“We both made mistakes, that’s all.”
“Everybody makes mistakes, Calder. Doing the wrong thing isn’t the same as thinking you haven’t done enough.”
His hand balled at his side. “I don’t want you to have to carry this.”
“Calder.” I took his big hand in both of mine, disbelief pummeling my chest. “Stop being bad at letting me in.”
He hung his head, the angle of his jaw hardening, a picture of perfect torture. “I meant what I said. I’ve meant everything I said, Lara.” I blinked and his hands cupped my cheeks, his head held above mine, and his eyes pooling into dark orbs. “All it took was one look. One look and I wanted you in a way I’d never felt for your sister.”
Oh god.All the oxygen evacuated from my lungs.
He tried to turn away, and I reached for his face.
“Calder ...” My palm to his cheek, I turned him to look at me.
“I thought it was a fluke. An anomaly. I wasn’t going to make a rash decision on an anomaly, especially when I wasn’t an expert at relationships. I wanted you, and I thought it would pass; I thought it did pass when we didn’t see you much. But then every time ...” His massive body shuddered. “Every time it was like being hit with the same drug over and over again. And then the same withdrawal.”
My lips peeled apart. “You wanted me?”
“I was drawn to you.Wantingimplies I had a choice.” His thumb notched in my chin as firmly as his words sank into my heart. “But I’m not—I would never disrespect your sister. Things weren’t working fora dozen other reasons, but I don’t doubt my own distance and turmoil was what drove her to Allen.”
“You knew?”
When his chin lowered, my heart broke to hear that he’d known Rachel was cheating on him. Even I hadn’t known. I knew there were times she’d lied about where she was ... lied that she was with me. Maybe I was naive, but I’d had no idea it was because she was seeing someone else.
“I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for, Lara. Knowing was only confirmation that I should’ve ended things sooner.” He sighed deeply. “Maybe if I understood sooner how I felt, things wouldn’t have gone the way they did.”
“You can’t blame yourself that she got involved with him.”
“I wanted you the way I should’ve wanted her, and even if I didn’t say it, I’d be a fool to tell myself it didn’t have an effect.” A harsh breath blew through his lips. “When I told Rachel I wanted to break up, it was a sigh of relief for both of us. We both knew things weren’t working, but I still cared about her. Enough to decide there was no good to come from telling her how I felt about you. Honestly, I didn’t even know how I felt about you. I just knew I felt something I couldn’t shake. So we parted as friends with our own secrets; she had Allen, and I had you.”
“Please don’t say you feel guilty for not telling her, Calder. It wouldn’t have done any good,” I blurted out. “You were her first call. In spite of everything, she still turned to you.”Instead of me.
His mouth drew tight. “But after she learned there was no baby, that changed.”
“How?” I swayed toward him.
“I tried to console her. To be there for her. I told her you would be there for her, too, but it wasn’t enough.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She wanted us to get back together, Lara,” Calder said hoarsely, his eyes snapping to mine. “She begged me in the parking lot of thehospital as she sobbed in my arms. She was so attached to that baby, to the idea of having a family ... I don’t ... I tried to calm her. To tell her she would have plenty of support. Plenty of people who’d help and be there for her. That she’d find someone else. That this wasn’t the end of her chances to have a baby.”
Oh, Rachel.
“She wouldn’t ... accept it.” His throat bobbed. “She started blaming herself for why we ended, saying it was because she was nervous about commitment and that Allen had been fun and easy but a mistake, and she knew that now. And all she wanted was a baby and a family and someone who’d care for her the way I had. But it was when she kept apologizing ... wanting to take responsibility for something that wasn’t her fault. I couldn’t ...”
My heart stilled to slow, heavy beats that pushed my next words out. “So you told her the truth.”
The quake and ripple of his body, the heaviness of his breath—it all gave me the answer.
“I didn’t know what else to do except be honest.” His throat worked to try to swallow. “I wanted her to stop blaming herself. I wanted her to just breathe for a damn minute and realize what she was asking for from me wasn’t what she wanted, either—wasn’t what she deserved.
“She deserved someone who felt for her what I felt for you. Who ached to be near her the way I ached to be near you. Someone who knew after only minutes around her that his life was changed. That something had changed in him. I hoped—” He blew out a breath. “It doesn’t matter what I hoped. What happened was, I made it worse. The only thing she wanted from me after that was for me to find someone else to take her back to campus because she never wanted to see me again.” His jaw pulsed. “So I called Cassius to give her a ride.”
I didn’t know my heart could break in so many places. For my sister. For Calder. For everything that could’ve been ... and wasn’t.
