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Harry was right. Jason looked dreadful. His eyes were sunken, his posture defeated. He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Hello, Cate.”
“I’ll leave you two to talk.” Harry picked up the food sack and started to walk away.
Cate panicked. “No. I want you in the room. I don’t want to be alone with him.”
If it were possible, the misery in Jason’s expression deepened.
Cate sat down again and pulled the lap blankets around her, using them as shields. With the two men on either side of the room, she felt small and anxious and utterly defeated.
Harry waved a hand. “Have a seat, Jason.”
The younger man shook his head. “I’ll stand if you don’t mind.” He shifted his focus to Cate. “I am so desperately sorry, Cate. I was an idiot and a coward to wait so late to call it off. You can’t possibly hate me more right now than I hate myself.”
Her limbs began to tremble again. Maybe some tiny part of her hoped he had come begging for a reconciliation. Hewasapologizing. But only for his timing. Not for anything else.
“Did I do something wrong?” The question tumbled forth, uncensored. It had festered in her brain since the moment her groom-to-be had backed out of their wedding.
“Oh, God.No. Of course not.” At last, Jason moved. He took the armchair nearest the sofa and sat. With his fists clenched on his thighs, he grimaced. “We screwed up, Cate. And it goes back a very long time, I think.”
She swallowed. “I don’t understand.”
“Be honest, Cate. You chose me in the beginning because I wassafe. You knew the two of us would never argue like your parents do. I would never have an affair. I would be faithful.”
It hurt to hear him say those things aloud. She had been twelve when her father arbitrarily decided to move the family to Atlanta. He’d been offered a huge promotion, and he took it, family be damned. Cate’s mother was furious. Cate and her sister had been devastated. They loved Blossom Branch. It was home. Atlanta was fine for shopping trips and concerts, but it hadn’t felt like home, not then. Cate had been forced to adjust. To suppress her needs and wants.
Her whole world had changed overnight.
Years later, she had chosen Jason because she was positive he would never inflict such turmoil on her life.
“I suppose there might be an element of truth to that,” she said. “But I love you, Jason.”
For the first time, a small smile lit his handsome face. “I know you do. And I love you, too. We’ve been part of each other’s lives forever.”
“But...”
He rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Do you remember when you proposed to me?”
Every ounce of her self-esteem winnowed away. Harry, one arm propped on the mantel, had made a sound. A quickly muffled sound, but a sound nevertheless. This was a heck of a time to rethink her insistence on having him in the room.
She nodded glumly. “I remember.” Now that she thought back on it, Jason had hesitated that day, too. Just as he had when the priest asked a question the skittish groom couldn’t answer. “So why did you say yes?”
“If you’ll recall, we were in bed at the time. You were so cute and excited, and I thought,what the hell. Surely you and I could make it work. We have everything in common. I wanted to get married someday. My own parents are miserably wed. If I had any shot at long-term happiness, I figured it would be with you.”
“But something changed.”
He reached for her hand. She jerked it back. She couldn’t bear to have him touch her, not with Harry watching their every move.
Jason winced. “Actually, nothing changed, not really. We spent a year and a half playing the part of the happily engaged couple in front of our friends. We made plans, we basked in the glow of our families’ approval. It became this giant, lumbering freight train that couldn’t be stopped. Not even when I realized we were both doing this for the wrong reasons.”
“And those were?”
“Convenience. Fear of the unknown. Friendship.”
“I see.” If she could have argued, she would have, but the longer he talked, the more she realized what an idiot she had been. “So that’s it?” She hurt so badly, she wanted to throw up.
“Here’s the thing, Cate. When you finished your master’s degree and your parents paid for you to study in Paris and Rome for a year, I was pumped to spend part of that time with you. We had a blast. Then you came home, we got engaged and suddenly you threw yourself into planning a wedding. You didn’t even try to get a job.”
She blinked backed tears of humiliation. “Daddy told me not to rush. What’s wrong with that?”
