He kissed the top of her head. “No, sweetheart. Never.”
She drew in a breath and pushed herself to a sitting position. “I’d like to believe that, but you said there’s something you need to tell me. That there’s a reason we can’t be together. As much as I don’t want to hear it, I need to know what it is so we can get past it.”
He sat up beside her and gazed into her sincere blue eyes. Hope welled in him that maybe, just maybe, she would understand and they could get past it, then forge a loving relationship together.
He took her hand and kissed it, then held it within both of his.
“Kate, when you walked out on me two years ago, I was devastated. I knew you’d been holding back, that there was something about our relationship that bothered you…” He squeezed her hand. “Actually, I knew it had to do with your submissiveness … but I really thought we’d work it out. I bought the ring … I planned on proposing the following weekend. I thought once you knew how serious I was about you, that we could talk about it. That we could work everything out.”
He released her hand and stood up. He couldn’t be this close to her when he told her. He needed distance. He needed to feel that old pain … so he could explain properly.
“When we went to Ileana’s party, I couldn’t believe that you’d just ditch me like that. That you’d go off with another man.”
“Why did you believe it, Matt?”
He gazed at her, shaking his head. How could she not understand?
“Kate, you kept a part of yourself separate from me. Closed off. You never let me inside. That means that every day I felt rejected by you. Every day I felt the ‘keep out’ sign you had posted on your heart. I loved you. I thought you loved me. So a part of me couldn’t believe you would just walk away. But another part … the part that felt that rejection so deeply … expected it.”
Kate stared at him with wide eyes, her head shaking.
“But, Matt, I never wanted to hurt you. I never would have just walked away.”
“But you had thought about leaving, right?”
Her lips pursed and he could see the truth written across her face.
Her hands clenched around the sheets. “I told you how much my submissiveness disturbed me. It wasn’t you. It was how I acted.”
“It doesn’t matter how much you say it wasn’t me, it was me you were rejecting.”
“Only because you were the one who brought out that side of me.”
“Do you think that made the rejection any easier?”
Her big blue eyes gleamed as she gazed at him. “Oh, Matt, but I didn’t leave you. I probably wouldn’t have.”
His hands balled into fists. “But in a way you did, every time you held a part of yourself back. And then you did for real.” He waved away her protest. “I know now that you left because of the lies you’d been told about me, but from my point of view at the time, you left me. Because you didn’t really love me. It was a rejection so complete, and so sudden, it tore my heart in two.”
He stared at her, the pain of that rejection searing through him. Her gaze darted away from him.
“Don’t get me wrong, Kate. I know it wasn’t your fault. Now. But back then, I thought you’d simply found someone else and walked out of my life. I didn’t understand how you could do it in such a callous way and, at first, I didn’t believe it. That’s why I kept calling you. But you wouldn’t answer me. Then you asked to be taken off the project for my company. I couldn’t argue with the facts.” He turned his palms to her imploringly. “What else was I supposed to believe?”
She stood up. “Matt, I’m sorry for what you went through.” She stepped toward him, but he shook his head and turned away.
“Don’t be. I have more to tell you.” He paced across the room, then turned to face her again, a comfortable distance between them.
“A few weeks after it all happened, I was at a fund-raiser and the president of the consulting firm you worked for approached me. We talked a bit about general matters, then the conversation turned to the usual business stuff. He wanted to ensure the transition to a new project leader had gone smoothly, after you’d left the project. He knew I didn’t deal with the project directly, but that I keep pretty close tabs on everything that goes on in my company. After that, he mentioned that he’d asked for a recommendation from my personnel manager to help place you on another project, and he hadn’t heard back. He asked if I could expedite the process because they needed the reference for a new client project. That this client was getting impatient and nothing could move forward until they had the reference. He assumed I’d give you a glowing review.”
He and Kate had been careful not to let anyone on the business side know about their romance, but everyone knew that Matt thought highly of Kate and her work. She did excel at what she did and he ensured his staff knew he recognized that.
“Of course, I couldn’t tell him I would give you a good reference. Even though that would be the professional thing to do, I really didn’t give a shit about professionalism at that point. I was hurting.”
“You gave me a negative review?”
“No, I gave you no recommendation at all. But it seems, at that same party, Ileana, who was my companion that night, made a point of giving your boss a friendly
word of warning that you would never be welcome at Cutting Edge Industries again, or at any of my other companies.”