“I don’t want your pity or your apologies.”
“What is it you want, Faith? I told you I still wanted you, that I wanted to explore what was happening between us. You were the one to say no. What would you have me do to make things right between us?”
She studied him for several seconds, then lowered her arms to her sides in a defeated gesture. “There’s nothing you can do, Vale. It’s too late.”
He realized that now, realized that the moment he’d kissed her it had been too late to salvage their professional relationship.
Maybe he’d handled her rejection of him all wrong. But he hadn’t been thinking clearly, still wasn’t thinking clearly.
Faith was leaving him.
No, not him, she was leaving the clinic.
Hell, same difference. Either way, she would no longer be a part of his life.
If she refused to acknowledge that they’d had a chance for something special to develop between them, then maybe her leaving was for the best.
Maybe that was the only way for either of them to forget the weekend in Cape May.
“You win, Faith,” he said in a low voice. “You’re an excellent neurologist and the clinic will be taking a hard hit to lose you. Still, you can leave if that’s what you want, but you know I don’t want you to go. Not personally and not professionally.”
He didn’t want her to go. He wanted her to stay, to say they could pick up where they’d left off. But they’d just end up back at this same point. Why delay the inevitable? Faith didn’t want the same things he did.
“What you want is irrelevant to me, Vale. Totally irrelevant.”
Had she still been screaming at him, he might have put her words down to emotional stress. But Faith wasn’t screaming. She spoke with a calmness that chilled him. Almost as if she’d read his thoughts and was answering, assuring him that she didn’t want him beyond the physical—and for once that wasn’t enough.
“You don’t mean that.”
Surprise filled her eyes, and when she met his gaze, she shone with confidence. “Actually, I do. Goodbye, Vale. I’ll send for my things.”
“Faith.” He grabbed her shoulder, refusing to let her pass, cursing himself for not being strong enough to let her go without one last desperate appeal for her to stay. “Don’t go like this.”
“Is there a better way for me to go? Some way you’d prefer? Maybe if I came into your office and told you I’d accepted an offer from another clinic so you wouldn’t have to feel guilty over our liaison? Would that make you feel better? Would that free you from your guilt?”
He winced. Was that what the twinge in his chest was? Guilt? Guilt that he’d taken her virginity? Guilt that he couldn’t look at her without wanting to strip her naked?
She was right. He did feel guilty. Guilt he clung to, because if what he was feeling wasn’t guilt, then he’d have to find another label. Guilt was so much easier to deal with than the alternative.
“Do you have another offer, Faith? Is that what this is really about?”
First raking her gaze over him with cool disregard and a touch of disappointment, she nodded. “Yes, Vale, that’s exactly what this is about. I’m leaving you for another clinic.”
Blindly, chin high, shoulders straight, heart breaking, Faith made her way through the hallway leading away from her office, away from Vale. She kept her composure until the ladies’ restroom door swung shut behind her.
Then sobs hit her in full force.
She shook. She ached. She sank against the inside of a stall and cried till her eyes throbbed.
What was wrong with her? She’d cried more in the past three weeks than she had her entire life. No man was worth this. Hadn’t she watched her mother shed useless tears? Had she learned nothing at all from years of witnessing her mother’s mistakes? From having lived through her father leaving?
“Faith?” a female voice asked from outside the stall. “Are you okay? What am I saying? Of course, you aren’t okay. Can I come in? That is, well, maybe you could just come out of the stall instead?”
“Sharon?” Faith swiped at her eyes beneath her glasses, wishing she hadn’t put on make-up that morning as she likely had raccoon eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“I heard your fight with Vale,” the woman admitted, compassion filling her voice.
Great. Faith didn’t need Sharon feeling sorry for her.