“Why not?” he interrupted furiously. “Why was there never a chance of Kelsey falling for me? Because I’m ‘just Doug’? The perpetual nice guy? The guy who’s always there and always insignificant? Am I missing some genetic component that’s required to be a man?”
“I don’t know,” Amy snapped. “Are you?”
He grabbed her arm again, spitting his words out. “I’m the only damned man who’s ever been there for either one of you. The only person you can count on! Your own fucking father hasn’t bothered to check to see if you’re alive—“
Doug recoiled as her hand flashed out, slapping him full across the face.
They stood there, his fingers still wrapped around her arm, frozen in a tableau too horrific to be believed. Doug looked at her, tears glittering on her pale face, her dark eyes burning with anger and pain, and felt the twist of agony in his own gut.
“I’m sorry,” he said instantly. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No,” she said, her voice low and tight.
“But I have been there for you and Kelsey. I deserve some credit for—“
“You’ve been there for Kelsey,” Amy said. “I’ve always come second. And I’m not sure you really care for Kelsey. This is all about you.”
“You aren’t second,” he blurted out before the rest of her accusation sank in. “What do you mean it’s all about me?”
“If you really loved Kelsey,” Amy said, wiping at the tears on her cheeks, “you’d have known how she felt about you all these years. She loves you like a brother. She needs you like a brother.”
“So I’m just supposed to accept that?” he demanded, stung by her echoing of his own self-image. “And you say you’ve always been second!”
“My sister and I aren’t the same,” Amy told him, pulling her arm free of his grasp. “She needs you to be like a brother to her. I’ve needed you—wanted you—like a lover.”
Doug stood staring at her, shaken to the core by her words and the tears still sliding down her face.
“But I’m through being your puppy dog. Always coming when you call, always patient with your problems.”
“Amy,” he said, fear rippling through him. “Don’t—“
“Go to hell,” she said with bitter conviction as she turned toward the glass doors. “Get lost. Go fuck yourself. You’re damn sure through fucking me! I’m through with you.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“You told him what?” Kelsey asked her sister in dismay.
“I’m through with him,” Amy said again, paused half in Kelsey’s office doorway. “He’s lied to me and shunted me aside for the last time.”
“He actually said he had to work through lunch?”
“Yes,” Amy answered, “then he hotfooted it over to see you on your sickbed.”
“I’m sorry,” Kelsey said, her heart wrenching at the misery in her sister’s eyes. “I’m terribly sorry for making this so hard for you. It’s my fault.”
“It’s not your fault,” Amy disagreed crisply. “You’ve done everything you can these last few months to get Doug over his crush. He’s just a jerk and he’s not worth my time.”
“But you love him,” Kelsey reminded her, getting up from her desk to go over to where her sister stood. Her posture stiff and unyielding, her face a mask of unhappiness, Amy held a sheaf of file folders clutched to her chest like a shield.
“Loving Doug hasn’t gotten me anything, but pain,” her sister said. “I’m giving up on him. I’ll find myself a man who doesn’t have his head half up his butt.”
“I hate this for you, Sis,” Kelsey said, drawing Amy into a hug. “But maybe he’ll get the picture yet. Maybe he’ll come to his senses and realize what a treasure he had.”
Tears glittered in Amy’s brown eyes. “I’m not holding my breath.”
***
“Hello?” Kelsey grabbed the phone from her desk on the fifth ring. Reaching out with her free hand, she steadied the stack of files through which she’d been searching.
“Kelsey?” Jared’s voice said in her ear. “Will you be finished by six this evening?”
“Six?” Glancing at her watch, she couldn’t help but think how normal this was, a husband calling his wife at the office to see when she’d be home. Since the night she’d questioned him about his ethics with the union , they’d formed a truce of sorts, falling into an easy pattern. Coming home to the same apartment, sharing their lives and their bodies with a harmony that left her feeling both connected and scared.