He tried to bring her back with a tender brush of her hair from her face. “I know you’re scared to trust this.”
She jerked away and sat up to grab her shirt. She felt naked—exposed—in more ways than one. “I’m not scared, but you are right. I don’t trustthisanymore than I trust you.”
“I love you, Kate. I’ve never stopped loving you.”
She didn’t know whether she was angrier with him for tempting her with false promises or with herself for wanting to believe them. “If that is true, then you and I have very different definitions of love.”
Rather than get angry, he accepted the criticism and the sarcasm. “You’re right. You don’t treat people you love the way I did. But I wasn’t like you, Kate. I didn’t have any good examples to follow when I was growing up. But I’m trying to change. I’m not going to make the same mistake twice. I can’t promise to be perfect, but Ican promise to be better. I know I fucked up, and if you need to punish me for the rest of my life, I’ll take it. I’ll take whatever crumbs you want to dole out. Just give me another chance.”
“Give me another chance.” “That guy.”
Her stupid heart tugged with treacherous force, even as her temper exploded. She jumped out of bed and turned on him, not caring that her silk blouse barely covered the part of her that was still wet with his semen. They hadn’t used a condom. Not that it mattered—with pregnancy anyway.
“Are you crazy? After everything that we went through, do you think I can just forgive and forget? No one changesthatmuch, Colt. How can I ever trust you again or believe you would ever trust me? What’s going to happen the next time I have to work with a good-looking guy?”
His mouth tightened just enough. “I’ll trust you and deal with it.”
Kate went to her tote bag and pulled out her phone and a file. She held the phone out to him first. “Have you seen the new head of my section? His name is Dan and we’ve been working closely and long into the night on a couple of things.” She smiled, seeing his mouth tighten even more. “Ah, it looks like you recognize him. He was Delta back in the day, wasn’t he?”
“That asshole was a dog with women,” Colt gritted out between clenched teeth.
“Same could be said of you before—and after—we married.”
She didn’t say anything for a minute. She didn’t need to. It was clear he was festering enough on his own. But he gritted his teeth even harder and said, “I wouldn’t like it, but I said I trusted you and I meant it. If you have naked hot-tub parties together and you tell me nothing is going on, I’ll trust you.”
She quirked a brow at that. Naked hot-tub parties? Right. She didn’t believe that, but it was clear he was going to be stubborn.
She’d expected that. That was what the file was for. He’d sat up in bed—naked—so when the file landed in his lap it was only partly by chance. That part of him that made her stupid.
“What’s this?”
“Read it.”
He opened the file and as he flipped through the documents, Kate had the satisfaction of seeing him get pale.
Except the stab in her heart told her it wasn’t really satisfaction. Because part of her—maybe a bigger part of her than she wanted to acknowledge—had wanted to believe him more than she realized.
He might have changed but not enough.
By the time he put the folder down, he wasn’t just pale; he was looking ill. “You’ve filled out adoption papers?”
She nodded, and maybe she was a coward, but she couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t bear to see the rejection in his eyes even if she knew it was there. “I don’t know how long it will take, but I want to be a mother, Colt.”
As much as she’d wanted to be his wife. But she knew the futility of putting those two things together.
Did she expect him to say something? What was there to say? Out of the corner of her not-watching-him eye she saw him get up and start to put on his clothes.
That was that, then.
She hated him for the disappointment burning in her chest, in her eyes. How could she let him do this to her all over again? How could she let him give her hope only to have it pulled out from under her like Charlie Brown’s football?
She’d quickly tugged on her underwear and skirt and sat on the edge of the bed while he finished. He wasmoving slowly. It was obvious he was trying to find the right thing to say.
But that was the problem. There wasn’t anything to say—right or wrong. They were at an impasse. She wanted a child and he didn’t. She’d put that aside for him once—or tried to put it aside—but she wasn’t going to do it again.
He finally came to stand before her. She couldn’t not look up.
“You deserve to be a mom, Kate. If that’s what you want. But...”
