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“I need to explain about Gail.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Are you going to invite me in?”
“I don’t think so. We don’t have anything to say to each other. I think what I heard made it quite clear.”
“You heard wrong.”
He pushed past her and left her standing holding the door while he stepped inside and waited for her. She couldn’t very well cling to the front door without looking stupid, so she closed it and walked into the living room, chin held high.
She would not cry.
“That day I had dinner at your parents, I went to a bar afterward.”
“And picked up a woman.” How convenient that he left that part out. No wonder he hightailed it into another woman’s arms after the inquisition from Aidan. No doubt her brother told Brett to keep his distance or some other meddling comment. She knew Brett had been disturbed at the house that day, but she’d never wanted him to elaborate on his conversation with Aidan.
“Not really. She kind of picked me up.”
Despite her best efforts to control the magic, the temperature in the living room began to drop. She mentally cursed both her powers and her stupid nipples for reacting to the cold. Wrapping her arms around her chest, she glared at him.
He tugged his jacket closer, obviously aware of the deep freeze about to happen in her house. “I never touched her.”
“What you do with your personal life is no concern of mine. You made it quite clear early on you didn’t want a relationship with me. I didn’t listen and I forced you into it.”
His lips curled into a half-smile. “You hardly forced me, Kaitlyn.”
“You know what I meant,” she said, dismissing him with a wave of her hand. She turned and flopped onto the couch, curling her feet underneath her. “You don’t owe me any explanations.” Please go, before I say something else stupid, like “I love you or I’m the best thing that could ever happen to you, dumbass”.
“I do owe you an explanation.” He slipped onto the sofa next to her. “Gail was drunk. She came onto me.”
“And you just couldn’t resist telling her you wanted to fuck her. Look, I might be dense, but I have finally grabbed a clue here, Brett.”
“No you haven’t.”
Great. Now he was calling her clueless. “I’m pretty damned smart. I know what I heard, so don’t fill me with a line of bullshit.”
Brett blew out a breath of cold-tinged air and raked his fingers through his hair. “This is hard to explain.”
“I’ll bet it is.” Hard to make up excuses is what he really meant. He couldn’t because there weren’t any. Stab, stab, stab. She was bleeding all over the furniture, her soul slowly leaking out her body. Why wouldn’t he just go away? She needed a good cry and a dose of amnesia and she’d be just fine.
“I was afraid of you.”
She arched a brow, dragging herself out of her self-misery. “Afraid…of me.”
“Yeah. Kait, I’ve known you since you were twelve years old. I’ve been trying to avoid getting physical with you since you were seventeen. Hell, that first time I kissed you I nearly self-combusted. I had to push you away then and I tried to push you away now. Hell, I’m still trying. That’s what I was doing that night at the bar. Gail offered and I grabbed at the chance to be with someone else, thinking I could forget about you.”
“Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?”
“Let me finish. I took her to my house but I never touched her. We never even made it out of my car. I was disgusted with the idea of having anyone in my bed but you. I took her back to her place and hadn’t seen her again until tonight at the fundraiser. It was a really stupid mistake and I’m sorry I made it. I just wasn’t thinking.”
“I’ll say.” She wanted to believe him. She wanted to feel complimented by the fact he needed another woman to forget her. But why did he want to forget her in the first place?
“I’m sorry, Kait. I never seem to make the right choices where you’re concerned. And that’s what I came here to talk to you about.”
Uh-oh. “Fine. Talk.”
“We can’t see each other anymore. Things between us just aren’t going to work.”
“I see.” How nice of him to make that decision for them both. And how nice to get her hopes up by apologizing and clarifying the situation with the other woman, only to turn around and dump her anyway. “Why did you even bother coming over here, then? You could have left me believing you’d fucked that woman, and you would have been free of me.”
“You don’t understand.”
That did it. She stood and stared down at him. “Do you know how many times I’ve heard you say that I don’t understand? Well, I understand plenty! I understand that I gave you my heart and you stomped all over it. I understand that I gave you my body and you sure as hell enjoyed using it, but it’s not quite what you’re looking for.”
“Godammit, that’s not what I said!” He shot to his feet and met her fierce glare with one of his own. “I’m trying to explain something to you and as usual you’re not listening!”
“I’m not listening? I’ve been listening plenty. I just don’t like what I’m hearing! Why don’t you leave?”
Not bothering to do it the normal way, she directed her magic to the front door. A strong gust of cold wind blew it open, crashing it against the backstop. Brett’s gaze shot to the door and back at her. “This isn’t the way I wanted to end things.”
“You don’t always get to be the one to choose how it goes. Now get out.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it again and brushed past her. She used the wind to slam the door shut behind him, leaving her alone with her own anger and her own thoughts.
The room grew colder and her heart chilled. Even the tears sliding down her cheeks were tinged with ice.
The warmth and renewal of spring had given way to a blast of late winter, cold and fierce and hanging onto her with icy tentacles that wouldn’t loosen its hold on her soul.
She shut out the light and headed upstairs to bed.
* * * * *
“So, you just let him walk away, or rather, you just threw him out?”
Kaitlyn scrunched her shoulders, tension tightening her muscles as she frowned at Shannon. “Yes, I threw him out.”
“Why?”
“Because he doesn’t want to be with me!” God, her sister was dense sometimes. They’d argued about Brett for a week now, Shannon convinced that Kaitlyn should go talk to him.
“I agree with Shannon, Kait. I really think you should see him.”
She rolled her eyes, feeling trapped in her own office as Shannon and Lissa browbeat her. “I’m not going to see him.”
“I never thought you’d give up so easily,” Shannon said, arching her brow in challenge.
Kaitlyn wasn’t going to take the bait. “I know when to call it quits. I think I beat my head against the wall plenty with Brett. He doesn’t want me.”
It took her days to be able to say it out loud. Days of wandering her house all alone, the emptiness inside her unbearable. Now she said it regularly. She had already convinced herself, so she had only the rest of her meddling family to convince.
“Kait, you know how difficult it was for me to come to grips with Aidan’s, shall we say, hardheadedness?” Lissa asked.
Shannon snorted. “That’s an understatement. Our brother is an arrogant pain in the ass.”
Lissa laughed. “Yes, he is. And you love him dearly. So do I. But I had to open my heart and then force him to open his, too. It was a rocky road but it was well worth it.”
“I know the feeling,” Shannon said, nodding. “Max is a lot like Aidan. Then again, so am I. We butted heads a lot, both wanting control. We had to learn to give a little on both sides to make it work. And believe me, I’m the last person who ever thought I’d give an inch to anyone!”
Kaitlyn smiled at them. “I know what you both went through to find love. But my situation with Brett is?
?different. I wanted him. He knew I wanted him. He still doesn’t want me. What am I supposed to do? Go over to his house with a hammer and beat him over the head until he comes to his senses?”
Shannon and Lissa exchanged glances, then turned toward her.
“Not a bad idea at that,” Shannon said with a grin.
“No. Bad idea,” Kaitlyn shot back.
“I think it’s a great idea,” Lissa agreed. “Go talk to him. You two left things unfinished.”
“No, we didn’t.” It was as finished as it was going to get. She’d never put herself through this agonizing hurt again. Someday, maybe, she’d get over him and find a man who wanted her. Really wanted her.
Though even she didn’t believe her own denial. They had left things unfinished. She was angry and she’d let her anger cloud her normal common sense.
