“That’s your only excuse?”
“That wasn’t the only time you hurt me, you know. You did it again when I was twenty years old.”
“Come on, now. I didn’t see you again until we met in that bar,” he roared.
“That’s not true!” she yelled. Then she stopped and took a calming breath. “It doesn’t matter, Tyler. It was a long time ago. I’m sorry. Would you just leave now?”
This wasn’t getting either of them anywhere.
He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. “Did you know that when I was a teen I tried to find you, but you no longer lived in that house, and because it was a rental, I couldn’t even find out what your last name was. Then I went through a period of my life where I was selfish and didn’t think of anyone. By that time, our friendship was gone.”
“You searched for me?”
“Yes. My best childhood memories are from the time we ran around together, playing until nightfall, and laughing for hours on end. I knew that I had hurt you. But I was an adolescent boy. An idiot. For you to blame me for almost twenty years for that is just wrong.”
“Are you telling me that you don’t hold any grudges, Tyler? You always forgive and forget? I don’t think so.”
“Well …”
She broke in again when she got her voice back. “It wasn’t just that,” she said. “I saw you again when I was twenty.”
His expression still showed her nothing. So she didn’t know what he was thinking about when he asked her, “And what did I do?”
“I was working at a gentleman’s club. I was still a bit gangly, and very unsure of myself. You were there with a group of men who were less than gentlemanly, and you … you made me feel about two inches tall.”
“There’s no way …,” he insisted.
“We had sex that night, Tyler. It was the first time for me.”
Silence greeted that statement. He didn’t show her what he was thinking. She was holding her breath as she waited for even a moment of recognition.
“I would remember that …” He wasn’t sounding as sure now.
“Then maybe I’m making the entire thing up so I can guilt you into giving me fifty percent of everything you have.”
She said these words so coldly in hopes that she’d make him walk away. She couldn’t do this anymore, couldn’t even stand to look at him, let alone talk to the man. Every insecurity she’d ever had was rising to the surface, and it was painful. So very painful.
“Yeah, maybe you are,” he said before looking at the exit like it was an open door to the nearest chocolate factory. “If you have anything else to say, now would be the time.”
“I guess I do have something to say,” she told him, smiling as sweetly as possible. “Go straight to hell and never come back.”
He looked at the floor and then at the ceiling, but didn’t look at her again. And then he was once again walking out on her. She was used to seeing his back, so she didn’t know why it was breaking her heart into a million pieces now.
No. That wasn’t true. She knew exactly what was happening. It was what she’d known would happen from the moment she’d decided to have sex with him. He was leaving with part of her as his souvenir.
She closed her eyes and counted to a hundred, cutting off the final tears she was going to allow over Tyler Knight. She knew he’d end up with her heart — he’d always had it, She was actually amazed that he’d left her with anything, especially with his child.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Tyler gazed out his office window and sighed in frustration. It had been a month since he’d walked away from that hospital room, a month since he’d seen Elena. He told himself he was better off, that she was a liar, that she had played him.
So why in the world did he feel like hell? Why did he hurt every time her name flitted through his mind? It didn’t matter how many times or in how many ways he told himself that she’d fooled him; he still felt that same ache.
Standing up so quickly that his chair went flying across the room, he glared into the sunny blue Seattle skyline. Even the weather was mocking him. He wanted clouds and gloom, and instead the world went on its merry way, indifferent to his pain.
People sailed on the water, his camp had opened and children frolicked and laughed there. His brothers reveled in their lives with their lovely wives, and in showing off their children — they were all pictures of perfect domesticity, damn them. The Earth kept spinning in its usual way, according to the laws of physics, while Tyler felt that he was spiraling out of control. Okay, he was subject to gravity, but not that kind of gravity. He felt weighed down, depressed, grave. The night of the living dead or something.
Would she now get married, settle down, and have a dozen kids and star in a reality TV show? Was this everything she’d ever wanted? To find a weak man whom she could use, but who wasn’t her true companion?
That wasn’t who Elena was. She was his, dammit!
But he’d walked away.
Tyler dug his fingers through his hair and rubbed his chest, where a permanent ache seemed to be lodged. This was ridiculous. He should have forgotten all about this woman by now.
But what if the child was his?
Sagging against the window, he put his hands out and the ache only grew bigger. What if the child wasn’t his? Did he even care? Was he willing to raise a child that wasn’t his?
Of course he cared. He’d been cheated on before. It was what women did. His mother sure as hell hadn’t known how to stay faithful, and it had cost her and his father their life.