The Ruthless Caleb Wilde

She shook her head, dug in her heels, refused to move.

“Sage. Come on.”

“No.”

“Sweetheart. We’re going to drown out here.”

“I’m not your sweetheart. And I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“Of course you’re going with me. Where else would you go?”

“Back to Brooklyn. Back to my life. Away from you and your—your lies.”

Caleb grasped her shoulders. Even in her soaked, still-sexy heels, she was inches shorter than he; he drew her to her toes until their faces were level.

“I have never lied to you!”

“You damn well did!”

“When? What did I say that wasn’t true?”

“You said—you said you—you wanted us to be a family. You. Me. Our baby.”

“That was—that is—the absolute truth!”

“You said—you said you cared for me …”

“Yeah.” His voice roughened. “That one was a lie.”

She started to turn away but he framed her face between his hands, locked his eyes on hers and thought, fleetingly, that he was about to make the most important declaration of his life to the most important person in his life while they both courted pneumonia.

So much for planning, logic and the right time and place.

“It was the biggest lie of my life because I don’t ‘care’ for you, sweetheart, I love you. I adore you. With everything I am, everything I ever will be. And if you were to leave me … if you were to leave me …”

She stared at him. Her mouth trembled. Hell, all of her was trembling. Caleb put his arm around her, drew her close and led her toward the coffee shop.

“I’m not going in there,” Sage said, but without conviction.

Caleb opened the door. “Heck,” he said with a quick smile, “here’s that opportunity you were so hot for, remember? The chance to discuss the intimate details of our lives and, if we’re really lucky, get some input from a waitress.”

She looked up at him.

Then she laughed.

It was quick, over almost before it began, but it was the first positive thing that had happened since she’d run away

Still, he was afraid to make too much of it because something was definitely wrong, very wrong, and if she told him that she didn’t feel about him the way he felt about her—

“Caleb.”

Her whisper made him blink. And brought him back to reality.

There were people in the place. A couple of guys at the counter, beefy hands wrapped around big mugs of steaming coffee. Two couples in one of the booths, hamburgers and fries in front of them. There was a counterman in a stained white apron, a waitress in a pink-and-white uniform …

And they were all staring at Sage. At him. At what probably looked like a pair of half-drowned idiots, dripping water on the scuffed, none-too-clean tile floor.

Caleb cleared his throat.