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Chapter Seventeen
IT WAS A RELIEF to have the words out there, even though she’d been dreading admitting her feelings to herself, and him. It hadn’t been her plan.
Far from it.
Even though it wasn’t particularly well considered or mature, Tia had decided instead to keep her head in the sand and avoid Hamish until she’d made better sense of how to proceed. She’d thought that time would provide an answer, but instead, the longer she spent away from Hamish, the clearer her thinking—and heart—had become.
She loved him.
In a real, grown up, meaningful way. In the sense that he was somehow a part of her, that his future was more important to her almost than her own. In the sense that he was bound up inside of her, that she needed to see him and sleep with him and breathe the same air as him for every day for the rest of her life.
She was in love. Head over heels, madly, irredeemably, stupidly in love and if Tia wasn’t careful, it had the power to pull her life apart at the seams.
It already was.
Because Hamish was staring at her as though she’d sprouted two heads, and every second that passed without an answering claim of love made her declaration heavier and more unwieldy. She blinked quickly, the silence deafening, crossed arms wrapping around her body, stomach clenching.
“It’s okay,” she said, trying to remember who she’d built herself into over the last ten years. Who she’d become through sheer willpower, hard work and determination. “It’s nothing for you to worry about; this is my problem.”
“Tia—”
Again she waited for him to say something that would show he felt the same way. He didn’t.
“It’s ironic, isn’t it?” she asked, smile tight. “You were the one who insisted sex had to mean something, and I thought I could prove you wrong.”
“I’m not saying it doesn’t mean something, but you’re right. This is complicated. Much more so than either of us wants.”
Her heart tripped. For him to even say that implied that he had a choice.
She glanced sideways, nodding once.
“When Marguerite chose not to have our baby, I understood, and knew I had to respect her decision, but it broke me apart inside and it took me a very long time to feel like myself again. And then Cress and I started to date, and I fell in love, and planned for a future with her.”
“And she pulled the rug out from under you in a truly brutal manner,” Tia said, sympathy rolling through her, as well as righteous indignation. How dare that woman have treated him like that? How could she have had this man’s heart and treated it so terribly? As though it meant nothing?
He jerked his head in agreement. “And I never really recovered from it. I moved on, I stopped hurting so intensely, but it changed me. What she did to me can’t be undone. I don’t think my heart is capable of opening to anyone else again. And I’m so sorry about that, because if it were, if I was open to the idea of loving someone, it would be you. It would. Maybe that’s why I’m being even more careful here—because I know that loving—and losing—you would have the power to destroy me once and for all.”
Tia squeezed her eyes shut at his admission. She’d never thought she’d declare her love for someone on the same day she asked them for a divorce, but that was precisely what Tia did next, her voice strong now, as she clung to the certainty that they had to both walk away from this—for good, in order for her to move on.
But rather than agreeing with her, he moved closer, taking her hands in his and lifting them between them. “Let’s give it a few weeks, and see how you feel then.”
She bit into her lip, nodded, but she knew it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference. Not for Tia. There was a part of her though that needed to be able to say she was married to him, that wanted to be able to claim a part of Hamish as hers, even when it was based on a lie, and so she agreed to his suggestion. “Fine. A few weeks, and then we’ll decide.”
He lifted her hands to his lips and pressed a kiss there. “I’m really sorry, Lady Ashcombe.”
She withdrew her hands as though she’d been burned. “It’s not your fault. Now, I have a meeting to get ready for.” She nodded towards the door, needing him to go so she could let the tears building inside of her leak out of her eyes.
“Okay.” He hesitated then strode towards the door, one hand on it for a long moment before opening it and leaving. Tia exhaled and walked shakily to her desk, collapsing on the chair and dropping her head to her hands.
Her heart was no longer slamming into her ribs, it was silently, painfully, irrevocably breaking.
“I’ve fallen in love with you, Hamish.”
Her words became the drumbeat of his life. He heard them almost constantly, swirling through him like some kind of torment, an awful, awful finger of blame pointing at him, making him curse his stupidity.
They should never have given in to temptation and slept together. It had been ridiculous to think they could separate that out from anything else.
But even if they hadn’t, would it have changed anything? Was sex the only reason she thought she loved him?
