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“At ten?”
“Fine. I’ll see you then.” Jordan replaced the receiver just as Molly hurried past him on her way to the front door. “Molly, please wait,” he called, nearly stumbling in his rush to reach her before she escaped.
She stopped, her purse clutched against her stomach.
“Please don’t go. Not until we’ve talked.”
“No,” she answered stiffly. Her eyes, which only moments earlier had been warm with passion, stared back at him, bleak and empty now.
“Molly, don’t do this.”
“Me?I’m not the one with both a fiancée and a wife. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve got one woman too many. I don’t want to see you again, Jordan. I’ll have my father notify you when the baby’s born and you can have Michael petition the court. All I ask is that you notify me when the divorce is final.”
“How can you walk away after what happened? What nearly happened,” he corrected.
“Easy. We’ve been married and, well, I guess you could say we fell back into an old habit. It didn’t mean anything. How could it, when you’re marrying Lesley? It was just one of those things.”
“Habit?” Jordan repeated. “You don’t honestly believe that.”
“Come on, Jordan,” she said and laughed, but the sound of her laughter was hollow. “We used to make love on that old couch more often than we ever did on the bed upstairs.”
Jordan couldn’t disagree with Molly. But kissing her wasn’t habit. It had been a rediscovery, a reawakening. He wasn’t ready to dismiss it, nor was he willing to leave the situation between them so unsettled.
“It was far more than habit and you know it,” he argued.
Molly sighed. “I’m not going to fight with you. If you don’t buy my explanation, then make up one of your own.” She met his gaze steadily, conviction flashing from her beautiful blue eyes. “What I said stands. I don’t want to see you again. Please don’t make this any more difficult than it already is.”
“If you’re worried about Lesley, then—”
“I’m not going to discuss Lesley with you.”
“It’s over between Lesley and me,” he said, then realized Molly had walked away. He debated whether he should run outside and try one last time to reason with her.
His relationship with Lesley had been a mistake. Jordan didn’t know why it had taken him so long to understand that. He wasn’t entirely sure why he’d gotten involved with her. Loneliness, he suspected. He’d been separated from Molly for three years and his life was empty.
One night, after a couple of drinks, he’d done some two-bit self-analysis and decided he was over Molly, over Jeffrey, and wanted out of the marriage. He’d wanted a new relationship, one that wasn’t weighed down with grief.
Jordan felt tired and old, and the emotional resilience he’d once prided himself on was long gone. The truth was he’d never stopped loving Molly. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t make himself not care about her. Oh, he’d managed to convince himself he had for a while, when he’d first started dating Lesley. That theory had been blown apart in a supply hut in east Africa.
The situation might have righted itself naturally if it weren’t for the pregnancy. The icy cold fear he experienced each time he thought about this new life they’d created left him trembling. But he’d be divorced by now if Molly wasn’t pregnant. He didn’t know if this baby was a blessing or a curse.
One thing he did know. He wasn’t ready to be a father again.
He didn’t know if he’d ever be ready. Or if he wanted to be.
Jordan walked outside, hands in his pockets as he strolled toward Molly. He was willing to swallow his pride in order to keep her with him until they could settle this.
“You’re running away again,” he said. It was what Molly had done after Jeffrey died and now she was doing it again.
“I’m running awayagain?” Her eyes filled with fury. “Are you seriously suggesting I was running away when I moved out? Did it ever occur to you, Jordan Larabee, that you all butpushedme out?”
“That’s not true,” he said heatedly, struggling to hold on to his temper.
“You couldn’t stand to look at me because every time you did…”
“You cried and cried and cried. All you did was mope around the house, sobbing from one room to the next for weeks on end. Jeffrey was the center of every thought, every conversation. Did you think that if you cried long enough and hard enough it would bring him back?”
“I was in mourning.”
