And it was too late.
“I don’t know,” he said at last. “I need time to think. The pregnancy is somehow easier to deal with than you keeping it from me.”
She nodded. “That’s how I felt about working with you. I mean, it’s something to focus on. So how involved do you want to be?” she asked. She was going to try to keep from crying at the loss of Sean. And there was no way back from this. She felt it in the coldness that emanated from him now and in the white-hot anger that she had seen in him before it. He wasn’t acting or pretending to be anything other than a man who’d been badly hurt by her.
“All of it. I want to go to doctor’s appointments—if that’s okay with you—and be involved in every aspect of your pregnancy.”
“Okay. I don’t know what the appointments will look like, but as long as we both feel comfortable you can come.” She was starting to feel numb and that wasn’t good. The last time she felt this way she’d almost come undone. And this was worse. She couldn’t disappear and she couldn’t deny that she was to blame for this.
“I will have to get my lawyers involved in this. I want to set up funds for you and the child. Also, you can’t keep living here. Once word of this gets out—”
“Why would it get out?”
He shot her a disbelieving look. “Come on, Paisley, you’re not that naive. You’ve walked past the paparazzi outside, just as I have. Once you start showing it will be harder to protect you. I’ll have Bert get in touch after the New Year and we’ll get the ball rolling. For now, just text me about the appointments and all of that.”
He pushed to his feet, and she noticed he kept bunching his hands into fists and unclenching them as he walked back toward the hallway that led to the front door. He was leaving and this time...it felt real. He wasn’t going to be back in her life. This hurt and betrayal had gone too deep for him. And before she’d gotten to know him and had learned what his past was, she might have held out hope that he’d come back.
But she knew there wasn’t a chance in hell of that.
She knew it with such deep certainty because she wouldn’t be able to forgive him if the situation had been reversed. This wasn’t him hiding his celebrity and his career, this was a child, and she understood the irreparable damage staying silent had inflicted on him.
She wished she didn’t, but she did.
Paisley got to her feet and followed him. She thought she should apologize again but remembered how he’d kept on apologizing and it hadn’t helped her. He was so rigid as he moved with none of his usual grace. She had no idea what to say. But as he got his coat out of the closet and stood there, putting it on, she knew she had to say something.
“I know that this is unforgivable and it would be easy for me to blame it on my past and the actions of my father. But the truth is, you aren’t him and you’ve never lied to me about the important stuff. Even when you were Jack, you were still Sean. These last few weeks have shown me that.”
He just stared at her, clenching his jaw, not saying a word, and she almost stopped herself. But this was her last chance to talk to him. They weren’t going to run into each other at the coffee shop or the grocery store. When he walked out that door, he was going back to his world of celebrity and bodyguards.
“I was scared as much about my ability to raise this child as I was about trusting you to be the partner I needed. I watched my mom struggle with loving the wrong man and doing her best to raise us. And I know she did what she could but she failed us. And I don’t hold that against her. I just wanted to make sure I was making the best choice for the child and our future and in that I failed.”
He nodded stiffly. “I get all of that. A child scares the shit out of me, I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t. My only parent was a nightmare and she didn’t do it because she loved a broken partner, she did it because she was selfish and loved the limelight.”
“You’re not your mom,” she said. “I never thought you wouldn’t be a good father. I just didn’t know who you really were. And now that I do... I wish I hadn’t hesitated.”
“Me too,” he said, the words cold and hard.
There was nothing left to say. No more words she could use to help him understand and there were no words to heal this.If they loved each other. If they trusted each other. If they believed...But both of them were too weary for that.
“I guess this is goodbye then.”
Goodbye. It had a feeling of finality and something made him hesitate. But the truth was with Paisley he had started to envision a different life and in that one moment, it was gone. There was no dream life waiting for him. It was all smoke and mirrors, as he should have known having worked in movies for as long as he could remember.
He caught a glimpse of himself in her hall mirror and realized that he looked tough and almost scary. Was this what she saw? Was that image part of why she’d held back? He knew that he couldn’t ease the anger that was holding him rigid at this moment. It was all that was keeping him from losing it.
It would be easy to fool himself by saying he’d been swept up in the magic of the season, but the truth was he’d wanted to be swept into her world. He had felt like he’d found a place where he belonged. Paisley had started to feel like the kind of home he’d never had and hadn’t realized he’d wanted.
“Yeah, I think so.”
She nodded and blinked a few times. He suspected she was trying not to cry and he was dragging this out. He should just walk out the door but he still cared for her. Emotions didn’t shut off just because he’d been hurt by her silence.
He cursed under his breath and pulled her into his arms, hugging her close to him as he remembered the high of the evening. The ring in his pocket that he’d tucked there, hoping that this was something that his gut seemed to know it wasn’t.
“Goodbye, Paisley. It’s been a ride,” he said, kissing her temple and then pulling back because if he didn’t he’d stay, even knowing how little she trusted him. She looked up at him with those large blue-gray eyes of hers swimming in tears and he felt a stab right in his heart. He’d never wanted to hurt her but he couldn’t stay when she didn’t believe in him.
If only the world’s press could see this weakness, they’d have a hearty laugh at the strong, seemingly invincible playboy being brought to his knees by a woman. He’d always seemed so unscathed by the ending of his relationships and maybe because they’d been superficial he had been. But there had never been anything like that with Paisley.
Sean saw so many emotions in her eyes and turned before he gave in to the weakness inside of him and did something he’d end up regretting. So he opened her door and walked into the hall, closing the door firmly behind him. He leaned against it for a moment, felt the wreath brush against the back of his head and turned to look at the family that he’d found in Chicago. That wreath made him want to punch something. He wanted that to have been his new life, but the truth was just what his mom had said all those years ago.