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She pointed at the door. “Get out.”
Eric jumped up. “Beth, I’m sorry I said that.”
“You’re sorry? Sorry you think I’m so used up and jaded that nobody could possibly insult me?”
“That’s not what I said, and this isn’t my fault.” Tears welled in her eyes and her chin trembled. “God, don’t cry, Beth.” He started around the desk, but she moved away.
“I’m sorry I said that.”
“Just go,” she said.
“Come on. I just want to know what happened. I was worried about you. Christ, I don’t seem to be doing a good job of explaining myself today. Let’s calm down, all right. We can—”
“There is no we, Eric. I told you that from the start.”
“Things have changed. I care about you.”
“You care about me?” she bit out. “Oh, yeah? You have a lot of respect for me, too, I bet. The girl you don’t want anyone to know about.”
“Don’t act like you didn’t enjoy the secrecy as much as I did. And let’s not pretend you had a lot of respect for me at first.”
“Because you’re a liar,” she said.
“You’re lying to me right now!”
She pressed her lips together.
“I lied to you when we hardly knew each other. But you’re lying to me right now. To my face. Beth, please…”
“This is over,” she whispered.
“Please don’t do this. Not now. You said you were comfortable with me. I know what you meant, because I felt it, too. That’s not comfort, it’s something more. It’s trust and—”
“I don’t trust anyone,” she reminded him. “Especially a man who’d sneer about my reputation and my job as if it were nothing but trash.”
“You know what?” he growled. “If that’s what you think of me, then maybe this is over.”
“It is over!” she yelled. “It was never anything to begin with!”
He slammed her office door when he left, pretending to himself that he was mad. That she’d pissed him off. Infuriated him. But the truth was that he was reeling inside, his brain slowly spinning so that he hardly noticed the people in the store staring wide-eyed as he left.
Eric would have to find a new hobby.
But it felt suspiciously as if he’d have to find a new heart, as well.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A DAY PASSED WITHOUT any word from Kendall. More importantly, a day passed without word from her father. Beth couldn’t relax, though. She couldn’t ever relax, because Kendall could call her father at any moment. He could do it today, tomorrow, a year from now. She wouldn’t know until it happened.
One day, she’d be walking through her life, happy and unaware, and her phone would ring, and it would be her father telling her he couldn’t love her anymore.
The scenario would hang over her like an ax. And Roland Kendall had a long memory.
After work she took a long walk along City Creek, trying to let her mind work. Hoping it would figure something out.
If her dad found out, Beth could just leave. It had worked the first time. She could move anywhere. Get a job in a store that sold nothing but innocent goods. Date men who had no idea she was supposed to be a sexual savant. Send Christmas and birthday cards to her parents and hope that they’d speak to her again someday.
For a moment, the idea fell over her in a wave of relief. She could leave. Start over again. As if she was an eighteen-year-old girl with her whole life ahead of her. An eighteen-year-old girl with no self-esteem who had to run away from everything that hurt her.
