by Kat Cantrell
In spades. He didn’t get it. At all.
Val sighed and shut his eyes for a beat, his shoulders sagging. “That wasn’t what I meant. You’re not to blame. I am. I’m sorry.”
It was her turn to blink. “What did you say? Did you apologize?”
He lifted his hands in confusion. “Yeah. Is that not allowed either?”
“It’s allowed.” And for some reason, it deflated her anger. A little. She had no experience with a man who apologized. What was she supposed to do with that? “Tell me what I don’t know, Val. I’m pregnant, and my emotions are running high. I need you to be honest with me.”
“I’m trying to be.” His face had softened somewhat. “I know you have a history of men who are less than honest with you, and I’m trying not to be angry that you’re lumping me into the same category,” he returned tightly. “And I did not cheat on you.”
This time. “So, this was all one-hundred-percent Jada Ness barking up the wrong tree. You’ve given her zero encouragement.”
“That’s exactly right. I had asked her to have drinks before we got involved—at your instence by the way—and once you and I started seeing each other, I canceled. I can’t help the fact that she took one last shot. Or that you walked in on it.”
A chill invaded her chest, and she had just enough energy left to be surprised that she could feel it. “You were interested in her at one point.”
Bingo. It was written all over his face. But he shook his head, firmly in the denial zone. “As a business associate. Only.”
“You were stringing her along. Making her think there was something going on so she’d sign with LeBlanc. Weren’t you?” Oh, dear God. It was all so clear. He’d been playing Jada. And thus also playing Sabrina. If not overtly, then subconsciously, especially since this was the first she’d heard of it. “You were stringing us both along.”
Val had the nerve to bristle at that, and that’s how she knew she’d hit a nerve.
“I wasn’t stringing you along.”
She jerked her chin. “But you were stringing Jada along?”
“God, Sabrina.” He stared at the ceiling for a long time, his knee jiggling as tension vibrated through his whole frame. “This is you with your emotions running high? I’m glad you told me, or I wouldn’t have recognized it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Stung, she took a step back.
“You’ve barely even raised your voice. This is all so matter of fact to you, as if you were just waiting for this opportunity to accuse me of unforgivable things so you could be done. I want to marry you. My stomach is churning over the possibility that something I have no control over will prevent that. And yet, you don’t even seem particularly bothered by the fact that we’re having a very difficult discussion.”
Because letting him see how this was affecting her was not happening. Being vulnerable gave a man ammunition to gouge out even more flesh, to continue twisting that knife until the gutting was complete. Better that he never realize how this conversation was killing her.
At least she’d gotten that part right.
The chill in her chest spread to take over pretty much everything. Numb, she stared at him, a little shocked that it had come down to this after all. “You’re not far off. I have been waiting for you to show your true colors, and you just did. I’m allowed to be upset in my own way, and it doesn’t erase the fact that you’re the one who is in the wrong here. An apology doesn’t make it go away. I need to be able to trust you, and I don’t.”
That was the bottom line. He’d failed the test. She couldn’t marry him and subject her child to the same thing she’d gone through. To willingly sign up for more heartache as he pushed the envelope further and further with the next woman who came on to him. It was better to be alone. She should have realized that long ago and saved them both the heartache.
Pain etched his expression, and he shoved his hands into his pockets. “So, this whole time, I’ve been falling for you, and you’ve been looking for an excuse not to trust me.”
“Val.” She shook her head, damping the tug on her heart—and a confession in kind. “I’ve been desperately looking for a way to trust you. I started to, or I never would have let you kiss me over snow cones. The rest never would have happened.”
She’d broken her own rules time and time again for him. That was probably the hardest thing to swallow. She’d known better and done it anyway.
“If you’d really started to trust me, you’d be able to see that I was trying to do the right thing for our relationship. Since you can’t, our romance is doomed anyway.”
His dark blue eyes dimmed, and she almost took it all back just to see him light up again, just to hear him say he was falling for her. But that wasn’t going to work. Not now. He was absolutely correct. Their romance had likely always been doomed, simply because of her history.
This was more her fault than she’d been able to admit. “Actually, I see more than you’re giving me credit for. This is my issue. You probably did do what you think is the right thing, and that’s the fundamental problem. I’m sorry. This was all a mistake. I shouldn’t be in a relationship with anyone.”
Least of all a sensual, gorgeous man, who had his pick of women. They’d always seek him out like moths to a flame and, eventually, one would break through his marriage vows.
Doomed. It was as good a word as any to describe the nature of her feelings for Val. This was her cross to bear, and she couldn’t crumble in the face of so many conflicting emotions. Val deserved better.
Fourteen
“So that’s it?”
Val couldn’t keep the incredulity from his voice. Didn’t want to. This was an unprecedented situation, in which the mother of his child was handing him his hat, cool as a cucumber. Scarcely affected by the fact that she’d ripped his soul from its moorings.
“I’m not sure what else you want me to say.”
Of course she didn’t have a clue—she hadn’t bothered to even try to get one. She’d conveniently given herself an out by claiming that this was all her fault because she shouldn’t be in a relationship. That was crap. A cop-out. “I have an entire list of things I’d like you to say, but it seems I’m not being given a choice but to let you walk away.”
She lifted her hands with another shrug, as if to say win some, lose some. “I think it’s best. Now you’re free to call Jada and get her on board by whatever means possible.”
“Free to call—” Val held in an extremely profane word that had sprung to his lips and controlled his temper for the hundredth time. This was not the place to let his emotions off the leash, or he’d say something he regretted.
Actually he’d already said several things he regretted, not the least of which was telling Sabrina that he was falling for her. She’d accepted that news without blinking, as if learning that he’d selected the ripest melon at the grocery store.
Well, it was huge to Val. First time he’d ever said that to a woman. First time he’d ever felt that for a woman. Sabrina had no idea how difficult it was to confess something of that magnitude and get nothing in return.
“I don’t want to call Jada,” he informed her tightly. “I never did. That’s what’s so frustrating about all of this. You’re crucifying me over something that isn’t even a thing.”
She nodded. “I get that you’d see it that way. But I’m trying to make it clear that I’m the one with the issue. Not you. This is my problem, and I should work on it before I can be with someone long-term.”
Val shook his head. Didn’t help. He could still hear the roaring in his ears as one truth became self-evident. This was nothing close to her fault. It was his. For letting his emotions get in the way of doing the task his father had laid out for him. For letting himself fall for the person who was supposed to be helping him get there.
He’d completely taken his eye o
ff the ball, letting his need for acceptance and love cloud his judgment. Instead of embracing her, he should be pushing her away. Also known as the most difficult, necessary task he’d ever been faced with in his life.
“You’re absolutely right. You’ve averted a disaster in the making. We have no business getting involved. I’m the one who made that mistake.”
And now the evisceration was complete. Sabrina didn’t feel like a mistake, and he’d just lied to her. She was the best thing that had ever happened to him. He cursed his father for creating such an impossible situation, cursed the fact that Sabrina was forcing him to learn the lessons she’d been trying to teach him after all.
He wasn’t supposed to feel anything. CEOs ruthlessly cut people out, easily divorcing the action from their emotions without a backward glance. This was his singular opportunity to practice that.
The paradox swirled through his chest, riling his temper, despite all his efforts to keep it under tabs. “So what now? You’re still pregnant.”
Sabrina stood there, coolly contemplating him, her emotional center nice and unaffected behind her frosty walls. “I don’t know. I guess we still have eight months to figure that out.”
He nodded once. “I’ll consider the options, and let you know what I think will work best.”
She didn’t argue. Likely because she was ready to be done. So was he. He couldn’t stand to be so close to her and not have the luxury of touching her, talking to her. Telling her all of the things in his heart, none of which reflected what had just come out of his mouth.
He skirted her without another word and descended the rest of the stairs to the ground floor—the opposite direction of where he should be headed. He’d lost more than the woman he’d hoped to spend his life with. He’d lost his coach, his teammate. The one person he’d counted on to help him push the needle to the billion dollar mark at LeBlanc, and he couldn’t even take her excellent advice to pick things up with Jada again.
Heartsick, he drove until he had no idea where he’d ended up. The problem was that he wanted to go to LBC, where he understood everything and the people wore their hearts on their sleeves. Caring was encouraged, not lambasted, and every move he made at his food bank helped someone.
But that was Xavier’s domain now and would be for months still. Instead of bemoaning the reality, Val’s time would be well spent doing his job with the chair he’d been given behind the CEO’s desk at LeBlanc Jewelers. Thus far, he’d failed nearly every task he’d been given, and he needed to turn that around. Earning his inheritance would help LBC the most, which had always been his first priority.
The cure for his heart didn’t exist.
Sabrina was nowhere to be seen when he returned to LeBlanc. Just as well. The hollow feeling in his chest would serve as all the reminder he needed of his brief, bright time with her. He’d never gotten around to asking her why she’d come by earlier, not that it mattered. But he did have a warped curiosity about what had prompted the visit that had brought about the end of their relationship.
The mining contracts served as a great distraction from the miserable events of the day thus far. Or rather, they should have. He found his attention drifting. The verbiage read like a dry law textbook, and Val wished for nothing more than an excuse to heave the entire binder out the window.
Now would be a great time for a coach. Or a mentor. Someone. Anyone who knew the slightest bit about the pitfalls he should look for on these printed pages or, barring that, the ins and outs of the government of Botswana.
A crash jolted his attention from a contract, and he glanced up sharply. One of the framed pictures had fallen from the bookcase across the room. It lay on the carpet, face down. Val swiveled out of his seat to retrieve it.
As he picked it up, he examined it, mostly to ensure the glass hadn’t broken. Xavier’s face stared at him. It was a photo of his brother with a dark-skinned man, both of them grinning at the camera as they held a large pair of scissors, poised to cut a red ribbon. The banner behind them read Gwajanca Mine.
Xavier. There was no stipulation in the will that said he couldn’t ask an expert to help him through this contract, even if the person was his brother. He set the picture on the shelf. A ghost in the machine perhaps?
Val called Xavier and left a voice mail, wondering if he should have combined this request with a trip to LBC, just to check on things. Xavier might not even respond to his message, deleting it as a matter of course without even listening to it. But within fifteen minutes, he had his answer in the form of a knock at the open door.
“You rang?” His brother eyed him. “Holy hell on a horse. Are you wearing a suit?”
“Yeah.” Val scarcely noticed it anymore unless Sabrina commented on how hot he looked. Maybe he had changed more during his stint in the chair than he’d credited. He stood and crossed the room to hold his hand out to Xavier, who shook it cautiously.
How horrible was it that a simple handshake between brothers put such a suspicious glint in Xavier’s gaze?
“I wasn’t expecting you so soon,” Val said.
The handshake broke the odd tension, strangely enough. That was the first time Val could remember extending anything approaching a warm welcome to Xavier.
“I wasn’t expecting to get your call.” Xavier glanced around the office, taking it all in. “You haven’t changed anything.”
Except for the potato plant which had started outgrowing the pot Val had planted it in, that was true. He shrugged. “This is still your office. It’s only on loan. There’s no reason to put my stamp on it.”
“I hope you’ll forgive me that I didn’t take the same approach with LBC. I’ve...struggled, to put it mildly. It helped to do some redecorating.”
A little shocked that Xavier would admit such a thing, Val ushered his brother into the office and bit back the questions. Not the least of which was what his former office looked like with Xavier’s taste directing the decor. It was probably fine.
On that note...
“I’m struggling too,” Val admitted and let out the breath he’d been holding. “That’s why I called. Why are we keeping our struggles to ourselves? It makes no sense, and Dad’s will doesn’t say we have to do this alone. Let me help you. I’d be happy to. In return, you help me.”
Xavier perched on the chair Sabrina had always favored. The couple were more alike than Val had fully recognized, both emotionless, unfeeling. Or so it seemed. Once he’d dug through Sabrina’s layers, he’d found a warm, wonderful woman.
What would he find if he took the time to do the same kind of excavation with his own flesh and blood?
“I’m surprised you’d offer.” Xavier ran a hand over his closely cropped hair. “You’ve never cared about anything that had my name on it.”
In years past, Val would have let his own hurts rule his heart, to the point of saying things that he shouldn’t. Things he couldn’t unsay. Case in point, it would be easy to turn that back on Xavier, illuminate how Val had been the one cut out from the LeBlanc Men’s Club, not the other way around. “Let’s say that I’m learning there are two sides to every story. I want to hear yours.”
Astonishment played about Xavier’s expression, but he was too well schooled in keeping his cards close to the vest to let it take over. Val would have missed it if he hadn’t been paying specific attention to his brother. Did Sabrina do the same—haul her frostiness out in order to keep more hurt at bay? After all, she’d been hurt repeatedly by people who should have cared for her. Val included.
Fine time to be working on how to relate to the woman who had just cast him off.
But the unsettling realizations wouldn’t leave him be. How well had he really known how to read Sabrina? How much credit had he given her very opposite personality type when attempting to build a relationship with her? Not much. His conscience convicted him of another forty-seven sins in the span of sec
onds.
“Marjorie quit,” Xavier said flatly. “I was hoping you might help me hire someone to take her place. I had no idea that she basically ran LBC, and I’m pretty much dead in the water.”
Val blinked. That was a hell of story. “Marjorie quit? What did you do to her?”
Oh, God. This was a disaster. Why hadn’t she called to talk to Val first? Xavier must have gotten crossways with her something fierce if she’d just up and quit. Marjorie loved LBC almost as much as Val. He made a mental note to reach out to her and get the lay of the land before he blasted Xavier for losing the glue that had held the charity together.
“It’s a long story,” Xavier said bleakly. “I’m sorry, okay? Losing Marjorie is huge. I get that. I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I’m making mistakes as we speak, such as hanging out here instead of at LBC where I should be.”
Val nodded and dredged up some grace from God knew where, though he could hardly cast stones. They both still had several months left to get their respective tasks wrong. “I refused to let the CFO close the New England division.”
It was Xavier’s turn to let thunderclouds gather across his face but, to his credit, he took a page from Val’s book and left off the rant. “That’s a tough call. I’m sure you made the decision that seemed best to you at the time.”
What was this conversation they were having? It was civil, productive. Not like their normal interaction at all. Was it possible they were both learning valuable lessons, thanks to this ridiculous inheritance business?
“Regardless, I’ve hit a wall with the contracts. This is a long-term relationship with another country, and I don’t want to take the chance of screwing it up. I need help.”
Thanks to the insights he’d gained recently, he could say that out loud. He had little experience to draw from when it came to anything long-term. Even food, his first love, was ephemeral. Cooked and consumed in such a short period of time.
How much of his life had been built on the same concept? And how sad to figure out that he pretty much expected things to slip through his fingers. Which had led him to never tighten his grip for fear of that loss.