.

Rhea returned his smile as she turned to leave. "I'll go make you your favorite cookies."

"Sunny,"

Rhea turned to look at him, he was so unbelievably sexy, in his tight blue jeans and his untucked button-down shirt.

"Am I still irresistible?"

She let her eyes wander over him. "You're my kryptonite so I think I'll stay in hiding."

"Why did you come out of hiding?"

"You were singing." She shrugged as if that was all of the explanation she needed to give. She turned her back to him so he wouldn't see the desperation she had felt, but she turned to look at him one last time before she left. "I was afraid you wouldn't remember me," she whispered softly.

His eyes grew wide. "Not remember you?" He was obviously stunned speechless by her comment and she took the chance to make her getaway.

*******

Eli watched Rhea close the door behind her after her parting comment. He sat hard on the bed as what she had said registered with him. Why would she think he wouldn't remember her? Had he been that stupid? He thought back to all of their past conversations and his eyes closed as the truth of the matter dawned on him.

He had never told her he loved her. He had told her that he wanted her and she had given him what he wanted, but he had never assured her that he wanted her forever, that she was the only one that he wanted.

He fell back on the bed with a groan. Five years of hell, five years of singing a song for her at every concert, hoping she would be there and that she would find him once again, and all he had had to do that night, five years ago, was say the words. So much time wasted.

He jumped up, he could go say the words now and she would know, then he wouldn't have to lose her again. However, instead of racing after her he started to pace as he thought of the best way to do it. The first thing he had to figure out was why she had left without saying goodbye. He had a feeling that that was the key to it all.

He thought about little Aion and how wrong he had been about that situation but, as messed up as it was, part of him had desperately wanted it to be true because then he would have a reason to keep her in his life. 

He should have known better though, and he shouldn't have betrayed her with the thought.

He knew why he had done it, he was still angry at her for leaving because he had believed that they had understood each other that night five years ago, and it was also the thought of her with another man, having a child with another man, that made him want to believe that Aion was his as well.

But now it was clear,  and he was as much to blame for her leaving as she was.

This time he would win her and then figure out a way to keep her. If she found him so irresistible then he would use that to his advantage. It was something that he should have done in the past and it was something that she deserved.