She shook her head. ‘I was stupid enough to try it your wa
y. To throw caution to the wind—’
‘You’re crippled by caution,’ he shouted over the top of her. ‘It’s so easy for you to believe the worst of me, isn’t it? Because you’re so untrusting. But the person you trust least is yourself.’
‘Yeah? Well, what about you? Who do you trust? You say guys don’t like to share—but that’s the most pathetic excuse, and what little you offer isn’t enough. So your father’s a bastard? Why not open up and get over it? You’re the one who needs to vent the bad stuff out.’
‘Oh, like you have? Like you’ve so moved on from having some guy screw you over? Yeah, Nadia—you’re so whole and healthy you’ve decided you won’t ever need anyone or anything. You can’t even let yourself rely on someone else to reach up and flick a switch for you.’
At that Nadia hurled the worst she could at him. ‘At least I care about the things and the people in my life. I don’t want to be like you. I don’t want to skim through, not feeling anything other than a cheap thrill every now and then.’ She’d lost everything over something that to him was nothing.
He stood very still, staring at her with eyes that had darkened from brown to black. ‘So all we’ve been is a cheap thrill?’
‘At best,’ she snapped, hurt into hyperbole and the denial of her own deeply precious feelings. ‘And all I want now is for you to get out of my life and stay out of it.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The point of this blog was for guys to get wise. Of course the guy who really needed to wise up was this one. Ladies, you can celebrate—Mr 3 Dates and You’re Out has got what was coming to him.
She’s ended it with me. And it’s hell.
ETHAN stared at the black characters on the screen so long his eyes hurt. Okay, the rest of him hurt too. His life had never sucked so much as it did right now—and right now he couldn’t see a way to make it better. He’d been in uncharted waters with Nadia—from the moment he’d met her she’d been everything unexpected. It had been as awful and infuriating as it had wonderful. And it had only grown all the more wonderful. And awful.
She hadn’t got the message he’d left on the blog the other day—about letting his actions speak. Instead she’d misread his actions, and he guessed he couldn’t blame her for that when he’d been too afraid to verbalise them even to himself. He’d never felt this way about anyone before, and he was feeling his way blind. But he’d been trying, damn it—wanting to do more and be more and go further with her than he ever had with another woman. He’d he spent every moment he could with her—wasn’t that caring? What more did she want? This wasn’t a hook-up for him. It was so much more than sex.
But not, apparently, for her. For her this was merely a cheap thrill. Yet she’d said she wanted to care—she did care about things—so passionately his own blood burned in response to equal hers. So why couldn’t she care about him? Was he that unlikeable? That unlovable?
Well, yeah, at heart that was what he was most afraid of. That she’d gotten to know more about him in the last few days and he wasn’t enough—like she’d said in her blog. There was nothing but superficial charm that faded.
Since his teens he’d worked so hard to ensure no one else would ever leave him—being a charming, entertaining brother and son. Being a super-nice date for women— women he’d left before they left him. He’d worried that if he wasn’t the charming nice guy no one would want to know what was underneath.
With Nadia nothing had followed the usual pattern. They’d been playing a stupid game, flaming their antagonism and attraction, and it had come to matter more than everything else in his life. But old habits died hard, and when he’d been confronted with her looking that pale, her green eyes watering, his instinct had been to hold her and make her smile however he could. And he knew how much Nadia enjoyed his touch. So maybe he’d come on too teasing? Maybe he should have offered a no-thrills hug? But when she’d rejected him so furiously he’d been cut to the quick and retaliated right back. Too hard. Telling her the things he thought with zero subtlety or cushioning. And she’d responded in kind—couldn’t have made it clearer.
For the first time Ethan had been dumped by a woman. And it hurt way worse than he’d ever thought it could because he’d offered so much more to her than to anyone. He’d been trying to give her himself—in his own time. But it seemed that was so little she hadn’t even realised.
He looked at the words he’d typed into the computer—they mocked him with their uselessness. There was no point in writing anything. She wasn’t ever going to believe him—in him.
Once, twice, a hundred times, he slowly depressed the “delete” button.
Nadia curled in her chair, hugging her knees to her chest, staring at the screen and the blogs Ethan had posted to tease the hell out of her only a week ago. There was nothing new and there was no point looking. No wonder the good feeling had been fading faster—there had been no emotional foundation. At least not from him. Her doubts had only grown as the days had passed, and she’d been right to feel them. Now she knew she wasn’t one to have flings. She couldn’t “use” anyone like that. She only ended up used herself. Just as she’d been with Rafe. She couldn’t trust her own judgement.
She heard the ping of e-mails landing and toggled the screen. A few messages on WomanBWarned that she skimmed—then she shot her feet to the floor and leaned close to the screen. Sandwiched between the usual comments were two e-mails that sent adrenalin shrieking down her veins.
CaffeineQueen and a couple of messages later MinnieM—two of the women who’d posted on the original thread. They’d finally replied to the e-mail she’d sent the night she’d thought Ethan had stood her up. She hesitated, heart battering her ribs. She held her breath and clicked the first.
Total disappointment. There was only a repetition of the same spiel that she’d first put up on the thread—no more detail, no more comment. Nadia frowned and opened the other one.
Same deal. Still, what had she expected? To feel some kind of kinship with these women? She stared for a moment, absently looking at the details at the top—the time it was sent, the date, the name and address …
Wait a minute …
Nadia flicked back to the first e-mail from CaffeineQueen. A cold, wet feeling slithered down her spine. She checked MinnieM. Then checked again in case she’d made a mistake. But no.
While both e-mails had different names, the actual e-mail address in the pointed brackets was the same.
Two online identities and domains traced back to one e-mail address. One woman.
Nadia’s skin prickled. Tears sprang as the ramifications clanged round her bruised body. So simple. So awful. She’d been so stupid.
She thought back to that very first, fraught meeting she’d had with Ethan, when he’d suggested that her site was open to abuse, to someone taking advantage of it. He’d been right. And she’d been wrong. So very, very wrong.
And all she’d done since was yell at him. Blame him. Hurt him. And why? Because she’d been upset that he didn’t care about her the way she’d come to care for him so quickly?
Well, that was her problem. Not his. And he didn’t deserve to have borne her fury. Most likely he didn’t deserve this other woman’s fury either. Oh, hell. She had to tell him. She had to make it up to him.
And she had to do it now.
With three clicks of his mouse Ethan deleted his entire blog. He hated that she’d lost her job. He’d never intended that she be hurt like this. Yes, he’d wanted to teach her a lesson—but not total her life. And instead of him teaching her anything, she’d made him question everything about his life—and he didn’t like the answers he was coming up with. All he wanted now was to get her back. She was already lodged in his heart and there was no getting her out of there. He’d never had to get a woman back before—until now he’d never wanted to.
Somehow he figured flowers weren’t going to cut it. He was just going to have to become the kind of man she wanted. A man with depth. A man not afraid to take
risks—the risk of commitment. A man not afraid to open up and talk.
Well, he’d take a risk now—put his neck on the block for her to take a swing at again.
He banged on her door. It wasn’t that late. Knowing her, she’d be awake.
A woman answered, but not the one he wanted. ‘You’re Megan.’ The flatmate.
She didn’t look surprised to see him. But she didn’t smile. ‘She’s not here.’
His stomach dropped. ‘Where is she?’
‘Gone to see you.’
‘Oh.’ He stiffened to stop from sagging. He’d gone that boneless. ‘My place?’
He hardly noticed her nod. He was running back down the path to catch the cab that had already gone part-way down the street, telling the driver to floor it once he was inside.
Nadia was hovering on the footpath outside his place. He didn’t know if she’d knocked already or not, but she looked about to run, so he grabbed her hand and made use of his superior strength. Only the physical pressure wasn’t necessary—she walked beside him, even walked in ahead of him, slipping her hand free as she did so.
It wasn’t until they were both inside and he was standing between her and the door that he said anything. His internal organs were working overtime to process the anxiety swamping his system—because she didn’t look good. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ she answered, like an automaton. ‘Do you have a minute?’
‘What’s happened?’
He really needed to know. Now. Because she clearly wasn’t here to get back with him. She looked as if her world had fallen apart—all pale and shivery and scared.
She bit her lip. ‘I did some research. I should have done it sooner.’ A tear trickled over.
‘What research?’ He forced himself to stand back—not to swamp her in his arms as he ached to. This time he had to listen and then talk.
‘I e-mailed the women who’d posted on your thread.’