Seductively Yours (The Wild McBrides 1)

/> “And during all the hours that have passed since, you never had a chance to call and let me know what had happened?”

There had been times he could have called her, of course. Times he’d wanted to call her. Times when he had needed to hear her voice, to feel the reassuring touch of her hand. But he’d resisted, for reasons he couldn’t explain to her now, because he didn’t quite understand, himself. It had something to do with his concern about becoming too dependent on her. Needing her too much—and then not being able to hold on to her. Or discovering that, like Melanie, she wasn’t what she had seemed to be.

He had vowed that he wouldn’t get into that situation again. With anyone.

“I can think of only a couple of reasons why you didn’t call,” she continued when he remained silent. “Either I never crossed your mind, or you thought your family crisis was none of my business. Either way, it doesn’t say much for our relationship, does it? Or did it even occur to you that we have a relationship?”

He cleared his throat, scowling at the memory of seeing her sitting at that ice-cream-shop table, focusing her warm smile and bright eyes on a handsome, dark-haired man. “You’re the one who had a date with someone else just two days ago.”

“A date?” Her voice rose in what sounded like disbelief. “I didn’t have a date. Surely you aren’t talking about the ice cream I had with Joe Cooper, a coworker I happened to run into by accident. The only thing he and I talked about was the community theater, which I would have been happy to tell you about if you’d given me a chance. And as far as commitments go, I made one to you the first time I went to bed with you. Despite what you seem to believe, I don’t take that sort of thing lightly.”

The hurt he heard in her voice made him react defensively, causing all his emotional baggage to surface. Without pausing to think, he blurted, “Oh, really? So how did you end up in the tabloids last year? Something to do with another woman’s husband, I believe?”

He heard her breath catch, and he immediately regretted his words. They’d been vicious and unfair—and to make it worse, they had been directed as much at his late wife as they had at Jamie. “Damn it, Jamie, I—”

Her voice was very composed when she interrupted, and he could only imagine how much stage experience it must have taken for her to keep it that way. “Funny,” she said. “I would have thought you, of all people, would have known how foolish it is to listen to gossip.”

“Let’s just say I learned last year that the gossip is sometimes true,” he answered bitterly. “My unfaithful wife taught me that painful lesson very well. And I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t be made to look the fool twice.”

Jamie digested his revelation in silence for a moment before speaking again. “Whatever problems you had with your wife,” she said quietly, “it isn’t fair of you to take them out on me.”

“You’re right.” His voice was gruff. “It’s just that—well, there was talk of what happened in New York between you and that actor. And then, when I saw you with Clark, and with that guy, Joe…”

“I’ve been told that I act too friendly sometimes, that my actions could be misinterpreted. That’s what happened in New York, by the way. I tried to help a friend through a difficult time and it backfired on me. Maybe the reason I came on so strong with you is that I’ve always been so damn attracted to you. You seem to have misinterpreted that, too—though you certainly didn’t mind taking advantage of it. Maybe you did have a few misconceptions about actors and the wild lives they lead,” she mused. “Or maybe you just wanted a woman—any woman—and I was convenient. A little too convenient, it seems.”

Trevor imagined that if someone were to measure him with a ruler, he would have shrunk several inches during her quiet speech. She’d made him feel very small—primarily because so many of the things she had said had hit much too close to home. “You don’t understand—”

“No. I don’t understand, because you haven’t talked to me. You’ve never told me how you feel about me. You’ve never let me know what, if anything, you wanted from me—besides sex, of course.”

He winced.

“I’m sorry,” she said again and her voice was almost sad. He wasn’t used to hearing Jamie sound that way. “This isn’t going to work. I’ve been deluding myself. Funny, I thought I’d outgrown that since the last time.”

The last time? “I don’t know what you mean.”

“When we were teenagers, I convinced myself that we could be together. I thought if I could make you want me, I could make you love me. You decided I was wrong for you then, and you left, without ever looking back at me. This time, I pretended things were different. We were finally in the right place at the right time, or so I wanted to believe. But once again, I was the only one in love. You’ve had your fun—your kisses behind the gym, in a manner of speaking—and now you’re moving on. And once again, I’m going to wish you well and let you go.”

Love. The word echoed through his mind, nearly drowning out all other thought. He didn’t know how to respond.

“This is mostly my fault, of course. The signs were all there, and I chose to ignore them. You never gave me any reason to expect a future with you. You’ve never made me a part of your life. And I’ve had the feeling that you’ve deliberately kept me away from your children.”

He frowned then. “I have a responsibility to protect my children.”

“You felt you needed to protect them from me?”

Again, he detected hurt in her voice, and he imagined himself shrinking another few inches. “I just didn’t want them to get too attached to you, in case things didn’t work out between us. They’ve lost their mother—I don’t want them to go through anything like that again.”

“And you were pretty sure that things wouldn’t work out between us, weren’t you? You’ve never expected, maybe never even wanted, anything different. It turns out you never even trusted me. I don’t blame you if you can’t love me, but I deserved better than to be used as a warm body to ease your loneliness.”

She took his silence as a response. “We managed to avoid each other for the first few months after I moved back. I’m sure we can do it again, for the most part. People will talk, of course, and speculate about what happened between us, but something new will come along to entertain them soon.”

She was breaking up with him. Writing him off. Putting an end to whatever it was they had found together. And even though he knew it was his own fault, he suddenly panicked. “Jamie, wait—”

“Goodbye, Trevor,” she said gently. “It was, well, it was definitely interesting.”

She’d called him Trevor. Not the more casual and intimate Trev. He was still trying to come up with the right words when she hung up, leaving nothing but a dial tone in his ear and an empty ache in his heart.

She had replaced her receiver gently. Trevor slammed his home so hard the instrument jangled in protest. And then he grimaced, hoping his tantrum hadn’t woken the kids.