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I glare at him. “Did you really think you’d come in here, explain, and then what? I’d let you have sex with me until you jump back on your broomstick and ride off to your real life? Sorry. Not happening.”
The effort to still my trembling hands and keep my tears at bay makes my head hurt. I turn my back on him to finish fixing my clothes.
He starts to pace behind me. “Beth, no. I didn’t plan this—”
“Because you don’t plan. You ambush,” my voice cracks under the weight of my building anger. I whirl to face him again, arms crossed, and eyes blazing. “You claimed to love the piano, but when your father told you to you turned your back on it. I should have known it wouldn’t take much for you to decide I wasn’t worth fighting for either.” Heat rises up his neck and cheeks. He presses his lips together as if he’s holding back a stream of curses.
His nostrils flare, and his green eyes are so dark they look black. His dark hair is thoroughly disheveled from my hands pulling and running through it. He looks like the devil himself. And he’ll drag me down to hell if I give him half a chance.
“I’m ashamed of how tempted I am to let you sing, stroke, and fuck your way back into my heart.” I press a hand to the space between my breasts and close my eyes. “God, how good would it feel to spend another summer like that.”
There was a heavenly decadence to that summer I’d never felt before. A peace that’s never been part of my life’s framework. I woke up feeling capable. I went to sleep feeling accomplished. I’d never been so at peace. And it was all thanks to the man fate spit out at my feet. Not only was he strong enough to handle all of me and not be intimated by my passion and audacity; but on top of everything else he understood my art. Not in the superficial way other people appreciated it or found it entertaining. Carter saw beyond the bright colors and interesting construction; he saw the words. He saw what my teeth and tongue couldn’t manage to sound out.
“We were good together, weren’t we?” His question shakes me out of my daydream, and I open my eyes. He’s watching me with an intimacy he has no right to. My expression hardens and his smile vanishes. “No. We weren’t. You were pretending to be someone you’re not. And now that I know you’re an insecure, selfish asshole with daddy issues. I’m not going to let you ruin my life, again.”
He takes a step back like I shoved him. “How did I ruin your life?” His voice is rough and clipped with hurt.
My heart lurches as I realize I’ve said too much. I need to get out of here.
I pivot on my heels and head for the door, my heart pounding out of my chest, my focus on putting one foot in front of the other.
His growl is all the warning I have before his large hand curls around my bicep and spins me around to face him.
I grunt and try to pry his fingers from my arm. They don’t budge. “Let me go,” I glare up at him.
He returns my glare and tightens his hold on me.
“You’re hurting me.”
He gives me a look that says he knows I’m lying but releases my arm and steps back. “I know what I did was wrong, and I will never forgive myself for it, but people break up every single fucking day. How did I ruin your life?”
The determination in his voice and in his eyes pisses me off. In the cold flash of anger I decide to give him exactly what he wants. “I had a car accident, and it left me scarred for life,” I hiss.
His brows draw together in confusion. “I caused the car accident?”
My throat is as sore and dry as my heart feels, but I get the words out. “I was pregnant.” I realize it’s the first time I’ve said those words out loud. The hurt and sense of loss is almost as acute as it was all those years ago.
His jaw goes slack, and his eyes nearly pop out of his head. “I’m…we…you…” He points between us, and then still dazed he grins. “We have a… kid?”
That smile, eleven years too late, breaks my heart all over again.
With a calm that belies the hysterical argument between my heart and my head, I unfasten my skirt so I can tug it down around my hips and lift the hem of my blouse so that my pelvis is exposed and run my finger along the barely visible, razor thin white scars left by the emergency surgery all those years ago. “Almost…we almost had a kid. I had a miscarriage. A nearly fatal one that happened while I was driving. And now, I can’t get pregnant without the help of a doctor and luck.”
His grin disappears as soon as he sees the scar. As my words started to hit their target. his eyes fly to mine, and I recognize the shock and denial in them. It’s exactly how I felt when I woke up in that hospital room.
All the color that suffused his cheeks leeches away, and he deflates. He takes a step back and stumbles a little and then just stops and sits down right where he is, crossed legged, with his large shoulders hunched and his head bowed.
He flexes his hands in lap. “Fuck,” he growls low and long. And then he’s quiet.
The rush I got from letting all of that out, has drained me. I turn to leave
“Beth. Wait. Please. I—”
For reasons I can’t understand, and against my better judgement, I stop and turn back to face him.
He swallows hard and his eyes are pleadin
g with me. But for what, I don’t know. “I was young and scared as hell of making a mistake that could cost my family more than I already had. I know I can’t turn back time or make it stand still.”
