I wanted to believe what I was hearing, but my skeptical side didn’t trust it. “You came . . . to apologize?”
He stopped pacing. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
My simple question derailed him completely, judging by his stunned look. “What?”
“Why?” I repeated. “Why do you feel the need to apologize?”
He looked at me like I was losing my mind. “You don’t think I did anything wrong?”
I gave a tight, humorless laugh, but pain flashed through my incisions. “No, I do. What I mean is, coming here and saying this isn’t exactly fun for you. You could get away with not doing it. So, why are you?” Like most people, Preston would avoid responsibility if given the opportunity. “No one’s making you apologize.”
The moment my off-handed statement registered, his gaze drifted to the door, and my stomach flipped over.
“Oh,” I said quietly. There were a half-dozen reasons he could have given on why he’d come. He could have said he felt bad. That he hadn’t meant to hurt me. But, no. I suspected Preston was here only because his father was on the other side of the door and had put him up to this.
Which made any apology he gave me empty and worthless.
“I screwed up, and I’m sorry.” Preston’s voice might have been sincere, but I couldn’t tell. He didn’t give me much of a chance anyway, because he scowled. “But don’t think that makes what you did with my dad okay. Because it’s not.”
I was so tired, and for once, shouldn’t I get to be selfish? This conversation wasn’t going to do anything but make me feel worse, so I wasn’t going to have it.
“Can you just go?” I turned away from him, blinking away tears I refused to cry.
Silence dragged, but finally he sighed his frustration. “I told him this was stupid.”
His footsteps rang out as he marched to the door and yanked it open. I didn’t want to look out into the hallway and find Greg waiting there, but my heart had a different plan. It wasn’t about to give up the chance to see him again.
Greg wore the white doctor’s coat. He had on black pants, a white dress shirt, and a black tie with small dots decorating the silk. The sides of his coat were pushed back so he could rest his hands on his hips, and he peered over Preston’s head to find me in the bed.
My watery eyes were all he needed to see. He set his jaw and glared at Preston. “No, not good enough. Try again.”
His son went stiff. “I held up my end of the deal. I said I was sorry.”
“Looks like you need to tell her again.”
“You know,” Preston snapped, “you can’t actually make someone forgive you.”
“Oh, believe me, I’m aware.” Greg’s voice was heavy with meaning. “I’m not giving up, and you don’t get to either.”
His arms came down to hang at his sides, and his posture straightened. In fact, his whole demeanor shifted. His determined, focused look locked onto his son.
“Preston.” His voice was full of gravity. “I’m sorry I made the wrong choice when I was young and stupid, and I’m sorry I was a selfish, shitty father to you. I can’t change what I did, but I wish I could.” He softened, everything from his stance to his tone. “You want to be selfish and shitty to me? I get it. I haven’t earned your forgiveness, so all I can do is keep trying.”
Preston took a step backward and looked off-kilter. He wasn’t expecting his father to make such an overture—in front of me, no less—and wasn’t sure how to defend himself against it. He stared at his father with pure disbelief.
Greg’s voice firmed up. “You haven’t earned her forgiveness either. What about that?” He said it as a challenge. “I think the least you could do is not give up.”
Preston looked at his dad like he was a ghost, and the words came from him in a blur. “I’m not dealing with this right now.”
He puffed up his chest and strode from the room, not caring who was standing in the way as he went. The side of his shoulder clipped his dad, forcing Greg out of the doorway.
Disappointment clung to his expression as he watched his son go.
Was Preston ever going to accept his dad’s apology? Or had I screwed that up, driving a permanent wedge between the Lowe men?
I felt a hundred emotions at once. Part of me was shamefully excited to see Greg again, but the crushing longing for him was there too, reminding me I didn’t have him anymore.
“I’m sorry about him,” he said. His shoulders rose as he drew in a breath. “And I’m sorry about a lot of things. That I couldn’t choose us. That I made you end things. I was weak, and couldn’t bring myself to do it.”