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I would have laughed at my foolishness if I wasn’t so disgusted with myself.
Raising my fist, I rapped my knuckles sharply on the door. My cell phone buzzed in my pocket. I ignored it.
He opened the door, his feet bare, a beer dangling loosely from between his long fingers. His hair stuck straight up, and his face was the very picture of abject misery. I almost felt sorry for him, until I thought about Jace.
I stepped up into his space and he stepped back allowing me in. He turned and walked through the kitchen, and I slammed the door behind me.
Shaking with rage, I opened and closed my mouth unable to say anything other than, “You!”
He held up a hand, with his back to me still, and rasped, “I can’t do this right now.”
“You can’t do this,” I mocked. “You can’t do this right now? Well, I’m sorry, but you don’t get to call the shots this time.” I seethed.
He turned his head to the side, looking at me over his shoulder. “I don’t get to call the shots? What are you talking about?” He sneered.
I paced back and forth in the entranceway, my arms folded tightly across my chest, keeping my eyes on the side of his face I could see.
“After the conference, you decided we were done. You show up two weeks ago, and you decided it’s our time, you decided you’re going to manage my franchising, you decided it’s time to meet Jace, and then you decide it’s too much and think you’re going to decide when we’re going to talk about it?” I laughed bitterly.
“I knew you didn’t have it in you to stay,” I hissed. “I knew it! And I trusted you anyway! I trusted you because,” I stopped pacing and stared at him, jabbing my finger in the air with every one of my next words. “I. Have. Loved. You. Always!”
I held my hands up in the air. “I am all kinds of fool to do so, and I can forgive myself that weakness but allowing you to meet my son? That I will have a hard time getting past.”
He turned to face me, silently, his eyes assessing.
I put my hands on my hips. There was no putting a lid on this now. My phone buzzed again in my pocket.
“Do you know I turned down marriage with his father under the misguided idea that you and I had something special? I denied my son his father because I wanted to feel about Drew the way I feel about you.”
He dropped his chin and set his beer down carefully. He braced his hands on the counter and leaned back against it, watching me rant from under his brow.
My arms had taken on a life of their own, waving and slashing at the air as I unloaded every ounce of my anger and frustration on him.
“I made myself sick, physically sick, both times you left me. I didn’t date. I still don’t! I wasted twenty fucking years of my life pining after a love that only ever existed in my imagination!”
Tears of frustration leaked from my eyes, and I viciously wiped them away.
Vander leaned across the counter and reached for his cell phone.
I wanted to fly at him and knock it out of his hand.
He clicked through for I don’t know what, but for fuck’s sake, was this really the time?
My own phone buzzed again. I was going to have to pick that up.
“Until the conference, I actually believed that you loved me wholly and completely, exactly the way I wanted to be loved, the way I have been longing to be loved my entire life!” I laughed and threw my hands up into the air. “And it doesn’t fucking exist! You’re a fucking myth!”
Seeming to find what he was looking for, Vander eyed me and pushed off the counter. He held out his cell phone to me and I glanced at the screen briefly. I dismissed it until I realized what I’d seen and then swung my eyes back to his screen, confused.
“Jace?” I asked quizzically, reaching for his phone.
He moved closer to me.
“Look closer,” Vander murmured gruffly, holding his phone out to me.
I cupped my hand under Vander’s to hold his phone steady. The boy on the screen looked astonishingly similar to Jace, but there were enough differences that on closer inspection I could see that it wasn’t him.
My cell phone buzzed in my pocket.
I felt odd.
A little detached.
I dropped my hand and took a step back from Vander. My saliva stuck in my throat, and I tried to clear it. The world moved in slow motion and my vision tunneled.
My voice came out in a whisper as I slowly raised my eyes to his. “Who is that?”
Tears streamed down his tortured face.
“George.”
