“It’s best if we just make a clean break.”
“Hope, don’t talk like that. Sure, this is terrible, and heartbreaking, but what’s between us has grown—”
“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t want that, and there is nothing between us. Now please just leave, I’m tired.” Her voice held no emotion; even her face was still.
“Hope, wait. I want to stay with you—”
“I don’t want you to stay with me. I need to sleep, and there’s no point in you sitting here while I do that. So please just go.”
So polite, he thought, and a million miles from the woman he knew her to be.
“Annabelle, are you still there?”
“I am.” His friend came forward as Hope called for her.
“Make him leave, please.”
“Damn it, you are not just dismissing me, Hope!”
“Please just go.” It was the plea that got to him, the first emotion she’d shown since he’d walked in. Dropping down beside the bed, he looked her in the eye.
“This is not done between us, Hope Lawrence. You feel something for me, as I do for you. Losing the baby is devastating, but we will survive, and I’m not giving up on you or us.”
“I want you to,” she whispered, and his heart broke all over again as a tear rolled down her nose. “We would never have worked. Water and oil, Newman.”
“Let me stay with you, Hope.”
“No, I don’t want that. I n-need to be alone. Looking at you just reminds me of what I’ve lost.”
“We lost.”
“I-I didn’t think it would hurt, but it d-does.”
“Let me hold you, Hope.”
She turned away from him then, and faced the wall, and Newman had never felt that hopeless before.
His shoulders felt heavier, and his feet slow as he turned to his friend.
“I don’t know what to do, Belle.”
Annabelle hugged him hard.
“She’s in shock, Newman. Just give her time.”
He nodded, and walked from the room, and they were the hardest steps he’d ever taken, because they took him away from Hope.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
One week after she had lost her baby, Hope was still walking around her mother’s house in a daze. How could she be so heartbroken over losing something she’d never had? A baby she had never met? A baby she had not wanted or planned. Losing that tiny life had broken her heart.
Her mother had been a solid and comforting presence, and the only one she wanted at this time. She’d turned everyone else away, including Newman, which she knew was selfish, as he was suffering too. But looking at him reminded her of what could have been, and the reality was that for a brief moment, she’d bought into the dream he’d offered her. Now, however, reality told her she’d been fooling herself. Because she had to face facts. He would never have even contemplated marriage with her were it not for the baby. She’d been deluding herself in thinking otherwise.
The problem was, she couldn’t stop thinking about him now that she was thinking straight once more. She could still see the devastation on his face that her words and the loss of the baby had caused that day at the clinic. His pain, like hers, had been real, and she’d hurt him more.
Looking at you just reminds me of what I’ve lost.
What kind of person said that to a man who was hurting? Why had she tried to hurt him more, when she knew that her words would cut him deep? But right then and there, she’d wanted to be alone desperately, and also to strike at the one person she saw as causing her pain. Irrational, yes, but she’d reacted that way just the same. The next day she’d wanted to talk to him, but been too embarrassed over the way she’d reacted to ask.
