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“It had nothing to do with you, Dar-”
“It had every fucking thing to do with me!” he shouted, gripping the windowsill as grief slammed into him. “You should have told me. You should have fucking told me!”
“Darrin, I’m so-”
“Don’t,” he said, cutting her off as he squeezed his eyes shut, because he didn’t think that he could handle hearing her tell him how sorry she was.
“I never planned on telling you,” she explained, confirming what he should have known all this time.
“Because you were never planning on giving me anything more than sex.”
“I have nothing else to give you!” she screamed as he suddenly found himself yanked back until he was facing her. She shoved him back against the wall until he found himself staring down at the beautiful tear streaked face of the woman that had fucking played him.
“You had everything to give me!” he shouted back, getting in her face.
He was so fucking angry that he could barely see straight.
She’d wasted six fucking years!
Six fucking years that they could have been happy together! He would have been devastated that they couldn’t have children, but he would have had her.
“You want a family,” she said, getting back into his face, “and I can’t give that to you!”
“You are my fucking family!”
“No, I’m not,” she bit out, glaring up at him through watery eyes as she stepped away from him, “and I’m not going to be the one that keeps you from having one.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head, glad that they were finally in agreement about something, “you won’t.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, her expression instantly shifting to wary and for damn good reason.
She’d been around him and his family long enough to know when something seriously fucked up was about to happen.
“It means that you have a choice to make,” he said coldly, not caring that she was going to hate him for this, not after what she did.
“Darrin,” she said, suddenly looking every bit as exhausted as he felt, “let’s just talk about this.”
He ignored her, because there was nothing to talk about as far as he was concerned. “You have a choice to make. Marry me today or let me walk away.”
She shook her head slowly, the tears rolling down her beautiful face, giving him his answer without a word. “I can’t,” she choked out around a sob. “I just can’t do that.”
Jaw clenched shut tightly, he nodded as he stepped past her and headed for the door. “Goodbye, Marybeth.”
Chapter 21
Three Weeks Later…
“Are you still mad at me?” Jake asked as they sat there, waiting to pull up to the curb so that she could get out and be miserable in a different state for the next two weeks.
“Are you still siding with him?” she asked, absently watching the organized chaos around them.
She should have just cancelled her trip and ate the cost of her ticket, but then she would have been forced to deal with questions from Mrs. Bradford and right now she really didn’t think that she could handle that without letting the woman know exactly what she thought of her son.
“Yes, yes I am,” Jake said firmly as he pulled up closer to the curb.
“Then I’m still mad at you,” she said, releasing her seatbelt so that she could lean over and grab her carry-on bag.
“You didn’t leave him with much of a choice,” Jake pointed out, again, as he shifted forward in his seat so that he could pull out his wallet.
“You’re supposed to be on my side,” she grumbled, double-checking to make sure that she had her boarding pass and paperwork.
“I am on your side,” Jake explained as he reached over and stuffed some money in the front pocket of her backpack.
“It doesn’t sound like it,” she said as she looked out the window, wondering what had possessed her to tell Jake.
“You knew that he was in love with you,” Jake said, not sounding at all sympathetic the way that a good brother should.
“And he knew that I didn’t want to get married,” she muttered back, debating her chances of making it to the sidewalk without getting run over.
“He’s a Bradford, Marybeth,” he said, chucking and shaking his head in disbelief. “What did you expect him to do?”
“To respect my wishes?” she suggested, not appreciating the way that he started laughing at her.
“A Bradford?” he managed to ask between bouts of laughter as she sat there, seething with rage.
“Yes,” she hissed, deciding in that moment that she no longer had to feel bad about telling their mother about his collection of Playboys to save her own ass when they were kids.
Deciding that she’d rather take her chances with the taxi drivers suffering from road rage than to sit here and listen to another second of disloyalty, she threw her door open, grabbed her bag and stepped out with a grumbled, “Thanks for the ride, you insensitive jackass!”
“You’re welcome, Goose,” Jake said with a wink and that same damned pleased grin he’d been wearing since she’d told him that Darrin had ended their arrangement.
“Bastard,” she muttered as she opened the back passenger door, grabbed her bag and-
Groaned when the large bastard that she’d been avoiding for the last three weeks was suddenly there, reaching into the backseat and grabbing her bag. Without a word, he threw her bag over his shoulder, closed the backdoor and walked off, leaving her to follow after him or get run over. Muttering to herself, she followed after him as she pulled out her boarding pass and ID to distract herself from just how much she’d missed him.
When he reached the bag check-in line, he dropped her bag and walked off like he was the one that had the right to be angry. She considered going after him and throwing her bag at his head, but in the end she settled for dragging it behind her as she moved closer to the front of the line. If anyone had a right to be mad it was definitely her.
“Can I see your boarding pass and ID, please?” the bag attendant asked as he picked up her bag and placed it on the scale.
Silently seething at the bastard that had ruined everything, she pulled out her boarding pass and ID and handed it over. She glanced over to her right to find Darrin standing several lines down from her, glaring at her like he had every right in the world to be pissed. Eyes narrowing, she glared right back at him, reminding him that she wasn’t the one who’d ruined everything.
