His face blanched. “Don’t say that,” he growled. “I respect you. There’s no one I respect more.”
“It didn’t sound like that to me back there.” All at once she took a shuddering breath and admitted that she couldn’t blame him for everything. “But I’m doing you a disservice. You made me no promises, I’ll allow you that. You tried to warn me not to get involved with you.”
His gaze sharpened. “And did you?”
What did she have to lose now? “Of course I did. I…” She couldn’t say she loved him. She just couldn’t. That would be too humiliating. “…I thought we had something special.”
“We do.”
She shook her head. “We did. It’s over.” Suddenly she caught a subtle change in his face—a change that Carl hadn’t shown when he’d rejected her. She stilled. Her breath stopped. Did Blake have feelings for her after all? “Unless…” Dare she ask? “Can you give me one good reason to stay?”
Silence fell.
She waited. She couldn’t say the words but he must know what she was asking. If ever there was a time he might let down his guard…a time when he could allow her into his heart…it would surely be—
His face closed up. “No, I’m sorry. I can’t give you a reason to stay.”
As hard as it was to pull herself together, she recovered her breath. “That’s what I thought.”
“Sam—”
A hard laugh escaped then. “Too late to call me that, Blake. Far too late.” She held her head up higher. “Now, please leave me to pack in peace. It was good while it lasted but it’s over between us now.”
He stiffened, withdrawing into himself. “I’m really sorry I hurt you.”
She held his gaze. “So am I. And as horrible as this sounds, I wish I was capable of hurting you back.” It would at least show she had meant something to him.
Turning away, he stopped and said over his shoulder, “The family jet is at your disposal. It’ll take you wherever you want to go.”
The words stung her heart. “Thank you.”
He strode down the hallway to his suite, going inside and quietly closing the door behind him, shutting her out of his life. For good.
Samantha made herself move. She walked to her door and closed it, then went and sat on the bed and picked up a pillow to muffle her sobs. She figured this time she was entitled to cry.
Twelve
Half an hour later, Blake had showered and dressed and now sat in his office at the Manor, his leather chair turned toward the picture window. An early fall snow that wasn’t unusual at this time of year had begun covering the resort, and now a weak sun was shining on the surrounding mountains. Usually at this time he was back at Pine Lodge making love to Samantha. All he could think now was that she was leaving.#p#分页标题#e#
God, she’d been so hurt back there. It had pained him to realize how much. And yet he hadn’t been able to say the words to get her to stay. He’d known what she wanted, of course. She wanted him to say he loved her, but those words were no longer in his vocabulary. The last time he’d used them had been all those years ago to his mother—just before she died. He’d never said them again to anyone. He’d accepted he never would. His upbringing—his whole life since—had been about avoiding commitment.
And now Samantha had to accept that, too.
Just then he heard a noise behind him and his chest instantly tightened. She’d come to say her final goodbye.
“What happened with Samantha, Blake?”
Erica.
He twisted his chair around, forcing his brain to work as he looked at the unhappy face of his half sister. Clearly she’d spoken to Gavin not too long ago.
He picked up a pen. “She’s packing to leave.”
“So you’re just going to let her go?”
He gave a shrug. “She wants to go. I can’t stop her.”
She came closer to the desk, frowning. “What’s gone so wrong with you two?”
He shot her a hostile look. “It’s none of your business, Erica.”
“You’re my brother. I’m making it my business.”
“Half brother,” he corrected.
“I’m so sick of this,” she snapped, drawing her petite frame up taller than she was, glaring down at him, standing her ground. “We have the same blood in our veins and that makes me a Jarrod, Blake. You’re my brother, like it or lump it.”
He stared up at her, a growing admiration rising inside him as he looked at this woman who was related to him, no matter how much he didn’t like it. The angle of her chin. The light of battle in her eyes. That stubbornness in her mouth. Oh, yeah. Erica was a Jarrod, through and through.