Page 73 of Running to You

“Easter Sunday.” He found one of his handkerchiefs and held it out to her. “You remember?”

She took it and cleared away her tears.

“We attended church with your mother, even though she hated church. But Linda Pelletier is all about appearances. Why you wanted to go with her when my family had invited us to join them, I have no idea. Felt sorry for her, I guess, thinking she’d be all alone. I wanted to be with you, so I put up with her glares and underhanded comments.”

He’d gotten them reservations at the club for lunch. Right after they were seated, an acquaintance waved him over from across the room. He left the ladies with their menus and talked to the guy. He was gone five minutes, tops. Neither Eliza nor Linda saw him coming back.

“You know what I heard?” When Eliza shook her head, he continued. “Your mother telling you for the millionth time that you should end things with me. That I was a playboy, which was so far from the truth… And you knew that. Or at least I thought you did. But she’d upped her game. This time, she suggested I’d probably taken a kickback on the sale of your company.” His jaw felt so tight with anger that it ached. “She told you I didn’t love you—couldn’t possibly. Those were the words she used. Your cruel, shrill mother.” He pressed his lips closed, though he’d already shared more of his opinion than he should have. “She said that I was going to meet somebody ‘more suited’ to me. That’d I’d move on from you and leave you heartbroken. You know what you said?”

Eliza shook her head, eyes wide and watery.

“‘I know.’ That’s what you said to her. You agreed with her.”

“I’m sure I didn’t. I just—”

“Couldn’t stand up to her. Ever. I knew then that our relationship was doomed. It would always be doomed because your mother hated me. Eventually, she’d convince you to leave me.”

“I don’t… I don’t remember that.”

“Yeah, well, I do.” He returned his attention to the laundry. Pulled a pair of his jeans out of the basket and folded them. Something for his hands to do while his heart nearly beat out of his chest.

“Did you ever ask me about it?”

He slapped the stupid jeans on the table. “So you could deny it? Or explain it away?”

“Why not just break up with me?”

“Because I loved you. I wanted it to work. I was willing to risk…”

“You cheated on me.”

Anger spiked, quick and dangerous. “I shared one two-second kiss with another woman, one who thought I hung the moon, because my girlfriend was working up the nerve to dump me. If that makes this all my fault then…whatever. Everything else was my fault.”

“I don’t understand.” Her voice was small. “Did we ever talk about it? Did you explain all that?”

“When? After the kiss? You wouldn’t talk to me. Practically screamed at me to leave you alone. So I let you go. I thought I’d talk to you when you calmed down. But you blocked my number. When I went to your apartment, you were gone. I reached out to your mother, but the only time she answered the phone was to give me a piece of her mind. I endured the whole high-pitched accusation in order to try to explain to her what happened, how I felt. To see if she’d… Well, I was an idiot, obviously. Jeanette took my call long enough to ream me out, so apparently you’d told her just enough. I never saw you again. Believe me, I looked. I went to your office. Hung out at your favorite coffee shop. Even watched your mother’s house, thinking you’d show up there. But you were just…gone.”

“That fast?”

“It took me a week or two to get past my own anger and realize…” What he’d lost. That he wasn’t willing to lose it. That he wanted to fight for it. “It never occurred to me that you’d leave. I thought I had time to fix it.” He dug through the now cool and wrinkled laundry, then pushed the basket across the table toward her. “The rest is yours.”

She barely gave it a glance. “I don’t understand. Why would I do that?”

“Because I didn’t matter to you as much as you mattered to me.”

“That’s not it.”

“You don’t know. You don’t remember—”

“The things you said… They all feel right. As awful as it sounds, I can see myself agreeing with Mom to get her to shut up before you came back. Not because I thought she was right but because it wasn’t worth fighting with her. And, I mean, we were in public, and you were there. What would have been the point?”

“Standing up for the man you claim you loved? Not point enough for you?”

She seemed to shrink, her shoulders hunching. “I could never stand up to her. And every time I did, I regretted it. I was still with you, so I was trying.” She dabbed at the tears on her cheeks. “But the thing is, I did love you. Desperately. I never doubted you. I certainly never thought you’d done anything underhanded with the sale. Sam, I loved you. I adored you. I lived in fear of you leaving me.”

Her words threatened to soothe the raw and broken places in his heart. He couldn’t let that happen. “You were the one who left.”

“But why?”