“I wanted to ask the reverse. Elka just expressed feelings for me, so I was thinking it might be kinder to her if we don’t admit that anything is going on between us during the workshop. Just for another day or so.”
“Is there something going on between us?” she asked pointedly.
He frowned at her for a moment, then spoke slowly. “Do you want there to be?”
She took a breath. “I…” It was a long moment before she could answer. “I want to work with you.”
Something drained from his face. “Okay,” he said.
She shook her head. She tried to find her courage, whatever was left of it. “It’s just,” she went on, “you just went through a break-up, right? And everyone has been talking about Freya and how great she was. And I don’t…I can’t be that. For you. A replacement. I can’t be the person you date after the woman you were in love with.”
Ren stared at her for a moment, then huffed out a laugh. “Sarah, you infuriate me sometimes.”
A corresponding anger rose in her chest. “I infuriateyou.”
“Have I said anything about missing Freya?”
“No, but?—”
“Freya and I had a nice time. But she was twenty-five. She listened to trap music. She was never going to move somewhere to be closer to me. And I was sure as hell not moving away from my son to be with her.”
“Did you sleep with Elka?”
“No. We kissed once. Two years ago. And I decided it was a bad idea and stopped things. Why does that even…where is this coming from?”
Sarah shook her head. She was not going to let him wave away her fears. “You know, you were the one who stopped things when we kissed. Both times. Last night and back in Las Vegas. So you can’t blame me for not being sure whether you’re interested when every time we kiss, you tell me that we need to stop.”
He spoke very quietly. “I stopped things because I didn’t want to offer you a job and then turn around and start sleeping with you. I wanted you to know that you could take your time to decide things, because you’re too important to rush things with. But you seem determined not to trust me no matter what I do.”
“I’ve spent the whole week listening to everyone telling me how gorgeous your ex-girlfriend was.”
“So?”
“So am I just a replacement for––”
“I broke things off with Freya the day I found out you were getting a divorce.”
Sarah stared at him for a moment. There was no way that could be true. Why would he say something that was obviously untrue? “That’s…you haven’t spoken to me in years. You never called me when you came to Toronto.”
“To say what? That I was in love with you? You got married too fast for me to get the chance.”
She was silent again. It was so quiet that she felt like her heartbeat must be audible to the whole world.
He spoke gently. “If I had shown up at Paul’s wedding and told you I’d been secretly in love with you for years, would you have believed me?”
She shook her head slowly. “No.”
“Right, exactly. I know you better than that.” He drew closer, then very cautiously took her hand. “I know you, Sarah. So I have been trying everything I can to earn your trust back. And to show you that there could be a way for us to be together. To show you that I want to make this work, and maybe in another year, if Jandro goes away to school, I could move to Toronto to be with you.”
The words were coming too fast for her to make sense of them. “You could move to Toronto?”
“Assuming he goes away to high school. But worst-case scenario, in five years he’s in college. But if you won’t even trust me to even—I just don’t understand what you want from me. You seem to assume the absolute worst of me, all the time.”
“Danny left me.” The words poured from her faster than she could stop them. “He got a twenty-four-year-old pregnant and left me for her.”
Ren’s expression changed. For once, she didn’t mind that he was looking at her with pity.
“We were having fertility issues,” she said quietly, “both of us, not just me, but I think he figured he was fertile enough to get someone younger pregnant. I think he deliberately was careless with birth control when he cheated on me, because then he would not only have an excuse to end things but he’d get the baby he wanted in the process.”
