Chapter Seven #3
He was slow to answer. ‘I’m scared of making mistakes that I’ve already made before.’
The words were so stark, and his expression, as he emitted them, so bleak that her stomach knotted. ‘What could you have possibly done that was so bad?’
He looked away, out into the encroaching darkness. ‘I hurt someone once. In every way a person can be hurt.’
‘Who?’
‘Her name was Charlotte. We were…involved.’
‘I thought you didn’t have relationships,’ Serena murmured, her heart faltering with a spike of envy.
‘I don’t.’ A warning seemed to shoot from his eyes. ‘I didn’t then either. It was a casual thing, at least to me. But since then, since her, I don’t even do that.’
‘What happened?’
‘I was young and reckless. Impossible.’
‘You’re still impossible now,’ she murmured with a small smile, being granted one in return, but it was only half-hearted.
‘I was worse back then. I lived a charmed life. I was used to getting everything I wanted, and the moment I saw Charlotte, I wanted her, so I did what I always did—pursued her until I got her. She was only in Melbourne for the summer. She had no knowledge of my lifestyle, how I cycled through women, and I never explained it to her. I was just having fun, but she was falling in love with me, talking to her family about us living together and getting married.’ He paused, regret writing itself into every line across his face.
‘When Charlotte realised that I had no notion of a future with her and never had, she was crushed, as she had every right to be. She lost it right there in the club, screaming at me that I’d led her on.
Then she stormed out.’ He exhaled and closed his eyes and, seeing how arduous it was for him, Serena reached out, touching her fingertips to his knee, letting him know she was there.
‘I should have followed her. I should have run after her. Every time I replay that night in my head, I do. I chase after her, stop her. I get her home safe. But I was careless and selfish, and I just let her leave. She went to another bar, had too much to drink and then got in her car to drive home. And then she rammed the car into a tree.’
Serena’s breath stuck somewhere in her throat, but she kept her eyes fixed on Caleb.
‘She broke her back and a few other bones. She needed to have surgery on her spine and then months of rehab. The company she’d spent the summer interning for had been so impressed that they’d offered her a permanent position, but she couldn’t take it, not with her injuries.
Her future, everything she’d worked so hard for, was set back years. Because of me.’
The words fell like a hammer blow and he looked away, a line of deep-seated shame scoring its way across his cheeks, and Serena marvelled at that burden that he made himself carry.
‘No, not because of you. What happened to her was awful, but it wasn’t your fault, Caleb.’
‘Of course it was,’ he insisted sharply. ‘She was too smart, too level-headed to have done anything like that before getting involved with me. But I hurt her so badly that she forgot herself entirely.’
‘Yes, you hurt her. But the decisions that caused the accident were hers.’ How could he not see that? ‘You weren’t responsible.’
‘I wreaked havoc on her life, Serena. And her family’s life. You should have seen the worry and pain on their faces at the hospital. Because of me. And the things they said…they were right.’
‘They were angry, Caleb. Upset and scared. They needed someone to blame and lash out at. But you’re not to blame. You shouldn’t be punishing yourself for what happened.’
He looked away again, and Serena inched closer, even though what she really wanted was to hold him as tight as she could, the way he had held her.
He had condemned himself for what had happened, without seeing that a man without a conscience wouldn’t care.
He would have moved on, absolved himself and forgotten.
The fact that he carried what had happened meant that he’d never been, not even for a second, the reckless man he believed himself to have been.
But he’d consigned himself to a prison of his own making as punishment for a crime he was determined to believe he was guilty of.
‘It’s as you said—you were young. You made a mistake.
But you’re not the worst thing you’ve ever done.
’ Did he not think he was deserving of love or a happy future?
Of course, she realised, this was why he limited his involvement to the briefest period possible, painting thick lines around himself.
Everything he hadn’t done with Charlotte.
‘That’s why it’s important to you that everything is neat and clear between us? So, there’ll be no misunderstandings?’
‘Yes.’
Serena nodded, wishing she knew what more to say, but as she searched for the right words, Caleb glanced at his watch and shifted. ‘It’s late and you’ve had a long day. You should get some rest.’
She didn’t want to agree. She wanted to stay locked in the moment with him, both of their guards down so that it felt like the beginning all over again, but she was exhausted, not to mention emotionally drained, and the fact that she wanted to stay meant she definitely needed to move.
Because she had liked getting to know the man that Caleb was beneath his strong surface a little too much.
So, distance was necessary now, to reset after such an emotional evening and pull her emotions back to safe ground.
Because the last thing Serena needed, or wanted, was to get caught up in him, in their relationship, and Caleb had been clear on not wanting that either. I don’t have relationships.
He’d marry her, but he wanted nothing else. And Serena was determined to want nothing else from him either.