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“I wish I could, too. But I can’t do this, not this way.” She held out her hands for the car keys. “I’m sure you can rent a vehicle if you need one.”
He watched her walk toward the door, his heart pounding in his chest, his eyes filling with tears. Loss, desperation cascaded over him as he followed her, intending to reach out to her one last time.
As Grace opened the door, she turned to him, her eyes meeting his. “I guess it’s too late to ask you to see things my way.”
He swallowed, feeling haggard and worn-out. His gaze shifted from hers while his jumbled thoughts sought a response that would make Grace stay.
Yet it was clear from the expression on her face that Grace’s mind was made up. He touched her shoulder, wanting to pull her into his arms, but knew the warning signs—the stiff set of her shoulders, the fingers clenched on the strap of her purse. Grace would not allow him to embrace her. “You have a safe drive, and call me when you get home, will you?” he asked, feeling awkward and out of place.
“Of course.” As she fumbled with the strap of her purse, her eyes remained fixed on the far corner of the room. Without another word, she left the house.
CHAPTER SIX
HER HANDS SHAKING, Grace struggled to put her home address into the GPS. She had no idea how to get out of the city to the highway. Her only clear idea was that she had to get away from here.
She wanted Aidan to come running out the door, get into the car with her and agree to leave for home with her. She might have been willing to meet Emma, to stay overnight and drive home tomorrow while they talked. But none of that was possible given Aidan’s attitude. He had to have understood how she felt, and yet he refused to take her feelings into consideration.
Her destination finally loaded into the GPS, she eased out of the driveway, her eyes searching the windows of Deidre’s house for any sign of her husband. There was none. He had decided to remain inside the house, not even coming out to the car to make sure she was okay to drive.
Gripping the wheel, she started down the driveway, her head aching and her heart hurting so badly she cried out, her gasp of agony filling the car.
Concentrate. You can’t make it home if you don’t.
Maybe she should check into a hotel and wait until tomorrow to leave. It would be easier, and by morning, she might be able to get Aidan to see reason. Her heart lifted at the idea, then came crashing down. Their last few moments together had proven that her influence over her husband paled in the face of his concern for his newly discovered daughter.
Besides, she couldn’t fight with him any longer. She needed to get home, to talk to her brother. He’d be able to offer suggestions about what to do, how to get Aidan to see the truth. Their marriage had been through enough between the stress of fertility testing and Aidan’s confession of his affair. To think that he was suddenly willing to risk the fragile remains of their relationship in order to raise another woman’s child, a child he claimed he had no involvement with, hurt her to the core.
As she listened to the soothing female voice directing her through town to the highway she had a horrible sinking feeling that this would not turn out well, not because Aidan didn’t want to fix it—she was pretty sure he did—but because she didn’t know if she could go through another round of loss.
Their inability to conceive a child had been so devastating. But facing the cruel truth that Aidan could father a child meant the devastation was on her. She was inadequate; she had been the cause of their unhappiness all along. All these years, all the times they’d tried for a baby, she’d been the reason they couldn’t have a family. A sob shook her.
Focus. Focus on the moment.
As she reached the highway, she instructed the phone to dial her brother’s number and he answered on the first ring. “Where are you? I called the house to talk to Aidan when he didn’t show at work. What’s going on?”
