“It’s mine, Erik. Mine.”
He assessed her quietly for a moment, then the muscles in his jaw relaxed. “I know you, and I know you wouldn’t have been with anyone else, especially so soon after us. So it doesn’t really matter who he is. I know he’s not the father of that child you’re carrying.”
“Erik, just say what you came to say, and leave. You’re not welcome here.”
He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair, making himself comfortable as if he didn’t hear her. “I hurt you. I hurt you deeply, and I’m sorry.”#p#分页标题#e#
Michelle trembled where she stood beside the couch and forced herself into believing that she didn’t care, that nothing he said would change the fact that he’d left her when she needed him most. She fought the need to fall into his arms and tell him how much she still loved him and how empty her life was without him.
“Michelle, when I found out about your father, I needed somebody to blame,” he said in a feeble attempt to apologize. “I needed someone to feel the same agony I was feeling. You were there with your sweet love for me so I lashed out at you. It was a mistake. The biggest mistake I’ve ever made, and I’m sorry, baby.”
Michelle remembered the ease and speed with which he’d ended their marriage, severed their relationship. She remembered how she begged for his forgiveness, his trust, his love. He’d told her to forget him, and what they’d shared, and that’s what she’d tried to do. She was trying to build a life for herself and her child. She never wanted to know hurt like that again, be abandoned again. For all she knew, he could just be here to verify the child was his, then take it away from her so he and Bridget could raise it. His moment of déjà vu wasn’t happening.
“Okay, Erik,” she said on the verge of fatigue. “I accept your apology. Now please go.” She turned her back to him, afraid he’d see the truth in her eyes.
“Is that all you have to say?”
Michelle whipped around, months of suppressed hurt rushing to the surface of her soul. “What do you want me to say, Erik? You expect me to fall into your arms just because you said you’re sorry? I told you I was sorry, and you still tossed me aside. I gave my heart to you, and you crushed it in your mighty strong hands. I needed you, Erik, but you abandoned me, just like my…”
The truth about Timmy Gleason was still not public knowledge. Knowing it would send the media into another frenzy over Cassie LaCrosse’s death, she and Robert had opted to keep the news to themselves, at least for now.
People were already forgetting that she was tied to that case. She didn’t want Erik and Precious to live through the horror of Cassie’s death again. She just wanted to be left alone to live her life in peace. “I have just been through the loneliest, most difficult eight months of my life, and I’m really tired, okay? So, just go, Erik. Go, and leave me alone.” She pointed toward the door.
Erik’s eyes drank up Michelle’s loveliness as she stood before him in a flowery cotton maternity shift. Barefoot and pregnant. She was even more beautiful than he remembered. She sparkled with an inner radiance, a soft glow of warmth and tenderness. She was so sweet and gentle, like the most precious rose, subtle and fragile in the wind. How could he have hurt her so? How could he have turned his back on this delicate creature? He had hurt her more than anyone else on this planet ever could—simply because she loved him. His shame choked him into silence.
“I lay in bed, night after night,” Michelle said. “Needing you, crying myself to sleep while you were romancing Bridget Ashley, living your life as though I never existed.” Scalding tears steamed down Michelle’s face and she made no effort to stop them.
“That’s not true, Michelle. I wrote—”
“You took Precious from me although you knew how much I love her. That hurt more than everything else you did to me. I thought you would have at least left me that relationship.”
She was suddenly besieged with the memory of the night when she called Erik and Bridget answered the phone. He was sleeping with her, having sex with her in Cassie’s bed, the bed he couldn’t share with Michelle.#p#分页标题#e#
Michelle shuddered and ran her fingers through her hair. “Go home, Erik. I’m sure Bridget is waiting for you.” She was so tired that her nerves throbbed. Her muscles screamed from the weight of the child in her womb and from arguing with its father. She just wanted to be left alone. She fell weakly to the couch and covered her face with her hands.