Chapter Sixteen
C athy sat on the bed where she’d stayed the first few months she’d lived in Stone’s house. She pulled her knees to her chest and hugged them tightly against her, but it wasn’t enough to hold in the feeling that she was going to fly apart into a thousand pieces.
Every part of her hurt. Just the act of breathing was more pain than she’d ever experienced before in her life.
She kept repeating that she’d known it was going to be like this, that she’d long suspected he didn’t care about her—at least not the way she cared about him.
But thinking it might be true and hearing it were two different things.
She hadn’t realized how true that was until she’d come face-to-face with her worst fear.
She shook her head back and forth in an effort to deny the truth.
She wished she could cry. Maybe that would make her feel better.
Maybe then she could heal. But for now there weren’t any tears.
There was only the ache inside of her and the sinking feeling that it was going to take more than one lifetime to get over loving Stone.
Even as she tried not to think about them, about all that he’d said to her, even as she tried not to place blame or think about what had gone wrong, she kept replaying his words in her mind.
She swallowed hard, but the bitter taste stayed in her mouth.
He’d actually offered her money, as if she were some woman he’d bought and paid for.
As if she really were just a whore. She supposed that’s what hurt the most. She could understand someone not falling in love.
It happened all the time. As Stone had learned with Evelyn, love couldn’t be forced.
But to have had him treat her like that.
She shuddered. That made her less than a person to him, and it was more than she could bear.
She rolled onto her side and pulled her knees up tight again. A plan. She needed a plan. Think about what to do next, she told herself. That would help distract her.
First, she thought, she had to get out of here.
In a few minutes, just as soon as she was able to actually draw in a breath, she was going to leave.
It was after midnight, so she wouldn’t bother taking much.
Her purse, maybe a couple of things to wear.
In the morning, she would call Ula. Cathy stiffened in anticipation of the humiliation, but oddly there wasn’t any.
She didn’t know what the older woman would think about what had happened, but she knew in her heart that Ula would only be kind to her.
Okay, so a phone call to Ula to ask her to pack up her things. She would make arrangements to have them picked up by a delivery service or something.
Item two, she would make some decisions about her future. A job and maybe a couple of business classes at the local college. If nothing else, her time with Stone had taught her that she liked the world of business.
She would have to start saving because she was about a month and a half pregnant, and the baby was going to require—
The unexpected sob tore at the back of her throat. A baby. Dear God, she was going to have a baby. Tears trickled down her temple and dampened her hair. She pressed one hand to her mouth and the other to her belly where a tiny life grew.
She wasn’t sure what the tears meant. While she hadn’t planned on getting pregnant anytime soon, she’d always wanted a family. Ideally she would have preferred a husband at her side, but she’d recently learned that she was strong. She and her child would be fine on their own.
Cathy sniffed as the tide of tears slowed.
Eventually she was going to have to tell Stone the truth.
He deserved to know about the baby. It was the right thing to do, even if there wasn’t any point.
He hadn’t been interested in her, so she doubted he would care about an infant, either.
But she wouldn’t make that decision for him.
She would tell him. Just not tonight. She needed a few days to get strong.
She wasn’t sure how long she lay there working on gathering her strength and her courage. Finally, when she’d run out of excuses, she sat up, then rose to her feet. She felt shaky and tired, which probably wasn’t a surprise considering all that she’d been through in the past day.
She pulled an overnight suitcase out of her closet and quickly filled it with what she would need to see her through until she had the rest of her things. It didn’t take long. Then she was out of excuses and it was time to leave.
She walked down the hall toward the stairs. On a whim, knowing it was a big mistake, she moved past the stairs to the opposite side of the house where a patch of light shone out of an open office door.
Stone was still up. The fact shouldn’t surprise her. The man hardly slept. She hesitated, knowing there was nothing for them to say, yet wanting to see him one last time.
She drew back her shoulders and walked into his office.
Stone sat behind his desk, staring into space. He obviously hadn’t been to bed yet and from the look of him he wouldn’t try to sleep that night. Stubble darkened his jaw. His mouth was weary, his scars especially pronounced.
He looked up as she entered. His gaze settled on her bag. “You’re leaving.”
It wasn’t a question, but she answered it anyway. “Yes. I’ll send for my things.”
He looked at her face. She felt the attention as if it were a touch, as if his hand had brushed against her cheek.
“Don’t go,” he pleaded. “Don’t leave me. It doesn’t have to be like this, Cathy. What we have is very special, and I don’t want to lose that. I don’t think you do, either.”
She hadn’t realized she’d hoped until her hopes crashed onto the floor and shattered into slivers.
He’d asked her to stay because they had something special and he didn’t want to lose her.
It was something, she supposed. Not what she wanted, though.
Not a relationship built on mutual respect or caring. Not love.
“I can’t,” she told him. “I want more than that. I’ve learned that I deserve more. I have to be more than your current fix-it project and a convenience.”
He stiffened. “That’s not fair. While I’ll admit that the reasons I wanted to help you were complicated, you make it sound like you were a faceless person in all of this. That anyone would have done. That’s not true. I do care about you.”
“Like a friend.”
“Yes.”
“A friend you sleep with.”
“We’re lovers.”
“But not in love.”
His gaze shifted. There wasn’t any point, she reminded herself. She couldn’t change his feelings.
“I wish you the best, Stone. I hope that you can get it together. I love you enough to want to see you happy, but that’s not going to happen until you can let yourself love someone.
And that will require you to let go of the past. I hope you can, but I doubt it.
Self-pity has become too familiar a companion, and I think in your heart you’re afraid to let it go.
You live this half-life, hoping it will make up for what happened to Evelyn.
The truth is the accident wasn’t your fault.
But if you see that, you have to be willing to forgive yourself and admit it was all right for you not to have loved her.
For some reason, you’ve decided Evelyn was perfect—therefore you have to be the wrong one. I suspect you were equally at fault.”
She shrugged. “But what do I know? Good luck, Stone. Try not to stay in your beautiful prison forever. There’s a big world out there, and it still has a lot to offer you.”
“Will I see you again?”
She wanted to say no. It would be easier for her to just cut him out of her life. But it wasn’t just her decision. In a few days, she was going to have to tell him about the baby.
“I suspect you will,” she said at last, then turned and left.
Stone watched her go. When the front door closed, he slumped back in his chair and tried to tell himself that it was for the best. Cathy was getting too close to him. If the situation continued, she would only get hurt. Better for her to move on now, while she still could.
As for him, well, he would be fine, he told himself. He ignored the anguish inside, the gaping hole that used to be his heart.
But as the night wore on and the silence grew, he found it more and more difficult to dismiss the sensation of his lifeblood flowing away.
He didn’t want his life to return to the emptiness he’d known before Cathy.
It was one thing to never see her again, but he’d also lost the right to be her friend.
She had been his only link to the world. Now there was no one.
“Cathy,” he said aloud, already missing her more than he’d thought possible. He’d wanted so much for her, and he’d never realized that part of that wanting was to never let her go.
What did that mean? He couldn’t really care about her. This wasn’t…love.
Love. He turned the word over in his mind. He didn’t know what it meant to love a woman. Not romantically. He never had. Besides, it wasn’t allowed. He wasn’t entitled. Not after what he’d done.
It always came back to the past. To Evelyn. To the horror of that night.
“I’m sorry,” he said into the darkness. “I should never have married you. I see that now. I should have told you the truth. It would have been kinder. Instead, I let you hope.”
Cathy had said there had been nothing wrong with not loving Evelyn back. He wondered if that was true. Did it matter? In the end, he’d betrayed her.
The thoughts filled his mind. He went through the past again and again, trying to figure out all the places he’d failed and what he could have done differently. He thought about Cathy, about what they’d had together. About all she’d given him and how much she’d come to mean to him.
After a while, he realized the light wasn’t just coming from the lamp on his desk, but instead spilled in through the window. Morning. The first day without her.