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What he was saying hit her.
A knife twisted in her heart and she instantly rejected the idea.
That couldn’t be what he meant.
Of course that was what he was saying. That he’d not even mentioned he was thinking about moving, about taking a different job, that she hadn’t warranted that tidbit of information, spoke volumes. He was breaking up with her.
“You’ve never mentioned that you planned to move.” Her words sounded lame even to herself. So what? She was reeling.
Reeling.
Maybe he meant for her to go with him. Maybe he wasn’t ending things. Maybe she’d jumped to all the wrong conclusions when he’d said he was leaving. Maybe he looked so stressed because he was worried she wouldn’t go with him.
The reality was she didn’t want to move to Nashville. She loved her job and coworkers at Chattanooga Memorial Hospital. She wanted to stay in her hometown, to be near her family, her friends, all the things that were familiar. She wanted to raise her baby near her home, where her child would grow up knowing her family and being surrounded by their love.
Her baby.
She was pregnant.
Charlie was leaving.
With obvious annoyance, he crossed his arms. “I never mentioned that I planned to stay, either.”
Ouch. Had she seen blood oozing from her chest, she wouldn’t have been surprised. His comment wounded that much.
“No,” she began, wondering how she could have been so terribly wrong about his feelings.
His eyes were narrowed, his tone almost accusing. “Nor have I ever implied that I would stay.”
He was right. He hadn’t. She’d been the one to make assumptions. Very wrong assumptions.
Her silence must have gotten to him because he paced across the room, then turned to her with a reproving look.
“Good grief, Savannah. I’ve taken a job that’s a wonderful opportunity. Be happy for me.”
Tears burned her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. Instead of telling him what he wanted to hear, she shook her head. “No, I’m not going to say I’m happy for you. Not when this news came about the way it did. We’ve been involved for months. You should have told me you planned to move. I deserved a warning about something so big. For that matter, we should have discussed this before you made that decision.”
His jaw worked back and forth. “I don’t have to have your permission to move or take a different job, Savannah.”
If she weren’t sitting on the sofa, she’d likely have staggered back from his verbal blow. Truly, there must be a gaping hole in her chest because her very heart had been yanked from her body. “Agreed. You don’t.”
“I never meant for you to think I’d stay in Chattanooga, or that I wanted to stay.”
She interpreted that as he’d never meant for her to assume he was going to stay, or want to stay, with her.
She’d been such a fool. She’d believed he loved her, had believed the light in his eyes when he looked at her was love, the real deal. She’d just seen what she’d wanted to see. Whatever that look had been, she’d never seen or felt it with past boyfriends. Maybe she’d mistaken phenomenal sexual chemistry with love. She wouldn’t be the first woman to have done so in the history of the world.
Devastation and anger competed for priority in her betrayed head.
She met his gaze and refused to look away, despite how much staring into his dark eyes hurt. They were ending. She’d thought everything had been so perfect and he’d been planning their end. “I think you should leave,” she began, knowing that she wasn’t going to be able to hold her grief in much longer and not wanting him to witness her emotional breakdown.
She was going to break down. Majorly.
He started to say something but, shoulders straight, chin tilted upward, she stopped him.
“That you made this decision without involving me tells me everything I need to know about our relationship, Charlie. We aren’t on the same page and apparently never were. My bad. Now that I know we don’t want the same things from our relationship, there is no relationship. I want you to leave. We’re through.”
There. She’d been the first one to say the words out loud. Sure, he’d been dancing all around the truth of it, but she’d put them out there.
