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Chase straightened from patting his son into sleep and stared into her fiery green eyes. "Don't lecture me on my rights, Tessa."
"I wasn't." She licked her dry lips and his eyes flared. "How have you been?"
"Rotten." His expression was bland, uncaring, and Tessa felt her throat tighten.
He covered up his son and turned away.
"Chase, wait."
He faced her, sparing her a painfully mild glance. "Yes?"
God, he felt miles away from her now. "We need to talk."
Slowly he shook his head. He couldn't do it, not now. If he did, he would spill his guts and tell her how mad he was, how much he was hurting and that she was to blame for reliving her mother's past at his expense, at the expense of their love. That he loved her and missed her and hated her, all in the same breath.
"The only thing I want to hear you say is that you were wrong."
"We've gone beyond that now."
"We haven't gone anywhere but backward, Tessa."
Her eyes narrowed.
"I was a fool to believe you could love me," he said, and his voice wavered.
"I do," she whispered, and his posture stiffened.
He scoffed meanly, open wounds driving him. "Well, you have a strange way of showing it." He opened the door.
"Chase, wait," she called softly. "You can't just walk away."
"Watch me." He was gone.
* * *
Eleven
Tessa didn't think anything could hurt her more than seeing Chase and having him walk right past her. But when she stepped out of the delicatessen the next day and saw him, farther down the street and heading to his Jeep, they both stilled. His gaze briefly dropped to Christopher, then shot back to her. She couldn't decipher his expression, it was so hard, and she gripped Christopher's stroller handle tighter. Then he climbed into the Jeep and shut the door. Tessa felt the sting of his actions spin through her and she walked briskly toward the park, avoiding eye contact. He wouldn't even take a moment to say hi, to touch Christopher, to talk with her? Good God. Did she need any more proof that she'd lost him?
Chase's gaze shifted over the steering wheel to Tessa walking across the street toward the park. It hurt just to look at her. Six of the longest weeks in his life since Christopher's birth and they were going nowhere. Why wasn't he storming after her and demanding she come to her senses? Because you keep getting your teeth knocked in, that's why, he thought. Chase examined his feelings, his methods, and reasoned that he could have gone about the whole matter differently, if he didn't love her so much.
Hell, he knew he was a threat to everything she'd worked for and planned so meticulously. He'd walked into her life and turned it upside down. But falling in love hadn't given her the commitment she wanted, and Chase didn't know how much more devoted he could be to her. God, he thought, closing his eyes against the sight of her. He loved her so much. And he knew what she was thinking, the same thing she let torment her for months. Is it me or the baby he loves? Is his love because I'm the mother of his son? If Christopher weren't here and we'd met under different circumstances, would he love me for just me? Those questions had tormented him, too, but she didn't see that.
And Christopher would always be there.
Even if he never married her, they would be forever connected through that little boy. And even if they didn't work this out—his chest clenched at the thought—he would always be a part of Tessa's life. His fingers flexed on the steering wheel. And from the looks of it, they would just keep hurting each other. Chase's expression withered into utter sadness. He got her love during a tough time in her life, he thought, trying to see things totally from Tessa's point of view. It couldn't have been easy, deciding to have a child without a father, then to do it, only to have him, a man who should have remained anonymous, threaten her world. And now she probably thought he'd take Christopher from her. Even though he loved her too much to do that, he knew that's what she was thinking. And in his hurt, he hadn't corrected her.
She loved him still, Chase didn't doubt. But that love was buried. If she could learn to trust his love for her, he'd see it again. He had to keep believing that her distrust was why she didn't want him around. The heart rules the head and the body rules both, someone once told him.
He turned his gaze to Tessa and studied her like a painting as she laid his son on a blanket, then unfolded her lunch from a paper sack. A magazine on her lap, she munched on a sandwich as she patted Christopher's diapered bottom. Her back braced against a tree, their tree, their spot, she worked off her shoes and crossed her legs at the ankles.
She looked like dessert. Her stomach was flat, her breasts plump and nearly spilling from the fitted blouse. He wanted to unlace the satin strings crisscrossing from her waist up to her breasts and fill his hands with the soft mounds.
