“You’re turning this all around.” Some lawyerly logic would serve him well right now, except logical was the last thing he felt around Marianna. “Listen, it’s not as if we need the money. While I was on the computer last night, I came up with some ideas for investing in a trust fund for the baby. I can set up an account for you by the close of business today.”
“Do not go there, Sebastian,” she snapped, her chest rising and falling faster and faster with each breath. “Nothing’s changed, has it? What makes you think we can just go back to the way things were?”
Her words seeped into his brain, and he wasn’t liking the implication one bit. “So you’re saying that’s it. No trying, not even for the baby.”
“I’m saying because of the baby we have to find a way to communicate without tearing each other apart.” Marianna stood her ground even as her jaw trembled. “And if that means we can’t be together anymore, then that’s the way it has to be.”
All her talk of making love had been just that. Talk.
“You’re taking that job in Columbia, aren’t you?”
“It’s not about the job or the damn money.” Anger crackled from her as she all but stamped her foot. “I don’t care about your bank balance. This is about your trying to manipulate me into doing things your way. This is about you and me and the way you don’t trust me to have handled what happened today.”
“Did you ever think maybe you don’t trust me?”
That stopped her short and he couldn’t miss the hint of guilt that clouded her eyes. She didn’t even deny what he’d said. She hadn’t trusted him. He kept his hands jammed in his pockets, calling up all restraint. He wasn’t the type to shout down any woman, much less a pregnant woman he loved.
Loved?
Hell yes, he loved her. He’d loved her since they were teenagers, and yet they still ended up in this same place time after time.
But that knowledge didn’t stop him from pushing the issue. Fighting for this one last bit of understanding from her about a major cause of arguments in the past. “I was right about Ross Ward. All this time he’s had feelings for you.”
“Of course you’re right.” Tears welled and she scraped her wrist over her face. “You’re always right and I’m just the emotional explosion waiting to happen. You never seemed to consider that I’m a big girl. I can handle a man being attracted to me and keep him at arm’s distance.”
“Yeah, you were doing real well with that when I came in here.”
If he’d hoped to wound her—and hell, maybe he had—he could see he’d done a damn good job of it. Her face paled. Her lips tightened into a hard, flat line.
“Get out, Sebastian.” She turned her back to him, the set to her shoulders making it clear she was done talking, likely done with them. “Just leave.”
Eleven
T he door closed in her now-empty office with a finality that reverberated all the way to Marianna’s toes. Even in the quiet aftermath with only the swoosh-swoosh of the grandfather clock to keep her company, the sounds of Sebastian’s fight with her boss—the sounds of her fight with Sebastian—lingered.
How had things gone so wrong so fast? Her heart squeezed tight in her chest as she thought of the brief hope she’d felt earlier. How she’d actually thought because he spoke Sophie’s name everything else might magically fall into place.They’d taken a long time getting to this sad and confusing place in their relationship. She’d been foolish to think that years of problems could be solved in the span of a few days. God, it hurt loving such a quietly immovable man.
Marianna sank onto the sofa, exhausted, and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet. She considered going after Sebastian before he could pull out of the parking lot—for all of two swooshes of the pendulum. She didn’t even know where to begin sorting through this.
The only fact she knew for sure? She needed to turn in her notice. What Sebastian had wanted from the start.
Had he let things get out of control with the fight, knowing that would leave her no choice but to resign? Could he be that manipulative? He’d tried to maneuver her about the money and stopping work altogether. In fact, from the moment Sebastian had heard she was pregnant, he’d launched in about her quitting her job—any job. She hated the creeping suspicions that he could be so calculating in getting his way.
She looked around her office and said her mental goodbyes to this corner of her life, which suddenly didn’t feel all that important when she thought of everything else she could lose today. Sebastian. The possibility of a future with him.
Marianna shoved to her feet, resigned to getting past her meeting with Ross. She ignored the curious stares as she strode through the lobby and into the sleek blues and silvers of Ross’s office.
Leaving the door very wide open.
He seemed to size her up as he finished a phone call and replaced the receiver into a cradle on his mahogany desk. From the dark rocks in the waterfall fountain sculpture along one wall to the stark, structural paintings over the couch, everything about his space underscored a quiet masculinity that had won him awards for his designs.
How much of her own success had trickled down from opportunities he’d given her out of a need to slide into her good graces? She would never know for sure, but it presented yet another reason she couldn’t work here any longer. She deserved to realize her own strengths, to test how far she could go on her own merits.
Ross tipped back his chair with a creak, his jaw already purpling from the impact of Sebastian’s fist. His gaze flicked from the lobby, then back to her. “What can I do for you, Marianna?”
Her heart drummed in her ears, adrenaline pumping through her veins, urging her on. “I appreciate the opportunities I’ve had here, and I’ve always respected your talent. But I can’t work for you any longer.”
He leaned forward with a long squeak of the chair. “Marianna, please take a seat so I can expl—”
Her sense of rightness about what she was doing forced her to interrupt.
“I won’t be here long enough to sit.” She stopped well shy of his desk, anger simmering anew at the way he’d backed her quite literally into a corner earlier. “I’m only here to tell you I’ll be turning in my written two weeks’ notice this afternoon.”
He started to rise and she took another instinctive step toward the door. Ross sank into his seat, angling forward, his voice low. “I told you I never would have made a move on you as long as you were married, and I meant it. If you and he are getting together again, I won’t be happy, but I won’t interfere.”
He seemed to be telling the truth, and in that moment she felt a twinge of sympathy for him. She understood well how painful it was to have feelings for someone only to be shut out. However she couldn’t let that understanding affect her decision.
She bit back the urge to chew him out for causing such chaos in her life. For not listening when she’d told him to stop. None of which would help any of them. She needed a clean cut here, regardless of how things worked out with the father of her child.
“Sebastian has a problem with my working here, and I should have respected his feelings. He and I need to find a more level footing for the baby’s sake.”
“Does that mean you two are back together?”
Were they? She wasn’t sure. How they would build a future with each other still seemed unclear to her. However, a sense of peace settled inside her as she stood here calmly fighting her own battle. A sense that she was strong enough to stand on her own, to make hard decisions for her and for her child.
“I honestly don’t know, Ross. But I do know I’m not available.”
She turned away, her head high as she walked past the people in the lobby now trying too hard not to look at her. Marianna strode back toward her office to call a cab and retrieve her purse, reveling in her own strength and the knowledge that she would be okay. People respected her and her work, and just because Ross had been a jerk to her wouldn’t change that.
Snatching the phone up, she turned as she punched in the stored number she used to set up rides for clients. Mid-dial, she noticed a flash of white across the room. A small white bag. Had it been there when she arrived?
Lowering the phone and thumbing the off button, she plucked up the sack, the logo solving the mystery. The bag had come from the store where Sebastian bought the flavored peanut butters. Hadn’t he said something about her missing breakfast when he arrived? He must have packed the snack for her while she rushed to get ready for work.
Their day could have turned out so differently if she’d been alone in her office. But she also knew they would have only been delaying the inevitable. At some point, this showdown would have erupted.
She opened the fold and looked inside to find…a cinnamon crunch bagel with a little plastic container of spiced peanut butter. Tucked in the bottom of the bag was one of Sebastian’s business cards with a scrawl on the back.
“Love, S,” she whispered rubbing her thumb along the simple note.
Love. It felt like forever since he’d used that word. Was he trying to apologize for not saying it last night? Of course she hadn’t told him either, only hinting at the subject.
The bag seemed to grow heavier in her hand, its significance weighing on her conscience. She thought of other thoughtful gestures he’d made in the past that she’d chalked up to calculation. What if maybe, just maybe, those could have been attributed to affection rather than manipulation?
She turned the possibility over in her mind. He’d said often that being a lawyer led him to deal with deceitful people on a regular basis. That could certainly wear at a person’s ability to trust in words. Actions would count more for him.
It stood to reason her reserved ex would have tried to show the love he couldn’t voice.
She wasn’t sure how she would persuade Sebastian to open up or how they would wade through the mess they’d made of their love for each other. But she wasn’t going to quit trying if there was a chance he still wanted to save what they had together. Marianna stuffed the tiny sack into her purse and hooked the leather handbag over her shoulder.
Now she just needed to find which courtroom he was in—and figure out a way to make her own case to Sebastian in a way that would win over one of the best litigators in South Carolina.
Marianna sat in the back row of the courtroom, energized by her new determination even more than by the bagel she’d devoured on the way over.Sebastian rose from his seat behind the table, buttoning his suit coat. A charcoal gray suit she’d chosen for him a week before they’d split. She’d never had the chance to see him wear it before today. The lightweight summer fabric hugged his broad shoulders even more perfectly than she’d expected. His close-trimmed hair only just kissed the top of his collar, calling to mind the silky texture.
He didn’t appear to notice her, not even missing a beat in questioning the witness. Something to do with defending a mother and her son against an abusive father. Looking at his clients, it was obvious Sebastian had taken this case pro bono, and seeing the flame of hope in that young mother’s eyes, Marianna admired him for the choice he’d made.