Yours Seductively

Chapter 11.3 (Part 3)

   'Love.' The word echoed through his kind, nearly drowning out all other thought. He didn't know how to respond.

   "This is mostly my fault, of course. The signs were all there, and I chose to ignore them. You never gave me any reason to expect a future with you. You've never made me part of your life. And I've had the feeling that you've deliberately kept me away from your children."

   He frowned then. "I have a responsibility to protect my children."

   "You felt you needed to protect them from me?"

   Again, he detected hurt in her voice, and he imagine himself shrinking another few inches. "I just didn't want them to get too attached to you, in case throngs didn't work out between us. They've lost their mother—I don't want them to go through anything like that again."

   "And you were pretty sure that things wouldn't work out between us, weren't you? You've never expected, maybe never even wanted, anything different. It turns out you never trusted me. I don't blame you if you can't love me, but I deserved better than to be used as a warm body to ease your loneliness."

   She took his silence as a response. "We managed to avoid each other for the first few months after I move back. I'm sure we can do it again, for the most part. People will talk, of course, and speculate about what happened between us, but something new will some along to entertain them soon."

   She was breaking up with him. Writing him off. Putting an end to whatever it was they had found to get her. And even though he knew it was his own fault, he suddenly panicked. Jane, wait—"

   "Goodbye, Tyler," she said gently. It was, well, it was definitely interesting."

   She'd called him Tyler. Not the more casual and intimate Ty. He was still trying to come up with the right words when she hung up, leaving nothing but a dial tone in his ear and an empty ache in his heart.

   She had replaced her receiver gently. Tyler slammed his home so hard the instrument jangled in protest. And then he grimaced, hoping his tantrum hadn't woken the kids.

   He sat for a long time in silence, one hand still resting in the telephone, his eyes fixed on nothing, his thoughts dark and unfocused. He finally stood, grinding a curse out between his teeth. He needed a drink to smooth the edges of the jagged guilt inside him. To ease the regret. To soothe the ache of unfulfilled needs. Maybe to calm the fear.

   He picked up the bottle, and reached for a glass. Then he just stood there, unable to move, her words haunting him.

   'Once again, I was the only one in love.'

   His hand had clenched so tightly around the glass that he was surprised it didn't shatter. Moving very deliberately, he set the unopened bottle on a high shelf and put the glass back in the cabinet. And then he turned off the light and sank into his usual chair, his hands fisted on his knees.

   He wouldn't numb the pain tonight, he told himself. He deserved to feel it all.