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“Not from where I’m standing,” Sam said, but she was pleased to see he looked as shaken as she felt.
Small consolation, but she’d take it. The office suddenly seemed claustrophobic. She had to get out. Get into the open where she could think again, where she could force herself to remember all of the pain she’d been through because of him.
“You can’t touch me again, Sam,” Lacy said, and it cost her, because her body was still buzzing as if she’d brushed up against a live wire. “I won’t let you.”
Frowning, he asked, “Loyal to the new guy, huh?”
“No,” she told him flatly, “this is about me. And about protecting myself.”
“From me?” He actually looked astonished. “You really think you need protection from me?”
Could he really not understand this? “You once asked me to trust you. To believe that you loved me and you’d never leave.”
His features went taut, his eyes shuttered. She felt him closing himself down, but she couldn’t stop now.
“But you lied. You did leave.”
His eyes flashed once—with hurt or shame, she didn’t know, couldn’t tell. “You think I planned to leave, Lacy? You think it was something I wanted?”
“How would I know?” she countered, anger and hurt clawing at her insides. “You didn’t talk to me, Sam. You shut me out. And then you walked away. You hurt me once, Sam. I won’t let you do it again. So you really need to back off.”
“I’m here now, Lacy. And there’s no way I’m backing off. This is still my home.”
“But I’m not yours,” she told him, accepting the pain of those words. “Not anymore.”
He took a breath, blew it out and scrubbed one hand across the back of his neck. The familiarity of that gesture tugged at her.
“I thought of you,” he admitted, fixing his gaze to hers as his voice dropped to a low throb that seemed to rumble along her spine. “I missed you.”
Equal parts pleasure and pain tore at her heart. The taste of him was still on her mouth, flavoring every breath. Her senses were so full she felt as if she might explode. So she held tight to the pain and let the pleasure slide away. “It’s your own fault you missed me, Sam. You’re the one who left.”
“I did what I had to do at the time.”
“And screw anyone else,” she added for him.
Pushing one hand through his hair, he finally took a step back, giving Lacy the breathing room she so badly needed. “That’s what it looked like, I guess.”
“That’s what it was, Sam,” she told him, and took the opportunity to slip out and move around until the desk once again stood between them like a solid barrier. “You left us all. Me. Your parents. Your sister. You walked away from your home and left the rest of us to pick up the pieces.”
“I couldn’t do it.” He whirled around to face her, green eyes flashing like a forest burning. “You need to hear me say it? That I couldn’t take it? That Jack died and I lost it? Fine. There.” He slapped both hands onto the desk and glared at her. “That make it better for you? Easier?”
Overwhelmed with fury, Lacy thought she actually saw red. So many emotions surged inside her, she could hardly separate them. Lacy felt the crash and slam of the feelings she’d tried to bury two years ago as they rushed to the surface, demanding to be acknowledged.
“Better? Really?” Her voice was hard, but low. She wouldn’t shout. Wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing just how deeply his words had cut her. “You think it can get better? My husband left me with all the casualness of tossing out an old shirt.”
“I didn’t—”
“Don’t even try to argue,” she interrupted him before he could.
“I won’t.” He fisted his hands on the desktop, then carefully, deliberately, released them again. “I can’t explain it to myself, so how could I explain it to you or anyone else? Yeah, I left and maybe that was wrong.”
“Maybe?”
“But I’m back now.”
Lacy shook her head and swallowed the rest of her temper. Clashing with him was no way to prove to Sam that she was over him. She would not get pulled into a Wyatt family drama. She wasn’t one of them anymore. Sam returning had nothing to do with her. In spite of the heat inside her, the yearning gnawing at her, she knew she had to protect herself.
“You didn’t come back for me, Sam. So let’s not pretend different, okay?”
