“I can’t.”
“But how? Why?” The questions tumbled through his mind. “Did you always have a thing for him?”
“No. It was a mistake. A combination of too much to drink, a deep aching loneliness and hearing that Shaun loved me.”
“He loved you?” Would the blows never stop coming?
“He admitted that he loved me, but up until then he hadn’t been able to do anything about it, because of you....”
Jason ran a hand over his mouth, trying to remember some sign, some hint he’d missed. “I had no idea. How could I have been so blind?”
“You weren’t the only one. I didn’t know, either.”
Her words didn’t comfort him. Inside, he was mortally wounded, worse than when his father had smacked him in the face with the truth about his parentage. Jason had thought nothing could hurt worse than that, but he had been oh so wrong.
His vision grew blurry as he looked at Kara, no longer seeing the woman he loved, but rather the woman who’d betrayed him with his best friend, and stolen away the child he’d so wanted to be his little girl.
“Why?” His voice croaked out. “Why him?”
If it had been anyone else in the world, he’d have been able to deal with it. But not the one guy he’d considered a brother.
He had been wrong.
He couldn’t forgive this.
If that made him less of a man, more a coward, so be it.
Shaun being the father of Kara’s little girl made Jason’s stomach lurch. The thought of his best friend and the woman he’d wanted to marry clinging to each other—Shaun’s lips on hers—made the bile rush to the back of his mouth. Jason swallowed hard, pushing down the sickening thought.
When Kara opened her mouth to speak, he held up a hand to stop her. “Don’t answer. I don’t want to hear it. I can’t believe you betrayed me with my best friend.”
He couldn’t stay here any longer. He was going to be ill.
In a few quick strides, barely noticing his injured knee’s protest, he reached the door. His hand paused on the doorknob for just a moment. With a shake of his head to clear away the image of Kara in Shaun’s arms, he yanked open the door and rushed into the frigid, dark night.
He’d never been so sick or so alone in his entire life.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
HER PREDICTION HAD come true.
In this instance, Kara hated being right. But just as soon as Jason heard about her youthful mistake, he’d done exactly what she’d worried he would do...run. Of course, part of it was her fault. She’d waited too long to tell him about Shaun, and she hadn’t prepared Jason at all. The whole situation couldn’t have been handled any worse if she had tried.
Days had passed since that fateful night and Jason had completely avoided her, both in and out of the office. The devastation of him turning away like this made her anxious to find a new job. She’d let herself get in too deep with him. She’d let herself trust him, rely on him. In that instant, she realized how he’d sneaked past her best defenses.
She’d fallen in love with him.
She wasn’t in love with the boy he used to be, the youth of her memories. No, she loved the man who’d saved her from a snowstorm and opened his home to her. The man who’d put her and Samantha’s happiness above his own by taking time away from renovating the resort to decorate cookies and read a bedtime story.
What if Kara had told him she loved him? Would he have still walked out the door? Probably. He was unable to accept that she’d had a child with his best friend. The fact that their engagement had been officially dissolved at the time seemed completely immaterial to him.
But none of it mattered now. Whatever she’d thought they were building together was over and done. She had to focus on the new job she’d been offered in Ohio. It was in the next state, not that far from her family...or Jason, not that he’d ever visit them.
“Mommy, Mommy, look.” Samantha hurried into the kitchen, holding a folded piece of red construction paper.
“What do you have there?”
“A Christmas card. See?” She held it two inches from Kara’s face.