“I’m not telling you that. I’m telling you I love you, that’s all.” She took a deep breath and took the plunge. At this point, what did she have to lose? “And I think you love me, too.” Except that right now she didn’t see love. She saw blind panic.
There was a protracted silence, so tense she could have sliced through it with a blade.
“You’re wrong. I don’t.” His features were set. Immovable. Serious.
It was hard to recognize him as the laughing, sexy guy she’d spent the past few weeks with.
He’d gone from warm and relaxed to cold and unapproachable. And she knew it was a defense mechanism.
“Are you sure? Because I’m sensing this isn’t about us, Jake. It’s about your mother.”
“Maria is my mother.”
She closed her eyes. “Jake—”
“You need to leave, Paige.”
“I can’t imagine what it must have done to you when she didn’t come home that night. You told me how it felt and I’ve never forgotten that conversation. My heart breaks, thinking about how lost and confused you must have been and how you must have wondered and worried.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“Time heals some things but it doesn’t erase. It was a long time ago, but it’s still with you. It has to be. You carry something like that forever. Oh, you adjust and learn to live alongside it, but it scars and occasionally that scar aches and reminds you that you need to be careful. Is that what’s happening, Jake? Are you being careful?” She slid off the bed and walked across the room to him, relieved that at least he didn’t back away from her.
She closed her fingers gently over his arm.
His biceps were hard and tense. His entire body rigid as he held himself still.
“There’s nothing more to talk about, Paige. I didn’t want you to fall in love with me. That wasn’t part of the deal. I did everything I could to stop this happening.”
It was as if she hadn’t spoken.
As if he’d ignored every word.
“I fell in love with you years ago, so whatever you think you could have done to stop it, you were too late.” Her voice was choked. “I loved you from the moment you walked into the hospital with Matt on that first night. I’ve loved you ever since.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“And I think you love me, too.”
“I don’t.” His gaze lifted to hers, his eyes cold. Blank. “I’m sorry to hurt you, but I don’t.”
It was like trying to chisel a hole in a wall with a hairpin.
Her eyes filled, and she grabbed his arm in a final attempt to penetrate that cold layer that insulated him from emotion. “Jake—”
“You need to leave now. You’re only hurting yourself by staying.”
“Sending me awa
y is hurting me. Rejecting my love is hurting me.”
“And I’m sorry for it.” He stared down at her fingers on his arm as if steeling himself to do something he found impossibly difficult. Then he clenched his jaw and gently unpeeled her fingers from his arm. “It’s probably best if we don’t see each other for a while. You can carry on using the office. I’ll fly to LA for a few weeks.”
“I don’t want you to fly to LA. I don’t want to not see you. What are you afraid of, Jake? What are you so afraid of? I love you.”
There was a long, pulsing silence, and then he lifted his gaze to hers. “She said that. She said that to me every day. She used those exact words the morning she left and never came home again. I love you, Jake. It’s you and me against the world. I believed her, so I sat on the steps, waiting for her, as I waited for her every night, except that this time she didn’t come. She left a note with our neighbor, Maria, asking her to take me until the authorities could find me a home. She left nothing for me. No note. No explanation. Nothing.”
Paige felt the hot sting of tears. “Oh God. Oh, Jake—”