The fact that Grant had gone to so much trouble, even to a vase of fresh flowers on the table, was a sure sign that he was angling for forgiveness. She noticed, with grim distaste, that the bed was made up with fresh sheets and pillow slips. It was a bit late for common decency, Tessa thought savagely. She wasn’t sure she could ever sleep in that bed again without remembering that woman. She was absolutely certain she could never share any bed with Grant again.
There was only one thing to do, she decided. Pack all his things for him before he got back from work. She would present him with a fait accompli, which would leave him as little ground as possible to stand on. As far as she was concerned, he had no ground at all, and she would tell him that in a few well-chosen words.
The packing served to keep her mind off Blaize Callagan, but it evoked a lot of other memories that she could have well done without; clothes that she had lovingly bought for Grant, mementoes of good times they had shared together, books and music tapes they had both liked. Several times she paused and wondered if she was doing the right thing.
Then she remembered how Grant had kept her dangling at his convenience, blowing hot and cold over the years, not even buying her an engagement ring when he had finally come to the point of suggesting marriage. The good times had been good, but she had tolerated a lot of bad for the sake of the good.
There had been other women in the past, but Grant had sworn all that was behind him. For him to have had that woman in her bed seven weeks before the wedding! Tessa wondered what she would have done if she had found that happening seven weeks after she was married. She shuddered at the thought.
Besides, after her encounter with Blaize Callagan, to be absolutely honest with herself, Grant just didn’t measure up. At least not in that particular way. Tessa wondered if anyone ever would. It was a singularly bleak thought.
Tessa was sitting at the table in the living room when Grant walked in. He saw the suitcases and boxes piled up in the small lobby first, so he was prepared for her decision before actually facing her. The strange part was, Tessa felt nothing when she saw him, no anger, no revulsion, no outrage, no regret, no love, not even a remnant of liking. He was almost a curiosity.
There he was, a well-made man of above average height, well-dressed in a fawn business suit, a successful insurance salesman, intelligent and street-smart, very presentable in any situation. His sun-streaked blond hair had a natural wave that lent his rough-handsome face a lot of charm. Not that he needed extra charm. Charm oozed from Grant Durham. As it did now. His hands lifted in a gesture of apologetic appeal, his green eyes begging Tessa to believe she was the only woman who was special to him.
She felt nothing.
Four years of single-minded devotion to this man wiped out by a brief encounter with Blaize Callagan. Her mind said it was wrong that it should have happened ...but it was no use denying that it had. She looked at Grant and it was as if a curtain had been rung down between them. The show was over and there was only emptiness.
“What can I say?” he began.
“Nothing,” she replied flatly.
He walked over to her, sat down at the table, struck a confidential pose. “Tessa, we can talk this through—”
“No, we can’t, Grant,” she cut in. “We’re finished. Quite finally this time.”
“Tessa, that woman...she meant nothing to me—”
“Then why take her to bed?”
“It was a strange encounter. Nothing to it. It just happened.”
“In my bed? It just happened in my bed?”
He saw the battle light in her eyes and hastily retreated. “Let me rub your shoulders and back. You’ve been under a lot of tension.”
“NO!” Tessa said it in capital letters.
“There’s an explanation for this...”
“I don’t want to hear it. I simply don’t care any more. Nothing you say will make any difference to me. You’ll be wasting your breath.”
He shook his head in pained protest. “I can’t believe you would change like this.”
“It’s because I believe you won’t change that I’m like this,” she replied stonily.
“Unbelievable.”
“Believe it!” she said harshly.
Why did men have trouble believing anything they didn’t want to hear from a woman? Blaize had been the same this morning. Didn’t they think a woman could know her own mind?
Grant composed his face into an appeal for reason. “Look, I’ve gone and had some therapy over this.”
“You’ve what?” Tessa looked at him in astonishment. Was he serious? Doubts sliced into her mind again. Perhaps she was being too hasty in condemning him. Four years of her life... and encounters did happen, as she had just experienced herself. But not if you were happy with someone else. Or committed to someone else, as Grant had supposedly been committed to her.
“I wanted to make amends,” he said. “So I’ve had therapy.”
The words slid out a bit too glibly to Tessa’s mind. She looked at Grant suspiciously. “What did the therapist say?”
“Well, she said that what we’ve got to do is start touching again—”
Instant recoil. “NO!”
“—physically, so that our minds can meet,” he added persuasively.
Revulsion at the very thought. “NO!”
“And that will help you get over your bitter black jealousy.”
Tessa stared incredulously at him. Suspicion gradually hardened into bleak cynicism. “Your therapist,” she said sarcastically, “told you that it’s all my fault?”
“Well, in a way it is,” he said, looking at her with soft sympathetic eyes. “I mean, I’m not jealous of you, Tessa. You’re the one who’s jealous of me.”
No contrition. Not even a guilty conscience, let alone repentance.
“My black jealousy,” she said softly, the anger beginning to seethe again.
Grant nodded. “Your black jealousy. It’s a character defect in many people—”
“I’m not jealous!” It was the breaking point.
“Yes, you are.”
“That’s the last straw, Grant!” she yelled at him, leaping up from the table and storming around the room in fulminating rage, her hands gesticulating her furious rejection of him. “What we had is broken and can’t be fixed. Ever again. I’ll cancel all the wedding arrangements. There’s nothing you need do except go. You’re free again, to do whatever you want, to whomever you want, wherever you want.”