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Her flesh burned from the heat of his touch and she hated the power he held over her body. Over her heart.
“I was afraid.”
“Of me?”
“Of everything,” she cried, no longer restraining the fat, wet teardrops rolling down her cheeks. “Of the fact I’d made a mistake. Of realizing you’d moved on with your life. Of the fact you’d hate me when I told you I’d kept him from you.”
“I did hate you,” he admitted, confirming what she already knew.
A sob escaped her lips and she wished he’d let her face go so she could look away, hide her hurt.
“But then…” his eyes held hers and his thumb caressed her chin “…I forgave you.”
“You did?” Dare she believe that he might really forgive her? That they could find some sort of peace for Ryan?
“No matter how much I hurt that I’ve missed out on knowing my son, I hurt more because I let you go through this alone.”
“You didn’t know I was pregnant.”
“But I should have.” He took a deep breath, cupped her face. “Tell me, Kimberly. If I’d pushed you, would you have told me the truth that Christmas?”
“About being pregnant?”
“Yes.”
Would she have? She’d wanted nothing more than for Daniel to take her in his arms and insist he was never letting her go. What if he had? Would she have broken down and told him everything? Or would guilt at stealing his d
ream have kept her lips sealed?
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
“I made it easy for you to believe you were making the right choice. I walked away without fighting for you.”
In her heart, she had expected Daniel to refuse to let her end their relationship. To demand she tell him what was going on and why she would say such a foolish thing. She’d expected him to see through her lies and know she had felt shattered on the inside and had needed him.
He hadn’t. He’d been angry, but he’d agreed. No more fuss. No more bother.
“You left because you had to return to school.” She told him what she’d told herself for fifteen years.
“I left because leaving was easier than staying to fight for you.”
She wobbled slightly toward him. “I don’t understand.”
“I was scared of how much you meant to me, how much I wanted to come home to be with you.” He gave a self-derisive laugh. “I spent my first semester busting my gut, learning everything I could, but you distracted me at every turn.”
“I was a thousand miles away.”
“Didn’t matter if you’d been on the other side of the earth, Kimberly. You distracted me.”
“Oh.”
“I missed you so much all I could think about was coming home to you at Christmas. When you told me you’d met someone else, I was angry at you. I’d been lying awake at night, dreaming of you, and you’d been out with some other guy.”
“There wasn’t anyone else, Daniel.”
“I know that. Now. But I didn’t then and I wanted to hate you for tossing my love aside. I didn’t want you to see how I hurt. And, truth be told, I realized finishing medical school wasn’t going to happen if you were in my life, because knowing you were in Atlanta, waiting for me, just made me want to pack up and come home.”
Somehow, hearing him confirm all her suspicions didn’t ease her heart the way she’d expected.
