Project Runaway Bride(52)

Juliet’s mouth curled in a quick half smile. “I wasn’t nearly as bad as Zoe was. She was the incorrigible one, to be sure.”

Almost as though their minds were running on a similar track, her smile disappeared and they both grew serious at the same time.

Reid cleared his throat.

“Here’s the thing,” he said, picking up the conversation where they’d left off in front of Paul’s house. “I didn’t trust you.”

Oh, my. So that was what it felt like to be sucker punched.

She wondered why people were so caught up on the idea of honesty, and why she’d been so all-fired eager to ask for it from him. Sure, it sounded good in theory, but damn it, sometimes the bald, unadulterated truth just plain hurt.

Swallowing back the painful emotions that threatened to swamp her, she braced herself, waiting for whatever else he had to say—that she might or might not want to hear—or for him to say nothing more at all.

Maybe this was it. Maybe it was just “I don’t trust you,” end of story, have a nice day and he would turn around and walk away. Part of her hoped he would do exactly that. It would be so much less excruciating than to pick, pick, pick at the scab like they were doing now.

Another part of her, though, wanted him to say something, almost anything else, just so he would stay a few minutes more. As soon as they parted ways, she had a feeling their relationship was going to change drastically. To never see each other again or see each other only on the days of their custody agreement when they met to pick up or drop off their child.

New memories would be created to crowd out and cover over the ones from the past. Indifference or possibly even animosity would replace passion, attraction, affection.

She, for one, had been well on her way to love. She didn’t think she could have admitted that before now, but there it was. The truth, finally, staring her in the eye. Funny that she hadn’t been able to see it until it was too late.

Pulling her out of thoughts that were quickly heading in a “poor me” direction, Reid reached for her hands, taking them in his own. Her head lifted in startlement.

She’d thought they were working on their goodbyes, not something that would lead to touching. But the minute his skin touched hers, tingling started at her fingertips and moved forward until it spread throughout her entire body.

“I didn’t trust you, Juliet,” he said again, “but that’s because...I couldn’t. I didn’t realize until recently that I don’t trust much of anyone. Maybe that’s why I got into the private-investigation business to begin with.”

He let his arms drop, taking hers with them so that they formed a sagging bridge between them.

“I’ve never talked about this before, never told anybody else,” he began in a low voice.

His gaze was on her, but he didn’t meet her eyes, as though he were uncomfortable about the subject at hand and concentrating hard on the words that came out of his mouth. Juliet remained perfectly still and silent, surprised enough that he was opening up to her, and not wanting to do anything to cause him to stop.

“There was another woman, a very long time ago. She got pregnant, and I did the right thing—I asked her to marry me. But it wasn’t out of guilt or duty, not really. I wanted to marry her. To be a family, a father.”

He swallowed, the Adam’s apple riding up and then down again at the center of his throat, and his toffee-brown eyes were glossy with old memories and past disappointments.

“I thought that was what was going to happen,” he went on, “but instead, Valerie said she didn’t want to be a wife or a mother. She left town and I never heard from her again. It wasn’t until years later, when I started digging around, that I discovered she’d had the baby after all. And married another man. So apparently, she wasn’t all that opposed to the idea of being a wife and mother, she just didn’t want to be those things with me.”

Juliet’s eyes widened, her mouth going dry with shock.

Reid had another child?

Oh, she’d heard the rest, about the other woman he’d been involved with, but she didn’t particularly care about his old girlfriends. They’d both had past relationships; she’d been engaged when they met, for heaven’s sake. But as long as those relationships stayed in the past—for both of them—they didn’t concern her.

But the fact that he already had a child with a woman who had walked out on him and never bothered to tell him he was a father... That was...monumental.

She thought back to the night he’d told her they should get married after the doctor had confirmed that she was, in fact, pregnant and realized suddenly what it must have cost him to make such an offer. No, he hadn’t exactly asked or done the hearts-and-flowers, on-bended-knee proposal thing, but considering that he’d been down this road before, it must have been beyond difficult for him to discover that another woman he’d been intimate with had become pregnant with his baby and then volunteer to “do the right thing,” not knowing if she would go through with it or pick up and run just as the last woman had.