The thought made his stomach clench. “Are you expecting him? Is he . . . staying here tonight?”
She stared at him. “Are you kidding? Do you honestly think that’s any of your business? Go away, Hart.”
She started to close the door, but he stepped across the threshold before she could.
Her eyes narrowed. “In two seconds I’m going to scream bloody murder and call the cops.”
“It’s about Jacob,” he said, knowing that was the only thing in the world he could say right now that she might listen to.
She sighed. “All right, fine. You have one minute.”
It was a start. “Jacob asked me to tell you that he wants to go ahead with Powers if you’re still interested.”
“You can tell Jacob I’ll send him an email tomorrow to touch base.” She paused. “I take it you’re okay with this now?”
“Yeah.”
Her lip curled. “Then you and Jacob must have talked.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m glad for his sake. But if you have anything else to say, I don’t need to hear it.”
He reached for her hand before he could stop himself. “Please, Kate.”
She jerked her hand away. “I told you yesterday I’m not interested in your apology.”
“I’ll get on my knees if I have to.”
“Oh, really?” Her expression was skeptical. “I think it’ll be a cold day in hell before I see Ian Hart—”
He didn’t even hesitate. He dropped to his knees and reached for her hand again.
“Kate, I’m so sorry. I jumped to conclusions, and I was wrong. There’s no excuse for my behavior, and I won’t try to give you one. I’ll just say that if you give me another chance to be in your life, I won’t screw it up.”
Her eyes widened. For a moment after he finished speaking, she just stared at him. Then she shook her head sharply, pulled her hand from his grasp, and backed up a few steps.
“No. No way. I’m not letting you in again.”
He rose to his feet. “Kate—”
She ran both hands through her damp hair. The action made him aware for the first time of what she was wearing—a short-sleeved blouse and a knee-length skirt that the rain had plastered to her body. When she raised her arms, her breasts strained against the material.
A flash of lust lanced through him.
He shook his head to clear it and tried again. “Kate—”
“Save it, Hart. It wasn’t enough that you seduced me and then rejected me—which I dealt with like a damn saint. But then you had to push me even further away. You needed to invent a whole betrayal scenario to do it, but that didn’t stop you.”
Her lips trembled for a moment before she went on. “The sad thing is, I actually blamed myself for that first situation. I thought I’d made the same mistake women have been making for centuries: reading more into sex than was ever there. I thought I’d been blind and stupid.”
“Kate—”
“But you were the blind one. You were the stupid one. Because there was more between us than we expected, not less. And you ran away from that like the gutless coward you are.”
There was a long beat of silence. When Kate spoke again, her voice was quieter.
“Look, Hart—I’m sorry Paula hurt you so badly. But you don’t have to expect every woman you meet to be like her. You could expect them to be like your mother and Tina.”
He laughed shortly. “Yeah? They left me, too.”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them.
He didn’t blame his mother and Tina for dying. What the hell kind of thing was that to say? Was that really lurking in his subconscious somewhere?
He rubbed a hand over his face. What was it about Kate that made him reveal himself like this? Now she’d think he was even more screwed up than she already did.
“They didn’t leave you on purpose,” Kate said gently. “They died.”
“Yeah, I know. Forget I said that, okay? I don’t know where that came from.”
“You miss them.”
He dropped his hand to his side. “Goddamn it, Kate, stop looking at me like that.”
Her eyes were as gentle as her voice. “Like what?”
“Like you feel sorry for me.”
She tilted her head to the side, and a lock of hair fell across her cheek. “I do feel sorry for you. That’s not the worst thing in the world.”
“It is to me. Damn it, you’re doing it again.”
She threw up her hands. “How do you want me to look at you?”
Her words hung in the air for a moment. Then he closed the distance between them and pushed her back against the wall.