Her words made him flinch. “I take responsibility for what I did to you. I was wrong. I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”
“Yeah, well, you did.” She looked around the room. “I’ll miss this place. It was a very nice fantasy.” She turned her attention back to him. “I’ll call Ula in the morning and have her pack up my things. I’ll come back and get them later, if that’s all right with you.”
He took a step toward her. She couldn’t be leaving. Not like this. Not without giving him another chance. “Don’t go. We can still make this work.”
“No, we can’t. Besides, it would hurt too much to be with you every day and know that you didn’t love me. I need a clean break.”
“What will you do? Where will you go?”
Her gaze was level. “That’s not your concern. You have done what you set out to do. You fixed my life. Congratulations.”
He winced. “Cathy, don’t leave like this. Let me at least write you a check. You’ll need money to tide you over. Maybe you can start a business or something. I would be happy to finance anything you want.”
Her gaze turned icy, and he saw something he’d never expected to see in her eyes. At that moment she hated him.
“If you think any of this is about money,” she said curtly, “then you never knew me at all.”
Chapter Sixteen
Cathy sat on the bed where she’d stayed the first few months she’d lived in Stone’s house. She pulled her knees to her chest and hugged them tightly against her, but it wasn’t enough to hold in the feeling that she was going to fly apart into a thousand pieces.
Every part of her hurt. Just the act of breathing was more pain than she’d ever experienced before in her life. She kept repeating that she’d known it was going to be like this, that she’d long suspected he didn’t care about her—at least not the way she cared about him. But thinking it might be true and hearing it were two different things. She hadn’t realized how true that was until she’d come face-to-face with her worst fear.
She shook her head back and forth in an effort to deny the truth. She wished she could cry. Maybe that would make her feel better. Maybe then she could heal. But for now there weren’t any tears. There was only the ache inside of her and the sinking feeling that it was going to take more than one lifetime to get over loving Stone.
Even as she tried not to think about them, about all that he’d said to her, even as she tried not to place blame or think about what had gone wrong, she kept replaying his words in her mind.
She swallowed hard, but the bitter taste stayed in her mouth. He’d actually offered her money, as if she were some woman he’d bought and paid for. As if she really were just a whore. She supposed that’s what hurt the most. She could understand someone not falling in love. It happened all the time. As Stone had learned with Evelyn, love couldn’t be forced. But to have had him treat her like that. She shuddered. That made her less than a person to him, and it was more than she could bear.
She rolled onto her side and pulled her knees up tight again. A plan. She needed a plan. Think about what to do next, she told herself. That would help distract her.
First, she thought, she had to get out of here. In a few minutes, just as soon as she was able to actually draw in a breath, she was going to leave. It was after midnight, so she wouldn’t bother taking much. Her purse, maybe a couple of things to wear. In the morning, she would call Ula. Cathy stiffened in anticipation of the humiliation, but oddly there wasn’t any. She didn’t know what the older woman would think about what had happened, but she knew in her heart that Ula would only be kind to her.
Okay, so a phone call to Ula to ask her to pack up her things. She would make arrangements to have them picked up by a delivery service or something.
Item two, she would make some decisions about her future. A job and maybe a couple of business classes at the local college. If nothing else, her time with Stone had taught her that she liked the world of business.
She would have to start saving because she was about a month and a half pregnant, and the baby was going to require—
The unexpected sob tore at the back of her throat. A baby. Dear God, she was going to have a baby. Tears trickled down her temple and dampened her hair. She pressed one hand to her mouth and the other to her belly where a tiny life grew.
She wasn’t sure what the tears meant. While she hadn’t planned on getting pregnant anytime soon, she’d always wanted a family. Ideally she would have preferred a husband at her side, but she’d recently learned that she was strong. She and her child would be fine on their own.
Cathy sniffed as the tide of tears slowed. Eventually she was going to have to tell Stone the truth. He deserved to know about the baby. It was the right thing to do, even if there wasn’t any point. He hadn’t been interested in her, so she doubted he would care about an infant, either. But she wouldn’t make that decision for him. She would tell him. Just not tonight. She needed a few days to get strong.
She wasn’t sure how long she lay there working on gathering her strength and her courage. Finally, when she’d run out of excuses, she sat up, then rose to her feet. She felt shaky and tired, which probably wasn’t a surprise considering all that she’d been through in the past day.
She pulled an overnight suitcase out of her closet and quickly filled it with what she would need to see her through until she had the rest of her things. It didn’t take long. Then she was out of excuses and it was time to leave.
She walked down the hall toward the stairs. On a whim, knowing it was a big mistake, she moved past the stairs to the opposite side of the house where a patch of light shone out of an open office door.
Stone was still up. The fact shouldn’t surprise her. The man hardly slept. She hesitated, knowing there was nothing for them to say, yet wanting to see him one last time.
She drew back her shoulders and walked into his office.
Stone sat behind his desk, staring into space. He obviously hadn’t been to bed yet and from the look of him he wouldn’t try to sleep that night. Stubble darkened his jaw. His mouth was weary, his scars especially pronounced.
He looked up as she entered. His gaze settled on her bag. “You’re leaving.”
