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A beat passed.
“Doesn’t feel good, does it?” he asked. “Thinking I’m spending time with someone else?”
“Did you…do that on purpose? To get even with me? Again?”
“No. Katrina answered the phone while I was working, before I even spoke to Calder. She does PR and was taking pictures for some new advertising campaign. I knew it would come off wrong and bug you. That’s why I was calling. But then I learned what was going on back home.”
“So you let me sit with it. Even though you knew a woman answering your phone would upset me.” My voice cracked. “You wanted me to wonder.”
“I wanted you to feel what I was feeling.”
It felt like he’d just slapped me. “Well, congratulations. It worked.”
“Talia—”
“No, don’t Talia me.” I stood from the chair, unable to sit still. “You thought I was pregnant, yet you ignored me all day. You read my messages and didn’t answer. And you let some woman pick up your phone, then let me think the worst.”
“You had your ex in my apartment while you were taking a pregnancy test to find out if he was going to be a daddy.”
“He came over because I was losing it.”
“And I wasn’t the person you called.”
“You were in Vegas.”
“I had my phone.”
“You weren’t answering it!”
“Because I found out from him, Talia. Do you have any idea what that felt like?”
My anger faltered for a half second. But then I remembered the woman’s voice. I pressed my fingers to my forehead. “I didn’t ask him to answer my phone. And it’s convenient that he didn’t tell me he had. But Calder is only part of the problem here. How is either of us supposed to trust the other after what we did to him?”
Rafe exhaled. “I don’t know.”
The last twenty-four hours had been an emotional rollercoaster, but those three words might have brought me to a new low.
“I can’t do this right now,” I said.
“Do what?”
“Fight with you.”
Another pause. “Fine.”
I wiped my cheek and realized I was crying. Shaking my head, I felt physically sick. “I’ll talk to you…whenever.”
“Talia…”
I waited. Waited for him to say something to make me stay on the line. But he didn’t. So I did the only thing left to do. “Goodbye, Rafe.” I hung up.
For five minutes, I did nothing but stare at my phone with my whole body trembling. I’d been managing my emotions all day, and I felt myself starting to crack.
Then my phone buzzed.
Rafe: I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have tried to hurt you. I got scared and took it out on you. But I love you, Talia. More than anything.
That did it. A sob broke loose before I could stop it.
