“What the hell are you talking about?” Sadie demanded. He wasn’t making any sense!
Carrick narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re going back to Paris. You’re renewing the lease on your apartment.”
“Why on earth would you think that?”
Carrick pulled his hands from his pockets and slapped them across his chest. Sadie saw the misery underneath the hurt and she fought the urge to throw herself into his arms, to soothe away his pain. But she was in pain, too, and she needed to take care of herself first.
“Beth dropped off some books with Finn and he overheard her talking to your landlord, making arrangements to renew your lease on your apartment. Why would you do that unless you were planning to run away? And why play games with me? Are you trying to get back at me for what your ex did to you? Or do you secretly believe Tamlyn and you want to punish me on her behalf?”
Wow. And she thought her marriage had messed her up? Carrick had her beat.
“I’m not going back to Paris. I’m not playing games. I don’t believe Tamlyn. Please believe me.”
She heard her pleading tone, but she didn’t care. She needed to get through to him. She couldn’t let him toss her—them—away.
But the fury in his eyes didn’t diminish and Sadie knew she’d lost. Carrick had found something to drive a wedge between them, and because he was terrified of getting hurt again, he was using it to split them apart. This was the first hurdle in their relationship and he hadn’t even tried to clear it. He’d just folded, choosing to believe the worst about her without getting her side of the story.
She didn’t know if she could fight his distrust; she didn’t know if she wanted to. She’d lived a life with a man where every day was a battle, where trust was a commodity he played with, that was dangled and removed, offered and rejected.
She wasn’t going to play that game. She’d rather walk away right now than subject herself to that again.
Sadie reached down and picked up her bag that had fallen to the floor. She hoisted it over her shoulder and stared at her feet, trying to get her brain to form the necessary words. Or, better yet, she could just leave...
But she’d done that with Dennis. She’d never stood up for herself; she’d been too scared. He’d bullied her into silence. She refused to be silent again.
“Can I talk?” she asked Carrick.
He nodded.
“Without interruption?” Sadie pressed the point.
He nodded, quickly and sharply.
“Thank you.” She had to remain calm; one of them should. And in her experience, calm words quietly stated had more impact than shouted words and turbulent emotion. Sadie gripped the handle of her bag and started to speak.
“You have a whole lot of nerve, Carrick Murphy. You wanted me to make up my own mind about you, without one single explanation about how and why your marriage ended. And that, by the way, is why I am with you, why I am ‘playing’ this game.” She made air quotes with her fingers.
“Because I trust you. Correction, I did trust you. I trusted you to treat me well. But you won’t trust me. I told you that we’d raise this child together, and while we haven’t had many discussions about the mechanics of that arrangement, I thought it was a solid understanding between us.”
She thought about the searches she’d done on houses, about the emails she’d sent to real estate agents the day before yesterday. “Up until fifteen minutes ago, I was rearranging my life so you could be a part of my and the baby’s lives.”
Sadie shook her fingers, trying not to let panic overwhelm her. “I could’ve just told you that I am having your child and that I’m going back to France to raise it and you can see him or her whenever you fly over. I didn’t do that. I had plans to move back to Boston so our child could spend more time with his or her father.”
Man, she felt gutted, stripped of everything that made her Sadie. But she had to get this out, no matter how hard it became. “I wanted to live in Boston because I also couldn’t imagine living a life not being close to you, seeing you often, hopefully turning this burning attraction we have into a lifelong love affair.”
Carrick opened his mouth to speak, but Sadie cut him off. He’d stated his case; it was her turn now.
“I’m not done. You wanted to mistrust me, Carrick, and you took the first opportunity to do that. I can’t live like that, not again. I was at the mercy of a man who I constantly begged to trust me, to trust us, but he played games with me. And you accusing me of playing games, well, that hurts. And you know what? I’d rather not play at all.”
Sadie hitched up the strap of her bag and, with her heart breaking, she spun around and headed for the front door.
She wouldn’t stumble; she wouldn’t cry. She would walk out of his house and his life with her head held high. She’d shed too many tears over stupid men and she wouldn’t do it again. They weren’t worth it.
When she hit the sidewalk, she heard his front door closing and it felt like the oversize exclamation mark at the end of their horrid conversation. Sadie, standing in the frigid wind, felt her eyes sting and her throat close.
It was only the cold that had her eyes watering, the icy wind stealing her breath. That was what she told herself. But then hot tears rolled down her cheeks and she knew she would cry over Carrick, probably for a long time.
She’d cry because he was a good man and she’d lost him. Not to cruelty or to manipulation, but to mistrust and fear.
And that was the saddest possible ending to their story.