She hadn’t acted like she wanted to go back to Paris. In fact, the opposite was true. Her words, her innate affection and the way she looked at him told him that she was prepared, despite her lousy marriage, to take a chance on him.
And that she’d trusted him not to hurt her...
But he had hurt her and done it well. He’d seen it in her pale face, her tear-stained eyes, in her tight mouth. He’d wounded her and he wanted to kick his own ass. Despite the emotional abuse she’d experienced in her marriage, then the betrayal of her friends and family not believing her, she’d opened herself up to him, trusting him to have her back.
She’d been brave, but at the first little setback, he’d folded like a cheap pack of cards.
God, he couldn’t be more ashamed of himself if he tried.
Hearing the tap on his door, he slowly turned around and saw Ronan in the doorway, his expression concerned.
“What’s up?” he asked his brother, his tone curt.
“Marsha’s canceled your meetings and is holding your calls. She’s worried because the last time you cut yourself off so completely, Tanna had been in an accident.”
That was the problem with an assistant who’d worked for him for so long. She knew him better than he knew himself. And his brother had the worst timing ever.
Carrick frowned at him. “And you didn’t think that maybe I needed some time alone?”
Ronan came inside and closed the door. “But what you want and what you need are two totally separate things.”
Right now Carrick needed to find Sadie, not sit through a lecture from his brother. They needed to work this out. And yes, that would include groveling on his part. He’d do what he’d have to do to make this right...
“I know what I need, Ronan.”
“No, Carrick, you think you know. You think you want to be alone, to protect yourself from hurt, from having another woman leaving you. I hate to tell you this, but you can’t control anyone’s actions. People leave, people die and people mess up.”
Carrick tipped his head to the side, thinking this was the most emotion he’d heard from Ronan in a long, long time. Wanting to see where this went, even if it meant delaying seeing Sadie, he gestured for him to keep speaking.
“You and Sadie ended it, didn’t you? Or, to be more precise, you did.”
Carrick shrugged, holding his brother’s eye. He just nodded and noticed the frustration cross his brother’s face. “She was your one, Carrick, the person meant for you. How could you not see that?”
Wow. Interesting that Ronan had noticed. “How do you know?”
“Because I know true love when I see it, Carrick! I lived it, I had it and I recognize it. She is your other half, the person you are supposed to be with.”
“I thought the same with Tamlyn,” Carrick said, knowing his feelings for Sadie couldn’t be compared to what he felt for his ex. It was like comparing a dull beige with alizarin crimson, milk with cream, cut glass shards with diamonds.
But if his comment kept Ro talking...
“You don’t only get one person to love and you love people differently, at different times of your life. You loved Tamlyn, but you’re a different person now from the person who loved her. You don’t only get one shot at marriage and love, Carrick.”
Carrick held his brother’s gaze, hiding his smile as Ronan walked into a trap of his own making. “I hear you, Ronan, I do.”
Ronan released a sigh. “So you are going to sort out this mess with Sadie?”
“I am. But before I do, can I ask you one question?”
Ronan nodded, then shrugged. “Sure.”
“Why is there one set of rules for me, but not for you? If I get to take another shot at a relationship, why can’t you?”
Ronan’s astonishment would, Carrick decided, always remain with him.
Since leaving Beth’s a few hours before, and not being ready to return to her office at Murphy’s—Sadie knew it would be weeks, maybe months, before she could face Carrick with equanimity again—she returned to her rented apartment and, sitting on the sofa with her laptop on the table in front of her, flipped through the scanned images of various documents she’d found at the Virginia Museum of Art and Culture.
If she didn’t focus on work, she’d be consumed by thoughts of Carrick and she might, just might, be tempted to head back to Murphy’s to beg him to believe her. She couldn’t allow herself to do that.